Dost thou know why it must not be chief? That the soul may not serve God with a thing that can be taken from it and that is finite: but with holy desire, which is infinite, through its union with the infinite desire of God; and with the virtues which neither devil nor fellow-creature nor weakness can take from us, unless we choose. Herein must we make our foundation, and not in penance. Nay, in weakness the virtue of patience may be tested; in vexing conflicts with devils, fortitude and long perseverance; and in adversities suffered from our fellow-beings, humility, patience, and charity. So as to all other virtues--God lets them be tested by many contraries, but never taken from us, unless we choose. Herein must we make our foundation, and not in penance. The soul cannot have two foundations: either the one or the other must be overthrown. Let the thing which is not the chief, be used as a means. If I find my chief principle in bodily penance, I build the city of my soul upon the sand, so that each little breeze throws it to the earth, and no building can be erected on it. But if I build upon the virtues, founded upon the Living Stone, Christ sweet Jesus, there is no building so great that it will not stand firmly, nor wind so contrary that it can ever blow it down. From these and many other difficulties that arise, it has not been meant that penance should be used otherwise than as a means. I have already seen many penitents who have been neither patient nor obedient, because they have studied to kill their bodies, but not their wills. The rule of indiscretion has wrought this. Dost thou know the result? All their consolations and desires centre in carrying out their penance to suit themselves, and not to suit anyone else. Therein they nourish their will. While they can fulfil their penance, they have consolation and gladness, and seem to themselves full of God, as if they had accomplished everything; and they do not perceive that they fall into a mere personal estimate, and into a judicial attitude. For if all people do not walk in the same way, they seem to them in a state of damnation, an imperfect state. They indiscreetly want to measure all bodies by one same measure, by that with which they measure themselves. And if one wants to withdraw them from this, either to break their will or from some necessity of theirs, they hold their will harder than a diamond; living in such wise, that at the time of test by a temptation or injury, they find themselves, from indulgence in this wrong will, weaker than straw.