"When we were little children, how eagerly and busily we used to collect
tiny scraps of cloth, bits of wood, handfuls of clay, to build houses and
make little boats! And if any one destroyed these wonderful erections, how
unhappy we were; how bitterly we cried! But now we smile when we think how
trivial it all was.

"Well," he goes on to say, "let us, since we are but children, be pardoned
if we act as such; but, at the same time, do not let us grow cold and dull
in our work. If any one knocks over our little houses, and spoils our small
plans, do not let us now be unhappy or give way altogether on that account.
The less so because when the evening comes, and we need a roof, I mean when
death is at hand, these poor little buildings of ours will be quite unfit
to shelter us. We must then be safely housed in our Father's Mansion, which
is the Kingdom of His well-beloved Son."

[Footnote 1: 2 Paral. ix. 7.]
[Footnote 2: 1 Kings iii. 26.]


GOD SHOULD SUFFICE FOR US ALL.

A person of some consideration, and one who made much profession of living
a devout life, was overtaken by sudden misfortune, which deprived her of
almost all her wealth and left her plunged in grief. Her distress of mind
was so inconsolable that it led her to complain of the Providence of God,
who appeared, she said, to have forgotten her. All her faithful service and
the purity of her life seemed to have been in vain.

Blessed Francis, full of compassionate sympathy for her misfortunes, and