O dear Christ! O sweet Christ! O loving Christ! oh, more than brother, friend! oh, more than any other being can be! O Son of God! oh, Thou who showest forth the pure love of God! oh, Thou inexpressible Love! draw me nearer Thee, let me feel more of Thy purity, Thy love! Oh, baptize me with Thy Spirit and loosen my tongue that I may speak of Thy love to men! Oh, it cannot be spoken of, nor can our hearts feel its greatness.

God! what is Thy mercy that Thou sufferest us to live?
Our ingratitude is too great to be uttered.
Lord, I am silent, for who can speak in Thy presence?
O Father! O Love! O Loving-kindness! My heart could fly away!" On his birthday, December 18, 1843, having finished his twenty-third year, he puts down an account of conscience in the form of prayers and aspirations to God, breathing a deep sense of humility, expressing regret for his inactivity, his lack of gratitude for favors both spiritual and temporal, and adding a fervent appeal for more light and greater courage.

In almost every entry of any length in the diary during this period he complains of his lack of solitude and of the means of obtaining it.

His mind, after arriving home, was tossed with many interior distresses which he could not communicate to his brothers, nor even to his mother, with any hope of assuagement, but which silence and solitude enabled him to soothe by prayer.

On the last day of the year he reverts to the great changes which 1843 had witnessed in his soul, and which, he says, were accompanied by bitter anguish.