at our Penitence. Let us confound all who would imitate our Guilt; let us take the Part of God against ourselves, and by so doing prevent his Judgment. Our former Irregularities require Tears, Shame, and Sorrow to expiate them. Let us offer up these Sacrifices from our Hearts; let us blush, let us weep. If in these weak Beginnings, Lord, our Heart is not entirely thine, let it at least be made sensible that it ought to be so!

Deliver yourself, Heloise, from the shameful Remains of a Passion which has taken too deep Root. Remember that the least Thought for any other than God is an Adultery. If you could see me here with my meager Face, and melancholy Air, furrounded with Numbers of perfecuting Monks, who are alarmed at my Reputation for Learning, and offended at my lean Visage, as if I threatened them with a Reformation; what would you say of my base Sighs, and of those unprofitable Tears which deceive these credulous Men. Alas!" I am humbled under Love, and not under the Cross. Pity me, and free yourself. If your Vocation be, as you say, my Work, deprive me not of the Merit of it by your continual Inquietudes. Tell me that you will honour the Habit which covers you, by an inward Retirement. Fear God, that you may be delivered from your Frailties. Love him, if you would advance in Virtue. Be not uneasy in the Cloifter, for it is the Dwelling of Saints.. Embrace your Bands, they are the Chains of Christ. Jesus

Jesus: He will lighten them, and bear them with you, if you bear them with Humility.

Without growing severe to a Passion which yet possesses you, learn from your own Misery to fuccour your weak Sisters; pity them upon Confideration of your own Faults. And if any Thoughts too natural shall importune you, fly to the Foot of the Cross, and beg for Mercy; there are Wounds open; lament before the dying Deity. At the Head of a religious Society be not a Slave, and having Rule over Queens, begin to govern yourself. Blush at the least Revolt of your Senses. Remember that even at the Foot of the Altar we often facrifice to lying Spirits, and that no Incense can be more agreeable to them, than that which in those holy Places burns in the Heart of a Religious still sensible of Paffion and Love. If during your Abode in the World, your Soul has acquired a Habit of Loving, feel it now no more but for Jesus Christ. Repent of all the Moments of your Life which you have wasted upon the World, and upon Pleasure; demand them of me, 'tis a Robbery which I am guilty of; take Courage, and boldly reproach me with it.

I have been indeed your Master, but it was only to teach you Sin. You call me your Father; before I had any Claim to this Title, I deserved that of Parricide. I am your Brother, but 'tis the Affinity of our Crimes that has purchased me that Distinction. I am called your Husband, but it is after

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after a publick Scandal. If you have abused the Sanctity of so many venerable Names in the Super scription of your Letter, to do me Honour, and flatter your own Passion, blot them out, and place in their Stead those of a Murtherer, a Villain, an Enemy, who has conspired against your Honour, troubled your Quiet, and betrayed your Innocence. You would have perished through my Means, but for an extraordinary Act of Grace, which, that you might be saved, has thrown me down in the Middle of my Course.

This is the Idea you ought to have of a Fugitive, who endeavours to deprive you of the Hope of seeing him any more. But when Love has once been fincere, how difficult is it to determine to love no more? "Tis a thousand Times more easy to renounce the World than Love. I hate this deceitful faithless World; I think no more of it; but my Heart still wandring, will eternally make me feel the Anguish of having lost you, in spite of all the Convictions of my Understanding. In the mean Time, though I should be so cowardly as to retract what you have read, do not fuffer me to offer myself to your Thoughts, but under this last Notion. Remember my last Endeavours were to feduce your Heart. You perished by my Means, and I with you. The fame Waves swallowed us both up. We waited for Death with Indifference, and the fame Death had carried us headlong to the same Punishments. But Providence has turned off this Blow, and our Shipwreck has thrown us into a Haven. There are Some whom the Mercy of God saves by Afflictions. Let my Salvation be the Fruit of your Prayers! Let me owe it to your Tears or exemplary Holiness! Though my Heart, Lord! be filled with the Love of one of thy Creatures, thy Hand can when it pleases draw out of it those Ideas which fill its whole Capacity. To love Heloise truly, is to leave her intirely to that Quier which Retirement and Virtue afford. I have resolved it; this Letter shall be my last Fault. Adieu.

If I die here, I will give Orders that my Body be carried to the House of the Paraclete. You shall see me in that Condition; not to demand Tears from you, 'twill then be too late; weep rather for me now, to extinguish that Fire which burns me. You shall fee me, to strengthen your Piety by the Horror of this Carcase, and my Death then more eloquent than I can be, will tell you what you love, when you love a Man. I hope you will be contented, when you have finished this mortal Life, to be buried near me. Your cold Ashes need then fear Nothing, and my Tomb will by that Means be more rich and more renowned.

LETTER IV.

HELOISE to ABELARD.

In the following Letter the Passion of Heloise breaks out with more Violence than ever. That which she had received from Abelard, instead of fortifying ber. Resolutions, ferved only to revive in her Memory all their past Endearments and Misfortunes. With this Impression, she writes again to her Husband; and appears now, not so much in the Character of a Religious, ftriving with the Remains of her former Weakness, as in that of an unhappy Woman abandoned to all the Transports of Love and Despair.

To Abelard her well-beloved in Christ Jesus, from Heloise his well-beloved in the fame Christ Jesus.

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Read the Letter I received from you with Abundance of Impatience : In Spite of all my Misfortunes, I hoped to find Nothing in it besides Arguments of Comfort. But how ingenious are Lovers in tormenting themselves! Judge of the exquifite Sensibility and Force of my Love, by that which causes the Grief of my Soul.

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