MELANCHOLY AVOIDED.
I assure you, my dear M., I sympathize deeply in your sufferings; but I entreat you, give no place to despondency. This is a dangerous temptation,—a refined, not a gross temptation of the adversary. Melancholy contracts and withers the heart, and renders it unfit to receive the impressions of grace. It magnifies and gives a false coloring to objects, and thus renders your burdens too heavy to bear. Your ill-health and the little consolation you have from friends, help to nourish this state. God's designs, regarding you, and his methods of bringing about these designs, are infinitely wise.
There are two methods of serving little children. One is, to give them all they want for present pleasure. Another is, to deny them present pleasure for greater good. God is a wise Father, and chooses the best way to conduct his children.
A sad exterior is more sure to repel than attract to piety. It is necessary to serve God, with a certain joyousness of spirit, with a freedom and openness, which renders it manifest that his yoke is easy; that it is neither a burden nor inconvenience.
If you would please God, be useful to others, and happy yourself, you must renounce this melancholy disposition. It is better to divert your mind with innocent recreations, than to nourish melancholy. When I was a little child, a nephew of my father's, a very godly man, who ended his days by martyrdom, said to me, "It is better to cherish a desire to please God, than a fear of displeasing him." Let the desire to please God, and honor him, by an exterior all sweet, all humble, all cordial and cheerful, arouse and animate your spirit: For this I pray. Ever yours.
GOD'S CARE OF THE SOUL COMMITTED TO HIM.
O, that you could realize, my dear friend, how much God loves you. As a painter draws upon his canvas what image pleases him, so God is now preparing your soul, by these inward crucifixions, to draw upon it his own likeness, He cherishes you as the mother her only son. He would have you yield readily to his will, even as the branches of the tree are moved by the light breath of the wind. In proportion to your abandonment to God, he will take care of you. When you yield readily to his will, you will be less embarrassed to discern the movements of God. You will follow them naturally, and be led, as it were, by the providencies of God. God will gently arrest you if you mistake. God has the same right to incline and move the heart as to possess it. When the soul is perfectly yielding, it loses all its own consistency, so to speak, in order to take any moment the shape that God gives it; as water takes all the form of the vases in which it is put, and also all the colors. Let there be no longer any resistance in your mind, and your heart will soon mingle in the ocean of love; you will float easily, and be at rest.