over him dark, threatening, and
majestic. He had studied spiritual doctrine too well not to be ready
for this trial, nor had it been sent to him without warning.
Nevertheless the sensible presence of God's love had been so vivid
and constant that he could alternate the joy of labor with that of
prayer with the greatest ease. And now it was an alternation, not of
choice but of dire compulsion, between bitter, helpless inaction, and
a state of prayer which was a mere dread of an all-too-near Judge. It
seemed to him as if he had boasted, "I said in my abundance I shall
not be moved for ever," and now he must end the inspired sentence,
"Thou hast turned away Thy face from me and I became troubled." When
this obscuration of the Divine Love first grew upon him the misery of
it was intolerable and was borne with extreme difficulty. The pain
was lessened at intervals as time passed on, and before a year had
elapsed, his letters from Europe, though they did not before complain
of desolation, now show its previous existence by hailing the advent
of seasons of interior peace. But from beginning to end of this
entire period of his life we have not found a word of his speaking of
joy. And again, even the peace would go and the desolation return;
the face of God, not any time smiling, had lost its calm regard and
was once more bent frowning upon him. The following extracts from
letters written from Switzerland in the autumn of 1874, and within a
month of each other, tell of these alternations of storm and calm:

"As to my health these last ten days I cannot say much. My interior
trials have been such that it would be impossible that my health
should improve under them. As long as they last I must expect to
suffer. I see nothing before me but darkness, and there is nothing
within my soul but desolation and bitterness. Cut off from all that
formerly interested me, banished as it were from home and country,
isolated from everything, the doors of heaven shut, I feel
overwhelmed with misery and crushed to atoms. My being away from my
former duties is a negative relief; it frees me from the additional
burden and trouble which would necessarily fall upon me if I were
within reach."

"There remains nothing for me but to confide in, to follow, and
abandon myself to that Guide who has directed me from the beginning.
I read Job, Jeremias, and Thomas a Kempis, and meditate on the
sufferings of Our Lord and the character of His death. I recall