I am very grateful to you, my dear sir, for your sympathy in my
apparent ills.  God has not permitted that I should consider them
otherwise than blessings.  I trust what appears to destroy the truth
will, in the end, establish it.  Those who maintain the inward reign of
the Holy Spirit will yet suffer many persecutions.  There is nothing of
any value but the love of God, and the accomplishment of his will.
This is pure and substantial happiness.  This joy no man taketh from us.

It is my only desire to abandon myself into the hands of God, without
scruples, without fears, without any agitating thoughts.

Since I am there, O Lord, how can I be otherwise than happy?  When
divine Love has enfranchised the soul, what power can fetter it?  How
small the world appears to a heart that God fills with himself!  I love
thee, my Lord, not only with a sovereign love, but it seems to me I
love thee alone, and all creatures only for thy sake.  Thou art so much
the soul of my soul, and the life of my life, that I have no other life
than thine.  Let all the world forsake me; my Lord, my Lover lives, and
I live in him.  This is the deep abyss where I hide myself in these
many persecutions.  O, abandonment! blessed abandonment!  Happy the
soul who lives no more in itself, but in God.  What can separate my
soul from God?  Surely, none can pluck me from my Father's hands.  All
is well, when the soul is in union with him.