and must follow the inward; so that when we are employed in active
too, that the strength it had received for the struggle is dying away. This is caused by the loss of our active, inward force; for although the soul, in the second stage, imagines itself to be silent before God, it is not entirely so. It does not speak, indeed, either in heart or by mouth, but it is in an active striving after God and constant outbreathing of love, so that, being the subject of the most powerful loving activity, exerted by the Divine Love towards Himself, it is continually leaping, as it were, towards its object, and its activity is accompanied by a delightful and almost constant peace. As it is from this activity of love that we gain the strength to overcome nature, it is then that we practise the greatest virtues and most severe self denial. 13. But as this activity decays, and is lost in a loving stillness, our strength of resistance sinks and diminishes, and, as this stage advances, and the soul becomes more and more still, it becomes more and more powerless in combat. As God becomes strong within, so we become weak. Some regard this impossibility of resistance as a great temptation, but they do not see that all our labour, aided and assisted by grace, can only conquer our outward senses, after which God takes gradual possession of our interior, and becomes Himself our purifier. And as He required all our watchfulness while He continued us in loving activity, so He now requires all our faithfulness to let Him work while He begins to render Himself Lord by subjecting the flesh to the Spirit. 14. For it must be noted that all our outward perfection depends on, and must follow the inward; so that when we are employed in active devotion, however simple, we are actively engaged against ourselves just as simply. 15. The second stage destroys the outward senses, the third, the inward; and this is brought about by means of this strong stillness. But as God then works within, He seems to neglect the outward; hence the reappearance of defects, though feebly and only in a time of dryness, which we thought extinct. 16. The nearer we get to the conclusion of the third stage, the longer and more frequent are our dry patches, and the greater our weakness. This purification serves to destroy our internal feelings, as the loving activity put an end to our external, and at each stage there are alternations of dryness and enjoyment. The dryness serves to purify it from its barrenness and weakness. As soon as we cease, from inability, to practise acts of self denial he have chosen, those of