Page:Omniana.djvu/220

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202
OMNIANA.

clear, less sweet, and more painful than Contemplation: it is as the reading of a book, which must be done sentence after sentence but Contemplation is like casting the eyes upon a picture discerning all at once. Meditation is like eating: Contemplation is like drinking,.. a work more sweet, cooling, and more delicate,.. less labour and more pleasure than eating is. For he that meditateth taketh an antecedent, doth behold, weigh, and consider it, as it were chewing the meat with some pain; and afterward doth gather conclusions one after another, as it were swallowing down of morsels, and taketh his pleasure by pieces: but he that contemplateth receiveth his object without pain, swiftly and as it were altogether, as if he took a draught of some delicate wine. Such is Meditation, and such is Contemplation.

Pilgrim of Loretto. p. 49.

Philosophical as this is, the consequences which must result from applying