Mary is the root of that beautiful flower upon which the Holy Spirit rests with the fulness of His gifts. Whoever then desires to obtain the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, must seek the flower upon the stem; because we reach the flower through the stem, and through the flower we find the Holy Spirit, Who thereon reposes. Let us go to Jesus, through Mary; and by means of Jesus, we find the grace of the Holy Spirit.--_St. Bonaventure._ Give your soul to God a thousand times in the day; fix your interior eyes upon His sweetness, in imitation of Mary; place Him upon your breast as a delicious nosegay, and make every possible effort to excite within you an impassioned love for this Divine Spouse.--_St. Francis of Sales._ There is no doubt that he who perfumes the world by the odour of his good example, thus teaching others the way of justice, will one day shine in eternity as a most splendid star in the firmament.--_The same._ EXAMPLE. _The Prayer 'Memorare.'_ St. Francis of Sales had received, in his youth, a miraculous proof of the protection of Mary. Being assaulted by a violent temptation to believe himself reprobated by God, he experienced such anguish that he compared it to the sorrows of death and the torments of hell. After a month passed in these desolating trials, earnestly desiring to be delivered from them, he humbly prostrated himself before a statue of the Blessed Virgin, and with great confidence recited the _Memorare_, beseeching Our Lady to obtain from her Divine Son that, if he should ever have the misfortune of being eternally separated from his God, he might at least love Him during the present lifetime with all his powers. The Most Holy Virgin could not be deaf to such a petition, and Francis quickly recovered the peace of heart he had lost. From that time he had the greatest confidence in this prayer, and recited it in every difficult undertaking, and recommended it warmly to all whom he directed. 'I remember,' says the Bishop of Belley, 'to have learnt this prayer from him, and in order to impress it more deeply in my heart, and to make use of it in all my afflictions, I wrote it down at the beginning of my breviary. I know, moreover, that he commended it much to the Nuns of the Visitation. He wished it to be repeated above all in times of great temptations, because the Mother of God is as terrible to the enemy as an army in battle array; the blessed fruit of her womb having crushed the head of the infernal serpent.' It is generally believed that St. Bernard was the author of this prayer.