Dear Friend,—Know thou well that the end and the height of perfection lieth in a true union of God with the soul of man in utter love. This end, then, is verily achieved when the powers of the soul are reformed by grace to the dignity and condition of their first state, that is, when the mind is firmly fixed in God and in spiritual things without shifting or wandering away and when the reason is cleared of all worldly and fleshly contemplations or imaginings and of the figures and fantasies of men and is illumined with grace to behold God and spiritual things, and when the will and the affection are purified and cleansed of all fleshly desires, natural and worldly loves, and are inflamed with burning love for the Holy Ghost. But this marvellous union may not be perfectly and continually and wholly reached in this life, by reason of the corruption of the flesh, but only in the joy of heaven. Nevertheless, the nearer that a soul can come to this union in this life, the more perfect that soul is.