The things which bring defilement to these persons are certain faults which only lie in the feelings. As soon as they see the beauty of a virtue, they seem to be incessantly falling into the contrary vice: for example, if they love truth, they speak hastily or with exaggeration, and fancy they lie at every moment, although in fact they do but speak against their sentiments; and it is thus with all the other virtues; the more important these virtues are, and the more strongly they cling to them, because they appear the more essential, the greater is the force with which they are torn from them. Section IV. ENTRANCE OF THE SOUL INTO MYSTIC DEATH, AS TO ITS SENSIBILITIES, POWERS, AND EVEN ITS PERCEIVED FOUNDATION--IMPORTANT OBSERVATIONS ON THIS CONDITION. This poor soul, after having lost its all, must at last lose _its own life_ by an utter self-despair, or rather it must die worn out by terrible fatigue. Prayer in this degree is extremely painful, because the soul being no longer able to make use of its own powers, of which it seems to be entirely deprived, and God having taken from it a certain sweet and profound calm which supported it, is left like those poor children whom we see running here and there in search of bread, yet finding no one to supply their need, so that the power of prayer seems to be as entirely lost as if we had never possessed it; but with this difference, that we feel the pain occasioned by the loss, because we have proved its value by its possession, while others are not sensible of the loss, because they have never known its enjoyment. The soul, then, can find no support in the creature; and if it feels itself carried away by the things of earth, it is only by impetuosity, and it can find nothing to satisfy it. Not that it does not seek to abandon itself to the things in which it formerly delighted; but alas! it finds in them nothing but bitterness, so that it is glad to leave them again, taking nothing back but sadness at its own unfaithfulness. The _imagination_ goes altogether astray, and is scarcely ever at rest. The three powers of the soul, the _understanding_, the _memory_, and the _will_, by degrees lose their life, so that at length they become altogether dead, which is very painful to the soul, especially as regards the will, which had been tasting I know not what of sweetness and tranquillity, which comforted the other powers in their deadness and powerlessness. This unexplainable something which sustains the soul at its foundation, as it were, is the hardest of all to lose, and that which the soul endeavours the most strenuously to retain; for as it is too delicate, so it appears the more divine and necessary: it would consent willingly to be deprived of the two other powers, and even of the will, so far as it is a distinct and perceived thing, if only this something might be left; for it could bear all its labours if it may have within itself the witness that it is born of God.