27. By trifles such as these, which are nothing,--and I am altogether nothing myself, seeing that this gave me pain,--by little and little, doing such actions, and by such slight performances,--they become of worth because done for God,--His Majesty helps us on towards greater things; and so it happened to me in the matter of humility. When I saw that all the nuns except myself were making great progress,--I was always myself good for nothing,--I used to fold up their mantles when they left the choir. I looked on myself as doing service to angels who had been there praising God. I did so till they--I know not how--found it out; and then I was not a little ashamed, because my virtue was not strong enough to bear that they should know of it. But the shame arose, not because I was humble, but because I was afraid they would laugh at me, the matter being so trifling. 28. O Lord, what a shame for me to lay bare so much wickedness, and to number these grains of sand, which yet I did not raise up from the ground in Thy service without mixing them with a thousand meannesses! The waters of Thy grace were not as yet flowing beneath them, so as to make them ascend upwards. O my Creator, oh, that I had anything worth recounting amid so many evil things, when I am recounting the great mercies I received at Thy hands! So it is, O my Lord. I know not how my heart could have borne it, nor how any one who shall read this can help having me in abhorrence when he sees that mercies so great had been so ill-requited, and that I have not been ashamed to speak of these services. Ah! they are only mine, O my Lord; but I am ashamed I have nothing else to say of myself; and that it is that makes me speak of these wretched beginnings, in order that he who has begun more nobly may have hope that our Lord, who has made much of mine, will make more of his. May it please His Majesty to give me this grace, that I may not remain for ever at the beginning! Amen. [9] 1. 2 Cor. ii. 11: "Non enim ignoramus cogitationes ejus." 2. Ch. xxvii. § 4. 3. See Inner Fortress, vi. ch. iv. § 12. 4. Way of Perfection, ch. lxv. § 2; but ch. xxxvi. of the previous editions. 5. See ch. x. § 10. 6. Ch. xiii. § 3. 7. Ch. xx. § 38. 8. Ch. xxx. § 25. 9. Don Vicente de la Fuente thinks the first "Life" ended here; that which follows was written under obedience to her confessor, F. Garcia of Toledo, and after the foundation of the monastery of St. Joseph, Avila. Chapter XXXII. Our Lord Shows St. Teresa the Place Which She Had by Her Sins Deserved in Hell. The Torments There. How the Monastery of St. Joseph Was Founded.