The Dialogue

How the aforesaid worldly weepers are struck by four different winds.

"THE tree is struck either by the wind of prosperity, or of adversity, or of fear, or of conscience ; for these are the four winds. The wind of prosperity matures pride and great self-confidence and reviling of the neighbour. If this wind be master, a man walks in great injustice and vanity of heart, in impurity of body and mind, and self-esteem, and many other things that proceed from these, which thy tongue could not tell. Is this wind of prosperity corrupt in itself? No, neither this nor any other wind ; it is the chief root of the tree which is corrupt, and whence everything in the tree is corrupted. I, Who send every gift, and give every thing its being, am the Supreme Good, and this wind of prosperity, which I send, is also good.

" The man weeps because his heart is not satisfied, because he desires that which he cannot have, and, being unable to have it, grieves, and grieving weeps, for the eye satisfies the heart.

" After this comes a wind of servile fear, in which he is afraid of his very shadow, fearing to lose either his own life, or his children's, or other creatures' ; or again, he fears that he, or others, will lose their positions, honour, or riches (fearing for these others through self-love). This servile fear does not allow him to possess the object of his love in peace, because he does not possess it ordinately and in obedience to My Will, for which reason, servile fear pursues him. He has become the miserable slave of sin, and may esteem himself as that for which he serves.

" Meanwhile the wind of Fear has done striking him, and

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the wind of tribulation and adversity, of which he was afraid, reaches him, and deprives him of something either in general or in particular. In general, when the man is deprived of life by the power of death, and so deprived of everything. In particular, when the wind takes away now one thing, now another — either health, or children, or riches, or position, or honour — according as I, the gentle Physician, see to be necessary for your salvation. But, because your fragility is wholly corrupt without knowledge or taste, and much less, fruit of patience, impatience, scandals, murmuring, hatred, and displeasure towards Me and My creatures grow up in you. And that which I gave you for life ye have received unto death with the same measure of grief that I had of love in giving it. Wherefore the man is led on to the hurtful sorrow of impatience, which dries up the soul and kills her, depriving her of the life of grace, and also dries up and consumes the body, and blinds the man spiritually and corporally, and deprives him of all pleasure and hope, so that he is deprived of the thing which he loved, in which he had placed his affection, his hope, and faith. Wherefore he weeps. Tears alone do not bring such troubles, but the disordinate love and grief of the heart whence the tear proceeds, for physical tears do not them selves give death and sorrow, but the root, from which they proceed, namely, the disordinate self-love of the heart. If the heart were ordinate and had the life of grace, the tears would also be ordinate, and would constrain Me, the Eternal God, to do mercy to the soul. For the tear is the herald of the state of the heart, whether it be in life or death.

" I said that there came one wind of conscience ; and this is the doing of My divine goodness, when souls have been tried by prosperity, to bring them through love, and by fear, so that, by My very importunity, their hearts might be directed to love Me with virtue proved in tribulation, given them that they might know the fragility and weakness of the world. To others, whom this does not help, I give the prick of conscience, so ineffably do I love them, in order that they may arise, and, opening their mouths, vomit forth the

A TREATISE OF PRAYER 197

filth of their sins by holy confession. But these, like obstinate fools justly reprobated by Me on account of their iniquity, refuse to receive My grace in any way, fly the prick of conscience, and continue to pass their time in miserable pleasures, incurring My wrath and that of their neighbour. All this happens because the root is corrupt together with the whole tree, every part of it is in a state of death, and full of continual sufferings, weepings, and bitterness, as has been said. And, if they do not reform while they have time and power to use their free-will, they pass from this finite sorrow, which is theirs in finite time, to infinite sorrow ; thus finite sorrow leads to infinite, for the tears were shed with infinite hatred of virtue, namely, with the desire of the soul founded in infinite hate. It is true that, had they wished, they might have abandoned it through My grace in time, while they were free. In spite of My having called hatred infinite it is only so as regards the affection and being of the soul in which it inheres, neither the hatred nor the love existing in the soul are, in themselves, infinite ; for, while you are in life, you can hate or love only according to your pleasure. But if life ends in a state of love of virtue, the soul receives an infinite good ; if in hatred, the soul remains in infinite hatred, re ceiving eternal damnation, as I have told thee when I related to thee how some drowned themselves in the river. They therefore can no longer desire good, deprived of My mercy, and your brotherly love, which the saints taste together, that is, the love of you pilgrims travelling through this life, placed here by Me, in order to reach your End which is Myself, Eternal Life. Neither prayers nor alms nor any good work help the damned. They are members cut off from the body of My divine love, for, while they lived, they would not be joined to the obedience of My holy commandments, in the mystical body of the holy Church, and in her sweet obedience, whence you draw the Blood of the immaculate Lamb My only-begotten Son; for this do they receive the fruit of eternal damnation, with sorrow and gnashing of teeth. These are those martyrs of the Devil of whom I spoke to thee. The Devil gives them the fruit which he

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has himself. See therefore that this kind of sorrow gives the fruit of suffering in this finite time, and ultimately gives, for infinite eternity, the companionship of the Devil."