ch lit up her expressive features, the ready utterance and sweet
voice, and the charm of manner which never left her, were no unfitting
media to convey the tidings of mercy to many a benighted seeker after
rest and peace.

IV.

AFFLICTIONS AND GLOOM.

At this time she found great benefit from the counsel of her friend
Genevieve Granger, the prioress of the Benedictine convent, who
encouraged her in her determination to avoid all conformity to the
world, and to live wholly to God. She once more made progress in the
Divine life, and the trials which now came thickly upon her were the
means of blessing her soul with increase of purity and peace. Hers were
no light trials. Besides the constant annoyance from her implacable
mother-in-law and the ill-tempered behaviour of her husband, heavy
afflictions befell her. The terrible small-pox attacked her, and spoilt
her beautiful face, though it left her alive. Her cruel mother-in-law,
instead of tenderly nursing her, basely neglected her, debarred her from
medical attendance, and imperilled her life. The loss of her beauty
alienated her husband's affection--such as it was--from her, and he
became still more open to unfavourable influences. Burdened as she was
with these troubles, yet another was added. Her younger son, a lovely
boy four years of age, was carried off by the same fearful disease. Yet
in all these afflictions she showed a spirit of holy resignation.

In the summer of 1671 she made the acquaintance of Father La Combe, who
came with an introductory letter from her half-brother Father La Mothe.
He was in search of inward peace, and Madame Guyon's counsels, the
outcome of deep thought and Divine enlightenment, were of great service
to him. The next year was marked by other trying losses. Her little
daughter, who latterly had been her one source of human comfort, died
rather suddenly. This was probably the severest trial of her life. In
the same month she lost her affectionate father. Yet in these
bereavements also she charged not God foolishly, but took them as a part
of the discipline wisely ordered to knit her soul in closer union
to Him.

[Illustration]

On July 22, 1672, the fourth anniversary of the day on which she first
found peace, at the suggestion of her correspondent Genevieve Granger,
she put her signature and seal to a covenant which that lady had drawn
up. "The contract," she says,[1] "ran thus: 'I N. promise to take as my
husband our Lord Je