The crowning grace of this privileged infancy was, however, yet to come. Our Lord, whose Spirit breatheth where He will, had chosen that little child to be in an especial manner all His own, and He desired to secure possession of her soul while yet it looked so lovely, all glistening with the baptismal dew in the morning light of its young purity. But as the gift of the heart, to be acceptable, must be voluntary, her concurrence in His designs of mercy had to be asked. Neither, however, to visible or invisible guardian angel would He intrust the invitation, which, to crown His infinite condescension, was to come from Himself in person. She has left us a touchingly simple description of the extraordinary favour referred to, which she always looked on as the first link in the chain of her vocation to the mystic life, and prized accordingly.

"I was only about seven years old," she says, "when one night in sleep, I seemed to myself to be in the courtyard of a country school with one of my young companions. My eyes were fixed on the heavens, when suddenly I saw them opened, and our Lord Jesus Christ descending towards me through the air. As His most adorable Majesty drew near, I felt my heart all on fire with His love, and eagerly stretched out my arms to Him. The most lovely above the sons of men, beautiful and attractive beyond description, lovingly embraced me, and then He asked, 'Wilt thou be mine?' I answered, 'yes,' and having thus received my consent, He re- ascended in our sight to heaven. When I awoke, my soul was so ravished with joy at this unspeakable favour, that in my childish simplicity, I detailed the wonderful particulars to all who would listen to me. The sweet words of our Blessed Lord remained ever indelibly engraven on my memory, and so completely did they absorb my attention, that although I saw His sacred Humanity, I afterwards retained no distinct impression concerning it."

It was an important crisis in the child's spiritual life, that heavenly vision, for on its results depended the bent and colouring of her future career. By her ready compliance with the invitation of divine grace, she subjected her whole will unreservedly and for ever to the dominion of her Lord, and thus left Him free to carry out His yet unrevealed designs for her personal sanctification, and the salvation of innumerable souls bound up with hers. Henceforth, His divine inspirations would find no impediment to their action in the docile heart of that little child.

According to St. Bernard, the embrace of God means His Holy Spirit. To embrace a soul, and to give her His Spirit, are then in God identical acts. By the embrace noted in the vision, the Holy Ghost took possession of the heart of His chosen Spouse in quality of her Director, and although unacquainted as yet with the secrets, and even the name of the interior life, she found herself guided along its paths by that divine Master, as steadily and securely as if she had been led by a visible hand. In her doubts, she consulted Him with great simplicity, and never failed to receive the light which she needed for her practical direction; light so clear and vivid, that it sometimes carried with it the force almost of demonstration. This supernatural guidance, commenced thus early, and continued through life, may be ranked among the most eminent of her great spiritual privileges. But although the first, it was not the only favour conferred on her by our Lord at His most gracious visit. Other precious, practical effects of that visit were to disengage her heart from the amusements in general so eagerly sought by children of her age; to confirm her desire of virtue; to develop her love of retirement and prayer; to intensify her hatred of sin, and strengthen her resolution to guard with jealous care the holy treasure of her baptismal innocence. The embrace vouchsafed her by our Lord, so embalmed her soul with sweetness, so inflamed her heart with love, that she ceased not thenceforth to "run after Him in the odour of His perfumes," and so readily did her thoughts and affections turn to Him, their Centre, that it would seem as if in vanishing from her sight in the vision just referred to, He had taken both back to heaven with Himself. Her delight was to resort to the most solitary places and the least frequented churches, that she might enjoy with less interruption the sweets of communion with Him. Struck by the humble and respectful attitudes of pious persons whom she met in the church, and believing that God must certainly grant the petitions of those who prayed with so much reverence, she at once set about imitating them; and no doubt, even indifferent observers must have been impressed by the sight of a child between nine and ten years of age spending long hours on her knees before the tabernacle, her little hands devoutly joined, her soul absorbed as if in ecstasy, and her very countenance wearing a seraphic expression. She spoke of her childish wants, with simple confidence to our Lord and His Blessed Mother, and every day she asked that dear Mother that she might see her at least before death. From constant association with Him who is the joy of the angels, and the sweetness of the saints, her naturally bright disposition grew the brighter, and her engaging amiability and artless courtesy, the more striking and attractive.

She early manifested a singular reverence and love for religious instruction. Having heard that God speaks through the preachers of His word, she conceived so profound a veneration for their office and their person, that when she met one of them in the street, she would have followed him to kiss the traces of his steps, had she not been restrained by the fear of observation. Without understanding much of what was said in sermons, she still loved to listen to them, and on her return home, would repeat what she had retained, adding her own simple ideas and reflections. As she grew older, and therefore better able to take in their meaning, her heart, she says, seemed to her like a vessel into which the word of God poured in the manner of a liquid into a vase. Like the brimming vase, her soul so overflowed with heavenly emotions, that unable to contain their abundance, she was constrained to give them vent in prayer, or in humble efforts to impart some of her treasures to other souls. This early inclination for receiving and communicating religious instruction, was a pre-disposition for the grand work which the future reserved for her, and when, after the lapse of many years, her destiny had associated her with the generous missionaries who bore the knowledge of the name of Christ to infidel lands, she recalled the aspirations of childhood's days, in which, as she says, her heart had followed the ministers of the Gospel to the scenes of their labours, and her mind had been more engrossed by their noble deeds, than by the events actually passing around her.

Daily more intent on excluding from the solitude of her soul every distracting thought and care thus the better to dispose it for the permanent abode of the divine Guest who will have the heart to Himself, she withdrew more and more from all intercourse with creatures, except that required by charity and courtesy. Seeing in the recreative reading provided for her by her parents, an obstacle to recollection and a waste of time, she totally laid it aside, substituting for books of mere amusement, those which treated of spiritual subjects.

As she advanced in years, the love of God which inflamed her soul sought a vent not only in her almost uninterrupted communications with the divine Object of her affections, but in exterior active works of charity towards her neighbour. The tabernacle and the poor were the two magnets that attracted her heart, and next to the hours spent before the altar, none yielded her such pure delight as those passed among the lowly, suffering members of her dear Saviour. She found no company so congenial as theirs; no occupation so agreeable as the humble services which their desolate condition required. She fed, clothed and consoled them, and even sometimes partook of their poor fare, reserving for her own share their remnants and refuse. She would have been glad to suffer in their stead, and says, that but for the uprightness of her intention, she might sometimes have erred by excess of liberality towards them.

Going one day, as usual, on a mission of charity, she inadvertently passed too near a cart which some workmen were in the act of loading. Not seeing her, they raised the vehicle so suddenly, that her sleeve was caught in the shaft, and after being lifted into the air, she was dashed back violently to the ground. The terrified spectators concluded that she must have been killed, but she had not received the least injury, a favour for which, as the Almighty revealed to her, she was indebted to her love for the poor.

After some years, we hear of the first notable imperfection of her childhood and youth, and nothing perhaps gives a more accurate idea of her innocence, than the gravity which that imperfection assumed in her estimation. The singular degree of supernatural light vouchsafed her, the sublimity of interior purity to which she was called, and the height of the virtue to which she had already attained, explain the reproaches of the Holy Spirit, and her own keen remorse for an infidelity which appears trivial to us because of our want of enlightenment in the ways of God.

In her childish recreations, it had been her favourite amusement to copy the devotional practices which she had witnessed at Church; to kneel, to prostrate, to clasp her hands, to raise her eyes to heaven, to strike her breast; in short, to repeat as a pastime what she had seen done at prayer. In ordinary children, a fancy for such diversions is often considered a happy presage of a future vocation to the ecclesiastical or religious state, but in her enlightened eyes, these childish follies seemed inconsistent with the gravity and reserve becoming one so favoured as she had been. Viewed in this aspect, they appeared to her, not as sins certainly, but as imperfections; light vapours, it is true, but vapours still, and therefore capable of intercepting to some extent the rays of the eternal Sun of justice. It was not until her sixteenth year that her early pastimes struck her as reprehensible, and then, with the new light, there came a second to the effect, that although deliberate sin alone forms necessary matter for confession, an imperfection like that recorded might lawfully find a place in the self-accusations of one, destined as she was, for an exceptional degree of purity of soul. No positive duty however, required the sacrifice of natural feeling involved in the latter course, therefore she hesitated for awhile to adopt it, thus for the first time balancing the repugnances of nature against the inspirations of grace. But the Spouse of souls will admit no reservation in those whom He has chosen to be all His own, and we learn from herself, that by this infidelity, she interrupted for a time the fulness of the flow of divine liberality in her regard, and checked the freedom and rapidity of her progress to God. To all but herself, however, that progress was very apparent, furnishing matter of wonder and admiration, no less than of edification.

Only two convents existed at that period in the city of Tours; one of Carmelites, quite recently founded; the other of Benedictines, governed just then by a near relative of her mother's. This latter monastery she frequently visited, and as might have been expected, the oftener she breathed its atmosphere of peace and prayer, the more she longed to make it the place of her rest for ever. Her inclination for the religious life gradually settled into a desire so strong and irrepressible, that even before she had reached her sixteenth year, with its renewed call to perfection, she had confided her wishes to her mother. While rejoicing at the intelligence, and giving the project every reasonable encouragement, that good mother suggested, that although the step was undeniably a holy and a happy one, it was very important too, consequently, that it would he better to delay it until time and reflection had more fully manifested its wisdom. Had the youthful Mary been at that time under regular spiritual direction, there can be no doubt that she would have been advised to follow her attraction for the cloister, but she knew nothing whatever about direction, imagining that spiritual communications even to a confessor were limited to the accusation of sins at confession. Being very timid, she did not venture to press the matter, so her mother, hearing nothing more of it, naturally concluded that her inclination for religion had been the result of some passing fit of fervour, or perhaps only a childish fancy, forgotten as soon as formed, an idea apparently so much the more reasonable, as her natural gaiety of character seemed to dispose her rather for the world than for a convent. The seeming mistake was in reality a step to the development of the particular designs of God over His faithful servant, for although His general design is alike in all the saints, the especial destiny of each varies, and while the great outline of sanctity is universally the same, there are minute shades of difference in the characteristic virtues of individuals. The saints form the beautiful garden of the Church, redolent of every variety of sweetest fragrance, and enamelled with every shade of fairest tinting. The day was to come, when the Mother of the Incarnation would be bound to her Lord by the vows of religion, but before becoming a guide for His consecrated Spouses, she was to pass through married life and widowhood, that she might first furnish an example of perfection in both conditions, and thus serve as a model for woman in every state. Her ultimate destiny involved a species of apostolate among the savages of Canada, and for this, the novitiate awaiting her in the world would prove a more effectual preparation, than would the novitiate of the cloister. There she would have ample opportunities of practically learning the lesson of the cross, and at the same time of consolidating the virtues which were to be the distinguishing characteristics of her sanctity. Her zeal and charity would find a wider field, and her gentle patience reap a richer harvest, her union with God would be strengthened, while tested, by exposure to the distracting cares of life, and her purity of soul would shine out with brighter lustre amidst hitherto unknown difficulties and dangers. And so, when in after years, the voice of the Spouse would bid her arise, and leave her home and country, and follow Him to the distant land which He would show her, she would be prepared to answer, "My heart, O Lord, is ready; my heart is ready and my work is done!"

The first page of the history of her life,-which we are about to close, has not been without its practical teaching. It is the page of the young; happy those who study well the record! They will discover, that "it is good for a man when he hath borne the yoke from his youth." (Lam. iii. 27). They will learn to admire the heavenly beauty of a pure soul, and fascinated by its unearthly charms, they will resolve to close their own hearts against sin, excluding even the smallest, as a security against the entrance of the greater. They will learn to appreciate the happiness of knowing and loving our Lord, like the blessed child who found her sweetest joy before the altar, and they will surely ask her to beg for them a share in her love of Jesus and her spirit of prayer, courageously checking the propensity for idle talking and still idler reading which, are so great an obstacle to recollection. Studying her love of retirement, they will pray for grace to resist worldly influences, and following her to the miserable homes of the destitute, they will aspire to become, like her, angels of comfort to the desolate and sorrowing. Thus will their childhood and youth be saintly, as, were those of the model now presented to them.



CHAPTER II.

HER MARRIED LIFE, WITH ITS TRIALS AND VIRTUES.

Mary Guyart was just entering on her seventeenth year, when her parents proposed to her a matrimonial alliance apparently calculated to insure her happiness. Such an engagement was utterly repugnant to her inclinations; it was inconsistent with the high hopes she had cherished of consecrating herself wholly to God in religion; its duties and solicitudes seemed a decided obstacle to the cultivation of that spirit of prayer and recollection which had become as her life-breath. Drawn daily more and more forcibly to an interior life in God, she shrank with her whole soul from a position which must necessarily immerse her in he distracting occupations and harassing cares of the world. But accustomed to look on her parents as the representatives of God, and therefore seeing only His will in the impending project, she submitted with the respectful docility habitual to her, and none but the interior witness of. the sacrifice to obedience, could have suspected the cost at which it was offered. She simply assured her mother of her readiness to obey, adding the, almost prophetic promise, that if God should bless her with a son, she would dedicate him to the Divine service, and that if He should ever restore her own liberty, she would consecrate it also to Him alone.

Her only object now became to prepare so fervently for the holy sacrament of marriage, that she might receive with it the abundant supply of grace needed for the due fulfilment of the difficult and responsible obligations soon to be hers.

Few indeed have ever brought to it more admirable dispositions than did that reluctant, yet in one sense, willing bride, therefore it followed, that although the absence of pomp and show may have divested the ceremonial of all charm for worldlings, the perfection: of her interior preparation rendered it one of rare beauty in the eyes of heaven. She wore no costly attire, it is true, but in compensation, her soul was arrayed in that fairest of garments, her white baptismal robe, free still from spot or wrinkle, as on the day when it was first assumed. She displayed no sparkling gems, but many a virtue shone instead with a glorious light, before whose lustre that of flashing diamond and gilded coronet fades away, and as she thus stood before the altar in all the freshness of her innocence and the radiance of her spiritual beauty, must she not have won the smiles. of angels? Must she not have attracted the complacency of the angels' Lord?

The duties of her new state came to her marked with the sign of the cross, nevertheless she set about them with an energy and devotedness which clearly manifested the singleness of her views, the purity of her motives, and the enlightened character of her piety. Knowing that perfection is in the accomplishment of God's will, and believing that as long as she faithfully complied with the duties of her condition in life, she should walk in the sure, straight path of obedience to that holy will, she took immediate measures for the discharge of its fourfold obligations to God, her husband, her servants and herself. The spirit of prayer conferred on her at the early visit of our Lord, had been ever since developing itself more and more strongly, and her first precaution in arranging her role of life, was that no worldly interests should ever be permitted to interfere with her spiritual exercises, whence alone she could derive strength to fulfil her daily duties and courage to bear her daily crosses. Yet she never allowed them to encroach on domestic arrangements, her well-regulated piety having taught her, that when these latter required the sacrifice of her love of prayer and solitude she was doing God's will more perfectly in substituting active work for the enjoyment of immediate communion with Himself. Prolonged meditations, holy Mass, the sacraments and the word of God,—these were the four sources whence she drew the waters of grace to refresh and invigorate her soul. The holy Communion was above all, her joy and her life. As she herself tells us, it replenished her with sweetness, enlivened her faith, fortified her inclination for virtue, strengthened her confidence in God, intensified her love of her neighbour, and supported her under the weight of the cross. In one of her letters of after years, she remarks that a single communion well made, is sufficient to sanctify a soul, since it unites, her to the Saint of Saints, adding, that the reason why it does not produce this result, is, that the soul after having given herself to our Lord, in return for His having given Himself to her, too soon revokes the offering in practice, nature shrinking from the total renunciation of self which the divine Sanctifier requires as a preliminary to His action. It was not so, her son remarks, with the holy Mother. Bringing to the heavenly Banquet a disengaged heart, an almost annihilated will, and an entire abandonment to the Spirit of God, she not only co-operated with, but facilitated the operation of the sacramental grace, which meeting in her no obstacle to its freedom of action, bore her with marvellous rapidity along the path of solid virtue. Of such Communions it was, that she says, "The more frequently I received the sacraments, the more ardently I desired to receive them, because the more clearly I saw that they were to me the source of all spiritual blessings."

The love and reverence for God's word which she had manifested from earliest childhood, had but gained strength with years. To listen to it was still her delight, as it had been in her young days. She loved it for its own sake, irrespectively of the manner in which it might be announced, looking on every preacher as a herald of the great King, charged with the divine message of salvation. She says that her assiduity in attending sermons was rewarded by a great abundance of light and love, an increase of attraction and facility for prayer, and a renewal of fervour in the practice of the virtues of her state. With the enlarged experience of the spiritual life acquired at a later date, she recognised that He who never tries His creatures beyond their strength, had imparted to her in these benedictions of His sweetness, the particular graces needed to support her under the crosses with which it had been His will to surround her in the troubled days of her married life.

Her veneration for the preachers of God's word extended to all the ceremonies of Divine worship. Enchanted with their beauty and grandeur, and at the same time supernaturally enlightened to understand their mysterious signification, she was filled with gratitude to her eternal Benefactor for the signal favour of having been born of Catholic parents, and thus made a child of the one true Church long before she could appreciate, or even comprehend the blessing. She was always eager to be among the first to enter the church, that securing a place where no part of the sublime ceremonial could escape her, she might be free to meditate on, and enter into the spirit of all.

The uprightness of her motives, and the holiness of her dispositions in entering the marriage state, ought, we naturally imagine, to have secured her at least the average amount of its happiness. But for the purification of her soul and the perfecting of her virtue, God permitted that her garland of bridal flowers should soon be turned into a wreath of thorns, and thorns all the sharper, that they were pointed by the hand to which she might have expected to look as her shield against trouble. It is difficult to explain this singular phase of her diversified career. Her husband is represented as eminently endowed with the richest gifts of mind and person; he fully appreciated the value of the treasure which he possessed in her, and did ample justice to her admirable qualities, impressed most of all, perhaps, by the calm patience which no annoyance could ruffle; the steady love which no trial could shake; the Christian heroism which gathered new courage from each new shock;—yet it is nevertheless quite certain that the bitter sufferings of her married life originated, though unintentionally, with him. They rendered her duty in his regard all the more arduous, yet it was not on that account the less perfectly fulfilled. In uniting her destiny with his, she believed that she was carrying out an arrangement of the admirable providence of God; hence from the first moment of their union, she looked on him as holding to her the place of God. In thus adopting the supernatural principles of faith as the guide of all her relations towards him, she cut off the thousand sources of trouble and temptation which are sure to arise whenever nature, and not grace, holds rule,—so it happened, that among the sorrows of her wedded life, domestic disunion, at least, never found a place, and it followed too, that her spiritualized affection stood tests, which purely human love would not have borne. She was never known to fail in the respect or obedience due to her husband; her constant study was to promote his comfort; her unceasing aim not only to defer to, but even to anticipate his slightest wishes, and all was done with the winning sweetness and rare prudence which were among her characteristics.

Nature had indeed dealt bountifully with her, and grace developing, refining and spiritualizing the gifts of nature, had produced one of those dispositions, which, to include all praise in a single word, are sometimes termed angelic. Her temper was sweet and gentle, but it was a gentleness as much removed from languid apathy and insensibility, as from impulsive quickness and impetuosity. It was the serenity of a soul which, possessing God, is happy in Him, and has no desire beyond Him, and it excluded neither firmness in decision, nor courage and resolution in difficulty, nor promptitude and energy in action. Her nature was so placid and docile, that we never hear, even in her childhood, of the least of those ebullitions of anger or manifestations of self-will, usual in ordinary children. It was so enduring and forgiving, that while inoffensive herself, she was incapable of taking offence, and absolutely inaccessible to resentment. It was so kind and tender, that sympathy for the troubles of others, especially the poor, was among the very first of the features which her childish disposition revealed, and which, like all her great qualities, strengthened with time. There was nothing rigid in her piety, repulsive in her manner, austere in her ideas, or contracted in her mind. She served the Lord with joy, and so, her interior peace was reflected in an external cheerfulness, tempered ever by a sweet, modest gravity that imparted dignity to her demeanour and commanded universal respect. Her heart's history might be epitomized in one word,—self- sacrifice,—and truly it was the quality of which she had most need. Her charity has drawn an impenetrable veil over the precise nature, as well as the painful details of the trials which lasted all through her short union with Mr. Martin. Alluding to them in later life, in one of her confidential letters to her son, she says "The only comfort of my married life was that I was able to consecrate you to God before your birth, and that your father, who possessed a good heart, and had the fear of God, not only sanctioned, but even approved of my devotions. Regarding certain occurrences with which you are acquainted, and which are to be imputed to inadvertence, he regretted them most heartily, and often asked my pardon for them with tears,"—tears, she might have added, not only of self- reproach, but of admiration for the meek endurance of the gentle sufferer.

To the perfect fulfilment of her duty to her husband, she added the exact discharge of her obligations to her household. Mr. Martin was at the head of a silk manufactory which gave employment to a number of workmen, and these at once became the objects of the zeal and charity of their good mistress. Her first aim was to secure influence over them, that she might gain their hearts, and then bring their hearts so won, to God. For this end, she attended to their wants as carefully as if they had been her own children, devoting her chief solicitude to the concerns of the soul. Dreading beyond all evils, an offence against the God whom she loved supremely, she induced them to go regularly to confession, that its protecting grace might be their preservative from sin. To animate them to virtue, she gave them occasional exhortations, repeating the instructions which she had heard in sermons, and adding her own reflections; but prudent in her zeal, she took care not to intrude her lessons at unseasonable times, generally selecting for them the hours of meals, and by this means at once feeding the souls of her hearers with the word of God, and cutting off frivolous, or perhaps sinful topics.

A living model of the virtues which she inculcated, she encouraged her dependents even more by example than by precept, to love and serve God faithfully. Always calm and self-possessed, affable and kind, she practically illustrated the beauty of peace and union. Patient and self- controlled, she taught the heroism of Christian endurance. As solicitous for the interests and as intent on the happiness of others, as if her own heart had not been wrung with anguish, and oppressed with care, she exemplified the unselfishness of true charity. Enlightened and judicious in her views, orderly and systematic in her arrangements, active and energetic in the practical details of business, she taught by her conduct, more forcibly than by any words, that "piety is good for all things." It need not be added that she won the love of her domestics, who looking on her more as a gentle mother than as a mistress, sympathized in her sorrows as if they had been personal, and manifested on all occasions their compassion for her afflictions, their admiration of her fortitude, and their reverence for her person. Knowing that well-ordered charity begins at home, she took care never to devote herself so entirely to the salvation of others, as to neglect her own soul. In order to secure time for the requirements of both, she avoided unnecessary visits and idle amusements, and having fully complied with her domestic duties, she retired to her oratory, there to find in prayer and spiritual reading repose from past fatigues, and courage for new labours.

Thus passed her first probation in the world. The death of her husband brought it to a close at the end of only two years, but they were years so rich in every virtue of her condition, that the married woman who would lead a sanctified and useful life, is sure of attaining the holy end by following her example. She was indeed the model of a faultless wife; so assiduous in prayer, that it would seem as if she considered prayer her only obligation; so devoted at the same time to the interests of all connected with her, that it would appear as if her domestic responsibilities were her absorbing concern, and through all, so utterly forgetful of self, that chance observers could never have suspected how those cheerfully discharged duties involved the living sacrifice of her bleeding heart.

In this second page of the life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation, we read a continuance of the work of grace in her soul. We meet the same virtues with which the opening page has made us familiar, but now expanded on a wider sphere, and strengthened by severer conflicts, and still, at every step, we note for our own instruction the action of the Spirit of God, and her docile correspondence, the two necessary and inseparable agents in the sanctification of man. In the biography which he has left us of his saintly mother, her son particularly directs attention to the solidity of the foundation which she prepared for the edifice of her future holiness. Guided by the Divine Director, who since early childhood had undertaken the formation of her soul, she adopted as the four fundamental principles of her spiritual life, fidelity to the duty of prayer, careful avoidance of every deliberate sin, the frequent reception of the holy sacraments, and punctual attendance at divine service, as well as at sermons, and all public observances and ceremonies of the Church. By thus steadying the foundation, she ensured the permanent stability of the building, and by similar means only will any one else secure the same end. Prayer and the sacraments purify the soul; purity of soul prepares for union with God; union with the Church at once forms and cements the bonds of union with God. Sanctity, as so often observed, is primarily the work of grace, but grace will come to us only through the appointed channels. If we cut off the channel, we cut off also the supply, deprived of which, far from advancing in the ways of God, we shall but languish and lose ground. "Unless the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it." (Ps. cxxvi. 1).



CHAPTER III.

WIDOWHOOD.—LIFE OF SOLITUDE AND PRAYER.

The young wife was but nineteen when a new scene in life's great drama was opened before her by the death of her husband. Although, through God's permission, he had caused her very bitter sorrows, her naturally warm heart was not the less grieved at the separation. She had fully appreciated his good qualities; had found excuses in her charity for his shortcomings, and had loved him with sincere affection, but as she had seen and accepted an arrangement of the divine will in the formation of the marriage tie, so did she recognise and adore a dispensation of the same Almighty will in the. breaking of the bond, and this one consideration sufficed to reconcile her to the trial, and to give rest to her soul. At the period of her widowhood, her prospects were no doubt cheerless enough. Her pecuniary affairs had been left in a state of great embarrassment; she had an infant of six months old to provide for, and as she remarks, her comparative youth and inexperience seemed to unfit her for a struggle with the difficulties of her position, but here, as ever, her beautiful trust in God supported her, and with a firm, filial reliance on His promise to be with those who are in tribulation, she took up her new crosses with resignation and abandonment so perfect, that neither loss of fortune, nor anticipation of absolute poverty, nor anxiety for the fate of her little child could disturb her serenity or shake her confidence.

The virtue and amiability which she had evinced during her first matrimonial engagement, soon procured her new and far more advantageous offers, while the capacity and integrity which had marked her business transactions, led to very promising proposals for re-embarking in commerce. Prudence seemed in favour of acceptance; natural inclination was opposed to it. In weighing the question, however, it was not to natural inclination that she appealed for a decision; this never had been her guide, nor should it now. If it were, the remembrance of the miseries of her married life would have been quite sufficient reason to deter her from risking a repetition of them, but faith had taught her to see in those past crosses, only valuable opportunities of practising virtue and acquiring merit, therefore she gave the apprehension of their renewal no place in her deliberations. The interior attraction which sweetly but irresistibly urged her to devote herself all to God,—this it was which determined her to embrace a life of entire seclusion in the world, as soon as her affairs should be arranged. In forming her plans, she can scarcely have refrained from casting a wistful glance at the attractive solitude of the cloister, but knowing that its entrance was for the present closed to her by her duty to her child, she resigned herself to wait for the promised land, until she should first have crossed the intervening desert. Referring to this period in one of her after letters to her son, she speaks of the transports of her gratitude at finding herself free to follow her call to solitude, where without distraction or division she could think of and love her Lord, while she watched over the babe whom He had committed to her keeping. The death of her mother-in- law, in about a month after that of her husband, removed the last obstacle to the accomplishment of her project.

Connected with the early months of her widowhood, is a wondrous supernatural favour, granted her as if to confirm her late determination, and mark it with a sensible sign of heaven's approval. We shall record it in the words best suited to so sublime a subject,—her own. "On the eve," she says, "of the feast of the Incarnation, 1620, I was on my way to business, which I recommended to God by my ordinary aspiration, 'In thee, O Lord, I have hoped; let me never be confounded!'—when suddenly, my progress was unaccountably arrested, and while I stood motionless in body, the action of my mind was equally suspended, all recollection of the affairs I was engaged in vanishing instantaneously from my memory. Then the eyes of my soul were wondrously opened in one moment, and all the sins, faults and imperfections of my life revealed to me in general and in particular, with indescribable distinctness. At the same time, I saw myself plunged in a bath of blood, and I knew that it was the blood of the Son of God which had been shed for the very sins now so clearly represented to me. If the Almighty in His great goodness had not sustained me, I think I should have died of terror, so horrible did even the smallest sin appear. Oh! what words can express the emotion of the soul at seeing the Lord of infinite goodness and incomprehensible sanctity insulted by a worm of the earth, and a Man-God shedding His most adorable blood to reconcile sinners to His Father! Above all, who can describe her feelings at finding herself personally stained with sin, and recognising that the Incarnate God would have done for the expiation of her individual guilt, what He has done for the atonement of the transgressions of all men in general! At that moment, my heart seemed wholly changed into love for Him who had shown me this signal mercy, and it was filled at the same time with indescribable, and even unimaginable sorrow for having offended Him. This feeling of loving sorrow was so overpowering, that I would willingly have thrown myself into flames, if thus I could have appeased it, and strangest of all, its force was full of gentleness. It sweetly bound my soul by its very charms, and led her on a willing captive. A strong interior impulse urged me to confess my sins, and on returning to my usual condition, I found myself standing opposite the little church of the Feuillants who had lately established themselves at Tours. I entered, and seeing one of the Fathers standing in the middle of the chapel as if he had been expecting my arrival, I on the spot confessed the sins which had just been discovered to me, too intent on making reparation to Him whom I had offended, to notice that I might easily have been overheard by a lady who had entered the church in the meantime. When I had finished, the Father gently told me to return the next day to his confessional, and I left without observing at the moment that I had not received absolution. This omission was supplied at my renewed confession next morning. During the first year that I remained under the direction of this Father, I confined myself entirely to the accusation of my sins, thinking that nothing else should be introduced at confession, but having heard a pious girl say that it was not right to practise corporal austerities without permission from the confessor, I applied for it to mine, and he then regulated the amount of these, as well as the number of my confessions and communions. I returned home, changed into another creature, and that so completely, that I no longer recognised myself. I discovered with unmistakable clearness the ignorance under cover of which I had hitherto thought myself very innocent, my conduct very harmless, and my whole spiritual condition blameless. After our Lord had opened my eyes, I saw myself as I was, and I had to own that my justice was but iniquity."

She always looked on this heavenly favour as one of the greatest she had ever received, and its date as synonymous with that of her perfect conversion to God. "It would be difficult," says her son, "to lead a more exemplary life than hers had been; by the word conversion, we are not then to understand, a transition from a state of sin to a state of grace, but a resolute determination to bid adieu wholly to the world, that she might give herself all to God and live only by His love." To mark her entire separation from the world, she assumed a peculiarly grave style of dress, dismissed her servants, gave up her house, and returned to her father's, where free from all care arid responsibility, she found herself as she desired, alone with God alone. She chose an apartment in the upper story as the most retired, and between this and the adjoining oratory, she passed most of her time in prayer. She was never to be seen except at church or at home; paid no visits and received very few; spoke but rarely, and then concisely. She took her frugal meals at her father's table, then retired to her solitude, as she says herself, "like the dove to its nest." It was at this time, that in addition to her other most severe austerities, she gave up the use of linen, substituting serge. Knowing the danger of inaction, she occupied the intervals between prayer in embroidery, choosing this employment because it left the mind free to converse with her Lord. But although her life was thus hidden in God, it was no part of her piety to forget the interests of her neighbour. In her present straitened circumstances, she could no longer open her hand in alms as had been her wont in better days, but the sick poor retained their old place in her heart, and among these she still could always find ample exercise for her charity. Accordingly, she sought out the most revolting cases of disease, and made appointments with the sufferers to meet her at her home, where kneeling before them while they sat, she washed and dressed their loathsome sores, contriving to stoop closely over their ulcerated limbs, so that nature might be crucified in every sense, and crushed in every feeling. And as the soul's interests are more precious far than those of the miserable body, so was it her chief concern to instruct the ignorant, to encourage the weak, to rouse the sinful to repentance, and animate the good to higher virtue. Thus passed the first year of her widowhood: at its close, the tenor of her life was altered, that in a new sphere, she might have the opportunity oL practising new virtues.



CHAPTER IV.

PURITY OF SOUL.—LIFE OF HUMILIATION IN HER SISTER'S HOUSE.

It would seem as if the holy widow had now attained the very position for which her heart had so long sighed, a life of close and constant communion with God, and, at the same time, of active charity to her neighbour,—a life combining every facility for her own sanctification, with abundant opportunities of promoting the salvation of other souls also. But scarcely had she realized its advantages and tasted its sweetness, when at the end of one short year, she was called on to relinquish it, by a married sister, who, knowing her talent for business, begged her assistance in the management of a large commercial establishment of her own. The proposal was naturally most distasteful, but seeing in it a road to the suffering and humiliation for which her soul thirsted, as well as an opportunity of practising her favourite charity, she made the sacrifice in her spirit of habitual self- immolation, only stipulating for freedom in her spiritual exercises, and permission, to return home every evening. Our Lord was pleased to mark His approval of her decision, and to reward her generosity, by raising her to a higher degree of prayer.

This partial return to the world suggested the idea that she might now perhaps be induced to accede to the unanimous wish of her friends, and engage once more in married life. The subject was therefore before long renewed, and one day she was so hard pressed with a variety of arguments connected with the interests of her son, that she paused a little to consider whether the opinions of so many wise and disinterested advisers ought not to weigh somewhat against her own lights. The hesitation was only momentary, and yet on reflection, it seemed to her to have involved so serious an infidelity, that in subsequent general confessions of the greatest sins of her life, she ranked this first, as the one most deserving of her regret, and the possible cause of her severe interior sufferings. She knew that in its own nature, the fault in question was inconsiderable, but she understood equally well that its attendant circumstances gave it a certain degree of gravity for her, whom the Almighty had so favoured. Short as her hesitation had been, it appeared like disloyalty to Him whom she had promised to take for her only Spouse should the bonds of her earthly union be ever broken, and that with her capability of appreciating the sublimity of a vocation to a life with God alone, she should have deliberated for an instant between His invitation and that of the world, seemed to her a fitting subject of life-long sorrow and self-condemnation. The infidelity to grace was aggravated in her estimation by its accompanying ingratitude, and this in itself was a reproach, keenly painful to a heart so tender and loving as hers.

Here again, we are struck with wonder and admiration at her purity of conscience, and here again we breathe a prayer for light to see ourselves as God sees us; for grace to understand the malice of sin as the saints understand it. It is because their hearts are so pure, that the spiritual vision of the saints is so refined. "Blessed are the clean of heart, for they see God" and in the light of that eternal Sun of Justice, they discern minutest stains, invisible to souls obscured by the clouds of sin, or dimmed by the mists of self-love. Again, it is because the hearts of the saints are so pure, that their love of God is so sensitive. "Blessed are the clean of heart," for they see the Divine attractions as clearly as is given to man in his mortality, and seeing them thus clearly, every slight infidelity to a God so beautiful and so good, assumes importance in their eyes, and excites a corresponding sorrow. The young widow's momentary irresolution left her only the more firmly determined to renounce the world at once and for ever, and in order to render that resolution irrevocable, she bound herself to, God by a vow of perpetual chastity, being then twenty-one years of age. About this time she was placed under the spiritual care of the Reverend Father Dom Raymond of St. Bernard, and to this enlightened master she was first indebted for the great blessing of regular direction in the paths of the interior life.

Her position in her sister's house was unaccountably strange. She had been invited there, because her clear intellect, sound judgment, and natural aptitude for business promised to render her an invaluable assistant in the management of a large concern, and yet, instead of being at once placed in her own sphere at the head of the family, she was permitted without question or remonstrance to establish her quarters in the kitchen, as if considered suited only for menial work;—treated meantime in the most imperious manner, not only by the master and mistress of the house, but by the very servants; looked down on by all, as if she had been not even a stranger or a hireling, but an outcast. The Spirit of God inspired her, she says, to conceal her natural abilities, that she might pass for an ignorant woman, fit only to wait on the servants, and this lowly condition had such powerful charms for her humble heart, that she actually feared excess in her attachment to it. In proposing this apprehension as a conscientious doubt to her director, her great fear was that he would oblige her to emerge from her abject position, and assume her rightful place in the family.

Her insatiable desire of crosses and humiliations was not satisfied even with the ingratitude of her brother and sister, nor with the insolent behaviour of the domestics; she sought for new sufferings, and among others, contrived to burn herself while employed in cooking. She attended the servants in sickness, reserving the whole care of them to herself, and voluntarily rendering them the lowest services. Among other instances of the kind, she at one time dressed the infected wound of a workman whose foot had been nearly severed in two by a terrible accident, and whose deplorable condition rendered him absolutely unapproachable to all but herself. Although gangrene threatened, and amputation seemed inevitable, she persevered in her work of mercy and self-denial, until she bad effected a cure. Her brother and sister, she looked on as her best benefactors, accepting their unkindness as the greatest of favours, and obeying their directions with scrupulous exactitude, and this life she led, and this death to self she practised, not for a week, or a month, but for three or four successive years. Oh! how richly traced in heaven's own colouring, must have been the daily record of those years kept by her faithful guardian spirit! How mighty the change wrought in her spiritual condition, as one after another they passed away, each leaving behind an accumulation of grace made fruitful; each marked by new, and always more wondrous supernatural favours! It is not, however, by her supernatural favours that we are to estimate her sanctity, but by her practice of solid virtue, nor are we to forget that if by an exceptional vocation, she was led into the higher paths of the mystic life, she walked long, steadily and to the end in the common road, to which, as Christians, we are called no less than she was. Nevertheless, that singular favours should have been granted her, is exactly what we should have been, led to expect from our acquaintance with the history of the saints, which has taught us that it is ever God's way to be liberal with His creatures, in proportion as they are liberal with him. There had been no rapine in the holocaust of this, His faithful servant. She had never refused Him one gift He craved; withheld one sacrifice He asked; was He to be outdone in generosity? Oh, far from it! In presence of the magnificence of His gifts to her chosen soul, we have but to bow down as we bend before the sun when its ray dazzles us. The reverential wonder which they inspire, is, after all, but a homage to the great Giver, and if while we admire and venerate her exceptional privileges, we at the same time study and try to copy the imitable portions of her example, we shall reap profit from both passages of her life.



CHAPTER V.

PREPARATION FOR A HIGHER DEGREE OF DIVINE. UNION.—ACTIVE LIFE.—INTERIOR TRIALS.

We cannot have studied the lives of the saints without observing, that while infinitely generous of His graces to all His faithful servants, their almighty Lord from time to time chooses certain individuals among them as recipients of a more than ordinary measure of His liberality. We read of a privileged few, to whom He is lavish of what may be termed exceptional marks of His love. These chosen souls, He inundates with celestial gifts,—revealing glimpses of His glory and beauty, transforming them into Himself, so as in a manner to divinize them, and even sometimes imparting visible external marks of their sublime spiritual exaltation. It would seem as if He desired to manifest to men in their persons, the immensity of His goodness, the infinitude of His condescension, and the magnificence of His riches. They are the specially favoured among the favoured: they form a class apart, in which God, wonderful in all His saints, is wonderful surpassingly.

In that exceptional class, suited as it would seem to us rather for angels than for mortals, a place was destined in the divine designs for the subject of our history, Marie Guyart, but before those all-gracious designs could be realized, certain preliminaries were needed. To the thoroughly purified soul alone it belongs to fly without impediment to God, as the needle flies to the magnet, and admirable, nay wonderful as was the interior purity to which this-singularly favoured being had attained; it had yet to undergo further processes of refinement before she should be disposed for the privilege awaiting her. Our Lord continued therefore to draw her more and more forcibly to the perfection of the virtue, revealing to her in the meantime, that when it had reached the required degree, a great, but as yet unspecified grace would be her reward. To stimulate her zeal, He gave her a vision, of a soul free from even the slightest shadow of defect, and the sight was one so entrancing, so enrapturing, that she said, if men could only see it, they would willingly renounce all things for the bare enjoyment of the glorious spectacle. Charmed with the celestial beauty of such a soul, and thirsting ever more to share its happy privilege of flying to God without hindrance or delay, she was carefully on her guard against the most trivial imperfection, and when betrayed into one, never desisted, until by sighs and prayers she had obtained forgiveness, which she knew by the cessation of reproach of conscience.

The sanctity of God was represented to her under the semblance of a vast sea, with whose limpid waters no defilement however small was allowed to mingle, all such being instantaneously rejected. Overwhelmed at—sight of the disproportion between the purity of the human, soul, and the holiness of the great God with whom she aspires to be united, she could only exclaim again and again, in the depths of her self-annihilation, "O Purity! O Purity! Hide, absorb me in Thee, O mighty Ocean of Purity!" At another time, the same Divine attribute was shown her as a spotless mirror, reflected on which, the least of her infidelities seemed magnified into a mountain. The profound impression of the Sanctity of God thus imparted, so greatly increased her delicacy of conscience, that she reproached herself for her smallest failure, as if it had been a fault of magnitude. She says that her union with God was never interrupted by necessary conversation, even though it might have lasted the whole day, but that if she spoke a useless word, or yielded to a distracting thought, she at once found the interior bond weakened, and received a reproach from conscience. Once, after she had committed an imperfection, an interior voice whispered to her, "If an artist had painted a fine picture, would he be well pleased to see it soiled and stained?" Another time, the same interior monitor asked, "If you had a costly pearl or diamond, would you like to have it thrown into the mud?" The words seemed to give her a new insight into the sanctity of God, and they filled her with unutterable confusion. So profoundly did the love of interior purity strike root in her innocent soul, that she accepted, and even desired the most vigorous punishment for the slightest fault, never admitting the idea that there could be a disproportion.

Her view of the divine presence had now become so habitual, that by a marvellous privilege, it was never interrupted. If duty obliged her to speak with her neighbour, her communication with God was not in consequence suspended. If she wrote, her mind was equally intent on her subject and on her Lord, and as often as she paused to renew the ink in her pen, her heart profited of the momentary interruption, to say a loving word to Him. If the whole world had been present, she says, nothing in it could have distracted her soul. She had received an infused knowledge of the nature of the works of God, their relations with their Maker, and the end of their creation; all therefore served to unite her to, instead of distracting her attention from Him.

To make reparation to the outraged sanctity of God, and to honour the Passion of her Lord, as well as with the specific intention of disposing her soul for the yet unrevealed favour awaiting her, she redoubled the austerities already so rigorous. She allowed herself only as much sleep as was necessary for existence, taking that on the ground, with no covering but a hair-cloth. After a while, the bare floor appeared too luxurious a couch, so she spread a hair-cloth over it, and on that she stretched her weary limbs for a short part of the night. This mortification she looked on as the severest she had ever endured, the weight of the body and the hardness of the boards combining to press the sharp surface into the flesh, so that constant pain permitted only short and broken sleep. A considerable portion of the night was divided between prayer and corporal mortifications. She was familiar with instruments of penance of every kind, and used them with an unsparing hand. Ingenious in devising means of crucifying her senses, she mixed wormwood with her food, and between meals, kept the bitter herb a long time in her mouth, until forbidden, through regard for her health, to continue so mortifying a practice. She succeeded however in so completely destroying the sense of taste, as to be finally unable to distinguish one description of food from another. Many years after she went to Canada, this fact was decidedly ascertained by an unmistakable test. Yet she says she was never ill, but on the contrary, always vigorous, always cheerful, always ready for new mortifications, and so impressed with their value, that she would have counted the day lost, on which she had suffered nothing. In daily Communion, she renewed the strength so severely taxed by her appalling austerities and her fatiguing labours for her neighbour.

That humiliation of mind might keep pace with subjection of the flesh, she one day brought her director a written confession of the sins and imperfections of her whole life with her name affixed, beseeching him after he had read, to attach it to the church door, that all might know the extent of her infidelity to God. Repeated rebuffs from her confessor served only to manifest the sincerity of her humility; she received them with her habitual love of contempt, and although the paper was burned, instead of being exhibited as she desired, her fidelity to inspiration was rewarded by a new flood of graces. Among the rest, she learned by revelation the exact nature of the celestial favour previously promised only in general terms, our Lord condescending to intimate to her explicitly, that she was destined for that highest degree of divine union, accorded, as we have just seen, only to a privileged few even of the saints. Although the wondrous promise was not to be realized for the present, the prospect of its accomplishment at a future day, filled her with holy joy, nerving her at the same time to new efforts for the removal of every obstacle to the consummation of her hopes.

After she had spent three or four years in the house of her brother-in- law in the manner already noticed, Divine Providence permitted that he should open his eyes to her capabilities and his own injustice. By a tardy concession to her merits, he asked her at last, to undertake the management of his affairs, foreseeing that they could not but prosper in her hands. Besides holding the rank of an artillery officer, he was charged with the commissariat of the whole kingdom, and under favour of these two appointments, he embarked in a variety of enterprises which obliged him to maintain a very large establishment; including numerous servants and vehicles. His charitable sister, in undertaking her new duties, still retained the old, from which her heart refused to part, because of their attendant humiliations. She got through all, and satisfied everybody; meantime so perfectly maintaining her union with God, that she seemed like one of those celestial Spirits of whom our Lord declared that "they ever behold the face of the Father in heaven." She tells us that she spent the greater part of the day in a stable which served as a store, and that sometimes she was still on the quay at midnight, sending off, or receiving goods; that her ordinary companions were carters, porters and other workmen; that she had to look after fifty or sixty horses; that during the frequent absences of her brother and sister, she had their personal affairs to attend to in addition to the rest, and still, that as this multiplicity of occupations had been undertaken only from a motive of charity, God permitted that instead of proving an obstacle to the spirit of recollection, it tended on the contrary to nourish and strengthen it. She says that when she found herself so overwhelmed with business as scarcely to know where to begin, she besought our Lord's help, reminding Him that without it, all must remain undone, and the appeal was never made in vain. Looking back in later life to this period, she remarks that the trials and hardships which she had to encounter during her residence with her brother-in-law, were especially arranged by Divine Providence as a most suitable preparation for her future work in Canada.

Sighing for the consummation of the divine union promised her, and ever seeking for some new gem with which to adorn her soul, she resolved to bind herself by vow to the evangelical counsels, adopting as an obligation, what had hitherto been only a voluntary practice, and thus in a manner anticipating the time when she should realize the dearest wish of her heart, by consecrating herself to God in religion. Her vow of obedience regarded her director, her sister, and her brother-in-law, and in its connection with the two last, was attended with difficulties known only to God. As to poverty, she possessed nothing but what was given her by her sister, contenting herself with bare necessaries. The interests of her son, she abandoned to divine Providence, aspiring with her whole heart to that perfect poverty of spirit which desires but God, and is content with Him alone. In recompense of this new proof of love, her generous Master granted her the precious gift of His own divine peace, and to enhance the treasure, He brought it to her Himself, as on another memorable occasion, He had brought it to His apostles. It was not that her soul had hitherto been a stranger to God's peace; on the contrary, in writing many years later of the favour now conferred, she says she had not supposed it possible to enjoy here below a more perfect interior peace than she habitually possessed, but that after our Lord had whispered to her heart, "Peace be to this house,"—so profound, so imperturbable, so transcendent a peace was imparted, that she never for a moment lost it, although her multiplied afflictions might well have shaken it, had it not been steadily anchored on loving conformity to the will of Him who had established His empire in her soul.

The gold of her virtue had been well tried in the crucible of tribulation, but as yet, it had not been subjected to the fiery ordeal of temptation; through this, for its more entire refinement it was now to pass. All at once her ordinary enjoyment of her spiritual exercises was succeeded by utter disinclination. The sweetness and patience which had scarcely cost her an effort in her intercourse with her neighbour, gave place to a sensitiveness and irritability which would have caused her many faults if she had not been closely and constantly on her guard. Her childlike submission to her director appear intolerable yoke; her dependence on her sister a positive degradation. The humiliations so freely embraced, and so long and dearly prized, seemed in her altered views, inconsistent with self-respect. The corporal penances hitherto lightened and sweetened by the unction of Divine love, now assumed their worst sharpness, and excited her strongest repugnance. Importunate scruples were added to temptation, and while thus violently assailed on many sides, she seemed not to receive light or comfort from any. Her only support in these terrible interior trials was in the remembrance of God's promise "to be with those who are in tribulation" (Ps. xc. 15), and truly He was with hers in hers, and by His almighty grace brought her so triumphantly through them, that amidst her complicated sufferings, she never failed in her fidelity to her Lord; never omitted the smallest duty or fell into the slightest impatience. He who does not permit His creatures to be tried beyond their strength, granted her relief when she least expected it. In the restored light, she clearly saw that the object of the tempter had been to lure her from the path of perfection to which God had called her, and on which, as we have seen, she had already made gigantic strides; and she discovered with equal distinctness that the ordeal through which she had passed was a necessary preparation for the higher graces to come. By her example on this occasion, as well as by her subsequent instructions, she teaches that however strong may be the pressure of temptation, however impenetrable the darkness of aridity, the afflicted soul should not omit any of her accustomed exercises, whether of obligation or of mere devotion, or lose her trust in that divine grace which never deserts her in her conflicts, but powerfully, though perhaps imperceptibly supports her in every difficulty.



CHAPTER VI.

SUPERNATURAL FAVOURS—VISION OF THE MOST ADORABLE TRINITY.—RENEWED INTERIOR TRIALS.—NEW HEAVENLY FAVOURS.

As the released torrent rushes on with increased impetuosity after a temporary restraint, so did the emancipated soul of the holy Mother bound to God with ten-fold ardour, now that the pressure of temptation, and the darkness of doubt had been removed. As a reward for her fidelity in her late trials, our Blessed Lord one day showed her His Heart and her own so entirely united, so completely fused, that they seemed to form but one. After this grace, her love of God appeared to change its character, and to become altogether divine. Her heart was no longer her own, for it had been made the possession of the Heart of Jesus. Absorbed in transports and ecstasies of holy love, she grieved that even the short time which she allowed to sleep, should interrupt the recollection of the only Desired of her soul: She aspired with ever increasing ardour to the mystic union so long promised and so long delayed. It was to be, as it were, the culminating point of the Divine favours;—meantime she was permitted, if not to reach the summit, at least to ascend to mysterious heights on the holy mountain, and there behold wonders not destined for sight of mortal eyes;—wonders which she herself confesses to be inexplicable by human words. Miraculously strengthened to bear the overwhelming flood of splendour, her soul was elevated even, to the vision, of the most august and adorable Trinity. She saw the relations between the Three Divine Persons; their unity, their distinction, their operations within and outside themselves. She saw their operations also in the nine choirs of angels, and understood how the human soul is created to the image of God. It took but a moment, she says, to receive the impression of all these wonders, whereas the effort to describe them requires time, for human language cannot express in a word, what the mind can grasp in an instant. The ecstasy lasted five hours, at the end of which she found herself still kneeling exactly in the spot of the church where it had commenced. She describes herself during that time as absolutely lost in those unfathomable splendours; capable only of passively receiving the impression of the purely intellectual vision unfolded to her with indescribable clearness and singleness of view. Writing of this great favour towards the end of life, she says that it was then as vividly present to her in all its circumstances as at the time of its occurrence, adding in her own simple way, that "great things like this are never forgotten." It has been observed that the terms in which she speaks of the most abstruse mysteries of faith, are too clear, top precise, too strictly in accordance with the teaching of theology, to have come within the natural lights of a woman of ordinary education; therefore while the style of the narrative has excited the admiration of the learned, it has left them without a doubt as to the Divine source of her inspiration. For a long time after the vision, her soul was so completely concentrated in the most adorable Trinity, that she had no power to detach her thoughts from the ineffable mystery.

We might anticipate that the wonderful favour just recorded, would be the last prelude to the elevation of God's chosen servant to the promised high degree of Divine union, but such is the incomprehensible purity of the all-holy God, that even after so many delays, so many trials, so much fidelity, so much love and devotedness, He did not yet find her sufficiently free from the dust of the earth, sufficiently disengaged from every creature, sufficiently detached even from His own sensible gifts, to be worthy of that mysterious union which requires the purity of an angel. The work of preparation was accordingly to go on; the arduous work of self-annihilation, of interior crucifixion, of total sacrifice of every feeling, and absolute death to every inclination. Our Lord showed her her soul as it would appear when adorned with the required degree of holiness, and she confessed that He did her but justice in still deferring the hour for which she sighed.

It is the remark of her son in the Life of his holy Mother, that temptation is among the most efficacious means employed by the Almighty for the purification of His creatures, for as in that state, the soul is pursued by a vivid and constant apprehension of committing sin, she lives in an habitual hatred of, and watchfulness against it, which are but too apt to relax when the presence of evil is less apparent, and the necessity for combating it less urgent. Through this grievous, suffering, the servant of God had once more to pass. It appeared to her, she said as if she had suddenly fallen from paradise into purgatory. She found herself not only deprived of all consolation, but filled with alarm at the remembrance of past favours, which seemed to her to have been unreal and delusive. The thought of God was, as usual, ever present to her mind, but it brought no comfort, for with it came an afflicting doubt of the sincerity of her love for Him. Far down in the depths of her soul, it is true, reposed the solid peace founded on submission to His will, but it was a matter of difficulty to realize the existence of that submission. Nature had once more asserted its sensitiveness to humiliation and contradiction. In short, so profound was her anguish of soul that she could scarcely support herself. This sore affliction, lasted for some months, then gradually abated, and as it did, she learned to realize the sweet use of sorrow. Trial, seconded by her own fidelity, had done its work. Faith had triumphed over sense. Like "a two-edged sword reaching unto the division of the soul and the spirit" (Heb. iv. 12), it had cut away the last remnant of natural life, and left behind only the supernatural. Long disengaged in mind and heart from all things on earth, she was now so detached even from the consolations of heaven, so singly centred in God alone, that she could rejoice in her spiritual poverty, and thank the Lord for seeming to have withdrawn, the favours which in her humility, she considered exposed to defilement in passing through her heart. The Almighty who delights in manifesting Himself to the humble, was pleased to reward her fidelity by a lively impression of His adorable attributes, and a clear knowledge of the mysteries contained in the first chapter of St. John. "During a holy week," she says, "our Lord granted me new lights regarding His Divine attributes. I contemplated the Unity of God, and in the Unity, I beheld His Eternity without beginning or end; His immense Greatness; His adorable Infinitude; and in an ecstasy of admiration, I could only exclaim, 'Goodness! O Immensity! O Eternity!' I understood how all things have their origin in God, from whom emanates whatever is beautiful and good, and I cried, 'O more than Good! more than Beautiful! more than Adorable! Thou art God! Thou art the great God!' Sinking into the very depths of my lowliness, feeling in His mighty presence as if I had been the veriest worm, still I could not refrain from telling Him of my love; still I could not but rejoice that my God is so great; still I exulted that He is All, and that I am nothing, for if I had been anything, then He would not have been All. O Breadth! O Length! O height! O Depth! immense, adorable, incomprehensible to all but Thyself! my Centre! my Beginning! my End! my Beatitude! my All!" Unable to satisfy her desire to die,—if that were possible, in order to render homage to the perfections of her God, she substituted the slow martyrdom of still more rigorous austerities than she had yet practised, and, after this new sacrifice, her mind, she says, was so filled with light as to be in a manner dazzled, and as it were blinded by the grandeur of the Majesty of the Most High. Thus purified by trial, sanctified by grace, adorned with virtue, resplendent with Divine love, elevated above earth and self and all their influences, her happy soul presented no farther, obstacle to the designs of her all- gracious Lord: it was ready for the ardently, desired union with Him,— and now, at last, the promise so long made, and the expectations so long cherished, were about to be realized.



CHAPTER VII.

SECOND VISION OF THE MOST ADORABLE TRINITY.—REALIZATION OF THE DIVINE PROMISE.

A second vision of the most august Trinity was granted to Marie Guyart, just two years after she had been favoured with the first. She was then in her twenty-seventh year, and seven years had elapsed since the memorable vision of the application of the precious blood of Jesus to her soul. In this second vision, the will was more strongly affected than the intellect; the heart absolutely consumed with the burning fire of love; the mind, as before, inundated with floods of light. This grace gave, as it were, the finishing touch to the beauty of her soul, seeming to supply what had hitherto been wanting to its perfection. While her spirit was absorbed, and in a manner annihilated in the contemplation of the three most adorable Persons of the Trinity, the Eternal Word, according to His promise, united her to Himself in close, mysterious bonds which there are no human words to describe. [Footnote: The lives of St. Francis of Assisium, St. Teresa, St Catherine of Sienna, St. Gertrude, and some other saints furnish instances of supernatural favours similar to that now granted to the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation.] "He that is joined to the Lord, is one spirit" (1 Cor. v. 17).

Often had she sighed for this hour, and with the Spouse in the Canticles besought the Lord to show her His face, and to let her hear His voice— that face so comely, and that voice so sweet. Now at last, possession had replaced hope, so now she might entone the canticle of triumph, "I found him whom my soul loveth: I hold him: and I will not let him go. My beloved to me, and I to him who feedeth among the lilies. Till the "glorious dawn of eternity" break, and the shadows of time retire," (Cant. iii. 4, ii., 17.) "when I shall see Him as He is, face to face, and know Him even as I am known" (l Cor, xiii. 12). She seemed to have passed into a new state of being. Ardent as her love of God had been before, it now rose to heights hitherto unknown. Her whole soul appeared to be transformed into love. Her life became one unbroken act, one uninterrupted hymn of ecstatic love. In the busy streets, in distracting business, amidst household cares and duties, at all times and in all places, she gave vent to her irrepressible transports in the sweet song of ceaseless praise, silently entoned within her own heart, and audible only to her heavenly Spouse and His angels. Even in sleep, she could scarcely be said to discontinue it, for while she slept, her heart watched, and at each interruption to her short repose, it resumed the strain, returning to the actual exercise of love with the first moment of full awakening consciousness. Sometimes fearing that her emotions might betray themselves exteriorly, she relieved their uncontrollable impetuosity by committing them to writing, afterwards burning these effusions. A few of them, however, by chance escaped destruction, and have happily reached us. From these, as well as from the account of her manner of prayer written at the command of one of her confessors, we learn something of the holy ardour which consumed her. "O Love!" she cried, "how sweet Thou art! how captivating are Thy charms! how light Thy bonds! Sometimes Thou woundest, sometimes Thou enslavest, but still art Thou ever sweet. As I am all Thine, so art Thou all mine, mine for ever, O my most desirable Life! And what do I desire of Thee, O my All? I desire Thy love, and Thy love alone. O Love! O great Love! Thou art all, and I am nothing, but it is enough that the mighty All should love the poor nothing, and that the miserable nothing should love the great All! O great God! mayest Thou be blessed by every tongue and love by every heart!"

The impossibility of satisfying her holy eagerness to be inseparably united to her God, caused her inexplicable suffering. It was death to her that she could not die. "I long, O Lord," she would say, "to be free from the prison of the body, that I may fly to Thee, and behold Thee in all Thy beauty and Divine attractions. O Love! when shall I embrace Thee! When shall I see Thee without cloud or veil! Knowest Thou not that I love but Thee? Come then, that I may expire in Thy sacred arms. To a soul which loves Thee, it is a martyrdom to be separated from Thee, and meantime to see Thee offended by so many of The creatures who are insensible to Thy goodness, and indifferent to Thyself. Oh! take me from this scene of sin and misery where there is nothing but sorrow and affliction of spirit. My heart sighs for Thy eternal mansions; for Thy incomparable beauty; for the consummation of that blissful union, of whose sweetness Thou grantest us a foretaste here below. While the sensible sweetness lasts, we are happy in Thee, our Treasure, our Life, our Love, but no sooner are we left to ourselves, than we feel once more the full force of our poverty and misery. Who will grant to my soul to burst its prison bars and ascend to Thee! May I be all Thine, as Thou art all mine! O Sacred Heart of Jesus! be Thou the Altar of sacrifice on which my heart shall be immolated! O Furnace of charity! enkindle in it that celestial flame in which I desire to be consumed. Can it rest on an Altar of fire and not be set on fire?" But notwithstanding her desire to be dissolved, that she might be with Christ, she loved her Lord's will too purely to wish for death or life except in conformity to it, therefore she offered herself to bear the burden of existence until the day of judgment, if God could be thus more glorified,—satisfied if meantime she accomplished nothing more than to teach some simple soul to know and love our Blessed Lady. Her chief relief and support was still, as ever, in daily Communion, which uniting her really, though invisibly to her Lord and Treasure, consoled her in some degree for the delay to the eternal union for which she languished. She says of this most adorable Sacrament, "that it is a fathomless and shoreless abyss of grace, and that eternity's light alone will reveal the ineffable wonders which God discovered to her soul at the time of her sacramental union with him."

We know from the testimony of the saints who have endured the martyrdom of Divine love, that the greatest of its pains proceeds from the inability of the soul to lore God with an ardour proportioned either to her own desire to love Him, or to the extent of His claims on her love. This suffering the Venerable Mother experienced in its fullest intensity. From, her insatiable desire of a more perfect love, sprang a fixed impression of her utter powerlessness to do any thing for, or give any thing to the great and generous God who had given her Himself, and with Himself all things. "Thou hast made me for Thyself, O God!" she would say; "for Thyself who art Love; why then should I not speak of love? But alas! what can I say of it? I cannot speak of it on earth. The saints who see Thee in heaven, silently adore Thee, and their silence speaks. Why, O Lord, cannot we burn like them with silent love? If Thou art their love, Thou art also ours. They see Thee as Thou art, and in this are more favoured than we on earth, but when we are released from this prison, we shall behold Thee like them; we shall praise, embrace, possess Thee like them; we shall be absorbed in Thee as they are,—in Thee who art my Love, my only Love, my great and glorious God, my mercy and my All!" While her soul was thus rapt in a continual ecstasy of love, her bodily strength wasted away under the action of the consuming fire. In one of the many phases of the martyrdom of love which it was her privilege to pass through, it pleased her Lord that the body should suffer more than the soul, enduring in its turn a real agony, and that so violent, that she says she must have died if it had lasted a few days.

While these miracles of grace were being wrought in the soul of this admirable woman, no external sign gave indications of the work going on within, for she took care to enfold her treasures under the mantle of humility. Always devoted, laborious and active, she seemed altogether intent on her harassing duties, yet, multiplied and fatiguing as these were, she found time to attend to the spiritual interests of her brother's numerous workmen, sometimes calling them round her to teach them the Christian doctrine, sometimes profiting of conversation at table to speak to them of God and the concerns of their souls. Reverencing her as a saint, they submitted to her like docile children, gave her an account of their conduct, adopted her advice, bore her reproofs, and carried obedience so far as to rise from bed to say their night prayers, if by accident she discovered that any one had retired without complying with the duty. Solicitous for their temporal, as for their eternal welfare, she interceded for them with her brother-in-law when they had incurred his displeasure, and attended them in sickness with truly maternal devotedness. Although her close attention to the presence of God never interfered with the fulfilment of her duties, it incapacitated her from following up the thread of any conversation unconnected with them. Her brother-in-law perceiving this, sometimes amused himself by asking her a question referring to something that had been said, but her confusion on these occasions was so evident, that in order not to increase it, the subject was quickly changed.

Finally, these vehement transports and exhausting languishings of divine love were succeeded by a profound and permanent calm. Her soul sweetly reposed in God, its Centre—that Centre was within herself, and there she enjoyed a peace surpassing all understanding. In the account written by her confessor's command of the special favours she had received from God, she observes in reference to this highest degree of divine union, that "the soul elevated to it, enjoys as far as possible here below, the felicity of the blessed. Storms," she says, "may sweep over her inferior part, but they do not reach the interior temple where the Spouse reigns, and she rests tranquilly in His presence. It is alike to her whether she is immersed in embarrassing cares, or buried in most profound solitude. Amidst the turmoil of life and the distraction of business, she is alone with God in her heart, enjoying His sweet company, conversing with Him familiarly, transformed as it were into a paradise, of which His smile is the light and the bliss. Vainly would she endeavour to explain what passes in that interior heaven, for the subject is too sublime to come within the reach of weak, defective human language. She is so elevated above the world, that all its combined splendours appear to her but as a contemptible atom of dust. Thus does the Almighty 'raise the needy from the earth, to place them with the princes of his people,' and in doing so, He only exalts His own glory, and shows forth His magnificence."

The intimate union with God, here described, became henceforth the Venerable Mother's habitual condition. It must however be noted that she does not speak of this privileged state as excluding temptation and suffering, but only says, that violent and frequent as may be their assaults, they do not disturb the inner region of the soul where God has established His Kingdom in peace. The superior part remains tranquil, although the inferior may be troubled and agitated, just as the ocean depths repose in peaceful calm while its surface is lashed by the angry tempest. By noticing this distinction, it will become easy to reconcile the apparently contradictory statements which attribute to the Mother of the Incarnation uninterrupted interior peace, with intense and almost continuous interior suffering.