The best convent for a woman is the seclusion of her own home. There she may find her vocation and fight her battles, and there she may learn the reality and the earnestness of life.

Not till I was shut up to prayer and to the study of God's word by the loss of earthly joys sickness destroying the flavor of them all did I begin to penetrate the mystery that is learned under the cross. And wondrous as it is, how simple is this mystery! To love Christ, and to know that I love Him this is all.

Here is a little mouth to kiss; here are two more feet to make music with their pattering about my nursery. Here is a soul to train for God, and the body in which it dwells is worth all it will cost, since it is abode of a kingly tenant. I may see less of friends, but I have gained one dearer than them all. Yes, my precious baby, you are welcome to your mothers heart, welcome to her time, her strength, her health, to her most tender cares, to her life-long prayers! Oh how rich I am, how truly, how wondrously blest!

It sweetens every bit of work to think that I am doing it in humble, far-off, yet real imitation of Jesus.

The longer I live the more conscious I am of human frailty, and of the constant, overwhelming need we all have of God’s grace.

Ah, what a life is theirs who live in Christ; How vast the mystery! Reaching in height to heaven, and in its depth The unfathomed sea!

Some of His children must go into the furnace to testify that the Son of God is there with them.