The period of ‘great business', described by Rolle in the Incendium Amoris as the purgative way to ‘sweetest rest', has passed, and the obscurity of the night of the senses leads the soul on to this more secure life in Christ. The hermit was perfectly aware of the difficulties of the first period and the progress the devout man had to make to reach this sweetness. For some the progress is rapid and often accompanied by special graces from God.

They that are sickerly ordained to holiness in the beginning of their turning, for dread of God, forsake sins and worldly vanities: and then they set their flesh under strait penance, afterwards setting Christ's love before all other, and feeling a delight in heavenly sweetness in devotion of mind they profit mickle.