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AND that you may see the character of true prayer I will give you not
my own opinion but that of the blessed Antony: whom we have known sometimes
to have been so persistent in prayer that often as he was praying in a
transport of mind, when the sunrise began to appear, we have heard him in
the fervour of his spirit declaiming: Why do you hinder me, O sun, who art
arising for this very purpose; viz., to withdraw me from the brightness of
this true light? And his also is this heavenly and more than human
utterance on the end of prayer: That is not, said he, a perfect prayer,
wherein a monk understands himself and the words which he prays. And if we
too, as far as our slender ability allows, may venture to add anything to
this splendid utterance, we will bring forward the marks of prayer which
are heard from the Lord, as far as we have tried them.
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