The Man of Desire

1790

France

Author: Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin
Subject: Theosophy

1. Wonders. The wonders of the Lord seem thrown without order and without design into the field of immensity. They shine scattered like these countless flowers with which spring punctuates our meadows. Let's not look for a more regular plan to describe them. Principles of beings, all hold up to you. It is their secret liaison with you that makes them valuable, whatever the place and rank they occupy. I will dare to raise my eyes to the throne of your glory. My thoughts will be enlivened by considering your love for men, and the wisdom that reigns in your works. Your word was subdivided in the beginning, like a torrent that rushes from the top of the mountains over sharp rocks. I see it spring back into clouds of vapor; and each drop of water that it sends into the air reflects the light of the daylight into my eyes. Thus all the rays of your word make your living and sacred light shine in the eyes of the wise; he sees your action producing and animating the whole universe. Sublime objects of my hymns, I will often be forced to turn my sight away from you. Man believed himself mortal because he found something mortal in himself; and even the one who gives life to all beings, man has considered him as having neither life nor existence. And you, Jerusalem, what reproaches do the prophets of the Lord have to make against you. You took what served to adorn you, says the lord, and which was made of my gold and my silver, which I had given you; you formed from them images of men to whom you prostituted yourself.

Cries of pain, mingle with my songs of joy; pure joy is no longer made for the sad stay of man. Have not irresistible proofs of primary truths already been demonstrated to the nations? If you still have doubts, go and purify yourself in these sources. Then you will come back and join your voice to mine; and we will celebrate together the joys of the man of desire, who will have had the happiness of crying for the truth.

2. Light. Blessed be you, brilliant light, visible splendor of the eternal light, from which my thought received existence. If my thought were not one of your sparks, I would not have the power to contemplate you. I could not be struck with admiration for your greatness, if you had not sowed in me some elements of your measure. Famous men, say no more: the light of a torch communicates itself to other torches without diminishing, and this is how spirits are produced by God. No longer dishonor visible light by only speaking to us about its material mechanism. The torch paints the life of maintenance, and not the law of generation. Isn't a substance needed outside this torch for it to communicate visible light to it? But our God is himself light; he draws from his own bosom the luminous substance of the spirit. Everything is complete coming out of the hands of the principle of everything. He wanted the sensation of visible light to be linked to the life of my body. He wanted the sun to awaken in my eyes this sensation of visible light. But he himself wanted to awaken in my soul the sensation of invisible light; because he himself drew from this light the sacred germ by which the soul of man is animated. Do not branches come out of the living candlestick, and is not their sap the holy oil which nourishes the light in me? Isn't it that oil which always burns away and never dries up? May life unite with my life, and may it regenerate in me the life it produced there.

May my immortal and divine growth be continuous like that of my eternal source. It is by penetrating into beings that God makes them feel their life; they are in death as soon as they are no longer in communion with him. All of you, inhabitants of the earth, rejoice, you can contribute to universal communion. You can, like so many vestal virgins, maintain the sacred fire, and make it shine in all parts of the universe. Why do the wise and prudent cherish the light? It is because they know that the light and the soul of man are two torches that can never be extinguished. And you, supreme agent, why can't you stop penetrating everything, seeing everything and carrying your clarity everywhere? It is because the holy oil drawn from your source is disseminated in all regions, and your light finds everywhere a nourishment of its own.

3. Nature. I looked around at nature. Rivers, where do you run with such impetuosity? We will help to fill up the deep, and bury iniquity under the waters. We are going to extinguish these volcanoes, these smoking embers which are like the remains of the great fire. When we have accomplished this work, our sources will stop. The silt will collect in the chasms.

Fertile plains will rise in place of precipices. The herds will graze in peace in the places where the voracious fish swam; and the peaceful inhabitants will live happily in the middle of their fertile fields, where once the waves of the sea were agitated by storms. The careless and inattentive man passes through this world without opening the eyes of his mind. The different scenes of nature follow one another before him without his interest being aroused, and without his thoughts expanding. He only came into this world to embrace the universe with his intelligence, and he continually allows his intelligence to be swallowed up by the smallest objects with which he is surrounded. Do natural disasters have to happen again to wake you up from your slumber? If you are not trained, they will frighten you and they will not teach you. The face of the earth presents the traces of three laws which directed its revolutions. All the agitated elements, which put the globe in convulsion and produced secondary mountains and volcanoes: here is fire and number. The slow and successive undulations of the waves which produced the mounds and the valleys: this is the water and the measure. And the peaceful and quiet gravity that produced the plains: there is the earth and the weight. Life strives everywhere to show itself; all disorders were foreign to nature. The soul of man announces fertility everywhere; she announces everywhere that she is made for life. She also has in them traces of the horrible convulsions she suffered. But it can, like the flame of volcanoes, rise above these abyss, and sail into the pure regions of the atmosphere.

4. The sword and love. Man, would you afflict your friend? Wouldn't you like to give up making your friend suffer? However, he suffers as long as man does not seek to know what the work of the Lord is. Who could therefore imagine what prevaricators must cause God to suffer when they carry their deviations to the point of acting against him? No man, you would not bear the sight of such a damning picture. Who other than God would have the strength? Also it is only him who forgives, and it is only from him that we learn charity. Walk the paths of this school every day, if you want to learn what the work of the Lord is. May the master who gives teachings there find in you the most assiduous of his listeners. Can you believe your inner sufferings caused by charity are useless to your friend?

It is not too much to say that they bring you closer to God, that they please God, in that they associate you with him, and that they make you similar to his love. This is the work; this is the first level of the work. Let all nations hear me. May they become pure enough to feel the interior pains of charity. I see two words written on this tree of life: sword and love. By the sword of the word I will subdue all the enemies of my God, and I will bind them, and I will prevent them from causing pain to my God. Through love I will zealously beg him to pour into me a ray of his charity; and to make me relieve him by taking on some of the sufferings of his love. Do not be offended, O my God, at the height of this idea, it is you who gave birth to it in my heart; and it is so vivid that I believe I see traced there the most beautiful titles of my original destination. It is our earthly ties that veil this ancient and divine destination for us. It cannot fail to make itself known naturally to those whose soul has the strength to lift its chains.

5. Death and life. You had not produced any being, O profound wisdom, without giving it a measure of desire and strength to preserve itself. You founded all beings on this basis, because they are all a reflection of your power, and you like to produce yourself in all your works. You had given man the most abundant measure of this power. Hey! Where did this art of multiplying his enjoyments come from? this industry to repel evils from him, and to cure them? If not a supreme measure of this conservative desire and this instinct that you have given to all beings! And only he adds to the supreme measure of this conservative desire, the supreme measure of the opposing power! And only he can fight and stifle this living instinct, more compelling in him than in any other being! And finally alone he can kill himself! Only he can combine and choose the means to kill himself! … Doctrine of lies, applaud your triumph, you have completely blinded man. You have made him see in these two extremes only one and the same principle: you make him want that the one and same agent is preserved and destroyed: you make him believe that death and life, production and destruction belong to the same germ. In vain you look for something to justify yourself in the examples of animals, you find nothing there which diminishes this frightening contradiction in the eyes of thought.

6. Tooth for tooth. If it is said: tooth for tooth, eye for eye, in the rigors of the material order; why in the beneficial order of the spirit, would this truth not have a use which would be to our advantage? Give of your life, if you want to receive life. Give of your life without reserve, if you want life to give itself to you in the fullness of its unity. As long as you have to languish in your desires, or even as long as you stop to contemplate your enjoyments, life is not yet within you in the fullness of its unity. When this term has arrived for you, you will no longer have to calm your trouble with sacrifices, nor to guard against your holy satisfactions. The Spirit of truth will urge you; he will torment you, he will push you into the desert; and you will say to the nations: Make straight the ways of the Lord. Celestial powers, earthly powers, universal powers, respect the human soul: the Lord has just renewed his alliance with it, he has linked it to him by a new peace treaty. He opened to him the divine archives; there she admired all the treasures prepared for the man of peace. There she contemplated the torches of intelligence, always lit, and the living sources of love, which never interrupt their course. She looked through the books of life, from which the laws of nations are drawn.

She read there the history of peoples past, present and future. There she breathed the sweet vapor of the balms used daily to heal the wounds of mortals. She saw there the terrible weapons intended to overthrow the enemies of the homeland. The soul of man can today enter these various deposits at will, according to his needs and those of his brothers. Soul of man, ascend to your God through humility and penitence. These are the roads that lead to love and light. You will then come down filled with tenderness for your brothers, and you will come to share with them the treasures of your God. You open your pecuniary treasures to the poor, but do you think more of the needs of his spirit than of those of his passing body? Do you want, through this assistance, for him to regain part of his freedom and his activity, which are taken away from him by his misery? Do you want him to regain, through this freedom, the means of praising his God more easily and more constantly, and of enriching himself through prayer? This is the true aim of almsgiving; this is how alms can advance the work of God. God is spirit; he wants everything you do to be spiritualized. If in giving your alms you are content to tell the poor person to pray for you, you are asking more from them than you are giving them; you think more about yourself than about him: and yet he is less free than you to devote himself to prayer. Spiritualize your works if you want them to be righteous in every way.

7. The learned ignorant.Interpreters of mythology, why do you say that it only veiled the movement of the stars, and the laws of material and corruptible nature? What proportion would there be there, between the figure and the thing represented? Isn't allegory useless when it is superior to its object? Does it not cease to be an allegory? Yes, then it is power, and it acts with open force. Even if you had risen to the active principles of nature, the knowledge and use of which must remain unknown to the vulgar! But a new obstacle arises: mythology and physics are in dispute. Mythology, to be admissible, must at least rest on the active principles of nature; and physics does not want these principles; and it wants to form everything by aggregates. Whereas if there is only one unit, with what can we manage to aggregate it? Mythology, physics, you will only be able to reconcile each other by each abandoning your system, and by raising yourselves together to a simpler level, where you would each find the key to your temple. When you have found it, use it again with caution. All alterations come from the putrefied source: all rectifications come from the pure source. Without the superior view, how will you apply your principles? What are you doing, learned ignorant people, when you paint for us the laws of the formation of the world? It is with death that you compose life; you take all your physicality in the cemeteries. What are your science cabinets filled with? Of skeletons and corpses, whose shape and colors you take care to preserve, but whose principle and life are separate. Doesn't your thought tell you that there is a physics better than that; and that it is the one where we only take care of the principles, and from which dead bodies are removed? But no, you cast this dead and destructive glance on all the objects of your speculations. You based it on the isosceles rectangle that you sought to know, because you found material relationships between its results and the results of its sides; while the number and true ratio of this base will never be entrusted to us, because if we knew them, we could create spirits. Is it not enough for you to calculate the two-centered base which dared to try to imitate it, and which opens at the same time an inexhaustible source to your tears, to your intelligence and to your admiration? You brought it, this destructive glance, to a subject much closer to you, since you brought it even to speech. Supreme and distinctive faculty, you are for them nothing more than the fruit of the accumulation of sensitive signs. Languages ​​are for them only an aggregate, instead of being the expression and fruit of life itself.So they do not seek its origin anywhere other than in our elementary relationships; while they were loudly taught that speech was necessary for the institution of speech. While they see how children learn languages, and that there is only one law which lends itself and is measured to all needs and all ages. Matter, matter, what a disastrous veil you have cast over the truth! The word only came to earth as if by rebirth; it had first been reduced for us. It could only be reborn by seed like vegetation; but it was necessary that it had first provided its own germ, in order to then be able to produce its fruits among the human species. collapse, scaffoldings of abusive sciences; reduce yourself to dust: you cannot resist the slightest luminous principle.

8. God the brother. Isn't the true way to ask for help to courageously seek it where it is? And isn’t it through action that strength is nourished? Also there is no one great except he who knows how to fight, because that is the only way to know how to enjoy; and that the first secret to being raised above our darkness and our faults is to raise ourselves there. It is for the trials that God sends us that we have the right to pray to him, and not for the harm we do to ourselves through our cowardice. When your heart is full of God, use verbal prayer, which will then be the expression of the spirit, as it should always be. When your heart is dry and empty, use silent and concentrated prayer; it is she who will give your heart the time and the means to warm up and fill up. You will soon learn to know by these simple secrets, what are the rights of the soul of man, when living hands have compressed it to express its corruption, and when it then resumes its free extension by its natural elasticity . You will soon learn to know what his authority is over air, over sound, over light and over darkness. Watch, watch as long as you are among the sons of violence. They would persuade you that they can do something, and they can do nothing. How could they be friends of the truth, while the comparisons they present to us are always false? In apparent beings, there remains no impression of the action of true beings; this is why darkness cannot understand light. If you want to understand this light, don't compare it to anything you know. Purify yourself, ask, receive, act: the whole work is in these four times. To purify oneself is not to pray, since it is to fight? And what man would dare to walk without purifying himself, since he cannot take a step without stepping on the steps of the altar? It is not enough not to doubt the power of the Lord, you must also not doubt yours. Because he gave you one, since he gave you a name, and he asks no better that you use it. Therefore do not leave the entire work in the charge of your God, since he wanted to leave you something to do. He is always ready to pour all good things into you; he only asks you to watch over the evils that surround you, and not to let yourself be surprised. His love has driven these evils out of the temple for you; Would your ingratitude go so far as to let them in? Man, man, where can you find a destiny that surpasses yours, since you are called to fraternize with your God, and to work in concert with him!

9. The prophets. Who will give man the intelligence to understand the movement of the word? God said by the mouth of his prophets: By this you will know whether he who prophesies is true, or whether he speaks not in a lying spirit: when what he says comes to pass, then you will believe the truth. of the prophet. But has he not consumed the whole law? And since the great sign, have not all the old signs become fragile? Should there not appear prophets of error and lies, who will have the power to seduce even the elect? I see them doing wonderful works; I see them announcing events that will happen. I see them, like Elijah, making fire fall from heaven. Woe to the future time, when lies can so closely resemble the truth! At all times be careful against imitators. Since man was sold into subjection to sin, sin has used him, as well as wisdom. Man will therefore have to dig deeper within himself to find new signs. Is the prophet humble and gentle? Does he preach for the kingdom of God, and not for his own? Does he show through his tears and sobs the impulses of charity? Is he ready to give his life for his brothers? Does he add to these virtues a sure and tested doctrine? Turn towards him, follow his steps, attach yourself to his spirit; charity of the heart and sureness in doctrine are gifts that cannot be faked. Were you in the midst of confusion and darkness, a circle of light will surround you, and keep you separated from it. The more time advances towards the completion of its disorder, the more man will have to advance towards his end of light. How can he advance there, if not by allowing himself to be penetrated by the spirit of life, and moving with ardor towards it, as if he were driven by a devouring hunger? No, there is no joy that can be compared to that of walking in the paths of wisdom and truth.

10. The invisible principle. The works of God manifest themselves peacefully, and their principle remains invisible. Take this model in your wisdom, make it known only through the sweetness of its fruits; the gentle ways are the hidden ways. If air were visible like the substances that make up bodies, would it hold such a marvelous rank in nature? What connections are there between the life of the spirit and the death of this extralineated universe? Man promises more than he gives, the mind will one day give more than it promises. The Lord led his people in a dark way, so that his plans might be accomplished. He spoke to his people in parables; without this the Jews would not have been able to ignore the salvation of the nations, and then they could not have been excusable for having sacrificed it, and if they had not sacrificed it, the nations would not have received the inheritance . Veils of prophecies, favor the ignorance of the daughter of my people, it is through this that the door of mercy remains open to her. God wanted to suspend the Jews, not reprove them. Hey! What blood did they ask for that would fall on them and on their children? This blood was spirit and life, could it ever give them death? The industrious charity of my God only concerns itself with the means of being able to save its children. The ignorance of the people is the resource he constantly uses to forgive them. What an abyss is the wisdom, power and love of our God! Men, you condemn your fellow men to torture, when they are guilty according to your laws: are we not much more guilty according to the laws of the Lord? And yet we can satisfy his righteousness with a prayer. We can do this with a secret impulse, operated in the depth of our being: and the more concentrated this impulse is, the more effective and powerful it will be; because it will have more of the character of unity, of invincible and irresistible unity.

11. The fluid. Why do all the waters that the globe contains communicate with each other? Why do they only circulate and pass alternately through foul chasms, and through pure channels which clarify them? Why does the air that fills the atmosphere follow the same law, entering our lungs and the canals of plants? Why do all the fluids of nature only pass from one place to another, for the benefit of all that exists? Why are they as if we lent them to each other, that we all drank the same liquor, and that we only passed the cup to each other? It is to teach us that this is the law of the spirit over us; and that the entire atmosphere of intelligence is contiguous. Supreme and universal unity, yes, we all participate in the same thought. The same spirit circulates in all thinking beings, we constantly draw from the same source. Our minds communicate through our intellectual nourishment, just as our bodies communicate through the circulation of the elements. How then would we be separated from life? Everything is alive. How can we have enmity towards men? We all sit at the same table, and we all drink from the cup of brotherhood. Men do not seek living works. Everything they do, everything they write, their occupations, their scientific treatises, are not directed towards life. Whereas a single moment of activity could bring them into union with the true, never to separate from it! Man's natural force, you concentrate, you absorb yourself, but you do not destroy yourself by involuntary accidents. Once the storm has passed, you find yourself the same, and you also have the treasures of experience. Do you long for universal peace? The pendulum has been set in motion since the crime. Its oscillations can only diminish by progression. We must wait for the end of the centuries, for the pendulum to mark its last beat, and for beings to return to rest. What a surprise for those who, during their earthly passage, believed that there was nothing beyond, and who misunderstood universal circulation! Would God be so patient if he did not have the means to astonish human posterity when they arrive at the region of life and light? When she arrives at this region where she can contemplate this simple and fixed fluid, principle and source of all movements, and carrying everywhere the fullness of life? Where can we get the idea of ​​the lights and clarity that accompany the birth of man? We are only here below swimming under a shadow, and in the atmosphere of images. Wisdom, you must be so beautiful that the pervert himself would become your friend, if he could see the slightest of your rays.

12. The continual song. My life will be a continual song, since the powers of my God are limitless. I will praise him, because he formed the human soul from the extract of his own virtues. I will praise him, since all thinking beings are living witnesses of his existence. I will praise him, since the human soul manifests itself like him through speech. I will praise him, because he does not abandon man in his misery. I will praise him, because he directs him as a tender mother directs her child, and makes him try his first steps. I will praise him, because he has given man the power to use animals even in the cultivation of the earth. Men, stop proving God only through material nature. By this you only prove the powerful and fruitful God. And if this material nature had already accomplished all its types, and it no longer existed, how would you then prove the one who formed it? And if you make it eternal, then also give it, as to your God, intelligence and holiness. So cancel all the types that it must offer, and which therefore become superfluous. And the obvious disorders that it announces, how will you explain them, if it has neither freedom nor thought? The heavens announce the glory of God; but his love and his wisdom, it is in the heart of man that the true testimony is written. It is in the boundless extension of our immortal being that we find the sign speaking of the holy and sacred God, and of the beneficent God to whom all our homage is due. The universe may pass away, the proofs of my God will no less be immutable, because the soul of man will float on the debris of the world. If you extinguish the human soul, or if you allow it to freeze through inaction, there is no longer any God for it, there is no longer any God for the universe. I will keep my soul active, to continually have within me the proof of my God. I will keep her busy meditating on the laws of the Lord. I will keep her busy in the use and habit of all the virtues. I will keep her busy regenerating in the life-giving springs. I will keep her busy singing all the wonders of the Lord, and the immensity of his tenderness for man. What moments will he have left that are not filled by prayer? My life will be a continual song, since the power and love of my God are boundless. As soon as I come near to the Lord to praise him, he will send me the sanctifier. The sanctifier will send me the comforter. The comforter will send me the friend of the order. The friend of the order will send me love from the house of my God. The love of the house of my God will send me deliverance: and the darkness will separate from me, to be cast down forever into its depths.

13. The crystal cup. A crystal cup falls to the ground and shatters. Just now it was useful, you could bring it close to your lips and draw from it a pleasant and strengthening liquor. now its sharp breaks can only bloody the hand. A crystal cup falls to the ground and shatters: such is the short interval between the friendship of a powerful man and his anger. Quiet and gentle when his glory is not exposed; If she runs any risks, he will take the coals from the altar and throw them in your face, rather than not defending her. He does not need his reason to prevail, as soon as he has the means to use his power. Woe to the lamb, who will find himself placed under his sword! He will slaughter it, and then he will say that it was a tiger; and his word will be received as true. Take comfort, little ones of this world. Powerful men have within themselves two courts. By one they condemn you, even though you are innocent; by the other, they are obliged to overturn the sentence. Can false and wicked speech have a fixed and stable abode? She will be wandering, because there is only the ear of the light and disappointed man where she can beg for asylum.

Holy truth, you are still buried in the tombs; but you were buried alive there. You will be reborn from all regions of the earth, and you will plunge death back into its tomb, so that it becomes rotten there. It is the Lord himself who will raise you up, and who will make your standards float in the eyes of the nations. What did he tell you? all the weapons which have been prepared to injure you will not be used against you; and you yourselves will judge all the tongues that have risen against you to condemn you. This is the inheritance of the servants of the Lord; This is how they will find justice with me, says the Lord. You therefore, sad victims of human afflictions, redouble your efforts not to let the torch of consolation be extinguished within you. The journey is short: you can already see the other bank. If you only have a spark of life-giving hope left, keep it preciously. When you arrive in the regions of life, you will only need this spark to set them all on fire, and make them forever luminous for you. Because the substances that compose them are easier to ignite than those of lightning itself, and more mobile than lightning.

14. Cities of refuge. Take your lyre and never leave it. Don't give your mind any more rest. When he has reached the west, let him return to the east to begin a new course. When he has struck the north, let him return to the south. That from the depths of the abyss he rises every day to this focal point from which streams of light flow. The Lord will urge man to listen to the truth that calls him. He will disturb him in his false pleasures, he will strike him with great examples. He will vivify it by the secret attraction of virtue. He will instruct him through light dreams. This is how I have sometimes led my prophets. Weak and lazy men, if you had fallen into muddy and vast water, would you not have to move quickly to get back to shore? It was an action that took them out of their original position. It is only through an action that they can go back there. Seek the cities of refuge, since you are in a night so thick that you are perhaps not for a moment without involuntarily shedding the blood of your brothers. Their parents are constantly chasing you for revenge. Your days are in danger; but the Lord wants to save your life. Fly, fly to these cities of refuge, with which his mercy has filled the land which he has given you. O God of peace, remember that your elect have asked to be accursed, for the salvation of their brothers. It was for you, and not against you, that they made such wishes. Your love will follow them into the desert, and will nourish them there until their brothers come out. They make themselves hostages to death, you will redeem them. Charity alone can envisage this sacrifice, charity alone can understand it. Your immortal love alone can direct its accomplishment.

15. Mediating time. Say not, O mortals! May your thirst for the truth be given to you only for your torture. The truth does not punish, it improves and perfects. Wisdom does not punish, it instructs. Love does not punish, it gently prepares the ways. How could love punish? This, however, mortals, is what constitutes the essence of your God. Wisdom would not allow true desires to enter into you if it had not also provided sure means to satisfy them. It is the measure itself, and acts with you only to this extent. But you, O imprudent and foolish judges, you disturb this measure in weak mortals! If you start to become masters too early, you only offer them early or stolen fruits, which end up leaving you in confusion. If you exalt their ideas too much, you give them anticipated and dangerous desires. If you bend their minds to compound things, you give them difficulties which lead them astray.

Wisdom, wisdom, you alone know how to direct man without fatigue and without danger, in the peaceful gradations of light and truth. You took the time for your organ and your mediator; he teaches everything, like you, in a gentle, insensitive manner, and continually remaining silent; while men teach us nothing with the continual and excessive abundance of their words. The Lord advances like a living fire; he seizes all the portions of fire which are spread in beings. He lights his torches before the human soul, he himself accompanies it to help it arrive more safely to the gates of love. O man! How much you will groan one day, when with the influences of the disorder with which you will have filled yourself, you will approach the region of order! How, with the marvels with which living wisdom had formed my existence, could I have become the mercenary and maker of illusion? How could I accuse of injustice the hand which was only occupied with showering me with its favors? The word had only conquered time, it had not entered into man, it had not been engraved in him, it had only made itself heard continually in him, so that he could make its sounds resound outside. harmonious, and that he celebrated the praises of universal mercy.

16. The kingdom of GOD. No, lord, it is not permitted for man to possess here below all the goods that his thought allows him to glimpse. You are willing not to deny him the hope, lest he become discouraged; but justice cannot yet grant him the entire enjoyment of it, he could not bear it. Oh ! How beautiful the reality of the future world will be in our eyes, since the illusion of this current world, fleeting and apparent, is so imposing and so magnificent! In the region of life, the act of the spirit is perpetual. The regenerated man casts his gaze there without interruption on the living and pure beings, whose appearance sanctifies him. All these motives strike him successively, and leave him with no faculty that is not fulfilled. When will time be precipitated and no longer rob man of the enjoyment and rights of his being? During the time we can only painfully seek wisdom and truth. Above time we possess them. Over time insults are spewed against them. Holy regions, these curses will never prevail against you. The blood of the earth will no longer rise over his head; the Lord has struck him down with the voice of his triple thunder, and brought him into his channels. He has joined the heavens to the earth, sowing in the souls of his elect the seed of the spirit of truth. He linked the earth to the heavens, making this divine germ bear fruit in the souls of these same elect.

May all beings, in time past, in time present, and in time future, bless his name. It is by seeking his name and praising his name that I will succeed in deceiving time. Nations of the earth, future generations, take advantage of my secrets. Time will be rushed beneath you, you will obtain joy and rest for your souls. This is the reward and the blessings that will descend on my songs. Men would like to lead you to God through labyrinths, some would even make it a crime for you to seek him. Mysteries of the kingdom of God, you are less inexplicable than the mysteries of the kingdom of men.

17. Evil. Who will dare say that evil is anything other than a deviation from good? Who will dare to regard it as stagnation in the direct line? There are only stagnations next to the riverbeds, there cannot be any in the currents. In the region of life, this line is a great and eternal current, which by its rapidity carries everything in its course, and attracts everything that is on its banks. Where would its edges be, since it acts everywhere? Is there anything in the region of life that can resist its impulse? Here below this line also proceeds without disturbing its course; it constantly acts on the evil itself, to correct its deviation. But it only proceeds in partial and attenuated currents, and evil has the power to oppose their action. Principle of evil, you have voluntarily depraved yourself in your faculties, because they are not fixed; you can never deprave yourself in your essence, which is imperishable. It is not very thoughtful to seek in yourself a more positive key, and another origin to your existence. If life exists, death cannot exist, because there would be two things. You only derive your depraved origin from your attachment to images of being. Was it not for having contemplated yourself, you who were only the image of God, that you fell into darkness? Is it not the same crime that has been repeated universally? And in our arts, in our passions, and in our popular and material superstitions do we not see everywhere the contemplation of signs and images, instead of the worship of principles and models? Man, by approaching evil, generates an image of his false action, which becomes his torment when he rises and contemplates it. By approaching the good, he generates a living work which becomes his consolation at all times. Therefore consult your two substances, and there will be nothing among the final causes or reasons of things that cannot be revealed to you. Lord, you have placed in the seeds all the abbreviated properties of their principle; since you yourself are our principle, all the lights and all the virtues can shine in us. But, unfortunate mortals, how much mire have you thrown on this torch, instead of constantly removing it from its envelopes, and then you complained of no longer seeing it!

18. The Savior. It is no longer the time to say, like David: Lord, I cried to you day and night, and you did not listen to me. The doors of the temple were not yet open, the people were seated on the steps of the court. They waited, with their hands wrapped in their clothes, for dawn to appear, and for the doorkeepers, called by the auspicious hour, to come and give access to prayer. The day has come, we can walk up to the altar. We have no more need, O prophets! To shout like you, until our backs break, to be heard. We are near the high priest, with a glance he judges whether our faith is sincere, and whether our offering is pure. Does love enliven your eyes, and fill them with sweet tears? This is your request, this is your prayer. You are heard; the high priest is in understanding with you. Return to your homes, filled with goods.

Every day, repeat the same requests with the same sincerity, and you will receive the same blessings. The patriarchs cleared the field of life; the prophets have sown; the savior has given maturity: we can reap the most abundant harvest at any time. Did he not defeat the enemy? He was not tempted in his senses and in his matter, because his body was made of pure elements, and it was the way of love and not the way of sin, which had placed him in the region of bodies. He was not tempted in his senses and in his matter, because it was not through the senses and through matter that the crime of man had begun. He was only tempted by his matter, because matter is the path of disorder and lies. But he was tempted in his love and in his faithfulness, because the spirit had led him into the desert. Because love had made him leave the abode of his glory, to plunge into our abysses; because having left his place to approach the disorder, he could not avoid feeling the shock of its poisonous influences; because he alone, as the source of power, could provide man with the strength and the means to defeat the enemy; and because, when the soul has conquered the enemy in the spirit, it can no longer tempt it, neither in its matter nor by its matter.

But with what weapons did he defeat the enemy? With what responses did he silence the tempter? It is by three passages taken from the scriptures; and the scriptures would still seem unworthy of your attention.

19. Blessings. As impetuous as the raging aquilons, as ardent as the fires of Etna, as persevering as the movement of the stars: such must be the prayer of man; it must no more know rest and interruption than eternity knows time and intervals. I will imitate Jacob, I will not leave you until the angel has blessed me. My soul longs for you. Bless me with earthly blessing. Bless me with heavenly blessing. Bless me with divine blessing. Bless me with the blessing of the sanctuary. Bless me with the blessing of strength, intelligence and love. And I will celebrate the greatness of your mercy and your power, and I will humble your enemies! God will give me a hostage of this alliance, and this hostage will never leave me. He will place faithful guards over my whole person; my body, my soul and my spirit will be guarded by the sentinels of the Lord. My word has flowed towards my God, it has ascended to its seat, it has struck the sources of life.

I feel them descending inside me. They search everywhere in me for what belongs to them. They are life. Everything that lives in me is their own good. They are peace, joy, happiness: how could everything not end in hymns! Moses, Deborah, Zechariah, all the saints of God completed their works with actions of thanks to the Lord. The end of the work will be a universal concert. The hymns are continuous in the upper region. Is it within life that drowsiness can make itself known? Israel, you were chosen to be the singer of the earth. Never interrupt your concerts, and may the earth no longer languish in sleep.

20. Baptism for the dead. What job can compare to that of being baptized for the dead? To continually wash away through our suffering the stains that men have made on themselves, those that they make on themselves, those that they will make on themselves, and to bear all the terrible pain that is the result? Wherever this man goes, whatever he does, his work follows him, and the bitterness of the cup ferments within him. He is only occupied, he is tormented by the desire for the healing of the great wound. Oh ! God of peace, if among my brothers there are those who act as if they do not remember you, do not act towards them as towards those whom you no longer remember.

Is not the zeal for the house of the Lord connected with the love of man? Is not man the object of the work and love of the Lord? You promised Israel to give peoples and kingdoms for them; but you gave even more for peoples and kingdoms, since you gave yourself for them. The Lord is an infinite progression of mysteries, he has clarity and light for all ages. He has given us in the first solid material proof that his name remains on earth. He has thereby demonstrated to us the universal activity of his powers, and how his action fills all regions and all degrees of time. He taught us that in his image we must fill the universe with his distributing justice, even to the places where his justice is established. This is the burden that the man of sorrows must bear; he must take on even the burden of his brothers, if cowardice stops them. He must carry this overwhelming weight through the harsh paths of time, through brambles and thorns, despite hail and frost, to the place of his destination. No action, you can probably disturb the harmony. How much more the false or blameworthy action must not disturb her! Nothing is lost: must one day the harvest manifest itself, and your crimes produce in the light the fruits they sow today in the shadows?

In order not to shudder at the future state, we would have to measure it. But how would the current state serve as a basis for us? See if the circular line is not at least neutral in relation to spirituality, since it is either in form or bad? And learn where the sorrows of the prophets come from, and the sufferings where the great plague holds all beings.

21. Emmaus. O you, who sit on thrones of light, why do men find so much difficulty in reconciling their systems? Is it not so that they are all obliged to bend under the divine yoke, and to recognize the sole sovereign of beings, for the sole scholar and the sole master? When will you extend a helping hand to place me at your feet, on the steps of your throne? From this point of elevation, I would contemplate with the eye of intelligence, the wonders of all the universes. I would feel keenly and fixedly in my heart this immortal spur of divine life, which should regulate and sanctify my entire being! Through you I would participate in this unity which alone can reconcile all mortals. As long as the snake retains its skin shriveled by the cold of winter, can it receive the benign influences of spring? And how does he obtain this new skin that life will penetrate?

It is by rubbing painfully against the thorns; it is by passing through the iron and prickly brambles that he detaches his remains, and that he becomes smooth and agile as in the first days of his youth. All the violence of the enemy is like the sieve where the grain is sorted and separated. All the thorns that he will make me feel will detach a fold of my old dress with each wrinkle. Then they will mark on me the signs of our co-eternal alliance; they will shake my hand, they will shake the hand of my soul in testimony of our union; they will have orders to seal it with the sacred seal. Natural reason, prudent observation, you can enlighten us on our primitive state. Regeneration alone, and the renewal of our whole being, can make us feel it. What even is the purpose of the two laws? Is it not limited to restoring to us the purity of the secondary state? Also all of you, chosen by the Lord, have been busy with this work, and you have taught us little about the first state. Sacred traditions had to be filled with facts of the mind, and not with speculations of the intellect. Oh ! World, oh! World, why were you not worthy that it should develop before the disciples of Emmaus? What wonders he could have taught them, since at the moment he spoke to them, he was already no longer in the abode of death.

22. The mother. Does a mother lose sight of the son whom she punishes for the slight faults of his childhood? She takes him a few steps away from her, she prescribes for him an enclosure before her eyes, and in the same place where she lives. This is how God deals with guilty man. Child, if you knew your mother's heart! It will not be the cries of anger that will touch her. She is waiting for you to make those of friendship and repentance heard. She even secretly sends faithful friends to you, who seem to suggest to you without your knowledge that you implore her mercy. You follow this beneficial advice! Come, darling child, there are no more barriers for you, there is no more distance between us, and we can kiss each other. God of peace, you wait, like this tender mother, only for the humility of man's heart, and the return of his gaze to you, to draw him out of his captivity. He no longer dares to call you his father, because he has deprived himself of the right to do so by his offenses and his defilement. But you still call him your son, because you forgive him, and you no longer remember his crimes. And the spirit of man believes itself abandoned when it is punished! He believes he is in nothingness when he is no longer in the abundance of life! As if love did not accompany justice everywhere! As if the simple sovereigns of the earth did not themselves provide the necessities of the illustrious culprits from whom they are forced to take away opulence and freedom! Yes, yes, the Lord sometimes dips the universe into the abyss, but he does not want to plunge it there permanently. From the top of his throne, he hears the cries of the Hebrews in the land of Egypt. These cries bring down his own name, this name which had not even been given to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. Because the more extreme our evils are, the more the beneficent author of our life hastens to send us effective help.

23. The Man of Sorrows. A man was sent as a testimony to attest the empire of truth over error, and of reality over nothingness. He became a man of sorrows, finding nowhere to rest the head of his intelligence. God had said: I will gather together the dispersions of Israel. They said: let us divide the congregations of Israel. A branch fell from the tree. Fools have picked it up; but did they observe it to know the nature of the tree? They lifted her against this tree; they struck it to mutilate it, and disfigure all its fruits. Mortals, know that those who have been cut into scythes will be put back in the forge and on the anvil, before becoming plowshares again.

The powers of time cut the stones for the future building. They prepare the metals to adorn the temple of the eternal; they throw them into the furnace so that they can be purified of their slag. It is the most ductile and gentle men who are made to suffer more. like gold, they can be passed through the narrowest channel without breaking them. Sour metals do not withstand this test. What can detach man from divinity when he clings to it through love and pain? The door of love has been opened, man has two paths today. Formerly he only had his name, as well as the pervert. If he unites himself with love from this world, if he takes God for his only master, and the soul of man for his most cherished spouse, he will become impeccable in the kingdom to come. Primitive glory of man, you had to increase, and you were decreasing. The temporal laws of the spirit came to his aid in the degree of inferiority to which he had descended. And they must bring him back to this line of infinite growth which was intended for him by his origin. Has not the garment of charity been spread over the wound to cover it? Didn't the balm penetrate there to heal it? The wound, the garment and the balm, what a field for the study of the word and for the consolation of man! Lord, lord, it is true that man cannot hide from your eyes, since your spirit and your love fill the whole earth. But since your spirit and your love fill the whole earth, it is also true that you cannot hide from the eyes of the man who desires you and who seeks you. Man of desire, do not let your confidence be shaken by the injustices of your fellow men.

24. Inheritance. Let us ensure that in our final hour, only our legitimate heirs will share in our remains. This is how our inheritance will be distributed. The pure agents of nature will inherit our elemental substances. Good men in all ages will inherit our salutary influences. The centuries will inherit our memory. God's elect will inherit the living works that we have carried out on earth. The ministers of the council will inherit our fairness and our judgment. The angels of light will inherit the discoveries and truths that we have introduced into the commerce of thought. The pure woman will inherit our virtues and our respect for the laws of nature. The spirit will inherit our zeal and dedication. The divine repairer will inherit our love.

The sovereign of beings will inherit our holiness. There will be nothing left for the thieves and the processive people. But what must be done to obtain such grace? We must maintain perfect order in all our possessions. During the event, we will have to beg the great judge to come himself and put his seal and his name on everything that belongs to us; so that the fear and respect that this great name impresses will make all those who present themselves in the house with evil designs retreat.

25. The trees of Eden. The wood is lowered into the bitter waters to sweeten them and make them fertile; he went back to his natural land. He sent out offspring who found the waters prepared. They took root and produced fruit. We are powerful offspring, you will embrace the weak plants, you will serve as support for them like a young vine. Torrent of life, open a course to the root of the heart of man. Drag away everything that the circumcision of the sharp iron will have cut from heterogeneity, and fill the arid countryside with your waters as clear as diamond. Am I the one who can go and meet you? Bound to the earth like the grass of the fields, am I not condemned like her to all the aridity of winter?

Should I not wait for the gentle warmth of spring to melt the salutary waters suspended in hard icicles on the mountains, and make them flow abundantly to quench the thirst of the humble plain? You caused great mourning on the day I fell; you have covered me from the abyss. You have stopped the rivers that water me, you have held back the great waters. But the trees of Eden came down with me to the deepest places of the earth. They will take me back to the region of open and pure air. It will not be I who will put the enemies to flight, who will heal the ills of my brothers, and who will command my subjects. It will not be me who takes the keys of death and life, to open the archives where the secrets and wishes of the Lord are deposited. The bean from the trees of Eden will work all these wonders for me. She is the light, she is life. It will place before my eyes all the pictures of the natural history of man; and it will teach me what functions I will have to fulfill to contribute to the great work of our God.

26. The scale. Men must be far from you, oh truth! Since you support their ignorance, their errors and their crimes. They do not yet even know the origin of their political and earthly rights; However, they are no less eager to prescribe laws that they believe to be just, as soon as the votes are counted. Is it up to children to trace the law of families? Is it up to man to be a legislator? And is he not by his nature the simple minister of a law which can only be superior to him insofar as it does not come from him? And they would like to make the use of this power so perfect that their political existence would be immortal, their happiness unfailing, and their tranquility beyond all reach and protected from all disorders! Imprudent, your weak nature and the region of darkness that you inhabit will always oppose your hopes; and despite all your precautions, providence will not make the needs or the dangers cease for you, lest you take this world for your place of rest. She loves you too much not to give you opportunities to pray to her and call on her to help you. Then think about exercising this problematic right that you are creating for yourself. See him arming himself with cruelty, injustice and iniquity, directed by deceit, greed or vengeance. What weight of abominable accumulations in the scales of the human idea! How can she not see the opposing mass, which must necessarily act as a counterweight? Is it not more than certain that every stale mind will be carried away by the feeling of this necessity?

If this mind is not penetrating, it will first see the two sides of the scale only as being level: such was the measure of the Manichaeans. But let him continue, he will soon see which of the two weights must prevail. He will further see that a necessary, and necessarily eternal, hand supports and suspends the scales, and that it is there alone that the true source of power and social laws is found. He will see that a supreme power, by suspending this scale, leaves free movement to his two pelvises. But who will understand these truths unless he rises to the center of man's thought? Oh ! Man, how long will you remain bowed under the weight of your mistakes and your hasty judgments? When will your soul know the pains of the man of desire, and will it thereby learn to judge its own illusions, and its terrible security?

27. Speech. You speak, and we raise buildings for you! You speak, and your armies assemble and overthrow your enemies! You speak, and science and knowledge are transmitted in the minds of those who listen to you! You speak, and the wounds and pains of the sick are healed, the passions are calmed, and make room in the heart of man for the light of truth! You speak, and your alliances are formed, and you assure your generations all the rights and all the honors they can expect. Your word is a motive of absolute necessity, and the works that man carries out in the entire universe are and can only be the fruit of your word. There is only one law: if a word had not acted, how would the edifice of the world have received being? If a word had not acted, how would man have felt his sublime destination? How difficult is it that the same word still acts to offer him consolation in his depths, and to help him escape from it? As soon as he exists, the word is always on him; she only varies her language and her modulations. Mortals, you cannot believe in the word that maintains everything, and you are forced to believe in the word that created everything. Know that you had to cross the new appearance in thought, to read your generation. Didn't it seem like it was annihilated by falling below this number? But could he lose his titles? And you yourself, have you lost yours by plunging into the precipice? The word is eternal, because it is life: seek life, you will feel it, you will taste it; you will be assured that it is by itself. If you manage to feel life, you will no more ask yourself to account for what it is than you will wonder about what it is only a pleasure for your soul and an axiom for your spirit.

You will feel that life and speech are in themselves, and that they cannot not be. Can the axioms you know perish, can they be altered? Don't they seem eternal to you? However, they are only the corollaries of a single and supreme axiom; also your mind can measure justice itself, and your heart taste life. Human reason, a disastrous instrument which we abuse, therefore serves to bring man closer to life, after having served so much to distance him from it! This reason has become like a precipice in the middle of a fertile plain. It is only by fleeing from it that the traveler can walk with a firm step, and not break in his fall.

28. Azarias. Will you pray to God, and ask him for his gifts and favors before you have purified yourselves, and established in you all the virtues? This would mean offering her to prostitute herself. to whom do the sovereigns of the earth give places and jobs? to those who are supposed, through their work and their zeal, to have made themselves capable of it. Neither do you take for orders from above, nor for a reward, what is only the fruit of the great tolerance of the spirit. Ah! My brothers, if man knew his influence, you would see how obscure the path of life is for those who do not rise to the great light! Let us not rest until we have prepared the ways of the Lord, and covered the streets of Jerusalem with flowers and branches. It is from the summit of the celestial regions that our being was precipitated. The name of the Lord followed us. But how long it takes for this sacred root to rise with us to its powers! Enter the career of truth, the enemy will tempt you first with discouragement, then with the appearance of your successes and with glimmers of life, which you take for life itself. But at least if the impure can take the human form, he cannot take the substance of this form, because he would be delivered. The pure, on the contrary, can take on both the appearance and the substance of the human form, and yet still hold on to the region of life, since it comes to give it to us. Remember Azarias; remember the savior, before and after his resurrection; remember also his ascension, and you will know the three degrees of the man of desire. Man, shudder with fear during your career of death and corruption, and constantly watch against the weakening of the spirit. But remember that the enemy only knows what we show him. When the savior still only acted as a spirit, the enemy was deceived, and he dared to converse with him, he dared to tempt him. Since the savior had developed his character, and following his forty days of prayer, the celestial angels had presented themselves to serve him, the enemy no longer knew him on earth except through the organ of human souls. in which he had established his abode of corruption. It was only by this means that he confessed its divinity, because the soul of man is the true intermediary, and because without this intermediary the iniquity of the enemy would have been too distant from the ineffable divinity. Also it was only in these circumstances that the savior imposed silence on him, so that holiness would not be soiled by his impure mouth.

29. The ages of man. When the wound was formed, a ray spread, and each portion of this ray participates in life according to its measure. It is by dividing his love that man descended into crime and darkness. But you, O eternal! It is by multiplying your love and the means of uniting yourself to man that you manage to deliver him, without compromising your holy sublimity. Was not earthly time established by wisdom, to kill in us this solitary worm which devours all our food? Human posterity, why do you seem to act as if you are separated and abandoned to your sole action.

Without salt, external agents would have too much influence; without the oil, the salt would corrode you: that is why both are in the envelope and preserve you. And besides, isn't childhood heralded by rectitude of judgment and a lively feeling of justice? If this tender plant were better cultivated, would not youth be for it the full exercise of this virtue? Mature age, that of vast and profound knowledge? Old age, that of indulgence and love? Alas, in what order do these progressions follow! What then will be the resources of man, if even time is given to him in vain? Time was the gentle way; all that will remain for him is the path of rigor or the path without time. Come out of this drowsiness which would end up transforming your whole being into a sepulchre. rush towards the light without even thinking of the annoyances that besiege you. It's a time for pain. But once the fire of the spirit is lit, all we can think about is not putting it out. The principle of temporal life is sweet as man's childhood. The principle of spiritual life is sweet as the truth. But to know and feel the sweetness of the principle of divine life, one must be resurrected from time. So when you lift up your spirit to the Lord, take care that your heart does not remain on the earth. When you lift your heart to the heavens, make it fly there on the wings of your spirit. By this means you will bring back into yourself both the treasures of love and light; and you will gain some idea of ​​the perfections of this great being who is beyond time, and in whom all these divine attributes are eternal like him, because they only exist and act in his holy and sublime unity.

30. The pact. Am I for any other purpose than to seek the covenant of the Lord? I will make solemn commitments so that this end never fades from my heart and my mind. Come all, pure ministers of my God, come and witness the immutable and irrevocable pact that I want to make with my God. Let all the powers emanating from him, and aflame with the zeal of his glory, gather together and open their ears to my words. I bind myself in heart, mind and intention to the eternal alliance of my God with the posterity of man. I place at your feet all my being, all my affections, as the first Christians brought all their goods at the feet of the apostles. I dedicate myself, thanks to infinite divine assistance, to living, thinking and dying only for my God. Make me renew this authentic obligation before you every day of my life. Let me never be so unhappy and so unworthy as to forget it: or else rise up all against me, all bear witness against me; and force me to pay, without delay, the tribute of praise and homage that I owe to your master and to mine. And you, eternal and invigorating principle of all that is, watch over the commitment I have just made, be its first support and first protector. All the nations enemies of your glory have their eyes open to my prayer. If you do not grant it, they would say that you are a god who is invoked in vain, and they would make it a triumph. May there only ever be one triumph on earth, and may it be reserved for the man of peace! It is to feel that there is no joy like that of resting in the Lord, and of being carried by the hand of the Lord. Holy Spirit, it is you who provides man with this happiness, because the holy spirit is the universal movement. Because it is both root and power, since its power is fourfold like its root. Because nothing without it can know either term or fullness. Because it links the word and the work of the six days, and helps both to separate appearance from iniquity. Because it is the last vein of divine life, and it touches the first vein of human life.

31. The great architect. Suspense, supreme God,… Give me time to prostrate myself at your feet to prepare myself for your favors, and to become less unworthy of them… I have just prostrated myself at the feet of the eternal; be silent, my soul, and adore... Instead of leaving me delivered to my humiliation, God sought me, God pursued me. Before me was the divine liberator of humans, himself prostrated at the feet of supreme wisdom. There he stripped himself of his glory, and reserved of his own divinity only the inextinguishable hearth of his love. He lifted the weight of justice which, having gathered entirely on the formidable tribunal of the Most High, threatened the guilty man. She cast glances of vengeance over the abyss of time, she was ready to crush the universe. But this heroic and magnificent repairer formed like a vast ocean of love and charity, where all the rivers of life came to bring their salutary waters. Their mass surpassed that of justice as the combined light of innumerable celestial torches erases the twilights of our dark globe. With effort he carried the weight of the scales, and tilted them in favor of my unfortunate posterity.

I felt its divine influence penetrate my entire being, dissolving all the stains with its fire, and plunging them as if in an invigorating and regenerating torrent. This then, Supreme God, is how you behave towards your infirm creature! You overwhelm her with your graces before she has even done anything to deserve them. I got up, I was no longer the same man. All the bonds which previously held my head bent towards the earth had been broken. All the seductions which had poisoned me had disappeared; active sources came out freely from my heart. They carried their courses, without encountering any obstacle, towards the regions of the world, to contemplate the order and laws of the great architect; towards the abyss, to contemplate his justice there, and towards his sacred abode, my first abode, to find there the end of all the fatigues of mortals.

32. Spring. Walk in the way of the prophets, and you will encounter the spirit of the prophets. Did they experience the cold of the lake? They have only known the torments of charity. Certainly their soul was not always free enough to sing the joys of the Lord. How could they have sung of the joys of the Lord, while their souls were in sadness, and while they wept over the evils of their brothers? They praised you, O my God! By declaring to the nations that they were only slaves and fugitives because they had strayed from the lord. It was not their own crimes nor their own filth that prevented them from singing songs of joy; it was not for them that they wept. Your spirit had surrounded them from the womb of their mother; they were pure in their generations like Noah. They were chaste like your beloved disciple. For this reason you have chosen them to be ministers of your word, and to save the nations. But we who are nothing but iniquity, what songs could we sing? Will they be songs of joy? We are too far from the holy city. If we had lyres, we would hang them, as the Hebrews did, on the willows of the rivers of Babylon. Happy is he who has not approached the confines of death and nothingness, and who has not let the ice of winter enter his heart! He can hope for the rebirth of spring! Happy is he who, before giving himself over to the seductive pictures of his mind, seeks to drive out of his heart all weaknesses and all cowardice! He will soon recognize if they are true, if they are beneficial or harmful to him, because by this precaution he will ward off the enchanters; and he will thus protect himself from the cold horror of the abyss, from this cold horror which is the share of the timid and the lazy. Torment us with the fire of your zeal, and that we may say from the bottom of our hearts: we are not without our God.

33. Rebirth. He continually urges you to make your pact and covenant with the truth. He treats you as the Lord treated Isaiah; he opens your ear every morning, he teaches you like a master. Leave there all the mechanical means that men more curious than wise have picked up among the debris of science. These imprudent men claim to transmit power, and they use something other than the root. The Lord alone teaches his elect the means necessary for his work. Could you feed on a spirit that is only artificial and the work of your hands, like idols? Let the one who seeks you act gently on you; let him attach himself to you through natural analogy and the repetition of his pure and beneficent acts. Who will achieve the sublimity of the work of the rebirth of man? Let us not compare the creation of the universe to it. Let us not even compare to it the emanation of all thinking beings. To work all these wonders, it was enough for wisdom to develop its powers; and this development is the true law proper to it. To regenerate man, it had to concentrate them, it had to annihilate itself and suspend, so to speak, itself.

She had to assimilate into the region of silence and nothingness, so that the region of silence and nothingness would be neither disturbed nor dazzled by her presence. O man of iniquity, suspend your turbulent and restless movements, and do not flee the hand of the spirit which seeks to seize you. He only asks you to stop, because all the movements that come from you are contrary to him. Where is the place for the action of the mind? Isn't everything full of human movements? Where is he who is regenerated in the movements of the spirit? Where is the one who will have crossed and as if pulverized all the corrosive envelopes which surround him? Would he not be like the lamb abandoned in the forests, among all the carnivorous animals? Let the entire universe become one great ocean; let a ship be launched on this immense beach, and let all the storms gathered continually come to torment the waves: such will be the righteous among men, such will be the one who will be regenerated in the movements of the spirit.

34. Infection. A single moment of suspension of God and the spirit, leaves our principle of life as in death; and this deadly paralysis that he experiences makes itself known to the eyes of the intelligent observer. It is a wound, it is a wound that we have allowed to inflict on our thoughts, and we appear to be deformed beings to those who are regular.

I will declare my iniquities to all the world. The whole universe must purify me, I must be mixed with all its lands, washed in all its waters, and dried by all its fires. May everything that forms the universe hear the cries of my pain. I will allow myself no rest until my cries have filled it; until they burst it open, and reached the region of life. Was it not my injustices that made it collapse on me? Must I not bear the full weight of it, and lift it painfully until I have emerged through its ruins, and regained freedom? Cry with me, powers of nature, be the mournful singers of man's funeral. He lost his strength, his days ended, and it was you who he charged to dig a tomb for him and bury him. Come and overthrow your torches in his grave. Do not cover it with flowers, like that of young men, like that of virgins who died in innocence. He died in crime. The infection spread to all his limbs. Bury him quickly, bury him deep in the earth, lest he corrupt all your lands.

35. Philosophy. Who will overthrow me now? A creative sign has been engraved on me. He re-established my original alliance with the divine home. He makes me participate in his warmth, in his eternal impassivity. The region of illusion seemed to collapse beneath my feet; my soul tasted the activity, it felt in itself the generation of the Lord. Mortals, you would know the generation of the lord, you would feel repeated within you what happened at the origin of things, if you had the courage to rise towards the principle of life. Because the principle of life always creates you, even when you do not realize it. Would he not also create you if you fixed your attention and your gaze on him? What are you, dark philosophy? You are for me like the cries of the insects crawling in the dungeons, and who would like to pronounce on the wise deliberations which take place in the councils of kings. You compare to your darkness, to your nothingness, the glory and majesty of thrones; and because this glory does not shine within your walls, you claim to be authorized to deny its existence. I will say to the prestige that daily seduces humans: in vain you will offer me all the enjoyments; in vain you would like to put them in parallel with what I experience. My God is greater than you; my God is everything. Where will I find another being who would be as gentle to me as my God?

I will say to impiety: would you still try to establish your kingdom in my mind, at the expense of that which is felt in me? How could I blaspheme against the exclusive and generative source of life? To deny this being, would I not have to use the organ of voice and speech that he himself gave me? And to deny it like this, wouldn't that prove it? I will say to your matter: stop seducing my eyes with the image of feigned reality. The more you act, the more you divide yourself, until this division leads you to nothingness. The mind, on the contrary, the more it grows and rises, the more it becomes simplified; and its region knows neither division nor difference. Pure joy, divine joy, you will not be barren in me. Too full of you to contain you, I want everything that exists to witness it. Like the sacred lyre that the eternal has chosen from time immemorial to express his melodious songs, I will sing the presence of my God, the glory of my God, and his ineffable wisdom. The heavens will lend me their agreements, the universe will rejoice in the fact that one more man unites with the concerts of his God, and the abyss will shudder at not being able to disturb its harmony.

36. Dew. Blessed are the souls who humble themselves before the truth, and who bear in peace the slowness of the salutary dew! Will you believe your wound is healed by impatience? And if you remove the device too soon, won't you make it worse? Moan, pray and wait. Look how many stars are above the earth; the throne of the eternal is so far beyond these spheres that you no longer have numbers to express its elevation. It is there that the beneficial waters are born which alone can fertilize your earthly home. There they are pure, subtle, imperceptible to the senses of human thought. as they descend, they do not lose their life-giving qualities; but they condense to appropriate our nature. Their final degree of condensation is still so limpid that the human eye could not bear its brilliance if it had not acquired its strength and maturity. As long as he is deprived of this living and creative air, as the child in his mother's womb is deprived of natural air, all his faculties are inactive. This is the life that penetrates him! See his soul yearning and breathing life. See him enter into relation with his primitive atmosphere, and begin with it the commerce which will not cease, as the life of his body, and the ebb and flow of nature must one day cease.

No, mortals, no, privileged beings, it will not cease for you: but can it not still have suspensions? After having known the joys of heaven, can you not descend to the mire of the lake of death? Can you not fall prey to the illusions of this deceptive being who constantly whispers to men plans beyond their means, so that they are covered with shame and humiliation? Wisdom, wisdom, you sometimes shake man with a powerful arm, you elevate him to the supreme regions, you plunge him into the abyss. You make him feel, sometimes the ice of the north, sometimes the devouring heat of the south, so that he knows that you alone are the lord, and so that he neither boasts nor becomes discouraged. Hope and humility, these are the elements with which you want to compose in him divine charity, this virtue which will be his only title to be admitted into the abode of peace, enjoyment and love.

37. The sieve. My personal joy is as if assured, as soon as I have been touched with the zeal of the house of the Lord. My joy is assured, as soon as I weep, and am as if I had been baptized for the dead. Who will prevent me from carrying to the tomb the consoling idea that the Lord gave me of himself? Alas! The soul of man is a sieve which should have prevented evil from passing through with good: it has corrupted his ways, it has only served as a sieve for evil, and it has prevented good from passing through. It will once again have to serve as a sieve for evil, so that good can pass through pure. What pain can compare to my pain! Powerful, deceitful and superb men, your injustices no longer seem like anything to me compared to my pain. In vain you caused a serpent to arise from the earth which came to carry its murderous teeth into my heart. In vain you have reduced me to devouring a portion of it every day of my life, since it embraces all the space there is from my heart to my grave. In vain you have made it like the numbering of my days, and you have ensured that I will not have devoured it in its entirety until the moment I return to the dust. The love that I feel for the human soul lets fall, as if beneath me, all the evils that come to me from you. Because as I approach the Lord, I will implore his love for you, I will ask him that your injustices be forgiven you; and I will no longer leave the joy of the Lord, this joy which is nourished by tears, and which only knows the zeal of the house of the Lord. He acted towards me like a jealous mistress, he arranged everything carefully for fear that I would love anything other than him.

Sometimes he consoled me at the time when I was going to receive tribulations, sometimes he sent me tribulations of which only he could console me; in order to force me thereby to resort to him alone, and to throw myself only into his arms: and I would leave my God! And I could prefer something to my God! And I could rest on a power other than that of my God! He alone is mighty and just, and he alone will bring down justice in the midst of the judgments of men. The star of Jacob, the lion of the tribe of Judah, has not been overcome by any trial. He was strength and light; he found in himself the means to resist all his enemies. He could even give life to those who gave him death. So he alone can quench the thirst of the thirsty, and yet leave him with the sweetness of desire, healing him from the pain of need. Because the waters of this pure source, at the same time as they are inexhaustible, are impregnated with the salt of wisdom, in order to constantly awaken the taste and desire of the man of truth.

38. The coward. Take care, O man! To pray the coward's prayer, and to want to obtain everything without work. What other prayer than action, than that which attracts action and which unites with action? Earthly angel, governs man, attaches to him pure and salutary actions. Preserve it, direct it, watch over it, be its guardian and mentor. Take care of his memory and his education for his passage. This is your task, this is your work. Man is not yet here in the holy and sanctifying region, where he will only have to enjoy and will have nothing to fear; where he will only have to continually admire, and where he will not need to remember, since nothing will pass and everything will always be present to him; where he will not need judgment, since nothing will be confused, and his intelligence will always understand. Here he is like the Hebrews in bondage. They went to get their bread among drawn swords. Among the Hebrews, don't the name of bread and that of war come from the same root? Here man is under the law of childhood, where it is puerility which dominates and draws down the very reason and all the faculties of mature people. Here it is in an inverse law, since everything rushes and goes down into nothingness, while everything should grow and rise in the region of light and life. Devour time, dissolve time, slip through the interstices and crevices of this building which has been shaken to its foundations. You will discover some twilights of the emerging dawn; and like the envoys of Joshua, you will be able to tell your fellow citizens the wonders of the promised land.

Measure the space and duration of iniquity on earth. Relate five and fourteen to seventy. Replace five and nine with forty-five. This is the origin of forms, their end, and the limits of the property of the quinary. Isn't the tree known by the fruit? study the leaf of the vine. You grieve, mortals, over the evils and misfortunes of this world. Illnesses discourage you, misfortune beats you down; political troubles frighten you, natural revolutions freeze you with terror. Focus your thoughts on the real evils which besiege you, and which you all have to bear, and all these misfortunes will no longer affect you. What is a slight inconvenience in the eyes of one who is tormented by horrible sufferings, and who is under the scourge of the last tortures? Do not take a single step without listening to your friend, without consulting your friend, be in his hand like children being taken for a walk; They don't go, we make them walk. If you had the prudence not to reject his help, you would only have no need to pray to him, you would have no other care than to admire and love him. For he himself would fulfill all the tasks with which he entrusts you, and you would feel that it would be him, and not you, who would pray within you. But, oh mortals! Happiness may continually pursue you, but you behave with it as with your enemy, and you only watch to prevent it from approaching you.

39. The right to act. My soul is lifted up to Mount Zion. Why can't I make my home there forever! This is where she draws the waters from their source. It is there that she is invigorated by pure air. I see an active fire, spreading in the blink of an eye to the furthest distances. Thus, the divine fire will travel through all the regions of my being; my soul will serve as a channel and an organ for him to reach the ends of all worlds. The blow has been struck, the spark has shone, and superior to all corruptible flames, this celestial flame will no longer be extinguished in my veins. And my days of mourning and sadness would not be changed into days of joy and jubilation! Will the times and eras still be observed, to offer my wishes to the eternal? My entire life will be occupied and filled with a single act, and this act will be the development of the treasures which are contained in the soul of man. Can the sun stop circulating in the universe? Is he not pressed by a fire which excites him and which prevents him from resting? The eternal has reserved the right to create beings. He gave nature the power to create shapes or shadows. He gave man the sublime power to create virtue in faith, because the Eternal wanted each of his productions to attest that he is the creator, leaving to these same productions the right to act each in their measure, in his image and likeness. Mortals, if man is not subjugated by your frivolous occupations, you believe him to be worthless and without work. Learn that the higher man rises, the more pleasures he finds to enjoy and actions to perform. Are you worthless and idle in the eyes of your children, for having abandoned the games of their age?

40. The Chained Brothers. Can I be insensitive to the immense difficulties which surround man, when he remains without help? And won't I pity him for having been its victim? The paths of error are innumerable, and the path of profound truths is filled with the most desperate obstacles. Let him ask himself, in the simply human way, what nature is, what the reason of beings is, all these abysses which walk alongside our thought, and always seem ready to engulf it. . Let him ask himself, in the simply human way, what these vast domains of the heavens are, the whole of which is so imposing, and whose history is so little within our reach! His eyes become troubled when he leans alone over these precipices. His head feels dizzy.

Yes, supreme God, if it were not certain that it was we who wanted to deceive you, the ignorant man would be excusable for saying with Jeremiah: you deceived me, lord, I was seduced; you prevailed against me, you were stronger than me. If I were alone on earth, I would not have to wander on the path that would lead me to the rest of my mind. I would throw myself with ardor on the true nourishment of my thoughts and my heart. I would not let go of my prey until I was satisfied, and until I felt living channels permanently established within me, always ready to transmit my sustenance to me. But even if I had cried over my own deprivation to the point of drying up my brain, when I had obtained by my efforts and my tears not to leave Jerusalem; could I forget those of my brothers, who were led in chains into the midst of the walls of Babylon? Could I take my eyes off those who are taken there every day? And could I only think of my troubles, seeing those that my fellow citizens have brought upon themselves? Jerusalem, if I ever forget you, if you cease to be the main object of my solicitude, may my tongue cling to my palate, and may my hand be unable to draw any sound from my musical instruments!

41. Forgiveness. An angry man took with him the spirit of vengeance and resentment, his soul fled impregnated with these leavens. Then a voice is heard without him seeing anyone, and it repeats without interruption: you will forgive your brother, not only seven times, but seventy times seven times. The unfortunate man hears his sentence in these words. They are his torment, whereas if he had followed them, they would have been his consolation. Was it wrong to tell us that the good news must be preached throughout the earth? See all the discoveries made by browsers. There are no great navigators except Christian peoples. We were not told that the good news would be believed everywhere. We were told that it would be preached everywhere. Are the disturbances of those who speak out in these new climates, and the abuses they have made of them, contrary to this warning? We were told that the good news would be preached; and nothing was added. But they couldn't hear the language! But all those who had died before these discoveries! But the countries that we have not yet discovered! An angel must himself read the good news at the end of time before all the assembled nations. Insensible mortals, did you need all these testimonies to believe in the fulfillment of the prophecy, and to listen to what it constantly pronounces within you? If another voice is heard, do you not see that it is false, that it only comes second, and to disturb the harmony? Well, when you leave this world, you will be told again: seventy times seven times, seventy times seven times, seventy times seven times. The good news will be preached to you in the tomb, and it will be preached a third time at the end of the centuries. That all nations may know that mercy and love are our original principle, and that they must be our continual element. Oh man! Stop making such big moves for such small reasons, as you do every day. Blush, on the contrary, to have near you such great motives which only affect such small movements on your part!

42. The mallet and the chisel. Have you paid the price to the spirit? If you haven't paid it, what peace do you hope for? When the light of intelligence shines before man, he has a test to undergo. He has a price to pay on which the rest of his career may depend. Every day you also have a tribute to pay to the spirit, and on this tribute depends the rest of your day. Like a zealous warrior, be faithful to the word of the day, to the agenda. Have you paid the price to the spirit? Have you subdued some enemies, and put them under your feet? Son of man, comfort me, says the Lord, for all the injustice that I have received from your fellow men. I had chosen their soul as a place of rest, and I found there only the infection of the sepulchres: may I at least find the soul of a righteous person to be able to remain there in peace! Alas! If a man does not watch over the desires of his soul, and even over his prayers, he can further increase his misfortune, because the desires of man are powerful, and their strength can achieve something. But true prayer is the daughter of love. It is the salt of science; it makes it germinate in the heart of man, as in his natural soil. She transforms all misfortunes into delights; because she is the daughter of love; because one must love to pray, and one must be sublime and virtuous to love. Men of God, take the mallet and the chisel, descend into my heart. Break everything angular in it, polish it like a beautiful oriental marble. Engrave there in immortal letters: fear and trembling before the justice of the lord. This word will remain eternally exposed to the eyes of the traveler. He will stop in front of this monument. Then as he continues his journey, he will say in his heart: it is a good word, that which recalls fear and respect for our God.

43. Big business. The word of the Lord produced the world, as my word produces and realizes around me all the works of my thought. The word of the Lord separated the pure from the impure; the light of darkness. She is still lively and powerful. She can continually repeat in us all her works. Let it be heard, and the light will fill us and set us ablaze. The oil of joy will flow into the heart of man. His languid head will rise, and his eyes, burning with the fire of the spirit, will print respect and fear everywhere. Heart of man! Try to open paths similar to the region of light, drawing closer through your affections to those who make their home there. Truth can only manifest anything in the world through the heart of man, it is through him that it wants to establish its domain. Was it not to him that she once told to subdue the earth and dominate it? Was it not to him that she said through the mouth of Amos, that God did nothing on earth without revealing his secret to his servants and his prophets?

Was it not to him that she said through the mouth of Solomon that the soul of man was the beacon of God? Did it not speak to him through the mouth of Paul, that the principalities and powers which are in heaven know the wisdom of God through the church? Man, be the interpreter of life. Man, be the sentinel of life. It is not enough to prevent darkness from obscuring the light; you must open the way for him. If you were faithful to your law, there would not be a point in space, and there would not be a being that was not full of life and truth. You give them death when you deviate from wisdom, because each virtue depends on one of the channels of the spirit, and only virtue can open them. Meditation on the laws of the Lord leads to the virtues, the virtues lead to the mind, the mind leads to God; the spirit of the Lord can still fill the whole earth. It is with this purpose that he diversified the gifts of men. Every man was born to be in some sort superior to all his fellows. All his fellows were born to be superior to him, each in their own way. Thus everything had to be balanced between them by the beneficent and just hand of divine wisdom. Thus each member of the human family would have been able to give and receive, and it is through this that the great commerce of charity and humility would have been exercised between them. Thus they would have painted the sublime and simple harmony, towards which their nature never ceases to remind them. Man, man, do not limit yourself to the superb pictures that your thoughts can still present to you. Let all your other faculties begin to put these tables to work. They are only given to you for that. Do you want to be like the useless crowd of speculative geniuses who fill the universe with their books and their thoughts, and who leave it empty of their works and their benefits?

44. The name. The name came out of life, and gave birth to the word. May life, the name and the word urge the human soul to walk in its path, and to turn its steps towards the end and towards the work. May the intelligence, love and lively action of the human soul, in turn urge the seat where it rests, to contribute to the work with it. May this seat where she rests transmit strength and purity in all the acts of elementary man. May elementary man transmit rectitude and accuracy around him and throughout nature. This is how life only seeks to penetrate everything and to vivify everything. at each of the stages that it travels in man, it deposits an extract of itself, where life, name and word shine at the same time.

She filled, as if to the brim, the souls of the prophets and princes of her people. They are the ones who make up the lord's army, and on whom the whole weight of the war must fall. The name is commanded by life, the word is commanded by the name, the soul of man is commanded by the word. Man, oh man! May the universe be pressed by your sublime soul, so that evil may be pressed by the universe. So that death expires, overwhelmed by such a great weight; and so that life can join life. As soon as we let the universe rest, it is as much relaxation and relief that we ourselves provide to the death that it was supposed to compress. Will you doubt that matter is subject to your mind, even though you no longer act on it except through transpositions? You also ask what is the destination of the human soul. Does not the heart of man indicate this to you by the rank he occupies? Do you not see that he is placed between the superior and the inferior, between light and darkness, in order to discern them and continually separate them? Do you not see that he cannot leave your blood for a single moment of inaction, without death threatening you?

45. The charity bank. Divine truth, holy charity, a friend believed that I had offended you to harm him. in the end the lord had pity on me; he knew my innocence, he listened to my prayer.

What then is the miserable state of man? He must pray to his god, even to obtain justice! I went to my friend. I am not coming to tell you again that you were wrong in your suspicions, I would not persuade you. I am not coming to ask you to forgive me, that would be confessing myself guilty, and I am not. I come to suggest that you do what I did myself. listen: there is neither time nor space for the mind. There will come a day when all human diversity and opposition will disappear, when unity will reconcile all men, and when they will not only remember that they were disunited. Let us move in spirit towards this future unity, and no longer remember that we had divided it between us. Happy is the one of us who makes the greatest sacrifice! in the charity bank as in all the others, the one who puts in the most funds also withdraws greater interest. Mortals, if you ever find yourself in such anguish, use the same means as me; peace will be reborn in your hearts, and you will feel how gentle and powerful the Lord is to relieve you of your burdens. It is he alone who opens the paths for us. The spirit of the Lord moves in all directions, bending and retracting until it finds a way out, and can enter into the heart of man. Because the spirit of the Lord is constantly generated from his own love and from our misery; and this is why, while announcing that God is his father, he nevertheless so often calls himself the son of man.

46. ​​The sublime melody.I just experienced an unexpected and involuntary agitation. An unknown force weighed on me. Whether it has precipitated my matter well below my spirit, or whether it has attracted my spirit outside and above my dark body, there has been in me a division of the pure and the impure. The upper waters were separated from the lower waters; the barrenness has been discovered, the light has appeared. The day of the Lord repeated in me what happened at the beginning of the universe by the power of his word. Without his divine help, man crawls like in mire; barely from the depths of his infirm abode can he discover a few rays of celestial clarity in the distance. Blessed be you forever, immortal source of all that is; in you alone is being and life, in you alone is the expansion of the joy and happiness of every creature. Outside of you, nothing can be: because where you were not, there would no longer be a feeling of existence, there would no longer be a blessing; and these are the eternal elements of life. I admired how this universal source animates all beings, and distributes to each of them, the inexhaustible fire, from which everything draws movement. Each individual formed a center, where all the points of his individual sphere reflected. These individuals were themselves only the points of the particular spheres that make up their class and their species, and which are also directed by a center. These in turn had their center in the different kingdoms of nature. These kingdoms had theirs in the great regions of the universe. These large regions corresponded to active centers endowed with an inextinguishable life, and these had as their center the first and only engine of all that is. So everything is individual, and yet everything is one. What then is this immense being which from its impenetrable center sees all beings, the stars, the entire universe forming only one point of its immeasurable sphere? However, I only saw there the order and arrangement of beings. But no sooner had I fixed my sight on their action than the picture expanded. It is their action to paint the feeling of their existence, and to bear witness to the universal center of all spheres the confession of its exclusive supremacy. I heard all beings devoting themselves with effort to the accomplishment of this action. When they suffer, their cries invoke life, when they are happy, their songs celebrate it. Does not nature, at the moment when it emerges from the shadows of the night, hasten to seek life, and to repair through its activity all the moments that it has lost in rest and in darkness? To supplement the silence of the night, do not the powers of the heavens, from the height of their wandering thrones, prefer more strongly the words of life, and do they not swell the sounds of their majestic organs? I heard all the parts of the universe forming a sublime melody,where high sounds were balanced by low sounds, the sounds of desire by those of enjoyment and joy. They lent each other mutual aid, so that order was established everywhere, and announced the great unity. at each time, where this universal agreement is felt, all beings, as if drawn by a common movement, prostrate themselves together before the eternal; and the repeated tribute of their homage and their prayers seemed to be at the same time, the soul, the life and the measure of the most harmonious of concerts. And this is how the song was completed, which all creation is charged with singing, since the life-giving voice of the Almighty first intoned, the holy hymn which must be propagated throughout the centuries. It is not like in our dark abode, where sounds can only be compared with sounds, colors only with colors, a substance only with its analogue; there everything was homogeneous. The light made sounds, the melody gave birth to light, the colors had movement, because the colors were alive, and the objects were at the same time sonorous, diaphanous and mobile enough to penetrate each other, and travel through different paths. 'a line the whole extent.

From the midst of this magnificent spectacle, I saw the human soul rising, like the radiant sun emerging from the bosom of the waves. Even more majestic than him, and made for another destiny, she was not chained like him in a circular course, where, when she had reached her last point of elevation, she would have been forced to decline, without ever staying permanently in the place of rest. But quickly following the line of infinity, from which it drew birth, it rose towards the summit of the heavens, and tended without the slightest deviation, towards this unique center which, sitting for all eternity in the supreme rank, cannot never decline, nor descend from this living throne, to which he never needed to ascend. As the human soul traveled the degrees of this infinite line, I saw the powers of the regions approach it, support it with their wings, drive away with their living breath the rest of the stains it had contracted during its life. sleep here below, and then trace on her, with their hands of fire, the authentic attestation of her initiation; so that when she presented herself to the next region, the entrance would be promptly opened to her, and she would receive a new purification and a new reward. After having reached the last degree of this line of life, I saw her take her place under the porticos of holy Jerusalem, even sitting on the thrones of Israel, using eternal days of peace to administer the divine laws among the immensity beings, and enjoy forever the ineffable right to be nourished from the table of the sanctuary.

47. Ancient history. When will you stop believing that you have no clue about the things that came before you, and that it is impossible for you ever to have the slightest trace of them? listen: without taking refuge in conventional and arbitrary things, even if you are not just, you are not absolutely devoid of ideas of distributive justice. When you harm your fellow man, there are a few moments when you feel that you would suffer if he treated you the same way: and if your prejudice and your passion rest for a moment, they let you see that you have gone astray. Where does the feeling of this balance come from that you give in to in your heart of hearts, even though you do not always have the strength to be faithful to it in your conduct? Here is a spark from the fire that shone in a time of which you have no memory. It is a monument, it is an antique, which puts you on the path to the sciences of its time. It is a germ of the plants which vegetated in the field of beings, where you came into existence. It is true, you do not yet know the tree, and you cannot have any idea of ​​it if it has not yet sprouted even the slightest bud. But isn't it enough to have the germ of it, not to say that you are absolutely helpless?

Instead of letting this sprout wither, start by cultivating it, planting it, caring for it, watering it. You see, that with such attention the germs most foreign to our climate produce trees of their kind, and provide a thousand advantages to those who cultivate them. Do you know what this germ will produce for you? To all appearances, the tree itself and perhaps if you persevere, a whole forest. These trees will hold on them the waters of the atmosphere, which will water your regions and maintain the vegetation there. These waters, after having penetrated the earth, will emerge to carry in their course, particles of gold which will help you find the mine, unctuous sulfurs and beneficial salts which will restore order and balance in your liquors. All the trees which will multiply will serve as an asylum and retreat for the terrestrial animals which will settle under their shade. All the birds of the sky will come to rest on their branches, perpetuate their species there, and delight your ear with their concerts. You can use some of these trees to warm you in the cold, to form huts against the harsh air, and even to build ships that will transport you to all regions of the world. You will be able to discover the sciences, the laws, at the same time as all the riches, and put yourself within reach of knowing the constellations of all parts of the sky. Yourselves, by walking your steps under the dark vaults of the forest, and permeating yourself with the contemplation that these places inspire, perhaps you will acquire ideas about the burning bush, and about your mission to your brothers who are in captivity under the king of the Egyptians? So no longer say that the ancient history of your being has left you without clues and without monuments, since with the single germ that it transmitted to you, you can bring it back to life in its entirety.

48. Spirit baptism. What tough struggles do the obstacles we bring with us at birth expose us to? It is not by avoiding them that we will achieve victory. They are sent to us so that through our constancy and bravery we can recover what is withheld from our heritage. What are our temporal wars, where it is only a question of continuing the conquest of a country and a citadel which are before our eyes? Here it is necessary that our soul, through its efforts, produce and create in some way what has been taken from us. The universal inheritance had been distributed to the entire human family, each particular family was to receive its portion. Each individual must receive, along with life, all the help, all the weapons we need to fulfill our job. If this inheritance was not taken care of for us, if part of it was allowed to be stolen, we are no less obliged to our work, as if we had received everything.

This is the secret misfortune of so many mortals; this is the state of violence. Inheritances are confused; they pass into foreign and illegitimate hands. The baptism of the spirit is the only remedy that can reproduce everything in us, even if we fall prey to poverty and death. It is he alone who gives us back this ancient right of life and death, which we had, and which is other than shedding blood. If you have ardor and an exclusive taste for the truth, do not complain about the obstacles that surround you; your fate is beautiful, since you yourself are responsible for creating all your trophies, and for regenerating yourself in the baptism of the spirit. Rejoice, human souls, know the sublimity of your rights. After having recovered your own inheritance, you can pray for those who have done you such great harm and obtain their measure returned to them. Let us cover, let us cover the faults of our fathers; our fathers are our gods on earth. How could a god not be, for our heart as for our thoughts, a being without stain and irreproachable? to be faithful to the one true God, and to honor our fathers: these are the two greatest precepts of the Decalogue, since they are the only ones for the observance of which rewards are promised.

49. Life. Let man separate his soul from all the objects that surround him; they will no longer be anything to him; he only enjoys them through his life, which alone gives all the value of things to him. Who other than him would be the true author of his deviations and his illusions, since he has within himself a principle of truth and life, and he can only find life in dead beings what he brings there? ? Unhappy man, you can, by turning away your soul, prevent the divine life itself from penetrating into you; you are not the creator of life, but you are its arbiter and minister in your domain. What a difference in sensation when it places itself under the supreme action, or when it descends to lower objects! They often cause him joy, it is true, since he brings his life to them, and the feeling of life is always a sweet affection for all beings. But search this joy: you will find it convulsive, and relying on relationships; she will secretly shudder at encountering objects of comparison, which embarrass her, which condemn her and which destroy her. Superior action, you place man above all objects; the joy you bring, do not fear the comparison of any of them. It is equal, calm, always growing, because it is life which draws from life, and which is reproduced by life. It is without shock, perhaps we should even say it is insensitive, such as the peaceful march of nature. Who can depict the joy of a being who always receives life, and who loses none? On the contrary, what becomes of the joy of a being who, constantly applying his life to objects to which he himself must give value, loses his life every day, and is not able to make renew this loss, since he stays far from life! Let us run, like the thirsty deer, until we meet the spring of living waters. Let us unite with life and never separate ourselves from it.

50. The eternity of sorrows.Men have said: evils and punishments will not last forever. How can we reconcile an eternity of evil with the infinite goodness of God, and above all with his unity? listen to a truth. There is no time for the mind. Is it by their duration? No, it is by their intensity that we evaluate all our impressions here below. Any sweet or painful feeling takes us out of time; each of our thoughts or our affections is for us a pleasant eternity or a painful eternity. Our tastes, our passions, true or false, always present us with the complement of happiness; our evils, our annoyances, the complement of misfortune; our thoughts, the complement of truth; what shocks them, the complement of the error. Would the man of peace be happy if he saw an end to his joy? Would the culprit be punished if he saw an end to his sentence? Supreme justice, it is from this character of unity that you draw all your strength and all your effect. In whatever state man finds himself, the idea of ​​eternity pursues him, because you are one, O holy truth, and there is no point in your infinite sphere which does not bear the seal of your universality! Thought of man, go no further. It is enough for you to arrive, through your reason alone, at these insights, and to see that the feeling of the eternity of punishment is essential in a criminal, for him to be punished. If you carry an idea of ​​term into punishments, you carry an idea of ​​time, and you destroy everything you have just admitted. Regulate your conduct on these bases: if you are guilty, the penalties you will suffer will bear the imprint of eternity. But are you sure that they only have the imprint of it, since this question can only be resolved outside of time? Woe to you, if this is not enough to make you wise, and make you tremble before the Lord! While waiting for the most certain opinion, seek the most useful and salutary. The idea of ​​the eternity of punishment is perhaps less consistent with your mind, because you are in time, therefore within limits. The opposite idea is less advantageous to your conduct; and you cannot hide from yourself that it is risky. You fear seeing the means of containing yourself in wisdom multiply! Are you then filled enough with love to soar in full flight across all the abysses of time? Even those who believe in eternal punishment, are they always stopped in their crimes? How will you ensure that you find more fear and more wisdom in a less severe opinion? Hope is the virtue of time. As soon as we leave time, it is taken from us, if we are guilty; it is accomplished, if we are just. Will you say that man's task must be fulfilled at the end of time, since it was lacking at the beginning? in the future era man will be higher than he was at his origin.The prevaricators, on the contrary, will be placed much lower than during the first judgment; how could man have relations with them? So don't forget that you are in time.

51. The farmer. A man took a considerable piece of land; he was also given the grain necessary to sow it. He did not work on the cultivation of this land, and he left the grain in a damp and cold place. The grain rotted, and the ground became covered with briers and thorns. When the deadline for payment arrived, the farmer claimed that he owed nothing, on the pretext that he had received neither fertile grain nor land suitable for cultivation. The owner was gentle; he said to the farmer: my friend, I could lose you, I would rather save you. Come with me, let's try together to shave away these thorns and brambles. I will share your work, until your eyes see again this field that you have lost sight of. Let's go to this damp and cold place, where you left your grain to rot. Perhaps everything is not spoiled. When there is only a hand full of it left, we will use it. The farmer could not resist this generosity. The field was cleared; we still found a few scattered grains that had not been affected by putridity. They were sown, and in a few years the farmer was able to pay off and still amass many provisions for his family. Unwary mortals, why have you become unbelieving in your life? Why did you dare to deny the sun? You have left your original means abandoned. They produced nothing. You have not cultivated the field of intelligence with the plowshare, you have been content to wander there. You saw wild plants there, you let them grow. They became so thick and so high that they hid the light from you. The abuses made you deny the principles, while the principles should make you discern and correct the abuses; and you said there was no truth. Who is the fool who can believe you if you thus abuse your own reason? The owner comes, and if you do not listen to the offers he makes to you, he will know how to get justice and extract from you, at your expense, an admission of your debt. The title is indelible.

52. The field of the mind. If my greatest joy is to have tasted the testimony of our God here on earth, should I not, in my turn, bear witness before the nations? I will beg them to share with me the zeal of his glory, that they may also share the sweetness of his rewards. Glory of the world, you only base yourself on what other beings lack; glory of the true man, you base yourself on what you share with the poor. Also the Lord has chosen the heart of man to sow the zeal of his glory, because the heart of man is the field of the spirit of the Lord, and it brings forth abundant harvests. He did not sow so richly in other beings, because the heart of man is his most cherished abode, and the most glorious of his temples.

53. Predictions.Supposing that the most skilful physician cannot foresee the revolutions in the health of a healthy man, he can foresee the entire course of an illness when it is determined. Therefore no longer believe that it is necessary, for the foreknowledge of God to exist, to carry it to things which are yet neither in development nor in power. No longer confuse man in his glory, and man under the law of sin. Do not believe either that, even if this prescience extended to all the acts of the beings of this universe, it was therefore the principle and the cause of your works. All works that happen in time are nothing more than sequels and consequences. The principle of acts of disorder was established from the moment of the crime. But was not the principle of works of mercy laid down at the same time? So who can escape the eye of God? We who live in time, unfortunate as we are, only know works when they are developed. You, eternal, who are above time, you read them in their source and in their root. You have chosen columns for your building, you have planned and directed their work; you have made them necessary beings; because your plans are decided, and nothing can resist your advice. But you were able to foresee their works and not operate them for that reason, because you can cast your sight on a being, and not yet launch your action there. Material men, do you want irresistible proof of this truth? There was a book written long before the establishment of Christianity and the dispersion of the Jews, and this book foreshadows both of these events. Is this the man who was able to give himself this prophetic glance? And in the secret of your thoughts, don't you feel that man is incapable of it? However, despite these predictions being so authentic, and which depend on a superior glance, this light did not act at the same time as it saw, since the fulfillment only came after the announcement. Rest at least on this part of the difficulty, and even if God foresees your works, do not think that you are all necessary beings. Yes, Supreme God, you can see everything, but you can act in beings as you wish, or let them act before your eyes. You let it work against you. Mortals, take care of the order of your faculties. You have the power to produce peace and harmony there, as God produces life in your essences. Your essence and the number of your faculties come from him; but the order and administration of your faculties must come from you. You must be able to produce something to resemble it; your productions must be based on faculties, and not on essences, so as not to equal it. These sublime gifts are yours, and the foreknowledge of God does not take them away from you or hinder you. human souls,do you want to see all these gifts flourish in you? Drink daily from the waters of the fear of the Lord; drink it constantly, until you become intoxicated with this salutary drink. The fear of the Lord is a second creation for man. She keeps all evils away from him. It absorbs all other fears. It can even absorb your worries about this foreknowledge that torments you, because it can unite you with universal action, and with the eternal continuity of light.

54. Sem. It was not among the elders that the chosen race was chosen, and the beloved people who were to enlighten the nations. It is the third son of Shem who was destined to be the head of Abraham's race and the seed of the alliance. It is also the third born of the children of Adam, who was chosen to be the head of the holy race, and the depositary of divine secrets. Is not three the last division contained in the universal mediating power? Also who could know straight lines and squares in nature? And doesn’t the radical principle always remain hidden from us? Lord, you will remember the man, because of your name, and because of the rank he holds among his brothers. When he abandons himself to crime, and darkness surrounds him, you will make the rays of your holy alliance with him shine on the clouds of his exile; and from the bosom of its abysses, you will show it the region of life.

55. Self-esteem. What is your haste, all you adversaries of the truth! You start by making an assumption, and the consequences you draw from it you want to rule with an iron scepter. Look for a less fragile principle, try to attain this sublime idea, that the true happiness of man is found only in the happiness of his fellow men; say within yourselves, and in the secret of a calm and pure heart: I feel that I need the happiness of others. It seems to me that the human family is one, and that deep down in my being I have the desire for the happiness of all its members. False doctrines wanted to degrade you, showing no other motive for your actions than self-love. Take revenge by this positive principle, although so often disfigured; and you will then judge whether this particle of fire which animates you can come from another fire than a divine fire. Is it self-love, is it a reflexive and depraved feeling which prevents a mother from being happy alone, and without the happiness of her children? If they are another herself, how can she separate their happiness from her own? Is it out of self-love that you find yourself disposed to do good to your fellow men and make them happy? Don't you feel that they are a part of yourself, and that love asks you internally for its balance. Supreme truth, never let them lose sight of this idea, by which your relations with them are painted in such vivid lines in the heart of man. True love of themselves is love of all. The love of all is a heavenly love. And this is how you painted in them the character of your unity which embraces and cherishes all beings. This is further proof of how you made man in your image and likeness. Mortals, what has God done to you to declare you his enemies? Funeral torches are today the only lights that direct you, your steps resemble a mortuary pump; and it is in this state of death that you take up the brush and call yourself the painters of truth. You do not enter the sanctuary of the spirit like the ancient sages, because you no longer revere the nature and practice of virtue like them. However, you judge the mind, as if you knew nature, and you do not follow it in any of its laws. You do not enter the sanctuary of God like the ancient sages, because you no longer revere the spirit like them, and it was up to him to introduce you there. Yet you judge God, as if you had the mind, and you keep that mind away from all your speculations. By what tribulations and anxieties must the human soul be tormented, until it has dissolved evil and the bitter fruits of ignorance?

56. The repairman. If there had not been a man who alone could have said: I am no longer in the world, what would have become of human posterity? She had fallen into darkness. Nothing anymore linked her to her native place; she was forever separated from her homeland. But if men separate themselves from love, can love separate itself from them? Lightning flashed from the east; he came to touch the earth, and showed us the open cloud. Do you see the bright glow it shines around you? What is this smell of bitumen and sulfur that kills insects? A rain filled with salt spreads over the earth and makes all the plants bloom there. Life comes from the east; This is why it is the name taken by the one who wanted to give us life. From the heart of my darkness I will still see the light. I will open my understanding to him who is on earth, and who is no longer in the world. Although on earth, I will cease to be like him in the world, and I will ascend with him into heaven. It is in the region of life and light that the sustainer and restorer of humans resides. At his resurrection, the Jews did not find him, because they looked for him among the dead. You must be resurrected like him from the dead to know him, and no longer want to part with him. Oh ! How little his plans were fulfilled! It was necessary never to leave, like him, the higher meaning, for his work to reach its completion. Human posterity, was this path too sublime for you? It was no more so than your destination and your origin. He had brought a way of grace and merit; they made it a way of rigor and sin: he had brought a living way; it became a dead and murderous way when it was circumscribed in books. The way of rigor and sin was the way of Moses; also it was only the way of the representatives: and yet if it had not been neglected, how much trouble it would have spared the repairer! The path of merit and freedom was the divine path itself, because our God cannot bring anything else; also if it had been followed according to its plans, how simple the work of the end of times would have become! And they would still like to doubt the divinity of the repairer! And those who say they have no doubt about it, make his path of grace, a path of rigor, a path of a tyrant!

So they never knew the sweetness of the true Sabbath! So they have never known the difference between the work we do with our strengths and the work we do with the repairer's strengths! They have therefore never been able to say to themselves: this Sabbath is so sweet that it is right that we earn it with the sweat of our brow, and that we fear to lavish its use.

57. The ladder. Science, science, you are too simple for scientists and people of the world to suspect you! Is not the god of spirits, the god of eternal truth, a jealous god? Do not his worship and the care of his glory hold the first rank among all the works that creatures can perform? One must have remained victorious over the beast and his image to possess the harps of God. This grace is so ineffable that man here below can only have glimpses of it. His thought embraces unity in four intervals. His eye sees three degrees in the first three. His mind knows that the fourth interval alone is equal to all the others. He said to himself: this is the whole scale. Then the feeling of divine majesty takes hold of him. The pressing ardor to celebrate it and elevate it above all thrones and all dominations becomes the only passion.

The soul identifies itself with the supreme truth. The criminal beings in torture appear to him as forgotten beings, whose existence is erased. God himself reproaches Samuel for not stopping mourning Saul, since he had rejected him. He warns Jeremiah to stop praying for his people. What terrible justice is the justice of God, since there are cases where even prayer would be an offense! Wisdom, you are less concerned with saving your glory than with sparing the guilty. When does she forbid praying for them? It is when they are so corrupt that, not being able to receive the sweet fruits of prayer, it irritates them and harms them instead of relieving them. Even if man were not so often in the situation of excluding and cursing! What greater tortures for this privileged being, who was only destined for peaceful works!

58. The harvests. Yes, Lord, it is possible for us to still sing the song of Moses and that of the Lamb; let us always give one more impetus to our soul, and it will generate for us everything that we lack. Cowardice is a lack of faith in our being; it is a lack of faith in the one who formed us. It is through cowardice and never through impotence that we are defeated. From now on I will say to the human soul: let us no longer count the slowness of time. Times have changed for us, as the heavens will one day change for the universe. These times which were only a single point in the immense expanse of infinity, the mind has just made them imperceptible. Whose hand is it that dresses me in the wedding dress? I approached the golden altar. I filled myself with strength to carry out the wars of the Lord, and I went to exterminate the enemies who ravaged the harvests, and who wanted to uproot the bread of life. The Lord's harvests will grow abundantly. The bread of life will fall from the heavens and will be sufficient to nourish the whole earth. The bread of life is spread throughout all regions, and it makes its home in heaven. It occurs like thought. He carries his delights with himself, like wisdom and love; it is fruitful like speech. He is the eye of light, the force of fire; he creates the immensity of the air, and it is through him that they are in agitation. We breathe it constantly; but we do not let it pass into our blood. Men, you seem very careful not to transgress the human measure of your conventions and your customs, and you are very little careful to reach the divine measure of the law and the advancement of the work of wisdom holy. Men stone each other daily with words, as Stephen was stoned by the strict observers of the law, and it is by their words that they were to uphold and sanctify one another. Oh ! My brothers, let us begin by loving each other; we will then correct ourselves, and we will perfect each other, if love does not itself perfect us.

59. Numbers. Yes, you have found in ancient times and today an infinity of powers in numbers. But they are almost all dead powers. What fruit does the double square bring you, if you do not know the root? No longer confuse the various laws of beings. It is very clear that there is a great connection between the third number and seven, since seven is its attribute, and it governs the temporal; but it is also clear that this septenary leader offers no trace on the human form. Because he did not materialize himself; because he only appeared after deliverance, and he only came to earth to restore to us the first degree of our former glory. It is still clearer that eight cannot offer any sign among composite things, because his kingdom is not of this world; for it is his form six that we have seen, and not him. So no longer confuse the quaternary, the square and the receptacle; the quaternary belongs to the principle, the square to power, and the receptacle to justice. Although these three symbols bear the same number, they are different in their object and in their character. Should we not use measure, even in our belief in those axioms which only have natural truths as their object? the whole is greater than its part. But how can we apply this law to simple beings? If it is true for the natural order, it is zero for the simple order, it is false for the mixed order. It is only in the calm of our matter that our thought delights; it is only in the calm of the elementary that the superior acts. It is only in the calm of our thoughts that our heart makes real progress; it is only in the calm of the superior that the divine manifests itself.

60. The stars. I prayed, and I felt the chaos of the man's thoughts abandon me and descend below me. A pure light rose gently from the breast of my soul and spread throughout my being. Let the light appear, and the light appeared. What happened, mighty God, when you ordered the universe to be born, and the light to spread over all your works? Their principle of life was in inertia; the light fell on them, but they could not feel it; they were like a child sleeping in the middle of the day.

Your word has penetrated them; They arose from their sleep, and they each went to take the position that you had assigned to them in the universe. By rising to this level of activity, they have let fall below them those who found themselves refractory to your word, and who did not open their organs to your light. The stars are like so many diamonds that you detached from your diadem, and that you let fall from your throne into the enclosure of the universe, so that it might gain an idea of ​​your wealth and your majesty. Their beauty has disappointed man, say the ignorant, and he has gone so far as to adore them. Unless you elevate yourself higher, you will not find the source of the idolatry of high places. Have these stars spoken to man? Did they scare him with threats? Did they prime him with promises? If no being had interested man by real benefits and by the sweetness of hope, or had not struck him with terror by imposing spectacles, man would never have responded with homage and supplications. He enjoys in peace the sweetness of light and all the other advantages of nature; the ravages and catastrophes of which it makes him witness, he flees, and does not ward off. Even the idolatry of animals would be less unreasonable than that of the stars, because animals can cause harm, and through our industry and our words we manage to make them less dangerous. Doesn't the thought of man go down here and change? Is not idolatry a degradation of a primitive and pure law? Does truth have error and disorder as generating principles? It is the word, it is a being enjoying its action, and not beings chained in their circle like the stars, who have caused this free tribute of prayer to exhale from the heart of man. Heart of man, you once carried this tribute to the throne of the eternal; it is only there where the powerful magnet is found which should always move you and attract you. As soon as you ceased to rise to this height, you found many beings who bore the image of the supreme principle; but they were only the image of them, and by prostrating yourself before them, you gave birth to idolatry. Close your eyes, my eyes, to more criminal idolatries, which arise from these dark places where light does not penetrate.

61. The crown. Is it only for you, says the Lord, that I have opened all the sources of my gifts? I would have taken pleasure in spreading life in all my works, and in surrounding you with the wonders of my word and my power.

And your satisfaction would be the only end of my works! And nothing should come back to me from the innumerable multitude of my gifts! O foolish and foolish men, listen to what the Lord says, to what the Lord requires of you, and beat your breast. Do the kings of the earth pay wages to their servants in advance, like me? Don't they wait until someone has dedicated their vigils, their life, their blood, before distributing their rewards? You find nothing unfair there, and you do not murmur against them. But should I not, who so far surpass their justice, murmur against you? I said to nature: all your virtues will have man as their base and touchstone, it is on him that all your powers will be measured. You will look at him as an image of myself, and all your productions will present themselves before him, and will humbly wait for him to come and impose a name on them and thereby determine their use. I did more. I said to my agents: serve man in the needs of his spirit, serve him in his glory, see in him the representative of my eternal and divine being. I communicated to him the strengths of my power, the lights of my wisdom, the sweetness of my love and my charity: and these gifts, it is not once that I have given them, I repeat them constantly, each time. day and at every moment, as if man had always remained worthy of my favors.

And yet it is for us alone, you say, blind men, that these gifts do not stop, just as it is for us that they began to spread. Is it for them that your mercenaries and your slaves will search the heart of the earth for precious metals and diamonds? When my plans are accomplished, when you have completed the task assigned to you in my work, then you will be permitted to indulge in the delights of my light, and to celebrate with hymns all the happiness of your existence. Until then, don’t give yourself any relaxation; do not stop even at the joys that prayer brings you, as long as you have not brought to completion these living traits that my sun darts on you, and as long as the walls of Jerusalem are not raised. Open your eyes to the countryside, see the numerous harvests, see the even more numerous dangers that threaten them; and far from taking care of yourself, you will throw yourself generously into your career. You will uproot the thorns that cover my fields, you will remove the stones, you will spy on the passages of destructive animals, you will be on your feet day and night, to keep my harvests intact until the harvest. This is for what purpose I gave you intelligence, strength and activity. But because my book was sweet to the mouth, you feared that it would be bitter to the stomach.

My faithful chosen one did not have the same fear, which is why he obtained the crown. So what will I do from now on? Because you feared that my book would be bitter to the stomach, it will no longer be sweet to the mouth. These joys that you tasted will be taken away from you. You will be like the plants of the earth, which drought forces to bow their heads after the first dews of spring; and evils will fall upon you, because you have forgotten your brothers who were in servitude, and you only thought of working for yourself and not for your master.

62. The sacred lamp. You will make a single sign with your hand, and this sign will let down on me a dew soft and transparent like the pearls of the east; and it will serve as an organ of your light. This witness of your alliance will come to exercise holy functions towards me; I will throw myself into his arms; I will study all his movements; I will collect all his words; I will regard him as the depositary of the secrets, the powers and the wills of the Most High. Through him I will no longer believe myself separated from the eternal. The very word of man can annihilate space, and be linked, despite the distances, with the words and thoughts of all the wise. Is not man like a sacred lamp, suspended in the midst of the darkness of time?

It is adapted to the branches of a living olive tree, from which a pure oil flows, which makes it spread light in all its brilliance. Who will be learned if he is not wise? Who will be wise if he is not enlightened? Who will be enlightened if he does not know the reason for things? Who will know the reason of things if he does not know the properties and numbers of being? warm me, support me, revive me: say the word, and an innumerable army will come and fill the different classes of my desert, because your words are creations. You spoke once to the stars, and you told them to fulfill your decrees. Since that time they have continued to exercise a sort of priestly ministry in the different regions of the universe. But for man, you were not content to give him life and movement through your word; you have poured out your holy anointing on him, and you have made him your high priest over all the worlds.

63. Sobbing. As long as I cry, can I miss anything in this dark region? Will I not have all the goods and all the felicities, as soon as I can fulfill the only purpose for which I received existence? And, when will my tears be able to have a moment's release? Those who are made for the work should not only think of themselves for a single moment.

Pain, pain, pain! I will do nothing other than pronounce this word, as long as the triple number is separated from unity, since it is the cause of all evils and all disorders. I will do nothing but speak this word, until a power arises from the earth and comes to dissolve the iniquities of man. We must cry for the men who would have expected their deliverance from us, and whom we left in the dungeons. We must cry for all the evils we have not stopped, and even for the good things we have not done. Man, see what the work has become in your hands. When will he be able to join his tears to those of the victims and the slaves? When will he be able to descend into the land of bondage, to bring there the accents of prayer and groans? Let us prostrate ourselves together, let us meet every day to soften anger and to temper justice. Let us pronounce our father's name, with sighs and sobs. Let us pronounce it, until the enemy moves away and suspends hostilities. Yes, we will be able to find the path to our God, by following with attentive eyes the long chain of his mercies. How could we go astray? This chain of the Lord's mercies is stretched throughout all parts of the universe, and can guide us through the labyrinth. And you, sovereign of beings, what obstacles could prevent you from reaching man? Space and time are no barriers to your power. Give issue to the least of your desires, and from the moment I will be surrounded and dazzled by your presence. If it is to your name that everything that exists is suspended, would you let my soul fall into abandonment, as not being able to lift and support it above the precipices?

64. Deliverance. Is the spirit of man weakened, is it more contained, or is it operating in more invisible regions than before? He doesn't even seem to have the strength to commit major crimes. The ancient peoples were horribly corrupt; their strength extended from the underworld to the heavens. Also the celestial powers were set in motion. God moved the roots and columns of nature. He ordered the waters to cover the face of the earth. He exposed the foundations of the world. When the criminal powers of the people began to weaken, the vengeance of heaven also subsided. Threats took the place of these vengeances, and the prophets were charged with frightening the nations.

The star of Jacob then came to bring peace to men and announce their deliverance. It did not come with the threats and fearful words of the prophets. She came to announce that her yoke was easy, and that men would find rest for their souls there. Since this era of the salvation of peoples, has everything been exhausted? God no longer manifests himself authentically, neither through vengeance, nor through threats, nor through consolations. Human posterity seems abandoned to itself. No. The measures are fulfilled in sleep and in silence. They will grow in pain. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. What are our human and political wars with which history is full, and to which we want so directly to apply the glance of justice and the hand of the god of armies? You will see the rebirth of the wars of the chosen people against the Amorites, the Amalekites, the Philistines. You will see the times of the priests of Baal reborn; the end will be like the beginning. But the sword of justice will awaken. It will wreak even greater havoc than in the times of these peoples, because it is the word of the Lord himself which will sharpen it and make it work against the impious. From the state of nullity in which people are, they will pass to false activity, because it is closest to nothingness. It is only after these terrible revolutions that they will resume regular activity. Jews, you await your restoration in the earthly Jerusalem. Are not your prophecies fulfilled by your return from Babylon? Ye Jews, wait for your deliverance: but ye are not in bondage, as ye were in Egypt and Assyria; you are rather in abandonment. Jews, you await the glorious and temporal kingdom of the repairer; Would this temporal and glorious kingdom not have already been established among you, if you had wanted to recognize it? Isn't everything consumed? And could he offer here below a more beautiful triumph than to place the crown on the sacred name which was to dissolve iniquity? He is spirit. His glorious kingdom is always ready for those who serve him in spirit and truth. The glorious kingdom to come will be one of rewards, for those who have not been precipitated by the glorious kingdom of judgment.

65. Healings. Happy, happy, that you have reserved your light and your wisdom for another home! The more you would have communicated to us here below, the more we would have abused it. Man comes here in poverty of spirit, instead of constantly stretching out his hands towards the one who could give him alms, he stoops down, he fills them with dust, and then believes himself to be in abundance. and wealth. Although time makes him travel a circle of great duration, the old man nevertheless dies empty of days, because he allows himself to be misled by time, and neglects to express its juices. truth that wisdom has spread there in profusion. May wisdom remain in your hand like a rod of iron. Strike the man with it and constrain him in his ways, so that he never departs from you. Carry before him the torch of truth, but do not entrust it to him; he would burn himself, he would drop it and walk again in the darkness. You made me feel, from my youth, that it is truth that is natural to the soul of man, and not illusion and lies. You made me feel that the angels await the kingdom of man, as man awaits the kingdom of God. You made me feel that, although man has not preserved purity and courage in his heart, the angels themselves still seek his alliance. You made me feel that, if there were no priest to ordain a man, it was the Lord who would ordain him himself and who would heal him. Oh ! How sweet are the healings wrought by the hand of the Lord! They take away almost nothing, they only give. Because, superior to the healings which are carried out by the hands of men, they are carried out with instruments which have in them a source of life and creative principles.

66. The chain. God is fixed in his essence and in his faculties. Man is fixed in his essence and not in his faculties. The universe is not fixed, neither in its faculties nor in its essence. The faculties of God manifest themselves outside of him, without separating themselves from him. While their essence, incommiscible with time, carries everywhere an impermeable sanctuary, from where it sees everything, without anything being able to see it. Why are we immortal? This is because we descend from the essence and faculties of God, and a living and eternal being cannot produce perishable beings. Why are we not God as unity itself? This is because we are detached from God, and his faculties are not, and cannot be, because they are God like him. Who could match unity? Is it not enough for our glory to be his image through the fixity of our essence and the power to manifest our faculties? Is it not enough for man to be the most sublime work or thought that wisdom and divine power could have produced? And without the mobility of our faculties, which we can cultivate as we wish or leave sterile, where would the barrier of our pride be? But you, universe, why are you not fixed, neither in your essence, nor in your faculties? It is because you descend from agents who are produced and detached from God, like immortal man; it is that you are only the result of the faculties of these agents, and that you cannot be the fruit of their essence. So you must pass away, and you are fragile in the presence of man and of all the agents that come out of God, just as the works of the hand of man are fragile and dead in comparison with the works of nature. Let the spirit of man follow throughout its course the progression of fixed and variable, of real and apparent, of essences and faculties, as the branches extend and move away from their root. All these images must be traced back to the last rings of the chain; everywhere we find the central principle, and the external action which results from it. But going back, each central principle is itself only apparent to the neighboring principle which generates it. Until we arrive at the region of the fixed and the real, or at the divine region and all its immortal products.

67. The proud fish. Nations, science has dried you up. Open your soul to pure joy and innocence; science will be no less quick to enlighten you.

This soul was given to you to contemplate, in living acts, all the wonders of the Lord. You covered it with darkness, and you no longer believed in the soul of man, nor in the wonders of the Lord. Why don't you also say like this proud fish of which a prophet speaks: it is I who produced these rivers, in which I walk. Heavenly dew, you only ask to spread yourself on the earth of man; you accumulate, and you become an abundant rain which only seeks to moisten the heights and the barren places, in order to reestablish vegetation everywhere: and the ungrateful man tries by the breath of his impure breath to drive away from him these salutary rains, or to delay them in their fall! He tries to extinguish or concentrate the fire which generates them, and which is enveloped in them, in order to be able to reach our region. Do you believe you are destroying the laws of the being who watches over you and who holds everything under his power? He sent you abundant rains, you wanted to repel them with your breath: but you only did, by the coldness of your breath, transform them into murderous hail; and instead of watering you, they will fall with a crash on your domains. You wanted to concentrate the fire which enlivens these salutary rains; he will become irritated by the barriers you create for him. It will turn into destructive thunder; he will throw lightning on your buildings, and consume them to the foundations. He will molest you yourself and deliver your soul to languor and fear; and your soul will no longer know, except through terror, the wonders of wisdom, instead of knowing them through transport and admiration.

68. The living balm. The lord has risen from his throne; he took only one step, and he encountered the human soul. Where does this sad and dejected attitude come from? I ran until I was out of breath to reach the assembly of the men of God; the forces have abandoned me, and I am left in the deserts of justice. I find around me all the objects of illusion, which repugn me; and they depart from me, the men of desire and truth, who would be so dear to my heart! I know, lord, I am not worthy for you to enter my house, but say a single word, and everything that exists will be transformed, for me, into a sovereign pontiff. Man of God, do you come in the name of him who is always reborn? Do you come in his name to order man in his living elements, in his soul and in his spirit? Go and take substance from him who is always reborn; come and apply this living balm to all the organs of my being. It is the only one who can heal the wound of man, because the blood has made us powerless and speechless.

He is the only one who teaches us to do the will of the Lord, and without him, we are like arrows shot at random and which have no direction. Man, man, console yourself, and read what is the merciful course of love, since your fall. The divine word nourishes the spiritual word. Spiritual speech nourishes animated speech. Animated speech nourishes animal speech. Animal speech nourishes plant speech. Vegetable speech nourishes sterile speech. But flee this sterile word, if you do not want to be devoured by the dead word; for the circle closes there, to shorten your stay in the deserts and bring you back into the line of life.

69. Glorification. the spirit had not yet been given, because the Lord had not yet been glorified, because the root had not manifested its power in time. Is the eye of man large enough to embrace the wonders contained in the glorifications of the Lord? He was glorified in his will on Tabor. He was glorified in the fruit of his works at his ascension. He will be glorified in his power at the end of time. He had been three times in the three temptations he suffered in the desert. He had been so in the three resurrections which he had carried out on the dead; one in the house, the other in the tomb and the other on the path to the grave: to teach us that its regenerative power extends to all the dwellings of the human family. Man, shudder with shame for your crime, which had brought about a triple concentration on your species; for your hand is pestilential. What do you touch on earth that you do not defile and destroy? Is there not justice and rightness everywhere, except in what you invent? Who can hope for the help of all the glorifications, without undergoing their own purification? And who will undergo his purification without shaking? To purify the air, to destroy insects, don't we need stormy winds and storms? The universe is thus in the hand of God, who continually agitates and shakes it to remove all the dross and all the gross envelopes. But wisdom teaches us that he moves it gently, because his ways are gradual and insensible, and that he arranges everything by beneficent laws. You, who have studied the stars, and who have presumed that the whole system of the universe moves at the same time, you have been led there by a great idea. If the unity of wisdom presided over production, how could it not preside over administration and maintenance? And without this universality of action, in all the works of wisdom, could the dawn of the glorifications of the Lord reach us? It is she who comes to nourish the thoughts of man: because if the thoughts of God are creations, the thoughts of man are germs which only await the action of the sun to achieve their glorification.

70. The center. Don't you know the simplest and most sublime of figures? And don't you know that you occupy the center? Put your trust in it. study it every day of your life; but not in the manner of men, they make it the death of science. This is what she will tell you: of all beings, after God, be the one you respect the most. The spirit rested on the waters. But it was God himself who relied on man. How would man perish? He is the thought of the lord. How would man perish? Is the thought of God an error and a temporary illusion? Are not man's thoughts themselves, when they are true, invincible like axioms, despite the little care he takes to use them to his advantage? Lie, lie, will I wait until I am regenerated to fight you? Although I am unworthy of the sight of my God, you are even more unworthy than me. I will remember that I am the thought of the Lord; and by the rights of my being, I will impress upon you a sign of blight, which will bring upon you the reproach of the nations. You would like to have my soul! My coat itself will escape you. You will think you are grabbing it, and it will slip into your hand. God has made himself my resting place. How could I neglect to sabbath? So I will never fall asleep on my subject. Every day, before I go to sleep, I will send the enemy back into his abysses. I will unite pure elementary actions to my body, I will unite the true sources of light to my thoughts. I will unite to my heart the living sources of virtue, and to my immortal essence the eternal sources of love. This is how I will prepare for myself both the sleep of peace and the awakening of the righteous, in joy and liveliness of spirit. Because matter being far below me, its infected or dark vapors will not disturb the splendor of my atmosphere.

71. The level. Is the convulsive agitation of nature its primary law? Impetuous winds, raise the waves of the sea, transform its waters into so many moving mountains; a powerful law constantly opposes your efforts, and tends imperiously to re-establish balance everywhere. If this law ceased to weigh on bodies, they would all decompose. Disorder and deformity would reign alone over the entire earth.

The universe is a soft matter, on which the primitive order constantly prints the stamp and, as it were, the mold of beings; because peace and calm are the final term of nature, as they are the final term of the essence of man. What is this torrent that descends from the summits of the mountains, which undermines them and carries them into the plain? It will extend the level over the entire universe; he will cover with an immense veil all the monsters who are agitated in the abyss, and he will submerge all those who took part in their disorders. But calm and balance will reign on the surface of the waters. God only takes revenge by opposing order to disorder; and the abomination must be far from his sight. Saturate man with your spirit, so that he in turn may satisfy the hungry, and the river of life may cover the whole earth. Lightning pierces in an instant, to the abysses, to the center of the most hidden substances; and you would not pierce through to the soul of man! Can the level be in the universe, if it is not in the heart of man; and is not man the depository of life, wisdom and intelligence? Rivers of the earth, cedars of the mountains, and all you animals, which fill the world, learn this truth; repeat it constantly to each other. Let this harmonious song be composed of a single measure, and let it be the entire beat which marks it. The universe is the object of life, it was created by life. Man is its organ, he is its administrator in the universe. God alone is its source and principle, and no being can taste it without him. Bring all your victims before man; and this great sanctifier will present them to our God, as to the only principle of life.

72. The abyss. Why is man here below filled with hope? It is because he lives in the bonds of love. Also everything would be sweet in man's life, without the forced means that he constantly uses to achieve happiness. But when the bonds of earthly life are broken, the bonds of love are suspended to allow him to undergo a greater test. Bonds of love, if you then break, those of hope are also broken; because hope is the daughter of love. A man is sailing calmly on a river, his boat breaks, and he is thrown into the waters; the security he enjoyed abandons him. In the midst of fright he descends until, meeting the bottom of the water, he is carried back, by the shock, to the surface. This is the effect of the severing of our earthly ties; this is how hope is taken away from us.

Do we know how high the waters are? Do we know if, when we go down there, we will not encounter brambles that tear us apart, rocks that break us, or carnivorous fish that devour us? Woe to those who fall into bottomless waters, or so deep that they can only return to the surface after having completely lost their life! But when this navigator comes back to the surface alive, hope is reborn in him and he deploys his strength to reach the shore. Man, enlarge your soul, and the waters will not overwhelm you; from the middle of the stream you will be able to drink in the way. Your eyes will see the love of your God, stretching out his arms to you on the banks of the river; you will forget all the times of pain and lies, and you will have no memory except for virtue and truth. Are not God and his eternity like an abyss, where all beings will be swallowed up, and lose the memory of their illusory and temporal actions? It is thus that we see all corporeal beings descend into the general terrestrial body, and there lose the appearance of their gross form.

73. Pythoness. Where are you looking for life? You believe you find it in your arts and in the works of your hands. All these objects expect it from you, how can you expect it from them?

If you now had life within you, what would you need of all these artifices to obtain it for you? What patience, what industry do you need, O holy truth! To bring life into the souls of men? You must wrap yourself up; you must conceal it, as if you had evil plans against them. In vain the man of desire is burned with zeal; he must care for his fellow human beings, without them even being able to notice it or suspect him. All these obstacles, Lord, are to make your power manifest; it is to show that you alone can heal the souls of men and wipe away the disease that arises from their wound since the great wound, and restore to them light and intelligence. And yet they do not fear to evoke the dead to consult them, as if you alone were not the living God! If you take care of the dead, let it be only to be useful to them; do not imitate the pythonise, and never consult anyone but the one who is the only living God.

74. The civil war. Is it therefore so difficult to know, man's primary destination? If this discovery were impossible for reason, God would have lost sight of us. It would be more than your justice that would bind us in our exile, it would be your rigor and your cruelty. But he does not need this terrible resource; he is exempted from it by his power, he is preserved from it by his love.

Open your eyes, my eyes, to the various occupations of men, and read there the motive which is supposed to direct all their institutions. Isn't the aim of armies to prevent or repair the harm that the enemy can do, or that he has already done to the state? Aren't the laws intended to prevent or repair the harm that injustice or crimes can do or have already done to society? Aren't religions intended to prevent or repair the harm that our distance from God can do or has already done to our souls? Do not the sciences, whether sacred or profane, aim to prevent or repair the harm that ignorance can do or has already done to our minds? Isn't medicinal knowledge intended to prevent or repair the damage that illnesses can do or have already done to our health? I am surrounded by too many testimonies to still remain in doubt. Man, all your functions taken in their true sense, and purged of the abuses which degrade and corrupt them, continually present to me wrongs to right and evils to cure. It is therefore necessary that your primitive existence had as its object a work of restoration. Would your first law have changed? Can a constitutive law cease to exist? Can your original character be erased? You come from God, you are the extract of all his virtues. God is only concerned with straightening out beings who go astray, and everywhere substituting good for evil. When he trained you, could he give you another job than his own since he drew you from his own source? As stubborn and as weak as you are today, look around you. Your law has followed you; but how much it has tightened! How much she has changed objects! Is it on your fellow human beings that you should carry out this work of restoration? Is it against his fellow citizens that the warrior must take up arms? Is it against justice that the laws are cracking down? Is it against virtue and piety that religions use their aid? Is it against enlightenment and intelligence that the sciences seek to deploy their resources? Is it against health that the art of healing must direct its secrets? Cry man, cry; shed tears of sorrow, and learn how much your empire has changed! It is delivered to a universal civil war. It is a proof of your greatness that you are even today busy establishing order everywhere and combating disorder. But it is proof of your degradation that you have to exercise these functions on beings of your species. Think about these irresistible witnesses, and deny, if you can, an original crime.

75. The end of times. What will you do, human posterity, what will you become, when at the end the strong one is loosed for a little while? You will have been accustomed to centuries of favor. The law of grace will have carefully preserved you, you will believe yourself to be safe. You do not know that the enemy's strength was accumulated during his rest and during his captivity. But isn't the fort's house pillaged? Did not his weapons adorn the triumph? Unhappy man, don't you give them back to him every day? You had two hands, one to free the slave, the other to stop the pursuit of the enemy. You crossed these two hands, you remained inactive, and you allowed yourself to be taken into slavery. You have done as the children of men; you have daily dug yourself a pit in human joys. The deeper this pit was, the more you congratulated yourself. You seek to bury eternity in time. Open your eyes to these days of horror and darkness, when the inhabitants of the earth will all have their heads bowed under the yoke; where all their members will be bound with ropes seven times stronger than at the time of the flood. It is in this state that lightning and thunder will be thrown at them, that rivers and seas will overflow, that worlds abandoned to their gravity will break away, and rolling on top of each other, will crush these cowardly and guilty people. mortals, who will have neither the means of fleeing nor the means of defending themselves. Alas! Regardless of the human soul, don't we have enough witnesses? Did not Paul announce the coming of the man of iniquity? Didn't the evangelists speak of the horror of the end times? Didn't Zechariah say how ungodliness will be dealt with? Did he not show the mass of lead precipitated into the abyss? The law, the prophets, the gospel, the universe and the heart of man, are all apocalyptic books. rise up with these irrevocable witnesses, if you want all these scenes of horror to happen as if beneath your feet.

76. The Tower of Zion. If man does not hold steadfastly to his level of elevation, his law follows him to the precipices. But instead of the shadows of light, he only has the shadows of darkness. Everything is without connection and without order around him. It is his senses which bring the paintings to his mind; while it was up to his mind to return them to his senses. Happy again, if he does not descend to the shadows of death! Raise me from my falls, O prince of peace! Tear me away from the shadows of time; and save me from the vapors of the bitumen well. Would it be in regions so dark that your order and your clarity would make their home? I will climb the towers of Zion, and from this height I will look down on the rich countryside of the land of Israel; I will see, without disturbance and without clouds, the wonders that the Lord has poured out on the promised land, and that he illuminates with his own light. Men of God, help me to ascend the tower of Zion; When I have achieved this, you will return, full of my love and gratitude, to render the same service to your other brothers. For me, I will no longer need assistance. I will be in my natural element. I will be in the light of the Lord.

77. Evil on earth. what ideas have they reduced themselves to with their systems! They said that there was no evil on earth, and that what appeared to be disorder in particular produced universal order. So what is a universal order, made up of particular disorders? What is a total good formed by the assembly of partial evils? What is the well-being of the species, made up of the misfortunes of individuals? So also compose a concert of joy with tears and sighs. Make all species regenerate and produce life from corpses; and if you want to find the universe beautiful, wait until the hand of time has shaken it to its foundations, and converted it into a mass of ruins. They prefer to lie to their judgment and distort their reason, than to read its greatness in themselves, and around them the sad abuses they have made of it! In vain you defend yourself against the brake, you ignore how the evil came about, and from then on you want to deny its existence. Your judgment is less dear to you than your darkness. You want him to adopt what is so repugnant to him; and you want him to reject what is only veiled for him. Don't you see where the lightness of your words is leading you? We will not even take your opinions for dreams. Because to dream, you must have been awake before: and you are still asleep for the first time; you are still in your mother's womb. Is it passing by obstacles? Is it by denying them that we overthrow them? They will stand and testify against you. Yes, evil exists in you, around you, throughout the universe, and since you are only supposed to be busy here grappling with it, that is enough to tell you who created it. Enlarge yourself, rise to the sublime idea of ​​your power and your freedom. Feel that, for a being to be condemned to struggle with the entire universe, he must have been large enough to disturb the universe.

78. My friend's voice. My friend's voice is soft. For me it is like the unexpected sight of a sparkling light for a lost traveler. It is for me what a restorative balm is for a sick person broken in all his limbs. I don't want to listen to any voice other than my friend's. Oh ! How different it is from the voices which arise from the terrestrial and dark region, from this region whose inhabitants seek only to seize the prayers of man and to divert them from the path! Teach me the songs of the Lord, the songs of innocence, trust and love.

It is you who develop for man his paths. He can only walk in safety to the sounds of your word. I was a sinner, I was dejected, I was as if defiled and languishing in the mire. He came and threw himself after me into the dust where I was crawling; he came to stay there with me to give me courage and to get me out of it with him. Where is the friend who wishes us well enough to accommodate even the harm we do to him? Who will order me to publish his benefit in all regions of the universe? Oh ! My friend, if I had the misfortune of no longer hearing your voice, I would look into my heart, I would find written there the memory of your benefit; and he would serve as my guide in my desert and in my darkness. From now on I will have two guides to lead me along the long paths of my rebirth: the voice of my friend, and the memory of his benefit. I will listen to them, and my heart will not rest until everyone listens to them and follows them in turn. I will meditate on them in peace in my tomb, and it is there that they will be my joy and my delight, as they will have been my safety and my support on earth.

79. The Broken Mirror. Is it to God, blind mortals, that you can attribute your sufferings and your privation in this foreign land? Isn’t God’s name holiness? Is not his law called charity? And is not his scepter called justice?

Cast your gaze on nature, and believe that she is neither wiser nor more just than he. However, all the beings that it produces, it places within their natural relationships, and in the elements which are analogous to them. You alone, miserable man, find yourself, by your thoughts, so separated from your relationships, that an inhabitant of the waters, left dry and panting on the shore, cannot appear to you to be in more suffering than you. Say no more, then, that it is God who has separated you from the river of life; he had given it to you as your abode, and his law and his love cannot stop calling you back there. You fear limiting the glory of your God by refusing him to be the author of evil! Remember that evil is not a power; remember that it is an impotence and a weakness, since he only seeks to steal the good that he lacks. Consider that it would be a superfluous force for good, since it contains all forces. Doesn't your reason suffer to see that the universe is filled with so much proof and so many unbelievers at the same time? Don't you know that nature was given to man to serve as a mirror, where he could see the truth? Don't you know that philosophers and scientists have seized this mirror, and that, striking it with great blows, they have broken it? Then they tell us: come and read. But what can we read there? Won't the objects of all kinds that we look at there appear full of breaks and deformities which will make them unrecognizable to us?

Protect yourself from these lying instructions, they would lead you to break an even more precious mirror in yourself; and you no longer recognized the sacred sun which darts its rays into your bosom, so that you spread around you the light and the sweet warmth of your God.

80. Fathers and mothers. Heart of man, know the treasures attached to paternal love. Your children are for you an image that reflects your life. Your life increases with theirs; it is a just tribute that they pay you, since theirs began with yours. The heart of man, delivered to paternal love, no longer has room for crime and injustice. He rests peacefully in the midst of evil, because evil does not enter into him, because his love is linked to order, and because he is linked to the spirit and the virtues; and because this order allows fathers and mothers to be virgins in their generations, so that disorder finds its punishment there. This is how your work advances, Supreme God; when man separates himself from iniquity, your law proceeds quickly to its end. Soul of man, admire your natural rights. Are you pure? From then on, without effort and without fatigue, you put evil to flight, like an antidote, the simple influence of which is enough to keep poisons and evil animals away. O depths of knowledge attached to the generation of beings! I want to leave you, without reservation, to the supreme agent. It is enough that he has deigned to grant us here below an inferior image of the laws of his emanation. Virtuous spouses, consider yourselves as angels in exile, who have seen from afar the temple of the eternal, who join together to return there together, and who every day, work together to make themselves more agile and more pure, to be more worthy of being admitted there.

81. Birds. My songs, what are you like torrents of the fire of the spirit! You are still only the fruit of my desires, so that this spirit is not separated from man. They are not the sharp sword that can put to flight the enemy of the Lord. They are not the light and sharp arrow that flies far away and will strike the destructive lion, or the bird of prey. They are only like a barrier placed around the citadel, which can, at least for a time, prevent the enemy from entering. Simple and gentle souls, do not allow yourselves to be corrupted by the doctrines of nothingness. Take strength here to defend yourself. Maybe you'll get some to attack one day! O word of life, when you insinuate yourself into man, what is capable of resisting it? You make him a new man, a man incomprehensible to others and to himself, a man who is activated in all his members. Should not man be the perpetual act of the Lord? Is it not the name of the Lord which waters the souls of the prophets, and which fills with divine enthusiasm these sacred painters of the word of the Lord? Human industry, you show some vestiges of the universal activity of the name of the lord. But how light and disfigured are these traces! Of all animals, birds are the only ones that you have managed to make repeat a few sounds that you like to regard as words. Land animals are incapable of this. Fish even more than land animals. The snakes hiss. Sub-terrestrial animals do not even have the ability to produce a cry, and it is into their abode that, since the crime, all men are condemned to descend! Weigh your misery here, but do not forget that it was among the birds that the greatest types of mercy and regeneration were chosen. Do not lose sight of the many types of the dove; desire, like David, to be able to acquire its wings, and to fly towards the place of rest, which is at the same time that of universal movement.

82. Your kingdoms. Do not expose yourselves to the murderous teeth of the serpent, he will not attack you. But they went down into the dragon's cave; he went out in fury, and pursued them in all parts of the world. Did he not say, when he tempted the savior: I have power over all the kingdoms of the universe. Kings of the earth, stop boasting, shudder at the dangers that surround you; and remember that you are no longer the only ones who have powers in your kingdoms. You are struggling with your own issues. All our needs are an open path to the enemy; he presents himself immediately to compromise with us, by exempting us from the law which condemns our forehead to sweat. It was after a forty-day fast, when the savior felt hungry, that the tempter approached and advised him to transform stones into bread. But will the human soul go alone to the summit of the temple, and after having placed God under its feet, will it dare to expect Him to support it with His powers? Will she go to the top of the mountains, and after considering the kingdoms of the world, will she accept their domination, at the price of iniquity and apostasy? As soon as it rises, it will discover the towers of Jerusalem; and struck by the beauty of the holy city, she will celebrate its glory and announce it to all nations. It is with the hand of the lord that she will have pulverized all the rocks that delayed her in her progress. It is with the voice of the lord that she will pursue the serpent into its cave, and render its murderous tooth powerless. It is with the voice of the Lord that she will visit the domains of nothingness, darkness and lies, and after having destroyed the false germs of speech, she will revive the songs that all creation should sing.

83. The old man. Shepherds of souls, who have led your sheep astray, instead of leading them to pasture; pastors of souls, who caused them to be devoured by the ferocious lion, or who transformed them yourselves into carnivorous wolves; scientists of the earth, who have been too sensitive to the beginnings of false light, to be to the attractive charms of the true treasures that God deposited in the human soul; rich people of the world who have turned your eyes away from the poor, and who have shuddered so much to resemble him, because not knowing how to give alms without pride, you would not have known how to receive it without humiliation: come here to learn your destiny; for the corrupt seeds, which you have sown within yourselves, have penetrated to the virgin earth; this is why their fruits will be so bitter!

The old man is seized by the spirit and carried to underground places. An immense room presents itself to his view; it is superbly decorated. Ministers of the church, nobles, a numerous troop of men and women are seated all around, and are dressed in robes covered with gold and precious stones. What are you doing, so tidy and motionless? ...They don't respond. What are you doing, so tidy and motionless? … They shake their heads sadly, and do not respond. What are you doing, so tidy and motionless? … They do not respond; but all with a common movement half open their robes, and reveal bodies eaten away by worms and ulcers. The horror of this spectacle frightens the old man; the foul odor of these wounds suffocates him; the spirit leaves him bathed in tears, and orders him to warn those of his brothers who are still in their father's house.

84. The immortal cantor. My ear will not be filled with the concerts of mortals; she will not derive complete joy from it. What are the sounds of your instruments to me? Their sole purpose would be to accompany speech. Yes, this word acts as soon as you form sounds; it is linked to all your modulations, and no sound can be heard in the universe without a corresponding word being put into action. Can music exist without sound, sound without air, air without spirit, spirit without life, and life without our God? What wonders and powers are not contained in music? But who hears this word? Are we not towards him, as in a desert? What are all these lascivious or lying speeches, which you adorn with your melody and all the secrets of your art? Here again I only see sounds which are also waiting to be brought to life by speech. But if you had this word, where would the sounds be that you would use to accompany it? Could your frail instruments be linked to its melody? Read here what should make up your concerts. Man had received this word, he had been chosen to be the singer of God and to celebrate all its marvels; he had been chosen to rectify all the dissonant chords which only sought to disturb the harmony of truth. Was he alone in this sublime job? No. All of you, beings of nature, must mingle your sounds with his songs; it was you who had to accompany his heavenly voice. Let us explore the harmonic scale that man embraces in his course. at the moment of his fall, he became matter mixed with spirit. in the second law, he became spirit mixed with matter. in the third, he became a pure spirit. at the fourth, he will become a deified spirit. So one day I will hear him, this deified man, making sacred songs come from his mouth and his heart, which will lift my soul to the foot of the sanctuary.

I will hear all beings renewed, faithfully follow and accompany the voice of this immortal cantor! An invigorating hymn, a universal anthem, celebrates the power and love of the eternal and may the man who sings this divine song be filled with the sources of life!

85. The pygmies. All religions have worship and ceremonies, all religious doctrines have sensitive practices. All have active formulas, to which ideas of power are attached, which impress respect, and seem to threaten everything that makes itself the enemy. The materialist doctrine has nothing lively or sensitive to support it. She is reduced to shouting everywhere: nothingness, nothingness; and she cannot deal any active blow to her adversaries. It is even engaged on all sides, and does not have the slightest defensive force to oppose. She resembles those gods of stone and wood, who, according to Baruch, could not defend themselves from the insults of the air, nor from the filth of insects who could neither walk, nor even support themselves on their feet, without being tied with crampons, like criminals. Giants, whom the height of your size made escape the flood, you had the power to exercise another empire; that is why you have given so much occupation to the chosen people. Wisdom has allowed you to survive, so that this chosen people may not fall into indolence while waiting for the day of rest to arrive. Those who today claim to attack the throne of the eternal, instead of being giants like you, are not just pigmies. What are you, vain ghosts of the night, when the sun advances majestically over the horizon, and sheds its light in great waves?

86. Prison. Who will return victorious from the fight? He is the one who will pay little attention to the affliction of being erased from the memory of men, and who will devote himself entirely to the care of not being erased from the memory of God. It is the one who will have felt that man is like the diamond which can only be polished by its own brokenness, and by its dust. All nature has contributed to forming the prison and fetters of man; all nature must work to purify it and decompose its irons. Why does fire produce dissolution? It is because it is through the hindrance of this same fire that the construction took place. Contemplate the works of nature, and nourish your intelligence with them. But wait until a hand other than yours introduces you to their lively action. Without this prudence, you cannot conceive to what secondary and perverse mixtures you expose the divine work which must take place in your soul. If we have so much difficulty receiving only the action of simple regions when we address them, what must it be like when we address compound regions? May the virtues of man extend beyond himself, and may he, by uniting himself with all the good which surrounds him, feel the sweetness of his existence and his life! Let the virtues of man extend outside of him, all the divine virtues will enter into him, and he will be imperceptibly transformed into another being! Without the living organs which support and prepare him, how would he approach the Lord, and how would the Lord approach him? And if there be many mansions in the house of the Lord, how can there not be many in the house of man?

87. The way of praying. Happy is he who fills himself with courage and confidence, and whose past evils and iniquities do not delay his work! You ask what is the way to pray. Does a patient ask how he should express his pain? Always command evil to depart, as if you were regenerated in your powers. Always invoke good, as if the supreme favors had not abandoned you. Look no more if you are impure and if you are weak. No longer look back, and no longer prescribe to yourself any other plan than that of perseverance. You can, through your stubbornness, recover what divine goodness had granted you by your nature. Therefore say continually: I command iniquity to flee from me; I command all natural and spiritual help to gather around me. I beg all the pure elect to lead me and protect me. I prostrate myself before him who alone can restore all my relationships. Each of his words gives birth to a universe; each of his words can place legions of living beings around me, because he does not speak without giving birth to life and spreading it in the souls who seek it. Alas! We can anoint the Lord with our prayer, like this holy woman who anointed him with perfumes before his burial! We can make the stay in the tomb less bitter for him.

88. Men-children. Give a bird to a child, he will tear it into pieces to find out what is hidden in his body. Have him plant flowers, and he will pull them out every day to see how they take root.

Men and children, you occupy yourself with these curious cares towards nature, as if you were responsible for starting creation again. You neglect to study the final laws of this nature, as if it were without purpose, and that wisdom, by exposing it to your gaze, had not intended it for the advancement of its divine work, and for the improvement of the beings who inhabit it. If God intended for you to know how it is formed, would it show itself to you fully formed, and would it operate on your own body without your knowledge? study why things exist, not how they exist; you have the right to use them for your own purposes, and you will never have the right to create them again. When you picked up the lyre for the first time, and a learned hand took charge of teaching you how to make sounds from it, were you taught to make this lyre, by dismantling all the parts in front of you, to then practice how to make them? gather ? That was not your object. This occupation would have been abusive. The lyre existed before your eyes, you could only have spoiled it. Mortals, the harmonious lyre of nature is before you; try to extract sounds from it, and do not waste your days breaking down its structure. Sacred word, they insult you with their research, as if they did not know that it is through their words that everything is created and comes to life around them. Does God therefore have lesser powers? And cannot his living and creative word have given existence to the universality of the worlds, since the weak word of man gives existence to the universality of his productions?

89. The celestial combat. Spirit of man, if there were no new trials after this earthly passage, would you not find that your return to the truth would be too easy? That your punishment would be too light? The respect due to the father of love and light, too diminished? And the satisfaction due to justice is too modest? Is it after having limited yourself to sterile wisdom, without love, without knowledge and without light, that you would believe yourself worthy of entering the abode of eternal justice and holiness? Your body comes down here naked like the athletes in the arena. Shouldn't your soul also come bare one day, in the region similar to it, and prove itself there to be admitted to the rank of brave warriors? It is to help us to gloriously prove these proofs that the lion of Judah and his elect will be with us until the consummation of the centuries. On earth they only fought land combat. Since they left it, they assist souls in the celestial combat; and for all the victories they win, they will at the end of time be crowned with immortal laurels.

May their example inspire your courage. If your body has taken a happy conformation in your mother's womb, you can reap the fruits of it throughout the life of your material. Your soul is in your body, as in a mother's womb: but it can arrange its own conformation there as it pleases; and that which she has prepared for it must remain with her after her birth; after this birth, which matter calls death. Take care therefore to obtain a regular conformation, and fill yourself with hope for the kingdom to come. The most vigilant mother is forced to admit that the care she gives to her children is as nothing compared to that which they receive from providence every moment of the day. How would you mistrust his love in an older age? Whatever region you inhabit, whatever degree man rises, whether in this world or in the next, is he not always the child of providence?

90. Hermetic art. The reckless! How could they confuse the work of the spirit with the work of matter? Did they not know that the first reason for the things produced was twofold? And did they not see that two is the cause of every generation? If they add to the number of the appearance the number of its principle, they will have a number which will be only half of the true number: this is why we see universal decay in bodies, because the same number presides over the birth of matter and its destruction. Scholars in the hermetic art, no longer deceive us with your mysteries; no longer deceive yourself with your healing secrets: you insult the truth by confusing its work with yours. You are not, I wish, the children of Belial; but, without knowing it, you can resemble them. You can, like them, pervert the inhabitants of the city, saying to them: let us go and serve the foreign gods who are unknown to you. What is the chosen people ordered when they find that this abomination has actually been committed? You will immediately put the inhabitants of this city to the sword, and you will destroy it with everything that meets there, even the beasts. Because the power of foreign gods extends into all the regions opened to it, and it ravages everything it encounters, like a torrent whose dikes have been broken.

91. What preceded. How would we remember what preceded our birth here on earth? Is not matter the tomb, the boundary and the darkness of the spirit? After death, how could we not remember our earthly life? Is not spirit the light of matter?

It will extend its rays over all the paths of our career, like a torch which lights up and suddenly appears in the midst of the sepulchres. My earthly life, although you may be the tomb of my spirit, I will never doubt that I existed before coming to this theater of atonement. Do I remember the time I spent in my mother's womb? From the one I spent in the cradle and the breast, until the moment when the first traits of thought made themselves felt in me? These times are for me as if they had never been. Am I less sure of having existed during all these moments which are lost to my memory? My ignorance will therefore prove nothing against the times which preceded my earthly life, and I will always remember that matter has power over the spirit, to the point of serving as darkness. Man, if you loved light, how much you would defend yourself against the matter that surrounds you! If you do not let yourself be obscured by it, you will see after your death everything that has happened and everything that will happen in the two worlds. Without this you will only feel it, you will see nothing, and all the faculties that remain with you will only be exercised for your torture.

92. Siloam. Woe to the world, because of the scandals! But there had to be scandals! There had to be contact between the enemy and the man, since the man had rushed towards the enemy!

Beneficent hand, you came to place yourself between one and the other; you allowed yourself to be offended to prevent the man from being too offended himself. You only came to save what was lost. You have often allowed innocent men to lose their lives, to serve as an instruction to the guilty. What were these Galileans whose blood Pilate mixed with their sacrifices? Who were these eighteen men who were crushed by the tower of Siloam? They lost the life of the body: but your eyes were open to their divine soul; but the story of their fatal death committed the people to penance. And this man born blind, who was blind neither for his sins nor for the sins of his fathers, but who was to serve to manifest your glory, what was he? You go further, inexhaustible wisdom: you often allow man's ignorance and darkness to act against man; and man almost always advances man, even when he makes his efforts to harm him or to push him back. The criminal who has done nothing to the executioners could tell them that it is with injustice that they torment him, since he has done nothing to them; but he feels that it is with justice that he is devoted to torture and death. This is how our annoyances almost always come to us with injustice on the part of our fellow men. But we feel that it is justice that we experience it, since we have rushed into the region of injustice.

93. The sentinels. Will I ask him to be a prophet? Will I ask Him to do wonders in His name? Will I ask him to penetrate the secrets of his wisdom? No, lord, I will only take from your name the portion that you please to send me; I will only use your name according to my need. You alone know how to distribute the bread of the word to your children, according to their age; You alone want to be responsible for this distribution. You alone choose the prophets; you choose them in the vilest state, as on the throne, and at the moment when they least expect it. Amos, you were chosen, you were taken by the spirit of the Lord, when you led your oxen in the field. Are these the miracles done in the name of the Lord that bring us closer to him? He himself said to those who boasted of having done so: I don't know you. He himself said to his disciples, who had already filled the world with miracles: you have not yet asked anything of my father in my name. And you, singer of Israel, although you confessed before the Lord that he had revealed to you the hidden and unknown things of his wisdom, you still begged him to wash away your stains, and you groaned over your iniquities. I will ask him like you, not to let me languish in the corrupt region, and not to let me become alive for worms. I will stand armed, I will watch, and I will wait with attentive ear until the command of the Lord is heard. Dawn will appear before I leave my post to go and rest. Sentinels, who throughout the earth watch for the glory of the Lord, let us call each other to keep us active. May prayer be for us like fanaticism and passion, if we want to maintain security in the place.

94. Happiness. How can I doubt that man is not responsible for doing his own work and creating his own pleasures? Where does all this care come from to adorn his homes, and to interest his sight with a thousand objects of pleasure and surprise? This image, false as it is, reminds man of a happiness, through which life flowed naturally within him, like rivers in their beds and fountains in their channels; whereas today, if he wants to taste life, he must begin by making it come out of him, with the most laborious efforts. Oh ! Man, if you did not have the power to keep happiness away, it would no longer be a duty for you; it would not even be a need: it would be a right or a law, like gravity; and you would no longer have any care, no movement to give yourself. But also you would no longer have any enjoyment to hope for; because no being has true enjoyment except from his production and his works. Why must God, necessarily and eternally, confine himself to the contemplation of himself? It is because there is no other being who is worthy of his gaze. Why cannot men, without danger, contemplate any being other than this supreme author of life? It is because below him there is none on whom they can find to place their homage. Man, wisdom once upon a time, to the accents of your love, opened its breast to pour on you new favors, which, in their turn, brought out from you new homages. Ungrateful, you were the first to stop this trade in benefits and delights, which should never have been interrupted. You lowered your gaze on yourself; and by enclosing your faith within yourself, you gave him death, as boiling brass is seized by the cold of the air. Start by dissolving, by stirring in your prison, all the barriers that restrict your life. You yourself must break this shameful bond, this organ foreign to your being, through which you have until now received your nourishment in the darkness of your mother's womb. You must seize the new food that is offered to you, and draw life from an organ more worthy of you, since it must one day be that of your word and the minister of light.

95. Magical power. In things that do not follow the convention of man, supreme wisdom, you always compensate our pains and our fatigue; and to enjoy your gifts, we must only offer ourselves to your presence. Sun, do you not distribute an equal amount of light in the same year, to all regions of the earth, despite the diversity and distance of climates? But the productions that only come from your mind, oh! Man, what benefits do they give you? study the charms of a beautiful nature, which your imagination still adds to its beauties. Created the painting of the palace of Armide and the gardens of Alcinoüs; sings Mount Ida, covering itself with flowers, under the steps of a goddess, and spreading everywhere the smell of the most exquisite perfumes. May, like magic power, your thought immediately raises superb temples, where garlands and gold vie with each other for the decoration of the richest porticos; or trace, if you wish, as Milton did, the happiness of our first parents, and may these paintings be the admiration of all centuries. You will soon make a disastrous return to yourself, and you will say to yourself, with regrets mixed with tears: alas! I only painted images there, and yet I feel made for realities. Who will even assure me that these images are not more than false, and that they have the slightest resemblance to their models? Do not waste your time on these abusive pursuits. Man of difficulty, pray in earnest, and sleep. These are the only two functions that suit the mercenary of truth. The first makes him move forward; the second restores and preserves him morally as well as physically, because it is a moment when he does not do his will.

96. The geography of worlds. Luminous stars, which shine on our heads, you cannot make society with us, you cannot love us, you cannot teach us to know ourselves, you cannot forgive us. You are not analogous to us, since you cannot make us taste the sweetest feelings of our existence; we only need love and forgiveness. So what does it matter to fundamental truths whether or not a man has found one more planet? We could find even more, without being entitled to conclude anything, except that men would have been wrong to apply the septenary number to planets. But a new order presents itself. All stars are divided by families; these families are separated in the heavens by vast spaces. Their number is indefinite, like that of the stars that compose them. Each star is in turn the center of a planetary system. Sun, brilliant star, which entire nations have taken for the god of the world, you are only a small portion of a great system or a great family of stars, and you are lost in the immensity of the firmament. If you become so small in our thoughts, what will our earth be like? What will it be of us? We experience an admiration that resembles fear when we contemplate, under this new plane, this indefinite space and the number of bodies swimming there. We feel at the same time that this spectacle is as seductive as it is terrible. Man, while admiring her, take the precaution of defending yourself. The immensity of this spectacle would be capable of crushing your thoughts, as it crushes your puny stature. Revive your rights, and distinguish yourself from all these magnificent but mute beings by the superiority of your speech. Is it through the eyes of your body that you must measure your being and your destination? Your walk must take place even without the knowledge of these superb globes, which roll before you with such majesty and mystery. evaluates the discoveries of these laborious men: they give us the geography of the worlds; but they tell us nothing about the customs and history of the inhabitants. They trace for us beautiful and numerous descriptive laws, and not a final law; However, without this knowledge, of what use would the most faithful picture of these innumerable worlds be for our work?

Why did wisdom not allow our simple sight to penetrate too far into the spectacle of their immensity? It was to engage us in the study of their final laws, and so that the extent of this vast picture would not go so far as to discourage us. It was so that we would be less diverted from the search for our birth, in the lively feeling of our rights and our intelligence. Active renaissance, linked to the infinite, and which means that, for us, all these worlds brought together appear only as harmonious instruments, which should be put back for our use.

97. Jacob Bohme. Man's first childhood is a growth, because it is a divine present. The second childhood is a degeneration, because it is the work of man. So follow the course of the spirit man; you cannot give birth to it from the soul of man, as those who rush to judge claim, because there is only one being who can give immortal and imperishable life. Would you like to make it born from God, in the moment when man fulfills the gross law of his material reproduction? Could you so defile supreme majesty as to make it itself compete with the degrading brutality of matter?

These two difficulties classify human souls in a place of waiting, from which they can emerge in turn to incorporate themselves, without it being the soul of man which creates them, and without the sublime purity of the eternal is exposed to the slightest stain. Can this place of waiting not be seen as their childhood state? And when they leave it, is it not to rise to a more perfect state, and to reunite one day, if they are worthy, with the sovereign being from whom sin separated them? Earthly and corporeal man, your law is similar. Supreme justice, when the first of men sinned, you condemned him to work and death; but you did not condemn his body to suffering, nor his spirit to wanderings and absences. Woman alone was condemned to suffer, and only within the laws of generation, because she is responsible for pulling man from the abyss, as it was she who threw him there. And despite the just anathema that was launched on the man and the woman, they could only have left this world by rising into the air on a chariot of fire, like Elijah. Thus our human remains should do nothing other for us, during our stay on earth, than vanish successively like a ghost and like a work of magic, and restore to our spirit, by the same gentle gradation, its original freedom, its original strength and virtues. So follow the law of fire. He was before time, he rises above time. It rises in brilliant form. Follow the law of fire, and ascend with it into the abode of light.

98. The Orient. Why would you be surprised that there were men whose kingdom was not of this world? Is your nature so degraded that order and regularity are a miracle to you? Is it because you do not see man improving, nor vices diminishing on earth, that you doubt the purity of your origin? But shouldn't all human posterity go through the channels of rebirth and restoration, and be immersed in the lake? No longer be surprised that they all soil themselves in this mire: everyone is so new and so foreign to it, when they arrive there, that they do not know how to protect themselves from its infection. But the east is always pure; only grasp the hem of his garment, and you will be invisible in the eyes of the wicked. It is for him that Isaiah said: we have seen him; his face was as if hidden, without any appearance, without beauty, and we paid no attention to him. How would rich and happy men perceive it? Are they not as if enveloped and blinded by the clouds of prosperity? Just man, you will fight like the lion assailed by hunters, and you will know the beauty of him who loves you. How beautiful is the one that man seeks! He has light as a panache to his helmet. He watches in the midst of darkness; he watches over the preservation of the people, and the soul of the pure man watches with him in all centuries and in all ages. Do not say that you have no oil; the fields are full of olive trees, and you yourselves can consider yourselves as the farmers of the garden of Eden.

99. Family. Yes, you can attach to your children a response of lust, a response of greed, a response of horrible depravity; as you can attach to it a reaction of purity, a reaction of wisdom, a reaction of justice. You will see them manifest in the soul of the child, as the times of his physical growth and moral development arrive. Unfortunate measure, null and empty measure, you can torment a man, as long as he breathes here below. You put it in the case of the precept of the gospel: he who does not hate his father, his mother, his brothers, his sisters, is not worthy of me. But his position is false, because it comes from you. The precept only concerns those who are chosen: it must still be explained in a mixed sense. When God takes a man into his service, where is his family, where is his father? If all are not called to this supreme measure, all are called to the common measure, and it is this measure that you distort by your inexperience and by your vicious generations. Where is human posterity? Where is the peace that would result from this common measure? Are not all harmonies broken? Isn't everything in pain? And do these beings that wisdom had placed together on earth, to enliven each other, do anything there other than injure themselves and further disorganize their measure? In vain I want to open my mouth to sing the songs of the Lord: tears flood me, sobs suffocate me, my voice stops, and my throat is dried up by the length of my sadness. Are you like this unfortunate being, who, by dint of having lived in iniquity, ended up regarding it as natural?

100. Forbidden knowledge. Because knowledge of the essence of being is prohibited, they believed that knowledge of its laws was also prohibited; and because knowledge of the laws of being was recommended to us, they believed that that of essence was permitted. This is what made the ignorant and the impious. The man who is linked to action is in his law, because the thought which governs him does not leave him. The man who devotes himself to thought is not in his law, because action is lacking to complete it.

Also, what greater proof of man's weakness than the multiplicity of his words? What is he doing there? And on the contrary, what would he not do with simple speech? Divine action, it is by combining yourself with time that you repair the disorders of humanity. as the young offspring grow before the eyes of man, the depositaries of truth grow at the same time, and extend the reign that it should have in the universe. The angels of children see the face of God; the angels of our fellow men see ours, and scare away the bad angels with whom we have allowed ourselves to be accompanied. It is almost a shame for man to be only the chosen one of time, because everyone can have this hope; whereas if he were pure and vigilant, he could enter the number of the chosen ones. Why are we no longer the original chosen ones? Can we no longer come to Egypt like Joseph, to make it participate in the alliance? Can we no longer come there to exhume the bones of our fathers? Let's start by exhuming ours and extricating ourselves from the snares of the Egyptians. Then we will carry the bones of our fathers from this plagued land into the land of promise, and we will sing the song of their deliverance.

101. Prayers and secrets. Where will I get a fair idea of ​​prayer and the effects it can produce? It is a single resource, my only duty, my only work, in this dark region and on this miserable theater of atonement. It can purify and sanctify my clothes, my food, my possessions, the materials of my sacrifices, all the acts and all the subjections of my being. Through my prayer I can reach these higher spheres, of which the visible spheres are only imperfect images. Moreover, if a man appears before me whose speeches or faults distress me, I can, through prayer, regain interest in him, instead of the alienation he would have caused me. I can make through my prayer that the impious become religious, that the angry man becomes gentle, that the insensitive man becomes filled with charity. I can, through my prayer, resurrect virtue everywhere. I can, through my prayer, descend to places of darkness and pain, and bring some relief there. Is it not prayer that once straightened the lame, made the blind see and the deaf hear? Wasn't she the one who raised the dead? I must expect everything from God, without doubt; but to expect everything from God is not to remain in apathy and tranquility. It is to implore Him by my activity and by the secret pains of my soul, until my tongue being loosed, I can implore Him by harmonious sounds and by canticles. By strength and perseverance in my prayer, I will obtain either external conviction, which is testimony, or internal conviction, which is faith. This is why the wise said that prayer was a reward. The secret of man's advancement consists in his prayer, the secret of his prayer in preparation, the secret of preparation in pure conduct; the secret of pure conduct, in the fear of God, the secret of the fear of God in his love, because love is the principle and the focus of all secrets, of all prayers and of all virtues . Is it not love that uttered the two most superb prayers that have ever been communicated to men, the one that Moses heard on the mountain, and the one that Christ pronounced before his disciples and before the assembled people?

102. False tongues. How many languages ​​will be canceled one day? How many fruits of man's thought will wither away until they are entirely erased! River of centuries, you seem to be rolling in your troubled waters only error, lies and misery. In the middle of these muddy torrents there is barely a trickle of pure water; and this is all that remains to quench the thirst of the nations.

All lake water is muddy, stagnant and must evaporate. This single trickle of living water will resist the burning heat of the south and the cold of the north. This is this immortal language which crosses all the centuries without being corrupted. The supreme agent, in revising the works of men, will only leave that which relates to the eternal principles of the divine language. Let us only ever listen to those who speak it. Let us close our ears to living languages ​​in evil, and let us try to regenerate dead languages ​​within ourselves. People talk to us constantly; but let us not allow ourselves to be seduced by the eloquence of all the orators around us. It is these false languages ​​which have led so many mortals astray, and which, after having provided them with empires, have plunged them themselves into the most horrible of servitudes. If our thoughts are not regular, let us stifle them at their roots, and not let them rise to speech; because our words are even closer to our enemy than our thoughts. If our words are not in conformity with the truth, if even, although true, they are not distributed with prudence, the enemy imprints on them, on the spot, the sign of his power, and turns them from the path. Let us watch over our works ten times more, he knows them even more; so he is always ready to corrupt and imitate them. He even imitates our prayers well!

103. The long torrents. The clouds filled the atmosphere, they covered the expanse of the heavens, they robbed us of our sight and the clarity of the sun. As soon as they began to melt, the rainbow appeared to announce the restoration of order. Cry, human family, begin to dissipate the mass of iniquities that rob you of the sight of the sun of justice! Let this mass begin to turn into water, if you want to at least see the colors of the rainbow! Who is the man who will not be overcome with pain? The sun will only be able to restore its clarity to the region of man when the entire mass of iniquities is dissolved, and as if melted in the tears of man. The tears of the human family must form long torrents, until they fill the valleys of the earth. The beds of the rivers must be filled with them, and this flood must extend until it swells the basins of the seas. Without this harsh and painful law, the sun will never show its face to man, and we will not be able to say: the Lord has made known the salvation he has in store for us; he has manifested his righteousness in the eyes of the nations.

104. Spiritual birth. See how surprised children are, when their senses develop, to encounter a multitude of objects around them that are unknown to them! Why, when we leave this world, should we not be surprised by what we encounter on our steps? There is nothing empty; let us not lose sight of the progressive image that the child presents to us. following his example, the more we advance in growth, the more objects multiply and become interesting for us. What is our mother's womb in comparison to this physical world? What is this physical world, compared to that which awaits us at our second birth? as we enter the future world, spiritual life must begin to make itself felt in all the faculties of our being. Oh ! How glorious and consoling will be the last period of the work, when we will sing the sacred hymns under the holy porticos! The bright stars hang above our earth, like lamps above the tombs of the dead. We will likewise watch over the tombs of those who will still sleep in the sleep of their crimes and their ignorance. A faithful friend will have rendered us this sweet service here on earth, during the course of our earthly journey. Can we not imitate him from this world? Can't we get the fire of living pain to kindle within us? Only then does our spiritual birth begin. It is then that, like the prophets, man cries and laments; he goes to bed amidst sighs, he spends the night in tears, he gets up weeping again, and all day long he carries bitterness in his heart. Man of truth, this is the hard test you must go through; as long as you are not there, do you perform miracles, you are not allowed to consider yourself as yet born. The new law and nature teach us with what horrible catastrophes everything must end. Human souls, prepare yourselves, so that these great shocks do not find in you corrupt leaven, nor vitiated humors which can ferment and destroy you. Keep yourselves pure and healthy, so that you can give help to those who are sick and comfort to those who are afflicted.

105. Measurement. Who will dare to speak the truth to men if he does not feel that his heart is touched to the core? Who will dare to practice a profession, if God does not give him the intelligence and teach him all its secrets? So let the hand of God act on you; do not intercept the sap: naturally you will become tall and fertile trees, and you will produce all kinds of fruit.

Wisdom is the harbinger of the Lord's name, and the Lord's name brings with it all good things. It is he who produced the world, it is he who is the author and nourishment of thought, it is he who saved man from the land of perdition. Her hand knows the measure: she will not yield to your overly impatient desires; but she will be near to him who abandons himself to her; and who does not want to have another master. I will watch in fear and trembling, not knowing whether you will have me. Happy is he in whom the seed of iniquity exhausts all its strength here below, and throws out all its branches! Happy is he who does not take this seed with him into the region of the living! It would produce there as here below, it would cover the fertile plants with its brambles, it would destroy the succulent and magnificent fruits with its thorns; and then with what would man feed himself? Seed of justice and truth, descend into man from this world; smother foreign plants in it; may your branches cover all its earth, and may they carry their immortal heads beyond time!

106. Primitive man. What deep meaning is not contained in these words so often repeated in scripture: he will call on me, and I will hear him, and I will hear his words, and I will yield to his prayers? A secret bond unites man and God in their essence. This link united them in its emanation: why does it not unite them in its action? If he did not unite them in his action, would he have been granted one? And what was granted to him, would it have been to be the image of the one who emancipated him for his glory? Supreme Agent, if this was your plan in forming man, what would not have been the result if he had remained faithful to it? All in living acts around him, his being never remaining empty after his spiritual action, as when it is human thought which generates and directs it; much less opening his being to pride, because always absorbed in the contemplation of his principle, which always suffices for him, he does not have the leisure to compare himself to this principle, as he does with his peers who do not never fill it. Such was the state of primitive man, such would be the state of regenerated man: would we then be surprised if the man of desire did not want to leave the porticos of the Lord?

107. The theater. Blind man, could you bastardize yourself more than letting yourself be given lessons in virtue by histrions? You must be very little sensitive to its sublimity, so as not to groan at seeing it professed through such deceitful mouths! If this idea doesn't strike you, at least calculate your pleasures a little better. You pay to see in the theater the representation of certain traits of virtue and beneficence; but we only give you the figure. listen: with the same amount that you gave to see this appearance, you can have the reality in an unfortunate person. In the theater, you hear about the pleasure of doing well: here you will experience it and feel it; you will find misery, generosity and gratitude in nature. And you, poets, who attract us to the theater, you only know how to make virtue shine through the opposition of vices; you only seem busy throwing us into painful and critical situations, to have the glory of getting us out of them. Is the truth not pleasing enough in itself, and does the sun need shadows to make its light more brilliant? But you would have to know this true source of happiness to present it to us with all its charms. Lacking this knowledge, you only show us artificial virtues, of which you alone are the motive, and of which your glory is the end. Yes, unwise men, when you make mortals shed tears, the soul of the good man is jealous that it is not for the truth.

108. Blood. It is because the gods of the nations were demons that the Lord chose the holy nation so that they might learn from it to know the law of the Lord. It is because the prophets sinned and the priests committed injustice that the holy nation fell into bondage. Prophets, you were the sentinels of Israel; it was up to you to warn when the enemy approached the citadel; and you yourselves have caused confusion in the city, and shed the blood of the righteous. God had threatened the Jews that if they did not follow his ordinances, the priest would be like the people. Israel, this misfortune has fallen on you, your priest no longer has virtue, your priest no longer even has a title. In the ancient law, God threatened to demand the blood of man from the very beasts that had devoured him. In the new law, God threatens to demand the blood of the prophets from the sons of those who had shed it, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah. Prophets, without your iniquities, the blood of your brothers would not have been shed, and the nations would not have been in bondage. Without man's iniquities, animals would not have had dominion over him. If Adam answers for the evils and crimes of all his posterity, you, prophets, answer for the crimes and evils of the peoples to whom you were sent. Each man, following your example, answers for the crimes and evils committed within his precincts; and he himself cannot commit any of them without disturbing the peace and happiness of his fellow men. See all this blood gathering in the sea of ​​iniquity, and try to imagine what the agent must have been who proposed to dry up this entire sea, by the sole fire of his own sorrows.

109. The spectacle of the world and the commerce of men. Is it in vain that virtuous men are placed near vicious men on earth? It is to balance evil, and prevent the weight of their crimes and their ignorance from causing the wicked to fall into precipices. Violated moral causes have undoubtedly contributed to these assemblages; but does not vigilant wisdom always know how to bring good from evil? Happy the man, if he had not, on the contrary, brought evil from good! Why deny yourself, without reservation, the spectacle of the world? Are we not here to learn to discern good from evil? study of nature, you teach us, that in created things, nothing is born except for its opposite, which demonstrates the appearance, where everything is a copy. You teach us that the six armies which defend it are not enough to preserve it from violence, and that it can only find its rest in a more perfect number. But in the commerce of men, can we not also fulfill a vital part of our true task? Do we not have to produce and consider, in all respects, the various works of the word? And what a charm for man to feel, through experience, that action and speech exist, and that everything is full, because they are universal! But to achieve this happy goal, listen a lot; because if you were in a hurry to speak, your science would be taken for a system, like the other sciences.

110. Precaution. I will ask that my soul take charge of the moral pains of my brothers; it is dedicated to this charitable work, by its nature. As she is immortal, even if she remained below her enterprise, she could lose nothing for herself, because she has come closer to unity through her sacrifice, and she is supported by the 'infinity . I will give all my bodily care to the physical ailments of my brothers; but I will never ask that my body share the infirmities of theirs to relieve them. Our bodies are limited in the measure of their being and their strength, and by transposing charity in this way, I can uselessly commit suicide. By this precaution I will also prevent the enemy from transmitting to me some of his disorderly actions, which he never fails to envelop for us with virtue; and I will warn all my fellow men that he only seeks to deceive us with excessive virtues, in order to make us his victims.

111. Morality. If God is a moral and spiritual being (and the number of man offers the most rigorous proof), must he not have, in all his works, a spiritual and moral goal? Can we therefore, without being insane, have another object in research and in the study of his works, than a wise, moral and spiritual object? And to look for something else there, would that not be to look for what would not be there, and what we could not find there? Scientists of the century, what becomes of these vague and limited destinations, which seem to you to have presided over the origin of nature, since you pursue them so ardently in its course? What fruits will your wisdom, your morality, your spirituality draw from all these secondary and dead causes that you study in all bodies? If God had a moral purpose in his works, ask it from the final cause of these same works, and not from their structure which does not know them and which cannot teach you. Do not deny God, do not deny the number of your soul, and do not say that a moral purpose in the works of God is useless for you to know. On the contrary, it is the only one that it is possible for you to discover, and the knowledge of which will be profitable to you: why constrain your intelligence, to lead you through lies to blasphemy? For you, souls of desire, learn here to esteem yourself. If the final goal of all beings is a moral goal, thick clouds may today cover the plans of this universal destination; but we must none the less have a moral purpose in the whole immortal course of our being. Weigh this truth. See how our walk is combined with the laws and works of the sovereign principle, and however dark our original destination may be for us today, let us not neglect its morality, since it is impossible for us to deny it.

112. Music. There is undoubtedly a fair tuning fork in nature; there is one particular to each being. If you use another, what can you produce? Despite the accuracy of all your sounds, according to the ratios of the scale, they will not be any less false, since the tuning fork itself will be. Do you want to know another difficulty? Music is the sensitive expression of higher actions. Will it be perfect if it does not approach the order and accuracy that these actions have among themselves? Why are the wonders of ancient music so famous? It adapted to the canals; it was not surprising that by this means the virtues descended. Will the imagination and the keen senses of the musician take the place of this advantage? And if he stays away from the canals, what does he get? Music of the modern centuries, you are weak and powerless: you can please us sometimes, you can even agitate us; but can you come forward and instruct us? Can you fill in all the shades? You are still mistaken when you believe music is intended to depict all kinds of subjects. She is so little suited to singing about inferior objects that, when she does occupy herself with them, she can only make them interesting by lending them the affections and language of man. This is why, O man! That it was your first science, in those times when all of nature formed the strings of your lyre; and where you did not do violence, as today, to this sublime art, by applying it to the painting of disorders and ravages, while it holds to order and harmony by its origin. Yes, divine melody, if you can sometimes serve as an organ for the vengeance of heaven, since you open all regions, you can even more often serve as an organ for its love; it is a natural function for you, because you care about the first being, and love is its essence. So what do you do when you only apply music to the painting of man's passions and furies? You thereby open the corrupt paths that surround you; and you deliver yourself, without knowing it, to perfidious hands, which chain you.

The principle of disorder waits for you to open these disorderly paths to it. If you only opened the regular regions, he would not be able to approach your concerts, because in all genres regularity hurts him. There is no harmony in him, how could he link himself to true harmony? Come down from the sacred porticos, where you prepare and sanctify the voices which are charged with singing your canticles. If man no longer has, as before, the power to dispose of your gifts, he still has the power to implore them. He can still address you with humble and timid supplications: it is up to you to make them reach the throne of supreme intelligence; and that is why your abode should never be except in the temples.

113.Nakam. Samuel, you tell Saul, that God is not a man to repent; a moment later, you say that the lord repented of having made Saul king of Israel. These contradictions are only shocking in our languages, where we have established as many words as we have received ideas; where finally ideas became the slaves of words. Lord, how could ideas not be more numerous and greater than words? Are you not yourself greater than your name, since it only serves to represent you? I see the Hebrews express with the same word nakam, the action of repenting and that of consoling oneself. So where is the contradiction? And did the prophet Samuel deceive us? God grieves because he loves; he does not repent, because he cannot fail; if he grieves by his love, he consoles himself by his justice. It is man and every free being who can repent, because he is the only one who can go astray and feel remorse. Remorse is for our faults; affliction for the faults of others. Lord, did you repent of having created man? Was not Adam the most guilty of all, and yet did he therefore cease to be the object of your love? No, this affliction of your love looked at the depravity and the wanderings of criminal men. Despite the indulgence you had for man by giving him the earth as an asylum after his crime, if this affliction of your love had had as its object the existence of man, would you not have exterminated him entirely? from above the earth? And would you have left an offspring to renew it? No, Supreme God, your plans are combined in your wisdom. Man has the unfortunate power to upset them, but he alone is the victim; and you always know how to bring your works to fruition.

114. The oil of bitterness. Men, it is not only over your posterity that the empire of your reactions extends, by which you can decide the destiny of your children.

Your rights extend to everything contained in your current region. These same powers once extended to the entire immensity of the sphere that you inhabited during your glory. Remember the privileges reserved for the priestly race; the prophets have told you: the lips of the priest will be the depositaries of knowledge; It is from his mouth that knowledge of the law will be sought, because he is the angel of the Lord. When will dumb tongues be loosed? When will this happy time arrive, when not only will generations be renewed, and posterities will be pure, but when man will be so separated from himself, that he will be entirely transformed in his God? ? The Lord uses my soul like a sharp sword; he strikes all day long on brass and on living rock, and the sword can only break with each blow. The lord uses my soul as a shield, but clouds of flaming arrows launch themselves at me and pierce me at every moment. The Lord uses my soul as a fortress to resist his enemies; but rams and ballistas without number strike with redoubled blows, and reduce the rampart to dust. It is very sour, this oil with which wise virgins must fill their lamps until the arrival of the bridegroom! Oh ! How sweet will the oil of joy be, since it must make us forget this oil of bitterness!

115. His joy. What was the reason for his joy when his apostles came to give him an account of their works? It was less because they had power over demons than because their names were written in the book of life. It is the only moment of his entire temporal life which is marked by a moment of joy; and what was the object? It was to feel that divine love had penetrated the earth, and had snatched some prey from the enemy. It was to feel that human wisdom was humiliated, in that it did not penetrate into those things which were revealed to the little ones. Moses put the Egyptians to death, Samuel put Agag to death; Elijah, the prophets of Baal and the captains of Okofias; Elisha, the children of the prophets who insulted him; Jeremiah carries the word of death to the false prophet Hananias, who died the same year. Ezekiel, from the bosom of his captivity, puts Pheltias to death in Jerusalem, by prophesying against him; Peter put Sapphire and Ananias to death: Paul delivered prevaricators to Satan; the repairer did not cause anyone to die, and he always forgave. He prevented James and John from causing fire to fall from heaven on a Samaritan village, whose inhabitants did not want to receive it. He took Peter away from Satan, who had asked him to sift him like a sieve; he prayed for his own executioners, and even while they were torturing him. If you want to follow him in his charity, who can limit your hopes? If the prayer of the righteous can do all things, then begin by justifying yourself; you will be able to prove God at every step, at all times and constantly as if you had already laid down your human remains.

116. Compensation. Yes, we are all armed, and we must all overcome if we want to succeed; but we must not conquer all in the same way. Some have to overcome in their passions, others in false examples, in the imperious conventions of the world, in bodily ills, in the tribulations of thought, in disproportions of measure; when one is still only in figures, and the other is in reality. There are some who have to bear the pains of universal charity, who awaken in us when God sends us a few rays of his ardent love for humanity. Lord, bring the whole heaven near to the heart of man; and may this burning hearth make him experience these salutary torments! Spirit of man, all obstacles are compensated by gifts and analogous virtues. Doesn't the passionate man have the strength? Does the unhappy man not have industry or courage? Does not the weak man have gentleness and prudence? Does not the man afflicted with the pains of the soul receive light, confidence and resignation?

The evils sent to us would never overcome us, if we did not reject the similar aids which deliberately accompany them. Spirit of man, apply this consoling observation to the great work of divinity; see how vast, wise and sweet is the distribution of his gifts to the various elect. They are responsible for balancing and erasing all the disorders hidden from the man of matter. They undoubtedly suffer inexpressible pain: but who could also express their consolations?

117. Sensations. How can sound be formed and heard? Is it not by compression on matter, and by the expansion of air? Nothing more is needed to give us the idea of ​​the principle of harmony. Nature and silence are synonymous, since it does not speak. Its barriers must be broken so that the harmonic sounds can be heard. Is it not the same with all our sensations? Are they anything other than the contact of our internal principle with the external principle of everything that exists? Hence this doctrine, that we see everything in God: mortals, why have you carried it too far? There are two classes; but in these two classes the union cannot be achieved without rupture. Are there not two opposing forces: one to stop the union; the other to favor it? Is there not also the principle which gives, and the principle which receives? These four numbers naturally paint the law of all divine and physical operations. In these operations, all bodies are the receptacles. But bodies, and all material beings, are only sensitive receptacles. Man is both a sensitive receptacle and a moral and contemplative receptacle. Meditate on colors; you will find only three for perishable nature, and one of them is that of death. You will find four for imperishable nature, and one of them is that of life. Mortals, it is nothing to know these truths, it is nothing to be convinced of them; the key is to realize them, and not to give yourself a moment's rest until moral sensations have become as natural to you as elementary sensations are to your sensitive being.

118. Easy things. Why does the supreme agent have no disturbance in the feeling of his being and his power? This is because he always acts and his action cannot have an interval. Be careful never to reflect on your virtue; you will no longer know the charm of this beautiful name if you stop. Its price is only in the movement. Without effective and sustained action, it will only be an aborted germ. Fear easy things; it is easier for you to converse than to write, easier to write than to pray, easier to pray than to act. Interviews do more good for your mind than for your soul; the care of writing and meditating does more to your soul than to your spirit: careful and constant prayer does it to both your spirit and your soul. Your well-directed action can please God himself. Also it is he who gives it; and all you can do yourself is to ask him earnestly. See where the lack of action leads men imperceptibly. It leads them to a shortage of ideas, and the shortage of ideas leads them to have only stories as a resource. You are an active being by your nature; when you live far from the principles and truths which enlighten, you resort to painting their results, which amuses. Also the world is full of people who recite, and very empty of people who instruct. They take this appearance of action for the action itself, so easily is man deceived by the similarities! Poets, orators, your object is only to say well; the object of the wise is to think well; the object of the righteous is to act well.

119. Poverty and iniquity. thinking beings, all of you who have received the same origin, why do you not taste the same delights! What a distressing contrast your situation creates in the scene of the world and in the movements of my heart!

There is happiness, and not all of you enjoy it! There is a harmony, and you do not participate in it! There is a measure, and you are in disorder! In the midst of this divine harmony, I hear rising, as from the depths of an abyss, sour, plaintive sounds, which I would even take for blasphemy, if such an audacious word could ever strike the pure and holy region, where the truth makes its stay. My days of joy have turned into sadness, my songs have given way to cries of pain. What feast can there be in Jerusalem, when her children are in bondage, and have become the flatterers and officers of the kings of Egypt and Babylon? My bread will henceforth be drenched only in bitterness, since among my brothers there are those who are in poverty, and others who have established a home in iniquity. Evil contrasts too much with good for the man of desire and charity to have a moment of rest. I will cry, my God, I will cry, until I can persuade my brothers that you alone can console us.

120. The fiery torrent. Do you want to know your superiority over nature? See how much you extend or restrict the faculties of animals as you wish. You perfect, if you want, all substances; you are a king, you are an angel of light, or at least you should be. Do you know why the higher the objects of your studies, the easier it is for you to make discoveries? This is because, like your mind, they are closer to the truth. Don't hesitate any longer. The sciences of spirit are much surer than those of matter. This is why all sacred writers say the same thing; while the scholars of the lower order all fight each other. Even look around you and at the simplest laws of this physical world. Astronomers predict eclipses and revolutions of the heavens several centuries in advance; and they could hardly predict, whether tomorrow the weather will be clear or dark. Man, fill yourself with confidence in your nature and in him who gave you thought. Let this faith not be a vague and sterile belief in vain doctrines. It must be active and rapid like a torrent; but this torrent must be on fire to be able to illuminate its course. It is so that a man carries his head in the heavens, that he does not find here where to rest his head. And why would he seek to rest his head here? Doesn't he want unity? And can unity find its rest in the mixed order? Soul of man, know the rest that is made for you. It is what is specific to unity itself: it is to feel that you are separated from what is disorder and corruption; it is to feel that you are swimming freely in the imperishable ocean of the light of order and life.

121. The rainbow. It is on the melting clouds that the rainbow strikes and takes shape; and it is through this that the solar virtues become perceptible to us. Wise men of the earth, it is on your works that the spirit strikes and reflects. It is through you that he makes us aware of his virtues. Every container is intended to reflect the actions of its order. Universal reparator, if you had not poured out your salutary gifts here below, the supreme lights and favors would never have been reflected for us. We would never have known the colors of the true rainbow. We would never have known what sacrifices were. We have all these gifts from him to whom the spirit was not given by measure; of this being whose favors elevate us so far above our nature that we no longer find languages ​​to express them, nor ears that can hear us. Man, the feeling of your spiritual needs brings you hope and desire, which is a beginning faith, the feeling of the spirit and the true nature, brings you faith, which is a complete hope; the feeling of God, man and repairer, brings you love and charity, which are the living and visible action of hope and faith.

122. Medea. Let us no longer ask what is the object of science; it is nothing other than to disentangle the pure from the impure, in order to lead us to the unmixed region. How could truth and science not have as their goal our advancement? That of error and darkness, is it not to sow, like Medea, scattered members on our path, to stop us in our progress? But we are almost always warned of the approach of poison. We would be even more interested in approaching what is beneficial to us, if our moral sensitivity had remained in its purity. Animals announce variations in the atmosphere; and we, who hold to an atmosphere more active and more subtle than theirs, we feel nothing, we know nothing about our true temperatures! Is this why poetry and morality have so often put into man's mouth regrets about the happiness of animals, rivers, and all substances of nature? Alas! If words could have taken hold of these beings, they would have responded to man: don't lament anymore, we don't even know if we are happy. Subjected to the hand that presses us, we go where it leads us; we only have the good that it sends us, and the majority of us are not even capable of feeling it.

It is you, happy mortal, whose fate could awaken our jealousy. You can foresee your ills, you can prevent them; you can enjoy all the advantages and the right to command even those laws which chain us like slaves. If you were not weak and without courage, would you have something to regret, and would you not be able to provide us yourself with a portion of this happiness that you envy?

123. The temple rebuilt. Yes, interior worship is sensitive, it is certainly more so than exterior worship; but it is in another way. Material worship is for the senses of form, spiritual worship for the senses of the soul; divine and interior worship is for the intimate life of our being. This is how from childhood to the high wisdom of celestial beings, we can rise from sanctuaries to sanctuaries, with the certainty that the more sublime and invisible these sanctuaries become, the more active and sensitive they are in order. of our true sensitivity. It is therefore not an empty word, the one which teaches us that we are the temples of the holy spirit. Would we have joys so pure and so consoling, if they did not come to us from a true region, from a region where life is not fragile? A single glance at man teaches us that we are extracts of God. A second glance tells us that we are like the days and openings of his temple since he manifests himself through us. Spiritual numbers teach us that we are its essential power. Let us not relax until this ancient temple is rebuilt within us, and we see the four denaries reborn there, or this life-giving flower of which Easter was the stem, and of which all previous operations were the root. Let us not relax until we have been baptized in the Spirit, and until, by sending it upon us, the Father of life has declared us his beloved.

124. The pure woman. Cast your eyes on human posterity, and you will no longer doubt that man wanted to make himself God; Who is the man who does not repeat this crime every day? The heat of the atmosphere has dried up all the vapors, they have accumulated them in the cloud, like the eagles which gather where the corpse is. The winds raged, lightning flashed, and everything threatened to obscure the sun forever. Virtues of heaven, crime has concentrated you in one point; but your strength and your love made you break down your barriers. Life exploded and spread among the immensity of beings. Pure woman, you are the sweet interlude that divine glory has placed between her and us; without you, this glory would have dazzled us. It is you who prepare us for his love, because the impure woman had prepared us for crime, and had separated us from love. When we are sent to earthly life, is it not in the womb of woman that we make our first stay? No light for us if a divine germ does not come and sow it in us. No virtues, if celestial love does not light its fire in our hearts. No words, if the divine language does not itself come to move all the springs of our language. No active works of any kind, if the lively action of the spirit and of life does not bring us a basis on which it can strike to bring forth a thousand lightning bolts. Germ of rebirth, germ of intelligence, germ of love, germ of sanctification; four powers have sown you in us by a single act. May these four powers react to you in a single act and make you bear fruit!

125. The altars of Belial. Every day my thoughts will circle the earth to overthrow the altars of Belial: these altars living in death, and which have the fatal power to be reborn from their own debris. Every day I will dry up the fountains of poison that flow in these regions of iniquity, and every day I will call upon the spirit of wisdom and prudence, to sit in the councils of the princes and legislators of the nations. Begin by restoring peace in your souls, unity in your minds, concord and harmony among the entire human family; the angels themselves will come and unite with your hymns and your canticles. Because peace and holiness are the joy of the Lord, at the same time as they are the joy of man, and because the holy ark makes its home in the midst of the joys of the elect. Lord, multiply the priests in Israel, multiply the holy nation, and remember that man is your chosen people. Let them fill the earth with your works, and let no other traces be seen there than those of the footsteps of your people.

126. The standard of the triumphant. O divine fear, you yourself are only the beginning of wisdom, you are not its term and end; this term is only found in the calm and joy of the mind. I will fear God in measure, but I will love him without measure; I can fear too much, and I cannot love too much. Lord, let the fire of heaven come into me and consume the iniquities of Israel and Judah! May the tremors of my fragile earth shake the columns to their foundations! May a universal war set my whole being on fire. May the passing stars that illuminate it lose their light! May the heavens and the earth, which compose me, be turned inside out like a garment! May new heavens and a new earth be formed within me! And from the remains of this ancient universe, I see raised in the air the sign of the eternal alliance, and the standard of the triumphant in his glory!

127. Young age. I wander in the various paths of my desert: rivers, shrubs, animals of the fields and forests, become for me like comforters and friends. Insects of the earth, dew, ice, spirit of storms, speak to me about the Lord, since man does not speak to me. He was the testimony of the Lord, he no longer comes as testimony; and our God no longer has witnesses in the universe. Oh ! Men, you would not like to talk about God to your children when they are young! Are you then sure of finding, in their age of reason, teachers educated enough to talk to them about it in such a way as to develop for them all the relationships they have with it? This condition is necessary in mature age to believe in something; it is not necessary in childhood. The child takes, in vulgar education, the seed of divine belief, and the germ of the moral and religious virtues which it contains, and which are analogous to the essence of our soul. He does not see the inconsistencies and gaps, which his tender age cannot discern, and which are painful only for the mind. Therefore, speak to your children about God, as they have spoken to you; talk to them about God, even more through your actions than through your speeches; and when their age has arrived, perhaps their soul, thus preserved, will provide clarification and satisfactory solutions to their mind. What more beautiful job than preparing witnesses for our God! Let us revive, let us instruct the beings who must serve as his testimony; and we will no longer need to wander in the various paths of nature, and ask all its productions to speak to us of our God.

128. The father and the son. You are not in your place here; a single one of your moral desires, a single one of your anxieties, proves the degradation of our species more than all the arguments of philosophers prove the opposite. Would love have produced beings for pain? Who could have forced him to be the taxpayer of pain? Your son leaves you to join a gang of thieves: he suffers from hunger, fatigue, insomnia; he runs the risk of suffering all the scourges of justice. Your paternal heart flies towards him to rescue him from all these evils: what fool will say that it was you who sent them to him? What other fool will say that these are not evils?

Read here the march of supreme love towards human posterity; see if your darkness does not prove a mistake, and if supreme love does not prove a repairer. Peaceful souls, carry your questions no further: whoever this repairer is, he must be the only one who can deliver you; whatever his name, invoke him, throw yourself into his arms, he will warm you in his bosom. If his love is universal, wherever you look for it, you cannot fail to encounter it. The father did not come, because it was not the thought of the impious that was guilty; it is his love which failed and which became a false love: this is why it is love which began the repair. The wrongdoer's false love led him to a false act. This is why action or the holy spirit came after love, to help us carry out true actions. Divine repairer, life-giving love, you came to heal us and restore our strength. The holy spirit has come to help us use it. Creator God, repairer God, active and sanctifying God: this is our resource, our remedy and our master; these are the elements of our prayer. Let us ask that the holy spirit pray within us to the father in the name of the repairer. The pure woman will implore this favor for us. Why should we neglect the help of the pure woman? Are we not far enough away, extra-lineage enough, for an interlude to be useful to us? But let us be careful not to place it above its rank, if we do not want to multiply the gods, as the blind and idolatrous nations have done.

129. The eye of the prophet. Do not be discouraged if success does not always correspond to your work. The plowman opens the bosom of the earth, he throws in the wheat, he covers it; then he retires and abandons his field to the care of providence. Even if the harvest fails, is he any less an irreproachable worker? But if, after many efforts, you felt that your soul was elevated and that it loved its God, how would you regret your sweat and your work? Man's happiness is in the hand of God, and it is he who places on the person of the wise man the marks of honor which belong to him. It is he who tells us: consider the eye of the prophet, read there the secrets and dispositions of the heart of God, as you read, in the eye of the minister of a king, the secrets and dispositions of the heart of his master. For I have made the eye of the prophet sensitive to the measure of my affections, and I trace there in vivid letters my ordinances and my designs. Therefore I have established the eye of the prophet, to be the lamp of your heart and of your mind; but if you neglect to consider its light and lead yourself to its clarity, I close the eye of the prophet, and your whole being remains in darkness.

130. Joy and pain. With whom shall I rejoice on earth? It is with him that I could have borne witness to my tears, and who could have grieved with me over the ills of man. Light men, if I were to take part in your joys, you would even less believe that you had tears to shed. I would be complicit in your disappointments, and I would give you my hand to descend even deeper into the abyss. Come, you afflicted men, come, all you who groan over the enormity of evil. Let us cry together, let us not give ourselves any rest until the sting of charity has penetrated to the sources of our life. When our heart has bled; when our blood has washed the wounds of some of our brothers, then we will be able to sing songs of jubilation. These delights are unknown to you, men given over to the slope of the torrent; you do not know what joy is, just as you do not know what pain is. You are transported, like a child, at the sight of these frivolous objects which attach you and amuse you; and like him, you are insensitive and foreign to the evils with which the human family is devoured. Where will you find measure? The child is distant from it like you; but he tends towards it through his growth and his efforts.

And you, each of your steps only serves to move you further away from it. Is it only by a violent shock, and only after having rolled to the bottom of the precipice, that you can re-enter the path of work and jubilation?

131. The flowerbed. Followers of poetry, if you read the holy scriptures, how many wonders would they not offer you! You would see talking stones in the temples built with blood. There you would see the warriors of iniquity descending to the bottom of the abyss, and resting there with their heads resting on their swords. You would see the divinity fleeing from its temples, and no longer finding a place there due to the multiplicity of idols. There you would see divine charity, itself untying the bit of prevaricators and slaves, and presenting them with food with its own hand. You would see sublimity, strength, variety; you would only be spoiled for choice, and never fear of scarcity. But the hand of wisdom blinds your profane eyes, as you travel through this rich and vast meadow. Without this, the flowers you pick there would serve as food for your pride and victims for the prostitution of human opinions. You make of your enlightenment and the talents of your mind a pecuniary speculation; you are like Judah, who sold the savior for a few pennies.

How can traffic be established between substances which have so little connection? If you are looking for material, let it be with material work. The mind must serve us to acquire wit and virtues. Sacred Scripture was given to enrich the heart and intelligence of man. This divine treasure is like a flowerbed, where the true man can walk at any time; he will always find it full of new flowers, even if he picks them all each time. Open the prophets; what fire, what transitions, what a crowd of ideas and feelings crowding together! It is despair, it is charity for the chosen people, it is love and hymns, it is trouble that their mother's womb did not serve as their sepulcher. Human poets, you would be more methodical, because it is you who controls your enthusiasm.

132. The waves of the sea. You think you are alone and isolated, because there is no other God than him. How would he be alone? His thought knows no intervals, and all his thoughts are creations. Is he, like man, crippled and limited? Does he move like him in the narrow circle of his thoughts? And does he see them, like man, continually falling back on themselves, and getting caught up in their confusion and their impotence?

He thinks, and with each thought beings issue in crowds from his bosom, as the innumerable rays of light continually issue from this brilliant star, which was given to him as a sanctuary. These legions of beings follow one another like the waves of the sea, or like the numerous clouds pushed into the air by the impetuosity of the winds. They all have various functions, and they eagerly rush to fulfill them. They reflect the dazzling clarity of their eternal source, and form like temples placed from space to space in the immensity, so that the immensity may be filled with the praises and glory of the eternal. They temper this clarity for eyes that cannot sustain it. They spread celestial and divine virtues, like so many beneficial rains and dews. They pour hail and storms, to terrify the guilty; and no force shall prevail against the servants of the LORD. Will we penetrate this living law of the creation of spirits? Will we pierce the thought of the eternal? It is she herself who made us exist; it was she who threw us out of her bosom. Will the waters of the torrent return to their source to ask it the secret of their existence? Will the clouds retrograde towards the winds that chase them, to penetrate the principle of their movement? Will the light flow back towards the sun, to demonstrate its origin to itself?

Let us be faithful and docile to the voice which called us to the life of thought, and which directs us. Let us fly before her to our destination, and do not seek to question the one who wanted our essence and our faculties to be only after him.

133. The image of the beast. Are men of truth for anything else here below than to be perpetually a sacrifice? They are always in false situations, which wear them out and destroy them before their time. Supreme love, this is one of the traits of your wisdom. You have shortened the time in favor of your chosen ones. Immolate yourself without regret, man of truth; the career is sweet to the one who has only begun to set foot on it. Holy truth, he who loves you sees in the future the pleasures that you prepare for him. He does not see the present tribulations which besiege him. He is even so full of hope that he has no time to fear you and dread your severity. Heroic elect of the Lord, it is in this arduous march that your spirit knows, through a consoling experience, that there is an activity, a progress, a goal and an end. Can the world have an idea of ​​life? He does not suffer; everything is leveled under his feet, everything prevents his delicacy; Time must not notice it. But it is not by rising above time that it becomes imperceptible to time. It is, on the contrary, by remaining below time that time becomes imperceptible to him. What a shock he must experience when he continues his journey and gets back into his line! What evil hand has transposed the law of distant times which are no more? What voice taught man to delude himself with the deceptive promises of this resemblance? Isn't this voice the image of the beast? Is it not the one without whose name one cannot trade on earth? Is it not she who, from the beginning, has given birth to images without number, and has piled them all up in the paths of the work of the Lord?

134. The walk of the wise men. All the words of the prophets have announced it; they pierce all the lines of the writings: but they all announce only a few rays. That is why they could not understand it; he had to come to give true intelligence of himself. Scholars of the century, you do not reach the end of knowledge, because you disdain the only key that can open the entrance. He is everything, he has done everything; and yet you want to know everything, and even operate and produce everything without him. Even more, you want to know him himself without his presence, and judge his light without his light. See how much the ray expands. Jeremiah said only one word to the captives of Babylon, concerning the time of their deliverance; Daniel, who is among the captives, meditates on this word: the fire is kindled, and Daniel shows us all the details of the sacrifice. David meditated on his own songs, and from then on the entire nights were filled for him with contemplations of the works of the Lord. How would the walk of the wise be known to other men? It is not always true of the wise men themselves. They are sometimes led without their knowledge, for fear of dazzling them with the splendor of the wonders that pursue them. Why did the priest, in the ancient law, burn perfumes? Leviticus teaches us: it was so that their vapor would cover the oracle which was on the altar of testimony, and that the priest would not die. Ignorant and unbelieving men, stop wanting to penetrate, by your own lights, into this region so veiled for those even who travel through it.

135. The great solitude. Every man must go through the great solitude once, to develop his industry, his courage and his patience. This is where truth becomes its attraction, as it is the principle and only nourishment of our being. He is the inexhaustible mine for those who seek him in humility of spirit and in meditation of his laws. It is the support of the temporal bases, the essential life of the distinct bases of time, and the death of the decomposed bases; because its universal number cannot cease to be related to all numbers. Isolate yourself within yourself, if you want to feel your immense powers and the greatness of your origin, and if you want to fertilize your desert. Let us make this pact, O God of peace, that all my movements come from you; let us make this pact, the ministers will carry the news of it to the nations, and our alliance will be celebrated throughout the earth. Should we have sufferings of atonement? We were only to have the suffering of sacrifices; because charity alone should animate all beings, and they should have no other job than to work for the re-establishment of the alliance. Jerusalem, your temple embraces all the kingdoms of the universe, your holy ark is in the heart of man. The glory of his God has reserved a sanctuary there. Everything that exists serves him as a Levite, and man, like a zealous priest, must continually gather the nations around the altar of burnt offerings.

136. Genuflexion. there will be one shepherd and one fold, and to the name of the repairer all will bow the knee, in heaven and on earth and in hell. Men quick to judge, you believed to find there the conversion of the great dragon, and the sanctification of the abysses.

Yes, there will be only one shepherd and only one fold, because all the idols will be broken and all the temples destroyed, except that of the true God. Pure worship will have led righteous men to heavenly joys and rest for their souls. Impure worship will have led the ungodly to rage, fury and despair. The fruits will be picked; we will sow no more, because there will be no more land: everything is consumed. Yes, in the name of the Repairer, everything will bow the knee in heaven and in earth and in hell. They will bow the knee to this name in heaven, to celebrate his glory and the wonders of his power. We will bow the knee to this name on earth, because he will have preserved us and delivered us from the hands of our enemy. We will bend the knee to this name in the abyss, because we will shudder with terror when experiencing the effects of its power. In the story of the possessed Gerasene, didn't the pervert worship the repairer? Did he not bow down at his feet? Despite this, has he been converted? He was only submissive by fear, and not by love; his fearful submission obtained for him a change of place, but not a change of disposition. Job, Zechariah, Micah, Luke, you show us the spirit of lying and the spirit of truth, having conversations without the impure being rectified, and he only receives punishment through the presence of the God of justice.

137. The olive. Who can sing enough hymns to the olive? Is it not from her that the oil of joy with which the chosen saint was anointed by predilection comes? Olive, olive, raise your ten-stringed instruments, let us hear your beneficent voice; your tongue has been held back by the bonds of crime for too long. The olive tree seems to be in mourning and sadness, and it is the continual sound of its voice that carries joy, love and life to all souls. Man, it is he who alone can loosen your tongue, and it is your tongue which must loosen that of the echoes; they are waiting for you to speak, then to carry your words to all nations. Human family, human word, if you united your forces, would you not shatter the universe? Would you not make the abyss tremble? Couldn't you transmute death?

138. Intelligence. Intelligence, intelligence, are you not the distinctive character of the prophet? If this were not the case, would we call him the seer? The facts are only the confirmation of intelligence, and deserve only second rank. Gideon, you ask the angel for proof of your mission, he gives it to you. Samuel, after having crowned Saul, you tell him as proof of his election to royalty that he is going to find a man with bread and wine.

A man of God announces to the profane Jeroboam how King Josiah must one day treat the priests of the high places. As proof of his prophecy, the altar breaks, and the ashes that were on it spill out. Isaiah, you give King Hezekiah proof of the prolongation of his days by the delay of Ahaz's clock. In the new covenant, confirmations are active and instantaneous like speech. Sometimes they are prophetic and intellectual: destroy this temple and I will rebuild it in three days. Sometimes they are even refused: they will have no other proof than those of the prophet Jonah. Saint John does not ask for any proof of everything that the angel communicates to him in the apocalypse; and all the confirmations that this angel announces are for the rest of time so mysterious that the event alone will be able to make them understood. Paul, Paul, you were right to say with pain, that the Jews ask for miracles, and the Gentiles seek wisdom. Everything is therefore spirit and intelligence! This then is the fruit of the seeds that wisdom has sown on earth, because our God is spirit!

139. The abode of the wise. How sweet they will be, these days of peace when we enter the abode of the wise, who have enlightened and sustained the world since the shaking!

They will cherish us as their children; they will make us sit near them, and they will tell us the wonders that they will have performed during their holy career. Abel, Enoch, Noah, you will teach us by the stories of your works; we will stand close to you to hear you; and your speeches will leave long traces in our thoughts. This is what awaits us when we emerge from this body of death. These are the delights that are promised to us: they will reveal to us the secrets of all these events that we have not been able to understand here below; of these events with which the history of centuries is full, but whose motives are hidden in sacred politics.

140. Mercy. How could God not be gentler than men, since he is even gentler than the spirit? If in your human relationships there is a single point that hurts your fellow human beings, they condemn you for everything else. But for you, supreme God, if in the works of man you see even the slightest degree of correctness, you close your eyes to all his imperfections. It is your mercy that you have entrusted with the care of collecting our prayers. She is only busy sorting out the good grain, and she is not put off by the quantity of chaff that is there. The Hebrews offended you every day in the desert with their murmurings; your glory came down on the ark of the covenant, to reproach them for their ingratitude. Your priest implored you, and at his prayer you suspended your vengeance. They had to have tempted you ten times to fill the measure, and to be condemned. The children of these prevaricators had to wander in the desert until the corpses of their fathers were consumed. They had to wander there for forty years, according to the number of forty days that the envoys had taken to travel through the promised land. A day of despised grace required a year of atonement. Let us seek the Lord, because of his inexhaustible gentleness: let us fear crime for the sake of our brothers and our children; and out of love for them, let us be careful not to delay their entry into the land of promise through our faults.

141. Magnetic works. Man, you do not have anything here below to suffice for the needs of your mind, even less for those of the minds of your fellow men: you must draw everything from the universal treasures; who will open them for you? And it is in this scarcity that you have the audacity to trace routes to the truth, and to prescribe its course, as if you feared that it would not know how to go alone! Return to the dust. Is it through the mouths of men that orders must come to you? Do you not know that the counsels of men are in vain, because they are not always sure of the one who presides over them? Search them about their doctrine. They will announce to you events which will partly come true: be still on your guard; encourage them to reduce by half all the paintings presented to them. Because the region that the mind occupies is much larger than ours, and it always seeks to give the strokes of its brushes all their extent and all their development; because the mind knows no time, it shows things in large scale, while nature and time can only receive them as extracts. Did he not depict to the prophet Isaiah, in the most terrible colors of the end of the world, the simple destruction of Babylon? Tell them then, that the sublime origin of man means that the laws, the promises, the threats, everything is given to him by his God in complete plenitude: but that our extreme weakness and the immense mercy of this same God , make everything shortened for us in the execution. Urge them, as a final effort, not to be so passive before the voices that direct them, and to remember human rights. Is not the spirit of the prophets subject to the prophets? why do we have so much trouble and so much disorder on earth? It is because we do not bind ourselves closely enough to the orders of truth, and we stick too closely to images.

This is because in our works, as well as in magnetic works, the spirit of the prophet is not subject to the prophet; that the prophet is not only subject to his spirit, but that he is also subject to the human hand which directs this spirit without knowing it, and which itself can be directed without its knowledge by an infinity of diverse powers. And these imprudent people still glory in the works they carry out in this way by the hands of others! Whereas the men of God, the more they work great wonders by their own gifts and by their powers, the more they humble themselves and prostrate themselves in the feeling of their unworthiness.

142. The fire of the word. Let us not take so much care to adorn our words of instruction, and to make them imposing with such studied culture. Even if they were sublime words, they would not benefit from them, the unfortunate ones! They did not benefit from the living and universal word. However, what was missing from this living word? The Judaic name was the letter, the new name was the spirit. What word would you find that would be comparable to this word? There are few who take care to open their being to the intimate feeling of their sublime relationships with their principle. It is only this class of men who know how to extract the fire from words.

Begin each day, like the prophet, by exterminating all the sinners of the earth, and by destroying, in the city of the Lord, all the makers of iniquity. The first degree of wisdom is the fear of God; the second, the thirst for all virtues; the third, the love of universal and particular man; the fourth, love of the sovereign being and his spirit. This is how we will succeed in making the fire of his word shine. Could it be on the care and ornament of our words that the accomplishment of such a great work depends?

143. Sadness. Storms shake the trees; They rub the branches against each other, and by doing so they drive away insects and all harmful animals, which would have bitten the sprouts and prevented them from bearing fruit. Thus the law of time and the shocks of our stormy region, strip us, one by the other, of everything that is foreign and harmful to our true growth. David, you were imbued with these truths, when you endured the curses of Semei, and prevented Abifai from taking his life. Perhaps, you said, the Lord will look upon my affliction, and that he will do me some good for these curses which I receive today.

There is a still more bitter cup; it is the one that we drink for other men and for the enormity of evil. Knowledge of its elements and properties is beyond us. Because this general and central cut falls on our very principle and on our center, since it also starts from the supreme center, or from the living center of love and charity. Whoever you are, if you drink from this general cup, don't complain. There is a sadness that leads to death, it is that of the world and of madness; but there is a sadness that leads to life, and it is that of wisdom and truth. What mother is not filled with joy, and who does not forget all her sorrows, when she has given birth to a man?

144. The king of justice. When the sword of the Lord has killed the ancient serpent in us, then it expands the tents of Israel. Let us open our soul to the sword of the Lord; it is she who must separate foreign nations from us. Without it, we always remain among the uncircumcised. Oh ! How terrible and great is man, when his unity has come! Why would he be born with such a keen sense of his superiority over all nature? Banish from you all doubts and fears that you may have about your universal power when you are regenerated. What you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. But no one can come to me unless my father who sent me draws him. There are therefore necessary elected officials. If man did not have before his eyes all the types of good and evil, how could he know and choose? Woe to anyone who would carry his idea to the point of universal fatality! All these types are the least numerous; the intermediate class is populated by more or less free beings. And, without doubt, wisdom still leaves many merits to the justly elected, to be able to reward them without caprice; and many wrongs to elected prevaricators, to be able to punish them without injustice and without cruelty. God would not be the king of glory, the king of peace, if he were not the king of justice.

145. The heart and the mind. When you want to take advantage of religious institutions and make use of them, stay below them; you have to be passive. When you want to analyze its meaning and origin through reflection and reasoning, stand above it; you have to be active. The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath itself. The secret is to use sometimes your heart and sometimes your mind, depending on the situation. Is your mind satisfied? Open your heart. You will be able to indulge in its movements without weakness and without childishness. Is your heart satisfied? Open the eyes of your mind. Let yourself be carried on the wings of intelligence; she herself will discover for you the true treasures which alone can suffice for all your needs.

146. The immense and terrible secret. If man had not neglected to meditate on the laws of the Lord, and to contemplate these sublime objects of his thought, evil would not have been able to penetrate to him; and even today, if he closed his heart to iniquity, it would have no way out, to be able to slip into the world. Learn here a secret that is both immense and terrible. Heart of man, you are the only outlet through which the river of lies and death enters the earth daily. You are the only passage through which the poisonous serpent raises its ambitious head, and through which its eyes even enjoy some elemental light; for his prison is far below ours. It is there that, discovering the goods which still surround us, he pours his venom on the salutary plants which are granted to us for our nourishment and our healing. The barrier of iniquity has become similar to iniquity itself. The man said to the darkness: enter freely, I have commanded my sentinels not to oppose your passage. Follow me, see and learn everything you want to know. Here is my scepter, here is my crown, here are all my treasures. The enemy has grasped, at a glance, all these wonders; then he used them for the advancement of his kingdom, while they should only appear for the advancement of the kingdom of truth. He only used it to transform the virgin land into a field of iniquity and poisons. Heart of man, what centuries will be enough to tear from you this foreign leaven which infects you? Do you hear the painful and heartbreaking efforts that mortals make to vomit up this seed of death? Let us weep, since the heart of man, which should have been the obstacle of darkness and evil, has become the light of abomination and the guide of error! Let us cry, so that evil finds all the exits closed, and that it is reduced to wandering blind in the thick night of its dark caverns!

147. The columns. God has surrounded me with his power, like the forts that are in front of the citadels. Why would I stop the flow of my thought, when it nourishes it and gives it the speed of rivers? It is our thoughts that we need, and not the thoughts of other men. Fundamental columns of the work, my eyes will contemplate you; you will be the object of my joy and that of my admiration. It is you who brought light to the peoples of the earth. It is you who continually open the door of salvation to those who, leaving this land, walk in the paths of Israel. It is you who, at the end of time, will lead all those who enter the holy porticos. You still have your eyes open to some of the regions of human posterity; and if there are any that the law of wisdom still deprives of your gaze, you preserve them from absolute darkness, by sending them intermediate stars which reflect your light to them. Who will allow me to embrace the height of these columns, and to grasp all the beauty of their dimensions? Their bases lie on the land of the living; their summits are crowned with the rays of the spirit; they rise to the vault of the temple. rise, human souls, rise in unity; do not leave the square and the perpendicular, until you have become pillars, and your heads are hidden in the heavens. You will do the same works that the repairer did, and even greater; because he only acted then by his power, and because, since he ascended to his father, you can act, both by his power and by that of the spirit.

148. The law of the father. Human laws, where do you place man when he has failed in honor? Do you not relegate him with those who have no honor? Why then is man placed among those things which have no word, except because he has sinned in his word? So Amos had said: They will go around, they will go here and there, seeking the word of the Lord, and they will not find it. But at the appointed time, divine goodness sent the universal word, to serve as our safeguard. The law of justice was great, superb, complete and consoling, because it also came from life; but who would compare it to the law of grace, the sweetness of which is such that no one can measure its height, breadth, or depth? And nevertheless this law of grace is still only the second law: let us therefore judge what our joy will be when we are in the law of the father, or in the third law, which will be the complement of the word and the fullness of its action! For everything is word; don't men constantly run after his image, seeking authority in all genres? Do not even their conversations speak in favor of the truth? We must not let our words fall by the wayside.

149. Isaiah. They have confused the principle of our ideas with the senses, which are only their organs. They wanted matter to think, whereas, far from its presence being necessary for man's thought, it is not even necessary for his sensation, since he experiences it in members which he does not have. more. They wanted matter to give us the idea of ​​God, whereas not only does it not possess it, but it does not even have the idea of ​​spirit. They said that they were the fathers of the minds of their children, as if the necessity of the collaboration of two beings subordinate to the laws of matter was not repugnant to the idea of ​​the production of a simple being! They wanted to form the world by unions of unity, while there is only one unity, and it cannot be joined with anything. They have attributed to illusion and terror all the intellectual and revealed ideas which fill the whole earth; whereas, according to them, nothing can happen in our intelligence that has not been in our senses; if these things are in the intelligence of man, it proves that they have previously struck his senses. They did not want to pray, because by uniting themselves with matter, they ended up not believing themselves to be more free and more powerful than it. They have confused all the laws of numbers, taking as their root what is only power, and only wanting to take as their power what is root.

They believed themselves to be the authors of the word, because they saw among them languages ​​born from the debris of one another. They did not realize why in the productions of their genius they found so much advantage in personifying all moral qualities, good or bad, and even all physical beings. They have dishonored poetry, and have insulted our intelligence, having the air of being inspired by muses, while they only took their inspirations from their memory, or from all the objects which surround us, and which we can observe like them. They all seem busy ravaging the crops that should feed them, and cultivating only the poisons that corrupt them. Oh ! Truth, repeat here what you made Isaiah say about the prevaricating Hebrews: where shall I strike? this people is nothing but a plague from head to toe. There is not a single sharp place where the rod of correction can be felt.

150. The Manichaeans. I will no longer seek to discover the nature of the original crime. The charity of the repairer makes it known to me. Love one another, even laying down your life for your brothers. Be one with him, as he is one with his father. This being only came to balance the mass of iniquities; he shows us the weight in equality; he only changed its substance. If the weight that the repairer brought is unity and love of others, that which he came to throw away is division and the love of faith. You loved yourself alone, principle of iniquity. You stopped loving in unity; and from then on your faculties were perverted, although your essence was incorruptible. Manichaeans, stop believing in the necessity of two co-eternal principles; you go astray with every step you take, if you do not recognize a free being produced by a necessary being. Let us celebrate the greatness of the man for whom a work was carried out, which is such that nothing like it has ever been done in Israel. It is because God is the term of man in the heavens that man was the term of God on earth. What teaches us this truth? Follow, through intelligence, the course of its operations. They were only complete when he had initiated himself into the depths of the heart of man. Ours will only be complete when we are initiated by our love, even into the depths of the heart of God.

151. Calculation. Multiply a dead power, like matter: you weaken it. The living power, on the contrary, to whatever degree we elevate it, always remains intact, and manifests its activity accordingly. Law of calculation, you are the image of living things.

The generative term of all numerical powers never undergoes alteration, although it produces the immensity of beings. Are we not inclined to measure everything, to weigh everything, to calculate everything? Are we not made to swim in infinity, since we were born there? After having acquired and tasted some virtues, can we not acquire and taste new ones? And this without term, without end, like numbers, like the eternal, which is always new, always generating itself from its own essence, and yet always the same in its living and vivifying action? The weight or fullness is found in the principles and action of each region. The measurement is disseminated over time; and number ferments, like fire, in the germs of all beings. Is there a weight, measure and number for evil? It could only be an incomplete weight, a false measurement and an uncertain number. Without this, evil would have a sure way of defeating good, or at least of fighting it and becoming equal to it. Man, weigh yourself with your works, measure yourself by the degrees of your reconciliation, number yourself by the liveliness of your faith, and by the ardor of your love. Don't hope for anything if you haven't divinized your heart. This is why never speak of wisdom except to those who have already sought it. Those who thought they could do without it are not fit for it.

152. The akarim. Fixed unity, variable unity, composite unity: these are the three quaternaries which embrace the universality of beings. This is why everything that has received existence bears the imprint of the first being; and the image of each principle is always near this principle to represent it. Mighty God, who could contemplate your glory, if you did not surround yourself with the spirits, which are your image? Your servant Moses saw these powers, which accompany you, which follow you and which come after you. For is this not the meaning of this word akarim, which the holy language has transmitted to us? Does not intelligence find support in the table of these powers which you precede, which issue from you, and which come after you? What then should we think of these cold translations, which have so ridiculously depicted the way in which Moses saw God? There is only one primitive word. This is why the true etymology teaches everything. Wisdom, excuse their ignorance, and prove to them the truth from this world. There is always a moment in life when man sees this truth, not only through the heart, but through the eyes. Happy is he to whom you grant to benefit from it! Science will become useless to him. Do we not see strength everywhere, and a sort of stubbornness of power?

This is because everything is alive, even what is dead; and this is what shows how much older the reign of unity is than that of confusion.

153. Kircher. Science is fast, like time; mutable, like Proteus; mobile, like the mind. What then can be your hope, you learned men, who claim to explain the monuments? What you discover for one era, could it be suitable for the next era? Kircher wanted to explain the Egyptian hieroglyphs and the Isiac fable. What did he teach us? If these monuments are the fruit of wisdom, first study what wisdom is, so that you can then discover its connection with them. But do not pursue this true notion of wisdom through ordinary research, they have not yet revealed it. If these monuments are the fruit of ambition, ignorance and bad faith, they only deserve your disdain. Unhappy men, your only aim seems to be to find an explanation for things which frees you from the true one. How long will you resist the sting? Your sciences, your libraries are, for the mind of man, what pharmacies are for his body. Both of them only speak against his enlightenment, his strength and his health.

They sometimes serve to mitigate his ills, more often to increase them to the point of death, rarely to cure them, and never to make him invulnerable. Let every man write, if he wishes; it can help him train his mind. But let no one read it: it almost never serves anything other than to distort it. Especially when writers, more jealous of our votes than of our advancement, fear to give work to our thoughts; and, to reign over us, only think of retaining it in childhood, and not allowing it to develop its strength. O holy truth! What have you become among men? Are you not this temple, of which the savior said that not one stone would remain upon another?

154. The swimming pool. throw the net on the right side of the boat if you want to find food. Don't just put the man in the pool. May all the waters of life, of the way and of truth penetrate into him, and succeed one another without interruption. They will go up and down in him, like Jacob's ladder. by dint of treading with their feet, they will smooth the way, and the victor will be able to march in triumph in the path prepared by the footsteps of his army. Let us contemplate the man thus emerging from the swimming pool. We will dress him in clothes brighter than the sun. He will take the stole of justice; his head will be covered with the tiara, and he will take the sword to fight the enemies of the Lord. He will glory in delivering the captives, and in purifying the elements and the guilty man. This is why, when by his order the fishermen have cast the net on the right side, they will catch one hundred and fifty-three large fish. Woe to him who, after being enlightened in the spirit and purified in the pool, indulges in sins unworthy of the spirit! It is defiling oneself in the spirit, it is subjecting life to death, it is giving death to life. He will then be obliged to walk for a long time in front of the spirit, whereas previously it was the spirit which walked in front of him.

155. Thought. What is the mind of the Lord thinking? It is the soul of man; it is this immortal being, in whom all the divine rays are gathered. What is the thought of the active and creative powers of nature? It is the animal soul, it is this instantaneous substance, in which all the productive, sensitive and vegetative powers act in concert. What is the thought of the immortal soul of man? It is this glorious chariot, on which she rests, that she should animate with her fire, and which one day should make her soar in glory. What is the thought of the animal soul? It is the material body, it is this mixed production subject to decomposition; because the various principles which contribute to constructing it can also divide and suspend their action, when the center which binds them withdraws. What is the thought of the glorious chariot, where rests the immortal soul of man? It is a life operation; because it is based on a progression, which always goes from simple actions to simple actions. What is the thought of the material body? It is a death operation; because, holding on to a root which is not simple, the more its results spread, the more they divide and weaken. And it is through these corruptible and fragile channels that truth, love, light and life do not fear to pass. Human thought, bring together the worlds, bring together all the spirits, bring together the weight of everything that has received existence: you will never be able to obtain through this the means to evaluate the love of your god.

156.The transfiguration. I have a big picture to consider. The repairman was transfigured in the eyes of three of his chosen ones. He developed, before them, the germ of primitive man. He made known to them the splendor of this glorious form, with which we would all have been clothed, if we had followed the plan of our origin; and he showed them the term. If men had been more ready to enter into the truth, if all humanity had not thrown itself under the yoke of matter and darkness, this glorious form would have remained in its splendor, and it would have raised man by the strength of its attraction. But the weight of the crime made her return to its thick envelope, and she had to emerge again by violence, since she had emerged in vain through charity. The earth did not tremble at this transfiguration; the heavens were not darkened; the dead did not come out of their tombs, nor did they walk through the streets of Jerusalem, to terrify the inhabitants. It was love alone, it was the last attempt of love, which was still trying to see if it could do without justice. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how many times have I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings? And you didn't want it!

157. The cesspool. Except for crimes, defilement, or culpable negligence, what does man offer on earth? What an abyss his stay was! What cruelty in his way of paying for God's blessings! What continual suicide for his soul, his conduct! Oh ! Man, may the supreme hand tear you away from this ever-open cesspool and precipice! Instead of transmitting light and life to your fellow men here below, you do not even know how to protect yourself from darkness and death. God of peace, when we give ourselves over to prayer, why do we feel that crime and all its traces are moving away from us? Isn't it because you are merciful enough not to remember it anymore? Is it not because the eye of your love, by focusing on us, brings, at the same time, life, which can regenerate even to death? Whatever crimes we have committed, let us never despair of obtaining healing, provided that we determine to ask for it. Our humiliation, our repentance helps to develop the glory and tenderness of our heavenly father, and these are his supreme attributes. Without the admission of our faults, punishment no longer resembles justice; it resembles barbarism. Without the admission of our faults, forgiveness no longer resembles grace, it resembles a caprice. After the first crime, the guilty man spoke directly to God; after the second crime, he could only speak to the spirit. When they descend below the spirit, not even the stones are ready to hear the confession of their crimes. Are they not of whom the Lord said, that even children might come to Abraham? The path to peace is open to man everywhere; it descends with him into all the abysses into which he plunges: and you would like to create a particular religion, as if the true religion were not universal and of all nations!

158. The three degrees. What is the picture that material nature presents to us? Substances in germ, substances in vegetation, substances in production. What are the means that men have to trade with each other? Writing, when they are separated; speech, when they can be heard; the action, when they see each other. The friend who gives us thought, why not follow all its progressions? Why would it not contain substances in germ, substances in vegetation, substances in production? Everything is a picture in the works of thought. It only ever presents itself to us in a sensible form; because everything is complete in the source that produces it. This sensitive form is his writing. But we only write to each other when we are separated! These are the substances in germ... Can we not hear the voices of men in the midst of darkness, and without seeing them? These are the substances in vegetation... But there is a third degree; but we see men act when they are near us and the light shines on them! These are the substances in production…

It is therefore true that we write to men, that we speak to them, that we act before them, although they are so little aware of it; as it is true that all these things happen materially in front of the children, who do not notice it either. Truth, truth, who could love anything other than you?

159. Asylums. It seems that in sacred dwellings and intended for holy ceremonies, there is an invisible power which carries within itself an effective and salutary character, and which imprints it on all the beings who find themselves in these enclosures. Don't you feel the passions calm down, the mind clear, the heart warm? The things of the world are immersed in their nothingness. The rays of truth fill us with bright lights and joys that we cannot paint. Do you not even feel that you are leaving it pitying men, and being more disposed to love them, whereas you had only entered it, perhaps, by tearing them apart and hating them in your heart? This is because prayer makes its home in these asylums, and despite the iniquity of men, it is stronger than their pollution. This is because it continually purifies the atmosphere, and you participate in its purity as soon as you approach its influences. However distinguished a genius may be, even in matters of the spirit, he will only be able to sustain himself as long as he dwells with piety. Is it not sublime enough for him, this idea, to be able to feel and utter, that we have God for our father, and that, by this single word, we ennoble the whole human family, at the same time as we bring together all its members through the bonds of love and fraternity? Is it not quite sublime for him, this idea, to feel that he must not pronounce this word father before his god, if there is a man of whom he is not the brother and the friend? Pray, pray, until you feel pursued by the desire for this enjoyment. This is the life of your being. Come out, divine branches, which are as if generated by prayer. Cover with your shade the paths that lead to the temple of the Lord, so that the nations may know that the paths that lead to the Lord are sweet above all our thoughts.

160. The scalpel. Everything that is only born of man is condemned in our inner court. My admiration seeks everywhere, and in my fellow men, and in myself, something superior to my own species; and whatever the key to a power, I no longer respect it, as soon as I see the day to seize it.

Unhappy humanity, do you need these means to prove to yourself the existence of a power superior to you, and that of your own immortal character? No, this is not where your primitive doubts lie; it is about the purpose, law and destination of these two beings. It was only after having tried in vain to establish a relationship with them that you decided to abandon the persuasion of their existence. There is no man in whom materialism and atheism are parent ideas. Both are only secondary ideas in him, only diminished ideas of a radical truth, which he had first contemplated with complacency, which he then allowed to drift away from him in despair. to seize it; but which is so natural to him, that he always regrets it in secret, and that nothing, not even virtue, can replace it in his heart. What have men done to come to the knowledge of these two beings? They wanted, through a law of analysis, to operate on what is simple. They wanted to treat thought like composite objects. They took the scapel, and undertook the demonstration of intelligence, as the anatomist undertakes that of animals. But isn't the anatomist's hand deadly? And isn't the least of the acts she carries out to know bodies an act of destruction? Intellectual nature of man, when they thus dissected you by this pernicious instrument, could you show yourself alive, as you always will be as a whole? No, you only offered isolated, disfigured members, which should be buried in the tombs. And it is on this broken foundation, which is always collapsing, that they raised the edifice of man and the sovereign creator of beings! Scientists, forget your sciences, they have blindfolded you!

161. The reign of death. Will I believe myself capable of wisdom when I have suspended my vengeance against a man who insults me? I would not be there, even if I had thanked the supreme hand which would have sent me this ordeal, and when I would have thanked the one who would have been the cause that I would have something to offer. It would be for my own interest that I would love such a man, and my charity would not be pure. It is when I feel that I love this man for his sake that I will be able; it is when I feel that I would give my life for him, and that I would not notice the harm he does to me. It is then, I say, that I will have reached the only point which can serve as a counterweight to injustice. This is the model that you gave us, holy and sacred repairer, and this is the one that we must follow; for it is from thinking of ourselves that the cause of all evil comes. I will not keep my eyes always fixed on the evils of the earth. My soul would become so absorbed in its pain that it would no longer know the peace of its god, and would mistake the reign of death for the eternal reign of unity. But I won't always hold my eyes high to the heavens. My enjoyments would be so lively and so abundant that my soul would forget that there are evils, and that I would become a stranger to the pains of my brothers. Why have we acquired the knowledge of good and evil? We cannot escape this court ruling. We would not support pure and continuous joy here on earth. Nor would we support absolute evil without interval. If the sun were still on our horizon, it would consume us. If he never appeared there, our earth would soon become a dead mass, where sterility and nothingness would extend their empire.

162. The golden branch. I myself cut and broke a portion of the inheritance that you offered me with so much generosity. Pay my debt. If I have harmed them through my iniquities, do them good through your love. I have only thanks to give you, and forgiveness to ask you. When I have been healed of my own ills, and when I have healed those of my brothers, it is then that the name of the Lord will revive in me the golden branch, and he will give to my arm the power to close the abyss.

Fabulous heroes, you yourself would, according to your poets, take your triumphant weapons from the hands of your imaginary deities! Then I will sing the sacred hymn, which the angels of peace continually sing in the holy city; this hymn, the sounds of which resounded from Zebulun to Judah; because the star of Jacob came to unite the two peoples and the two kingdoms. Alas! If man always remained a child, evil would never have a hold on him or his thoughts. He will grow peacefully in wisdom. There it would become as tall and as robust as the oak is among the other trees of the forest. It is you, faithful friend, who fought for him, and so to speak without his knowledge. If, to fulfill his law, he has an essential battle to fight, he will see evil, but he will not know it in his heart. His heart would always be in innocence, when his arm and his word were the terror of the enemy. Holy Word, grant me to recover the age of my childhood; because the more man defiles himself, the more he becomes weak and the prey of your adversaries.

163. The lily. On the summit of these marvelous buildings, erected at such great expense, and which display so much magnificence, I saw nature humiliate man with the simplest productions.

On these fruits of splendor, I saw her, producing a blade of grass, the lightest moss, and by this single work erasing all the works and all the pride of humans. The lily is better dressed than Solomon was in all his glory. Man, when will you open your eyes to these childish wonders that come from your hands? You can only carry out transpositions, while the works of nature are continuous creations. Everywhere she follows her work, and she never notices yours. What does it matter to him that you transpose all the substances? Have the pearl and the diamond acquired additional glory, for having left their home and come to place themselves on the headband of kings? Even if in these uses and in these conventions of luxury, your intelligence perceives traces of what awaits one day the man of truth! If you rise to the idea of ​​these magnificent temples, which the man of peace will dwell in future centuries, and where gold purer than that of the earth, and precious stones more transparent than the diamond, will be like the eternal signs of his glory and his virtues! Wake up, take back the titles of your superiority over nature itself; your fragile works will disappear, and the wonders of the whole universe gathered together will not equal a single one of your true works. Can you not act under the eye of your god? Let nature remain in silence, it does not only know that there is a god. She executes her orders blindly; she has neither the memory nor the awareness of what she is doing.

164. The earth on a large scale. The eye that contemplates the earth on a large scale and in its disorders will see there terrible signs of the power of its author. Who has accumulated these enormous masses of rocks whose globe is bristling, and where all the laws of balance and gravity seem forgotten? Who is it that blows these disastrous storms, which sometimes ravage entire countries, sometimes raise moving mountains on the seas, and dig out precipices more frightening and deeper than those found on earth? Who lit these pits of fire, which both consume and shake our sad abode? Fool, it is only you who will not see there the imposing traces of an ancient vengeance, and the still telling acts of an irritated power. It is out of pity for you that she only offers you traces of it; she wants to see if at this spectacle you yourself will be able to return to her, and pay homage to her. She treated the former prevaricators differently: she launched her thunderbolts on them; she crushed them under the weight of the scourges of her anger. You only appear on the battlefield the day after the fight; but it's still early enough to tell you how terrible it was. My eyes contemplate nature under its brilliant and enchanting faces; no longer see this frightening justice there. Penetrate into the intelligence of this universal emblem, it was only given to be heard. The author of things has enveloped the universe with his name; he placed in each region an extract of this powerful name, to remain there and balance them one by the other. Thus the universe hovers above the abysses, because it is suspended on the rays of the name of the Lord, and all the rays of the name of the Lord are alive, like him, by themselves. This is why they can serve as guides to the lost traveler, since there is not a point in space where he cannot find a living light, like speech. Father of mankind, what is the infinite extent of your wonders and your wisdom? Everything must lead back to you; if it is not to love you, it would be to fall in admiration before your power.

165. The pains of childbirth. The middle of times was the interval between justice and mercy: also Paul, according to Habakkuk, tells us that the middle of times was the chosen time.

It is not before the eyes that we must seek to have the spirit. Our heart is its true home, because the heart of man is also the chosen time, since it is the interval between light and darkness. Heart of man, if you walk alone, you exalt yourself, you evaporate, or you give way to pride. Do you want to become vain, like the miser, who loves to contemplate the signs of his power, because he is empty? Do you want to become vain like the man of lust, who only seeks to seize the principles of the senses, less to enjoy them than to corrupt them? The impetuosity of matter and passions is less criminal. Our heart is constantly in the pains of childbirth. It is the spirit alone which can relieve us in this work, and provide us with happy deliverances. Don't our thoughts have to circulate and come back to us in order to be sensitive to us? How many barriers can stop them and break the circle! Will a mother have joy, will she forget her sorrows, if she does not see the son to whom she has just given life? Spirit, spirit, it is you who leads man to his conclusion, it is you who watches over all the posterity of his ideas. The unfortunates, they do not see how much their artificial works, these fruits of the sole thought of man, offer resources to the enemy! Does he not have an imprescriptible right over everything that is not the truth?

Refuse him all your means: he will be obliged to carry out his activity against himself, and form, in his own kingdom, an internecine war; and you will then be able to fill the chosen time in peace, and bring your thoughts to a happy conclusion.

166. The sublime. You therefore agree, literary scholars, that the sublime is indefinable! You agree that it transports us outside of ourselves, as if in spite of ourselves; and without telling us what it is, you limit yourself, like Longinus, to discussing the paths that lead to it! You paint for us different kinds of sublime, you cite to us the sublime places of our poets. You cite to us the response of this mother to whom we spoke about the sacrifice of Isaac: God would not have asked this sacrifice of a mother, without paying attention to the fact that Isaac, being the son of faith, could not compare himself to a son of the senses and matter. You tell us about the elevation of these warriors who, upon seeing the mausoleum of a great general, draw their saber and sharpen it on the marble of his tomb. All these paintings animate us, warm us up, and do not instruct us. We feel the sublime, we feel how little it is in our dependence. Why is it impossible to define it? Here is the reason: the sublime is God, and everything that puts us in contact with him. The sublime is God, because God is the greatest and highest of beings.

Everything that is linked to his living and sacred wisdom has an irresistible empire over us. All virtues, all estimable feelings, all the lights of the spirit are so many rays of this eternal and imperishable sun. When one of them comes to warm us in a work or in any event, we enjoy the sweet sympathy that this ray reestablishes between us and our natural element. This is the source of the sublime, this is why men cannot define it, since it is the fruit of a tree greater than them. This is also why all those who do not believe in these great relationships produce so little of the sublime. These are branches which detach themselves from this large tree; they no longer participate in the generating sap that it alone contains and can communicate. How does it come from that you consider, as holding the first rank in the order of the sublime, the words of Moses on light? This is because, when he pronounced it, he stood attached to this large tree, from which you want to remain separated. Another being offers us all kinds of sublime: the sublime of intelligence and discernment; the sublime of gentleness and love; the sublime of heroism and courage; the sublime of eloquence and logic; the sublime of holiness and prayer; the sublime of strength and power; the sublime of charity and devotion.

Eye of man, I beg you, no longer reject this life-giving source of all that is sublime, and seek to warm yourself by the sight of its gifts and its virtues!

167. Blindness. You may have the earthly, the spiritual and the divine within you; it seems as if a venom, spread on the face of all your species, fascinates your eyes, and hides from you the beauty and truth of the wonders that surround you. Why do I only see death, while life is everywhere? Why am I reduced to wandering among the sepulchres, while the whole universe green from the portico of holy Jerusalem? Sacred ornaments of this superb city, no longer hide from the eyes of mortals. May the precious stones emerge from the mine, the metals be purified, and the daylight return to beautify the universe! When did men become more concerned with the sciences of the mind, despite the dark reign of false scientists? When were souls of desire more willing to walk toward the temple? And yet the temple does not yet appear. Lord, lord, you alone know the times and the epochs; and you do not regulate your works by the weak wisdom of man. Could the Jew himself resist truth, number and intelligence, if they were presented to him?

But its hour does not yet seem to have quite come; it was God himself who put the blindfold over his eyes, it is only God who can remove it from him. Don't give away your confidence to every voice that speaks to you. There are some who can come out of you, speak within you, and not be the voice of the spirit. Do not place your trust in the miracles that these voices announce to you, even if they are partly justified by the event. Sometimes it is enough for you to deal too carefully with these prophecies which strike you for some effects to result. Thought of man, is not part of your danger to be found in your own greatness? And if you were not so powerful by your essence, would you need to watch so closely over the exercise and the consequences of your powers? Would you have to fear mistaking your own works and your own results for those of supreme wisdom, and being deceived by the similarities? At least try to deceive yourself, and not lead nations into these dark illusions.

168. The earthly stay. What do you teach me, simple man close to nature, you whom I see leaving life with so much calm and tranquility? That the entire human species would have left it in the same way, if we had remained in our natural situation.

But the career of life would have been an anticipated paradise, and the path of our return would have been too smooth! It would be so much so that we would only have to pray prayers of thanksgiving, and never those of repentance and groaning. Who hasn’t experienced it? Do not all true conversations end with happy interior movements, which make us taste God, and which lead us to praise him for the delicious peace which he gives to our soul? If bad conversations corrupt good morals, must not good conversations corrupt and rectify bad morals, and make man know that he was born to be continually the worshiper of God? Oh you, pure beings surrounded by the lights of my God, oh you who do not languish, like man, or the law of the hours, help me to make, like you, my home in prayer and in the canticles of lord ! I can no longer find peace and quiet in man's dwelling; he himself destroyed all the sweetness and all the laws, since he put his mind and his will in their place. His earthly stay only resembles an al-fain and insecure lair, where the traveler only stops to let a storm pass.

169. Destiny. Do not say that God is carried away by a spirit of anger and fury. All these expressions are only images of the different degrees that man travels; they are only the story of its deviations and its daily falls. Does God send evil to men, like a tyrant, to punish them and to torment them? Does he not rather send men to evil to fight it and to prove themselves, so that they can then be advanced in ranks in the armies of the Lord? When man unites with God, happiness sets him on fire and follows him everywhere. If he goes down a step: languor takes hold of him. If he wants to go even lower: he will experience deprivation, constraint, the horror of suffering and rage. This is how men set a destiny for themselves, and God then takes them into the state they have put themselves in. He has said it and he does not deceive, he even does the will of those who fear him. He does the will of those who seek him and cherish him. Man's love and prayer are stronger than his destiny. Fill yourselves with hope, souls of peace; fill yourself with courage, ascend above the region of destiny, ascend to the region of delight and joy. The region of destiny is too severe and too rigorous for the soul of man; the region where destiny does not yet reign is that which suits the extent and freedom of one's being. The one where destiny no longer reigns is the height of horror. It is not God who made this terrible region; it is not he who made the region of destiny either: he is gentle and beneficent in all points of its immensity. It is you, lying poets, who gave destiny as an attribute to your fabulous gods; you have both degraded the majesty of the supreme god, and diminished human intelligence. The only destiny of our god is to be forever the eternal god of beings, and to penetrate them all with the universal fullness of his love.

170. Man and woman. Man, when you form the earthly envelope of your posterity, you attach man to the man of sin. Also what a bitter return for you, what a void! Woman, when you give birth to your son, you attach the man to the path of regeneration. This is why your most burning pains are followed by the purest joy. Way of regeneration, lead man to the way of reconciliation or to the way of the spirit, and the truth will be filled with hope. Way of reconciliation, way of the spirit, lead man to the port of life; and the very heavens will thrill with joy to see that, despite the extent of the offense, the numbers of reparation and reintegration are accomplished.

Man placed between the man of sin and the path of regeneration, take courage; you cry when you arrive in the world, because your regeneration cannot take place without atonement. But your future births will be filled with delight and consolation. Because, when you have once reached the path of reconciliation or of the spirit, you will no longer have anything to fear for yourself. You will only have a continual increase in virtues to receive. You must, it is true, according to the judgment, separate yourself with sorrow from the man of sin whom you received through filth. But you must unite yourself, with delight, to all these paths which are open to you by wisdom and the principle of the happiness of beings; and death itself can seem to be absorbed and disappear in this immensity of enjoyments.

171. Insomnia. I will spend my nights in insomnia. The big wound will keep me awake, and will prevent my eyelids from experiencing a moment's rest. The cries of the male children of the Hebrews will forever deprive me of sleep; the cries of these children whom I see perpetually slaughtered by Pharaoh's two midwives. I will meditate at length on the ills of the human soul, just as a sick man lying on his bed counts, in his sufferings, every hour.

They follow one another for him like the waves of the sea, which only retreat from the shore to return to flood it the next moment. The pain whispers continuously in his ears; he hears it like the long roaring of the south winds. And you are at peace in the middle of all this disorder! And even if you weren't frightened by it, wouldn't boredom seize you in the middle of such uniform pictures? Will it be necessary to call upon the weather and the storms to wake you from your slumber? Do not take this state of death for a state of rest; rest is only found in life, and life is only found in action. The plans of wisdom and the resolutions that you form, what good are they if you do not carry them out, and if you do not complete your sacrifices? Each moment of our life can be, in a small way, a repetition of the great work. I will meditate on these words every day: in communications, the mind is outside of us. In our favors of intelligence, he is above us. In the exercise of our powers, he is below us. In sleepwalking, he is far from us. It is only through action, prayer and charity that he is in us, near us and around us.

172. Cana. We were not originally flesh, since the Word became flesh, to deliver us from flesh and blood. We are now spirit and flesh, since the word became flesh to become like us. Man can support man; but it is only God who delivers him. Was it not he who delivered him from the land of Egypt, so that after this deliverance he could give him the law? In servitude, man can only think of himself. In the spiritual law, he can think of his fellow men; but he only operates for them in this earth and on this surface. This is why the promises and rewards of the law of Moses, without being material, are all earthly. In the law of grace, man can operate for his fellow men in all worlds; this is why its fruits are so secret and so invisible to men of sense. The new law holds to infinity; it is out of the curves, and it is known only to simple men. You say that the new law canceled the old law. Yes, for those who began by accomplishing it, and by exterminating all the inhabitants of Palestine. How will you attain invisible works and operations, if you have not acquired the experience of visible and earthly works? Let us not think yet of this future law, where there will be no more operations, and where there will be only enjoyments; the mind of man cannot conceive it. Is it not enough for him that he knew the wedding at Cana? you have reserved, until this time, the good wine. You needed the light of the sun to reveal the countryside to the eyes of the harvesters. Carry the sickle to the mountaintops, to the hills, and to the humble valleys. Go also to lakes and marshy places; everywhere you can find a few ears of corn. We must not let them lose. Holy workers of the Lord, may the torrent of charity swell, and may it cleanse more and more the muddy valleys. Second my desires; their only goal is to see the name and reign of the lord enter the world.

173. Creeping ivy. The earth continually opens to devour the sins of men; she waits for their iniquities to descend into her bosom to wash and purify herself there. Let us quickly hide on the earth, let us sink into its abysses. Let us escape from the splendor of the light; our eye is no longer worthy of contemplating it. I will unite with you, I will cling to you like creeping ivy. In this posture I will feed on ashes and dust, so that all the principles of my life are regenerated.

I will wait there, in mourning and in penitence, for the Lord to touch me with his scepter, and to say to me, as it was said to Esther: you have found grace before me. Didn't the first culprit pass through all the channels of the earth? And shouldn't all his posterity pass through it in turn? Come, friends who want to help me in my work; assist me in my sacrifice, and do not leave me until it is accomplished. Your invigorating words will support me, and give me the courage to see with resignation the sword of justice fall on my head. They will fill me with hope, and show me in advance the time of consolations. At that time we will no longer say: in the name of the Lord, because we will all be in his presence, and we will enjoy the intimate communication of his spirit. At that time we will no longer say: in the name of the Lord, because the time of work will have passed, and we will touch the very source from which this sacred name wanted to be born, to serve as food for the posterity of man.

174. The cup of atonement. I will work, tirelessly, to put in their order and in their measure all the fundamental principles which compose me, and all their analogues will come together there. I looked up; the light struck my eyes, and love and life set me ablaze.

They will shudder, those around me, to see me so well armed against their blows; they will shudder at not being able to reach me. Lord, may they not have the glory of seeing me succumb, without having been useful in your service! My ancestors recognized me as one of their descendants. The holy priests have presented me before you. You have given me a sign, as a testimony of the renewal of our alliance. Here is this sign. You yourself drank from the cup of atonement, and then you presented it to me. I took the cup from the hand of the Lord, and drank from it in his presence, and paying homage to his name. Then I poured it on the heads of the unfortunate people who languish in bondage. Their chains will be broken, and they will unite with me to admire together the beauty of this sign of their deliverance. Do you hear the rage and the thrill that this cup gives rise to in the depths? Pour entire rivers onto volcanoes; these burning hearths will not become so irritated, and will not shiver with such great violence. This is the effect of man's alliance with the Lord; it is to make the abyss and all the enemies of the law of the Lord tremble.

175. The blood of souls. Do you know what you are committing to when you ask for the spirit to be upon you? You commit yourself to the resurrection of the word, and to the defense of the word.

You undertake, according to the expression of the prophets, to become responsible, like them, for the blood of souls. Therefore take heed in what way you walk to enter into the way of the word. There is no path that does not offer you results. Do you want to get there through demonstrations: you will have demonstrations. Do you want to get there through seizures and somnambulistic effects: you will obtain seizures and somnambulistic effects. Do you want to achieve this through simple morality and mysticity: you will be served in morality and mysticity. May your success no longer deceive you; do not regard them as proofs that you are in the truth, and read your law in Deuteronomy 13: 1, 2, 3, 4. My soul, bow down before your god; purify yourself in this humble posture. Untie the ties of your old clothing. Let him rush. A bright robe will clothe you, and you will be renewed in the baptism of God. May the soul in labor open all the senses of its being, so that life can penetrate it. Will she think about the tribulations? Will she think about the speeches of the imprudent? A devouring hunger drives him away; she is pressed by the hunger for truth and by the poverty of the spirit. Set upon your prey, attach yourself to it fiercely. Remember that times have been shortened. It is no longer the time to remain for forty years in the deserts, nor to travel for forty days to reach the mountain of Horeb. Like the son of man, you will be carried like lightning from the east to the west. The spirit will give you its agility, and in a moment it will make you present in all regions at once.

176. The true roots. Let the shepherd come and grab his sheep, hold her tightly in his arms, and let her never escape from him again! Man is the tenth of the lord. May the sun come and pump the dew, and may it purify it of all the defilement it takes on the earth! Man, like a vigorous plant, should sprout numerous offspring. It should penetrate all the pores of its matter, and not leave a portion that it had not dissolved. But she defends herself, she gathers together, to close his passage and to suffocate him in his prison. Illusion, illusion, you will be subjugated; man will revive his strength. The branches will extend, and they will rise above your ruins. Look for the waters that make the plants germinate, but choose the seed. How could two be a root? He doesn't even produce a figure. It is your abusive doctrine, scholars of the century, which has made you confuse everything. You wanted to form everything by aggregates, everything, right down to numbers. But stop. The numbers paint the beings that produce like plants, and not the substances that accumulate like aggregates. All these numbers are subject to the law of reactions; it is through this that they rise to their power, and you will never have a more beautiful image of the active and diversified power of all beings. Alas! Among these roots there are poisonous germs, which also rise to their powers. Their products must even resemble those of pure roots; but observe their elements, and you will soon know their abomination. Man, learn to respect yourself. Of all the true roots, after God, you are the most sublime. This is why he expected such fertile and majestic trees from you. You have confused yourself with the lowest, vilest and most harmful plants; and his love still comes to seek you among the marsh rushes!

177. The holy door. Who is knocking at the holy door? A man of peace, a man of desire. Has this man of peace, this man of desire, defeated his enemies? I had separated him from the nations, like a Nazarite; why did he want to associate with them, and merge with the uncircumcised? The wisest among them believed that it was necessary to divert him from his course, while it was necessary to encourage him to continue it. Is not calm and unalterable confidence in the lights and joys of the Lord entirely foreign to presumption? Weak and frivolous men, you are very unfortunate to ignore that there is, for the soul of man, a motive more noble and more beautiful than that of pride! Figurative and allegorical objects, symbolic institutions, you don't strike us for long. You are like enigmas, which we no longer look at, as soon as we have discovered the word. We never tire of real spectacles, real objects. This is because they always nourish us, and never exhaust us; while others never nourish us, and always exhaust us. Lord, without your living law we would only know the shadow of God, only a shadow, which would have its form, and which would not have its colors. For, if the envelope had not been raised above the place of its reintegration, the eagles would not have abandoned this place to pursue it; and the earth would not have been purified. Lord, how without you would these simple and profound truths reach the heart of man? The tumult of his thoughts agitates his atmosphere too much: he can only listen to you in peace. Pursue it in the silence of retreat and in the calm of the night. Call him, as you called Samuel. Take hold of his senses gently, and without his faculties being able to oppose your approach. Transform him into a man of peace, into a man of desire, so that then you can open the holy door for him.

178. Restrained death. what his father gave him is greater than all things; and yet he only came to share these gifts with us. Let not your blood rise above your head! A faithful friend will make you taste all the vivacity of childhood. He will let you act with the abandonment of the first age, because he will preserve all the purity for you. Put a belt on the loins of your heart; tighten the Knots: the enemy will not be able to rise to your region. What could be greater than to contain death and sow life! was it not by this that the father was glorified in him? with one hand he threw the enemies into the abyss; and on the other, he made his light shine. Who could fail to recognize our original destination here? Let us not let death rise from the abyss. Let us not allow any thought to enter the world unless it is mature and purified, if we do not want it to wreak havoc and take possession of the pulpit of wisdom and peace. Lay your hands lightly on no one, Paul said, lest you become partakers of the sins of others. Is it enough, cowardly and lazy worker, to do violence to yourself and drive evil out of you? The enemy that you chase takes refuge with one of your peers, and will perhaps increase his trouble and his work. Pursue the enemy until you have thrown him into his dark abodes; and if you are fortunate enough to achieve this, then go and help your peers to get rid of their adversaries in turn. Do not be afraid of having arrived too late, because we all have the same task to fulfill, and your zeal can do in an hour, what takes an entire day for ordinary workers.

179. The cedars of Lebanon. How long will my word remain in drought and aridity? How long will the force of lies prevail over the truth? You pay, unfortunate man, for the consequences of the crime with usury. You have placed yourself under the law of lies, and lies place their yoke on you. The word of man must rise, like the cedars of Lebanon. it is hardly like the weak buds of the humble shrub, when they begin to sprout. Should the light be hidden under the bushel? Mercy and refreshing of the spirit come in the light of the Lord's arrows, and in the flash of his spear. They will all fall in their flight, and will rush one after the other, at the sight of the man and the word which pursues them. They will not be able to support the presence of the regenerated man, because life itself dwells in him, and the elements no longer weigh on his thought. Lord, we are well here; let's make three tents there.

180. Painting. Sublime art of painting, did they know your subject, these beautiful geniuses who cultivated you? What is true painting other than the sensitive work of truth? All our thoughts present themselves to us in a picture; and if we observed them carefully, each painting would appear vivid to us and always in agreement with the thought it represented. What is your goal, human painting! You only use ideas of reminiscence. You are even more unprepared in the colors. Woe to you, if you want to depict supernatural objects for me! How far you will be from your goal! Raphael, prince of painters, you wanted to represent the transfiguration for us! But have you not read that his face became bright as the sun, that his clothes became white as snow, and of a whiteness that no fuller on earth could ever equal? Even if you had seen this event! If, like a new Moses, you had seen the plan of this new tabernacle, and you had received the order to represent it in our eyes! You would have found help that you lacked, and your painting would have been more faithful; because shouldn’t painting serve as a place of vision for us? Paint, as rarely as you can, religious features and those of holy history. Given the weak effect that painting can produce, the human mind would be too close to confusing them with mythology. Poetry, music and painting are three sisters who should be inseparable. These are the three supreme gifts, which antiquity could not better designate for us than under the name of the three graces. Poetry should announce truths, music should open the way to them, and painting should realize them. Poetry is number, music is measure, and painting is weight. But all three must be governed by the principle, to give birth to real and lively products, and which have a real influence over our faculties. Let us remember how wisdom was portrayed to us. She is the vapor of God's power. May everything be formed in his image, and may everything emanate from a principle! Then all the arts will fulfill their purpose, and they will no longer feed us with illusions.

181. Emptiness and fullness. All is full in the works of the Lord; let everything be full in our works, if we want to enter into his ways. Holy patriarchs, when did you gather with your people? It is when the measure of your works was fulfilled. Do we have a moment that is ours; do we have to make a movement that is arbitrary? Jacob's ladder, you have passed into man; you have made all his limbs agile and ready, so that he is always ready to fight. He felt the temple of the Lord rising within him, and the altar rising in the middle of the temple. The Lord has established his glory on this altar; he placed the force in the west; he took intelligence and love for his assistants: and on his forehead is written holiness. Where is the void? They are always ready to help us in the work of the Lord. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, you will be to me like the seed of our god in the universe. Moses, you will defeat the enemies of the Lord. Aaron, you will preside over the sacrifices. Joshua, you will be my guide to enter the promised land, and you will defend me from the wiles of my enemies. Samuel, you will open to me the ways of the invisible regions and the abodes of peace. David, you will teach me to sing the praises and wonders of the Lord. Jean, you will open the real swimming pool for me. Chosen saints of my god, the eternal priest will crown all your powers; he will quicken all your works and all the works of my hands, and then everything will be full.

182. Taste. You ask why taste is declining: it is because man wants to draw it from his own means and does not expect it from principle. If the salt becomes bland, what should we salt it with? taste is not virtue, but if it is good it can lead to it. Taste is not light; but it is like its form and its garment: and if the cold understanding does not know it, if the living intelligence is sometimes content to perceive it, the genius creates it, gives birth to it with each feature, and wears it everywhere with him, because genius has both the gift of touching and the gift of convincing. These precious gifts cannot be invented. When you have excited some strong impression in the minds of your readers, you believe you have done everything for them. Are there not several ways to sometimes excite laughter, even in a sick person? And would you believe you cured him for that? Who will deny it? When writers lack success, it is for lack of subjects, and not for lack of means. Why has philosophy thrown out all the materials? Why did it destroy man and his principle? And you, followers of the exact sciences, why do you want a quadrature without the center or the number? Can this quadrature be found in the figure? two is to three, as five is to six, as nine is to seven.

Receive thoughts and do not seek them; because it is as if you wanted to bury the new man on top of the old man. The branches of this old man rise up and overshadow the new man so much that he does not reach his end.

183. The pearl of the Gospel. The greatest celestial gift would be to have a supervising guard next to us, to constantly warn us that there is a land of the living. Let the heart of man search its real needs, and it will no longer doubt that this is the pearl of the gospel. We sometimes believe that we have sold all our possessions to buy this pearl of the gospel; but we only pawn it, and we are always ready to withdraw it at the first opportunity. Let us only allow our senses to see what we would like our minds to see. Let us only allow our minds to see what we would like our hearts to see. Let us only allow into our hearts what we would like to let God see. By this means our whole being will be in measure; he will be in that peace that Paul places above all understanding. It is beyond understanding, but it does not exclude it. I will pray to God with love, but I will also pray to him with understanding. Wise, you would like to teach all your secrets to men: but you would like it to be without telling them; you would like to gently react the souls of your fellow men.

And that through this these salutary plants produce of themselves the fruits of which their nature is capable. You are so afraid of walking by yourself! Vain men, you ask why we should not give you the truth, since it is made for everyone. Do we give alms to those who could work? This would be to maintain his laziness; and man is condemned to eat his bread by the sweat of his brow.

184. Swedenborg. Partisans of Swedenborg, you want to see in all passages of writing three different meanings. But notice that even your master has only ever shown two, the true and the good, although he applies them to the three classes natural, spiritual and celestial. There is nothing to which he does not apply one of these two meanings, although he never gives the reason to the mind. Aren't there types that are only given for a single class? To want to take them further is to go beyond their relationship. Doesn't God have three objects with regard to men? Either he heals them, or he enlightens them, or he sanctifies them. Does he do all these things at once to the same man? Does he not do them successively? A plant can serve as a remedy for the sick, be an object of instruction for the chemist, or an ornament for our flowerbeds. When it is used for one of these uses, can it be used for the other two at the same time?

Is it not, however, the same principle of nature which constitutes this plant in all these cases, as it is always love and the divine principle which act in the three degrees where man is the object of divine action? The idea of ​​this extraordinary Swede honors his heart, but it makes the delicate intelligences suffer. A thousand proofs in his works that he was often and greatly favored! A thousand proofs that he was often and greatly deceived! A thousand proofs that he only saw the middle of the work, and that he knew neither the beginning nor the end! For the vulgar, who do not suspect these proofs, they are more than null. He is always ready to believe anything, if he finds something true. He is always ready to deny everything, if he finds something false. Furthermore, what are Swedenborg's testimonies? He offers as proof only his visions and holy writing. What credit do these two witnesses find with the man who is not prepared by sound reason? Prove the facts with confirmations. Prove the principle through logic and reasoning. Let us never say to man, believe in us: but believe in yourself, believe in the greatness of your being which gives you the right to expect everything and verify everything, when you never stop asking everything from the one who gives everything. Your writings, oh famous and estimable man! Can nevertheless do great good; they give man a useful jolt in his lethargy. If they don't give him the exact plans of the spiritual region, they at least make him think that it exists! And it is a service to be rendered to him, in the middle of the abyss into which the systems have plunged him.

185. The urn of tears. Why do we tire of praying? Does evil cease to act and seek to extend its power? Do the waters of a river cease to threaten the boat if it is not constantly in balance? The prayer of the righteous is this file doubly tempered, and destined to eat away the rust that iniquity has placed on man and on the universe; this rust which can become active and alive, like the worms which spawn in our flesh, and which devour them! They will be erased, all the moments that man has spent outside the holy dwelling; only those who he used in the work of the Lord will be counted. All just men, all the elected will be the sureties of the world, and they will have to fulfill its task, since it does not fulfill it itself. It will be necessary, as in the ancient funeral ceremonies, that they fill with their tears, to the edges, the urn of tears, which was presented to humanity, so that it can deposit there the ransom for the sin of the 'man. When this urn is filled, the high priest will take it in his hands; he will present it to his father as a burnt offering; then he will pour it out on the kingdom of man, and life will be restored to us.

The father will not reject this burnt offering, because the tears of the repairer will also be found in the sacred urn; it is the tears of his love which will have quickened those which the prophets shed, and which will quicken those which will be shed in his name until the consummation. Alas! No tears shall be shed over the kingdom of iniquity! They would be repelled, or they would dry up before reaching it, so far is it from the kingdom of love!

186. The leaves and fruits of the tree of life. Is not man placed in the universe, as if in the middle of the most salutary balms? Everything works towards his healing with wisdom, and in a progression consistent with the different states through which he must pass. The balm that we apply to our wounds is made from the leaves of the tree of life. If we used the juice of the root, it would not sustain its strength. He must first eat the fruits of this tree of life. It is through this that he will reach the state of a mature man, and that his eyes will become strong enough to be able to contemplate both the triumph of Jerusalem and the defeat of its enemies. Were not the first times of the existence of the universe used to painfully heal the wounds of sin? The repairer, by his first appearance, brought the human race to a state of convalescence. In his future appearance, he will bring him to a state of perfect health; and man will then know the complement of the ways of love. He will know how all things were formed in the beginning; because they will unfold and decompose before his eyes. Why would he have known this before? Was he not born to act and to fight? Isn't contemplation reserved for rest time? What is man, Lord, that you admit him to the knowledge of the laws of your wisdom?

187. Human scientists. How can we doubt that we absolutely must leave this world to enjoy some truths? Human scientists, you give us proof of this every day. Your most exact science, on what does it base its demonstrations? On lines and on surfaces. But are these the things that nature produces, and does it not always produce bodies? You are supposed to extract from these bodies all the primitive elements which constitute them, and it is on these observations alone that the geometer can operate to instruct us. If universal matter did not disappear one day, how could the eternal truth ever be known?

Since we have lost the measure of the spirit, its weight and its number, it is the weight, the number and the physical measure of the lower order which govern us and serve as our rule. Also they sell us bread today as well as all our food; formerly they were lavished on us in abundance. How will we therefore rediscover the number, the weight and the measure, which were once the true elements of our spirit, if we do not free ourselves from the measure, the number and the weight of the false elements, which enslave us? The task is immense. Doesn't the enemy have the power to even generate illnesses, to have the glory and the triumph of curing them by means of the knowledge that we allow him to acquire about nature? Does he not have the power to prepare and predict events at his disposal, to have the glory of bringing them to fruition, and the right to seduce us by their accomplishment? But just and prudent men will discover his deceitfulness; they will take away his worshipers, to lead them to the feet of the altar of truth.

188. The divine tongue. God produced the world, as an image of his power and greatness. His temporal works do not have moral perfection, because then it would have been useless to produce them. But they lead to the idea of ​​the moral perfection of their principle; and their goal is to learn that everything beautiful comes from this first being. Also God perpetually walks through his works, to revive their existence and beauty. He walks there, like good kings in their empire, leaving marks of his beneficence and his love everywhere; because he constantly seeks to make us discover the moral beauty of which he is the only source, and which he would like to convey into our hearts. In God, the words of beauty, wisdom, justice, intelligence, are all united, and as if absorbed in the unity of his love; they feel each other, and cannot be distinguished. For the beings who surround God, the words of reflection, penetration, comparison, activity, are all united and as if confused in happiness; we enjoy all these gifts, without dividing their characters. Divine attributes, you take names according to the works that God proposes, and according to the beings on whom he must act; and the sacred writers offering me only the gradations of your operations, can, without disturbing me, show me in God even our organs and our affections. It is thus that as we move away from our union with God, we are obliged to look for new names, to express the various situations in which we place ourselves, and to retrace the perfections which we no longer have before our eyes. .

This is why all our languages, and even the language of spirits, will be fleeting; and there will forever remain only the divine language, this language which is composed of only two words: love and happiness, and which is sufficient so that, in all eternities, conversations can never be interrupted.

189. The holy building. Are the bases and foundations of the building exposed, like the building itself, to the confused actions of the atmosphere, and to all the disorders of winds and storms? Can the inner man be intelligible to the senses? Unfortunately, in our present state, the senses can easily be intelligible to the inner man. They have an action analogous to its sensitivity; they unite with this sensitivity; and through this they attract even his thoughts to themselves. Open yourselves, regions of life: let the soul go and sit at the holy table; the pride of her birth calls her back to the abode of light. Foreign nations have ravaged the temple of the Lord; they took away the precious vases which were used for sacrifices; they set fire to the temple itself, and they tore down the walls: but the bases are still in the earth, and the plans of this holy edifice have been preserved.

190. The Masoretes. seeing the multitude of books and writers, who can doubt the absence of speech? One would believe that the Hebrew language itself was not made to be written. Many of its words are so similar that they could only be distinguished by pronunciation. Could it therefore be true that it was by writing that we lost languages, and that they must all be active? Is it not the various pronunciations which can infinitely vary the meaning of words, whereas with writing, this meaning is always the same? Should we go further? Spirits have only written and painted letters since the various prevarications. Before these times they only acted and spoke. God verbally gave Moses his name and his commandments on the mountain. The written tables were only given for the people, who could not hear the word. Also follow what is happening around you. You talk to children before making them write, and before writing in their eyes. The true language had to be spoken before being written; it will be spoken after we no longer write, because all intelligence is contained in speech. Massorets, you have reduced the understanding of the holy language to the number of points that you remembered or that you invented. Can it not eternally offer an infinite number of new meanings for intelligence? It was with composite and arbitrary languages ​​that this license had to be used. For the language of the spirit, it was necessary to leave it to the mind to develop its intelligence as it wished. Was it with books, was it with the aid of human industry, that Paul learned ineffable things, and that the apostles managed to speak all the languages ​​of the universe?

191. The three witnesses. Man, even animals have no doubt about their being and their law. Each of them defends its existence and its individual character, to the point of its complete destruction, because it is full of the action which is proper to it. And you have, like them, a lively action, by which you could, following their example, defend the reality of your being; you also have three witnesses in your power, to support the feeling of your existence, when your militant action is at rest: numbers, which are the intellectual witness; music, which is the sensitive witness; and geometry, which is the material witness. Geometry can be used to rectify everything; numbers to justify everything, and music to invigorate everything. All these means are refused to the beast, all the proofs of which are limited to bodily physical action; and yet she is more steadfast and more just than you in her law. It is because she has not, like you, transposed her power; it is because earthly dominations do not captivate her, like you, in false appearances; it is because the enemy has this less means of exercising his empire over her. But you also have above it the means to oppose this empire of the enemy, and to destroy its power.

192. The language of the gods. All the natural objects that poetry can paint for us, what means do they have to strike us? It is by their very similar and characteristic descriptions, and above all by their moral relationships. Otherwise would it be the language of the gods? Also the sacred writers call upon all the works of wisdom, to fulfill these sublime functions. They engage the rivers, the mountains, the animals, the trees, all the phenomena of nature, to celebrate the glory of the Lord. This is why lyrical and divine poetry makes such a strong impression on us. What are you, simple descriptive poems? You only bring us to the end by an interlude; the others lead us directly into the midst of our sublime and co-eternal relationships, with light and truth.

Paint me, like Job, the voice of thunder, the strength of Behemoth, who is the beginning of the ways of God. Paint me, like Habakkuk, the stones crying out from within the walls, and the beams responding to them: woe to him who builds cities in blood, and who founds them in iniquity! paint me, like Moses, the rivers suspending their courses at his voice, the day and the night obeying his word, the sky itself concurring in his designs, and producing at its will life and death, peace or fear, light or darkness. Picture for me the man god, laying down his own glory to come and raise us up from our baseness. Picture him leaving the circle of faithful sheep, to run after the one who had gone astray, take her on his shoulders and bring her back to the fold. You will advance me by these paintings, because their goal and object were the soul of man; because my soul was born in the region to which this language belongs, and it is made to understand it.

193. The divine quaternary. My mind received a consoling intelligence, it conceived the relationship of speech with harmony and with sound. Are they not similar in number? Do they have any other difference than that of their law? The sound only acts in the corners; harmony is the link between the center and the angles; the word acts in the very center. This is why speech is the fruit and organ of life; this is why man is the bearer of life; this is why the one who came from above was the way, the truth and the life: and it is the quaternary divine which is the universal agent of all these marvels: it modifies itself, it takes all the forms to fill all the voids; but it forever retains its immortal character. Word of man, you should not know silence. So supreme love reduced its word to your number, so that you would not be lost, and so that harmony would not be interrupted. Let us sing about life, let us sing the word, let us sing the glory of the word of man. She was worthy of the divine word coming to replace her. Who will ever know the sacred number of this divine word? He is above that which has received birth. It expanded for the formation of the universe; he extended himself for the resurrection of the word of man. It will be by returning to his unity that he will elevate everything to himself. And they would still doubt whether this word was God himself! Are they not based on man, numbers and nature? The man, because of the proximity? Numbers, because of transposition? And nature, because it is scattered?

194. Effective prayer. Have you put enough perseverance into your prayer to feel what the will of God is? You will soon experience how man is incomparably more loved than he is hated. You will feel your body acquiring a gentle warmth, which will ultimately give it both agility and health. You will feel your intelligence develop, and carry its vision to such prodigious distances, that you will be struck with admiration for the author of so many wonders. You will feel your heart blooming with joys so ravishing that it would burst if they continued any longer. The happy fruits which will result from these divine emotions, after having thus vivified you, will make you fit to vivify your fellow men in turn. But can this effective prayer ever come from us? Shouldn't it be suggested to us? Let us just remember to listen to it attentively and repeat it accurately. Who will give us the ability to be like a child with regard to the voice that dictates it to us? At a young age he was made to pray; we whisper all the words to him, which he only repeats. He is taught the elements of these voluntary, free and powerful prayers, which he will make of himself when he is delivered from the ignorance and stuttering of his childhood. True image, sweet image of what we have to do with the guide who does not leave us! This is the function that he continually fulfills with us, teaching us the elements of these sublime prayers that we will one day make, when we are separated from our corruptible envelope. Happy, happy, if our distractions did not prevent us from hearing it so often!

195. The deep divide. We fell into a deep ditch; a helpful man came down there to remove us. But what do humans do every day towards the one who thus offers to deliver them from their evils and their dangers? Instead of grasping him strongly, so that in rising he raises them with him, they spend their most precious moments finding out where he comes from, who he is, if he has the right to come to them. offer services. Primitive sin, how can we deny yourself when we see that you perpetuate yourself relentlessly and of all kinds? The Lord had said everywhere in holy writing: call to me, call to me, and I will hear you. And yet, although it is so sweet, the condition that is imposed on us, not only do we not call on him who can help us, but we disdain him when he comes of himself, and without waiting for someone to help us. calls him. If anything is capable of absorbing your thoughts, unfortunate mortal, it is the extreme patience of your god. It is a thousand times more incomprehensible than its power.

It is because it is essentially due to his love, and if we could know the immensity of this love, there would no longer be anything in God that would be hidden from us.

196. Dawn. I got up before daylight to offer my wishes to the Lord. I took this peaceful moment where men given up to sleep seem buried there as in the tomb, to resurrect their thoughts there. This time is the most advantageous for prayer and for uniting with the truth. The atmosphere is not agitated by the vain words of men, nor by their futile or vicious occupations. Mortals, is it only in the silence of your thoughts that the peace of nature can be found? Supreme God, why do you leave longer in this muddy earth the one who loves you, who seeks you, and whose soul has tasted your life? My hands are raised towards you: it seems to me that you are holding out yours to me; it seems that my heart swells with your fire; it seems that everything in my being has become one with you. I travel in your spirit through all these holy regions, where the works of your wisdom and your power spread a dazzling brilliance, at the same time as they fill the soul with happiness. Alas! The sun surprises me, a vapor of fire, igniting the horizon, announces to the world this tabernacle of light. He comes to revive numb nature; it comes to illuminate the eyes of my body, and offer me the spectacle of all the objects which surround me. Stop: you don't bring me any real good, if you don't come and open the eyes of my mind even more. Stop, since on the contrary you are coming to close them. You will only offer me mortal images of these immortal beauties that my thoughts have just contemplated. You are going to hide from me the eternal sun of which you are only a pale and almost extinguished reflection. Stopped ; for with you will awaken the thoughts of men, the ambitious boldness of the impious, and the makers of iniquity. With you will rise the powers of the world, to bend the nations under their iron yoke, instead of calling them back to the gentle law of truth. With you all the poisons will exhale and fill the atmosphere with infection.

197. The writings. Let us follow him in all the paths he wants to trace for us. The chosen ones he has chosen, he marks out paths and types to represent for the advancement of the universal family. They are separated from us by their election, they are also separated from us by their actions. How would we judge them? Simple and ignorant men will one day see the depth and height of these fundamental columns. For you, unfortunate judges of what you were not worthy to contemplate, you will want to be able to make your judgments forgotten. You will want to be able to erase them with your tears, and your tears will not erase them. Your writings spread evil, and you can no longer put order into it. You have to cry, both for the evils you have done, and those that you must do until the end of the centuries. Who will be powerful enough to cause a new plague to be born in the land of Egypt, and cause all the writings of unregenerate man to be instantly eaten away by worms, or consumed by flames, or transformed into dust . I do not exclude mine, although they are not against the spirit: but I would have the hope that the spirit would take its place, if it itself sent this plague; and my desire is for spirit to take the place of all things.

198. The suns. The Lord has looked down upon the seed of man, and has seen those who seek him. Who is this man broken with sorrow, and groaning over his iniquities? Who is this humble man in need of wisdom, asking all powerful beings to relieve his poverty? I saw him from the top of my throne, I saw him in his sadness and in his despondency: my heart was moved. I wrapped up my glory, and I came down to him. I laid my hands on his head and on his heart. He came out of his state of death; heat circulated through his limbs.

He rose: be blessed forever, be blessed, beneficent wisdom which has just restored my life! Let me grab you, let me stick my lips to your hands, and let them never separate. Where will I go? Do you not have the words of eternal life? the Lord said: I myself will take care of him who seeks me, he who loves me, he who desires to love me. I will light in his heart a fire like all the heat of the sun, and his whole being will become resplendent with light. Man of God, this is your holy destiny: as long as man does not feel his heart boiling like a fiery furnace, he is in danger, he is dead. I will call upon the Lord; his word can transform the heart of man into a living sun: he says, and each of his words gives birth to so many suns always ready to vivify the heart of man. 199. God wants us to serve him in spirit, but he also wants us to serve him in truth. Where are those who serve him as he desires? Is it through speculation, through penetration of intelligence, through discoveries, that you will serve your god? In this way you will be able to rise above men, and be admired by them: but will you have achieved your true measure in doing so? It is the heart of man that must be sanctified, and carried in triumph in the eyes of all nations.

The heart of man comes from love and truth; he can only recover his rank by extending himself to love and truth. Will he have less intelligence? Who could believe it, since it will draw from the source of all intelligence, and from the creator of the spirit? Open up, human souls; all the celestial powers only ask to fill you and to be filled with you, to teach you to serve God like them, in spirit and in truth: take courage. It only took forty days of work for the repairer to overcome appearance, and to unfold all the envelopes with which the material surrounds man; because matter used the same number to imprison us.

200. The forty days. My thoughts will meditate on the ends of the creator, and on the means he uses to achieve them. The means are simple; the ending is always great and wonderful. See this germ, see this apparently contemptible seed, and see the tree and the fruits that come from it. Mortals, will you compare your works to those of the creator? Consider the complication of your means, and the nothingness or horror of your results. You are acting like your enemy. His means are numerous, he is constantly active against God; and its results are still zero, and they will become even more so.

What then will be the end of the universal works of God? Know that the immensity of its means is simplicity itself. This vast celestial ocean, the entire nature, all the universes of spirits and worlds, are only a simple means in the eyes of the sovereign author of beings; and the end of all these means must be even greater than their immensity, because in a being who is wisdom, the end is always greater than the means. Man, in your misery you see an end to your darkness; you see from afar an immensity of pleasures which always surpass your needs and your conceptions. Sing in advance the glory and the power of the Lord. Sing the greatness of its wonders, and see what is the greatness of the end that awaits you, seeing the greatness of the means that is offered to you to lead you there.

201. The end and the means. I will bear without murmur the languors of my regeneration; I will let my thoughts and the wishes of my heart wander painfully, in the painful paths of time. May my steps be imprinted on the earth of pain, and leave long traces behind them! These bloody marks will inspire fear in the sinner; they will be able to stop him in his crimes. But let them not stop him in his hope! God forbid that I should believe that every time my soul calls on the Lord, he will not be ready to hear me and grant me! Prayers of the Lord, you penetrate my bones, you take possession of all my members, you surround me with your sweet and invigorating influences, as one wraps an infirm man, to preserve him from the sharp air. Thanks be to you! Do not suspend your care until I have regained my strength. My eyes, you will become sharp like those of the eagle. My thought will be like the arrow, which the warrior adjusts for a long time and without hurrying, so that it strikes a more sure blow. at all times of his life man needs to save himself; also he saw entering into his abysses a universal liberator, who never rests. A liberator who can only be God himself, without which he would not have been able to restore my life; because, if he himself were not the root of my being, by reuniting me to him, he would not yet have reunified me to my root. Human soul, unite yourself to him who brought to earth the power to purify all substances; unite yourself to him who, being god, only makes himself known to the simple and the lowly, and allows himself to be ignored by scholars. What need do you have to solicit the special assistance of all the agents of truth? Are they not all contained in it? Are they not all animated by its universal influence?

Holy truth, speaks to the soul of man; he will hear all languages, and he will not be thrown down with the horrible weight of time.

202. The liberator. If I am one of your thoughts, give me, for the glory of your name, the strength to justify my origin. If I have allowed the treasures of my divine essence to be altered, if some branches have, through my weakness, become detached from this great tree; command them to be reborn, and they will rise with even more majesty than when you first gave them birth? It is you who prevent souls from killing each other; and it is you who heal them when they are injured, and who revive them when they kill themselves. It is you who leave the impious in his bonds, as long as he does not turn towards you, and persists in declaring himself your enemy. Oh ! How many men are on the path without knowing it! How many others believe they are on the path, even though they are so far from it! Wait in peace and silence. Retire into the cave of Elijah, until the glory of the Lord has passed away. Who among you would be worthy of contemplating it? It is not to the weak man that the glory of the Lord is promised; before enjoying it, man's thought must have regained its elevation. For it is in the mind of man that the glory of the Lord is found. The heavens also announce this glory, and David told us so in his canticles; but they only announce it, instead of the thought of man justifying, proving and demonstrating it. One day the heavens, the earth and the universe will cease to be, and they will no longer be able to proclaim the glory of God. When this day has arrived, the thought of man will still be able to justify it, prove it, demonstrate it, and this for the duration of all eternities. Remember that, if you never abandoned a pure and true thought, that it had not been brought to a lively and effective conclusion, you would imperceptibly reestablish yourself in your law, and that you would become, from here below, the representatives of your god.

203. Elijah's cave. Why do you indulge in mixed and inferior impressions? Why do you descend to the steps of the abyss? And they are peaceful in this darkness! And the transports of insane joy come to take hold of them again! These places of darkness are worse than the stormy seas. When the ship has descended as if into abysses, does it not rise to the top of the waves? But here there is no alternative: the chasms are always open, and in these always open chasms man always feels himself falling and always descending. Unhappy! Could these dwellings be the asylum of your thought? Were you not born for the higher element? Take your sight above these abysses. Contemplate the elevated regions which dominate your head; grasp all these points of support which are sown in the immensity of the intelligence and true desires of man. These are so many branches that wisdom presents to you in your shipwreck: put your hand to them; do not let go until you have emerged from the abyss and are breathing pure air. What are you, compound elements? You are just the sponge of sin. When your body is soaked with all your filth, it abandons you. He enters the earth, which is the great pool; and your purged soul rises towards its original region, with how beautiful it will be, this future spectacle, where all the souls who have not succumbed to the test, will thus rise towards the region of light! Do you see the entire universe sinking into nothingness, and losing both all its forms and all its appearance? Do you see all these purified spirits rising into the air, like the flame of a great fire, and showing only a dazzling clarity in place of all these materials which they have consumed, and which are no more?

204. The being who forgives. If you descend within yourself, and if you let yourself be led there by a good guide; you will be less distressed by finding yourself guilty than by having been foolish enough to love for a moment something other than the truth. You will say to yourself: when man had become a criminal, divine charity opened the treasures of love; she descended into our dark abode, loaded with gold, for the deliverance of the captives. Instead of humbly receiving my ransom and returning to the defense of my homeland, I wasted this gold, which was to free me from servitude; I deceived my god; I stole what he so willingly gave me; I almost destroyed his love. In this man thus touched, the tears of regret absorb those of remorse and repentance. In the wise of a lesser class, the tears of remorse and repentance absorb those of regret. In the reprobate, the tears of fury do not allow them to shed others. You only judge men by what they are, and God judges them by what they could be. He sees in them the radical germ which animates them, and which would naturally lead them towards the truth, if your examples and your blind dominations did not lead him away from it. Also you exempt man from paying you with his regrets; you would pay yourself no less for your rigor. Supreme God, when I have sinned and grieved before you, it will not be because you are a being who punishes, but it will be because you are a being who forgives. When I have given myself over to evil, and I examine myself, the one who sits on the tribunal and who condemns me, seems to me so analogous to my true self, that I can almost not discern the difference. When, on the contrary, I want to devote myself to good, divine goodness can make me advance so much that it seems to me that it is someone other than me who has committed my past faults. And this is what man gains by approaching the one who forgives.

205. The righteous man. by what shall we know the righteous man in all measures? He is the one for whom the root of wisdom has grown deep into the earth. It is the one which can present its front to the storms, and which, after having sprouted branches full of sap, is able to cover itself with it again the following season. The elements can separate, the whole earth can dissolve. Doesn't this man keep to himself? Does he not have the testimony of his greatness left? Where do the warrior's confidence and composure come from, if not from the secret feeling that he has within himself another being, after that which the enemy's weapons can take away from him?

The warrior has transposed this primitive feeling into himself; he only relates it to the eyes of his fellow men: but he cannot destroy its germ and principle. Also the just man taught me greater wisdom: it is good to put God at the head of all your works, because he will make you stand above the evils of this world, as your simple reason teaches you to float on your illusions. You will be able to suffer for men; but you will no longer suffer from men. The soul of the righteous is already freed from its earthly bonds; this is why she is struck as if naked and to the quick: men of matter cannot have an idea of ​​her torments.

206. Clothes. Our clothes seem to have a shape when they are on us; but it is our members who give it to them: let the principle which brings life to matter be withdrawn, and it will return to nothingness and death. Spirit of man, learn here to know yourself. You cannot die in your essence, because it is co-eternal with the source of all essences. But you can die in your faculties, if you allow the divine action, which must animate and vivify them, to be separated from them. In God himself it is love that gives form to science. It is love that produced science, and it is not science that produced love. This is why our thoughts alone cannot exist without an image, while our heart or our love do not need them, and do not form any; because their food is unity itself, and divine unity is without image. So no man has ever seen God. Open the intelligence of your heart. If God withdraws his love, there is no longer any knowledge for man, because it is his love which produced science, and it is not science which produced love. Look around in all the pure regions, and be sure that wherever you find true science, there is love; because it is love which produced science, and it is not science which produced love. Thus darkness and the abyss are without knowledge, since they are without love; because it is love which produced science, and it is not science which produced love. Strength joins strength. Do not speak of the interior doctrine, if you have not entered into its sanctuary; it is impossible to speak well of memory, because it is love which produced science, and it is not science which produced love.

207. The universal mobile. As soon as spiritual life has begun for man, his entire existence becomes a series of lively actions, which touch and follow one another without interruption. Lively actions, when you descend into him, you penetrate him with intelligence, wisdom and light, because you can only come into him accompanied by the deliberations of the great council, and the plans of the universal motive. It still acts over time: don't the plans of the great council embrace time, like all regions? But he lives by the infinite, and he wants to live in the infinite. How will he arrive at the complement of this infinite term, without going through the kingly alliances? Is it not to the alliance of the living fire that all principles must unite? Yes, this was the spirit of the sacrifices of the ancient law and of these victims consumed by fire on the altars. Sacred Wisdom, what would you not do in men if they took advantage of your triple alliance? You would make them like the tree of life. They would still have enough of this natural intelligence to regenerate themselves, if they made use of it! But they corrupt it, by separating it from its center, and by burying all their wisdom in the lower order. Also politics, among men, would seem less removed from principle than morality. In one they appear at least to be trying to build; whereas in the other they only seem busy preventing it. Come down, cedars of Lebanon, come and support the weak reeds and young vines. May their branches be married to your branches, so that you lift their fruits above the rotting mire of the earth. Come show them the name that awaits them. Come and let them know their own name. Take the ruler and the square, and come and retrace again in their hearts the original plans of Jerusalem.

208. The doll. My soul has read a testimony of his immortality in the criminal justice of men. This justice only satisfies the social world, whose order the criminal has violated. But if he also violated the higher order and invisible justice, can she be satisfied to see him suffer and die in her body? Does she not ask that punishments fall on substances of her order and class? If a great person has committed a crime against the state, is it enough for the prince to strip him of his pompous clothes and the marks of his dignities? Yes, human and bodily torture only prepares the soul and strips it, to make it undergo torture analogous to its essence.

This is how the culprit is undressed, who must receive the shameful marks and painful corrections on his body. Let us therefore stop believing that everything is over when a criminal has suffered his ordeal here on earth, or when our body has paid the tribute to nature. It is only upon the bodily death of man that the forty-two encampments of the Israelites begin. His earthly life passes almost entirely in the land of Egypt. Often the necessity of its future works engages the supreme wisdom to accelerate the end of our temporal days, because it is eager to see us return to our ways. This is how she treated the Amorites, and all the prevaricant peoples. What fool will limit the extent of his vision to this narrow and dark world? He would resemble the child who finds the entire universe in his doll. If we laugh at this child's mistake, it is because we are sure that there are, before our eyes, objects that are above his rattles. But are we sure that there is no one above us who can say the same about ours?

209. The wise old man. Where will matter be, where will death be, when everything is full of man, and man is full of life and speech?

Do you see this wise old man, who spent his days in contemplation of the works of God and the truth? His eyes sparkle with the fire of the spirit, his speeches breathe wisdom, his intelligence is piercing, like a sword, and his word works living works. It is because in him the divine life was united with his being, and helped him to pass through his matter; it is that this matter is pure in him and as if sanctified; it is that he is established on it, as on a throne, and that he can already judge the tribes of Israel from this throne. In vain does the mind of the ignorant man close its eyes to this final law of our being: it twists itself, like the serpent, to arrive at explanations which destroy or demean it. Leave the truth alone, if it does not suit you, and if it bothers you; but don't try to put yourself in his place. It was she who gave you the thought; she has the power to take this thought away from you at will, as she has the power to give it back to you: and it is with such dependence on her that you want to judge her, that you want to submit her, and that you want to destroy it! You yourself take away from a man the spirit of fear of death, and you give him the spirit of a warrior. You take away from a man the warlike spirit which he had received from nature, and you give him the spirit of peace of a minister of the church. You take away from a sedentary man the spirit of a contemplative philosopher, and you give him the spirit and knowledge of the world, and the activity of a courtier. Can't the lord, like you, transpose as he pleases the spirits by which he wants to govern you?

210. Animals. The mind of man often wonders, what purpose could animals serve in the plane of creation? Do we not see in them some scattered signs of the virtues recommended to us, of prudence, courage, fidelity, attachment, skill and industry, to combat the evils that afflict them? ? But you saw that the earth was cursed! Carry your thought therefore to this primitive plan, which was intended for all of nature, and you will see that then animals could present greater models of perfection than today: seek nothing more. Don't you know that since the disorder, wisdom has presented to man models more useful and more powerful than animals could be? Fix these divine and living models; learn from their example; feed on their strength, and you will have nothing to regret in plans that are half erased. Can God's work fail to be accomplished?

Should not his power and wisdom prevail forever over all disorders? We must praise your intentions, ingenious and sensitive writers, who paint for us with so much charm the laws and harmonies of nature; but this nature itself disavows the greater part of your delicious paintings. She would like to gather together all the perfections with which your rich thoughts adorn and embellish her. But she is not unaware of the stains that crime has made on her beauty; and despite the gentle empire of your seductive brushes, it rests on a more powerful hand, which one day will want to repair its disasters.

211. Addition and multiplication. You ask how mind can act on mind: take the opposite of matter; it combines, but it does not penetrate. Spirits penetrate each other: they form a life, which is one; they form an intimate communion. My father, may they be one with me, as I am one with you, and may they be consummated in unity! therefore turn your eyes away from this matter which deceives you. As it exists through divisions and in divisions, it also accustoms your sight to division; then you bring this divided and double view to unity: how can you grasp it? If the truth came to earth, the poet would put it into verse, the musician would sing it, the painter would want to paint his portrait. Happy again if men only used it to serve their illusions! In the digital sciences, have they not confused the most incompatible laws? The law of addition is the only one that governs this world; the law of multiplication belongs to a more living world. But in their calculations, they were not afraid to assimilate one to the other; they wanted to equal what is dead to what is alive, and what is alive to what is dead. They are down here under the root of the tree, they cannot rise to the branches; and they want to give us the dimensions! …

212. Forty-nine. When you have neglected yourself; and you have descended into figures and shadows, you no longer know things except under shadows and under figures. move away from dull mirrors, and bright, regular objects will come closer to you. Say no more, imprudent doctors, that everything is false, when there is a reflection, and that man is not worthy to receive it here below. You talk about your position; you are talking about the man who has buried himself in shadows, and to whom we can only return according to the shadows that he allows to accumulate within him. You do not have the first notion of truth if you believe that there cannot be preserved men. You will rarely find them, these preserved men, among those who, being advanced in age, have spent their lives in the shadows. But you would easily find them in children, and in those who have preserved their holy character. Let us seek the living region: our living principles will be even more vivified, and the reflections that we receive there will be pure; or if the impure is mixed with it, it will be so easy to discern that it will only result in confusion. Is there not a frontier in creation? And could the impure ever pass forty-nine?

213. Human doctrine. The truth had appeared, and in its presence the blind saw, the deaf heard, the lame walked straight, and the sick were healed. You have shown yourself, human doctrine: and those who saw have become blind; those who heard have become deaf; those who walked became lame, and those who were healthy became sick. Sad victims! Do you know how this truth will treat you? She regenerated those who were infirm when she came, because they were infirm through ignorance, and the light had not yet appeared for them. But you, who saw this light; you, who had been warned a thousand times of its presence, you let it evaporate! since you have nothing, even what you have will be taken away from you. You teach that there is a void in nature: why then these innumerable nuances, which bind all substances so well that there is not a point through which action can escape? If everything is full of action, how can there be any void of results? You have misunderstood moral nature even more, by confusing it with perishable nature! Human doctrine, O human doctrine, let my people go, so that they can offer their sacrifices to me! The human soul must exist beyond the centuries, because life was given to it by the principle of life, and the sovereign of beings could not annihilate life, without abolishing its own character, which is to be the living god. Human doctrine, oh human doctrine, let go of sacrifices!

214. Holy Scripture. It is, you say, the transitions and connections that embarrass writers the most. Do you not know that connections exist in things? Men of light and truth put little into words.

If you want to judge only on the words and on the framework, the elevated places of holy writing: you will see only obscurity, disorder and confusion. Would you like to examine them with more care, and solicit their intelligence, elevating yourself at the same time as you ask to be elevated: you will find there vast and imposing reports. See what the transitions of the sacred writers are. They consist, almost all, of a single connective particle, because they only ever speak in the name of the lord, and the name of the lord knows how to link everything, as he knew how to produce everything. Sometimes they even begin their writings and speeches there; because the things they present to us are linked to those they hide from us; because these chosen men did not leave the presence of truth, and they were always united to him who has neither end nor beginning. You made a similar error when you judged Moses a materialist because he rarely seemed to speak a spiritual language to his people. This proof would seem very stupid to you, if you read the scriptures, with the intelligence that they give rise to at every step; and you would soon say to yourself: it was no more necessary to speak of the spirit to the Hebrews than it would be to speak of armor and warriors to two armies which would be present.

215. The darling lover. Who can deny that nature has a great purpose, and that this purpose is not to serve as a type and image for the mind? Doesn't old and new writing take all its emblems there? Doesn't she continually talk about the stars, the seasons, the harvest, the birds, the dogs, the fish, the ants? Why should all these things appear in the world, if not so that through their help men can open their eyes to higher truths? So do not think you are doing something indifferent when by your principles you disfigure nature in our eyes. The man no longer gains confidence in her; he loses what he could have taken there, and your mistakes lead him to impiety. If you were far from a dear lover, and to soften the rigors of absence, she sent you her image, would you not at least have some consolation in being deprived of the sight of the model? This was how the truth behaved towards us; after separating us from her, she had instructed the physical powers to work on her representation, and to place it before our eyes, so that our deprivation would have less bitterness. And you, imprudent doctors, you only strive to alter this representation, lest we recognize there some features of the one we no longer see.

Stop: if you do not have the intelligence of the object of beings, how could you have the intelligence of their laws? first study why nature exists, before telling us how it exists; it is the intelligence of the object of beings, which alone can give the intelligence of their laws.

216. The universal eye drops. If you did not realize the divine virtues, why would God send them to you? You wonder how man can put to good use what he has received. Aren't the powers linked to love? Can they unite with you without attracting him? Is it not the same unity which produces in you all the goods, and which provides you with both pleasures and protection? The same sun which illuminates you, at the same time as it makes the trees vegetate, also gives birth to the leaves, which shade you against its burning heat. Revive your strength, man of desire, revive your confidence, dissolve your sin in your works. You will feel your living faculties extending to the givers of light. When you have done the works of the Lord, return to your humility, and give thanks to the name of the Lord; It is through this that the prophets and the elect of God maintained themselves in security, and that they obtained new gifts. The fool limits himself to taking pleasure in the enlightenment which he receives through the instruction of his fellows or through natural insinuation; it is like an earth which would always keep, exposed on its surface, the seed which would have been thrown there, and which would not tighten it in its bosom. Man, do not be like the scapegoat, who, like other animals, receives the benefits of nature, and who only spreads infection. You were formed to be like a universal colyre, which was to restore sight to all the blind.

217. The idol on high places. How long will you be in opposition to yourself? Your heart would like to enjoy; he would like to indulge in the sweet impressions that the feeling of his being suggests to him. But your reason, already abused, fears to deceive itself even more; she keeps the burnt offerings with her. listen: you believe the posterity of man in privation; you believe God is too just to be the author of our suffering. You know how close man was to God by his origin, since there was nothing between these two beings. You feel that except God, there was nothing near him to bring him relief. What fear can you take from this simple logic, whose form and clarity control your mind? But the idol is mounted on high places; she attracted all the people there. From the top of this mountain it dominates the entire camp of Israel, and the people no longer have ears to hear the harmonious sounds of the shepherds who are on the plain. He no longer has eyes to see the streams of milk and honey that flow in this promised land; he no longer has the taste to savor its sweetness. Overthrow this idol which holds you in slavery, and which only seeks to make you languish in scarcity, in order to lead you to the grave. Return to the middle of the camp with the people, and bring them into the tents.

218. Man and his measure. Don't I see three degrees for man? He is above his measure, or at the level, or below. Is he at the level, and does he get it in proportion: he will have peaceful days. Is he above: for him there is only triumph and enjoyment. But this degree is not to be sought on earth. Who are those who suffer the most? Those who have received a great measure from above, and who are forced to wait elsewhere to fill it. These are they who will be comforted: for they cannot fail to weep profusely. Lord, those whom you choose for your work, are they not usually victims of the deep idea that you give them of yourself? They only encounter opposition to this profound idea on earth; Every day they see the living being sacrificed to that which languishes and decomposes of itself. Every day they see natural names becoming conventional, and never conventional names becoming natural again. Human warriors, your battles are rare, your defeat and your death uncertain, and the feeling of approval of men, usual. The warriors of truth are still on the battlefield. They are as if sure of experiencing evils worse than death, and of never having the vote of public opinion on their side. Holy truth, fortunately for these elect that your kingdom is not of this world! Neither is your justice, since your kingdom is not: that is enough to encourage them; they are sure of their reward.

219. Holiness. Aren’t we all born with a gift? And if through our vigilance we obtain that it develops in us, what more will we have to ask for? We should all be crowned, since the faithful surround us with his action; it forms around us like an enclosure, and over us a luminous circle. Men of truth, is this not why you have often been regarded as kings? Holiness, holiness, you make all gifts analogous; you teach us that they all belong to the same spirit.

Sound and light are foreign to each other only for the impious or the ignorant; empire and sanctification are linked by essential relationships. The great master had all the powers, because he was holy; and he was holy, because he forgot himself entirely for his brothers. Soul drawn from love, it is the work of love that leads to sanctification; because it is only he who justifies us. An infirm man and in need of spirit, you would not remain in laziness, if pride did not hold you back, and if you did not believe that you had everything. Are you not in captivity, like the Hebrews? Why wouldn't you think, like them, of your homeland? Where is the man who carries the pain and the feeling of his misery everywhere? He will watch to obtain the concupiscence of the spirit. He will move in his confusion, like a traveler surprised by darkness in the middle of a country unknown to him, until the lord is touched with zeal for the earth, and he has forgiven his people. ; until the Lord said unto him, I will send you grain, and wine, and oil, and ye shall be satisfied, and I will no more leave you to the reproach of the nations.

220. The superb law. Where are the proportions here below, to be able to judge the future state? Shall we take the example of the child in its mother's womb, compared to the state of a grown man? Our thinking being must expect immense developments when it is released from its corporeal prison, where it takes its initiating form, as the child takes that of its body in the maternal womb. But does this proportion give us a clear and instructive idea of ​​this glorious state that awaits us? Let's not look for it here below, this clear notion. If we had it, we would no longer be deprived. But I see a superb law. The closer the proportions are to their central and generating term, the greater and more powerful they are. This wonder that you allow us to feel and discover, oh divine truth! Enough for the man who loves you and who seeks you. He sees his days unfold in peace; he sees it with pleasure and delight. Because he causes each turn of the wheel of time to bring closer for him this sublime proportion, which has God as the first of its terms, and because he is already warned that it is man who will be the second. Let us resurrect with him who is already resurrected.

Let us go up to this region, to quickly learn our primitive language. This is where action will always accompany words, and where all our steps will be strewn with flowers. There is a time to receive favors; there is a time to have the intelligence: there must be one to preside over their distribution.

221. Charms. Don't you say that one must practice the arts to feel all their finesse, and to acquire a taste for them? Therefore also practice the principles of truth, if you want to come to know its charm and sweetness. The charms of intelligence will lead you to those of love. Isn't love the eye of the soul? Is it not through love that she sees God, since she sees him without an image? But you use this feeling for objects that cannot give it back to you, for objects that take you from disappointment to disappointment every day. Will you not chase away from you those who are interested in thus deceiving you in the objects of your love? They know that, if you had the prudence to address yourself better, you would find objects worthy of you, who would love you in turn, and a thousand times more than you could ever love them yourself. Practice the principles of truth, if you want to know its charm and sweetness.

Don't you say that one must practice the arts, to feel all their finesse, and to acquire a taste for them?

222. The germ. The seed of the Lord, the seed of the word has just been sown again in the soul of man. O you, beneficent powers, come and cover him with your pure hands! May the birds of the air find no passage to come and devour him! It is you who are the universal force; it is you who vegetate in all beings; it is you who produced them and who support them through the successive development of your powers. You will also vegetate in me; you gave me being as they were; you will continue my existence as they do, through your life-giving act. Let us celebrate man: he cannot exist for a moment without the life-giving act of his god; without the spirit being in him, as in a continuous vibration. Nature, nature, you also have the same advantage, since you contain no substance from which the industrious artist cannot extract the elements of light. But man has above you the power to feel his sublime privileges, and to celebrate their divine author. The angel of the Lord took the sword in his hand; he will cross all the streets of the city of Egypt. He will exterminate all those who, like Ahab, sold themselves to do evil in the eyes of the Lord.

He will exterminate everything in man that is not marked with the blood of the lamb. It will not allow any poisonous vegetation to remain; but he will pass, without striking the sword, before everything that bears the character of deliverance, and that comes from the seed of the word. The sap will then circulate freely from the root to the loosest branches. The rivers of the mountains will flow, without obstacle, to the great sea; and holiness will remain attached to the soul of man, as if by an indestructible cement.

223. Herbs. Let us go and gather spices to burn on the altar of the Lord; let us go through the nations of the earth, and ask them the tenth of the Lord. There are people who supply perfumes to the temples and idols of Egypt. Is it not more just that all perfumes should be offered to the Lord? Young Levites, and you innocent virgins, carefully gather the flowers of the field. Travel through the mountains of Gilead and Arabia, where balm and incense spread their odors. Who will refuse you to participate in your work? Who will be ungrateful enough not to offer the tenth to the lord? like the tireless bee, be busy all day expressing the juice of flowers and resinous trees; carry your crops to the holy places. Come and prepare, at your leisure, wax and honey, for the benefit of the entire human family. Prepare this sacred perfume which must only be offered to the Lord, on the golden altar. Prepare there also the anointing perfume, which is to be used to consecrate the high priest and his sons, and all the vessels intended for the service of the tabernacle. Has not the Lord chosen men of peace who have no other function than to bind up the wounds of the daughter of his people? He has chosen some who spend their days praying for the warriors. He has chosen some who spend their days praying for those who have not yet emerged from ignorance. He has chosen some who spend their days praying for those who have descended into darkness. He has chosen some who spend their days praying for those who raise their standards against the truth. Because he wants the aromatics of Arabia to spread their perfumes throughout the earth. He wants prayer, like the star of the heavens, to embrace the universe as if in an uninterrupted circle, and not to be for an instant without vivifying the dwelling of man.

224. Sanctification. I sanctify myself for them, that they also may be sanctified in the truth. What text does John present here to thought! The father sanctified the son, the son sanctified the spirit, the spirit sanctified the man. Man must sanctify his entire being; his being was to sanctify the agents of the universe. The agents of the universe were to sanctify all nature; and from there sanctification must extend to iniquity. Here then is this divine seed which is always flourishing in the upper region, but which here below is subdivided into different germs, and awaits different periods, to manifest the glorious life which it contains! she was hidden in the repairer, during the time of her work and her humility. So he said then that the father was taller than him. At the same time he told his apostles to rejoice that he was going to his father... On that day you will no longer question me about anything... Something you ask of my father in my name , he will give it to you. Because the spirit, carrying with it all divine fructifications, will have completed the circle of God, without needing another number. Who can then embrace you in thought, majestic man, sanctified by the holy spirit, in whom the son makes the sanctification of the father shine? You become a center of love and power, to which everything yields, and in which all the treasures of truth come to be united. Who has penetrated in all its depth the meaning and expression of the quadruple sign, acting at once on all dimensions of beings?

225. The fragile reed. What has become of these delicious affections, these sweet virtues which embellished your existence? These beneficial plants have stopped in their growth. Many thorns have shaded them, and taken away from them the appearance of the sun. Is the man dead? Is there no more hope for him, and must he be lowered into the grave? Are the earthworms ready to devour it? Stop, ministers of death, vengeance is suspended. Arise, precious man to your god; he loves you so much! I will say it, he honors you enough to sacrifice his own glory to the greatness he has given you. He would rather be humiliated than see you perish. Get up. Do not be discouraged if, after your crimes, everything begins for you with shadows. The bright regions will have their turn. They are linked to your life; it was among them that you were born.

All the fortresses of the Lord will be open to you, and you will be regarded as their faithful master. There you will see those of your brothers who are languishing in poverty, or in torture. You will see those whom their wisdom in using the aid which was sent to them, has placed in happier regions. You will see all the active and secret springs, which the supreme hand uses to exercise its justice and to spread its benefits. Don't stop for too long contemplating this almost infinite greatness that your nature gives you. Thus his children became the children of pride, and he separated them from him. It is through this that man has become a fragile reed, on which the hand of God can hardly rest. Attach yourself above all to feeling the superiority of this supreme principle; his immeasurable love to your thought, and your absolute nothingness before him, if it pleased him to leave you in darkness.

226. Mercy and love. Jeremiah therefore asked you, Lord, to punish him in your justice, and not in your fury, for fear of reducing him to nothing! So these are the two ways you use to punish man! You have to be strict for him, when it is not enough for him that you are fair. But you also have two ways to communicate your favors to him: one is your mercy, and the other is your love. If God is so terrible in his justice, what must he not be in his severity or in his fury? His fury is for the ungodly; his justice is for the disobedient; his mercy is for the weak, whose faults he is willing to forget. His love is for those in whom he even stops and warns them. If God is so gentle in His mercy, what must He be in His love? Men, you always demand more than the measure. God always demands less, if he sees that we seek him, and that we love him. But it is only for the small and simple to hear these truths. Isn't belief our natural state? Who is more disposed to faith than the child? It is also because it is closest to the state of nature. The scientist and the politician believe they are improving. However, they have driven all belief from their homes. How can we be convinced then that they followed nature's wish? Are these the souls who will honor you, lord? And are they not like the dead who are under the earth, from whom you no longer expect the glory or the honor that is due to the righteousness of the Lord? Who is the soul who will honor you? it is the soul which is sad because of the enormity of the evil, which walks all bent and dejected, whose eyes are in languor and weakness. It is the soul that is poor and pressed with hunger, which will give you the glory and praise of righteousness.

227. The serpent on the altar. Is it enough to have filled oneself with determination against evil, and to have presented oneself before the enemy? No, you must have defeated him, you must have covered him with chains. Strike, strike boldly on the walls of the godless city; the voice of the Lord animates you: it is confidence in his name that is your sword. Break down the corners of these walls, and see for yourselves the iniquities that are committed there. See the serpent on the altar; see how skillfully he seduced the inhabitants. He slipped into their advice. They took him for an angel of peace. They placed him in the holy of holies, and he became their prophet and their oracle. Strike, strike boldly; they cannot avoid the evils that their crimes have brought upon them. They will learn to be, in the future, more on guard against their enemy, and not to compose their incense with the perfumes of iniquity. Knock, knock with even more desire at the gates of the holy city. Do not rest until the Levites have allowed you to lift the veil from the temple of your god... Support yourself, human soul; you cannot sustain the splendor of his glory... Hold your hands before your eyes, bow your head: it is the majesty of the lord that appears... Alas! Give free rein to your tears; for it is near this glory that you were once to make your home!

228. Forms. Your works will therefore follow you, O man! You who cannot remain without acting, and whose action cannot remain without producing! It is by the form of your works that you will be able to judge your fidelity to justice. Why do you strip criminals of their characteristic clothing? Why do you cover them with the garments of infamy? Why does nature offer so many classes of beings, altered, vitiated and deformed? Why does the enemy clothe himself in all that is loathsome and ill-formed? Why are the highest ranked men among the people also the best dressed, the best decorated? Why do they seek to gather around them the rare animals and the most precious productions of nature? Oh ! How beautiful the new heavens and the new earth will be, since the forms there will be regular, and they will exchange their deformity for perfection itself! Man, remember your discernment, so as not to be mistaken in your ways: because the actions are different, should they appear opposed to you? Man is opposed even by the diversity of what is true, because the truth has been subdivided, to accompany him in the different degrees that he has traveled in his fall. If you do not reap the fruits of one of these degrees, all those that you follow will only trouble you and take away your strength. Unity is in each of them; it is by the light of his torch that you can make them all profitable for yourself. Be faithful to the first clarity, your head and your heart can become fertile, without ceasing to always be virgins.

229. The tribute. Receive the tribute of my praises: he is weak and imperfect; everything is defective in the man of misery and iniquity. But you, Lord, who are wisdom and truth, will not see in my gifts what they lack. You will cover them with your name, that they may be sanctified, and that you may give them entry into your eternal tabernacles. It is you, Lord, it is you who provide man with all these goods and all these favors. You treat him like this, so that he feels how infinite the Lord is in his treasures and in his love. If my tribute is accepted, if it is sown in the fields of the promised land, this plant will produce many branches; and on these branches will be written the names of my friends, the names of my brothers, the names of men of desire. They will watch there around the holy ark, to prevent iniquity from coming near it. The lord will have his eyes fixed on these chosen names; they will be quickened by his fire, and they will speak. It is on these purified souls, as well as on a divine throne, that the eternal will come to establish his seat. He will regard them as the foundations and pillars of his temple, and they will be associated with his eternity.

230. the spirit of life. All regions prepare man; the faithful friend supports and consoles him; beneficent hands embrace it and warm it: it is then that the temple is ready, and that the spirit can descend there. Doesn't the spirit of life have everything in it? Did he not create everything by his word? He will carry this creative virtue into man, and regenerate all substances within him. Is it any wonder that the lame walk, the blind see, the deaf hear, and even the dead are raised? He is the light; it is the principle of light. It will enlighten man's intelligence, and open his eyes to the secrets of wisdom. Does he not have a certain view of everything that happens in time? He will give this view to man; he will unfold before him the book of the centuries. Can it approach man without relieving him of the need for study and memory? Is it not also the principle of love? And can he approach man without producing in him all the virtues? It will continually vivify man in the image of eternity, which is always new in the vivacity of these ineffable enjoyments.

231. Thunder. Let us accustom our minds to bow down in reverence before the greatness of his name. Let us accustom our hearts to be penetrated only by his terror and his love. Let us accustom all our strength to defend his glory before those who attack him day and night. It is the only occupation that makes us hover above the confusion, where time and lies hold man like a luxurious prisoner. Even the enemy will not dare attack the man who devotes himself to constantly singing the songs of the Lord. It is doing more than grappling with him; it is to let him fall into his nothingness, and celebrate the victory, without having even needed to deal him a single blow. Let us sing the praises of the Lord. It's a lot if every day we give a few moments to our thoughts. Is it not always a suspension for our enjoyments, since all our enjoyments consist of praying and singing the praises of the Lord?

Intelligence enlightens our life; but it is the praises of the Lord that warm her. Intelligence revives the voice of man, and makes him further enhance the songs of praise to the Lord. She is like the lightning which bursts the fire of the cloud, and which awakens the slowed sounds of the thunder. But it is you, oh imposing sounds of this thunder! Who, like majestic canticles, manifest the glory of the Lord.

232. The assembly. Try not to make your home in sin; and life will not be taken from you forever. How would life be taken from you forever? Are you not armed with the mighty defenders of Israel? And you, gentle and peaceful power, you wrap everything in your sacred garment, and you foment everything with your lively heat. Who can take away your crown? They will seem to take away your crown; but you won't see any of them wearing it. I enter in spirit into the assembly of the prophets and saints; I find them always busy with the work of the Lord. Their interviews, why are they so lively, so sustained? Why are they so interesting to them? It is because everything is vivid in the work of the Lord. It is because everything is full in the higher career and in the assembly of the prophets.

We are here below so occupied with our frivolous interests; our assemblies show so much zeal for childish or vicious things: why should the saints and prophets not show it in theirs, for pure and life-giving things?

233. The son of the Lord. Say to yourself: I am the son of the Lord. Say it, until this word comes out of the depths of your being: and you will feel the darkness fleeing from around you. No longer ask what were these immense powers, of which all traditions announce man as the depositary; he was born to manifest the name of the lord, since he was the son of the lord. Why did he lose this sublime position? It is because he did not say in his heart: I am the son of the Lord. This is because he has stopped fixing this source of movement. Wipe away your tears, unhappy mortal, banish your fears. A man came from above; he came to say for you: I am the son of the Lord. at this word his adversaries were overthrown, the abyss shook, and the earthly east took its place again to serve as a ladder and guide to human posterity. Repeat this word with him, repeat it after him; but repeat it constantly, because new evils may constantly present themselves to you to cure and new dangers to repel.

Did you not have three primitive gifts: the preservation of the corporeal, the distribution of the incorporeal and exclamation? He who said for you: I am the son of the Lord, came to bring you all three, to lead you to the fourth, which is superiority. When will I be allowed to stop? Should not the slightest of my negligence be counted as homicide? It is not in vain that it is given to me to say today, even better than originally: I am the son of the lord. And I am in no position if every moment of my existence does not find me busy meditating and pronouncing this sublime word.

234. The savage. What should we think of the savage who, if only by earthly virtue, would have borne proudly and without complaint the horrible torments in use among them, according to their warlike laws? If by his courage and his resistance he had prevented the lower, disordered actions from entering into him and attenuating him, would that not be as many victories won, and as many less stains that he would have to wash during his time? course ? Eye of intelligence, seize this flash. Thrill of joy over all the other virtues which are scattered among the human species. Wherever there is a virtue, it must have an effect according to its class. Truth is a great river which embraces the entire earth in its course. All waters in nature, no matter how far away they are, tend by their natural slope to reunite with this river. Divine charity, this is how you let your secrets leak out! The entire human family is always present in your thoughts, and your occupation is to ensure that the entire human race has some share in your favors. Break, break the barriers of stagnant and corrupted waters; they will carry themselves towards the river of life, and their corruption will soon be absorbed there. Do not condemn even those who, in their good faith and in their ignorance, are led to pursue only the apparent colors of the truth. As soon as they exercise their thought, as soon as they exercise their speech, as soon as they move, even if they are only weak copyists of the truth, perhaps in the long run they will have it filter into them a few drops of this beneficial dew. The Lord only seeks to save the human family, because the spirits came from him, and it is he who created souls.

235. Illusions. In vain the enemy pursues me with his illusions. Matter here below must not have memory of me. The delights of matter, is it the man who tastes them? When his senses experience pain or pleasure, is it not easy for him to see that it is not he who experiences this pain or this pleasure? Alas! Even if his mind enjoyed all the charms of light and knowledge, he would still have to say to himself: my work is not accomplished, my task is not done! Have I descended into the abyss? Have I snatched the prey from the ravenous lion? Have I delivered from death the one who was ready to fall into it, or have I obtained an alleviation of the ills of the one it held in its dark asylum? But when by the salvation of some brother he has the right to the civic crown, when he can himself present the citizen he has saved; then let him sit down among the conquerors, and wait with confidence for the reward of his valor. His own works will praise him in the assembly of judges. These are the only joys that he can say he enjoys himself, and which he will remember: all those that matter could have given him, he would never have remembered; they do not fall anointed on his substance, and they are foreign to his work. Who knows the privileges of holy friendships based on a threefold basis? They are the only ones that have consistency, and without the sacred bond that unites them, they would only lead to confusion. Human alliances, do you want to avoid this confusion: draw the love of your spirits from God; in your minds, the union of your souls; in your souls, the union of your bodies. This will be the means that matter will not remember you, and that the enemy will be deceived in his designs.

236. The Church of the Saints. I will let myself be carried on the wings of the spirit, and it will make me travel all the paths of truth; I will see there with what wisdom God has arranged the plans of the worlds, and with what intelligence he takes care of the progress of beings. It is he who delights our eyes with the fruits of his works, and the magnificence of his productions. It is he who places angels to guard the people; and when the times of these angels are fulfilled, the peoples they supervised fall into decadence. It is he who sometimes leaves people struggling with the angel of darkness, and who thereby overthrows their counsels, to keep them in fear and in justice. Peoples triumph, peoples glory, peoples succumb; and it is he who makes them move as he pleases, because the whole universe is in his hand, like a globe which he turns in the direction he pleases. I will see the church of saints formed of the sons of wisdom. I will see it fixed and immutable in the midst of its innumerable revolutions. She walks among peoples, she follows the course of their atmosphere; but it knows neither their variations nor their falls. She travels with them to teach them the difference between spirit time and mixed region time. She travels with them, but without constraining their freedom: this sacred gift that God had given to man as a possible power, but not as a determined power, since it is only the power of God that must be ! This sacred gift, from which man has derived all evils, while he could have made it produce all the fruits of life and light!

237. Laziness. The power that circulates in man today is weak and almost zero; but it is still great enough to destroy you, opponent of all truth. What would it be if man were entirely transfigured? The universe could not contain it, and the stars would be forced to flee to make room for it. Work, man of sorrows; you are nothing more than the mercenary of your god, you owe him your time and your days. Happy again that he deigns to employ you, and that he does not let you in the public place consume you in idleness and in need! Endure the heat of the day, you must eat here only the bread of fatigue. Hey! Do not think that you can eat the bread of indolence and deceive your master. He will see you in the middle of the fields, your hands crossed on the tiller of your plow. He will repay you for the hours you have spent in laziness; and if you do not become more faithful and more exact, he will remove you from the number of his servants. It is with your sweat, it is with your blood that the wounds must be healed. It is through this that the word will come and that it will give you the investiture. Were you not praised to the Lord by your origin? Have you not been made so again by the rights of the double alliance? Despite this, instead of doing your master's work, you rent yourself daily to others, who withhold your salary. They occupy you with more difficult work, which cannot be counted among the number of legitimate works. Return, return to your first master; it is gentler, fairer, and less demanding. Seek the Lord while he can be found, says a man of God, call on him while he is near.

238. The table of things. It is the state of beings which serves as a determination for the laws of the divine economy, because it is their state which determines what must be done for their greatest good. Be no longer afraid of the words of sacrifices, of punishments and of expiation; he does not like pain. But these pains, so necessary for our healing, none of us would have been able to bear them. What is the picture of things? On one side there are one, four, seven, eight and ten. On the other there are two, three, five, six and nine. Everything is there for the present, despite the false calculations of a famous people, who only followed the arithmetic scale. This is why the saint came to defeat for us, the one we could not defeat ourselves.

It is his invincible strength that made death worthless to him, and will make it worthless to us, if we follow him into battle and cover ourselves with his armor. It is not for you, cruel enemy, it is against you that his power has developed; you have nothing more to expect from him; you lost everything you had, and he gave everything he had. The circle is over. Unnecessary bark and branches are thrown into the pit. They are transformed into bitumen, and are only suitable for being consumed by fire. Who will not shudder when contemplating its color? Earth, earth, you are willing to devour the iniquities of man and the fruits of his sin; but you will vomit the bitumen out of your bosom: it can no longer come into production, it is condemned to wander on the waves of the sea.

239. The philosophers. Imagine ourselves in front of a large pile of ruins, broken columns, and various parts of buildings piled up pell-mell. Suppose a man presents himself and picks up one of these shapeless pieces of debris in front of us. Suppose that upon inspection alone, he wanted us to understand what place this disfigured piece occupied in the building; even more, what was this building, and if he wants to trace the entire plan for us according to this unrecognizable remains: we will have a fair idea of ​​the pretensions of the philosophers, who want to explain nature to us. The world has been shaken by violent shocks; it collapsed almost entirely on its foundations. He was turned upside down and turned around, like one turns a coat inside out. Despite this, philosophers take any substance; they torment her with their operations. The results they obtain become their compass; and they teach us that everything was built like what they show us. Decomposed elementary principles, don't they all appear in water? How then, without much attention, can we not be mistaken about the nature of the things produced, and about the nature of the productive things? However, it is this same abusive doctrine that they brought to bear on the human soul, and even on the principle of things. Who will stop these deceivers, who will bind them in the abyss of death into which they would throw us? Let us not undertake to convert the philosophers; it would probably be a pointless undertaking. But at least can't we prevent them from killing thought, by discovering all the illusions and all the lies with which they lull it? This is how political states do not tend, through their laws and their police, to make evildoers good subjects; only they seek to protect society, by sending battle-hardened men against them, who scare them away or chain them up.

240. The gentle zephyr. Who will dare to compare the taste and ideas of wisdom, with which the child's soul is filled, with the state of nothingness and corruption into which men have brought things? Who will dare, especially, when it is ourselves who are the object of comparison? There would be enough to shed tears of blood and gall. May your prayer be confident and bold, even to the point of temerity. He wants us to take him violently. Everything is violence in the dark region where we are. He wants you to force him, so to speak, out of his own contemplation, to look at your misery, and to come to your aid. Here the work of man ends, because here the work of God begins. God wants us to take it by violence; but he wants to give himself out of love. Here the work of man ends; but here begins that gentle zephyr which blew near Elijah on the mountain of Oreb. The Lord will enter into your thoughts; it will spread in your heart a lively warmth, similar to that which you tasted in your childhood. The rights of your manhood will bring forth the works of your hands, the intelligence of your mind, the verbs of your mouth, the touching charity of your heart. Everything will happen in the calm of your being, without agitation, without movement; you will hardly notice it. You will always believe yourself in your natural state, because in fact it was your natural state to be perpetually united with your god. Lord, lord, we will only ask you one thing, that the soul of man be not given to him in vain!

241. Symbols. Who will grant me to take the censer, and go, like Aaron, into the midst of the camp, to prevent the serpents from devouring the children of Israel? What do they paint for us, all those who have not received life? They only paint shadows for us; they only paint for us imaginary reflections of this light that they have not seen. Would they dare to present themselves at the camp, to keep the enemy away? If they came there in the name of the lord, they would be repulsed; and the enemy would say to them, as to the Jewish exorcists: I don't know you. stay away from the shadows; they are the companions of coldness. The symbols themselves, although having their usefulness, are only necessary for those who do not know the principle. Before painting, wait until you have models; and do not pick up the brush unless it is life that heats you up: for life shudders from the abuses that arise from indiscretion and imprudence; it is only used by wise administrators. Have you calculated the degrees of man? See its scale: the iniquitous man, the depraved man, the sensual man, the sensitive man, the sensitive man, the moral man, the spiritual man, the sapiential man, the divine man. Compare the two extremes, compare only the two regions; and see if the lower one can notice what is happening in the upper one. Also we cannot say where our works come from: but the essential thing is not to say it; it is enough for us to feel it.

242. The abyss. My head leaned into the well of the abyss. Who can bear this foul smell for a moment without being suffocated? These dark and burning fires tire and injure the eyesight. But what hoarse sounds rise from the depths of these dark caverns! These are the cries of the enemies of the truth. When the day of vengeance comes, these cries will become much more frightening. Unfortunate ! They still only moan and lament. They still seem to be only shedding tears. But then they will howl with rage; they will gnash their teeth with fury. Formerly they found more land than water; today they find more water than fire: and in the future they will find more fire than words; and their torment will be not even being able to enjoy the sufferings and torments of atonement. They can still throw darts at man; and unfortunately, they can reach it. These successes temper their despair, and give some relief to their terrible misery. But when their darkness is absolute, when man no longer lends them the light of his heart; then they will not be able to take a step without being pierced with a thousand arrows; they will not be able to stay for a moment without throwing some into the anger that will transport them, and they will never be able to die. Then the abyss will resound with the cries of their fury. These cries will be so horrible that they themselves will be frightened; and only death will hear them, so far will they be from the region of the living. Even the tears of prayer cannot reach them. If only one of these tears could penetrate into their chasms, they would be immediately purified. But iniquity stands sentinel at the door of the abyss, it only lets in what can enlarge the kingdom of corruption. She rejects the name of peace, like the most formidable enemy, and one could not pronounce it without freezing the entire abyss with fear.

243. Samuel. If evil has the power to become alive, why should this same power be refused to prayer? She, who was born in the eternal home of life! She, who trades with wisdom and truth, how could she be less powerful than lies?

Let us restore to him this vivacity, which comes neither from the length of the prayer, nor from the multitude of words; but which causes everything that our soul gives birth to becomes a devouring fire which dissolves all our stains. Let us give back to him this vivacity, by which none of our spiritual movements are given to us in vain, but immediately achieve their goal. Let us give it back that vivacity which can cut through, like a scythe, all the weeds, and at the same time discover in us the salutary plants. The universe of spirits was activated by the same word which separated light from darkness. Let us give back to him this vivacity, which, after having carried out these preparatory works in us, can also put us in a position to carry them out in our fellow men. Let us give him back this vivacity by which we obtain that our crimes are forgotten, that the Lord takes possession of us, and that our perfumes rise to his throne. Then we will be able to say with Samuel's mother: my heart rejoiced in the Lord, and my God has filled me with glory.

244. The embryo. Suspend your judgments, you presumptuous man; wait until the kingdom of God arrives, to decide whether it is in accordance with justice or not. You complain about the disorders of the earth; you complain of the misfortunes of the righteous, and of the prosperity of the guilty man! Would your reason have left you unaware that divine justice had delivered this world to its own corrupt laws? Do not comment on the movements and walk of man in this world. The ambrion is still in its mother's womb; he is in the shock of his feeble and chained elements, which may well strive for their equilibrium, but which have not yet achieved it. How would you then judge the bodily strengths and structure that he will have in his manhood? Do you want to calm your thoughts on these great objects? Do you want to introduce him to the council? Immerse yourself in the abyss of regeneration. It has two bases: the first is an element that ferments; the second is an element which corrodes and putrefies. By the help of these two elements, you will extract your own life from the death which envelops it and which holds it in its darkness. Then the weight and number and measure of righteousness will be in action before your eyes; then you will no longer have to complain about the misfortunes of the righteous, and the prosperity of the guilty; because you will learn that, when both are returned to the region which is natural to them, they will be subject to the living and active laws of a justice which does not weaken in any way, and which appearance never veils . What a huge departure! It must be done in the mind of man! He must erase from his memory everything he sees! He must regard as nothing everything that happens before his eyes, and only regard as true what he does not see!

245. The ephod and the tiara. May your heart expand! You seek God; he seeks you even more, and he has always sought you first. You pray to him! Be confident in the success of your prayer. Even if you were weak enough to pray badly, wouldn't there be love that would pray for you? They will make all the benefits of love known to you. The ungrateful man forgets them: the disappointed man disdains them; he passes by, and leaves them behind. You received a ray of this fire; it will expand, and it will bring you new traits of this love, and a new warmth four and ten times more active. Man, get up. He is calling you ; he gives you rank among his priests; he declares you of the priestly race. Put on the ephod and the tiara. Walls before the assembly, as if filled with the majesty of the lord. They will all learn that you are the minister of his holiness, and that the will of the Lord is that his holiness should regain the fullness of his domain. Touches all musical instruments; they are ready to make their sounds. Everything you approach in nature will come alive under your hand, and will manifest the glory of the Lord. It is your tears that will give them back their speech. You have usurped their power, and you have hidden it within yourself like stolen goods. It must leave you through pain, since it entered through injustice. The whole universe claims its debt before you; do not delay any longer in making restitution to him. Drown all the prevaricators in the flood of your tears; It is only on this sea that the holy ark can sail today. It is only through this that the family of the righteous will be preserved, and that the law of truth will come to revive the whole earth.

246. The beautiful number. You are surprised that after having pulled us from the precipice, the liberator still seems necessary to us and that we cannot go alone. You are surprised that the work is so slow and so apparently delayed, and you are not surprised by the innumerable labors with which this work is constantly overburdened by the hands of men. Go through the circle of your reports. You had origins with the principle, since you existed in its bosom. You then had reports about your destination with him. After the crime, you had those of his tenderness for you.

From these relationships you enter into relationships of subdivided and continual activity; and from there, if you observe them faithfully, you can reintegrate yourself into your eternal relationships. Oh ! The beautiful number that presides at the same time at the origin, at progress and at the end! Do you not know that he supports everything by the power of his word, and that he constantly carries the compass over all the worlds? How long can you do without him, and how can you move forward if you don't walk with him? Blessed is the heart which has known no other need than to unite, without reserve, to him who upholds all by the power of his word! But, happy intelligence, which, in rising to this sublime region, will not have neglected to collect the flowers of previous regions! It will be able to separate substances that have mixed together until they become unrecognizable, because the purifying fire will always be lit. And when she is admitted into the sanctuary, she will no longer turn around to see what is happening in the porch, because she will have knowledge of it.

247. Disappointments. What is the place, what is the object from which man will derive satisfaction, if he does not himself bring the germ and the principle? And if he brings the germ and the principle with him, what is the place, what is the object, from which he will not derive satisfaction? How will the priest live from the altar of life if he does not carry there a ray which attracts the spirit of life? And if he carries within him what attracts the spirit of life, will he not be able to revive even the altar of death? Know then, deluded man, what character you must bear in the universe. It is you who, as depositary of life, transmitted the sanction to beings. They were nothing to you, if you did not begin by animating them with the sacred fire, which you had the right to take from the altar of life. Today are you spreading life around you? Do you carry it in objects that approach you? Don't you seem to expect from them the satisfactions and the life that you should give them? And yet you seek to extinguish in them the ray of fire which is granted to them by your nature. You transpose all substances; you find that nothing is in its place. You disfigure everything, and you mutilate even your own kind; always seeking pleasures and enjoyments, which you are not obliged to create from yourself. So what do you get from your poorly directed efforts? You only get disappointments from it. Don't you realize under what conditions you were supposed to enjoy happiness in the past? It was necessary that your mind was not for an instant without a true thought, your heart without a new and pure feeling, and your action without a lively and salutary work.

Learn at least, even in your errors, to convince yourself of your greatness and your sublime destination. It is a false life that you seek to spread on all the objects that surround you. But in its falsity, it is still the image of real life of which you must be the giver. You act badly, you act falsely; but you act, and your action alone proves that it could only have been given to you for good and for truth, since it had been given to you by the author of good and truth.

248. The three times. When man was guilty, he was immediately subjected to three trials or three temptations, and these three trials encompass the entire immensity of time. Man, you could not have endured a single one of these trials without being knocked down and without being defeated. A powerful hand has placed itself between the enemy and you, at the moment of your fall; she tried it during the second test; she thereby stopped the blow that the prince of darkness was going to give you. She will still put herself between the enemy and you at the end of time, or during the last trial, because she loves you, and she does not want you to perish. These ages were advanced for the salvation of man. The enemy noticed this when he asked the repairer why he was tormenting him before his time.

He will make the same request again at the end of the third period; and in response, he will be thrown into his abysses. It is to carry out this triple work that the divine eightenary was formerly separated from the denary, and that it has not yet been reintegrated into it. This is why he still leaves the intermediate number which serves as an interval between them today. This is why the fire is still below, while by its ascending law it should be above; and this is what holds all nature in punishment, as well as all the beings who are subject to it. Bring your sight to the region of peace, where pure beings will be in a perpetual reaction of truth and light. Such will be the fate of those who have won; of all those who will have done their work before time, and who will have worked constantly for universal communion. Doing one's work before time means at least gaining a lot in terms of appearance, since its illusion is always to our detriment?

249. The feast. How could the eternal forget his alliance with men? Their very differences make it even more present to him. Their disorders stop the circulation of life over them; they make the divine rays flow back towards their source, and this is how God knows our evils and our needs. Let us be fair and in moderation; and the divine rays will spread peacefully and without obstacle, to the last stems of the tree. Let us be docile to the voice of the Lord, and when we come, by his command, to prepare the feast at our house, let us not refuse to lend him our house. If there was no love between God and man, would he thus seek to draw closer to us? Earthly man, dark man, is it not through your sensitive relationships that you allow yourself to be drawn into material seductions? Why, by following your relationships with the objects which are above you, would you not succeed in linking yourself with them in the fixity of the spirit and of the truth? If man never forgot that he is the way of the Lord, the Lord would soon become the way of man.

250. Daniel. Let the prophets of God administer the things of God. It is on them that the spirit of truth develops its power; it is through them that he executes the plans and wishes of the lord. They are a kind of quicksilver and spirituous liquor, intended to indicate the temperatures of the divine atmosphere.

Private operators, what are you next to these large columns of the building? Your multiplied efforts, your fasts, your ceremonies submit to you certain regions or certain individuals of its regions: but is this empire sent to you from God? Isn't it fragile? Doesn't he need continual support so as not to escape from you? And then, what frightening mixtures are you not exposed to! When the violence of your operations has presented you with some results, you say: I have done such and such a work; and your self-esteem is the one that reaps all the fruits. Daniel conceives in the books of Jeremiah the number of years of the desolation of Jerusalem. He had not sought this light through the work of his own will. So, far from glorifying himself, he prostrates himself; he only knows fasting, prayer, sackcloth and ashes; and in the confession of his faults and those of his people, he learns that his prayer was heard from the beginning: because he was a man of desire, because he was humble and he walked by election of the lord. Daniel's second prayer was also heard from the beginning; However, it was only twenty-one days later that he received the fruits: because the prince of the Persians had resisted the spirit for twenty-one days, and because the prince of the Greeks came to increase the resistance; however the spirit was helped in this fight by the angel of the Jews.

What does the spirit ask of men of desire? It is because they compete with him in his work. It is because they help him by their prayer to subdue the princes of the nations who are not chosen.

251. Anastomosis. I will unite myself to God through prayer as the roots of trees unite with the earth. I will anastomose my veins to the veins of this living earth, and I will henceforth live the same life as it. Swim continually in prayer as in a vast ocean, of which you find neither the bottom nor the edges, and where the immensity of the waters gives you at every moment a free and worry-free walk. Soon the Lord will take possession of the human soul. He will enter there like a powerful master into his possessions. Soon she will leave this country of slavery and this house of servitude, where she is not an hour without violating the laws of the lord; from this land of servitude, where she only hears foreign languages ​​spoken, and where she forgets her mother tongue; of this earth, where even venoms sometimes become necessary to tear him away from his pain; of this earth, where she lives so much with disorder, that there is only disorder where she can find her relationship and her analogue.

252. Boiling brass. When will the action be full? When will the masses of rocks be reduced to powder? Is it not the rest of action that has petrified everything? Is it not the rebirth of action which must restore life and mobility? The rest of action gives the color of darkness. The rebirth of action brings back the color of light. How vivid is this color of light! You are nothing compared to her, whiteness of lilies! You are much less still, O you, whiteness of the snow, who have nothing vivid enough to reflect the true color of the light. So you only reflect his image. You are the color of a man cleansed of his sins. But you do not paint man regenerate in the activity of life. It is the brass boiling in the furnace which paints the regenerated man in the activity of life. This man is carried away by the torrent of life. He is agitated by it, he is filled with it; the divine fire becomes one with him. He no longer remembers his own stains; he no longer even knows if there is harm. Evil is for him a terrible mystery, which he would only dare approach with terror. This is what the man can become who has so opened his soul to wisdom that he is no longer free to feel anything other than the sweetness of its presence and his love. Go wash yourself in the pool, go renew yourself in spirit. Cannot your body itself be healed of some wound, to the point of no longer feeling the slightest affection for its pain? There was a time when only one man could enter this pool at a time; today everyone can rush there together: and the angel has orders to stir the water continually, for all those of the human family who wish to present themselves there.

253. The woman. As soon as the binary law had come into being, how could wisdom remedy it, if not by a law that was analogous to it? Man was sent under a second law; he left the unit to stop the binary law. He was in a second law, in relation to his emanation; in relation to his spiritual and bodily existence; in relation to his double existence, divided between Eve and him; in relation to his opposition to evil; in relation to the law of action and reaction, which governs the entire universe. But what a difference between the binary law and the second law! One is a law of death, a law of separation and destruction; the other is a law of reunion, of rehabilitation and of production, because all the works of wisdom tend towards life. The woman had to form three, through the power of the man rectifying evil. She formed a new binary by uniting with evil; and man, after her, formed the third binary. Because by approaching evil, we repeat its law and its number, without being able to form a real union with it; because its essence is to divide. Another second law descended immediately upon crime; but it was necessary that a third second law also descend: and it was the woman who had to prepare all these second laws, as she had served as subject, organ and means, for the three binary laws. She gave birth to the posterity of the first man. She crushed the snake's head with her heel. She formed the human shell of the repairer. It has reestablished this ternary law which it was originally supposed to form; but it only formed it in relation to man, and the first plan still remains to be filled. Mortals, you study your words more than your ideas. So no matter how much we listen to you, we learn nothing from you. In the career of truth we study ideas more than words; also one can learn there even without speaking. Is it up to human eloquence to enter this sanctuary? The light man is carried away by the charm of having his words listened to; the prudent man is carried away by the charms of silence.

254. The trowel. The mountains trembled when the Hebrew people came out of Egypt, and the earth shook at the sight of the face of the Lord; but the very heavens were moved at the sight of the great victory which delivered all man from the land of perdition. Superior to the victories of Moses, the great victory did not overthrow any human nation, because it was the entire human family that it came to rescue from the land of servitude. She has thrown the prince of iniquity into his depths; she has opened the door of glory and power to all who will approach the deliverer in spirit and truth. Who does not feel filled with strength and courage at the mere presence of a brave, powerful and famous warrior? Didn't David say that with the chosen one, we will be chosen? Why speak of this great victory, and of the glory of the liberator, to those who did not begin by subduing the Egyptians and enduring the fatigues of the desert? Difficult men, men nourished in the dryness of human intelligence, you only want to use the ruler and the compass: do you not still need the trowel to build? If you do not use it with constancy, and without fearing the heat of the day, you will not raise your building. You will not approach the conqueror; and you will know nothing of the great victory. You want to understand without acting; but the one from whom you are separated has the right to demand that you act before understanding. Do your ailments not give you enough intelligence?

255. Pure gold. Are there only prophets of election? Can there not be some who are the sons of their work and their struggles? Great geniuses have often involuntarily received sublime ideas; but often he conquered them, stripping them of the clouds by which they were surrounded. Scientists in human knowledge have sometimes received great strokes of light, when they least expected it. But they have sometimes also managed to discover it through their attentive observations: and you, men who cherish virtue, have often felt it, warming your hearts as if unexpectedly and without expecting it. But often also you pushed back the enemy, who wanted to keep her away from you, and after glorious efforts, you were able to unite with her in a sweet alliance.

Revive yourself, human power, tell the mountains that delay you in your march, to move away from you, and they will throw themselves into the sea. Then, like a formidable king, you will march to conquer the holy city. O earth more bitter than death, what a burden you leave to weigh on man, while he would like to carry his head into the heavens! And it is only by this overwhelming weight that you can bring it back to its primitive simplicity. You carry away with it all the defilement with which it was filled, and with which it is filled every day. You drag away base metals, to let only pure gold shine; this pure gold, with which only the tongue of the prophets extracts honey from the stone, and pays the ransom of the captives.

256. The living column. Because men have deceived you, and have been deceived even more often, you are tempted to extend your distrust even to God himself. When will they surrender to the hand that supports and guides them? When will they forget their own wisdom, and rest on the sole foundation from which the eternal pillar of truth rises? Come and dance joyfully around this living column. She herself will make harmonious sounds, which will regulate all your steps, and which will direct their measure.

A soft and brilliant light will come out of it, which will illuminate the entire enclosure. Festoons and garlands will extend from its summit to the end of this enclosure, and will form delightful cradles, which will not only protect you from the insults of the air. They will delight your eyes with the most attractive spectacle; they will spread perfumes with which your whole being will be embalmed; and you will find these residences so delicious that you will never want to leave them.

257. The curse. Is it not to leave a portion of his spirit on earth that man is sent there to be tested? What purpose would his action serve, if not so that the living and powerful virtues trace their characters through him, and leave them permanent after him? Woe to you, mortals, who have passed in vain on earth, and who have sown there no virtue! Woe to you who have left your thoughts wandering, and who have not found that the care of your being was pressing enough to fix it! No one will say about you: he felt the dignity of his existence, he fulfilled his post with glory. Souls of peace will not say: he helped me in my misfortune, he protected me from perversity, he supported me by his example, and he gave birth in me to a taste for wisdom; it is to him that I owe having sought it, and having preferred it to the joys of the world. You will be worthless to your fellow men as you will have been to yourself. You will be forgotten like these light winds which are lost in the mass of the air. Woe to you if you have left evil and lying signs! Woe to you if the nations to come have to blame you for having led them astray! Woe to you if they can say: he is the cause of our disappointments and the lie to which we are delivered; he is the cause of the trouble that pursues us; and his name cannot be uttered by us except with the language of curse! These frightening words will pursue you even into the tomb, and they will torment you even more than the infection of your tombs.

258. Humility. Pride with education! How would these two things be compatible? listen: you need your whole life to study only the names of a small part of the springs that make up a body; and again these names are conventional, and teach you nothing: and it only took a single act of speech to form the immensity of beings, with all their principles, all their positive names, and the universality of their laws! How does humility make you strong? It is because then you let the principle reign and all the force comes from it. If you boast, you become weak, because you separate yourself from the principle, wanting to put yourself in its place. When to wipe away your tears and your sweat, living wisdom wants to make you sound in all your being, like the most silvery metal; Can you attribute this benefit to you? And by yourself are you not confused with the most opaque and dullest substances?

259. Hercules. It is not enough for me to open, its light must help me to unravel what I encounter. I must painfully lift my grave to be able to regain the freedom to breathe the air. My grave is made up of the debris of the entire universe, and the enemy still weighs down on it, lest the weight be too overwhelming. It is not enough for man to lift the world and carry it, like another Hercules, on his shoulders; he must place himself on the sphere of the universe, and from above this throne he must be carried by the winds into the immensity of space.

His tongue sharpened; it has become sharp as the sword of the Lord; she has surrounded all the globes, she has exposed their fruits and all the substances that compose them. It has precipitated these flaming clouds full of smoke, which issue from these interior retreats. She reduced everything to regular designs, and vagueness and uncertainty disappeared. Do not be weary, man; the delays are the fruits of your negligence. rise up, try to reach a height from which you can no longer descend. The Lord will help you in your work; he has not abandoned you in your crimes and in your weaknesses. Are not the rivers still nourished by the waters of their own source, even as they rush into the abyss of the seas? So he waited with the patience of his love; that the days of his consolation had arrived; and the days of his consolation are those in which you will have devoted yourself forever to his service, to the meditation of his laws, and to the constant and sustained desire to become a man after his heart.

260. The great ones of the earth. He will unite with me, and we will make a covenant that will never dissolve, and we will be two in one flesh. All our property will be in common, and we will work together to continually increase our fortune.

The interest of one will always be the interest of the other. Charity always lives for two; it is even more greedy than avarice, which lives only for itself. We will maintain good order and safety in our domains. We will take care of ways to make our wealth sustainable. We will meditate in the morning, when we wake up, the plans that we must follow, so that the work of the day brings us considerable profits. In the evening we will recap, sitting in our homes, the day's operations. Soon we will see gold abound around us. Soon our trade will extend to the ends of the earth. Our riches will establish our credit, and it will be enough for us to present ourselves, or even our name, for the most powerful houses to open all their treasures. Nothing will be refused to our desires, all enjoyments will be lavished on us, and we will have the esteem and consideration of our fellow citizens, because our profits will be legitimate, and they will be the price of our work. Who even knows if, after having thus founded our residence and having adorned it with the most precious productions, the great ones of the earth would not do us the favor of visiting us?

261. The terrible shock. Why do men do so little to advance the work? Why are they so opposed to it? It would be accomplished slowly, and through the ways of jubilation and peace. They would only have to extend their hands over the abyss, and over the exits through which the fires and the smoke of this abyss rise into the air. Without further fatigue, without combat, iniquity would remain in the depths of its dark retreats. The earth would not only have knowledge of it; the man of justice would walk his steps peacefully on this earth; calm would follow him everywhere. Hands of man, stretch out in the name of justice; form like an immense vault, which forever hides from our eyes even the traces and the memory of the disorder. Come, men, come and work on this vast building. raise this monument of your glory. It will not fear the power of time, and future generations will see it in all its beauty, like those who founded it. Each man who is born will be a living stone added to this building; and each man who reunites with his fathers will give him even more powerful support than during his earthly life. They didn't want it. They have not stretched out their hands over the deep. On the contrary, they have widened the openings.

The fires and smoke almost suffocated them. Here, here is how they will be able to preserve themselves, here is what price the light will separate from the darkness. They will be obliged to fight with all their strength, no longer to throw iniquity into the abyss, but so that it does not throw them there with it. While they defend themselves on one side, she will attack them on the other. Neither day nor night will they taste rest. They will have to steal from all the posts at once, having preserved them so poorly. There will only be a terrible clash between all the powers of man and all the powers of the abyss which can operate decisively; and who is the man who can know whether he will be among the victors?

262. The big city. to what shall I compare the soul and the thoughts of man? I will compare them to a great city sitting in the middle of several rivers, which bring into its bosom all the productions of the earth. These rivers flow from all sides in the sacred writings, and cross these fertile regions in all directions. This is how they continually load themselves with abundant riches, and how they bring food of all kinds to the spirit of man. Woe to him who does not make these sacred writings his daily food! His blood and his nerves will dry up, like a man who has suffered hunger and thirst for a long time, and has not taken any sustenance. Why is it so beneficial to be able to quote scriptures in educational talks? This is because when we have the pleasure of quoting a relevant passage from it, we have nothing more to do. For it is then the very spirit which dictated it, which places itself in our place, and which reveals the truths to the understanding of those who listened to us. Do you not see that on these occasions each of the listeners is silent and meditates for a moment in silence? We come here devoid of any kind of knowledge. The only proof of this is the conduct and actions of childhood, which are all done without order and without reason. But we bring the germ and the disposition to all this knowledge; the only proof needed is the aptitude and accuracy of this same childhood, which often prevails in this way over mature men. Let us constantly follow the laws of these tender plants, until we have reached the height of the cedars of Lebanon; and we will achieve this, if we let our roots be bathed every day by the rivers of holy scriptures.

263. The seal. you have delivered this world to the dispute of men. It's a joy for them to only have to argue! If you had discovered to them the hidden springs that make it move, and especially the catastrophes it has suffered, they would perhaps not be able to bear the spectacle. Much less would they support the spectacle of the annals of man, because they are even more deplorable; but also they are even more hidden from them. This is where their misunderstandings come from. They only argued about nature; but they denied the man. Man, you are such a great being that only your action can demonstrate your greatness. You can find no place between doubt and miracles. If you do not operate worlds yourself, you cease to believe that you were born from the author of the worlds. Who can count the miracles of man? What universe will be able to contain them? Take care of the virtues, before taking care of the powers. Be careful not to want to act, before they have put their seal on you. They will not set their seal on you until you make it easy for them; and it is the virtues which must provide it for them. How forgiving and beneficent is wisdom!

Of all the virtues that she has sown in man, like so many means of reaching him, she only asks for one. She only asks him to open a single channel for her, and she will permanently insinuate herself into his soul and his spirit. Do not therefore claim power before having naturalized yourself with at least one virtue; but also hope for everything, if you know how to unite yourself to a virtue, because they are all held together by the bonds of consanguinity. Oh ! If only man would take advantage of just one of the happy moments sent to him during his life! Yes, just one of these moments taken advantage of would have been enough for him to ensure his journey, and to secure a happy ending at the end of the journey. If the plowman makes just one straight line, won't that be enough so that he can then line up all the others?

264. The divine generation. Nothing is sweet like eternal generation. All beings follow one another in peace and in an insensitive manner. See how your happy thoughts are born. Their training is easy, natural, and costs you no effort. The generation of the spirit for the temporal order is more painful, because its object is to act against violence. You always then experience a painful affection, even if you only deploy the generation of charity. The Lord said: I have begotten you today; and he said: I have begotten you before all the ages. Who doesn't feel the difference between these two generations? But the primitive law can descend with man into the temporal region; she would follow him into the abysses, if there could be a generation in the abode of death. She would therefore follow him in his material generation, if he did not lose sight of his origin, and the holy zeal for the growth of the army of the righteous. Happy is the posterity which will be born by such a generation! It will be directed by the divine and eternal laws, which will have presided over its origin. She will pass through material regions, without knowing their iniquities and defilement; it will pass through the obstructed regions of thought, without knowing its shocks and pains. Because she will live constantly and continually in the sweet laws of divine generation; therefore the enemy will tremble before her, and the captives will owe their deliverance to her.

265. The man-child. You seek entry into the heart of man, as if it were you who needed him! Is it not up to me to ask you day and night, so that love may be reborn in me with the seeds of penitence?

You will make me a formidable warrior for your enemies; a powerful doctor against diseases; a master for the elements; a friend to all the elect; a protégé for my benefactors who do not abandon me; a dear son to my father; a docile student for my holy teachers; a true worshiper of my god, who wants to be worshiped in spirit and in truth. May a full and continuous sap extend long and abundantly in all the channels of my being, as in the fibers of eternal cedars! May the shoots of these immortal trees be planted right into the center of the soul of man. Let the fire penetrate to the virgin earth! It is then that the sap of the Lord will animate these beneficial plants; his word will liquefy everything: he is the movement. Will we be surprised that he melted the mountains and made everything mobile? What delights can compare with the delights of the Lord? All objects make the child man thrill with joy, because they all reflect back to him his purity, his life and his innocence. How could the joys of God and those of the saints not be universal and without the slightest interruption? They are the continuous reflection of the eternal perfections of our god.

266. The new Jerusalem. The voices come alive; movement is restored; everything wakes up. Man's ear is struck by the sounds produced by this universal resurrection. Death flees slowly, and murmurs that his rest is disturbed. She screams; she grits her teeth with rage. But peace is proclaimed in the camp of Israel. The sentinels will no longer have to call each other every night to keep watch. There will be no more war cries for them; there will only be cries of joy. All the substances that make up nature will make piercing sounds that will penetrate with admiration. These are the new heavens and the new earth. The voices of the substances of nature, the voices of men, and the voice of the high priest and his Levites, will unite together to form the concert of eternity in the midst of the new Jerusalem. Man of peace, prepare your ear and your heart: the delights that await you will know no interruption.

267. The Mercenary of Wisdom. Make yourself a servant of wisdom; learn for a long time under his orders to be humble and active. Follow her modestly; always keep yourself at the right distance, from where, while showing him your respect, you are ready at the same time to hear his orders at the slightest glance. When you enter the house, think only of guessing his desires and satisfying them. Prevent her in everything that may please her; does not allow him to bear any need, any inconvenience. When the day is over, remember to continue the same services for the next day. Be on your feet before sunrise, see to it that when she shows herself to her servants in the morning, she will find everything in her house in order. It is only through these sustained and multiplied attentions that she will distinguish you among her servants, and that she will assure you of rewards that will be sufficient for you in your old age. Do not forget that man is made to be the mercenary of wisdom, and that this is the most beautiful title he can bear.

268. Seeds. Men of the century, men so industrious, why do you sow your grains? Isn't it in the hope that they will give you a bountiful harvest? Why do you exhaust your body with sweat and fatigue? Is it not because you flatter yourself that you will get some fruits from all these efforts that will compensate you a hundredfold? Why then do you not calculate thus in the employment of all your faculties?

Why do you consume your words in vain and so constantly, and are you so careless about the fruits you get from them? Was not this word given to you like other seeds, to produce a harvest for you? Happy is he who every day takes care to calculate the harvest of his word, and who can say to himself at the end of the day: it was not in vain that I sowed; it is not in vain that I cultivated; and the earth has given me back more than I gave it! Is it in books that you must sow the word? Aren't books a dead land, where speech can acquire almost nothing, nor return anything? The soul of man is the natural ground of speech. It is in our soul, it is in the soul of our fellow men, that we must sow the word, so that it produces for us harvests of all kinds: and it is to the author of the word that 'we must offer all the homage of the word and its fruits; because the author of the word is the virgin earth which generates and produces of itself, and without needing to be sown.

269. Gilead. When will my prayer gain strength? When will it be like the fire of the furnace, which melts metals? Cruel job! Hard necessity! Rather be, O my prayer! Like the beneficial balm that is distilled into wounds! May every drop that enters it bring health and life! It is surely to restore health and life that man was formed by you, supreme god. He can judge of this by the sweetness his soul experiences when he fulfills this divine function. But he can also judge by his sorrows when he sees the wounds of the people, and that he would like to have at his disposal all the balm of Gilead to heal them. Use your tears there, if you cannot use the balm of Gilead. If they are persistent, they will even have the power to produce it and make it flow with them. If it is permitted to indulge in jealous envy, it is for the soul which feels the pains of charity. Oh my eyes! Fill yourself with tears; I will have to cry for the duration of the centuries, before recovering this living balm. Why this long term? It's because I put all the centuries as an interval between him and me. But also, if I have the courage to cry for the duration of centuries, will I not find it again, and will I not possess it for a duration without centuries and without time?

270. The oracle. When you enter into the land that the Lord your god is to give you, take care not to imitate the abominations of these peoples. Let there be no one among you who puts his son or daughter through the fire to purify them, or who solicits diviners, who observes dreams, omens, or who indulges in curses and enchantments, and who consults magicians, pythons and sorcerers, and who seeks truth in the dead. The Lord founded his temple in the heart of man; he traced the entire plan there: it is up to man to raise the walls and complete the entire building. Let us form man in our image and likeness. It is here that my sanctuary will be established, I have reserved this more interior place for the holy of holies. Man, this is where the oracle has chosen his abode: surround it with thick and majestic trees; let their summits come together and bend into cradles to hide their sight from the eye of the profane. Make an entrance for yourself alone: ​​man of affliction, man of desire, go there alone like the high priest; and leave out all false desires, all lying greed, all these filthy clothes. Go alone, that is to say, with only one thought; and may this thought be that of your god. May, thus separated from the rest of the entire universe, there be only God and you as witnesses to your prayer and your supplications. Approach the oracle respectfully, wait in silence, and as if suspending all your interior faculties. You will not take long to hear his response, even if you do not hear any words uttered.

You will emerge, radiant with glory, from this sacred abode. You will be obliged to veil your face when presenting yourself to the people, lest they be dazzled. You will make known to him the decrees of your god, and you will be preserved from the snares and false decrees of the princes of lies. Let your thoughts be perpetually on this oracle; it is the only one that the Lord wants you to listen to, and he urges you to flee all the others. He has placed his temple and his oracle in your heart, so that in all times and in all places, whether walking or at rest, you would be able to enter and consult him.

271. The two steps. Is it from the bosom of laziness and indolence that we must seek the eye and the hand of God? Never forget that he is a jealous god, and who likes to be prayed to; because he knows that prayer opens the channels of his divine life. Pray, human soul, pray, my soul: you cannot pray without your very God praying with you. What will be withheld from you, if the one who grants is the same as the one who asks? You allowed yourself to materialize so much that you lost all idea of ​​things above; and you came to the point of saying to yourself: is there a spiritual region? you will spiritualize yourself to the point of sometimes being able to ask yourself: is there matter?

Quietism and nothingness are the triumph of matter, but they are the hell of the spirit. Do you not know that you only have to take one wrong step to have passions, and that you only have to take one wrong step to be disgusted by them? If you do two, it will be difficult for you to come back; because it will no longer be the illusion of nature that will seduce you, but the sting of death itself, which, by its number and its poisoned scepter, will bind you under its empire. Why don't you follow this progression in reverse order? Would it not also lead you to a yoke? But it would be under the yoke of deliverance, freedom and happiness.

272. Horeb. My friend, lead me to the sources of life. Let's start by getting food and strength. We will have to walk forty days to reach the mountain of Horeb. My friend, lead me to the sources of life. After having invoked the eternal, let us go and make ourselves known to the regions of the earth. Let us go and humble ourselves and prepare ourselves in silence; must not the name of the lord be enveloped, so as not to dissolve everything? Let us go north and clothe ourselves with strength and confidence; and noon will soon be submitted. My friend, we will then return to the sources of life, to pay homage to them.

Why have they made a law and an ordinance of what should only appear as charitable advice? Supreme wisdom is so sweet! She invites us and does not command us. We can bring a man to belief, because it depends only on our opinions; we cannot bring him to faith, because it is a feeling and a junction. We can bring him to a doctrine and a light through our daily teachings; we cannot bring him to the wisdom and life of the spirit, because the spirit gives itself, and it alone gives the knowledge of instructing and speaking about things, and not of after the movements of the human will.

273. Poetry. Why do you give epic poems such a marked rank? Could it not be because they present themselves to us as being the fruit of the spirit, and as discovering to our eyes the hidden sources of the great events that they relate? Man, you attach yourself, without suspecting it, to the knowledge of all these secret and spiritual means, because they relate to your essence and your natural element. Also these epic poems, although lying and artificial, have even more influence over the universe than works which are only scholarly. Even in their illusions, they always have some nuances which are reflections of the truth, and these reflections charm us by their analogy with this eternal idol of our needs and our desires. Prophetic poetry, you can do without epic poetry, which is only the pompous account of an interesting fact. But epic poetry cannot do without prophetic poetry, the only truly powerful one, capable of satisfying all the legitimate needs of our spirit. It was in Europe that epic poetry shone. Prophetic poetry belongs to Asia alone. Isn't Asia the cradle of man, and of all the great events which concern his intellectual history? Isn't this where all the famous religions that have had a great influence on the universe were born? It is there where we see in style the boldest images, and the most picturesque allegories, because it is there where the greatest realities have been found. For you, Europe, you have only gathered the fruits of these fertile trees; and not having had the advantage of inspiration, you busied yourself with reciting. You are only the reflection of the rays that shone in Asia. The ancient Asian poets acted; European poets were content to paint. It was after prophetic poetry was lost for them that they had recourse to fictitious and fabulous poetry, preferring to draw the marvelous from an imaginary order rather than resolving to do without it; because the superior and sacred character that the author of things has engraved in man is indelible. Ungrateful man, study your own works, if you do not have the strength to study those of the creator, and you will always find evidence against you.

274. The resurrection. at every moment of our existence we must rise from the dead. Our thought, our action, our will, our true and pure affections, everything is in the tomb. Guards are placed all around by the princes of the synagogue, for fear of the disciples and the friends of the truth. We must lift the stone from the table; we must deceive the vigilance of our guards, or overthrow them with our power. We must lay down the shrouds that enveloped us, and break the bands that bound all our members. We must regain our first agility, our first purity, our first activity, and take off into the air like the spirit restored to its own substance. Before reaching this universal and complete resurrection, we must go through particular resurrections; and it is these particular resurrections which compose the elements of our temporal life.

How can we obtain these particular resurrections by ourselves, if he who accomplished them all through his battles and through his victory does not enable us to participate in his strength and courage? Therefore he said: I have longed to eat this passover with you, before I suffer... Take and eat. My life will pass in you; because my words are spirit and life.

275. Speculators. How healthy and lively the soul is when it has been baptized and bathed in prayer! Leave their energy to picturesque words; wisdom uses them to strike hard and coarse ears. By this means it descends to the rustic man, who otherwise would not understand its language. Wisdom wants to speak to all men; is that why it is sometimes sublime, sometimes creeping and low, sometimes simple and smooth like a line, sometimes crude and heavy like the man of the fields? Did he not swear by himself that he wanted the whole earth to be filled with the glory of the Lord? Do you have time? Hurry up and put it into the business of prayer, and don't spend it so much on meditations. O you speculators! O you who place yourselves in the pulpits, take great care to be on guard against your words! The more they are studied, the more dangerous they will be. Man's thought can produce fruit for him. Often he does not even wait until the fruit has come, and he believes it to be ripe before it has begun to sprout; and these fruits become for him sacred weapons, with which he slaughters his disciples when they ask him for bread. Who is the man who has not allowed a mold to form within him, where everything takes the same imprint? Everything that has not taken the form of this mold is beyond its reach; he can only blame him. Respect the leaders. If it is God who sends them, and they are ignorant, it is a test for the church. If they come of their own accord, we must pray for them, so that the supreme hand will heal them of their madness. But for us, let us strip ourselves if we want to be superbly dressed, and if we want to be without worry about the fruits of our thoughts.

276. The harvester. Matter had been given to man as a place of rest in the midst of his great fatigue. It was the shade of a large tree under which the harvester could sleep for a few hours during the intense heat of the day. But he believed that it was in this very material that all his work resided; and he exercised its cult with the care, the continuity, the exclusive zeal which reigns in the region of eternity for the cult of the author of beings. Unfortunate ! Did they therefore want to transport the sky into the abyss? It is enough that they have transported their thoughts there; it is enough to show them what their original destination was, and what their condemnation will be. O man! If you only knew what fiery chasms are dug in you and by you! Underground fires rise through the ruins of the world, and illuminate their fragility. These fires rise into the air by the law of their own nature. But how long must they wander in space before uniting with pure elements and becoming living, salutary and generative substances? Temporal things only live outside; so they show everywhere a lively exterior and a dead center. What building do you want to build with such materials? True and fixed things, on the contrary, buried in the darkness of our region, must offer a dead exterior and a lively center. Joy of the wise, this is why you are unknown to the vulgar, and why you can only really make yourself felt by God to man.

277. The keystone. When the key was raised to the top of the vault, the scaffolding became useless. It is from it that all other stones draw their strength. She saved man, by killing death; but it did not prevent him from getting lost. If we did not have the power to create death, would divine power have needed to come and destroy it? It is because he was in every way similar to man that he was able to approach death; it is because he had no sin that he was able to destroy it. Who can paint the joy of heaven, when they have seen death destroyed? Man, you give material life to your children. You celebrate the day of their birth as a day of celebration, with the most brilliant lights, in memory of these celestial lights which accompanied the primitive birth of man. When temporal man has completed the course of his earthly life, and he enters the region of the spirit, all the inhabitants of this region give themselves over, like you, to the joy of seeing the family of the spirit. What must have been the happiness of the divine region, when it saw man reborn for God! Who other than a god could restore this divine life to us and regenerate the family of God? All these orders of generation have their delights.

The soul of man is capable of knowing them all, because it adheres to all orders. The reckless! And they said that man was nothing! The reckless! Oh, how they will one day blush for letting this blasphemy come out of them!

278. The root and the power. The root can do nothing except by its power. This is why God does nothing except through his prophets. You yourself, divine repairer, have taken your path in the souls of your apostles; you can only act through them. This is why the work is so slow and so hidden; because it is obliged to go through the path of man, and because man is no longer in his purity and in his primitive law. You owe nothing to man, since it is he who received everything from you; and yet you seek him in his darkness and in his crimes. You cannot forget it, because there is a lively, holy and supremely sweet tendency from the root to the power. Can't a single divine ray give birth to all miracles? And would it be surprising if the whole world were subject to man, if man let God govern and animate his soul? What peace would reign on earth if only true words and ideas were sown in the new and ingenuous souls of children?

All the primitive relationships between God and man would appear in each era in their natural state, and the chain of centuries would be for man only a long development of lights, virtues and delights, which are linked to the altar of his being. What must be the sorrow of the man of desire when he reads: that the Lord looked from heaven to earth, to know if there was a man who did good, and that he did not go away? found just one?

279. The will. Should we give you proof of the greatness of man? He is the only being in nature who can make other beings act by the rights of his will. They are all, except him, limited only to the rights of their physical forces. They cannot demand anything from other beings. Man has the power to even give them speech; and one would be surprised that originally he would have given them names! Does he not give it to them every day, and throughout the earth? Why do you ignore your glorious titles? You cannot perish, you know, since you are an essential power of divinity. But if you wanted, you could not even be unhappy, since you could not be without your god for an instant. like the sun, you were only emancipated to bring to fruition all the invisible germs with which your atmosphere is filled.

You have ceased to be the instrument of grace; but by ceasing to be its instrument, you have become its object, and you always serve as its testimony. Are not the beneficent laws and decrees of wisdom indelible?

280. Architophel and Judas. Where do the first steps of wisdom lead? to be afraid of the vices and abominations which flood the earth. What is the enormous weight that the fundamental columns of the work have to support? These are the true Hercules who support the world; they could not let go for a single moment without this moral universe being exposed to collapse and falling into ruin. Weak and corrupt men, they intercede for wisdom for your errors; Negligent sovereigns, they watch over you and your empires, which you know neither how to direct nor defend. Iniquities of another order, they exhaust themselves to the point of death to fight you. Always on the verge against an enemy who always besieges the fortress; tears, prayers, charity, perpetual efforts of all the faculties of their being; this is the state to which the crime and lies of man have reduced them. However, they are safe in the midst of all these torments, because these torments hold man in a higher region. The prophets and true sages suffered greatly. They often desired death, none gave it to themselves; Were they Architopels and Judases? Samson himself, in immolating himself, was not driven by remorse for the crime, but by the desire to save his people. It is only the false penalties born of crime that deprave us to the point of making us crawl under the yoke, and urge us to deliver ourselves from them. They also hide from us that through this violent remedy, instead of healing us, we only make ourselves sicker, because we are distorting yet another law.

281. The feather of fire. See the tongue of man forming burning lines on all substances. See it covering the universe with its luminous characters. Everywhere it dissolves thick and coagulated materials; everywhere it comes to melt metals. It does not touch anything without sparks flying from it, because it emanates from light, and it is responsible for propagating the kingdom of light. You shudder like burning brass when it strikes you, O enemy of the truth! You try to obscure its clarity with your impure fires, and you use all your efforts to resist its action. But you will never prevail against it. Has not the divine tongue written on man? Has she not traced on him the eternal characteristics of holiness? who can tell its origin? who can paint it for us, when holiness engraves its divine name on it? The heavens bowed down in respect and admiration for the majesty and power of the lord. The enemy trembled, and the hearts of the angels were absorbed into life. Man, even today your tongue can be transformed into a feather of fire, into a feather of sound and light. For for what purpose have you received existence, if not to extract the universal word, which is scattered in the immensity of the deserts?

282. Sacrifices. Why would you believe yourself abandoned when your soul is suffering? Have you forgotten that we want your purification here on earth, and not your downfall? If divine wisdom is interested in you in your errors, do you believe that supreme pity cannot be interested in your pain? It is not knowing God to believe that the measure of one's arm is shortened when that of one's heart is limitless. Learn here the source of these desperate mistakes. Here on earth we should lighten and strip ourselves, and we only weigh ourselves down under the accumulated envelopes of defilement and illusion. We should undergo a salutary test here below, and we postpone it to another region. Then we will have to endure two at once, without knowing if we will be able to endure them. How are we born? Stripped of everything! The goods and enjoyments that come to us are a free gift granted to us, and which we are then willing to receive from us as an offering. Even our children, why not consider them in some way as a kind of boarders that God gives us to raise for him? And we murmur, when the time of sacrifices arrives, we who had no material for sacrifice of our own! Children of Israel, let us no longer complain about adversities, let us no longer complain even about injustices; these are so many steps that are offered to us, to help us climb onto the stake and onto the altar of sacrifice, until the pure fire descends on us, as in the time of the burnt offerings, and takes us up with it in the region of life. Children of Israel, let us praise the Lord; we only need ourselves to have the means to offer him sacrifices. If we stop for a moment sending him our offerings and our hymns, we are more guilty than the thieves. We retain what belongs to him and what he had intended for the holy use of sacrifices, and for the burnt offering of expiation. Children of Israel, if all other matters of sacrifice did not exist for us, we would find in ourselves the sacrifice which is for him of the most pleasant odor. Only let us not offer him blind and lame victims, but healthy and regular victims.

283. Writers. How many times have writers repeated primitive prevarications, substituting themselves for the principle of all things! Their books subject us to the thought of another man, whereas we should only be subject to the thought of the mind. Also, after reading them, it often happened that the writer was praised and praised. But has the divine thing made more progress, and will their work be numbered on the day of numbering? What then should we think of those who have fought the truth, and who have rejected its most authentic demonstrations? Without waiting until the time of the future world, are they not judged from this present world? What is their walk? It is with lies that they attack the truth, it is with nothingness that they want to destroy what is real. If Satan himself does not yet arm himself against Satan, how can truth arm itself against truth? The book of nature is man; the book of man is God. If we had not stopped reading carefully into our model, nature would not have stopped reading into us; and the supreme god would not have ceased to send his glory and his light to the last branches of his productions. For the soul of man is the resting place of the Lord, and nature should be the resting place of the soul of man. But the disorder spread everywhere. The Lord no longer finds rest in the soul of man; and the soul of man no longer finds it in nature.

284. The wound. How will our work be done, if our whole body does not become a wound, if our entire soul does not become suffering and pain? But if through sin our enemy has sown his fruits in us, through prayer and penance we bring down our enemy into the abyss, and we bring down his work with him. Only then can peace be reborn. Until then we are tormented by the pursuit of this unjust creditor, who comes to claim his debt from us. Faithful defender, it is not enough that you have compassion on us, that you destroy our iniquities, and that you cast all our sins into the depths of the sea; faithful defender, it is not enough for you to throw our persecutors and their works into the abyss: you must also strongly seal this abyss, otherwise they will soon break down the door of their prison, to come and wreak new havoc.

285. The lamb. He prayed even in his agony; the sufferings of his matter had not weakened his piety: and we, miserable mortals, our piety disappears entirely in the face of the joys of our matter! How then will we preserve it in our suffering? And yet, was it for himself that he suffered? Was it for him that he bore the weight of sin? Also it is this constancy and this heroic piety which allowed him to be strengthened by a comforter. Divine prophets, you have foreseen, you have known his triumphs several centuries before his coming. Are there many triumphants whose victories can be celebrated before they are born? How could we not celebrate our victories after they have been won? Kings of Greece and Assyria, it is true that your conquests were announced before your birth; but your conquests were only terrestrial, and were to cost the lives of your fellow men. Those of the triumphant were to give life to all men, even to those who were dead; because he is the only author of life. Therefore his bones were not broken; for they did not break the bones of the lamb that they ate at the passover.

286. Job. Where does the harmony of empires come from, if not from the exactitude of each person in fulfilling their functions? What harmony would we not see existing around us, if we fulfilled our primitive functions? Strength and prudence are the same thing; and harmony is the daughter of strength and prudence. The being who lives from the spirit knows all three, and finds in them the remedy for all his ills. Doesn't the mind rectify everything? And if it consumes as it feeds, is it not because of the purity of its fire? But the disorder in our region constantly forces us into incomplete actions, which feed us with death and nothingness. We resemble here below the supremely criminal being, who is always in inanition, despite the fact that he never stops devouring. Also what is the harmony that reigns among us? Let us say like Job: this land where no order reigns, but eternal horror. Man, unhappy man, take courage, and put into practice these principles of order which are buried in your being. Let us blow, let us ceaselessly blow the spiritual fire, until we can light our torch in it. If we once succeed in making it shine, it will never be able to go out.

He will make us discover on earth this immortal altar, where we must constantly offer our sacrifice, and manifest in the visible universe what is happening in the invisible universe. Are not all the faculties of man like these immortal lights which should rest on the golden candlestick?

287. Jude. A sharp arrow pierced my soul. She broke all the bonds that kept me wrapped like in the swaddling clothes of my childhood. Our god only communicates his secrets to those who devote themselves to his service. These are the ones he makes partakers of his spirit, his knowledge and his love. Man is an entire universe where all the agents of all the worlds work to fulfill their law. Activate all its principles, take possession of all its organs. See for him, hear for him, act for him, speak for him, exist for him; because his existence is as good as nothing when he is reduced to himself. Above all, holy friends of man, help him in his prayer; for his prayer is as dead until he is regenerated. It resembles those weak breaths which can barely shake the leaves of the trees and leave it as if overwhelmed by the weight of a stifling heat.

Jude, why didn't you write more? Your thought is like a violent wind, which sets the whole atmosphere in motion, and which makes us feel the refreshment of the spirit, after the devouring heat of our oppressive temperature.

288. The man who shines. The spirit must descend and enter into man like a torrent, it must do violence to him, to purify him of everything that obstructs him. He comes to bring war and not peace, and he asks nothing better than war to break out. He wants us to be at peace with our fellow men, and to be at war with ourselves. Only he who is at war with himself is at peace with his fellow men. Who is this man that I see walking among the nations? It seems to shine with the light of the righteous. His majestic appearance announces his wisdom, his gifts and his power. It advances like the star in the vast plains of the firmament. Come out of your lethargic rest, come out of your tombs, human souls, and come and contemplate this man who shines in the midst of the nations. He presents himself to the four winds of heaven, and orders them to suspend the storms. He presents himself to the depths of the earth, and he commands iniquity to rush into its depths. Be reborn for man, O days of peace! The earth will no longer fear the force of poisons; they have become a salutary balm. Man's cruel enemy will be separated from him forever. This enemy had received the salutary balm, and he converted it into venom: he can no longer heal wounds, he can only wound himself and poison himself.

289. Blood. I will send to all regions a portion of my sin, that they may precipitate it and put it into powder. Shall I fear that the universe should know my sin, when I have not feared that the Lord should know it? I confessed my weakness to you, and you made me feel your strength and your power. Let us unite in a holy alliance; let sin be to me as an unknown thing, an impossible thing to commit, an impossible thing to believe. Strike without ceasing, each throw your shafts at the walls of this tower of confusion which has risen in the midst of Jerusalem. Spill some part of it every day; and that these debris, as they fall, cover the openings that the fire of iniquity has made in the earth. The walls collapse, the breach is passable, the victor enters the fortress in triumph, and will demolish it down to its foundations. Without this the fire of iniquity would still have outlets; to completely fill them, you need all the debris of the tower of babel. The inhabitants were all put to the sword. We spared neither the old men, nor the women, nor the children. Blood flows throughout the city: it will bury itself in the abyss, and carry there all that remained of their principle of life; that this evil race may be destroyed, and their name blotted out from under heaven. The winner will lay new foundations on this purified earth. He will raise there a city of peace and light. A holy people will come to inhabit it. Its doors will open to the rising sun, and will not close again for all eternities. The nations will come there to the sound of instruments, and singing hymns, to praise and adore the Lord, who will have provided them with all these benefits.

290. The faithful friend. I opened my eyes of thought. I have seen men afflicted in their souls. Faithful friend, separate yourself from me, to go and bring help to theirs. My prayer will become a greater work, because I will find myself alone. I will watch during my solitude and my widowhood; my thoughts will follow my friend in his work of charity. Shouldn't our work be done jointly between our friend and us? And when our friend is busy elsewhere with charity, should we not redouble our work so that our work does not suffer from delay? This is what our friend does so often himself, in our sorrows, in our dangers, in our illnesses, that it is quite right that we return it to him on occasion. Oh ! My brothers, send your friends to each other, and there will be no more afflicted among you. Send your friends to each other, you will thereby look after your true interests, and there will be no more poor people among you. They want to deny the degradation of man and his fall from a primitive state; and yet among them there are men who grieve and desire! They want to deny the corruptions secondary and subsequent to this first prevarication; and yet there are poor and destitute among them! At least don't deny your illnesses if you don't know how to cure them. How will the doctor come if he is not called? And what will your friend call him, if you do not give him the freedom to do so, and if you do not confess to him the full extent of your ills?

291. Bread. The name of the lord is always new. This is why he is always ready to regenerate man.

It is the lord who gives strength and activity to fire. It is the Lord who wanted us to be able to grasp this fire only through the organ of your sight. It is the lord who formed elements superior to air; it is the lord who formed the air above the gross elements, and who makes it imperceptible to our eyes. It is the lord who fills the stars with an active, virtual air and depository of his own direction; this is why they each come to an end. Revive yourself, weak mortal, to this active spectacle of nature. Do not pass a day without having applied yourself to the work, until you feel the action of the spirit. This is the bread that can give you life every day, because the name of the Lord is always new. Is it to speeches and words that a powerful elect of God will devote himself? He is like a man who enters the city of a great king. to each man he meets, to each door where he knocks, he is answered: yes, I am an inhabitant of this city, I am subject and servant of the great king. Knock on all the doors of the universe, address the earth, the rivers, the volcanoes, the fish of the sea, the beasts of the field, the birds of the sky; they will all answer you: yes, we are subjects and servants of the Lord. Ascend into the assembly of saints, address these millions of angels who have their home in the sphere of heaven. They will all answer: yes, we are subjects and servants of the Lord.

Blessed is the man who asks the universe for a confession as sweet as it is legitimate! Let him not rest without having engaged all beings to profess the glory of the Lord, and to celebrate the power of his name; and without everything that exists calling itself the subject and servant of the Lord.

292. The novice man. I have seen the walk of a novice in wisdom. His first steps were the glory of knowledge and understanding. Beware of the dangers of these first steps. They show you clearly that men are mistaken, and that they are ignorant; but do they prove to you that you are wise? Can you be, if you don't act? And would wisdom without action even have the appearance of wisdom? Novice man, your wisdom is still only the reflection of your pride. It's a mirror, which you only use to reflect the faults of other men. You rise up, and you get into action! Pride can follow you for a moment longer; but the fanaticism of action will make it less imperative. What a charm for the man whose rights are developing, and who has demonstrative evidence of his original titles!

Be on your guard, you will get used to this action, and the pride which had only suspended its progress will soon join you. Learn here the step that remains for you to take: it is to place your action in the hands of God; it is to suspend everything; it is to be as subordinate to divine action as the sounds of the organ are to the air that insinuates itself into it. Happy who can thus become the instrument of the voice of the Lord! He will be safe from pride. Where could he get some? He has knowledge; it has action. But he knows that he himself is without knowledge and without action; since when he is restored to himself, and when the breath ceases to act on him, he no longer has either knowledge or action. Everything is full of the action of the Lord. Man, how would you manage to put yours in place?

293. Vegetations. He filled me with good things, and I did not know him, and I let myself go to the weakness of cherishing my life, whereas, if I did not hate it, I could not be worthy of him! Penance is sweeter than sin. Human wisdom, you exhaust yourself in science and effort; you consume all your intelligence for frivolous and false works! How would you find peace and wisdom? Study your land; it is through her that vegetation and aid of all kinds must reach you. Who is the one who ensures the security of the camps and the armies? Who is he who posts sentinels and advanced guards, and who defends you from all the traps and all the tricks of the enemy? If he hears the sinful man who calls upon him, what will he not do for the pure man, who has preserved himself from defilement? The pure man who has preserved himself from defilement is bright like light. He is a sharp weapon, like the diamond; it dissipates and consumes everything before it, like fire. Do not stop at appearances or similarities; give yourself no rest until you have reached the realities of all kinds. Isn't this what all men tend to do, without knowing it? Aren't they all looking for a place to rest? And can it be found elsewhere than in union with the action of our principle and our god? In this union, where they are drawn by a force that is always alive, and which always grows like infinity?

294. Timothy. No longer doubt the power of speech; you are not trained in any science, in any language, except through the frequent use of speech. How many people have spent their lives reading, studying alone, and have remained below the object they were studying, for lack of discussing it! What would we not obtain then, if we exercised ourselves in the word of holy and sacred love, which is the complement and the whole of all perfections and all joys! With this love nothing is more necessary for us on earth, because it contains everything, it is everything, and it learns everything. This is why we are always in relationship with God, because he is universal love. If we rise, we find this supreme love, which is the element of infinity. If we do not have the strength to hold on to this region, and we go down, we still find love, because it goes down with us. We find this love even in our errors, and in the evils that result from them, because it fills everything, and it cannot abandon us. We are therefore always in relationship with God, according to our degrees and according to our measures. Alas! We are never in a position with men, because they communicate only through the spirit, and not through love. So among themselves they are like those women of whom Paul spoke to Timothy, and of whom he said: let them always learn, without ever arriving at the knowledge of the truth. They take a point of light for the sun, and they each want to give it to their fellow man for an exclusive and universal light. Unfortunate that we are! Let us never forget that we live here on earth in a composite region, and not in the region of unity. Then we will start to get along.

295. The five degrees. The brush of evil has spread across the earth in a vast and wide manner. Happy when down here we are only in shadows and darkness! If we take a step further, it is almost always to walk in iniquity. Can't our spirit occupy five degrees in relation to matter? In the first and highest of all, he does not notice that it exists. In the second he notices it; but he groans to see how deformed it is, and how detrimental the kingdom of the senses is to the kingdom of the spirit. In the third, he finds himself level with her; he gets attached to it, he finds his pleasure in it. But it is a pleasure which abuses him, because his nature calls him to pleasures of another kind. In the fourth, he becomes a slave to matter and its senses, and there he encounters more chains than pleasures; because she is an imperious master who does not relax any of her rights. In the fifth, he finds only remorse, suffering, torture and despair; because this is the ulterior fruit and the last term to which matter leads the one who has assimilated himself to it. These are no longer the pleasures; it is no longer servitude: it is the bringing together of all the horrors of privations and all the harshness of pain. Follow the reverse path, and you will see that the more the eternal order advances, the more it manifests its truth and its rightness.

Wisdom has linked all affinities by contiguous similarities, so that our path is made by a gentle and almost insensible path. This is why death would be so consoling, if we had looked in advance at this world as a preparatory similarity to another higher and more instructive similarity. For similarities must always grow in importance and interest, since each similarity is a model in relation to that which precedes it, although it is only an image in relation to that which follows it. Isn't everything a symbol in the physical region we inhabit? And is not the natural character of bodies the hyeroglyphic index of their properties and their principles?

296. Ezekiel. How will we support the infection that will be felt when things are consumed? We will have eaten death for the duration of the centuries. Our thoughts will only be nourished by the illusions of this land of servitude and lies. She will have to purify herself and get rid of all these corrupt foods before entering the land of truth. It is nothing but the cries of all human souls, and the efforts they will make to bring about this terrible purification within themselves. All their homes will be overflowing with filth and filth. All regions will be filled with foul and pestilential odors. See the corruption of the corpses, and the abominable odor they exhale. This is because they also ate death during their life; it is that they themselves were beings of death, and that they could not feed on anything else. Human souls, where will you flee? How will you be able to escape this infection which you will spread, and which you yourselves will drag after you? Happy again if they did not spread this infection during life, and if they did not produce poisonous vegetation, which took root in the earth of death! Because we could no longer say to them: come to the field of Ezekiel. All the bones that are preserved enough for the flesh and nerves to come together will come back to life. The prophet will command the four winds of heaven: and the bones will rise up; and the man who had been subjected to death and infection will reappear in his splendor. We could no longer say to them: take your share of the gifts of the one who came to buy back the time we had sold. We could no longer say to them: come and help us redeem the time of those of our brothers, who had the weakness to let it be wasted in vain.

297. The Jews. The general and particular man have advanced in proportion; as the chief of mortals has ascended, so have his posterity ascended and received greater lights. This chief of mortals, by rising on the wings of the spirit, was carried successively to ever higher degrees. The spirit, at each of these degrees, made new doors open, from which new graces flowed to the particular man. These graces were sensitive and earthly under the law of nature; they were spiritual under the written law; they were divine under the law of the repairer: because to the great name of the god of the Jews, he joined the letter of salvation, which tripled our riches and made us swim in abundance. What is this vigilant leader, and the most valiant of warriors, doing? He constantly goes to all points of his army, to save his troops from the hands of the enemy who is pursuing them. He had not been sent especially to the Gentiles during the first acts of his mission. It had only been sent to the lost sheep of Israel's beloved flock. He had recommended to his apostles to preferably run after them. Because Israel was to be the torch of the nations, and thereby represent the leader of mortals. Because the word Jew, to which we attach so much contempt, would most deserve our veneration, if we heard it, and were worthy to wear it. But when these Jews themselves did not want to recognize the one who was sent to them; when they had sacrificed it to their ignorance and blindness, then the door was opened to the nations. Then the holy spirit descended on the apostles, to infuse them with the gift of tongues; then they were ordered to go and preach throughout all the earth. Then Paul was chosen to be the apostle of the Gentiles; then the river described by the prophets overflowed, and all the nations of the earth were watered. This is how wisdom turns even the faults of men to the accomplishment of its designs, and how the darkness of a few has caused light to shine forth universally.

298. Monsters. I will snatch my word from the depths of the abyss; I will not allow her to be in servitude and nothingness any longer. She cannot contemplate the spectacle of the heavens, she cannot turn her eyes towards the high throne of her god. Should we still separate from the assembly one of our brothers who is a prevaricator? Doesn't sin separate him enough? Does not sin hold him as in a dungeon? Redouble your courage, unfortunate man fallen into servitude. Choose this time which is not a time, because it is the interval of times, and it always resolves into a true number.

Set your mind toward the great jubilee, and see how short and quick is the interval between the completion of the seven powers of the spirit and the destruction of the number of iniquity. The fire of hope issued from the bosom of this marvelous work: it set ablaze the man of courage; he came to set the soul on fire in the midst of its chains. The prison where she was detained was shaken by a violent earthquake; his guards were frightened. His chains fell of their own accord, the doors of his prison opened; she walked freely, and she went to join her brothers. This is the fate that awaits speech, when it has made all its efforts to emerge from the abyss; and those who had thrown her there, and who wanted to keep her there, will be sent to execution.

299. The Lord. Where is the principle of the science of man? Is he not in himself and everything near him? His misfortune is to seek it outside himself, and in objects which cannot react its true germ. And then, what misunderstanding does he not make about classes? Instead of working assiduously to know them, he only transposes the gradations. He could devote his first steps to using natural things with precision, with the eye of the mind, with continual attention to place, time and the quality of beings. But what are you, wonderful effects of nature?

You are only the continuation of the laws established at the beginning. You must only reveal yourself to man to elevate him to a higher order, of which you are the image. Also your strength and your invariable laws have an admirable power to make us reach this high point. For if monsters engendered, would not the eternal convention be overturned? Holy convention, happy is he who approaches you with pure intention and simple understanding, so that the study of your laws does not lead him to confusion! Nature, nature, you have no other work to fulfill than to bring beings to the sublime order from which they have fallen. It was in separation from the supreme glory that temporal things came into being. When temporal things have completed their course, nothing more will be needed for the supreme glory to reappear.

300. The widow's penthouse. At the moment of the crime, all universes became opaque and subject to gravity: the crime seemed to coagulate the words of life; he has rendered all nature mute. Human posterity, you have abused the silence of speech, to deprave yourself even more, believing that there was no more speech near you, nor above you!

But is not the word of the Lord a double sword, is it not a living sword? Silence and a mute being like nature, are for her violence and a temporary situation. The lord has spoken, his voice triumphs and prevails over the powers of crime. Silence is abolished. All points of the universe are transformed into living languages. Oh ! Night, you rush with silence; can darkness exist near the word of the eternal? Nature has become brilliant like the sun, because like him it has become the tabernacle of the word. But the word upon awakening will divide all the worlds into two classes, as formerly the Hebrews were divided on Hebal and on Gerizim; and the voices of Hebal will continually utter a curse against the enemies of the law of the Lord. Impious man, careless man, place yourself in this terrible moment; there is no more space or time for you. You no longer have, as here below, the resource of darkness and silence to protect you from the fear that the light and the word of the Lord would cause you. You will be pursued by the light and by the word. Like the guilty man here below, delivered to fatal evils, or to the sword of justice, you will hear your blood and all your substances speak to curse you, and to curse all your acts of iniquity. Man of desire, strive to reach the mountain of blessing; revive the true word in you.

All these troublesome voices will be far from you, and you will continually hear the holy voice of your works, and the voice of the works of all the righteous. All regions regenerated in the word and in the light, will raise their voice like you to the heavens; there will be only one sound that will be heard forever, and this sound is: the eternal, the eternal, the eternal, the eternal, the eternal, the eternal, the eternal !

301. Light observers, my paintings will not seem worthy of your gaze. Like you, I have not separated from my meditations the powerful being through whom everything exists. It is by excluding it that you claimed to let us know the truth. He himself is this truth. Nay, he alone is. What could you have found without him? May the souls to whom you strive to teach a foreign language come and learn theirs here without fatigue, and may they forget yours forever! You provide some pleasure to their spirit, by offering them those glimmers that beneficent and fruitful wisdom lets shine even in the last branches of nature. But they are like the pale glow of a dying lamp, like the livid flames that we see break away from it at intervals and disappear into the air, because they are separated from their source. I preferred to fix the eyes of my brothers on the hearth itself, and on the oil of joy which served as an anointing to the elect of my god. This is the only way in my power to bring them profitable help; others will advance the kingdom of my God more than me, by their works and by their power. I received only the desire to sing his glory, to reveal the iniquitous lies of his adversaries, and to encourage my fellow men to carry their steps towards this asylum of true and ineffable delights. If I only have the widow's money to offer them to help them make the journey of life, I implore them not to reject it without having experienced its value. It is with sweet consolation that I will see them harvest these weak fruits of the desires of a simple man who loved them. May the virtue of their hearts, may the piety of the centuries, be the funeral song that will forever be sung on my tomb! I will hear it in the sleep of peace and I will pay all homage to my god.