“July 5, 1844.—­It is the duty of every man to do that which expresses the divine life which stirs within him, and to do nothing which is inconformable to it.  So far as he falls short of this, so far he falls short of his duty, his perfection, and divine beauty.  I think we may say with very great certainty that this is the only way to obtain happiness in this world and eternal felicity in the world to come.  It is to this God calls us, but we—­no, not truly we, but the Man of Sin—­flatter ourselves, as he did Eve, that if we follow him we shall not die but become as gods.  We, to-day, have the same temptation to overcome that Eve had.

“Oh, how much greater God would have us be than we are, and we will not!  We must cast out the Man of Sin and submit to the Paradisiacal Man.  This we are enabled to do, blessed be Heaven, by the grace of God through Jesus Christ.

“What are the temptations which hold men back from following God and leading a divine life?  In one word, the World.  Pride, love of praise, riches, self-indulgence, all that refers and looks to time instead of eternity, heaven, God.

“We should encourage all that gives us an impulse heavenward, and deny all that tends to draw us down more into the body, sense, time.  Man, alas! is weak, powerless, and unable to perform any good deed which will raise him to God without the free gift, the blessed grace of God the Holy Spirit.  We all fail to act up to the divine grace which is given us.  O Lord! forgive my manifold transgressions, and empower me to be more and more obedient to thy Holy Spirit.  My inward man desires to follow Thy Spirit, but the appetites of my members ever war against and often subdue him.  Strengthen him, O Lord! and enable him to govern my whole three-sphered nature.  Send down Thy celestial love into my heart and quicken all my heavenly powers.

“It is very true that no man can serve two masters.  Between God and Mammon there is no compromise, no mediator.  Lord, make me fully sensible of this, and strengthen my resolution to follow Thee.  I do look to the Church of Christ for help.  Oh, may I find in it that which the Apostles found in Jesus!”

We cannot refrain from reminding the reader of the immature age, and almost total lack of education—­in the ordinary meaning of the term—­of the man who wrote these lofty and inspiring sentences.  He was ignorant of everything but the most rudimentary truths of Catholicity; had never read an ascetic work; had never spoken on ascetical subjects with Catholics; had never read the life of a saint; and had no experience to draw from except his own.  Yet mark the absolute certainty of his propositions and their uniform correctness.  It should also be made known that these doctrines and sentiments, though written with the most evident haste, follow each other, page after page, without an erasure or a correction.  The truths which had dropped upon his mind were, indeed, rudimentary, but so well adapted was the soil to receive the seed that the fruit was instant and mature.  Seldom has spontaneity so well approved itself by its utterances.