VI. To One Entering Religion

THE following extracts from Monsignor Benson's letters to one of his converts desirous of entering Religion will be quoted without comment of any kind. This, indeed, is the only possible way to present them. They are not even arranged seriatim, for this would serve no purpose in further ing the intention with which they are now pub lished — namely, the help and comfort of those who are seeking and finding their vocation in the Religious Life. At the same time, there is little or nothing in these letters which is not— on another plane — equally applicable to devout Catholics living " in the world."

(i) "I thought I would let a month or so elapse before writing, so that you could settle in, and have time to know what the great change means to you before being troubled by the outside world.

" I do much wonder how you are finding it all; and hope that every day confirms you in your resolution to follow our Lord in the Religious Life. It is such a magnificent call, and 117 n8 SPIRITUAL LETTERS TO A CONVERT given to so few. Our Blessed Lord has so taken you at your word, and allowed you to give up everything for Him; and very soon He will begin to give it all back, transformed and glori fied — as He alone knows how to do it.

" I like to think of you too in that beautiful country, with the hills round you, as round Jerusalem. I wonder whether you ever have that sensation that the Altar is the centre, not only of grace but of nature — that a sort of radiation comes out from it, and sanctifies the hills and the sky; and then, to one's feeble spiritual sense, shrinks back again and is concentrated once more on the Altar, like a spot of light that alternately focusses and spreads from a centre. So that it is true that ' all things are yours ' — that you are not deprived, essentially, of the beauties of the world, because you have them all in the Altar.

"It is rather a comforting thought, I think, when one's love of nature is constrained for any reason; and also when spiritual things become dim, and one longs passionately for nature. In whichever mood one is, one has a kind of essential grasp on both.

"... I heard a touching story the other day. (By the way, it wasn't you who told it me, was it?) An old Irishwoman came to a priest, not long ago, and gave him a stipend to say Mass for the soul of Oliver Cromwell. She said that all Catholics abused him, and none seemed to wish to pray for him....

" God bless and keep you, and give you courage and grace and consolation."

(ii) " It is quite plain that God has something else waiting for you. He does not act so clearly without purpose, though it is hard to see it some times. And it is plain, too, that He means you to wait a little and rest.... Indeed, there is nothing in the world to be depressed or anxious about. We need only be anxious when we have not made the surrender of the will: and that you have done and are doing. This incident purifies anything that may have been left to purify, by the hardest of all processes— and the most thorough— a slow fire.... But I am confident that a new door will open soon, and that physical and mental peace will come back. I believe you have already spiritual peace.

" After all, optimism is true, and pessimism is utterly and fundamentaUy false. I know you know that in your will, if not in your heart; and the will is the only thing that matters. And God is good, not bad: and just, and not capricious: and careful, and not careless. And once one has hold of that, nothing else really matters.

" As for melancholia... that too depends on the will. Doctors tell us that now— and that thousands of the mentally-afflicted only become so through consent of their will: so just do nothing, and do not fret or be anxious. Hold on, and say your prayers as ' deadly ' as you please, and sleep and eat and bear noise as well as you can: and remember that God is good. God bless you and keep you.

' Tell me if I can do anything more than pray and remember you at the Altar. And do tell me as soon as a door begins to open, even by a chink."

(iii) " Indeed I do agree with all my heart that you have a Religious Vocation. I have no doubt about that at all. The only question is, where? And even that God will answer for you when the proper time comes.

" May I suggest something, that you certainly know already— and that is that, when that kind of incapacity for prayer comes on, you are not meant to pray. I have often found in my own experience, that those times are the most fruitful of all, and the most full of consolation; if you will just sit still before the Tabernacle and say:

' Now, Lord: I can do nothing. You must do it all.'

" If one will be steady at that; and simply drop, not struggle with, anxiety and distraction, He will speak; and in the most marvellous way. Not always — but again and again. Then He draws back and waits: then comes forward again: until at last one has one irresistible impulse of adoration and love, that lasts just a moment.

" When that is over, if it is near the end of the time that one had fixed, it is as well to get up and go away at once. I believe that one makes the greatest progress of all at such times: not merely because it is unpleasant, but because one real word from our Lord, and one real word back, is worth more than all the intricate fuss one makes about points and preludes and pictures, when there is no real movement at all.

" Forgive me for reminding you of all this. I am sure you know it all: only the devil makes us forget sometimes."

(iv) " Here is a Vocation driving you, in spite of likes and dislikes, and here is an open door. You can certainly do nothing but go through."

(v) "I hope you have not let yourself be in the least discouraged as regards the Religious Life. It is difficult to imagine you, permanently, as anything but a Religious. Do you know the way in which people's circumstances represent themselves to one's mind, pictorially? I can see you now, plainly, in the hall of a sort of palace, which is the Catholic Church, safe out of the storm outside — knocking and listening and waiting at inner doors that lead to the Throne-Room.

" Of course you will [enter Religion]: the only question is, where?

" Above all, I congratulate you on the prospect of the Retreat. I hope you will let me know when it begins, that I may say Mass for you on the first morning."

(vi) " Now that you have got your Vocation clear, the rest does not matter. When God puts a principle into our hands, we can trust Him for the details.

"... Well there is not much in this letter. But it gives me more happiness than I can say to know that you are seeing your way clear at last. Everything will sort itself. I knew it would; because your will was right; and intellectual and emotional difficulties cannot stand long against that. God bless you now and always."

(vii) " To-morrow I shall say Mass for you here. It is the greatest joy to think of you at; and that your great Vocation is be ginning, please God, to dawn. It is hard to think you can be making a mistake this time; when everything human is against it; and nothing but an inner conviction for it.

" I know you will remember me in your prayers. I think one ought to value the prayers [of a Religious] more than anything. If anyone can merit grace, they can.

" Your dream has the true mystical ring. Sometimes that ring is terrifying and sometimes inspiring — one always feels that such dreams are not like others, simply echoes of one's waking thoughts....

" And now you are beginning again, like a little child; taking as they come, not only the great things, but the little things as well: re ceiving them all equally from authority; and I suppose that it is there that perfection lies. It is easy enough to take great events as from God — death, catastrophe, joy — but it is so infinitely harder to take the time you get up, and the sound of a bell, and a rebuke — also from God.

Yet reason as well as Faith tells us that they are from Him, and no one else.

" And so, please God, you will go on now bringing ' every thought into subjection ' as well as every action: but the first will come last, when the habit of the second is established.

" It does seem to me so shallow for people to call the minutice of the Religious Life, little things, and to despise them. Thought cannot be under the dominion of the will — still less emotion — unless action is there first. And how is one to train action, except by a thousand tiny acts?

" Well — you know all this much better than I do. I certainly can't give you advice: but I can give you prayers, and those I will with all my heart.

" God bless you again, and give you your heart's desire; and all the desires of the Sacred Heart for you! And what more can one say? "

(viii) " How hard it is to know how to say all that one wishes in answer to your letter this morning! The whole situation is just the old paradox, ' Love one another,' and ' Whoso hateth not father and mother '...

" I have no sort of doubt that you feel with me that in this case it is the second clause that you have to act on. In our Lord's paradoxes we have perpetually to oscillate; acting on each limb of it as if there were no other; and then back again to the other.

" It seems to me that the object of a noviceship — primarily — is to develop one's own rela tions with God; and secondarily with man. Once the first is right, the second will follow. I should advise, then, with all my power, that you should set up before yourself at meditation, Mass, prayer... an ideal relation between your soul and God, in which you are dependent on nobody for inspiration or happiness. And then make deliberate acts of welcome of every incident that illustrates or enforces that ideal relation ship: — that is to say, concentrate your grip on your will, and deliberately lay hold — in spite of sorrow or humiliation — on every misunderstanding or grief that comes. The secret of all progress in religion, art, learning, and everything else, is to have an ideal towards which one works. It is that, surely, that is meant by the Kingdom of God being within us: it is within us as an Idea, before it becomes without us as a Reality.

" I am saying all this most obscurely: — I still say, make no plans except as regards this relationship between your soul and God; but as events come up one by one, seize them and assimilate them.

" As regards what you fear in the future, it is the same thing. The fact that you have not got those trials at their intensest now, is a sign that you cannot bear them yet; but the penalty of possessing an imagination is that one is continually falling into depression through being able to foresee. Refuse to foresee. You are not in the future, but the present tense. Say to yourself, ' My whole world lies here and now. I have nothing whatever to do with anything but my present state and place. God has taken me out of the secular world in order that I may be free from the anxieties of the secular world, to serve Him in quietness. I must not bring them here, with me.'

" Let me say this, too. Your letter shows quite plainly that God has let you see your work that is to be done in your own soul. If He had given you nothing but joy it would mean, with out the shadow of a doubt, that He had not opened to you the depths of the Religious Life; and that He was allowing you to live upstairs. But He has taken you not only into a [Religious House], but into the Religious Life.

"So be perfectly confident and courageous: and remember with all your might that you are not in this world any longer; that human re lationships in the Religious Life are entirely different to human relationships in the world — that they are thinner and purer and finer — like a higher atmosphere; and that they must be kept free from any feverish heat of attraction or repulsion.... There is a wonderful freedom that follows that lesson: it gives one a new idea altogether of the mystical union of the faithful in the Body of Christ.... If all this seems a series of elementary platitudes, you must forgive me.

" I think, however, that I see from far off, that the same transformation of relationship is true as regards that between God and the Soul. In the world one is feverish, and dependent on signs of His favour, and sensible devotion. In the Religious Life it is not so. Our Lord shows His favourites not His Sacred Heart only, but the Crown of Thorns surrounding it. One cannot embrace that Heart in the Religious Life without embracing the Crown of Thorns as well.

" Of course the transition is bitterly hard. One runs forward to clasp God and souls, and is instantly pierced.

" You have now to leave all external things — all signs of affection — to welcome all apparent hostility. God is teaching you that now, with regard to other people. If you learn that well, He will teach you the same thing as regards Himself. I shall be very much surprised if, in six months from now — more or less — you do not find the same sorrows in your internal devotion to our Lord. ' Touch me not — I am not yet ascended to My Father.'...

" God bless you always, and give you your heart's desire."

(ix) " What can I say — except that God knows better than you and I? It is very hard to understand why you should suffer like this; but the very elaborateness of the process shows that there is some elaborate result that we cannot possibly understand.

"There is no need to tell you not to be dis heartened. From your letter I know that you are doing all in your power not to be. There is nothing in the world to do but to wait on God. One thing, at any rate, you will have learned, even if you have not learned it before (and for which I envy you), that God will not be dictated to even in the most loving way. He has His Own Perfect Will; and He will do it. The only thing we have to do is to wait until we know what it is.

" I am preaching to-night on ' This is the Will of God, your Sanctification '; and what is happening to you will be an additional comment in my mind on one point I want to make — that the result of every detail — even the most bewildering* whether large or small — is the production of the holy character; that circumstances and events are not the essence but the accidents of life — character alone is the essence. This is the only possible key to life; and the encouragement is that it is not our will that is the chief element in sanctification, but God's.

"We have no right to call things 'failures.' The only failure possible is to fail to meet circumstances with acquiescence. An ' event ' cannot be a failure. I know you believe this; and will be brave in remembering it.

"... God bless you always, and show you His Will plainly. I know you will send me a line to-night or to-morrow. You will be in my thoughts all day. Again, God bless you! "

(In this connection a sentence of Monsignor Benson's in a sermon preached, years ago, on Good Friday, at the Carmelite Church, Kensington, may be recalled. " WTe are all Failures — and the best of us are those that know it! ")

(x) "It seems to me that, with a sorrow of this kind, the difficulty is to get it into one's

I heart. It is so apt to hammer and beat on it from the outside, so that sensation goes, and one is aware of nothing. As soon as one has suc ceeded in drawing it really into one's heart, its work is done, and it becomes a fire within, instead of simple and unintelligible pain without. But that cannot happen at once. I pray that it may happen soon with you.

" Of course I am as puzzled as you are — on the intellectual understanding of it all. But it does not at all interfere with my faith that you have a Religious Vocation. In fact, it is hard to imagine any event (external) that could interfere with it. I can only grant that it has postponed the fulfilment of that Vocation."

(xi) "It is very hard to advise indeed! But on the whole this seems to me the natural solution.

" You have left everything in God's Hands; and He has answered by giving you a Religious Vocation. This is the primary thing. Every thing else, such as the kind of life, the saying of the Office, the habit, &c., are all secondary. Therefore, so soon as an open door comes, into the Religions Life, I think that you should go through it, and leave what you will find there to God entirely.

" I am not sure whether this is what you thought I should say, but I don't see any other answer. At the same time I think you are perfectly right to write to; and if the result is that two doors open, then you have the right to look through and choose.... Have you read Heaven Opened? If not, READ it. It is astonishing. It is by a Trappist."

(xii) " You have asked me an extraordinarily hard thing: and I do pray I may not say any thing contrary to God's Will.

" It seems to me that the only thing is simplicity. May I sum up my thoughts in sections?

" (i) In complications such as yours the only thing to do is to take the first open door, unless there are strong reasons against it, in which case it ceases to be an open door.

" (2) The Order is the one to which you have always felt strongly drawn; therefore you are justified in looking first to see whether this is impossible. But I agree with that to demand it, by going to Australia or America, is not simple waiting upon God. It is rather like trying to force His hand....

" (4) Supposing remains closed, then I should consider this [other alternative]. You must find out whether... the life is possible for you, in point of hardness, &c.... If so, I do not say that it is impossible for you to go... but I do think that it is unlikely to be God's Will for you....

" A thing like this would be ' heroic.' In interior drawings towards an heroic action, one has to be very much on one's guard against a peculiarly subtle form of presumption. It is extremely hard to distinguish, in that third depth of the soul, between God's Voice and its counterfeit; and the Voice has to be tested severely by common light. If it will stand the common light, it is good: if not, it must be resisted.... One thing is certain: you must not do it at all in a hurry. If God means you to do it, He will (i) close other doors; (2) open this one wide; (3) leave it standing open, and beckon you not only in interior feelings, but in external circum stances.

" Do I make myself clear?

" I shall say Mass for you on Sunday here; and pray that I may know what advice to give. It is extraordinarily hard and complicated; and we must both keep quiet and simple in dealing with it: and above all, patient. I hope you will prevent yourself from using your imagination in the question. It will not be truly solved by that."

(xiii) " I have been overrun with various things since coming back here last week. Also I wanted time for my ' subjective self ' to answer. Your letter and enclosure this morning makes it clear.

You must not go to the; at least it seems to me the wrong sort of madness to think of it. (I am aware there is a divine madness which must be obeyed.)...

" It seems to me rather that you should try other Houses than now. I do not say, enter them. But try the doors gently and see if they open.... One cannot say that the Divine Office is an essential: it is only a considerable accident: and Perpetual Adoration surely can be set against that?... It seems to me, things that may be ' accidents ' should not be allowed to weigh against the ' substance '- i.e. the Religious Life. It is not as if you had not given due weight to the ' accidents.' But don't let them fetter you.

" It also seems to me that you should not say ' I should not like this or that Order because it is not old/ On your side you offer yourself to God as a Religious — that is the simple, bare fact. You add, as in a petition, ' If it is Thy

Will I should like an old Order.' It is perfectly right to do that; but you cannot insist. You are giving to God, not receiving from Him. This is becoming clearer and clearer, so far as I have sight to see or right to speak. That is what I meant by ' trying other doors now.' How if the Renunciation lies in the renunciation of the spiritual romance that lies round the old Orders? I do not say that it does, but that it may.

" I am thinking in ink now; or rather, am putting down the kinds of thoughts that have come to me this last week. Will you consider them, and see what you think? If you say you are sure I am wrong, I shall accept that whole heartedly. I dare say I am.... Behave as a Saint. That is surely the secret: and I know you are trying with all your might."

(xiv) " Indeed you must not be in the least discouraged! You are not responsible, and Almighty God is!...

"As to, I can only say that my feelings are strongly against it. And that I may be wrong. But you want to know what I think, after all.

" It seems to me that it would be trying to make God give you St. 's habit. And the worst of it is that He might do it, and you would regret it ever afterwards. He sometimes does give us things we demand, and we are sorry all the rest of our lives.

" I really think it is far more trustful to try these other [places]. If the doors don't open, we can see. But if they do!

"... And do not be in the least cast down. What can we do but repeat over and over again the alphabet of Faith — which is that God is Good, and Almighty? That holds all possible consolation in a trouble of this kind."

(xv) "You must not be unhappy for a moment. It is God's doing, not yours. Take it from His Hand, and be absolutely content. Nothing in the whole world can separate you from Him; and if He wishes you to serve Him in the world, you cannot be happy in a cloister. If He wishes you to serve Him in a cloister, the whole world cannot stop you. So be perfectly content, and wait on Him....

" I feel nothing but the most intense sympathy with the struggle against rebellion that I know you must be going through, and complete confidence that you will win the victory.

" If God's Will is ' continual failure ' for you, then embrace that gladly and cheerfully. After all, that kind of ' failure ' is the only success worth having; since it is what our Lord Himself achieved on the Cross.

" Do not care what people say.

" Dicunt! Quid dicunt? DICANT!

" Meanwhile I can say nothing at all, except God bless you, guide you, and finish His good work in you."

(xvi) "Don't lose heart for an instant. Al mighty God is arranging all this: in fact, He has arranged it: do not forget that: only keep watch on His Will.

" May He bless you always, and show it to you soon.

(xvii) " I can't agree with you at all, of course, that if you are not to be a Religious your life even resembles a delusion. What alone really matters was your will to serve God as perfectly as possible in whatever circumstances He may direct. That is the reality: all the rest depends on Him only. That is why a novitiate is necessary—to find out whether those circumstances are what He intends.

" Please do not make up your mind about anything except your entire willingness to please God.

"... As regards the Religious Vocation alto gether, one must take God's actions as signs. Remember, He does control or permit every detail that happens; and health is one of them.... Please think about this; and * hearken what the Lord God will say concerning you.'

" God bless you again, now and always."

(xviii) " I am more sorry than I can say. You know that: and how I do feel it is terribly hard. But that must not prevent me from saying what I think in other respects....It is absolutely necessary that you should be resigned to God's Will fundamentally: and that you should internally embrace that Will. There is a real danger for you, as for all of us, that you should say: ' I will accept God's Will enthusiastically, wherever it should lead me, except in one single direction.' We must not make conditions of this sort. It seems to me possible — I cannot say more — that Almighty God has allowed obstacles in the way of your Religious Life, for this very reason — that He is determined to win you entirely and fundamentally; and when that is done He may have some tremendous gift. Grant even the ' worst ' — that you should break down at home in health, and die — before you are able to enter Religion — well! that after all is not unlike Calvary, where every single scheme seemed to break down and fail in pitch darkness. After all, this life is only a very tiny fragment of Eternity.

" Really, platitudes are the sum of wisdom. We are always trying to escape from them, and to embroider, and soar, and swoop; but God is always melting our wings and bringing us down again, flat — until we perceive that lying flat is about the highest achievement we can possibly attain, and that being broken to little bits is the greatest result of Divine Art.

" Do let yourself go — into God's Hands. Don't let yourself say, even in a whisper to yourself, 4 1 can't bear it.' Because you know, you can bear it. To resist always hurts. To yield, never does.

"Everything seems to point to all this.... It seems that God will have His way! Recog nise that then; and be at peace. And thank God that He is giving you next week not only the splendid tragedy, but the squalor and sordidness of His Passion — and above all, the loneliness of it.

" God bless you always. You must not think me hard. I am trying with all my might to learn these things myself."

(xix) " In the meantime I do entreat you to look at the whole matter from the standpoint of ' the first five minutes after death.' What will you then wish to have done — to have accepted God's arrangements cordially, or not? Because don't you think that it really does come to that?...

is absolutely serene and happy. He says he understands at last that the one and only thing that matters is that God's Will should be done in him.... He has learnt, too, one other lesson, that ' the Kingdom of God is within '; and that in the Kingdom of God are all his friends; and that therefore he possesses them all for ever so long as he conforms himself to God's Will, and does not struggle or rebel. Well, there he is! I envy and admire him enormously. God bless you always."

(xx) " You know that God has all these things in the palm of His hand; and if it is not to be, it must not be.... Does it not seem, with all these tantalisations, that God is simply giving you test after test until the last traces of wilfulness are exhausted? So it seems to me. He is doing exactly the same thing to me in another way.... We had much better give in at once, and say ' I will be guided by inevitable circumstances, not by unrealisable desires.' The moment one's whole heart absolutely says that, and one's whole mind says Amen, probably He will let one do what He really wishes us to do.

" I haven't told you about myself, for a number of reasons: (i) there is very little to tell; (2) it is bad for egotism; (3) there is no time to do anything... (4), (5), (6), (7)!..."

(xxi) " Since it is so, it is so. What I partly meant when I wrote was that perhaps suffering was meant to be your vocation, and therefore to be welcomed. But it seems not. It cannot be meant so by God unless He conveys the conviction of it to you. I shall pray that it may be so. I am so glad that you have seen Tremans. It is a lovely place."

(xxii) " There are two ways of knowing God — as He is in Himself or through His creatures — and if the second is your vocation, so be it.

' ' There is no question of ' disappointment. ' I am only glad that you know' what God wants of you."

(xxiii) " As you say, solitude shows one's weakness. I think that a tendency to resent little things — ' trifles,' as you say — so very much, is not promising for the Religious Life, which consists so largely of significant trifles. However, I dare say I'm wrong again."

(xxiv) " It seems to me that the letter... which you enclosed, and which I re-enclose, ought not to be neglected.

" Your desire for the Order was so strong that I do not think you ought to pass by a possible opening on account of what is, after all, only a detail. The teaching may seem utterly repugnant; but it is no more than an accident.... Will you think it over for twenty-four hours and go to Holy Communion with an intention of getting guidance? The letter seems to me really hopeful. I believe you will think with me that so long as a chink of the door shows itself, you ought not to pass on to another.... I will say Mass for you on Tuesday morning with the same intention. God bless you."

(xxv) " Just a line, in the most terrible haste, to congratulate you with all my heart. It seems just perfectly arranged: I knew it would be: God never shuts one door without opening an other of some kind.... Simplicity is EVERY THING, as our Lord tells us again and again. It is when we become elaborate and ' careful ' that things go wrong."

(xxvi) " I was so much delighted to hear from you; though I had always taken, as you said, no news for good news. But now it is news that is good news. I haven't had a letter that gave me such pleasure for a long while. It is quite plain that you know the worst, and can stand it; and that you know the best, and can appreciate it. To find poverty and saints together is an enormous blessing; and to understand them both is even greater.

" The only thing that I can say is to advise you to take both these things right down into your will. We can bear almost anything when we embrace it; it is when pain or anxiety fret away at our emotions or intellect, that they be come intolerable. So take this Poverty right into your arms, and make yourself prefer, not like, the darkness and the cold and the food, and every other single detail that hurts. It is when we resist the Crown of Thorns, or have the Cross put upon us, instead of taking it, that we are wounded and bruised. But I am quite sure that you know this.... Only go on doing it. Particularly do that about ' loneliness in a crowd/ Really, solitude is one of the greatest things in the world. ' In solitude Christ speaks to the heart, as a modest lover, who embraces not His beloved before all the world.' The lover of Jesus

'sits apart from the noise, but glorying in Christ.' There is another thing, too. Use the externals that are unfamiliar to you as a means of realising the internal fact behind them. Our Lord stands in a kind of Tower, with windows all round. One window is Gothic and severe; another is Renaissance and filled with sham pink flowers; another is the grimy window of a cottage; and it really does not matter in the least through which window you look. In fact, the more windows you look through the more you see of Him. There is a view of Him through the Renaissance window that is unique. And take the ash-tree outside your window as a kind of relief, through which you can catch a glimpse, from your old life in the world. Take the dark passages... — everything — in the same way; like St. Patrick in his Breastplate; remembering that there is not one single thing in the whole world, including even sins or stupidities of other people, which God does not use for teaching you some thing which you cannot otherwise learn.

" Work out too that ideal relation with God. Exactly as in Society one has to be courteous though one may not feel it, so there is an etiquette in spiritual things. The Little Office is a case in point; it really does not matter whether you like it or not; the thing to do is to conform.

" Never mind about the extra-direction or the Rule that appears to forbid it. You are not responsible for the Rule: they know it, and you cannot yet. Don't be ashamed at having been ' expansive '; but remind yourself that your highest ideal is to lie flat and ridiculous before God and His servants, until every flicker of pride is stamped out....

" ' Desire for foreign travel.' Please reflect on this point, which is a platitude of platitudes, that in possessing Christ you possess the Lord and Creator of Heaven and Earth; and that when you are in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament you are in the presence of Him Who thought and loved the world into being. There is no sight or sound that you do not possess in chapel.

" The thought that you would do better in another convent, you must just resist like a temptation. It is a symptom of accidie, diagnosed centuries ago. No; there you are at; you went there without the help of ' desire, ' and you must not let ' desire ' speak one word on the subject. Nothing at all but the Hand of God, acting independently of yourself, must take you away. Remember that He can take you away to-morrow, if He wills it.

"In everything, then, live by the Will, not the emotions. Remember that your Will is sovereign that the emotions are only extremely untrust worthy councillors: you must teach them their place. Snub them if they fret: don't let them interfere in what is not their business. Don't let the mind formulate the stammering of the emotions: the moment you allow that they become formidable. Just live like an autocrat, remembering that you are a vassal of God.

" Lastly, I believe you have found your Vocation there. The more I read your letter the more I think it....

" And please at all times remember me before God; it will be a real strength to think that I have an intercessor in a Religious, besides the objective good your prayers will do me.

" God bless you always, and give you perseverance."

Nothing could bring this series of perfect letters to a close more touchingly than the following exquisite message of comfort and hope, which will come home to every heart which knew the writer:

"This must only be a line to tell you what sympathy I feel for you in your great sorrow. Yet it does seem more and more — I was going to say almost more every day — that death is after all the supreme blessing of life — at least, such a death as that. It is the turning over of the seamy side, and showing the true silk and em broidery in place of the ragged ends. May God grant her great happiness as she looks upon that, and above all when she sees how every effort she made has been wrought up into the robe of Jesus Christ.

" And may He comfort you, too, and let you see it."