8. Even the gifts and graces of God made him more humble; thus producing their true effect, which is, to abase and elevate the soul both together, to raise it to God, and abase it to itself. In whatever good was done by him he assumed no share at all, but referred all to God the true source. And so in the management of all those talents, he had always his hands clean, without touching what appertaineth to God. Nor would he therefore that any one should consider him in what he said or did, but regard God alone therein. And to one who much desired a visit from him, he wrote thus, “I cannot bear the account you make of my visits and society. Let us look much upon God; let us bind ourselves strictly to Jesus Christ, that we may learn of him fully to renounce ourselves. O, my God, when will it be that we shall eye ourselves no more, when we shall speak no more of ourselves, and when all vanity shall be destroyed!”
9. He likewise esteemed himself most unworthy of any of the grace or favours of God. Of which he says to a friend, “The gifts of God are sometimes so great, that they put us beyond ourselves. As among men if a poor man receives a gift from a prince, according to the grandeur of his own power, he is utterly overwhelmed, and can find no words to express his acknowledgment: So God gives blessings that go beyond our expectations or capacities, and which make us see how unworthy we are, without daring to lift up our eyes; so doth their brightness dazzle, and their greatness astonish us.”
10. The same opinion which he had of himself he was willing, yea desirous that others likewise should have of him. “If I were to wish any thing, said he, it should be, to be much humbled, and to be treated as an off-scouring by men.” And hence he received contempt, when it came, not with patience only, but with joy: of which he gave an evident proof in his first journey to _Dijon_, whence he thus wrote to his director;
“The reports here spread concerning me are, that I have nothing but artifice and shews of devotion; and that I kept private, out of fear by coming abroad of discovering what I was. Most, I find, even of those from whom I expected quite the contrary, have sollicited against me. And hereby God hath shewn me many favours. I have been with them, and received humiliation with great joy. I have been very wary of opening myself in any thing that might recommend me to them. I have only done in my business what truth required; and for any thing else, I have made it matter of confusion, as I ought. I shall be here, I believe as one excommunicate, as the scape-goat of the old law, driven out into the wilderness for my enormous sins. I desire only to love God, and condemn myself.”
11. Nor was it only in his words but in his actions also, that the humility of his heart appeared. Since his entire dedication of himself to God, he would not suffer a cushion to be carried to church for him; but to be there hid and disregarded, he often mingled himself among mechanics and mean persons. He kept himself always as much as he could at the lower end of the church; and frequently, if the door was shut, said his prayers on the outside of it, that he “might not, as he said, put any to the trouble of opening it to a poor sinner.”
*12. During the war at _Paris_, he went himself to buy bread for the poor, and carried through the streets as much as his strength would permit. At the same time offering to take into his care the church plate of a monastery, he pressed them to let him carry it to his lodging, (which was two miles thence) and on foot as he was, a very large and weighty piece. And being desired that when he did them the favour to visit them again, he would come in his coach, by reason of the distance; he answered, “he did not love to make use of a coach, he must endeavour to make himself in every thing very little.” He went therefore thither on foot, and returned at five or six, in the shortest days, sometimes in thawing weather. And being told of the pains he took, he replied, “Our Lord took pains in a far other manner.”
13. When he was assisting with his own hand in the repairing of one of his houses, he thus expressed himself: