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ALTHOUGH even besides the fresh matter which has lately arisen, our
delight in the former conference which was held on the character of prayer
would summon us to postpone everything else and return to your holiness,
yet this grievous error of Abbot Sarapion, conceived, as we fancy, by the
craft of most vile demons, adds somewhat to this desire of ours. For it is
no small despair by which we are cast down when we consider that through
the fault of this ignorance he has not only utterly lost all those labours
which he has performed in so praiseworthy a manner for fifty years in this
desert, but has also incurred the risk of eternal death. And so we want
first to know why and wherefore so grievous an error has crept into him.
And next we should like to be taught how we can arrive at that condition in
prayer, of which you discoursed some time back not only fully but
splendidly. For that admirable Conference has had this effect upon us, that
it has only dazzled our minds and has not shown us how to perform or secure
it.
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