ow His will.

On my return from Paris, I left myself in the hands of God, resolved
not to take any step, either to make the thing succeed or to hinder it,
either to advance or retard it, but singly to move as He should be
pleased to direct me. I had mysterious dreams, which portended nothing
but crosses, persecutions and afflictions. My heart submitted to
whatever it should please God to ordain. I had one which was very
significant.

Being employed in some necessary work, I saw near me a little animal
which appeared to be dead. This animal I took to be the envy of some
persons, which seemed to have been dead for some time. I took it up,
and as I saw it strove hard to bite me, and that it magnified to the
eye, I cast it away. I found thereupon that it filled my fingers with
sharp-pointed prickles like needles. I came to one of my acquaintance
to get him to take them out; but he pushed them deeper in, and left me
so, till a charitable priest of great merit, (whose countenance is
still present with me, though I have not yet seen him, but believe I
shall before I die) took this animal up with a pair of pincers. As soon
as he held it fast, those sharp prickles fell off, of themselves. I
found that I easily entered into a place, which before had seemed
inaccessible. And although the mire was up to my girdle, in my way to a
deserted church, I went over it without getting any dirt. It will be
easy to see in the sequel what this signified.

Doubtless you will wonder that I, who makes so little account of things
extraordinary, relate dreams. I do it for two reasons; first out of
fidelity, having promised to omit nothing of what should come to my
mind; secondly, because it is the method God makes use of to
communicate Himself to faithful souls, to give them foretokens of
things to come, which concern them. Thus mysterious dreams are found in
many places of the holy Scriptures. They have singular properties, as--

1. To leave a certainty that they are mysterious, and will have their
effect in their season.

2. To be hardly ever effaced out of the memory, though one forgets all
others.

3. To redouble the certainty of their truth every time one thinks of
them.

4. They generally leave a certain unction, a divine sense or savor at
one's waking.

I received letters from sundry religious persons, some of whom lived
far from me, and from one another, relating to my going forth in the
service of God, and some of them to Geneva