Letter LV. To an Ecclesiastic

Advantage of Christian friendship over that of the children of the world.

Sepiteinber, 16 17.

Amid the incertitudes of the desirable journey which was to bring us together for several months, my dearest brother, I regret nothing so much as to see deferred the happiness which our hearts promised themselves of being able to entertain one another at will on the subject of our holy intentions. But the world and all its affairs are so subject to the laws of inconstancy that we must suffer the inconvenience of them, while our hearts may say: / shall never be moved* No, nothing shall shake us in the love of the cross, and in the dear union which the crucifix has made between our spirits. But now is the time when we must use the advantage which our friendship has over that of the children of this world, and make it live and gloriously reign, in spite of absence and the division of abodes; for its author is not tied to time or place. Truly, my dearest brother, these friendships which God has made are independent of all that is outside God.

Now, if I were truly Theophilus,\ as your great prelate calls me (rather according to the greatness of his charity than his knowledge of my infirmities), how

• Ps. xxix. 7. f God-lover.

delightsome should I be to you, my dearest brother! But if you cannot love me because I am not such, love me that I may so become, praying our great Androphilus* to make me by his prayers Theophilus. I hope to go in a few days to take a little holy repo&e with him, who is our common phoenix, to smell the burning cinnamon, in which he wishes to die. He will live again amid the flames of sacred love, of which he describes the holy properties in a book which he is composing.

But who can have told you that our good Sisters of the Visitation have been in trouble about their places and buildings! O my dear brother! The Lord hath been made a refuge for us:f our Lord is the refuge of their soul; are they not too happy? And as our good mother, all vigorous in her feeble state, said to me yesterday: If the sisters of our congregation are very humble and faithful to God, they will have the heart of Jesus, their crucified Spouse, for their dwelling and abiding-place in this world, and his heavenly palace for their eternal habitation.

I needs must say into the ear of your heart, so lovingly beloved by mine, that I have an inexpressible sweetness of spirit in seeing the moderation of this dear mother, and the total disengagement from things of earth which she has testified amid all these little contrarieties. I say this to your heart only: for I have taken a resolution to say nothing of her who has heard the voice of the God of Abraham: Go forth * Man-lover. j Ps. lxxxix. I.

out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and out of thy father's house, and come into the land which I shall show thee* In truth she does that, and more than that. Well, it means that I recommend her to your prayers, because the frequent attacks of her maladies often give us attacks of fear, although I cease not to hope that the God of our fathers will multiply her devout seed as the stars of heaven and the sand we see on the beach of the seas.

But, my God, I say too much on a subject whereon I meant to say nothing: at the same time it is to you, to whom all things may be said, since you have a heart incomparable in affection for him who, with an amorous respect, protests to you that he is incomparably, sir, &c.