I assure you, you are very dear to me.  I rejoice very much in the
progress of your soul.  When I speak of progress, it is in descending,
not in mounting.  As when we charge a vessel, the more ballast we put
in, the lower it sinks, so the more love we have in the soul, the lower
we are abased in self.  The side of the scales which is elevated, is
empty; so the soul is elated only when it is void of love.  "Love is
our weight," says St. Augustine.  Let us so charge ourselves with the
weight of love, as to bring down self to its just level.  Let its
depths be manifested by our readiness to bear the cross, the
humiliations, the sufferings, which are necessary to the purification
of the soul.  Our humiliation is our exaltation.  "Whosoever is least
among you shall be the greatest," says our Lord.

I love you, my dear child, in the love of the Divine Master, who so
abased himself by love!  Oh! what a weight is love, since it caused so
astonishing a fall, from heaven to earth,--from God to man!  There is a
beautiful passage in the Imitation of Christ, "Love to be unknown."
Let us die to all but God.