Introduction to the Devout Life.
PART THE FIRST.
INSTRUCTIONS AND EXERCISES FOR CONDUCTING THE SOUL FROM HER FIRST DESIRE FOR A DEVOUT LIFE TILL SHE IS BROUGHT TO A FULL RESOLUTION OF EMBRACING IT.
CHAPTER I.
Description of True Devotion.
You aspire to Devotion, Philothea, because, being a Christian, you know it to be a virtue extremely pleasing to the Divine Majesty. But since small faults, committed in the beginning of any business, grow in the progress much greater, and become in the end almost irreparable, you must first know what the virtue of devotion is; for, since there is but one true kind, and many vain and counterfeit, if you cannot distinguish that which is true, you may easily be deceived, and attach yourself to some imprudent and superstitious devotion.
As Aurelius painted all the faces of his pictures to the air and resemblance of the woman he loved, so everyone paints devotion according to his own passion and fancy. He that is addicted to fasting thinks himself very devout if he fasts, even though his heart be at the same time full of rancour; and scrupling to moisten his tongue with wine, or even with water, through sobriety, he makes no difficulty of drinking deep of his neighbour's blood by detraction and calumny. Another accounts himself devout if he recites daily a multiplicity of prayers, though he
