comfort. The servitor groaned deeply and beat his breast, and
hurried to the door, and as he did not find the woman there, was
much distressed. The porter, however, looked about for her
everywhere, and when he found her, still weeping, bade her return to
the door. When she came, the servitor received her gently, and
comforted her sorrowing heart. Then he went back from her to the
chapter-house, and immediately God was with him, with His Divine
consolations, as before.

Then said the maiden: It must be easy for him to bear sufferings, to
whom God gives such jubilation and internal joys. And yet, said the
servitor, all had to be paid for afterward with great suffering.
However, at last, when all this had passed away, and God's appointed
time had come, the same grace of jubilation was restored to him, and
remained with him almost continuously both at home and abroad, in
company and alone. Often in the bath or at table the same grace was
with him; but it was now internal, and did show itself outside.

Then the maiden said: My father, I have now learned what God is; but
I am also eager to know where He is. Thou shalt hear, said the
servitor. The opinion of the theologians is that God is in no
particular place, but that He is everywhere, and all in all. The
same doctors say that we come to know a thing through its name. Now
one doctor says that Being is the first name of God. Turn your eyes,
therefore, to Being in its pure and naked simplicity, and take no
notice of this or that substance which can be torn asunder into
parts and separated; but consider Being in itself, unmixed with any
Not-Being. Whatever is nothing, is the negation of what is; and what
is, is the negation of what is not. A thing which has yet to be, or
which once was, is not now in actual being. Moreover, we cannot know