there are which he who really desires to make progress will often
stumble on, though he may not be very much on the watch for them.
If with this there be a little love, the soul is comforted, the
heart is softened, and tears flow. Sometimes it seems that we do
violence to ourselves and weep; at other times, our Lord seems to
do so, so that we have no power to resist Him. His Majesty seems
to reward this slight carefulness of ours with so grand a gift as
is this consolation which He ministers to the soul of seeing
itself weeping for so great a Lord. I am not surprised; for the
soul has reason enough, and more than enough, for its joy. Here
it comforts itself--here it rejoices.

3. The comparison which now presents itself seems to me to be
good. These joys in prayer are like what those of heaven must
be. As the vision of the saints, which is measured by their
merits there, reaches no further than our Lord wills, and as the
blessed see how little merit they had, every one of them is
satisfied with the place assigned him: there being the very
greatest difference between one joy and another in heaven, and
much greater than between one spiritual joy and another on
earth--which is, however, very great. And in truth, in the
beginning, a soul in which God works this grace thinks that now
it has scarcely anything more to desire, and counts itself
abundantly rewarded for all the service it has rendered Him.
And there is reason for this: for one of those tears--which, as I
have just said, are almost in our own power, though without God
nothing can be done--cannot, in my opinion, be purchased with all
the labours of the world, because of the great gain it brings us.
And what greater gain can we have than some testimony of our
having pleased God? Let him, then, who shall have attained to