Of certain evils into which those persons fall who give
themselves to pleasure in sensible objects and who frequent places
of devotion in the way that has been described.
MANY evils, both interior and exterior, come to the spiritual
person when he desires to follow after sweetness of sense in these
matters aforementioned. For, as regards the spirit, he will never
attain to interior spiritual recollection, which consists in
neglecting all such things, and in causing the soul to forget all
this sensible sweetness, and to enter into true recollection, and
to acquire the virtues by dint of effort. As regards exterior
things, he will become unable to dispose himself for prayer in all
places, but will be confined to places that are to his taste; and
thus he will often fail in prayer, because, as the saying goes, he
can understand no other book than his own village.
2. Furthermore, this desire leads such persons into great
inconstancy. Some of them never continue in one place or even
always in one state: now they will be seen in one place, now in
another; now they will go to one hermitage, now to another; now
they will set up this oratory, now that. Some of them, again, wear
out their lives in changing from one state or manner of living to
another. For, as they possess only the sensible fervour and joy to
be found in spiritual things, and have never had the strength to
attain spiritual recollection by the renunciation of their own
will, and submitting to suffering inconveniences, whenever they
see a place which they think well suited for devotion, or any kind
of life or state well adapted to their temperament and
inclination, they at once go after it and leave the condition or
state in which they were before. And, as they have come under the
influence of that sensible pleasure, it follows that they soon
seek something new, for sensible pleasure is not constant, but
very quickly fails.
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