thought and fervent prayer in our arbour in
Eichbourg, or under this roof that covers us now, gave me more real joy
than all the vain pleasures of the world. Seek then your happiness in a
life of service of our blessed Saviour. You will find Him and He will
bless you.

"Too well you know, my child, that I have not been without misfortune
in this life. When I lost your dear mother my heart was for a long time
like a dry and barren garden, whose soil, burned by the sun, cracks
open, and seems to sigh for rain. In this way I languished, thirsting
for consolation, and at last I found it in the Lord. Oh, my dear
daughter, there will be days in your life when your heart also will be
like dry and barren ground; but let it not dishearten you. As the
thirsty ground calls not for rain in vain, but God sends the refreshing
showers, so if you seek your consolation from God, He will refresh your
heart as the sweet rain refreshes the thirsty parched earth. Let your
confidence in your heavenly Father be unshaken. Firmly believe that
there is nothing He will not do for those He loves. Sometimes He may
lead us by paths of grief, but be sure that these paths lead to
unmingled happiness. Do you recollect, my good Mary, all the grief you
felt when, after our painful walk, I fell down with fatigue in the
middle of the road? Now you can see that this accident was the means
which God made use of to procure for us the comforts which we have
enjoyed for three years with the good people of this house. Had I not
taken ill that day then we should not have come before their door, or
their hearts would not have been touched with compassion for us. All
the pleasures which we have enjoyed here, all the good which we may
have been enabled to do, are so many benefits which sprang from the
sickness which at first so sorely distressed you.

"But you will always find, my dear Mary, that in the troubles of life
there are proofs of the Divine goodness, to those who will look for
them. If the liberal hand of the Lord has scattered with flowers the
mountains and valleys, forests and river-banks, and even the muddy
marshes, to give us everywhere the opportunity of admiring the
tenderness and beauty of nature, He has also imprinted on all the
events of our life the evident traces of His great wisdom, and all His
passionate love to man in order that the attentive man may learn by
them to love and adore Him.

"In all our life, we have never had to suffer more