endeavours to increase and augment your love for Me. The promise you made yesterday binds you to-day, and will bind you to-morrow and for ever. A promise like that you have made to Me cannot and ought not to be annulled.

"I have lavished on you My most signal graces; I converse with you with the familiarity of a father with a child, I make light to shine in your soul, I console you in your troubles and afflictions, I uphold you in your weakness, I unveil Myself before your eyes, I let you see a part of My glory in Heaven, every day I pour down upon you My paternal blessings, and I ask from you only one thing, that you should advance in the practice of goodness and the love of God. you refuse Me what I ask of you when I refuse you nothing, when I even forestall your desires, when I grant you what you never could have hoped to obtain, because of your unworthiness?

Can

"I have given you an example, My daughter, that you might do as I did when I was on earth; you ought therefore to live in such a way that one day you may have this testimony rendered to you: 'She increased in wisdom, in age, and in virtue before God and man; she passed along doing good.'

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Besides, My daughter, a soul cannot remain in the same state, it must advance in goodness or sink back by sin; for he who does not gather with Me scattereth, and to scatter is a wrong done to Me, which stays the flow of My graces and draws down the wrath and vengeance of My justice.

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'In fine, you ought to advance and make progress in goodness and the love of God, because I have enjoined you to do so. I have said to you what I said to My Apostles: Be perfect as My Heavenly Father

HOW TO ADVANCE IN GOODNESS.

is perfect.'*

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Now, to this end, you must of necessity be ever making progress, because you will never find on earth a term to your perfection, and there will always remain a long way to go. Never stop, therefore; walk onward; do not dread fatigue, and you will find rest to your troubles and to your toils.

"To this end, My daughter, you ought to regard yourself every day as though you were beginning and had as yet done nothing; you ought to forget the faults you have corrected, think only of what you have still to correct and have still to do; you ought to forget the testimonies of love you have given to God and seek how you may love Him still more.

"To advance in goodness and the love of God, you ought to correspond to all the graces He gives you, you ought to detach yourself more and more from the world and from yourself, and give yourself more entirely to God.

"To advance in goodness and the love of God, you ought to distrust yourself, to keep always before your eyes your weakness and helplessness and rely only on God and on the succour of His arm.

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"In fine, to advance in goodness and the love of God, you must will it if you will it, you will make progress because such is the will of God. If God wills it, He will give you the means; if you will it, you will reject none of these means, and your life will be truly a life of progress."

Such are the words I heard; I repeat them to you as faithfully as I can, and I pray you, Monsieur le Curé, to accept the sentiments of my sincere veneration and my most profound respect.

* St. Matthew v. 48.

I cannot recommend myself too much to your prayers that God may be pleased to have pity upon me and never permit me to be separated from Him and from the love which I owe Him.

I am, with the most entire devotion, Monsieur le

I wish to hide nothing from you, but on the contrary to make known to you everything I see, everything I hear, everything I experience. I will now submit to you what He who speaks to me from time to time, during my prayer or at Holy Mass, has said to me about good example.

"My daughter," He said to me, "I have often repeated these words to you: 'I have given you an example, that you might do as I have done.' To-day I wish to instruct you respecting the good example which you ought to give to others.

"To give good example, My daughter, is, as the very term denotes, to be an example to others for good. I am the prime example of good; I am the supreme good; I became incarnate to manifest good to men. All My actions during My life were a manifestation of good. I ever acted according to what is good, I could not act otherwise without ceasing to be

FORCE OF GOOD EXAMPLE.

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God. This is why I said with authority to the entire world: 'I have given you an example, that you might do as I have done,'* and on another occasion, addressing Myself to the Pharisees, I said to them: 'Who among you shall convince Me of sin?'+ They are bound to act like Me, that is always to submit their will to the will of God, always to seek that which may be pleasing to God, to live united with God by the faithful fulfilment of His law and by the most ardent charity.

"My daughter, you ought to give good example, and you will give it by walking in My footsteps, by following the example which I have given you. To give good example is to serve as a pattern to others, not only in avoiding evil, but also in doing good, and by doing this good lead others to do good also.

"A good action is like a brilliant light which shows the good to the eyes of those who act according to what is good and keeps them in that way, and which shows it also to those who are doing ill in order to make them understand their misery in so acting.

"A good action is a stay and a support to the good, as also to those who are not so: to the good, because it keeps them in the right way; to the bad, in order to withdraw them from evil and aid them in walking towards good.

"A good action has a force and an influence more powerful than the strongest and most authoritative words this is why I began by giving good example before teaching.

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"Good example is the best preaching. Now all can and ought to preach, not by word, but by example.

*St. John xiii. 15.

+ Ib. viii. 46.

I have chosen only a few souls to preach by word, but I have enjoined all men to preach by good example, and they who preach by word ought to do as I did, preach first by example.

"You ought to give good example in all your exterior actions, by always maintaining reserve and modesty, restraining your eyes, so as never to let them rest on aught that is unbecoming or impure; by being guarded in your words, so as never to say anything which can hurt your neighbour or offend God, but always to speak what is conformable with charity, and the love of God and your neighbour; by always walking according to the light of faith in your undertakings, your works, and your determinations; by eschewing everything that evinces attachment to the side of the devil, the world, the flesh, and sin, and observing everything that is agreeable to virtue, to Holy Church, to your Saviour, and your God.

"Never act, My daughter, with a view of being seen, considered, or approved by men; never act from self-love or for personal gratification, but always with the intention of not scandalising others, and of bringing back to God as far as lies in your power, by such actions as are good and conformable to the Divine Will, those who are estranged from Him. Thus you will acquire a double merit: that of your own actions, and that of the good actions with which you inspire others." I conclude, Monsieur le Curé, by commending myself to your prayers and renewing to you the assurance of my most respectful sentiments.

Your very humble servant,

MIMBASTE, 2nd June, 1842.

MARIE.