If I strive to concentrate all my thoughts in the one thought of the Divine Presence, all my senses in an act of submission to the Divine Will, I derive only pain and discouragement from it.

I feel like the beast of burden which falls under its load, and which, at the first cut of the whip, makes an effort to rise, and falls again; at a second blow, at a third, or a fourth, it only shivers, and does not attempt to rise.

If I open the Gospels or the _Imitation_, I find no flavour in them.

If I recite prayers, weariness overpowers me, and I am silent.

If I prostrate myself upon the ground, the ground freezes me.