A soul becomes subject to the divine action the moment a good will is formed in her heart; and this action influences her according to the degree of her self-abandonment. The art of self-abandonment is simply the art of loving; divine love grants all things to the soul who refuses Him nothing. And as God’s love inspires the desires of a soul who lives for him, He can never refuse them; therefore, cannot love desire what it pleases? The divine action only considers the good will of a soul; the capacity or incapacity of the other faculties neither attract nor repel it. If it find a soul good, pure, upright, simple, submissive, it is all it requires; it takes possession of this soul and of all her faculties, and so disposes all things for her good that she finds means of sanctification in everything. That which would give death to others, should it enter this soul will be harmless, for the antidote of her good will will arrest the effect of the poison. If she stray to the brink of the abyss, the divine action will withhold her from its depths, or if she fall it will rescue her. And indeed the faults of these souls are but faults of frailty and little perceptible; God’s love knows how to turn them to her advantage, and by secret and ineffable ways teaches her what she should say and do according to the circumstances in which she is placed. Such souls receive as it were rays of divine intelligence: _Intellectus bonus omnibus facientibus eum_. For this divine intelligence accompanies them in all their wanderings, and rescues them from the snares into which their simplicity leads them. Have they committed themselves by some mistaken measure? Providence disposes a happy event which releases them. Vainly are intrigues multiplied against them; Providence overcomes all the efforts of their enemies, and so confounds and bewilders them that they fall into their own snares. Do they seek to surprise the soul? Providence, by means of some apparently unimportant action which she unconsciously performs, rescues her from the embarrassments into which she has been led by her own uprightness and the malice of her enemies. Oh, the exquisite wisdom of this good will! What prudence in its simplicity, what ingenuity in its innocence, what frankness in its mysteries, what mystery in its candor!