(6) _Meditation in Prayer_.--He who prays should often stop to think with whom he speaks: who he himself is who speaks: who Jesus Christ is through whom he speaks: what that country is to which he aspires: how he may best please Him who dwells there: and what he is to do so that his character and disposition may suit with God's disposition and character. Mental prayer, as I am wont to call it, is the constant meditation of such things as these. And mental prayer ought to be endeavoured after by all, though they have no virtues, because it is the beginning of them, and therefore the one interest of all men is at once to begin such prayer. But it will be exercised with no little difficulty unless the steady acquisition of the virtues accompanies it. In prayer it is far best to be alone; as, for our example and instruction, our Lord always was when He prayed. For we cannot talk both to God and man at the same moment. And, if we feel too much alone, and must have company, no company is comparable to Christ's company. Let us picture and represent Christ to ourselves and to His Father as always at our side. Those who pray with proper preparation: that is, with much meditation on the whole life and death of our Lord: on their own death: on the last day, or such like, our Lord will bring all such to the port of light. Meditate much on the Sacred Humanity of our Lord: what He was on earth: what He said: what He did, and what He suffered. Because this life of ours is long and uphill, which to pass well through needs the constant presence with us of our great Exemplar, Jesus Christ. (7) _The Presence of God in Prayer_.--In prayer there would sometimes come upon me such a sense of the Presence of God that I seemed to be all engulfed in God. I think the learned call this mystical experience; at any rate, it so suspends the ordinary operations of the soul that she seems to be wholly taken out of herself. This tenderness, this sweetness, this regale is nothing else but the Presence of God in the praying soul. At the same time, I believe that we can greatly help toward the obtaining of God's Presence. We obtain it by considering much our own baseness, the neglect and the ingratitude we show toward the Son of God, how much He has done for us, His passion and terrible suffering, His whole life so full of affliction, by delighting ourselves in His word and in His works, and such things as these. And if in these reflections the soul be seized with the Presence of God, then the whole soul is regaled as I have described. The heart is filled with relenting. Tears also abound. In this way does the Divine Majesty repay us even here for any little care we take to serve Him and to be with Him. The life of prayer is just love to God and the custom of being ever with Him.