of perdition," showing
that He lost not any beside of His apostles, or disciples, though they
sometimes made false steps.

Among the friars who came to see me, there was one order which
discovered the good effects of grace more than any other. Some of that
very order had before this, in a little town where Father La Combe was
in the exercise of his mission, been actuated with a false zeal, and
violent in persecuting all the good souls which had sincerely dedicated
themselves to God, plaguing them after such a manner as can scarce be
conceived. They burned all their books which treated of silence and
inward prayer, refusing absolution to such as were in the practice of
it, driving into consternation, and almost into despair, such as had
formerly led wicked lives, but were now reformed, and preserved in
grace by means of prayer, becoming spotless and blameless in their
conduct. These friars had proceeded to such an excess of wild zeal as
to raise a sedition in that town, in which a father of the oratory, a
person of distinction and merit, received strokes with a stick in the
open street, because he prayed extempore in the evenings, and on
Sundays made a short fervent prayer, which insensibly habituated these
good souls to the use and practice of the like.

I never had so much consolation as to see in this little town so many
pious souls who with a heavenly emulation gave up their whole hearts to
God. There were girls of twelve or thirteen years of age, who
industriously followed their work almost all the day long, in silence,
and in their employments enjoyed a communion with God, having acquired
a fixed habit. As these girls were poor, they placed themselves two and
two together, and such as could do it read to the others who could not.
One saw there the innocence of the primitive Christians revived. There
was in that town a poor laundress who had five children, and a husband
paralytic, lame in the right arm, and yet worse distempered in mind
than in body. He had little strength left for anything else than to
beat her. This poor woman bore it with all the meekness and patience of
an angel, while she by her labor supported him and his five children.
She had a wonderful gift of prayer, and amid her great suffering and
extreme poverty, preserved the presence of God, and tranquility of
mind. There was also a shopkeeper, and one who made locks, very much
affected with God. These were close friends. Sometimes the one and
some