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

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SPIRITUAL TORRENTS. 1 43

hurried, and you think you are lost. Nay, do not fear; you are not lost, but the time of your happi-ness is not yet come. There must be many more disturbances and losses before then ; you have but just commenced your course.

At last this dashing torrent feels that it has gained the foot of the mountain and another level spot. It resumes its former calm, and even a deeper one j and after having passed it may be years in these changes, it enters the third degree, before speaking of which I will touch upon the condition of those who enter it, and the first steps in it The soul having passed some time in the tranquillity of which we have spoken, which it imagines it has secured for ever, and having, as it supposes, acquired all the virtues in their full extent, believing all its passions to be dead ; when it is expecting to enjoy with the greatest safety a happiness it has no fear of losing, is astonished to find that, instead of mount-ing higher, or at least remaining in its present posi-tion, it comes to the slope of the mountain. It begins, to its amazement, to be sensible of an in-clination for the things it had given up. It sees