Full glad and merry is our Lord of our prayer; and He looketh thereafter and He willeth to have it because with His grace He maketh us like to Himself in condition as we are in kind: and so is His blissful will. Therefore He saith thus: _Pray inwardly,[3] though thee thinketh it savour thee not: for it is profitable, though thou feel not, though thou see nought; yea, though thou think thou canst not. For in dryness and in barrenness, in sickness and in feebleness, then is thy prayer well-pleasant to me, though thee thinketh it savour thee nought but little. And so is all thy believing prayer in my sight._ For the meed and the endless thanks that He will give us, _therefor_ He is covetous to have us pray continually in His sight. God accepteth the goodwill and the travail of His servant, howsoever we feel: wherefore it pleaseth Him that we work both in our prayers and in good living, by His help and His grace, reasonably with discretion keeping our powers[4] [turned] to Him, till when that we have Him that we seek, in fulness of joy: that is, Jesus. And that shewed He in the Fifteenth [Revelation], farther on, in this word: _Thou shalt have me to thy meed_. And also to prayer belongeth thanking. Thanking is a true inward knowing, with great reverence and lovely dread turning ourselves with all our mights unto the working that our good Lord stirreth us to, enjoying and thanking inwardly. And sometimes, for plenteousness it breaketh out with voice, and saith: _Good Lord, I thank Thee![5] Blessed mayst Thou be!_ And sometime when the heart is dry and feeleth not, or else by temptation of our enemy,--then it is driven by reason and by grace to cry upon our Lord with voice, rehearing His blessed Passion and His great Goodness; and the virtue of our Lord's word turneth into the soul and quickeneth the heart and entereth[6] it by His grace into true working, and maketh it pray right blissfully. And truly to enjoy our Lord, it is a full blissful thanking in His sight. [1] MS.: "_And this in our felyng our foly is cause of our wekenes._" S. de Cressy: "And thus in our feelings our folly is cause of our weakness." [2] "of" = by, from. [3] "inderly" = inwardly--or from the heart: heartily, as in lxvi. [4] _i.e._ Faculties.--MS. "Mights." [5] "Grante mercy" = _grand-merci_. [6] "entrith," leadeth. CHAPTER XLII "Prayer is a right understanding of that fulness of joy that is to come, with accordant longing and sure trust"