[Footnote 1: Rom. viii. 28.] [Footnote 2: Rom. viii. 28.] THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. "All by love, nothing by constraint." This was his favourite motto, and the mainspring of his direction of others. He has often said to me that those who try to force the human will are exercising a tyranny which is hateful to God and man. This was why he had such a horror of those masterful and dominant spirits which insist on being obeyed, _bon gré mal gré_, and would have every one give way to them. "Those," he often said, "who love to make themselves feared, fear to make themselves loved; and they themselves are more fearful than anyone else: for others only fear _them_, but they are afraid of every one." I have often heard him say these striking words: "In the royal galley of divine love there is no galley-slave; all the oarsmen are volunteers." And he expresses the same sentiment in Theotimus, when he says: "Divine love governs the soul with an incomparable sweetness; for no one of the slaves of love is made such by force, but love brings all things under its rule, with a constraint so delightful, that as nothing is so strong as love, nothing also is so sweet as its strength."[1] And in another part of the same book he makes a soul, attracted by the delicious perfume shed by the divine Bridegroom on his path, say: "Let no one think that Thou draggest me after Thee like an unwilling slave or a lifeless load. Ah! no. Thou drawest me by the _odour of Thine ointments_; though I follow Thee, it is not that Thou draggest me, but that Thou enticest me. Thy drawing is mighty, but not violent, since its whole force lies in its sweetness. Perfumes draw me to follow them in virtue only of their sweetness. And sweetness, how can it attract but sweetly and pleasantly?"[2] Following out this principle, he never gave a command even to those who were bound to obey him, whether his servants or his clergy, save in the form of a request or suggestion. He held in special veneration, and often inculcated upon me the command of St. Peter: _Feed the flock of God which is among you, not by constraint, but willingly, not for filthy lucre's sake, neither as lording it over the clergy, but being made a pattern of virtue to the flock._[3] And here, my sisters, I feel that if will be for your profit, although the story is not to my own credit, to relate a circumstance which occurred in the early years of my episcopate. I was young, impetuous, and impatient; eager to reform the abuses and disorders which from time to time I met with in my pastoral visitations. Often, too, I know, I was bitter and harsh when discouraged.