"speak to those persons; they come from such "and such, to try what they can catch from you "to your disadvantage." I answered them," "Our LORD has prevented your charity; for I was not able to say one word to them.'

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I FELT that what I spoke flowed from the fountain, and that I was only the instrument of him who made me speak. Amidst this general applause, our LORD made me comprehend what the apostolic state was, with which he had honoured me; that to give one's self up to the help of souls, in the purity of his Spirit, was to expose one's self to the most cruel persecutions. These very words were imprinted on my heart: "To resign ourselves to serve our neighbour is to "sacrifice ourselves to a gibbet, Such as now proclaim, Blessed is he who cometh in the Name ❝of the LORD, will soon cry out, Take away, crucify." One of my friends speaking of the general esteem the people had for me, I said to her, "Observe what I now tell you, that you will "hear curses out of the same mouths which at "present pronounce blessings." Our LORD made me comprehend that I must be conformable to him in all his states; and that, if he had continued in a private life with his parents, he never had been crucified; that, when he would resign any of his servants to crucifixion, he employed such in the ministry and service of their neighbours. It is certain that all the souls employed herein by apostolic destination from GoD, and who are truly in the apostolic state, are to suffer extremely. I speak not of those who put themselves into it, who, not being called of God in a singular manner, and having nothing of the grace of the apostleship, have none of its crosses; but

of

of those only who surrender themselves to Gon without any reserve, and who are willing with their whole hearts to be exposed, for his sake, to sufferings without any mitigation. They must assuredly become a spectacle to GOD, to angels, and to men; to GOD, of glory, by their conformity to JESUS CHRIST; to angels, of joy; and to men, of cruelty and ignominy.

A

CHAP. XVIII.

MONG so great a number of good souls, on whom our LORD wrought much by me, some were given me only as plants to cultivate. I knew their state, but had not that near connection with, or authority over them, which I had over others. It was then that I comprehended the true maternity beyond what I had done before; for those of the latter kind were given me as children, of whom some were faithful. I knew they would be so; and they were closely united to me in pure charity. Others were unfaithful; I knew that of these some would never return from their infidelity, and they were taken from me; some, after slipping aside, were recovered. Both of them cost me much distress and inward pain, when, for want of courage to die to themselves, they gave up the point; and revolted from the good beginning they had been favoured

with.

OUR LORD, amongst such multitudes as followed him on earth, had few true children. Wherefore he said to his Father, "Those that "thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them " is lost but the son of perdition," shewing here,

by

by that he lost not any beside of his apostles, or disciples, though they sometimes made false steps.

AMONG the different numbers of friars who came to see me, there was one order which discovered the good effects of grace more than any other. Some of that very order had before this, in a little town where Father La Combe was in the exercise of his mission, been actuated with a false zeal, and violent in persecuting all the good souls which had sincerely dedicated themselves to GOD, plaguing them after such a manner as can scarce be conceived, burning all their books which treated of silence and inward prayer," refusing absolution to such as were in the practice of it, driving into consternation, and almost into despair, such as had formerly led wicked lives, but were now reformed, and preserved in grace by means of prayer, becoming spotless and blameless in their conduct. These friars had proceeded to such an excess of wild zeal as to raise a sedition in that town, in which a father of the oratory, a person of distinction and merit, received strokes with a stick in the open street, because he prayed extempore in the evenings, and on Sundays made a short fervent prayer, which insensibly habituated these good souls to the use and practice of the like.

I NEVER in all my life had so much consolation as to see in this little town so many pious souls who with a heavenly emulation gave up their whole hearts to GOD. There were girls of twelve or thirteen years of age, who industriously followed their work almost all the day long, in silence, and in their employments enjoyed a communion with Gon, having acquired a fixed habit herein. As these girls were poor,

they

1

they placed themselves two and two together, and such as could do it read to the others who could not. One saw there the innocence of the primitive christians revived. There was in that town a poor laundress who had five children, and a husband paralytic, lame in the right arm, and yet worse distempered in mind than in body. He had little strength left for any thing else than to beat her: Yet this poor woman bore it with all the meekness and patience of an angel, while she by her labour supported him and his five children. She had a wonderful gift of prayer, and amidst her great suffering and extreme poverty, preserved the presence of GOD, and tranquillity of mind. There was also a shop-keeper, and one who made locks, very much affected with GOD. These were close friends. Sometimes the one and sometimes the other read to this laundress; and they were surprized to find that she was instructed by the LORD himself in all they read to her, and spoke divinely of it.

THOSE friars sent for this woman, and threatened her much if she did not leave off prayer, telling her it was only for churchmen to pray, and that she was very bold to practice it. She replied, (or rather he who instructed her, for she was very ignorant of herself)" that CHRIST had "commanded all to pray, and that he had said "What I say unto you I say unto all. you I say unto all. Mark xiii, "33. 37. without specifying either priests or fri"ars; that without prayer she could not support "her crosses and poverty; that formerly she had "lived without it, and then was very wicked; "that since she had been in the exercise of it, "she had loved GOD with all her soul; so that "to leave off prayer was to renounce her salva"tion, which she could not do." She added

"that

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"that they might take twenty persons who had "never practised prayer, and twenty of those "who were in the practise of it: Then, said she, " inform yourselves of the lives of both sorts, and ye will see if ye have any reason to cry out against prayer." Such words as these, from such a woman, one would think might have fully convinced them; but (instead of that) they only irritated them the more. They assured her "she "should have no absolution till she promised "them to desist from prayer." She said, “It de

pended not on her, and that CHRIST is mas"ter of what he communicates to his creatures, "and of doing with it what he pleases." They refused her absolution; and after railing at a good taylor, who served GOD with his whole heart, they ordered all the books without exception, which treated on prayer to be brought to them, and burned them with their own hands in the public square. They were hugely elated with their performance: But all the town presently arose in an uproar, on account of the late insolent and intolerable usage given to the father of the oratory. The principal men went to the Bishop of Geneva, and complained to him of the scandals of these new missionaries, so different from the others. Speaking of Father La Combe, who had been there before them on his mission, they said "these "seemed as if they were sent to destroy all the

good he had done." The Bishop was forced to come himself to that town, and there to mount the pulpit, protesting he had no share in it, and that these fathers had pushed their zeal too far. The friars, on the other side declared, they had done all they did, pursuant to the orders given them.

THERE were also at Tonon young women who had retired together, being poor villagers, the