Letter XVIII. To the Same

Further exhortations to composeclness, tranquillity, and patience with herself.

itfh May 1620.

IN spite of all that you write to me in three of your letters, my clear daughter, I do not cease to have a great confidence that the daughter whom I have so greatly recommended to you, and whom in truth I love as my own soul, will turn out a great servant of God; for she commits no fault on purpose or on account of any will that she has to follow her perverse, unprofitable, and somewhat rebellious inclinations. This then being so, there is nothing to fear; her natural impetuosity is the cause of all her trouble; for it excites her vivacity, and her vivacity excites her impetuosity. Meantime you will tell her from me that her chief care must be to keep her spirit in modesty, sweetness, and tranquillity, and that just on this account she must tone down her outward actions, her bearing, her gait, her behaviour, the movements of her hands, and, if she please, also to some extent her tongue and her speech, and that she must not be surprised if this is not done in a moment: to train a young horse to his paces, and to make him steady under his saddle and bridle, takes whole years.

But look you, my dear daughter, you are a little too severe with her, this poor daughter: you must not give her so many reproaches, since she is a daughter of good desires. Tell her that all unstable as she may be she must never be disheartened nor be vexed

LET. xix.j Further Letters Outside Visitation. 3 1 9 with herself; let her rather regard Our Lord, who from the heights of heaven regards her, as a father does his child when the child as yet quite feeble can hardly take its steps, saying: gently now, my child: and if it tumble he encourages it, saying: he is up again, he is very good, do not cry — then he goes up to it and gives it his hand. If this daughter be a child in i humility, and knows well that she is a child, she will! not be astonished at a fall; besides she will not fall 1 from a great height.

Ah! my dear daughter, if you knew how much my heart loves this daughter, and with what eyes I regard her from here at every moment, you would take a great care of her, for love of me also, besides what you are to her; for you love me with a love which is strong enough to make you love all that I love.

When the great Apostle recommends to Philemon the poor young man Onesimus, and says to him a thousand such sweet words that they enrapture one with love: " If you love me," he says, " if you have given me a place in your heart, receive also my bowels," * — thus styling Onesimus, who had done some injury to Philemon, for which Philemon was angry. 0 my dear Philemona, my daughter I mean, if you love me, if you have received me within your heart, receive therein also my dear daughter Onesima, and bear with her, that is, receive my bowels, for this daughter is truly that in Our Lord. And if sometimes she gives you pain, bear with her patiently for my sake, but above all for the sake of him who has loved her so much, that to go and rescue her in her nothingness wherein she was, he abased himself unto death and the death of the cross. * Phil,

And as for you, my dear daughter, how shall you not love God who loves you so greatly? What a mark of his love, my daughter, in this happy decease of that good father, for whom you have so much desired such an end! Certainly, I am in raptures over it. A thousand blessings on your heart, my dear daughter, and on all our dear sisters, and on all that is yours, in you and for you: and then I shall have my good share therein, since I am infinitely yours in Jesus Christ and for Jesus Christ.