ceived and animated with a zeal which they think right. Many of these
were now, by the artifices made use of, greatly imposed on in regard to
me. I was represented to them in an odious light, as a strange
creature. Since, therefore, I must, O my Lord, be conformable to Thee,
to please Thee; I set more value on my humiliation, and on seeing
myself condemned of everybody, than if I saw myself on the summit of
honor in the world. How often have I said, even in the bitterness of my
heart, that I should be more afraid of one reproach of my conscience,
than of the outcry and condemnation of all men!

CHAPTER 21

At this time I had my first acquaintance with the Bishop of Meaux. I
was introduced by an intimate friend, the Duke of Chevreuse. I gave him
the foregoing history of my life, and he confessed, that he had found
therein such an unction as he had rarely done in other books, and that
he had spent three days in reading it, with an impression of the
presence of God on his mind all that time.

I proposed to the bishop to examine all my writings, which he took four
or five months to do, and then advanced all his objections; to which I
gave answers. From his unacquaintance with the interior paths, I could
not clear up all the difficulties which he found in them.

He admitted that looking into the ecclesiastical histories for ages
past, we may see that God has sometimes made use of laymen, and of
women to instruct, edify, and help souls in their progress to
perfection. I think one of the reasons of God's acting thus, is that
glory may not be ascribed to any, but to Himself alone. For this
purpose, He has chosen the weak things of this world, to confound such
as are mighty. 1 Cor. 1:27.

Jealous of the attributes which men pay to other men, which are due
only to Himself, He has made a paradox of such persons, that He alone
may have the glory of His own works. I pray God, with my whole heart,
sooner to crush me utterly, with the most dreadful destruction, than to
suffer me to take the least honor to myself, of anything which He has
been pleased to do by me for the good of others. I am only a poor
nothing. God is all-powerful. He delights to operate, and exercise His
power by mere nothings.

The first time that I wrote a history of myself, it was very short. In
it I had particularized my faults and sins, and said little of the
favors of God. I was ordered to burn it, to write another, and in it to
omit nothing anyw