In the marvellous sermons of Pere Lacordaire are found suggestions that might well serve as a daily manual on this sublime and vital truth of the relation between the will of God and the daily experience. These sermons are among the world's treasures of help toward a higher spirituality. The argument of Pere De Caussade--one equally entitled to consideration--is that God reveals himself to us now, in ordinary events, as mysteriously and as adorably and with as much reality as in the great events of history or in the Holy Scriptures. "When the will of God reveals itself to a soul manifesting a desire to wholly possess her," says Pere De Caussade, "if the soul freely gives herself in return, she experiences most powerful assistance in all difficulties; she then tastes by experience the happiness of that coming of the Lord, and her enjoyment is in proportion to the degree in which she has learned to practice that self-abandonment which must bring her at all moments face to face with this ever adorable will." The entire philosophy of this is that the events of life are the language in which God speaks to us. The thought is as simple as it is impressive, and it is yet so great as to be fairly epoch-making in its complete realization. And it is more than an open question whether, even to a large majority of the most prayerful and ardent of Christian believers, there is not still a new aspect of life revealed in this simple acceptance of the common details of the day, the events of the hour, as the divine language which is to be read and followed. Because there is a more or less widespread conviction that events, circumstances, conditions are things to be battled with, in case they are not agreeable, and that there is a signal virtue in overcoming them. Nor is this conviction without value, too, and a large measure of truth, for aspiration and achievement must always be among the vital forces in creating the immediate future; and we must create the future as well as accept the present. "Thou speakest, Lord, to all mankind by general events. Thou speakest to each one in particular by the events of his every moment." Pere De Caussade proceeds to say:-- "But instead of respecting the mystery of Thy words and hearing Thy voice in all the occurrences of life, they only see therein chance, the acts, the caprice of men; they find fault with everything; they would add to, diminish, reform. They revere the word of the Lord, but have they no respect for words which are not conveyed by means of ink and paper, but by what they have to do and suffer from moment to moment,--do these words merit nothing?" This handwriting on the wall in the guise of the daily events is a message to be read by faith alone. Just here is the parting of the ways.