Brother Lawrence, whose collected conversations and letters are entitled The Practice of the Presence of God, lived in the seventeenth century. He was born Nicholas Herman in French Lorraine, served as a soldier, and then was converted through seeing a tree in winter, stripped of its leaves, and reflecting on the fact that within a short time its leaves would be renewed through the love, providence, and power of God. His conversion led him to enter the monastery of the barefooted Carmelites at Paris in 1666. In the monastery Lawrence, as he was then called, was assigned to the kitchen where he had charge of utensils. At first he abhorred the work. But he set himself so to walk in God’s presence that he could worship God and serve others in the most humble circumstances.