Chapter VI: Carlin’s Nest (5)

The doctrine of Father Baker has not, however, lacked opponents from his own day to the present. Since the publication of _Sancta Sophia_ in this country we have repeatedly heard of its use being discountenanced in religious communities and in the case of devout persons in the world. Dr. Sweeney calls attention directly to this fact of opposition to Father Baker’s doctrine, and devotes a considerable part of his own annotations to a refutation of the objections alleged against it. He has pointed out one seemingly plausible ground of these censures which we were not before aware of, and which was unknown to the American editors of _Sancta Sophia_ when they republished it in this country. We cannot pass this matter by without some examination; for although on such subjects controversy is disagreeable, and to the unlearned and simple-minded may be vexatious and perplexing, it cannot be avoided where a question of orthodox soundness in doctrine is concerned. The gist of the whole matter is found in chapter the seventh, “On the Prayer of Interior Silence,” to which Dr. Sweeney has appended a long note of explanation. The matter of this chapter is professedly derived from an old Spanish work by Antonio de Rojas, entitled _The Life of the Spirit Approved_, which was placed on the Index about fifty years after the death of Father Baker, and two years after the condemnation of Quietism. We have never seen this book, but we are informed by Dr. Sweeney that its language, taken in the most natural and obvious sense, leads to the conclusion that the state of charity which is requisite to perfection excludes all private interest, not only all fear of punishment, but all hope of reward――that is, all desire or consideration of the beatitude of heaven. In order to attain this state of indifference and annihilation of self-love, all express acts are discountenanced, and that kind of silence and passivity in prayer recommended which suppresses the active movements of the soul toward God, such as hope, love toward God as the chief good, petition and supplication, thanksgiving, etc. Now, such a doctrine as this is manifestly tinged with some of the errors of Quietism, and seems to be precisely similar to the semi-Quietism of Madame Guyon and Fénelon which was condemned by Innocent XII. in 1699. The second of the propositions from Fénelon’s _Maxims of the Saints_ condemned by this pope is as follows: “In the state of contemplative or unitive life every interested motive of fear and hope is lost.” The doctrinal error here is the notion that the soul’s love of itself, desire and hope for its own beatification in God, and love to God as its own sovereign good, is incompatible with a pure, disinterested, perfect love of God, as the sovereign good in himself. The practical error is the inculcation of direct efforts to suppress every movement of interested love to God in prayer, in order to make way for passive, disinterested love. Father Baker lived so long before the errors of false mysticism had been thoroughly investigated, refuted, and condemned that it was very easy for him to fail of detecting what was unguarded, inaccurately expressed, exaggerated, or of erroneous tendency in a book which was approved by a number of prelates and theologians. He has certainly not borrowed or adopted what was erroneous in the book, but that portion of its teaching which was sound and safe, upon which the error was a mere excrescence. The mere fact of citing a book which has been placed on the Index is a matter of small and only incidental moment. Dr. Sweeney seems to us to have followed too timorous a conscience in his way of treating the chapter of _Sancta Sophia_ in which the work of De Rojas is quoted. We cannot agree with him that Father Baker would have suppressed that chapter if the book had been censured during his lifetime. He would have suppressed his commendation of the book, and looked carefully to see what the error was on account of which it had been condemned, as any good Catholic is bound to do in such a case. But we feel confident that he would not have felt himself obliged to make any essential alteration in what he had written on the prayer of silence, though he would probably have explicitly guarded it against any possible misapprehension or perversion. Any one who reads the _Sancta Sophia_, especially with Dr. Sweeney’s annotations, will see at once how absurd is the charge of a tincture of semi-Quietism against so sober and practical a writer as Father Baker, and how remote from anything favoring the illusions of false spirituality are his instructions on prayer. It would be almost as absurd to impute Quietism to Father Baker as rigorism to St. Alphonsus. We are afraid that Dr. Sweeney’s signal-board of “caution” will scare away simple-minded and devout readers from one of the most useful chapters of _Sancta Sophia_, one which is really the pivot of the whole book. Father Baker’s special scope and object was not to give instruction in meditation and active exercises, but to lead the soul through and beyond these to contemplation. The instructions on the prayer of interior silence are precisely those which are fitted to enlighten and direct a person in the transition state from the spiritual exercises of discursive meditation to that state of ordinary and acquired contemplation which Scaramelli and all standard writers recognize as both desirable and attainable for those who have devoted a considerable time to the practice of mental prayer. Father Baker’s directions on this head should be judged by what they are intrinsically in themselves, without any regard to anything else. Are they singular, imprudent, or in any respect contrary to the doctrine of the saints and other authors of recognized soundness in doctrine? We cannot see that they are. Whatever perversion of the method of prayer in question may have been contained in the book of De Rojas, sprang from his erroneous doctrine that explicit acts of the understanding and will in prayer should be suppressed in order to eradicate the implicit acts, the habits, and tendencies of the soul, by which its intention and desire are directed toward its own supreme good and felicity in God. But this is no reason against the method itself, apart from a perversion no trace of which is to be found in Father Baker’s own language. The well-known and justly-revered Father Ramière, S.J., in his introduction to a little work by another Jesuit, Father De Caussade, entitled _L’Abandon à la Providence Divine_, remarks in reference to the doctrine of that book, which is quite similar in its spirit to the _Sancta Sophia_, as follows: “There is no truth so luminous that it does not change into error from the moment when it suffers diminution or exaggeration; and there is no nourishment, however salutary to the soul, which, if imprudently used, may not produce in it the effect of a noxious poison.” It would seem that some are so afraid of the perversion of the luminous truths of mystical theology, and of the abuse of the salutary nourishment it affords to the soul, that they would desire to avoid the danger by shutting out the light and locking up the food in a closet. They would restrict all persons whatever, in every stage and condition of the spiritual life, to certain methods of prayer and the use of certain books, excellent for the majority of persons while they are beginners or proficients, but unsuitable, or even injurious, to some who are of a peculiar disposition, or who have advanced so far that they need something of a different order. It is a great mistake to suppose that such a course is safe or prudent. There are some who cannot, even in the beginning, make use of discursive meditation. It is a generally-recognized rule that those who can, and actually do, practise this kind of mental prayer, ought, as soon as it ceases to be pleasant and profitable to them, to change it for a simpler method. Even those set methods which are not discursive, if they consist in oft-repeated acts of the understanding, the affections, and the will, become frequently, after the lapse of time, too laborious, wearisome, and insipid to be continued with any fervor. The soul needs and instinctively longs for the cessation of this perpetual activity in a holy repose, in tranquil contemplation, in rest upon the bosom of God. It is for such souls that the chapter on the prayer of interior silence was written.

We may now examine a little more closely the passages which Dr. Sweeney seems to have had in view, as requiring to be read with caution because similar to statements made by De Rojas and other writers whose doctrine is tinctured with Quietism. Dr. Sweeney remarks: “When afterwards (in the book of De Rojas) express acts toward God are discountenanced, and it is declared that an advantage of this kind of prayer is _self-annihilation_, and that resignation then becomes so pure that all private interest is forgotten and ignored, we see the prudence and watchfulness of the Holy See in cautioning her children against a book which, if it does not expressly, distinctly, and advisedly teach it, yet conveys the impression that a state of charity excludes all private interest, such as fear of punishment and hope of reward, and that perfection implies such a state.”[15]

Father Baker says that in the prayer of silence, “with the will she [the soul] frames no particular request nor any express acts toward God”; that “by this exercise we come to the most perfect operation of self-annihilation,” and practise in the most sublime manner “resignation, since the soul forgets all private interests”; and more to the same effect. Nevertheless, the dangerous and erroneous sense which this language might convey, if intended or interpreted to mean that the soul must suppress all hope or desire for its own private good as incompatible with the perfect love of God, is plainly excluded by the immediate context in which it occurs. The soul, says Father Baker, should “continue in his presence _in the quality of a petitioner_, but such an one as makes no special, direct requests, but contents herself to appear before him _with all her wants and necessities_, best, and indeed only, known to him, who therefore needs not her information.” Again, he compares the soul to the subject of a sovereign who abstains from asking any particular favors from his prince, because he knows that “he is both most wise to judge what favors may become the one to give and the other to receive, and in that that he has a love and magnificence to _advance him beyond his deserts_.”

Once more he says that in this prayer the soul exercises in a sublime manner “_hope_, because the soul, placing herself before God _in the posture of a beggar_, confidently expects that he will impart to her both the knowledge of his will and ability to fulfil it.”

It is equally plain that Father Baker’s method of the prayer of interior silence is not liable to the censure which Dr. Sweeney attaches to the one of De Rojas when he remarks that “we can at once see what danger accompanies such an exercise, if that can be called an exercise where all activity ceases and prayer is really excluded.” “_Since an intellectual soul is all activity_,” says Father Baker, “so that it cannot continue a moment without some desires, the soul then rejecting all desires toward created objects, she cannot choose but tend inwardly in her affections to God, for which end only she put herself in such a posture of prayer; her tendence then being much like that of the mounting of an eagle after a precedent vigorous springing motion and extension of her wings, which ceasing, _in virtue thereof the flight is continued for a good space with a great swiftness_, but withal with great stillness, quietness, and ease, without any waving of the wings at all or the least force used in any member, being in as much ease and stillness as if she were reposing on her nest.” For the further defence of Father Baker’s doctrine from the other parts of _Sancta Sophia_, and in general from his known method of personal conduct and his direction of others, what his learned Benedictine editor has furnished amply suffices.

We are not content, however, with simply showing that Father Baker’s method of conducting souls to perfection by means of contemplative prayer is free from the errors of Quietism and the illusions of false mysticism. The _Sancta Sophia_ is not merely a good book, one among the many English books of devotion and spiritual reading which can be safely and profitably read. We think Canon Dalton’s opinion that it is the best book on prayer we have in the English language is correct. It is a guide for those who will scarcely find another book to fill its place; and we venture to affirm that the very part of it which we have been specially criticising is not only defensible, but positively in accordance, even to its phraseology, with the doctrine of the most approved authors, and of special, practical value and importance.

In an appendix which Father Ramière has added to the little book by Father Caussade already once cited in this article, there is a chapter taken from Bossuet, entitled “A Short and Easy Method of making the Prayer of Faith and of the simple presence of God,” from which we quote the following passages: “Meditation is very good in its own time, and very useful at the beginning of the spiritual life; but it is not proper to make it a final stopping-place, for the soul which is faithful in mortification and recollection ordinarily receives a gift of prayer which is purer and more simple, and may be called the prayer of _simplicity_, consisting in a simple view, or fixed, attentive, and loving look directed toward some divine object, whether it be God in himself, or some one of his perfections, or Jesus Christ, or one of the mysteries relating to him, or some other Christian truths. In this attitude the soul leaves off reasoning, and makes use of a quiet contemplation, which keeps it peaceful, attentive, and susceptible to the divine operations and impressions which the Holy Spirit imparts to it; it does little and receives a great deal; its labor is easy, and nevertheless more fruitful than it would otherwise be; and as it approaches very near to the source of all light――grace and virtue――it receives on that account the more of all these. The practice of this prayer ought to begin on first awaking, by an act of faith in the presence of God, who is everywhere, and in Jesus Christ, whose eyes are always upon us, if we were even buried in the centre of the earth. This act is elicited either in the ordinary and sensible manner, as by saying inwardly, ‘I believe that my God is present’; or it is a simple calling to memory of the faith of God’s presence in a more purely spiritual manner. After this, one ought not to produce multifarious and diverse acts and dispositions, but to remain simply attentive to this presence of God, and as it were exposed to view before him, continuing this devout attention and attitude as long as the Lord grants us the grace for doing so, without striving to make other acts than those to which we are inspired, since this kind of prayer is one in which we converse with God alone, and is a union which contains in an eminent mode all other particular dispositions, and disposes the soul to passivity; by which is meant, that God becomes sole master of its interior, and operates in it in a special manner. The less working done by the creature in this state, the more powerful is the operation of God in it; and since God’s action is at the same time a repose, the soul becomes in a certain way like to him in this kind of prayer, receiving in it wonderful effects; so that as the rays of the sun cause the growth, blossoming, and fruit-bearing of plants, the soul, in like manner, which is attentive and tranquilly basking under the rays of the divine Sun of righteousness, is in the best condition for receiving divine influences which enrich it with all sorts of virtues.”[16]

St. John of the Cross declares that “the soul having attained to the interior union of love, _the spiritual faculties of it are no longer active_, and still less those of the body; for now that the union of love is actually brought about, the faculties of the soul _cease from their exertions_, because, now that the goal is reached, all employment of means is at an end.”[17]

Again: “He who truly loves makes shipwreck of himself in all else, that he may gain the more in the object of his love. Thus the soul says that it has lost itself――that is, deliberately, of set purpose. This loss occurs in two ways. The soul loses itself, making no account whatever of itself, but referring all to the Beloved, resigning itself freely into his hands without any selfish views, losing itself deliberately, and seeking nothing for itself. Secondly, it loses itself in all things, making no account of anything save that which concerns the Beloved. This is to lose one’s self――that is, to be willing that others should have all things. Such is he that loves God; he seeks neither gain nor reward, but only to lose all, even himself according to God’s will. This is what such an one counts gain.… When a soul has advanced so far on the spiritual road as to be lost to all the natural methods of communing with God; when it seeks him no longer by meditation, images, impressions, nor by any other created ways or representations of sense, but only by rising above them all, in the joyful communion with him by faith and love, then it may be said to have gained God of a truth, because it has truly lost itself as to all that is not God, and also as to its own self.”[18]

In another place the saint explains quite at length the necessity of passing from meditation to contemplation, the reasons for doing so, and the signs which denote that the time for this change has arrived. The state of beginners, he says, is “one of meditation and of acts of reflection.” After a certain stage of progress has been reached, “God begins at once to introduce the soul into the state of contemplation, and that very quickly, especially in the case of religious, because these, having renounced the world, quickly fashion their senses and desires according to God; they have, therefore, to pass at once from meditation to contemplation. This passage, then, takes place when the discursive acts and meditation fail, when sensible sweetness and the first fervors cease, when the soul cannot make reflections as before, nor find any sensible comfort, but is fallen into aridity, because the spiritual life is changed.… It is evident, therefore, that if the soul does not now abandon its previous ways of meditation, it will receive this gift of God in a scanty and imperfect manner.… If the soul will at this time make efforts of its own, and encourage another disposition than that of _passive, loving attention_, most submissive and calm, and if it does not _abstain from its previous discursive acts_, it will place a complete barrier against those graces which God is about to communicate to it in this loving knowledge.… The soul must be attached to nothing, not even to the subject of its meditation, not to sensible or spiritual sweetness, because God requires a spirit so free, so _annihilated_, that every act of the soul, even of thought, of liking or disliking, will impede and disturb it, and break that _profound silence of sense and spirit_ necessary for hearing the deep and delicate voice of God, who speaks to the heart in solitude; it is in profound peace and tranquillity that the soul is to listen to God, who will speak peace unto his people. When this takes place, when the soul feels that it is silent and listens, its loving attention must be most pure, _without a thought of self, in a manner self-forgotten_, so that it shall be wholly intent upon hearing; for thus it is that the soul is free and ready for that which our Lord requires at its hands.”[19]

We have sufficiently proved, we trust, that there is no reason to be disquieted by a certain verbal and merely apparent likeness between some parts of Father Baker’s spiritual doctrine and the errors of a false mysticism. We may, perhaps, return to this subject on a future occasion, and point out more distinctly and at length the true philosophical and theological basis of Catholic mystical doctrine, in contrast with the travesties and perversions of its counterfeits in the extravagant, absurd, and revolting systems of infidel and heretical visionaries. At present a few words may suffice to sum up and succinctly define the difference between the true and the false doctrine in respect to the case in hand. That doctrine which is false, dangerous, and condemned by the unerring judgment of the holy church teaches that the love and pursuit of our own good and happiness, even in God, is sinful, or at least low and imperfect. It inculcates, as a means for suppressing and eradicating our natural tendency towards the attainment of the good as an end, and annihilating our self-activity, the cessation of all operation of the natural faculties of understanding and volition, at least in reference to God as our own supreme and desirable good. It inculcates a fixed, otiose quietude and indifference toward our own happiness or misery. Its effect is therefore to quench the life of the soul, to extinguish its light, and to reduce it to a state of torpor and apathy resembling that of a stoical Diogenes or an Indian fakir. Its pretence of disinterestedness and pure love to God for himself alone is wholly illusory and founded on a false view of God as the intrinsically sovereign good and the object of supreme love to the intelligent creature. The goodness of God as the first object of the love of complacency cannot be separated from the same goodness as the object of desire. The extrinsic glory of God as the chief end of creatures is identified with the exaltation and happiness of those intellectual and rational beings whom he has created and elevated to a supernatural end. Hope, desire, and effort for the attainment of the good intended for and promised to man is a duty and obligation imposed by the law of God. It is impossible to love God and be conformed to his will without loving our neighbors, and our own soul as our nearest neighbor. Moreover, we are not saved merely by the action of God upon us passively received, but also by a concurrence of our understanding and will, a co-operation of our own active efforts with the working of God in us, or, as it is commonly expressed, by a diligent and faithful correspondence to grace. Not to desire our own true happiness is therefore a suicidal, idiotic folly. Not to work for it is presumption, ingratitude, and the deadly sin of sloth. Moreover, to attempt to fly with unfledged wings; to soar aloft in the sky among the saints when we ought to be walking on the earth, to undertake while yet weak beginners the heroic works of the perfect; to anticipate by self-will the time and call which God appoints, and pervert the orderly course of his providence; to strive by our own natural powers to accomplish what requires the special gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit, is imprudent, contrary to humility, and full of peril. The dupe of false spirituality may, therefore, either take an entirely wrong road or attempt to travel the right road in a wrong manner; in either case sure to fail of reaching his intended goal, if he persists in his error.

The sound and orthodox doctrine of Catholic mystical theology presents God as he is in his own intrinsic essence, as the object of his own beatific contemplation, and of the contemplation of the blessed who have received the faculty of intuitive vision by the light of glory. The nearest approach to this beatific state, as well as the most perfect and immediate preparation for it, is the state of quiet, tranquil contemplation of God by the obscure light of faith. The excellence and blessedness of this state consists in the pure love of God. It is of the nature of love and the intention of the mind toward the sovereign good, by which the will is directed in its motion toward the good which it loves and in the fruition of which it finds its repose, that the consideration of the object precede the consideration and desire of the fruition of the object. Liberatore, who is a good expositor of the doctrine of St. Thomas and all sound Catholic philosophers on this head, proposes and proves this statement in the clearest terms. The object is first apprehended and loved for its intrinsic goodness. Reflection on the enjoyment which is received and delight in this enjoyment, though a necessary consequence of the possession of the chief good, is the second but not the first act. St. John of the Cross teaches the same truth: “As the end of all is love, which inheres in the will, the characteristic of which is to give and not to receive, to the soul inebriated with love the first object that presents itself is not the essential glory which God will bestow upon it, but the entire surrender of itself to him in true love, without any regard to its own advantage. The second object is included in the first.”[20] Father Mazzella, S.J., of Woodstock College, in his admirable work on the infused virtues, makes a lengthened exposition of the distinction between that love of benevolence and complacency toward God which is the principle of perfect contrition, and by itself takes away sin and unites the soul with God, and the love of desire which terminates on the good received from God. The first considers God as the sovereign good in himself; the second considers him directly and explicitly as the source and giver of good to us. It manifests itself as an efficacious desire for the rewards of everlasting life, accompanied by a fear of the punishment of sin in the future state, and is the principle of imperfect contrition or attrition, which of itself does not suffice for justification, though it is a sufficient condition for receiving grace through the appointed sacraments. The Catholic teachers of mystical theology direct the soul principally and as their chief purpose toward the higher and more perfect love. The second object is included in this first object, and taken for granted. It is not excluded, but comparatively neglected, because it follows of itself from the first, and is sought for by the natural, necessary law of our being, without any need of direct, explicit efforts. The resignation, forgetfulness of private interests, self-annihilation, so strongly recommended, do not denote any suppression or destruction of our natural beatific impulses, but only of our own personal notions, wishes, and interests in respect to such things as are merely means to the attainment of an end, a conformity of our will to the will of God, and an abandonment of solicitude respecting our own future happiness, founded on filial confidence in the wisdom and goodness of God.

It follows from this doctrine of sound, mystical writers that the quietude of the state of contemplation and union with God is totally opposite to a condition of apathy and sloth. It is a state of more tranquil activity, of more steady and therefore more imperceptible yet more rapid movement. Previously the soul was like a boat propelled by oars against wind and tide. Now it is like a yacht sailing with a press of canvas under a strong and fair breeze.

So far as the imprudent misuse of mystical theology is concerned, we need not waste words on a truism of spiritual direction, that beginners and unlearned, inexperienced persons must follow the counsel of a guide, if they can have it. If not, they must direct themselves as well as they can by good books, which will instruct them gradually and soberly in the first principles of solid virtue and piety, and afterwards lead them on to perfection. They cannot have a better guide than _Sancta Sophia_. It is a book that will last for years, and even for a lifetime; for it is a guide along the whole way, from the gate at the entrance to the river of death, for such as are really and earnestly seeking to attain perfection by prayer, and desire to lead an interior life amid the external occupations, duties, and trials of their state in life, or even in the most strict cloistral seclusion. The exterior persecutions to which the church is subject, the disorders of the times, and the multifarious troubles of every kind, both outward and inward, to which great numbers of the best-disposed and most virtuous people are subjected, have an effect to throw thoughtful persons on the interior life as a refuge and solace. Pius IX., whose long experience and great sanctity, as well as his divine office, make him as a prophet of God to all devout Catholics, has told us that the church is now going through the exercises of the purgative way as a preparation for receiving great gifts from the Holy Spirit, which will accompany a new and glorious triumph of the kingdom of Jesus Christ on the earth. Whatever external splendor the reign of Christ over this world may exhibit, it is in the hearts of men that his spiritual royalty has its seat. There is nothing on earth for which, so to speak, he really cares, except the growth of the souls of men. The world and the church were made for this purpose. The wisdom of the ancients was an adumbration of the truth, and that doctrine which teaches the full and complete form of it alone deserves to be called in the highest sense wisdom, and to win the love and admiration of all men for its celestial beauty.

[14] _Sancta Sophia; or, Directions for the Prayer of
Contemplation, etc._ Extracted out of more than forty
treatises written by the late Father Augustin Baker, a monk
of the English Congregation of the Holy Order of St.
Benedict; and methodically digested by R. F. Serenus Cressy.
Doway, A.D. 1657. Now edited by the Very Rev. Dom Norbert
Sweeney, D.D., of the same order and congregation. London:
Burns & Oates. 1876. New York: The Catholic Publication
Society.

[15] P. 492, note.

[16] _L’Abandon à la Providence Divine_, pp. 164-167.

[17] Complete Works, Lewis’ Trans., vol. ii. p. 75.

[18] _Ib._ pp. 158, 159.

[19] Complete Works, etc., vol. ii. pp. 267-270.

[20] Complete Works, vol. ii pp. 198, 199.

EVENING ON THE SEA-SHORE.

FROM THE FRENCH OF VISCOUNT DE CHATEAUBRIAND.

The woods, the sand-beach desolate and bare,
Blend dusky with the shadows dim and far,
And, glittering from the depths, the evening star
Gleams solitary through the silent air.

Westward, and sparkling under purest skies,
Foams on the long, low reef the line of white;
And towards the north, o’er seas of crystal light,
The gathering mist of deepening purple flies.

The mountains redden still with sunset fire,
Soft dies the plaintive breeze in murmurs low,
And, each to each linked in their gentle flow,
The waves roll calmly shoreward and expire.

All grandeur, mystery, love! In this, the time
Of dying day, all nature with her state
Of mountain ranges and her forests great,
The eternal order and the plan sublime,

Stands like a temple on whose walls of light
The beauties of creation’s day are shown――
A sanctuary, where is the Godhead’s throne
Veiled by the curtains of the holy night

Whose cupola high to the zenith towers,
A glorious harmony, a work divine,
And painted with the heavenly hues that shine
In dawns, in rainbows, and in summer flowers.

LETTERS OF A YOUNG IRISHWOMAN TO HER SISTER.

FROM THE FRENCH.

NOVEMBER 2.

“Voici les feuilles sans sève
Qui tombent sur le gazon.”[21]

What a solemn day to the Christian is All Souls’ day! I prayed much, very much, for all our dear friends in the other world. Oh! how I pity the suffering souls consumed by the flames of purgatory. They have seen God; they have had a glimpse of his glory on the day of their judgment; they long for the Supreme Good with unutterable ardor. What torment! And some there are who will be in those lakes of fire even to the end of the world. We can do nothing but offer our prayers, and they bring deliverance! Who would not devote themselves to the suffering souls? What misfortune more worthy of pity than theirs? I love the “Helpers of the Holy Souls!”[22] It is to me a great happiness to be united with them in thought, prayer, and action. A thousand memories have come into my mind; there have passed before me all my beloved dead, all the dead whom I have known or whom I have once seen. How numerous they are, and yet I have not been living so very long. Each day thins our ranks, links drop off from the chain. Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord!

Here is winter upon us――melancholy winter, which makes poor mothers weep.

Meditated yesterday on the joys of the love of Jesus, which in Holy Communion melts our heart like two pieces of wax into one only――Jesus, the only true friend, who consoles and sustains, and without whom all is vanity. The Christian who has prayer and Communion ought to live in perpetual gladness of heart.

I must confess to you, my Kate, that I envy Johanna, Berthe, and Lucy. They allow me to share largely in their maternal joys, but these treasures in which I take such pleasure, why are they not my own? I felt sad about it yesterday, and murmured to myself these lines of Brizeux:

“Jours passés, que chacun rappelle avec des larmes,
Jours qu’en vain on regrette, aviez vous tant des charmes?
Ou les vents troublaient-ils aussi votre clarté,
Et l’ennui du présent fait-il votre beauté”[23]

René was behind me. “What, then, do you regret, my Georgina?” I told him all, and how gently and sweetly he comforted me――as you would, my Kate! Poor feeble reed that I am, I lean upon you.

May the Blessed Virgin Mary protect us, dear sister!

NOVEMBER 13.

Eleven days between my two letters, my note-book tells me. Happily, René has taken my place, and you are aware in what occupations I have been absorbed, dear Kate. The poor are becoming quite a passion with me. I catechise them, I clothe them; it is so delightful to lavish one’s superabundance on the disinherited ones of this world! To-morrow we go to Nantes to take leave of our saintly friend Elizabeth, who will shortly depart for Louisiana. She has received permission to come and bid adieu to her mother――perhaps a lifelong adieu; for who can say whether she will return? I have had a letter from Ellen, giving me many details of her sojourn in the Highlands. The wound is still bleeding. The sight of a child makes her weep; and in her dreams she sees her son. May God support her!

To-day is St. Stanislaus――the gentle young saint whose feast Margaret pointed out to me with a hope which is not realized. Our dear _Anglaise_ wanted to have us _all together_ in her princely dwelling. The absence of the _Adrien family_, Lucy’s journey――all these dispersions have disarranged the grand project. And yet there are moments when I experience a kind of home-sickness――a thirst to see our dear Erin again, a longing to live under my native sky――which tells upon my health. Do not pity me too much, Kate; I possess all the elements of happiness which could be brought together in a single existence. I love the seraphic Stanislaus, holding in his arms the infant Jesus. O great saint! give me a little of your love of God, a little of your fervent piety, that I may detach myself from the world! I am afraid of loving it too much, my sister. The day before yesterday was the feast of St. Martin――this hero whose history is so poetic. I like to think of this mantle, cut in two to clothe a poor man, and of our Lord appearing that night to the warrior, who in the Saviour’s vestment recognized the half of his mantle. Kind St. Martin! giving us a second summer, which I find delightful, loving as I do the warm and perfumed breezes of the months that have long days, and regretting the return of winter with its ice, when, shivering in well-closed rooms, one thinks of the poor without fire and shelter. Dear _poor of the good God_![24] Margaret shares my fondness for them. Never in our Brittany will the sojourn of this sweet friend be forgotten.

What noise! _Adieu_, my sister; _Erin go bragh!_

NOVEMBER 17.

You have heard the joyful tidings, Kate dearest――the triumph of Mentana? Gertrude writes to us. _Adrien_ and his two sons fought like lions, and his courageous wife followed the army, waiting on the wounded, praying for her dear ones, who had not a scratch! They were afterwards received in private audience by the Holy Father, who seemed to them more saintly and sublime than ever. God does indeed do all things well! All these loving hearts, torn by the departure of Hélène, have recovered their happiness, are enthusiastic in their heroism and devotion, have been violently snatched from all selfish regrets, and have enriched themselves with lifelong memories. Mgr. Dupanloup has written to the clergy of his diocese, ordering thanksgivings to be offered in the churches; and the holy and illustrious Pius IX. has written to the eloquent bishop, to whom he sends his thanks and benediction.

Truly, joy has succeeded to sorrow. But how guilty is Europe! Can you conceive such inertia in the face of this struggle between strength and weakness? Our good _abbé_ is in possession of all the _mandements_ (or charges) of the bishops of France. He is making a collection of them. Yesterday he quoted to me the following passage from that of Mgr. de Perpignan: “Princes of the earth, envy not the crown of Rome! One of the greatest of this world’s potentates was fain to try it on the brow of his son, and placed it on his cradle; but it weighed too heavily on that frail existence, and the child, to whom the father’s genius promised a brilliant future, withered away, and died at the age of twenty years”; and this other by Mgr. de Périgueux: “When God sends great trials upon his church, he raises up men capable of sustaining them. We are in one of these times of trial, and we have Pius IX.”

Dear Isa sends me four pages, all impregnated with sanctity. Her life is one long holocaust; all her aspirations tend to one end, and one that I fear she will not attain. God will permit this for his glory. How much good may one soul do! I see it by Isa. Her life is one of the fullest and most sanctified that can be; she sacrifices herself hour by hour, giving herself little by little, as it were, and yet all at a time. Ellen is starting for Hyères; she is mortally stricken. They deceived themselves with regard to her. She herself, overwhelmed for a time by the side of that cradle changed into a death-bed, did her best to look forward cheerfully to the future. Her last letter, received only fifteen days afterwards, and which was long and affectionate, appeared to me mysterious; she spoke so much of _outward_ things. Dear, dear Ellen! I wish I could see her. Impossible, alas! Isa’s letter is dated the 10th. The sad, dying one must have crossed the Channel that same day. There is something peculiarly sorrowful in the thought of death with regard to this young wife, going away to die far from her home, her country, and her family, beneath mild and genial skies, where life appears so delightful. Her state is such as to allow of no hope, but her husband wishes to try this last remedy. The little angel in heaven awaits his mother.

A terrible gale――quite a tempest. I am thinking of the poor mariners. These howlings of the wind, these gusts which rush through the long corridors, resemble wild complaints; one would think that all the elements, let loose, weep and implore. O holy Patroness of sailors! take pity on them.

Visits all the week――pious visits, such as I love. My heart attaches itself to this country.

Let us praise the Lord, dear Kate! May he preserve to Ireland her faith and her love! There is no slavery for Christian hearts.

NOVEMBER 19.

A line from Karl――one heart-rending plaint, thrown into the post at Paris after Ellen had received your last kiss. “Pray,” he says to me, “not for this soul, of whom I was not worthy, and who is going to rejoin her son, but for my weakness, which alarms me.” René wept with me. Oh! how sad is earth to him who remains alone. The same thought of anguish and apprehension seized us both. Ah! dearest, let your prayers preserve to me him in whom I live.

_Saint Elizabeth_, “the dear saint,” this fair and lovely flower of Hungary transplanted into Thuringia, there to shed such sweetness of perfume! I have been thinking of her, of her poetic history, of all that M. de Montalembert has written about her――the veritable life of a saint, traced out with poetry and love. You remember that St. Elizabeth was one of the chosen heroines of my childhood. I could wish that I had borne her name. I used to dream of becoming a saint like her. What an unparalleled life hers was! Dying so young, she appeared before God rich in merits. Born in the purple, the beloved daughter of the good King Andrew, and afterwards Duchess of Thuringia; united to the young Duke Louis, also so good and holy, so well suited to the pure and radiant star of Hungary seen by the aged poet; then a widow at nineteen years of age, and driven from her palace with her little children, drinking to its dregs the cup of bitterness and anguish――my dear saint knew suffering in its most terrible and poignant form. How I love her, from the moment when the good King Andrew, taking in his arms the cradle of solid gold in which his Elizabeth was sleeping, placed it in those of the Sire de Varila, saying, “I entrust to your knightly honor my dearest consolation,” until the time when I find her, clad in the poor habit of the Seraph of Assisi, reading a letter of St. Clare! What an epoch was that thirteenth century, that age of faith, when the throne had its saints, when there was in the souls of men a spring of energy and of religious enthusiasm which peopled the monasteries and renewed the face of the earth! Who will obtain for me the grace to love God as did Elizabeth? O dear saint! pray for me, for René, Karl, Ellen, the church, France, Ireland, the universe.

Here is something, dear sister, which I think would comfort Karl:

“To desire God is the essential condition of the human heart; to go to God is his life; to contemplate God is his beatitude. To desire God is the noble appanage of our nature; to go to God is the work which grace effects within us; to contemplate God is our state of glory. To desire God is the principle of good; to go to God is the way of good; to contemplate God is the perfection of good.

“God is everything to the soul. The soul breathes: God is her atmosphere. The soul needs nourishment and wherewith to quench her thirst: God is her daily bread and her spring of living water. The soul moves on: God is her way. The soul thinks and understands: God is her truth. The soul speaks――God is her word; she loves――God is her love.”[25]

Exquisite thoughts! Oh! love, the love of God, can replace everything. May we be kindled with this love, dear sister of my life!

NOVEMBER 22.

My sweet one, I love to keep my festivals with you! Yesterday, the Presentation of Mary in the Temple, we spent here _in retreat_――a retreat, according to all rules, preached by a monsignor! René is writing you the details. I am not clever at long descriptions; with you especially it is always on confidential matters that I like to write――the history of my soul, my thoughts, my impressions.

What a heavenly festival! How, on this day of the Presentation, must the angels have rejoiced at beholding this young child of Judea, scarcely entered into life, and yet already so far advanced in the depths of divine science, consecrating herself to God! How must you, O St. Anne! the happy mother of this immaculate child, have missed her presence! This sunbeam of your declining years, this flower sprung from a dried-up stem, this virgin lily whose fragrance filled your dwelling, all at once became lost to you. Ah! I can understand the bitterness which then flowed in upon your soul, and it seems to me that for this sacrifice great must be your glory in heaven!

To-day, St. Cecilia, the sweet martyr saint, patroness of musicians, the Christian heroine, mounting to heaven by a blood-stained way. Louis Veuillot, in _Rome and Loretto_, speaking of the “St. Cecilia” of Raphael, calls it “one of the most thoroughly beautiful pictures in the world.” “The saint,” he says, “is really a saint; one never wearies of contemplating the perfect expression with which she listens to the concert of angels, and breaks, by letting them fall from her hands, the instruments of earthly music.” Kate, do you remember the museum at Bologna, and how we used to stand gazing at this page of Raphael?

I am reading Bossuet with René. What loftiness of views! What vehemence of thought! Another consolation for Karl: “Death gives us much more than he takes away: he takes away this passing world, these vanities which have deceived us, these pleasures which have led us astray; but we receive in return the wings of the dove, that we may fly away and find our rest in God.” Hélène had copied these lines into her journal, and remarked upon them as follows: “Beautiful thought! which enchants my soul, and makes me more than ever desire that hour for which, according to Madame Swetchine, we ought to live; that day when my true life will begin, far from the earth, where nothing can satisfy the intensity of my desires.” We are going to travel about a little, and visit the funeral cemetery of Quiberon and various other points of our Brittany, so rich in memories. I am packing up my things with the pleasure of a child, assisted by the gentle Picciola and pretty little Alix, whom I have surnamed Lady-bird.[26] One of my Bengalese is ill, and all the young ones are interested about it, wanting to kiss and caress it, and give it dainty morsels, but nothing revives the poor little thing. Ah! dear Kate, this Indian bird dying in Brittany makes me think of Ellen, a thousand times more lovable and precious, and who is also bending her fair head to die.

Sister, friend, mother, all that is best, most tender, and beloved, God grant to us to die the same day, that together we may see again the kind and excellent mother who confided me to your love.

DECEMBER 2.

Here we are, home again, in the most _Advent-like_ weather that ever was. We have seen beautiful things; we have lived in the ideal, in the true and beautiful, in minds, in scenery, in poetry, and music――in a feast of the understanding, the eyes, and the heart. But with what pleasure we have again beheld our _home_, so calm, so pious, and so grand! It is only two hours since I took possession of my rooms. We found here piles of letters; René is reading them to me while I am saying good-morning to you――Kate, dearest, _you_ first of all; this beautiful long letter which I reverently kiss, which I touch with delight; it has been with you; it has _seen you_! How I want to see you again!

A letter from Ireland from Lizzy, who is anxious about Ellen.

Alas! her anxiety is only too well founded. Karl writes to me that Ellen grows weaker every day; strength is gradually leaving the body, while the soul is fuller of life and energy than ever before, and preparing for her last journey with astonishing serenity, and also preparing for it him who is the witness of her departure. In a firm hand she has added a few lines to the confidences of Karl: “Dear Georgina, will you not come and see me at Hyères? Your presence would help me to quit this poor earth, here so fair, which I would always inhabit on account of my good Karl. The will of our Father be done! Tender messages to Kate and to your good husband. Pray for me.”

Poor, sweet Ellen! How can I refuse this last prayer? But there is no time to be lost; René will consult my mother. Ah! my sister, pray that this journey may be possible, and that the angel of death may not so soon pluck this charming flower which we love so much.

_Evening._――How good God is! We are _all_ going; my mother wishes it to be so. “I do not,” she said to me, “want to have any distance between you and me.” The winter is so severe that my sisters are glad to get their children away from the season which is setting in. I am writing to Lizzy and to Karl. We shall be at Hyères next week. Pray with us, beloved.

DECEMBER 12.

Arrived, dear Kate, without accident, and all installed in a beautiful _chalet_ near to that of Ellen, who welcomed us with joy. Karl had gently prepared her for this meeting. How thin she has become!――still beautiful, white, transparent; her fine, melancholy eyes so often raised, by preference, to heaven, her hands of marble whiteness, her figure bending. She would come as far as to the door of her room to meet us, and there it was that I embraced her and felt her tears upon my cheek. “God be praised!” These were her first words. Then she was placed on her reclining-chair, and by degrees was able to see all the family. I was trembling for the impression the children might make upon her; but she insisted. Well, dearest, she caressed, admired, listened to them, without any painful emotion or thought of herself; one feels that she is already in heaven. Every day, by a special permission granted by Pius IX., Mass is said in a room adjoining hers. The removal of a large panel enables her to be present at the Holy Sacrifice. This first moment was very sweet. In spite of this fading away, which is more complete than I could have imagined it, to find her _living_ when I had so dreaded that it might be otherwise, was in itself happiness; but when I had become calm, how much I felt impressed! Karl’s resignation is admirable. René compels me to stop, finding me pale enough to frighten any one. Love me, my dearest!

DECEMBER 20.

Dearest sister, Ellen remains in the same state――a flickering lamp, and so weak that René and I are alone admitted into this chamber of death, which Karl now never leaves. Yesterday Ellen entreated him to take a little rest, and he went out, suffocated by sobs, followed by René; then the sufferer tried to raise herself so as to be still nearer to me. I leaned my head by hers and kissed her. “Dear Georgina, thanks for coming. You will comfort Karl. Do not weep for me; mine is a happy lot: I am going to Robert. Ah! look, he comes, smiling and beautiful as he was before his illness; he stretches out his arms to me. I come! I come!” And she made a desperate effort, as if to follow him. I thought the last hour was come, and called. René and Karl hastened in; but the temporary delirium had passed, and Ellen began again to speak of her joy at our being together.

The window is open. I am writing near the bed where our saint is dying. The weather is that of Paradise, as Picciola says――flowers and birds, songs and verdure. It is spring, and death is here, ready to strike.

DECEMBER 25.