SELF-RENUNCIATION.
God designs you, my friend, for himself, but he will lead you by a way, entirely opposed to what you have marked out. He does this in order to destroy your self-love. This is accomplished only by the overthrow of all your purposes, preconceived views, natural reason and sagacity. Self-love has many hiding-places. God alone can search them out. You seek the honor that cometh from man, and love to occupy a high position. God wishes to reduce you to littleness, and poverty of spirit. Believe me, dear sir, you will grow in grace, not by knowledge acquired from books; not from reasonings upon divine truths, but by an efflux from God. This efflux will reach and fill your soul, in proportion as you are emptied of self. You are so much occupied of yourself in speaking, reading and writing, that you give no place to God. Make room, and God will come in.
You speak of your many cares. If you will give yourself wholly to God, these cares will be greatly diminished. God will think for you, and arrange by his Providence, what you cannot effect by long years of planning. In the name of God, I entreat you to renounce your own wisdom, your self-leadings, and yield up yourself to God. Let Him become your wisdom. You Will then find the place of rest, you so much need.
May you read this letter, with dependence on the Spirit, which has dictated it, and without regard to the instrument, and your heart will testify to the truth of what I have written. Take courage, and be persuaded that if God destroys the natural life, it is only to give you himself. Endeavor to be nothing, that God may be all. When void, God himself fills the space.
UNEXPECTED FAULTS.
Yesterday, after I left the parlor, I uttered some words hastily, and suffered very much in consequence; a suffering not like the pangs of penitence I formerly experienced, but more subtle and interior; and the soul was more acquiescent. Whether it was the words I uttered too precipitately, or the reflections that followed, which caused this suffering, I could not determine. A part of myself seemed to be thrown out of God, as we see the ocean reject certain things, which it receives again more deeply into its bosom. Thus I seemed to myself to be rejected, and without any power to make the least movement to return, and without even a regret that I was rejected. I was willing to remain where God placed me, until the moment he received me again to himself. If I should afflict myself on account of this experience, which was new and unexpected, I believe it would be wrong, and sully still more the soul. The depths of my soul remain unchanged—fixed in God. He removes the impurity, that has exteriorly sullied it, and holds the soul still his own.
APOSTOLIC STATE.
I have read your letter, my dear F., with great pleasure. The true Apostolic state is to become all things to all men; that is, to impart to each one spiritually, according to his necessities. Only those who are reduced to littleness and simplicity, have this power of communicating grace. They have also the ability to sympathise deeply in the states of others; of bearing in some measure their burdens, and are sometimes in great heaviness on their account. This communication of grace and aid, is not necessarily restricted to the personal presence of the individual. We may be "absent in body, yet present in spirit," after the manner of God's operations; and as the angelic powers communicate to us. It is only by the enlightening of God's Spirit, that we realise the state of those to whom we are spiritually united.