"Your wife," he went on to say, meaning the Church, whose ring when he consecrated me he had put on my finger, "is far more holy, far more able to make you holy than was that good man's faithful wife, whose memory is blessed. It is true that the many spiritual children whom she lays in your arms are a cause of so much anxiety that your whole life is a species of martyrdom, but remember that in this most bitter bitterness you will find peace for your soul, the peace of God which is beyond all thought or imagination. If you quit your place in order to seek repose, possibly God will permit your pretended tranquillity to be disturbed by as many vexations as the good brother Leone's, who, amid all his household cares in the monastery, was often visited by heavenly consolations. Of these he was deprived when, by permission extorted from his Superior, he had retired into his cell in order, as he said, to give himself up more absolutely to contemplation. Know (Oh! how deeply these words are engraven on my memory) that God hates the peace of those whom He had destined for war. "He is the God of armies and of battles, as well as of peace, and he compares the Sulamite, the peaceful soul, to an army drawn up in battle array and in that formation terrible to its enemies." I may add that our Blessed Father's predictions were perfectly verified, and after his death when the very things he had spoken of happened to me I remembered his words with tears. As I write I call to mind another instance of his delightful manner which you will like to hear. Young as I was when consecrated a Bishop, it was his desire that I should discharge all the duties of my holy office without leaving out any single one of them, although I was inclined to make one exception, that of hearing confessions. I considered myself too young for this most responsible work, and wanting in that prudence and wisdom which are born of experience. Our Blessed Father, however, thought differently in the matter, and I, holding this judgment in so much higher esteem than my own, gave way, bent my neck under the yokes and took my place in the confessional. There I was besieged by penitents, who scarcely allowed me any time for rest or refreshment. One day, worn out with this labour, I wrote to St. Francis, saying, among other things, that intending to make a Confessor he had really made a Martyr. In answering my letter he said that he knew well that the vehemence of my spirit suffered the pangs of a woman in travail, but then I must take courage and remember that it is written, _a woman when she is in labour hath sorrow because her hour is come; but when she hath brought forth the child she remembereth no more the anguish for joy that a man is born into the world_.[1] [Footnote 1: John xvi. 21.] UPON DAILY MASS. HIS ADVICE TO A YOUNG PRIEST.[1]