these were among his words in dying: 'There is a spirit which I feel, that delights not to do evil, nor to revenge any wrong, but delights to endure all things, in hope to enjoy its own in the end. Its hope is to outlive all wrath and contention, and to weary out all exaltation and cruelty, or whatever is of a nature contrary to itself. It sees to the end of all temptation. As it bears no evil in itself, so it conceives none in thoughts to any other. If it be betrayed it bears it, for its ground and spring is the mercies and forgiveness of God. Its crown is meekness, its life is everlasting love unfeigned, it takes its kingdom with entreaty and not with contention, and keeps it by lowliness of mind. In God alone it can rejoice, though none else regard it or can own its life. It is conceived in sorrow, and brought forth without any to pity it, nor doth it murmur at grief and oppression. It never rejoiceth but through sufferings, for with the world's joy it is murdered. I found it alone; being forsaken, I have fellowship therein with them who lived in dens and desolate places in the earth, who through death obtained this resurrection and eternal holy life.'

'To smell this flower come nearer; such can grow In that sole garden where Christ's brow dropped blood.' E. B. BROWNING.

Madame Guyon distinguishes between a will harmonious and a will merely submissive; the latter she says is good in the obedience of a servant, but the former carries with it the heart as well as the conscience, as in the obedience of a son, or of a loving daughter.

'Happy in this, she is not yet so old but she may learn, Happier in this, she is not born so dull but she can learn, Happiest of all, in that her gentle spirit

Commits itself to His to be instructed.'

Of God's will she considers 'every moment as it comes, to be the true and unalterable expression.' Hence she consistently, as regards outward events, accepts and acquiesces in whatever befalls her in the ordinary track of life, to the extent of saying that a soul truly holy, a truly mortified and resigned soul, has no choice; it seeks nothing of itself. God's order, and that alone, constitutes the basis of its selection. It would rather converse, after the manner of Christ, with the most degraded and worst of men, by the order of Providence, than with the best of men by its own will. 'God must be sought and seen in His providences; it is not our actions in themselves considered which please Him, but the spirit in which they are done, more

1

'Let me be

Less anxious how to serve Thee much

Than to please Thee perfectly.'

ANNA LETITIA WARING.

especially the constant ready obedience to every discovery of His will, even in the minutest things, and with such a suppleness and flexibility of mind as not to adhere to anything, but to turn and move in any direction where He shall call. This disposition of mind, so exceedingly valuable, God has pleased to give me. My soul was like a leaf or feather, which the wind moves any way that it pleases.1 It is such a soul entirely dependent on His will which God guides into the truth. It is not enough to be entirely passive under God's dealings; the spirit of entire submission is a great grace, but it is a still higher attainment to become flexible, to move with perfect ease and without reluctance where He would have us move.' This state of mind she describes as that of co-operation with the mind of God, and adds, 'It is the wisdom of the holy soul to estimate things in the present moment; it judges of duty from the facts which now are (and this because it at all times reads God's will in His providences), and we must remember that the present moment necessarily possesses a moral extension (who can say how infinite in its bearings?) The holy soul therefore

1 'Trees pliant and resigned,

Which bend, and let the wind

Of God blow softly through them

Still, and through.'

lives in the present, a life without anxiety, committing the past to God, and leaving the future with that approaching hour which shall convert it into the present. To-morrow will take care of itself; it will bring, at its coming, what it cannot bring before, its appropriate grace and light.'

When we live thus, God, on His part, will not fail to give us 'our daily bread.'

It seemed to her that the Gospel exhibited itself not merely as a plan for escaping punishment, but as containing also the element of spiritual restoration and of inward life. She regarded the new life in Christ, when perfected, as being the same as Christ's life, or God's life, and those persons who have experienced the inward spiritual renovation to the extent of pure or perfect love as being truly one with God. At this great object she advised all to aim.

This last is a strong statement. I cannot myself read it without a deep inward misgiving, such as was that of the Psalmist, when he said, 'Such knowledge is too wonderful and excellent for me; it is high, I cannot attain to it: for I Thy servant am small, and a person of no reputation.'

Entire union of the human with the divine in this our mortal nature, ever at the mercy of humiliating circumstances, seems to detract something

from the perfection and excellence of each nature, for while the divine would miss its little human praise,' the human would come short of what is now its chiefest adornment, of meek adoring reverence, of tender contrition, not able to lift up so much as its eyes to heaven. Madame Guyon's position, however, is one not without the support of many passages of Scripture. She maintained it during the whole of her famous controversy with Bossuet with admirable reasoning, showing throughout the spirit of love and of a sound mind. She explains what she calls the fixed state as a life comparatively firm, based on principle rather than on feeling, living by faith more than by emotion, seeing good equally in the storm and in the sunshine, and able to rejoice in God equally in both. The subjection of human selfishness by holy love and the subjection of the human will by union with the Divine will; it is these which, constituting a truly renovated nature, may be said to make Christ within us. Christ in some future year will come visibly in the clouds of heaven, but in the spiritual and in some respects

He

may

more important sense he may come NOW, come to-day. Oh let us labour for His present coming! Not for a Christ in the clouds, but for a Christ in the affections; not for a Christ seen, but