ined to here below the soul is
continually transported out of itself by ecstatic love, and exclaims
in the words of the Psalmist: "As the hart panteth after the fountains
of water, so my soul panteth after Thee, O God!" (Ps. XLI. 2).

The third degree is _satiety_ which succeeds to the yearning just
described. As the soul most vehemently desires God and is lifted up
towards Him, everything that tends to hold it down becomes distasteful
to it. It can find no pleasure in {77} anything save its beloved. It
is like one whose appetite has been fully appeased: if he attempt to
take more food it produces disgust rather than pleasure. Such is the
attitude of the soul at this stage towards all earthly things.

The fourth degree is that of spiritual _inebriation_ which follows
upon the aforesaid satiety. Inebriation consists in this: The soul's
love for God is so great that not only does it reject all comfort and
pleasure but it delights in suffering. For its consolation it embraces
pain, and, as the Apostle did of old, it rejoices in reproaches and
scourgings and torments for the love of its beloved.

The fifth degree of perfect charity is _security_. When the soul
realizes that it loves God so greatly that it would willingly bear
every pain and opprobrium for Him, it conceives such confidence in the
divine assistance that it casts out all fear and assures itself that
it can never by any means be separated from God. The Apostle had
reached this stage when he exclaimed: "Who shall separate me from the
love of Christ? I am certain that neither life nor death can separate
us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

The sixth and last degree is found in true and perfect _tranquillity_,
wherein such peace and quiet reign that the soul appears to lie in
peaceful slumber from which there is nothing to disturb it. For what
can disturb the soul which no movement of passion assails and no pang
of fear disquiets? {78} In such a soul peace and quiet reign. It has
reached the final stage--"His place is in peace". It is impossible to
reach such perfect tranquillity save by perfect charity. When this is
attained it is very easy for a man to fulfil all that appertains to
perfection--whether it be to do or to suffer, to live or to die.

Here indeed we have disclosed to us the dizziest heights of spiritual
perfection. No more intimate union with God can we conceive, and yet
may we not justly conjecture that it is a faithful p