the will of their Lord and Master. The nature of God is communicative.
God would cease to be God if he should cease to communicate himself, by
love, to the pure soul. As the air rushes to a vacuum, so God fills
the soul emptied of self.

The seven blessed spirits around the throne, are those angels who
approach nearest to God, and to whom he communicates himself the most
abundantly. St. John, perhaps, was better prepared than any of the
apostles to receive the Word, incarnate, dwelling in the soul.

On the bosom of Jesus,--in close affinity with him,--John learned the
heights and depths of divine love. It was on this account our Lord
said to his mother, "seeing the disciple stand by whom he loved, Woman
behold thy Son." He knew the loving heart of John would give her a
place in his own home.

God communicates himself to us in proportion as we are prepared to
receive him. And in proportion as he diffuses himself in us, we are
transformed in him, and bear his image. O, the astonishing depths of
God's love! giving _himself_ to souls disappropriated of self, becoming
their end, and their final principle, their fulness, and their all.

JOY IN PERSECUTIONS.

I am very grateful to you, my dear sir, for your sympathy in my
apparent ills. God has not permitted that I should consider them
otherwise than blessings. I trust what appears to destroy the truth
will, in the end, establish it. Those who maintain the inward reign of
the Holy Spirit will yet suffer many persecutions. There is nothing of
any value but the love of God, and the accomplishment of his will.
This is pure and substantial happiness. This joy no man taketh from us.

It is my only desire to abandon myself into the hands of God, without
scruples, without fears, without any agitating thoughts.

Since I am there, O Lord, how can I be otherwise than happy? When
divine Love has enfranchised the soul, what power can fetter it? How
small the world appears to a heart that God fills with himself! I love
thee, my Lord, not only with a sovereign love, but it seems to me I
love thee alone, and all creatures only for thy sake. Thou art so much
the soul of my soul, and the life of my life, that I have no other life
than thine. Let all the world forsake me; my Lord, my Lover lives, and
I live in him. This is the deep abyss where I hide myself in these
many persecutions. O, abandonment! blessed abandonment! Happy the
soul who lives no more in itsel