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diff --git a/19185-h/19185-h.htm b/19185-h/19185-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7609f55 --- /dev/null +++ b/19185-h/19185-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2482 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Santa Teresa</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4 { + text-align: left; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + TD { vertical-align: top; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + color: gray;} + + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Santa Teresa, by Alexander Whyte</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Santa Teresa, by Alexander Whyte, et al + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Santa Teresa + an Appreciation: with some of the best passages of the Saint's Writings + + +Author: Alexander Whyte + + + +Release Date: September 5, 2006 [eBook #19185] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SANTA TERESA*** +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 1900 Oliphant Anderson & Ferrier +edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>THEODIDACTA</i></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>AFFICIENS</i></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>INFLAMMANS</i></p> +<h1>Santa Teresa: an Appreciation</h1> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>With some of the best passages +of the Saint’s Writings Selected Adapted and Arranged by<br +/> +Alexander Whyte<br /> +</i><span class="smcap"><i>d.d.</i></span></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Oliphant Anderson & +Ferrier</i><br /> +<i>Saint Mary Street</i>, <i>Edinburgh</i>, <i>and</i><br /> +21 <i>Paternoster Square</i>, <i>London</i><br /> +1900</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Third Edition</i><br /> +<i>Completing</i> 6000 <i>copies</i></p> +<p style="text-align: center">Edinburgh: T. and A. <span +class="smcap">Constable</span>, Printers to her Majesty</p> +<h2><!-- page 1--><a name="page1"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +1</span>APPRECIATION AND INTRODUCTION</h2> +<p>With a view to the work of my classes this session, I took old +Abraham Woodhead’s two black-letter quartos with me to the +Engadine last July. And I spent every rainy morning and +every tired evening of that memorable holiday month in the +society of Santa Teresa and her excellent old-English +translator. Till, ever, as I crossed the Morteratch and the +Roseg, and climbed the hills around Maloggia and Pontresina, a +voice would come after me, saying to me, Why should you not share +all this spiritual profit and intellectual delight with your +Sabbath evening congregations, and with your young men’s +and young women’s classes? Why should you not +introduce Santa Teresa to her daughters in Edinburgh? For +her daughters they are, so soon and as long as they live in +self-knowledge and in self-denial, in humility and in meekness, +and especially in unceasing prayer for themselves and for +others. <!-- page 2--><a name="page2"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 2</span>And I am not without some assurance +that in this present lecture I am both hearing and obeying one of +those same locutions that Teresa heard so frequently, and obeyed +with such instancy and fidelity and fruitfulness.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>Luther was born in 1483, and he nailed his ninety-five theses +to the door of the University Church of Wittenberg on the 31st +October 1517. Loyola was born in 1491, and Xavier in 1506, +and the Society of Jesus was established in 1534. Isabella +the Catholic was born in 1451, and our own Protestant Elizabeth +in 1533. The Spanish Inquisition began to sit in 1483, the +Breviary was finally settled in 1568, and the Armada was +destroyed in 1588. Columbus was born in 1446, and he set +out on his great enterprise in 1492. Cervantes was born in +1547, and the First Part of his immortal work was published in +1605. And it is to be read in Santa Teresa’s Breviary +to this day that Teresa the Sinner was born on the 29th day of +March 1515, at five o’clock in the morning. She died +in 1582, and in 1622 she was publicly canonised at Rome along +with Loyola and Xavier and two other Spanish saints.</p> +<p>Teresa was greatly blessed in both her <!-- page 3--><a +name="page3"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 3</span>parents. +‘It helped me much that I never saw my father or my mother +respect anything in any one but goodness.’ Her father +was a great reader of the best books, and he took great pains +that his children should form the same happy habit and should +carefully cultivate the same excellent taste. Her mother, +while a Christian gentlewoman of the first social standing, did +not share her husband’s love of serious literature. +She passed far too much of her short lifetime among the romances +of the day, till her daughter has to confess that she took no +little harm from the books that did her mother no harm but +pastime to read. As for other things, her father’s +house was a perfect model of the very best morals and the very +best manners. Alonso de Cepeda was a well-born and a +well-bred Spanish gentleman. He came of an ancient and an +illustrious Castilian stock; and, though not a rich man, his +household enjoyed all the nobility of breeding and all the +culture of mind and all the refinement of taste for which Spain +was so famous in that great age. All her days, and in all +her ups and downs in life, we continually trace back to +Teresa’s noble birth and noble upbringing no little of her +supreme stateliness of deportment and serenity of manner <!-- +page 4--><a name="page4"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 4</span>and +chivalry of character. Teresa was a perfect Spanish lady, +as well as a mother in Israel, and no one who ever conversed with +her could for a moment fail to observe that the oldest and best +blood of Spain mantled in her cheek and shone in her eye. A +lion encompassed by crosses was one of the quarters of her +father’s coat of arms. And Teresa took that up and +added out of it a new glory to all her father’s hereditary +honours. For his daughter was all her days a lioness +palisaded round with crosses, till by means of them she was +transformed into a lamb. But, all the time, the lioness was +still lurking there. Teresa’s was one of those +sovereign souls that are born from time to time as if to show us +what our race was created for at first, and for what it is still +destined. She was a queen among women. She was in +intellect the complete equal, and in still better things than +intellect far the superior, of Isabella and Elizabeth +themselves. As she says in an outspoken autobiographic +passage, hers was one of those outstanding and towering souls on +which a thousand eyes and tongues are continually set without any +one understanding them or comprehending them. Her coming +greatness of soul is foreseen by some of her biographers in the +attempt which she <!-- page 5--><a name="page5"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 5</span>made while yet a child to escape away +into the country of the Moors in search of an early martyrdom, so +that she might see her Saviour all the sooner, and stand in His +presence all the purer. ‘A woman,’ says +Crashaw, ‘for angelical height of speculation: for +masculine courage of performance, more than a woman; who, while +yet a child, outran maturity, and durst plot a martyrdom.</p> +<blockquote><p>Scarce had she learnt to lisp the name<br /> +Of martyr, yet she thinks it shame<br /> +Life should so long sport with that breath,<br /> +Which, spent, can buy so brave a death.</p> +<p>Scarce had she blood enough to make<br /> +A guilty sword blush for her sake;<br /> +Yet has she heart dares hope to prove<br /> +How much less strong is death than love.</p> +<p>Be love but there, let poor six years<br /> +Be posed with the maturest fears<br /> +Man trembles at, we straight shall find<br /> +Love knows no nonage, nor the mind.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Teresa’s mother died just when her daughter was at that +dangerous age in which a young girl needs a wise mother most; +‘the age when virtue should begin to grow,’ as she +says herself. Teresa was an extraordinarily handsome and +attractive young lady, and the knowledge of that, as she tells +us, made her very vain, and puffed up her heart with foolish +imaginations. <!-- page 6--><a name="page6"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 6</span>She has a powerful chapter in the +opening of her Autobiography on dangerous companionships in the +days of youth. ‘Oh that all parents would take +warning by me, and would look carefully into their +children’s early friendships!’ She suffered +terribly from bad health all her days, and that severe +chastisement began to fall on her while she was yet a beautiful +girl. It was a succession of serious illnesses, taken along +with her father’s scrupulous care over her, that brought +Teresa back to the simple piety of her early childhood, and fixed +her for life in an extraordinary devotion to God, and to all the +things of God. When such a change of heart and character +comes to a young woman among ourselves, she usually seeks out +some career of religion and charity to which she can devote her +life. She is found labouring among the poor and the sick +and the children of the poor, or she goes abroad to foreign +mission work. In Teresa’s land and day a Religious +House was the understood and universal refuge for any young woman +who was in earnest about her duty to God and to her own +soul. In those Houses such young women secluded themselves +from all society and gave themselves up to the care of the poor +and the young. In the more strict and enclosed <!-- page +7--><a name="page7"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 7</span>of those +retreats the inmates never came out of doors at all, but wholly +sequestered themselves up to a secret life of austerity and +prayer. This was the ideal life led in those Houses for +religious women. But Teresa soon found out the tremendous +mistake she had made in leaving her father’s +family-fireside for a so-called Religious House. No sooner +had she entered it than she was plunged headlong into those very +same ‘pestilent amusements,’ the mere approach of +which had made her flee to this supposed asylum. Though she +is composing her Autobiography under the sharp eyes of her +confessors, and while she is writing with a submissiveness and, +indeed, a servility that is her only weakness, Teresa at the same +time is bold enough and honest enough to tell us her own +experiences of monastic life in language of startling strength +and outspokenness. ‘A short-cut to hell. If +parents would take my advice, they would rather marry their +daughters to the very poorest of men, or else keep them at home +under their own eye. If young women will be wicked at home, +their wickedness will not long be hidden at home; but in +monasteries, such as I speak of, their worst wickedness can be +completely covered up from every human eye. And all the +time the poor <!-- page 8--><a name="page8"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 8</span>things are not to blame. They +only walk in the way that is shown them. Many of them are +to be much pitied, for they honestly wish to withdraw from the +world, only to find themselves in ten times worse worlds of +sensuality and all other devilry. O my God! if I might I +would fain speak of some of the occasions of sin from which Thou +didst deliver me, and how I threw myself into them again. +And of the risks I ran of utterly shipwrecking my character and +good name and from which Thou didst rescue me. O Lord of my +soul! how shall I be able to magnify Thy grace in those perilous +years! At the very time that I was offending Thee most, +Thou didst prepare me by a most profound compunction to taste of +the sweetness of Thy recoveries and consolations. In truth, +O my King, Thou didst administer to me the most spiritual and +painful of chastisements: for Thou didst chastise my sins with +great assurances of Thy love and of Thy great mercy. It +makes me feel beside myself when I call to mind Thy great grace +and my great ingratitude.’</p> +<p>This leads us up to the conception and commencement of that +great work to which Teresa dedicated the whole of her after +life,—the reformation and extension of the Religious <!-- +page 9--><a name="page9"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +9</span>Houses of Spain. The root-and-branch reformation of +Luther and his German and Swiss colleagues had not laid much hold +on Spain; and the little hold it had laid on her native land had +never reached to Teresa. Had Luther and Teresa but met: had +Melanchthon and Teresa but met: had the best books of the German +and Swiss Reformation but come into Teresa’s hands: had she +been somewhat less submissive, and somewhat less obedient, and +somewhat less completely the slave of her ecclesiastical +superiors; had she but once entered into that intellectual and +spiritual liberty wherewith Christ makes His people +free,—what a lasting blessing Teresa might have been made +to her native land! But, as it was, Teresa’s +reformation, while it was the salvation of herself and of +multitudes more who came under it, yet as a monastic experiment +and a church movement, it ended in the strengthening and the +perpetuation of that detestable system of intellectual and +spiritual tyranny which has been the death of Spain from that day +to this. Teresa performed a splendid service inside the +Church to which she belonged: but that service was wholly +confined to the Religious Houses that she founded and +reformed. Teresa’s was intended to be a kind of +counter-reformation <!-- page 10--><a name="page10"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 10</span>to the reformation of Luther and +Melanchthon and Valdes and Valera. And such was the talent +and the faith and the energy she brought to bear on the work she +undertook, that, had it been better directed, it might have been +blessed to preserve her beloved native land at the head of modern +Christendom. But, while that was not to be, it is the +immense talent, and the unceasing toil, and the splendid faith +and self-surrender that Teresa brought to bear on her intramural +reformation; and, all through that, on the working out of her own +salvation,—it is all these things that go to make +Teresa’s long life so memorable and so impressive, not only +in her own age and land and church, but wherever greatness of +mind, and nobleness of heart, and sanctity of life, and +stateliness of character are heard of and are esteemed.</p> +<p>Teresa’s intellect, her sheer power of mind, is enough +of itself to make her an intensely interesting study to all +thinking men. No one can open her books without confessing +the spell of her powerful understanding. Her books, before +they were books, absolutely captivated and completely converted +to her unpopular cause many of her most determined enemies. +Again and again and again we find her confessors <!-- page +11--><a name="page11"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 11</span>and +her censors admitting that both her spiritual experiences and her +reformation work were utterly distasteful and very stumbling to +them till they had read her own written account, first of her +life of prayer and then of her reformation work. One after +another of such men, and some of them the highest in learning and +rank and godliness, on reading her autobiographic papers, came +over to be her fearless defenders and fast friends. There +is nothing more delightful in all her delightful Autobiography, +and in the fine ‘censures’ that have been preserved +concerning it, than to read of the great and learned theologians, +the responsible church leaders, and even the secret inquisitors +who came under the charm of her character and the spell of her +pen. ‘She electrifies the will,’ confessed one +of the best judges of good writing in her day. And old +Bishop Palafox’s tribute to Teresa is far too beautiful to +be withheld. ‘What I admire in her is the peace, the +sweetness, and the consolation with which in her writings she +draws us toward the best, so that we find ourselves captured +rather than conquered, imprisoned rather than prisoners. No +one reads the saint’s writings who does not presently seek +God, and no one through her <!-- page 12--><a +name="page12"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 12</span>writings +seeks God who does not remain in love with the saint. I +have not met with a single spiritual man who does not become a +passionate admirer of Santa Teresa. But her writings do not +alone impart a rational, interior, and superior love, but a love +at the same time practical, natural, and sensitive; and my own +experience proves it to me that there exists no one who loves her +but would, if the saint were still in this world, travel far to +see and speak with her.’ I wish much I could add to +that Peter of Alcantara’s marvellous analysis of +Teresa’s experiences and character. Under +thirty-three heads that great saint sums up Teresa’s +character, and gives us a noble, because all unconscious, +revelation of his own. And though Teresa has been dead for +three hundred years, she speaks to this day in that same way: and +that too in quarters in which we would little expect to hear her +voice. In that intensely interesting novel of modern +Parisian life, <i>En Route</i>, Teresa takes a chief part in the +conversion and sanctification of the prodigal son whose return to +his father’s house is so powerfully depicted in that +story. The deeply read and eloquent author of that +remarkable book gives us some of the best estimates and +descriptions of Santa Teresa that <!-- page 13--><a +name="page13"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 13</span>I have +anywhere met with. ‘That cool-headed business woman . +. . that admirable psychologist and of superhuman lucidity . . . +that magnificent and over-awing saint . . . she has verified in +her own case the supernatural experiences of the greatest +mystics,—such are her unparalleled experiences in the +supernatural domain. . . . Teresa goes deeper than any like +writer into the unexplored regions of the soul. She is the +geographer and hydrographer of the sinful soul. She has +drawn the map of its poles, marked its latitudes of contemplation +and prayer, and laid out all the interior seas and lands of the +human heart. Other saints have been among those heights and +depths and deserts before her, but no one has left us so +methodical and so scientific a survey.’ Were it for +nothing else, the chapters on mystical literature in M. +Huysmans’ unfinished trilogy would make it a valued +possession to every student of the soul of man under sin and +under salvation. I await the completion of his +Pilgrim’s Progress with great impatience and with great +expectation.</p> +<p>And then, absolutely possessed as Teresa always is by the most +solemn subjects,—herself, her sin, her Saviour, her +original method of prayer and her unshared experiences in +prayer,—she showers upon us continually <!-- page 14--><a +name="page14"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 14</span>gleams and +glances of the sunniest merriment, amid all her sighs and +tears. She roasts in caustic the gross-minded, and the +self-satisfied, and the self-righteous, as Socrates himself never +roasted them better. Again, like his, her irony and her +raillery and her satire are sometimes so delicate that it quite +eludes you for the first two or three readings of the exquisite +page. And then, when you turn the leaf, she is as +ostentatiously stupid and ignorant and dependent on your superior +mind as ever Socrates himself was. Till I shrewdly suspect +that no little of that ‘obedience’ which so +intoxicated and fascinated her inquisitors, and which to this day +so exasperates some of her biographers, was largely economical +and ironical. Her narrow cell is reported to have often +resounded with peals of laughter to the scandal of some of her +sisters. In support of all that, I have marked a score of +Socratic passages in Woodhead, and Dalton, and Lewis, and Father +Coleridge, and Mrs. Cunninghame Graham. They are very +delicious passages and very tempting. But were they once +begun there would be no end to them. You will believe +Froude, for he is an admitted judge in all matters connected with +the best literature, and he says <!-- page 15--><a +name="page15"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 15</span>in his +<i>Quarterly</i> article on Teresa’s writings, ‘The +best satire of Cervantes is not more dainty.’</p> +<p>The great work to which Teresa gave up her whole life, after +her full conversion, was the purification of the existing +monastic system, and the multiplication and extension of +Religious Houses of the strictest, severest, most secluded, most +prayerful, and most saintly life. She had been told by +those she too much trusted, that the Church of Christ was being +torn in pieces in Germany, and in Switzerland, and in France, and +in England by a great outbreak of heretical error; and, while the +Society of Jesus and the Secret Inquisition were established to +cope with all such heresy, Teresa set herself to counteract it by +a widespread combination of unceasing penance and intercessory +prayer. It was a zeal without knowledge; but there can be +no doubt about the sincerity, the single-mindedness, and the +strength of the zeal. For forty as hard-working years as +ever any woman spent in this world, Teresa laboured according to +her best light to preserve the purity and the unity of the Church +of Christ. And the strength and the sagacity of mind, the +tact, the business talents, the tenacity of will, the patience, +the endurance, the perseverance, <!-- page 16--><a +name="page16"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 16</span>the sleepless +watchfulness, and the abounding prayerfulness that she brought to +bear on the reformation and multiplication of her fortresses of +defence and attack in that holy war, all taken together, make up +one of the most remarkable pages in the whole history of the +Church of Christ. Her difficulties with Rome, with the +Inquisition, with her more immediate superiors, confessors, and +censors, and, most of all, with the ignorance, the stupidity, the +laziness, the malice, and the lies of those monks and nuns whose +reformation she was determined on: her endless journeys: her +negotiations with church-leaders, landowners, and tradesmen in +selecting and securing sites, and in erecting new religious +houses: the adventures, the accidents, the entertainments she met +with: and the fine temper, the good humour, the fascinating +character, the winning manners she everywhere exhibited; and, +withal, her incomparable faith in the Living God, and the +exquisite inwardness, unconquerable assurance, and abounding +fruitfulness of her own and unshared method and secret of +prayer,—had Teresa not lived and died in Spain, and had she +not spent her life and done her work under the Roman obedience, +her name would have been a household word <!-- page 17--><a +name="page17"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 17</span>in +Scotland. As it is, she is not wholly unknown or +unloved. And as knowledge extends, and love, and good-will; +and as suspicion, and fear, and retaliation, and party-spirit die +out among us, the truth about Teresa and multitudes more will +become established on clearer and deeper and broader foundations; +and we shall be able to hail both her and multitudes more like +her as our brothers and sisters in Christ, whom hitherto we have +hated and despised because we did not know them, and had been +poisoned against them. I am a conspicuous case in point +myself. And when I have been conquered by a little +desultory reading and by a little effort after love no man need +despair. And if you will listen to this lecture with a good +and honest heart: with a heart that delights to hear all this +good report about a fellow-believer: then He who has begun that +good work in you will perfect it by books and by lectures like +this, and far better than this, till you are taken absolutely +captive to that charity which rejoiceth not in iniquity, but +rejoiceth in the truth: and which beareth all things, believeth +all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Follow +after charity, and begin with Santa Teresa.</p> +<blockquote><p><!-- page 18--><a name="page18"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 18</span>Forbid it, mighty Love, let no fond +hate<br /> +Of names or words so far prejudicate;<br /> +Souls are not Spaniards too; one friendly flood<br /> +Of baptism blends them all into one blood.<br /> +What soul soe’er in any language can<br /> +Speak heaven like hers, is my soul’s countryman.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>But the greatest and the best talent that God gives to any man +or woman in this world is the talent of prayer. And the +best usury that any man or woman brings back to God when He comes +to reckon with them at the end of this world is a life of +prayer. And those servants best put their Lord’s +money to the exchangers who rise early and sit late, as long as +they are in this world, ever finding out and ever following after +better and better methods of prayer, and ever forming more +secret, more steadfast, and more spiritually fruitful habits of +prayer: till they literally pray without ceasing, and till they +continually strike out into new enterprises in prayer, and new +achievements, and new enrichments. It was this that first +drew me to Teresa. It was her singular originality in +prayer and her complete captivity to prayer. It was the +time she spent in prayer, and the refuge, and the peace, and the +sanctification, and the power for carrying on hard and unrequited +work that she all her life found in prayer. It was her +fidelity and her <!-- page 19--><a name="page19"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 19</span>utter surrender of herself to this +first and last of all her religious duties, till it became more a +delight, and, indeed, more an indulgence, than a duty. With +Teresa it was prayer first, and prayer last, and prayer +always. With Teresa literally all things were sanctified, +and sweetened, and made fruitful by prayer. In +Teresa’s writings prayer holds much the same place that it +holds in the best men and women of Holy Scripture. If I +were to say that about some of the ladies of the Scottish +Covenant, you would easily believe me. But you must believe +me when I tell you that about a Spanish lady, second to none of +them in holiness of life, even if her holy life is not all cast +in our mould. All who have read the autobiographic +<i>Apologia</i> will remember the fine passage in which its +author tells us that ever since his conversion there have been +two, and only two, absolutely self-luminous beings in the whole +universe of being to him,—God and his own soul. Now, +I do not remember that Newman even once speaks about Teresa in +any of his books, but I always think of him and her together in +this great respect. <span class="smcap">God</span> is to +them both, and to them both He is a rewarder of them that +diligently seek Him. And it is just here, at the very +commencement and centre of divine things, that we all make <!-- +page 20--><a name="page20"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +20</span>such shipwreck and come so short. The sense of the +reality of divine and unseen things in Teresa’s life of +prayer is simply miraculous in a woman still living among things +seen and temporal. Her faith is truly the substance of +things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen. Our +Lord was as real, as present, as near, as visible, and as affable +to this extraordinary saint as ever He was to Martha, or Mary, or +Mary Magdalene, or the woman of Samaria, or the mother of +Zebedee’s children. She prepared Him where to lay His +head; she sat at His feet and heard His word. She chose the +better part, and He acknowledged to herself and to others that +she had done so. She washed His feet with her tears, and +wiped them with the hair of her head. She had been forgiven +much, and she loved much. He said to her, Mary, and she +answered Him, Rabboni. And He gave her messages to deliver +to His disciples, who had not waited for Him as she had +waited. Till she was able to say to them all that she had +seen the Lord, and that He had spoken such and such things within +her. And hence arises what I may call the quite +extraordinary purity and spirituality of her life of +prayer. ‘Defecate’ is Goodwin’s favourite +and constant word for the purest, the most <!-- page 21--><a +name="page21"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 21</span>rapt, the +most adoring, and the most spiritual prayer. ‘I have +known men’—it must have been himself—‘who +came to God for nothing else but just to come to Him, they so +loved Him. They scorned to soil Him and themselves with any +other errand than just purely to be alone with Him in His +presence. Friendship is best kept up, even among men, by +frequent visits; and the more free and defecate those frequent +visits are, and the less occasioned by business, or necessity, or +custom they are, the more friendly and welcome they +are.’ Now, I have sometimes wondered what took Teresa +so often, and kept her so long, alone with God. Till I +remembered Goodwin’s classical passages about defecated +prayer, and understood something of what is involved and what is +to be experienced in pure and immediate communion with God. +And, then, from all that it surely follows, that no one is fit +for one moment to have an adverse or a hostile mind, or to pass +an adverse or a hostile judgment, on the divine manifestations +that came to Teresa in her unparalleled life of prayer; no one +who is not a man of like prayer himself; no, nor even then. +I know all the explanations that have been put forward for +Teresa’s ‘locutions’ and revelations; but after +anxiously weighing <!-- page 22--><a name="page22"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 22</span>them all, the simplest explanation is +also the most scientific, as it is the most scriptural. If +our ascending Lord actually said what He is reported to have said +about the way that He and His Father will always reward all love +to Him, and the keeping of all His commandments; then, if there +is anything true about Teresa at all, it is this, that from the +day of her full conversion she lived with all her might that very +life which has all these transcendent promises spoken and sealed +to it. By her life of faith and prayer and personal +holiness, Teresa made herself ‘capable of God,’ as +one describes it, and God came to her and filled her with Himself +to her utmost capacity, as He said He would. At the same +time, much as I trust and honour and love Teresa, and much good +as she has been made of God to me, she was still, at her best, +but an imperfectly sanctified woman, and her rewards and +experiences were correspondingly imperfect. But if a holy +life before such manifestations were made to her, and a still +holier life after them—if that is any test of the truth and +reality of such transcendent and supernatural matters,—on +her own humble and adoring testimony, and on the now extorted and +now spontaneous testimony of absolutely all who lived near her, +<!-- page 23--><a name="page23"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +23</span>still more humility, meekness, lowly-mindedness, +heavenly-mindedness and prayerfulness demonstrably followed those +inward and spiritual revelations to her of her Lord. In +short and in sure, ye shall know them by their fruits. Do +men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? On the +whole, then, I for one am strongly disposed toward Teresa, even +in the much-inculpated matter of her inward voices and +visions. The wish may very possibly be father to the +thought: but my thought leans to Teresa, even in her most +astounding locutions and revelations; they answer so entirely to +my reading of our Lord and of His words. I take sides, on +the whole, with those theologians of her day, who began by +doubting, but ended by believing in Teresa and by imitating +her. They were led to rejoice that any contemporary and +fellow-sinner had attained to such fellowship with God: and I am +constrained to take sides with them. ‘One day, in +prayer, the sweetness was so great that I could not but contrast +it with the place I deserved in hell. The sweetness and the +light and the peace were so great that, compared with it, +everything in this world is vanity and lies. I was filled +with a new reverence for God. I saw His majesty and His +power in a way I cannot <!-- page 24--><a name="page24"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 24</span>describe, and the vision kept me in +great tenderness and joy and humility. I cannot help making +much of that which led me so near to God. I knew at that +great moment what it is for a soul to be in the very presence of +God Himself. What must be the condescension of His majesty +seeing that in so short a time He left so great an impression and +so great a blessing on my soul! O my Lord, consider who she +is upon whom Thou art bestowing such unheard-of blessings! +Dost Thou forget that my soul has been an abyss of sin? How +is this, O Lord, how can it be that such great grace has come to +the lot of one who has so ill deserved such things at Thy +hands!’ He who can read that, and a hundred passages +as good as that, and who shall straightway set himself to sneer +and scoff and disparage and find fault, he is well on the way to +the sin against the Holy Ghost. At any rate, I would be if +I did not revere and love and imitate such a saint of God. +Given God and His Son and His Holy Spirit: given sin and +salvation and prayer and a holy life; and, with many drawbacks, +Teresa’s was just the life of self-denial and repentance +and prayer and communion with God that we should all live. +It is not Teresa who is to be bemoaned and blamed and called bad +names. <!-- page 25--><a name="page25"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 25</span>It is we who do all that to her who +are beside ourselves. It is we who need the beam to be +taken out of our own eye. Teresa was a mystery and an +offence; and, again, an encouragement and an example to the +theologians and the inquisitors of her day just as she still is +in our day. She was a stumbling-stone, or an ensample, +according to the temper and disposition and character of her +contemporaries, and she is the same to-day.</p> +<p>The pressing question with me is not the truth or the +falsehood, the amount of reality or the amount of imagination in +Teresa’s locutions and visions. The pressing question +with me is this,—Why it is that I have nothing to show to +myself at all like them. I think I could die for the truth +of my Lord’s promise that both He and His Father will +manifest Themselves to those who love Him and keep His words; but +He never manifests Himself, to be called manifestation, to +me. I am driven in sheer desperation to believe such +testimonies and attainments as those of Teresa, if only to +support my failing faith in the words of my Master. I had +rather believe every syllable of Teresa’s so-staggering +locutions and visions than be left to this, that ever since Paul +and John went home to heaven our Lord’s greatest promises +<!-- page 26--><a name="page26"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +26</span>have been so many idle words. It is open to any +man to scoff and sneer at Teresa’s extraordinary life of +prayer, and at the manifestations of the Father and the Son that +were made to her in her life of prayer, and some of her +biographers and censors among ourselves have made good use of +their opportunity. But I cannot any longer sit with them in +the seat of the scorner, and I want you all to rise up and leave +that evil seat also. Lord, how wilt Thou manifest Thyself +in time to come to me? How shall I attain to that faith and +to that love and to that obedience which shall secure to me the +long-withheld presence and indwelling of the Father and the +Son?</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>Teresa’s <i>Autobiography</i>, properly speaking, is not +an autobiography at all, though it ranks with <i>The +Confessions</i>, and <i>The Commedia</i>, and <i>The Grace +Abounding</i>, and <i>The Reliquiae</i>, as one of the very best +of that great kind of book. It is not really Teresa’s +<i>Life Written by Herself</i>, though all that stands on its +title-page. It is only one part of her life: it is only her +life of prayer. The title of the book, she says in one +place, is not her life at all, but <i>The Mercies of +God</i>. Many other matters come up incidentally in this +delightful book, but the whole drift and <!-- page 27--><a +name="page27"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 27</span>the real +burden of the book is its author’s life of prayer. +Her attainments and her experiences in prayer so baffled and so +put out all her confessors that, at their wits’ end, they +enjoined her to draw out in writing a complete account of a +secret life, the occasional and partial discovery of which so +amazed, and perplexed, and condemned them. And thus it is +that we come to possess this unique and incomparable +autobiography: this wonderful revelation of Teresa’s soul +in prayer. It is a book in which we see a woman of +sovereign intellectual ability working out her own salvation in +circumstances so different from our own that we have the greatest +difficulty in believing that it was really salvation at all she +was so working out. Till, as we read in humility and in +love, we learn to separate-off all that is local, and secular, +and ecclesiastical, and circumstantial, and then we immensely +enjoy and take lasting profit out of all that which is so truly +Catholic and so truly spiritual. Teresa was an +extraordinary woman in every way: and that comes out on every +page of her Autobiography. So extraordinary that I confess +there is a great deal that she tells us about herself that I do +not at all understand. She was Spanish, and we are +Scottish. She and we are wide as the poles <!-- page +28--><a name="page28"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +28</span>asunder. Her lot was cast of God in the sixteenth +century, whereas our lot is cast in the nineteenth. She was +a Roman Catholic mystic, and we are Evangelical +Protestants. But it is one of the great rewards of studying +such a life as Teresa’s to be able to change places with +her so as to understand her and love her. She was, without +any doubt or contradiction, a great saint of God. And a +great saint of God is more worthy of our study and admiration and +imitation and love than any other study or admiration or +imitation or love on the face of the earth. And the further +away such a saint is from us the better she is for our study and +admiration and imitation and love, if we only have the sense and +the grace to see it.</p> +<p>Cervantes himself might have written Teresa’s <i>Book of +the Foundations</i>. Certainly he never wrote a better +book. For myself I have read Teresa’s +<i>Foundations</i> twice at any rate for every once I have read +Cervantes’ masterpiece. For literature, for humour, +for wit, for nature, for photographic pictures of the time and +the people, her <i>Foundations</i> are a masterpiece also: and +then, Teresa’s pictures are pictures of the best people in +Spain. And there was no finer people in the whole of +Christendom <!-- page 29--><a name="page29"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 29</span>in that day than the best of the +Spanish people. God had much people in the Spain of that +day, and he who is not glad to hear that will never have a place +among them. The Spain of that century was full of family +life of the most polished and refined kind. And, with all +their declensions and corruptions, the Religious Houses of Spain +enclosed multitudes of the most saintly men and women. +‘I never read of a hermit,’ said Dr. Johnson to +Boswell in St. Andrews, ‘but in imagination I kiss his +feet: I never read of a monastery, but I could fall on my knees +and kiss the pavement. I have thought of retiring myself, +and have talked of it to a friend, but I find my vocation is +rather in active life.’ It was such monasteries as +Teresa founded and ruled and wrote the history of that made such +a sturdy Protestant as Dr. Johnson was say such a thing as +that. <i>The Book of the Foundations</i> is Teresa’s +own account, written also under superior orders, of that great +group of religious houses which she founded and administered for +so many years. And the literature into which she puts all +those years is literature of the first water. A thousand +times I have been reminded of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza as I +read Teresa’s account <!-- page 30--><a +name="page30"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 30</span>of her +journeys, and of the people, and of the escapades, and of the +entertainments she met with. Yes, quite as good as +Cervantes! yes, quite as good as Goldsmith!—I have caught +myself exclaiming as I read and laughed till the tears ran down +my cheeks. This is literature, this is art without the art, +this is literary finish without the labour: and all laid out to +the finest of all uses, to tell of the work of God, and of all +the enterprises, providences, defeats, successes, recompenses, +connected with it. The <i>Foundations</i> is a Christian +classic even in Woodhead’s and Dalton’s and David +Lewis’s English, what must it then be to those to whom +Teresa’s exquisite Spanish is their mother-tongue!</p> +<p>If Vaughan had but read <i>The Foundations</i>, which he is +honest enough to confess he had only glanced at in a French +translation, it would surely have done something to make him +reconsider the indecent and disgraceful attack which he makes on +Teresa. His chapter on Teresa is a contemptuous and a +malicious caricature. Vaughan has often been of great +service to me, but if I had gone by that misleading chapter, I +would have lost weeks of most intensely interesting and +spiritually profitable reading. Vaughan’s extravagant +misrepresentation <!-- page 31--><a name="page31"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 31</span>of Teresa will henceforth make me +hesitate to receive his other judgments till I have read the +books myself. I shall not tarry here to controvert +Vaughan’s utterly untruthful chapter on Teresa, I shall +content myself with setting over against it Crashaw’s +exquisite <i>Hymn</i> and <i>Apology</i>, and especially his +magnificent <i>Flaming Heart</i>.</p> +<p>Teresa’s <i>Way of Perfection</i> is a truly fine book: +full of freshness, suggestiveness, and power. So much so, +that I question if William Law’s <i>Christian +Perfection</i> would ever have been written, but that Teresa had +written on that same subject before him. I do not say that +Law plagiarised from Teresa, but some of his very best passages +are plainly inspired by his great predecessor. You will +thank me for the following eloquent passage from Mrs. Cunninghame +Graham, which so felicitously characterises this great book, and +that in language such as I could not command. ‘To my +thinking Teresa is at her best in her <i>Way of Perfection</i> +with its bursts of impassioned eloquence; its shrewd and caustic +irony; its acute and penetrating knowledge of human character, +the same in the convent as in the world; above all in its +sympathetic and tender instinct for the needs and difficulties of +her <!-- page 32--><a name="page32"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +32</span>daughters. <i>The Perfection</i> represents the +finished and magnificent fabric of the spiritual life. Her +words ring with a strange terseness and earnestness as she here +pens her spiritual testament. She points out the +mischievous foibles, the little meannesses, the spirit of +cantankerousness and strife, which long experience of the +cloister had shown her were the besetting sins of the conventual +life. She places before them the loftier standard of the +Cross. Her words, direct and simple, ring out true and +clear, producing somewhat the solemn effect of a Commination +Service.’ Strong as that estimate is, <i>The +Perfection</i> deserves every word of it and more.</p> +<p>Teresa thought that her <i>Mansions</i> was one of her two +best books, but she was surely far wrong in that. <i>The +Mansions</i>, sometimes called <i>The Interior Castle</i>, to me +at any rate, is a most shapeless, monotonous, and wearisome +book. Teresa had a splendid imagination, but her +imagination had not the architectonic and dramatic quality that +is necessary for carrying out such a conception as that is which +she has laid in the ground-plan of this book. No one who +has ever read <i>The Purgatorio</i> or <i>The Holy War</i> could +have patience with the shapeless and inconsequent +<i>Mansions</i>. There is nothing that is new <!-- page +33--><a name="page33"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 33</span>in +the matter of the <i>Mansions</i>; there is nothing that is not +found in a far better shape in some of her other books; and one +is continually wearied out by her utter inability to handle the +imagery which she will not let alone. At the same time, the +persevering reader will come continually on characteristic things +that are never to be forgotten as he climbs with Teresa from +strength to strength on her way to her Father’s House.</p> +<p>To my mind Teresa is at her very best, not in her +<i>Mansions</i> which she made so much of, but in her +<i>Letters</i> which she made nothing of. I think I prefer +her <i>Letters</i> to all her other books. A great service +was done to this fine field of literature when Teresa’s +letters were collected and published. What +Augustine’s editor has so well said about Augustine’s +letters I would borrow and would apply to Teresa’s +letters. All her other works receive fresh light from her +letters. The subjects of her more elaborate writings are +all handled in her letters in a far easier, a far more natural, +and a far more attractive manner. It is in her letters that +we first see the size and the strength and the sweep of her mind, +and discover the deserved deference that is paid to her on all +hands. Burdened churchmen, inquiring students in <!-- page +34--><a name="page34"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 34</span>the +spiritual life, perplexed confessors, angry and remonstrating +monks, husbands and wives, matrons and maidens, all find their +way to Mother Teresa. Great bundles of letters are +delivered at the door of her cell every day, and she works at her +answers to those letters till a bird begins to flutter in the top +of her head, after which her physician will not suffer her to +write more than twelve letters at a downsitting. And what +letters they are, all sealed with the name of <span +class="smcap">Jesus</span>—she will seal now with no other +seal. What letters of a strong and sound mind go out under +that seal! What a business head! What shrewdness, +sagacity, insight, frankness, boldness, archness, raillery, +downright fun! And all as full of splendid sense as an egg +is full of meat. If Andrew Bonar had only read Spanish, and +had edited Teresa’s <i>Letters</i> as he has edited +Rutherford’s, we would have had that treasure in all our +houses. As it is, Father Coleridge long ago fell on the +happy idea of compiling a <i>Life of Teresa</i> out of her extant +letters, and he has at last carried out his idea, if not in all +its original fulness, yet in a very admirable and praiseworthy +way. But I would like to know how many of the boasted +literary and religious people of Edinburgh have bought and read +<!-- page 35--><a name="page35"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +35</span>Father Coleridge’s delightful book. A +hundred? Ten? Five? I doubt it. Or how +many have so much as borrowed from the circulating library Mrs. +Cunninghame Graham’s first-rate book? Of +Teresa’s <i>Letters</i>, that greatest living authority on +Teresa says—‘That long series of epistolary +correspondence, so enchanting in the original. It is in her +letters that Teresa is at her best. They reveal all her +shrewdness about business and money matters; her talent for +administration; her intense interest in life, and in all that is +passing around her. Her letters show Teresa as the +Castilian gentlewoman who not only treats on terms of perfect +equality with people of the highest rank in the kingdom, but is +in the greatest request by them. Her letters, of which +probably only a tithe remains, show us how marvellously the +horizon of her life had expanded, and how rapidly her fame had +grown. Perhaps no more finished specimen of epistolary +correspondence has ever been penned than those letters, written +in the press of multifarious occupations, and often late at night +when the rest of the convent was sleeping.’</p> +<p>Her confessor, who commanded Teresa to throw her <i>Commentary +on the Song of Solomon</i> into the fire, was a sensible man and +a true <!-- page 36--><a name="page36"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 36</span>friend to her reputation, and the nun +who snatched a few leaves out of the fire did Teresa’s fame +no service. Judging of the whole by the part preserved to +us, there must have been many things scattered up and down the +destroyed book well worthy of her best pen. The +‘instance of self-esteem’ which Teresa so +delightfully narrates is well worth all the burnt fingers its +preservation had cost the devoted sister: and up and down the +charred leaves there are passages on conduct and character, on +obedience and humility and prayer, that Teresa alone could have +written. All the same, as a whole, her <i>Commentary on the +Song</i> is better in the fire.</p> +<p>Her <i>Seven Meditations on the Lord’s Prayer</i> ran no +danger of the censor’s fire. I have had occasion to +read all the best expositions of the Lord’s Prayer in our +language, and I am bound to say that for originality and striking +suggestiveness Teresa’s <i>Seven Meditations</i> stands +alone. After I had written that extravagant sentence I went +back and read her little book over again, so sure was I that I +must have overpraised it, and that I would not be believed in +what I have said concerning it. But after another reading +of the <i>Meditations</i> I am emboldened to let the strong +praise stand <!-- page 37--><a name="page37"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 37</span>in all its original strength. I +have passages marked in abundance to prove to demonstration the +estimate I have formed of this beautiful book, but I must forego +myself the pleasure and the pride of quoting them.</p> +<p>Sixteen Augustinian <i>Exclamations after having +Communicated</i>: sixty-nine <i>Advices to Her Daughters</i>, and +a small collection of love-enflamed <i>Hymns</i>, complete what +remains to us of Teresa’s writings.</p> +<p>Teresa died of hard work and worry and shameful neglect, +almost to sheer starvation. But she had meat to eat that +all Anne Bartholomew’s remaining mites could not buy for +her dying mother. And, strong in the strength of that +spiritual meat, Teresa rose off her deathbed to finish her +work. She inspected with all her wonted quickness of eye +and love of order the whole of the House into which she had been +carried to die. She saw everything put into its proper +place, and every one answering to their proper order, after which +she attended the divine offices for the day, and then went back +to her bed and summoned her daughters around her. ‘My +children,’ she said, ‘you must pardon me much; you +must pardon me most of all the bad example I have given +you. Do not imitate me. Do not live as I have <!-- +page 38--><a name="page38"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +38</span>lived. I have been the greatest sinner in all the +world. I have not kept the laws I made for others. I +beseech you, my daughters, for the love of God, to keep the rules +of your Holy Houses as I have never kept them. O my +Lord,’ she then turned to Him and said, ‘the hour I +have so much longed for has surely come at last. The time +has surely come that we shall see one another. My Lord and +Saviour, it is surely time for me to be taken out of this +banishment and be for ever with Thee. The sacrifices of God +are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou +wilt not despise. Cast me not away from Thy presence, and +take not Thy Holy Spirit away from me. Create in me a clean +heart, O God.’ ‘A broken and a contrite heart; +a broken and a contrite heart,’ was her continual cry till +she died with these words on her lips, ‘A broken and a +contrite heart Thou wilt not despise.’ And, thus, +with the most penitential of David’s penitential Psalms in +her mouth, and with the holy candle of her Church in her hand, +Teresa of Jesus went forth from her banishment to meet her +Bridegroom.</p> +<blockquote><p>O sweet incendiary! shew here thy art<br /> +Upon this carcass of a cold hard heart;<br /> +<!-- page 39--><a name="page39"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +39</span>Let all thy scatter’d shafts of light that play<br +/> +Among the leaves of thy large books of day,<br /> +Combined against this breast at once break in<br /> +And take away from me myself and sin;<br /> +This gracious robbery shall thy bounty be,<br /> +And thy best fortune such fair spoils of me.<br /> +O thou undaunted daughter of desires!<br /> +By all thy dower of lights and fires;<br /> +By all the eagle in thee, all the dove;<br /> +By all thy lives and deaths of love;<br /> +By thy large draughts of intellectual day;<br /> +And all thy thirsts of love more large than they;<br /> +By all thy brim-filled bowls of fierce desire;<br /> +By thy last morning’s draught of liquid fire;<br /> +By the full kingdom of that final kiss<br /> +That seized thy parting soul, and sealed thee His;<br /> +By all the Heavens thou hast in Him,<br /> +(Fair sister of the Seraphim!);<br /> +By all of Him we have in thee;—<br /> +Leave nothing of myself in me.<br /> +Let me so read thy life, that I<br /> +Unto all life of mine may die.</p> +</blockquote> +<h2><!-- page 41--><a name="page41"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +41</span>SOME SELECTED PASSAGES</h2> +<p>* <i>The translations in the following pages are mainly those +of Woodhead and Lewis</i>.</p> +<h3>TERESA ON HERSELF</h3> +<p>I had a father and a mother who both feared God. My +father had his chief delight in the reading of good books, and he +did his best to give his children the same happy taste. +This also helped me much, that I never saw my father or my mother +regard anything but goodness. Though possessing very great +beauty in her youth, my mother was never known to set any store +by it. Her apparel, even in her early married life, was +that of a woman no longer young. Her life was a life of +suffering, her death was most Christian. After my +mother’s removal, I began to think too much about my dress +and my appearance, and I pursued many such like things that I was +never properly warned against, full of mischief though they were +both to myself and to others. I too early learned every +evil from an immoral relative. I was very fond of this +woman’s company. I gossiped and talked with her +continually. She assisted me to all the amusements I loved; +and, what was worse, she found some very evil amusements for me, +and in every way communicated to me her own vanities and +mischiefs. I am amazed to think on the evil that <!-- page +42--><a name="page42"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 42</span>one +bad companion can do; nor could I have believed it, unless I had +known it by experience. The company and the conversation of +this one woman so changed me that scarcely any trace was left in +me of my natural disposition to virtue. I became a perfect +reflection of her and of another who was as bad as she was.</p> +<p>For my education and protection my father sent me to the +Augustinian Monastery, in which children like myself were brought +up. There was a good woman in that religious house, and I +began gradually to love her. How impressively she used to +speak to me of God! She was a woman of the greatest good +sense and sanctity. She told me how she first came to +herself by the mere reading of these words of the Gospel, +‘Many are called and few chosen.’ This good +companionship began to root out the bad habits I had brought to +that house with me; but my heart had by that time become so hard +that I never shed a tear, no, not though I read the whole Passion +through. When at last I entered the Religious House of the +Incarnation for life, our Lord at once made me understand how He +helps those who do any violence to themselves in order to serve +Him. No one observed this violence in me. They saw +nothing in me but the greatest goodwill. At that sore step +I was filled with a joy so great that it has never wholly left me +to this day. God converted the dryness of my soul into the +greatest tenderness, immediately on my taking up that +cross. Everything in religion was now a real delight to +me. I had more pleasure now in sweeping the house than I +had in all the balls and <!-- page 43--><a +name="page43"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 43</span>dances I had +forsaken for His sake. Whenever I remember those early +days, it makes me ready to take up any cross whatsoever. +For I know now by a long and a various experience that His +Majesty richly rewards even in this life all the self-denial that +we do for His sake and service. I know this by many +experiences; and if I were a person who had to advise and guide +God’s people, I would urge them to fear no difficulty +whatsoever in the path of duty: for our God is omnipotent, and He +is on our side. May He be blessed for ever! Amen.</p> +<p>O my supreme Good and my true Rest, I know not how to go on +when I call those happy days to mind, and think of all my evil +life since then! My tears ought to be tears of blood. +My heart ought to break. But Thou, Lord, hast borne with me +for almost twenty years, till I have had time to improve. +And all that it might be better known to me who Thou art and what +I am. Woe is me, my Maker! I have no excuse, I have +only blame. Let Thy mercy, O Lord, rest on me. Other +women there have been who have done great deeds in Thy service, +but I am good only to talk: all my goodness ends in so many +words: that is all my service of Thee, my God. Cost me what +it may, let me not go on coming to Thee with idle words and empty +hands, seeing that the reward of every one will be according to +his works. Depart not from me, and I can do all +things. Depart from me, and I shall return to whence I was +taken, even to hell.</p> +<p>One of the reasons that move me, who am what I am, to write +all this even under obedience, and to <!-- page 44--><a +name="page44"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 44</span>give an +account of my wretched life, and of the graces the Lord hath +wrought in me is this,—and would that I were a person of +authority, and then people would perhaps believe what I +say. This then is what I would say and repeat continually +if any one would hear me. Let no one ever say: If I fall +into sin, I cannot then pray. In this the devil turned his +most dreadful batteries against me. He said to me that it +showed very little shame in me if I could have the face to pray, +who had just been so wicked. And under that snare of Satan +I actually as good as gave up all prayer for a year and a +half. This was nothing else but to throw myself straight +down into hell. O my God, was there ever such madness as +mine! Where could I think to find either pardon for the +past, or power for the time to come, but from Thee? What +folly to the stumbler to run away from the light! Let all +those who would give themselves to prayer, and to a holy life, +look well to this. They should know that when I was +shunning prayer because I was so bad, my badness became more +abandoned than ever it had been before. Rely on the waiting +and abounding goodness of God, which is infinitely greater than +all the evil you can do. When we acknowledge our vileness, +He remembers it no more. I grew weary of sinning before God +grew weary of forgiving my sin. He is never weary of giving +grace, nor are his compassions to be exhausted. May He be +blessed for ever, amen: and may all created things praise +Him!</p> +<p>I have made a vow—[it is known as ‘the Teresian +vow,’ ‘the seraphic vow,’ ‘the most +arduous of vows,’ <!-- page 45--><a name="page45"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 45</span>‘a vow yet unexampled in the +Church’], a vow never to offend God in the very least +matter. I have vowed that I would rather die a thousand +deaths than do anything of that kind, knowing I was doing +it. I am resolved also, never to leave anything whatsoever +undone that I consider to be still more perfect, and more for the +honour of our Lord. Cost me what pain it may, I would not +leave such an act undone for all the treasures of the +world. If I were to do so, I do not think I could have the +face to ask anything of God in prayer: and yet, for all that, I +have many faults and imperfections remaining in me to this +day.</p> +<h3>ON THE GODHEAD</h3> +<p>On one occasion when I was in prayer I had a vision in which I +saw how all things are seen in God. I cannot explain what I +saw, but what I saw remains to this day deeply imprinted on my +soul. It was a great act of grace in God to give me that +vision. It puts me to unspeakable confusion, shame, and +horror whenever I recall that magnificent sight, and then think +of my sin. I believe that had the Lord been pleased to send +me that great revelation of Himself earlier in my life, it would +have kept me back from much sin. The vision was so +delicate, so subtle, and so spiritual, that my hard understanding +cannot, at this distance of time, close with it; but, to make use +of an illustration, it was something like this. Suppose the +Godhead to be a vast globe of light, a globe larger than the <!-- +page 46--><a name="page46"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +46</span>whole world, and that all our actions are seen in that +all-embracing globe. It was something like that I +saw. For I saw all my most filthy actions gathered up and +reflected back upon me from that World of light. I tell you +it was a piteous and a dreadful thing to see. I knew not +where to hide myself, for that shining light, in which was no +darkness at all, held the whole world within it, and all +worlds. You will see that I could not flee from its +presence. Oh that they could be made to see this who commit +deeds of darkness! Oh that they but saw that there is no +place secret from God: but that all they do is done before Him, +and in Him! Oh the madness of committing sin in the +immediate presence of a Majesty so great, and to whose holiness +all our sin is so hateful. In this also I saw His great +mercifulness in that He suffers such a sinner as I am still to +live.</p> +<h3>ON THE SOUL</h3> +<p>O my God, what unspeakable sufferings our souls have to endure +because they have lost their liberty, and are not their own +masters! What tortures come on them through that! I +sometimes wonder how I can live through such agony of soul as I +myself suffer. God be praised who gives me His own life in +my soul, so that I may escape from so deadly a death! My +soul has indeed received great strength from His Divine +Majesty. He has had compassion on my great misery, and has +helped me. Oh, what a distress it is for my soul to have to +return <!-- page 47--><a name="page47"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 47</span>to hold commerce with this world +after having had its conversation in heaven! To have to +play a part in the sad farce of this earthly life! And yet +I am in a strait betwixt two. I cannot run away from this +world. I must remain in it till my discharge comes. +But, meantime, how keen is my captivity; how wretched in my own +soul am I. And one of my worst distresses is this, that I +am alone in my exile. All around me people seem to have +found their aim and end in life in this horrible prison-house, +and to have said, Soul, take thine ease. But the life of my +soul is a life of incessant trouble. The cross is always on +my shoulder; at the same time I surely make some progress. +God is the Soul of my soul. He engulfs into Himself my +soul. He enlightens and strengthens my soul. He +attends to my soul night and day. He gives my soul more and +more grace. This has not come about of myself. No +effort of mine brought this about. His Majesty does it +all. And He has held me by the hand, that I might not go +back. For this reason, it seems to me, the soul in which +God works His grace, if it walks in humility and in fear, it may +be led into whatsoever temptation, and thrown into whatsoever +company, and it will only gain new strength there, and win new +victories and spoils there. Those are strong souls which +are chosen of the Lord to work for the souls of others. At +the same time, their best strength is not their own. All +that such souls ever attain to and perform, all these things only +make them more humble, and therefore more strong; more able to +despise the things of this world, and to lay up their <!-- page +48--><a name="page48"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +48</span>treasure in those things which God hath prepared for +them that love Him. May it please His Majesty that the +great munificence with which He has dealt with my soul, miserable +sinner that I am, may have some weight with some of those who +read this, so that they may be strong and courageous to give up +everything at once and most willingly for such a God!</p> +<h3>ON GOD IN THE SOUL</h3> +<p>This has done me a great deal of good, and it has affected me +much and opened my eyes in many ways. It is an ennobling +thing to think that God is more in the soul of man than He is in +aught else outside of Himself. They are happy people who +have once got a hold of this glorious truth. In particular, +the Blessed Augustine testifies that neither in the house, nor in +the church, nor anywhere else, did he find God, till once he had +found Him in himself. Nor had he need to go up to heaven, +but only down into himself to find God. Nay, he took God to +heaven with him when at last he went there.</p> +<p>Now consider what our Master teaches us to say: ‘Our +Father which art in heaven.’ Think you it concerns +you little to know where and what that heaven is, and where your +Heavenly Father is to be sought and found? I tell you that +for vagrant minds it matters much not only to believe aright +about heaven, but to procure to understand this matter by +experience. It is one of those things that strongly bind +the understanding and recollect the soul. You already <!-- +page 49--><a name="page49"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +49</span>know that God is in all places: in fine, that where God +is there heaven is, and where His Majesty most reveals Himself +there glory is. Consider again what Saint Augustine said, +that he sought God in many places, till at last he came to find +Him within himself. You need not go to heaven to see God, +or to regale yourself with God. Nor need you speak loud as +if He were far away. Nor need you cry for wings like a dove +so as to fly to Him. Settle yourself in solitude, and you +will come upon God in yourself. And then entreat Him as +your Father, and relate to Him your troubles. Those who can +in this manner shut themselves up in the little heaven of their +own hearts, where He dwells who made heaven and earth, let them +be sure that they walk in the most excellent way: they lay their +pipe right up to the fountain. To keep the eyes shut is an +excellent practice in prayer, because it is a summons and an +assistance to turn the eyes of the soul within, where God dwells +and waits in Christ to be gracious. Account thus, that +there is a great and beautiful palace in your soul; that its +structure is all of gold and precious stones; that your gifts and +graces are those shining stones, and that the greater your +virtues are the more those precious stones sparkle. And, +also, that in this palace the Great King is your guest. He +sits on the innermost seat of your heart, and holds it to be His +best and bravest throne. This will seem to some a silly +fiction. And yet, if you will believe it, fiction as it is, +it will help you much; you especially who are women. For we +women sorely want such assistance to our <!-- page 50--><a +name="page50"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +50</span>thoughts. And, God grant that it be only women who +need such assistance to show them how base is the use they make +of themselves. There should be some difference between us, +both men and women, and the brute beasts. The brute beasts +are nowhere said to be temples of God, and they are nowhere +called to account because their god is their belly. O great +God, I tremble to see that I have written such a page as the +above, being such a wretch as I am. My daughters, in their +own goodness, will be tempted to think that all this is true of +myself, and that is a terrible thought to me. On the other +hand, it is true of God and their own souls. Now let men +pass a thousand censures on me, and on my way of teaching the +truth. What of that, if only God and His ways be a little +better known and loved! My sisters, the King is in His +palace all this time. There are hostile invasions of His +borders, and inroads made into His territories, but He abides all +the time on His throne. I smile at the weakness and +unworthiness of all those comparisons of palaces, and thrones, +and shining stones, and enemies on the border. They in no +way satisfy me. But I am a woman, and I can find out no +better words for you women. Think and say of my words what +you please. The thing that I have spoken to you is the +truth.</p> +<h3>ON THE LOVE OF GOD</h3> +<p>The true proficiency of the soul consists not so much in deep +thinking or eloquent speaking or beautiful writing as in much and +warm loving. <!-- page 51--><a name="page51"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 51</span>Now if you ask me in what way this +much and warm love may be acquired, I answer,—By resolving +to do the will of God, and by watching to do His will as often as +occasion offers. Those who truly love God love all good +wherever they find it. They seek all good to all men. +They encourage all good in all men. They commend all good, +they always unite themselves with all good, they always +acknowledge and defend all good. They have no +quarrels. They bear no envy. O Lord, give me more and +more of this blessed love. Grant me grace not to quit this +underworld life till I no longer desire anything, nor am capable +of loving anything, save Thee alone. Grant that I may use +this word ‘love’ with regard to Thee alone, since +there is no solidity for my love to rest on save in Thee. +The soul has her own ways of understanding, and of finding in +herself, by certain signs and great conjectures, whether she +really loves His Divine Majesty or no. Her love is full of +high impulses, and longings to see and to be with and to be like +God. All else tires and wearies out the soul. The +best of created things disappoint and torment the soul. God +alone satisfies the soul, till it is impossible to dissemble or +mistake such a love. When once I came to see the great +beauty of our Lord, it turned all other comeliness to corruption +to me. My heart could rest on nothing and on no one but +Himself. When anything else would enter my heart I had only +to turn my eyes for a moment in upon that Supreme Beauty that was +engraven within me. So that <!-- page 52--><a +name="page52"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 52</span>it is now +impossible that any created thing can so possess my soul as not +to be instantly expelled, and my mind and heart set free by a +little effort to recover the remembrance of the goodness and the +beauty of our Lord. Good God! What a difference there +is between the love of the Creator and the love of the +creature! May His Divine Majesty vouchsafe to let us see +and taste and understand something of this before He takes us out +of this prison-house life, for it will be a magnificent comfort +in the hour of death to know that we are on our way to be judged +by Him whom we have loved above all things. We are not +going to a strange country, since it is His country whom we love +and who loves us. These things being so, I have this very +day solaced my soul with our Lord, and have made my moan to Him +in this manner. O my Lord, why keepest Thou Thy servant in +this miserable life so long, where all is such vexation, and +disappointment, and manifold trouble? And not only keepest +me so long in this banishment, but so hidest Thyself from +me. Is this worthy of Thee and of Thy great goodness? +Were I what Thou art, and wert Thou what I am, Thou wouldest not +have to endure it at my hands. I beseech Thee, O my Lord, +to consider that this is a kind of injury and wrong to proceed +after this manner with one who loves Thee so much. This and +the like have come into my heart to say: though my bed in hell +better becomes me than so to speak to my Lord. At the same +time, the love I bear my Lord sometimes so consumes me that I am +beside myself, till I scarce know what I <!-- page 53--><a +name="page53"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 53</span>say or do; +and then I find myself making such unbecoming complaints that I +am amazed our Lord endures them at my hands. Eternal praise +to so good a Lord!</p> +<h3>ON THE LOVE OF OUR NEIGHBOUR</h3> +<p>There are only two duties that our Lord requires of +us,—the love of God, and the love of our neighbour. +And, in my opinion, the surest sign for discovering our love to +God is our love to our neighbour. And be assured that the +further you advance in the love of your neighbour, the further +you are advancing in the love of God likewise. But, oh me, +how many worms lie gnawing at the roots of our love to our +neighbour! Self-love, self-esteem, fault-finding, envy, +anger, impatience, scorn. I assure you I write this with +great grief, seeing myself to be so miserable a sinner against +all my neighbours. Our Lord, my sisters, expects +works. Therefore when you see any one sick, compassionate +her as if she were yourself. Pity her. Fast that she +may eat. Wake that she may sleep. Again, when you +hear any one commended and praised, rejoice in it as much as if +you were commended and praised yourself. Which, indeed, +should be easy, because where humility truly is, praise is a +torment. Cover also your sister’s defects as you +would have your own defects and faults covered and not +exposed. As often as occasion offers, lift off your +neighbour’s burden. Take it off her heart and on upon +yourself. Satan <!-- page 54--><a name="page54"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 54</span>himself would not be Satan any longer +if he could once love his neighbour as himself.</p> +<p>Endeavour, my daughters, all you can, to be affable to +all. Demean yourselves so that all who have to do with you +may love your conversation, so as to desire after your way of +life. Let no one be affrighted or turned away from the life +of virtue and religion by your gloom and morosity. This +concerns religious women very much. The more holy they are, +the more affable and sociable should they study to be. +Never hold aloof from others because their conversation is not +altogether to your taste. Love them, and they will love +you, and then they will converse with you, and will become like +you, and better than you. Let not your soul coop itself up +in a corner. For, instead of attaining to greater sanctity +in a proud, and disdainful, and impatient seclusion, the devil +will keep you company there, and will do your sequestered soul +much mischief. Bury evil affections in good works. +Wherefore be accessible and affable to all, and all in +love. Love is an endless enchantment, and spell, and +fascination.</p> +<h3>ON OUR SINFULNESS</h3> +<p>This is a very fit place for thinking on our wounds, and +bruises, and putrifying sores: the blindness of our minds, the +depravity and the bondage of our wills, the forgetfulness of our +memories, the slipperiness of our tongues, the levity and +frivolity of our hearts, with all their extravagances, +presumptions, neglects. In fine, let there be no spiritual +wound within us, <!-- page 55--><a name="page55"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 55</span>great or small, old or new, which we +do not daily discover and lay open to our Sovereign Physician, +beseeching of Him a remedy. This day it is very proper to +call to mind the five fountains of our Lord’s wounds, which +are still open, and will remain open till the last day for the +cure of all the sores of our souls. And since out of His +wounds we receive our spiritual health, let us mollify our wounds +with the ointment of mortification and humility and meekness: in +all things always employing ourselves for the benefit of our +neighbour. Since, though we cannot have our Lord visibly +and in presence beside us, we have our neighbour, who for the +ends of love and loving service is as good as our Lord +Himself.</p> +<h3>ON THE WORLD</h3> +<p>I saw that rich and great as she was, she was still a woman, +and as much liable to all manner of passion and all womanly +weakness as I was myself. I saw as I lived in her house +that rank is of little worth, and the higher it is, the greater +the trouble and the anxiety it brings with it. Great people +must be careful of their dignity. It will not suffer them +to live at ease. They must eat at fixed hours and by rule, +for everything must be according to their state, and not +according to their constitutions. And they have frequently +to take food more fitted for their state than for their +liking. So it was that I came to hate the wish to be a +great lady. God deliver me from this artificial and evil +life! Then, as to servants, though this lady has very good +servants, how slight <!-- page 56--><a name="page56"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 56</span>is the trust she is able to put in +them. One must not be conversed with more than the rest, +otherwise he is envied and hated of all the rest. This of +itself is a slavery; and it is another of the lies of the world +to call such people masters and mistresses, who, in reality, are +nothing but slaves in a thousand ways. I really see nothing +good in the world and its ways but this, that it will not +tolerate the smallest fault in those who are not its own. +For by detracting, and fault-finding, and evil-reporting on the +good, the world greatly helps to perfect them. He who will +not die to the world shall die by it. O wretched +world! Bless God, my daughters, that He has chosen and +enabled you to turn your backs for ever on a thing so base. +The world is to be known by this also, that it esteems a man not +by what he is, but by what he possesses: by what is in his purse: +and, that failing, the honour and esteem of the world instantly +fail also. O our Lord; Supreme Power, Supreme Goodness, +Supreme Truth; Thy perfections are without beginning and without +end. They are infinite and incomprehensible. They are +a bottomless ocean of beauty. O my God, that I had the +eloquence of an angel’s speech to set forth Thy goodness +and Thy truth, and to win all men over to Thee!</p> +<h3>ON EVIL-SPEAKING</h3> +<p>After my vow of perfection I spake not ill of any creature, +how little soever it might be. I scrupulously avoided all +approaches to detraction. I had this rule ever present with +me, that I was not <!-- page 57--><a name="page57"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 57</span>to wish, nor assent to, nor say such +things of any person whatsoever, that I would not have them say +of me. And as time went on, I succeeded in persuading those +who were about me to adopt the same habit, till it came to be +understood that where I was absent persons were safe. So +they were also with all those whom I so instructed. Still, +for all that, I have a sufficiently strict account to give to God +for the bad example I am to all about me in some other +respects. May it please His Majesty to forgive me, for I +have been the cause of much evil. For one thing, the devil +sometimes fills me with such a harsh and cruel temper: such a +spirit of anger and hostility at some people, that I could eat +them up and annihilate them. At the same time, concerning +things said of myself in detraction, and they are many, and are +very prejudicial to me, I find myself much improved. These +things make little impression upon me. I am under them as a +deaf man that hears not, and as a man in whose mouth there is no +retaliation. Nay, I almost always see that my greatest +detractors have only too good reason for what they say. In +this way my soul actually gains peace and strength under +detraction, till it becomes a great favour done me, and a great +advantage. Upon betaking myself to prayer, I find in my +heart neither repugnance at my detractors nor enmity. For, +although, when I first hear the detraction, it causes me a little +disconcert, yet not any long-lasting disquiet or +alteration. Nay, sometimes when I see people take pity on +me because of my detractors, I laugh at them, so little do all my +detractors now hurt me.</p> +<h3><!-- page 58--><a name="page58"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +58</span>ON SELF-EXCUSING</h3> +<p>That which I am now to persuade you to, namely, the not +excusing of yourselves, causes a great confusion in me. For +it is a very perfect quality and of great merit; and I ought far +better to practise what I tell you concerning this excellent +virtue. I confess myself to be but little improved in this +noble duty. For it is a mark of the deepest and truest +humility to see ourselves condemned without cause, and to be +silent under it. It is a very noble imitation of our +Lord. Were I truly humble, I would desire disesteem, even +though having in the matter in hand given no real offence. +Here no bodily strength is needed, my daughters, nor any +one’s assistance, but God’s. How well is this +written, and how ill is it practised by the writer! Indeed, +I never could make trial of this grace in any matter of +consequence, because I never heard of any one speaking ill of me, +but I immediately saw how far short he came of the full +truth. For, if he was wrong or exaggerated in his +particulars, I had offended God much more in other matters that +my detractor knew nothing about. And, methought, God +favoured me much in not proclaiming my secret sins to all +men. And, thus, I am very glad that my detractor should +ever report a trifling lie about me, rather than the terrible +truth.</p> +<p>O my Lord, when I remember in how many ways Thou didst suffer +detraction and misrepresentation, who in no way deserved it, I +know not where my senses are when I am in such a haste to defend +and <!-- page 59--><a name="page59"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +59</span>excuse myself. Is it possible that I should desire +any one to speak any good of me, or to think it, when so many ill +things were thought and spoken of Thee! What is this, O +Lord; what do we imagine to get by pleasing worms, or being +praised by them? What about being blamed by all men, if +only we stand at last blameless before Thee!</p> +<h3>ON PRAISE, PRECEDENCY, AND POINTS OF HONOUR</h3> +<p>Observe carefully the stirrings of your heart in matters of +superiority. Pray to be delivered from such thoughts as +these: I am older. I deserve better. I have laboured +more. I have more talent. Such thoughts are the +plague and poison of the heart. Believe me, if there remain +in you any allowed hankerings after the praises of men, though +you may have spent many years in prayer, or rather in idle forms +of prayer, you have made no progress, and never will, till your +heart is crucified to the approval and the praise of men. +If you feel in yourself any point of honour, any pride, any +desire of eminence or pre-eminence, you must free yourself from +that abominable bondage, and for that chain there is no hammer +and file like humility and prayer. Among the rest of my +great imperfections this was one. I had very little +knowledge of my Breviary, or of that which was to be sung in the +choir, and all the while I saw that some other novices could +instruct me. But I was too proud to ask any +questions. I was afraid that my great ignorance should be +discovered. Shortly afterwards a good example was set <!-- +page 60--><a name="page60"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +60</span>before me, and then, when God had once opened my eyes to +my sinful pride, I was content to ask information and the help +even of little children. And yet,—and this surprised +me, I lost no credit or honour thereby. Nay, it seemed to +me that my Lord after that gave me better skill and a better +memory. I could sing but very ill, and I was troubled at +this, not because I failed in my worship of God, but because so +many heard me, and thus I was disturbed on the mere point of +honour and praise. I told them that I could not do what +others did, and what was expected of me. At first I had +some difficulty in this, but it soon became both natural and +pleasant to me to tell the truth. By these +nothings,—and they are really nothings, and I am +sufficiently nothing when such things could put me to so much +pain,—and by little and little His Divine Majesty +vouchsafed to supply me with strength. I was never good at +the choir, but I tried to do my part for it in folding up the +mantles of the singers; and, methought, in that I was serving the +angels of God who so well praised Him. I did that also by +stealth, such was my pride, and my pride was hurt when they +discovered what I did. O my Lord, who that ever reads this +can fail to despise and abhor me? I beseech Thy Divine +Majesty that I may soon be able to leave all such vanities as the +praise and blame of men, and seek Thy praise only! And then +add this, which is worth knowing. The devil will not dare +to tempt one to pride or precedency who is truly humble because, +being very crafty, he fears defeat. If you are truly +humble, you will only grow <!-- page 61--><a +name="page61"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 61</span>in that grace +by every temptation to pride or praise. For, immediately on +the temptation, you will reflect on your whole past life and +present character, and on the stupendous humility of Jesus +Christ. And by these considerations your tempted soul will +come off so victorious, that the enemy will think twice before he +comes back, for fear of a broken head.</p> +<h3>ON HUMILITY</h3> +<p>Keep yourselves, my daughters, from that false humility which +the devil suggests concerning the greatness of your sins. +For hereby he is wont to disquiet our souls after sundry sorts, +and to draw us off Holy Communion, and also from prayer. It +is sometimes a great and a true humility to esteem ourselves as +bad as may be, but at other times it is a false and a spurious +humility. I know it, for I have experienced it. True +humility, however great, does not disquiet nor disorder the +soul. It comes with great peace, and great serenity, and +great delight. Though we should see our utter wickedness, +and how truly we deserve to be in hell, and think that both God +and man must despise and abhor us; yet, if this be a true +humility, it comes with a certain sweetness and satisfaction +attending it. This humility does not stifle nor crush the +soul. It rather dilates the soul, and disposes the soul for +the better service of God. While that other sorrow troubles +all, and confounds all, and destroys all. It is the +devil’s humility when he gets us to distrust God. +When you find yourselves thus, lay aside all thinking on <!-- +page 62--><a name="page62"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +62</span>your own misery, and meditate on the infinite mercy of +God, and on the inexhaustible merit and grace of Jesus +Christ.</p> +<p>I was once considering what the reason was why our Lord loved +humility in us so much, when I suddenly remembered that He is +essentially the Supreme Truth, and that humility is just our +walking in the truth. For it is a very great truth that we +have no good in us, but only misery and nothingness, and he who +does not understand this walks in lies: but he who understands +this the best is the most pleasing to the Supreme Truth. +May God grant us this favour, sisters, never to be without the +humbling knowledge of ourselves.</p> +<p>O Sovereign Virtues! O Ladies of all the +creatures! O Empresses of the whole world! Whoever +hath you may go forth and fight boldly with all hell at +once. Let your soldiers not fear, for victory is already +theirs. They only fear to displease God. They +constantly beseech Him to maintain all the virtues in them. +It is true these virtues have this property, to hide themselves +from him who possesses them, so that he never sees them in +himself, nor thinks that he can ever possess a single one of +them. Other men see all the virtues in him, but he so +values them that he still pursues them, and seeks them as +something never to be attained by such as he is. And +Humility is one of them, and is Queen and Empress and Sovereign +over them all. In fine, one act of true humility in the +sight of God is of more worth than all the knowledge, sacred and +profane, in the whole world.</p> +<h3><!-- page 63--><a name="page63"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +63</span>ON SORROW FOR SIN</h3> +<p>It is indeed a very great misery to live on in this evil world +where our enemies are ever at our gate, and where we can neither +eat nor sleep in peace, but are compelled to have our armour on +night and day. There is no rest here, nor happiness, nor +will be till we are with the Everlastingly Blessed. As I +write I am seized with terror, lest I should never escape this +sinful life. Pray for me, my daughters, that Christ may +ever live in me: for, otherwise, what security can there be for +such as I am, who have been so wicked. You may sometimes +have thought, my daughters, that those to whom the Lord +particularly communicates Himself, will be henceforth secure of +enjoying Him for ever, and that they will have no need to fear or +bewail their former sins. But this is a great +mistake. Sorrow for sin increases in proportion as more and +more grace is received from God. And I, for my part, +believe, that this bitter sorrow will never leave us till we come +where neither sin nor anything else will ever disquiet us. +True, both past sin, and present sinfulness, affect us more at +one time than at another; and, likewise, in a different +manner. I know one who often wishes for death, that she may +be freed from the torment of her sinful heart. No +one’s sins can equal hers, because there can be no one who +has obtained such favours of her God. Her fear is not so +much of hell, as that she should so grieve God’s Holy +Spirit, that He will be wearied out, and will forsake her, and +leave her in her sins. This fear and pain is <!-- page +64--><a name="page64"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 64</span>not +at all eased by believing that her past sins have all been +forgiven and forgotten of God. Nay, her fear and pain but +increase by seeing such mercy extended toward a woman who +deserves nothing but hell.</p> +<h3>ON LEARNING AND INTELLECT</h3> +<p>I always had a great respect and affection for intellectual +and learned men. It is my experience that all who intend to +be true Christians will do well to treat with men of mind and +books about their souls. The more learning our preachers +and pastors have the better. For if they have not much +experience themselves, yet they know the Scriptures and the +recorded experiences of the saints better than we do. The +devil is exceedingly afraid of learning, especially where it is +accompanied with humility and virtue. For my own part, I +bless God continually, and we women, and all such as are not +ourselves intellectual or learned, are always to give God +infinite thanks that there are some men in the world who take +such great pains to attain to that knowledge which we need but do +not possess. And it delights me to see men taking the +immense trouble they do take to bring me so much profit, and that +without any trouble to me. I have only to sit still and +hear them. I have only to come and ask them a +question. Let us pray for our teachers, for what would we +do without them. I beseech the Lord to bless our teachers, +that they may be more and more a blessing to us.</p> +<p><!-- page 65--><a name="page65"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +65</span>When I spoke of humility, it must not be understood as +if I spoke against aspiring after the highest things that mind +and heart and life can attain to. For though I have no +ability for the wisdom and the knowledge of God myself, and am so +miserable that God did me a great favour in teaching me the very +lowliest truths: yet, in my judgment, learning and knowledge are +very great possessions, and a great assistance in the life of +prayer, if only they are always accompanied with humility. +I have of late seen some very learned men become in addition very +spiritual and prayerful men. And that makes me pray that +all our men of mind and learning may soon become spiritual men +and men of much prayer.</p> +<p>Let no one be admitted into this House unless she is a woman +of a sound understanding. For if she is without mind she +will neither know herself, nor understand her teachers. For +the most part they that are defective in mind ever think that +they understand things better than their teachers. And +ignorance and self-conceit is a disease that is incurable; and +besides, it usually carries great malice along with it. +Many speak much and understand little. Others, again, speak +little and not very elegantly, and yet they have a sound +understanding. There is such a thing as a holy simplicity +that knows little of anything but of how to treat with God. +At the same time commend me to holy people of good heads. +From silly devotees, may God deliver us! While all that is +true, in the very act of prayer itself there is little necessity +for learning, for the mind then, because of its nearness to the +light, is itself immediately <!-- page 66--><a +name="page66"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +66</span>illuminated. I myself, who am what I am, even I am +a different person in prayer. It has often happened to me, +who scarcely understand a word of what I read in Latin, when in +deep prayer, to understand the Latin Psalms as if they were +Spanish. At the same time, even for prayer, let those who +have to teach and preach take full advantage of their learning, +that they may help poor people of little learning, of whom I am +one. Ministering with all learning and all intellectual +ability to souls is a great thing, when it is done unto +God. I have many experiences in prayer that I do not +understand, and cannot explain or defend. Our Lord has not +been pleased to give me the full intellectual understanding of +all His dealings with me. That is the truth. Though +you, my father, may think that I have a quick understanding, it +is in reality not so. Sometimes my advisers used to be +amazed at my ignorance how God carried on His work within +me. It was there, but the way of it was a great deep to +me. I could neither wade out unto God, nor down into +myself. Though, as I have said, I loved to converse with +men of mind as well as of heart. At the same time, my +difficulties but increased my devotion, and the greater my +difficulty the greater the increase of my devotion. Praise +His Name.</p> +<h3>ON PRAYER</h3> +<p>(1) <i>The Price of Prayer</i>.—O Thou Lord of my soul, +and my Eternal Good, why is it that when a soul resolves to +follow Thee, and to do her best to forsake <!-- page 67--><a +name="page67"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 67</span>all for +Thee,—why is it that Thou dost not instantly perfect Thy +love and Thy peace within that soul? But I have spoken +unadvisedly and foolishly, for it is we who are at fault in +prayer, and never Thee. We are so long and so slow in +giving up our hearts to Thee. And then Thou wilt not permit +our enjoyment of Thee without our paying well for so precious a +possession. There is nothing in all the world wherewith to +buy the shedding abroad of Thy love in our heart, but our +heart’s love. If, however, we did what we could, not +clinging with our hearts to anything whatsoever in this world, +but having our treasure and our conversation in heaven, then this +blessedness would soon be ours, as all Thy saints testify. +God never withholds Himself from him who pays this price and who +perseveres in seeking Him. He will, little by little, and +now and then, strengthen and restore that soul, till at last it +is victorious. If he who enters on this road only does +violence enough to himself, with the help of God, he will not +only go to heaven himself, but he will not go alone: he will take +others with him. God will give him, as to a good leader, +those who will go after him. Only, let not any man of +prayer ever expect to enjoy his whole reward here. He must +remain a man of faith and prayer to the end. Let him +resolve, then, that whatever his aridity and sense of indevotion +may be, he will never let himself sink utterly under his +cross. And the day will come when he will receive all his +petitions in one great answer, and all his wages in one great +reward. For he serves a good Master, who stands over him +watching him. And let him never <!-- page 68--><a +name="page68"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 68</span>give over +because of evil thoughts, even if they are sprung upon him in the +middle of his prayer, for the devil so vexed the holy Jerome even +in the wilderness. But all these toils of soul have their +sure reward, and their just recompense set out for them. +And, I can assure you, as one who knows what she is saying, that +one single drop of water out of God’s living well will both +sustain you and reward you for another day and another night of +your life of life-long prayer.</p> +<p>(2) <i>Sin spoils Prayer</i>.—Now I saw that there would +be no answer to me till I had entire purity of conscience, and no +longer regarded any iniquity whatsoever in my heart. I saw +that there were some secret affections still left in me, which, +though they were not very bad perhaps in themselves, yet in a +life of prayer such as I was attempting those remanent affections +spoiled all.</p> +<p>(3) <i>Eighteen Years of Misery in Prayer</i>.—It is not +without very good reason that I have dwelt so long on this part +of my life. It will give no one any pleasure to see any one +so base as I was. And I wish all who read this to have me +in abhorrence. I failed in all obedience, because I was not +leaning on my strong pillar of prayer. I passed nearly +twenty years of my life on this stormy sea, constantly tossed +with tempest and never coming to harbour. It was the most +painful life that can be imagined, because I had no sweetness in +God, and certainly no sweetness in sin. I was often very +angry with myself on account of the many tears I <!-- page +69--><a name="page69"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 69</span>shed +for my faults, when I could not but see how little improvement +all my tears made in me. All my tears did not hold me back +from sin when the opportunity returned. Till I came to look +on my tears as little short of a delusion: and yet they were +not. It was the goodness of the Lord to give me such +compunction even when it was not as yet accompanied with complete +reformation. But the whole root of my evil lay in my not +thoroughly avoiding all occasions of sin, and in my confessors, +who helped me at that time so little. If they had only told +me what a dangerous road it was I was travelling in, and that I +was bound to break off all occasions of sin, I do believe, +without any doubt, that the matter would have been remedied at +once. Nevertheless, I can trace distinctly the mercy of God +to me in that all the time I had still the courage to pray. +I say courage, because I know nothing in the whole world that +requires greater courage than plotting treason against the King, +knowing that He knows it, and yet continuing to frequent His +presence in prayer. I spent more than eighteen years in +that miserable attempt to reconcile God and my life of sin. +The reason that I tell and repeat all this so often is that all +who read what I write may understand how great is that grace God +works in the soul when He gives it a disposition to pray on, even +when it has not yet left off all sin. If that soul +perseveres, in spite of sin, and temptation, and many relapses, +our Lord will bring that soul at last—I am certain of +it—to the harbour of salvation, to which He is <!-- page +70--><a name="page70"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +70</span>surely bringing myself. I will say what I know by +experience,—let him never cease from prayer, who has once +begun to pray, be his life ever so bad. For prayer is the +only way to amend his life, and without prayer it will never be +mended. Let him not be tempted of the devil, as I was, to +give up prayer on account of his unworthiness. Let him +rather believe that if he will only still repent and pray, our +Lord will still hear and answer. For myself, very often I +was more occupied with the wish to see the end of the hour. +I used actually to watch the sand-glass. And the sadness I +sometimes felt on entering my oratory was so great, that it +required all my courage to force myself in. In the end our +Lord came to my help: and, then, when I had done this violence to +myself, I found far greater peace and joy than when I prayed with +regale and rapture. If our Lord then bore so long with me +in all my wickedness, why should any one despair, however wicked +he may be? Let him have been ever so wicked up till now, he +will not remain in his wickedness so many years as I did after +receiving so many graces from our Lord. And this more I +will say,—prayer was the true door by which our Lord +distributed out all His grace so liberally to me. Prayer +and trust. I used indeed to pray for help: but I see now +that I committed all the time the fatal mistake of not putting my +whole trust in His Majesty. I should have utterly and +thoroughly distrusted and detested and suspected myself. I +sought for help. I sometimes took great pains to get +it. But I did not understand of how little use all that is +unless we <!-- page 71--><a name="page71"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 71</span>root utterly all confidence out of +ourselves, and place it at once, and for ever, and absolutely in +God. Those were eighteen miserable years.</p> +<p>(4) <i>Aridity in Prayer</i>.—Let no one weary or lose +heart in prayer because of aridity. For the Hearer of +prayer comes in all such cases very late. But at last He +comes. And though He confessedly comes late, He +correspondingly makes up to the soul for all His delays, and +rewards her on the spot for all her toil, and dryness, and +discouragement of many years. I have great pity on those +who give way and lose all this through not being taught to +persevere in prayer. It is a bad beginning, and very +prejudicial to proficiency in prayer, to use it for the gust and +consolation that a man receives at the time. I know by my +own experience, that he who determines to pray, not much heeding +either immediate comfort or dejection, he has got into one of the +best secrets of prayer. I am troubled to hear that grave +men, and men of learning and understanding, complain that God +does not give them sensible devotion. It proceeds from +ignorance of the true life of prayer, and from not carrying the +cross into prayer as into all the rest of the spiritual +life. He who begins to pray should be well told that he +begins to plant a fine garden in very bad soil; a soil full of +the most noxious and ineradicable weeds. And that after +good herbs and plants and flowers have been sown, then he has to +weed and water and fence and watch that garden night and day and +all his life. Till the Lord of the garden is able to come +and recreate and regale Himself where once there was <!-- page +72--><a name="page72"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +72</span>nothing but weeds, and stones, and noxious vermin. +Prayer, howsoever perfect in itself it may be, must always be +directed in upon the performance of good works. We must not +content ourselves with the gift of prayer, or with liberty and +consolation and gust in prayer. We must come out from +prayer the most rapturous and sweet only to do harder and ever +harder works for God and our neighbour. Otherwise the +prayer is not good, and the gusts are not from God. The +growth and maturity and fruitfulness of the soul do not stand in +liberty in prayer, but in love. And this love is got not by +speaking much but by doing and suffering much. For my part, +and I have been long at it, I desire no other gift of prayer but +that which ends in every day making me a better and better +woman. By its fruits your prayer will be known to +yourselves and others.</p> +<p>At other times I find myself so arid that I am not able to +form any distinct idea of God, nor can I put my soul into an +attitude of prayer, though I am in the place of prayer, and +though I feel that I know something of God. This mind of +mine at such times is like a born fool or some idiot creature +that nothing can bind down. I cannot command myself. +I cannot properly say one <i>Credo</i>. At such times I +laugh bitterly at myself, and see clearly my own natural +misery. I come then to see the exceeding favour of the Lord +in that He ever holds this insane fool fast in prayer and +holiness. What would those who love and honour me think if +they saw their friend in this dotage and distraction? I +reflect at such times on the great hurt our original sin has <!-- +page 73--><a name="page73"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +73</span>done us. For it is from our first fall that all +this has come to us that we so wander from God, and are so often +utterly incapable of God. But it is not so much +Adam’s sin as my own that works in me all this alienation +and inability and aridity. Methinks I love God; but my +actions, and the endless imperfections I see in myself, cause me +great fear, and deep and inconsolable distress.</p> +<p>(5) <i>Prayer after Sin</i>.—Never let any one leave off +prayer on any pretence: great sins committed, or any other +pretence whatsoever. For by leaving off prayer the soul +will be finally lost, while every return to prayer is new life +and new strength, as I am continually telling you. I tell +you again that the leaving off of prayer was the most devilish +and the most deadly temptation I ever met with.</p> +<p>(6) <i>Meditation in Prayer</i>.—He who prays should +often stop to think with whom he speaks: who he himself is who +speaks: who Jesus Christ is through whom he speaks: what that +country is to which he aspires: how he may best please Him who +dwells there: and what he is to do so that his character and +disposition may suit with God’s disposition and +character. Mental prayer, as I am wont to call it, is the +constant meditation of such things as these. And mental +prayer ought to be endeavoured after by all, though they have no +virtues, because it is the beginning of them, and therefore the +one interest of all men is at once to begin such prayer. +But it will be exercised with no little difficulty unless <!-- +page 74--><a name="page74"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +74</span>the steady acquisition of the virtues accompanies +it. In prayer it is far best to be alone; as, for our +example and instruction, our Lord always was when He +prayed. For we cannot talk both to God and man at the same +moment. And, if we feel too much alone, and must have +company, no company is comparable to Christ’s +company. Let us picture and represent Christ to ourselves +and to His Father as always at our side. Those who pray +with proper preparation: that is, with much meditation on the +whole life and death of our Lord: on their own death: on the last +day, or such like, our Lord will bring all such to the port of +light. Meditate much on the Sacred Humanity of our Lord: +what He was on earth: what He said: what He did, and what He +suffered. Because this life of ours is long and uphill, +which to pass well through needs the constant presence with us of +our great Exemplar, Jesus Christ.</p> +<p>(7) <i>The Presence of God in Prayer</i>.—In prayer +there would sometimes come upon me such a sense of the Presence +of God that I seemed to be all engulfed in God. I think the +learned call this mystical experience; at any rate, it so +suspends the ordinary operations of the soul that she seems to be +wholly taken out of herself. This tenderness, this +sweetness, this regale is nothing else but the Presence of God in +the praying soul. At the same time, I believe that we can +greatly help toward the obtaining of God’s Presence. +We obtain it by considering much our own baseness, the neglect +and the ingratitude <!-- page 75--><a name="page75"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 75</span>we show toward the Son of God, how +much He has done for us, His passion and terrible suffering, His +whole life so full of affliction, by delighting ourselves in His +word and in His works, and such things as these. And if in +these reflections the soul be seized with the Presence of God, +then the whole soul is regaled as I have described. The +heart is filled with relenting. Tears also abound. In +this way does the Divine Majesty repay us even here for any +little care we take to serve Him and to be with Him. The +life of prayer is just love to God and the custom of being ever +with Him.</p> +<p>(8) <i>Supernatural Prayer</i>.—In supernatural prayer +God places the soul in His immediate Presence, and in an instant +bestows Himself upon the soul in a way she could never of herself +attain to. He manifests something of His greatness to the +soul at such times: something of His beauty, something of His +special and particular grace. And the soul enjoys God +without dialectically understanding just how she so enjoys +Him. She burns with love without knowing what she has done +to deserve or to prepare herself for such a rapture. It is +the gift of God, and He gives His gifts to whomsoever and +whensoever He will. This, my daughters, is perfect +contemplation: this is supernatural prayer. Now this is the +difference between natural and supernatural prayer: between +mental and transcendental prayer. In ordinary prayer we +more or less understand what we say and do. We think of Him +to whom we speak; we think about ourselves and about our Surety +and Mediator. <!-- page 76--><a name="page76"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 76</span>In all this, by God’s help, we +can do something, so to speak, of ourselves. But in pure +supernatural and transcendental prayer, we do nothing at +all. His Divine Majesty it is who does it all. He +works in us at such elect seasons what far transcends and +overtops all the powers and resources even of the renewed +nature. At the same time, as a far-off means of attaining +to supernatural prayer, it is necessary to put upon ourselves the +acquiring of the great virtues, and especially, humility: we must +give up and resign ourselves wholly and entirely unto God. +Whoever will not attempt to do this, with all the grace of God, +that man will never come within sight of the highest +prayer. Let him, in absolutely everything, seat himself in +the lowest place. Let him account himself utterly and +hopelessly unworthy of everything he possesses, both in nature +and in grace. Let him shun advancement. Let him apply +himself to daily mortification, not of the body so much as of the +mind and the heart, and let him be more than content with the +least thing that God allows him, for this is true humility. +In short, let His Majesty lead us in any way He pleases, and the +chances are that He will soon lead us by these ways to a life of +prayer and communion it had not entered into our hearts to +conceive possible to such sinners as we are. Let no man be +too much cast down, because he has not yet attained to +supernatural prayer. God leads His people in the way that +He chooses out as best for Him and for them. And he who +stands low in his own eyes, may all the time stand high in +God’s eyes. Supernatural prayer is not necessary to +salvation: <!-- page 77--><a name="page77"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 77</span>nor doth God require it of us. +They shall not fail of salvation who practise themselves in the +solid virtues. No, they may have more merit in His eyes +than their more favoured neighbours, because their obedience, and +their faith, and their love have cost them more. Their Lord +deals with them as with strong and valiant men, appointing them +travail and trouble here, that they may fight for Him the good +fight of faith, and only come in for the prize at the end. +And, after all, what greater mark of a high election can there be +than to taste much of the cross? Whom the Lord loveth, in +that measure He lays on them His cross. And the heaviest of +all our crosses is a life of sanctification and service without +sensible consolation.</p> +<p>(9) <i>Over-familiarity in Prayer</i>.—He was a man of a +powerful understanding. I thought on his great gifts, and +the possibilities there were in him of doing great service if he +were once entirely devoted to God. He asked me to recommend +him much to God, and I did not need to be asked. I went +away to the place to which I used to retreat in cases like +this. And once there, I put myself into a state of entire +recollection, and began to treat with our Lord in a way, when I +think of it, of too great familiarity. But it was love that +spake, and every one allows love great familiarity, and no one so +much as our Lord. My soul overlooked the distance between +herself and her Lord. She forgot herself, as she so often +does, and began to talk impertinences and to take too great +freedoms. I entreated our Lord with many tears. <!-- +page 78--><a name="page78"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +78</span>I judged my friend to be already a good man, but I must +have him much better, and I said so too freely, I fear. +‘O Lord,’ I remember I said,’ Thou must not +deny me this favour that I ask. This is a man for us to +make a friend of.’ And far more than that. And +He did it. Yes, He did it. O His immense bounty and +goodness! He regards not the words but the affection with +which the words are uttered. That must be so, when He +endures with such an impertinent and over-familiar and irreverent +wretch as I am; endures and answers. May He be blessed to +all eternity!</p> +<p>(10) <i>The Best Result of Prayer</i>.—To Father +Gratian. To-day I received three letters from your +Reverence by the way of the head-post. The whole matter is +in a nut-shell. That prayer is the most acceptable which +leaves the best results. Results, I mean, in actions. +That is true prayer. Not certain gusts of softness and +feeling, and nothing more. For myself, I wish no other +prayer but that which improves me in virtue. I would fain +live more nearly as I pray. I count that to be a good +prayer which leaves me more humble, even if it is still with +great temptations, tribulations, and aridities. For it must +never be thought that because a man has much suffering, therefore +he cannot have prayed acceptably. His suffering is as +incense set forth before God. Tell my daughters that they +must work and suffer as well as pray, and that it is the best +prayer that has with it the most work and the most suffering.</p> +<p><!-- page 79--><a name="page79"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +79</span>(11) <i>A Bishop taught to Pray</i>.—To Don Alonzo +Velasquez, Bishop of Osma. Your Reverence enjoined me the +other day to recommend you to God. I have done so: not +regarding my own inconsiderableness, but your requisition and +your rights. And I promise myself from your goodness that +you will take in good part what I feel compelled to say to you, +and will accept that which proceeds only from my obedience to +you. Recognising, then, and representing to our Lord, the +great favours He has done you in having bestowed upon you +humility, charity, zeal for souls, and a strong desire to +vindicate the Divine honour, I still besought the Lord for an +increase in you of all these same virtues and perfections in +order that you may prove as accomplished in all these things as +the dignity of your office requires. Till it was discovered +to me that you still wanted that which is the foundation of every +virtue, and without which the whole superstructure dissolves, and +falls in ruins. You want prayer. You want believing, +persevering, courageous prayer. And the want of that prayer +causes all that drought and disunion from which you say your soul +suffers. That which was shown me as the way your lordship +is henceforth to pray is this. You are to recollect and +accuse yourself of all your sins since your last time of like +prayer. You are to divest yourself of everything as if you +were that moment to die. You are to begin by reciting to +yourself and to God the Fifty-first Psalm. And after that +you must say this. ‘I come, O Lord, Bishop as I am, +to Thy children’s school of prayer and obedience. I +come to Thee <!-- page 80--><a name="page80"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 80</span>not to teach, but to learn. I +will speak to Thee, who am but dust and ashes.’ And +all the time set before the eyes of your soul Jesus Christ +crucified, and ruminate on Him in some such way as this. +Fix your eyes on that stupendous humility of His whereby He so +annihilated Himself. Look on His head crowned with +thorns. Fix your eyes on His nailed hands, His feet, and +His side. Meditate on and interrogate every one of His +wounds for you. It behoves you also to go to prayer with a +most entire resignation and submission and pliantness to go that +way in religion and in life that God points out to you. +Sometimes He will teach you by turning His back on you: and, +anon, by lifting up the light of His countenance upon you. +Sometimes by shutting you out of His presence, and sometimes by +bringing you into His banqueting-house. And you are to +receive it all with the same equability of mind, knowing that He +always acts for the best. Otherwise you will go to teach +God in your prayers, which is not the proper scope and intent of +prayer at all. And when you say that you are dust and +ashes, you must observe and exhibit the proper quality of +such. In our Lord’s prayer in the garden, He +requested that the bitterness and the terrible trial He felt in +overcoming His human nature might be taken away. He did not +ask that His pains might be taken away, but only the disgust +wherewith He suffered them. And when it was answered Him +that it was not expedient but that He should drink that cup, He +had to master that weakness and pusillanimity of the flesh, as +must all other men. One cannot be a <!-- page 81--><a +name="page81"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 81</span>great +scholar, or even a finished courtier, without great pains and +expense; and to be a scholar in the Church, and a minister, and a +master in the science of Heaven, cannot be done without long time +at school and much hard work. And herewith I desist from +saying more to your lordship, whose pardon I beg for all this +presumption. Which, however full it may be of defects and +indiscretions, is not wanting in that zeal I owe to your service +as one of the most wandering and gone astray of your +lordship’s flock. Our Lord preserve your lordship, +and enrich you with the manifold increase of His grace. I +am, your lordship’s unworthy servant and subject, Teresa of +Jesus.</p> +<p>(12) <i>The proper Readers of what the Saint has +Written</i>,—And now I return most humbly to beseech your +Reverence, that, if you mean to impart to any one these things +that you have made me write concerning prayer, let them be +imparted to spiritual persons, and to persons of real insight +only. For, indeed, I have written for persons of +exceptional experience and exceptional prudence only. What +I have written, I fear, very few are capable of. But what +am I, to speak thus about any but myself? Farewell.—I +am,</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Teresa the Sinner</span>.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SANTA TERESA***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 19185-h.htm or 19185-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/1/8/19185 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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