We must endeavor to habitually maintain an air of childlike gentleness and good-will. Ah! what can we fear from this divine fortune? Guided, sustained, and protected by the Providence of God, the whole exterior conduct of His children should be nothing less than heroic. The alarming objects which oppose their progress are naught in themselves: they are only sent to embellish their lives by still more glorious actions. They entangle them in embarrassments of every kind, whence human prudence can see no issue, and, feeling its weakness, stops short, confounded. Then does the divine fortune gloriously manifest what it is for souls who wholly trust therein. It extricates them more marvellously than the writers of fiction with unrestrained imagination in the leisure and privacy of their study unraveled the intrigues and perils of their imaginary heroes, bringing them invariably to a happy end. More admirably still does it guide them safely through the perils of death, the snares of demons, the terrors of temptation, the fears of hell. It elevates these souls to heaven, and they are all the real subject of those mystic histories more beautiful and curious than any ever invented by the crude imagination of man. Then onward, my soul, through perils and fears, guided, directed, and sustained by the invisible, all-powerful, unerring Hand of divine Providence. Let us go on fearlessly in joy and peace to the end, turning obstacles into victories, remembering that it was to struggle and conquer that we enrolled ourselves under His banner. _Exivit vincens ut vinceret_, and every step under His guidance is a victory. The book of souls lies open before the Holy Spirit, and their history is still written, for holy souls will furnish material for its pages to the end of the world. This history is but the relation of God’s operations and designs upon man, and it depends upon ourselves whether we shall appear in its pages and continue its narration by uniting our sufferings and actions to His divine will. No; let nothing we have to do or suffer alarm us: it can cause us no loss; it is only sent us that we may furnish material for that holy history, which is increasing day by day. _CHAPTER IX._ Love holds the Place of All Things to Souls who walk in the Way of Abandonment. God, while He despoils a soul who wholly abandons herself to Him, gives her something which takes the place of all things--of light, of strength, of life, of wisdom. This gift is His love. Divine love is like a supernatural instinct in these souls. Everything in nature has that which is suited to its kind; each flower has its peculiar charm, each animal its instinct, and each creature its perfection. And so it is in the different states of grace; each has its special grace, and this is a recompense to every one whose good will brings him in harmony with the state in which Providence has placed him.