ou, she took it for no
tribulation. And therefore comforting of her could have no place.
But if men should give her anything toward her help, it must have
been, as I told you, good counsel.

And therefore, as I said, this kind of temptation to a man's own
destruction, which requireth counsel, and is outside tribulation,
was outside of our matter, which is to treat of comfort in
tribulation.

XVI

But lest you might reject both these examples, thinking they were
but feigned tales, I shall put you in remembrance of one which I
reckon you yourself have read in the Conferences of Cassian. And
if you have not, there you may soon find it. For I myself have
half forgotten the thing, it is so long since I read it.

But thus much I remember: He telleth there of one who was many
days a very special holy man in his living, and, among the other
virtuous monks and anchorites that lived there in the wilderness,
was marvellously much esteemed. Yet some were not all out of fear
lest his revelations (of which he told many himself) would prove
illusions of the devil. And so it proved afterwards indeed, for
the man was by the devil's subtle suggestions brought into such a
high spiritual pride that in conclusion the devil brought him to
that horrible point that he made him go kill himself.

And, as far as my mind giveth me now, without new sight of the
book, he brought him to it by this persuasion: He made him believe
that it was God's will that he should do so, and that thereby he
should go straight to heaven. And if it were by that persuasion,
with which he took very great comfort in his own mind himself,
then was it, as I said, out of our case, and he needed not comfort
but counsel against giving credence to the devil's persuasion. But
marry, if he made him first perceive how he had been deluded and
then tempted him to his own death by shame and despair, then it
was within our matter. For then was his temptation fallen down
from pride to pusillanimity, and was waxed that kind of the
night's fear that I spoke of. And in such fear a good part of the
counsel to be given him should have need to stand in good
comforting, for then was he brought into right sore tribulation.

But, as I was about to tell you, strength of heart and courage are
there none in that deed, not only because true strength (as it
hath the name of virtue in a reasonable creature) can never be
without prudence, but also because, as I said, even in them that
se