21. This answer was a great comfort to us; so also was the conduct of certain holy persons who were usually against us: they were now pacified, and some of them even helped us. One of them was the saintly nobleman [9] of whom I spoke before; [10] he looked on it--so, indeed, it was--as a means of great perfection, because the whole foundation was laid in prayer. He saw also very many difficulties before us, and no way out of them,--yet he gave up his own opinion, and admitted that the work might be of God. Our Lord Himself must have touched his heart, as He also did that of the doctor, the priest and servant of God, to whom, as I said before, [11] I first spoke, who is an example to the whole city,--being one whom God maintains there for the relief and progress of many souls: he, too, came now to give us his assistance. 22. When matters had come to this state, and always with the help of many prayers, we purchased a house in a convenient spot; and though it was small, I cared not at all for that, for our Lord had told me to go into it as well as I could,--that I should see afterwards what He would do; and how well I have seen it! I saw, too, how scanty were our means; and yet I believed our Lord would order these things by other ways, and be gracious unto us. 1. See ch. v. § 14, ch. vi. § 1. 2. Ch. xxxi. § 3. 3. In 1558 (De la Fuente). 4. This was said by Maria de Ocampo, niece of St. Teresa, then living in the monastery of the Incarnation, but not a religious; afterwards Maria Bautista, Prioress of the Carmelites at Valladolid (Ribera, i. 7). 5. Ch. xxiv. § 5. Doña Guiomar de Ulloa. 6. The Provincial of the Carmelites: F. Angel de Salasar (De la Fuente). 7. F. Pedro Ibañez (De la Fuente). 8. Ch. xxxiii. § 8. 9. Francis de Salcedo. 10. Ch. xxiii. § 6. 11. Gaspar Daza. See ch. xxiii. § 6. Chapter XXXIII. The Foundation of the Monastery Hindered. Our Lord Consoles the Saint. 1. When the matter was in this state--so near its conclusion, that on the very next day the papers were to be signed--then it was that the Father Provincial changed his mind. I believe that the change was divinely ordered--so it appeared afterwards; for while so many prayers were made, our Lord was perfecting His work and arranging its execution in another way. When the Provincial refused us, my confessor bade me forthwith to think no more of it, notwithstanding the great trouble and distress which our Lord knows it cost me to bring it to this state. When the work was given up and abandoned, people were the more convinced that it was altogether the foolishness of women; and the complaints against me were multiplied, although I had until then this commandment of my Provincial to justify me.