on himself the direction of any of our sex,
unless God, by some particular providence, should charge him therewith.
However, upon my earnest and repeated request to him to become my
director, he said he would pray to God and desired that I should do so.
As he was at prayer, it was said to him, "Fear not that charge; she is
my spouse." When I heard this, it affected me greatly. "What (said I to
myself) a frightful monster of iniquity, who has done so much to offend
my God, in abusing His favors, and requiting them with ingratitude, now
to be declared his spouse!" After this he consented to my request.

Nothing was more easy to me than prayer. Hours passed away like
moments, while I could hardly do anything else but pray. The fervency
of my love allowed me no intermission. It was a prayer of rejoicing and
possessing, devoid of all busy imaginations and forced reflections; it
was a prayer of the will, and not of the head. The taste of God was so
great, so pure, unblended and uninterrupted, that it drew and absorbed
the power of my soul into a profound recollection without act or
discourse. I had now no sight but of Jesus Christ alone. All else was
excluded, in order to love with the greater extent, without any selfish
motives or reasons for loving.

The will, absorbed the two others, the memory and understanding into
itself, and concentrated them in LOVE;--not but that they still
subsisted, but their operations were in a manner imperceptible and
passive. They were no longer stopped or retarded by the multiplicity,
but collected and united in one. So the rising of the sun does not
extinguish the stars, but overpowers and absorbs them in the luster of
his incomparable glory.

CHAPTER 9

Such was the prayer that was given me at once, far above ecstacies,
transports or visions. All these gifts are less pure, and more subject
to illusion or deceits from the enemy.

Visions are in the inferior powers of the soul, and cannot produce true
union. The soul must not dwell or rely upon them, or be retarded by
them; they are but favors and gifts. The Giver alone must be our
object, and aim.

It is of such that Paul speaks, "Satan transforms himself into an angel
of light," II Cor. 11:18; which is generally the case with such as are
fond of visions, and lay a stress on them; because they are apt to
convey a vanity to the soul, or at least hinder it from humbly
attending to God only.

Ecstacies arise from a sensible reli