forced to observe a continual fast. The strength of my body has left me, but the joy of my heart increases in proportion to the prospect of a speedy death.
What a happiness it will be if I am permitted to sing next Easter Sunday the Hcec dies in heaven!
Had you tasted the sweet delight which God has poured into our souls, you would indeed despise the good things this world affords. Since I have been in prison for His sake, I feel that I am a disciple of Jesus. I now find myself fully compensated for the pangs of hunger, by the consoling sweetness which filled my soul; and were I to be immured in prison for years, the time would appear to me to be short, so much do I desire to- suffer for Him who rewards me so liberally for my pains.
Among other illnesses, I have had a fever raging within me which lasted a hundred days, without the possibility of being relieved. During all this time my joy has been so great, that I find it useless to describe it in words.
When we are in good health there are two things which usually go far to stifle every sense of the fear of God, and these are the hope of a long life and the forgetfulness of eternity.
So long as the sinner is strong and well, the thought of death never enters into his mind; or, if it should, it makes but little impression upon him, because he looks upon it as an event very far off.
Then comes the judgment (which awaits until that fearful moment), and even the thought of this does ndt affect him, for he lives as if he never had to give an account of his misdeeds; but when he finds himself stretched on a bed of sickness, weak, languid, exhausted with pain and overcome with grief, it is then that he recollects that he is
