strikes the hour it may serve as an alarum to prayer. But those that are very fervent employ much more frequency, imitating the holy monks of Egypt, of whom Cassian says, that when they laboured, all that day they also prayed: "Preces et orationes per singula momenta miscentes;" [1] "Mingling with their handiworks prayers and affections every moment of the day and by this short method they arrived in a little time to much sanctity and attained to great merits. Nor is it to be wondered at that we should be very eager of this holy exercise; for as St. Bonaventure [2] says) at all times and at all hours we may gain by prayer that which is of much more value than the whole world. And we see manifestly that so it is; for if a man should waste the whole day in framing interior acts of blasphemies, vengeance, hatred of God, and purposes of other great and enormous sins, in the end of the day he shall have merited most terrible torments; so, on the other hand, if he spend it in the interior acts of this mental prayer, multiplying good desires and determinations to please Almighty God, with petitions of virtues, in the end of the day he will find himself enriched with incredible gain of celestial gifts and of an everlasting reward; for God is no less liberal in rewarding than he is rigorous in chastising.
8. We will put many of these ejaculatory prayers in the meditations of this book, especially in the third part; considering some short prayers that were made to Christ our Lord by some leprous and blind men, by the woman of Canaan, the sisters of Lazarus, and other such like.
