"In the first place, I saw removed all exterior things, kingdoms, great offices, stately buildings, rich household-stuff, gold and silver, recreations, pleasures; all which are great encumbrances to the soul's passing on to God, of which therefore his pleasure is, that she be stripped, that she may arrive at the point of nakedness and death, which will bring her into possession of solid riches and real life. Assure yourself, there is no security in any state, but this of dying and annihilation; which is to be baptized into Christ's death, that we live the life of mortification. Our best way is therefore to divest ourselves of all, that the holy child Jesus may govern all. All that can be imagined in this lower world is of small concernment, though it were the losing of all our goods, and the death of all the men in it; this poor ant-hill is not worthy of a serious thought. Had we but a little faith, and a little love, how happy should we esteem ourselves in giving away all, to attend no more, save on God alone; and to say, _Deus meus et omnia_; my God, and my all! 'Being,' saith he, 'in a chapel richly wainscotted, and adorned with very excellent sculpture, and with imagery, I beheld it with some attention, having had some skill in these things, and saw the bundles of fleurs-de-luce, and of flowers in the form of borders, and of very curious workmanship; it was on a sudden put into my mind, The original of what thou seest would not detain thee at all in seeing it. And I perceived, that indeed all these, and those flowers themselves, not in pictures, would not have taken me up; and all the ornaments which architecture and art invent are but things most mean and low, running in a manner only upon flowers, fruits, branches, harpies, and chimeras, part whereof are in their very being but things common and low, and part of them merely imaginary; and yet man, who croucheth to everything, renders himself amorous and a slave of them; no otherwise than as if a good workman should stand to copy out, and counterfeit some trifles and fopperies. I considered by this sight how poor man was to be cheated, amused, and diverted from his sovereign good. And since that time, I could make no more stand to consider any of these things; and if I did it, I should reproach myself for it, as no sooner seeing them in churches or elsewhere, but this presently put upon my spirit. The original is nothing; the copy and the image is yet less; each thing is vain, except the employment of ourselves about God alone. An absolute abnegation will be necessary to all things, to follow in simplicity, without reserve or reflection, what our Saviour shall work in us, or appoint for us, let it be this or that. This way was showed me, in which I ought to walk towards Him: and hence it is, that all things to me ordinarily are without any gust or delight. I assure you, it is a great shame to a Christian to pass his days in this world more at ease than Jesus Christ here