p225 [From the French.] Mons. Eynard, Where His will is, there is happiness, and I am quite happy here. Christ is my happiness, beloved brother, but it is in the path of His will that we find the enjoyment of His love. Thus, feeble as I am, I find in Him a source of profound and ineffable joy. This joy has a character of peace which is connected with the revelation of Christ Himself to the soul, and when He is in question, it leaves no room for the idea of something that changes; not that we reason about it, but we know whom we have believed, and He will keep that which we have committed to Him until that day. Besides, our treasure is Himself. Peace be to you, beloved brother. May God keep us near Himself. It is scarcely a conviction of faith which assures me that happiness, the only happiness, is there. When, in spite of so many shortcomings, we have found His love always faithful for long years, and are in the present enjoyment of His love, no doubt it is faith in one sense, but it is more than that: we dwell in Him, whatever may be our weakness, and He dwells in us, and we find our rest in Himself. Everything else is only folly which passes with the breath of the life which is occupied with it (and often long before), and is but vanity while we possess it. God will have us walk by faith, but this turns to knowledge by daily communion.

London, October, 1852.

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