here meet with again. The person is left as defencéless by the death of the will, as by physical death.

The Archbishop of Palermo, in his Pindaric eulogy of the Spiritual Guide, says, that this admirable book is most especially suitable to the direction of nuns. The advice was understood, and turned to account, especially in Spain. From that saying of Molinos, "That sins, being an occasion of humility, serve as a ladder to mount to heaven," the Molinosists drew this consequence-the more we sin, the higher we ascend.

There was among the Carmelites of Lerma a holy woman, Mother Agueda, esteemed as a saint. People went to her from all the neighbouring provinces, to get her to cure the sick. A convent was founded on the spot that had been so fortunate as to give her birth. There, in the church, they adored her portrait placed within the choir; and there, she cured those who were brought to her, by applying to them certain miraculous stones, which she brought forth, as they said, with pains similar to those of child-birth. This miracle lasted twenty years. last, the report spread, that these confinements were but too true, and that she was really delivered, The Inquisition of Logrono having made a visit to the convent, arrested Mother Agueda, and questioned the other nuns, among whom was the young niece of

At

the Saint, Donna Vincenta. The latter confessed, without any prevarication, the commerce that her

aunt, herself, and the others had had with the provincial of the Carmelites, the prior of Lerma, and other friars of the first rank. The Saint had been confined five times, and her niece showed the place where the children had been killed and buried, the moment they were born. They found the skele

tons.

What is not less horrible is, that this young nun, only nine years of age, a dutiful child, immured by her aunt for this strange life, and having no other education, firmly believed that this was really the devout life, perfection, and sanctity, and followed this path in full confidence, upon the faith of her confessors.

The grand doctor of these nuns was the provincial of the Carmelites, Jean de la Vega. He had written the life of the Saint, and arranged her miracles; and he it was who had had the skill to have her glorified, and her festival observed, though she was still alive. He himself was considered almost a saint by the vulgar. The monks said every where that, since the blessed Jean de la Croix, Spain had not seen a man so austere and penitent. According to their custom of designating illustrious doctors by a titular name (such as Angelic, Seraphic, &c.), he was

* When Lewis's "Monk" appeared, in 1796, people little expected to see that terrible novel outdone by a real history. The latter has been found in Llorente's Registers of the Inquisition (vol. iv. of the French transl. 1818, pp. 30—32.).

called the Ecstatic. Being much stronger than the Saint, he resisted the torture, whereas she died in it he confessed nothing, except that he had received the money for eleven thousand eight hundred masses that he had not said; and he got off with being banished to the convent of Duruelo.

NO

CHAPTER XI.

SEX.

THE SACRED HEART.

MORE SYSTEMS; AN EMBLEM. - BLOOD. THE IMMACULATE WOMAN. MARIE ALACOQUE. HEART. -THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY IS THE AGE OF DOUBLE MEANING. -CHIMERICAL POLICY OF THE JESUITS. -FATHER COLOMBIERE AND MARIE ALACOQUE, 1675.-ENGLAND;-PAPIST CONSPIRACY.—FIRST ALTAR OF THE SACRED HEART, 1685. - RUIN OF THE GALLICANS, 1693;· -OF THE QUIETISTS, 1698; – ROYAL, 1709.-THEOLOGY ANNIHILATED IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. MATERIALITY OF THE SACRED

DOUBLE MEANING OF SACRED

HEART.-JESUITICAL ART.

OF PORT

QUIETISM, SO accused of being obscure, was but too evident. It formed into a system, and established frankly, as supreme perfection, that state of immobility and impotency which the soul reaches at last, when it surrenders its activity.

Was it not simplicity itself to prescribe in set terms this lethargic doctrine, and give out noisily a theory of sleep? "Do not speak so loud, if you want to make people doze." This is what the theologians, men of business, instinctively perceived; they cared little for theology, and only wanted results.

We must do the Jesuits the justice to confess that they were disinterested enough in specu

lative opinions. We have seen how, since Pascal, they themselves wrote against their own casuistry. Since then they had tried Quietism: at one time they let Fenelon believe they would support him. But as soon as Louis XIV. had declared himself, "they ducked like divers *," preached against their friend, and discovered forty errors in the Maxims of Saints.

They had never well succeeded as theologians. Silence suited them better than all their systems. They had got it imposed by the pope upon the Dominicans, in the very beginning of the century, and afterwards upon the Jansenists. Since then, their affairs went on better. It was precisely at the time they ceased writing, that they obtained from the sick king the power of disposing of benefices (1687), and thus, to the great surprise of the Gallicans, who had thought them conquered, they became the kings of the clergy of France.

Now, no more ideas, no more systems; they had grown tired of them. And the public also was getting tired of them. Besides, there is, we must confess, in the long lives of men, states, and religions, there is, I say, a time, when, having run from project to project, and from dream to dream, every idea is hated. In these profoundly material moments, every

* Bossuet, letter dated March 31. 1697. Works (ed. 1836), vol. xii. p. 85.