FIRST LETTER.


Since you desire so earnestly that I should communicate to you the
method by which I arrived at that _habitual sense of_ GOD'S
_Presence_, which our LORD, of His mercy, has been pleased to
vouch-safe to me, I must tell you that it is with great difficulty
that I am prevailed on by your importunities; and now I do it only
upon the terms that you show my letter to nobody. If I knew that you
should let it be seen, all the desire that I have for your advancement
would not be able to determine me to it. The account I can give you
is:

Having found in many books different methods of going to GOD, and
divers practices of the spiritual life, I thought this would serve
rather to puzzle me than facilitate what I sought after, which was
nothing but how to become wholly GOD'S. This made me resolve to give
the all for the all; so after having given myself wholly to GOD, that
He might take away my sin, _I renounced, for the love of Him,
everything that was not He; and I began to live as if there was none
but He and I in the world_. Sometimes I considered myself before Him
as a poor criminal at the feet of his judge; at other times I beheld
Him in my heart as my FATHER, as my GOD: I worshipped Him the oftenest
that I could, keeping my mind in His holy Presence, and recalling it
as often as I found it wandered from Him. I found no small pain in
this exercise, and yet I continued it, notwithstanding all the
difficulties that occurred, without troubling or disquieting myself
when my mind had wandered involuntarily. I made this my business as
much all the day long as at the appointed times of prayer; for at all
times, every hour, every minute, even in the height of my business, I