"My Son, make it no matter of thine, if thou see others honoured
and exalted, and thyself despised and humbled. Lift up thine
heart to Me in heaven, and then the contempt of men upon earth
will not make thee sad."

2. O Lord, we are in blindness, and are quickly seduced by
vanity. If I look rightly within myself, never was injury done
unto me by any creature, and therefore I have nought whereof to
complain before Thee. But because I have many times and
grievously sinned against Thee, all creatures do justly take arms
against me. Therefore to me confusion and contempt are justly
due, but to Thee praise and honour and glory. And except I
dispose myself for this, namely, to be willing that every
creature should despise and desert me, and that I should be
esteemed altogether as nothing, I cannot be inwardly filled with
peace and strength, nor spiritually enlightened, nor fully united
to Thee.


CHAPTER XLII

That our peace is not to be placed in men

"My Son, if thou set thy peace on any person because thou hast
high opinion of him, and art familiar with him, thou shalt be
unstable and entangled. But if thou betake thyself to the
ever-living and abiding Truth, the desertion or death of a friend
shall not make thee sad. In Me ought the love of thy friend to
subsist, and for My sake is every one to be loved, whosoever he
be, who appeareth to thee good, and is very dear to thee in this