[3] Walter Hilton, _The Scale of Perfection_, Bk. I, Pt. II, chap. i.

[4] Acts x, 38.

[5] _Imitation_, I, xiii.

[6] Rodriguez, _The Practice of Religious and Christian Perfection_,
Vol. I, p. 86. Pere Grou teaches "that nothing is small or great in
God's sight; whatever He wills becomes great to us, however seemingly
trifling, and if once the voice of conscience tells us that He requires
anything of us, we have no right to measure its importance.... There
is no standard of things great and small to a Christian, save God's
will."--_The Hidden Life of the Soul_, p. 206. ("Half-a-Crown" Ed.)

[7] "Be still, then, and know that I am God."--Ps. xlvi, 10. "In
quietness and in confidence shall be your strength."--Isa. xxx, 15.

[8] Ps. xxvii, 16.

[9] Rom. viii, 28.

[10] _Imitation_, I, xvi.

[11] "You are vexed at the vexation, and then you are vexed at having
been vexed. I have seen people in the same way get into a passion, and
then be angry because they had lost their temper!"--St. Francis de
Sales, _Spiritual Letters_, xxvii.

[12] S. T. Coleridge, _Aids to Reflection_, p. 186. (Bohn Ed.)

Bishop Andrewes in his second sermon on the Temptation of Christ,
speaking of it being impossible for Him to have sinned since there was
no fire of concupiscence in Him, quaintly says: "To us the devil needs
bring but a pair of bellows, for he shall find fire within
us."--Andrewes, _Sermons_, Vol. V, p. 508.

[13] _Imitation_, I, xiii.

[14] A busy Wall Street financier not long since told the writer that
for several years, whenever stepping from an omnibus or car, in the
thronged street or crowded railway station, he had made a practice of
offering an ejaculation of prayer for his fellow-passengers.

[15] Phil. iv, 8.

{109}

CHAPTER VIII

THE STAGES OF THE BATTLE

The spiritual masters in every age are at agreement concerning the
process by which the soul passes from a state of grace into a state of
sin. They express it in various ways, and in varying degrees of
elaboration, but when analysed it can be brought down to three steps
given us by St. Gregory, _Suggestion, Pleasure, Consent_.[1] Thomas a
Kempis presents it somewhat more fully, and it is with his statement of
the process that we purpose engaging ourselves.

"First," he says, "a bare thought comes to the mind; then a strong
imagination; afterwards pleasure, and evil motion, and consent."[2]

I. _The Satanic Suggestion_

First o