s; so in order to preserve your heart in
all its tenderness and simplicity, He plants there a few thorns, and cuts
you off from all the pleasures you fancy yours by right. GOD knows that
too much praise would cause pride, and make you less forbearing to others,
and so He sends instead humiliations. Let them be, then, these persons who
unconsciously are doing GOD'S work within you.

If you cannot love them from sympathy, love with an effort of the will,
and say to GOD, "My GOD, grant that without offending Thee, they may work
my sanctification. I have need of them."

XVI.

HOLY COMMUNION

The result of a good Communion is, _within_, a fear of a sin, _without_, a
love for others.

Holy Communion is a great aid to sanctification.

JESUS visits the soul, working in it, and filling it with His Grace, which
is shed on all around, as the sun sheds forth its light, the fire gives
out its heat.

It is impossible but that CHRIST, thus visiting the soul, should not leave
something CHRIST-like within, if only the soul be disposed to receive it.
Fire, whose property is to give warmth, cannot produce that effect unless
the body be placed near enough to be penetrated with the heat.

Does not this simple thought explain the reason that there is often so
little result from our frequent Communions?

Do you long at each Communion to receive the grace bestowed by CHRIST that
shall little by little fit you for heaven hereafter?

Will you, receiving thus the GOD of _Peace_ within, have for those around
you kind words that shall fill them with calmness, resignation, and peace?

Will you, receiving thus the GOD of _Love_, gradually increase in
tenderness and love that will urge you to sacrifice yourself for others,
loving them as CHRIST would have loved them?

Will you, receiving Him you rightly name the _Gracious_ GOD, become
yourself gracious, gracious to sympathize, gracious to forbear, gracious
to pardon, and thus in a small way resemble the GOD Who gave Himself for
thee?

This should be your resolve when about to communicate.

_Resolved_: to obey GOD'S Commandments in all their extensiveness, never
hesitating in a question of duty, no matter how hard it may be; the duty
of forgiving and forgetting some injustice or undeserved rebuke; accepting
cheerfully a position contrary to your wishes and inclinations;
application to some labor, distasteful, and seemingly beyond your
strength....

If your duty seems almost _imposs