Without interruption we follow this splendour on to the source from which it flows, and there we feel that our spirits are stripped of all things and bathed beyond thought of rising in the pure and infinite ocean of love. If we remained there continually, with a pure vision, we should never lose this experience, for our immersion in the enjoyment of God would be without interruption, if we had gone out of ourselves and were swallowed up in love, so possessing God. For if, overwhelmed in love, and lost to ourselves, we are the possessors of God, God is ours and we are His, and we plunge far beyond our depth, eternally and irrevocably having God as our own. This immersion in love becomes the habit of our being, and so it takes place while we sleep and while we wake, whether we know it or whether we know it not. And in this way it deserves no other praise; but it maintains us in possession of God and of all the good which we have received from His hands. It is like unto streams, which, without pause and without returning, flow continually into the sea, since that is the place to which they belong. And so, if we possess God alone, the immersion of our being through habitual love is always, and without return, flowing into an unfathomable emotion, which we possess, and which belongs to us. If we were always pure, and if we always beheld with the same directness of vision, we should have such a feeling as this. Now, this immersion in love is above all virtues, and above all the practices of love. For it is simply an eternal going forth out of ourselves, by a clear prevision, into a changed state, towards which we lean out of ourselves, as if towards our beatitude. For we feel ourselves eternally drawn outside ourselves and towards another. And this is the most secret and the most hidden distinction which we can experience between God and ourselves, and above it there is no more any difference. Nevertheless, our reason remains with its eyes open in the darkness--that is to say, in infinite ignorance--and in that darkness the boundless splendour remains secret and hidden from us, for the presence of its immensity blinds our reason. But it wraps us round with its purity and transforms us by its essence, and so we are wrought out of our personality and transformed until, overwhelmed in love, we possess our beatitude, and are one with God.” Let us next look at _The Book of the Seven Steps of the Ladder of Love_ (called by Surius _De Septem Gradibus amoris, libellus optimus_) in which the prior of Grönendal studies seven virtues which lead from introversion to the confines of absorption. This seems to me one of the most beautiful works of a saint, whose works are all strange and beautiful I ought to translate from it some rather singular passages; among others, that in which he discusses the four melodies of heaven; but space fails us, and this introduction is already too long. I shall content myself with giving the following page:--