CHAPTER VIII.

THIRD DEGREE OF THE PASSIVE WAY OF FAITH IN ITS CONSUMMATION— CONSUMMATED STATE OF SPIRITUAL DEATH — BURIAL — DECAY — ADVICE AS TO THE CONDUCT OF PERSONS IN THESE CONDITIONS, WHICH ARE FOL-LOWED BY A NEW LIFE.

T^HE torrent, as we have said, has passed through every imaginable vicissitude. It has been dashed against rocks ; indeed, its course has been but a succession of falls from rock to rock ; but it has always reappeared, and we have never seen it really lost. Now it begins to lose itself in gulf after gulf. Formerly it still had a course, though it was so precipitate, so confused, and so irregular ; but here it is engulphed with a yet greater precipitation in un-searchable depths. For a long time it disappears altogether from view, then we perceive it slightly, but more by hearing than by sight, and it only appears to be again precipitated in a deeper gulf. It falls from abyss to abyss, from precipice to precipice,