for after seeing such a death, and knowing what his life had
been, I, in order to be in any wise like unto such a father,
ought to have grown better. His confessor, a most learned
Dominican, [15] used to say that he had no doubt he went straight
to heaven. [16] He had heard his confession for some years, and
spoke with praise of the purity of his conscience.

27. This Dominican father, who was a very good man, fearing God,
did me a very great service; for I confessed to him. He took
upon himself the task of helping my soul in earnest, and of
making me see the perilous state I was in. [17] He sent me to
Communion once a fortnight; [18] and I, by degrees beginning to
speak to him, told him about my prayer. He charged me never to
omit it: that, anyhow, it could not do me anything but good.
I began to return to it--though I did not cut off the occasions
of sin--and never afterwards gave it up. My life became most
wretched, because I learned in prayer more and more of my faults.
On one side, God was calling me; on the other, I was following
the world. All the things of God gave me great pleasure; and I
was a prisoner to the things of the world. It seemed as if I
wished to reconcile two contradictions, so much at variance one
with another as are the life of the spirit and the joys and
pleasures and amusements of sense. [19]

28. I suffered much in prayer; for the spirit was slave, and not
master; and so I was not able to shut myself up within
myself--that was my whole method of prayer--without shutting up
with me a thousand vanities at the same time. I spent many years
in this way; and I am now astonished that any one could have
borne it without abandoning either the one or the other. I know