rse
try to fill your heart, O man of God, and after it all we shall hear you
singing in famine and in loneliness the doleful ditty:

'O come to my heart, Lord Jesus,
There is room in my heart for Thee.

5. 'Madame,' said a holy solitary to Madame Guyon in her misery--'Madame,
you are disappointed and perplexed because you seek without what you have
within. Accustom yourself to seek for God in your own heart and you will
always find Him there.' From that hour that gifted woman was a Mystic.
The secret of the interior life flashed upon her in a moment. She had
been starving in the midst of fulness; God was near and not far off; the
kingdom of heaven was within her. The love of God from that hour took
possession of her soul with an inexpressible happiness. Prayer, which
had before been so difficult, was now delightful and indispensable; hours
passed away like moments: she could scarcely cease from praying. Her
domestic trials seemed great to her no longer; her inward joy consumed
like a fire the reluctance, the murmur, and the sorrow, which all had
their birth in herself. A spirit of comforting peace, a sense of
rejoicing possession, pervaded all her days. God was continually with
her, and she seemed continually yielded up to God. 'Madame,' said the
solitary, 'you seek without for what you have within.' Where do you seek
for God when you pray, my brethren? To what place do you direct your
eyes? Is it to the roof of your closet? Is it to the east end of your
consecrated chapel? Is it to that wooden table in the east end of your
chapel? Or, passing out of all houses made with hands and consecrated
with holy oil, do you lift up your eyes to the skies where the sun and
the moon and the stars dwell alone? 'What a folly!' exclaims Theophilus,
in the golden dialogue, 'for no way is the true way to God but by the way
of our own heart. God is nowhere else to be found. And the heart itself
cannot find Him but by its own love of Him, faith in Him, dependence upon
Him, resignation to Him, and expectation of all from Him.' 'You have
quite carried your point with me,' answered Theogenes after he had heard
all that Theophilus had to say. 'The God of meekness, of patience, and
of love is henceforth the one God of my heart. It is now the one bent
and desire of my soul to seek for all my salvation in and through the
merits and mediation of the meek, humble, patient, resigned, suffering
Lamb of God, who alone has