CHAPTER VII.

APPARITION OF MOLINOS, 1675.- HIS SUCCESS AT ROME.

THE Spiritual Guide of Molinos appeared at Rome in 1675. The way having been prepared for twenty years by different publications of the same tendency, highly approved of by the inquisitors of Rome and Spain, this book had a success unparalleled in the age in twelve years it was translated and reprinted twenty times.*

We must not be surprised that this guide to annihilation, this method to die, was received so greedily; there was then throughout Europe a general feeling of wearisomeness. That century, still far from its close, already panted for repose. This appears to be the case by its own doctrines. Cartesianism, which gave it an impulse, became inactive and contemplative in Mallebranche (1674). Spinosa, as early as 1670, had declared the immobility of God, man, and the world, in

*This is the testimony borne by its enthusiastic admirer, the Archbishop of Palermo (at the head of the Latin translation, 1687).

the unity of substance. And in 1676, Hobbes gave his theory of political fatalism.

Spinosa, Hobbes, and Molinos - death, every where, in metaphysics, politics, and morality! What a dismal chorus! They are of one mind without knowing each other, or forming any compact; they seem, however, to shout to each other from one extremity of Europe to the other!

Poor human liberty has nothing left but the choice of its suicide; either to be hurled by logic in the North into the bottomless pit of Spinosa, or to be lulled in the South by the sweet voice of Molinos, into a death-like and eternal slumber.

The age is, however, as yet in all its brilliancy and triumph. Some time must pass away before these discouraging and deadly thoughts pass from theory to practice, and politics become infected with this moral languor.

It is a delicate and interesting moment in every existence, that middle term between the period of increasing vigour and that of old age, when, retaining its brilliancy, it loses its strength, and decay imperceptibly begins. In the month of August the trees have all their leaves, but soon they change colour, many a one grows pale, and in their splendid summer robe you have a presentiment of their autumnal decline.

For some time an impure and feverish wind had blown from the South, both from Italy and Spain:

It

Italy was alreadly too lifeless, too deeply entombed, to be able to produce even a doctrine of death. was a Spaniard established at Rome, and imbued with Italian languor, who invented this theory and drew it forth into practice. Still it was necessary for his disciples to oblige him to write and publish. Molinos had for twenty years been satisfied with sowing his doctrine noiselessly in Rome, and spreadit gently from palace to palace. The theology of Quietism was wonderfully adapted to the city of catacombs, the silent city, where, from that time, scarcely any thing was heard but the faint rustling of worms crawling in the sepulchre.

When the Spaniard arrived in Rome it had hardly recovered from the effeminate pontificate of Madame Olympia. The crucified Jesus reposed in the delicate hands of her general Oliva, among sumptuous vines, exotic flowers, lilies, and roses. These torpid Romans, this idle nobility, and these lazy fair ones, who pass their time on couches, with half-closed eyes, are the persons to whom Molinos comes at a late hour to speak-ought I to say speak? His low, whispering voice, sinking into their lethargy, is confounded with their inward dream. Quietism had quite a different character in France. In a living country, the theory of death showed some symptoms of life. An infinite measure of activity was employed to prove that action was no longer necessary. This injured their doctrine, for noise and light were hurtful to

it. This delicate plant loved darkness, and sought to grow in the shade. Not to speak of the chimerical Desmarets, whose opinion could be but ridiculous, Malaval seemed to have an idea, that this new doctrine outstepped Christianity. Concerning the words of Jesus, I am the way, he uses an expression surprising for this century: "Since he is the way, let us pass by him; but, he who is always passing never arrives.” *

Our French Quietists by their lucid analysis, their rich and fertile developments, made known, for the first time, what had scarcely been dreamed of in the obscure form, which Quietism had prudently preserved in other countries. Many things, that seemed in the bud hardly developed, appeared in Madame Guyon in full bloom, as clear as daylight, with the şun in the meridian. The singular purity of this woman rendered her intrepid in advancing the most dangerous ideas. She was as pure in her imagination as she was disinterested in her motives. She had no need to figure to herself the object of her pious love, under a material form.† This is what gives her mysticism a sublime superiority over the coarse and sensual devotion of the Sacré-Cœur, established by

* Malaval, Easy Practice, 1670. The first part had been printed twice already.

p. 80. "

See her Life written by herself, (Cologne, 1720,) vol. i. My prayer was, from that time, free from all forms, ingredients, and images. See also p. 83., against visions.

the Visitandine, Marie Alacoque, about the same period. Madame Guyon was far too intellectual to give a form to her God; she truly loved a spirit; hence sprang her confidence and unlimited courage. She attempts bravely, but without suspecting herself to be brave, the most perilous paths, now ascending, now descending into regions that others had most avoided; she presses boldly forward past the point where every one had stopped through fear, like the luminary which brightens every thing, and remains unsullied itself. These courageous efforts, though innocent in so pure a woman, had nevertheless a dangerous effect upon the weakminded. Her confesor, Father Lacombe, was. wrecked in this dangerous gulf, where he was swallowed up and drowned. The person and the doctrine had equally deranged his faculties. All we know of his intercourse with her betrays a strange weakness, which she, in her sublime aspirations, seems hardly to have condescended to notice. The very first time he saw her, then young, and tending her aged husband, he was so affected by the sight, that he fainted. Afterwards, having become her humble disciple, under the name of her director, he followed her every where in her adventurous life, both in France and Savoy. He never left her side," and could not dine without her." He had succeeded in getting her portrait taken. Being arrested at the same time as herself, in 1687, he was for