_April 4, 1907_ (from a diary).--I have not lost my calm though my soul is agitated, but I am mastering it. O God! if one could but remember that one is His messenger, that the divinity ought to shine through one! But what is hard is that if one only remembers this, one will not live, and yet one must live, live energetically and remember. Help me O Father. I have prayed a great deal of late that life might be better, for I am ashamed and cast down by the consciousness of the unrighteousness of my life. _July 12, 1897_ (from the letters).--I understand your trouble and sympathise with all my heart. It is your examination, try not to fail in it. Remember that it is the one chance of applying your faith to life. I always strengthen myself with that in difficult moments, and sometimes with success. 1897 (from the letters).--The doubts as to whether one makes concessions for the sake of not destroying love or for the sake of indulging in one's own weaknesses persist as ever, and the older I get, the more strongly I feel this sin, and I humble myself, but I do not submit, and I hope to rise up again. _March 10, 1899_ (from the letters).--It is very difficult and dreary and lonely for me and I am afraid of unpleasantness--of people being angry with me, and people are angry with me. _November 29, 1901_ (from a diary).--If you are suffering it is only from your not seeing everything (the time has not yet come). What is accomplished by those sufferings has not been revealed. _January 31, 1903_ (from the letters).--Sufferings are profitable just because a man in ordinary worldly life forgets the unbreakable bond which exists between all living creatures; the sufferings which he endures and of which he has been the cause to other people remind him of that bond. This bond is spiritual, seeing that the Son of God is one in all men; physical sufferings drive a man involuntarily into the spiritual sphere in which he feels in union with God and with the world, and in which he ... bears the sufferings caused by others as though caused by himself, and even joyfully takes upon himself the burden of suffering, taking it from others. In that is the profit and fruitfulness of suffering. _June 12, 1905_ (from a diary).--More and more I am pained by my abundance and the want surrounding me. _May 29, 1906_ (from a diary).--I am very heavy-hearted with shame at my life, and what to do I don't know: Lord, help me.