(8) _Supernatural Prayer_.--In supernatural prayer God places the soul in His immediate Presence, and in an instant bestows Himself upon the soul in a way she could never of herself attain to. He manifests something of His greatness to the soul at such times: something of His beauty, something of His special and particular grace. And the soul enjoys God without dialectically understanding just how she so enjoys Him. She burns with love without knowing what she has done to deserve or to prepare herself for such a rapture. It is the gift of God, and He gives His gifts to whomsoever and whensoever He will. This, my daughters, is perfect contemplation: this is supernatural prayer. Now this is the difference between natural and supernatural prayer: between mental and transcendental prayer. In ordinary prayer we more or less understand what we say and do. We think of Him to whom we speak; we think about ourselves and about our Surety and Mediator. In all this, by God's help, we can do something, so to speak, of ourselves. But in pure supernatural and transcendental prayer, we do nothing at all. His Divine Majesty it is who does it all. He works in us at such elect seasons what far transcends and overtops all the powers and resources even of the renewed nature. At the same time, as a far-off means of attaining to supernatural prayer, it is necessary to put upon ourselves the acquiring of the great virtues, and especially, humility: we must give up and resign ourselves wholly and entirely unto God. Whoever will not attempt to do this, with all the grace of God, that man will never come within sight of the highest prayer. Let him, in absolutely everything, seat himself in the lowest place. Let him account himself utterly and hopelessly unworthy of everything he possesses, both in nature and in grace. Let him shun advancement. Let him apply himself to daily mortification, not of the body so much as of the mind and the heart, and let him be more than content with the least thing that God allows him, for this is true humility. In short, let His Majesty lead us in any way He pleases, and the chances are that He will soon lead us by these ways to a life of prayer and communion it had not entered into our hearts to conceive possible to such sinners as we are. Let no man be too much cast down, because he has not yet attained to supernatural prayer. God leads His people in the way that He chooses out as best for Him and for them. And he who stands low in his own eyes, may all the time stand high in God's eyes. Supernatural prayer is not necessary to salvation: nor doth God require it of us. They shall not fail of salvation who practise themselves in the solid virtues. No, they may have more merit in His eyes than their more favoured neighbours, because their obedience, and their faith, and their love have cost them more. Their Lord deals with them as with strong and valiant men, appointing them travail and trouble