e who
are still shut up in themselves or only live for themselves.

The joy which such a soul possesses in its God is so great, that it
experiences the truth of those words of the royal prophet, "All they
who are in thee, O Lord, are like persons ravished with joy." To such a
soul the words of our Lord seem to be addressed, "Your joy no man shall
take from you." John 16:22. It is as it were plunged in a river of
peace. Its prayer is continual. Nothing can hinder it from praying to
God, or from loving Him. It amply verifies these words in the
Canticles, "I sleep but my heart waketh;" for it finds that even sleep
itself does not hinder it from praying. Oh, unutterable happiness! Who
could ever have thought that a soul, which seemed to be in the utmost
misery, should ever find a happiness equal to this? Oh, happy poverty,
happy loss, happy nothingness, which gives no less than God Himself in
His own immensity, no more circumscribed to the limited manner of the
creature, but always drawing it out of that, to plunge it wholly into
His own divine essence.

Then the soul knows that all the states of self-pleasing visions,
openings, ecstasies and raptures, are rather obstacles; that they do
not serve this state which is far above them; because the state which
has supports, has pain to lose them; yet cannot arrive at this without
such loss. In this are verified the words of an experienced saint;
"When I would," says he, "possess nothing through self-love, everything
was given me without going after it." Oh, happy dying of the grain of
wheat, which makes it produce an hundredfold! The soul is then so
passive, so equally disposed to receive from the hand of God either
good or evil, as is astonishing. It receives both the one and the other
without any selfish emotions, letting them flow and be lost as they
come. They pass away as if they did not touch.

After I finished my retreat with the Ursulines at Tonon, I returned
through Geneva and, having found no other means of conveyance, the
French resident lent me a horse. As I knew not how to ride I made some
difficulty of doing it; but as he assured me that it was a very quiet
horse, I ventured to mount. There was a sort of a smith, who looking at
me with a wild haggard look, struck the horse a blow on the back, just
as I had got upon him, which made him give a leap. He threw me on the
ground with such force that they thought I was killed. I fell on my
temple. My cheekbone and two