When the mind for want of being sufficiently reduced by recollection at our first engaging in devotion has contracted certain bad habits of wandering and dissipation they are difficult to overcome and commonly draw us even against our wills to the things of the earth.I believe one remedy for this is to confess our faults and to humble ourselves before God. I do not advise you to use multiplicity of words in prayer many words and long discourses being often the occasions of wandering. Hold yourself in prayer before God like a dumb or paralytic beggar at a rich mans gate. Let it be your business to keep your mind in the presence of the Lord. If it sometimes wander and withdraw itself from Him do not much disquiet yourself for that trouble and disquiet serve rather to distract the mind than to re-collect it the will must bring it back in tranquility. If you persevere in this manner God will have pity on you.

The difficulties of life do not have to be unbearable. It is the way we look at them - through faith or unbelief - that makes them seem so. We must be convinced that our Father is full of love for us and that He only permits trials to come our way for our own good.Let us occupy ourselves entirely in knowing God. The more we know Him the more we will desire to know Him. As love increases with knowledge the more we know God the more we will truly love Him. We will learn to love Him equally in times of distress or in times of great joy.