Its justification is in the arduous but untiring, various but harmonious, activities that flow from it: the enhancement of life which it entails.

It gives us access to our real sources of power; that we may take from them and, spending generously, be energized anew.
So the cord on which those events which make up the personal life of the Spirit are to be strung is completed, and we see that it consists of four strands.

Two are dispositions of the self; Penitence and Surrender.
Two are activities; inward Recollection and outward Work.

All four make stern demands on its fortitude and goodwill.

And each gives strength to the rest: for they are not to be regarded as separate and successive states, a discrete series through which we must pass one by one, leaving penitence behind us when we reach surrendered love; but as the variable yet enduring and inseparable aspects of one rich life, phases in one complete and vital effort to respond more and more closely to Reality.
Nothing, perhaps, is less monotonous than the personal life of the Spirit.