How strange the association of our thoughts! A day of the month recalls
my infancy, and see, all the recollections of my former years are growing
up around me! Why was I so happy then? I consider well, and nothing is
sensibly changed in my condition. I possess, as I did then, health and
my daily bread; the only difference is, that I am now responsible for
myself! As a child, I accepted life when it came; another cared and
provided for me. So long as I fulfilled my present duties I was at peace
within, and I left the future to the prudence of my father! My destiny
was a ship, in the directing of which I had no share, and in which I
sailed as a common passenger. There was the whole secret of childhood's
happy security. Since then worldly wisdom has deprived me of it. When
my lot was intrusted to my own and sole keeping, I thought to make myself
master of it by means of a long insight into the future. I have filled
the present hour with anxieties, by occupying my thoughts with the
future; I have put my judgment in the place of Providence, and the happy
child is changed into the anxious man.

A melancholy course, yet perhaps an important lesson. Who knows that,
if I had trusted more to Him who rules the world, I should not have been
spared all this anxiety? It may be that happiness is not possible here
below, except on condition of living like a child, giving ourselves up to
the duties of each day as it comes, and trusting in the goodness of our
heavenly Father for all besides.

This reminds me of my Uncle Maurice! Whenever I have need to strengthen
myself in all that is good, I turn my thoughts to him; I see again the
gentle expression of his half-smiling, half-mournful face; I hear his
voice, always soft and soothing as a breath of summer! The remembrance
of him protects my life, and gives it light. He, too, was a saint and