being
poor villagers, the better to earn their livelihood and to serve God.
One of them read from time to time, while the others were at work, and
not one went out without asking leave of the eldest. They wove
ribbands, or spun, the strong supporting the weak. They separated these
poor girls, and others beside them, in several villages, and drove them
out of the church.

It was the friars of the very order whom our Lord made use of to
establish prayer in (I know not how) many places. Into the places where
they went, they carried a hundred times more books of prayer than those
which their brethren had burned. The hand of God appeared to me
wonderfully in these things.

One day when I was sick, a brother who had skill in curing diseases,
came for a charitable collection, but hearing I was ill, came in to see
me, and gave me medicines proper for my disorder. We entered into a
conversation which revived in him the love he had for God, which he
acknowledged had been too much stifled by his occupations. I made him
comprehend that there was no employment which should hinder him from
loving God, and from being occupied within himself. He readily believed
me, as he already had a good share of piety, and of an interior
disposition. Our Lord conferred on him many favors, and gave him to be
one of my true children.

I saw at this time, or rather experienced the ground on which God
rejects sinners from His bosom. All the cause of God's rejection is in
the will of the sinner. If that will submits, how horrible soever he
be, God purifies him in his love, and receives him into his grace; but
while that will rebels, the rejection continues. For want of ability
seconding his inclination, he should not commit the sin he is inclined
to, yet he never can be admitted into grace till the cause ceases,
which is this wrong will, rebellious to the divine law. If that once
submits, God then totally removes the effects of sin, which stain the
soul, by washing away the defilements which he has contracted. If that
sinner dies in the time that his will is rebellious and turned toward
sin, as death fixes forever the disposition of the soul, and the cause
of its impurity is ever subsisting, such soul can never be received
into God. Its rejection must be eternal, as there is such an absolute
opposition between essential purity and essential impurity. And as this
soul, from its own nature necessarily tends to its own center, it is
continually reject