Next we come to _The Book of the Sparkling Stone, De Calculo, sive de perfectione filiorum Dei, libellus admirabilis_, as Surius adds. Here the subject is the mysterious stone of which the Spirit says in the Apocalypse: _Et dabo illi (vincenti) calculum candidum, et in calculo nomen novum scriptum, quod nemo scit nisi qui accepit_ (Rev. ii. 17). This stone, according to the monk of the forest of Soignes, is the symbol of Christ, given to His loved ones only, and like a flame which images the love of the eternal Word. And then again we have glimpses of those dark shadows of love, from which break forth uninterrupted sobs of light, seen in awful flowers through the gradual expansions of contemplation and above the strange verdure of an unequalled gladness. Let us examine this passage:-- “And hence follows the third point, that is to say, an inward exercise above reason and without restraint; for that union with God which every loving spirit has possessed in love continually attracts and draws towards the inmost centre of its essence the divine persons and all loving spirits; and all those who love feel this attraction, more or less, according to their love and their holy exercises. And he who keeps guard over this attraction and clings closely to it cannot fall into deadly sin. But the contemplative one, who has renounced his own being and all things else, does not experience an expulsive force, because he no longer possesses anything, but is emptied of all; and so he can always enter naked and imageless into the secret place of his spirit. There he sees the eternal light revealed, and in that light he feels an eternal craving for union with God. And he himself feels a constant fire of love which desires above all things to be one with God. And the more he observes that attraction and that craving, the more keenly he feels it; and the more he feels it, the more he desires to be one with God, for he longs to pay the debt which God calls on him to pay. This eternal craving for union with God causes the spirit to glow evermore with love; but as the spirit uninterruptedly continues paying its debt, a perpetual consumption goes on within it; for in the refreshment of unity all spirits grow weary in their task, and feel only the absorption of everything into simple unity with God. This simple unity can be felt and possessed by none save by those who stand before the immense brightness and before love, above reason and without restraint. In this presence the spirit feels itself perpetually inflamed with love; and in this glow of love it finds neither beginning nor end. And it feels itself _one_ with that burning fire of love. The spirit remains always on fire in itself, for its love is eternal, and it feels itself always consumed away in love; for it is attracted towards the refreshment of union with God, in which the spirit burns with love. If it observes itself, it finds a distinction and a