MEDITATION XXVI.
ON THE FIVE SENSES AND EXTERIOR FACULTIES.
POINT I.
1. The first point shall be to recall to my remembrance the sins that I have committed by my five tenses and exterior faculties of my body, accusing myself of them before our Lord.
i. First, with my eyes I have sinned, in delighting to see beautiful, vain, curious, or hurtful things, only for vanity, or curiosity, or sensuality, with immodesty and wantonness of flesh, and disedification of others; so that I often sin in the things that I behold, or in the intention with which I behold them, or in the manner of beholding them, carrying lofty eyes, and lightly allowing them to wander on all sides.
ii. My ears I have had open to hear vain and curious talk, impertinent novelties, flattery and praises of myself, murmurings and detractions of others, without reprehending them or stopping them, or so much as showing displeasure of them, when I was obliged to it And having so much relish in hearing these things, I have been disgusted in hearing good talk, and displeased to hear sermons, and the advice and corrections of those that were obliged to give me them.
iii. With the smell, taste, and touchy I have in many ways sinned in gluttony and luxury, as has been declared in the meditations of these vices.
iv. But what shall I say of the sins of the tongue? For some words I have spoken against the due respect to the
