will rest. For thou, O Lord, hast singularly settled me in hope. And now what is my hope? Is it not the Lord? and my substance is with thee. Uphold me according to thy word, and I shall live; and let me not be confounded in my expectation. In thee, O Lord, have I hoped; let me never be confounded. Deliver me in thy justice, &c.
STEP III.
SINCERE CHARITY.
Thy will he done, as, &c.
And what is thy Will, O most loving Father, but that should love thee? Behold, thou commandest me to love thee with all my heart and with all my mind, &c.; but give what thou commandest, and command what thou wilt. For thou seest how many are the hindrances which we suffer to thy Will, and obstacles to thy Love, while the corruptible body is a load upon the soul. I wish, indeed, so to love thee; and I am delighted with thy law according to the inward man; but I see another law in my members fighting against the law of my mind, so that I do not the good which I will.
Alas! unhappy man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Thy grace, by Jesus Christ our Lord. Grant, therefore, that I may not lose my soul by loving it, but that, by a saving hate, I may keep it to life eternal.
But I hear too, that if any man love the world, or the things which are in the world, the charity of God is not in him. Therefore let love as strong, nay, stronger than death, drive out of my heart that wicked love, that there may be nothing, especially when I depart out of this world, able to separate me from the love which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Let the force of thy love swallow me up, that, for the love of thy love, I may die to the world, because thou, for the love of my love, hast vouchsafed to die upon the Cross.
STEP IV.
COMMUNICATION IN THE SACRAMENTS.
Our daily bread.
O God, who feedest me hitherto from my youth; oh, forsake me not even to old age, and when my strength fails me! For in journeying through this desert to the
