at go on browsing heedless of everything else.

I laugh now, but seriously I am quite convinced that one of these
rabbits--you know which one I mean--is worth a hundred times more
than the setter; it has run through many a danger, and I own that,
had I been in its place, I should have long since been lost for
ever in the great forest of the world.

XX

I am so glad, dearest Celine, that you do not feel any particular
attraction at the thought of entering the Carmel. This is really a
mark of Our Lord's favour, and shows that He looks for a gift from
your hands. He knows that it is so much sweeter to give than to
receive. What happiness to suffer for Him Who loves us even unto
folly, and to pass for fools in the eyes of the world! We judge
others by ourselves, and, as the world will not hearken to reason,
it calls us unreasonable too.

We may console ourselves, we are not the first. Folly was the only
crime with which Herod could reproach Our Lord . . . and, after
all, Herod was right. Yes, indeed, it was folly to come and seek
the poor hearts of mortal men to make them thrones for Him, the
King of Glory, Who sitteth above the Cherubim! Was He not
supremely happy in the company of His Father and the Holy Spirit
of Love? Why, then, come down on earth to seek sinners and make of
them His closest friends? Nay, our folly could never exceed His,
and our deeds are quite within the bounds of reason. The world may
leave us alone. I repeat, it is the world that is _insane,_
because it heeds not what Jesus has done and suffered to save it
from eternal damnation.

We are neither idlers nor spendthrifts. Our Divine Master has
taken our defence upon Himself. Remember the scene in the house of
Lazarus: Martha was serving, while Mary had no thought of food but
only of how she could please her Beloved. And "she broke her
alabaster box, and poured out upon her Saviour's Head the precious
spikenard,[50] and the house was filled with the odour of the
ointment."[51]

The Apostles murmured against Magdalen. This still happens, for so
do men murmur against us. Even some fervent Catholics think our
ways are exaggerated, and that--with Martha--we ought to wait upon
Jesus, instead of pouring out on Him the odorous ointment of our
lives. Yet what does it matter if these ointment-jars--our
lives--be broken, since Our Lord is consoled, and the world in
spite of itself is forced to inhale the perfumes they give forth?
It has much need of