Elsewhere he writes: "What does our Lord love to do with His gift of
eternal life, but to bestow it on souls that are poor, feeble, and of
little account in their own eyes? Yes, indeed, dearly beloved children,
we must hope, and that with great confidence, to live throughout a happy
eternity. The greater our misery the greater should be our confidence."
These, indeed, are his very words in his second conference.

Again in one of his letters he says: "Why? What would this good and
all-merciful God do with His mercy; this God, whom we ought so worthily to
honour for His goodness? What, I say, would He do with it if He did not
share it with us, miserable as we are? If our wants and imperfections did
not serve as a stage for the display of His graces and favours, what use
would He make of this holy and infinite perfection?"

This is the lesson left us by our Blessed Father, and we ought, indeed,
to hope with that lively hope animated by love, without which none can
be saved. And this lively hope, what is it, but a firm and unwavering
confidence that we shall, through God's grace and God's mercy, attain to
the joy of heaven, which, being infinite, is boundless and unmeasurable.


UPON SELF-DISTRUST.

Distrust of self and confidence in God are the two mystic wings of the
dove; that is to say, of the soul which, having learnt to be simple, takes
its flight and rests in God, the great and sovereign object of its love, of
its flight, and of its repose.

_The Spiritual Combat_, which is an excellent epitome of the science of
salvation and of heavenly teaching, makes these two things, distrust of