[37]. This, I believe, must have been the reason why some of the Saints withdrew into the desert. And it is a kind of humility in man not to trust to himself, but to believe that God will help him in his relations with those with whom he converses; and charity grows by being diffused; and there are a thousand blessings herein which I would not dare to speak of, if I had not known by experience the great importance of it. It is very true that I am the most wicked and the basest of all who are born of women; but I believe that he who, humbling himself, though strong, yet trusteth not in himself, and believeth another who in this matter has had experience, will lose nothing. Of myself I may say that, if our Lord had not revealed to me this truth, and given me the opportunity of speaking very frequently to persons given to prayer, I should have gone on falling and rising till I tumbled into hell. I had many friends to help me to fall; but as to rising again, I was so much left to myself, that I wonder now I was not always on the ground. I praise God for His mercy; for it was He only Who stretched out His hand to me. May He be blessed for ever! Amen.
[1]. See Way of Perfection, ch. xl.; but ch. xxvii. of the former editions.
[2]. See [Relation, i. § 18].
[3]. A.D. 1537, when the Saint was twenty-two years old (Bouix). This passage, therefore, must be one of the additions to the second Life; for the first was written in 1562, twenty-five years only after the vision.
[4]. See [ch. xxvii. § 3].
[5]. In the parlour of the monastery of the Incarnation, Avila, a painting of this is preserved to this day (De la Fuente).
[7]. See Inner Fortress, v. iii. § 1.