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242 Beauty, Supreme Good, and the Infinite Sea of all Perfections? He runs after you, calling you with many, many a strong cry, with new blessings, as well as by those already received.

Do you know from whence your so great misery arises? It is because you do not pray; it is because you do not meditate. Therefore, being without light, and without heat, it is no wonder that you cannot turn yourself from the works of darkness. Enter, enter now, O soul, O lukewarm Religious, into the school of meditation and prayer of which we have been speaking; and in it you will learn by experience that it is the true study of a Christian and of a Religious to endeavour to deny self-will, so as to do the Will of God, and to hate self, so as to love God. All other studies without this (though of all the sciences put together) are nothing else but the fuel of presumption and of pride, and the more they enlighten the understanding, the more they darken the will, to the ruin of the souls of those who make them their pursuit.

HE hatred of ourselves is a necessary aid to the human will, for without it you will