for me, much easier than I should have thought, to
bear what falls to my lot. Receive, then, all of you, my warm and
sincere thanks for having thus rejoiced my heart.

"Now that I know from these strengthening letters that, like the prodigal
son, the love and goodness of my family are greater on my return than at
my departure, I will, as carefully as possible, paint for you my physical
and moral state, and I pray God to supplement my words by His strength,
so that my letter may contain an equivalent of what yours brought to me,
and may help you to reach that state of calm and serenity to which I have
myself attained.

"Hardened, by having gained power over myself, against the good and ill
of this earth, you knew already that of late years I have lived only for
moral joys, and I must say that, touched by my efforts, doubtless, the
Lord, who is the sacred fount of all that is good, has rendered me apt in
seeking them and in tasting them to the full. God is ever near me, as
formerly, and I find in Him the sovereign principle of the creation of
all things; in Him, our holy Father, not only consolation and strength,
but an unalterable Friend, full of the holiest love, who will accompany
me in all places where I may need His consolations. Assuredly, if He had
turned from me, or if I had turned away my eyes from Him, I should now
find myself very unfortunate and wretched; but by His grace, on the
contrary, lowly and weak creature as I am, He makes me strong and
powerful against whatever can befall me.

"What I have hitherto revered as sacred, what I have desired as good what
I have aspired to as heavenly, has in no respect changed now. And I thank
God for it, for I should now be in great despair if I were compelled to
recognise that my heart had adored deceptive images and enwrapped itself
in fugitive chimeras. Thus my faith in these ideas and my pure love far
them, guardian angels of my spirit as they are, increase moment by
moment, and will go on increasing to my end, and I hope that I may pass
all the more easily from this world into eternity. I pass my silent life
in Christian exaltation and humility, and I sometimes have those visions
from above through which I have, from my birth, adored heaven upon earth,
and which give me power to raise myself to the Lord upon the eager wings
of my prayers. My illness, though long, painful, and cruel, has always
been sufficiently mastered by my will to let me busy myself to some