his time in prayer and the reading of
pious books. He converted his heart with great ardor to the love of God,
and by this means finding all his mortifications sweet and light, he
cried out,[2] "That yoke doth not oppress, but raiseth the soul; that
burden hath-wings, not weight." He speaks of divine charity always in
raptures, and by his frequent ejaculations on the subject, it seems to
have been the most agreeable occupation of his soul. "May thy voice
(says he) sound in my ears, O good Jesus, that my heart may learn how to
love thee, that my mind may love thee, that the interior powers, and, as
it were, bowels of my soul, and very marrow of my heart, may love thee,
and that my affections may embrace thee, my only true good, my sweet and
delightful joy! What is love? my God! If I mistake not, it is the
wonderful delight of the soul, so much the more sweet as more pure, so
much the more overflowing and inebriating as more ardent. He who loves
thee, possesses thee; and he possesses thee in proportion as he loves,
because thou art love. This is that abundance with which thy beloved are
inebriated, melting away from themselves, that they may pass into thee,
by loving thee."[3] He had been much delighted in his youth with reading
Tully; but after his conversion, found that author, and all other
reading, tedious and bitter, which was not sweetened with the honey of
the holy name of Jesus, and seasoned with the word of God, as he says in
the preface to his book, _On spiritual friendship_. He was much edified
with the very looks of a holy monk, called Simon, who had despised high
birth, an ample fortune, and all the advantages of mind and body, to
serve God in that penitential state. This monk went and came as one deaf
and dumb, always recollected in God; and was such a lover of silence,
that he would scarce speak a few words to the prior on necessary
occasions. His silence, however, was sweet, agreeable, and full of
edification. Our saint says of him, "The very sight of his humility
stifled my pride, and made me blush at the immortification of my looks.
The law of silence practised among us, prevented my ever speaking to him
deliberately; but, one day, on my speaking a word to him inadvertently,
his displeasure appeared in his looks for my infraction of the rule of
silence; and he suffered me to lie some time prostrate before him to
expiate my fault; for which I grieved bitterly, and which I never could
forgive myself."[4] Thi