he so influenced it against itself that it had to cut off all its
being aware of it, for the stages that are to follow. 9. The trials of this stage are alternating dryness and ease. Dryness purifies the attachment or tendency and natural taste that we have for the enjoyment of God. So that the whole of this stage is passed in these alternations of enjoyment, dryness, and ease, without many temptations, except very transitory ones, or certain faults; for at every stage the faults of nature are much more liable to overtake us in times of dryness than in times of interior joy, when the anointing of grace preserves us from a thousand evils. In the stages thus far, the soul is engaged in opposing its evil habits, and in endeavouring to overcome them by all sorts of painful self denial. 10. In the beginning, when God turned the eye of the soul inward, he so influenced it against itself that it had to cut off all its pleasures, even the most innocent, and load itself with every kind of affliction. God gives no respite to some in this regard, until the life of Nature, that is, of the exterior senses expressed in appetites, likes and dislikes, is wholly destroyed. 11. This destruction of the appetites and dislikes of the outward senses belongs to the second stage, which I have called the touch in the will, and in which the highest and greatest virtue is practised, especially when the inward drawing is vigorous and the anointing very strong. For there is no sort of method that God does not show to the soul, to enable it to conquer and overcome self in everything; so that at length, by constant practice, accompanied by the anointing, the spirit gets the upper hand, and the interior part comes under subjection without resistance. There is, then, no further trouble from this source, any more than if all external feeling had been taken away. This state is mistaken, by those who understand little, for a state of death; it is, indeed, the death of the senses, but there is yet a long way to that of the spirit.
CHAPTER 3. THE THIRD STAGE: STILLNESS AND INTERIOR SACRIFICE. 12. When we have for some time enjoyed the repose of a victory that has cost us so much trouble, and think ourselves forever relieved from an enemy whose power has been destroyed, we enter into the third stage which is a way of faith more or less strong, according to the state. We enter into a condition of alternate dryness and ease; and in this dryness, the soul perceives certain exterior weaknesses, natural defects, which, though slight, take it by surprise; it feels,