me say sometimes, I believe no more, but I see. I feel what faith teaches us, and in that assurance and that practice of faith I will live and die with Him. Continue, then, always with God; it is the only support and comfort for your affliction. I shall beseech Him to be with you. I commend my self to your prayers, and am, in our Lord, November 17, 1690 Yours,-—— Conversing With God Madame: If we were well accus tomed to the exercise of the presence of God, all bodily diseases would be much alleviated thereby. God often permits that we should suffer a little to purify our souls and oblige us to continue with Him. I cannot under stand how a soul, which is with God and which desires Him alone, can feel pain: I have had enough experi ence to banish all doubt that it can. Take courage; offer Him your pains unceasingly; pray to Him for strength to endure them. Above all, acquire a habit of conversing often with God, and forget Him the least you can. Adore Him in your infirmities, offer yourself to Him from time to time, and in the very height of your suffer ings beseech Him humbly and af fectionately (as a child his good fath er) to grant you the aid of His grace and to make you comfortable to His holy will. I shall endeavor to help you with my poor halting prayers. God has many ways of drawing us to Himself. He sometimes hides Him self from us; but faith alone, which will not fail us in time of need, ought to be our support, and the foun dation of our confidence, which must be all in God. I know not how God will dispose of me. Happiness grows upon me. The whole world suffers; yet I, who deserve the severest discipline, feel joys so continual and so great that I can scarce contain them. I would willingly ask of God a share of your sufferings, but that I know my weakness, which is so great that if He left me one moment to myself I should be the most wretched man alive. And yet I know not how He can leave me alone, because faith gives me as strong a conviction as sense can do that He never for sakes us until we have first forsaken. Him. Let us fear to leave Him. Let us be always with Him. Let us live and die in His presence. Do you pray for me as I pray for you. I am, Yours,------- November 28, 1690. END.
endure as much and as long as He shall judge to be necessary for you. The men of the world do not com prehend these truths, nor is it to be wondered at, since they suffer as lovers of the world, and not as lovers of Christ. They consider sickness as a pain of nature, and not as from God; and seeing it only in that light, they find nothing in it but grief and distress. But those who consider sick ness as coming from the hand of God, as the effect of His mercy, and the means which He employs for their salvation—such commonly find in it great sweetness and sensible consola tion. I wish you could convince yourself that God is often nearer to us, and more effectually present with us, in sickness than in health. Rely upon no other physician; for, according to my apprehension, He reserves your cure to Himself. Put, then, all your trust in Him, and you will soon find
the effects of it in your recovery, which we often retard by putting greater confidence in medicine than in God. Whatever remedies you make use of, they will succeed only so far as He permits. When pains come from God, He alone can cure them. He often sends diseases of the body to cure those of the soul. Comfort your self with the sovereign Physician both of the soul and body. Be satisfied with the state in which God places you; however happy you may think me, I envy you. Pains and sufferings would be a paradise to me while I should suffer with my God, and the greatest pleasures would be a hell to me if I could relish them without Him. All my joy would be to suffer something for His sake. I must, in a little time, go to God. What comforts me in this life is that I now see Him by faith; and I see Him in such a manner as might make
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