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BOUNDLESS FELICITY.

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Courage, My daughter, fight perseveringly the hard battles of the present life, and lift up your eyes and heart to the holy mountains whence help shall come to you. Regret not the sacrifices which you will have to impose on yourself, the pains you will have to endure, the contradictions of life all this will have an end, and you will find in God your boundless felicity."

Everlasting love and thanksgiving to Jesus in the Sacrament of His Love. Amen.

BOOK XIII.

GOD'S DEALINGS WITH ISRAEL; A FIGURE OF HIS DEALINGS WITH SOULS.

Glory and praise, love and thanksgiving be rendered unceasingly to Jesus in the Holy Sacrament of the Altar, to the Father, and to the Holy Ghost for ever and ever. Amen.

THE Saviour Jesus has taught me all I know. It is He who has manifested to my intelligence those admirable truths of the supernatural order with which it was so little acquainted; it is He who, by means of images, figures, and comparisons, has ineffaceably engraven them on my mind. He said to me one day: "My daughter, when I was on earth, I loved to speak in parables; I wish also to speak to you in like manner."

Now, in the divers instructions which the Saviour gave me, He often showed me how the Old Testament was the figure of the New; how the action of God on the Jewish people was the figure of His action on souls. I will here relate all He said to me in this way, so far as I shall be able to recall it and am capable of expressing it.

1. Noe's dove.

"My daughter," Jesus said to me one day, "it is

THE SOLITARY SOUL A DOVE.

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related in the Sacred Books* that Noe sent a dove out of the ark, wherein he was enclosed that he might not perish in the deluge, for the purpose of ascertaining if the waters had subsided, and that the dove returned to the ark, bearing in her beak an olive branch. This dove is the figure of a solitary soul. It is not necessary, in order to find solitude, to retire into convents or cloisters; it may be found in villages, in cities, and even in the courts of kings; and of all solitudes the best and the most profitable is interior solitude. There are souls which need exterior solitude in order to arrive at interior; but there are others who find themselves as solitary in the midst of the greatest stir and tumult as in the heart of a desert. The solitary soul takes her delight in retirement, for there she finds God, and God suffices her; there she unites herself to God, and this union suffices her; there nothing separates her from God, and this tranquillity is the sole object of her desire. To live for God, to suffer for God, to die for God, and to repose in Him: this is the whole ambition of that soul.

"She is simple and innocent as a dove, she leaves her heart quite open to God, she gives it wholly to Him. She is timid and fearful as a dove, and this fear makes her wise, it gives her the victory over her enemies, because she does not expose herself to dangers. She fears the world; she dares not let her feet rest upon it; she returns to her solitude, bearing the olive branch of her victory over the world, over her enemies, over herself, and enjoys, in deep draughts, the delicious sweetness of the love of God.

"The worldly do not understand the delights of

* Genesis viii. 6-12.

solitude, and are like the raven sent out from the ark, who returns not. Solitude is to them more than a mystery; it is a source of weariness, and they expend in the tumult and agitation of earth their years and their life.

"There are some who have eyes and see not, who have ears and hear not, who have hands and handle not, who have feet and walk not, noses and smell not, mouths and speak not. But the solitary soul, like the house of Israel, has hoped in the Lord; He is her helper and her defender. The solitary soul, like the house of Aaron, has hoped in the Lord; He is her helper and her defender. The solitary soul, like those who fear the Lord, has hoped in the Lord; He is her helper and her defender.*

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Moreover, God blesses the solitary soul, the soul which is retired within herself, as He blessed the house of Israel, the house of Aaron, and all those who fear the Lord, both great and small.

"Let the number of solitary souls and holy souls increase and multiply, that the Name of the Most High may be glorified in Sion and exalted in Jerusalem."

2. Moses and Pharao's daughter.

"The

The Saviour Jesus said to me one day: daughter of Pharao, coming to bathe in the Nile, saw exposed in the waters an infant so beautiful that she took him and had him brought up in the court of her father. The infant grew up to be a strong and vigorous man, and delivered the children of Jacob, his brethren, from the slavery of the Pharaos. To quit + Exodus ii. 5-10.

* Comp. Psalm cxiii. 9-13.

DELIVERANCE OF CONVERTED SOUL.

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Egypt he had to cross the sea with the people he was leading. He stretched forth his rod over the waters, and they stood to let the Israelites pass. When all had reached the bank, he again stretched forth his rod and the waters resumed their course, engulfing all the army of the Egyptians who were following in pursuit of the Israelites.

“The daughter of Pharao who went to bathe in the Nile is an image of converted sinners, who, coming to bathe in the salutary waters of penance, find therein charity, which is far more beautiful than the infant who was exposed.

"The converted sinner takes charity and plants it in his heart amidst his passions; he nourishes it, he makes it grow and gather strength, he defends it against them, as the daughter of Pharao defended her adopted child against the Egyptians in the court of her father. Charity grows, it waxes strong, and, delivering the soul from its passions, it draws it out of Egypt, which is a figure of the world, that it may embrace the religious life, or from a life of dissipation and sin, to lead it into the desert, that is to say, to make it live a life all interior and retired in God. But to reach the desert, there is need to cross the Red Sea, which is the image of mortification. Man then arms himself with the Cross, and the passage of that sea becomes smooth and easy.

"When the soul finds itself thus delivered, when it has reached the firm ground of safety, it stretches forth the Cross anew, referring everything with gratitude to God; and the passions, temptations, and Satan himself are henceforth weak and powerless against that soul, which pursues its way to the land of promise, which is Heaven."