Now we proceed to say how this triple unity is adorned more sublimely and cultivated more nobly by interior exercises joined to the active life. When a man, by love and right intention, elevates himself in all his works and in all his life towards the honour and glory of God, and seeks rest in God above all things, he will wait in humility and patience and abandonment of self and in the hope of new riches and new gifts, and he will not be troubled or anxious whether it pleases God to grant His gifts or to refuse them. So men prepare themselves for receiving an internal life of desires; even as a vessel is fitted and prepared, into which a precious liquid is to be poured. There is no vessel more noble than the loving soul, and no drink more necessary than the grace of God. Man will thus offer to God all his works and all his life, in a simple and right intention, and in a zest above his intention, above himself, and above everything, in the sublime unity in which God and the loving spirit are united without intermediary. ON THE FIRST MODE OR DEGREE OF THE FIRST SPIRITUAL COMING OF CHRIST THE first coming of Christ to those who are engaged in the exercises of desire is an internal and sensible current from the Holy Spirit, which impels and attracts us to all the virtues. We shall compare this coming to the splendour and power of the sun, which, so soon as it is risen, enlightens and warms the whole world in the twinkling of an eye. In the same way Christ, the eternal sun, burns and shines, dwelling at the highest point of the spirit, and enlightens and fires the lower part of man--that is to say, his physical heart and sense-faculties, and this is accomplished in less time than the twinkling of an eye, for the work of God is prompt; but the man in whom it takes place ought to be internally seeing by means of his spiritual eyes. The sun burns in the East, in the middle of the world, on the mountains; there it hastens in the summer, and creates good fruits and strong wines, filling the earth with joy. The same sun shines in the West, at the end of the world; the country there is colder and the force of the heat less; nevertheless, it there produces a great number of good fruits, but not much wine. The men who dwell in the West part of themselves, abide in their external senses, and by their good intentions, their virtues, and their outer practices, by the grace of God produce abundant harvests of virtues of divers kinds, but they but rarely taste the wine of inward joy and spiritual consolation.