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this number, My daughter. Compensate Me by your love for the indifference and the insensibility of so many bad Christians. I have the right, and a very special right, to expect this from you.

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"O sacred love, spread thyself over the earth and inflame all hearts! Let it, above all, inflame your heart, My daughter. Let it be to you the most precious of all treasures. Let it be the supreme beauty of your soul. Let it be the relief, the consolation, and the repose of your heart in all your sufferings and afflictions.

"O power of divine love over men! O power of divine love over God! It gives men to God; it makes God die for men.

"I died for the love of you, My daughter; give yourself, then, to your Saviour, to your God, for the love of Him. Respond to My love by your love, live for the love of Me, sacrifice yourself for the love of Me, die for the love of Me, for I have lived, I have suffered, I have died for the love of you."

It was thus the Saviour Jesus spoke to me, and my soul was wholly penetrated by the ardour of His voice and the sweetness of His words.

10. Of peace, the fruit of charity; of peace, temporal, spiritual, and eternal; of submission to the will of God produced by charity; advantages of that submission; of poverty, detachment, and liberty, effects of the virtue of charity.

The Saviour Jesus said also, when discoursing to me on charity: "My daughter, I have instructed you in a general way respecting the fruits of the virtue of charity; I wish now to make you know them particularly and in detail.

"The principal fruits of the virtue of charity are peace, submission to the will of God, detachment from self, poverty, complete and absolute liberty, and good example.

“Peace, My daughter, is a fruit of the virtue of charity, but it is not a special virtue distinct from the other virtues. Peace consists in the concord of a man's own desires, or that of his desires with the desires of others. Now, in whatever manner you regard it, peace is an effect of the virtue of charity. Charity, in fact, causes you to love God with your whole heart, that is to say, it makes you refer all things to God, and this reference to God is the union or the concord of all your desires. Charity is also the concord of all your desires with the desires of others, in all that is not contrary to the will of God. Charity, in fact, produces in you a love of your neighbour equal to that which you have for yourself; whence it follows that charity makes you follow the will of another as though it were your own will.

“Peace is not a special virtue, for all the acts which produce peace spring solely from the principle of charity. The effects of charity are different; nevertheless they do not on that account require a different

cause.

"All wish for peace, seek for peace, but very few possess it, because there are few who have charity. "Peace may be considered under three aspects: as temporal peace, spiritual peace, and eternal peace.

"Temporal peace is peace in the family, in cities, in empires; it comes from charity, because charity is the union of hearts, and the union of hearts is the peace of families, and the union of families is the peace of cities, and the union of cities is the peace of

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kingdoms and of empires; for charity is the accord, the agreement, of two persons, of many persons, of many different peoples. Where there is no charity

there is no peace.

"Temporal peace is the peace or tranquillity of the body; it is the concord between the spirit and the flesh, it is agreement amid different opinions.

"The body is in peace and tranquillity when it does not suffer and is free from maladies; charity preserves this tranquillity and peace even in suffering and sickness, because charity causes these to be loved, and love is the preserver as it is the producer of peace.

"Charity maintains peace between the flesh and the spirit, because it subdues the flesh, and permits the spirit to remain united to God; and this peace contributes to temporal well-being.

"Charity maintains peace amid different opinions, for peace does not consist in agreement in opinion, but in agreement in what is good and in what leads to eternal life. Diversity of opinion is not a rupture of peace, it is the rational and reasonable use of liberty in the active movement of the intellect, and nothing in this legitimate use can be adverse to peace. Charity even maintains it, because charity sees and puts a good interpretation on this active movement of the minds of others.

"If you have charity, My daughter, you will have this temporal peace. For if you have charity, if you love Me, you will turn to Me in bodily pain and sickness, in affliction or depression of heart, amid the contradictions or waywardness of your own mind; you will come to Me without effort and tell Me your state with the sincerity and confidence of a child; you will come and impart to Me your most secret,

most hidden, most interior troubles.

I will receive you with affection, and in the tenderness of these effusions you will find yourself freed from the burden which might have oppressed you, and will preserve the peace and evenness of your soul. How many

afflicted persons, suffering and rudely tried, would endure their trials, their sufferings and afflictions, if they had charity, without ever losing the peace and serenity of their souls; but without charity they are troubled, and nothing can console them. They would take Me for their confidant, and would find how much I deserve to be so, because I should love them with constancy and fidelity, never abandoning them when all others abandon or draw off from them, because I should compassionate their sorrows and console them. Every one has his troubles here below. If you were always entertaining a friend with your afflictions your conversation would become tiresome and disagreeable to him. But for Myself, My daughter, not only shall I listen to you, but My attention and My constancy will give you such consolation that you will even forget your troubles, and your complainings and outpourings will be but a conversation full of happiness with your Saviour and your God.

"He who has charity has peace, because he knows what to do that he may have concord in himself in everything that concerns him. He has peace, because he hates himself, because he hates the world, because he has confidence in God.

"He hates himself, that is to say, he does not seek his own personal ease, convenience, or satisfaction, and then, whether sick, suffering, poor, or in trouble, he is always calm, always at peace. His flesh does not domineer over his spirit, he is calm, and always at

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peace. He does not occupy himself with what others think or feel about him, he is calm and always at peace.

"He who has charity hates the world and despises it. He knows that the world will pass away, and, with it, all that is in the world; he is not affected by its words, its judgments, or its acts; he does not seek its esteem or its affection; he regards only My judgment, the knowledge I have of him, the friendship I have for him that suffices him and he is calm and always at peace.

"He who has charity places all his confidence in God. True charity cannot exist along with distrust, but where there is no distrust a man fears nothing, dreads nothing, he is calm and always at peace. He who has charity places all his confidence in God, consequently he expects and endures all the trials which He sends him; he has no other will but His will, and this conformity of will is peace.

"Have charity, therefore, and you will have temporal peace; and you will also have spiritual peace.

"You will have spiritual peace, that is to say, peace with God. Peace with God is concord between yourself and God, and it is charity which bestows it on you. If you have charity you always do the will of God, you faithfully fulfil His law and His commandments. This fulfilment necessarily preserves you in serenity and peace of heart, for it unites you to God, and makes you live by His life. There is, therefore, conformity of will, conformity of life; you have true peace, spiritual peace.

"However great a sinner one may have been who possesses charity, by the very fact of having charity he has peace; for the recollection of past faults