read St. Thomas on that passage will see how carefully they are
to be examined who, in the Church of God, manifest any particular
gift that may be profitable or hurtful to our neighbour, and how
watchful the examiners ought to be lest the fire of the Spirit of
God should be quenched in the good, and others cowed in the
practices of the perfect Christian life.

"3. Judging by the revelations made to her, this woman, even
though she may be deceived in something, is at least not herself
a deceiver, because she tells all the good and the bad so simply,
and with so great a wish to be correct, that no doubt can be made
as to her good intention; and the greater the reason for trying
spirits of this kind, because there are persons in our day who
are deceivers with the appearance of piety, the more necessary it
is to defend those who, with the appearance, have also the
reality, of piety. For it is a strange thing to see how lax and
worldly people delight in seeing those discredited who have an
appearance of goodness. God complained of old, by the Prophet
Ezekiel, ch. xiii., of those false prophets who made the just to
mourn and who flattered sinners, saying: 'Maerere fecisti cor
justi mendaciter, quem Ego non contristavi: et comfortastis manus
impii.' In a certain sense this may be said of those who
frighten souls who are going on by the way of prayer and
perfection, telling them that this way is singular and full of
danger, that many who went by it have fallen into delusions, and
that the safest way is that which is plain and common, travelled
by all.

"4. Words of this kind, clearly, sadden the hearts of those who
would observe the counsels of perfection in continual prayer, so