 Αυτή είναι η Λιμπρυβόξη σημερινή, όλοι οι Λιμπρυβόξης σημερινές είναι στον κοινό δημοσιασμό, για περισσότερες δημοσιασμότητες ή για να παίρνεις, please visit LibriVox.org. Η Λιμπρυβόξης σημερινή και αμφιλήθηκε και was imprisoned for years by the highest authorities of that church. Her sole crime was that of loving God. The ground of her offense was found in her supreme devotion and unmeasured attachment to Christ. When they demanded her money and estate, she gladly surrendered them, even to her improvement. But it availed nothing. The crime of loving Him in whom her whole being was absorbed never could be medicated or forgiven. She loved only to do good to her fellow creatures and to such an extent was she filled with the Holy Ghost and with the power of God that she wrote wonders in her day and has not ceased to influence the ages that have followed. From a human standpoint it is a sublime spectacle to see a solitary woman subvert all the machinations of kings and courtiers, love to scorn all the malignant engineer of the papal inquisition and silence and confound the pretensions of the most learned divine. She not only saw more clearly the sublime truths of our most holy Christianity, but she asked in the clearest and most beautiful sunlight while they gropped in darkness. She grasped with ease the deepest and sublime truths of Holy Read while they were lost in the mazes of their own profound ignorance. One distinguished divine was delighted to see at her feet. At first he heard her with distrust, then with admiration. Finally he opened his heart to the truth and stretched forth his hand to be led by this saint of God into the holy of holiest where she dwelt. We allude to the distinguished Archbishop Fenelon, whose sweet spirit and charming writings have been a blessing to every generation following him. We offer no word of apology for publishing in the autobiography of Madame Keon those expressions of devotion to her church that found vent in her writings. She was a true Catholic when Protestantism was in its infancy. There I can be no doubt that God, by a special interposition of his providence, caused her to commit her life so minutely to writing. The duty was enjoined upon her by her spiritual director whom the rules of her church made it obligatory upon her to pay. It was written while she was incarcerated in the cell of a lonely prison, the same always providence preserved from destruction. We have not a shadow of doubt that it is destined to accomplish tenfold more in the future than it has accomplished in the past. Indeed, the Christian work is only beginning to understand and appreciate it, and the hope and prayer of the publisher is that thousands may, through its instrumentality, be brought into the same intimate communion and fellowship with God that was so richly enjoyed by Madame Keon, and of introduction, volume 1, chapter 1 of the autobiography of Madame Keon. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The autobiography of Madame Keon by Jean Keon, volume 1, chapter 1. There were missions of importance in the form and narration of my life. I willingly comply with your desire in giving you a more circumstantial relation, though the labor seems rather painful, as I cannot use much study or reflection. My earnest wish is to paint in true colors the goodness of God to me and the depth of my own ingratitude. But it is impossible, as numerous little circumstances have escaped my memory. You are also unwilling, I should give you a minute account of my sins. I shall, however, try to live out as few faults as possible. I depend on you to destroy it, when your soul had drawn those spiritual advantages which God intended, and for which purpose I am willing to sacrifice all things. I am fully persuaded of his designs toward you as well for the sanctification of others as for your own sanctification. Let me assure you, this is not attained safe through pain, wariness and labor, and it will be reached by a path that will wonderfully disappoint your expectations. Υπάρχει καλύτες, αν βρίσκοντας, ότι ειναι καλύτερα στο μόνο που ο Θεός καταφέρει την καλύτερη δύσκολη, θα ειναι βασικοί, καλύτερα στους δυσκολασμούς ή δυσκολασμούς. Υπάρχει καλύτερη δυσκολασμούς, γιατί όταν ειναι καλύτερα να διεθνεί, καλύτερα στους δυσκολασμούς ή δυσκολασμούς ή δυσκολασμούς ή colds. Με αυτό스�ρε την σχέση στον ΜΡΙΣ Wow, για να μπορείς να συμφωνήσεις το σύστημα του αυτήν την μορφή και να δουλεύεις τις συμφωνίες του Θεού, να δημιουργήσεις τις μορφές, αλλά να δημιουργήσεις από τη δασκότηση σε έναν σύστημα του αυτήν τη δημιουργία, που θυμόνουν εσάς τους Λόγους Κανσελούς και που μπορούν να δημιουργήσεις τις προστάσεις, και να δημιουργήσεις ότι they have attained that divine wisdom from the eyes of all who live in self and are enveloped in their own works, who, by a lively genius and elevated faculties, mount up to heaven and think to comprehend the height and depth and length and breadth of God. This divine wisdom is unknown even to those who pass in the world for persons of extraordinary illumination and knowledge, to whom then is she known and who can tell us any tidings concerning her, destruction and death assure us that they have heard with their ears of her fame and renown. It is then in dying to all things and in being truly lost to them, passing forward into God and existing only in him that we attain to some knowledge of the true wisdom. Oh how little are her ways known and her dealings with your most chosen servants. Scars do we discover anything thereof but surprise at the dissimilitude between the truth we thus discover and our former ideas of it. We cry out with saying Paul. Oh the depth of the knowledge and wisdom of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out. The Lord Judgment note of things as meant to who call good evil and evil good and account that as righteousness which is a dominable in his side and which according to the prophet he regards as filthy rags. He will enter into strict judgment with these self-rages and they shall like the Pharisees be rather subjects of his wrath than objects of his love or inheritors of his rewards. Does not Christ himself assure us that except our righteousness exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees we shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven and which of us even approaches them in righteousness? Or if we live in the practice of virtues, though much inferior to theirs, are we not tenfold more ostentatious? Who is not pleased to behold himself rages in his own eyes and in the eyes of others? Or who is it doubts that such ragesness is sufficient to please God? Yet we see the indignation of our Lord manifested against such. He who was the perfect pattern of tenderness and meekness such as flowed from the depth of the heart and not that affected meekness which under the form of a dove hikes the hawk's heart. He appears severe only to these self-rages people and he publicly dishonored them. In what strange colors does he represent them while he beholds the poor sinner with mercy, compassion and love and declares that for them only he has come, that it was the sick who needed the physician and that he came only to save the lost sheep of the house of Israel. O thou source of love, thou dost indeed seem so jealous of the salvation that you have purchased that thou dost prefer the sinner to the righteous. The poor sinner beholding himself vile and wretched is in a manner constrained to detest himself and finding his state so horrible casts himself in his desperation into the arms of his savior and plunges into the healing fountain and comes forth white as wool. Then confounded at the review of his disordered state and overflowing with love for him having alone the power had also the compassion to save him. The excess of his love is proportioned to the enormity of his crimes and the fullness of his gratitude to the extent of the depth remitted. The self-rages relying on the many good works he imagines he has performed seems to hold salvation in his own hand and considers heaven as a just reward for his merits. In the bitterness of his zeal he exclaims against all sinners and represents the gates of mercy as barred against them and heaven as a place to which they have no claim. What need have such self-rages persons of a savior? They are already burdened with the load of their own merits. Oh how long they bear the flattering load, while sinners, divested of everything, fly rapidly on the wings of faith and love into their savior's arms who freely bestows on them that which she has so freely promised. How full of self-love are the self-rages and how void of the love of God they esteem and admire themselves in their works of righteousness which they suppose to be a founding of happiness. These works are no sooner exposed to the son of righteousness than they discover all to be so full of impurity and baseness that it frets them to the heart. Meanwhile the poor sinner Magdalene is burdened because she loves much and her faith and love are accepted as righteousness. The inspired Paul, who so well understood these great truths and so fully investigated them, assure us that the faith of Abraham was imputed to him for righteousness. This is truly beautiful for it is certain that all of that holy patriarch's actions were strictly righteous yet not seeing them as such and being devoid of the love of them and divested of selfishness. His faith was founded on the coming Christ. He hopped in him even against hope itself and this was imputed to him for righteousness. In John chapter 41 verses 18-22 A pure symbol and genuine righteousness rode by Christ and not a righteousness rode by himself and regarded as of himself. You may imagine this is a digression white of the subject but at least insensibly to it. This shows that God accomplishes his work either in converted sinners whose past iniquities serve as a counter-poise to their elevation or in persons whose self-ragesness he destroys by totally overthrowing the proud building they had reared on a sandy foundation instead of the rock Christ. The establishment of all these ends which he proposed in coming into the world is affected by the apparent overthrow of that very structure which in reality he would erect by means which seemed to destroy his church. He establishes it. How strangely does he found the new dispensation and give it his sanction. The legislator himself is condemned by the learn and great as a mal-factor and dies an ignominious death or that we fully understood how very opposite our self-rages is to the design of God. It will be a subject for endless humiliation and we shall have a natural distrust in that which at present constitutes the whole of our dependence. From a just love of his supreme power an arrages jealousy of mankind who adrips you to each other the gifts he himself bestow upon them, it pleases him to take one of the most unworthy of the creation to make known the fact that his graces are the effects of his will not the fruits of our merits. It is the property of his wisdom to destroy what is proudly built and to build what is destroyed, to make use of weak things to confound the mighty and to employ in his service such as appear vile and contemptible. This he does in a manner so astonishing as to render them the objects of the scorn and contempt of the world. It is not to draw public appropriation upon them that he makes them instrumentally the salvation of others but to render them the objects of they dislike and the subjects of their insults. As you will see in this life you have enjoined upon me to write. End of chapter 1, volume 1. Volume 1, chapter 2 of the autobiography of Madame Keon. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. The autobiography of Madame Keon by Jean Keon. Volume 1, chapter 2. I was born on April 18, 1648. My parents, particularly my father, were extremely pious but to him it was a manner heritatory. Many of his forefathers were saints. My mother in the eighth month was accidentally frightened which caused an abortion. It is generally imagined that a child born in that month cannot survive. Indeed, I was so excessively ill immediately after my birth that all about me disparate of my life and were apprehensive I should die without baptism. Perceiving some signs of vitality they ran to acquaint my father who immediately brought a priest but on entering the chamber they were told those symptoms which had raised their hopes were only expiring struggles and all was over. I had no sooner shown signs of life again than I again relapsed and remained so long in an uncertain state that it was some time before they could find a proper opportunity to baptize me. I continued very unhealthy until I was two and a half years old when they sent me to the Covent of the Erselins where I remained a few months. On my return my mother neglected to pay due attention to my education. She was not fond of daughters and abandoned me wholly to the care of servants. Indeed, I should have suffered severely from their inattention to me had not an all watchful providence being my protector. For through my liveliness I met with various accidents. I frequently fell into a deep vault that held our firewood however I always escaped unheard. The Duchess of Mount Benson came to the Covent of the Benedictines when I was about four years old. A great friendship for my father and obtain his permission that I should go to the same Covent. She took peculiar delight in my sportiveness and certain sweetness in my external deportment. I became her constant companion. I was guilty of frequent and dangerous irregularities in this house and committed serious faults. I had good examples before me and being naturally well inclined I followed them when they were known to turn me aside. I loved to hear God spoken of to be a church and to be dressed in a religious garb. I was told of terrors of hell which I imagined was intended to intimidate me as I was exceedingly lively and full of a little petulant vivacity which they called wheat. The succeeding night I dream of hell though I was so young time has never be able to efface the frightful ideas impressed upon my imagination. All appear horrible darkness where souls were punished and my place among them was pointed out. At this I wept bitterly and cried, Oh my God, if they would have mercy upon me and spare me yet a little longer I will never more offend thee and thou dist all Lord in mercy her can undo my cry and pour upon me strength and courage to serve thee in an uncommon manner for one of my age. I wanted to go privately to confession but being little the mistress of the borders carried me to the priest and stayed with me while I was hurt. She was much astonished when I mentioned that I had suggestions against the faith and the confessor began to laugh and inquire what they were. I told him that until then I had doubted there was such a place as hell and supposed my mistress had spoken of it merely to make me good but now my doubts were all removed. After confession my heart glowed with a kind of fervor and at one time I felt a desire to suffer martyrdom. The good girls of the house to amuse themselves and to see how far this growing fervor would carry me desired me to prepare for martyrdom. I found great fervency and delight in prayer and was persuaded that this ardour which was as new as it was pleasing was a proof of God's love. This inspired me with such courage and resolution that I earnestly besought them to proceed that I may thereby enter into His sacred presence but was not there not late in hypocrisy here? Did I not imagine that it was possible they will not kill me and that I will have the merit of martyrdom without suffering it? Indeed, it appeared there was something of this nature in it. Being placed kneeling on a cloth spread for the purpose and seeing behind me a large short lifted up which they had prepared to try how far my ardour would carry me I cried HOLD! It is not right I should die without first obtaining my father's permission. I was quickly abrated with having said this that I might escape and that I was no longer a martyr I continue long since consulate I would receive no comfort something inwardly reproved me for not having embraced that opportunity of going to heaven when it rested altogether on my choice. At my solicitation and on account of my failing so frequently sick I was at length taken home. On my return my mother, having a maid in whom she placed confidence left me again to the care of the servants. It is a great fault of which mothers are guilty when under pretexts of external devotions or other engagements they suffer their daughters to be absent from them. I forbear not condemning that a just partiality with which parents treat some of their children. It is frequently productive of divisions in families and even the ruin of some. In partiality by uniting children's hearts together lays the foundation of lasting harmony and unanimity. I would were able to convince parents and all who have the care of youth of the great attention they require and how dangerous it is to let them be for any length of time from under their eye or to suffer them to be without some kind of employment. This negligence is the ruin of multitudes of girls. How greatly it is to be lamented that mothers who are inclined to piety should pervert even the means of salvation to their destruction. Commit the greatest irregularities while apparently pursuing that which should produce the most regular and circumspect conduct. That's because they experience certain gains in prayer they would be all day long at church. Meanwhile, their children are running to destruction. We glorify God most when we prevent what may offend Him. What must be the nature of that sacrifice which is the occasion of sin? God should be served in His own way. Let the devotion of mothers be regulated so as to prevent their daughters from straying. Treat them as sisters, not as slaves, appear pleased with their little amusements. The children would delight then in the presence of their mothers instead of avoiding it. If they find so much happiness with them, they will not dream of seeking it as well. Mothers frequently deny their children any liberties. Like birds constantly confined to a cage they no sooner find means of escape than off they go, never to return. In order to render them tame and docile, when young, they should permit it sometimes to take wing. But as they fly is weak and closely watched, it is easy to retake them when they escape. Little fly gives them the habit of naturally returning to their cage which becomes an agreeable confinement. I believe young girls should be treated in a manner something similar to this. Mothers should indulge them in an innocent liberty but should never lose sight of them. To guard the tender minds of children from what is wrong, much care should be taken to employ them in agreeable and useful matters. They should not be loaded with food they cannot relish. Milk sweet to babies should be administered to them, not strong meat which may so discuss them that when they arrive at an age when it will be proper nourishment, they will not so much as taste it. Every day they should be obliged to eat a little in some good book, spend some time in prayer which must be suited rather to steer the affections than for meditation. Or where this method of education pursuit, how spittily would many irregularities cease? These daughters becoming mothers would educate their children as they themselves had been educated. Parents should also avoid showing the smallest partiality in the treatment of their children. It begets a secret jealousy and hatred among them which frequently augments with time and even continues until death. How often do we see some children, the idols of the house, behaving like absolute tyrants, treating their brothers and sisters as so many slaves according to the example of father and mother? And it happens many times that the favor proves a scorch to the parents while the poor despise and hated ones become the consolation and support. My mother was very defective in the education of her children. She suffered me whole days from her presence in company with the servants whose conversation and example were particularly hurtful to one of my disposition. My mother's heart seemed wholly sender in my brother. I was cursedly ever favor with the smallest instance of her tenderness or affection. I therefore voluntarily absented myself from her. It is true that my brother was more amiable than I but the excess of her fondness for him made her blind even to my outward good qualities. It served only to discover my faults which would have been trifling had proper care been taken of me. And of chapter 2, volume 1. Volume 1, chapter 3 of the autobiography of Madame Keon. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The autobiography of Madame Keon by Jean Keon. Volume 1, chapter 3 My father loved me tenderly and seeing how little my education was attended to, but he sent me to a convent of the Ursulins. I was near 7 years old. In this house were two half sisters of mine, the one by my father, the other by my mother. My father placed me under his daughter's care. A person of the great capacity was insulted piety excellently qualified for the instruction of youth. This was a singular dispensation of God's providence and love toward me and proved the first means of my salvation. She loved me tenderly and her affection made her discover in me many amiable qualities that had implanted in me. She endeavored to improve these good qualities and I believe that had I continued in such careful hands I should have acquired as many virtuous habits as I afterward contracted evil ones. This good sister employed her time in instructing me in piety and in such branches of learning as were suitable to my age and capacity. She had good talents and improved them well. She was frequent in prayer and her faith was as great as that of most persons. She denied herself every other pleasure with me and to instruct me. Such was her affection for me that it made her find more pleasure with me than anywhere else. If I made her agreeable answers though more from chance than from judgment she thought herself well-ped for all her labor. Under her care I soon became mistress of most studies suitable for me. Many grown persons of rank could not have answered the questions. As my father often sent for me desiring to see me at home I found at one time the Queen of England there. I was near eight years of age. My father told the Queen's confessor that if he wanted a little amusement he might entertain himself with me. She tried me with several very difficult questions to which I returned such pertinent answers that she carried me to the Queen and said Your Majesty must have some diversion with this child. She also tried me and was so well pleased with my lively answers and my manners that she demanded me of my father with no small opportunity. She assured him that she would take particular care of me, design me for maid of honour to the princes. My father resisted. Doubtless it was God who caused this refusal and thereby turned off the stroke which might have probably intercepted my salvation. Being so weak how could I have withstood the temptations and distractions of a court? I went back to the Erselins where my good sister continued her affection. But as she was not the mistress of the borders and I was obliged sometimes to go along with them I contracted bad habits. I became addicted to lying, pivishness and indivotion passing whole days without thinking on God who watched continually over me as the sequel will manifest. I did not remain long under the power of such habits because my sister's care recovered me. I loved much to hear of God, was not wary of church, loved to pray, had tenderness for the poor and the natural dislike for persons whose doctrine was judged unsound. God has always continued to me this grace in my greatest infetalities. There was at the end of the garden connected with this convent, a little chapel dedicated to the child Jesus. To this I betook myself for devotion and for some time carrying my breakfast thither every morning I hid it all behind this image. I was so much a child that I thought I made a considerable sacrifice in depriving myself of it. Delicate in my choice of food I wished to mortify myself but found self-love still too prevalent to submit to such mortification. When they were cleaning out this chapel they found behind the image what I had left there and presently guessed that it was I. They had seen me every day going thither. I believed that God, who lets nothing pass without a recombence, soon reward me with interest for this little infantine devotion. I continued some time with my sister where I retained the love and fear of God. My life was easy. I was educated agreeably with her. I improved much while I had my health but very often I was sick and seized with malities as certain as they were uncommon. In the evening well, in the morning swell and full of bluish marks symptoms of a favor which soon followed. At nine years I was taken with so violent a hemorrhage that they thought I was going to die. I was rendered exceedingly weak. A little before this severe attack my other sister became jealous wanting to have me in turn. Though she led a good life she had not a talent for the education of children. At first she caressed me but all her caresses made no impression upon my heart. My other sister did more with a look than she with either caresses or threatenings. As she saw that I loved her not so well she changed to rigorous treatment. She would not allow me to speak to my other sister when she knew I had spoken to her. She had me whipped or beat me herself. I could no longer hold out against severe usage and therefore requited with apparent ingratitude all the favors of my parental sister going no more to see her. But this did not hinder her from giving me marks of her usual goodness in the severe malady just mentioned. She kindly construed my ingratitude to be owing to my fear of chastisement rather than to abut her. Indeed, I believe this was the only instance in which fear of chastisement operated so powerfully upon me. From that time I suffered more in occasioning pain to the one I loved than in suffering myself at their hand. Thou knowest, O my beloved, that it was not the dread of thy chastisements that sunk so deep, either into my understanding or my heart. It was the sorrow for offending thee which ever constituted the whole of mighty stress which was so great. I imagine if there were neither heaven nor hell I should always have retained the same fear of displeasing thee. Thou knowest that after my faults when in forgiving mercy thou were pleased to visit my soul, thy caresses were a thousand-fold more insupportable than thy road. My father, being informed of all that past, took me home again. I was nearly ten years of age. I stayed only a little while at home and none of the order of Saint Dominique of a great family, one of my father's intimate friends solicited him to place me in her combat. She was the prioress and promised she would take care of me and make me lodge in her room. But this lady had conceived a great affection for me. She was so taken up with her community in its many troublesome events that she was not at liberty to take much care of me. I had the chicken box which made me keep to my bed three weeks in which I had very bad care. Though my father and mother thought I was under excellent care, the ladies of the house had such a dread of the small box as they imagined mine to be that they would not come near me. I passed almost all the time without seeing anybody. A lay sister who only brought me a allowance of diet at the set hours immediately went off again. I providentially found the Bible and having both a fondness for eating and a happy memory, I spent whole days in reading it from morning to night. I learned entirely the historical part yet I was really very unhappy in this house. The other boarders, being large girls, distressed me with grievous persecutions. I was so much neglected as to food that I became quite emaciated. End of chapter 3, volume 1. Volume 1, chapter 4 of the autobiography of Madame Keon. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The autobiography of Madame Keon by Jean Keon. Volume 1, chapter 4. After about 8 months, my father took me home. My mother kept me more with her beginning to have a higher regard for me than before. She still preferred my brother, everyone spoke of it. Even when I was sick and there was anything I liked, he demanded. It was taken from me and given to him and he was in perfectly good health. One day he made me mount the top of the coach then threw me down. By the fall I was very much bruised. At other times he beat me. But whatever he did, however wrong it was winged at, all the most favorable construction was put upon it. This soured my temper. I had little disposition to do good saying I was never the better for it. It was not then for the alone of God that I did good since I ceased to do it when it met not with such a reception from others as I wanted. Had I known how to make a right use of this thy crucifying conduct I shall have made a good progress. Far from turning me out of the way it would have made me turn more holy to thee. I looked with jealous eyes on my brother seeing the difference between him and me. Whatever he did was considered well but if there were a blame it fell on me. My stepsisters by the mother gained her goodwill by caressing him and persecuting me. True I was bad. I relapsed into my former faults of lying and pivishness. With all these faults I was very tender and charitable to the pool. I prayed to God assitiously love to hear anyone speak of him and to read good books. I doubt not that you will be amazed at such a series of inconsistencies but what succeeds will surprise you yet more when you see this manner of acting gain ground with my years. As my reason ripened it was so far from correcting this irrational conduct. Seeing grew more powerful in me. Oh my God, thy grace seemed to be redouble in proportion to the increase of my ingratitude. It was with me as with the city besieged. Thou didst surround my heart and I only studied to defend myself against thy attacks. I raised fortifications about the wretched place adding every day to the number of my iniquities to prevent the taking it. When there was an appearance of thy becoming victorious over this ungrateful heart I raised a counter battery and threw up ramparts to keep off thy goodness and to hinder the course of thy grace. None other could have conquered than thyself. I cannot bear to hear it said we are not free to resist grace. I have had too long and fatal an experience of my liberty. I closed up the avenues of my heart that I might not so much as hear that secret voice of God which was calling me to himself. I have indeed from tenderest youth passed through a series of grievances either by malities or by persecutions. The gear to whose care my mother left me in arranging my hair used to beat me and did not make me turn it except with rage and blows. Everything seemed to punish me but this instead of making me turn on to thee, oh my God only served to afflict and embitter my mind. My father knew nothing of all this. His love to me was such that she would not have suffered it. I loved him very much but at the same time I feared him so that I told him nothing of it. My mother was often teasing him with complaints of me to which he made no other reply than there are twelve hours in the day she will grow wiser. This rigorous proceeding was not the worst for my soul though it soured my temper which was otherwise mild and easy. But what caused my greatest hurt was that I chose to be among those who caressed me in order to corrupt and spoil me. My father, seeing I was now grown tall placed me land among the excellence to receive my first communion at Easter at which time I was to complete my eleventh year and here my most dear sister under whose inspection my father placed me redouble her cares to cause me to make the best preparation possible for this act of devotion. I fell out of giving myself to God in good earnest. I often felt a combat between my good inclinations and my bad habits. I even did some penances as I was almost always with my sister and as the borders in her class which was the first were very reasonable and civil I became such also while among them it has been cruel to educate me badly for my very nature was strongly disposed to goodness. Easily one with mildness I did with pleasure whatever my good sister desired at length Easter arrived I received the communion with much joy and devotion. In this house I stayed until witch and died but as my other sister was the mistress of the second class she demanded that in her week I should be with her in that class. Her manners so opposite to the others made me relax my former piety. I felt no more than new and delightful other which had seized my heart at my first communion. Allas it held by the short time my faults and failings were soon reiterirated and drew me from the care and duties of religion. As I now grew very tall for my age and more to my mother's liking than before she took care to deck and dress me to make me see company to take me abroad. She took an inordinate pride in that beauty with which God had formed me to bless and praise him. However it was perverted by me into a source of pride and vanity. Several shooters came to me but as I was not yet twelve years my father would not listen to any proposals. I loved reading and shut myself up alone every day to read without interruption. What prove effectual to gain me and direly to God at least for a time was that the nephew of my father's passed by our home on a mission to Koshin China. I happened at that time to be taking a walk with my companions which I seldom did. At my return she was gone. They gave me an account of this sanctity and the things she had said. I was so touched that I was overcome with sorrow. I cried all the rest of the day and night. Early in the morning I went in great distress to seek my confessor. I said to him, what my father am I the only person in our family to be lost? Help me in my salvation. He was greatly surprised to see me so much afflicted and comforted me in the best manner he could not thinking me so bad as I was. In my backsliding I was docile, punctual in opinions careful to confess often. Since I went to him my life was more regular. Oh, the god of love How often has thou knocked at the door of my heart? How often terrified me with appearances of sudden death? All this only may a transient impression I presently return again to my infatilities. This time this take and quite carry off my heart alas What grief I now sustain for having displeasity? What regrets? What exclamations? What shoppings? Who would have thought to see me but that my confession would have lasted as long as my life? Why this thou not, oh my god How can I ever take this heart to thyself when I gave it to thee so fully? Or if thou this take it then oh, why did thou let it revolt again? Thou was surely strong enough to halt it but thou was perhaps in living me to myself display thy mercy that the depth of my iniquity may serve as a trophy to thy goodness I immediately applied myself to every part of my duty I made the general confession with great compaction of heart I frankly confessed all that I knew with many tears I became so changed that I was cursely known I will not forever so much have made the least volunteers leaped they found not any matter for absolution when I confessed I discovered the very smallest faults and god did me the favor to enable me to conquer myself in many things there were left only some remains of passion which gave me some trouble to conquer but as soon as I had by means thereof given any displeasure even to the domestics I begged they pardon in order to subdue my wrath and pride for wrath is the daughter of pride a person truly humble permits not anything to put him in a rage as it is pride which dies the last in the soul this passion which is last destroyed in the outward conduct a soul thoroughly dead to itself finds nothing of rage left there are persons who being very much filled with grace and with peace at the entrance of the resigned path of light and love think they are come that far but they are greatly mistaken for this view of their state these they will readily discover if they are heartily willing to examine two things first, if they are naturally lively warm and violent I speak not of stupid timbers they will find from time to time that they make slips in which trouble and emotion have some share even then they are useful to humble and annihilate them but when annihilation is perfected all passion is gone it is incompatible with this state they will find that they are often arises in them certain motions of anger but the sweetness of grace holds them back they would easily transgress if in any ways they gave way to these motions there are persons who think themselves very mild because nothing prots them it is not of such that I am speaking mildness which has never been put to the prove is often only counterfeit those persons who when unmolested appear to be saints are not sooner exercised by vexing accuracies than their stats up in them and strange number of faults they have thought them dead which only lay dormant because nothing awaken them I followed my religious exercise I shut myself up all day to read and pray I gave all I had to the pool taking even linen to the houses I taught them the catechism and when my parents died out I make them eat with me and serve them with great respect I read the works of St. Francis de Sales and the life of Madame de Chandel there I first learned what mental prayer was and I besought by confessor to teach me that kind of prayer as she did not I used my own endeavours to practice it though without success as I then thought because I could not exercise the imagination I persuaded myself that prayer would not be made without forming to oneself certain ideas a reasoning match this difficulty gave me no small trouble for a long time I was very assitious and prayed earnestly to God to give me the gift of prayer all that I saw in the life of Madame de Chandel charmed me I was so much a child that I thought I ought to do everything I saw in it all the vows she had made I made also one day as I was reading that she had put the name of Jesus on her heart to follow the council set me as a seal upon thy heart for this purpose she had taken a hot iron but upon the holy name was engraved I was very much afflicted that I could not do the same I decided to write that sacred and adorable name in large characters on paper then with ring bones and a needle I fastened it to my skin in four places in that position but I continued a long time after this I turned all my thoughts to become a nun because the love which I had for Saint Francis des Ailes did not permit me to think of any other community than the one of which he was the founder I frequently went to beg the nuns there to receive me into their convert I stole out of my father's house to go and repeatedly solicit my admission there though it was what they eagerly desire even as a temporal advantage yet they never dare let me enter as they very much feared my father to whose fondness for me they were no strangers that I was at that house a niece of my father's to whom I am under great obligations fortune cannot be very favourable to her father it can reduce her in some measure to depend on mine to whom she made known my desire although she will not for anything in the world have hindered or a right vocation yet he could not hear of my design without shedding tears as he happened at this time to be abroad my cousin went to my confessor to desire him to forbid my going to the visitation he dare not however do it plainly for fear of drawing on himself a sediment of that community I still wanted to be a nun and importune my mother excessively to take me to that house she will not do it for fear of grieving my father who was absent and of chapter 4 of volume 1 volume 1, chapter 5 of the autobiography of Madame Keon this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the autobiography of Madame Keon by Jean Keon volume 1, chapter 5 no sooner was my father returned home that he became violently ill my mother was at the same time indisposed in another part of the house I was all alone with him ready to render him every kind of service I was capable of to give him all the beautiful marks of a most sincere affection I do not doubt but my assituity was very agreeable to him I performed the most menial offices unperceived by him taking the time for it when the servants were not at hand as well to mortify myself as to pay due honor to what Jesus Christ said that he came not to be ministered to but to minister when father made me read to him I read with such heart devotion that he was surprised I remember the instruction my sister had given me and the ejaculatory prayers and praises I had learned she had taught me to praise thee oh my God, in all thy works all that I saw called upon me under the homage if it rain I wished every drop to be changed into love and praises my heart was nourished insensibly with thy love and my spirit was incessantly engrossed with the remembrance of thee I seemed to join and partake in all the good that was done in the world that could have wished to have the united hearts of all men to love thee this habit rooted itself so strongly in me that I retain it throughout my greatest wanderings my cousin helped not a little to support me in these good sentiments I was often with her and loved her as she took great care of me with much gentleness her fortune being equal neither to her birth nor her virtue she did with charity and affection what her condition obliged her to do my mother grew jealous fearing I should love my cousin too well and herself too little she who had left me my young years to the care of her maids and since that to my own only requiring if I was in the house troubling herself no father she now require me always to stay with her and never suffer me to be with my cousin with great reluctance my cousin fell ill my mother took that occasion from her home which was a very severe stroke to my heart as well as to that grace which began to down in me my mother was a very virtuous woman she was one of the most charitable women of her age she not only gave the surplus but even the necessities of the house were the needy neglected never any rage to uncame to her without succour she furnished poor mechanics were with to carry on their work a needy tradesman were with to supply their shops from her I think I inherited my charity and love for the poor God favoured me with the blessing of being her successor in that holy exercise there was not one in the town or its environs who did not praise her for this virtue she sometimes gave to the last penny in the house though she had a large family to mendain and yet she did not fail in her faith my mother's only care about me had been all along to have me in the house which indeed is one material point for a girl this habit of being so constantly kept within proved of great service after my marriage it would have been better had she kept me more in her own apartment with an agreeable freedom after I acquired oftener what part of the house I was in after my cousin left me God granted me the grace to forgive injuries with such readiness that my confessor was surprised he knew that some young ladies had out of envy traduce me and I spoke well of them I was seized with an ague which lasted four months in which I suffered much during that time I was enabled to suffer with much resignation and patience in this frame of mind and manner of life I've persevered so long as I continued the practice of Mendelp prayer later we went to pass some days in the country my father took along with us one of his relation a very accomplished young gentleman he had a great desire to marry me but my father resolved not to give me to any near kinsman on account of the difficulty obtaining dispositions put him off without alleging any faults of frivolous reasons for it as this young gentleman was very devout and every day said the office of the virgin I said it with him to have time for it I left off prayer which was to me the first inlet of evils yet I kept up for a long time some share of the spirit of piety for I went to seek out the little shepherdess to instruct them in the religious duties this spirit gradually decayed not being nourished by prayer I became called toward God all my old faults revived to which I added an excessive vanity the love I began to have for myself extinguished what remained in me of the love of God I did not wholly live off mental prayer without asking my confessors leave I told him I thought it better to say the office of the virgin every day than to practice prayer I had no time for both I saw not that this was a strategy of the enemy to draw me from God to entangle me in the snares he had led for me I had time sufficient for both as I had no other occupation than what I prescribed to myself my confessor was easy in the manner not being a man of prayer he gave his consent to my great her oh my God if the value of prayer were but known the great advantage which accrues to the soul from conversing with thee and what consequences it is of to salvation everyone will be a citrus in it it is a stronghold into which the enemy cannot enter they attack it besiege it make a noise about its walls but while we are faithful and hold our station he cannot hurt us it is a like requisity to dictate to children the necessity of prayer as of their salvation alas unhappily it is so sufficient to tell them there is a heaven and hell that they must endeavor to avoid the latter and attain the former yet they are not taught the shortest and easiest way of arriving at it the only way to heaven is prayer a prayer of the heart which everyone is capable of and not of reasonies the fruits of study or exercise of the imagination which in filling the mind with wandering objects rarely settle it instead of warming the heart with love to God they leave it cold and languishing let the poor come let the ignorant and carnal come let the children without reason or knowledge come let the doll of hard hearts which can retain nothing come to the practice of prayer and they shall become wise all ye great, wise and rich have ye not a heart capable of loving what is proper for you and of hating what is destructive? love the sufferer and good hate all evil and ye will be truly wise when ye love anyone it is because ye know the reasons of love and its definitions no certainly ye love because your heart is formed to love what it finds amiable surely you cannot but know that there is a note lovely in the universe but God know ye not that he has created you that he has died for you but if these reasons are not sufficient which of you has not some necessity some trouble or some misfortune which of you does not know how to tell his mality and back relief come then to this founding of all good without complaining to we and impotent creatures who cannot help you come to prayer lay before God your troubles back his grace and above all that you may love him none can exempt himself from loving for none can live without a heart nor the heart without love why should any amuse themselves in seeking reasons for loving love itself let us love without reasoning about it and we shall find ourselves filled with love before the others have learned the reasons which induced to it make trial of this love and you will be wiser in it than the most skillful philosophers in love as in everything else experience instructs better than reasoning come then drink at this founding of living waters instead of the broken systems of the creature which far from allaying your thirst only tend continuously to augment it did you once drink at this founding you will not seek as were for anything to quench your thirst for while ye still continue to draw from this sorts ye will thirst no longer after the world but if ye quit it alas the enemy has the ascendant he will give you of his poison drugs which may have an apparent sweetenance but will assuredly rob you of your life i forsook the founding of living waters when i left of prayer i became as a vineyard exposed to pillage hatches torn down with liberty to all the passengers to ravage it i began to seek in the creature what i had found in god he left me to myself because i first left him it was his will by permitting me to sink into the horrible pit to make me feel the necessity i was in of approaching him in prayer thou has said that thou would destroy those adulterous souls who depart from thee alas it is their departure alone which caused their destruction since in departing from thee o son of righteousness they entered the regions of darkness and the coldness of death from which they will never rise if thou didst not revisit them if thou didst not by thy divine light illuminate thy darkness and by thy enlivening warmth their icy hearts and restore them to life they will never rise i fell then into the greatest of all misfortunes i wander yet father and father from thee oh my god and thou didst gradually retire from a heart which had quitted thee yet such is thy goodness seemed as if thou hadst left me with regret and when this heart was desirous to return again on to thee what speed this thou come to meet it this proof of thy love and mercy shall be to me an everlasting testimony of thy goodness and of my own ingratitude i became still more passionate than i had ever been as age gave more force to nature i was frequently guilt of lying i felt my heart corrupt and vain the spark of divine grace was almost extinguished in me and i fell into a state of indifference and indivotion though i still carefully kept up outside appearances the habit i had acquired of behaving at church made me appear better than i was vanity which had been excluded to my heart now resumed its seed i began to pass a great part of my time before a looking glass i found so much pleasure in viewing myself that i thought others were in the right who practiced the same instead of making use of this exterior which god had given me that i might love him the more it became to me only the means of a vain complacency all seemed to me to look beautiful in my person but i saw not that it cover a polluted soul these render me so inwardly vain that i doubt whether any ever exceeded me the rain there was an affected modesty in my old world deportment that would have deceived the world the highest team i had for myself made me find faults in everyone else of my own sex i had no eyes but to see my own good qualities and to discover the defects of others i hid my own faults from myself or if i marked any yet to me they appear little in comparison of others i excused them and even figured them to myself as perfections every idea i had of others and of myself was false i loved reading to such excess particularly romances that i spend whole days and nights at them sometimes the day broke while i continued to read in so much that for a length of time i almost lost the habit of sleeping i was ever eager to get to the end of the book in hopes of finding something to satisfy a certain craving which i found within me my thirst for reading was only increased the more i read books are strange inventions to destroy youth if they cause no other hurt than the loss of precious time is not that too much i was not restrained but rather encouraged to read them under this fallacious pretext that they taught one to speak well meanwhile through the abundant mercy of my god thou came to seek me from time to time thou dist indeed knock at the door of my heart i was often penetrated with the most lively sorrow a shed abundance of tears i was afflicted to find my state so different from what it was when i enjoy thy sacred presence but my tears were fruitless and my grief in vain i could not of myself get out of this wretched state i wished somehow as charitable as powerful would extricate me as for myself i had no power if i had had any friend who would have examined the cause of this evil and made me have recourse again to prayer why which was the only means of relief all would have been well i was like the prophet in a deep abyss of mire which i could not get out of it i met with reprimands for being in it but none were kind enough to reach out to free me and when i tried vain efforts to get out i only sank the deeper and each fruitless attempt only made me see my own impotence and render me more afflicted oh how much compassion has this sad experience given me for sinners has taught me why so few of them emerge from the miserable state in which they have fallen such a seed only cry out against the disorders and frighten them with threats of future punishment these cries and threats at first make some impression and they use some weak efforts after liberty but after having experienced their insufficiency they gradually abate in their design and lose their courage for trying anymore all that man can say to them afterward is but lost labor though one preached to them incessantly when any for relief run to confess the only true remedy for them is prayer to present themselves before God as criminals back strength of him to rise out of this state then would they soon be changed and brought out of the mire and clay but the devil has falsely persuaded the doctors and the wise men of the age that in order to pray it is necessary first to be perfectly converted hence people are dissuaded from it and hence there is rarely any conversion that is durable the devil is outrageous only against prayer and those that exercise it because he knows it is the true means of taking his pray from him he let us undergo all the austerities we will he neither persecutes those that enjoy them nor those that practice them but no sooner does one enter into a spiritual life a life of prayer but they must prepare for strange crosses all manner of persecutions and condemns in this word are reserved for that life miserable as the condition was to which I was reduced by my infidelities and the little help I had from my confersor I did not fail to say my vocal prayers but today to confess pretty often and to partake of the communion almost every fortnight sometimes I went to church to weep and to pray to the Blessed Virgin to obtain my conversion I loved to hear anyone speak of God I would never tire of the conversation when my father spoke of him I was transported with joy and when he and my mother went on any pilgrimage and were to set off early in the morning I either did not go to bed the night before or hire the girls to awake me early my father's conversation at such times was always of divine matters which afforded me the highest delight and I preferred that subject to any other I also loved the poor and was charitable even while I was so very faulty how strange may this seem to some and how hard to reconcile things so very opposite and of chapter 5 volume 1