(70.) Of course there were things in this last revival of cloistered devotion, as there were in the earlier systems, which a sound judgment and more enlightened piety cannot altogether approve. Not that one would include in this censure the inward voices, which Teresa and some of her disciples relate themselves to have heard, and which they received as supernatural warnings and admonitions.* These were not, like those which the poet Cowper seemed to hear in his hours of despondency, incoherent and distracting sounds; still less like the outcries a few years since heard in poor Edward Irving's chapel, and listened to by him as messages from Heaven: but rather what pious Protestants have called answers to prayer, which, whether perceived by the outward senses, or felt only in the silence of the heart, were usually expressed in Scriptural phrases, and suited to the occasion of spiritual trial or practical doubt which called them forth. What is to be regretted is the recurrence of that vicious monastic doctrine, which led its votaries to regard a life of reclusion under the convent-vow as the only religious life, and hence to disregard, or even trample upon, the dictates of natural affection and filial duty, when they came in the way of a strong impulse towards asceticism. One is sorry to find this kind of principle recognised without any misgivings by the accomplished sisters of Pascal:-"My father's "Hablas interiores." Palafox, Vida Interior, c. 44. Juan de la Cruz, Subida del Monte Carmelo, ii. c. 28, 399. orders," says Gilberte Perier, "threw my sister Jacqueline into a great strait: henceforth she could only go to Port-Royal in secret, and only see M. Singlin by stratagem and artful devices." No scruple seems to have suggested itself, that the interviews were neither pretty nor maidenly, which, on this plan, were to be managed like stolen interviews with a more mundane suitor. Teresa's good sense did not so often lead her astray in this point; but immediately after her death we find one of her disciples, the Prioress of her new convent at Granada, writing that they had been in difficulties about the purchase of their house, "till our Lord was pleased in earnest to move the hearts of some young ladies of the principal families of the place; who, aided by their confessors, without leave of their parents or relations-for their parents and relations would certainly not have given them leave to enter so strict an order-came in secret to take the habit." This sacred kidnapping-for it was nothing better-caused great offence among their next of kin, and stirred up a commotion in the city. Mothers and maiden-aunts kept more vigilant guard over their daughters or nieces. What was still more sad, shortly after the reception of the first of these six new sisters, her father and mother died, as it was reported, through sorrow for her loss; but, as the Prioress goes on to *Lettres de Madame Perier, p. 64. Paris, 1845. + Anna de Jesus, in Teresa, Obras II. 494. relate with great composure, the young lady herself felt no sorrow, but much content and thankfulness ; and the dotations which they brought were very seasonable. (71.) As to austerities, the admirers and biographers of Teresa speak much more of them than Teresa does herself. Whatever discipline she practised with her body, no doubt she did it earnestly, as women are wont to do but the end, which it cannot be doubted she attained, was to wean herself more entirely from the love of life, and to regard the world as the scene of a good pilgrim's progress to eternity. The pain which it gave her to live on, she writes to St. Peter of Alcantara, when she knew that death alone would bring her to the vision of God, was sometimes so keenly felt, that it would have been insupportable, had it not been the Lord's mercy to relieve it with some rapture, or vision, when her soul could be at rest, and see some faint shadow of the good which it desired.* It is told of one of her disciples, Catharine de Jesus, that, being on one occasion exhausted by illness, and hearing from those around her that she was at the point to die, her joy at the news was such as to recall her fainting powers, and check the progress of the malady under which she was languishing. She was troubled at the reprieve, and began to repeat the strange and solemn stanzas of an old poet of the time of Ferdinand and Isabella : * Teresa, Cart. ii. 77, not. 90. "Come death, ere step or sound I hear, Unknown the hour, unfelt the pain; 'Come, sudden as the lightning-ray, When skies are calm, and air is still, More sure to strike where'er it will. "Such let thy secret coming be, Lest warning make thy summons vain, Call back life's ebbing tide again." The author of these wonderful lines was the Comendador Escriva, who appears to have been the com mander, or warden, of a religious three Military Orders of Spain. house of one of the The lines are often quoted by later poets; by Cervantes in Don Quixote, not very decorously, Part ii. c. 38; and by Calderon in his tragedy on the story of Mariamne and Herod. (72.) The beatification of Teresa was celebrated at Madrid by what was called a "Poetical Tournament," in which Cervantes was a competitor for the prize, and Lope de Vega was one of the judges.* Gongora appears to have been at this time in Andalusia, and wrote some rhymes on the occasion, at the instance of a humble parish-priest, the Vicar of Trasierra, a rural hamlet on the Sierra Morena in the district of Cordova. It is a somewhat negligent performance of his careless Muse, expressive of admira * Navarrete, Vida de Cervantes, sec. 162. tion towards the mother of such a flourishing religious family, but shrinking from the severity of her rule with a feeling akin to that of Erasmus contemplating the underlining of the dress of Becket. However, the occasion was one of public rejoicing in the universities, cities, and chief towns of Spain. Philip III. had used all his influence with Paul V. to obtain the Brief for her Beatification; and its reception shewed how entirely his subjects appreciated his zeal. The spirit of Teresa, while she lived, had animated the best religious guides of her own generation; and her name. survived with theirs. Among her friends and counsellors were Peter of Alcantara, the Reformer of the Franciscans; Lewis of Granada, a great master of style and eloquence, and of unquestioned piety; and Juan de Avila, often called, from his remarkable labours, the Apostle of Andalusia.* Lewis de Leon, the sacred poet and divine, dedicates his pleasing Commentary on the Book of Job to one of Teresa's disciples. All these were men of the highest aims and powers, whose writings well deserve to be better known in our own country-read indeed, as they require to be, with a discreet eclectic judgment, but with such an enlightened catholic liberty of soul, as guided Jeremy Taylor, when he quoted St. Teresa by name in his sermon before the Irish Parliament. Not only the best and most enlightened teachers of her own country * See Dean Trench's Commentary on the Epistles to the Seven Churches, p. 149. + Works, ed. Heber, vi. 353. |