In heaven ought to be thy dwelling, and all earthly things are to
be looked on as they forward thy journey thither. All things pass away,
and thou together with them. Beware thou cleave not unto them lest thou
be entangled and perish.... If a man should give all his substance, yet
it is as nothing. And if he should do great penances, yet are they but
little. And if he should attain to all knowledge, he is yet far off.
And if he should be of great virtue and very fervent devotion, yet is
there much wanting; to wit, one thing which is most necessary for him.
What is that? That having left all, he leave himself, and go wholly out
of himself, and retain nothing of self-love.... I have often said unto
thee, and now again I say the same. Forsake thyself, resign thyself,
and thou shalt enjoy much inward peace.... Then shall all vain
imaginations, evil perturbations and superfluous cares fly away; then
shall immoderate fear leave thee, and inordinate love shall die."

Maggie drew a long breath and pushed her heavy hair back, as if to see
a sudden vision more clearly. Here, then, was a secret of life that
would enable her to renounce all other secrets--here was a sublime
height to be reached without the help of outward things--here was
insight, and strength, and conquest, to be won by means entirely within
her own soul, where a supreme Teacher was waiting to be heard. It
flashed through her like the suddenly apprehended solution of a
problem, that all the miseries of her young life had come from fixing
her heart on her own pleasure, as if that were the central necessity of
the universe; and for the first time she saw the possibility of
shifting the position from which she looked at the gratification of her
own desires, of taking her stand out of herself, and looking at her own
life as an insignificant part of a divinely guided whole. She read on
and on in the old book, devouring eagerly the dialogues with the
invisible Teacher, the pattern of sorrow, the source of all strength;
returning to it after she had been called away, and reading until the
sun went down behind the willows. With all the hurry of an imagination
that could never rest in the present, she sat in the deepening twilight
forming plans of self-humiliation and entire devotedness, and, in the
ardor of first discovery, renunciation seemed t