The Practice of the Presence of God

are near sixty-four, and I am almost eighty. Let us live and die with God: sufferings will be sweet and pleasant to us while we are with Him; and the greatest pleasures will be, without Him, a cruel punishment to us. May He be blessed for all.

Use yourself then by degrees thus to worship Him, to [36] THE PRACTICE OF THE PRESENCE OF GOD beg His grace, to offer Him your heart from time to time in the midst of your business, even every moment if you can. Do not always scrupulously confine your¬ self to certain rules or particular forms of devotion, but act with a general confidence in God, with love and humility.

You may assure - of my poor prayers, and that I am their servant. EIGHTH LETTER You tell me nothing new; you are not the only one that is troubled with wandering thoughts. Our mind is extremely roving; but, as the will is mistress of all our faculties, she must recall them, and carry them to God as their last end.

When the mind, for want of being sufficiently re¬ duced by recollection at our first engaging in devotion, has contracted certain bad habits of wandering and dissipation, they are difficult to overcome, and com¬ monly draw us, even against our wills, to the things of the earth.

I believe one remedy for this is to confess our faults and to humble ourselves before God. I do not advise you to use multiplicity of words in prayer, many words and long discourses being often the occasions of wan¬ dering. Hold yourself in prayer before God like a dumb or paralytic beggar at a rich man’s gate.

Let it be your business to keep your mind in the presence of the Lord. If it sometimes wander and withdraw itself from Him, do not much disquiet yourself for that: trouble and disquiet serve rather to distract the mind than to [ 37 ] THE TRACT ICE OF THE PRESENCE OF GOD recollect it; the will must bring it back in tranquillity.