easure
and refreshment and happiness, and wonderfully adapted to the
delicacy of the human creature. The heat of the Godhead is very
different, and sometimes we may even feel it to be cruel and
remorseless in its very terrible and swift intensity. But the soul, like
all great lovers, never flinches or hangs back, but passionately lends
herself. If He chose to kill her with this joy she would gladly have it
so.

By these incomprehensible wonders He seems to say to the creature:
"Come thou here, that I may teach thee what is Joy; come thou here,
that I may teach thee what is _Life._ For none are permitted to teach
of these things save I Myself."

* * *

There is another manner. The Spirit comes upon the soul in waves of
terrible power. Now in a rapture God descends upon the soul,
catching her suddenly up in a marvellous embrace: magnetising her,
ravishing her. He is come, and He is gone. In an ecstasy the soul
goes out prepared to meet Him, seeking Him by praise and prayer,
pouring up her love towards Him; and He, condescending to her,
fills her with unspeakable delights, and at rare times He will catch
her from an ecstasy into a greater rapture. At least, so it is with me:
the ecstasy is prepared for, but in the quicker rapture (or catching up)
it is He that seeks the soul. These two conditions, though given very
intermittently, become a completely natural experience. I should say
that the soul lived by this way: it is her food and her life, which she
receives with all the simplicity and naturalness of the hungry man
turning to his bodily food. But these waves of power were
something altogether new and very hard to endure. As each wave
passed I would come up out of it, as it were, gasping. It was as if
something too great for the soul to contain was being forced through
her. It was as if one should try to force at fearful pressure fluid
through a body too solid to be percolated by it. I understood nothing
of what could be intended by such happenings, neither could I give
accommodation to this intensity. I tried to make myself a wholly
willing receptacle and instrument, but after the third day of this I
could not bear any more. I was greatly distressed. I could not
understand what was required of me. I gave myself totally to Him,
and it was not enough. And at last I cried to Him, saying: "I
understand nothing: forgive me, my God, for my great foolishness,
but Thy power is too much for me. Do what Thou wilt with me; I