peace.  But from beginning to end of this entire period of his life we have not found a word of his speaking of joy.  And again, even the peace would go and the desolation return; the face of God, not any time smiling, had lost its calm regard and was once more bent frowning upon him.  The following extracts from letters written from Switzerland in the autumn of 1874, and within a month of each other, tell of these alternations of storm and calm: 

“As to my health these last ten days I cannot say much.  My interior trials have been such that it would be impossible that my health should improve under them.  As long as they last I must expect to suffer.  I see nothing before me but darkness, and there is nothing within my soul but desolation and bitterness.  Cut off from all that formerly interested me, banished as it were from home and country, isolated from everything, the doors of heaven shut, I feel overwhelmed with misery and crushed to atoms.  My being away from my former duties is a negative relief; it frees me from the additional burden and trouble which would necessarily fall upon me if I were within reach.”

“There remains nothing for me but to confide in, to follow, and abandon myself to that Guide who has directed me from the beginning.  I read Job, Jeremias, and Thomas a Kempis, and meditate on the sufferings of Our Lord and the character of His death.  I recall to mind what I have read on these matters in spiritual writers and the Lives of the Saints.  I reflect how from the very nature of the purification of the soul this darkness, bitterness, and desolation must be; but not a drop of consolation is distilled into my soul.  The only words which come to my lips are ‘My soul is sad unto death,’ and these I repeat and repeat again.  At all times, in rising and in going to bed, in company and at my meals, I whisper them to myself, while to others I appear cheerful and join in the talk.  At the most I can but die; this is the lot of all, and no one can tell the moment when.

“Withal, I try to have patience, resignation, endurance, and trust in God, waiting on His guidance and leaving all in His hands.”

“Since my last I have had some relief from my interior trials, and no sooner does this take place than my body recovers some of its strength.  It would not have been possible for me to have borne much longer the desolation which filled my soul.  Each new trial, when passed, leaves me more quiet and tranquil.  Past periods of my life give me hope that this trial will also come to an end.  What will that be?  How will it happen? and when?  God alone knows.  He that has led me so many years still guides me, and resistance to His will is worse than vain.  Judging from that same past, my expectations to return to my former labors are not sanguine.  It seems to me sometimes that I am cut off from these to be prepared for a deeper and broader basis for future action.  But whether this will be so or not, is