does not feel, but the supreme effort of a supremely loving heart, the term of self-immolation, — the immolation of self-will and the heart of flesh, to replace them by the will, the heart, the mind of God Himself."
"The sovereign love of God teaches the soul to have the same utter confidence in God's holy will that a little child has in its father; — here we have harmony, detachment, trust; in a word, the natural atmosphere of holy peace."
"Some," says the Imitation, "are at peace with themselves and others; some are at peace neither with themselves nor others; some, being themselves established in peace, strive to establish it among their brethren."
"Him, who belongs to this last category, the 'Imitation ' calls the Bonus Homo Pacificus, the good pacific man. This exactly describes what St. Francis of Sales was. He recommended peace to all the souls he governed and he worked zealously to impart it to every one he could. The number of lawsuits he prevented and the disputes he calmed were almost infinite. This contagious peace sprang from the same fixed principle that has given all his writings, and every recorded act of his life, a grace of ineffable serenity; a frank gentle gaiety that is grave as well as gay, a depth of calm joy which neither tribulation nor press of toil ever troubled, and which, to use one of his own symbols, is like the "nightingale pouring out her song from the middle of a thorn -bush."
"When we are truly abandoned to God's will," says Bossuet, "we are ready for all that may come to us; we suppose the worst that can be supposed, and we cast ourselves blindly on the bosom of God. We forget ourselves, we lose ourselves; and this entire forgetful-
