CHAPTER XV.

Among so great a number of good souls, on whom
our Lord wrought much by me, some were given me
only as plants to cultivate. I knew their state, but had
not that near connection with, or authority over them,
which I had over others. It was then that I compre¬
hended the true maternity beyond what I had done
before; for those of the latter kind were given me as
children, of whom some were faithful. I knew they
would be so; and they were closely united to me in
pure charity. Others were unfaithful; I knew that of
these some would never return from their infidelity,
and they were taken from me; some, after slipping
aside, were recovered. Both of them cost me much
distress and inward pain, when, for want of courage to
die to themselves, they gave up the point; and revolted
from the good beginning they had been favored with.

Our Lord, amongst such multitudes as followed
him on earth, had few true children. Wherefore he
said to his Father, “ Those that thou gavest me I have
kept, and none of them is lost but the son of perdition,”
showing hereby that he lost not any beside of his apos¬
tles, or disciples, though they sometimes made false
steps.

Among the friars who came to see me, there was
one order which discovered the good effects of grace
more than any other. Some of that very order had
before this, in a little town where Father La Combe

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was in the exercise of his mission, been actuated with a
false zeal, and violent in persecuting all the good souls
which had sincerely dedicated themselves to God,
plaguing them after such a manner as can scarce be
conceived, burning all their books which treated of
silence and inward prayer, refusing absolution to such
as were in the practice of it, driving into consternation,
and almost into despair, such as had formerly led
wicked lives, but were now reformed, and preserved in
grace by means of prayer, becoming spotless and
blameless in their conduct. These Mars had proceeded
to such an excess of wild zeal as to raise a sedition in
that town, in which a father of the oratory, a person of
distinction and merit, received strokes with a stick in
the open street, because he prayed extempore in the
evenings, and on Sundays made a short fervent prayer,
which insensibly habituated these good souls to the use
and practice of the like.

I never in all my life had so much consolation as to
see in this little town so many pious souls who with a
heavenly emulation gave up their whole hearts to God.
There were girl3 of twelve or thirteen years of age, who
industriously followed their work almost all the day
long, in silence, and in their employments enjoyed a
communion with God, having acquired a fixed habit
herein. As these girls were poor, they placed them¬
selves two and two together, and such as could do it
read to the others who could not. One saw there the
innocence of the primitive Christians revived. There
was in that town a poor laundress who had five chil¬
dren, and a husband paralytic, lame in the right arm,
and yet worse distempered in mind than in body. He
had little strength left for anything else than to beat

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her. Yet this poor woman bore it with all the meek¬
ness and patience of an angel, while she by her labor
supported him and his five children. She had a won¬
derful gift of prayer, and amidst her great suffering
and extreme poverty, preserved the presence of God,
and tranquillity of mind. There was also a shop¬
keeper, and one who made locks, very much affected
with God. These were close friends. Sometimes the
one and sometimes the other read to this laundress;
and they were surprised to find that she was instructed
by the Lord himself in all they read to her, and spoke
divinely of it.

Those friars sent for this woman, and threatened
her much if she did not leave off prayer, telling her it
was only for churchmen to pray, and that she was very
bold to practice it. She replied, “that Christ had
commanded all to pray, and that he had said “ What I
say unto you I say unto all,” (Mark xiii, 33, 37), without
specifying either priests or friars; that without prayer
she could not support her crosses and poverty; that
formerly she had lived without it, and then was very
wicked; that since she had been in the exercise of it,
she had loved God with all her soul; so that to leave
off prayer was to renounce her salvation, which she
could not do.” She added “that they might take
twenty persons who had never practiced prayer, and
twenty of those who were in the practice of it.” Then,
said she, “ Inform yourselves of the lives of both sorts,
and ye will see if ye have any reason to cry out against
prayer.” Such words as these, from such a woman,
one would think might have fully convinced them; but
instead of that, it only irritated them the more. They
assured her “ she should have no absolution till she

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promised them to desist from prayer.” She said, “It
depended not on her, and that Christ is master of what
he communicates to his creatures, and of doing with it
what he pleases.” They refused her absolution; and
after railing at a good tailor, who served God with his
whole heart, they ordered all the books without excep¬
tion, which treated on prayer to be brought to them,
and they burned them with their own hands in the
public square. They were very much elated with their
performance; but all the town presently arose in an
uproar, on account of the late insolent and intolerable
abuse of the father of the oratory. The principal men
went to the Bishop of Geneva, and complained to him
of the scandals of these new missionaries, so different
from the others. Speaking of Father La Combe, who
had been there before them on his mission, they said
“ these seemed as if they were sent to destroy all the
good he had done.”. The bishop was forced to come
himself to that town, and there to mount the pulpit,
protesting that he had no share in it, and that these
fathers had pushed their zeal too far. The friars, on
the other side declared, they had done all they did,
pursuant to the orders given them.

There were also at Tonon young women who had
retired together, being poor villagers, the better to
earn their livelihood and to serve God. One of them
read from time to time, while the others were at work,
and not one went out without asking leave of the
eldest. They wove ribbands, or spun, the strong sup¬
porting the weak. They separated these poor girls,
and others beside them, in several villages, and drove
them out of the Church.

It was the friars of this very order whom our Lord

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made use of to establish prayer in I know not how
many places. And, into the places where they went,
they carried a hundred times more books of prayer
than those which their brethren had burned. The
hand of God appeared to me wonderfully in these
things.

One day when I was sick, a brother who had skill
in curing diseases, came for a charitable collection, but
hearing I was ill, came in to see me, and gave me
medicines proper for my disorder. We entered into a
conversation which revived in him the love he had for
God, which he acknowledged had been too much stifled
by his great occupations. I made him comprehend
that there was no employment which should hinder
him from loving God, and from being occupied within
himself. He readily believed me, as he already had a
good share of piety, and of an interior disposition.
Our Lord conferred on him many favors, and gave him
to be one of my true children.

I saw at this time, or rather experienced the ground
on which God rejects sinners from his bosom. All the
cause of God’s rejection is in the will of the sinner. If
that will submits, how horrible soever he be, God puri¬
fies him in his love, and receives him into his grace;
but while that will rebels, the rejection continues;
though for want of ability seconding his inclination, he
should not commit the sin he is inclined to, yet he
never can be admitted into grace till the cause ceases,
which is this wrong will, rebellious to the divine law.
If that once submits, God then totally removes the
effects of sin, which stain the soul, by washing away
the defilements which he has contracted. If that sin¬
ner dies in the time that his will is rebellious and

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turned towards sin, as death fixes forever the disposi¬
tion of the soul, and the cause of its impurity is ever
subsisting, such soul can never be received into God;
its rejection must be eternal, as there is such an abso¬
lute opposition between essential purity and essential
impurity. And as this soul, from its own nature neces¬
sarily tends to its own centre, it is continually rejected
of the Lord, by reason of its impurity, subsisting not
only in the effects, but in their cause. It is the same
way in this life. This cause, so long as it subsists^
absolutely hinders the grace of God from operat¬
ing in the soul. But if the sinner comes to die truly
penitent, then the cause, which is the wrong will, being
taken away, there remains only the effect or impurity
caused by it. He is then in a condition to be purified.
God of his infinite mercy has provided a laver of love
and of justice, a painful laver indeed, to purify this
soul. And as the defilement is greater or less, so is the
pain; but when the cause is utterly taken away, the
pain entirely ceases. Now, I say, it is the veiy same
here. Souls are received into grace, as soon as the
cause of sin ceases; but they do not pass into the Lord
himself, till all its effects are washed away. If they
have not courage to let him, in his own way and will,
thoroughly cleanse and purify them, they never enter
into the pure divinity in this life.

The Lord incessantly solicits this will to cease to be
rebellious, and spares nothing on his side for this good
end. The will is free, yet grace follows it still. As
soon as the will ceases to rebel, it finds grace at the
door, ready to introduce its unspeakable benefits. O,
the goodness of the Lord and baseness of the sinner,
each of them amazing when clearly seen.

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Before I arrived at Grenoble, the lady, my friend
there, saw in a dream that our Lord gave me an infin¬
ite number of children all uniformly clad, bearing on
their habits the marks of candor and innocence. She
thought I was coming to take care of the children of
the hospital But as soon as she told me it, I discerned
that it was not that which the dream meant; but that
our Lord would give me, by a spiritual fruitfulness, a
great number of children; that they would not be my
true children, but in simplicity, candor and innocence.
So great an aversion I have to artifice and disguise.

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