and converses familiarly with his servants!" ' O blessed solitude, in which God speaks and converses with his beloved spouses with familiarity, with great love and confidence! God speaks not at the grates, nor in the belvedere, nor in any other place in which religious indulge in useless laughter and idle talk. The Lord is not in the earthquake But where is he? I will lead her into the wilderness, and I will speak to her heart. He speaks in solitude, and there he speaks to the heart in words that inflame it with his holy love, as the sacred spouse attests: My soul melted when my beloved spoke. St. Eucherius relates that a certain man, desirous of becoming a saint, asked a servant of God where he should find God. The servant of God conducted him to a solitary place, and said: "Behold where God is found!" By these words he meant to say that God is found not amid the tumults of the world, but in solitude.
Virtue is easily preserved in solitude; and, on the other hand, it is easily lost by intercourse with the world, where God is but little known, and therefore his love, and the goods that he gives to those who leave all things for his sake, are but little esteemed. St. Bernard says that he learned more among the trees of the forest than from books and masters. Hence the saints, in order to live in solitude and far from tumult, have so ardently loved the caves, the mountains, and the woods. The land that was desolate and impassable shall be glad, and the wilderness shall rejoice, and shall flourish like the lily; it shall bud forth and blossom. . . . They shall see the glory of
