{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_19185/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_19185","id":"gutenberg_19185","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19185","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Biographies","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Teresa, of Avila, Saint, 1515-1582"],"text":"Transcribed from the 1900 Oliphant Anderson & Ferrier edition by David\nPrice, email ccx074@pglaf.org\n\n_THEODIDACTA_\n\n_AFFICIENS_\n\n_INFLAMMANS_\n\n\n\n\n\nSanta Teresa: an Appreciation\n\n\n_With some of the best passages of the Saint's Writings Selected Adapted\nand Arranged by_\n_Alexander Whyte_\n_D.D._\n\n_Oliphant Anderson & Ferrier_\n_Saint Mary Street_, _Edinburgh_, _and_\n21 _Paternoster Square_, _London_\n1900\n\n_Third Edition_\n_Completing_ 6000 _copies_\n\nEdinburgh: T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to her Majesty\n\n\n\n\nAPPRECIATION AND INTRODUCTION\n\n\nWith a view to the work of my classes this session, I took old Abraham\nWoodhead's two black-letter quartos with me to the Engadine last July.\nAnd I spent every rainy morning and every tired evening of that memorable\nholiday month in the society of Santa Teresa and her excellent\nold-English translator.  Till, ever, as I crossed the Morteratch and the\nRoseg, and climbed the hills around Maloggia and Pontresina, a voice\nwould come after me, saying to me, Why should you not share all this\nspiritual profit and intellectual delight with your Sabbath evening\ncongregations, and with your young men's and young women's classes?  Why\nshould you not introduce Santa Teresa to her daughters in Edinburgh?  For\nher daughters they are, so soon and as long as they live in\nself-knowledge and in self-denial, in humility and in meekness, and\nespecially in unceasing prayer for themselves and for others.  And I am\nnot without some assurance that in this present lecture I am both hearing\nand obeying one of those same locutions that Teresa heard so frequently,\nand obeyed with such instancy and fidelity and fruitfulness.\n\n* * * * *\n\nLuther was born in 1483, and he nailed his ninety-five theses to the door\nof the University Church of Wittenberg on the 31st October 1517.  Loyola\nwas born in 1491, and Xavier in 1506, and the Society of Jesus was\nestablished in 1534.  Isabella the Catholic was born in 1451, and our own\nProtestant Elizabeth in 1533.  The Spanish Inquisition began to sit in\n1483, the Breviary was finally settled in 1568, and the Armada was\ndestroyed in 1588.  Columbus was born in 1446, and he set out on his\ngreat enterprise in 1492.  Cervantes was born in 1547, and the First Part\nof his immortal work was published in 1605.  And it is to be read in\nSanta Teresa's Breviary to this day that Teresa the Sinner was born on\nthe 29th day of March 1515, at five o'clock in the morning.  She died in\n1582, and in 1622 she was publicly canonised at Rome along with Loyola\nand Xavier and two other Spanish saints.\n\nTeresa was greatly blessed in both her parents.  'It helped me much that\nI never saw my father or my mother respect anything in any one but\ngoodness.'  Her father was a great reader of the best books, and he took\ngreat pains that his children should form the same happy habit and should\ncarefully cultivate the same excellent taste.  Her mother, while a\nChristian gentlewoman of the first social standing, did not share her\nhusband's love of serious literature.  She passed far too much of her\nshort lifetime among the romances of the day, till her daughter has to\nconfess that she took no little harm from the books that did her mother\nno harm but pastime to read.  As for other things, her father's house was\na perfect model of the very best morals and the very best manners.  Alonso\nde Cepeda was a well-born and a well-bred Spanish gentleman.  He came of\nan ancient and an illustrious Castilian stock; and, though not a rich\nman, his household enjoyed all the nobility of breeding and all the\nculture of mind and all the refinement of taste for which Spain was so\nfamous in that great age.  All her days, and in all her ups and downs in\nlife, we continually trace back to Teresa's noble birth and noble\nupbringing no little of her supreme stateliness of deportment and\nserenity of manner and chivalry of character.  Teresa was a perfect\nSpanish lady, as well as a mother in Israel, and no one who ever\nconversed with her could for a moment fail to observe that the oldest and\nbest blood of Spain mantled in her cheek and shone in her eye.  A lion\nencompassed by crosses was one of the quarters of her father's coat of\narms.  And Teresa took that up and added out of it a new glory to all her\nfather's hereditary honours.  For his daughter was all her days a lioness\npalisaded round with crosses, till by means of them she was transformed\ninto a lamb.  But, all the time, the lioness was still lurking there.\nTeresa's was one of those sovereign souls that are born from time to time\nas if to show us what our race was created for at first, and for what it\nis still destined.  She was a queen among women.  She was in intellect\nthe complete equal, and in still better things than intellect far the\nsuperior, of Isabella and Elizabeth themselves.  As she says in an\noutspoken autobiographic passage, hers was one of those outstanding and\ntowering souls on which a thousand eyes and tongues are continually set\nwithout any one understanding them or comprehending them.  Her coming\ngreatness of soul is foreseen by some of her biographers in the attempt\nwhich she made while yet a child to escape away into the country of the\nMoors in search of an early martyrdom, so that she might see her Saviour\nall the sooner, and stand in His presence all the purer.  'A woman,' says\nCrashaw, 'for angelical height of speculation: for masculine courage of\nperformance, more than a woman; who, while yet a child, outran maturity,\nand durst plot a martyrdom.\n\n   Scarce had she learnt to lisp the name\n   Of martyr, yet she thinks it shame\n   Life should so long sport with that breath,\n   Which, spent, can buy so brave a death.\n\n   Scarce had she blood enough to make\n   A guilty sword blush for her sake;\n   Yet has she heart dares hope to prove\n   How much less strong is death than love.\n\n   Be love but there, let poor six years\n   Be posed with the maturest fears\n   Man trembles at, we straight shall find\n   Love knows no nonage, nor the mind.'\n\nTeresa's mother died just when her daughter was at that dangerous age in\nwhich a young girl needs a wise mother most; 'the age when virtue should\nbegin to grow,' as she says herself.  Teresa was an extraordinarily\nhandsome and attractive young lady, and the knowledge of that, as she\ntells us, made her very vain, and puffed up her heart with foolish\nimaginations.  She has a powerful chapter in the opening of her\nAutobiography on dangerous companionships in the days of youth.  'Oh that\nall parents would take warning by me, and would look carefully into their\nchildren's early friendships!'  She suffered terribly from bad health all\nher days, and that severe chastisement began to fall on her while she was\nyet a beautiful girl.  It was a succession of serious illnesses, taken\nalong with her father's scrupulous care over her, that brought Teresa\nback to the simple piety of her early childhood, and fixed her for life\nin an extraordinary devotion to God, and to all the things of God.  When\nsuch a change of heart and character comes to a young woman among\nourselves, she usually seeks out some career of religion and charity to\nwhich she can devote her life.  She is found labouring among the poor and\nthe sick and the children of the poor, or she goes abroad to foreign\nmission work.  In Teresa's land and day a Religious House was the\nunderstood and universal refuge for any young woman who was in earnest\nabout her duty to God and to her own soul.  In those Houses such young\nwomen secluded themselves from all society and gave themselves up to the\ncare of the poor and the young.  In the more strict and enclosed of those\nretreats the inmates never came out of doors at all, but wholly\nsequestered themselves up to a secret life of austerity and prayer.  This\nwas the ideal life led in those Houses for religious women.  But Teresa\nsoon found out the tremendous mistake she had made in leaving her\nfather's family-fireside for a so-called Religious House.  No sooner had\nshe entered it than she was plunged headlong into those very same\n'pestilent amusements,' the mere approach of which had made her flee to\nthis supposed asylum.  Though she is composing her Autobiography under\nthe sharp eyes of her confessors, and while she is writing with a\nsubmissiveness and, indeed, a servility that is her only weakness, Teresa\nat the same time is bold enough and honest enough to tell us her own\nexperiences of monastic life in language of startling strength and\noutspokenness.  'A short-cut to hell.  If parents would take my advice,\nthey would rather marry their daughters to the very poorest of men, or\nelse keep them at home under their own eye.  If young women will be\nwicked at home, their wickedness will not long be hidden at home; but in\nmonasteries, such as I speak of, their worst wickedness can be completely\ncovered up from every human eye.  And all the time the poor things are\nnot to blame.  They only walk in the way that is shown them.  Many of\nthem are to be much pitied, for they honestly wish to withdraw from the\nworld, only to find themselves in ten times worse worlds of sensuality\nand all other devilry.  O my God! if I might I would fain speak of some\nof the occasions of sin from which Thou didst deliver me, and how I threw\nmyself into them again.  And of the risks I ran of utterly shipwrecking\nmy character and good name and from which Thou didst rescue me.  O Lord\nof my soul! how shall I be able to magnify Thy grace in those perilous\nyears!  At the very time that I was offending Thee most, Thou didst\nprepare me by a most profound compunction to taste of the sweetness of\nThy recoveries and consolations.  In truth, O my King, Thou didst\nadminister to me the most spiritual and painful of chastisements: for\nThou didst chastise my sins with great assurances of Thy love and of Thy\ngreat mercy.  It makes me feel beside myself when I call to mind Thy\ngreat grace and my great ingratitude.'\n\nThis leads us up to the conception and commencement of that great work to\nwhich Teresa dedicated the whole of her after life,--the reformation and\nextension of the Religious Houses of Spain.  The root-and-branch\nreformation of Luther and his German and Swiss colleagues had not laid\nmuch hold on Spain; and the little hold it had laid on her native land\nhad never reached to Teresa.  Had Luther and Teresa but met: had\nMelanchthon and Teresa but met: had the best books of the German and\nSwiss Reformation but come into Teresa's hands: had she been somewhat\nless submissive, and somewhat less obedient, and somewhat less completely\nthe slave of her ecclesiastical superiors; had she but once entered into\nthat intellectual and spiritual liberty wherewith Christ makes His people\nfree,--what a lasting blessing Teresa might have been made to her native\nland!  But, as it was, Teresa's reformation, while it was the salvation\nof herself and of multitudes more who came under it, yet as a monastic\nexperiment and a church movement, it ended in the strengthening and the\nperpetuation of that detestable system of intellectual and spiritual\ntyranny which has been the death of Spain from that day to this.  Teresa\nperformed a splendid service inside the Church to which she belonged: but\nthat service was wholly confined to the Religious Houses that she founded\nand reformed.  Teresa's was intended to be a kind of counter-reformation\nto the reformation of Luther and Melanchthon and Valdes and Valera.  And\nsuch was the talent and the faith and the energy she brought to bear on\nthe work she undertook, that, had it been better directed, it might have\nbeen blessed to preserve her beloved native land at the head of modern\nChristendom.  But, while that was not to be, it is the immense talent,\nand the unceasing toil, and the splendid faith and self-surrender that\nTeresa brought to bear on her intramural reformation; and, all through\nthat, on the working out of her own salvation,--it is all these things\nthat go to make Teresa's long life so memorable and so impressive, not\nonly in her own age and land and church, but wherever greatness of mind,\nand nobleness of heart, and sanctity of life, and stateliness of\ncharacter are heard of and are esteemed.\n\nTeresa's intellect, her sheer power of mind, is enough of itself to make\nher an intensely interesting study to all thinking men.  No one can open\nher books without confessing the spell of her powerful understanding.  Her\nbooks, before they were books, absolutely captivated and completely\nconverted to her unpopular cause many of her most determined enemies.\nAgain and again and again we find her confessors and her censors\nadmitting that both her spiritual experiences and her reformation work\nwere utterly distasteful and very stumbling to them till they had read\nher own written account, first of her life of prayer and then of her\nreformation work.  One after another of such men, and some of them the\nhighest in learning and rank and godliness, on reading her autobiographic\npapers, came over to be her fearless defenders and fast friends.  There\nis nothing more delightful in all her delightful Autobiography, and in\nthe fine 'censures' that have been preserved concerning it, than to read\nof the great and learned theologians, the responsible church leaders, and\neven the secret inquisitors who came under the charm of her character and\nthe spell of her pen.  'She electrifies the will,' confessed one of the\nbest judges of good writing in her day.  And old Bishop Palafox's tribute\nto Teresa is far too beautiful to be withheld.  'What I admire in her is\nthe peace, the sweetness, and the consolation with which in her writings\nshe draws us toward the best, so that we find ourselves captured rather\nthan conquered, imprisoned rather than prisoners.  No one reads the\nsaint's writings who does not presently seek God, and no one through her\nwritings seeks God who does not remain in love with the saint.  I have\nnot met with a single spiritual man who does not become a passionate\nadmirer of Santa Teresa.  But her writings do not alone impart a\nrational, interior, and superior love, but a love at the same time\npractical, natural, and sensitive; and my own experience proves it to me\nthat there exists no one who loves her but would, if the saint were still\nin this world, travel far to see and speak with her.'  I wish much I\ncould add to that Peter of Alcantara's marvellous analysis of Teresa's\nexperiences and character.  Under thirty-three heads that great saint\nsums up Teresa's character, and gives us a noble, because all\nunconscious, revelation of his own.  And though Teresa has been dead for\nthree hundred years, she speaks to this day in that same way: and that\ntoo in quarters in which we would little expect to hear her voice.  In\nthat intensely interesting novel of modern Parisian life, _En Route_,\nTeresa takes a chief part in the conversion and sanctification of the\nprodigal son whose return to his father's house is so powerfully depicted\nin that story.  The deeply read and eloquent author of that remarkable\nbook gives us some of the best estimates and descriptions of Santa Teresa\nthat I have anywhere met with.  'That cool-headed business woman . . .\nthat admirable psychologist and of superhuman lucidity . . . that\nmagnificent and over-awing saint . . . she has verified in her own case\nthe supernatural experiences of the greatest mystics,--such are her\nunparalleled experiences in the supernatural domain. . . .  Teresa goes\ndeeper than any like writer into the unexplored regions of the soul.  She\nis the geographer and hydrographer of the sinful soul.  She has drawn the\nmap of its poles, marked its latitudes of contemplation and prayer, and\nlaid out all the interior seas and lands of the human heart.  Other\nsaints have been among those heights and depths and deserts before her,\nbut no one has left us so methodical and so scientific a survey.'  Were\nit for nothing else, the chapters on mystical literature in M. Huysmans'\nunfinished trilogy would make it a valued possession to every student of\nthe soul of man under sin and under salvation.  I await the completion of\nhis Pilgrim's Progress with great impatience and with great expectation.\n\nAnd then, absolutely possessed as Teresa always is by the most solemn\nsubjects,--herself, her sin, her Saviour, her original method of prayer\nand her unshared experiences in prayer,--she showers upon us continually\ngleams and glances of the sunniest merriment, amid all her sighs and\ntears.  She roasts in caustic the gross-minded, and the self-satisfied,\nand the self-righteous, as Socrates himself never roasted them better.\nAgain, like his, her irony and her raillery and her satire are sometimes\nso delicate that it quite eludes you for the first two or three readings\nof the exquisite page.  And then, when you turn the leaf, she is as\nostentatiously stupid and ignorant and dependent on your superior mind as\never Socrates himself was.  Till I shrewdly suspect that no little of\nthat 'obedience' which so intoxicated and fascinated her inquisitors, and\nwhich to this day so exasperates some of her biographers, was largely\neconomical and ironical.  Her narrow cell is reported to have often\nresounded with peals of laughter to the scandal of some of her sisters.\nIn support of all that, I have marked a score of Socratic passages in\nWoodhead, and Dalton, and Lewis, and Father Coleridge, and Mrs.\nCunninghame Graham.  They are very delicious passages and very tempting.\nBut were they once begun there would be no end to them.  You will believe\nFroude, for he is an admitted judge in all matters connected with the\nbest literature, and he says in his _Quarterly_ article on Teresa's\nwritings, 'The best satire of Cervantes is not more dainty.'\n\nThe great work to which Teresa gave up her whole life, after her full\nconversion, was the purification of the existing monastic system, and the\nmultiplication and extension of Religious Houses of the strictest,\nseverest, most secluded, most prayerful, and most saintly life.  She had\nbeen told by those she too much trusted, that the Church of Christ was\nbeing torn in pieces in Germany, and in Switzerland, and in France, and\nin England by a great outbreak of heretical error; and, while the Society\nof Jesus and the Secret Inquisition were established to cope with all\nsuch heresy, Teresa set herself to counteract it by a widespread\ncombination of unceasing penance and intercessory prayer.  It was a zeal\nwithout knowledge; but there can be no doubt about the sincerity, the\nsingle-mindedness, and the strength of the zeal.  For forty as\nhard-working years as ever any woman spent in this world, Teresa laboured\naccording to her best light to preserve the purity and the unity of the\nChurch of Christ.  And the strength and the sagacity of mind, the tact,\nthe business talents, the tenacity of will, the patience, the endurance,\nthe perseverance, the sleepless watchfulness, and the abounding\nprayerfulness that she brought to bear on the reformation and\nmultiplication of her fortresses of defence and attack in that holy war,\nall taken together, make up one of the most remarkable pages in the whole\nhistory of the Church of Christ.  Her difficulties with Rome, with the\nInquisition, with her more immediate superiors, confessors, and censors,\nand, most of all, with the ignorance, the stupidity, the laziness, the\nmalice, and the lies of those monks and nuns whose reformation she was\ndetermined on: her endless journeys: her negotiations with\nchurch-leaders, landowners, and tradesmen in selecting and securing\nsites, and in erecting new religious houses: the adventures, the\naccidents, the entertainments she met with: and the fine temper, the good\nhumour, the fascinating character, the winning manners she everywhere\nexhibited; and, withal, her incomparable faith in the Living God, and the\nexquisite inwardness, unconquerable assurance, and abounding fruitfulness\nof her own and unshared method and secret of prayer,--had Teresa not\nlived and died in Spain, and had she not spent her life and done her work\nunder the Roman obedience, her name would have been a household word in\nScotland.  As it is, she is not wholly unknown or unloved.  And as\nknowledge extends, and love, and good-will; and as suspicion, and fear,\nand retaliation, and party-spirit die out among us, the truth about\nTeresa and multitudes more will become established on clearer and deeper\nand broader foundations; and we shall be able to hail both her and\nmultitudes more like her as our brothers and sisters in Christ, whom\nhitherto we have hated and despised because we did not know them, and had\nbeen poisoned against them.  I am a conspicuous case in point myself.  And\nwhen I have been conquered by a little desultory reading and by a little\neffort after love no man need despair.  And if you will listen to this\nlecture with a good and honest heart: with a heart that delights to hear\nall this good report about a fellow-believer: then He who has begun that\ngood work in you will perfect it by books and by lectures like this, and\nfar better than this, till you are taken absolutely captive to that\ncharity which rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth: and\nwhich beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things,\nendureth all things.  Follow after charity, and begin with Santa Teresa.\n\n   Forbid it, mighty Love, let no fond hate\n   Of names or words so far prejudicate;\n   Souls are not Spaniards too; one friendly flood\n   Of baptism blends them all into one blood.\n   What soul soe'er in any language can\n   Speak heaven like hers, is my soul's countryman.\n\nBut the greatest and the best talent that God gives to any man or woman\nin this world is the talent of prayer.  And the best usury that any man\nor woman brings back to God when He comes to reckon with them at the end\nof this world is a life of prayer.  And those servants best put their\nLord's money to the exchangers who rise early and sit late, as long as\nthey are in this world, ever finding out and ever following after better\nand better methods of prayer, and ever forming more secret, more\nsteadfast, and more spiritually fruitful habits of prayer: till they\nliterally pray without ceasing, and till they continually strike out into\nnew enterprises in prayer, and new achievements, and new enrichments.  It\nwas this that first drew me to Teresa.  It was her singular originality\nin prayer and her complete captivity to prayer.  It was the time she\nspent in prayer, and the refuge, and the peace, and the sanctification,\nand the power for carrying on hard and unrequited work that she all her\nlife found in prayer.  It was her fidelity and her utter surrender of\nherself to this first and last of all her religious duties, till it\nbecame more a delight, and, indeed, more an indulgence, than a duty.  With\nTeresa it was prayer first, and prayer last, and prayer always.  With\nTeresa literally all things were sanctified, and sweetened, and made\nfruitful by prayer.  In Teresa's writings prayer holds much the same\nplace that it holds in the best men and women of Holy Scripture.  If I\nwere to say that about some of the ladies of the Scottish Covenant, you\nwould easily believe me.  But you must believe me when I tell you that\nabout a Spanish lady, second to none of them in holiness of life, even if\nher holy life is not all cast in our mould.  All who have read the\nautobiographic _Apologia_ will remember the fine passage in which its\nauthor tells us that ever since his conversion there have been two, and\nonly two, absolutely self-luminous beings in the whole universe of being\nto him,--God and his own soul.  Now, I do not remember that Newman even\nonce speaks about Teresa in any of his books, but I always think of him\nand her together in this great respect.  GOD is to them both, and to them\nboth He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.  And it is just\nhere, at the very commencement and centre of divine things, that we all\nmake such shipwreck and come so short.  The sense of the reality of\ndivine and unseen things in Teresa's life of prayer is simply miraculous\nin a woman still living among things seen and temporal.  Her faith is\ntruly the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not\nseen.  Our Lord was as real, as present, as near, as visible, and as\naffable to this extraordinary saint as ever He was to Martha, or Mary, or\nMary Magdalene, or the woman of Samaria, or the mother of Zebedee's\nchildren.  She prepared Him where to lay His head; she sat at His feet\nand heard His word.  She chose the better part, and He acknowledged to\nherself and to others that she had done so.  She washed His feet with her\ntears, and wiped them with the hair of her head.  She had been forgiven\nmuch, and she loved much.  He said to her, Mary, and she answered Him,\nRabboni.  And He gave her messages to deliver to His disciples, who had\nnot waited for Him as she had waited.  Till she was able to say to them\nall that she had seen the Lord, and that He had spoken such and such\nthings within her.  And hence arises what I may call the quite\nextraordinary purity and spirituality of her life of prayer.  'Defecate'\nis Goodwin's favourite and constant word for the purest, the most rapt,\nthe most adoring, and the most spiritual prayer.  'I have known men'--it\nmust have been himself--'who came to God for nothing else but just to\ncome to Him, they so loved Him.  They scorned to soil Him and themselves\nwith any other errand than just purely to be alone with Him in His\npresence.  Friendship is best kept up, even among men, by frequent\nvisits; and the more free and defecate those frequent visits are, and the\nless occasioned by business, or necessity, or custom they are, the more\nfriendly and welcome they are.'  Now, I have sometimes wondered what took\nTeresa so often, and kept her so long, alone with God.  Till I remembered\nGoodwin's classical passages about defecated prayer, and understood\nsomething of what is involved and what is to be experienced in pure and\nimmediate communion with God.  And, then, from all that it surely\nfollows, that no one is fit for one moment to have an adverse or a\nhostile mind, or to pass an adverse or a hostile judgment, on the divine\nmanifestations that came to Teresa in her unparalleled life of prayer; no\none who is not a man of like prayer himself; no, nor even then.  I know\nall the explanations that have been put forward for Teresa's 'locutions'\nand revelations; but after anxiously weighing them all, the simplest\nexplanation is also the most scientific, as it is the most scriptural.  If\nour ascending Lord actually said what He is reported to have said about\nthe way that He and His Father will always reward all love to Him, and\nthe keeping of all His commandments; then, if there is anything true\nabout Teresa at all, it is this, that from the day of her full conversion\nshe lived with all her might that very life which has all these\ntranscendent promises spoken and sealed to it.  By her life of faith and\nprayer and personal holiness, Teresa made herself 'capable of God,' as\none describes it, and God came to her and filled her with Himself to her\nutmost capacity, as He said He would.  At the same time, much as I trust\nand honour and love Teresa, and much good as she has been made of God to\nme, she was still, at her best, but an imperfectly sanctified woman, and\nher rewards and experiences were correspondingly imperfect.  But if a\nholy life before such manifestations were made to her, and a still holier\nlife after them--if that is any test of the truth and reality of such\ntranscendent and supernatural matters,--on her own humble and adoring\ntestimony, and on the now extorted and now spontaneous testimony of\nabsolutely all who lived near her, still more humility, meekness, lowly-\nmindedness, heavenly-mindedness and prayerfulness demonstrably followed\nthose inward and spiritual revelations to her of her Lord.  In short and\nin sure, ye shall know them by their fruits.  Do men gather grapes of\nthorns, or figs of thistles?  On the whole, then, I for one am strongly\ndisposed toward Teresa, even in the much-inculpated matter of her inward\nvoices and visions.  The wish may very possibly be father to the thought:\nbut my thought leans to Teresa, even in her most astounding locutions and\nrevelations; they answer so entirely to my reading of our Lord and of His\nwords.  I take sides, on the whole, with those theologians of her day,\nwho began by doubting, but ended by believing in Teresa and by imitating\nher.  They were led to rejoice that any contemporary and fellow-sinner\nhad attained to such fellowship with God: and I am constrained to take\nsides with them.  'One day, in prayer, the sweetness was so great that I\ncould not but contrast it with the place I deserved in hell.  The\nsweetness and the light and the peace were so great that, compared with\nit, everything in this world is vanity and lies.  I was filled with a new\nreverence for God.  I saw His majesty and His power in a way I cannot\ndescribe, and the vision kept me in great tenderness and joy and\nhumility.  I cannot help making much of that which led me so near to God.\nI knew at that great moment what it is for a soul to be in the very\npresence of God Himself.  What must be the condescension of His majesty\nseeing that in so short a time He left so great an impression and so\ngreat a blessing on my soul!  O my Lord, consider who she is upon whom\nThou art bestowing such unheard-of blessings!  Dost Thou forget that my\nsoul has been an abyss of sin?  How is this, O Lord, how can it be that\nsuch great grace has come to the lot of one who has so ill deserved such\nthings at Thy hands!'  He who can read that, and a hundred passages as\ngood as that, and who shall straightway set himself to sneer and scoff\nand disparage and find fault, he is well on the way to the sin against\nthe Holy Ghost.  At any rate, I would be if I did not revere and love and\nimitate such a saint of God.  Given God and His Son and His Holy Spirit:\ngiven sin and salvation and prayer and a holy life; and, with many\ndrawbacks, Teresa's was just the life of self-denial and repentance and\nprayer and communion with God that we should all live.  It is not Teresa\nwho is to be bemoaned and blamed and called bad names.  It is we who do\nall that to her who are beside ourselves.  It is we who need the beam to\nbe taken out of our own eye.  Teresa was a mystery and an offence; and,\nagain, an encouragement and an example to the theologians and the\ninquisitors of her day just as she still is in our day.  She was a\nstumbling-stone, or an ensample, according to the temper and disposition\nand character of her contemporaries, and she is the same to-day.\n\nThe pressing question with me is not the truth or the falsehood, the\namount of reality or the amount of imagination in Teresa's locutions and\nvisions.  The pressing question with me is this,--Why it is that I have\nnothing to show to myself at all like them.  I think I could die for the\ntruth of my Lord's promise that both He and His Father will manifest\nThemselves to those who love Him and keep His words; but He never\nmanifests Himself, to be called manifestation, to me.  I am driven in\nsheer desperation to believe such testimonies and attainments as those of\nTeresa, if only to support my failing faith in the words of my Master.  I\nhad rather believe every syllable of Teresa's so-staggering locutions and\nvisions than be left to this, that ever since Paul and John went home to\nheaven our Lord's greatest promises have been so many idle words.  It is\nopen to any man to scoff and sneer at Teresa's extraordinary life of\nprayer, and at the manifestations of the Father and the Son that were\nmade to her in her life of prayer, and some of her biographers and\ncensors among ourselves have made good use of their opportunity.  But I\ncannot any longer sit with them in the seat of the scorner, and I want\nyou all to rise up and leave that evil seat also.  Lord, how wilt Thou\nmanifest Thyself in time to come to me?  How shall I attain to that faith\nand to that love and to that obedience which shall secure to me the long-\nwithheld presence and indwelling of the Father and the Son?\n\n* * * * *\n\nTeresa's _Autobiography_, properly speaking, is not an autobiography at\nall, though it ranks with _The Confessions_, and _The Commedia_, and _The\nGrace Abounding_, and _The Reliquiae_, as one of the very best of that\ngreat kind of book.  It is not really Teresa's _Life Written by Herself_,\nthough all that stands on its title-page.  It is only one part of her\nlife: it is only her life of prayer.  The title of the book, she says in\none place, is not her life at all, but _The Mercies of God_.  Many other\nmatters come up incidentally in this delightful book, but the whole drift\nand the real burden of the book is its author's life of prayer.  Her\nattainments and her experiences in prayer so baffled and so put out all\nher confessors that, at their wits' end, they enjoined her to draw out in\nwriting a complete account of a secret life, the occasional and partial\ndiscovery of which so amazed, and perplexed, and condemned them.  And\nthus it is that we come to possess this unique and incomparable\nautobiography: this wonderful revelation of Teresa's soul in prayer.  It\nis a book in which we see a woman of sovereign intellectual ability\nworking out her own salvation in circumstances so different from our own\nthat we have the greatest difficulty in believing that it was really\nsalvation at all she was so working out.  Till, as we read in humility\nand in love, we learn to separate-off all that is local, and secular, and\necclesiastical, and circumstantial, and then we immensely enjoy and take\nlasting profit out of all that which is so truly Catholic and so truly\nspiritual.  Teresa was an extraordinary woman in every way: and that\ncomes out on every page of her Autobiography.  So extraordinary that I\nconfess there is a great deal that she tells us about herself that I do\nnot at all understand.  She was Spanish, and we are Scottish.  She and we\nare wide as the poles asunder.  Her lot was cast of God in the sixteenth\ncentury, whereas our lot is cast in the nineteenth.  She was a Roman\nCatholic mystic, and we are Evangelical Protestants.  But it is one of\nthe great rewards of studying such a life as Teresa's to be able to\nchange places with her so as to understand her and love her.  She was,\nwithout any doubt or contradiction, a great saint of God.  And a great\nsaint of God is more worthy of our study and admiration and imitation and\nlove than any other study or admiration or imitation or love on the face\nof the earth.  And the further away such a saint is from us the better\nshe is for our study and admiration and imitation and love, if we only\nhave the sense and the grace to see it.\n\nCervantes himself might have written Teresa's _Book of the Foundations_.\nCertainly he never wrote a better book.  For myself I have read Teresa's\n_Foundations_ twice at any rate for every once I have read Cervantes'\nmasterpiece.  For literature, for humour, for wit, for nature, for\nphotographic pictures of the time and the people, her _Foundations_ are a\nmasterpiece also: and then, Teresa's pictures are pictures of the best\npeople in Spain.  And there was no finer people in the whole of\nChristendom in that day than the best of the Spanish people.  God had\nmuch people in the Spain of that day, and he who is not glad to hear that\nwill never have a place among them.  The Spain of that century was full\nof family life of the most polished and refined kind.  And, with all\ntheir declensions and corruptions, the Religious Houses of Spain enclosed\nmultitudes of the most saintly men and women.  'I never read of a\nhermit,' said Dr. Johnson to Boswell in St. Andrews, 'but in imagination\nI kiss his feet: I never read of a monastery, but I could fall on my\nknees and kiss the pavement.  I have thought of retiring myself, and have\ntalked of it to a friend, but I find my vocation is rather in active\nlife.'  It was such monasteries as Teresa founded and ruled and wrote the\nhistory of that made such a sturdy Protestant as Dr. Johnson was say such\na thing as that.  _The Book of the Foundations_ is Teresa's own account,\nwritten also under superior orders, of that great group of religious\nhouses which she founded and administered for so many years.  And the\nliterature into which she puts all those years is literature of the first\nwater.  A thousand times I have been reminded of Don Quixote and Sancho\nPanza as I read Teresa's account of her journeys, and of the people, and\nof the escapades, and of the entertainments she met with.  Yes, quite as\ngood as Cervantes! yes, quite as good as Goldsmith!--I have caught myself\nexclaiming as I read and laughed till the tears ran down my cheeks.  This\nis literature, this is art without the art, this is literary finish\nwithout the labour: and all laid out to the finest of all uses, to tell\nof the work of God, and of all the enterprises, providences, defeats,\nsuccesses, recompenses, connected with it.  The _Foundations_ is a\nChristian classic even in Woodhead's and Dalton's and David Lewis's\nEnglish, what must it then be to those to whom Teresa's exquisite Spanish\nis their mother-tongue!\n\nIf Vaughan had but read _The Foundations_, which he is honest enough to\nconfess he had only glanced at in a French translation, it would surely\nhave done something to make him reconsider the indecent and disgraceful\nattack which he makes on Teresa.  His chapter on Teresa is a contemptuous\nand a malicious caricature.  Vaughan has often been of great service to\nme, but if I had gone by that misleading chapter, I would have lost weeks\nof most intensely interesting and spiritually profitable reading.\nVaughan's extravagant misrepresentation of Teresa will henceforth make me\nhesitate to receive his other judgments till I have read the books\nmyself.  I shall not tarry here to controvert Vaughan's utterly\nuntruthful chapter on Teresa, I shall content myself with setting over\nagainst it Crashaw's exquisite _Hymn_ and _Apology_, and especially his\nmagnificent _Flaming Heart_.\n\nTeresa's _Way of Perfection_ is a truly fine book: full of freshness,\nsuggestiveness, and power.  So much so, that I question if William Law's\n_Christian Perfection_ would ever have been written, but that Teresa had\nwritten on that same subject before him.  I do not say that Law\nplagiarised from Teresa, but some of his very best passages are plainly\ninspired by his great predecessor.  You will thank me for the following\neloquent passage from Mrs. Cunninghame Graham, which so felicitously\ncharacterises this great book, and that in language such as I could not\ncommand.  'To my thinking Teresa is at her best in her _Way of\nPerfection_ with its bursts of impassioned eloquence; its shrewd and\ncaustic irony; its acute and penetrating knowledge of human character,\nthe same in the convent as in the world; above all in its sympathetic and\ntender instinct for the needs and difficulties of her daughters.  _The\nPerfection_ represents the finished and magnificent fabric of the\nspiritual life.  Her words ring with a strange terseness and earnestness\nas she here pens her spiritual testament.  She points out the mischievous\nfoibles, the little meannesses, the spirit of cantankerousness and\nstrife, which long experience of the cloister had shown her were the\nbesetting sins of the conventual life.  She places before them the\nloftier standard of the Cross.  Her words, direct and simple, ring out\ntrue and clear, producing somewhat the solemn effect of a Commination\nService.'  Strong as that estimate is, _The Perfection_ deserves every\nword of it and more.\n\nTeresa thought that her _Mansions_ was one of her two best books, but she\nwas surely far wrong in that.  _The Mansions_, sometimes called _The\nInterior Castle_, to me at any rate, is a most shapeless, monotonous, and\nwearisome book.  Teresa had a splendid imagination, but her imagination\nhad not the architectonic and dramatic quality that is necessary for\ncarrying out such a conception as that is which she has laid in the\nground-plan of this book.  No one who has ever read _The Purgatorio_ or\n_The Holy War_ could have patience with the shapeless and inconsequent\n_Mansions_.  There is nothing that is new in the matter of the\n_Mansions_; there is nothing that is not found in a far better shape in\nsome of her other books; and one is continually wearied out by her utter\ninability to handle the imagery which she will not let alone.  At the\nsame time, the persevering reader will come continually on characteristic\nthings that are never to be forgotten as he climbs with Teresa from\nstrength to strength on her way to her Father's House.\n\nTo my mind Teresa is at her very best, not in her _Mansions_ which she\nmade so much of, but in her _Letters_ which she made nothing of.  I think\nI prefer her _Letters_ to all her other books.  A great service was done\nto this fine field of literature when Teresa's letters were collected and\npublished.  What Augustine's editor has so well said about Augustine's\nletters I would borrow and would apply to Teresa's letters.  All her\nother works receive fresh light from her letters.  The subjects of her\nmore elaborate writings are all handled in her letters in a far easier, a\nfar more natural, and a far more attractive manner.  It is in her letters\nthat we first see the size and the strength and the sweep of her mind,\nand discover the deserved deference that is paid to her on all hands.\nBurdened churchmen, inquiring students in the spiritual life, perplexed\nconfessors, angry and remonstrating monks, husbands and wives, matrons\nand maidens, all find their way to Mother Teresa.  Great bundles of\nletters are delivered at the door of her cell every day, and she works at\nher answers to those letters till a bird begins to flutter in the top of\nher head, after which her physician will not suffer her to write more\nthan twelve letters at a downsitting.  And what letters they are, all\nsealed with the name of JESUS--she will seal now with no other seal.  What\nletters of a strong and sound mind go out under that seal!  What a\nbusiness head!  What shrewdness, sagacity, insight, frankness, boldness,\narchness, raillery, downright fun!  And all as full of splendid sense as\nan egg is full of meat.  If Andrew Bonar had only read Spanish, and had\nedited Teresa's _Letters_ as he has edited Rutherford's, we would have\nhad that treasure in all our houses.  As it is, Father Coleridge long ago\nfell on the happy idea of compiling a _Life of Teresa_ out of her extant\nletters, and he has at last carried out his idea, if not in all its\noriginal fulness, yet in a very admirable and praiseworthy way.  But I\nwould like to know how many of the boasted literary and religious people\nof Edinburgh have bought and read Father Coleridge's delightful book.  A\nhundred?  Ten?  Five?  I doubt it.  Or how many have so much as borrowed\nfrom the circulating library Mrs. Cunninghame Graham's first-rate book?\nOf Teresa's _Letters_, that greatest living authority on Teresa\nsays--'That long series of epistolary correspondence, so enchanting in\nthe original.  It is in her letters that Teresa is at her best.  They\nreveal all her shrewdness about business and money matters; her talent\nfor administration; her intense interest in life, and in all that is\npassing around her.  Her letters show Teresa as the Castilian gentlewoman\nwho not only treats on terms of perfect equality with people of the\nhighest rank in the kingdom, but is in the greatest request by them.  Her\nletters, of which probably only a tithe remains, show us how marvellously\nthe horizon of her life had expanded, and how rapidly her fame had grown.\nPerhaps no more finished specimen of epistolary correspondence has ever\nbeen penned than those letters, written in the press of multifarious\noccupations, and often late at night when the rest of the convent was\nsleeping.'\n\nHer confessor, who commanded Teresa to throw her _Commentary on the Song\nof Solomon_ into the fire, was a sensible man and a true friend to her\nreputation, and the nun who snatched a few leaves out of the fire did\nTeresa's fame no service.  Judging of the whole by the part preserved to\nus, there must have been many things scattered up and down the destroyed\nbook well worthy of her best pen.  The 'instance of self-esteem' which\nTeresa so delightfully narrates is well worth all the burnt fingers its\npreservation had cost the devoted sister: and up and down the charred\nleaves there are passages on conduct and character, on obedience and\nhumility and prayer, that Teresa alone could have written.  All the same,\nas a whole, her _Commentary on the Song_ is better in the fire.\n\nHer _Seven Meditations on the Lord's Prayer_ ran no danger of the\ncensor's fire.  I have had occasion to read all the best expositions of\nthe Lord's Prayer in our language, and I am bound to say that for\noriginality and striking suggestiveness Teresa's _Seven Meditations_\nstands alone.  After I had written that extravagant sentence I went back\nand read her little book over again, so sure was I that I must have\noverpraised it, and that I would not be believed in what I have said\nconcerning it.  But after another reading of the _Meditations_ I am\nemboldened to let the strong praise stand in all its original strength.  I\nhave passages marked in abundance to prove to demonstration the estimate\nI have formed of this beautiful book, but I must forego myself the\npleasure and the pride of quoting them.\n\nSixteen Augustinian _Exclamations after having Communicated_: sixty-nine\n_Advices to Her Daughters_, and a small collection of love-enflamed\n_Hymns_, complete what remains to us of Teresa's writings.\n\nTeresa died of hard work and worry and shameful neglect, almost to sheer\nstarvation.  But she had meat to eat that all Anne Bartholomew's\nremaining mites could not buy for her dying mother.  And, strong in the\nstrength of that spiritual meat, Teresa rose off her deathbed to finish\nher work.  She inspected with all her wonted quickness of eye and love of\norder the whole of the House into which she had been carried to die.  She\nsaw everything put into its proper place, and every one answering to\ntheir proper order, after which she attended the divine offices for the\nday, and then went back to her bed and summoned her daughters around her.\n'My children,' she said, 'you must pardon me much; you must pardon me\nmost of all the bad example I have given you.  Do not imitate me.  Do not\nlive as I have lived.  I have been the greatest sinner in all the world.\nI have not kept the laws I made for others.  I beseech you, my daughters,\nfor the love of God, to keep the rules of your Holy Houses as I have\nnever kept them.  O my Lord,' she then turned to Him and said, 'the hour\nI have so much longed for has surely come at last.  The time has surely\ncome that we shall see one another.  My Lord and Saviour, it is surely\ntime for me to be taken out of this banishment and be for ever with Thee.\nThe sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart,\nO God, Thou wilt not despise.  Cast me not away from Thy presence, and\ntake not Thy Holy Spirit away from me.  Create in me a clean heart, O\nGod.'  'A broken and a contrite heart; a broken and a contrite heart,'\nwas her continual cry till she died with these words on her lips, 'A\nbroken and a contrite heart Thou wilt not despise.'  And, thus, with the\nmost penitential of David's penitential Psalms in her mouth, and with the\nholy candle of her Church in her hand, Teresa of Jesus went forth from\nher banishment to meet her Bridegroom.\n\n   O sweet incendiary! shew here thy art\n   Upon this carcass of a cold hard heart;\n   Let all thy scatter'd shafts of light that play\n   Among the leaves of thy large books of day,\n   Combined against this breast at once break in\n   And take away from me myself and sin;\n   This gracious robbery shall thy bounty be,\n   And thy best fortune such fair spoils of me.\n   O thou undaunted daughter of desires!\n   By all thy dower of lights and fires;\n   By all the eagle in thee, all the dove;\n   By all thy lives and deaths of love;\n   By thy large draughts of intellectual day;\n   And all thy thirsts of love more large than they;\n   By all thy brim-filled bowls of fierce desire;\n   By thy last morning's draught of liquid fire;\n   By the full kingdom of that final kiss\n   That seized thy parting soul, and sealed thee His;\n   By all the Heavens thou hast in Him,\n   (Fair sister of the Seraphim!);\n   By all of Him we have in thee;--\n   Leave nothing of myself in me.\n   Let me so read thy life, that I\n   Unto all life of mine may die.\n\n\n\n\nSOME SELECTED PASSAGES\n\n\n* _The translations in the following pages are mainly those of Woodhead\nand Lewis_.\n\n\n\nTERESA ON HERSELF\n\n\nI had a father and a mother who both feared God.  My father had his chief\ndelight in the reading of good books, and he did his best to give his\nchildren the same happy taste.  This also helped me much, that I never\nsaw my father or my mother regard anything but goodness.  Though\npossessing very great beauty in her youth, my mother was never known to\nset any store by it.  Her apparel, even in her early married life, was\nthat of a woman no longer young.  Her life was a life of suffering, her\ndeath was most Christian.  After my mother's removal, I began to think\ntoo much about my dress and my appearance, and I pursued many such like\nthings that I was never properly warned against, full of mischief though\nthey were both to myself and to others.  I too early learned every evil\nfrom an immoral relative.  I was very fond of this woman's company.  I\ngossiped and talked with her continually.  She assisted me to all the\namusements I loved; and, what was worse, she found some very evil\namusements for me, and in every way communicated to me her own vanities\nand mischiefs.  I am amazed to think on the evil that one bad companion\ncan do; nor could I have believed it, unless I had known it by\nexperience.  The company and the conversation of this one woman so\nchanged me that scarcely any trace was left in me of my natural\ndisposition to virtue.  I became a perfect reflection of her and of\nanother who was as bad as she was.\n\nFor my education and protection my father sent me to the Augustinian\nMonastery, in which children like myself were brought up.  There was a\ngood woman in that religious house, and I began gradually to love her.\nHow impressively she used to speak to me of God!  She was a woman of the\ngreatest good sense and sanctity.  She told me how she first came to\nherself by the mere reading of these words of the Gospel, 'Many are\ncalled and few chosen.'  This good companionship began to root out the\nbad habits I had brought to that house with me; but my heart had by that\ntime become so hard that I never shed a tear, no, not though I read the\nwhole Passion through.  When at last I entered the Religious House of the\nIncarnation for life, our Lord at once made me understand how He helps\nthose who do any violence to themselves in order to serve Him.  No one\nobserved this violence in me.  They saw nothing in me but the greatest\ngoodwill.  At that sore step I was filled with a joy so great that it has\nnever wholly left me to this day.  God converted the dryness of my soul\ninto the greatest tenderness, immediately on my taking up that cross.\nEverything in religion was now a real delight to me.  I had more pleasure\nnow in sweeping the house than I had in all the balls and dances I had\nforsaken for His sake.  Whenever I remember those early days, it makes me\nready to take up any cross whatsoever.  For I know now by a long and a\nvarious experience that His Majesty richly rewards even in this life all\nthe self-denial that we do for His sake and service.  I know this by many\nexperiences; and if I were a person who had to advise and guide God's\npeople, I would urge them to fear no difficulty whatsoever in the path of\nduty: for our God is omnipotent, and He is on our side.  May He be\nblessed for ever!  Amen.\n\nO my supreme Good and my true Rest, I know not how to go on when I call\nthose happy days to mind, and think of all my evil life since then!  My\ntears ought to be tears of blood.  My heart ought to break.  But Thou,\nLord, hast borne with me for almost twenty years, till I have had time to\nimprove.  And all that it might be better known to me who Thou art and\nwhat I am.  Woe is me, my Maker!  I have no excuse, I have only blame.\nLet Thy mercy, O Lord, rest on me.  Other women there have been who have\ndone great deeds in Thy service, but I am good only to talk: all my\ngoodness ends in so many words: that is all my service of Thee, my God.\nCost me what it may, let me not go on coming to Thee with idle words and\nempty hands, seeing that the reward of every one will be according to his\nworks.  Depart not from me, and I can do all things.  Depart from me, and\nI shall return to whence I was taken, even to hell.\n\nOne of the reasons that move me, who am what I am, to write all this even\nunder obedience, and to give an account of my wretched life, and of the\ngraces the Lord hath wrought in me is this,--and would that I were a\nperson of authority, and then people would perhaps believe what I say.\nThis then is what I would say and repeat continually if any one would\nhear me.  Let no one ever say: If I fall into sin, I cannot then pray.  In\nthis the devil turned his most dreadful batteries against me.  He said to\nme that it showed very little shame in me if I could have the face to\npray, who had just been so wicked.  And under that snare of Satan I\nactually as good as gave up all prayer for a year and a half.  This was\nnothing else but to throw myself straight down into hell.  O my God, was\nthere ever such madness as mine!  Where could I think to find either\npardon for the past, or power for the time to come, but from Thee?  What\nfolly to the stumbler to run away from the light!  Let all those who\nwould give themselves to prayer, and to a holy life, look well to this.\nThey should know that when I was shunning prayer because I was so bad, my\nbadness became more abandoned than ever it had been before.  Rely on the\nwaiting and abounding goodness of God, which is infinitely greater than\nall the evil you can do.  When we acknowledge our vileness, He remembers\nit no more.  I grew weary of sinning before God grew weary of forgiving\nmy sin.  He is never weary of giving grace, nor are his compassions to be\nexhausted.  May He be blessed for ever, amen: and may all created things\npraise Him!\n\nI have made a vow--[it is known as 'the Teresian vow,' 'the seraphic\nvow,' 'the most arduous of vows,' 'a vow yet unexampled in the Church'],\na vow never to offend God in the very least matter.  I have vowed that I\nwould rather die a thousand deaths than do anything of that kind, knowing\nI was doing it.  I am resolved also, never to leave anything whatsoever\nundone that I consider to be still more perfect, and more for the honour\nof our Lord.  Cost me what pain it may, I would not leave such an act\nundone for all the treasures of the world.  If I were to do so, I do not\nthink I could have the face to ask anything of God in prayer: and yet,\nfor all that, I have many faults and imperfections remaining in me to\nthis day.\n\n\n\nON THE GODHEAD\n\n\nOn one occasion when I was in prayer I had a vision in which I saw how\nall things are seen in God.  I cannot explain what I saw, but what I saw\nremains to this day deeply imprinted on my soul.  It was a great act of\ngrace in God to give me that vision.  It puts me to unspeakable\nconfusion, shame, and horror whenever I recall that magnificent sight,\nand then think of my sin.  I believe that had the Lord been pleased to\nsend me that great revelation of Himself earlier in my life, it would\nhave kept me back from much sin.  The vision was so delicate, so subtle,\nand so spiritual, that my hard understanding cannot, at this distance of\ntime, close with it; but, to make use of an illustration, it was\nsomething like this.  Suppose the Godhead to be a vast globe of light, a\nglobe larger than the whole world, and that all our actions are seen in\nthat all-embracing globe.  It was something like that I saw.  For I saw\nall my most filthy actions gathered up and reflected back upon me from\nthat World of light.  I tell you it was a piteous and a dreadful thing to\nsee.  I knew not where to hide myself, for that shining light, in which\nwas no darkness at all, held the whole world within it, and all worlds.\nYou will see that I could not flee from its presence.  Oh that they could\nbe made to see this who commit deeds of darkness!  Oh that they but saw\nthat there is no place secret from God: but that all they do is done\nbefore Him, and in Him!  Oh the madness of committing sin in the\nimmediate presence of a Majesty so great, and to whose holiness all our\nsin is so hateful.  In this also I saw His great mercifulness in that He\nsuffers such a sinner as I am still to live.\n\n\n\nON THE SOUL\n\n\nO my God, what unspeakable sufferings our souls have to endure because\nthey have lost their liberty, and are not their own masters!  What\ntortures come on them through that!  I sometimes wonder how I can live\nthrough such agony of soul as I myself suffer.  God be praised who gives\nme His own life in my soul, so that I may escape from so deadly a death!\nMy soul has indeed received great strength from His Divine Majesty.  He\nhas had compassion on my great misery, and has helped me.  Oh, what a\ndistress it is for my soul to have to return to hold commerce with this\nworld after having had its conversation in heaven!  To have to play a\npart in the sad farce of this earthly life!  And yet I am in a strait\nbetwixt two.  I cannot run away from this world.  I must remain in it\ntill my discharge comes.  But, meantime, how keen is my captivity; how\nwretched in my own soul am I.  And one of my worst distresses is this,\nthat I am alone in my exile.  All around me people seem to have found\ntheir aim and end in life in this horrible prison-house, and to have\nsaid, Soul, take thine ease.  But the life of my soul is a life of\nincessant trouble.  The cross is always on my shoulder; at the same time\nI surely make some progress.  God is the Soul of my soul.  He engulfs\ninto Himself my soul.  He enlightens and strengthens my soul.  He attends\nto my soul night and day.  He gives my soul more and more grace.  This\nhas not come about of myself.  No effort of mine brought this about.  His\nMajesty does it all.  And He has held me by the hand, that I might not go\nback.  For this reason, it seems to me, the soul in which God works His\ngrace, if it walks in humility and in fear, it may be led into whatsoever\ntemptation, and thrown into whatsoever company, and it will only gain new\nstrength there, and win new victories and spoils there.  Those are strong\nsouls which are chosen of the Lord to work for the souls of others.  At\nthe same time, their best strength is not their own.  All that such souls\never attain to and perform, all these things only make them more humble,\nand therefore more strong; more able to despise the things of this world,\nand to lay up their treasure in those things which God hath prepared for\nthem that love Him.  May it please His Majesty that the great munificence\nwith which He has dealt with my soul, miserable sinner that I am, may\nhave some weight with some of those who read this, so that they may be\nstrong and courageous to give up everything at once and most willingly\nfor such a God!\n\n\n\nON GOD IN THE SOUL\n\n\nThis has done me a great deal of good, and it has affected me much and\nopened my eyes in many ways.  It is an ennobling thing to think that God\nis more in the soul of man than He is in aught else outside of Himself.\nThey are happy people who have once got a hold of this glorious truth.  In\nparticular, the Blessed Augustine testifies that neither in the house,\nnor in the church, nor anywhere else, did he find God, till once he had\nfound Him in himself.  Nor had he need to go up to heaven, but only down\ninto himself to find God.  Nay, he took God to heaven with him when at\nlast he went there.\n\nNow consider what our Master teaches us to say: 'Our Father which art in\nheaven.'  Think you it concerns you little to know where and what that\nheaven is, and where your Heavenly Father is to be sought and found?  I\ntell you that for vagrant minds it matters much not only to believe\naright about heaven, but to procure to understand this matter by\nexperience.  It is one of those things that strongly bind the\nunderstanding and recollect the soul.  You already know that God is in\nall places: in fine, that where God is there heaven is, and where His\nMajesty most reveals Himself there glory is.  Consider again what Saint\nAugustine said, that he sought God in many places, till at last he came\nto find Him within himself.  You need not go to heaven to see God, or to\nregale yourself with God.  Nor need you speak loud as if He were far\naway.  Nor need you cry for wings like a dove so as to fly to Him.  Settle\nyourself in solitude, and you will come upon God in yourself.  And then\nentreat Him as your Father, and relate to Him your troubles.  Those who\ncan in this manner shut themselves up in the little heaven of their own\nhearts, where He dwells who made heaven and earth, let them be sure that\nthey walk in the most excellent way: they lay their pipe right up to the\nfountain.  To keep the eyes shut is an excellent practice in prayer,\nbecause it is a summons and an assistance to turn the eyes of the soul\nwithin, where God dwells and waits in Christ to be gracious.  Account\nthus, that there is a great and beautiful palace in your soul; that its\nstructure is all of gold and precious stones; that your gifts and graces\nare those shining stones, and that the greater your virtues are the more\nthose precious stones sparkle.  And, also, that in this palace the Great\nKing is your guest.  He sits on the innermost seat of your heart, and\nholds it to be His best and bravest throne.  This will seem to some a\nsilly fiction.  And yet, if you will believe it, fiction as it is, it\nwill help you much; you especially who are women.  For we women sorely\nwant such assistance to our thoughts.  And, God grant that it be only\nwomen who need such assistance to show them how base is the use they make\nof themselves.  There should be some difference between us, both men and\nwomen, and the brute beasts.  The brute beasts are nowhere said to be\ntemples of God, and they are nowhere called to account because their god\nis their belly.  O great God, I tremble to see that I have written such a\npage as the above, being such a wretch as I am.  My daughters, in their\nown goodness, will be tempted to think that all this is true of myself,\nand that is a terrible thought to me.  On the other hand, it is true of\nGod and their own souls.  Now let men pass a thousand censures on me, and\non my way of teaching the truth.  What of that, if only God and His ways\nbe a little better known and loved!  My sisters, the King is in His\npalace all this time.  There are hostile invasions of His borders, and\ninroads made into His territories, but He abides all the time on His\nthrone.  I smile at the weakness and unworthiness of all those\ncomparisons of palaces, and thrones, and shining stones, and enemies on\nthe border.  They in no way satisfy me.  But I am a woman, and I can find\nout no better words for you women.  Think and say of my words what you\nplease.  The thing that I have spoken to you is the truth.\n\n\n\nON THE LOVE OF GOD\n\n\nThe true proficiency of the soul consists not so much in deep thinking or\neloquent speaking or beautiful writing as in much and warm loving.  Now\nif you ask me in what way this much and warm love may be acquired, I\nanswer,--By resolving to do the will of God, and by watching to do His\nwill as often as occasion offers.  Those who truly love God love all good\nwherever they find it.  They seek all good to all men.  They encourage\nall good in all men.  They commend all good, they always unite themselves\nwith all good, they always acknowledge and defend all good.  They have no\nquarrels.  They bear no envy.  O Lord, give me more and more of this\nblessed love.  Grant me grace not to quit this underworld life till I no\nlonger desire anything, nor am capable of loving anything, save Thee\nalone.  Grant that I may use this word 'love' with regard to Thee alone,\nsince there is no solidity for my love to rest on save in Thee.  The soul\nhas her own ways of understanding, and of finding in herself, by certain\nsigns and great conjectures, whether she really loves His Divine Majesty\nor no.  Her love is full of high impulses, and longings to see and to be\nwith and to be like God.  All else tires and wearies out the soul.  The\nbest of created things disappoint and torment the soul.  God alone\nsatisfies the soul, till it is impossible to dissemble or mistake such a\nlove.  When once I came to see the great beauty of our Lord, it turned\nall other comeliness to corruption to me.  My heart could rest on nothing\nand on no one but Himself.  When anything else would enter my heart I had\nonly to turn my eyes for a moment in upon that Supreme Beauty that was\nengraven within me.  So that it is now impossible that any created thing\ncan so possess my soul as not to be instantly expelled, and my mind and\nheart set free by a little effort to recover the remembrance of the\ngoodness and the beauty of our Lord.  Good God!  What a difference there\nis between the love of the Creator and the love of the creature!  May His\nDivine Majesty vouchsafe to let us see and taste and understand something\nof this before He takes us out of this prison-house life, for it will be\na magnificent comfort in the hour of death to know that we are on our way\nto be judged by Him whom we have loved above all things.  We are not\ngoing to a strange country, since it is His country whom we love and who\nloves us.  These things being so, I have this very day solaced my soul\nwith our Lord, and have made my moan to Him in this manner.  O my Lord,\nwhy keepest Thou Thy servant in this miserable life so long, where all is\nsuch vexation, and disappointment, and manifold trouble?  And not only\nkeepest me so long in this banishment, but so hidest Thyself from me.  Is\nthis worthy of Thee and of Thy great goodness?  Were I what Thou art, and\nwert Thou what I am, Thou wouldest not have to endure it at my hands.  I\nbeseech Thee, O my Lord, to consider that this is a kind of injury and\nwrong to proceed after this manner with one who loves Thee so much.  This\nand the like have come into my heart to say: though my bed in hell better\nbecomes me than so to speak to my Lord.  At the same time, the love I\nbear my Lord sometimes so consumes me that I am beside myself, till I\nscarce know what I say or do; and then I find myself making such\nunbecoming complaints that I am amazed our Lord endures them at my hands.\nEternal praise to so good a Lord!\n\n\n\nON THE LOVE OF OUR NEIGHBOUR\n\n\nThere are only two duties that our Lord requires of us,--the love of God,\nand the love of our neighbour.  And, in my opinion, the surest sign for\ndiscovering our love to God is our love to our neighbour.  And be assured\nthat the further you advance in the love of your neighbour, the further\nyou are advancing in the love of God likewise.  But, oh me, how many\nworms lie gnawing at the roots of our love to our neighbour!  Self-love,\nself-esteem, fault-finding, envy, anger, impatience, scorn.  I assure you\nI write this with great grief, seeing myself to be so miserable a sinner\nagainst all my neighbours.  Our Lord, my sisters, expects works.\nTherefore when you see any one sick, compassionate her as if she were\nyourself.  Pity her.  Fast that she may eat.  Wake that she may sleep.\nAgain, when you hear any one commended and praised, rejoice in it as much\nas if you were commended and praised yourself.  Which, indeed, should be\neasy, because where humility truly is, praise is a torment.  Cover also\nyour sister's defects as you would have your own defects and faults\ncovered and not exposed.  As often as occasion offers, lift off your\nneighbour's burden.  Take it off her heart and on upon yourself.  Satan\nhimself would not be Satan any longer if he could once love his neighbour\nas himself.\n\nEndeavour, my daughters, all you can, to be affable to all.  Demean\nyourselves so that all who have to do with you may love your\nconversation, so as to desire after your way of life.  Let no one be\naffrighted or turned away from the life of virtue and religion by your\ngloom and morosity.  This concerns religious women very much.  The more\nholy they are, the more affable and sociable should they study to be.\nNever hold aloof from others because their conversation is not altogether\nto your taste.  Love them, and they will love you, and then they will\nconverse with you, and will become like you, and better than you.  Let\nnot your soul coop itself up in a corner.  For, instead of attaining to\ngreater sanctity in a proud, and disdainful, and impatient seclusion, the\ndevil will keep you company there, and will do your sequestered soul much\nmischief.  Bury evil affections in good works.  Wherefore be accessible\nand affable to all, and all in love.  Love is an endless enchantment, and\nspell, and fascination.\n\n\n\nON OUR SINFULNESS\n\n\nThis is a very fit place for thinking on our wounds, and bruises, and\nputrifying sores: the blindness of our minds, the depravity and the\nbondage of our wills, the forgetfulness of our memories, the slipperiness\nof our tongues, the levity and frivolity of our hearts, with all their\nextravagances, presumptions, neglects.  In fine, let there be no\nspiritual wound within us, great or small, old or new, which we do not\ndaily discover and lay open to our Sovereign Physician, beseeching of Him\na remedy.  This day it is very proper to call to mind the five fountains\nof our Lord's wounds, which are still open, and will remain open till the\nlast day for the cure of all the sores of our souls.  And since out of\nHis wounds we receive our spiritual health, let us mollify our wounds\nwith the ointment of mortification and humility and meekness: in all\nthings always employing ourselves for the benefit of our neighbour.\nSince, though we cannot have our Lord visibly and in presence beside us,\nwe have our neighbour, who for the ends of love and loving service is as\ngood as our Lord Himself.\n\n\n\nON THE WORLD\n\n\nI saw that rich and great as she was, she was still a woman, and as much\nliable to all manner of passion and all womanly weakness as I was myself.\nI saw as I lived in her house that rank is of little worth, and the\nhigher it is, the greater the trouble and the anxiety it brings with it.\nGreat people must be careful of their dignity.  It will not suffer them\nto live at ease.  They must eat at fixed hours and by rule, for\neverything must be according to their state, and not according to their\nconstitutions.  And they have frequently to take food more fitted for\ntheir state than for their liking.  So it was that I came to hate the\nwish to be a great lady.  God deliver me from this artificial and evil\nlife!  Then, as to servants, though this lady has very good servants, how\nslight is the trust she is able to put in them.  One must not be\nconversed with more than the rest, otherwise he is envied and hated of\nall the rest.  This of itself is a slavery; and it is another of the lies\nof the world to call such people masters and mistresses, who, in reality,\nare nothing but slaves in a thousand ways.  I really see nothing good in\nthe world and its ways but this, that it will not tolerate the smallest\nfault in those who are not its own.  For by detracting, and\nfault-finding, and evil-reporting on the good, the world greatly helps to\nperfect them.  He who will not die to the world shall die by it.  O\nwretched world!  Bless God, my daughters, that He has chosen and enabled\nyou to turn your backs for ever on a thing so base.  The world is to be\nknown by this also, that it esteems a man not by what he is, but by what\nhe possesses: by what is in his purse: and, that failing, the honour and\nesteem of the world instantly fail also.  O our Lord; Supreme Power,\nSupreme Goodness, Supreme Truth; Thy perfections are without beginning\nand without end.  They are infinite and incomprehensible.  They are a\nbottomless ocean of beauty.  O my God, that I had the eloquence of an\nangel's speech to set forth Thy goodness and Thy truth, and to win all\nmen over to Thee!\n\n\n\nON EVIL-SPEAKING\n\n\nAfter my vow of perfection I spake not ill of any creature, how little\nsoever it might be.  I scrupulously avoided all approaches to detraction.\nI had this rule ever present with me, that I was not to wish, nor assent\nto, nor say such things of any person whatsoever, that I would not have\nthem say of me.  And as time went on, I succeeded in persuading those who\nwere about me to adopt the same habit, till it came to be understood that\nwhere I was absent persons were safe.  So they were also with all those\nwhom I so instructed.  Still, for all that, I have a sufficiently strict\naccount to give to God for the bad example I am to all about me in some\nother respects.  May it please His Majesty to forgive me, for I have been\nthe cause of much evil.  For one thing, the devil sometimes fills me with\nsuch a harsh and cruel temper: such a spirit of anger and hostility at\nsome people, that I could eat them up and annihilate them.  At the same\ntime, concerning things said of myself in detraction, and they are many,\nand are very prejudicial to me, I find myself much improved.  These\nthings make little impression upon me.  I am under them as a deaf man\nthat hears not, and as a man in whose mouth there is no retaliation.  Nay,\nI almost always see that my greatest detractors have only too good reason\nfor what they say.  In this way my soul actually gains peace and strength\nunder detraction, till it becomes a great favour done me, and a great\nadvantage.  Upon betaking myself to prayer, I find in my heart neither\nrepugnance at my detractors nor enmity.  For, although, when I first hear\nthe detraction, it causes me a little disconcert, yet not any\nlong-lasting disquiet or alteration.  Nay, sometimes when I see people\ntake pity on me because of my detractors, I laugh at them, so little do\nall my detractors now hurt me.\n\n\n\nON SELF-EXCUSING\n\n\nThat which I am now to persuade you to, namely, the not excusing of\nyourselves, causes a great confusion in me.  For it is a very perfect\nquality and of great merit; and I ought far better to practise what I\ntell you concerning this excellent virtue.  I confess myself to be but\nlittle improved in this noble duty.  For it is a mark of the deepest and\ntruest humility to see ourselves condemned without cause, and to be\nsilent under it.  It is a very noble imitation of our Lord.  Were I truly\nhumble, I would desire disesteem, even though having in the matter in\nhand given no real offence.  Here no bodily strength is needed, my\ndaughters, nor any one's assistance, but God's.  How well is this\nwritten, and how ill is it practised by the writer!  Indeed, I never\ncould make trial of this grace in any matter of consequence, because I\nnever heard of any one speaking ill of me, but I immediately saw how far\nshort he came of the full truth.  For, if he was wrong or exaggerated in\nhis particulars, I had offended God much more in other matters that my\ndetractor knew nothing about.  And, methought, God favoured me much in\nnot proclaiming my secret sins to all men.  And, thus, I am very glad\nthat my detractor should ever report a trifling lie about me, rather than\nthe terrible truth.\n\nO my Lord, when I remember in how many ways Thou didst suffer detraction\nand misrepresentation, who in no way deserved it, I know not where my\nsenses are when I am in such a haste to defend and excuse myself.  Is it\npossible that I should desire any one to speak any good of me, or to\nthink it, when so many ill things were thought and spoken of Thee!  What\nis this, O Lord; what do we imagine to get by pleasing worms, or being\npraised by them?  What about being blamed by all men, if only we stand at\nlast blameless before Thee!\n\n\n\nON PRAISE, PRECEDENCY, AND POINTS OF HONOUR\n\n\nObserve carefully the stirrings of your heart in matters of superiority.\nPray to be delivered from such thoughts as these: I am older.  I deserve\nbetter.  I have laboured more.  I have more talent.  Such thoughts are\nthe plague and poison of the heart.  Believe me, if there remain in you\nany allowed hankerings after the praises of men, though you may have\nspent many years in prayer, or rather in idle forms of prayer, you have\nmade no progress, and never will, till your heart is crucified to the\napproval and the praise of men.  If you feel in yourself any point of\nhonour, any pride, any desire of eminence or pre-eminence, you must free\nyourself from that abominable bondage, and for that chain there is no\nhammer and file like humility and prayer.  Among the rest of my great\nimperfections this was one.  I had very little knowledge of my Breviary,\nor of that which was to be sung in the choir, and all the while I saw\nthat some other novices could instruct me.  But I was too proud to ask\nany questions.  I was afraid that my great ignorance should be\ndiscovered.  Shortly afterwards a good example was set before me, and\nthen, when God had once opened my eyes to my sinful pride, I was content\nto ask information and the help even of little children.  And yet,--and\nthis surprised me, I lost no credit or honour thereby.  Nay, it seemed to\nme that my Lord after that gave me better skill and a better memory.  I\ncould sing but very ill, and I was troubled at this, not because I failed\nin my worship of God, but because so many heard me, and thus I was\ndisturbed on the mere point of honour and praise.  I told them that I\ncould not do what others did, and what was expected of me.  At first I\nhad some difficulty in this, but it soon became both natural and pleasant\nto me to tell the truth.  By these nothings,--and they are really\nnothings, and I am sufficiently nothing when such things could put me to\nso much pain,--and by little and little His Divine Majesty vouchsafed to\nsupply me with strength.  I was never good at the choir, but I tried to\ndo my part for it in folding up the mantles of the singers; and,\nmethought, in that I was serving the angels of God who so well praised\nHim.  I did that also by stealth, such was my pride, and my pride was\nhurt when they discovered what I did.  O my Lord, who that ever reads\nthis can fail to despise and abhor me?  I beseech Thy Divine Majesty that\nI may soon be able to leave all such vanities as the praise and blame of\nmen, and seek Thy praise only!  And then add this, which is worth\nknowing.  The devil will not dare to tempt one to pride or precedency who\nis truly humble because, being very crafty, he fears defeat.  If you are\ntruly humble, you will only grow in that grace by every temptation to\npride or praise.  For, immediately on the temptation, you will reflect on\nyour whole past life and present character, and on the stupendous\nhumility of Jesus Christ.  And by these considerations your tempted soul\nwill come off so victorious, that the enemy will think twice before he\ncomes back, for fear of a broken head.\n\n\n\nON HUMILITY\n\n\nKeep yourselves, my daughters, from that false humility which the devil\nsuggests concerning the greatness of your sins.  For hereby he is wont to\ndisquiet our souls after sundry sorts, and to draw us off Holy Communion,\nand also from prayer.  It is sometimes a great and a true humility to\nesteem ourselves as bad as may be, but at other times it is a false and a\nspurious humility.  I know it, for I have experienced it.  True humility,\nhowever great, does not disquiet nor disorder the soul.  It comes with\ngreat peace, and great serenity, and great delight.  Though we should see\nour utter wickedness, and how truly we deserve to be in hell, and think\nthat both God and man must despise and abhor us; yet, if this be a true\nhumility, it comes with a certain sweetness and satisfaction attending\nit.  This humility does not stifle nor crush the soul.  It rather dilates\nthe soul, and disposes the soul for the better service of God.  While\nthat other sorrow troubles all, and confounds all, and destroys all.  It\nis the devil's humility when he gets us to distrust God.  When you find\nyourselves thus, lay aside all thinking on your own misery, and meditate\non the infinite mercy of God, and on the inexhaustible merit and grace of\nJesus Christ.\n\nI was once considering what the reason was why our Lord loved humility in\nus so much, when I suddenly remembered that He is essentially the Supreme\nTruth, and that humility is just our walking in the truth.  For it is a\nvery great truth that we have no good in us, but only misery and\nnothingness, and he who does not understand this walks in lies: but he\nwho understands this the best is the most pleasing to the Supreme Truth.\nMay God grant us this favour, sisters, never to be without the humbling\nknowledge of ourselves.\n\nO Sovereign Virtues!  O Ladies of all the creatures!  O Empresses of the\nwhole world!  Whoever hath you may go forth and fight boldly with all\nhell at once.  Let your soldiers not fear, for victory is already theirs.\nThey only fear to displease God.  They constantly beseech Him to maintain\nall the virtues in them.  It is true these virtues have this property, to\nhide themselves from him who possesses them, so that he never sees them\nin himself, nor thinks that he can ever possess a single one of them.\nOther men see all the virtues in him, but he so values them that he still\npursues them, and seeks them as something never to be attained by such as\nhe is.  And Humility is one of them, and is Queen and Empress and\nSovereign over them all.  In fine, one act of true humility in the sight\nof God is of more worth than all the knowledge, sacred and profane, in\nthe whole world.\n\n\n\nON SORROW FOR SIN\n\n\nIt is indeed a very great misery to live on in this evil world where our\nenemies are ever at our gate, and where we can neither eat nor sleep in\npeace, but are compelled to have our armour on night and day.  There is\nno rest here, nor happiness, nor will be till we are with the\nEverlastingly Blessed.  As I write I am seized with terror, lest I should\nnever escape this sinful life.  Pray for me, my daughters, that Christ\nmay ever live in me: for, otherwise, what security can there be for such\nas I am, who have been so wicked.  You may sometimes have thought, my\ndaughters, that those to whom the Lord particularly communicates Himself,\nwill be henceforth secure of enjoying Him for ever, and that they will\nhave no need to fear or bewail their former sins.  But this is a great\nmistake.  Sorrow for sin increases in proportion as more and more grace\nis received from God.  And I, for my part, believe, that this bitter\nsorrow will never leave us till we come where neither sin nor anything\nelse will ever disquiet us.  True, both past sin, and present sinfulness,\naffect us more at one time than at another; and, likewise, in a different\nmanner.  I know one who often wishes for death, that she may be freed\nfrom the torment of her sinful heart.  No one's sins can equal hers,\nbecause there can be no one who has obtained such favours of her God.  Her\nfear is not so much of hell, as that she should so grieve God's Holy\nSpirit, that He will be wearied out, and will forsake her, and leave her\nin her sins.  This fear and pain is not at all eased by believing that\nher past sins have all been forgiven and forgotten of God.  Nay, her fear\nand pain but increase by seeing such mercy extended toward a woman who\ndeserves nothing but hell.\n\n\n\nON LEARNING AND INTELLECT\n\n\nI always had a great respect and affection for intellectual and learned\nmen.  It is my experience that all who intend to be true Christians will\ndo well to treat with men of mind and books about their souls.  The more\nlearning our preachers and pastors have the better.  For if they have not\nmuch experience themselves, yet they know the Scriptures and the recorded\nexperiences of the saints better than we do.  The devil is exceedingly\nafraid of learning, especially where it is accompanied with humility and\nvirtue.  For my own part, I bless God continually, and we women, and all\nsuch as are not ourselves intellectual or learned, are always to give God\ninfinite thanks that there are some men in the world who take such great\npains to attain to that knowledge which we need but do not possess.  And\nit delights me to see men taking the immense trouble they do take to\nbring me so much profit, and that without any trouble to me.  I have only\nto sit still and hear them.  I have only to come and ask them a question.\nLet us pray for our teachers, for what would we do without them.  I\nbeseech the Lord to bless our teachers, that they may be more and more a\nblessing to us.\n\nWhen I spoke of humility, it must not be understood as if I spoke against\naspiring after the highest things that mind and heart and life can attain\nto.  For though I have no ability for the wisdom and the knowledge of God\nmyself, and am so miserable that God did me a great favour in teaching me\nthe very lowliest truths: yet, in my judgment, learning and knowledge are\nvery great possessions, and a great assistance in the life of prayer, if\nonly they are always accompanied with humility.  I have of late seen some\nvery learned men become in addition very spiritual and prayerful men.  And\nthat makes me pray that all our men of mind and learning may soon become\nspiritual men and men of much prayer.\n\nLet no one be admitted into this House unless she is a woman of a sound\nunderstanding.  For if she is without mind she will neither know herself,\nnor understand her teachers.  For the most part they that are defective\nin mind ever think that they understand things better than their\nteachers.  And ignorance and self-conceit is a disease that is incurable;\nand besides, it usually carries great malice along with it.  Many speak\nmuch and understand little.  Others, again, speak little and not very\nelegantly, and yet they have a sound understanding.  There is such a\nthing as a holy simplicity that knows little of anything but of how to\ntreat with God.  At the same time commend me to holy people of good\nheads.  From silly devotees, may God deliver us!  While all that is true,\nin the very act of prayer itself there is little necessity for learning,\nfor the mind then, because of its nearness to the light, is itself\nimmediately illuminated.  I myself, who am what I am, even I am a\ndifferent person in prayer.  It has often happened to me, who scarcely\nunderstand a word of what I read in Latin, when in deep prayer, to\nunderstand the Latin Psalms as if they were Spanish.  At the same time,\neven for prayer, let those who have to teach and preach take full\nadvantage of their learning, that they may help poor people of little\nlearning, of whom I am one.  Ministering with all learning and all\nintellectual ability to souls is a great thing, when it is done unto God.\nI have many experiences in prayer that I do not understand, and cannot\nexplain or defend.  Our Lord has not been pleased to give me the full\nintellectual understanding of all His dealings with me.  That is the\ntruth.  Though you, my father, may think that I have a quick\nunderstanding, it is in reality not so.  Sometimes my advisers used to be\namazed at my ignorance how God carried on His work within me.  It was\nthere, but the way of it was a great deep to me.  I could neither wade\nout unto God, nor down into myself.  Though, as I have said, I loved to\nconverse with men of mind as well as of heart.  At the same time, my\ndifficulties but increased my devotion, and the greater my difficulty the\ngreater the increase of my devotion.  Praise His Name.\n\n\n\nON PRAYER\n\n\n(1) _The Price of Prayer_.--O Thou Lord of my soul, and my Eternal Good,\nwhy is it that when a soul resolves to follow Thee, and to do her best to\nforsake all for Thee,--why is it that Thou dost not instantly perfect Thy\nlove and Thy peace within that soul?  But I have spoken unadvisedly and\nfoolishly, for it is we who are at fault in prayer, and never Thee.  We\nare so long and so slow in giving up our hearts to Thee.  And then Thou\nwilt not permit our enjoyment of Thee without our paying well for so\nprecious a possession.  There is nothing in all the world wherewith to\nbuy the shedding abroad of Thy love in our heart, but our heart's love.\nIf, however, we did what we could, not clinging with our hearts to\nanything whatsoever in this world, but having our treasure and our\nconversation in heaven, then this blessedness would soon be ours, as all\nThy saints testify.  God never withholds Himself from him who pays this\nprice and who perseveres in seeking Him.  He will, little by little, and\nnow and then, strengthen and restore that soul, till at last it is\nvictorious.  If he who enters on this road only does violence enough to\nhimself, with the help of God, he will not only go to heaven himself, but\nhe will not go alone: he will take others with him.  God will give him,\nas to a good leader, those who will go after him.  Only, let not any man\nof prayer ever expect to enjoy his whole reward here.  He must remain a\nman of faith and prayer to the end.  Let him resolve, then, that whatever\nhis aridity and sense of indevotion may be, he will never let himself\nsink utterly under his cross.  And the day will come when he will receive\nall his petitions in one great answer, and all his wages in one great\nreward.  For he serves a good Master, who stands over him watching him.\nAnd let him never give over because of evil thoughts, even if they are\nsprung upon him in the middle of his prayer, for the devil so vexed the\nholy Jerome even in the wilderness.  But all these toils of soul have\ntheir sure reward, and their just recompense set out for them.  And, I\ncan assure you, as one who knows what she is saying, that one single drop\nof water out of God's living well will both sustain you and reward you\nfor another day and another night of your life of life-long prayer.\n\n(2) _Sin spoils Prayer_.--Now I saw that there would be no answer to me\ntill I had entire purity of conscience, and no longer regarded any\niniquity whatsoever in my heart.  I saw that there were some secret\naffections still left in me, which, though they were not very bad perhaps\nin themselves, yet in a life of prayer such as I was attempting those\nremanent affections spoiled all.\n\n(3) _Eighteen Years of Misery in Prayer_.--It is not without very good\nreason that I have dwelt so long on this part of my life.  It will give\nno one any pleasure to see any one so base as I was.  And I wish all who\nread this to have me in abhorrence.  I failed in all obedience, because I\nwas not leaning on my strong pillar of prayer.  I passed nearly twenty\nyears of my life on this stormy sea, constantly tossed with tempest and\nnever coming to harbour.  It was the most painful life that can be\nimagined, because I had no sweetness in God, and certainly no sweetness\nin sin.  I was often very angry with myself on account of the many tears\nI shed for my faults, when I could not but see how little improvement all\nmy tears made in me.  All my tears did not hold me back from sin when the\nopportunity returned.  Till I came to look on my tears as little short of\na delusion: and yet they were not.  It was the goodness of the Lord to\ngive me such compunction even when it was not as yet accompanied with\ncomplete reformation.  But the whole root of my evil lay in my not\nthoroughly avoiding all occasions of sin, and in my confessors, who\nhelped me at that time so little.  If they had only told me what a\ndangerous road it was I was travelling in, and that I was bound to break\noff all occasions of sin, I do believe, without any doubt, that the\nmatter would have been remedied at once.  Nevertheless, I can trace\ndistinctly the mercy of God to me in that all the time I had still the\ncourage to pray.  I say courage, because I know nothing in the whole\nworld that requires greater courage than plotting treason against the\nKing, knowing that He knows it, and yet continuing to frequent His\npresence in prayer.  I spent more than eighteen years in that miserable\nattempt to reconcile God and my life of sin.  The reason that I tell and\nrepeat all this so often is that all who read what I write may understand\nhow great is that grace God works in the soul when He gives it a\ndisposition to pray on, even when it has not yet left off all sin.  If\nthat soul perseveres, in spite of sin, and temptation, and many relapses,\nour Lord will bring that soul at last--I am certain of it--to the harbour\nof salvation, to which He is surely bringing myself.  I will say what I\nknow by experience,--let him never cease from prayer, who has once begun\nto pray, be his life ever so bad.  For prayer is the only way to amend\nhis life, and without prayer it will never be mended.  Let him not be\ntempted of the devil, as I was, to give up prayer on account of his\nunworthiness.  Let him rather believe that if he will only still repent\nand pray, our Lord will still hear and answer.  For myself, very often I\nwas more occupied with the wish to see the end of the hour.  I used\nactually to watch the sand-glass.  And the sadness I sometimes felt on\nentering my oratory was so great, that it required all my courage to\nforce myself in.  In the end our Lord came to my help: and, then, when I\nhad done this violence to myself, I found far greater peace and joy than\nwhen I prayed with regale and rapture.  If our Lord then bore so long\nwith me in all my wickedness, why should any one despair, however wicked\nhe may be?  Let him have been ever so wicked up till now, he will not\nremain in his wickedness so many years as I did after receiving so many\ngraces from our Lord.  And this more I will say,--prayer was the true\ndoor by which our Lord distributed out all His grace so liberally to me.\nPrayer and trust.  I used indeed to pray for help: but I see now that I\ncommitted all the time the fatal mistake of not putting my whole trust in\nHis Majesty.  I should have utterly and thoroughly distrusted and\ndetested and suspected myself.  I sought for help.  I sometimes took\ngreat pains to get it.  But I did not understand of how little use all\nthat is unless we root utterly all confidence out of ourselves, and place\nit at once, and for ever, and absolutely in God.  Those were eighteen\nmiserable years.\n\n(4) _Aridity in Prayer_.--Let no one weary or lose heart in prayer\nbecause of aridity.  For the Hearer of prayer comes in all such cases\nvery late.  But at last He comes.  And though He confessedly comes late,\nHe correspondingly makes up to the soul for all His delays, and rewards\nher on the spot for all her toil, and dryness, and discouragement of many\nyears.  I have great pity on those who give way and lose all this through\nnot being taught to persevere in prayer.  It is a bad beginning, and very\nprejudicial to proficiency in prayer, to use it for the gust and\nconsolation that a man receives at the time.  I know by my own\nexperience, that he who determines to pray, not much heeding either\nimmediate comfort or dejection, he has got into one of the best secrets\nof prayer.  I am troubled to hear that grave men, and men of learning and\nunderstanding, complain that God does not give them sensible devotion.  It\nproceeds from ignorance of the true life of prayer, and from not carrying\nthe cross into prayer as into all the rest of the spiritual life.  He who\nbegins to pray should be well told that he begins to plant a fine garden\nin very bad soil; a soil full of the most noxious and ineradicable weeds.\nAnd that after good herbs and plants and flowers have been sown, then he\nhas to weed and water and fence and watch that garden night and day and\nall his life.  Till the Lord of the garden is able to come and recreate\nand regale Himself where once there was nothing but weeds, and stones,\nand noxious vermin.  Prayer, howsoever perfect in itself it may be, must\nalways be directed in upon the performance of good works.  We must not\ncontent ourselves with the gift of prayer, or with liberty and\nconsolation and gust in prayer.  We must come out from prayer the most\nrapturous and sweet only to do harder and ever harder works for God and\nour neighbour.  Otherwise the prayer is not good, and the gusts are not\nfrom God.  The growth and maturity and fruitfulness of the soul do not\nstand in liberty in prayer, but in love.  And this love is got not by\nspeaking much but by doing and suffering much.  For my part, and I have\nbeen long at it, I desire no other gift of prayer but that which ends in\nevery day making me a better and better woman.  By its fruits your prayer\nwill be known to yourselves and others.\n\nAt other times I find myself so arid that I am not able to form any\ndistinct idea of God, nor can I put my soul into an attitude of prayer,\nthough I am in the place of prayer, and though I feel that I know\nsomething of God.  This mind of mine at such times is like a born fool or\nsome idiot creature that nothing can bind down.  I cannot command myself.\nI cannot properly say one _Credo_.  At such times I laugh bitterly at\nmyself, and see clearly my own natural misery.  I come then to see the\nexceeding favour of the Lord in that He ever holds this insane fool fast\nin prayer and holiness.  What would those who love and honour me think if\nthey saw their friend in this dotage and distraction?  I reflect at such\ntimes on the great hurt our original sin has done us.  For it is from our\nfirst fall that all this has come to us that we so wander from God, and\nare so often utterly incapable of God.  But it is not so much Adam's sin\nas my own that works in me all this alienation and inability and aridity.\nMethinks I love God; but my actions, and the endless imperfections I see\nin myself, cause me great fear, and deep and inconsolable distress.\n\n(5) _Prayer after Sin_.--Never let any one leave off prayer on any\npretence: great sins committed, or any other pretence whatsoever.  For by\nleaving off prayer the soul will be finally lost, while every return to\nprayer is new life and new strength, as I am continually telling you.  I\ntell you again that the leaving off of prayer was the most devilish and\nthe most deadly temptation I ever met with.\n\n(6) _Meditation in Prayer_.--He who prays should often stop to think with\nwhom he speaks: who he himself is who speaks: who Jesus Christ is through\nwhom he speaks: what that country is to which he aspires: how he may best\nplease Him who dwells there: and what he is to do so that his character\nand disposition may suit with God's disposition and character.  Mental\nprayer, as I am wont to call it, is the constant meditation of such\nthings as these.  And mental prayer ought to be endeavoured after by all,\nthough they have no virtues, because it is the beginning of them, and\ntherefore the one interest of all men is at once to begin such prayer.\nBut it will be exercised with no little difficulty unless the steady\nacquisition of the virtues accompanies it.  In prayer it is far best to\nbe alone; as, for our example and instruction, our Lord always was when\nHe prayed.  For we cannot talk both to God and man at the same moment.\nAnd, if we feel too much alone, and must have company, no company is\ncomparable to Christ's company.  Let us picture and represent Christ to\nourselves and to His Father as always at our side.  Those who pray with\nproper preparation: that is, with much meditation on the whole life and\ndeath of our Lord: on their own death: on the last day, or such like, our\nLord will bring all such to the port of light.  Meditate much on the\nSacred Humanity of our Lord: what He was on earth: what He said: what He\ndid, and what He suffered.  Because this life of ours is long and uphill,\nwhich to pass well through needs the constant presence with us of our\ngreat Exemplar, Jesus Christ.\n\n(7) _The Presence of God in Prayer_.--In prayer there would sometimes\ncome upon me such a sense of the Presence of God that I seemed to be all\nengulfed in God.  I think the learned call this mystical experience; at\nany rate, it so suspends the ordinary operations of the soul that she\nseems to be wholly taken out of herself.  This tenderness, this\nsweetness, this regale is nothing else but the Presence of God in the\npraying soul.  At the same time, I believe that we can greatly help\ntoward the obtaining of God's Presence.  We obtain it by considering much\nour own baseness, the neglect and the ingratitude we show toward the Son\nof God, how much He has done for us, His passion and terrible suffering,\nHis whole life so full of affliction, by delighting ourselves in His word\nand in His works, and such things as these.  And if in these reflections\nthe soul be seized with the Presence of God, then the whole soul is\nregaled as I have described.  The heart is filled with relenting.  Tears\nalso abound.  In this way does the Divine Majesty repay us even here for\nany little care we take to serve Him and to be with Him.  The life of\nprayer is just love to God and the custom of being ever with Him.\n\n(8) _Supernatural Prayer_.--In supernatural prayer God places the soul in\nHis immediate Presence, and in an instant bestows Himself upon the soul\nin a way she could never of herself attain to.  He manifests something of\nHis greatness to the soul at such times: something of His beauty,\nsomething of His special and particular grace.  And the soul enjoys God\nwithout dialectically understanding just how she so enjoys Him.  She\nburns with love without knowing what she has done to deserve or to\nprepare herself for such a rapture.  It is the gift of God, and He gives\nHis gifts to whomsoever and whensoever He will.  This, my daughters, is\nperfect contemplation: this is supernatural prayer.  Now this is the\ndifference between natural and supernatural prayer: between mental and\ntranscendental prayer.  In ordinary prayer we more or less understand\nwhat we say and do.  We think of Him to whom we speak; we think about\nourselves and about our Surety and Mediator.  In all this, by God's help,\nwe can do something, so to speak, of ourselves.  But in pure supernatural\nand transcendental prayer, we do nothing at all.  His Divine Majesty it\nis who does it all.  He works in us at such elect seasons what far\ntranscends and overtops all the powers and resources even of the renewed\nnature.  At the same time, as a far-off means of attaining to\nsupernatural prayer, it is necessary to put upon ourselves the acquiring\nof the great virtues, and especially, humility: we must give up and\nresign ourselves wholly and entirely unto God.  Whoever will not attempt\nto do this, with all the grace of God, that man will never come within\nsight of the highest prayer.  Let him, in absolutely everything, seat\nhimself in the lowest place.  Let him account himself utterly and\nhopelessly unworthy of everything he possesses, both in nature and in\ngrace.  Let him shun advancement.  Let him apply himself to daily\nmortification, not of the body so much as of the mind and the heart, and\nlet him be more than content with the least thing that God allows him,\nfor this is true humility.  In short, let His Majesty lead us in any way\nHe pleases, and the chances are that He will soon lead us by these ways\nto a life of prayer and communion it had not entered into our hearts to\nconceive possible to such sinners as we are.  Let no man be too much cast\ndown, because he has not yet attained to supernatural prayer.  God leads\nHis people in the way that He chooses out as best for Him and for them.\nAnd he who stands low in his own eyes, may all the time stand high in\nGod's eyes.  Supernatural prayer is not necessary to salvation: nor doth\nGod require it of us.  They shall not fail of salvation who practise\nthemselves in the solid virtues.  No, they may have more merit in His\neyes than their more favoured neighbours, because their obedience, and\ntheir faith, and their love have cost them more.  Their Lord deals with\nthem as with strong and valiant men, appointing them travail and trouble\nhere, that they may fight for Him the good fight of faith, and only come\nin for the prize at the end.  And, after all, what greater mark of a high\nelection can there be than to taste much of the cross?  Whom the Lord\nloveth, in that measure He lays on them His cross.  And the heaviest of\nall our crosses is a life of sanctification and service without sensible\nconsolation.\n\n(9) _Over-familiarity in Prayer_.--He was a man of a powerful\nunderstanding.  I thought on his great gifts, and the possibilities there\nwere in him of doing great service if he were once entirely devoted to\nGod.  He asked me to recommend him much to God, and I did not need to be\nasked.  I went away to the place to which I used to retreat in cases like\nthis.  And once there, I put myself into a state of entire recollection,\nand began to treat with our Lord in a way, when I think of it, of too\ngreat familiarity.  But it was love that spake, and every one allows love\ngreat familiarity, and no one so much as our Lord.  My soul overlooked\nthe distance between herself and her Lord.  She forgot herself, as she so\noften does, and began to talk impertinences and to take too great\nfreedoms.  I entreated our Lord with many tears.  I judged my friend to\nbe already a good man, but I must have him much better, and I said so too\nfreely, I fear.  'O Lord,' I remember I said,' Thou must not deny me this\nfavour that I ask.  This is a man for us to make a friend of.'  And far\nmore than that.  And He did it.  Yes, He did it.  O His immense bounty\nand goodness!  He regards not the words but the affection with which the\nwords are uttered.  That must be so, when He endures with such an\nimpertinent and over-familiar and irreverent wretch as I am; endures and\nanswers.  May He be blessed to all eternity!\n\n(10) _The Best Result of Prayer_.--To Father Gratian.  To-day I received\nthree letters from your Reverence by the way of the head-post.  The whole\nmatter is in a nut-shell.  That prayer is the most acceptable which\nleaves the best results.  Results, I mean, in actions.  That is true\nprayer.  Not certain gusts of softness and feeling, and nothing more.  For\nmyself, I wish no other prayer but that which improves me in virtue.  I\nwould fain live more nearly as I pray.  I count that to be a good prayer\nwhich leaves me more humble, even if it is still with great temptations,\ntribulations, and aridities.  For it must never be thought that because a\nman has much suffering, therefore he cannot have prayed acceptably.  His\nsuffering is as incense set forth before God.  Tell my daughters that\nthey must work and suffer as well as pray, and that it is the best prayer\nthat has with it the most work and the most suffering.\n\n(11) _A Bishop taught to Pray_.--To Don Alonzo Velasquez, Bishop of Osma.\nYour Reverence enjoined me the other day to recommend you to God.  I have\ndone so: not regarding my own inconsiderableness, but your requisition\nand your rights.  And I promise myself from your goodness that you will\ntake in good part what I feel compelled to say to you, and will accept\nthat which proceeds only from my obedience to you.  Recognising, then,\nand representing to our Lord, the great favours He has done you in having\nbestowed upon you humility, charity, zeal for souls, and a strong desire\nto vindicate the Divine honour, I still besought the Lord for an increase\nin you of all these same virtues and perfections in order that you may\nprove as accomplished in all these things as the dignity of your office\nrequires.  Till it was discovered to me that you still wanted that which\nis the foundation of every virtue, and without which the whole\nsuperstructure dissolves, and falls in ruins.  You want prayer.  You want\nbelieving, persevering, courageous prayer.  And the want of that prayer\ncauses all that drought and disunion from which you say your soul\nsuffers.  That which was shown me as the way your lordship is henceforth\nto pray is this.  You are to recollect and accuse yourself of all your\nsins since your last time of like prayer.  You are to divest yourself of\neverything as if you were that moment to die.  You are to begin by\nreciting to yourself and to God the Fifty-first Psalm.  And after that\nyou must say this.  'I come, O Lord, Bishop as I am, to Thy children's\nschool of prayer and obedience.  I come to Thee not to teach, but to\nlearn.  I will speak to Thee, who am but dust and ashes.'  And all the\ntime set before the eyes of your soul Jesus Christ crucified, and\nruminate on Him in some such way as this.  Fix your eyes on that\nstupendous humility of His whereby He so annihilated Himself.  Look on\nHis head crowned with thorns.  Fix your eyes on His nailed hands, His\nfeet, and His side.  Meditate on and interrogate every one of His wounds\nfor you.  It behoves you also to go to prayer with a most entire\nresignation and submission and pliantness to go that way in religion and\nin life that God points out to you.  Sometimes He will teach you by\nturning His back on you: and, anon, by lifting up the light of His\ncountenance upon you.  Sometimes by shutting you out of His presence, and\nsometimes by bringing you into His banqueting-house.  And you are to\nreceive it all with the same equability of mind, knowing that He always\nacts for the best.  Otherwise you will go to teach God in your prayers,\nwhich is not the proper scope and intent of prayer at all.  And when you\nsay that you are dust and ashes, you must observe and exhibit the proper\nquality of such.  In our Lord's prayer in the garden, He requested that\nthe bitterness and the terrible trial He felt in overcoming His human\nnature might be taken away.  He did not ask that His pains might be taken\naway, but only the disgust wherewith He suffered them.  And when it was\nanswered Him that it was not expedient but that He should drink that cup,\nHe had to master that weakness and pusillanimity of the flesh, as must\nall other men.  One cannot be a great scholar, or even a finished\ncourtier, without great pains and expense; and to be a scholar in the\nChurch, and a minister, and a master in the science of Heaven, cannot be\ndone without long time at school and much hard work.  And herewith I\ndesist from saying more to your lordship, whose pardon I beg for all this\npresumption.  Which, however full it may be of defects and indiscretions,\nis not wanting in that zeal I owe to your service as one of the most\nwandering and gone astray of your lordship's flock.  Our Lord preserve\nyour lordship, and enrich you with the manifold increase of His grace.  I\nam, your lordship's unworthy servant and subject, Teresa of Jesus.\n\n(12) _The proper Readers of what the Saint has Written_,--And now I\nreturn most humbly to beseech your Reverence, that, if you mean to impart\nto any one these things that you have made me write concerning prayer,\nlet them be imparted to spiritual persons, and to persons of real insight\nonly.  For, indeed, I have written for persons of exceptional experience\nand exceptional prudence only.  What I have written, I fear, very few are\ncapable of.  But what am I, to speak thus about any but myself?\nFarewell.--I am,\n\nTERESA THE SINNER.","title":"Santa Teresa: An Appreciation: With Some of the Best Passages of the Saint's Writings","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":20451}