| This has been said to you only that you mightest know at what you should aim, after what you should strive, to what you should turn your heart and mind. And if ever you losest sight of it, let it be to you as if your eternal salvation were taken away from you; and do you speedily turn to it again, so that you mayest again obtain possession of it; and then must you look carefully to yourself, for, if it escape from you, you are like a sailor from whose grasp the oars in a strong swell have slipped, and who does not know whither he shall direct his course. But if you mayest not as yet have a constant abiding place in divine contemplation, let the perpetually repeated collecting of your wandering thoughts, and the assiduous withdrawing of yourself to engage in it, procure you constancy so far as it is possible. Listen, listen, My child, to the faithful instructions of your faithful Father. O give heed to them! Shut them up in the bottom of your heart; think Who it is that teaches you all this, and how very much in earnest He is. Dost you wish to become ever more and more faithful? Then set My precepts before your eyes. Wherever you sit, standest, or walkest, think that I am present to you, and that I either admonish or converse with you. O, My child, keep within yourself keep yourself pure, disengaged, and retired. See, in this way will you become conscious of My words; that good, too, will be made known to you which, as yet, is greatly hidden from you. | |