lling poverty, and in meekness, and in charity, and in patience,
forsake as much as they can covet who follow Him not. And consider with
how great and how good will thou presentest thy vows before Him: for on
that He has set His eyes, and if thou with great desire offerest thy
prayers, with great fervour desirest to see Him, and seekest no earthly
comfort, but the savour of Heaven, and in contemplation thereof hast thy
delight. Wonderfully JESUS works in His lovers, those whom he reaves
from the pleasure of flesh and blood through tender love. He makes them
to will no earthly thing, and makes them rise to the solace of Him, and
to forget vanities and fleshly loves of the world, and to dread no
sorrow that may fall: to diminish over-great bodily ease: to suffer for
His love, seems to them joy; and to be solitary they have great comfort:
so that they be not hindered of that devotion. Now mayst thou see that
many are worse than they seem, and many are better than they seem, and
namely among those that have the habit of holiness. Therefore force
thyself, in all that thou mayest, that thou mayest be no worse than thou
seemest. And if thou wilt do as I teach thee in this short form of
living, I hope, through the grace of GOD, that if men hold thee to be
good, thou shalt be well better.

CHAPTER IV.

At the beginning then, bow thee entirely to thy Lord JESUS Christ. That
turning to JESUS is naught else but turning from all the covetousness
and the liking and the occupations and business of worldly things and of
fleshly lust and of vain love: so that thy thought, that was ever
downward, burrowing in the earth, whilst thou wert in the world, now
should be aye upward like fire; seeking the highest place in heaven,
right to thy Spouse, where He sits in His bliss. To Him thou art turned,
when His grace illumines thine heart; and forsakes all vices, and
conforms it to virtues and good manners, and to all manner of compliance
and debonairness. And that thou mayst last and grow in the goodness
that thou hast begun without slowness, and sorriness, and irking of thy
life; four things shalt thou have in thy thought, till thou beest in
perfect love. For when thou art come thereto, thy joy and desire will
aye be burning in Christ. One is: _the measure of thy life here, that it
is so short that scarcely is it anything_. For we live but in a
point--that is the least thing that may be. And soothly, our life is
less than a point, if w