me to carry out, at your side, a work which is both sweet and easy,[7] and this work I shall complete in Heaven.  You have said to me, as Our Lord said to St. Peter:  “Feed my lambs.”  I am amazed, for I feel that I am so little.  I have entreated you to feed your little lambs yourself and to keep me among them.  You have complied in part with my reasonable wish, and have called me their companion, rather than their mistress, telling me nevertheless to lead them through fertile and shady pastures, to point out where the grass is sweetest and best, and warn them against the brilliant but poisonous flowers, which they must never touch except to crush under foot.

How is it, dear Mother, that my youth and inexperience have not frightened you?  Are you not afraid that I shall let your lambs stray afar?  In acting as you have done, perhaps you remembered that Our Lord is often pleased to give wisdom to little ones.

On this earth it is rare indeed to find souls who do not measure God’s Omnipotence by their own narrow thoughts.  The world is always ready to admit exceptions everywhere here below.  God alone is denied this liberty.  It has long been the custom among men to reckon experience by age, for in his youth the holy King David sang to His Lord:  “I am young and despised,"[8] but in the same Psalm he does not fear to say:  “I have had understanding above old men, because I have sought Thy commandments, Thy word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my paths; I have sworn, and I am determined, to keep the judgments of Thy Justice."[9]

And you did not even consider it imprudent to assure me one day, that the Divine Master had enlightened my soul and given me the experience of years.  I am too little now to be guilty of vanity; I am likewise too little to endeavour to prove my humility by fine-sounding words.  I prefer to own in all simplicity that “He that is mighty hath done great things to me”—­[10] and the greatest is that He has shown me my littleness and how incapable I am of anything good.

My soul has known trials of many kinds.  I have suffered much on this earth.  In my childhood I suffered with sadness, but now I find sweetness in all things.  Anyone but you, dear Mother, who know me thoroughly, would smile at reading these pages, for has ever a soul seemed less tried than mine?  But if the martyrdom which I have endured for the past year were made known, how astonished everyone would be!  Since it is your wish I will try to describe it, but there are no words really to explain these things.  The words will always fall short of the reality.

During Lent last year I felt much better than ever and continued so until Holy Week, in spite of the fast which I observed in all its rigour.  But in the early hours of Good Friday, Jesus gave me to hope that I should soon join Him in His beautiful Home.  How sweet is this memory!