and alarm. Jesus sleeps, and the devil, my enemy, is awake, and going about like a lion ready to devour me! Jesus sleeps! and my senses, ever on the watch, are brooding over my soul in order to enslave it! Jesus sleeps! who then will keep guard over me? My beloved sleeps! in whom, then, shall I confide? My strength sleeps! who will sustain me? My hope sleeps! in whom shall I hope?
But He who is at once my love, my hope, and my strength, does not leave me long in suspense. “ I sleep,” he says, “ but my Heart is watching.” O words of sweet encouragement! That sleep which leaves the heart awake is not a torpid, inert sleep; that sleep in which the heart sleeps not, is not a sleep of forgetfulness. The Heart of Jesus is watching! He can then still love me. The Heart of Jesus is watching! He can then still aid me. That sacred Heart will never want secret words wherewith to instruct me, nor secret delights wherewith to charm me. What matters it if all within him sleep, provided his Heart be watching! His Heart, is it not most especially himself? Sleep, Lord Jesus, I am comforted. Thy Heart is watching!
VII.
So it is, then; the Heart of Jesus neither slumbers nor sleeps. Its love excites it, and keeps it ever in action. It is incessantly watching over my dearest interests— over my mind to enlighten it; over my heart to inflame it with its pure love; over my senses to quiet them; over my thoughts to direct them aright; over my commonest actions to ennoble them; over my entire life to make it divine.
