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WHEREFORE we ought to pray often but briefly, lest if we are long about
it our crafty foe may succeed in implanting something in our heart. For
that is the true sacrifice, as "the sacrifice of God is a broken spirit."
This is the salutary offering, these are pure drink offerings, that is the
"sacrifice of righteousness," the "sacrifice of praise," these are true and
fat victims, "holocausts full of marrow," which are offered by contrite and
humble hearts, and which those who practise this control and fervour of
spirit, of which we have spoken, with effectual power can sing: "Let my
prayer be set forth in Thy sight as the incense: let the lifting up of my
hands be an evening sacrifice." But the approach of the right hour and
of night warns us that we ought with fitting devotion to do this very
thing, of which, as our slender ability allowed, we seem to have propounded
a great deal, and to have prolonged our conference considerably, though we
believe that we have discoursed very little when the magnificence and
difficulty of the subject are taken into account.
With these words of the holy Isaac we were dazzled rather than
satisfied, and after evening service had been held, rested our limbs for a
short time, and intending at the first dawn again to return under promise
of a fuller discussion departed, rejoicing over the acquisition of these
precepts as well as over the assurance of his promises. Since we felt that
though the excellence of prayer had been shown to us, still we had not yet
understood from his discourse its nature, and the power by which
continuance in it might be gained and kept.
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