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This work contains 27 chapters and is a photographic reprint of the original. The chapters are True signs of progress in the spiritual life Presumption and discouragement How to make the most of our signs of progress The spirit in which we should serve God What holds us back External conduct Our ruling passion Our normal state Patience Human respect Mortification our true perseverance The human spirit The human spirit defeated Spiritual idleness Prayer Temptations Scruples The office of spiritual director Abiding sorrow for sin The right view of our faults The irreligious and the elect The true idea of devotion The right use of spiritual favors Distractions and their remedies Lukewarmness Fervor Discretion Let us consider this on exterior conduct: I hinted in the last chapter that one reason why we felt ourselves hindered by some secret obstacles was that we had neglected our external conduct, and had not been careful to apply the principles of', the spiritual life to our intercourse with others. It is to be wished we could always remember the importance of this. But there is a more especial necessity for us to bear it scrupulously in mind in the earlier stages of the devout life. For a beginner has great temptations to esteem very lightly his external conduct. He has recently been learning for the first time the importance of pure intention, habitual recollection, and the supremacy of an interior life. Moderation is difficult to human nature; and what is novel never gives fair play to what is old and familiar. Hence, though no one would dare to put it into words, a beginner filled with the true but to him fresh thought that the interior life is far superior to the exterior, thinks the latter positively worthless, or even regards it as a temptation. The esteem of the one unfortunately breeds in him a disesteem of the other, especially as a person who has only recently begun to he thoroughly religious is always very much troubled with an inclination to entertain contemptuous feelings about persons and things. Contempt is the most universal temptation of beginnings: To be a man of one idea is an easy thing, and there is a look of chivalry about it which helps the delusion. When a beginner preaches a crusade against anything, we may always suspect delusion. The spirit of a reformer is the contradictory of the ascetical spirit. A crusade against ourselves may be well enough, though better not even. that, until we have learned to subdue ourselves. But to attack other men's faults is to do the devil's work for him; to do God's work is to attack our own.

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