As to exterior mortifications, they are performed here in the right spirit and with devotion. You know them: Some prostrate across the doorway with face to the ground, others hold out their arms in the form of a cross, others again wear a cord round their neck, and ask pardon, or mention and deplore their imperfections out loud, ask for an alms and the like. However, I permit them but rarely, because frequency lessens their power, and when done with devotion they profit and mortify those who perform them, and edify the others. You can of course allow them, but only at the times set down, unless the Sisters ask your permission, and let this come from themselves (illegible lines). They have come to fetch the letters. Good-day, dearest daughter. Always yours. Be humble in all things, and practice mortification of spirit. Vive Jésus. FOOTNOTES: [A] It was a common custom at this epoch to contract spiritual alliances as a mark of reverence, gratitude, and affection. It is of such an alliance that Saint Jane Frances here approves. Madame de Chevrières was a pious and devoted friend of the monastery at Lyons. [B] St. Francis de Sales. XV. _To Sisters Péronne Marie de Châtel and Marie Aimée de Blonay._ Vive [+] Jésus! ANNECY, 1616. MY DEAREST DAUGHTERS, I will begin by answering your last letter, and then go back as far as I am able to the preceding one, saying, please God, what He wishes me to say to you. First, then, my dear daughter, I'll tell you what Our Lord wants of you and of us all, a humble and tranquil submission to His most holy will in whatsoever happens, for everything is, without question, ordained by divine Providence for His glory, and for our gain; henceforth to be indifferent to health or sickness, consolation or desolation, the enjoyment or privation of what we most cherish, should be our aim. May our hearts have but one desire, that His holy will be accomplished in us and in regard to us. Let us not philosophize on things that happen to ourselves or to others, but, as I have already said, remaining sweetly humble, and tranquil, in the condition in which God has placed us. In pain patient, in sorrow enduring, in action active, without stopping to think whether we commit faults in this way or that, for such reflections are nothing but self-love. Instead of all that, look at God, and take faithfully as it presents itself every opportunity of practising suitable virtues. When you fail through cowardice or infidelity be not disturbed, make no reflections, humble yourself in meekness and confusion before God, and then lose no time in rising up again by an act of courage and holy confidence.