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THE time spent here, and the dwelling in solitude, and meditation,
through which you think that we ought to have attained perfection of the
inner man, has only done this for us; viz., teach us that which we are
unable to be, without making us what we are trying to be. Nor do we feel
that by this knowledge we have acquired any fixed steadfastness of the
purity which we long for, or any strength and firmness; but only an
increase of confusion and shame: for though our meditation in all our
discipline aims at this in our daily studies, and endeavours from trembling
beginnings to reach a sure and unwavering skill, and to begin to know
something of what originally it knew but vaguely or was altogether ignorant
of, and by advancing by sure steps (so to speak) towards the condition of
that discipline, to habituate itself perfectly to it without any
difficulty, I find on the contrary that while I am struggling in this
desire for purity, I have only got far enough to know what I cannot be. And
hence I feel that nothing but trouble results to me from all this
contrition of heart, so that matter for tears is never wanting, and yet I
do not cease to be what I ought not to be. And so what is the good of
having learnt what is best, if it cannot be attained even when known? for
when we have been feeling that the aim of our heart was directed towards
what we purposed, insensibly the mind returns to its previous wandering
thoughts and slips back with a more violent rush, and is taken up with
daily distractions and incessantly drawn away by numberless things that
take it captive, so that we almost despair of the improvement which we long
for, and all these observances seem useless. Since the mind which every
moment wanders off vaguely, when it is brought back to the fear of God or
spiritual contemplation, before it is established in it, darts off and
strays; and when we have been roused and have discovered that it has
wandered from the purpose set before it, and want to recall it to the
meditation from which it has strayed, and to bind it fast with the firmest
purpose of heart, as if with chains, while we are making the attempt it
slips away from the inmost recesses of the heart swifter than a snake.
Wherefore we being inflamed by daily exercises of this kind, and yet not
seeing that we gain from them any strength and stability in heart are
overcome and in despair driven to this opinion; viz., to believe that it is
from no fault of our own but from a fault of our nature that these
wanderings of mind are found in mankind.
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