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

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SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 14I

and is never lost in this degree. It is embroiled and precipitated j one wave follows another, and the other takes it up and crashes it by its precipitation. Yet this water finds on the slope of the mountain certain flat places where it takes a little relaxation. It delights in the clearness of its waters ; and it sees that its falls, its course, this breaking of its waves upon the rocks, have served to render it more pure. It finds itself delivered from its noise and storms, and thinks it has now found its resting- place ; and it believes this the more readily because it cannot doubt that the state through which it has just passed has greatly purified it, for it sees that its waters are clearer, and it no longer perceives the disagreeable odour which certain stagnant parts had given to it on the top of the mountain ; it has even acquired a certain insight into its own condi-tion ; it has seen by the troubled state of its passions (the waves) that they were not lost, but only asleep. As when it was descending the moun-tain, on its way to this level, it thought it was .losing its way, and had no hope of recovering its lost peace, so now that it no longer hears the dash