honored me; that to give one's self up to the help of souls, in the
purity of His Spirit, was to expose one's self to the most cruel
persecutions. These very words were imprinted on my heart: "To resign
ourselves to serve our neighbor is to sacrifice ourselves to a gibbet.
Such as now proclaim, 'Blessed is he who cometh in the name of the
Lord,' will soon cry out, 'Away with him, crucify him.'" When one of my
friends speaking of the general esteem the people had for me, I said to
her, "Observe what I now tell you, that you will hear curses cut of the
same mouths which at present pronounce blessings." Our Lord made me
comprehend that I must be conformable to Him in all His states; and
that, if He had continued in a private life with His parents, He never
had been crucified; that, when He would resign any of His servants to
crucifixion, He employed such in the ministry and service of their
neighbors. It is certain that all the souls employed herein by
apostolic destination from God, and who are truly in the apostolic
state, are to suffer extremely. I speak not of those who put themselves
into it, who, not being called of God in a singular manner, and having
nothing of the grace of the apostleship, have none of its crosses; but
of those only who surrender themselves to God without any reserve, and
who are willing with their whole hearts to be exposed, for His sake, to
sufferings without any mitigation.

CHAPTER 15

Among so great a number of good souls, on whom our Lord wrought much by
me, some were given me only as plants to cultivate. I knew their state,
but had not that near connection with, or authority over them, which I
had over others. It was then that I comprehended the true maternity
beyond what I had done before; for those of the latter kind were given
me as children, of whom some were faithful. I knew they would be so;
they were closely united to me in pure charity. Others were unfaithful;
I knew that of these some would never return from their infidelity, and
they were taken from me. Some, after slipping aside, were recovered.
Both of them cost me much distress and inward pain, when, for want of
courage to die to themselves, they gave up the point; and revolted from
the good beginning they had been favored with.

Our Lord, among such multitudes as followed Him on earth, had few true
children. Wherefore He said to His Father, "Those that thou gavest me I
have kept, and none of them is lost but the son