4. A peaceful, tranquil, and hidden life, even from the point of view of common sense and of the dictates of nature, is the happiest.
5. That much more is this so when looked at in the light of grace and of the soul's welfare.
6. That the old saying is quite true that there is no surer way to increase one's income than that of frugality and judicious economy.
7. That one never has money enough to meet all the claims of worldly show and vain ostentation.
8. That he who lives in the style the world expects of him is never rich, while he who regulates his expenditure simply by his natural needs is never poor.
9. That almsdeeds is an investment which multiplies itself a hundredfold even in this present life and ensures the fruit of a blessed eternity in the next, provided only they have been given in the love, and for the love of God.
[Footnote 1: Matt. vi. 33.]
BLESSED FRANCIS' ESTEEM OF THE VIRTUE OF SIMPLICITY.
Our Blessed Father had the highest possible esteem for the virtue of simplicity. Indeed, my sisters, you know what a prominent place he gives to it in his letters, his Spiritual Conferences, and elsewhere. Whenever he met with an example of it he rejoiced and openly expressed his delight. I will here give you one instance which he told me, as it were exulting over it. After having preached the Advent and Lent at Grenoble, he paid a visit to La Grande Chartreuse, that centre of wonderful devotion and austerity, the surroundings of which are so wild, solitary, and almost terrible in their ruggedness, that St. Bernard called it locus horroris et vastæ solitudinis.
At the time of his visit, the Prior General of the whole Order was Dom Bruno d'Affringues, a native of St. Omer, a man of profound learning and of still more profound humility and simplicity. I knew him well, and can bear witness to the beauty of his character, which in its extreme sweetness and simplicity had something in it not of this earth.