“Would you know a certain sign, my daughters, by which you may judge of your progress in virtue?  Let each one look within herself and discover if she believes herself to be the unworthiest of you all, and if for the benefit of the others she makes it visible by her actions that she really thinks that this is so, that is the certain sign of spiritual advancement, and not delight in prayer, nor ravishment, nor visions, and such like favours which God grants to souls when he is so pleased.  We shall only know the value of such favours in the next world.  It is not so with humility—­humility is a money which is always current, it is safely invested capital, a perpetual income; but extraordinary favours are money which is lent for a time and may at any moment be called in.  I repeat, our true treasure is profound humility, great mortification, and an obedience which, seeing God in the superior, submits to his every order.”

The saint’s delicate yet virile perception, and her power of expressing the shadowy and evanescent, filled Evelyn with admiration; and the saint appeared to her in the light of a great novelist; she wondered if Balzac had ever read these pages.

“The best remedy, in my opinion, that a nun can employ to conquer the imperfect affection which she still bears her parents, is to abstain from seeing them until by patient prayer she has obtained from God the freedom of her soul; when she is so disposed that their visit is a cross, let her see them by all means.  For then she will bring good to their souls, and do no harm to her own.”

This seemed not a little grim.  But how touching is the personal confession which appears on the following page.

“My parents loved me extremely, according to what they said, and I loved them in a way that did not allow them to forget me.  Nevertheless I have seen from what has happened to me, and what has happened to other nuns, how little we may count upon their affection for us.”

The unselfishness of such conduct seemed open to doubt.  But unselfishness is a word that none may speak without calling into question the entire conduct of his or her life.  Evelyn remembered that she had left her father for the sake of her voice, and that she had refused to marry Owen because marriage, especially marriage with Owen, did not seem compatible with her soul’s safety.  Looked at from a certain side, her life did seem self-centred, but allowance, she thought, must be made for the difficulties—­the entanglements in which the first false step had involved her.  But in any case she must not question the efficacy of prayer, that was a dogma of the Church.  The mission of the contemplative orders is to pray for those who do not pray for themselves, and if we believe in the efficacy of prayer, we need not scruple to leave our parents to live in a monastery where, by our prayers, we held them to eternal salvation.  We leave them for a little while, but only that we may live with them for ever.