After experience had taught me that the common occurrence of ordinary life are in vain and futile and I saw that all the objects of my desire and fear were in them self's nothing good nor bad, save so far as the mind was affected by them. I at length determined to search out if there not was something truly good and communicable to man by which his spirit might be affected to the exclusion of all other things. Whether there were anything through the discovery and acquisition of which I might enjoy continues and perfect gladness for ever. I say that at length determined because at first sight it seemed ill-advised to renounce things, in the process of which I was assured, for the sake of what was yet uncertain...I therefore turned over in my mind whatever it might be possible to come to come at this new way, or at least to the certitude of its existence, with out changing my usual way of life,( a compromise) which I had often attempted before but in vain. For the things that commonly happen in life and are esteemed among men as the highest good (as is witnessed by there works) can be reduced to three, Riches, Fame, and Lust; and by these the mind is so distracted that it can scarcely think of any other good. With regard to lust, the mind is so much absorbed thereby as if it had attained rest in some good: and this hinders it from thinking of anything else. but after fruition a great sadness follows, which, if not absorb the mind, will yet disturb and blunt it....But love directed towards the eternal and infinite feeds the mind with pure joy, and is free from all sadness. Therefore it is greatly to be desired and to be sought after with our whole might....(and) although I could perceive this quit clearly in my mind, I could not at once lay aside all greed and lust and Honour...One thing I could see, and that was that so long as the mind was turned a pone this new way it was deflected, and seriously endangered therein. Which was a great comfort to me, for I saw that those evils were not such as would not yield to remedies; and a short while, yet afterwards the true good became more evident to me, and those intervals more frequent and of longer duration.                                                                                          

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