A second vision of the most august Trinity was granted to Marie Guyart, just two years after she had been favoured with the first. She was then in her twenty-seventh year, and seven years had elapsed since the memorable vision of the application of the precious blood of Jesus to her soul. In this second vision, the will was more strongly affected than the intellect; the heart absolutely consumed with the burning fire of love; the mind, as before, inundated with floods of light. This grace gave, as it were, the finishing touch to the beauty of her soul, seeming to supply what had hitherto been wanting to its perfection. While her spirit was absorbed, and in a manner annihilated in the contemplation of the three most adorable Persons of the Trinity, the Eternal Word, according to His promise, united her to Himself in close, mysterious bonds which there are no human words to describe. [Footnote: The lives of St. Francis of Assisium, St. Teresa, St Catherine of Sienna, St. Gertrude, and some other saints furnish instances of supernatural favours similar to that now granted to the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation.] "He that is joined to the Lord, is one spirit" (1 Cor. v. 17). Often had she sighed for this hour, and with the Spouse in the Canticles besought the Lord to show her His face, and to let her hear His voice-- that face so comely, and that voice so sweet. Now at last, possession had replaced hope, so now she might entone the canticle of triumph, "I found him whom my soul loveth: I hold him: and I will not let him go. My beloved to me, and I to him who feedeth among the lilies. Till the "glorious dawn of eternity" break, and the shadows of time retire," (Cant. iii. 4, ii., 17.) "when I shall see Him as He is, face to face, and know Him even as I am known" (l Cor, xiii. 12). She seemed to have passed into a new state of being. Ardent as her love of God had been before, it now rose to heights hitherto unknown. Her whole soul appeared to be transformed into love. Her life became one unbroken act, one uninterrupted hymn of ecstatic love. In the busy streets, in distracting business, amidst household cares and duties, at all times and in all places, she gave vent to her irrepressible transports in the sweet song of ceaseless praise, silently entoned within her own heart, and audible only to her heavenly Spouse and His angels. Even in sleep, she could scarcely be said to discontinue it, for while she slept, her heart watched, and at each interruption to her short repose, it resumed the strain, returning to the actual exercise of love with the first moment of full awakening consciousness. Sometimes fearing that her emotions might betray themselves exteriorly, she relieved their uncontrollable impetuosity by committing them to writing, afterwards burning these effusions. A few of them, however, by chance escaped destruction, and have happily reached us. From these, as well as from the account of her