SOLILOQUY.

6. Teach me, however, to conduct myself worthily and humbly before You today, since You are my wisdom, You who know me in truth, and knew me before the foundation was laid, and before I was born into the world; You who also continually take greater care for me, Your little client, than a mother’s heart for her little offspring, or than I myself have or can bear.

7. Behold, therefore, my purpose hangs upon Your will, it stands at Your good pleasure; I trust in Your grace rather than in my own wisdom. For man proposes, but You always dispose, and a man’s way is not in himself. The more humble one is in oneself, and the more subject to God, and the more united to oneself and interiorly simplified one becomes, the wiser and more peaceful one will be in all things, and the more and higher things one will grasp without labor, because one drinks the light of intelligence from above. God walks with the humble, associates with the modest, and approaches the little ones.

8. There is a large enough difference between the wisdom of an illuminated and devout man, and the knowledge of a learned and well-versed scholar. That doctrine which flows from above through divine influence is always much nobler than that which is laboriously sought by our own wit. For it is better to know a little with humility and meager intelligence than whole cartloads of sciences with vain self-complacency. He will remain small for a long time, and lie below, who considers anything great unless it is the one immense eternal good; and whatever is not God is truly nothing, and ought by right to be reckoned as nothing.

9. Truly, therefore, he is great who is small in himself, and holds every pinnacle of honor for nothing. He is truly prudent who deems all earthly things as filth, that he might gain Christ; and he is truly well-taught who executes the will of God and neglects his own mind. He who seeks anything other than God alone, or the salvation of his own soul, will harvest nothing but nausea, anxieties, and bitterness. Nor will he be able to remain peaceful for long who does not aspire to be the least, and subject to all.