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tihvaxy of t:he trheolo^ical ^eminarjo 
 
 PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
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Selections; from ti)e 
 
 Detiotional SHritings; 
 
 of £^aOame Oe la £Pot|)e« 
 
 d^upon 
 
Clje SDetJOtional Series; 
 
 The Christian's Power . . . F. P. Rosselot 
 
 Bible Study and Devotion . H. A. Thtmpson 
 
 Prayer, a Means of Spiritual Growth . . 
 
 N. E. Cornetet 
 
 Selections from Devotional Writings of 
 
 Madame Guyon , , . . D. D. Loivery 
 
 Love As a Motive M. B. Spayd 
 
 Sorrow; Its Worth, Its Cure . J. A. Hanukint 
 
 Bible Doctrine of Devotion . E, S. Botuman 
 
 Christ Our Devotional Example . IT. J. Zuck 
 
 The Holy Spirit in the Devout Life . . 
 
 I. L. Kiphart 
 
 Conduct; Its Relation to Che Devotional 
 
 Life J.T. Spangler 
 
 Each i6mo. Cloth Fifty Cents 
 
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{ MAY 21 iy^^ ^ 
 
 a>ebottonal Wixitimsi 
 
 of fl^atiame De la jS^otlje^^ 
 
 d^upoti 
 
 COMPILED BY 
 
 D. D. LOWERY 
 
 I 
 
 UNITED BRETHREN PUBLISHING HOUSE 
 
 W. R. FUNK. ^r«n» DAYTON, OHIO 
 
Ck>pyright, 190U, by 
 United Brethren 
 PxLbliihing House 
 Dai/ton Ohio 
 
SDedicatot^ 
 
 To MY DAUGHTER QKACE, WHOSE CHRISTIAN lilFB 
 
 and faith are a comfort to me, earnestly 
 desiring for her the highest and best 
 in the realm of grace, and the 
 possession of some such excellen- 
 cies of life and thought as 
 so eminently distinguished 
 the life and character 
 of the author of 
 these selections 
 Madame de la Mothe-Guyon 
 
 I I / 
 
preface 
 
 These selections from the writings 
 of Madame Guyon are necessarily lim- 
 ited to such of her works as were ac- 
 cessible to me. Among them, happily, 
 are those most important to fully meet 
 the purpose of this small volume; 
 namely, to present, in concise form, her 
 teaching on some of the practical and 
 doctrinal phases of Christianity. At 
 the same time the aim throughout this 
 entire work has been to furnish the 
 reader with wholesome food for medi- 
 tation during the "Quiet Hour," and 
 with fuel to rekindle the dying embers 
 on the altar of devotion. How well I 
 have succeeded in the selection and 
 compilation and arrangement of the 
 matter, with the above thought in view, 
 I must let the reader determine. 
 
 The writings of Madame Guyon con- 
 sist of forty volumes, only a few of 
 which are now in print. From these 
 few, together with several others of her 
 
Preface 
 
 books out of print which, after long 
 search, I succeeded in securing through 
 the agency of second-hand book-stores, 
 I have made the selections contained in 
 this volume. The foot-notes in the fol- 
 lowing pages give simply the titles of 
 the works from which the selections are 
 taken, omitting the author's name, 
 since all the volumes referred to are the 
 writings of Madame Guyon. The stan- 
 zas placed at the beginning of the parts 
 and divisions are also taken from her 
 poems. 
 
 The outline of this volume, the di- 
 vision into parts and sections, and the 
 grouping, under different heads, of the 
 matter selected, are entirely my own, 
 excepting in Part II., where the au- 
 thor's general plan is followed, while I 
 am wholly responsible for the topical 
 division and statement in the form 
 there given. 
 
 The title of this book may not convey 
 to some minds the real idea and pur- 
 pose of its contents. The term, "devo- 
 tional," as used here, is not to be under- 
 8 
 
^ttUtt 
 
 stood as restricted in its application to 
 forms and expressions of public and 
 private worship, but, as employed here, 
 to literature of a highly inspirational 
 and deeply spiritual character. This 
 is preeminently true of all Madame 
 Guyon's writings. 
 
 The task, which was an exceedingly 
 pleasant one, was nevertheless at- 
 tended with considerable difficulty, 
 owing to the abundance of matter to 
 select from and the limited space in 
 this small volume for its use. How- 
 ever, if the reader shall receive from its 
 perusal as much comfort and blessing 
 as the compiler enjoyed in its prepara- 
 tion, he will consider himself amply re- 
 paid for the time and labor bestowed 
 upon it. The volume is thus sent forth 
 on its mission, and I can only pray that 
 our dear Lord may own it as a means 
 of rich blessing to the lives of those into 
 whose hands it may fall. 
 
 D. D. L. 
 
 Harrishurg, Pa., March 11, lOOff. 
 
€onttnt& 
 
 Contents 
 
 PART I 
 MISCELLANY 
 
 I Struggle and Death of Self 
 Bondage 
 
 Groping for Light 
 
 Self-Effort, or Trusting in Human Merit 
 The Death of Self 
 II Faith 
 
 For Guidance 
 
 For Duty 
 
 The Testing of Faith 
 
 III Surrender, or Abandonment 
 
 Immediate and Unquestioning 
 Absolute and Unreserved 
 
 IV Submission 
 
 Willing and Cheerful Submission 
 The Fruit of Submission (or of Obedience) 
 V Fellowship 
 Divine Union 
 
 The Abiding Divine Presence, the Soul's Keeper 
 and Provider 
 "VI Communion 
 
 Inward Communion 
 Silent and Unceasing Prayer 
 VII Tranquillity 
 
 Tranquillity Through Transformation 
 The Tranquil Soul Remains Undisturbed by 
 External Conditions 
 
 11 
 
Contents 
 
 PART II 
 ON PRAYER, OR METHOD OF PRAYER 
 
 Prefatory Note 
 Introductory 
 First Degree 
 Meditative Prayer 
 
 The Lordfs Prayer 
 Second Degree 
 Aridities 
 Abandonment 
 Sufferings 
 
 Accepted as from God 
 
 Mysteries 
 
 Virtue 
 
 Mortification 
 
 Perfect Conversion 
 
 Active Contemplation 
 
 Rest Before God 
 
 Interior Silence 
 
 Self-Examination 
 
 Turning From Faults to God 
 
 Distractions and Temptations 
 
 Prayer, a Devotional Sacrifice 
 
 Active Silence 
 
 Internal Acts 
 
 Barren Preaching 
 
 Divine Union 
 
 The Passive Waj/ to lis Attainment 
 
JntroDuctPtp 
 
 Madame De La Mothe-Guyon's 
 maiden name was Jeanne Marie Bon- 
 vier de la Mothe. She was born, April 
 13, 1648, at Montargis, France, about 
 fifty miles south of Paris. She was 
 born and died within the pale of the 
 Roman Catholic Church. Though care- 
 fully educated in the forms and doc- 
 trines of that church, and adhering to 
 its communion, she saw plainly the cor- 
 ruptions and abuses of the church, es- 
 pecially of the hierarchy, and early set 
 to work, both by her prolific pen and by 
 speech, to correct, as far as possible, its 
 abuses ; or at least to rebuke, instruct, 
 admonish; to inculcate better princi- 
 ples and impart the deeper truths of 
 spirituality, which already were begin- 
 ning to bear rich fruitage, until her 
 enemies, unable to answer her argu- 
 ment, while at the same time unwilling 
 to admit the fact of existing conditions 
 as they really were, turned against her 
 
 13 
 
Jntrotiuctotp 
 
 with the weapons of persecution. Re- 
 lentlessly they followed her, insisting 
 that she must retract the doctrinal and 
 other statements in her writings and 
 cease going about teaching them as she 
 had been doing, in the meantime 
 threatening her with severe punish- 
 ment if she refused to obey the man- 
 dates of her superiors in the church. 
 But she meekly, though bravely stood 
 out against their combined assault ; she 
 neither retracted nor ceased her labor 
 of faith, love, and devotion. She was 
 finally seized and cast into prison at 
 Vincennes, September 27, 1695; again 
 at Vangirard, and then in the Bastille, 
 where she remained until 1705, not- 
 withstanding the fact that the proceed- 
 ings against her had been concluded in 
 the year 1700, and her justification had 
 been pronounced in the same year at 
 Issy. Although she was continually 
 persecuted, ostracized, imprisoned, — 
 confined within prison walls for ten 
 long, dreary years, — her life was al- 
 ways full of activity, and her really 
 
 14 
 
Jntrotiuctorg 
 
 superior mental powers were called in- 
 to requisition for the accomplishment 
 of her great and enduring life-work. 
 She wrote forty volumes, her poems, 
 justifications, autobiography, and mis- 
 cellaneous works under various titles, 
 numbering in all twenty books, and 
 twenty duodecimo volumes of her 
 <*Commentary on the Holy Scriptures." 
 This latter she undoubtedly considered 
 her greatest and most important work. 
 Her comments on the Holy Word she 
 regarded as "the mystical sense of the 
 Sacred Scriptures." 
 
 Living in a time and place and under 
 conditions so adverse to the exercise of 
 independent religious thought and the 
 growth of genuine piety, she yet at- 
 tained the highest eminence as a 
 woman of keen intellect and deep spir- 
 ituality. 
 
 She belonged to the class of believers 
 known as "Mystics"; not an oppro- 
 brious designation this, by any means, 
 but simply indicating the peculiar 
 trend of thought and manner of life of 
 
 15 
 
Inttotiuctorp 
 
 those belonging to this school of re- 
 ligious belief and opinion. She empha- 
 sized the spiritual sense or meaning of 
 the sacred Scriptures, and had no taste 
 for merely ceremonial matters. As she 
 is placed before the reader here — in 
 these selections from her writings — to 
 speak for herself in the following 
 pages, it is not necessary to go into 
 further detail of the character of her 
 teachings. She died, at the age of sixty- 
 nine years, as she had lived, in the joy 
 and triumph of an absolutely surren- 
 dered life. Before closing this brief 
 account of the life of this remarkable 
 woman, however, I am constrained to 
 quote an extract from the concluding 
 page of the second volume of the "Life 
 and Religious Opinions and Experi- 
 ences of Madame de la Mothe-Guyon,"^ 
 by Prof. Thomas C. Upham, D. D., 
 
 » The original two-volume edition of this biography 
 by Professor Upham has been out of print for some 
 years, but recently a new one- volume edition has been 
 issued, edited and revised by an English clergyman, and 
 published in London by Sampson, Low, Marston & 
 Company. 
 
 16 
 
Inttodttctotp 
 
 LL. D., together with her "last will and 
 testament'^ : 
 
 "In the beginning of the month of 
 March, 1717, she had a very severe at- 
 tack of sickness, from which she never 
 recovered. During her sickness she 
 conversed with her friends and wrote 
 a few letters ; but she had no doubt that 
 her labors were drawing to a close. 
 God's hour, that hour to which she had 
 long looked with interest, had arrived. 
 Already those with whom, either as 
 friends or as enemies, she had been as- 
 sociated in the earlier part of her life, 
 Harlai, La Combe, Fenelon, Beauvil- 
 liers, Bossuet, the powerful monarch of 
 France, all had been called hence. At 
 last the summons came to her also. 
 She received it without surprise and 
 without repugnance. She went down 
 to the grave, as her life would lead us 
 to anticipate, in perfect resignation 
 and peace. She had given her soul to 
 God, and God received her. No clouds 
 rested upon her vision ; no doubts per- 
 plexed the fullness of her hope and joy. 
 
 2 17 
 
Jnttotiuctor^ 
 
 At half -past eleven o'clock on the night 
 of June 9, 1717, she died, aged sixty- 
 nine years. 
 
 "A short time before her death she 
 wrote a will, from which the following 
 passage is an extract. It is an affect- 
 ing evidence of the depth of her piety 
 and that she relied on Jesus Christ 
 alone : 
 
 " ^In the name of the Father, Son, 
 and Holy Ghost. 
 
 " *This is my last will and testament, 
 which I request my executors, who are 
 named within, to see executed. 
 
 " ^It is to thee, O Lord God, that T 
 owe all things ; and it is to thee that I 
 now surrender up all that I am. Do 
 with me, O my God, whatsoever thou 
 pleasest. To thee, in an act of irrevo- 
 cable donation, I give up both my body 
 and my soul, to be disposed of accord- 
 ing to thy will. Thou seest my naked- 
 ness and misery without thee. Thou 
 knowest that there is nothing in 
 heaven, or on earth that I desire but 
 thee alone. Within thy hands, O God, 
 
 18 
 
Jnttoductot^ 
 
 I leave my soul, not relying for my sal- 
 vation on any good that is in me, but 
 solely on thy mercies, and the merits 
 and sufferings of my Lord Jesus 
 Christ: " 
 
 19 
 
PART I 
 
The love of thee flows just as much 
 As that of ebbing self subsides ; 
 Our hearts (their scantiness is such) 
 Bear not the conflict of two rival tides. 
 
 Both cannot govern in one soul ; 
 
 Then let self-love be dispossessed; 
 
 The love of God deserves the whole, 
 
 And will not dwell with so despised a guest. 
 
SELECTIONS FROM THE 
 
 DEVOTIONAL WRITINGS 
 
 OF MADAME DE LA 
 
 MOTHE-GUYON 
 
 I 
 
 Struggle anD DeatI) of Self 
 Sonnage 
 
 All souls that are to be conducted 
 by this way are placed at the beginning 
 of the spiritual life in the midst of in- 
 finite and equally ineffable joys, — for 
 there are not upon earth such heavenly 
 blessings as these persons participate 
 in, — but when, through so many favors, 
 God has assured himself of the faith- 
 fulness of this people, it is then he 
 makes them undergo the severe cap- 
 tivity. And none can be exempt from 
 it, since Jesus Christ, the first of the 
 predestined and chief of the abandoned 
 
9Debotlonal mxiiins^ 
 
 ones, has himself been pleased to come 
 forth from the delights of his Father's 
 bosom to render himself of all men the 
 most captive.^ 
 
 A little sand checks my fury, says 
 the sea, and the whale cannot go out of 
 the waters, although it finds nothing to 
 confine it. I cannot, likewise, go forth 
 from my bitterness and from my hell, 
 although I see in it a strange immen- 
 sity. Nothing binds me, and still I do 
 not cease to be imprisoned. My prison 
 has neither walls nor ramparts, and yet 
 I am a captive in the midst of the great- 
 est freedom.^ 
 
 When any for relief run to confess, 
 the only true remedy for them is 
 prayer; to present themselves before 
 God as criminals ; and to beg strength 
 of him to rise out of this state. Then 
 would they soon be changed and 
 brought out of the mire and clay. But 
 the devil has falsely persuaded the doc- 
 tors and the wise men of the age that, 
 
 >The Myatlcal Sense of Scripture, Genesis to Deuter- 
 onomy. «The Book of Job, in The Mystical Sense of 
 Scripture. 
 
 24 
 
&ttuffffte ann SDeatj^ of &tlt 
 
 in order to pray, it is necessary first to 
 be perfectly converted. Hence people 
 are dissuaded from it, and hence there 
 is rarely any conversion that is durable. 
 The devil is outrageous only against 
 prayer, and those that exercise it, be- 
 cause he knows it is the true means of 
 taking his prey from him. He lets us 
 undergo all the austerities we will, and 
 neither persecutes those that enjoy 
 them nor those that practice them. 
 But no sooner does one enter into a 
 spiritual life, a life of prayer, but he 
 must prepare for strange crosses, as all 
 manner of persecutions and contempts 
 in this world are reserved for that life.^ 
 Oh, wisdom, oh, profundity of the 
 Word of God! The sight of our sins 
 and of our infidelities without number 
 ought indeed to persuade us that it is 
 not through our own merits that God 
 has chosen for us interior states, and 
 for the purity of his love, the more as, 
 since he has penetrated us with the 
 liveliest lights, and gratified us with the 
 
 * Antobiography. 
 
 25 
 
SDtbotional mtitim^ 
 
 mystic ray, we have not ceased to be 
 ungrateful and rebellious against him. 
 God acts thus, then, before making the 
 soul enter into himself; he shows it in 
 detail all its infidelities and offenses, 
 which overthrow it and cast it even 
 into the abyss.^ 
 
 The Lord now removes all conscious 
 experience of his grace and love. The 
 soul is at first greatly afflicted, and see^ 
 the bad use it has made of his gifts, and 
 the self-complacency it has indulged in 
 on account of them. Its sighs and its 
 tears are the expression of its grief; 
 then the Well-Beloved overwhelms it 
 with new tokens of his love, which 
 throws it into greater shame than ever. 
 The soul hardly dares lift up its eyes, 
 until it again forgets the past and sinks 
 itself in these new favors of the Lord.^ 
 
 dSroping for %ig^t 
 
 O my Lord, thou wast in my heart 
 and demanded only a simple turning of 
 
 »The Mystical Sense of Scripture, Genesis to Deuter- 
 onomy, a Spiritual Torrents. 
 
 26 
 
struggle anti SDeat^ ot ^tlt 
 
 my mind inward to make me perceive 
 thy presence. Infinite Goodness! 
 while I was running hither and thither 
 to seek thee, my life was a burden to 
 me, although my happiness was within 
 myself. I was poor in the midst of 
 riches, and ready to perish with hun- 
 ger, near a table plentifully spread and 
 a continual feast. O Beauty, ancient 
 and new, why have I known thee so 
 late? Alas! I sought thee where thou 
 w^ast not, and did not seek thee where 
 thou wast. It was for want of under- 
 standing these words of thy gospel, 
 '^The kingdom of God cometh not with 
 observation: neither shall they say, 
 Lo here; or, lo there! for, behold, the 
 kingdom of God is within you." This 
 I now experienced, for thou becamest 
 my King, and my heart thy king- 
 dom, w^herein thou didst reign su- 
 preme and performed all thy sacred 
 will.^ 
 
 The soul has a certain self-esteem, 
 w^hich is deeply hidden, and a secret 
 
 ^Autobiography. 
 
 27 
 
2Debotional mtitinsa 
 
 contempt (that is, pity) for others not 
 in its own experience. It is prone to 
 be scandalized at their faults, and is 
 hard toward them. It has a secret 
 pride, so that it is troubled most at 
 faults committed openly, for it would 
 fain be faultless. It maintains a re- 
 served bearing to others, and claims to 
 itself the gifts of God, forgetting its 
 own weakness, loses self-distrust, 
 speaks rashly, and has a subtle desire 
 to attract notice. Although all these 
 facts and many others are to be found 
 deeply hidden, the soul is unconscious 
 of them. If it falls into some visible 
 fault it is beset with a swarm of self- 
 reflections, and when there comes any 
 spiritual dryness it is dejected, discour- 
 aged, and distressed, immediately be- 
 lieving that it has lost all ; it then en- 
 deavors to do all it can to regain the 
 presence of God. It observes austere 
 silence at times, and at others is apt to 
 talk without end about the things of 
 God. It may, under the pretense of ob- 
 ligation, impose upon itself unneces- 
 
 28 
 
&ttug0le anti S>tati of &tlt 
 
 sary actions, and thus fulfill its own 
 will instead of the will of God.^ 
 
 The more thou didst augment my 
 love and my patience, O my Lord, the 
 less respite had I from the most op- 
 pressive crosses; but love rendered 
 them easy to bear. O ye poor souls, 
 who exhaust yourselves with needless 
 vexation, if you would but seek God in 
 your hearts, there would be a speedy 
 end to all your troubles, for the in- 
 crease of crosses would proportionately 
 increase your delight.^ 
 
 &tlt''(£ttotU or ^tuisftfnff in l^aman 
 
 If the soul is to know God, it must 
 know its own misery apart from him, 
 and God searches out in its very depths 
 what was most deeply hidden within 
 it. The grace of faith to suffer strip- 
 ping has always to do with the most 
 deep-seated and hidden faults of the 
 selfhood.^ 
 
 » Spiritual Torrents. •Autobiography. » Spiritual 
 Torrents. 
 
 29 
 
SDebotional Wititim0 
 
 I had a fault common to most of our 
 sex — I could not hear a beautiful 
 woman praised without finding fault in 
 her, artfully causing it to be remarked 
 to lessen the good which was said of 
 her. This fault of mine continued long, 
 and was the fruit of gross and malig- 
 nant pride. Extravagantly extolling 
 any one proceeds from a like source.^ 
 
 I did not indeed serve Thee yet with 
 that fervor which thou wast pleased to 
 give me soon after, for I would still 
 have been glad to reconcile thy love 
 with the love of myself and of the crea- 
 ture; and unhappily I always found 
 some who loved me, and whom I could 
 not forbear wishing to please ; not that 
 I loved them, but for the love that I 
 bore to myself.^ 
 
 Canst thou deceive him (leviathan) 
 and catch him in thy nets as a bird — he 
 who is stronger than thou art? Or wilt 
 thou bind him, and canst thou chain 
 him down in some corner, to make use 
 of him according to thy need, as one 
 
 >, 'Autobiography. 
 
 30 
 
fetruffffle and SDeatJ ot &elf 
 
 makes use of a slave? For it was in 
 that way that he was brought under 
 subjection to man before his sin. 
 
 Whatever help you may obtain from 
 your spiritual friends, can you cut him 
 off, as those think they can do who 
 say that it is not necessary to abandon 
 ourselves to God, unless we have sup- 
 pressed (or take away) self-love? God 
 asks those, in the person of Job, 
 whether they will ever be able to accom- 
 plish that. It is a hydra which is ever 
 strengthening itself; when its head is 
 cut off, new ones come again. But who 
 will be able to fill the reservoir of its 
 frightful head, which, like a hideous 
 belly, contains in itself all the thefts 
 that it commits? In that way favoring 
 its self-righteousness, it retains all the 
 virtues, rendering them proprietary, 
 and communicating its malignity to 
 them, preventing them from permitting 
 themselves to be lost in God — as the 
 leviathan prevents the fish from swim- 
 ming in the sea. In that way it keeps 
 back all its reserves, the graces, the 
 
 31 
 
SDebotional mtitinQ^ 
 
 gifts, the powers, the victories, etc. 
 What if you say to yourself, "I shall 
 yet be able to chain him and subdue 
 him by my strength,'' remember the 
 battle which you have had with him, 
 and what happened to you for believ- 
 ing that you had the power to throw 
 him down; and let the remembrance 
 of that enable you to keep silence.^ 
 
 Souls who have heard or read that 
 they must be "stripped," set about do- 
 ing it themselves, and do not progress, 
 for, as it is done by self-effort, God does 
 not clothe them with himself, which is 
 his divine purpose in unclothing them. 
 
 In this stage the soul must not seek 
 to sustain a life which has to be laid 
 down. If we truly desire to live only 
 in God, we must not cling to, or nour- 
 ish our "own" life, in ever so little a 
 degree. We must rest in the hand of 
 the faithful God, and let him do as he 
 wills. 
 
 Some souls are like drowning per- 
 sons; they do not cease to resist until 
 
 » The Book of Job, in The Mystical Sense of Scrip- 
 ture. 
 
 32 
 
^ttuQQlt ann SDeatjg ot &elf 
 
 they are exhausted. In pity God ap- 
 pears to be hard, and gives the soul no 
 succor, so as to cause it to drop into 
 the helplessness of death. It ceases 
 from its own works, and thereby enters 
 into rest.^ 
 
 These states are not continuous in 
 their violence; there are remissions, 
 which, while they afford space for tak- 
 ing breath, serve, at the same time, to 
 render the subsequent trial more pain- 
 ful. For nature will make use of any- 
 thing to sustain its life, as a drowning 
 man will support himself in the water 
 by clinging to the blade of a razor, 
 without adverting to the pain it causes 
 him, if there be nothing else within his 
 reach.2 
 
 Oh, that you could comprehend the 
 depth of this mystery, and learn the se- 
 crets of the conduct of God, revealed to 
 babes, but hid from the wise and great 
 of this world, who think themselves 
 the Lord's counselors, and capable of 
 investigating his procedures, and sup- 
 
 ^ Spiritual Torrents, a Concise View of the Way to 
 God. 
 
 3 33 
 
SDebotional mtitinQ^ 
 
 pose thej have attained that divine wis- 
 dom hidden from the ejes of all who 
 live in self, and are enveloped in their 
 own works, and who by a lively genius 
 and elevated faculties mount up to 
 heaven, and think to comprehend the 
 height and depth and length and 
 breadth of God.^ 
 
 But just in proportion as this activ- 
 ity decays, and is lost in an amorous 
 passivity, so does our strength of resist- 
 ance sink and diminish, and, as this 
 degree advances, and the soul becomes 
 more and more passive, it becomes 
 more and more powerless in combat. 
 As God becomes strong within, so do 
 we become weak. Some regard this 
 impossibility of resistance as a great 
 temptation, but they do not see that all 
 our labor, aided and assisted by grace, 
 can only accomplish the conquest of 
 our outward senses, after which God 
 takes gradual possession of our inte- 
 rior, and becomes himself our purifier. 
 And as he required all our watchful- 
 
 »Autoblography. 
 
 34 
 
fettuffffle and Wtaii ot &elt 
 
 ness while he continued us in amoroup 
 activity, so he now requires all our 
 fidelity to let him work, while he begins 
 to render himself Lord by the subjec- 
 tion of the flesh to the spirit.^ 
 
 C6e SDeatS ot &elt 
 
 I shall try to leave out as few faults 
 as possible, and I depend on you to 
 destroy it when your soul hath drawn 
 those spiritual advantages therefrom, 
 which God intended, and for which 
 purpose I am willing to sacrifice all 
 things, being fully persuaded of his 
 designs toward you, as well for the 
 sanctiflcation of others as for your own 
 sanctification. 
 
 But let me assure you, this is not at- 
 tained, save through pain, weariness, 
 and labor; and it will be reached by a 
 path that will wonderfully disappoint 
 your expectations. Nevertheless, if 
 you are fully convinced that it is on 
 the nothing in man that God estab- 
 lishes his greatest works, you will be 
 
 *■ Concise View of the Way to God. 
 35 
 
SDebottonal mXtitixiQ^ 
 
 in part guarded against disappoint- 
 ment or surprise. He destroys that he 
 might build; for when he is about to 
 rear his sacred temple in us, he first 
 totally razes that vain and pompous 
 edifice which human art and power had 
 erected, and from its horrible ruins a 
 new structure is formed, by his power 
 only.^ 
 
 We rob God of a glory that he ex- 
 pects of us, and that he has a right to 
 exact, and which I dare say is the pur- 
 pose of our creation. We deprive our- 
 selves by stubbornness of the greatest 
 of all good things, being contented with 
 a kind of death or mortification, which 
 is only the shadow of death, and not 
 the reality. I am convinced that if one 
 were to read the "Reflections upon the 
 Scriptures'^ with a spirit unbiased, and 
 resolved to lose all things for God, he 
 would find in them a hidden manna. 
 It is fruit enclosed in a husk; but we 
 must break the husk, that is, take away 
 self, in order to taste sweetness, and 
 
 >^Autobiography. 
 
 36 
 
&ttuffo:k and S)tati ot fbtlt 
 
 pleasantness. I pray God that he may 
 choose for himself hearts determined 
 to be his at their own cost. It is all I 
 wish for, and for which I would give 
 my life a thousand times.^ 
 
 Oh, glorious consolation for a man 
 who finds himself in the last desola- 
 tion, to want to persuade him that the 
 afflictions that he suffers are the pen- 
 alty of his sins ! What ! is that a rea- 
 son that because a person is unhappy 
 he must be guilty? The same things 
 which are punishments for sins, are 
 also trials with which God afflicts and 
 purifies his own — and a person does 
 very wrong to condemn what he does 
 not understand. Nevertheless, al- 
 though this reproach and this condem- 
 nation from the learned, and of him- 
 self, may be the heaviest cross that can 
 be experienced, it is not permitted to 
 be the most necessary: for a person 
 only dies by being convicted of his 
 error. It is this condemnation, joined 
 to reproaches and convictions which 
 
 ' Spiritual Letters. 
 
 87 
 
SDebottonal Mtitim^ 
 
 the person has in his mind, that truly 
 causes his death.^ 
 
 Oh, strange blindness! people take 
 the plentitude of divine justice for the 
 wrath of God, and the breath of love 
 for the breath of anger. Sinners, it is 
 true, are chastised by the breath of the 
 wrath of God, and are consumed bj the 
 spirit of his anger; but as to upright 
 souls, they are annihilated by the 
 breath of pure love, which goes forth 
 from God himself, and are consumed 
 by the spirit of his divine justice, 
 which, in order that God alone may re- 
 main, takes away everything from man. 
 Nevertheless, as these things appear 
 similar to those who are not divinely 
 enlightened, they are taken for the 
 same thing, although they may be in- 
 finitely different.^ 
 
 You fly into a passion as soon as any 
 one speaks to you. You cannot bear a 
 scornful or cold look. I pray God to 
 help you. Do not think that I like to 
 have people cold towards you; by no 
 
 ture'^® Book of Job, in The Mystical Sense of Scrip- 
 38 
 
^ttumlt and SDtati ot &tlt 
 
 means. Perhaps they are not really so. 
 Things happen without intention, and 
 God permits it, in order that you may 
 die to self. Be no longer of a quick 
 temper. Fretfulness keeps one contin- 
 ually in a disposition to commit new 
 faults. However, be of good courage; 
 God is stronger than your weakness. 
 He will take care of you. You will ex- 
 perience the battle between nature and 
 grace a long time. Suffer all that you 
 cannot avoid, but keep calm within. 
 When through your vivacity you com- 
 mit faults, be humiliated, but do not 
 fret.i 
 
 When a tree is cut down it has still 
 some hope; but when a person digs it 
 up, nothing of it remains. It is the 
 same with man ; it is useless to cut him 
 and diminish him; that only serves to 
 make his propriety more apparent and 
 to strengthen it. If his root should 
 grow old in the earth, as this tree cut 
 down perhaps as dead, when the long 
 practice of virtue has reduced him to 
 
 * Spiritual Letters. 
 
 39 
 
SDtbotional mtitixiQ^ 
 
 the dust of liis humiliation, and when, 
 by the knowledge which is given him of 
 his nothingness, he sees himself there 
 useless, as it were, and like a rotten 
 trunk, he will come forth, nevertheless, 
 by the scent of the water ; the fragrance 
 of sensible grace causes him to spring 
 up and to rise from the dead entirely 
 new; and it will cause him to send 
 forth his branches with much more 
 power than at the beginning. O Pro- 
 priety, it is necessary to root thee up, 
 in order to destroy thee.^ 
 
 I am not surprised at anything so 
 long as truths pertaining to the in- 
 terior remain untasted. Many people 
 understand exterior mortification, but 
 little do they wish to be brought to an 
 entire giving up of their own spirit, 
 their ideas, reasonings, prejudice, and 
 their own will, that they may enter the 
 narrow way of faith ; and being naked 
 and despoiled of all these things, 
 follow Jesus, who was stripped and 
 robbed of everything for love of u«. 
 
 *The Book of Job, in The Mystical Sense of Scrip- 
 ture. 
 
 40 
 
fetruffgle anli SDeatft ot &eU 
 
 And yet, we can never attain to the 
 death of the old man, in order to be re- 
 clothed and animated with the new 
 man, except by this way.^ 
 
 If we do not die to our own will and 
 spirit, just as I have said, we shall 
 never be invested or filled with eternal 
 reason and pure love. Instead of a 
 narrow reason, we must have a liberal 
 one; instead of a love mixed with self, 
 a pure and divine love. If we leave our 
 own reason, we shall possess ths Wis- 
 dom — Christ — as an inheritance. It is 
 for God to illuminate us. I pray him 
 to do it.^ 
 
 It is believed that the interior life 
 can be extin,2:uished by dint of persecu- 
 tion and crying it down ; but it is just 
 then that it multiplies. The more 
 those persons who teach it are decried, 
 persecuted, or calumniated, the more 
 persons are found joining them in or- 
 der to pursue the same path ; and by its 
 very persecution it is established and 
 increased, just as the church was 
 
 »,* Spiritual Letters. 
 
 41 
 
SDebotional Wxitins& 
 
 founded and spread by the blood of the 
 martyrs. The demons also, by their 
 cruel temptations, take a part in it, and 
 this is most painful at the commence- 
 ment by the reason of the feebleness of 
 nature, which finds itself overwhelmed 
 under the burden. But the more this 
 soul is laden on all sides with weak- 
 nesses and miseries, the more it rises 
 again like the palm tree, and the more 
 it multiplies itself.^ 
 
 The soul that sees God coming near, 
 fears death very much, well knowing 
 that it is necessary to die to see him. 
 From the time when the state of death 
 begins, which lasts for a long period, 
 it enters into strange fears, and would 
 willingly say, "I would prefer to go no 
 further than to pass through such rude 
 trials." It keeps itself aloof, and en- 
 deavors to defend itself from death, 
 thinking that it even approaches God 
 when it loves to remain in its estrange- 
 ment ; and deceived as it is by self-love, 
 it prefers to preserve its own life rather 
 
 »The Mystical Sense of Scripture, Genesis-Deuteron- 
 omy. 
 
 42 
 
struggle anti 3)eat& ot &rU 
 
 than suffer itself to be carried away by 
 a holy death, which would happily re- 
 suscitate it in God. This leads it to 
 say to the director (much more by its 
 real resistances than by its words 
 alone) : "Speak to me thyself; for so 
 long as it is only thou who speakest to 
 me, and I keep to the words of man and 
 human means, or, at least comprehend 
 by reason, I shall not die; but to go 
 upon the word of God alone, and under 
 his particular conduct, in the obscurity 
 of a naked faith, I cannot resolve to do 
 it, for fear of death and loss/'^ 
 
 The means of reducing a soul to total 
 ruin, is to take away from it all sup- 
 port, and to destroy it on all sides ; for 
 if it found the least prop and the least 
 support, it could not be destroyed ; like 
 a person who is drowning, as long as he 
 finds props and supports he will never 
 drown. If a person were suspended 
 above the sea, although it might be 
 only by a small thread, he would never 
 fall within, unless the thread were 
 
 1 The Mystical Sense of Scripture, Genesis-Deuteron- 
 omy. 
 
 43 
 
9Detiotional mtitim^ 
 
 broken ; in like manner, as long as there 
 is a small place in which we are not de- 
 stroyed, we are not ruined. That is 
 w^hy Job says that since he is destroyed 
 on all sides, he is certainly ruined, and 
 that the hope which he had in himself 
 or in anything out of God, has been not 
 only cut off, like a tree which a person 
 cuts away, ( that would be a small mat- 
 ter, for it can alw^ays spring up again,) 
 but that it has been snatched away like 
 a tree which is plucked up and which 
 cannot spring up any more, for nothing 
 of it remains. This comparison of the 
 tree is a very good one; because if there 
 remains only a little root, it will shoot 
 forth; likewise, if there remains any- 
 thing of the self-life in us which is not 
 taken away, it will gradually spring up 
 and increase. That is why, when God 
 wishes to be very merciful to a soul, 
 he does not allow the least subsistence 
 to remain.^ 
 
 We see those who content themselves 
 in practicing great outward austerities, 
 
 » The Book of Job, in The Mystical Sense of Scripture. 
 44 
 
Struggle and S>tat^ ot &elt 
 
 and yet by indulging their senses in 
 what is called innocent and necessary, 
 they remain forever unsubdued; so 
 that austerities, however severe, will 
 not conquer the senses. To destroy 
 their power, the most effectual means 
 is, in general, to deny them firmly what 
 will please, and to persevere in this, 
 until they are reduced to be without 
 desire or repugnance. But if we at- 
 tempt, during the warfare, to grant 
 them any relaxation, we act like those 
 who, under pretext of strengthening a 
 man who was condemned to be starved 
 to death, should give him from time to 
 time a little nourishment, which in- 
 deed would prolong his torments, and 
 postpone his death. 
 
 It is just the same with the death of 
 the senses, the powers, the understand- 
 ing, and self-will ; for if we do not erad- 
 icate every remains of self subsisting 
 in these, we support them in a dying 
 life to the end. This state and its ter- 
 mination are clearly set forth by St. 
 Paul. He spealcs of bearing about in 
 
 i'6 
 
SDetotional Wititins^ 
 
 the body the dying of the Lord Jesus. 
 (II. Cor. 4:10.) But, lest we should 
 rest here, he fully distinguishes this 
 from the state of being dead, and hav- 
 ing our life hid with Christ in God. It 
 is only by a total death to self we can 
 be lost in God.^ 
 
 ^Autobiography. 
 
 46 
 
How happy are the new-born race, 
 Partakers of adopting grace ! 
 
 How pure the bliss they share ! 
 Hid from the world and all its eyes. 
 Within their heart the blessing lies. 
 
 And conscience feels it there. 
 
 The moment we believe, 't is ours ; 
 And if we love with all our powers 
 
 The God from whom it came, 
 And if we serve with hearts sincere, 
 *T is still discernible and clear, 
 
 An undisputed claim. 
 
iFattfi 
 
 II 
 
 JFaitl) 
 
 JFor (Buinance 
 
 I AM very glad that God has led you 
 by the path of naked faith. It is the 
 safest, and, I dare say, the only sure 
 way; inasmuch as it is always accom- 
 panied by pure love, w^hich robs the 
 creature of all in order to restore all 
 to God. We are always wanting to be 
 something, whether under nature or 
 grace; we know not how to be content 
 that God alone should be in us, and for 
 us; that we should be glorified solely 
 by our destruction. By that means 
 only is the old man put off, and we 
 made new creatures in Christ Jesus. 
 As to what you said about the enemy's 
 temptations through sensible workings, 
 that does not happen to souls led by 
 naked faith, because the trials are suit- 
 ed to the state of the soul.^ 
 
 * Spiritual Letters. 
 4 49 
 
SDebotional Mtitinesi 
 
 Widely different is the revelation of 
 Jesus Christ, made to the soul when the 
 eternal word is communicated. (Gal. 
 1 : 16. ) It makes us new creatures, 
 created anew in him. This revelation 
 is what the devil cannot counterfeit. 
 From hence proceeds the only safe 
 transport or ecstasy, which is operated 
 by naked faith alone, and dying even 
 to the gifts of God, how sublime and 
 excellent soever they may appear, be- 
 cause as long as the soul continues rest- 
 ing in them, it does not fully renounce 
 itself, and so never passing into God, 
 loses the real enjoyment of the Giver, 
 by attachments to the gifts. This is 
 truly an unutterable loss.* 
 
 On your part continue to walk with- 
 out knowing where, and without wish- 
 ing to know, trusting God only, who 
 will know how to lead you into himself, 
 by ways unknown to your thoughts or 
 feelings.^ 
 
 This is not subject to delusions or 
 enthusiasm, for faith embraces the 
 
 * Autobiography. « Spi ri tual Letters. 
 50 
 
£af« 
 
 whole, and does not expect or desire 
 anything for itself. This faith has but 
 one subject, which is God, his glory, 
 and his good pleasure, which it prefers 
 to all self-interest; and this it is that 
 produces the pure love which loves the 
 whole of God, both what he is, and for 
 the sake of himself, without one regard 
 to what we ourselves are.^ 
 
 Faith so strongly seizes on the un- 
 derstanding as to make it decline all 
 reasonings, all particular illumina- 
 tions and illustrations, how sublime 
 soever, which sufficiently demonstrates 
 how far visions, revelations, ecstasies, 
 etc., differ from this, and hinder the 
 soul from being lost in God. For al- 
 though by them it appears lost in him 
 for some transient moments, yet it is 
 not a true loss, since the soul which is 
 entirely lost in God finds itself again 
 no more. Faith then makes the soul 
 lose every distinct light, in order to 
 place it in its own pure light.^ 
 
 * Spiritual Letters. "Autobiography. 
 51 
 
SDebotional mtitinQ^ 
 
 Jfor 2Dut8 
 
 Faith disposes of everything itself; 
 it causes itself to be accompanied by 
 servants, but they cannot aid it in this. 
 It prepares the necessary wood for the 
 sacrifice, so that there may remain no 
 pretext for eluding obedience, although 
 iid a matter which reason might regard 
 as suspicious in many points. Oh, 
 fidelity and generosity of faith! It is 
 truly on good grounds that it is the 
 source and origin of a great people and 
 of an innumerable multitude of saints 
 so much the more admirable before 
 God as they are the more hidden from 
 meh.^ 
 
 It is well to understand here that we 
 do not speak of the ordinary means of 
 salvation, but of a soul wholly interior, 
 and called to the deepest annihilation ; 
 of a soul brought into the whole truth, 
 of the all of God and of the nothingness 
 of the creature ; and not of a Christian 
 in the ordinary way, who relies almost 
 wholly upon his works for salvation. 
 
 » The Mystical Sense of Scripture, Genesis-Deuteron- 
 omy. 
 
 52 
 
Mtj 
 
 I know very well that faith without 
 works is dead ; but that is not the case 
 here, since the soul of which we speak 
 is only annihilated after having been 
 employed in all good works ; and having 
 exhausted all the good of its own oper- 
 ations, the work of God becomes so 
 powerful in it as to overcome the oper- 
 ations of the creature, and absorb them 
 in such a manner that the soul finds 
 itself deprived by excess (and not by 
 deficiency) of the blessings which as- 
 sured its salvation; this convinces it 
 that it is the salvation wrought out and 
 merited by Jesus Christ, which is for 
 souls that have renounced all, who are 
 dead to self-interest — which is only ob- 
 tained by spoliation and the annihila- 
 tion of the entire self-life. 
 
 I know that all men are saved only 
 in and through Jesus Christ; but all 
 men are not fully abandoned to Jesus 
 Christ, in order to trust only in him 
 and not in their works ; but the latter, 
 when they shall have done all the good 
 that all the saints together have done 
 
 53 
 
SDebotional WLtitinsfi 
 
 upon the earth, nevertheless they could 
 not have any hope of salvation except 
 in Jesus Christ, and not in their 
 works.* 
 
 ^Je %mints ot iFaftJ 
 
 God tempts Abraham to make the 
 last trial of his faith, and to test him to 
 the utmost in total nakedness, and in 
 the stripping of all supports; not only 
 of human props, of which he had al- 
 ready stripped him previously, making 
 him come forth from his country, but 
 also of supports taken in God, even in 
 all his benefits and promises. He 
 spares nothing; and to render the thing 
 more severe and this faith more mag- 
 nanimous, to prove and purify his love, 
 and to rid him of all self-interest, and of 
 all foreign attachment, although most 
 legitimate, he says to him. Take thy 
 son. This word is very sweet ; not only 
 thy son, but thine only son; how very 
 dear to him must he then have been! 
 He continues. Thy son whom thou lov- 
 
 ' The Book of Job, in The Mystical Sense of Scripture. 
 54 
 
JFaftJ 
 
 est so tenderly; to make even his love 
 serve for its liveliest grief. He names 
 him by his name, Isaac, placing before 
 his eyes all the sweetness of this 
 amiable victim, so as to make him con- 
 ceive so much the more of the greatness 
 of his loss and to render it more sen- 
 sible to him. Then he adds, Come and 
 sacrifice him to me upon a distant 
 mountain. Is it not that the length of 
 the road may try his faith the more? 
 Isaac, who has always represented the 
 passive life, or contemplation, is to per- 
 ish; faith must sacrifice this life, and 
 give it the deathblow, so that there may 
 remain nothing more that can hinder 
 the total loss into God. 
 
 But far from so severe a temptation 
 diminishing the faith of this patriarch, 
 it takes again even a new vigor; and 
 although so surprising a command- 
 ment as is given him is contrary to 
 that which God had given to every one 
 not to shed human blood, and must hor- 
 rify him, according to reason, in the 
 fear of committing a parricide. Yet 
 
 55 
 
2Debotional mtitintsfi 
 
 faith bears all that ; and trusting itself 
 to God above reason and faith, it sets 
 about executing what has been com- 
 
 manded it 
 
 »The Mystical Sense of Scripture, Genesis-Deuteron- 
 omy. 
 
 56 
 
Vain pageantry and pomp of earth, adieu ! 
 I have no wish, no memory for you ! 
 Rich in God's love, I feel my noblest pride 
 Spring from the sense of having nought beside. 
 
&ttttenlin:» or iSlbantionment 
 
 III 
 
 ^urtenOet, or abanDonment 
 Jmnutiiate ann WLnqnt^tioninQ 
 
 How MANY make terms with God, 
 and put limits as to how far they will 
 submit to his doings? This is abandon- 
 ment in figure, not in reality. Entire 
 abandonment excepts nothing, reserves 
 nothing.^ 
 
 Fidelity requires us to suffer spolia- 
 tion to the whole extent of the designs 
 of God, without being anxious about 
 ourselves, sacrificing to God all our in- 
 terests both for time and for eternity. 
 Nothing must be made a pretext for re- 
 serving or retaining the slightest atom, 
 for the least reservation is the cause of 
 an irreparable loss, as it prevents our 
 death from being total. We must let 
 God work his absolute pleasure, and 
 suffer the winds and tempests to beat 
 
 'Spiritual Torrents. 
 
 59 
 
SDrtotfonal mtitixiQ^ 
 
 upon us from every quarter, sub- 
 merged, as we may often be, beneath 
 the tumultuous billows.^ 
 
 Do not fear that you will displease 
 God with a too violent constraint ; but 
 live abandoned to him, and you will be 
 at peace. He will not permit that you 
 should offend him, fearing him as you 
 do. The prudence of the flesh corrupts 
 everything ; but true prudence which is 
 confidence in God adapts everything, 
 returns it buoyant and peaceable for 
 God's service. On the other hand, fear 
 burdens, embarrasses, weakens, and 
 causes stumblings. You must be aban- 
 doned for others, as well as for your- 
 self,2 
 
 j^fiisfolttte and JBnre^etbed 
 
 I have learned with much joy of the 
 design you have of being God's without 
 reserve. It is the one thing needful to 
 make our life happy. Give yourself, 
 therefore, to God with all your heart, 
 so that you may not take yourself back 
 
 » Ckjnclse View of the Wny to God. * Spiritual Letters, 
 GO 
 
feutrenDer, or iafiantionnttnt 
 
 again. Regard yourself as one who be- 
 longs to him. Love him above every- 
 thing else; try to have his will govern 
 all your actions; acquire the habit of 
 meditating within yourself, where God 
 is ever present; try to retain this di- 
 vine Presence ; re-enter your own heart 
 often, that you may speak with Ood, 
 and listen to him. Hold yourself some- 
 times, like Mary, at the feet of your 
 Lord.i 
 
 To love only for one's self, the vir- 
 tues, gifts, and favors of God is not to 
 be worthy of him. Oh, is God not 
 enough worthy to be loved to give him 
 all our heart, and great enough to oc- 
 cupy it entirely, without our wishing 
 to retain something with him?^ 
 
 If the lamp, if the distinct lights, 
 which are like little stars, and which 
 are ordinary graces, are extinguished, 
 it is only by the light of the 
 Sun, which absorbs them in its light; 
 whereas, the little grace that the 
 wicked might have is taken away from 
 
 ^ Spiritual Letters. « The Mystical Sense of Scripture, 
 Genesis-Deuteronomy. 
 
 61 
 
SDebotlonal mtitimfi 
 
 him by sin. If the step which the 
 simple took to become virtuous should 
 appear to be obstructed, it is only be- 
 cause God, as a kind Father, seeing 
 that the weakness of this soul prevents 
 it from advancing, takes this child in 
 his arms to carry it, and the child per- 
 mits him to do it; while sinners leave 
 the path, the traces or the steps of vir- 
 tue, to enter the path of sin.* 
 
 But dearly beloved, whoever you are 
 who sincerely wish to give yourselves 
 up to God, I conjure you, that after 
 having once made the donation, you 
 take not yourselves back again ; remem- 
 ber, a gift once presented is no longer 
 at the disposal of the giver.^ 
 
 Oh, blessed nothingness, how glori- 
 ous thy termination I what gain, O my 
 soul, hast thou not made for all thy 
 losses? Thou art lifted above all by 
 the loss of all.^ 
 
 » The Book of Job, in The Mystical Sense of Scripture. 
 «A Short and Easy Method of Prayer. » Spiritual Tor- 
 rents. 
 
 62 
 
Long plunged in sorrow, I resign 
 My soul to that dear hand of Thine, 
 
 Without reserve or fear. 
 That hand shall wipe my streaming eyes 
 Or into smiles of glad surprise 
 
 Transform the falling tear. 
 
 My sole possession is Thy love ; 
 In earth beneath, or heaven above, 
 
 I have no other store ; 
 And though with fervent suit I pray. 
 And importune thee, night and day, 
 
 I ask thee nothing more. 
 
&ubmi0iG(ion 
 
 IV 
 
 Submission 
 
 aaiillins ann €ientnl Submission 
 
 We must serve God with an unmis- 
 takable joy, that shows that we serve 
 him with pleasure. Furthermore, you 
 should do what you do with an open- 
 ness of heart which lets people know 
 that the yoke of obedience is neither 
 burdensome nor cumbrous to you.^ 
 
 The soul is in harmony with the di- 
 vine will. It has no separate will, for 
 its will is the will of God ; it has no de- 
 sire but to fulfill his desires, for it has 
 lost all repugnance, and contrariety 
 towards the will of God. 
 
 Its condition of life has become so 
 simple that it has nothing to say about 
 itself. (See Matthew 10:16, margin; 
 II. Corinthians 11 : 3. ) It is silent, not 
 because of reserve, but because its ex- 
 
 * Spiritual Letters. 
 5 65 
 
9Debotional mtitinQ^ 
 
 perience passes all expression by its 
 extreme simplicity. There are no vis- 
 ions, revelations, ecstasies, changes in 
 this degree of divine life. It is above 
 all these, for this way is simple, seeing 
 nothing except as in God, the one cen- 
 ter and principle of all things, and en- 
 vironed by him. 
 
 All distinction in service is taken 
 away. The meanest service and the 
 (so-called) highest, are alike beautiful 
 to it if but in the divine will.^ 
 
 "Thy will be done on earth, as it is 
 in heaven." It is done in heaven with- 
 out resistance and without reluctance. 
 All the outward works that we can do, 
 be they what they will, will not, can- 
 not, advance us, as this total and con- 
 tinual submission of our will to the 
 divine — most infallible will. It is this 
 renunciation of ourselves that Jesus 
 Christ taught us; namely, to submit 
 continually our reason to faith, and our 
 will to God. And this is what I require 
 of you, that you simply enter into this 
 
 * Spiritual Torrents. 
 
 66 
 
g)ubmi00ton 
 
 course ; what you see is a work of time. 
 Faith brings us back to our own noth- 
 ingness, and by our not being anything 
 leaves God to be all that he is, in him- 
 self and for himself. Love is the conse- 
 quence of faith; the more simple and 
 naked faith is, the more pure is the 
 love; and, on the other hand, faith is 
 the consequence of love; the more per- 
 fect love is, the more perfect is faith. 
 In the way of which I here speak, we 
 are screened from the angel of dark- 
 ness, who can transform himself into 
 an angel of light, but not into an angel 
 of love. Let us descend by love, faith, 
 and humility, keeping ourselves in our 
 own nothingness, and we need not fear 
 falling. I require of you in the name 
 of God, that you preserve an inviolable 
 attachment to his way, without waver- 
 ing. I assure you that they who pursue 
 this method are founded upon the Liv- 
 ing Rock, Christ Jesus.^ 
 
 > Spiritual Letters. 
 
 67 
 
SDebotional mtitimfi 
 
 Mit jFtttit ot &ubm(!Ei0fon, or ot 
 SDbthimtt 
 
 Is it not a pitiful thing to accuse a 
 person of pride who abandons himself 
 to his God, who, despairing wholly of 
 his own strength, waits for his deliver- 
 ance through the goodness and divine 
 power of God; and, nevertheless, say- 
 ing to him that if he take away his 
 iniquity himself, he will be able to go 
 with his face lifted up? Is there not 
 much more pride when a person be- 
 lieves that he has the power to do it 
 by his own strength rather than to per- 
 mit God to do it; and to imagine that 
 one can in that way lift the head with- 
 out confusion, and with a secret assur- 
 ance of having taken away his sin? I 
 confess that I do not understand that 
 virtue, nor the nature of that humility, 
 which, in making us more powerful 
 than God, leads us to exalt ourselves 
 without fear, and to remain steadfast 
 in that elevation. If the most righteous 
 man fall seven times, what state is 
 
 68 
 
&nhmi00ion 
 
 there without fear? The true way not 
 to fear is not to exalt ourselves, and to 
 trust in his righteousness ; to abandon 
 ourselves so fully to God that he him- 
 self may be our righteousness — then 
 we should have no fear of losing it. 
 The way to have no fear of falling, is 
 to be so low and so annihilated that we 
 could fall no more; for if I am still 
 righteous with my own righteousness, 
 I shall fall seven times a day, and I can 
 fall infinitely more; but if I am no 
 longer righteous with my own right- 
 eousness, and I am righteous with the 
 righteousness of God, I shall no longer 
 be unrighteous, except in withdrawing 
 myself from that state. If I exist no 
 longer in anything, and I am in the 
 lowest state that I can be, I shall no 
 longer be able to fall.^ 
 
 Jesus Christ expired under pangs. 
 God uses the like conduct towards his 
 dearest servants to render them con- 
 formable to his Son, in whom he is al- 
 ways well pleased. But few place that 
 
 *The Book of Job, In The Mystical Sense of Scripture. 
 69 
 
SDetiotional mtitim^ 
 
 canformity where it ought to be. It is 
 not in voluntary pains or austerities, 
 but in those which are suffered in a 
 submission ever equal to the will of 
 God, in a renunciation of our whole 
 selves, to the end that God may be our 
 all in all, conducting us according to 
 his views, and not our own, which are 
 generally opposite to his. In fine, all 
 perfection consists in this entire con- 
 formity with Jesus Christ, not in 
 shining things which men esteem. It 
 will only be seen in eternity who are 
 the true friends of God. Nothing 
 pleases him but Jesus Christ, and that 
 which bears his mark or character.^ 
 
 Do not depend upon a feeling antici- 
 pated by the will, but upon being at 
 the actual moment abandoned to God. 
 The same God who has until now 
 caused you to act against your dislikes, 
 will enable you to do so again, when it 
 
 is necessary .2 
 
 The root of the tulip put in the 
 ground, seems to be a very insignificant 
 
 * Autobiography. ^ Spiritual Letters. 
 70 
 
&ubmi00ion 
 
 thing; yet when the season is come, it 
 produces a flower of various colors and 
 very beautiful to the eye. If the man 
 that had heard of a tulip, but had never 
 seen one, should be told that the bulb 
 would produce so beautiful a flower, 
 he would scarce believe it; and if, 
 through his impatience, he should be 
 often taking up his tulip root out of 
 the earth to see the process, whether it 
 began to shoot or no, he would cer- 
 tainly incapacitate it for putting forth 
 and producing this excellent flower. 
 And thus it is with us, when we will be 
 seeing, discerning, and knowing what 
 God operates in us, we only hinder his 
 work. There is nothing wanting on 
 our part but fidelity, patience, submis- 
 sion, and absolute resignation to our 
 Divine Gardener, who in his own time, 
 will let us see the wonderful things he 
 hath wrought in us, while we thought 
 ourselves poor, miserable, and desti- 
 tute of all good.^ 
 
 This loss is called the annihilation of 
 
 * Spiritual Letters. 
 
 71 
 
SDebottonal ^tltmff^ 
 
 the powers, for although in themselves 
 thej still subsist, yet they seem anni- 
 hilated to us, in proportion as charity 
 fills and inflames, it becomes so strong, 
 as by degrees to surmount all the activ- 
 ities of the will of man, subjecting it to 
 that of God, in such sort that when the 
 soul is docile, and leaves itself to be 
 purified, and emptied of all that which 
 it has of its own opposite to the will of 
 God, it finds itself by little and little 
 detached from every emotion of its 
 own, and placed in a holy indifference, 
 wishing nothing but what God does 
 and wills. But this never can be ef- 
 fected by the activity of our own will, 
 even though it were employed in con- 
 tinual acts of resignation, because 
 these, though very virtuous, are so far 
 one's own actions, and cause the will 
 to subsist in a multiplicity, in a kind of 
 separate distinction or dissimilitude 
 from God. 
 
 When the will of the creature en- 
 tirely submits to that of the Creator, 
 suffering freely and voluntarily, — and 
 
 72 
 
^nhmi^fiion 
 
 yielding only a concurrence to the di- 
 vine will (which is its absolute submis- 
 ision), — suffering itself to be totally 
 surmounted and destroyed by the oper- 
 ations of love, this absorbs the will into 
 itself, consummates it in that of God, 
 and purifies it from all narrowness, 
 dissimilitude, and selfishness.^ 
 
 ' Autobiography. 
 
 73 
 
Come shame, come sorrow, spite of tears, 
 Weakness, and heart-oppressing fears, — 
 One soul, at least, shall not repine 
 To give you room; come, reign in mine! 
 
ifelloto^Dtp 
 
 jFe!Ioto»l)fp 
 
 S>Mm Winion 
 
 Ou, thou Word made flesh, whose 
 silence is inexpressible eloquence, thou 
 canst never be misapprehended or mis- 
 taken. Thou becomest the life of our 
 life, and the soul of our soul. How 
 infinitely is thy language elevated 
 above all the utterances of human and 
 finite articulation! Thy adorable 
 power, all efficacious in the soul that 
 has received it, communicates itself 
 through them to others, and as a divine 
 seed becomes fruitful to eternal life.^ 
 
 As God transforms the soul into him- 
 self, his life is communicated to it more 
 plentifully. The love of God for the 
 creature is incomprehensible, and his 
 assiduity inexplicable; some souls he 
 
 ' Autobiography. 
 
 75 
 
SDet)ottonal Mtitine& 
 
 pursues without intermission, prevents 
 them, seats himself at their door, and 
 delights himself in being with them 
 and in loading them with the marks of 
 his love. He impresses this chaste, 
 pure, and tender love upon the heart.^ 
 
 A philosopher, seeing that he could 
 not comprehend the flowing and ebbing 
 of the sea without stopping to consider 
 it further, threw himself into the sea, 
 in order to be taken in by it; and I, 
 having labored for some time in look- 
 ing at and contemplating the flow and 
 reflow of God in his divine persons, and 
 seeing that I could not comprehend it 
 without stopping longer to contemplate 
 it, I am lost and swallowed up in him ; 
 and this is the way I have learned more 
 about it in one moment than I could 
 have learned by my care and solicitude 
 during a lifetime.^ 
 
 The soul is thus received into God, 
 and is there gradually changed and 
 transformed into him, as food is trans- 
 
 » Concise View of the Way to God. «The Book of 
 Job, In The Mystical Sense of Scripture. 
 
 76 
 
Jfelloto0&ip 
 
 formed into the one who has partaken 
 of it. All this takes place without any 
 loss of its own individual existence, as 
 has been elsewhere explained. 
 
 When transformation begins, it is 
 called annihilation, since in changing 
 our form we become annihilated as to 
 our own in order to take on his. This 
 operation goes on constantly during 
 life, changing the soul more and more 
 into God, and conferring upon it a con- 
 tinually increasing participation in 
 the divine qualities, making it un- 
 changeable, immovable, etc.; but he 
 also renders it fruitful in, and not out 
 of himself.^ 
 
 As soon as the soul has died in the 
 embraces of the Lord, it is united to 
 him in truth and without any inter- 
 mediate; for in losing everything, even 
 its best possessions, it has lost the 
 means and intermediates which dwelt 
 in them; and even these greatest 
 treasures themselves were but inter- 
 mediates. It is, then, from that mo- 
 
 » Concise View of the Way to God. 
 77 
 
SDebotional WitiUm^ 
 
 ment united to God immediately, but 
 it does not recognize it, nor does it 
 enjoy the fruits of its union until he 
 animates it and becomes its vivifying 
 principle. A bride fainting in the arms 
 of her husband is closely united to him, 
 but she does not enjoy the blessedness 
 of the union, and may even be uncon- 
 scious of it; but when he has contem- 
 plated her for some time, fainting from 
 excess of love, and recalls her to life 
 by his tender caresses, then she per- 
 ceives that she is in possession of him 
 whom her soul loves, and that she is 
 possessed by him.^ 
 
 &our0 l^ttptt and probidet 
 
 As soon as a soul has turned to God 
 and has been cleansed from its sins, 
 it instinctively desires to be entirely 
 united to him. Out of God it can never 
 find repose.^ 
 
 There were times, indeed, when I 
 
 * Concise View of the Way to God. •Spiritual Tor- 
 rents. 
 
 78 
 
iFeIIotD0]6(p 
 
 found nature overcharged ; but the love 
 of God and his grace rendered sweet 
 to me the very worst of bitters. His 
 invisible hand supported me, else I had 
 sunk under so many probations. Some- 
 times I said to myself, "All thy waves 
 and thy billows are gone over me'' 
 ( Psalm 42 : 7 ) . "He hath bent his bow 
 and set me as a mark for the arrow. 
 He hath caused the arrows of his 
 quiver to enter into my reins'' (Lamen- 
 tations 3: 12, 13). It seemed to me as 
 if every one thought he was in the right 
 to treat me ill, and rendered service to 
 God in doing it. I then comprehend 
 that it was the very manner in which 
 Jesus Christ suffered. He was num- 
 bered with the transgressors. (Mark 
 15 : 28. ) He was condemned by the 
 sovereign pontiff, chief priests, doctors 
 of the law, and judges deputed by the 
 Romans, who valued themselves on 
 doing justice. Happy they who by 
 suffering for the will of God under all 
 the like circumstances, have so near 
 
 79 
 
9DebotionaI mtitinQsi 
 
 a relation to the sufferings of Jesus 
 Christ I^ 
 
 Nothing is more easy than to avoid 
 sin when we are kept carefully without 
 and within. That knowledge caused 
 the Prophet-King to desire a guard 
 over his lips. God surrounds the soul 
 within, and keeps it by the unction of 
 grace ; and without by a wisdom which, 
 adjusting all its deeds, prevents the 
 weaknesses of nature, and it is then a 
 fountain sealed. 
 
 All that it undertakes for God pros- 
 pers; and it seems that God has no 
 other desire than to please this heart 
 that loves him.^ 
 
 There are souls whom God loves, and 
 others who are his delight. You are of 
 the latter class. Allow yourself then 
 to be led by him, who loves you ten- 
 derly. The more self is crucified 
 within you, the more God will possess 
 you. It is not you yourself who will 
 destroy self ; but by remaining faithful 
 in the deprivation of all life of which 
 
 » Autobiography. ' The Book of Job In The Mystical 
 
 Sense of Scripture. 
 
 80 
 
jfdloto0|&tp 
 
 he is not the principle, he will perform 
 in you this work.^ 
 
 There are not only springs in God, 
 but there are bottomless depths and 
 mighty rivers, of which something is 
 shown to this soul. There are depths 
 in which it is lost never to come out; 
 there, being contained in the abyss 
 itself, it is made one in it, and in this 
 essential union there issues out from 
 it (as from God, it existing no longer, 
 but God being in it and for it) rivers, 
 waters, and fountains, to be distributed 
 outwardly according to the need of 
 every one. But it is necessary for this 
 that it should have arrived not only at 
 the land, God, — in w^hich it lives and 
 drinks as from the spring, — ^but, more- 
 over, it must be sunk, lost, transformed 
 in God, in order that there may flow 
 from God by it rivers, waters, and 
 fountains; because these all issue out 
 of the immense plains of the divinity, 
 and from the mountains of his power 
 and grandeur.2 
 
 ' Spiritual Letters. » The Mystical Sense of Scripture, 
 Genesis-Deuteronomy. 
 
 6 81 
 
SDtbattonal mtitins^ 
 
 You must begin by giving God some 
 proof of the love you bear him, not by 
 rejoicing in his loving caresses, but by 
 applying yourself to your duties. You 
 should preserve the near presence of 
 God in all that you do, and not be 
 troubled when you lose the feeling of 
 this Divine Presence, provided you 
 keep the truth of it.^ 
 
 * Spiritual Letters. 
 
 82 
 
I LOVE my God, but with no love of mine, 
 
 For I have none to give ; 
 I love thee, Lord, but all the love is thine, 
 
 For by thy life I live. 
 I am as nothing, and rejoice to be 
 Emptied and lost and swallowed up in thee. 
 
Communion 
 
 VI 
 
 Communion 
 Jntjoatti Communion 
 
 It is not necessary to write except 
 in real need and it would not be well 
 to interrupt inward communion with 
 God in order to write, or speak of God. 
 Communion itself may be made to give 
 place to our employment; for anything 
 which God orders concerning us ought 
 to be preferred to everything else. It 
 is very needful to know that God's 
 possession of us is not lost, or even 
 enfeebled by any of the acts connected 
 with our calling. It is only affected 
 by acts coming from our own choice, 
 they are the fruits of our own will, 
 which is entirely opposed to the pure 
 will of God.i 
 
 In this state comes that ineffable 
 silence by which we not only subsist in 
 
 > Spiritual Lietters. 
 
 85 
 
fiD^botional mtitine^ 
 
 God, but commune with him, and 
 which, in a soul thus dead to its own 
 working, and general and fundamental 
 self-appropriation, becomes a flux and 
 reflux of divine communion, with noth- 
 ing to sully its purity, for there is 
 nothing to hinder it. 
 
 The soul then becomes a partaker of 
 the ineffable communion of the Trinity, 
 where the Father of spirits imparts his 
 spiritual fecundity, and makes it one 
 spirit with himself. Here it is that it 
 communes with other souls, if they are 
 suflSciently pure to receive its commu- 
 nications in silence, according to their 
 degree and state; here, that the in- 
 effable secrets are revealed, not by a 
 momentary illumination, but in God 
 himself, where they are all hid, the soul 
 not possessing them for itself, nor 
 being ignorant of them.^ 
 
 feflmt anti Wintta^im ^tam 
 
 The prayer of the state of faith is an 
 absolute silence of all the powers of the 
 
 * Concise View of the Way to God. 
 
 86 
 
Communfon 
 
 soul, and a cessation of every working, 
 however delicate, especially toward its 
 termination. The soul in that state, 
 perceiving no more prayer, and not 
 being able to set apart fixed seasons for 
 it, since all such exercises are taken 
 away, is led to think that it has abso- 
 lutely lost all kind of devotion. But 
 when life returns, prayer returns with 
 it, and accompanied with a marvelous 
 facility ; and as God takes possession of 
 the senses and faculties, its devotion 
 becomes sweet, gentle, and very spir- 
 itual, but always in God. Its former 
 devotion caused it to sink within itself, 
 that it might enjoy God, but that which 
 it now has, draws it out of self, that 
 it may be more and more lost and 
 changed in God.^ 
 
 Nothing now was more easy to me 
 than prayer. Hours passed away like 
 moments, while I could hardly do any- 
 thing else but pray. The fervency of 
 my love allowed me no intermission. 
 It was a prayer of rejoicing and 
 
 ^ Concise View of the Way to God. 
 
 87 
 
SDel)otiondI mtitingi& 
 
 possessing, devoid of all busy imagina- 
 tions and forced reflections; it was a 
 prayer of the will, and not of the head, 
 wherein the taste of God was so great, 
 so pure, unblended and uninterrupted, 
 that it drew and absorbed the power of 
 my soul into a profound recollection 
 without act or discourse. For I had 
 now no sight but of Jesus Christ alone. 
 All else was excluded, in order to love 
 with the greater extent, without any 
 selfish motives or reasons for loving.^ 
 
 ^Autobiography. 
 
 88 
 
Oh ! it is good to soar, 
 
 These bolts and bars above, 
 
 To Him whose purpose I adore, 
 Whose providence I love ; 
 
 And in thy mighty will to find 
 
 The joy, the freedom of the mind. 
 
^tanqufllit^ 
 
 VII 
 
 Ctanquillit]? 
 
 tranquillity ^gtougfi ^tmH' 
 tormation 
 
 There are a thousand things that 
 might be said about the inward and 
 celestial life of the soul thus full of life 
 in God, which he dearly cherishes for 
 himself, and which he covers externally 
 with abasement, because he is a jealous 
 God. But it would require a volume, 
 and I have only to fulfill your request. 
 God is the life and soul of this soul, 
 which thus uninterruptedly lives in 
 God, as a fish in the sea, in inexpress- 
 ible happiness, thouj2:h loaded with the 
 sufferings which God lays upon it for 
 others. 
 
 It has become so simple, especially 
 when its transformation is far ad- 
 vanced, that it goes its way perpetually 
 
 91 
 
SDebotional MtitinQ^ 
 
 without a thought for any creature or 
 for itself. It has but one object, to do 
 the will of God.^ 
 
 I experienced these words in the 
 Canticles: "Thj name is as precious 
 ointment poured forth; therefore do 
 the virgins love thee." For I felt in 
 my soul an unction which, as a salu- 
 tary balsam, healed in a moment all 
 my wounds. I slept not that whole 
 night, because thy love, O my God, 
 flowed in me like a delicious oil, and 
 burned as a fire which was going to 
 devour in an instant all that was left 
 of self.2 
 
 %it ^tanqufl &ouI Witmain0 WLnDi^-- 
 tutfitd hv (S^ttttnal Contiitiongi 
 
 The senses suffer pain and remain 
 subject to suffering, but the central 
 depth of the soul retains its equanimity 
 because He who possesses it is im- 
 mutable. There appears to be a sep- 
 aration of the two parts, the his/her and 
 the lower; they live together like 
 
 » Concise View of the Way to God. 'Autobiography. 
 92 
 
CcanquilUtg 
 
 strangers who do not know each other. 
 No pain prevents the perfect peace, 
 tranquillity, joy, and immoveableness 
 of the higher part, as the divine condi- 
 tion of the higher does not hinder 
 extreme suffering in the lower.* 
 
 When the new name has been given, 
 and the soul is well advanced, it sees 
 all things in God and God in all things. 
 Sin, which before gave it so much 
 fright, terrifies it no longer ; all hell it- 
 self could not dismay it, because it can 
 no longer see anything distinct from 
 God himself, where there is no sin, but 
 perfect holiness. This manner of ex- 
 pressing itself, so simple and natural, 
 is so appropriate to the soul of this 
 degree, that although it would, it could 
 not do otherwise. Let those who do 
 not comprehend this believe it not im- 
 possible. It must be thus because the 
 soul that has been received into God 
 can no longer see these things but as 
 God sees them, without fear, without 
 trouble, without emotion, without mal- 
 
 * Spiritual Torrents. 
 
 93 
 
2Debotional saititing^ 
 
 ice, without fault, taking part in his 
 divine attributes in proportion as it is 
 received into his unity.^ 
 
 » The Mystical Sense of Scripture, Genesis to Deuter- 
 onomy. 
 
 04 
 
€)n |0raj»er, or fl^etljoD of 
 
Iprefatorp ii3ate 
 
 The following selections are taken 
 wholly from Madame Gujon^s book 
 entitled, "A Short and Easy Method of 
 Prayer." The selections are necessarily 
 brief, and comparatively few of them 
 can be given here, but nevertheless 
 quite full enough to give somewhat of 
 a complete outline of her teaching on 
 this subject. The general trend of her 
 work in consecutive order is here 
 strictly adhered to. However, it is 
 only just, both to the author as well as 
 to the present compiler of these selec- 
 tions to say that, partly in phraseology 
 and wholly in the arrangement of the 
 headings of the difiPerent parts, there is 
 a very noticeable departure from the 
 original plan of division and topical 
 statement, thus undoubtedly enabling 
 the reader to more easily comprehend 
 the author's meaning, (which is often 
 difficult to understand, because of 
 
 7 97 
 
^tttattftv iRote 
 
 involved statements, and words and 
 phrases peculiar to her,) and also to 
 more readily follow the whole plan of 
 her book. She closed her preface to 
 this work, thus appropriately intro- 
 ducing a subject of this character to 
 the reader, as follows : 
 
 "It is thou alone, O holy Jesus, who 
 lovest simplicity and innocence, ^and 
 whose delight is to dwell with the chil- 
 dren of men' (Proverbs 8:31), with 
 those who are, indeed, willing to be- 
 come kittle children' (Matthew 18: 3) ; 
 it is thou alone who canst render this 
 little work of any value, by imprinting 
 it on the heart, and leading those who 
 read it to seek thee within themselves, 
 where thou reposest as in the manger, 
 waiting to receive proofs of their love, 
 and to give them testimony of thine. 
 They lose these advantages by their 
 own fault. But it belongeth unto thee, 
 O child Almighty! uncreated Love! 
 silent and all-containing Word! to 
 make thyself loved, enjoyed, and un- 
 derstood. Thou canst do it; and I 
 
 98 
 
^tttatot^ jlJoU 
 
 know thou wilt do it by this little work, 
 which belongeth entirely to thee, pro- 
 ceedeth wholly from thee, and tendeth 
 only to thee.'' D. D. L. 
 
 99 
 
Thou hast an ear to hear ; 
 
 A heart to love and bless ; 
 And, though my notes were e'er so rude, 
 
 Thou wouldst not hear the less ; 
 Because thou knowest as they fall, 
 That love, sweet love, inspires them all. 
 
inttoouctotp 
 
 1. All are capable of prayer, and it 
 is a dreadful misfortune that almost 
 all the world have conceived the idea 
 that they are not called to prayer. 
 
 Prayer is nothing but the applicar 
 tion of the heart to God, and the 
 internal exercise of love. St. Paul haa 
 enjoined us to "pray without ceasing'' 
 (I. Thessalonians 5 : 17), and our Lord 
 bids us watch and pray ( Mark 13 : 33, 
 37) ; all therefore may, and all ought to 
 practice prayer. 
 
 2. Let all pray ; you should live by 
 prayer, as you should live by love. 
 
 Let all without exception come, for 
 Jesus Christ hath called all. 
 
 Yet let not those come who are with- 
 out a heart ; they are excused ; for there 
 must be a heart before there can be 
 love. 
 
 3. All who are desirous of prayer, 
 may easily pray, enabled by those 
 
 101 
 
JnttoHuctotj 
 
 ordinary graces and gifts of the B.o\j 
 Spirit which are common to all men. 
 
 Prayer is the key to perfection, and 
 the sovereign good; it is the means of 
 d^liyering us from every vice, and of 
 obtaining us every virtue; for the one 
 great means of becoming perfect is to 
 walk in the presence of God. 
 
 4. You must, then, learn a species 
 of prayer which may be exercised at all 
 times; which does not obstruct out- 
 ward employments; which may be 
 equally practiced by princes, kings, 
 prelates, priests and magistrates, sol- 
 diers and children, tradesmen, labor- 
 ers, women and sick persons; it is not 
 the prayer of the head, but of the heart. 
 
 It is not a prayer of the understand- 
 ing alone, for the mind of a man is so 
 limited in its operations that it can 
 have but one object at a time ; but it is 
 the prayer of the heart which is not 
 interrupted by the exercises of reason. 
 
 5. Nothing is so easily obtained as 
 the possession and enjoyment of God. 
 He is more present to us than we are 
 
 102 
 
Jnttolittctot? 
 
 to ourselves. Will it not then be highly 
 sinful to neglect prayer? But doubt- 
 less you will not, when you have 
 learned the method, which is the eas- 
 iest in the world. 
 
 103 
 
SDttotional mcitin^n 
 
 iRt0t Degtee 
 
 There are two ways of introducing 
 a soul into prayer, which should be 
 pursued for some time ; the one is medi- 
 tatiotiy the other is reading, accom- 
 panied by meditation, 
 
 1. Meditative reading is the choos- 
 ing some important practical or spec- 
 ulative truth, always preferring the 
 practical, and proceeding thus : What- 
 ever truth you have chosen, read only 
 a small portion of it, endeavoring to 
 taste and digest it, to extract the es- 
 sence and substance of it, and proceed 
 no farther while any savor or relish 
 remains in the passage; then take up 
 your book again and proceed as before, 
 seldom reading more than half a page 
 at a time. Those who read fast, reap 
 no more advantage than a bee would 
 by only skimming over the surface of 
 the flower, instead of waiting to pene- 
 trate into it, and extract its sweets. 
 
 104 
 
JFft0t SDefftte 
 
 Much reading is rather for scholastic 
 subjects than divine truths. To re- 
 ceive profit from spiritual books, we 
 must read as I have described; and I 
 am certain that if that method were 
 pursued, we should become gradually 
 habituated to prayer by our reading, 
 and more fully disposed for its exer- 
 cise. 
 
 2. Meditation, which is the other 
 method, is to be practiced at an appro- 
 priate season, and not in the time of 
 reading. Then let a lively faith in God, 
 immediately present in our inmost 
 souls, produce an eager sinking into 
 ourselves, restraining all our senses 
 from wandering abroad. 
 
 3. When we are thus fully entered 
 into ourselves, and warmly penetrated 
 throughout with a lively sense of the 
 divine Presence; w^hen the senses are 
 all recollected, and withdrawn from 
 the circumference to the center, and 
 the soul is sweetly and silently em- 
 ployed on the truths we have read, not 
 in reasoning, but in feeding thereon, 
 
 105 
 
SDebotfonal WititinQfi 
 
 and animating the will by affection, 
 rather than by fatiguing the under- 
 standing by study, meditation then be- 
 comes silent prayer, or soul-commun- 
 ion with God, holding sweet, though 
 inaudible converse with the Divine 
 Presence. 
 
 4. But as I have said that our direct 
 and principal exercise should consist 
 in the contemplation of the Divine 
 Presence, we should be exceedingly 
 diligent in recalling our dissipated 
 senses, as the most easy method of over- 
 coming distractions; for a direct con- 
 test only serves to irritate and augment 
 them; whereas, by sinking within, 
 under a view by faith of a present God, 
 and simply recollecting ourselves, we 
 wage insensibly a very successful, 
 though indirect war with them. 
 
 106 
 
9^tr}itaiitt Prapet 
 
 s^mmiMt ptapet 
 
 1. Those who cannot read books, 
 are not, on that account, excluded from 
 prayer. The great book which teaches 
 all things, and which is written all 
 oyer, within and without, is Jesus 
 Christ himself. 
 
 The method they should practice is 
 this : They should first learn this fun- 
 damental truth, that "the kingdom of 
 God is within them'' (Luke 17:21), 
 and that it must be sought there only. 
 
 2. They should then repeat the 
 Lord's Prayer in their native tongue, 
 pondering a little upon the meaning of 
 the words, and the infinite willingness 
 of that God who dwells within them to 
 become, indeed, "their Father." Then, 
 continuing the Lord's Prayer, let him 
 beseech this King of Glory to reign in 
 him, abandoning himself to God, that 
 
 ' 107 
 
SDtbotfonal WLtitintsfi 
 
 he may do it, and acknowledge his 
 right to rule over him. 
 
 If they feel an inclination to peace 
 and silence, let them not continue the 
 words of the prayer so long as this sen- 
 sation holds; and when it subsides, let 
 them go on with the second petition, 
 ^Thy will be done on earth as it is in 
 heaven," upon which let these humble 
 supplicants beseech God to accomplish 
 in them, and by them, all his will, and 
 let them surrender their hearts and 
 freedom into his hands, to be disposed 
 of as he pleases. But they should not 
 burden themselves with frequent repe- 
 titions of set forms, or studied prayers ; 
 or the Lord's Prayer, once repeated as 
 I have just described, will produce 
 abundant fruit. 
 
 3. At other times, they may place 
 themselves as sheep before their Shep- 
 herd, looking up to him for their true 
 food: O divine Shepherd, thou feedest 
 thy flock with thyself, and art indeed 
 their daily bread. 
 
 On other occasions, we may look to 
 
 108 
 
9$MUtibe ^tam 
 
 him as a physician, and present for his 
 healing virtue all our maladies; but 
 always without perturbation, and with 
 pauses from time to time, that the 
 silence, being mingled with action, may 
 be gradually extended, and our own 
 exertion lessened ; till at length, by con- 
 tinually yielding to God's operations, 
 he gains the complete ascendajicy, as 
 shall be hereafter explained. 
 
 109 
 
SDebotional mtitinQfi 
 
 %econD Deiaftee 
 
 1. Some call the second degree of 
 prayer contemplation, the prayer of 
 faith and stillness, and others call it 
 the prayer of simplicity, I shall here 
 use this latter appellation, as being 
 more just than that of contemplation, 
 which implies a more advanced state 
 than I am now treating of. 
 
 2. First, as soon as the soul by faith 
 places itself in the presence of God, 
 and becomes recollected before him, let 
 it remain thus for a little time in re- 
 spectful silence. 
 
 3. I would warmly recommend to 
 all, never to finish prayer without re- 
 maining some little time afterward in 
 a respectful silence. It is also of the 
 greatest importance for the soul to go 
 to prayer with courage, and to bring 
 with it such a pure and disinterested 
 love as seeks nothing from God but to 
 please him, and to do his will; for a 
 
 110 
 
feeconti SDegtee 
 
 servant who only proportions his 
 diligence to his hope of reward, is un- 
 worthy of any recompense. 
 
 Ill 
 
SDtl)0tionaI QQlrlting^ 
 
 9tlDitie0 
 
 1. Though God has no other desire 
 than to impart himself to the loving 
 soul that seeks him, yet he frequently 
 conceals himself from it, that it may 
 be roused from sloth, and impelled to 
 seek him with fidelity and love. 
 
 2. Thus only can you demonstrate 
 that it is himself alone, and his good 
 pleasure that you seek; and not the 
 selfish delights of your own sensations 
 in loving him. Be patient in prayer, 
 though during your whole lifetime you 
 should do nothing else than wait the 
 return of the Beloved in a spirit of hu- 
 miliation, abandonment, contentment, 
 and resignation. 
 
 112 
 
atiantionmtnt 
 
 a&anDonment 
 
 1. Here we must begin to abandon 
 and give up our whole existence to God, 
 from the strong and positive conviction 
 that the occurrences of every moment 
 result from his immediate will and per- 
 mission, and are just such as our state 
 requires. 
 
 2. Abandonment is a matter of the 
 greatest importance in our progress ; it 
 is the key to the inner court, so that he 
 who knows truly how to abandon him- 
 self will soon become perfect. 
 
 3. Abandonment is the casting off 
 all selfish care, that we may be alto- 
 gether at the divine disposal. All 
 Christians are exhorted to abandon- 
 ment. (Matthew 6:32-34; Proverbs 
 3:6; 16:3; Psalm 37:5.) Our aban- 
 donment, then, should be, both in 
 respect to external and internal things, 
 an absolute giving up of all our con- 
 cerns into the hands of God. 
 
 8 113 
 
SDel)otionaI Wititim^ 
 
 4. It is practiced by continually los- 
 ing our own will in the will of God; 
 renouncing every private inclination 
 as soon as it arises, however good it 
 may appear, that we may stand in 
 indifference with respect to ourselves, 
 and only will what God has willed 
 from all eternity; resigning ourselves 
 in all things, whether for soul or body, 
 for time or eternity; forgetting the 
 past, leaving the future to providence, 
 and devoting the present to God ; satis- 
 fied with the present moment, which 
 brings with it God's eternal order in 
 reference to us, and is as infallible a 
 declaration of his will as it is inevitable 
 and common to all. 
 
 114 
 
fbnttetim^ 
 
 %n(tttins» 
 mtepm a0 ttom (EoH 
 
 1. Be patient under all the suffer- 
 ings God sends ; if your love to him be 
 pure, you will not seek him less on 
 Calvary than on Tabor. Be not like 
 those who give themselves to him at 
 one season, only to withdraw from him 
 at another. 
 
 2. No, beloved souls, you will not 
 find consolation in aught but in the 
 love of the cross, and in total abandon- 
 ment; who savoreth not the cross, 
 savoreth not the things that be of God. 
 ( See Matthew 16 : 23. ) Abandonment 
 and the cross go hand-in-hand together. 
 
 3. As soon as anything is presented 
 in the form of suffering, and you feel a 
 repugnance, resign yourself immedi- 
 ately to God with respect to it, and give 
 yourself up to him in sacrifice. 
 
 115 
 
SDebotional mtitinsfi 
 
 1. It will be objected, that, by this 
 method, we shall have no mysteries 
 imprinted on our minds; but so far is 
 this from being the case, that it is the 
 peculiar means of imparting them to 
 the soul. 
 
 2. In this state of abandonment 
 Jesus Christ frequently communicates 
 some peculiar views, or revelations of 
 his states ; these we should thankfully 
 accept, and dispose ourselves for what 
 appears to be his will; receiving 
 equally whatever frame he may bestow, 
 and having no other choice but that 
 of ardently reaching after him, of 
 dwelling ever with him, and of sink- 
 ing into nothingness before him, and 
 accepting indiscriminately all his gifts, 
 whether darkness or illumination, 
 fecundity or barrenness, weakness or 
 strength, sweetness or bitterness, temp- 
 
 116 
 
9?^0Utft0 
 
 tations, distractions, pain, weariness, 
 or uncertainty. 
 
 3. God engages some, for whole 
 years, in the contemplation and enjoy- 
 ment of a single mystery, the simple 
 view or contemplation of which recol- 
 lects the soul; let them be faithful to 
 it; but as soon as God is pleased to 
 withdraw this view from the soul, let it 
 freely yield to the deprivation. 
 
 117 
 
SDtbotional WLtitim^ 
 
 IPIrtue 
 
 1. It is thus that we acquire virtue 
 with facility and certainty ; for as God 
 is the principle of all virtue, we inherit 
 all in the possession of himself ; and in 
 proportion as we approach toward his 
 possession, in like proportion do we re- 
 ceive the most eminent virtues. 
 
 2. What a hungering for sufferings 
 have those souls, who thus glow 
 with divine love! How would they 
 precipitate themselves into excessive 
 austerities, were they permitted to 
 pursue their own inclinations ! 
 
 3. Oh, were this simple method 
 once acquired, a way so suited to all, 
 to the dull and ignorant as well as to 
 the most learned, how easily would the 
 whole church of God be reformed! 
 Love only is required. "Love," says 
 St. Augustine, "and then do what you 
 
 118 
 
Vittnt 
 
 please." For when we truly love, we 
 cannot have so much as a will to do 
 anything that might offend the object 
 of our affections. 
 
 119 
 
SDetiotional (I21ltitmg:is( 
 
 ^ottitttation 
 
 1. I SAY further, that, in any other 
 way, it is next to impossible to acquire 
 a perfect mortification of the senses 
 and passions. The reason is obvious: 
 the soul gives vigor and energy to the 
 senses, and the senses raise and stim- 
 ulate the passions; a dead body has 
 neither sensations nor passions, be- 
 cause its connection with the soul is 
 dissolved. This life of the senses stirs 
 up and provokes the passions, instead 
 of suppressing or subduing them; 
 austerities may indeed enfeeble the 
 body, but for the reasons just men- 
 tioned, can never take off the keenness 
 of the senses, nor lessen their activity. 
 
 2. The only method of affecting this 
 is inward recollection, by which the 
 soul is turned wholly and altogether 
 inward, to possess a present God. 
 
 3. I do not mean by this to discour- 
 
 120 
 
a^ortiticatfott 
 
 age mortification, for it should ever 
 accompany prayer, according to the 
 strength and state of the person, or as 
 obedience demands. We have only, 
 then, to continue steadfast in the ut- 
 most attention to God, and all things 
 will be perfectly done. 
 
 4. The soul has a double advantage 
 by proceeding thus, for in withdrawing 
 from outward objects it constantly 
 draws nearer to God, and besides the 
 secret sustaining and preserving power 
 and virtue which it receives, it is far- 
 ther removed from sin, and thus nearer 
 it comes to him; so that its conversion 
 becomes firmly established as a matter 
 of habit. 
 
 121 
 
SDtbotlonal mtitins^ 
 
 Perfect Contoewion 
 
 1. Conversion is nothing more than 
 turning from the creature in order to 
 return to God. It is not perfect (how- 
 ever good and essential to salvation) 
 when it consists simply in turning from 
 sin to grace. To be complete, it should 
 take place from without inwardly. 
 
 When the soul is once turned toward 
 God, it finds a wonderful facility in 
 continuing steadfast in conversion, and 
 the longer it remains thus converted 
 the nearer it approaches and the more 
 firmly it adheres to God; and the 
 nearer it draws to him it is, of neces- 
 sity, the farther removed from the 
 creature, which is so contrary to him. 
 
 2. God has an attractive virtue 
 which draws the soul more and more 
 powerfully to himself, and in attract- 
 ing he purifies ; just as it is with a gross 
 vapor exhaled by the sun, which, as it 
 
 122 
 
^tttttt €onbnsiion 
 
 gradually ascends, is rarefied and ren- 
 dered pure ; the vapor, indeed, contrib- 
 utes to its ascent only by its passivity ; 
 but the soul cooperates freely and vol- 
 untarily. This kind of introversion is 
 very easy, and advances the soul nat- 
 urally and without effort, because God 
 is our center. 
 
 3. But besides the attracting virtue 
 of the center, there is, in every crea- 
 ture, a strong tendency to reunion with 
 its center, which is vigorous and active 
 in proportion to the spirituality and 
 perfection of the subject. As soon as 
 anything is turned toward its center, 
 it is precipitated towards it with ex- 
 treme rapidity, unless it be withheld 
 by some invincible obstacle. A stone 
 held in the hand is no sooner disen- 
 gaged than by its own weight it falls 
 to the earth as to its center; so, also, 
 water and fire, when unobstructed, flow 
 incessantly toward their center. 
 
 4. All our care should therefore be 
 directed towards acquiring the greatest 
 degree of inward recollection; nor 
 
 123 
 
SDtbottonal Wititim0 
 
 should we be discouraged by the diffi- 
 culties we encounter in this exercise, 
 which will soon be recompensed on the 
 part of God by such abundant supplies 
 of grace as will render it perfectly easy, 
 provided we are faithful in meekly 
 withdrawing our hearts from outward 
 distractions and occupations, and re- 
 turning to our center with affections 
 full of tenderness and serenity. 
 
 124 
 
Sittiht Contrmplatiott 
 
 3ctibe Contemplation 
 
 1. The soul that is faithful in the 
 exercise of love and adherence to God 
 is astonished to feel him gradually 
 taking possession of its whole being; 
 it now enjoys a continual sense of that 
 presence which is become, as it were, 
 natural to it; and this, as well as 
 prayer, becomes a matter of habit. 
 
 2. We must, however, urge it as a 
 matter of the highest import, to cease 
 from self-action and self-exertion, that 
 God himself may act alone. (Psalm 
 46 : 10. ) But the creature is so infat- 
 uated with love and attachment to its 
 own working, that it does not believe 
 that it works at all unless it can feel, 
 know, and distinguish all its opera- 
 tions. 
 
 3. Those greatly err who accuse 
 this prayer of inactivity, a charge that 
 can only arise from inexperience. This 
 
 125 
 
SDebottonal USLtitinsfi 
 
 appearance of inaction is, indeed, not 
 the consequence of sterility, but of 
 abundance. 
 
 4. There are two kinds of people 
 that keep silence ; the one because they 
 have nothing to say, the other because 
 they have too much; the latter is the 
 case in this state ; silence is occasioned 
 by excess, and not by defect. To be 
 drowned, and to die of thirst, are 
 deaths widely different; yet water may 
 be said to be the cause of both; abun- 
 dance destroys in one case, and want 
 in the other. The infant hanging at its 
 mother's breast is a lively illustration 
 of our subject; it begins to draw the 
 milk by moving its little lips; but 
 when its nourishment flows abun- 
 dantly it is content to swallow without 
 effort. 
 
 5. But what becomes of the babe 
 that thus gently and without exertion 
 drinks the milk? Who would believe 
 that it could thus receive nourishment? 
 Yet the more peacefully it feeds the 
 better it thrives. 
 
 126 
 
jSlctibe Contemplation 
 
 The interior is not a stronghold, to 
 be taken by storm and violence, but a 
 kingdom of peace, which is to be gained 
 only by love. 
 
 6. The most sublime attainments in 
 religion are those which are easiest 
 reached ; the most necessary ordinances 
 are the least difficult. 
 
 What is it you fear? Why do you 
 not instantly cast yourself into the 
 arms of Love, who only extended them 
 on the cross that he might embrace 
 you? What risk do you run in depend- 
 ing solely on God, and abandoning 
 yourself wholly to him? Ah! he will 
 not deceive you, unless by bestowing 
 an abundance beyond your highest 
 hopes; but those who expect all from 
 themselves may hear this rebuke of 
 God by his prophet Isaiah, "Ye have 
 wearied yourselves in the multiplicity 
 of your ways, and have not said, Let us 
 rest in peace" ( Isaiah 57 : 10, Vul- 
 gate). 
 
 127 
 
9)ebotional MtitinQfi 
 
 iae0t TBefore (SoD 
 
 1. The soul advanced thus far, has 
 no need of any other preparation than 
 its quietude; for now the presence of 
 God, during the day, which is the great 
 effect, or rather continuation of prayer, 
 begins to be infused, and almost with- 
 out intermission. The only way to find 
 him is by introversion. No sooner do 
 the bodily eyes close than the soul is 
 wrapped in prayer. 
 
 2. The same may be said of this 
 species of prayer that is said of wis- 
 dom, "All good things come together 
 with her" (Wisdom 7:11). For vir- 
 tues flow from this soul into exercise 
 with so much sweetness and facility 
 that they appear natural to it, and the 
 living spring within breaks forth abun- 
 dantly into a facility for all goodness, 
 and an insensibility to all evil. 
 
 3. Let it then remain faithful in 
 
 128 
 
]BU0t 3tt(ftt (Boh 
 
 this state; and beware of choosing or 
 seeking any other disposition whatever 
 than this simple rest, as a preparative 
 either to confession or communion, to 
 action or prayer. 
 
 129 
 
SDttotional UHtitinsfi 
 
 Interior Silence 
 
 1. The reason why inward silence is 
 so indispensable is because the Word 
 is essential and eternal, and necessarily 
 requires dispositions in the soul in 
 some degree correspondent to His na- 
 ture, as a capacity for the reception of 
 himself. 
 
 2. Hence it is so frequently en- 
 joined upon us in sacred writ to listen 
 and be attentive to the voice of God. 
 ( Isaiah 51 : 4 ; 46 : 3 ; Psalm 45 : 10, 11. ) 
 We must forget ourselves and all self- 
 interest, and listen and be attentive to 
 God. 
 
 3. Outward silence is very requisite 
 for the cultivation and improvement of 
 inward; and, indeed, it is impossible 
 we should become truly interior, with- 
 out loving silence and retirement. 
 When, through weakness, we become, 
 
 130 
 
Intniot Silence 
 
 as it were, uncentered, we must imme- 
 diately turn again inward; and this 
 process we must repeat as often as our 
 distractions recur. 
 
 131 
 
SDtbotional mtitingfi 
 
 L Self-examination should always 
 precede confession, but the manner of 
 it should be conformable to the state of 
 the soul. When we examine with effort 
 we are easily deceived and betrayed by 
 self-love into error. We must, then, 
 forsake self and abandon our souls to 
 God, as well in examination as confes- 
 sion. 
 
 2. When souls have attained to this 
 species of prayer, no faults escape the 
 reprehension of God; no sooner are 
 they committed than they are rebuked 
 by an inward burning and tender con- 
 fusion. 
 
 3. Those who tread these paths 
 should be informed of a matter respect- 
 ing their confession, in which they are 
 apt to err. When they begin to give an 
 account of their sins, instead of the 
 regret and contrition they had been 
 
 132 
 
&tlt''(£taminatim 
 
 accustomed to feel, they find that love 
 and tranquillity sweetly pervade and 
 take possession of their souls. 
 
 4. The soul will also be amazed 
 at finding a difficulty in calling its 
 faults to remembrance. This, however, 
 should cause no uneasiness, first, be- 
 cause this forgetfulness of our faults 
 is some proof of our purification from 
 them, and, in this degree of advance- 
 ment, it is best to forget whatever 
 concerns ourselves that we may remem- 
 ber only God. Secondly, because when 
 confession is our duty, God will not 
 fail to make knoAvn to us our greatest 
 faults; for then he himself examines; 
 and the soul will feel the end of exam- 
 ination more perfectly accomplished 
 than it could possibly have been by all 
 our own endeavors. 
 
 133 
 
SDebotional Wititimis 
 
 Cuming ftom iFauIts to (S^oO 
 
 1. Should we either wander among 
 externals, or commit a fault, we must 
 instantly turn inwards ; for, having de- 
 parted thereby from God, we should, 
 as soon as possible, turn toward him, 
 and suffer the penalty which he inflicts. 
 It is of great importance to guard 
 against vexation on account of our 
 faults. 
 
 2. The truly humble soul is not sur- 
 prised at its defects or failings ; and the 
 more miserable it beholds itself, the 
 more it abandons itself to God, and 
 presses for a more intimate alliance 
 with him, seeing the need it has of his 
 aid. 
 
 134 
 
SD{0ttactfon0 anH Hmtptatima 
 
 IDimattioM anD Cemptations 
 
 1. A direct struggle with distrac- 
 tions and temptations rather serves to 
 augment them, and withdraws the soul 
 from that adherence to God which 
 should ever be its sole occupation. We 
 should simply turn away from the evil, 
 and draw yet nearer to God. A little 
 child, on perceiving a monster, does not 
 wait to fight with it, and will scarcely 
 turn its eyes toward it, but quickly 
 shrinks into the bosom of its mother, 
 in assurance of its safety. 
 
 2. If we do otherwise, and in our 
 weakness attempt to attack our en- 
 emies, we shall frequently find our- 
 selves wounded, if not totally defeated ; 
 but, by remaining in the simple 
 presence of God, we shall find instant 
 supplies of strength for our support. 
 
 135 
 
SDebotfonal mtitinsfi 
 
 Ptaper, a Devotional @>actiftce 
 
 1. Both devotion and sacrifice are 
 comprehended in prayer, which, ac- 
 cording to St. John, is an incense, the 
 smoke whereof ascendeth unto God. 
 Prayer is the effusion of the heart in 
 the presence of God. 
 
 2. Prayer is a certain warmth of 
 love, melting, dissolving, and sublimat- 
 ing the soul, and causing it to ascend 
 unto God; and, as the soul is melted, 
 odors rise from it, and these sweet 
 exhalations proceed from the consum- 
 ing fire of love within. 
 
 3. Thus doth the soul ascend to 
 God, by giving up self to the destroying 
 and annihilating power of divine love. 
 This is a state of sacrifice essential to 
 the Christian religion, in which the 
 soul suffers itself to be destroyed and 
 annihilated, that it may pay homage 
 to the sovereignty of God. We must 
 
 136 
 
surrender our whole being to Christ 
 Jesus, and cease to live any longer 
 in ourselves, that he may become our 
 life. 
 
 4. This is the prayer of truth ; it is 
 worshiping God "in spirit and in 
 truth." (John 4:23.) In spirit, be- 
 cause we enter into the purity of that 
 Spirit which prayeth within us, and are 
 drawn forth from our own carnal and 
 human method; in truth, because we 
 are thereby placed in the truth of the 
 all of God, and the nothing of the creat- 
 ure. 
 
 There are but these two truths, the 
 ally and the nothing; everything else is 
 falsehood. We can pay due honor to 
 the all of God only in our own annihi- 
 lation. 
 
 5. Jesus Christ assures us that the 
 '^kingdom of God is within us" (Luke 
 17: 21), and this is true in two senses: 
 first, when God becomes so fully master 
 and lord in us that nothing resists his 
 dominion, then our interior is his king- 
 dom ; and again, when we possess God, 
 
 137 
 
SDetiotional WLtitimn 
 
 who is the Supreme Good, we possess 
 his kingdom also, wherein there is 
 fulness of joy, and wherein we attain 
 the end of our creation. 
 
 188 
 
j^ctibe Silence 
 
 1. Some persons, when they hear of 
 the prayer of silence, falsely imagine 
 that the soul remains stupid, dead, and 
 inactive; but it unquestionably acts 
 more nobly and more extensively than 
 it had ever done before. It is not 
 meant that we should cease from 
 action ; but that we should act through 
 the internal agency of His grace. 
 
 2. This activity of the soul is at- 
 tended with the utmost tranquillity. 
 When it acts for itself, the act is forced 
 and constrained, and, therefore, it is 
 more easily distinguished; but when 
 the action is under the influence of 
 the Spirit of grace, it is so free, so easy, 
 and so natural, that it almost seems as 
 if we did not act at all. When a wheel 
 rolls slowly we can easily perceive its 
 parts ; but when its motion is rapid, we 
 can distinguish nothing. So the soul 
 
 139 
 
SDebotlonal ISSLtitinti^ 
 
 which rests in God has an activity 
 exceedingly noble and elevated, yet 
 altogether peaceful; and the more 
 peaceful it is, the swifter is its course ; 
 because it is given up to that Spirit by 
 whom it is moved and directed. 
 
 3. This attracting Spirit is no other 
 than God himself, who, in drawing us, 
 causes us to run to him. How well did 
 the spouse understand this, when she 
 said, "Draw me, we will run after thee'' 
 (Canticles 1:4). 
 
 4. Instead, then, of encouraging 
 sloth, we promote the highest activity 
 by inculcating a total dependence on 
 the Spirit of God as our moving prin- 
 ciple ; for it is in him, and by him alone, 
 that "we live and move, and have our 
 being" (Acts 17 : 28) . We must, there- 
 fore, forsake our multifarious activity 
 to enter into the simplicity and unity of 
 God, in whose image we were originally 
 formed. In this way, when we are 
 wholly moved by the divine Spirit, 
 which is infinitely active, our activity 
 
 140 
 
^ttitt fbiltntt 
 
 must, indeed, be more energetic than 
 that which is merely our own. 
 
 5. God originally formed us in his 
 own image and likeness; he breathed 
 into us the Spirit of his Word, that 
 breath of life (Genesis 2:7) which he 
 gave us at our creation, in the partic- 
 ipation whereof the image of God con- 
 sisted. 
 
 6. As all action is estimable only in 
 proportion to the grandeur and dignity 
 of the efficient principle, this action is 
 incontestably more noble than any 
 other. Actions produced by a divine 
 principle are divine; but creaturely 
 actions, however good they appear, are 
 only human, or, at least, virtuous, even 
 w^hen accompanied by grace. 
 
 7. Jesus Christ has exemplified this 
 in the gospel. Martha did what was 
 right ; but because she did it in her own 
 spirit, Christ rebuked her. The spirit 
 of man is restless and turbulent; for 
 which reason he does little, though he 
 seems to do a great deal. "Martha," 
 says Christ, "thou art careful and 
 
 141 
 
SDebotfonal mtitim^ 
 
 troubled about many things; but one 
 thing is needful ; and Mary hath chosen 
 that good part, which shall not be 
 taken away from her" (Luke 10:41, 
 42.) And what was it Mary had 
 chosen? Repose, tranquillity, and 
 peace. She had apparently ceased to 
 act, that the Spirit of Christ might act 
 in her; she had ceased to live, that 
 Christ might be her life. This shows 
 how necessary it is to renounce our- 
 selves, and all our activity, to follow 
 Christ ; for we cannot follow him if we 
 are not animated by his Spirit. 
 
 8. The spirit of divine action is so 
 necessary in all things that St. Paul, 
 in the same passage, founds that neces- 
 sity on our ignorance with respect to 
 what we pray for. "The Spirit," says 
 he, "also helpeth our infirmities; for 
 we know not what we should pray for 
 as we ought; but the Spirit itself 
 maketh intercession for us, with groan- 
 ings which cannot be uttered." Why, 
 then, should we be burthened with 
 superfluous cares, and weary ourselves 
 
 142 
 
SLttitt fbiltntt 
 
 in the multiplicity of our ways, without 
 ever saying, Let us rest in peace? God 
 himself invites us to cast all our care 
 upon him. 
 
 143 
 
SDebational WititinQ0 
 
 Internal acts 
 
 1. K^cts are distinguished into ex- 
 ternal and internal. External acts are 
 those which appear outwardly, and 
 bear relation to some sensible object, 
 and have no moral character, except 
 such as they derive from the principle 
 from which they proceed. I intend 
 here to speak only of internal acts, 
 those energies of the soul by which it 
 turns internally towards some objects, 
 and away from others. 
 
 2. If during my application to God, 
 I should form a will to change the 
 nature of my act, I should thereby 
 withdraw myself from God and turn to 
 created objects, and that in a greater or 
 less degree, according to the strength 
 of the act; and if, when I am turned 
 toward the creature, I would return to 
 God, I must necessarily form an act for 
 that purpose ; and the more perfect this 
 
 144 
 
Internal Sittis 
 
 act is, the more complete is the conver- 
 sion. 
 
 Till conversion is perfected, many 
 reiterated acts are necessary; for it is 
 with some progressive, though with 
 others it is instantaneous. 
 
 To give the heart to God, is to have 
 the whole energy of the soul centering 
 in him, that we may be rendered con- 
 formable to his will. We must, there- 
 fore, continue invariably turned to 
 God, from our first application to him. 
 
 3. As many reiterated acts form a 
 habit, the soul contracts the habit of 
 conversion; and that act which was 
 before interrupted and distinct be- 
 comes habitual. We may remark that 
 at times we form with facility many 
 distinct yet simple acts which show 
 that we have wandered, and that we 
 reenter our heart after having strayed 
 from it; yet, when we have reentered, 
 we should remain there in peace. 
 
 4. The great diflSculty with most 
 spiritual people arises from their not 
 clearly comprehending this matter. 
 
 10 145 
 
SDetiotional WLtitinQ^ 
 
 Now, some acts are transient and dis- 
 tinct, others are continued, and again, 
 some are direct, and others reflective. 
 All cannot form the first, neither are 
 all in a state suited to form the others. 
 
 5. By the continued act, I mean 
 that whereby the soul is altogether 
 turned toward God by a direct act, 
 always subsisting, and which it does 
 not renew unless it has been inter- 
 rupted. 
 
 6. Now the soul that is thus pro- 
 foundly and vigorously active, being 
 wholly given up to God, does not per- 
 ceive this act, because it is direct and 
 not reflective. 
 
 7. It is, then, improper to say that 
 we do not make acts ; all form acts, but 
 the manner of their formation is not 
 alike in all. The mistake arises from 
 this, that all who know they should act 
 are desirous of acting distinguishably 
 and perceptibly; but this cannot be; 
 sensible acts are for beginners; there 
 are others for those in a more advanced 
 state. 
 
 146 
 
Jnternal ^tt0 
 
 When the vessel is in port, the ma- 
 riners are obliged to exert all their 
 strength, that they may clear her 
 thence, and put to sea; but they sub- 
 sequently turn her with facility as they 
 please. In like manner, while the soul 
 remains in sin and the creature, many 
 endeavors are requisite to effect its 
 freedom ; the cables which hold it must 
 be loosed, and then, by strong and 
 vigorous efforts, it gathers itself in- 
 ward, pushes off gradually from the old 
 port of Self, and, leaving that behind, 
 proceeds to the interior, the haven so 
 much desired. 
 
 8. When the vessel is thus started, 
 as she advances on the sea she leaves 
 the shore behind; and the farther she 
 departs from the land, the less labor is 
 requisite in moving her forward. 
 
 To spread the sails, is to lay our- 
 selves before God in the prayer of 
 simple exposition, to be moved by his 
 Spirit; to hold the rudder, is to re- 
 strain our heart from wandering from 
 the true course, recalling it gently, and 
 
 147 
 
SDebotional mtitim^ 
 
 guiding it steadily by the dictates of 
 the Spirit of God, which gradually 
 gains possession of the heart, just as 
 the breeze by degrees fills the sails and 
 impels the vessel. 
 
 9. If the wind be contrary and blow 
 a storm, we must cast anchor in the 
 sea, to hold the vessel. This anchor is 
 simply trust in God and hope in his 
 goodness, waiting patiently the calm- 
 ing of the tempest and the return of a 
 favorable gale. 
 
 148 
 
©arrm ^ttatUriQ 
 
 TBatten pteacfjing 
 
 1. If all who labored for the con- 
 version of others sought to reach them 
 by the heart, introducing them imme- 
 diately into prayer and the interior 
 life, numberless and permanent con- 
 versions would ensue. If ministers 
 were solicitous thus to instruct their 
 parishioners, shepherds, while they 
 watched their flocks, would have the 
 spirit of the primitive Christians, and 
 the husbandman at the plow maintain 
 a blessed intercourse with his God. 
 
 2. Oh, when once the heart is 
 gained, how easily is all the rest cor- 
 rected! This is why God, above all 
 things, requires the heart. 
 
 The decay of internal piety is un- 
 questionably the source of the various 
 errors that have appeared in the world ; 
 all would be speedily overthrown were 
 inward devotion reestablished. 
 
 149 
 
2DrbotionaI mtitinsfi 
 
 Oh, how inexpressibly great is the 
 loss sustained by mankind from the 
 neglect of the interior life! and what 
 an account will those have to render 
 who are entrusted with the care of 
 souls, and have not discovered and 
 communicated to their flocks this hid- 
 den treasure! 
 
 3. Some excuse themselves by say- 
 ing that there is danger in this way, or 
 that simple persons are incapable of 
 comprehending the things of the Spirit. 
 But the oracles of truth affirm the con- 
 trary. 
 
 4. The simple ones, so far from 
 being incapable of this perfection, are, 
 by their docility, innocence, and humil- 
 ity, peculiarly qualified for its attain- 
 ment. We are told in Scripture that 
 *'unto the simple, God giveth the under- 
 standing of his law" (Psalm 118: 130, 
 Vulgate) . 
 
 5. Man frequently applies a remedy 
 to the outward body, whilst the disease 
 lies at the heart. The cause of our 
 being so unsuccessful in reforming 
 
 150 
 
Batten ^ttatiine 
 
 mankind, especially those of the lower 
 classes, is our beginning with external 
 matters. 
 
 6. I therefore beseech you all, O ye 
 that have the care of souls, to put them 
 at once into this way. O ye dispensers 
 of his grace, preachers of his Word, 
 ministers of his sacraments, establish 
 his kingdom ! — and that it may indeed 
 be established, make him ruler over the 
 heart, 
 
 7. Alas ! by directing them to pray 
 in elaborate forms, and to be curiously 
 critical therein, you create their chief 
 obstacles. The children have been led 
 astray from the best of fathers, by your 
 endeavoring to teach them too refined 
 a language. Go, then, ye poor children, 
 to your Heavenly Father, speak to him 
 in your natural language; rude and 
 barbarous as it may be, it is not so to 
 him. 
 
 8. Men have desired to love Love by 
 formal rules, and have thus lost much 
 of that love. Oh, how unnecessary is it 
 to teach an art of loving! The most 
 
SDebotional Wltitim^ 
 
 ignorant often become the most perfect, 
 because they proceed with more cor- 
 diality and simplicity. The Spirit of 
 God needs none of our arrangements; 
 when it pleases him, he turns shepherds 
 into prophets, and, so far from exclud- 
 ing any from the temple of prayer, he 
 throws wide the gates that all may 
 enter. And doth not Jesus Christ him- 
 self thank his Father for having "hid 
 these things from the wise and prudent, 
 and hast revealed them unto babes?" 
 (Matthew 11:25.) 
 
SS>fbim WLnim 
 
 Dibtne (anion 
 
 ^|e Pa00itie ma^ to Jti^ Sittainxnmt 
 
 1. It is impossible to attain divine 
 union solely by the way of meditation, 
 or of the affections, or by any devotion, 
 no matter how illuminated. All the 
 efforts, nay, the very existence, of self, 
 must be destroyed ; because nothing is 
 opposite to God but self, and all the 
 malignity of man is in self-appropri- 
 ation, as the source of its evil nature; 
 insomuch that the purity of a soul in- 
 creases in proportion as it loses this 
 self-hood ; and that which was a fault 
 while the soul lived in self-appropri- 
 ation is no longer such after it has 
 acquired purity and innocence by de- 
 parting from that self-hood which 
 caused the dissimilitude between it and 
 God. 
 
 2. To unite two things so opposite 
 
 153 
 
SDtbotional MtitixiQ^ 
 
 as the purity of God and the impurity 
 of the creature, the simplicity of God 
 and the multiplicity of man, much 
 more is requisite than the efforts of the 
 creature. Nothing less than an effica- 
 cious operation of the Almighty can 
 ever accomplish this; for two things 
 must have some relation or similarity 
 before they can become one ; as the im- 
 purity of dross cannot be united with 
 the purity of gold. 
 
 3. The impurity which is so fatal to 
 union consists in self-appropriation 
 and activity. Self-appropriation, be- 
 cause it is the source and fountain of 
 all that defilement which can never be 
 allied to essential purity, as the rays of 
 the sun may shine, indeed, upon mire, 
 but can never be united with it. Activ- 
 ity, for God being an infinite stillness, 
 the soul, in order to be united to him, 
 must participate of his stillness, else 
 the contrariety between stillness and 
 activity would prevent dissimilation. 
 Therefore the soul can never arrive at 
 a divine union but in the rest of its 
 
 154 
 
SDibitu Winim 
 
 will ; nor can it ever become one with 
 God but by being reestablished in cen- 
 tral rest and in the purity of its first 
 creation. 
 
 4. God purifies the soul by his wis- 
 dom, as refiners do metals in the fur- 
 nace. 
 
 5. Further, the pure and the impure 
 gold are not mingled; before they can 
 be united, they must be equally refined ; 
 the goldsmith cannot mix dross and 
 gold. What will he do, then? He will 
 purge out the dross with fire, so that 
 the inferior may become as pure as the 
 other, and then they may be united. 
 
 6. Thus we may see that the divine 
 justice and wisdom, like a pitiless and 
 devouring fire, must destroy all that is 
 earthly, sensual, and carnal, and all 
 self-activity, before the soul can be 
 united to its God. 
 
 7. It may, perhaps, be objected 
 here, that as God never robs man of his 
 free will, he can always resist the 
 divine operations. By man's giving a 
 passive consent, God, without usurpa- 
 
 155 
 
SDebotional Mtitins^ 
 
 tion, may assume full power and an 
 entire guidance; for, having in the be- 
 ginning of his conversion made an 
 unreserved surrender of himself to all 
 that God wills of him, or by him, he 
 thereby gave an active consent to what- 
 ever God might afterwards require. 
 But when God begins to burn, destroy, 
 and purify, the soul does not perceive 
 that these operations are intended for 
 its good, but rather supposes the con- 
 trary; and, as the gold at first seems 
 rather to blacken than brighten in the 
 fire, so it conceives that its purity is 
 lost; insomuch, that if an active and 
 explicit consent were then required, 
 the soul could scarcely give it, nay, 
 would often withhold it. All it does i§ 
 to remain firm in its passive consent, 
 enduring as patiently as possible all 
 these divine operations, which it is 
 neither able nor desirous to obstruct. 
 
 8. In this manner, therefore, the 
 soul is purified from all its self- 
 originated, distinct, perceptible, and 
 multiplied operations, which constitute 
 
 156 
 
jDitJim Union 
 
 a great dissimilitude between it and 
 God ; it is rendered by degrees conform, 
 and then uniform, 
 
 9. We do not, then, say, as some 
 have supposed, that there is no need of 
 activity; since, on the contrary, it is 
 the gate, at which, however, we should 
 not always tarry, since we ought to 
 tend toward ultimate perfection, which 
 is impracticable except the first helps 
 are laid aside; for, however necessary 
 they may have been at the entrance of 
 the road, they afterwards become 
 greatly detrimental to those who ad- 
 here to them obstinately, preventing 
 them from ever attaining the end. 
 
 10. But while we confess that the 
 enjoyment of God is the end for which 
 alone we were created, and that every 
 soul that does not attain divine union 
 and the purity of its creation in this 
 life can only be saved as by fire, how 
 strange it is that we should dread and 
 avoid the process; as if that could be 
 the cause of evil and imperfection in 
 the present life, which is to produce 
 
 157 
 
SDtbotional mtitinisii 
 
 the perfection of glory in the life to 
 come. 
 
 11. None can be ignorant that God 
 is the supreme good; that essential 
 blessedness consists in union with him ; 
 that the saints differ in glory, accord- 
 ing as the union is more or less perfect ; 
 and that the soul cannot attain this 
 union by the mere activity of its own 
 powers, since God communicates him- 
 self to the soul in proportion as its 
 passive capacity is great, noble, and 
 extensive. 
 
 Now, the whole desire of the Divine 
 Being is to give himself to every 
 creature according to the capacity 
 with which it is endowed; and yet, 
 alas ! how reluctantly man suffers him- 
 self to be drawn to God ! how fearful is 
 he to prepare for divine union ! 
 
 12. Some say that we must not 
 place ourselves in this state. I grant 
 it; but I say, also, that no creature 
 could ever do it, since it would not be 
 possible for any, by all their own 
 
 158 
 
S>Mm Winion 
 
 efforts, to unite themselves to God; it 
 is he alone must do it. 
 
 They say, again, that some may feign 
 to have attained this state. None can 
 any more feign this than the wretch 
 who is on the point of perishing with 
 hunger can, for any length of time, at 
 least, feign to be full and satisfied. 
 
 Since, then, none can attain this end 
 by their own labor, we do not pretend 
 to introduce any into it, but only point 
 out the way that leads to it, beseeching 
 all not to become attached to the 
 accommodations on the road, external 
 practices, which must all be left behind 
 when the signal is given. 
 
 Let us all agree in the way, as we all 
 agreed in the end, which is evident and 
 incontrovertible. The way has its be- 
 ginning, progress, and termination; 
 and the nearer we approach the con- 
 summation, the farther is the begin- 
 ning behind us; it is only by leaving 
 the one that we can arrive at the other. 
 You cannot get from the entrance to a 
 distant place without passing over the 
 
 159 
 
SDebotional Wltitim0 
 
 intermediate space, and, if the end be 
 good, holy, and necessary, and the en- 
 trance also good, why should the 
 necessary passage, the direct road lead- 
 ing from the one to the other, be evil? 
 Oh, the blindness of the greater part 
 of mankind who pride themselves on 
 science and wisdom! How true is it, 
 O my God, that thou hast hid these 
 things from the wise and prudent, and 
 hast revealed them unto babes! 
 
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