Note 1 — Chapter III · How much Easier Sanctity becomes when studied from this Point of View.

It would be a gross misapprehension of the author’s words to suppose that he wishes to urge souls to enter the paths of the spiritual life without a director. He himself expressly states elsewhere that to be able to do without a director, one must have been long and skilfully directed. Still less does he wish to discourage the practices adopted by the Church for the extirpation of vice and the acquisition of virtue. What he desires to say, and what we cannot impress too much upon Christians, is that the first of all directions is the guidance of Providence, and that the most necessary and the most perfect of all practices is the faithful accomplishment and loving acceptance of all that this fatherly Providence sends us to do and suffer.