*6. “Praying to God, says he in one of his prayers, before the holy sacrament, a poor man came to me to beg an alms. In this instant it was given me to understand, that if we were well enlightened, _we should never imagine ourselves to be hindred, by any person or thing_: because we should in all things regard the order of God, conducting all to our advantage; we should see that both inward and outward distractions are to be received with this same spirit; and that the uneasiness these little accidents give us, springs purely from our want of mortification. “We ought indeed, as far as we can, to shun the occasions. But when they come, we must look upon them as ordered by God, and receive and bear them with all sweetness, humility and reverence: and, though they interrupt us, the order of God is not interrupted in us. And this indeed is the great secret of the spiritual life; this is paradise upon earth. “In truth, nothing troubles us but thro’ our own fault: all the vexation which we inwardly feel, or outwardly shew, when any one crosses or hinders us from doing any thing, flows from the disorder of our too much engaged spirit. For removing of which, and the keeping our hearts in peace we must mark this well: _whoever hinders us from doing one good work, thereby gives us the means of practising another_. *A man suppose, interrupts your reading and prayer. But he gives you an occasion of exercising patience, which at this time will please God, and perfect you, more than all those employments. In them there was something of your own will; but in this you wholly renounce yourself. And the fulness of God is not, but in the emptiness of the creature.” 7. One great source of M. _de Renty_’s patience, was the high esteem he had of sufferings, which sometimes made him ready to cry out with that holy woman, “Either to die or suffer”! “I see says he, that in a manner, every thing is unprofitable in this life but to suffer. Every pleasure is a too hasty seizure of that recompence, which is not due to criminals, who sojourn in this world only to be purged. Some pleasures indeed may be sometimes necessary, in regard of our weakness, but even they are apt to hinder the soul from attaining so high a degree of perfection.”