Preparation of the heart is the unlearning of the prejudices of evil converse. It is smoothing the waxen tablet before attempting to write on it. Now, solitude is of the greatest use for this purpose, insomuch as it stills our passions, and gives room for the principle to cut them out of the soul. For just as animals are more easily controlled when they are stroked, lust and anger, fear and sorrow, the soul's deadly foes, are better brought under the control of reason, after being calmed by inaction, and where there is no continuous stimulation. Let there be such a place as ours, separate from intercourse with men, that the tenor of our exercises be not interrupted from without.
Pious exercises nourish the soul with divine thoughts.
As the day brightens, to betake ourselves, with prayer attending on it throughout, to our labors, and to season our work with hymns, as if with salt. Soothing hymns compose the mind to a cheerful and calm state. Quiet, then, as I have said, is the first step in our sanctification. Thus the mind, saved from dissipation from without, and not through the senses thrown upon the world, falls back upon itself, and thereby ascends to the contemplation of God. When that beauty shines about it, it even forgets its very nature.