How, O my God! can I cause Thy creatures to relish what I advance? Must I, possessing a treasure capable of enriching all, see souls perish in their poverty? Must I see them die like desert plants when I point out to them the source of living waters? Come, simple souls, who have no feeling of devotion whatever, no talent, not even the first elements of instruction,--you who understand nothing of spiritual terms, who are filled with admiration and astonishment by the eloquence of the learned,--come and I will teach you the secret of excelling these brilliant intellects; and I will make perfection so attainable that you will find it within you, about you, around you, at every step. I will unite you to God, and He will hold you by the hand from the moment you begin to practise what I tell you. Come, not to learn the chart of this spiritual country, but to possess it, and to walk at ease therein without fear of going astray. Come, not to study the theory of divine grace, nor to learn what it has effected in all ages and is still effecting, but to be simply the subjects of its operations. You have no need to learn and ingenuously repeat the words addressed to others: divine grace shall utter to you alone all that you require. _CHAPTER XII._ The Divine Action alone can sanctify us, for it forms us after the Divine Model of our Perfection. The divine action executes in time the designs of the eternal Wisdom in regard to all things. God alone can make known to each soul the design which it is destined to realize. Though you read the will of God in regard to others, this knowledge cannot direct you in anything. In the Word, in God Himself, is the design after which you should be formed, and after which you are modelled by the divine action. In the Word the divine action finds that to which every soul may be conformed. Holy Scripture contains a portion of this design, and the work of the Holy Spirit in souls completes it after the model which the Word presents. Is it not evident that the only secret for receiving the impress of this eternal design is to be passively submissive in His hands, and that no intellectual effort or speculation will help us to attain it? Is it not manifest that skill, intelligence, or subtlety of mind will not effect this work, but passive self-abandonment to the divine will, yielding ourselves like metal to the mould, like canvas to the brush, or like stone to the sculptor? It is clear that a knowledge of the divine mysteries which the will of God effects in all ages is not what renders us conformable to the design which the Word has conceived for us. No: it is the impress of the divine Hand; and this imprint is not graven in the mind through the medium of thought, but upon the will through its submission to the will of God.