Dom Bruno, astonished at the vehemence of his words, opened his arms, and clasping him to his heart received him at once among his children. Then turning to those who stood around him, "My brothers," he said, "his is an undeniable vocation. May God of His clemency often send such labourers into the harvest of the Chartreuse." And to the young postulant, "Have confidence, my son, God will help you, and will love you, and you will love Him, and will serve Him among us. This is the miracle we expect you to work." You will ask me, perhaps, what use our Blessed Father could make of this example. I will tell you. When he was admitting any young girl into your congregation, my sisters, he invariably referred to it. He used to speak to her only of Calvary, of the nails, the thorns, the crosses, of inward mortification, of surrender of will, and crucifixion of private judgment, of dying wholly to self, in order to live only with God, in God, and for God: in fine, of living no longer according to natural inclinations and feelings, but absolutely according to the spirit of faith, and of your congregation. Did anyone object that your Order was not so rigorous, or severe, as he made it out to be; but that, on the contrary, the life led by its members was easy, without many outward austerities, as was proved by the fact that even the infirm and sickly were admitted into it, and attained to the same sanctity as the rest, he replied: "Believe me, that if the body is there preserved as if it were a vessel of election, the spirit is there tested and tried in all possible ways, since the spirit that fails to stand every possible trial is no stone fit for the building up of this congregation." He went on to quote from the life of St. Bernard. Against that holy man it was once urged that the austerities and bodily macerations practised in his Order frightened away young men, and deterred them from entering it, "Many," said the Saint, "see our crosses, but see not how well we are able to carry them. It happens to our crosses, as it does to those which are painted on the walls of a church when the Bishop in consecrating it makes a second cross upon them with holy oil. The people see the cross made by the painter, but they do not see that with which the Bishop has covered it. Our crosses, so plainly visible, are softened by very many inward consolations, which are concealed from the eyes of worldlings because they understand not the spiritual things of God, nor see how we can find peace in this bitterness which so repels those whose only thought is of themselves, and of their own pleasures. In very truth," our Blessed Father continued, "the worldling may notice in the rosebed of religion only the loveliness of the flowers, and the sweetness of their perfume, but these conceal many a thorn. The crosses of community life are hidden because the sisters of this congregation have by _interior_ mortification to make up for what is lacking in external austerities.