y the
devout life, perfection, and sanctity, and followed this path in full
confidence, upon the faith of her confessors.

The grand doctor of these nuns was the provincial of the Carmelites,
Jean de la Vega. He had written the life of the Saint, and arranged
her miracles; and he it was who had the skill to have her glorified,
and her festival observed, though she was still alive. He himself was
considered almost a saint by the vulgar. The monks said everywhere
that, since the blessed Jean de la Croix, Spain had not seen a man so
austere and penitent. According to their custom of designating
illustrious doctors by a titular name (such as Angelic, Seraphic, &c.),
he was called the Ecstatic. Being much stronger than the saint, he
resisted the torture, where as she died in it: he confessed nothing,
except that he had received the money for eleven thousand eight hundred
masses that he had not said; and he got off with being banished to the
convent of Duruelo.

[1] Molinos, Guida Spirituale (Venetia, 1685), pp. 86, 161.

[2] "Scala per salire al cielo,"--_Guida_, p. 138. lib. ii. ch. 18.

[3] Condemned articles, pp. 41, 42., Lat. transl. (Lipsiae, 1687.)

CHAPTER XI.

NO MORE SYSTEMS;--AN EMBLEM.--BLOOD.--SEX.--THE IMMACULATE WOMAN.--THE
SACRED HEART.--MARIE ALACOQUE.--DOUBLE MEANING OF SACRED HEART.--THE
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY IS THE AGE OF DOUBLE MEANING.--CHIMERICAL POLICY OF
THE JESUITS.--FATHER COLOMBIERE AND MARIE ALACOQUE,
1675.--ENGLAND;--PAPIST CONSPIRACY.--FIRST ALTAR OF THE SACRED HEART,
1685.--RUIN OF THE GALLICANS, 1693;--OF THE QUIETISTS, 1698;--OF PORT
ROYAL, 1709.--THEOLOGY ANNIHILATED IN THE EIGHTEENTH
CENTURY.--MATERIALITY OF THE SACRED HEART.--JESUITICAL ART.

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

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

We must do the Jesuits the justice to confess that they were
disinterested enough in speculative opinions. We have seen how, since
Pascal, they themselves wrote against their own casuistr