to Him, and this again can only be done without
effort if the heart is so full of love that it desires nothing else than
God; and this is dependent again upon the grace which the soul
receives from Him because of her love and response--so now we see,
living and working in our own being, the reason and meaning of His
commandment to love Him with all the heart, mind, soul, and
strength. It is doing this _after He has Himself given us the power to
do it_ which makes us able to live in the closest, most delicious and
precious nearness to God during all our waking hours. But it takes
time, and it takes much pain to learn how to live this, as it were,
double life--this inward life of companionship, of wonderful and
blessed inward intercourse with God, and the outward intercourse of
the senses with the world, our everyday duties, and our
fellow-beings. In our early stages we have profound innumerable
difficulties in understanding either our own capacities or God's
wishes: we are terrified of losing Him, and yet are often bewildered,
and pained also, by some of the higher degrees in which He
communicates Himself. We do not understand how to leave God and
return to earthly duties. Supposing that we are altogether wrapped
up in the company of God, and some fellow-being suddenly recalls
us to the world (the human voice can recall the soul as nothing else
can), the pain is so great as to be nothing less than anguish; and if
done often would seriously affect the health of the body.

But in a few years we learn to accomplish it without any shock.

One pain, however, remains, and it grows. I find myself unable to
carry on a conversation with anyone unless it is about God, or about
some work which is for God and has to do with His pleasure (and
this is rare, because people are so glued to worldly affairs), for more
than an hour, and even less, without the most horrible, the most
deathly, exhaustion, which is not only spiritual but bodily--the face
and lips losing all colour, the eyes their vitality: so dreadful is the
distress of the whole being that one is obliged, upon any kind of
pretext, to withdraw from all companions, and, if it is only for five
minutes, be alone with God and, where no eye but His can see, unite
completely with Him once more, and immediately the whole being
becomes revivified. There is nothing else in life so wonderful, so
rapturous as this swift reunion of the soul with God; and the joy is
not only the joy of