But iniquity can never protect its followers, and the deserters from God’s cause reap death, eternal death. The wicked ever believe themselves invincible; but oh, my God, who shall resist Thee! Were the powers of earth and hell ranged against one single soul, she would have naught to fear in abandoning herself to the will of God. That apparent might and irresistible power of iniquity, that head of gold, that body of silver, brass, and iron, is but a phantom of glittering dust. A pebble overthrows it and makes it the sport of the winds. How admirable is the work of the Holy Spirit throughout all ages! The revolutions which irresistibly carry men along with them, the brilliant heroes heralded with so much pomp, who shine like stars above the rest of mankind, the marvels of the age, are all but as the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, which at his awakening fled with all its terrors. All these things are only sent to exercise the courage of the children of God; and when their virtue is proved and confirmed, He permits them to overcome these monsters, and continues to send new warriors into the field. So that this life is a continual warfare which exercises the courage of the saints on earth, and causes joy in heaven and confusion in hell. Thus all opposition to the will, the order of God, serves but to render it more adorable. The servers of iniquity are the slaves of justice, and from the ruins of Babylon the divine action builds the heavenly Jerusalem. APPENDIX. Our readers will be grateful to us for adding to Father Caussade’s treatise a few methods which facilitate the practice of abandonment. To recommend these methods it suffices to say that their authors are St. Francis de Sales, Saint Jane Frances de Chantal, Bossuet, and Father Surin. I. A very easy Means of acquiring Peace of Heart. BY FATHER SURIN, S. J. It seems to me that the multiplicity of methods we employ to acquire and practise virtue is one of the obstacles to our being solidly established therein. Not that I counsel being so irrevocably bound to one method that we are not ready to change when God’s attraction changes. But, after all, this attraction at bottom never changes, and only presents itself under a more spiritual form. They who will be faithful to the following rules will have no difficulty in practising the virtues appropriate to the circumstances, the time, and the place in which they find themselves, and in relishing in the exercise of these virtues the peace and holy liberty of the children of God. 1st. Let us be fully convinced that we have but one thing to do: to possess each moment the fulness of our mind, without permitting the reasonable will to uselessly recall the past or excite vain anxieties concerning the future.