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A short method of prayer, and Spiritual torrents, tr. by A.W. Marston

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SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. lOI

vanced. O human science ! you are so little worth, and yet with you men do not fail to take every pre-caution! O science mysterious and divine! you are so great and so necessary ; and yet they neglect you, they limit you, they contract you, they do violence to you ! Oh, will there never be a school of religion ! Alas ! by wishing to make it a study, man has marred it. He has sought to give rules and limits to the Spirit of God, who is without limit.

O poor powerless souls ! you are better fitted to answer God*s purposes, and, if you are faithful, your devotion will be more pleasing to Him, than that of those great intellects which make prayer a study rather than a devotion. More than this, I say that such souls as these, who appear so powerless and so incapable, are worthy of consideration, provided they only knock at the door, and wait with a humble patience until it be opened to them. Those persons of great intellect and subtle understanding, who can-not remain a moment in silence before God, who make a continual Babel, who are so well able to give an account of their devotion in all its parts, who go through it always according to their own will, and