the Lord either death or deliverance. Be not surprised, said a voice from heaven to her, if your sufferings are extreme, and that it costs you so much to become a mother; the reason is, you carry two nations in your womb. Such is your history, my dear hearers; you are surprised that it costs you so much to accomplish a pious work; to bring forth Jesus Christ, the new man in your heart. Alas! the reason is, that you still preserve there two loves which are irreconcileable, Jacob and Esau, the love of the world and the love of Jesus Christ; it is because you carry within you two nations, as I may say, who make continual war against each other. If the love of Jesus Christ alone possessed your heart, all there would be calm and peaceable; but you still nourish iniquitous passions in it; you still love the world, the pleasures and distinctions of fortune; you cannot endure those who eclipse you; your heart is full of jealousies, of animosities, of frivolous desires, of criminal attachments; and from thence it comes that your sacrifices, like those of Cain, being always imperfect, like his, are always gloomy and disagreeable.
Serve, then, the Lord with all your heart, and you will serve him with joy. Give yourself up to him without reserve, without retaining the smallest right over your passions. Observe the righteousnesses of the law, in all their fulness, and they will shed holy pleasures through your heart: for, thus saith the prophet, "The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart." Think not that the tears of penitence are always bitter and gloomy. The mourning is only external; when sincere, they have a thousand secret recompenses. The upright soul resembles the sacred bush; nothing strikes our view but prickles and thorns, but you see not the glory of the Lord which dwells within it; you see only fastings and bodily sufferings, but you perceive not the holy unction which soothes and softens them; you see silence, retirement, flight from the world and its pleasures, but you behold not the invisible Comforter, who replaces, with so much usury, the society of men, now become insupportable, since they have begun to taste that of God; you see a life apparently gloomy and tiresome, but you are incapable of seeing the peace and the joy of that innocence which reigns within. It is there that the Father of mercies, and the God of all consolation, so liberally sheds his favours; and that the soul, unable sometimes to support their fulness and excess, is obliged to intreat the Lord to suspend the torrent of his kindness, and to measure the abundance of his gifts by the weakness of his creature.
Come yourself, my dear hearer, and make a happy experience of it; come, and put the fidelity of your God to the trial; it is here he wishes to be tried; come, and prove whether or not we render false testimonies to his mercies; if we attract the sinner by false hopes, and if his gifts are not still more abundant than our promises. You have long tried the world; you have found it destitute of fidelity; it flattered you with hopes of accomplishing every thing; pleasures, honours, imaginary happiness; it has deceived you; you are unhappy in it; you have never been able
