Letter XVIII. To Mother de Chantal

On the Feast of the Blessed Sacrament.

IT is true, my dear sister, my daughter, that I have been a little tired in body; but in spirit and heart how could I be, after having held to my breast, close clasped to my heart, so divine an epithem as I did this morning during the whole procession? Alas! had I had my heart all empty by humility, and lowly bowed down by abjection, I should undoubtedly have drawn this sacred pledge to myself; he would have hidden him self within me; for he is so deeply in love with these virtues, that he is forcibly drawn towards them when he sees them.

The sparrow hath found herself a house, and the turtle a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, says David.* Oh! how this affected me when they sang that Psalm! I said: 0 dear Queen of heaven, chaste turtle-dove, is it possible that your little one has now for its nest my bosom? That word of the spouse also touched me greatly: My beloved to me and I to him; he abideth between my breasts; t for there was I holding him: and those words of the Beloved: J Put me as a seal upon thy heart. Ah! yes, my daughter; but having taken away the seal I do not see the impression of its characters in my heart. Is there a sweetness to be compared with it?

As to the business, I know not what to say except that one can in an hour determine oneself to the less

• Ps. Ixxxiii. 4. t Cant, i., ii. t Ib. viii. 6.

evil; and the resolution having been taken one should content oneself with this that on whatever side one turns the affairs of this world, there will always be much to be desired and to be discussed; so that after one has formed one's determination one should not occupy oneself in sighing after the imagination of better things, but in properly overcoming present diffi culties, which moreover we cannot escape without en countering others greater, since every place is full of them. Good night, my very dear daughter: may the divine Saviour, the sole love of our hearts, be our eternal repose. Amen.