Excellent Women Part 21

"These words," she observes, "brought into my heart what I had been seeking so many years; or rather they made me discover what was there, but what I had not been enjoying for want of knowing it. O my Lord, Thou wast in my heart, and didst require of me only a simple turning inward to make me perceive Thy presence. O Infinite Goodness, Thou wast so near, and I went running hither and thither in search of Thee, and did not find Thee. My life was wretched, yet my happiness lay there within me. I was poor in the midst of riches, and I was dying of hunger close by a table spread and a continual feast. O Beauty, ancient and new, why have I known Thee so late? Alas! I sought Thee where Thou wast not, and did not seek Thee where Thou wast. It was for want of understanding these words of Thy Gospel, where Thou sayest, 'The kingdom of G.o.d is not here or there; but the kingdom of G.o.d is within you.'" [1]

[Footnote 1: _La Vie_, premiere partie, ch. viii., 7.]

There can be no doubt that her heart now realised something of the great fundamental truth that "G.o.d is Love." She had been trying to propitiate Him, as a Being of awful majesty and purity, by good works, strict conduct, severe penances. Now she saw at a glance the mistakes of her former conceptions of the Divine Being, and all her faculties drank in the grand verity of the boundless love of G.o.d.

Her own account of this vital change is as follows: "I told this good father that I did not know what he had done to me; that my heart was totally changed; that G.o.d was there, and I had no more difficulty in finding Him; for from that moment was given me an experience of His presence in my soul; not by mere thought or intellectual application, but as a thing which one really possesses in a very sweet manner. I experienced these words of the spouse in the Canticles: 'Thy name is as ointment poured forth: therefore do the virgins love thee.' For I felt in my soul an unction which like a healing balm cured in a moment all my wounds, and which even spread itself so powerfully over my senses that I could scarcely open my mouth or my eyes. That night I could not sleep at all, because Thy love, O my G.o.d, was for me not only as a delicious oil, but also as a devouring fire, which kindled in my soul such a flame as threatened to consume all in an instant. I was all at once so changed as not to be recognisable either to myself or to others. I found neither the blemishes nor the dislikes (which had troubled me): all appeared to me consumed like a straw in a great fire." [1]

[Footnote 1: _Ibid_., ch. viii., 8.]

These extracts from her autobiography are important as giving a key to her subsequent life. We see here the intensity of her affections and emotions, the excitability of her temperament, the tendency to wander into regions of spiritual imagination, the liking for strong dramatic expression, which, though not in themselves blamable, yet gave to the outside world, and even to those about her who were open to adverse prepossessions, false impressions as to the depth and reality of her religion. They, close at hand, could not make the allowance which we can easily make for the extravagances of a soul which had just emerged from the prison gloom of depression and distrust into this realisation of the Divine love and favour. When her enthusiastic spirit led her to subject herself to the severest penances, she joyed in their infliction and could not make them severe enough. And here at once comes out prominently a primary error of judgment in this good woman at the very outset of her Christian life. She gives us details of a specially disgusting penance which she inflicted on herself. In this, as in the rest of her self-imposed tortures and degradations, the impulse manifestly came not from above, but from the mistaken imaginings of an over-wrought mind encased in a frail and delicate frame; and these morbid fancies were based on her intense pa.s.sion for self-abas.e.m.e.nt. We must remember that at this critical time, when she most needed counsel, she had really no one to guide her--no one, that is, who possessed spiritual wisdom and common sense.

Though Madame Guyon was much absorbed in a mystical ecstasy, which she describes as prayer without words or even thoughts, she was no mere visionary. Her love to G.o.d, her intense devotion to her Saviour, led her to earnest endeavours to do good to those around her. The poor and the sick, young girls exposed to temptation, all who needed temporal or spiritual help, were the special objects of her care and benevolence. In leading others to Christ she was remarkably successful. She had indeed exceptional qualifications for this missionary work. Just over twenty years of age, her youthful beauty and grace, the tender, yearning love which lit up her expressive features, the ready utterance and sweet voice, and the charm of manner which never left her, were no unfitting media to convey the tidings of mercy to many a benighted seeker after rest and peace.

IV.

AFFLICTIONS AND GLOOM.

At this time she found great benefit from the counsel of her friend Genevieve Granger, the prioress of the Benedictine convent, who encouraged her in her determination to avoid all conformity to the world, and to live wholly to G.o.d. She once more made progress in the Divine life, and the trials which now came thickly upon her were the means of blessing her soul with increase of purity and peace. Hers were no light trials. Besides the constant annoyance from her implacable mother-in-law and the ill-tempered behaviour of her husband, heavy afflictions befell her. The terrible small-pox attacked her, and spoilt her beautiful face, though it left her alive. Her cruel mother-in-law, instead of tenderly nursing her, basely neglected her, debarred her from medical attendance, and imperilled her life. The loss of her beauty alienated her husband's affection--such as it was--from her, and he became still more open to unfavourable influences. Burdened as she was with these troubles, yet another was added. Her younger son, a lovely boy four years of age, was carried off by the same fearful disease. Yet in all these afflictions she showed a spirit of holy resignation.

In the summer of 1671 she made the acquaintance of Father La Combe, who came with an introductory letter from her half-brother Father La Mothe.

He was in search of inward peace, and Madame Guyon's counsels, the outcome of deep thought and Divine enlightenment, were of great service to him. The next year was marked by other trying losses. Her little daughter, who latterly had been her one source of human comfort, died rather suddenly. This was probably the severest trial of her life. In the same month she lost her affectionate father. Yet in these bereavements also she charged not G.o.d foolishly, but took them as a part of the discipline wisely ordered to knit her soul in closer union to Him.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

On July 22, 1672, the fourth anniversary of the day on which she first found peace, at the suggestion of her correspondent Genevieve Granger, she put her signature and seal to a covenant which that lady had drawn up. "The contract," she says,[1] "ran thus: 'I N. promise to take as my husband our Lord Jesus Christ, and to give myself to Him as His spouse, although unworthy.' I asked of Him, as the dowry of my spiritual marriage, crosses, contempt, confusion, disgrace, and ignominy; and I prayed Him to give me grace to entertain dispositions of littleness and nothingness with regard to everything else." Though we cannot consider such covenants in general as wise in themselves, nor this one in particular as appropriate in its language, yet for a time it seemed to give greater strength to her holy resolutions and increased stability to her pious frame of mind. But about eighteen months afterwards she fell into a state of depression, or absence of joy, which lasted nearly six years.

[Footnote :1 _La Vie de Madame Guyon_, premiere partie, ch. xix., 10.]

Probably this state of "privation," as she terms it, was in great measure the result of physical causes. She had for many years tried her bodily strength to the utmost by her severe self-denying treatment of herself. And now the death of her intimate friend, the above-mentioned Genevieve Granger, no doubt exercised a lowering effect on her spirits.

It was a testing time for her faith, and it is a signal proof of the depth and reality of her piety that through all this trying season she held fast her trust in G.o.d, and kept on her way, though uncheered for a time by the joyous emotions with which she had so long been favoured. It was well that her mind, which had been overtaxed and strained by the intensity of her religious fervour, and by its unbroken continuity of introspection, should be brought into a more healthful state by this bitter tonic of joylessness.

In 1676 her husband's health, never very good, completely broke down, and after a long illness he died, leaving her, at the age of twenty-eight, a widow, with three children. As the solemn hour of parting drew near, she swept away all the wretched interference which had helped to cloud the happiness of their married life, and, kneeling by his bed, she begged him to forgive anything she had done amiss. The better nature of the man now at length prevailed, and he said--what he had never said before--"It is I who ask pardon of you. I did not deserve you:" which was perfectly true. He left a large amount of property, but his affairs were in a perplexing state of entanglement, and his young widow, unused to business, had to do her best to make all straight. She proved equal to the occasion, and soon, with her quick perception and uncommon powers of direction and persuasion, she reduced the complicated tangle to order, and then retired to a house of her own, where she was free from the annoying devices of her irreconcilable mother-in-law, and could devote herself to the education of her children, the perfecting of her own education, and the visitation of the sick and poor.

It was in 1680, after nearly seven years of comparative darkness and depression, that her spiritual gloom was broken in upon by a letter from Father La Combe, in which he took the sensible view that by this sore deprivation G.o.d was teaching her not to lean on her state of feeling, but to look to Him alone for comfort and strength. On the 22nd of July--a day several times marked in her history as one of signal blessing--her prayers were heard, and G.o.d again lifted up the light of His countenance upon her. "On that happy day," she writes, "my soul was fully delivered from all its distresses. It began a new life," a life of steady peace and joy, guarded from dependence on the joy itself by the painful experience from which she had just emerged.

From this time forth she devoted her life to the spread of the knowledge of the love of G.o.d. After much deliberation and consultation with others, she left Paris in July, 1681, to commence work in the south-east of France. The preceding winter had been pa.s.sed in making necessary preparations, in relieving the necessities of the famished poor of Paris, and in other works of charity.

V.

HER PUBLIC WORK.

On that July morning, when Madame Guyon embarked on the Seine secretly, for fear of the interference of her half-brother, she was really embarking on the chief business of her life, the work of spreading the doctrine of inward holiness. She had felt drawn to the district of Geneva by a desire to give temporal and spiritual help to the poor people at the foot of the Jura range. And now, having consulted at Paris the Bishop of Geneva, she was making her way, in company with her little daughter, a nun, and two servants, to the little town of Gex. Pa.s.sing through Annecy and Geneva, she reached her destination on July 23, and took up her residence at the house of the Sisters of Charity. This was for a time the centre of her labours of love. Besides her works of charity, she felt impelled to tell others of the spiritual blessings which she herself enjoyed.

Situated as she was, a Protestant without herself suspecting it, and that in the very heart of the Roman Catholic Church; a devout reader of the Bible, and one who valued the ministrations of priests as advisers and "confessors," rather than as transacting the penitent's own work for him, her superior intelligence, and her happy art of carrying conviction to the listeners, raised the jealousy of the clergy, just as her pure life was a silent rebuke to all lax livers, whether monk, nun, or priest. D'Aranthon, the bishop, had welcomed her to his diocese, and at first received her doctrines with appreciative favour. But he was a man easily persuaded, swayed by the last person who talked to him, and as her opinions became more p.r.o.nounced, he began to perceive that they were dangerous to the stability of the corrupt, priest-ridden Church of which he was an "overseer." He had appointed Father La Combe as Madame Guyon's "director," her spiritual guide and instructor. But in practice the position was reversed, and it was she who led La Combe into higher regions of thought and experience, of which he soon became the eloquent exponent.

La Combe's preaching attracted great attention at Thonon, on the other side of the Lake of Geneva; and the bishop was anxious lest these new doctrines should spread, and he himself should get into trouble at Rome on their account. He now wanted to circ.u.mscribe Madame Guyon's sphere of influence by getting her to become prioress of a convent at Gex. He evidently thought that by having her here under some restraint, and by keeping her close to the duties of the cloister, he would be able to put a stop to the propagation of her heretical opinions. But though she gave a little too much heed to visions and dreamy imaginings, she had lost no whit of the practical common-sense and clearness of sight which had distinguished her in many mundane emergencies. She absolutely refused to make over her property for the good of the sisterhood, and would not undertake an office which would shut her up from her mission of proclaiming far and wide, as the Divine Hand opened the way, the message of the Saviour's love and the Holy Spirit's sanctifying power. This refusal brought much persecution and annoyance both to herself and to Father La Combe, who had manfully refused to obey the bishop when he ordered him to use his influence in making Madame Guyon comply with his expressed wishes.

A party was now formed at Gex specially for the persecution of Madame Guyon, and after much annoyance and suffering she felt she was providentially called to leave a town where she had many disciples, whose lives she had been the means of brightening and elevating. In the spring of 1682 she crossed the Lake of Geneva to Thonon, where she pursued the same missionary career, and was the means of raising up a little church of believers in the midst of dense bigotry and superst.i.tion. She never "preached" in public, but in private she conversed and prayed with individual seekers after salvation, and at times had conferences with several together in a small room. By these means, and by her excellent letters, she effected an amazing amount of good in all that region. For a time, a short and happy time, all went rightly; but she knew only too well that persecution must ensue. It could not but come to this good woman, who devoutly fulfilled what she esteemed to be the lawful commands of her Church, but who took as her highest authority and director the open Bible, explained not by priest or friar, but by the Holy Ghost working upon her own acute intellect and devout heart. It is worthy of notice that under her guidance several small societies or communities were formed by poor girls who had become decided Christians. These young people helped each other in secular matters, and held little meetings for reading and prayer and loving fellows.h.i.+p. Their a.s.sociations were soon broken up by the priestly party, as, indeed, was to be expected; the girls were deprived of ordinary church privileges, and some of them were driven out of Thonon altogether. Another indication of the rising tide of persecution was that the dominant party ordered all books relating to the inner life to be brought to them, and publicly burnt in the market-place the few which were given up.

At length, through the influence of her enemies, Madame Guyon received from the bishop notice that she must go out of his diocese, and Father la Combe was similarly warned to depart. All espostulation was in vain, and leaving Savoy, in which her labours had been so much blessed, she set out on a wearisome journey into Piedmont, crossing the perilous Mont Cenis on a mule, and came to Turin.

In spite of many annoyances, she had spent two happy years at Thonon in work for her Divine Master; and she would have been more than human if she had not felt, though in a spirit of sweet resignation, the wrench which these frequent changes of habitation inflicted. No wonder that she called to mind the pathetic words in Matthew viii. 20: "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head." "This," she writes,[1] "I have since experienced to its full extent, having had no sure abode where I could remain more than a few months, and every day in uncertainty where I should be on the morrow, and besides, finding no refuge, either among my friends, who were ashamed of me and openly renounced me just when there was an outcry against me, or among my relations, most of whom have declared themselves my adversaries and been my greatest persecutors, while the others looked on me with contempt and indignation."

[Footnote 1: _La Vie_, seconde partie, ch. xiv., 1.]

At Turin she found temporary refuge and rest in the house of the Marchioness of Prunai, but appears to have spent only a few months of 1684 in that city. She longed to return to evangelistic work in France.

Accordingly in the autumn she went to Gren.o.ble, and had great success in her labours, but, through the hatred of her enemies, was obliged to quit the place secretly, leaving her little daughter in charge of her faithful maid La Gautiere. She had already commenced authors.h.i.+p, at Thonon, by writing, during an interval of much-needed rest, her book ent.i.tled _Spiritual Torrents_. At Gren.o.ble she began her commentaries on _The Holy Bible_, and here she published her famous work, _A Short and Very Easy Method of Prayer_, which speedily ran through several editions. So, by word of mouth, and by pen, she taught, and "the new spirit of religious inquiry," as she calls it, spread and prevailed. It was indeed the _old_ spirit of inquiry, as old as the days of the apostles, and its basis was the principle which she clearly enunciates, "that man is a sinner, and that he must be saved by repentance and faith in Christ, and that faith in G.o.d through Christ subsequently is, and must be, the foundation of the inward life." Such a bold proclamation of Gospel truth could not but rouse the anger of the clerical party at Gren.o.ble. The persuasive missioner was soon the centre of a storm of wrath and indignation, which the friendly Bishop Camus, afterwards a cardinal, was unable to allay. Early in 1686 she left Gren.o.ble for Ma.r.s.eilles, where she hoped to find refuge for a while. But her fame had preceded her. "I did not arrive in Ma.r.s.eilles," she records, "till ten in the morning, and it was only a few hours after noon when all was in uproar against me."

In this excitable city she remained only eight days; but in that short s.p.a.ce some good was effected. Now began a series of wanderings in search of a home. Arriving at Nice, she felt acutely her desolate state. "I saw myself without refuge or retreat, wandering and homeless. All the artisans whom I saw in the shops appeared to me happy in having an abode and refuge." After a stormy voyage to Genoa, she reached Verceil, on the Sessia, and after a stay of a few months amongst kind friends, but precluded from public work by ill-health, she decided to return once more to Paris, and there pursue her labours.

Unaware of the king's despotic intolerance, she arrived in the French capital on July 22, 1686, after an absence of five years, and soon became the centre of an enlightened circle of friends, of high rank, who were glad to listen to her teaching and to learn the way of the Lord more perfectly. For a while all was quiet. But her enemies--among whom her half-brother, Pere La Mothe, was ever the most virulent--were meantime very busy, and at length a charge was laid against her before the king. She was seized by warrant of a _lettre de cachet_, and consigned to solitary imprisonment in the convent of Sainte Marie, in the suburb of St. Antoine. Louis XIV. was now posing as a defender of the faith, and was glad to show his Catholic zeal in the punishment of a lady who was said to hold opinions similar to those of Molinos, whom he had recently induced the Pope to condemn. Nearly four months previously her eloquent disciple, Father la Combe, had been committed to the Bastille for life.

VI.

IN PRISON.

On January 29, 1688--the first month of a year specially dear to English lovers of civil and religious liberty--Madame Guyon was taken to her cell in Sainte Marie. It was a room in an upper story of the convent, with a barred door, and an opening for light and air on one side. Here she was shut up from her friends; her gaoler, a crabbed, hard-hearted nun, who treated her with the greatest rigour, regarding her not only as a heretic, but as a hypocrite and out of her senses as well. Feeble in body and in bad health, her mind was much troubled about her beloved daughter, whom interested persons were trying to force into a marriage of which Madame Guyon strongly disapproved. But though, under harsh treatment, she became very ill, and was nigh unto death, her peace and joy proved their heavenly origin by unbroken continuance in this trying season. As she recovered, she found occupation in writing her autobiography, and in composing hymns and sacred poems. Amongst the latter is the charming _cantique_ given at the end of her Life, and beginning--

"Grand Dieu! pour Ton plaisir Je suis dans une cage,"

which has been happily Englished as follows:--

"A little bird I am, Shut from the fields of air; And in my cage I sit and sing To Him who placed me there; Well pleased a prisoner to be, Because, my G.o.d, it pleases Thee.

Nought have I else to do, I sing the whole day long, And He whom well I love to please Doth listen to my song.

He caught and bound my wandering wing, But still He bends to hear me sing.

Thou hast an ear to hear, A heart to love and bless, And though my notes were e'er so rude.

Thou would'st not hear the less, Because Thou knowest, as they fall, That love, sweet love, inspires them all.

My cage confines me round, Abroad I cannot fly; But though my wing is closely bound, My heart's at liberty.

My prison walls cannot control The flight, the freedom of the soul.

Oh, it is good to soar These bolts and bars above, To Him whose purpose I adore, Whose providence I love, And in Thy mighty will to find The joy, the freedom of the mind."

Her liberation from this imprisonment came from a remarkable quarter.

Madame de Miramion, a pious lady, often visited the convent with charitable intent. Having heard much about Madame Guyon, she asked to see her; and having seen her and conversed with her, she soon became her warm friend, and pleaded her cause with Madame de Maintenon, who was now at the height of her power and possessed supreme influence with the king, whose wife she had become, by a private marriage, in 1685. Madame de Miramion, having in this way procured Madame Guyon's release from her convent prison, took her to her own house. It was a happy change for this much-tried woman. She was once again among friends, and had the society of her daughter. She went to St. Cyr--a royal inst.i.tution for the education of the daughters of the poorer aristocracy, in which Madame de Maintenon took interest--to thank the great lady for her kindness. The latter was charmed with the bright, saintly ex-prisoner, whose devout spirit shone out in her countenance and breathed in her fascinating speech. She had many conversations with her, and begged her to give instruction to the girls of St. Cyr.

It was at this time that Madame Guyon first met the great Fenelon, who was a director of St. Cyr, as well as one of the most noted characters of the age. She won his lasting regard. He was cheered by the warmth of her piety and her unwavering faith, while his more logical and better disciplined mind would no doubt moderate and tone down her excess of introspection and rapt emotion. She spent three happy years in Paris, consulted by many persons on religious matters, admired and honoured by several distinguished people, and sheltered from storm in the house of her daughter, now married to the Count de Vaux. But the suns.h.i.+ne was not to last long. G.o.det, Madame de Maintenon's confessor and one of the directors of St. Cyr, was possessed with a jealous hatred of his co-director, Fenelon, and also disliked Madame Guyon. Breathing into the mind of the great lady--who, though of Huguenot descent, was nothing if not "orthodox"--doubts as to Madame Guyon's correctness of belief, he caused Madame de Maintenon to withdraw her countenance from her _protegee_, and to discontinue her own visits to St. Cyr. Now was the time for Madame Guyon's enemies to attack her, when they saw the court favourite's countenance withdrawn. An attempt was made to poison her, and so far succeeded that her health was impaired for many years.