First meditation. The creation

First point.

Whence have we come? The country we have left is nothingness. Where were you, my dear soul, so many years ago? You were nothing. O nothing, without subsistence or being! O nothing, you are my country, in which I long remained unknown, vile, and eternally abject. " I have said," exclaims Job to corruption, " you are my father;" but I have said to nothingness, you are my country. I have been drawn from your dark abyss and from your loathsome cavern.

THE CREATION.

Second point.

Who has drawn us from nothingness? Who has given us being? Who is Our Father? As trees in winter hide away their flowers and fruits until they shoot forth and are seen in the proper season, so God willed from all eternity to create you, O my soul! He kept you enclosed in His mind, as it were, in order to produce you when the time should arrive. Ah! are you not happy to be the child of so good a Father?

Third point.

When I was nothing, and engulfed in nothingness, the will of God decreed to bestow upon me a being at a certain time and in a certain place, as has been done. Our nature, the old Adam, with its evil inclinations, proceeds from nothingness and always tends to its origin, that is, to nothing-

THE CREATION.

ness and sin. From God proceeds our new Adam, our spiritual inclinations, which tend at all times to their origin, that is, to good, to virtue, and to the enjoyment of God.

Affections.

Of myself, then, what am I, if not a true nothing, a child of nothingness? Wretched and miserable, what have I to glory in? Why should I consider myself of any consequence? 0 nothing! I shall always remember you, and never exalt myself. I shall endeavor to humble my soul, by keeping before its eyes its obscure and wretched origin. Alas! it has nothing in which to glory, yet it would make a display of itself.

O God! what do I not owe to Thy will which, for so many ages, thought of me in the bosom of Thy providence? O holy will! I belong to thee. Make of me, in me, and by me all that may be pleasing to thee, for I am thy work. What an outrage to be rebellious to the will that has produced me and that alone preserves me!

Ah, the human heart! Although surrounded by the vile things of nature, yet at the first glance that it casts upon God, its natural inclination causes it to recognize its centre. Come, then, my poor heart, rise like a spark from the ashes of your lowliness, and render the love and obedience due to your Creator.