13. So, then, everything here beyond the simple story of my life your reverence must take upon yourself--since you have so pressed me to give some account of the graces which our Lord bestowed upon me in prayer--if it be consistent with the truths of our holy Catholic faith; if it be not, your reverence must burn it at once--for I give my consent. I will recount my experience, in order that, if it be consistent with those truths, your reverence may make some use of it; if not, you will deliver my soul from delusion, so that Satan may gain nothing there where I seemed to be gaining myself. Our Lord knows well that I, as I shall show hereafter, [9] have always laboured to find out those who could give me light. 14. How clear soever I may wish to make my account of that which relates to prayer, it will be obscure enough for those who are without experience. I shall speak of certain hindrances, which, as I understand it, keep men from advancing on this road--and of other things which are dangerous, as our Lord has taught me by experience. I have also discussed the matter with men of great learning, with persons who for many years had lived spiritual lives, who admit that, in the twenty-seven years only during which I have given myself to prayer--though I walked so ill, and stumbled so often on the road--His Majesty granted me that experience which others attain to in seven-and-thirty, or seven-and-forty, years; and they, too, being persons who ever advanced in the way of penance and of virtue. 15. Blessed be God for all, and may His infinite Majesty make use of me! Our Lord knoweth well that I have no other end in this than that He may be praised and magnified a little, when men shall see that on a dunghill so foul and rank He has made a garden of flowers so sweet. May it please His Majesty that I may not by my own fault root them out, and become again what I was before. And I entreat your reverence, for the love of our Lord, to beg this of Him for me, seeing that you have a clearer knowledge of what I am than you have allowed me to give of myself here. 1. The Saint interrupts her history here to enter on the difficult questions of mystical theology, and resumes it in ch. xxiii. 2. Ch. ix. § 4. 3. Ch. xxx. §§ 10 and 11. 4. See ch. xiii. § 5. 5. F. Pedro Ybañez, of the Order of St. Dominic. 6. See ch. xxxi. § 17. 7. See ch. xv. § 12. 8. See ch. xiv. § 12. 9. See ch. xxiv. § 5. Chapter XI. Why Men Do Not Attain Quickly to the Perfect Love of God. Of Four Degrees of Prayer. Of the First Degree. The Doctrine Profitable for Beginners, and for Those Who Have No Sensible Sweetness.