The advantages secured by interior recollection are so great and the consequence of its absence so prejudicial that the Holy Ghost distinctly declares its absence to be the cause of all the evils that desolate the earth. _"With desolation is the earth laid desolate because there is no one who thinketh in his heart."_ This is a terrible truth, but it is not the less real on that account. To be convinced of this you need only descend into your own heart, and you will soon discover that the want of interior recollection has been the cause of the most of your faults. It is during the interior composure of the soul's faculties that we understand what the Lord says. _I will hear what the Lord God will speak in me, for he will speak peace unto them that are converted to the heart._ (Psalm 84.) But if we find nothing in the heart but trouble and obscurity we must naturally find many pretexts to justify our preoccupation with external things; and like a man, finding his house the abode of pain and displeasure, remains away from it as long as possible, we, too, will shun as far as possible the scene of our misery. It is, therefore, of most vital importance for you to form in your own heart an agreeable and useful society with which you can always converse. This society you carry with you wherever you go, for you are with yourself at all times; and since you have not always the satisfaction to enjoy the company of others you should learn how to turn to good account this privation by making it an incentive to cultivate with industry an agreeable society in your own heart; and the best way to insure the success of this work is to accustom yourself to converse with God who is always present in your heart, except when you expel him by mortal sin. The work itself must be made up of pious readings, meditation and prayer, which will furnish you with such thoughts and affections as will prove to be constant friends in pain as in joy; hasten to amass these honeyed treasures during the noon-tide of life; for the winter will soon come upon you, the flowers of life shall lose their perfume and their withered corolla shall be strewn on the ground. Then you will not have time to enrich the soul with the longed-for booty when you will be reduced to the miserable condition of those women who endeavor to conceal the poverty of their mind and heart by a foolish and puerile deception. CHAPTER XVIII. MEDITATION AND REFLECTION. Meditation and reflection are two words that express two shades of difference of the same idea. In meditation we consider supernatural things pertaining to our eternal salvation. The soul maintains herself with difficulty in the love and practice of virtue without the help derived from meditation; for when she gives it up, her fervor in piety grows lax, temptations became more frequent and obstinate, often followed by humiliating falls.