"REPLY.-It is not necessary to say much to God. Oftentimes one does not speak much to a friend whom one is delighted to see; one looks at him with pleasure; one speaks certain short words to him which are mere expressions of feeling. The mind has no part in them, or next to none; one keeps repeating the same words. It is not so much a variety of thoughts that one seeks in intercourse with a friend, as a certain repose and correspondence of heart. It is thus we are with God, who does not disdain to be our tenderest, most cordial, most familiar, most intimate friend. A word, a sigh, a sentiment, says all to God; it is not always necessary to have transports of sensible tenderness; a will all naked and dry, without life, without vivacity, without pleasure, is often purest in the sight of God. In fine, it is necessary to content one's self with giving to Him what He gives it to give, a fervent heart when it is fervent, a heart firm and faithful in its aridity, when He deprives it of sensible fervor. It does not always depend on you to feel; but it is necessary to wish to feel. Leave it to God to choose to make you feel sometimes, in order to sustain your weakness and infancy in Christian life; sometimes weaning you from that sweet and consoling sentiment which is the milk of babes, in order to humble you, to make you grow, and to make you robust in the violent exercise of faith, by causing you to sweat the bread of the strong in the sweat of your brow. Would you only love God according as He will make you take pleasure in loving Him? You would be loving your own tenderness and feeling, fancying that you were loving God. Even while receiving sensible gifts, prepare yourself by pure faith for the time when you might be deprived of them and you will suddenly succumb if you had only relied on such support. "O forgot to speak of some practices which may, at the beginning, facilitate the remembrance of the offering one ought to make to God, of all the ordinary acts of the day. "1. Form the resolution to do so, every morning, and call yourself to account in your self-examination at night. "2. Make no resolutions but for good reasons, either from propriety or the necessity of relaxing the mind, etc. Thus, in accustoming one's self to retrench the useless little by little, one accustoms one's self to offer what is not proper to curtail. "3. Renew one's self in this disposition whenever one is alone, in order to be better prepared to recollect it when in company. "4. Whenever one surprises one's self in too great dissipation, or in speaking too freely of his neighbor, let him collect himself and offer to God all the rest of the conversation. "5. To flee, with confidence, to God, to act according to His will, when one enters company, or engages in some occupation which may cause one to fall into temptation. The sight of danger ought to warn of the need there is to lift the heart toward Him by one who may be preserved from it."