Introduction to a Devout Life

YOU aspire to devotion, my dearest Philothea, because, being a Christian, you know it to be a virtue extremely pleasing to the Divine Majesty. But since small faults, committed in the beginning of any undertaking, grow in the progress infinitely greater, and become in the end almost irreparable, you must first know what the virtue of devotion is; for since there is but one true devotion, and many which are false and deceitful, if you cannot distinguish that which is true, you may easily deceive and amuse yourself in following some fantastical and superstitious devotion.