FROM this sweetness is born satisfaction of heart, and of all the bodily faculties, so that a man imagines that he is inwardly embraced in the divine bands of love. This pleasure and consolation is greater and more delicious to body and soul than all the pleasures granted on earth, even if a man could enjoy them to the full. In this pleasure God sinks into the heart by means of His gifts with such a profusion of delights, consolations, and joys, that the heart overflows internally. ON THE OBSTACLES WHICH WE ENCOUNTER IN THIS STATE THIS coming, or kind of coming, is granted to beginners, when they turn from the world, when their conversion is complete, and they abandon all the consolations of earth to live for God only; nevertheless they are still weak, and need milk and not strong meat, such as great temptations and the hiding of God's face. At this season frost and fog often injure them, for they are in the middle of the May of the interior life. The frost is to wish to be something, or to imagine that we are something, or to be somewhat attached to ourselves, or to believe that we have deserved consolations and are worthy of them. The fog is the wish to rest upon internal consolations and pains. This obscures the atmosphere of reason, and the ilowers, which were about to unfold and bloom and bear fruits, shut up again. This is why we lose the knowledge of truth, and nevertheless we sometimes keep certain false sweetnesses granted by the enemy, which at the last lead men astray. HOW ONE OUGHT TO BEHAVE IN THIS CASE I WISH to give you here a brief comparison, that you may not go astray, and that you may be able to behave wisely in this case. Observe the wise bee, and imitate her. She dwells in unity, in the midst of the assembly of her kind, and she goes forth, not during a storm, but when the weather is calm and bright, and the sun shines; and she flies towards every flower where she may find sweetness. She rests not on any flower, neither for its beauty nor for its sweetness, but draws out from the cups of the flowers their sweetness and clearness--that is to say, the honey and wax, and she brings them back to the unity which is formed of the assembly of all the bees, that the honey and wax may be put to good use. The expanded heart on which Christ, the eternal sun, shines, grows and blooms under His rays, and from it flow all the interior forces in joy and sweetness. Now the wise man will act like the bee, and will try to settle, with affection, intelligence, and prudence, on all the gifts and all the sweetness that he has experienced, and on all the good that God has done to him. He will not rest on any flower of the gifts, but laden with gratitude and praise he will fly back towards the unity where he wishes to dwell, and to rest with God eternally. ON THE THIRD MODE OF THE SPIRITUAL COMING OF CHRIST