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WHEREFORE a monk's whole attention should thus be fixed on one point,
and the rise and circle of all his thoughts be vigorously restricted to it;
viz., to the recollection of God, as when a man, who is anxious to raise on
high a vault of a round arch, must constantly draw a line round from its
exact centre, and in accordance with the sure standard it gives discover by
the laws of building all the evenness and roundness required. But if anyone
tries to finish it without ascertaining its centre--though with the utmost
confidence in his art and ability, it is impossible for him to keep the
circumference even, without any error, or to find out simply by looking at
it how much he has taken off by his mistake from the beauty of real
roundness, unless he always has recourse to that test of truth and by its
decision corrects the inner and outer edge of his work, and so finishes the
large and lofty pile to the exact point. So also our mind, unless by
working round the love of the Lord alone as an immovably fixed centre,
through all the circumstances of our works and contrivances, it either fits
or rejects the character of all our thoughts by the excellent compasses, if
I may so say, of love, will never by excellent skill build up the structure
of that spiritual edifice of which Paul is the architect, nor possess that
beautiful house, which the blessed, David desired in his heart to show to
the Lord and said: "I have loved the beauty of Thine house and the place of
the dwelling of Thy glory;" but will without foresight raise in his
heart a house that is not beautiful, and that is unworthy of the Holy
Ghost, one that will presently fall, and so will receive no glory from the
reception of the blessed Inhabitant, but will be miserably destroyed by the
fall of his building.
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