Chapter XVI.
Of the kinds of prayer to which we ought to direct
ourselves.
Yet
we ought by advancing in
life and attaining to virtue to aim rather at those kinds of prayer
which are poured forth either from the contemplation of the good things
to come or from fervour of love, or which at least, to speak more
humbly and in accordance with the measure of beginners, arise for the
acquirement of some virtue or the extinction of some fault. For
otherwise we shall not possibly attain to those sublimer kinds of
supplication of which we spoke, unless our mind has been little by
little and by degrees raised through the regular course of those
intercessions.