long time. She was one
of true piety and inward devotion. She had a great esteem for me,
because I desired to love God. She remarked that I had the virtues of
an active and bustling life; but I had not yet attained the simplicity
of prayer which she experienced. Sometimes she dropped a word to me on
that subject. As my time had not yet come, I did not understand her.
Her example instructed me more than her words. I observed on her
countenance something which marked a great enjoyment of the presence of
God. By the exertion of studied reflection and thoughts I tried to
attain it but to little purpose. I wanted to have, by my own efforts,
what I could not acquire except by ceasing from all efforts.

My father's nephew, of whom I have made mention before, was returned
from Cochin China, to take over some priests from Europe. I was
exceedingly glad to see him, and remembered what good he had done me.
The lady mentioned was no less rejoiced than I. They understood each
other immediately and conversed in a spiritual language. The virtue of
this excellent relation charmed me. I admired his continual prayer
without being able to comprehend it. I endeavored to meditate, and to
think on God without intermission, to utter prayers and ejaculations. I
could not acquire, by all my toil, what God at length gave me Himself,
and which is experienced only in simplicity. My cousin did all he could
to attach me more strongly to God. He conceived great affection for me.
The purity he observed in me from the corruptions of the age, the
abhorrence of sin at a time of life when others are beginning to relish
the pleasures of it, (I was not yet eighteen), gave him a great
tenderness for me. I complained to him of my faults ingenuously. These
I saw clearly. He cheered and exhorted me to support myself, and to
persevere in my good endeavors. He would fain have introduced me into a
more simple manner of prayer, but I was not yet ready for it. I believe
his prayers were more effectual than his words.

No sooner was he gone out of my father's house, than thou, O Divine
Love, manifested thy favor. The desire I had to please Thee, the tears
I shed, the manifold pains I underwent, the labors I sustained, and the
little fruit I reaped from them, moved Thee with compassion. This was
the state of my soul when Thy goodness, surpassing all my vileness and
infidelities, and abounding in proportion to my wretchedness, granted
me in a moment, what all my own