In one of his Conferences he expresses the same thought as follows: "In my opinion the divine Majesty has made choice of you to go forth as perfume-bearers, seeing that He has commissioned you to go and scatter far and wide the sweet odours of the virtues of your Institute. And as young maidens love sweet odours (for the Bride in the Canticle of Canticles says that the name of her Beloved is _as oil_, or balm, shedding on all sides the sweetest perfumes, and _therefore_, she adds, the _young maidens_ have followed Him, attracted by His divine perfumes), so do you, my dear sisters, as perfume-bearers of the Divine Goodness, go forth, shedding all around the incomparable sweetness of sincere humility, gentleness, and charity, so that many young maidens may be attracted thereby, and may embrace your manner of life, and that they may even in this world enjoy, like you, a holy loving peace and tranquillity of soul, and in the world to come eternal happiness." HE REBUKES PHARISAISM. On one occasion when the Sisters of the Visitation had made a foundation in a city famous for the piety of its inhabitants and in which there were already a number of Religious Houses highly esteemed for external austerities and severe discipline, they met with much criticism and even harsh treatment on account of their own gentler and apparently easier rule. In the end, they made known to Blessed Francis what they had to put up with. I ought, perhaps, to say that, among other ill-natured remarks, they had been reproached with having strewn a path of roses to lead them to Heaven, and with having brought our Saviour down from the Cross; meaning that they did not practise many corporal austerities. Those who said this quite forgot the fact that this Order of the Visitation was founded for the reception and consolation largely of women, whether young or old, weak in bodily health, though strong and healthy in mind, whose feeble frames could not support the external rigour demanded by other Communities. Our Blessed Father, as I told you, having heard from letters addressed to him by the Superior, of the harsh treatment and sufferings of his poor daughters, wrote to her several times on the subject. The following words of his are especially remarkable for their beauty: