CHAPTER V.

IMPERFECTIONS, INTERIOR AND EXTERIOR, OF THIS FIRST DEGREE — MISTAKES THAT ARE MADE IN IT — ITS PAS-SIVITY — SPIRITUAL DRYNESS, MINGLED WITH A TEN-DER BUT SELF-INTERESTED LOVE, WHICH NEEDS THE EXPERIENCE AND PURIFICATIONS OF THE FOLLOWING DEGREE.

T^HE soul in the degree of which I have just spoken can and does make great advances, going from love to love, and from cross to cross ; but it falls so frequently, and is so selfish, that it may be said to move only at a snail's pace, although it appears to itself and to others to progress infinitely. The tor-rent is now in a flat country, and has not yet found the slope of the mountain down which it may pre-cipitate itself, and take a course which is never to be stopped.

The faults of those in this degree are a certain self- esteem, more hidden and deeply rooted than it was