always, as the record of the first victory won over myself.

It is now many years since I witnessed the celebration of the 'Fete
Dieu'; but should I again feel in it the happy sensations of former
days? I still remember how, when the procession had passed, I walked
through the streets strewed with flowers and shaded with green boughs.
I felt intoxicated by the lingering perfumes of the incense, mixed with
the fragrance of syringas, jessamine, and roses, and I seemed no longer
to touch the ground as I went along. I smiled at everything; the whole
world was Paradise in my eyes, and it seemed to me that God was floating
in the air!

Moreover, this feeling was not the excitement of the moment: it might be
more intense on certain days, but at the same time it continued through
the ordinary course of my life. Many years thus passed for me in an
expansion of heart, and a trustfulness which prevented sorrow, if not
from coming, at least from staying with me. Sure of not being alone, I
soon took heart again, like the child who recovers its courage, because
it hears its mother's voice close by. Why have I lost that confidence of
my childhood? Shall I never feel again so deeply that God is here?

How strange the association of our thoughts! A day of the month recalls
my infancy, and see, all the recollections of my former years are
growing up around me! Why was I so happy then? I consider well, and
nothing is sensibly changed in my condition. I possess, as I did
then, health and my daily bread; the only difference is, that I am
now responsible for myself! As a child, I accepted life when it came;
another cared and provided for me. So long as I fulfilled my present
duties I was at peace within, and I left the future to the prudence of
my father! My destiny was a ship, in the directing of which I had no
share, and in which I sailed as a common passenger. There was the whole
secret of childhood's happy security. Since then worldly wisdom has
deprived me of it. When my lot was intrusted to my own and sole keeping,
I thought to make myself master of it by means of a long insight into
the future. I have filled the present hour with anxieties, by occupying
my thoughts with the future; I have put my judgment in the place of
Providence, and the happy child is changed into the anxious man.

A melancholy course, yet perhaps an important lesson. Who knows that,
if I had trusted more to Him who rules the world, I should not have been
spared