You are very dear to me, my child. Do not think I have forgotten you. God alone can render you happy. Give yourself wholly to him, never more to take yourself back. Love him with all your heart. Retire often within the closet of your heart to commune with God. Do not pray to him in a constrained and formal manner, but all simple and natural. God loves better the affectionate language of the heart, than, the cold and discursive thoughts of the intellect. The prayer of love softens the heart. Do not shrink from your ordinary duties. We are often more united to God, in our daily avocations, than in retirement. The reason is, our good Father holds us more closely, when we are most exposed to temptations. Endeavor to maintain, at all times, harmony and oneness with God. You have only to abandon yourself wholly to divine love, and perform all the duties that devolve upon you. Do not be restive, and thus mar God's beautiful design and operation upon your soul. Place in his bosom of rest, all your inquietudes, and allow him to carry you, as a little child is borne by its mother. This little one has only to regard, lovingly, the smiles of its tender mother. God will give you a wise discernment as to food and drink, and all the pleasures of life. He calls us to a temperate life, but not to a life too austere. We should avoid the _too much_ and the _too little_ in eating and drinking. I pray our divine Lord, to enlighten, strengthen and comfort your heart. LETTER TO HER SPIRITUAL GUIDE. The state in which I find myself, my Father, takes away from me entirely, the liberty to address you any longer as my Spiritual Guide. I realize so great a detachment from all things, that there remains in me only a triumphant, dominant love, which acknowledges no master but Love. It is my experience, that the closer the union of the soul with God, the more it is separated from all dependence on the creature. I find also, that the secret operations of divine love upon the soul, cannot be expressed. These operations do not consist in sweet and flattering expressions, neither in consolations, in the ordinary way, but in the discovery of mysterious truths; truths, which give so profound a knowledge of God, that the soul can find no language to give expression to these views. To speak, and to act, is the same thing with God. "He spake, and it was done." When the divine Word operates in the soul, without any obstruction, the soul becomes what this Word wills it should become. When Mary Magdalene was made whole, it was no more Mary Magdalene, but Jesus Christ, who lived in her. St. Paul says, "I live, yet not I, Christ liveth in me." In the same manner, the Word is incorporated into my soul.