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NESTEROS: From this very fact, from which there springs up for you the
utmost despair of your purification, a speedy and effectual remedy may
arise if only you will transfer to the reading of and meditation upon the
writings of the Spirit, the same diligence and earnestness which you say
that you showed in those secular studies of yours. For your mind is sure to
be taken up with those poems until it is gaining with the same zeal and
assiduity other matters for it to reflect upon, and is in labour with
spiritual and divine things instead of unprofitable earthly ones. But when
these are thoroughly and entirely conceived and it has been nourished upon
them, then by degrees the former thoughts can be expelled and utterly got
rid of. For the mind of man cannot be emptied of all thoughts, and so as
long as it is not taken up with spiritual interests, is sure to be occupied
with what it learnt long since. For as long as it has nothing to recur to
and exercise itself upon unweariedly, it is sure to fall back upon what it
learnt in childhood, and ever to think about what it took in by long use
and meditation. In order then that this spiritual knowledge may be
strengthened in you with a lasting steadfastness, and that you may not
enjoy it only for a time like those who just touch it not by their own
exertions but at the recital of another, and if I may use the expression,
perceive its scent in the air; but that it may be laid up in your heart,
and deeply noted in it, and thoroughly seen and handled, it is well for you
to use the utmost care in securing that, even if perhaps you hear things
that you know very well produced in the Conference, you do not regard them
in a scornful and disdainful way because you already know them, but that
you lay them to your heart with the same eagerness, with which the words of
salvation which we are longing for ought to be constantly poured into our
ears or should ever proceed from our lips. For although the narration of
holy things be often repeated, yet in a mind that feels a thirst for true
knowledge the satiety will never create disgust, but as it receives it
every day as if it were something new and what it wanted however often it
may have taken it in, it will so much the more eagerly either hear or
speak, and from the repetition of these things will gain confirmation of
the knowledge it already possesses, rather than weariness of any sort from
the frequent Conference. For it is a sure sign of a mind that is cold and
proud, if it receives with disdain and carelessness the medicine of the
words of salvation, although it be offered with the zeal of excessive
persistence. For "a soul that is full jeers at honeycomb: but to a soul
that is in want even little things appear sweet." And so if these things
have been carefully taken in and stored up in the recesses of the soul and
stamped with the seal of silence, afterwards like some sweet scented wine
that maketh glad the heart of man, they will, when mellowed by the
antiquity of the thoughts and by long-standing patience, be brought forth
from the jar of your heart with great fragrance, and like some perennial
fountain will flow abundantly from the veins of experience and irrigating
channels of virtue and will pour forth copious streams as if from some deep
well in your heart. For that will happen in your case, which is spoken in
Proverbs to one who has achieved this in his work: "Drink waters from your
own cisterns and from the fount of your own wells. Let waters from your own
fountain flow in abundance for you, but let your waters pass through into
your streets." And according to the prophet Isaiah: "Thou shalt be like
a watered garden, and like a fountain of water whose waters shall not fail.
And the places that have been desolate for ages shall be built in thee;
thou shalt raise up the foundations of generation and generation; and thou
shalt be called the repairer of the fences, turning the paths into
rest." And that blessedness shall come upon thee which the same prophet
promises: "And the Lord will not cause thy teacher to flee away from thee
any more, and thine eyes shall see thy teacher. And thine ears shall hear
the word of one admonishing thee behind thy back: This is the way, walk ye
in it, and go not aside either to the right hand or to the left.' And so
it will come to pass that not only every purpose and thought of your heart,
but also all the wanderings and rovings of your imagination will become to
you a holy and unceasing pondering of the Divine law.
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