?fl;ett af tfce Kingtixim 
 
 Fenelon: The Mystic 
 
 By 
 
 JAMES MUDGE, 
 
 Author of " The Saintly Call- 
 ing," "The B$ft of 
 Browning," etc. 
 
 CINCINNATI: JENNINGS AND GRAHAM 
 NEW YORK: EATON AND MAINS
 
 COPYRIGHT 1906, BY 
 JBNNINGS AND GRAHAM
 
 A WISE MOTHER OF CHILDREN, 
 A FAITHFUL MISSIONARY IN INDIA, 
 AN EFFICIENT WORKER IN MANY CHURCHES.
 
 A WORD TO THE READER 
 
 THERE have been many lives of Fenelon. Four 
 were brought out in the eighteenth century, and two 
 quite extensive ones were issued as recently as 1901. 
 In a few cases they have been written in a spirit of 
 cold, supercilious disparagement and cynical com- 
 ment by people who evidently had no experience 
 which would qualify them to understand the char- 
 acter they rashly attempted to portray. But the 
 endeavor to pull Fenelon down from the pedestal 
 on which he has so long stood can not succeed. So 
 long as his own writings remain to bear testimony 
 to the high qualities of his mind and soul, his fame 
 is secure. It is the chief regret of the present writer 
 that, owing to the restricted size of the book, he has 
 not been able to give more of Fenelon's own words. 
 The reader is recommended to procure the "Spirit- 
 ual Letters" of Fenelon, published in two volumes 
 by E. P. Button & Co., New York. 1 
 
 iThis edition of the "Letters," edited by H. L. Sidney Lear, is 
 also published by the Longmans of London. There is an abridged 
 edition, in paper, for fifteen cents, for sale by George W. McCalla, 
 Philadelphia, who also publishes P6nelon's "Christian Counsel," 
 "Spiritual Letters" of Madame Guyon, "Life of Dr. John Tauler," 
 and other similar books. The fire most important Lives of F6ne- 
 lon are by E. K. Sanders, Longmans, London, 1901 ; by Viscount 
 St. Cyres, Methuen & Co., London, 1901 ; by H. L. Sidney Lear, Riy- 
 ingtons, London, 1877; by Dr. T. C. Uphain, Harpers, New York, 
 1846; and by Charles Butler, Esq., John Murray, London, 1819. j
 
 6 A WORD TO THE READER. 
 
 It is not claimed that Fenelon was wholly with- 
 out faults, or was in all respects ahead of his times. 
 How could that be expected ? He took, in the main, 
 of course, the Roman Catholic view in the questions 
 that arose regarding heresy and the general affairs 
 of the Church. It is not necessary to defend him 
 for this. We are concerned, in studying such per- 
 sons, not so much with their dogmatic opinions and 
 beliefs, the result of their environment, as with 
 the spirit of their lives, their attainments in holi- 
 ness, and the light which they can shed on the best 
 means of growth in grace. It is believed that the 
 present volume will be found helpful to this end. 
 The type of piety exemplified by Fenelon, Fletcher, 
 Faber, and others of this sort, does not appeal with 
 equal force to all, owing to difference of mental and 
 physical constitution. But all, whatever their tem- 
 perament, can get only good by contemplating such 
 an example as is presented in these pages. They 
 can not feel the quick throbs of his deeply loving 
 heart, and note the sincerity of purpose with which 
 he served his dear Redeemer, without being stimu- 
 lated in their zeal, and helped to walk, in their own 
 way, more worthily of the vocation with which they 
 themselves are called. That this may indeed be the 
 outcome for every reader of the following chapters, 
 is the earnest prayer of the author. 
 
 JAMES MUDGE. 
 JAMAICA PLAIN, MASS.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 * 
 
 CHAPTER PAGK 
 
 I. FROM YOUTH TO MANHOOD, - 9 
 
 II. THE SETTING OF THE PICTURE, - 45 
 
 III. PRECEPTOR TO THE PRINCE, - 67 
 
 IV. MYSTICISM AND QUIETISM, - 94 
 V. THE GREAT CONFLICT, - 120 
 
 VI. THE GOOD ARCHBISHOP, - 159 
 
 VII. THE SPIRITUAL LETTERS, - 193
 
 Fenelon: The Mystic 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 FROM YOUTH TO MANHOOD. 
 
 CHRISTIAN perfection, or the highest possibili- 
 ties of Christian grace and growth, is a theme of 
 intense interest to every true lover of the Lord. 
 There are many ways of promoting it, widely dif- 
 fering in their merits and their helpfulness. With- 
 out disparaging other methods, it may be safely 
 said that nothing can be better than example. Chris- 
 tianity centers around a person; and personal ex- 
 perience perennially appeals. Better than abstract 
 discussion is concrete practice. More profitable 
 than speculation and controversy is an actual life 
 on highest levels. There is also a large advantage 
 in beholding such a life in another age and land 
 and Church, thus noting how God can magnify and 
 fulfill Himself in very diverse circumstances, and 
 amid intellectual influences that to us are quite ob- 
 noxious.
 
 io FENEXON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 We invite, therefore, the attention of the 
 thoughtful reader to a man who presents one of the 
 most perfect types of human purity that the world 
 has ever seen ; one who for two hundred years has 
 stood among the choicest few of those universally 
 esteemed to be authorities in spiritual things ; one 
 endowed with a luster which the lapse of time can 
 not tarnish, a luster far brighter than can be be- 
 stowed by mere worldly honors or temporal pros- 
 perity, however high. He not only had a heart filled 
 with the love of God and glowing with pure devo- 
 tion, but also a mind capable of the closest analysis 
 and the keenest discrimination. He was not only a 
 saint, but also a scholar and a genius, an original 
 thinker as well as a pursuer of holiness. Such com- 
 binations are very rare. His thirst for perfection 
 has probably never been surpassed. Seldom, if ever, 
 has such a remarkable combination of high quali- 
 ties tabernacled in the flesh. He had both modesty 
 and majesty, both simplicity and sublimity, uncon- 
 querable firmness in duty, unsurpassed meekness in 
 society; he was equally eminent for piety and po- 
 liteness, for morals and manners; he was sympa- 
 thetic and chivalrous, severe to himself, indulgent 
 to others. In the midst of a voluptuous court he 
 practiced the virtues of an anchorite; with the 
 revenues of a prince at command he hardly allowed 
 himself ordinary comforts. His abilities awaken 
 our admiration, his afflictions excite our compassion. 
 Born among the nobility of earth, he resisted the
 
 FROM YOUTH To MANHOOD. u 
 
 blandishments of earthly pomp, and became crowned 
 with the far higher nobility of heaven. He was 
 truly humble and truly heroic; good as well as 
 great; skillful in teaching, wise in counsel, master 
 of an elegant style both in composition and dis- 
 course ; faithful to his friends and kind to his foes ; 
 devoted to his native land, generous to his family, a 
 man of peace yet ready to fight for the faith, true to 
 his convictions, tolerant toward those of other be- 
 liefs, tenderly affectionate, vigorously diligent; the 
 glory of his country, the joy of mankind, the be- 
 loved of the Lord. He had an intense nature, and 
 was, as has been said, "One whose religion must 
 be more loving than love, his daily life more kind 
 than kindness, his words truer than truth itself." 
 Lamartine calls him "beautiful as a Raphael's St. 
 John leaning on the bosom of Christ." He had the 
 imagination of a woman for dreaming of heaven, 
 and the soul of a man for subduing the earth. The 
 especially feminine qualities were prominent in him, 
 yet he strikes no one as effeminate, and when he 
 felt himself set for the defense of the truth he 
 showed a power that greatly surprised his enemies. 
 "His soul was like a star and dwelt apart," "alone 
 with the Alone." And yet he was so deeply inter- 
 ested in the welfare of France and his fellow-men 
 that he has been called a politician ; statesman would 
 be the word more befitting the facts, for his ideas as 
 to the measures and policies necessary to make the 
 land prosperous were in the main very wise, and he
 
 12 FENJSXON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 had no personal ends to serve. In whatever ca- 
 pacity we consider him poet, orator, moralist, 
 metaphysician, politician, instructor, bishop, friend, 
 persecuted Christian he excites our keenest inter- 
 est, our warmest admiration. He greatly desired to 
 please every one, and succeeded so far as circum- 
 stances allowed ; but the desire was held in strictest 
 control by a strong sense of duty, which compelled 
 him at times to do and say things most unacceptable 
 to many. He was no courtier, no flatterer, he could 
 not make his own interests the first consideration. 
 He was a prophet in Gomorrah, charged with a mes- 
 sage which pressed upon him for utterance, and for 
 the delivery of which the time was short. At the 
 court of Louis XIV a spot above all others on the 
 face of the earth, perhaps, in that century, disgraced 
 by selfishness, hypocrisy, and intrigue he bears 
 not a little resemblance to a seraph sent on a divine 
 mission to the shades of the lost. There is endless 
 fascination in his story. He was not without faults, 
 but his faults were those of his age ; his virtues were 
 his own. He turned a haughty, irritable, overbear- 
 ing young prince, an incipient Caesar Borgia, into 
 the mildest, most docile, obedient of men. He 
 possessed his soul in peace amid provocations that 
 would have been far too much for most of us. 
 Neither public disgrace nor personal bereavement 
 had power to embitter him. He listened to the voice 
 of God within him, and marched straight on, breast 
 forward. In the language of Herder, "His Church
 
 FROM YOUTH TO MANHOOD. 13 
 
 indeed canonized him not, but humanity has." He 
 is a saint in the eyes of multitudes not attracted by 
 official sanctity ; an apostle of liberty that dared with- 
 stand the Grand Monarque ; a martyr spending half 
 a life in exile, through the machinations of a court 
 faction which dreaded his incorruptible goodness. 
 "Being dead, he yet speaketh." "One of the noblest 
 men who ever lived," says Dr. John Henry Kurtz, 
 the distinguished Church historian. Joseph de 
 Maistre exclaims : "Do we wish to paint ideal great- 
 ness? Let us try to imagine something that sur- 
 passes Fenelon we shall not succeed." Let us, 
 then, putting aside imagination, endeavor to rescue 
 from the musty record of the misty past, a lifelike 
 image of this many-sided, multiple, versatile per- 
 sonality. 
 
 FRANCOIS DE SAWGNAC DE I<A MOTHS FENB^ON 
 was born August 6, 1651, at the castle, or chateau, 
 of Fenelon, about three miles from the town of 
 Sarlat, in the department of Southern France, for- 
 merly called Perigord, now Dordogne, north of 
 the river Garonne. The De Salignacs were of an 
 ancient and distinguished family, counting in their 
 long pedigree many of the best names of France 
 bishops, governors, generals, and ambassadors. But 
 it is safe to say that they have derived more luster 
 from the single name of the Archbishop of Cam- 
 brai than from all the rest who through several
 
 14 FENEXON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 centuries filled lofty stations in camp and court and 
 Church. 
 
 Very little is known about his parents or his 
 early life. Pons de Salignac, Count of La Mothe 
 Fenelon, father of Francis, was twice married, hav- 
 ing fourteen children by his first wife and three by 
 his second. The eldest of the three was Francis. 
 His mother, Mademoiselle Louise de la Cropte de 
 Saint-Arbre, sister of a celebrated lieutenant who 
 served under Marshal Turenne, is said to have been 
 unusually pious, which we can well believe, and to 
 have perpetuated some of her other traits in her 
 famous son. From his father's side he doubtless in- 
 herited his diplomatic temperament and a goodly 
 degree of worldly wisdom. His peculiar situation 
 in the household could hardly fail to have had some- 
 thing to do with his character. The numerous 
 grown-up sons and daughters of his father's first 
 marriage took umbrage at the second; hence the 
 precocious and sensitive child had abundant occasion 
 to practice all possible arts of ingratiation to obtain 
 forgiveness for having intruded his existence upon 
 them, and to make it pleasant for his mother. His 
 constitution was delicate, and he had a sickly child- 
 hood; once at least in his early days his life was 
 despaired of, and he only recovered to be for years 
 the victim of sleeplessness and kindred ailments. 
 He was J .he idol of his old father, who, recognizing 
 his unusual talents, took special pains with his edu- 
 cation. It was intrusted at first to a private pre-
 
 FROM YOUTH TO MANHOOD. 15 
 
 ceptor, who seems to have been well fitted for his 
 task, and gave to his pupil in a few years a better 
 knowledge of Greek and Latin than is commonly 
 obtained at so early an age, doubtless laying thus 
 the foundation of his exquisitely finished style. At 
 twelve he left the paternal roof for the neighboring 
 University of Cahors (a town about sixty miles 
 north of Toulouse, containing now an obelisk of 
 Fenelon), where he pursued for some three years 
 philosophical and philological studies and took his 
 degrees in the arts. 
 
 His father probably died about this time, as we 
 hear nothing further of him, and his uncle, the Mar- 
 quis Antoine de Fenelon, who had lost his own son, 
 acted henceforth as the father of his nephew. It 
 was a most happy circumstance, for the marquis 
 was deeply religious and of an unsullied private 
 life, as well as very independent in his character. 
 The Grand Conde, greatest general of his time, de- 
 scribed him as "equally at home in society, war, 
 and the council chamber." When M. de Harlai 
 was nominated to the Archbishopric of Paris, the 
 marquis remarked to him, "There is a wide differ- 
 ence, my Right Reverend Lord, between the day 
 when the nomination for such an office brings to 
 the party the compliments of the whole kingdom, 
 and the day on which he appears before God to ren- 
 der Him an account of his administration ;" a reflec- 
 tion which, although much needed, could not have 
 been very agreeable to De Harlai, for he was a no-
 
 16 FENELON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 torious evil liver, who introduced every species of 
 corruption into the administration of his diocese, 
 and scandalized all by the iniquities also of his pri- 
 vate life. Another indication of the marquis's truly 
 noble quality is seen in the fact that when M. Olier, 
 the celebrated founder of the Congregation of St. 
 Sulpice, wished to form an association of gentle- 
 men whose courage was past impeachment, to bind 
 themselves with an oath neither to accept any chal- 
 lenge nor act the part of second in any duel that 
 the practice of dueling might thus be checked he 
 asked M. de Fenelon to take the post of president 
 of the association, being convinced that there was 
 no one whose reputation was more firmly estab- 
 lished both in court and camp. 
 
 Under the guidance, then, of this admirable rela- 
 tive, who was so exceptionally well fitted by char- 
 acter, position, and situation to give his nephew the 
 best possible start in life, and who tenderly loved 
 him, young Francis came to Paris in 1666, at the 
 age of fifteen. It was not, of course, the Paris of 
 the present day; but even then it was a great city, 
 reaching back for its beginning to the Roman times, 
 and recognized as the seat of government for at 
 least a thousand years. Under Henry of Navarre 
 (1589-1610) great improvements had been made, 
 and by the accession of Louis XIV who began to 
 reign nominally in 1643, at the age of five, but really 
 took charge of the kingdom in 1661 through the 
 completion of several bridges, roads, and quays,
 
 FROM YOUTH TO MANHOOD. 17 
 
 and the erection of various public and private pal- 
 aces, a new face had been put on the old city. It 
 was already the focus of European civilization, 
 learning, and eloquence, as well as the center of all 
 that was most attractive and distinguished in 
 France. The best institutions were there, the best 
 opportunities for advancement, the highest privi- 
 leges and advantages of every sort; so that to it 
 naturally gravitated all who wished to make the 
 most of themselves under the eye of that Grand 
 Monarch whose favor was life. Francis, therefore, 
 no doubt counted himself greatly blessed at this 
 change, and entered upon his Parisian life which 
 was to last thirty-one years with very high, am- 
 bitious hopes. His guardian sent him for two years 
 to the College du Plessis, then under the rule of 
 M. Gobinet, a first-rate principal. There he speedily 
 distinguished himself as a scholar, and he also gave 
 such tokens of possessing the gift of eloquence that 
 before he was sixteen he was put forward to preach 
 to an admiring audience. It is, perhaps, worth not- 
 ing that Bossuet who was so soon to bq closely as- 
 sociated with Fenelon, at first in friendship, then in 
 fierce hostility also preached at the same age, with 
 similar applause, before a brilliant assemblage in 
 Paris. 
 
 What was the next step? A noble under Louis 
 XIV had two possible careers open to him, and only 
 two ; they were the army and the Church. It is not 
 probable that the matter was long debated, if at all,
 
 i8 FENEXON : THE MYSTIC. 
 
 in Francis' case. Everything about him, his gifts of 
 speech, his high scholarship, his deep piety, his 
 rather delicate health, pointed to the clerical voca- 
 tion, and there can be no question but this was with 
 him a divine calling, to which doubtless his heart 
 gave full assent. So he was placed, in 1688, at the 
 seminary of St. Sulpice to be trained for the priest- 
 hood. 
 
 Since he was to spend no less than ten happy 
 years, in the formative period of seventeen to twen- 
 ty-seven, in connection with this institution, it may 
 be well that we say a few words about it and its 
 director. It was the principal fruit of the great 
 Catholic revival at the beginning of the century, 
 the embodiment of all the force of that movement 
 a movement marked by very earnest piety and a 
 somewhat unusual combination of emotionalism and 
 asceticism. It was founded by a group of devoted 
 men sprung from the upper-middle class ; and chief 
 among them was M. Olier, a man justly celebrated 
 for his saintly life. He was appointed in 1642 to 
 the parish of St. Sulpice when it was noted as the 
 most depraved quarter of Paris. He labored unre- 
 mittingly and very successfully to reform this un- 
 promising flock, and the young priests who were 
 associated with him in his task constituted the nu- 
 cleus of the seminary and community of St. Sul- 
 pice. The necessary building to house the institu- 
 tion, to the establishment of which Monsieur Olier 
 gave himself with highest enthusiasm, was com-
 
 FROM YOUTH TO MANHOOD. 19 
 
 pleted in 1652 a square edifice capable of receiv- 
 ing one hundred inmates. This became the center of 
 a most wholesome and inspiring activity. 
 
 The founder had a very high ideal of sacerdotal 
 character. He would not admit any who embraced 
 the sacred calling from considerations of ambition 
 or expediency, and those admitted were subjected 
 tc the sharpest kind of tests. Whatever their birth 
 or condition they were required to perform the 
 menial duties of the house, and to mingle on terms 
 of absolute equality with their fellow-students. The 
 complete immolation of self was set as the para- 
 mount aim before those who looked forward to holy 
 orders. The will must be entirely surrendered. 
 The good priest must become the model of all the 
 virtues. All earthly interests and ties must be re- 
 nounced. The closest union with the Divine was 
 to be cultivated. A very literal interpretation of 
 the teaching of the Master was followed. The 
 pupils were urged to study the Gospels till they 
 could bring the Divine life before them at any mo- 
 ment in a series of mental pictures which should 
 help them in the decision of all perplexing questions 
 of duty, and were exhorted to keep themselves in 
 such a disposition that meditation on that model 
 life would never seem strange or demand a violent 
 mental revulsion whatever their outward circum- 
 stances might be. While the ceremonies of the 
 Church were observed with minute exactness, and 
 occasional austerities were practiced, and learning
 
 20 FENELON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 was not neglected, the main thought was that the 
 perfection of personal character must be secured at 
 all costs ; the world was to be abandoned, the flesh 
 crucified, the devil in all his forms resisted, and 
 lessons of humility, obedience, and charity were to 
 be most carefully learned. They were taught that 
 in the silence which succeeds the struggle of self- 
 abandonment they would find Christ coming to 
 them the Christ who had borne all and under- 
 stood all, and whose presence was far more worth 
 having than the prizes they had missed or put away. 
 It can well be believed that this wholly conse- 
 crated man, the first superior of St. Sulpice, won 
 to himself so large a share of personal affection 
 and loyalty from his students that when he was re- 
 moved from its care many feared its collapse. But 
 this was not to be. A suitable successor was found 
 in M. Louis Tronson, a man every way as capable 
 as the first founder indeed more learned in the- 
 ology and fully disposed to continue the tradi- 
 tions of the institution as already laid down ; a man 
 who coveted no external recognition, joined in no 
 race for preferment, but gave himself with single- 
 ness of eye to the great work intrusted to him by 
 the Master. It was to his care that Francis Fenelon 
 was committed, and he speedily won the enthusiastic 
 affection of the young man. In a few years Fene- 
 lon writes concerning his teacher to Pope Clement 
 XI as follows: "Never have I seen his equal for 
 piety and prudence, for love of justice and insight
 
 FROM YOUTH TO MANHOOD. 21 
 
 into character. I glory in the thought that I was 
 brought up under his wing." Fenelon was evidently 
 one of the Abbe Tronson's favorites, for he was a 
 favorite with everybody, and all could see in the 
 brilliant youth a promise that would do honor to 
 those who had a share in his development. A high 
 degree of confidence was given and received on both 
 sides. Francis wrote to his uncle, in a burst of 
 gratitude, one day: "I earnestly desire to be able 
 to tell you some part of all that passes between M. 
 Tronson and me ; but indeed, Monsieur, I know not 
 how to do so. I find I can be much more explicit 
 with him than with you, nor would it be easy to 
 describe the degree of union we have reached. If 
 you could hear our conversation you would not 
 know your pupil, and you would see that God has 
 very marvelously helped on the work which you be- 
 gun. My health does not improve, which would 
 be a great trial to me if I were not learning how to 
 comfort myself." This was very beautiful, very 
 delightful, and though such complete dominance of 
 one personality by another is not devoid of danger, 
 the results in this case appear to have justified the 
 experiment. Francis' early bent to deep piety was 
 greatly intensified during these years, and his views 
 of disinterested or perfect love, so strongly brought 
 out in later times, were scarcely more than the nat- 
 ural evolution of the thoughts and habits drilled into 
 him during this formative period. He greatly en- 
 joyed this home of piety and study. His love for
 
 22 FENEXON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 the seminary never decayed. He declared on his 
 death-bed that he knew of no institution more ven- 
 erable or more apostolic. 
 
 It was while at the seminary that Fenelon 
 thought he had a call to the mission field. The 
 congregation of St. Sulpice had a large missionary 
 establishment at Montreal, and many of the stu- 
 dents from the Paris house had gone thither. It 
 was natural, with his intense unworldliness, that 
 he should wish to follow in their footsteps, and in 
 one of his descent it would not be surprising if 
 the love of adventure was unconsciously mingled 
 with a more religious ambition to show his love for 
 the Savior by doing a great work for Him in a diffi- 
 cult field. How many have had these longings, but 
 have been providentially prevented from carrying 
 them out! In Fenelon's case difficulties at once 
 sprung up. His uncle, the Marquis Antoine. 
 strongly objected on account of the delicacy of his 
 constitution, and another uncle, the Bishop of Sar- 
 lat, coincided with this opinion. A letter on the 
 subject to the bishop from M. Tronson, dated Feb- 
 ruary, 1667, says, "His strong, persisting inclina- 
 tion, the firmness of his resolution, and the purity 
 of his intentions have made me feel that they de- 
 served attention, and led me to give you as exact 
 a report as may be of our action in the matter." 
 The teacher had done his very best to dissuade the 
 youth from his purpose. "I have told him plainly 
 that if he can calm his longings and be quiet, he
 
 FROM YOUTH TO MANHOOD. 23 
 
 might, by going on with his studies and spiritual 
 training, become more fitted to work usefully here- 
 after for the Church." He adds, "I perceive too 
 confirmed a resolution to have much hope of 
 change." The feelings called out were so strong 
 that persuasion seemed useless, and so the teacher 
 appealed to the authority of the guardians; which 
 proved sufficient to stop the rash enterprise. 
 
 But the missionary impulse still burned strongly 
 in the breast of this enthusiastic youth, and it burst 
 forth again a few years later. He received the 
 tonsure, and entered holy orders in 1675, at the age 
 of twenty- four, and went for a while to work in the 
 diocese of his uncle, the Bishop of Sarlat. It was 
 at this time that his thoughts were turned to the 
 Levant. A letter of October 9, 1675, sets forth 
 somewhat rhapsodically his excited feelings: "I 
 long to seek out that Areopagus whence St. Paul 
 preached the unknown God to heathen sages. . . . 
 Neither will I forget thee, O island consecrated by 
 the heavenly visions of the beloved disciple! O 
 blessed Patmos, I will hasten to kiss the footsteps 
 left on thee by the apostle, and to imagine heaven 
 open to my gaze! . . . Already I see schism 
 healed; East and West reunited; Asia awaking to 
 the light after her long sleep ; the Holy Land, once 
 trodden by our Savior's feet and watered by his 
 blood, delivered from profaners and filled with new 
 glory; the children of Abraham, more numerous 
 than the stars, now scattered over the face of the
 
 24 F&NELON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 earth, gathered from all her quarters to confess the 
 Christ they crucified, and to rise again with him." 
 This was decidedly visionary, and somewhat over- 
 wrought ; but it shows at least a heart on fire to do 
 something extraordinary for God, and this he had 
 at all periods of his life. He did not go to Greece 
 and Palestine, abandoning the project in deference 
 to the wishes of his family, to whom he was ex- 
 tremely reluctant to give pain. It was a romantic 
 dream rather than a true vocation. 
 
 It is thought by some that he really went to 
 Montreal at a later date. The Correspondance Lit- 
 teraire of July 25, I863, 1 gives a letter from the 
 archives of the French Ministry of Marine in the 
 handwriting of Colbert, the great Finance Minister 
 of Louis XIV, who also had charge of the depart- 
 ment of commerce, dated in 1675, to Frontenac, 
 Governor of Canada, in which Louis XIV says: 
 "I have blamed the action of Abbe Fenelon, and 
 have ordered him not to return to Canada. But 
 I ought to say to you that it was difficult to institute 
 a criminal proceeding against him or oblige the 
 priests of the seminary of St. Sulpice at Montreal 
 to testify against him ; and it was necessary to re- 
 mit the case to his bishop or the grand vicar to 
 punish him by ecclesiastical penalties, or to arrest 
 him and send him back to France by the first ship." 
 There was not then in France any other abbe of 
 
 1 Quoted In The American Presbyterian and Theological Review 
 for October, 1863, page 674, and also in McClintock and Strong's 
 Cyclopedia, Vol. Ill, page 529.
 
 FROM YOUTH To MANHOOD. 75 
 
 that name, so far as is known. Somewhat confirma- 
 tory of it is the fact that Appleton's Cyclopedia, in 
 its account of the Society of St. Sulpice says, "In 
 1668 the Sulpicians, Frangois de Fenelon and 
 Claude Trouve, founded the first Iroquois mission 
 at the western extremity of Lake Ontario, but their 
 labors were confined principally to the Indians near 
 Montreal." The dates" do not harmonize; but it 
 may be that, in some irregular way that did not 
 commend itself to the authorities, our hero was 
 for a time in Canada ; but if so, it is very singular 
 that it left so little trace upon his life. 
 
 He gave himself for some three years after his 
 ordination to labors in the parish of St. Sulpice, 
 living still at the seminary, and endeavoring to 
 spread the light of his faith among the poor wher- 
 ever he could reach them best, whether in prisons 
 and hospitals or their own quarters. It was good 
 training for him in many ways, enlarging his sym- 
 pathies, deepening his views of life, and bringing 
 him into touch with children as well as women. 
 Doubtless he gathered in these years for he had 
 quick powers of observation and a very active mind 
 much of that amazing knowledge concerning these 
 classes which surprised his friends when he came 
 subsequently to pour forth in letters or books the 
 wisest of counsels on education and kindred topics. 
 M. Languet, cure of the parish at this time, was 
 said to distribute more than a million francs in alms 
 yearly, while his own room was furnished with
 
 26 FENEXON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 nothing more than a coarse bed and two straw 
 chairs. Under such guidance Fenelon could not 
 fail to learn many useful lessons, and to become 
 still more completely fitted for the great career 
 which was soon to open before him. 
 
 It was in 1678 that Fenelon, while attending 
 quietly to his duties at the parish of St. Sulpice, 
 preaching on Sundays and visiting among the poor 
 during the week, received the important appoint- 
 ment of superior to the community called the Nou- 
 velles Catholiques, or New Catholics. He was 
 twenty-seven at this time, and had developed into a 
 very lovable, charming, attractive, and every way 
 promising young man. His high birth, solid educa- 
 tion, brilliant parts, spotless life, eloquence of 
 speech, and influential friends, all tended to bring 
 him forward into the public eye. The words of 
 the Chancellor d'Aguesseau on Fenelon, found in 
 the memoirs of the life of his father, although ap- 
 plying perhaps in fullest measure a little later, may 
 be inserted here, as showing what it must have been 
 felt, by discerning observers, he would erelong be- 
 come. 
 
 "Fenelon," says the chancellor, "was one of 
 those uncommon men who are destined to give luster 
 to their age ; and who do equal honor to human na- 
 ture by their virtues, and to literature by their 
 superior talent. He was affable in his deportment 
 and luminous in his discourse, the peculiar quali- 
 ties of which were a rich, delicate, and powerful
 
 FROM YOUTH TO MANHOOD. 27 
 
 imagination, but which never let its power be felt. 
 His eloquence had more of mildness in it than of 
 vehemence; and he triumphed as much by the 
 charms of his conversation as by the superiority of 
 his talents. He always brought himself to the level 
 of his company; he never entered into disputation, 
 and he sometimes appeared to yield to others at the 
 very time that he was leading them. Grace dwelt 
 upon his lips. He discussed the greatest subjects 
 with facility; the most trifling were ennobled by 
 his pen ; and upon the most barren he scattered the 
 flowers of rhetoric. The peculiar but unaffected 
 mode of expression which he adopted made many 
 persons believe that he possessed universal knowl- 
 edge as if by inspiration. It might indeed have been 
 almost said that he rather invented what he knew 
 than learned it. He was always original and creat- 
 ive, imitating no one, and himself inimitable. A 
 noble singularity pervaded his whole person, and 
 a certain undefinable and sublime simplicity gave to 
 his appearance the air of a prophet." His personal 
 appearance has been well sketched by one of his con- 
 temporaries, the Duke de St. Simon, a satirical, mis- 
 anthropical, utterly worldly man. "Fenelon," says 
 St. Simon, "was a tall man, thin, well-made, and 
 with a large nose. From his eyes issued the fire 
 and animation of his mind, like a torrent ; and his 
 countenance was such that I never yet beheld any 
 one similar to it, nor could it ever be forgotten if 
 once seen. It combined everything, and yet with
 
 I 
 28 FENELON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 everything in harmony. It was grave, and yet allur- 
 ing ; it was solemn, and yet gay ; it bespoke equally 
 the theologian, the bishop, and the nobleman. 
 Everything which was visible in it, as well as in 
 his whole person, was delicate, intellectual, grace- 
 ful, becoming, and, above all, noble. It required an 
 effort to cease looking at him. All the portraits are 
 strong resemblances, though they have not caught 
 that harmony which was so striking in the original, 
 and that individual delicacy which characterized 
 each feature. His manners were answerable to his 
 countenance. They had that air of ease and ur- 
 banity which can be derived only from intercourse 
 with the best society, and which diffused itself over 
 all his discourse. He possessed a natural eloquence, 
 graceful and finished, and a most insinuating yet 
 noble and proper courtesy ; an easy, clear, agreeable 
 utterance; a wonderful power of explaining the 
 hardest matters in a lucid, distinct manner. Add 
 to all this that he was a man who never sought to 
 seem cleverer than those with whom he conversed, 
 who brought himself insensibly to their level, putting 
 them at their ease, and enthralling them so that one 
 could neither leave him nor distrust him, nor help 
 seeking him again. It was this rare gift which he 
 possessed to the utmost degree which bound all 
 his friends so closely to him all his life in spite of 
 his disgrace at court, and which led them, when 
 scattered, to gather together to talk of him, regret 
 him, long after him, and cling more and more to
 
 FROM YOUTH To MANHOOD. 29 
 
 him, like the Jews to Jerusalem, and sigh and hope 
 for his return, even as that unhappy race waits and 
 sighs for their Messiah." 
 
 The community of the New Catholics had been 
 founded in 1634 by Archbishop Gondi, as a protec- 
 tion for women converted from Protestantism, and 
 as a means of propagating Church teachings among 
 those yet unconverted. It was conducted by a com- 
 munity of women who did the work of Sisters of 
 Charity outside its walls, and was presided over 
 by a priest selected by the Archbishop of Paris. 
 Marshal Turenne, himself a recent convert, gave 
 largely to it, and the king, who was willing to com- 
 bine gentle means with harsh for the accomplish- 
 ment of his purposes in bringing all his subjects into 
 one faith, took great interest in it. Hitherto the 
 post of superior had been filled by much older men, 
 but, though only twenty-seven, Fenelon was found 
 to combine all those qualities which fitted him for 
 the employment distinguished talents, education, 
 amiable manners, unusual prudence and discretion, 
 much love to God, and great benevolence to man. 
 The archbishop who selected him, M. de Harlai, 
 was, as we have already noted, by no means of 
 Fenelon's stamp. He was a courtier, a man of the 
 world, regardless of morality, and ever scheming 
 for his own advancement. Having noted the capa- 
 bility of Fenelon, perhaps he thought, by making 
 him a sort of protege, he could attach him to his 
 interests, obtain credit by his successes, and use him
 
 30 FENIXON : THE MYSTIC 
 
 for his purposes. But if he thought this he did not 
 show his usual discernment; for Fenelon, though 
 willing to accept the office assigned, which gave 
 promise of large usefulness, was in no way attracted 
 by the character of his patron, and no considera- 
 tions of expediency could induce him to pay court 
 in that direction. Consequently, De Harlai's early 
 liking changed erelong to pronounced enmity. He 
 noticed the absence of Fenelon from his levees, and 
 when he did present himself at a certain reception, 
 rebuked him with the words, "It seems that you de- 
 sire to be forgotten, M. 1'Abbe, and you will be." 
 Fenelon's friendship also with Bossuet became es- 
 tablished about this time, and this doubtless in- 
 creased the animosity of the archbishop, as the two 
 were rivals for the favor of the king, on which the 
 coveted promotion to the cardinalate, which each 
 desired, so largely depended. 
 
 It was probably owing, somewhat at least, to 
 this unfriendly influence on the part of De Harlai 
 that Fenelon received no appointment which could 
 supply him with funds ; for the post of Superior car- 
 ried no salary, and until 1681 he continued to be 
 entirely dependent for everything upon his uncle, 
 the marquis. In that year his uncle, the Bishop of 
 Sarlat, resigned to him the deanery of Carenac, at 
 Quercy, on the Dordogne, and this small benefice, 
 producing between 3,000 and 4,000 livres annually 
 about $2,000 a year of modern money was the 
 only revenue Fenelon possessed for a long time,
 
 FROM YOUTH TO MANHOOD. 31 
 
 until, indeed, his forty-third year. On leaving the 
 Sulpician seminary, he took up his abode with his 
 uncle, the Marquis de Fenelon, in the Abbey of St. 
 Germain, and gave himself up as entirely to his 
 work as if he had not been brought into so much 
 closer proximity to the court and the world of Paris. 
 He avoided general society, only living intimately 
 with some few chosen friends. His uncle was able 
 to introduce him into a rare circle, prominent in 
 which were the Duke and Duchess of Beauvilliers, 
 and the Duke and Duchess of Chevreuse (the two 
 ladies were sisters, daughters of the great finance 
 minister, Colbert), Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux, and 
 Madame de Maintenon. We must say a few words 
 about these people, for they had much to do with 
 Fenelon through all his subsequent life. 
 
 "The Duke de Beauvilliers/' says St. Simon, 
 "was early touched by God, and never lost His 
 presence, but lived entirely in the future world, in- 
 different to place and cabal and worldly advantage, 
 content, when called to the council-board, simply 
 to state his true opinion, without much caring 
 whether it was followed or not." Punctual and or- 
 derly almost to excess, he controlled his household 
 with vigilant kindness, and took on his shoulders, as 
 the king himself bore witness, a load of adminis- 
 trative details that would have killed four other 
 men. In society he was rather shy and stiff by 
 nature, as well as on principle exceedingly careful 
 to set a close guard on eyes and ears and lips, so
 
 32 FENELON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 that even when, as a principal minister, he was the 
 observed of all observers, surrounded by princes and 
 nobles, he repelled by his reserve. He had been at 
 court nearly all his life, having early succeeded 
 Marshal Villeroy as head of the Council of Finance, 
 and being also first gentleman of the chamber. He 
 had also been governor of Havre. He was called 
 to the treasury in 1685, an d to the council-board in 
 1691. He was acknowledged on all sides to be a 
 man of remarkable piety and purity of life, and, as 
 a courtier, without reproach a very rare thing in 
 those days. His chief fault was his timidity, and 
 his excessive subserviency to the king. But when 
 his conscience was aroused he could show a bold- 
 ness that was most admirable, and all the more to 
 be commended because somewhat foreign to his 
 nature. He remained true as steel to Fenelon to 
 his dying day, his friendship never wavering or 
 showing diminution, even when the latter was ban- 
 ished from court, and all his friends were in a meas- 
 ure under the ban because of the king's fierce anger. 
 In later years the king did his best to separate the 
 two, even sending for the duke and explicitly threat- 
 ening him with a like fate to that of his friend if 
 he did not give him up. But the duke replied, with 
 dignity and feeling: "Sire, you have placed me 
 where I am, and you can displace me. I shall ac- 
 cept the will of my sovereign as the voice of God, 
 and I should retire from court at your bidding re- 
 gretting your displeasure, but hoping to lead a more
 
 FROM YOUTH To MANHOOD. 33 
 
 peaceful life in retirement." .This manly, uncom- 
 promising stand made a deep impression on the 
 king, who, in spite of his liking for his own way, 
 knew that he could hardly afford to spare so faith- 
 ful and conscientious a servant ; nothing more was 
 said about the matter. 
 
 His brother-in-law, the Duke de Chevreuse, was 
 different in disposition, though equally devoted to 
 religion. He was abler, broader-minded, better in- 
 formed, more genial and witty, but less systematic, 
 and a very poor business man. He had no fixed 
 hours for anything, and was always behindhand. 
 Had it not been for the king he must have died a 
 beggar ; for he had little of his own, and his wife's 
 large fortune was wasted on costly but futile ex- 
 periments, such as canals made at enormous ex- 
 pense to float down the timber from woods which 
 he sold before even a tree was felled. He was 
 charming in his manners, and was not simply loved, 
 but adored by his family, and friends, and servants. 
 Throughout his troubles, which were many, he was 
 never for a moment cast down, but offered up his 
 all to God and fixed his eyes on Him. "Never man 
 possessed his soul in peace as he did," wrote St. 
 Simon, "as the Scripture says, 'He carried it in his 
 hands.' " He was even nearer to Fenelon in some 
 ways than the other duke, and equally stanch in his 
 attachment. He had no special portfolio in the 
 ministry, but was consulted by the king about most 
 departments, and was very highly esteemed by him. 
 
 3
 
 34. FENELON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 The two sisters, wives of these dukes there 
 were indeed three, the third having married the 
 Duke de Mortemart, but of this family we hear 
 almost nothing were linked by the strongest bonds 
 of sympathy and affection, and the three families 
 lived in the closest union of principle and action, 
 which gave them great strength amid the profligate, 
 time-serving court. Twice a week there were din- 
 ners at the Hotel de Beauvilliers, where the society 
 was at once select, intellectual, and devout. A bell 
 was on the table, and no servant was present, that 
 they might converse without restraint. It was in 
 this society that Fenelon, being introduced, became 
 speedily the leader. He was accepted by the two 
 dukes, not as director simply but as spiritual mas- 
 ter, as the mind of their mind, says St. Simon, the 
 soul of their soul, the sovereign ruler of their heart 
 and conscience. Such he remained all his days. 
 Fenelon and the Beauvilliers had not been long ac- 
 quainted before the duchess, mother of eight daugh- 
 ters, begged him to set down some rules for the 
 guidance of their education. This request is a 
 proof not only of the versatility of his powers, but 
 of the strength of his faculty of intuition, that a 
 court lady should have turned to him for help in 
 such matters. He had been educated from child- 
 hood to his sacred calling, shut off from any expe- 
 rience of some of the strongest of life's influences, 
 and therefore on some accounts might seem poorly 
 fitted to prove an apt adviser; but it was strongly
 
 FROM YOUTH To MANHOOD. 35 
 
 tt^ 
 
 felt that he possessed the secret of truest wisdom, 
 that what he taught was drawn from too high a 
 source to be greatly affected by the limits of per- 
 sonal experience. Throughout his life, indeed, it 
 was his power of sympathy, of entering into the 
 difficulties of others, of realizing temptations that 
 can never have been present with him, that made 
 his influence so comprehensive a power rarer and 
 more marvelous than the greatest of intellectual 
 gifts. 
 
 The work on the education of girls, which grew 
 out of the duchess's request, swelled into a consid- 
 erable compass, and was first published in 1687. It 
 greatly increased his reputation, revealing a knowl- 
 edge of child-nature which was most remarkable, 
 and taking advanced ground in many particulars. 
 He showed himself a thoroughgoing reformer, 
 breaking away from the trammels of mediaeval edu- 
 cation that so long and so disastrously had ruled. 
 There is hardly a page of it which might not afford 
 profitable study for parents at the present day. It 
 still holds a high position among works on this sub- 
 ject. His deep love for children sharpened his keen 
 observation of all that concerned them. He se- 
 verely reprobated the fashion of leaving them with 
 uneducated persons; for he regarded the earliest 
 years as of unspeakable importance in the forma- 
 tion of character. 
 
 "Never let them show themselves off," he says, 
 "but do noi be worried by their questions ; rather
 
 36 FENELON : THE MYSTIC. 
 
 encourage them; they are the most natural oppor- 
 tunities of teaching." He discovered that children 
 are always watching others, endowed with a great 
 faculty of imitation, so that it is impossible to over- 
 estimate the responsibility of their first guardians. 
 He recognized the necessity of discipline ; but if the 
 child has merited disgrace, he pleads that there 
 should be some one to whom she can turn for sym- 
 pathy, thus showing that he had fathomed that over- 
 whelming sense of loneliness which is one of child- 
 hood's chief terrors. He says : "Make study pleas- 
 ant, hide it under a show of liberty and amuse- 
 ment. Let the children interrupt their lessons 
 sometimes with little jokes; they need such distrac- 
 tion to rest their brain. Never fear to give them 
 reasons for everything. Never give extra lessons 
 as a punishment." His method was to treat children 
 as reasonable beings instead of unruly animals 
 whom it was necessary to coerce against their will ; 
 and his object was to make them regard learning 
 as a privilege and delight, not as a penance forced 
 upon them by the tyranny of their elders. He made 
 religion the groundwork of all education, but he 
 would have it guarded against superstition. He 
 stood strongly for the true, best rights of women, 
 counting their occupations no less important to the 
 public than those of men. He would give the young 
 girl useful solid tastes that would fill her mind with 
 real interests and prevent idle curiosity and the 
 dissipations of romance-reading. "Give them some-
 
 FROM YOUTH TO MANHOOD. 37 
 
 thing to manage, on condition that they give you an 
 account of it," he pleads; "they will be delighted 
 with the confidence, for it gives an incredible pleas- 
 ure to the young when one begins to rely upon them 
 and admit them to serious concerns." 
 
 This will suffice to show something of the trend 
 of his work. Much that he urged is, of course, com- 
 monplace now, but it was not so in his day. He 
 shows in his book so much knowledge of the needs 
 and characteristics of little children not only, but of 
 the special difficulties and infirmities of women, 
 that it remains a marvel where, at this period of 
 his life, he could have gained such insight into both. 
 And all is illumined with his beautiful style and 
 gentle spirit. Mr. John Morley remarks, "When 
 we turn to modern literature from Fenelon's pages, 
 who does not feel that the world has lost a sacred 
 accent, as if some ineffable essence had passed out 
 from our hearts?" 
 
 Madame de Maintenon has been mentioned as 
 one of the little circle to whose intimacy Fenelon 
 was introduced when beginning his Parisian career. 
 The full particulars of her remarkable history must 
 be sought in larger works. Yet it is essential that 
 we know something concerning her, since for a 
 while she was one of Fenelon's best supporters, and 
 then became one of his most persistent foes. She 
 was the grandchild of Theodore Agrippa d'Aubigne, 
 a noted Protestant warrior and a noble friend of
 
 38 FENEW>N: THE MYSTIC 
 
 Henry of Navarre, who died at Geneva in 1630.* 
 Her father was a scamp, her mother a jailer's 
 daughter. She was a stout Protestant in her 
 younger days, but being left penniless at an early 
 age, and wholly dependent upon charitable rela- 
 tives, she was placed in a Parisian convent, and 
 there converted to Catholicism. She was still only 
 seventeen and uncommonly good-looking when, to 
 escape the pressure of dependence, she consented 
 to become the wife of Scarron, a writer of comic 
 poetry and a cripple. So Frances d'Aubigne be- 
 came Madame Scarron, and somewhat improved her 
 position. Her husband died in five years, leaving 
 her a pension. Falling in with Madame de Monte- 
 span, the king's mistress, that lady took a liking to 
 her, and it was not long before she was established 
 at a fine house in one of the suburbs, with a large 
 income and a numerous staff of servants, as gov- 
 erness of the king's illegitimate children by this mis- 
 tress. At the end of four years the children, with 
 their governess, were housed in the palace, and the 
 influence of the said governess over the king, who 
 was naturally thrown much in contact with her, 
 steadily increased. By the savings from her salary 
 and the presents of the king she was able to pur- 
 chase the estate of Maintenon, not far from Paris, 
 and the king, who never had liked the harsh name 
 of Scarron, soon began to call her Madame de Main- 
 
 IThe celebrated historian of the Reformation, J. H. Merle 
 d'Aubigne, who died at Geneva in 1872, was descended from the same 
 family.
 
 FROM YOUTH TO MANHOOD. 39 
 
 tenon, which henceforth became her title. In the 
 midst of all the vicissitudes of her life she had 
 maintained a good character, inheriting much from 
 her grandfather, and now she became yet more aus- 
 tere in her piety. The Abbe Gobelin, a severe 
 Jesuit confessor, directed her conscience, and Bos- 
 suet impressed his strong personality upon her. 
 They persuaded her that she was the chosen instru- 
 ment for the conversion of the king. So she set 
 herself to the task, finding it on many accounts con- 
 genial, and achieving a remarkable degree of suc- 
 cess. There seems to have been in the complex 
 character of the king, iri spite of his many sins, no 
 little regard for religion it is said that he never 
 missed going to mass but once in his life '-and he 
 was already weary of Montespan, whose influence 
 on him was unquestionably evil. So the new in- 
 fluence more and more prevailed ; the mistress was 
 dismissed to a convent, and the wise, devout, gootl- 
 looking governess became a power at court, first 
 lady in waiting to the crown princess, and female 
 friend to the monarch. The king spent hours daily 
 in her company, and was the better for it. She 
 was a strict moralist, and none of the slanders rife 
 about her seem to have any good foundation. She 
 enjoyed the respect of the best people about the 
 court, and was a friend of the neglected queen, who 
 cried, "Providence has raised up Madame de Main- 
 tenon to bring my husband back to me." And this 
 new favorite, who was not a mistress, believed
 
 40 FENELON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 abundantly in the divine nature of her mission. She 
 accepted the king's friendship to give him good 
 counsels and end his slavery to vice. The care of 
 his salvation became the first and most absorbing 
 of her duties. She held herself a monitress, charged 
 to encourage and console him, or to check him with 
 reproaches that none but she dared utter. He 
 called her "Your Seriousness." She never annoyed 
 him with opposition, never encroached, had no will 
 of her own, but became, as it were, the king's con- 
 ception of his better self, his second conscience, a 
 magnet quick to draw him, sometimes into the 
 really worthier of two opposing courses, always 
 into the more ecclesiastically virtuous. The queen 
 died in her arms in 1683. Two years after, she 
 was privately married to the king by the Archbishop 
 of Paris in the presence of Pere Lachaise, the king's 
 confessor, after whom the famous cemetery in 
 Paris is named. Such was the woman who ruled 
 at Versailles when Fenelon came into office. He 
 excited her interest on their first meeting, at or be- 
 fore 1683 ; for she wrote, under that date, to 
 Madame de St. Geran : "Your Abbe de Fenelon is 
 very well received ; but the world does not do him 
 justice. He is feared; he wishes to be loved; and 
 is lovable." 
 
 We must briefly introduce one more personage to 
 our readers before we can safely resume the cur- 
 rent of the narrative. Jacques Benigne Bossuet, 
 who was for a while Fenelon's friend and then be-
 
 FROM YOUTH TO MANHOOD. 41 
 
 came the bitterest of his foes, was born at Dijon, 
 1627. In his boyhood he was a brilliant scholar. 
 At Paris he soon surpassed his teachers in acquire- 
 ments. He took the Doctor's bonnet in 1652, and 
 in the same year was received into priest's orders. 
 He was first canon to the cathedral of Metz; in 
 1669, Bishop of Condom ; in 1681, bishop of Meaux. 
 In 1670 he was appointed preceptor to the dauphin, 
 and gave most of his time for ten years to this of- 
 fice, resigning his bishopric for the purpose. In 
 the pulpit his oratorical powers elicited universal 
 applause. His celebrated Funeral Discourses, six 
 in number, were, and still are, accounted master- 
 pieces of rhetorical skill. Two words, strength and 
 majesty, describe the dominant characteristics of 
 his oratory. He had a mind well stored with noble 
 sentiments. His sermons were almost entirely ex- 
 tempore, springing from a mind filled with his sub- 
 ject, guided by a few notes on paper. Attracted by 
 the strength and sublimity of the Bible he moved 
 largely within its circle of thought, rather than with 
 saints, relics, and images, which were for the most 
 part below the plane of his vision. Besides being 
 one of the first preachers of the age, he was a cele- 
 brated polemic and a powerful writer, having also 
 a Roman aptitude to rule. One of the strongest 
 personalities which the French Church has produced, 
 he exercised a commanding influence in various 
 directions. The principles of Gallicanism as op- 
 posed to Ultramontanism found in him their stal-
 
 42 FENELON : THE MYSTIC. 
 
 wart champion. He was a famous apologist. His 
 knowledge was completely at command, so that he 
 did not shrink from oral disputation with the most 
 learned adversaries. And he wielded a very strong 
 pen. His "Exposition of the Catholic Faith" pre- 
 sents the doctrines of Rome in a liberal and plausi- 
 ble form. In his "History of the Variations of the 
 Protestant Churches," and also in other treatises, 
 he made out what was considered at the time a very 
 strong defense of the Roman Catholic faith, but he 
 has since been convicted, not merely of inaccuracy, 
 but of false and garbled quotations. He died in 
 1704. 
 
 Bossuet, it will be seen, was twenty-four years 
 older than Fenelon, and for a time was almost a 
 father to him. At the zenith of his great reputa- 
 tion he was much attracted by the younger man and 
 took great pains to attach him to himself. He in- 
 vited him often, with one or two others, to his 
 country residence at Germigny. They had stated 
 hours of prayer and private study and relaxation, 
 and in these last periods the bishop took pleasure in 
 unfolding to his humbler companions all his sacred 
 and literary stores of knowledge. Nothing could 
 exceed the bishop's regard for Fenelon, or Fene- 
 lon's fondness for the bishop. The intercourse with 
 a masculine intellect so much more developed than 
 his own was, no doubt, a benefit to Fenelon, as 
 well as a high compliment to him, for it compelled 
 him to think for himself and brace himself some-
 
 FROM YOUTH TO MANHOOD 43 
 
 what in order to take a worthy part in the conversa- 
 tion. One can but regret that the friendship which 
 seemed so suitable, and was prolific of such advan- 
 tage to the Church, as well as mutual pleasure be- 
 tween these two great and good men, should in a 
 few years, largely through misapprehensions and 
 verbal disagreements, have been turned to bitter- 
 ness and scandal. 
 
 It is probable that the ten years during which 
 Fenelon held the post of superior at the New Cath- 
 olics was the sunniest of his life. It was at least 
 the freest from difficulties and complications. He 
 was discovering the large possibilities of his own 
 powers, developing healthfully in all directions, with 
 a pleasant occupation, bright prospects, and an ever- 
 widening circle of friends, who looked to him as an 
 influence for good, and increasingly hung upon his 
 words. He was called in this period to mourn the 
 loss of his dear uncle, the marquis, who had been in 
 many ways, both spiritually and temporally, such 
 a help to him, and who passed away October 8, 
 1683. J ust now much he had to do in these years 
 at the convent is not clear. It seems likely that he 
 was little more than warden or visitor, in general 
 charge of the instruction, the other matters being 
 managed by the mother superior acting under the 
 minute directions of the government. For con- 
 verting to the old faith those who had been born and 
 trained in heresy many of them, it would appear, 
 brought there early, against their will, or in viola-
 
 44 FENEW>N: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 tion of the proper rights of their parents Fene- 
 lon was marvelously equipped, knowing the con- 
 troversy perfectly, and knowing also what points 
 to touch upon with infinite tact, what appeals would 
 be most effective in individual cases, what argu- 
 ments to use, what influences to exert, what spirit to 
 exhibit. He undoubtedly proved himself the ten- 
 derest and most persuasive of advocates and min- 
 isters, modifying, so far as possible, the harshness 
 of the State which he was powerless to prevent. 
 
 It was his success at the head of this institution 
 which called forth the next commission with which 
 the king honored him, and which brought him into 
 yet closer connection with the troubled current of 
 affairs. In order the better to understand it we 
 shall do well to pause at this point and consider for 
 a little the ecclesiastical and political condition of 
 France, and to some degree of the world at large.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 THE SETTING OF THE PICTURE. 
 
 IT is absolutely essential, in studying any char- 
 acter, that we take into careful account the age and 
 land in which he lived. We can not rightly estimate 
 his merits or demerits unless we know the circum- 
 stances under which he was brought up, and the in- 
 fluences to which he was subjected. The back- 
 ground of the picture has large importance for 
 showing off in proper light the principal figure. 
 The setting of the gem has something todo with 
 our appreciation of its value. Deeds which in one 
 century would cover their perpetrator with infamy, 
 in another would be regarded as wholly excusable. 
 The amount of light afforded strictly measures the 
 amount of guilt involved. Unavoidable ignorance 
 exculpates. Fullness of knowledge imposes re- 
 sponsibility. No greater mistake could be made 
 than to judge people irrespective of their surround- 
 ings. Moreover, it adds immensely to our interest 
 in any person if we can, to some degree at least, 
 look out upon the world with his eyes, see what he 
 saw, and so be helped to feel as he felt. We be- 
 come the better acquainted with him in proportion 
 as we are able to put ourselves in his place. We 
 45
 
 46 FENELON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 can certainly estimate him more equitably according 
 as we reproduce to our mind the scenes of his day. 
 
 This being so, before we go further with the 
 personal history of Fenelon the Saint we shall do 
 well to spend a little while familiarizing ourselves 
 with the world of his day both civil and ecclesias- 
 tical. How were matters in Church and State during 
 the period in which this great man flourished? 
 What was going on among the nations in general, 
 and in France particularly? A brief survey seems 
 necessary to give us the right point of view. Since 
 Fenelon was born in 1651, the second half of the 
 seventeenth century would appear to be in the main 
 his epoch. What was the condition of things 
 throughout Christendom then? 
 
 In America the middle of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury saw the English making good their foothold 
 on the rude Atlantic shore, in Virginia, Massa- 
 chusetts, New York, and a few other points, con- 
 tending with the Indians, the Dutch, and the home 
 government, jealous of their liberties, extending 
 their trade, and inaugurating great enterprises. It 
 was in 1656 that the Quakers arrived in Boston. A 
 bloody persecution sprung up against them in the 
 few years following, and four were put to death. 
 It was still later in the century, 1692, that the hor- 
 rible proceedings against witchcraft took place in 
 Salem, where many were, most unjustly hanged, 
 and many more tortured into confession of abom- 
 inable falsehoods. It is well to remember this when
 
 THE SETTING OF THE PICTURE. 47 
 
 we grow indignant over the persecution of the 
 Huguenots in France. Further north, in Acadie, 
 or Nova Scotia, and Canada, the French had al- 
 ready explored the St. Lawrence and the great lakes, 
 made some feeble settlements, and converted some 
 of the Indians. Their missionaries and adventurers 
 were full of heroism and zeal. Later in the cen- 
 tury they discovered the Mississippi, and claimed 
 all the territory in that Western region from its 
 source to its mouth, calling it, after the great king, 
 Louisiana. 
 
 In England, 1650 saw Oliver Cromwell in pretty 
 complete possession of power, Charles I having 
 been beheaded the year before. In 1651 the royal 
 army was totally defeated at Worcester, and Charles 
 II soon after escaped in disguise to France to come 
 back triumphantly in 1660, when the Lord Pro- 
 tector had passed away. During the Common- 
 wealth Roman Catholics were deprived of the privi- 
 lege of voting or holding office, and the use of the 
 Prayer-book was forbidden to Episcopalians. It 
 was in the short reign of James II (1685-88) that 
 Judge Jeffreys wrote his name with letters of blood 
 in the annals of English history. When the people 
 turned to William of Orange, the perfidious and 
 tyrannical James was forced to flee with his family 
 to France, and spent the remainder of his days at 
 St. Germain, a pensioner on the bounty of Louis 
 XIV. Anne, the younger daughter of James II, 
 reigned over England from 1701 to 1714.
 
 48 FENHXON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 On the continent of Europe the terrible Thirty 
 Years' War (1618-1648) between Protestants and 
 Catholics, memorable for the brave deeds of Gus- 
 tavus Adolphus, had just closed in the Peace of 
 Westphalia, by which Brandenburg the forerunner 
 of Prussia was enlarged, and Saxony strength- 
 ened, while Switzerland and the low countries, or 
 Netherlands, were acknowledged as independent 
 States. The Belgic Provinces, between the Neth- 
 erlands and France, divided among themselves, re- 
 mained submissive to Spain and the Roman Catholic 
 Church. They became involved in the wars at- 
 tending the decline of the Spanish monarchy, and 
 during the remainder of the century were the theater 
 of fierce struggles between contending armies, and 
 were subjected to many changes of boundaries. 
 
 Central Europe, where were the States of Bo- 
 hemia, Bavaria, Moravia, Austria, and smaller prin- 
 cipalities, was loosely confederated into the Ger- 
 man Empire under the Imperial Diet at Frankfort. 
 Ferdinand III at this time held the imperial dig- 
 nity. His death was followed by the long reign of 
 Leopold I (1657-1705). He attacked the Turks 
 on the East and the French monarch on the West. 
 From the former he obtained a great stretch of 
 territory, and in the combination which kept down 
 the towering ambition of the latter he was one of 
 the chief factors. In the North was the strong 
 kingdom of Sweden soon to be made still stronger 
 by the victories of Charles X and the weak king-
 
 SETTING otf THS PICTURE. 49 
 
 dom of Denmark. On the East were Poland and 
 Russia and the Turk. On the South were Spain, 
 Portugal, and Italy. Portugal, after a most hon- 
 orable history had been annexed by Philip II to 
 the Spanish realm ; but in 1640, after a forced union 
 of one hundred and sixty years, it was freed by a 
 bold and successful conspiracy of the nobles, from 
 all connection with Spain, although its independence 
 was not formally recognized till 1668. Spain had 
 wholly lost her former headship in European poli- 
 tics and was in a bad way under the last rulers of 
 the Hapsburg dynasty, bigoted, intolerant, incom- 
 petent; disordered finances, impaired industries 
 due largely to the barbarous expulsion of the Moors 
 and inferior military forces left her in the second 
 rank of powers. 
 
 Italy was a mere geographical expression, the 
 territory being split up under the rule of petty 
 princes largely swayed by foreign influence; much 
 of the country indeed was under direct foreign do- 
 minion. Among the native rulers the Dukes of 
 Savoy were perhaps the most enterprising and suc- 
 cessful. Venice maintained a fair degree of pros- 
 perity. Naples was an appanage of the Spanish 
 crown. The popes had larger territorial posses- 
 sions, in the center of the country, than at any pre- 
 vious or subsequent time. But this local impor- 
 tance was more than offset by loss in the larger 
 sphere of influence and prerogative. Convenience, 
 indeed, occasionally led a prominent sovereign to 
 4
 
 50 FENELON : THE MYSTIC. 
 
 submit some question to the papal judgment $ but 
 in many instances his wishes were openly disre- 
 garded, and in the leading questions of European 
 politics no deference was paid him. 
 
 An interesting episode occurring just at this 
 time perhaps deserves mention. Queen Christina 
 of Sweden, the talented but eccentric daughter of 
 the great Gustavus Adolphus, in 1654 abdicated her 
 throne in favor of her cousin, quitted the land of 
 her fathers, was solemnly admitted into the Roman 
 Catholic Church at Innspruck, and established her 
 permanent residence in Rome till her death in 1689. 
 The pope, Alexander VII, considered it the special 
 distinction of his pontificate that he was permitted 
 to welcome so distinguished a convert; but she did 
 not prove in all things wholly satisfactory, not find- 
 ing matters quite as she expected a frequent ex- 
 perience in such cases. To Gilbert Burnet, the Eng- 
 lish Bishop of Salisbury, who paid her a visit, she 
 said, "It was certain that the Church was governed 
 by the immediate care of God, for none of the four 
 popes that she had known since she came to Rome 
 had common sense." She called them "the first and 
 the last of men." 
 
 The history of France during the period in 
 which Fenelon flourished must be given at some- 
 what greater length if we would properly compre- 
 hend the part which he took on the stage of action. 
 And especially must we attend to the character of 
 Louis XIV, with whom Fenelon was brought into
 
 THE; SETTING OF THE PICTURE. 51 
 
 such exceeding close and fateful relations. Louis 
 came to the throne in 1643, but as he was then only 
 five years old he did not assume personal charge 
 of the government. Cardinal Mazarin, who had 
 succeeded the great Richelieu at his death in 1642, 
 was chief minister in the Council of State which 
 advised the Queen Mother and regent, Anne of 
 Austria. On the death of Mazarin in 1661, Louis 
 took supreme direction of affairs, and retained it 
 until his death in 1715. It was a very long and, in 
 some respects, a very successful reign, the most 
 illustrious in French annals; a sort of Solomonic 
 era, to be compared with the age of Pericles in 
 Greece, Augustus in Rome, and Elizabeth in Eng- 
 land. It was brilliant in many directions ; an age 
 of conquest and the extension of territory abroad; 
 an age of great personalities in literature and art 
 at home. Among the latter are the well-known 
 names of Corneille, the tragic poet; Moliere, the 
 master of comedy ; Racine, La Fontaine, La Roche- 
 foucauld, La Bruyere, Pascal, Malebranche, and 
 Madame de Sevigne. Voltaire and Rousseau were 
 born during this reign, but mainly flourished later. 
 Among eminent painters were Poussin, Claude Lor- 
 rain, Lebrun, and Mignard. As architects, Man- 
 sart and Perrault were famous; among sculptors, 
 Piget; among composers, Lulli. Celebrated in the 
 pulpit were Bossuet, Bourdaloue, Massillon, and 
 Flechier; as Church historians, Natalis Alexander, 
 Fleury, and Tillemont. In the field the prestige of
 
 52 FENEMDN: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 the French armies was upheld by the genius of 
 Turenne, Conde, Vauban, Luxemburg, and Cati- 
 nat. Under these marshals many victories were 
 won in an almost constant succession of wars with 
 Spain, Holland, England, the Empire, and other an- 
 tagonists. The peace which Louis dictated to 
 Europe at Nimeguen, February 5, 1679, raised him 
 to his highest point of power and glory. The head- 
 ship of the world seemed to be within his grasp, 
 if indeed it was not already attained. His courtiers 
 worshiped him as a demigod ; two triumphal 
 arches were erected to his honor in Paris ; foreign 
 governments regarded him with keen apprehension 
 or with servile awe. He excited wonder and fear 
 throughout the continent, for his ambitious proj- 
 ects of still vaster dominion seemed to threaten 
 the safety and independence of all his neighbors. 
 He was possessed of a strong mind, a resolute will, 
 considerable sagacity and penetration, much apti- 
 tude for business, and an indefatigable industry. 
 His powers of application were remarkable. When 
 he gave direction in 1661 that he would be his own 
 prime minister, that all business should pass through 
 his hands, and all questions be decided directly by 
 himself, every one expected that he would soon 
 tire of the drudgery which this would impose ; but 
 he kept it up till the end of his life, laboring regu- 
 larly in his cabinet eight hours a day. He had the 
 most extravagant ideas of the royal prerogative. He 
 was an absolute, irresponsible monarch, accustomed
 
 THE SETTING OF THE PICTURE. 53 
 
 to say and mean, "The State: it is myself." Even 
 the property of the realm he considered as his. In 
 an instruction to his son he declared, "Kings are 
 absolute lords and have naturally the full and free 
 disposal of all the goods possessed, as well by 
 Churchmen as by laymen, to use them at all times 
 according to the general need of their State." Hav- 
 ing this conception of his power, regarding his au- 
 thority as delegated immediately from heaven, he 
 surrounded himself with those who would be sub- 
 servient to his will, and the one avenue of advance- 
 ment was his favor; without this, virtue and merit 
 had little or no chance of recognition. He made his 
 court at Versailles a very splendid one, everywhere 
 praised and admired as the model of taste and re- 
 finement. It became the center of fashion for 
 Europe, and the only place of high attraction in 
 the kingdom. Henri Martin, in his "History of 
 France," says: "Whoever had once tasted this 
 life so brilliant, so animated, so varied, could no 
 longer quit it and return to his native manor with- 
 out dying of languor and ennui. Everything 
 seemed cold and dead away from this place of en- 
 joyment, which appeared, to town and province, as 
 the very ideal of human life." It is estimated that 
 a sum, equal to more than 400,000,000 francs at the 
 present rate, was laid out on the palaces and pleas- 
 ure-grounds of Versailles, transforming an un- 
 sightly district into fairy-land. 
 
 Was this Louis XIV, then, a really great man?
 
 54 FENELON: THE MYSTIC 
 
 Not when tried by tests that go far and reach 
 deep. As one has said : "His claim to renown lies 
 more in the diligent and tireless ambition with 
 which he improved favoring circumstances than in 
 the creation of great results out of small means by 
 force of personal genius and energy. It is also a 
 limiting factor in our estimate of Louis that he ex- 
 ercised no care to husband the resources of his 
 country, and sacrificed to thirst for personal dis- 
 play the chances of future prosperity. This impos- 
 ing and brilliant reign left France exhausted and 
 harboring within herself the germs of violent revo- 
 lution." In the latter part of his reign the coalition 
 against him under Marlborough and Prince Eugene 
 proved eminently successful, and much of his ill- 
 gotten acquisitions had to be disgorged. Moreover, 
 his reign was also a failure in that, for the sake of 
 slight and temporary gains on the continent of 
 Europe, he threw away the opportunity to forestall 
 in Asia and America the progress of England, so 
 soon to pass France in the race for world supremacy, 
 and left his kingdom, at the close of his reign, ex- 
 hausted and crippled, in no condition to enter upon 
 the decisive stage of the great conflict whose ap- 
 proach he did not foresee. Before his burial the 
 eyes of Frenchmen had begun to be open to the 
 shadowy side of his reign; the glamour and the 
 glory could no longer hide the tyranny and the 
 shame, and very few mourned at the death of the 
 magnificent despot. He was far from great also in
 
 THE SETTING OF THE PICTURE. 55 
 
 his private life; for that was, for a long time, one 
 of unblushing licentiousness. Different mistresses 
 were made successively, and in part simultaneously, 
 the rivals of his dishonored queen, Maria Theresa 
 of Spain, who died in 1683. No less than ten chil- 
 dren were born to him out of wedlock, and pub- 
 licly acknowledged. After the death of his queen 
 he did somewhat better, being privately married to 
 Madame de Maintenon, as already noted. 
 
 The cruel persecutions of the Huguenots must 
 also be set down against the king, although in this, 
 surely, we should make much allowance because of 
 the feeling of the age in such matters a feeling not 
 by any means the same as in our day. Louis, like 
 many others before and since, endeavored to atone 
 for the excesses and frailties of his private life by 
 his public zeal for orthodoxy, fancying that the 
 slaughter of heretics would offset his adulteries. 
 His crowning crime was the revocation of the Edict 
 of Nantes. By this arbitrary act of unprovoked 
 despotism he annulled forever all the highly prized 
 privileges granted to the Huguenots, after their 
 large sufferings and heroic efforts in self-defense, 
 by Henry IV and Louis XIII. He absolutely pro- 
 hibited the exercise of their religion throughout the 
 kingdom, with the sole exception of Alsace ; ordered 
 their temples to be leveled with the ground, and 
 their ministers to quit France within fifteen days; 
 forbade the people to follow their pastors into 
 exile under pain of confiscation and condemnation
 
 6 FENE^ON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 to the galleys; and required their children to be 
 baptized henceforth by the Catholic priests and 
 educated as members of the Established Church. 
 Before this, in the earlier years of the reign, strin- 
 gent measures had been set in operation for the con- 
 version of the Protestants and the establishment of 
 uniformity of faith and Church government 
 throughout the kingdom. Louis was intolerant of 
 dissent, partly from political motives. He could 
 not brook that any of his subjects should exercise 
 so much independence and freedom of thought as 
 was involved in worshiping God or thinking about 
 Him after a different pattern from the one set by 
 himself. They ought all to take their opinions from 
 the throne, he held, in religious as well as in secular 
 matters, and because they did not they were ex- 
 tremely objectionable and dangerous. As early as 
 1656 a disposition was shown to interpret the Edict 
 of Nantes given by Henry IV, April 15, 1598 
 in a narrow partisan fashion, to the disadvantage 
 of the Protestants. Numbers of the Reformed 
 places of worship were shut up on frivolous pre- 
 tenses. The worshipers were excluded from all 
 public functions, from the liberal professions, from 
 the universities, from engaging in various branches 
 of commerce and industry. They were forbidden 
 to intermarry with Catholics, and their children 
 were encouraged to forsake the faith of their par- 
 ents by being declared capable of choosing for them- 
 selves at the age of seven years. Every sort of
 
 THU SETTING o* THU PICTURE 57 
 
 pressure was applied. A Bureau of Conversions 
 was established under the direction of the Minister 
 Pelissier, who disbursed the funds intrusted to him 
 at the rate of six livres for every abjuration of the 
 Reformed religion. Milder measures not proving 
 sufficiently efficacious and speedy, more severe and 
 savage means were employed. Dragoons were sent 
 into the disturbed districts and quartered on the in- 
 habitants ; they were permitted, and even encour- 
 aged, to abandon themselves to every kind of brutal 
 license, violence, and excess, establishing a verita- 
 ble reign of terror wherever they appeared. It is 
 no wonder that, under these horrors, wearied and 
 worried well-nigh to death by such intolerable im- 
 positions, great numbers of Huguenots recanted, 
 nominally, although, of course, their real beliefs 
 were not changed. And when the protecting Edict 
 was formally revoked, still more fearful cruelties 
 followed. Multitudes of the Reformed, obstinately 
 refusing obedience, were consigned to loathsome 
 dungeons, racked with exquisite tortures, and 
 treated with every kind of outrage short of actual 
 murder. Numbers of females were immured for 
 life in convents ; infants were torn from the arms of 
 their mothers; their property was destroyed, and 
 whole districts were laid waste. How far the king 
 was strictly responsible for the whole of these hor- 
 rors is a matter of some question; but it is cer- 
 tain that he received with great satisfaction the 
 chorus of congratulations, on this memorable Cath-
 
 58 FENELON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 olic triumph, from the court sycophants, who hailed 
 him as the new Constantine, and who included in 
 their number such men as Bossuet, Massillon, Ra- 
 cine, and La Fontaine. But Louis inflicted almost 
 as deadly a blow upon his country by these persecu- 
 tions as the rulers of Spain had upon theirs when 
 they drove out the Moors and Jews. France robbed 
 herself of her best citizens, the most enterprising 
 and industrious of her skilled artisans. They fled 
 abroad to the number of at least a quarter of a 
 million, escaping from France to enrich England, 
 Holland, and other countries with the fruits of their 
 labors. Among them was the Duke of Schomberg, 
 one of the best generals of his time, who placed his 
 sword at the disposal of the Prince of Orange. 
 Many also who remained were so crippled and de- 
 pressed that they could no longer render their best 
 service. Moreover, a bitter and profound resent- 
 ment was kindled in the Protestant States of 
 Europe, which acted very unfavorably upon the 
 foreign relations of France, and strengthened the 
 hands of the coalition against her. So, in every 
 sense, the policy must be adjudged a mistaken one, 
 counting against the greatness of the king. 
 
 It is important to inquire what was the state of 
 the French Church at this period. It is impossible, 
 of course, for us to enter into extended details, but 
 we can hardly understand either Fenelon or his 
 times without knowing something about the eccle- 
 siastical religious questions which were then agitat-
 
 THE SETTING OF THE PICTURE. 59 
 
 ing the public mind. Religion was by no means in 
 a stagnant state, or treated with indifference and 
 apathy ; it everywhere excited keenest attention. No 
 subject was more eagerly discussed or occupied a 
 larger share of thought. Besides the general con- 
 troversy between Protestants and Romanists, there 
 were many divisions in the ranks of the latter. 
 There was fierce conflict between the Jesuits and 
 Jansenists, also between the Gallicans and Ultra- 
 montanists. For a full recital of the story our 
 readers will be obliged to consult Church histories 
 and cyclopedias. 
 
 Of the Jesuits little need here be said ; their his- 
 tory is very well known. Established by Ignatius 
 Loyola in 1540, the system was, in the period we 
 are considering, something over a hundred years 
 old, and numbering about fifteen thousand mem- 
 bers, of whom half were priests. Its leading pur- 
 poses were the overthrow of Protestantism and the 
 strengthening of the papacy. It had a magnificent 
 organization, it largely controlled the education of 
 the youth of the better classes of society, and it 
 was intensely zealous in missionary operations, 
 Francis Xavier, so illustrious in this matter, being 
 one of its original founders. In politics it often 
 favored popular rights, especially if it would ben- 
 efit the papacy by reducing the power of the sover- 
 eign ; yet it usually secured control over the princes 
 by obtaining their ear in the confessional. In doc- 
 trine it was opposed to Augustinianism, and in
 
 60 FENEXON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 ethics became notorious for most dangerous loose- 
 ness. It should not be forgotten, however, that the 
 order had at all times many members eminent for 
 piety and strict morality, some of the highest saints 
 being numbered with them. In France the impor- 
 tant office of confessor to the king was filled by 
 members of this order under Henry IV, Louis XIII, 
 XIV, XV ; and, of course, in this way an enormous 
 influence was exercised upon the royal policy at 
 home and abroad. The connivance of these con- 
 fessors with the scandalous lives of the kings did 
 more than anything else to undermine respect for 
 the Roman Catholic Church and for religion in gen- 
 eral among the educated classes. Between the 
 Jesuits and Jansenists there was fierce war. 
 
 The latter took their name from Bishop Cor- 
 nelius Jansen, of Ypern, who died in 1638, after de- 
 voting his whole life to the study of the works of 
 St. Augustine. His followers were Augustinians 
 in the fullest sense of the- term, accepting the ex- 
 treme doctrines of election and predestination which 
 are known among Protestants as Calvinism; but 
 this in no way predisposed them to favor the 
 Huguenots. On the contrary they seemed to hate 
 them all the more because of this manifest approach 
 to them in some of their principles, partly because 
 it exposed them to a galling criticism from the 
 Jesuits. The Jansenists in many ways recommend 
 themselves to our approval. They opposed a sim- 
 ply formal righteousness, insisted on the necessity
 
 THE SETTING otf THE PICTURE. 61 
 
 for an inward preparation to receive benefits from 
 the sacraments, and laid stress upon the reading of 
 the Scriptures. In regard to morals, they advocated 
 rigid self-discipline, were foes of luxury, the thea- 
 ter, and other doubtful or noxious pleasures. They 
 also had more independence than most classes of 
 society. They were not ready to surrender every- 
 thing to the absolute sovereignty of the king ; they 
 stood for liberty in the Church. In point of ability 
 and culture they furnished some of the best minds 
 of France, and some of the best models of literary 
 excellence which the age could boast. Blaise Pas- 
 cal, whose "Provincial Letters" (1656) against the 
 Jesuits inflicted upon them so severe a blow by 
 their scathing exposures, was of this party. So was 
 De Sacy, who translated the Bible into the version 
 in general use ; and Antoine Arnauld, the celebrated 
 scholar and Doctor of the Sorbonne, he theological 
 department of the University of Paris. His sister, 
 Jacqueline, became abbess of the convent of Port 
 Royal near Paris, and made it renowned for its 
 purity and piety. Jansenism or "Calvinistic Cathol- 
 icism," as it has been called, finally went down 
 before its enemies, the popes deciding against it 
 more than once. On many accounts it deserved a 
 better fate; but we can not regret that such a 
 travesty of Christianity as the sole salvation of an 
 arbitrarily limited and eternally selected few was 
 as conclusively defeated in the Roman Catholic 
 Church as it has since been in the Protestant.
 
 62 FENELON: THIS MYSTIC. 
 
 The Jesuits were Ultramontanes ; that is, they 
 did everything they could to strengthen the author- 
 ity from beyond the mountains, residing in the city 
 on the Tiber. The Jansenists favored Gallicanism. 
 A few words are necessary about this latter, for it 
 had a large place in the discussions of the time, 
 and echoes of it have continued to our day, the long 
 conflict coming to an end in the recent rupture of 
 the Concordat between France and the Vatican. 
 The quarrel is of very long standing. It is his- 
 torically certain that at a very early period the 
 National Church of France had a character of free- 
 dom peculiar to itself. The Frankish Church in the 
 time of Charlemagne gave evidence of a spirit and 
 temper obviously different from the Italian ideal of 
 the Church as organized under the popes. The 
 French Parliaments from time to time manfully re- 
 sisted encroachments on their powers or those of 
 their kings, from beyond the mountains. As early 
 as 1269, Louis IX of France issued an edict so it 
 is alleged called the Pragmatic Sanction, in which 
 he strove to protect the freedom of Church elections 
 and the rights of patrons from the interference of 
 the popes, and forbade papal taxation without the 
 consent of the monarch. This conflict went on 
 through the centuries with various incidents and 
 differing results, which need not here be followed, 
 although it is a very interesting story. In the time 
 of Louis XIV matters naturally came to a head 
 through the determination of that monarch to ex-
 
 THE SETTING OF THE PICTURE. 63 
 
 tend his absolute authority over the Church as well 
 as the State, and through the support which he re- 
 ceived from the strong feeling of nationality which 
 dominated the French people during his reign, 
 Louis's aim was to exercise such power in eccle- 
 siastical matters in France as Henry VIII had taken 
 to himself in England, but not to effect a complete 
 rupture with Rome. In particular he determined 
 to enforce the right of the crown to the revenue 
 and the patronage connected with vacant sees, which 
 had long been exercised over a large part of the 
 realm; he insisted on extending it to all the prov- 
 inces. An assembly of the clergy was called in 
 1682, under the lead of Bossuet, the chief cham- 
 pion of the king in these matters. Four important 
 articles formulating the opposition of France to 
 the high claims of the papacy were drawn up by 
 Bossuet, subscribed to by this assembly, and con- 
 firmed by the civil authorities. They contained in 
 substance the following specifications: (i) The 
 pope's authority, as also that of the Church in gen- 
 eral, is confined to things spiritual. He has no 
 prerogative to depose kings and princes or to re- 
 lease their subjects from allegiance. (2) The de- 
 crees promulgated at Constance respecting the au- 
 thority of Ecumenical Councils subsist in full force. 
 (3) In the use of his power the pope must respect 
 the ecclesiastical canons, as also such constitutions 
 as are received in the kingdom and Church of 
 France. (4) While the pope has the principal voice
 
 64 FENEUW: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 in matters of faith, his judgment is subject to 
 amendment until it has been approved by the 
 Church. 
 
 Bossuet, the leading spirit of this assembly, and 
 indeed the most powerful and commanding Church- 
 man of his day, esteemed the boasted infallibility of 
 the pope a baseless fiction. He allowed that inde- 
 fectibility belongs to the chair of Peter in the 
 sense that heresy can not find there any continuous 
 and stubborn support. But this, he maintained, in 
 no wise precluded a temporary aberration of the 
 individual pontiff or the competency of the universal 
 Church to administer correction to the pontiff. Such 
 principles had been at home in France ever since the 
 era of the great Reform Councils of the fifteenth 
 century. The pope Innocent XI was then in the 
 chair was highly incensed, and refused confirma- 
 tion to those members of the assembly of 1682 
 whom the king nominated to episcopal sees. Af- 
 fairs remained in a very unsettled condition for a 
 considerable interval, no mode of accommodation 
 being reached, each party standing its ground; but 
 in 1691 the French Church found itself with thirty- 
 five bishoprics vacant, and the king allowed the 
 twelve signers of the declaration whom he had nom- 
 inated as bishops, but whom the pope had thus far 
 refused to recognize as such, to retract all that had 
 displeased the pontiff. The pope also gained some 
 advantage from the bitter partisan conflicts within 
 the Gallican Church during the closing years of 
 Louis XIV.
 
 THE; SETTING OF THE PICTURE. 65 
 
 As to the amount of spiritual life in the Church 
 during these years it is not so easy to acquire re- 
 liable information as it is concerning the more out- 
 ward events. But there are many indications that 
 it was very considerable, that the Roman Catholic 
 Church at that period was in a very much better 
 state than it is at present. There was an evident 
 desire among a large number of its clergy to rid 
 it of its gross superstitions. They opposed some of 
 its absurdities, omitted many of its ridiculous cere- 
 monies, endeavored to render Catholicism more ra- 
 tional and intelligent, more Scriptural and pious. 
 There are tokens that France had then a very large 
 number of true followers of the Savior; some in 
 elevated stations whose virtues shine afar, but many 
 more in obscure positions, God's hidden ones, 
 known only to Him and to those immediately 
 around them. Among the more prominent of the 
 writers on spiritual subjects flourishing at this time 
 in France may be mentioned Antoinette Bourignon 
 (died 1680), whose published works amount to 
 twenty-five volumes: one of her hymns, "Come, 
 Savior, Jesus, from above," translated by John Wes- 
 ley, is in our Hymnal, No. 379. Peter Poiret (died 
 in 1719), court preacher of the Palatine, was an 
 admirer of Madame Bourignon, whose works he 
 published ; he also brought out the works of Madame 
 Guyon in thirty-nine volumes; he was both a phi- 
 losopher and a deeply pious man. The Baron de 
 Renty (1611-1649) was a man of the profoundest 
 5
 
 66 FENEWW: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 spirituality, greatly admired by Wesley, who spoke 
 of him in the highest terms, and published his life. 
 Alphonsus de Sarasa (died in 1666) gave to the 
 world "The Art of Always Rejoicing," a beautiful 
 book, filled with the deepest Christian philosophy. 
 The Abbe Guillore, also a contemporary of Fene- 
 lon and belonging to the same school of piety, left 
 to the world as his monument a treatise on "Self- 
 Renunciation," or the "Art of Dying to Self and 
 Living for the Love of Jesus." And Nicholas Her- 
 man, better known as Brother Lawrence, admitted, 
 in 1666, as a lay brother among the barefooted Car- 
 melites at Paris, is still known in the realm of pure 
 and undefiled religion by his letters on "The Prac- 
 tice of the Presence of God," published at the in- 
 stance of the Cardinal de Noailles. St. Vincent de 
 Paul (died 1660), to mention but one more of these 
 illustrious names, founder of the order of Sisters 
 of Charity, was a philanthropist of the first rank. 
 Neglected children, condemned criminals, prisoners 
 of the cell and the galley, all classes of the poor and 
 the unfortunate, received from him a sympathy as 
 practical as it was warm and persevering. Conse- 
 crated activity he regarded as the essence of relig- 
 ion. The spirit of his life is well expressed in his 
 own words: "Th'e genuine mark of loving God is 
 a good and perfect action. It is only our works 
 which accompany us into the other life." From all 
 this it is seen that the age and land which produced 
 Fenelon had many other sons and daughters of very 
 similar excellence.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 PRECEPTOR TO THE PRINCE. 
 
 Louis XIV, being bent upon the subjection of 
 the Huguenots, and knowing full well that violence 
 alone could accomplish the matter only in part, cast 
 about in his mind for a suitable person to under- 
 take the milder role of persuasion. Fenelon had 
 already attracted notice both by his good work at 
 the community of New Catholics and also by the 
 treatise which he had written in defense of the 
 Apostolic Succession. So when Bossuet suggested 
 him as a suitable commissioner for the districts of 
 Poitou and Saintonge, in the West, not far from 
 the Protestant stronghold of La Rochelle, districts 
 where great confusion and irritation prevailed, and 
 where only a tender, judicious hand could hope to 
 guide matters, the king very gladly made the ap- 
 pointment. Fenelon, before accepting it, made two 
 stipulations. One was that he should be allowed 
 to choose his fellow-workers. He selected the Abbe 
 de Langeron, his lifelong friend, the Abbe Fleury, 
 the well-known historian, the Abbe Bertier, and 
 the Abbe Milon, who later on became respectively 
 Bishops of Blois and of Condom. The other stipula- 
 tion was that the troops, together with all that 
 
 67
 
 68 FENEXON: THE MYSTIC 
 
 savored of military terrorism, should be withdrawn 
 before he entered on what should be solely a work 
 of peace and mercy. There had been terrible do- 
 ings and violent outrages with which Fenelon 
 could have no sympathy. There is no doubt what- 
 ever upon this point. His own words are abun- 
 dantly on record. Although the country was so dis- 
 turbed, he positively refused a military escort; and 
 when the king represented the danger he might be 
 exposed to, he answered: "Sire, ought a mission- 
 ary to fear danger ? If you hope for an apostolical 
 harvest, we must go in the true character of apos- 
 tles. I would rather perish by the hands of my 
 mistaken brethren than see one of them exposed 
 to the inevitable violence of the military." In a let- 
 ter to a duke he says, "The work of God is not ef- 
 fected in the heart by force; that is not the true 
 spirit of the Gospel." 
 
 He had the extremely difficult task of showing 
 to Protestants whose property had been pillaged, 
 whose families had been scattered, whose blood had 
 been shed like water, the truth and excellence of 
 the religion of their persecutors. That this could be 
 done to any very extensive degree might well be 
 questioned. But the missionaries were character- 
 ized by ability, mildness, prudence, benevolence, and 
 sound judgment, and they did all that any reasona- 
 ble persons could expect. The people of these 
 provinces were amazed to see men of high birth and 
 position leaving the court and capital to come
 
 PRECEPTOR TO THE PRINCE. 69 
 
 among them. They supposed that, at all events, 
 such men would be luxurious and haughty, as they 
 had been told ; but when, on the contrary, they saw 
 the missionaries nothing but lowly, self-denying, 
 simple-mannered priests, whose real aims seemed 
 to be the temporal as well as spiritual advantage of 
 those among whom they lived, prejudice began to 
 melt away. In February, 1686 the mission began 
 in December, 1685, and lasted till July, 1686, being 
 renewed for a few months in the next year, May 
 to July, 1687 Fenelon wrote to the Marquis de 
 Seignelai, Secretary of State, and brother to the 
 Duchess de Beauvilliers : "In the present condition 
 of men's minds we could easily bring them all to 
 confession and communion if we chose to use a little 
 pressure and so glorify our mission. But what is 
 the good of bringing men to confession who do not 
 yet recognize the Church ? How can we give Jesus 
 Christ to those who do not believe they are receiv- 
 ing Him? We should expect to bring a terrible 
 curse upon us if we were satisfied with hasty, super- 
 ficial work, all meant for show. We can but multi- 
 ply our instructions, invite the people to come 
 heartily to sacraments, but give them only to those 
 who come of their own accord to seek them in un- 
 reserved submission. I must not forget to add that 
 we want a great quantity of books, especially New 
 Testaments." Again he writes later: "The corn 
 you have sent so cheaply proves to the people that 
 our charity is practical. It is the most persuasive
 
 70 FENEWJN: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 kind of controversy. It amazes them, for they see 
 the exact reverse of all their ministers have taught 
 them as incontrovertibly true. We need preachers 
 to explain the Gospel every Sunday with a loving, 
 winning authority; people brought up in dissent 
 are only to be won by the words spoken to them. 
 We must give New Testaments profusely every- 
 where, but they must be in large type ; the people 
 can not read small print. We can not expect them 
 to buy Catholic books. It is a great thing if they 
 will read what costs them nothing; indeed the 
 greater proportion can not afford to buy." He 
 wrote also to Bossuet in March, 1686, "Our con- 
 verts get on, but very slowly ; it is no trifling mat- 
 ter to change the opinions of a whole people." It 
 is very evident that Fenelon had the most sincere 
 desire for the conversion of the Protestants, be- 
 lieving, of course, as he did, from the bottom of his 
 heart, that they were destined to eternal woe. 
 Brought up in the atmosphere in which he was, he 
 could not possibly sympathize with their position, 
 could not regard their heroism as other than ob- 
 stinacy. But such was the natural mildness of his 
 disposition and his acquaintance with the demands 
 of genuine religion, that he could in no way be con- 
 tent with a merely nominal acquiescence or con- 
 sent, and with the use of that force by which such 
 acquiescence was obtained. 
 
 His mission to Saintonge has been called a dark 
 page in his life. Yet the strongly prejudiced writer
 
 PRECEPTOR TO THE PRINCE. 71 
 
 who so characterizes it says in the same connection, 
 after referring to Fenelon's firm stand against vio- 
 lence and the forcing of conscience: "To us this 
 measure of clemency seems bare and scanty enough ; 
 in Fenelon's own time it was both unusual and ef- 
 fective. His counsels of mercy had weight with the 
 minister, and led to the suppression of various 
 abuses, civil as well as ecclesiastical. They mani- 
 festly gained for him the affection of his proselytes, 
 and, stirring up against him the bile of the more 
 rigid Catholics, seem to Rave stood in the way of 
 his promotion to the bishopric." It was a little after 
 this that he was appointed to the See of Poitiers, 
 which was the chief city of Poitou, but De Harlai, 
 who by this time was anything but a friend, suc- 
 ceeded in getting it immediately revoked; and the 
 next year the archbishop was again successful in 
 his unworthy maneuvers. The Bishop of Rochelle 
 had been greatly impressed by the zeal and gentle 
 wisdom of the young missioner, and he now came 
 to Paris, without giving Fenelon any hint of his in- 
 tention, to ask the king to appoint him as Coadjutor 
 Bishop of Rochelle. It would have been done but 
 for the insinuations of De Harlai that the attraction 
 between the two men was a mutual leaning to Jan- 
 senism, and as this was always a sore point with 
 Louis, he at once refused to make the appointment. 
 Fenelon might easily have refuted these assertions 
 for there was not a word of truth in them, as his 
 close friendship with Bossuet, Tronson, and others,
 
 72 FENEXON: THE; MYSTIC. 
 
 showed but he did not take the trouble so to do. 
 He was not ambitious of dignities. 
 
 Was his mission to Saintonge and Poitou a 
 dark page in his history ? We can hardly look upon 
 it in this light. It seems to us that he comes out 
 of it with considerable credit. Can we take it amiss 
 in him that he was a stanch adherent of the Roman 
 Catholic Church, not only at this time, but through- 
 out all his life? Not if we are reasonable, and do 
 not demand miracles where there is no occasion for 
 expecting them. Shall we withhold our admiration 
 from those who do not rise entirely superior to all 
 their surroundings, and see things as we, in totally 
 different conditions, see them? In that case, dealt 
 with after so harsh a judgment, we ourselves might 
 come off badly, and we should most certainly have 
 to bar out from our favor a very large proportion 
 of the men who have done the most for the world's 
 advancement. 
 
 It was about this same time that Sir Matthew 
 Hale in England (he died in 1676) who was reck- 
 oned the best judge of his time, acute, learned, sen- 
 sible, setting himself strongly agaimst bribery, one 
 of the serious vices of his age, a friend of Richard 
 Baxter, an austere scholar, leaning to the side of 
 the Puritans sentenced women to be executed for 
 witchcraft, and sent John Bunyan to jail for fre- 
 quenting conventicles, politely dismissing, without 
 redress, his wife, who pleaded for his discharge. 
 And in our own time we have seen the Earl of
 
 PRECEPTOR TO THE PRINCE. 73 
 
 Shaftesbury, who did such wonderful things for 
 the oppressed in some directions, most bitter against 
 the reformers in all other lines except his own, the 
 stanchest of Tories, and the most rigid of Church- 
 men, denouncing the democratic principle as anti- 
 Christian, and upholding the infamous Conventicle 
 Act, which forbade worship in a private house by 
 more than twenty persons. Similar inconsistencies 
 can be pointed out in the record of nearly all good 
 men. What does it prove? Simply that it is given 
 to very few to rise much above the age in which 
 they live, or to be at all points independent of the 
 impress placed upon them in their early years. We 
 see no reason to believe that Fenelon's attitude 
 toward the Protestants of his day was other than 
 an entirely sincere and conscientious one, such as 
 might be fairly looked for in a person of his sur- 
 roundings. 
 
 It is possible to impute sinister and selfish mo- 
 tives to any, if one is so disposed, but we see no 
 benefit from this policy. It is not the way we would 
 wish to be treated ourselves. Almost every act of a 
 man's life is susceptible of an evil construction, if 
 sufficient pains is taken and sufficient force applied. 
 But we can not join with those who appear to de- 
 light in pulling down from their pedestals all that 
 have been lifted above their fellows in goodness by 
 the general suffrage of mankind. Truth, of course, 
 is to be sought at all costs. But it makes a vast 
 difference from what standpoint the facts are ap-
 
 74 FENEW>N: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 preached, whether with suspicion and aversion, or 
 cordial appreciation and comprehension. There is 
 often an underlying dislike to a certain type of 
 character or to certain sentiments and opinions, be- 
 cause of the wide difference between them and those 
 which the writer himself holds and practices, which 
 makes it impossible that he should see them in an 
 unbiased light. We can not escape the conclusion 
 that Fenelon has been treated by some recent writers 
 in this manner, and we protest against its unfair- 
 ness. 
 
 It may be truthfully said that Fenelon, while 
 doing faithfully what appeared to him the duty of 
 the hour on this mission, did not particularly enjoy 
 it. He had no love for life in the country or for the 
 work in which he was engaged. He longed for 
 the quiet of his former post, with its larger oppor- 
 tunities for study and reflection, and for the time 
 when he should be free to return to Paris. In a 
 letter to Bossuet he playfully threatens to bring sus- 
 picion of heresy upon himself or "incur a lucky dis- 
 grace" that might give him excuse for his recall. 
 He was permitted, shortly after this, to go back to 
 his place at the New Catholics, where for some two 
 years more he occupied himself in a quiet, incon- 
 spicuous manner. Summing up the results of his 
 controversial work among the Huguenots, we are 
 disposed to conclude, with one of his biographers, 
 that "if his moderation and humanity in an age in 
 which such qualities were not esteemed, were re-
 
 PRECEPTOR TO THE PRINCE. 75 
 
 membered against him when other clouds were 
 gathering, and contributed to his ultimate ruin, they 
 add no less grace to the record of his life, and must 
 have deepened his influence with those whose eyes 
 were undimmed by prejudice and bigotry." 
 
 The most important period in the life of Fne- 
 lon was now to begin; that for which the earlier 
 years were but a preparation; that which would 
 color and dominate all his succeeding days. The 
 time had come when the little grandson of the king, 
 the Duke of Burgundy, the hope of France ( for his 
 father, the dauphin, was a failure, wholly incom- 
 petent to fill any large place), should pass from the 
 hands of nurses to masculine rule. What could be 
 of greater importance, considering how much was at 
 stake for the kingdom, than the proper selection 
 of those who should take this weighty charge? 
 When the dauphin had been at a similar stage of 
 his education he was committed to the care of the 
 Duke de Montausier and Bossuet as the greatest 
 and most celebrated men of their day. But though 
 they did their best, the course they took was not in 
 all respects well advised, and the results, at least, 
 had not been satisfactory. This would make the 
 utmost care now all the more imperative. Happily 
 the king was fully alive to his responsibility, and, 
 in addition to his own penetration, had the benefit 
 of good counsel in the matter. Madame de Main- 
 tenon was now a power at court, and was using 
 her influence in the best directions. She was a warm
 
 76 FENEXON: THE MYSTIC 
 
 friend of the Duke de Beauvilliers, who also stood 
 high in the good graces of Louis ; for the monarch, 
 in spite of his own serious lapses from virtue, ad- 
 mired it in others, and knew its importance with 
 the young. The duke was accordingly made gov- 
 ernor of the royal grandchildren, Burgundy and 
 his two younger brothers, with unlimited power of 
 nominating all the other officers about them and 
 all the inferior attendants. He had no hesitation as 
 to the best preceptor France could produce for the 
 little prince, and immediately named Fenelon, a 
 choice which was loudly applauded by the public 
 throughout the kingdom. The people said that 
 Louis the Great had once more outshone all earlier 
 monarchs, and shown himself wiser than Phillip of 
 Macedon when he appointed Aristotle tutor to his 
 son. Bossuet was overjoyed at the good fortune of 
 Church and State, and regretted only that the Mar- 
 quis de Fenelon had not lived to see an elevation of 
 the merit which hid itself with so much care. It 
 was a great surprise to the recipient, who was lead- 
 ing his ordinary retired life, neither seeking nor ex- 
 pecting court favor. It was a great gratification to 
 his friends, who poured in lavish congratulations. 
 But M. Tronson, the wise old tutor from St. Sul- 
 pice, wrote that his joy was mixed with fear, con- 
 sidering the perils to which his favorite pupil would 
 now be exposed. He says: "It opens the door to 
 earthly greatness, but you must fear lest it should 
 close that of the real greatness of heaven. You are
 
 PRECEPTOR TO THE PRINCE. 77 
 
 thrown into a region where the Gospel of Jesus 
 Christ is little known, and where even those who 
 know it use their knowledge chiefly as a means to 
 win human respect. If ever the study and medita- 
 tion of Holy Scripture were necessary to you, now 
 indeed they have become overwhelmingly indis- 
 pensable. Above all, it is of infinite importance that 
 you never lose sight of the final hour of death, when 
 all this world's glory will fade away like a dream, 
 and every earthly stay on which you may have 
 leaned must fail." This counsel was most credita- 
 ble to both tutor and pupil, showing a love stronger 
 than ordinary friendship. The post which seemed 
 so dazzling and so promising did indeed prove one 
 of much danger as well as glory, but not exactly 
 in the way that the aged teacher anticipated. 
 
 The Duke of Burgundy, now seven years old, 
 was, in the most emphatic sense, an enfant terrible. 
 He was very different from his heavy, stupid 
 father, inheriting some of his qualities, it is said, 
 from his mother, Mary Anne of Bavaria, a delicate, 
 melancholy, unattractive princess, passionate, proud, 
 and caustic. Burgundy was a frail, unhealthy crea- 
 ture, whose body lacked symmetry as well as his 
 mind. One shoulder very early outgrew the other, 
 defying the most cruel efforts of the surgeons to 
 set it right, and doing serious mischief to his gen- 
 eral health. His nervous system was much de- 
 ranged, so that he was subject to hurricanes of pas- 
 sion. The least contradiction made him furious.
 
 78 FENEU>N: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 He would fall into ungovernable fits of rage even 
 against inanimate objects. He. had an insatiable ap- 
 petite for all sorts of pleasure. His pride and ar- 
 rogance were indescribable. Mankind he looked 
 upon as atoms with whom he had nothing in com- 
 mon ; his brothers were only intermediate beings be- 
 tween him and the human race. He had a quick, 
 penetrating mind, and a marvelous memory. He 
 was stiff against threats, on his guard against flat-' 
 tery, amenable only to reason ; but by no means al- 
 ways to that. Often when it reasserted itself, after 
 one of his tornadoes, he was so much ashamed of 
 himself that he fell into a new fit of rage. He 
 was, however, frank and truthful in the extreme. 
 
 Such was the prince who with his brothers, the 
 Duke of Anjou, afterwards Philip V of Spain, and 
 the Duke of Berri was committed entirely to the 
 care of Fenelon. When he accepted his new ap- 
 pointment he abandoned all other offices and occu- 
 pations, permitting himself no distractions even of 
 friendship, that he might concentrate all his powers 
 of insight and reflection upon his charges. Now, 
 indeed, his studies of education would be fully 
 tested, and on the most conspicuous conceivable 
 field his theories must be reduced to practice. It 
 is said that "he pursued only one system, which 
 was to have none." In other words, he devoted his 
 fertile mind to meeting the necessities of the hour 
 as they arose in his volatile, chameleon-like pupil, 
 instead of subjecting him to a Procrustean system
 
 PRECEPTOR TO THE PRINCE. 79 
 
 which could only have had the worst outcome. His 
 facile pen was employed without stint in the service 
 of his pupil. Many fables, some in French, some in 
 Latin, full of poetry and grace, were written to 
 convey special lessons to the little duke. "Dialogues 
 of the Dead" also were composed for the same pur- 
 pose, bringing in the principal personages of an- 
 tiquity to converse on such themes as would in- 
 struct in regard to history and morals. And all this 
 was but a preparation for "Telemaque," or Tele- 
 machus, composed for the instruction of the heir 
 to the throne, and endowed with such unfailing 
 charm by the beauty of its style and the admirable 
 nature of its sentences, that it has been read ever 
 since in many nations and by many classes. The 
 same mythology is employed in it that was used by 
 Homer and Virgil, but refined by the knowledge of 
 the Divine revelation and adorned by a tincture of 
 Christianity that runs easily through the whole nar- 
 rative. The best classical and moral maxims are 
 placed before the mind of the reader, animated with 
 love and heightened with action. The author shows 
 that the glory of a prince is to govern men in such 
 a way as to make them good and happy; that his 
 authority is never so firmly established as in the love 
 of his people ; that the true riches and prosperity of 
 a State consists in taking away what ministers to 
 general luxury, and in being content with innocent 
 and simple pleasures. 
 
 But, as may well be supposed, it was not the in-
 
 8o FENELON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 tellectual means alone the text-books that were 
 prepared, the treatises that were written, the pains 
 taken with instruction which most awaken our ad- 
 miration, but rather the good sense shown in the 
 various special expedients that were employed as 
 from time to time they were found adapted to the 
 needs of the case. Every effort was made to re- 
 lieve study from tedium. Lessons were abandoned 
 whenever the prince wished to begin a conversa- 
 tion from which he might derive useful informa- 
 tion. There were frequent intervals for exercise. 
 Learning was turned into a pleasure. The real 
 struggle was with his fiery temperament, which had 
 been hitherto so badly mismanaged, and which could 
 only be met by patience and gentleness with firm- 
 ness. When one of the evil moods seized him, it 
 was an understood thing in the household that every 
 one should relapse into an unwonted silence. No- 
 body spoke to him if they could help it ; his attend- 
 ants waited upon him with averted eyes as though 
 reluctant to witness his degradation through pas- 
 sion. He was treated with the sort of humiliating 
 compassion which might be shown to a madman; 
 his books and appliances for study were put aside 
 as useless to one in such a state, and he was left 
 to his own reflections. Such a course was the de- 
 struction of self-complacency ; he ceased to find re- 
 lief in swearing when his hearers ceased to be dis- 
 concerted by his abuse, and, being left to consider 
 the situation in solitude, he saw himself for the first 
 time as others saw him. Gradually this treatment
 
 PRECEPTOR TO THE PRINCE. 81 
 
 would bring the passionate but generous child to a 
 better mind, and then, full of remorse and penitence, 
 he would come to throw himself with the fullest af- 
 fection and trust upon the never-failing patience 
 and goodness of the preceptor, whom he almost 
 worshiped to his dying day. 
 
 Fenelon had studied childhood, and knew how 
 deeply rooted is the child's fear of ridicule ; in the 
 prince it was exaggerated by his abnormal vanity, 
 and a system which showed him how he degraded 
 himself, and lost all shadow of dignity when he lost 
 his self-control, was the surest to produce a radical 
 reform. There are still in existence two pledges of 
 his childish repentance, testifying to the difficulty 
 with which his faults were conquered. "I promise, 
 on my word as a prince to M. 1'Abbe de Fenelon, 
 that I will do at once whatever he bids me, and 
 will obey him instantly in what he forbids ; and if 
 I break my word I will accept any kind of punish- 
 ment and disgrace. Given at Versailles, November 
 29, 1689. Louis." This promise, in spite of the 
 word of a prince, was probably broken; for many 
 months later he enters on another engagement 
 pathetic in its brevity : "Louis, who promises afresh 
 to keep his promise better. This 2Oth of Septem- 
 ber, I beseech M. de Fenelon to take it again." 
 He was at this time but eight years old. The child 
 loved his teacher passionately, and it was seldom 
 that he did not yield speedily to Fenelon's wise and 
 loving discipline. 
 6
 
 82 FENEXON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 Once, however, there was a serious scene be- 
 tween them which appears to have had a lasting in- 
 fluence upon the prince. Fenelon had been obliged 
 to reprove him with more than usual severity, and 
 the boy, in his angry pride, had resisted, exclaim- 
 ing, "No, no, sir; I remember who I am, and who 
 you are." It was impossible to pass over such a 
 speech and maintain authority; but acting upon 
 his own maxim, never to administer reproof while 
 either actor concerned is excited, Fenelon made no 
 reply, and for the remainder of the day preserved 
 a total silence toward his pupil, who could not fail 
 to perceive by his manner that the usually indulgent 
 master was much displeased. Night came with no 
 explanation. But the next morning, as soon as the 
 prince was awake, the abbe came into his room, 
 and, addressing him in a grave, ceremonious man- 
 ner, very unlike the usual easy tone of their inter- 
 course, said: "I do not know, Monsieur, whether 
 you remember what you said to me yesterday, that 
 you knew what you are and what I am ; but it is my 
 duty to teach you your ignorance alike of both. 
 You fancy yourself a greater personage than I 
 some of your servants may have told you so; but 
 since you oblige me to do it I must tell you without 
 hesitation that I am greater than you. You must 
 see at once that there can be no question of birth 
 in the matter. It is one of personal merit. You 
 can have no doubt that I am your superior in un- 
 derstanding and knowledge ; you know nothing but
 
 PRECEPTOR TO THE PRINCE. 83 
 
 what I have taught you, and that is a mere shadow 
 compared with what you have yet to learn. As to 
 authority, you have none over me, whereas I, on 
 the other hand, have full and entire authority over 
 you, as the king has often told you. Perhaps you 
 imagine that I think myself fortunate in holding the 
 office I fill about yourself; but there again you are 
 mistaken. I undertook it only to obey the king, 
 and in no way for the irksome privilege of being 
 your preceptor. And to convince you of this truth 
 I am now going to take you to His Majesty and 
 beg of him to appoint some one else whose care of 
 you will, I hope, be more successful than mine." 
 This was no idle threat; for Fenelon had always 
 been determined to resign the tutorship as soon as 
 he felt himself to be failing in it ; and the prince was 
 obliged to weigh his pride against his love. His 
 love proved the greater ; for life had been very dif- 
 ferent with him since Fenelon came into it, and no 
 sacrifice of his vanity was too galling if he might 
 cancel his offense and keep his friend. Moreover, 
 he was sensitive to the last degree to public opinion 
 and the faintest shadow of disgrace. What wouM 
 the world think of a prince who was so hopelessly 
 naughty that a man so universally admired and re- 
 spected was forced to give him up, and what would 
 become of the poor little boy to whom his nearest 
 relatives were, after all, only "His Majesty" and 
 "Monseigneur," if the dear, kind preceptor, who 
 loved him and devoted himself so entirely to him,
 
 84 FENELON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 were to go away ? Poor Louis ! The storm broke 
 out anew; but this time it was of penitence and 
 shame and regret, while with passionate sobs and 
 tears he cried out : "O Monsieur, I am so sorry for 
 what I did yesterday. If you tell the king he will 
 not care for me any more; and what will people 
 think if you leave me? I promise, O I promise 
 ever so much, that you shall not have to complain 
 of me if only you will promise not to go." But 
 F.enelon would promise nothing the lesson would 
 be lost if it were not sharp and for a whole day 
 he allowed the duke to undergo the pangs of anx- 
 iety and uncertainty. But at last, when his re- 
 pentance seemed unlikely to be soon forgotten, 
 Madame de Maintenon's intercession was admitted, 
 and the preceptor consented to remain. 
 
 At a much later date Fenelon, writing about 
 these days to a friend, said of the prince: "He 
 was sincere and ingenuous to a degree that one only 
 needed to question him in order to know whatever 
 he had done wrong. One day, when he was very 
 much out of temper, he tried to conceal some act 
 of disobedience, and I urged him to tell the truth, 
 remembering that we were in God's sight. Then 
 he threw himself into a great passion, and said, 
 'Why do you put it in that way ? Well, then, since 
 you ask it so, I can not deny that I did that,' what- 
 ever it was. He was beside himself with anger, but 
 still his sense of religious duty was so strong that it 
 drew forth the most humiliating acknowledgments.
 
 PRECEPTOR TO THE PRINCE. 85 
 
 I never corrected him save where it was really 
 necessary, and then with great caution. The mo- 
 ment his passion was over he would come back to 
 me, and confess himself to blame, so that we had 
 to console him ; and he was really grateful to those 
 who corrected him. He used sometimes to say to 
 me, 'Now I shall leave the Duke of Burgundy be- 
 hind the door, and be only little Louis with you.' 
 This was when he was nine years old. Directly he 
 saw me doing any work for him he wanted to do 
 the same, and would set to on his own account. Ex- 
 cept in his moments of passion I never knew him in- 
 fluenced save by the most straightforward princi- 
 ples and most strictly in accordance with the teach- 
 ings of the Gospel. He was kind and gracious to 
 all who had a claim upon him ; but he reserved his 
 confidence wholly for such as he believed to be re- 
 ligious people, and they could tell him nothing about 
 his faults which he did not acknowledge with grati- 
 tude. I never saw any one whom I should less have 
 feared to displease by telling him the harshest truths 
 concerning himself. I have proved that by some 
 wonderful experiences." 
 
 It will be somewhat seen, we trust, from all this, 
 how great was the care and skill expended by Fene- 
 lon on his* most responsible and difficult task, and 
 how near an approach he made to imparting a model 
 education to his pupil. To his religious training, 
 of course, as well as to that which was more intel- 
 lectual, the greatest attention was given. It had a
 
 86 FENELON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 large place in the many conversations held and the 
 many books put into his hands, chief among which 
 were the Sacred Scriptures. The law of self-de- 
 nial and self-restraint was continually inculcated, 
 that one must learn to imitate the Divine Master if 
 one would fulfill the purpose for which life was 
 given. The early religious impressions thus im- 
 parted were so deeply wrought that they influenced 
 his whole after life. He was prepared with greatest 
 care for his first communion, taking it earnestly and 
 devoutly, and for the rest of his life he was a regu- 
 lar and faithful communicant, receiving the sacra- 
 ment with a recollection and humility of bearing 
 which struck all beholders. A total transformation 
 was wrought in the royal pupil under the training 
 given, a transformation which amazed all who were 
 conversant with it. The Duke de Saint-Simon, 
 speaking of what a prodigy was wrought in a mar- 
 velously short space of time, how the most terrible 
 qualities were changed into all the opposite virtues, 
 says : "From the beast which I have described there 
 arose a prince affable, gentle, moderate, patient, 
 modest, humble, austere but only to himself, at- 
 tentive to his duties and sensible of their great ex- 
 tent. His only object appeared to be to perform 
 all his actual duties as son and subject, and to qual- 
 ify himself for his future obligations." Madame de 
 Maintenon, in one of her letters, gives the same 
 testimony : "We saw all those defects which alarmed 
 us so much in the youth of the Duke of Burgundy
 
 PRECEPTOR TO THE PRINCE. 87 
 
 gradually disappear. Every year produced in him 
 a visible increase of virtue. So much had his piety 
 changed him that, from being the most passionate 
 of men, he became mild, gentle, and complying; 
 persons would have thought that mildness was his 
 natural disposition, and that he was innately good." 
 So great was the alteration in his character and con- 
 duct that, had he lived to ascend the throne, the 
 whole world, as well as France in particular, would 
 have been immensely the gainer. Hence the limit- 
 less devotion with which Fenelon gave five or six 
 years of his life at the height of his powers en- 
 tirely to the royal children and the routine of their 
 schoolroom duties, was by no means a poor use of 
 his great gifts and attainments. These years are 
 extremely important, both in his own history and 
 the history of his country. 
 
 One other point deserves mention before we 
 pass from this interesting period of Fenelon's life. 
 In entering on his office he laid down to himself a 
 rule, to which he rigidly adhered, never to ask of 
 the court a favor for himself, his friends, or his 
 family. The virtue of this stands out the more 
 when we consider how very rare in those days was 
 disinterestedness, and that men were none the less 
 esteemed because they strove to profit themselves 
 and their families to the utmost in whatever posi- 
 tion they filled. It is, then, not a little remarkable 
 and creditable that Fenelon actually continued in a 
 state closely approaching destitution; his means
 
 88 FENEU>N: THS MYSTIC 
 
 were extremely straitened for more than five years 
 after entering upon his honorable and responsible 
 position at court. His private revenue was very 
 small, nothing at all coming to him at this time 
 from Carenac, which he describes as "hopelessly 
 ruined." No pecuniary income, one writer says, 
 was attached to his office ; but this is hardly credi- 
 ble, and there are indications that there was a sal- 
 ary, although, strangely enough, not an adequate 
 one. He kept a very small establishment, and it 
 was with great difficulty that he found means to 
 meet his current expenses. Letters to Madame de 
 Laval, a daughter of his uncle, the marquis, and 
 hence a sister to him, who was his guide and coun- 
 selor in money matters, show this. He wrote to 
 her, October, 1689, concerning the various econo- 
 mies to which he was subjected, and the sale of his 
 carriage and ponies. Again, in March, 1691, he 
 mentions having repaid one thousand francs out 
 of a debt of twelve hundred due Madame de Laval, 
 and other sums to other people. "I have made re- 
 trenchments," he says, "which are very unusual in 
 my position ; but justice comes before all other con- 
 siderations. I still owe a considerable sum to my 
 bookseller, and I must buy some plate to repay you 
 for the things you have loaned me which are worn 
 out." He speaks of getting his accounts into order 
 that he may see his way in his small economies and 
 calculate how to go on. Again, in January, 1694, 
 he writes concerning a needy person whom he com-
 
 PRECEPTOR TO THE PRINCE. 89 
 
 mends to Madame de Laval, saying: "Although 
 my necessities have never been so pressing as at 
 present, I beg you to take what is wanted for this 
 man. I am tolerably well, though very busy; but 
 my purse is at the lowest ebb, through delays in 
 the payment of my salary, and the exceeding dear- 
 ness of everything this year. If I do not receive 
 something shortly, I must dismiss nearly all my 
 servants. But I will not have you try to help me. 
 I would rather bear on. All the same, see that any 
 money that can be sent [from Carenac] reaches me 
 after the more urgent alms have been disbursed; 
 for indeed I would rather live on dry bread than 
 let any of the poor of my benefice want." 
 
 This cousin became Fenelon's sister actually, as 
 well as in name, by her second marriage with his 
 eldest brother, the Compte de Fenelon; and prob- 
 ably it never cost him more to refuse anything than 
 when he refused her request that he would obtain a 
 valuable military post for her son, a child four years 
 old. But, while eager to do anything he deemed 
 right to please her, he steadily refused to make the 
 application she desired. He writes: "I can not 
 relax the strict rule to which I feel it right in my 
 position to adhere. I would do anything on earth 
 for you or your son that I can, but not to save my 
 life would I ask for anything from the king." Other 
 letters that might be quoted speak the same lan- 
 guage. It was not till 1694 that the king seems to 
 have remembered or discovered how badly his
 
 90 FENEXON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 grandsons' preceptor was provided for. In that 
 year, at last, he gave Fenelon the Abbey of St. 
 Valery, which sufficiently filled his purse. The 
 king informed him of this in person, and apologized 
 for so tardy an acknowledgment of his gratitude. 
 And the year before, 1693, ne was chosen a mem- 
 ber of the French Academy, a high distinction ; his 
 reception speech was made March 3ist of that year. 
 It was at this time, also, that he became a con- 
 siderable factor in the management of the celebrated 
 community at St. Cyr, known as the ladies of St. 
 Louis, who were pledged to a devout and holy life. 
 Madame de Maintenon had originated the idea of 
 this foundation, with the special object of educat- 
 ing and training five hundred girls, daughters of 
 the poorer nobility. It occupied a large share of 
 her thoughts. Fenelon was associated with Bourda- 
 loue, the Abbe Godet des Marais, subsequently 
 Bishop of Chartres, and other eminent ecclesiastics 
 in its government. 
 
 It was on February 4, 1695, that the king an- 
 nounced to Abbe de Fenelon that he had nomi- 
 nated him Archbishop of Cambrai, one of the rich- 
 est and most important sees in the kingdom. He 
 was taken entirely by surprise, but at once replied, 
 after expressing his thanks, that he could scarcely 
 rejoice in an appointment that would remove him 
 from the preceptorship to the princes. Whereupon 
 Louis graciously answered that the abbe was much 
 too useful to be spared, and that his intention was
 
 PRECEPTOR TO THE PRINCE. 91 
 
 that he should retain both offices. Fenelon repre- 
 sented that the laws of the Church and his own 
 conscience made this impossible, as both required 
 residence in the diocese. But the king bore wit- 
 ness to his appreciation of Fenelon's services by 
 overruling this difficulty, and replying, "No, no; 
 the canons only require nine months' residence; 
 you will spend three months with my grandsons, 
 and during the rest of the year you must superin- 
 tend their education from Cambrai just as you 
 would at Versailles." This point settled, Fenelon 
 went on to say that if he was indeed to accept the 
 archbishopric he must resign the Abbey of St. 
 Valery, an act of disinterestedness which Louis al- 
 together refused to allow. But Fenelon quietly 
 persisted, pointing out to the king that the revenues 
 of Cambrai were such as to make it an infringe- 
 ment of canonical law to hold any other preferment 
 with it. Such conscientious indifference to his own 
 interest excited a great deal of astonishment and 
 gossip at court. The Bishop of Rheims remarked 
 that it was all very well for M. de Fenelon, think- 
 ing as he did, to act thus, but that thinking as he 
 did, it was better for him to keep his revenues. The 
 age was thoroughly accustomed to this plurality of 
 benefices. In the previous century John of Lor- 
 raine was at one and the same time Archbishop of 
 Lyons, Rheims, and Narbonne, Bishop of Metz> 
 Toul, Verdun, Theroneune, Lucon, Alby, and 
 Valence, and Abbot of Gortz, Fecamp, Clugny, and
 
 92 FEN*XON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 Marmontier. He was also made a cardinal a year 
 or two before attaining his majority. This was 
 doubtless an extreme case, but there were plenty 
 somewhat similar. So that Fenelon's self-denying 
 course meant a good deal more than it would at 
 the present day. 
 
 He was consecrated archbishop June 10, 1695, in 
 the chapel of St. Cyr, in the presence of a distin- 
 guished throng, among whom were Madame de 
 Maintenon and his three royal pupils. Bossuet was 
 chief consecrator, the Bishop of Chalons being first 
 assistant, and the Bishop of Amiens second. Fene- 
 lon's friends were delighted at this great advance- 
 ment for him ; yet it was felt by many of them that 
 he should have had the Archbishopric of Paris, for 
 already the popular voice had widely and loudly 
 nominated him. Some thought that he was sent to 
 Cambrai by the king for the express purpose of 
 forestalling this clamor, and avoiding any neces- 
 sity for putting him in the more conspicuous and 
 influential place ; for it was known that the post at 
 Paris would soon be vacant, and, if, at its vacancy, 
 Fenelon had been still unplaced, the pressure for 
 his appointment there would have been very strong. 
 As it was, M. de Harlai died August 6, 1695, less 
 than two months after Fenelon's consecration. M. 
 de Noailles, Bishop of Chalons, through the in- 
 fluence of Madame de Maintenon, was given the 
 position. 
 
 We have reached now what was, in a worldly
 
 PRECEPTOR TO THE PRINCE. 93 
 
 point of view, the very summit of Fenelon s pros- 
 perity and glory. It might seem that, humanly 
 speaking, he had very little, if anything, left to wish 
 for, although, of course, the cardinalate might fairly 
 have been expected in a few years. But the clouds 
 were already beginning to gather which were soon 
 to break over his head in a storm never to clear 
 away, so far as court favor and the good things of 
 this world were concerned. So a new chapter must 
 be devoted to these new experiences which had so 
 very much to do both with his temporal and spirit- 
 ual affairs.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 MYSTICISM AND QUIETISM. 1 
 
 IN order that we may properly apprehend the 
 next period in Fenelon's life it is absolutely essen- 
 tial for us to take a survey of the general subject of 
 Mysticism, for with that he became now very inti- 
 mately concerned. And, happily, it is a subject of 
 perennial importance, having no less close connec- 
 tion with the present day than with the centuries 
 past. Indeed the present age has in some respects 
 very special need of just this element. It is a com- 
 mercial, materialistic, money-grabbing age, devoted 
 to the outward and the practical ; it is a time when 
 the triumphs of machinery and invention and in- 
 dustrial progress are sounded as never before an 
 extremely busy, bustling time of immense external 
 activity, when man hastens to get rich and rushes 
 
 IThe principal sources of information on this important sub- 
 ject of Mysticism, from which we have drawn and to which we 
 would refer such readers as wish to investigate the question further, 
 are the following: "Christian Mysticism," by William Ralph Inge, 
 being the Bampton Lectures for 1899; Vaughan's "Hours With the 
 Mystics;'* articles in the Encyclopedia Britannica ; Schaff-Herzog 
 Cyclopedia ; McClintock and Strong's Cyclopedia ; articles in the 
 Methodist Quarterly Review for January, 1860, January, 1869, and 
 July, 1878; various Church Histories, and Histories of Doctrine, 
 together with the Lives and Writings of the main Mystics men- 
 tioned in the present chapter and the chapter which follows. 
 
 94
 
 MYSTICISM AND QUIETISM. 95 
 
 through life at railroad speed, scarcely finding lei- 
 sure so much as to eat, much less for the quiet con- 
 templation of the things of the spirit. And it is 
 the contemplative, interior, spirit-filled life with 
 which Mysticism has pre-eminently to do. 
 
 The term, it is true, has come to be widely re- 
 garded with suspicion, and used, more or less 
 vaguely, as a word of reproach. With many, per- 
 haps with most, it carries an unpleasant, offensive 
 suggestion. Its associations in their minds are with 
 that which is misty or recondite, visionary and un- 
 intelligible ; also with that which is fanatical, ex- 
 travagant, unreasonable, and somewhat dangerous. 
 That there is some ground for this impression can 
 not be denied, because under the general name of 
 Mysticism much has been included, in the long sweep 
 of the centuries, which can not be admired or de- 
 fended; much which does not commend itself to 
 that level-headed common sense according to whose 
 dictates we like to think that our religion can be 
 and should be squared. But we are persuaded that 
 this extreme objectionable development, or mani- 
 festation, of the Mystic spirit has been much less 
 frequent than is commonly supposed, and has no 
 sufficient claim to be identified with it in the public 
 mind anywhere near as largely as it usually is. 
 There is a true Mysticism, and a false Mysticism. 
 There are Mystics every way worthy of highest 
 honor, and there are those not at all points deserv- 
 ing imitation. It surely is a mistake to lay the chief
 
 96 FENI,ON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 stress on the latter, as is so frequently done, and 
 thus to stamp a stigma upon all. Christian Mys- 
 ticism is something of which no one can afford to 
 be ignorant. The Church which neglects it or de- 
 spises it, whether through misapprehension or some 
 less honorable cause, is certain to be a large loser. 
 
 What is Mysticism? As has been pointed out 
 by several, it is something which from its very na- 
 ture is hardly susceptible of exact definition, does 
 not readily lend itself to the most precise forms of 
 language. It is a phase of though? or feeling which 
 continually appears in connection with the endeavor 
 of the human mind to grasp the Divine essence, 
 and to enjoy the blessedness of actual communion 
 with the Highest. It springs inevitably from in- 
 tense desire for intimate fellowship with God, from 
 the hottest possible pursuit of the highest ideals. 
 It is a sort of name for the realization of God as 
 transfused throughout the universe, as being imma- 
 nent in material things and in mankind alike. The 
 Century Dictionary defines Mysticism as "any mode 
 of thought or phase of intellectual or religious life 
 in which reliance is placed upon a spiritual illumina- 
 tion believed to transcend the ordinary powers of 
 understanding." The Standard Dictionary says 
 that Mysticism is "the doctrine and belief that man 
 may attain to an immediate direct consciousness or 
 knowledge of God as the real and absolute principle 
 of all truth. The term is applied to a system of 
 thought and life of which the chief feature is an
 
 MYSTICISM AND QUIETISM. 97 
 
 extreme development of meditative and intuitive 
 methods as distinguished from the definitive and 
 scholastic." Similarly Dr. J. P. Lange, in the 
 Schaff-Herzog Cyclopedia, says: "Mysticism has 
 been defined as belief in an immediate and contin- 
 uous communication between God and the soul 
 which may be established by certain peculiar re- 
 ligious exercises. . . . There is a mystic ele- 
 ment in all true religion." Cousin says: "Mys- 
 ticism is the belief that God may be known face to 
 face without anything intermediate. It is a yield- 
 ing to the sentiment awakened by the Infinite, and 
 a summing up of all knowledge and all duty in the 
 contemplation and love of Him." Nitzsch, in his 
 "System of Christian Doctrine," declares "that the 
 religious man, the man of faith, is, as such, a Mys- 
 tic; for he in whose consciousness God does not 
 appear, certainly does not feel God, nor can he 
 know or honor Him ; but he who only thinks Him, 
 without loving Him and becoming pure in heart, 
 can not know Him vitally ; much less can he behold 
 Him spiritually who desires to see Him with the 
 outward sense. The inner life of religion is ever 
 Mysticism." 
 
 This is why in all ages of the Church, when the 
 outward has come to usurp and absorb attention, 
 when formalism and ceremonialism have domi- 
 nated the mind, when scholasticism has gained as- 
 cendency, and especially when a corrupt looseness 
 of morals has set in to degrade the very ideals of 
 7
 
 98 FENEU>N: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 humanity, there have been those who have arisen 
 to make a stand for a purer, more fervent, more 
 spiritual type of piety. They have met, of course, 
 with bitter opposition ; they have troubled those who 
 did not wish to be disturbed in their carnal indul- 
 gences or worldly conformities, and they have had 
 various uncomplimentary epithets thrown at them ; 
 such as, Pietists, Quietists, Mystics, Puritans, 
 Quakers, and Methodists. They have been mis- 
 represented in manifold ways. They have been per- 
 secuted even unto the death. But they have been 
 the salt of the earth, and the succession has been 
 kept up under one name or another from the ear- 
 liest days to the present. They have not always 
 been endowed with philosophic minds or skilled in 
 the learning of the schools. They have been keenly 
 conscious of the difficulty, the impossibility, of com- 
 pletely expressing, in imperfect human words, the 
 deep things of God revealed to them on the mounts 
 of vision with which they have been favored. They 
 have struggled hard with the inadequacy of the only 
 language at their command, and have been driven 
 to a liberal use of figures of speech, some of them 
 questionable in point of propriety. They have had 
 a cramped vocabulary, have made mistakes, have 
 not found themselves able to translate into intelligi- 
 ble terms all that was in their minds. To mint the 
 secrets of the interior life into the current coin of 
 language suited to the comprehension of common 
 souls requires a skill given to but few. And more es-
 
 MYSTICISM AND QUIETISM. 99 
 
 pecially have their expressions been found unintelli- 
 gible, or worse, by adversaries not qualified by any 
 experience to comprehend what it was all about. 
 For, as St. Paul says (i Cor. ii) : "The natural 
 man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God ; 
 for they are foolishness unto him, and he can not 
 know them, because they are spiritually judged. 
 We speak wisdom among the perfect, God's wis- 
 dom in a mystery, even a wisdom which hath been 
 hidden, which none of the rulers of this world 
 knoweth. Which things also we speak, not in 
 words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the 
 Spirit teacheth, interpreting spiritual things to spir- 
 itual men." The adversaries were also eager in 
 many cases to remove out of the way those who, 
 by their purity of life and their opposition to 
 priestly claims and gains, were esteemed danger- 
 ous to the peace of the Church. We are confident 
 that in the main this is a fair interpretation of the 
 course which events have taken. Not but what 
 some of the Mystics have really laid themselves 
 open to the complaints of their enemies. They 
 have been unguarded in their language, have been 
 so carried away with ecstasy, as some new precious 
 truth has burst upon them, that they have stated it 
 too strongly; have not supplied the limitations and 
 modifications and exceptions which would have 
 been well, which were necessary for a complete 
 rounding out of the statement; have taken for 
 granted that the other side had been sufficiently em-
 
 ioo FENEXON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 phasized before, and that their special mission to 
 emphasize the neglected point would be recognized ; 
 hence they have said things which, by strict con- 
 struction and taken in bald literalness, were not pre- 
 cisely true. All this can be granted without casting 
 any serious reflection either on their character or 
 their doctrines. Their books must be read with cau- 
 tion and discrimination. To persons not well bal- 
 anced they might sometimes be a source of peril. 
 But this admission is in no way incompatible with 
 the assertion that they have conferred a very great 
 benefit upon mankind, that their doctrines, on the 
 whole, are sound, and that this generation could ill 
 afford to overlook the good to be obtained by care- 
 ful studies in this direction. 
 
 The first Mystics were really St. John and St. 
 Paul ; and their words have full justification in what 
 they derived from their Divine Master. Who more 
 positively than "the great Apostle to the Gentiles, 
 "according to the wisdom given unto him," preached 
 a gospel that was foolishness to some, but which he 
 continually called the wisdom and the mystery of 
 God ; a gospel which proclaims the Divine indwell- 
 ing, we in Him and He in us, our bodies the tem- 
 ples of the Holy Ghost, believers being "in Christ'' 
 and "members one of another?" He was a man 
 caught up into Paradise, and hearing unspeakable 
 words which it was not lawful or possible for a 
 man to utter. "I die daily/' he said, "I have been 
 crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I that live,
 
 MYSTICISM AND QUIETISM. 101 
 
 but Christ liveth in me;" "To me to live is Christ;" 
 "I have learned the secret, I can do all things in 
 Him ;" "I fill up on my part that which is lacking 
 of the afflictions of Christ;" "Ye died, and your 
 life is hid with Christ in God;" "In Him we live, 
 and move, and have our being;" "The Spirit Him- 
 self beareth witness with our spirit," and many 
 other such like things there be, left on record from 
 his pen to show clearly that he was a true Mystic. 
 Still more, perhaps, do the Mystics look to St. John 
 for complete authorization of their position. His 
 Gospel is the spiritual Gospel, the charter of Chris- 
 tian Mysticism. It is he who tells us, "God is love," 
 "God is light," "God is Spirit." The Divine union 
 which he sets before us is of the closest kind. "Our 
 fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son 
 Jesus Christ ;" "Ye have an anointing from the Holy 
 One, and ye know all things;" "The anointing 
 which ye received of Him abideth in you, and ye 
 need not that any teach you ;" "Hereby we know 
 that He abideth in us, by the Spirit which He hath 
 given us;" "He that believeth on the Son of God 
 hath the witness ;" "He that dwelleth in love dwell- 
 eth in God, and God in him," etc. It is impossible 
 to quote a tithe of the words in John's Epistles and 
 Gospel which embody the fundamental ideas of 
 Mysticism. Especially do we find in the marvelous 
 words of Jesus reported by John alone, as* by the 
 one peculiarly fitted to formulate them, in the thir-
 
 102 FENEXON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 teenth to the seventeenth chapters of his Gospel, the 
 seeds and roots of all which have been drawn forth 
 by subsequent writers on these profound themes. 
 
 Plato has been called "the Father of European 
 Mysticism." Dr. Inge says : "Both the great types 
 of Mystics may appeal to him, those who try to 
 rise through the visible to the invisible, through na- 
 ture to God ; and those who look upon this earth as 
 a place of banishment, upon material things as a 
 veil which hides God's face from us, and who bid us 
 seek yonder in the realm of ideas the heart's true 
 home. Plato teaches that the highest good is the 
 greatest likeness to God ; that the greatest happi- 
 ness is the vision of God ; that we should seek holi- 
 ness, not for the sake of reward, but because it is the 
 health of the soul, while vice is its disease; that 
 goodness is unity and harmony, while evil disinte- 
 grates; that it is our duty to rise above the visible 
 and transitory to the invisible and permanent." 
 
 The Church has never lacked during its history 
 for those who have followed this line of thought 
 and cultivated this kind of experience. Clement of 
 Alexandria has been called "the Founder of Chris- 
 tian Mysticism," a Neoplatonist among the Fathers ; 
 followed by Dionysius the Areopagite, and a lengthy 
 line of successors, large among whom looms the 
 noble Bernard of Clairvaux, the glory of the twelfth 
 century. Without tracing out the story in detail it 
 will be enough for our purpose to refer briefly to 
 those who, in the few centuries before Fenelon,
 
 MYSTICISM AND QUIETISM. 103 
 
 stood forth most prominently as leaders in this realm 
 of truth, and so prepared the way for him. 
 
 In the fourteenth century we find a most re- 
 markable band of devout believers who called them- 
 selves "Friends of God," to signify that they had 
 reached that stage of Christian life when Christ, ac- 
 cording to His promise, would call them "no longer 
 servants but friends." They were composed of 
 persons from all classes of society, and from all the 
 religious orders. Most prominent among these 
 were Master Eckhart styled "Doctor Ecstaticus" 
 vicar-general of the Dominican order, a man of 
 uncommon purity of life and great excellence of 
 character, one of the profound thinkers of the Mid- 
 dle Ages; Henry Suso, who has been called "the 
 Minnesinger of Divine Love," and who was wont 
 to say, "A man of true self-abandonment must be 
 unbuilt from the creature, twbuilt with Christ, and 
 overbuilt into the Godhead" (he was prior of the 
 Dominican convent at Ulm, where he died in 1365) ; 
 Nicholas of Basle ; and John Tauler. Nicholas was 
 a layman who wielded a powerful pen and was also 
 a great preacher; thoroughly devoted to religion 
 from his earliest days. He traveled much througli 
 Germany, propagating his opinions in a quiet, un- 
 ostentatious manner, and gradually there grew up 
 around him a society of Christians composed of 
 men and women likeminded with himself, who loved 
 to honor him as their spiritual father. It seems to 
 have been largely his personal influence which held
 
 104 FENEXON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 them together, for they fell to pieces after he was 
 burned at the stake for heresy, near Poitiers, about 
 1382. 
 
 John Tauler "Doctor Illuminatus" born at 
 Strasburg, 1290, and dying there in 1361, was still 
 more distinguished, although indebted to Nicholas 
 for being led out into the light. This took place 
 when he was over fifty years of age. Nicholas, 
 coming to Strasburg to hear the famous preacher, 
 speedily detected his deficiency in spiritual experi- 
 ence, and the lack of true power attending the Word 
 on this account. With rare humility, Tauler, a 
 learned theologian, received this rebuke from the 
 uneducated layman, and so profited by it that he 
 was able, though not without long struggle, to enter 
 into complete freedom. Then he preached in a very 
 different manner, and the first time he opened his 
 mouth in public fourteen persons fell as if dead 
 under the Word, and nearly thirty others were so 
 deeply moved that they remained sitting in the 
 churchyard long after the congregation was dis- 
 missed, unwilling to move away. For eighteen 
 years after this second conversion he made great 
 progress in the divine life, rising to a place of high- 
 est esteem with his brethren, and being rightly reck- 
 oned among the chief of God's children on earth. 
 
 Properly to be counted among these Friends of 
 God can be set down the unknown author of 
 "Deutsche Theologie," or "Theologia Germanica," 
 which contained so much truth that it had the dis-
 
 MYSTICISM AND QUIETISM. 105 
 
 tinguished honor of being put upon the Romish In- 
 dex of prohibited works. Luther ascribed it to 
 Tauler. It is in his style, and contains his senti- 
 ments ; but it is now considered more probable that 
 it originated a little later than his time, and was 
 written by some other member of the band. It was 
 their usual practice to conceal their names as much 
 as possible when they wrote, lest a desire. for fame 
 should mingle in their endeavors to be useful. 
 Luther placed it next to the Bible and St. Augus- 
 tine as a source of knowledge concerning God and 
 Christ and man. Baron Bunsen ranks it still higher. 
 And many others have expressed their supreme in- 
 debtedness to it for help in respect to the perfect 
 life. It has continued up to the present day to be 
 the favorite handbook of devotion in Germany. 
 
 Concerning the views and doctrines of these 
 Friends of God, although some of their expressions 
 and opinions may be objected to, considering the 
 corrupt age in which they lived they must be pro- 
 nounced worthy of high praise. They insisted, first 
 of all, on the uttermost self-renunciation, yet they 
 avoided the system of penances and austerities com- 
 mon in the monasteries. Neither idle contempla- 
 tion nor passive asceticism found favor with them ; 
 they were evangelical and practical, full of good 
 works and the imitation of Christ both in patient 
 suffering and active usefulness. " They were ani- 
 mated by an exalted reformatory spirit which threw 
 them out of touch with the ecclesiastics around
 
 io6 FENULON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 them. Though they did not in all cases fall under 
 the ban of the Church, they may still be regarded 
 as forerunners of the Reformation. Their Mys- 
 ticism was a powerful protest against the terrible 
 corruptions of the Romish Church and the cold, 
 barren speculations of scholasticism. They craved 
 and secured direct communion with God, unre- 
 stricted by human interposition ; an immediate vision 
 of the Almighty, undimmed by any separating veil 
 and unchanged by any distorting medium. The 
 highest form of the Divine life in a man seemed to 
 them to be perfect resignation to the will of God, 
 and they counted prayer to be the best means of 
 bringing about this state of resignation. "To pray 
 for a change in one's circumstances," they said, "is 
 to pray that what God sends may be made subject 
 to us, not that we should submit ourselves to it; 
 and so tends to produce self-assertion, not self-re- 
 nunciation." Nicholas taught that "when self-re- 
 nunciation is complete, the soul of man, having be- 
 come entirely resigned to the Divine will, becomes 
 so entirely assimilated to the Divine nature that it 
 has continually a near fellowship with God; he is 
 always in familiar intercourse with the Spirit of 
 God, who communicates to him all Divine knowl- 
 edge." "All things to the beloved are of God; all, 
 therefore, are indifferent." That religion which 
 sprang from fear of punishment or hope of reward 
 they counted of little worth, and considered love to 
 be by far the highest state, the only one truly
 
 MYSTICISM AND QUIETISM. 107 
 
 worthy of the Christian. 2 Their union with Deity 
 was not that of pantheism but of passionate love, 
 and great prominence was given to the will as the 
 mainspring on which all developments of the higher 
 life depend. 
 
 The following quotations from "Theologia Ger- 
 manica" will convey in a few words what may be 
 called the root ideas of the book and of the men 
 whose spirit it so well embodies : 
 
 "A true lover of God loveth Him alike in hav- 
 ing and in not having, in sweetness and in bitter- 
 ness, in good or evil report; for he seeketh only 
 the honor of God, and not his own, either in spir- 
 itual or natural things. Therefore he standeth 
 alike unshaken in all things." 
 
 "All disobedience is contrary to God, and noth- 
 ing else. In truth, no thing is contrary to God; 
 no creature, nor creature's work, nor anything that 
 we can name or think of, is contrary to God or dis- 
 pleasing to Him, but only disobedience and the dis- 
 
 *Even Spinoza said, "He that would love God aright must not 
 seek to be loved in return;" and Goethe confessed himself haunted 
 by this wonderful saying. It is fully in accord with the fact that tha 
 most chivalrous and generous friendship is never concerned about 
 payment in kind, about what it shall get in return ; it only asks the 
 privilege of loving and of pouring itself out unstintedly for its 
 beloved. Disinterestedness should not probably be pressed as a 
 requirement upon minds not capable of such heights ; but it has a 
 grandeur that appeals sometimes to nearly all. This was especially 
 the case in an age when Jesuit cheapjacks were accustomed to 
 haggle with God for the price of the soul, and discuss whether it 
 was necessary to love Him once in a week or once in a year, or 
 whether salvation might not be purchased still more cheaply at the 
 price of one act of love in a lifetime.
 
 io8 FENEI.ON: THE MYSTIC 
 
 obedient man. In short, all that is, is well-pleasing 
 and good in God's eyes, saving only the disobedient 
 man." 
 
 "The man who is truly godlike complaineth of 
 nothing but of sin only. And sin is simply to desire 
 or will anything otherwise than the one perfect 
 good and the one eternal will, or to wish to have a 
 will of one's own." 
 
 "Sin is to will, desire, or love otherwise than 
 God doth. Things do not thus will, desire, or love : 
 therefore things are not evil; all things are good." 
 
 "He who is truly a virtuous man would not 
 cease to be so to gain the whole world; yea, he 
 would rather die a miserable death. To him virtue 
 is its own reward, and he is content therewith, and 
 would take no treasure or riches in exchange for it." 
 
 "Union with God is brought to pass in three 
 ways; to wit, by pureness and singleness of heart, 
 by love, and by the contemplation of God." 
 
 A still greater name among the Mystic writers, 
 coming a bit later than those already mentioned, is 
 that of Thomas a Kempis, born near Cologne, in 
 this same West Germany where the Friends of God 
 flourished, in 1386, and dying about 1470. His 
 "Imitation of Christ" stands easily at the head of 
 its class, first in popularity and usefulness among 
 manuals for devotion. "The epic poem of the inner 
 life," it has lent the fragrance of its sanctity to 
 every language of the civilized world, and has been 
 a prime favorite for nearly five hundred years with
 
 MYSTICISM AND QUIETISM. 109 
 
 all those who have made largest advancement in 
 holy things. Only a few extracts need be given to 
 show how closely it is in line with what has already 
 been said, and what remains to be said, concerning 
 the topic of our chapter : 
 
 "When a man is so far advanced in the Chris- 
 tian life as not to seek consolation from any created 
 thing, then does he first begin perfectly to enjoy 
 God; his .heart is wholly fixed and established in 
 God who is his All in All." 
 
 "There is no other occasion of perplexity and 
 disquiet but an unsubdued will and unmortified af- 
 fections." 
 
 "Self-denial is the test of spiritual perfection, 
 and he that truly denies himself is arrived at a 
 state of great freedom and safety. It is no small 
 advantage to suppress desire, even in inconsiderable 
 gratifications. Restless and inordinate desires are 
 the ground of every temptation." 
 
 "Abandon all, and thou shalt possess all ; relin- 
 quish desire, and thou shalt find rest." 
 
 "No evil is permitted to befall thee but what 
 may be made productive of a much greater good. 
 Receive all with thankfulness, as from the hand 
 of God, and esteem it great gain." 
 
 "For all that befalleth me I will thank the Love 
 that prompts the gift, and reverence the Hand that 
 confers it." 
 
 "O Lord God, holy Father, be Thou blessed now
 
 no FENEXON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 and forever! For whatever Thou wiliest is done, 
 and all that Thou wiliest is good." 
 
 "The righteous should never be moved by what- 
 ever befalls him, knowing that it comes from the 
 hands of God, and is to promote the important busi- 
 ness of our redemption. Without God, nothing is 
 done upon the face of the earth." 
 
 "Perfection consists in offering up thyself, with 
 thy whole heart, to the will of God ; never seeking 
 thine own will either in small or great respects ; 
 but with an equal mind weighing all events in the 
 balance of the sanctuary, and receiving both pros- 
 perity and adversity with equal thanksgiving." 
 
 "All is vanity but the love of God and a life de- 
 voted to His will." 
 
 Passing over St. Theresa and St. John of the 
 Cross 3 particulars about whom may be found in 
 Vaughan and denying ourselves, through limita- 
 tions of space, all quotations from Rodriguez and 
 Scupoli, 4 who flourished in the sixteenth century, 
 and wrote divinely about Divine things, leaving the 
 world heroic examples of holiness, we come to St. 
 Francis of Sales and Molinos, both of whom had 
 
 Singe says: "Fiery energy and unresting industry character- 
 ized St. John of the Cross. No one ever climbed the rugged peaks of 
 Mt. Carmel with more heroic courage and patience. His life shows 
 what tremendous moral force is generated by complete self-surren- 
 der to God. His reward was fellowship with Christ In suffering." 
 
 * See "Honey from Many Hives," gathered "by Rev. James Mudge, 
 New York, Eaton and Mains, 1899. Large quotations also from 
 Francis of Sales are given in this volume, and from many other 
 Mystical writers.
 
 MYSTICISM AND QUIETISM. in 
 
 close connection with Fenelon, although in different 
 ways. Francis born in 1567 and departing to 
 glory in 1622, who has been called "the noblest, 
 tenderest and most devoted Mystic of the Catholic 
 Church after the Reformation" more than any 
 other, was Fenelon's teacher in matters pertaining 
 to the inner life, even as Scupoli had been the 
 teacher of Francis. Fenelon never wearies of 
 recommending to the correspondents whom he is 
 instructing in spiritual things the perusal of the 
 works of this delightful and inspiring writer. He 
 says to one : "You can read nothing better than St. 
 Francis of Sales. Everything he writes is full of 
 comfort and love; although his whole tone is that 
 of self-mortification, it is all deep experience, sim- 
 ple precautions, high feeling, and the light of grace. 
 You will have made a great step when you are fa- 
 miliar with such mental food." Upon another he 
 urges "a half hour spent in meditative reading of 
 the Gospels in the morning, and an evening portion 
 of St. Francis de Sales." To the Elector of Cologne, 
 when about to receive episcopal consecration, he 
 says, "Read the Life and Works of St. Francis 
 de Sales." We do not wonder at these coun- 
 sels. The two men, the two Francises, were 
 entirely congenial, marvelously alike in heart 
 and head, with similar vivacity, urbanity, and grace 
 of manner, polish of style, profundity of insight into 
 the soul, and practical knowledge of the world. 
 Both had high rank in State and Church, strong in-
 
 us FENEXON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 tellects, intense devotion to God, and ability to ex- 
 press truth in a simple, lucid, attractive way. They 
 were alike in that the profound piety they taught 
 was not, as in the previous age, reserved for the 
 cloister, but was quite compatible with mingling in 
 the world, requiring no great change of habits, but 
 an entire change of motive. Even the life at court 
 might be continued and graced with cheerful obe- 
 dience to the whole will of God ; all the actions of 
 the day could be sanctified by a perpetual prayer 
 offered up in their midst and by a sincere intention 
 to please God ; the humble every-day virtues were 
 extolled, and no austerities recommended. Thus re- 
 ligion was made commensurate with the whole of 
 life, and the saint could join in all that others did, 
 except sin. No difference can be found in their 
 doctrines, or even their forms of expression, and it 
 seems like an irony of fate that the Bishop of 
 Geneva should be canonized in 1665 by the same 
 Church which condemned, in 1699, the Archbishop 
 of Cambrai. The fictitious and factitious reasons 
 that led to the latter will be detailed a little later. 
 
 Part of the reason is connected with the history 
 and fate of Miguel de Molinos, commonly esteemed 
 to be the founder of the Quietists. He was a Span- 
 ish theologian, born of noble parentage near Sara- 
 gossa, December 21, 1627. He acquired a great 
 reputation at Rome and elsewhere for purity of life 
 and vigor of intellect, but steadily refused all eccle- 
 siastical preferment. In 1675 he published his
 
 MYSTICISM AND QUIETISM. 113 
 
 "Spiritual Guide," which in a few years passed 
 through twenty editions in different languages, and 
 was warmly hailed by people of marked piety in 
 many lands. But it was soon bitterly attacked, es- 
 pecially by the Jesuits, who quickly perceived that 
 Molinos' system tacitly accused the Romish Church 
 of a departure from the true religion, and that his 
 whole doctrine would militate against the power 
 of the priesthood and the importance of ceremonial- 
 ism. Although he had a vast number of friends, 
 some of them eminent for learning and piety, and 
 even high in worldly rank, and though the pontiff 
 himself, Innocent XI, was partial to him, he was, 
 in 1685, cited before the Inquisition and subjected 
 to close examination as well as rigid imprisonment. 
 It is said that as many as twenty thousand letters 
 were found in his house, which, if true, shows the 
 degree to which the movement he headed had 
 spread, and the hunger of great multitudes for spir- 
 itual food. His trial lasted two years, and in 1687 
 sixty-eight propositions, purporting to be extracted 
 from his book, were condemned, and he was de- 
 clared to have taught false and dangerous dogmas 
 contrary to the doctrine of the Church. He was 
 compelled to pass the remainder of his life in the 
 dungeons of the Inquisition, where he died, after 
 many years of close confinement, in which he ex- 
 hibited the greatest humility and peace of mind. 
 
 The principles of his book have been much mis- 
 understood and misrepresented. The following 
 8
 
 H4 FENELON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 statement is believed to be substantially correct. He 
 taught that Christian perfection consists in the 
 peace of the soul, springing from a complete self- 
 surrender into the hands of God, in the renounce- 
 ment of all external, temporal things, and in the 
 pure love of God free from all considerations of in- 
 terest or hope of reward. A soul which desires the 
 supreme good must renounce all sensual and ma- 
 terial things, silence every impulse, and concen- 
 trate itself on God. In a state of perfect contempla- 
 tion the soul desires absolutely nothing, not even 
 its own salvation; it fears nothing, not even hell; 
 the one only feeling of which it is conscious is utter 
 abandonment to God's good will and pleasure ; it is 
 indifferent to all else ; and nothing which does not 
 reach the will, where alone virtue resides, can really 
 pollute the soul. The system was termed Quietism, 
 because it laid so much stress upon inward quiet, 
 passive contemplation, and silent prayer; also upon 
 freedom from hope and fear, the great agitators of 
 the human mind. 
 
 It is a very vulgar error to suppose that the 
 Mystics taught abstention from good works, or out- 
 ward inactivity; for none were busier in blessing 
 their fellow-men, as the twenty thousand letters 
 above mentioned might indicate, as well as the cease- 
 less endeavors in this direction put forth by Madame 
 Guyon, Fenelon, and the rest. Mystics are not im- 
 practicable dreamers; they have been in a very 
 marked degree energetic and influential. Their
 
 MYSTICISM AND QUIETISM. 115 
 
 passivity simply meant a calm yet glad acceptance 
 of all God's dispensations. They were also abun- 
 dantly active in the highest sense, since the old facul- 
 ties were transformed and uplifted and no longer 
 shackled by the cramping chains of sin, but enabled 
 to do far more for the good of mankind and the 
 glory of God in their happy, healthy working than 
 they ever had done before. They laid great stress 
 upon faith, rather than rites or austerities, as a 
 means of justification and sanctification, a peculiar- 
 ity which seems at the bottom of fhe remark of the 
 Romish ecclesiastic who wrote, under date of July 
 10, 1685, "I am informed that a Jesuit named 
 Molinos has been put into the Inquisition at Rome, 
 accused of wishing to become chief of a new sect 
 called Quietists, whose principles are somewhat 
 similar to those of the Puritans in England." There 
 is sufficient similarity between the Quietism of the 
 seventeenth century and the Pietism and Meth- 
 odism of Germany and England in the eighteenth 
 century to give us a friendly feeling toward it. That 
 the former was not so well guarded as the latter; 
 was less directed to practical ends ; was not in con- 
 trol of such cool, sensible minds ; ran very easily 
 into abuses ; had stronger pantheistic leanings ; was 
 more open to the objection that it taught a strained, 
 impossible perfection utterly out of reach of all but 
 the few, and attainable by those few perhaps only 
 under very favorable conditions, may be freely 
 granted. But it does not, and need not, prevent our
 
 u6 FENELON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 sympathies going out strongly toward those who, 
 in that earlier day and amid much difficulty, struck 
 out the high path on lines not essentially at variance 
 with those who, in easier times of greater enlight- 
 enment, came after them. The Mystics, with all 
 their extravagances, possessed more of the truth of 
 God than could be found elsewhere within the wide 
 domains of the Roman Church. The Reformers 
 recognized this, and sympathized far more deeply 
 with them than with the schoolmen. 
 
 It should be said, also, that the Quietists vehe- 
 mently repudiated the constructions put upon their 
 writings by their enemies, and the evil inferences 
 which were drawn from them. They protested 
 against what others professed to find there as being 
 no part of their real belief. It seems to us that they 
 have a perfect right to be heard in explanation of 
 their tenets, and much allowance must be made for 
 those endeavoring to find expressions that would 
 convey such profound and lofty thoughts. Pro- 
 fessor George P. Fisher, in his "History of the 
 Christian Church," says, "The real ground of hos- 
 tility to Quietism was its tendency to lead to the 
 dispensing with auricular confession and penances 
 and outward rites altogether." 
 
 It will be sufficiently evident from what has been 
 now written that there is Mysticism and Mysticism ; 
 and that that which has the best right to the name 
 lies very close to the most essential truth of the best 
 religion, inseparable from it so far as it is to answer 
 the deepest yearnings of the human heart. If re-
 
 MYSTICISM AND QUIETISM. 117 
 
 ligion is not to be made wholly objective, reduced 
 to a round of external performances, accounted 
 synonymous with philanthropy and morality; if its 
 subjective side is to have proper recognition as the 
 controlling one ; if being is to take rank above do- 
 ing, as we firmly believe it should, then we are 
 all Mystics in the true sense of the word. Since we 
 have to do with "the love of Christ which passeth 
 knowledge," and which must be known by some 
 higher faculty than the understanding ; since the new 
 birth is fitly compared by the Master to the mys- 
 terious coming and going of the winds of heaven, 
 and can not be completely comprehended by the 
 human reason; since the method of God with the 
 soul of man passes all metes and bounds of man's 
 finite mind, and the operations of the Holy Spirit 
 can not be wholly fathomed by cold intellect, Mys- 
 ticism has extremely close relations with all parts 
 of supernaturalism. It is grounded in a profounder 
 philosophy than those can offer who assume to 
 scout and scorn it. We as Methodists, especially, 
 believe firmly in feeling, and in a first-hand knowl- 
 edge of God as the privilege of each genuine be- 
 liever. We hold fast to experience as having rights 
 which logic and dogma must respect; we have ex- 
 alted life above theory, and the vision divine above 
 dead orthodoxy; we maintain that there is a God- 
 consciousness, as well as a self-consciousness and 
 a world-consciousness; and that spiritual facts can 
 be, and should be, verified in personal experience. 
 We count the words of Pascal divinely true: "The
 
 n8 FENELON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 things of this world must be known in order to be 
 loved ; but the things of God must be loved in order 
 to be known." 
 
 "Mysticism," says Professor J. E. Latimer, "has 
 ever been a reaction from formalism and dogma- 
 tism in religion. When Christian men have been 
 relying upon the letter, the Mystic has always ex- 
 alted the spirit. When the Church has been con- 
 tent with mere dogmatic statement and intellectual 
 orthodoxy, a Mystic revival has come to rehabili- 
 tate its spiritual life, and sends new streams of 
 power along its arid channel." Do we not greatly 
 need this revival now ? We do not believe there is 
 any special danger to-day from one-sided subjec- 
 tivity and morbid introspection. The peril is alto- 
 gether the other way. Our great want is a pro- 
 founder apprehension of the basal truths of the 
 spiritual life, and their practical translation into 
 individual experience. The knowledge of God is 
 widespread, but it is superficial. Piety is very bus- 
 tling, but it is not deep. The utterances of the 
 Savior and His apostles are taken at a large discount, 
 and the mass of believers are easily content with a 
 low condition of spirituality. Hence the Church is 
 feeble, and fails to impress itself strongly upon the 
 world. It would be immensely benefited by a large 
 infusion of the spirit of the true Mystic, who wages 
 the most deadly war with all carnality; who has a 
 terrible moral intensity; who renounces absolutely 
 all that dims the radiance or shadows the image of 
 the Perfect One in the mirror of the soul ; who is
 
 MYSTICISM AND QUIETISM. 119 
 
 determined, so far as in him lies, to bridge the gulf 
 that separates him from his Maker and make the 
 closest possible approach to God. Of Rabbi Gama- 
 liel, a genuine Mystic, it is reported that he prayed, 
 "O Lord, grant that I may do Thy will as if it 
 were my will, and that Thou mayest do my will as 
 if it were Thy will." Charles Wesley, another Mys- 
 tic, is very bold and says, 
 
 "Let all I am in Thee be lost, 
 Let all I am be God." 
 
 Why should it be thought a thing incredible with 
 any that man may become a partaker of the Divine 
 nature? If to a small extent, why not, when all 
 the conditions are favorable, to a very large ex- 
 tent? Why should not the Church in general, and 
 the Methodist Church in particular, get a new grip 
 on this much neglected but every way fruitful truth 
 of the Divine indwelling and the Divine immanence, 
 God in all and all in God, the universe but the will 
 of God expressed in forms of time and space, hu- 
 manity reaching its highest point of development 
 when it most completely entemples Deity, nature a 
 symbol of God, God revealed in His works? Just 
 so far as this shall be accomplished will the Church 
 swing out into a wealthy place, and march forward 
 to large conquest. Complete surrender will be the 
 prelude to complete possession, and complete pos- 
 session will straightway be turned into complete 
 victory over every foe.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 come now to the central period of Fenelon's 
 career, that wherein he put forth his greatest men- 
 tal exertion, fighting, as it were, for his very life, 
 and for that truth which he held much dearer than 
 life. It is a period which every sketch of him, 
 however brief, touches upon, and which we must set 
 forth at some length. The last chapter, on Mysti- 
 cism and Quietism, will have prepared us to con- 
 sider somewhat sympathetically the career of 
 Madame Guyon, who was so closely linked with 
 Fenelon during these few years, and who was the 
 chief exponent of the Quietist or Mystic beliefs at 
 this time in France. She was born, as Jeanne Marie 
 Bouvier de la Mothe, April 13, 1648, at Montar- 
 gis, about fifty miles south of Paris, and wedded be- 
 fore she was sixteen, by the arrangement of her 
 parents, to a man of thirty-eight, M. Jacques Guyon, 
 who was very wealthy. She had an unhappy mar- 
 ried life, closed by the death of her husband when 
 she was twenty-eight. She had five children, two 
 of whom died in infancy. Suffering was her por- 
 tion, and religion her consolation, through all her 
 days. When not yet thirteen she read with eager- 
 no
 
 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 121 
 
 ness the Life of Madame Chantal, Kempis' "Imita- 
 tion of Christ," and the works of Francis of Sales, 
 making a vow at this time to aim at the highest 
 perfection and to do the will of God in everything. 
 Later, when seventeen, this determination was re- 
 newed with fuller purpose and intelligence; yet it 
 was not till she was twenty, so limited were her 
 privileges of instruction, that her heart became thor- 
 oughly changed, the pleasures of the world 
 put definitely aside, and her life devoted en- 
 tirely to God. Her education, in a convent, was 
 quite defective, but her natural abilities were very 
 great. She had remarkable powers of conversation, 
 her intellect was keen, her ascendency over other 
 minds, even some of the greatest, in after years was 
 very striking. She learned Latin subsequently, that 
 she might carry on her studies more profoundly. 
 She prepared extensive commentaries on the Scrip- 
 tures, and her writings, in their collective form, 
 were issued in forty volumes. Afflictions many 
 were used by the Lord to chasten her spirit and 
 deepen her experience. She lost her mother and 
 father, lost a dearly beloved son and darling daugh- 
 ter, lost her beauty by the scourge of smallpox at 
 the age of twenty-two, lost her dearest friend and 
 religious confidante, Genevieve Granger, prioress of 
 the Benedictines, in 1673, and then her husband in 
 1676. 
 
 It was July 22, 1672, that she gave herself to 
 the Lord afresh, with larger comprehension and
 
 122 FENEI/DN: THE; MYSTIC. 
 
 x 
 
 consecration, without reservation of purpose or 
 time, in the most solemn manner, signing and seal- 
 ing the following covenant: "I henceforth take 
 Jesus Christ to be mine. I promise to receive Him 
 as a husband to me, and I give myself to Him, un- 
 worthy though I am, to be His spouse. I ask of 
 Him, in this marriage of spirit with spirit, that I 
 may be of the same mind with Him meek, pure, 
 nothing in myself, and united in 'God's will; and, 
 pledged as I am to be His, I accept as a part of my 
 marriage portion, the temptations and sorrows, the 
 crosses and the contempts, which fell to Him." This 
 sacred covenant of the spiritual marriage with her 
 Redeemer, she carefully renewed and reviewed on 
 its anniversary. Especially noticeable was the re- 
 newal in 1 68 1, for it took place in Annecy, at the 
 tomb of St. ^ Francis of Sales, who, more than any 
 other human being, was her master in spiritual 
 things, as he has been to hundreds of thousands 
 more. When left a widow with large property in- 
 terests, she first settled up the affairs of the ex- 
 tensive estate with much skill, without assistance 
 from any one, did much in charity for those around 
 her, looked after her children, and then gradually 
 felt her way to what was to be her life-work in the 
 world. Her spiritual experience all the while was 
 advancing; she was sinking more thoroughly out 
 of self into God. July 22, 1680, was a specially 
 memorable epoch with her, when she began to count 
 the life of nature as fully slain within, when her
 
 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 123 
 
 soul seemed to be delivered from all its chains, and 
 set wholly at liberty, in a way not known before. 
 She says, "I had a deep peace ; a peace which seemed 
 to pervade the whole soul ; a peace which resulted 
 from the fact that all my desires were fulfilled in 
 God. I desired nothing; feared nothing; willed 
 nothing. I feared nothing ; that is to say, I feared 
 nothing considered in its ultimate results and rela- 
 tions, because my strong faith placed God at the 
 head of all perplexities and all events. I desired 
 nothing but what I now have, because I had a full 
 belief that in my present state of mind the results 
 of each moment, considered in relatioft to myself, 
 constituted the fulfillment of the Divine purposes. 
 I willed nothing; meaning in this statement that I 
 had no will of my own. As a sanctified heart is al- 
 ways in harmony with the Divine providences, I 
 had no will but the Divine will, of which such provi- 
 dences are the true and appropriate expression." 
 
 This extract expresses as well, perhaps, as any- 
 thing can, the mainsprings of her personal feeling 
 and the chief substance of her teaching. She al- 
 ways beheld the hand of God in all things, recog- 
 nized practically that God orders and provides every 
 allotment in life, every situation, however distress- 
 ing to the flesh or perplexing to the perceptions. 
 She looked at everything on the side of God, and 
 found Him always manifested in His providences. 
 She was not merely consecrated to God's will, she 
 rested in His will, united to it by a most simple
 
 124 FENEXON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 faith, finding her joy in Jesus. All that had God 
 in it and that included everything except sin 
 was delightful to her. She found the order of Di- 
 vine providence a very precious and sufficient rule 
 of conduct ; for she accounted that every successive 
 second, and every event, however minute, had some- 
 thing about it which made known His will. Hence, 
 trusting fully, and finding God always everywhere, 
 nothing moved her. And she came to feel it to be 
 her special mission, since God had revealed these 
 things to her, as He had not to others, to proclaim 
 this particular kind of holiness; a holiness which 
 was a present privilege and possession, based upon 
 and secured by faith. This interior life, or "inward 
 path," as she sometimes called it, or state of perfect 
 obedience to the will of God, had still another name 
 by which it came to be widely known the name 
 of disinterested (or pure, perfect, unselfish) love. By 
 this was meant a love which served God for Him- 
 self alone, uninfluenced by fear of punishment or 
 hope of reward. 
 
 She was led to go to the south of France, to 
 Gex, Thonon, Grenoble, Nice, Marseilles; and as 
 she taught these things to those who came within 
 her reach and great numbers resorted to her 
 she began straightway to endure the persecutions 
 which are promised by St. Paul to those who folldw 
 the godly life. She preached reality rather than 
 forms. The two great principles which she clearly, 
 strongly proclaimed were self-renunciation and per-
 
 THE GREAT CONDUCT. 125 
 
 feet union with the Divine will; nothing in our- 
 selves, but all in God. She urged also the reading 
 and study of the Bible, which she constantly prac- 
 ticed herself. These things, of course, brought 
 down upon her the severest opposition from the 
 ruling authorities in the Church. Some were jeal- 
 ous of her because she was a woman; some were 
 rebuked in their sins ; some felt that she was preach- 
 ing the heresies of Protestantism; some were of- 
 fended at the unaccustomed terms she employed. 
 The doctrine of full salvation by faith and complete 
 conformity to Christ crucified, never popular in any 
 age or land, was particularly obnoxious then and 
 there. When persecuted in one city she fled to an- 
 other, as the Savior directed, being in no haste to 
 justify herself, leaving her vindication, for the most 
 part, with God. She was able to do a great deal 
 for the Master in spite of continual opposition, be- 
 ing occupied sometimes from six in the morning 
 till eight at night with those who came to her for 
 spiritual help, writing incessantly also, ancl scatter- 
 ing her productions. She established a hospital in 
 Grenoble, and was at all times assiduous in rescuing 
 the fallen and doing good to the needy. In one of 
 her books written at this time, called "The Method 
 of Prayer," she rightly says: "No man can know 
 whether he is wholly consecrated to the Lord ex- 
 cept by tribulation. That is the test. To rejoice in 
 God's will when that will imparts nothing but hap- 
 piness is easy, even for the natural man. But none
 
 126 FENELON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 but the religious man can rejoice in the Divine will 
 when it crosses his path, disappoints his expecta- 
 tions, and overwhelms him with sorrow. Trial, 
 therefore, instead of being shunned, should be wel- 
 comed as a test, and the only true test of the true 
 state." She nobly endured this test, not only at this 
 time, but still more signally as the years went on. 
 She arrived again in Paris, five years after her de- 
 parture from that city, July 22, 1686. Here she 
 became one of the little circle which met frequently 
 for religious and social purposes at the Hotel de 
 Beauvilliers, a circle which included Madame de 
 Maintenon and Fenelon. 
 
 When Fenelon was in the province of Poitou, at 
 work among the Huguenots in 1686, he first heard 
 of Madame Guyon and became somewhat ac- 
 quainted with her writings, which deeply interested 
 him, as they were drawn so largely from Francis of 
 Sales, his own chief teacher. On returning from 
 his mission in 1687, he passed through the city of 
 Montargis, and made there careful inquiries con- 
 cerning this woman. He was impressed, says M. 
 de Bausset, one of his biographers, "by the unan- 
 imous testimonies which he heard of her piety and 
 goodness." On returning to Paris he met her for 
 the first time at the house of the Duchess of Charost, 
 a few miles beyond Versailles, and again soon after 
 at the house of the Duchess of Bethune. This was 
 in the latter part of 1688, after her release from 
 her first imprisonment. For her enemies, among 
 whom was her half-brother, the' Abbe la Mothe, had
 
 THE; GREAT CONDUCT. 127 
 
 v. 
 
 followed her to Paris, accused her to Monsieur de 
 Harlai, the notoriously wicked archbishop, and he 
 easily obtained from the king, to whom it was rep- 
 resented that her doctrines were substantially the 
 same as those of the heretic Molinos, a lettre de 
 cachet, or sealed order, putting her in confinement, 
 January 29, 1688. She refused to purchase her lib- 
 erty by the sacrifice of her little daughter, only 
 twelve years of age, whom the king wished to force 
 into a very unseemly marriage with a person who 
 wished to get possession of her large property. She 
 refused also to take other means for her release 
 which did not commend themselves to her as right. 
 She answered them, "I am content to suffer what- 
 ever it pleases God to order or permit, but I would 
 sooner die upon the scaffold than utter the false- 
 hoods you propose." Whether written at this time 
 or at some of her subsequent imprisonments, the 
 following hymn of hers so well represents her con- 
 stant attitude that it is eminently proper to insert 
 it here: 
 
 "A little bird I am, 
 
 Shut from the fields of air ; 
 
 And in my cage I sit and sing 
 To Him who placed me there; 
 
 Well pleased a prisoner to be, 
 
 Because, my God, -it pleases Thee. 
 
 Nought have I else to do; 
 
 I sing the whole day long; 
 And He, whom most I love to please, 
 
 Doth listen to my song; 
 He caught and bound my wandering wing, 
 But still He bends to hear me sing.
 
 128 FENEXON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 Thou hast an ear to hear; 
 
 A heart to love and bless ; 
 And, though my notes were e'er so rude, 
 
 Thou would'st not hear the less; 
 Because Thou knowest as they fall, 
 That LOVE, sweet LOVE, inspires them all. 
 
 My cage confines me round ; 
 
 Abroad I can not fly; 
 But, though my wing is closely bound, 
 
 My heart's at liberty. 
 My prison walls can not control 
 The flight, the freedom of the souL 
 
 O, it is good to soar, 
 
 These bolts and bars above, 
 To Him whose purpose I adore, 
 
 Whose providence I love; 
 And in Thy mighty will to find 
 The joy, the freedom of the mind." 
 
 Her friends were not idle, and finally, by the 
 intercession of Madame de Miramion, Madame de 
 Maisonfort, and the Duchesses Beauvilliers and 
 Chevreuse, acting through Madame de Maintenon 
 upon the king, Madame Guyon was released in Oc- 
 tober, 1688. On being set free she took up her resi- 
 dence at the house of Madame de Miramion, and 
 resumed her labor for* souls as opportunity pre- 
 sented itself. Early in 1690 her daughter was mar- 
 ried to Count de Vaux, a man of high character, 
 brother of the Duchess de Bethune and nephew of 
 the Duchess de Charost; and as the child was 
 scarcely fourteen she went to live with her a little
 
 THE; GREAT CONFLICT. 129 
 
 way out of the city. Here Fenelon visited fre- 
 quently, and when she had once more returned to 
 Paris, hiring a private house for herself there in 
 1692, he met her much. 
 
 What of her influence upon him ? Those not in 
 sympathy with her ideas, by whom indeed the inner 
 things of the kingdom are pertly dubbed "non- 
 sense," have called her "the evil genius of his life," 
 and ascribed to her what they are pleased to term 
 his ruin and downfall. We are very certain that he 
 did not himself regard either it or her in that light. 
 They had very much in common. There was the 
 same hunger after the highest religious attainments, 
 and their ideas as to the path were at bottom the 
 same. Fenelon had the theological training which 
 she lacked, and hence found difficulty with many of 
 her expressions, which seemed to him objectionable 
 and liable to misapprehension, as doubtless they 
 were. But it seems altogether probable that at this 
 time she . was more advanced in the spiritual life, 
 more perfectly taught of God, than he. Hence, in 
 the extended correspondence which took place be- 
 tween them, covering a space of some two years or 
 more, from its beginning in November, 1688, it is 
 usually he who asks the questions and seeks for ex- 
 planations. She responded with entire patience and 
 deep religious insight, taking all possible pains, as 
 may well be supposed, with so distinguished yet so 
 docile a pupil. To one with so clear an intellect and 
 so sympathetic a spirit she could express her
 
 130 FENELON : THE Mystic. 
 
 thought with the utmost freedom, and his enlight- 
 ened, powerful mind, untrammeled by the preju- 
 dices which so often prevented and always pre- 
 vents correct perceptions, readily saw the validity 
 of her views. She herself says : "I was enabled in 
 our conversations so fully to explain everything to 
 Fenelon that he gradually entered into the views 
 which the Lord had led me to entertain, and finally 
 gave them his unqualified assent. The persecutions 
 which he has since suffered are the evidence of the 
 sincerity of his belief." If he was greatly indebted 
 to her, as everything appears to prove and as 
 many other eminent men have been to godly women 
 for getting into a much closer conformity to the 
 will of God, it is no wonder that he was never will- 
 ing to unite with her enemies in her condemnation, 
 although every earthly motive was on that side. 
 
 It was in 1692 that the acquaintance of Madame 
 Guyon with Madame de Maintenon became some- 
 what intimate, so much so that she was often invited 
 to the royal palace at Versailles, and was introduced 
 to the celebrated institution at St. Cyr. Being given 
 liberty to visit the young ladies there, she talked 
 with them on religious subjects, and speedily ac- 
 quired the strongest possible influence over them. 
 This soon brought her name into general notice, 
 and excited once more intense hostility. One of 
 her servants was bribed to poison her, and almost 
 succeeded. She suffered from the effects for seven 
 years. It is at this time that Bossuet confessed 1 }'
 
 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 131 
 
 the leader of the French Church by reason of repu- 
 tation, learning, and intellectual strength became 
 alarmed at the reports he heard of the strange in- 
 fluence of this woman in high quarters, and deter- 
 mined to put forth his splendid powers for the ex- 
 tinction of what he deemed a new heresy. His first 
 interview with her took place in September, 1693, 
 his second, January 30, 1694. He found much to 
 admire in her positions, but he judged by the head 
 rather than the heart, and was not fully satisfied. 
 Accordingly she wrote to Madame de Maintenon, 
 asking that a number of suitable persons might be 
 selected to carefully examine her doctrines and her 
 morals; for her character as well as her teachings 
 had been loudly assailed, as is customary in such 
 situations. The king approved of the plan, and ap- 
 pointed three commissioners, the most eminent for 
 virtues and talents that could well be selected, 
 which was a marked tribute to the intellectual power 
 and personal influence of Madame Guyon. They 
 were Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux; M. Tronson, Su- 
 perior of the Seminary of St. Sulpice; and M. de 
 Noailles, Bishop of Chalons, afterwards the Car- 
 dinal Archbishop of Paris. These persons had 
 many meetings in 1694 and 1695, and drew up what 
 were known as the Articles of Issy. Fenelon, being 
 on terms of the greatest intimacy with these three 
 theologians, was in frequent communication with 
 them concerning the matter, and was often con- 
 sulted, especially by Bossuet, while the articles were
 
 132 FENEW>N: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 being framed. When they were completed he was 
 asked to sign them, which, after a few changes and 
 the addition of four articles which he deemed es- 
 sential to prevent misconception, he gladly did. 
 Even Madame Guyon gave her assent to them, al- 
 though they bore rather hardly on some of her posi- 
 tions, without mentioning her name, and were ex- 
 pressly designed to protect the public against her 
 alleged extravagances. 
 
 She was at this time in a sort of confinement in 
 the Convent of St. Mary, in Meaux, under Bossuet's 
 supervision. He had many interviews with her, and, 
 in a letter to the prioress of the convent, said ex- 
 pressly that "he had examined the writings of 
 Madame Guyon with great care, and found in them 
 nothing censurable, with the exception of some 
 terms which were not wholly conformed to the 
 strictness of theology; but that a woman was not 
 expected to be a theologian." He also, at her de- 
 sire, after six months' residence, gave her a certifi- 
 cate speaking in the most favorable terms of her 
 character and conduct. But no sooner was she 
 again in Paris than her enemies started at once into 
 life. The king was alarmed lest Quietism a sys- 
 tem of faith and practice at the complete antipodes 
 from his own should gain further currency, and 
 Madame de Maintenon, taking her cue from him, as 
 she always did, ranged herself promptly with its 
 enemies. Bossuet also, finding that he had been 
 more lenient toward her than was politic, demanded
 
 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 133 
 
 back from Madame Guyon his certificate. This she 
 could not consent to surrender, and he set himself 
 with full determination to crush her. December 27, 
 1695, sne was arrested and incarcerated in the cas- 
 tle of Vincennes, where she underwent for nine 
 months a very severe imprisonment. She says : "I 
 passed my time in great peace, content to spend the 
 remainder of my life there if such should be the 
 will of God. I employed part of my time in writ- 
 ing religious songs." In August, 1696, she was 
 transferred to another prison at Vaugiraud, a vil- 
 lage near Paris, where she remained till September, 
 1698, and was then immured in one of the stern, 
 dark towers of the dreaded Bastile, where she re- 
 mained four years more in solitary confinement. 
 Just previous to her commitment there she writes : 
 "I feel no anxiety in view of what my enemies will 
 do to me. I have no far of anything but of being 
 left to myself. So long as God is with me, neither 
 imprisonment nor death will have any terrors." A 
 little later she writes : "I, being in the Bastile, said 
 to Thee, O my God, if Thou art pleased to render 
 me a spectacle to men and angels, Thy holy will be 
 done. All that I ask is that Thou wilt be with me 
 and save those who love Thee. As for me, what 
 matters it what men think of me or what they make 
 me suffer, since they can not separate me from that 
 Savior whose name is engraven in the very bottom 
 of my heart. If I can only be accepted of Him, I 
 am willing that all men should despise and hate me.
 
 134 FENELON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 Their strokes will polish what may be defective in 
 me, so that I may be presented in peace to Him for 
 whom I die daily." Her language was: 
 
 " In vain they smite me. Men but do 
 What God permits with different view : 
 To outward sight they hold the rod, 
 But faith proclaims it all of God." 
 
 And similar are the beautiful words of her hymn: 
 
 "My Lord, how full of sweet content, 
 I pass my years of banishment ! 
 Where'er I dwell I dwell with Thee, 
 In heaven, in earth, or on the sea. 
 To me remains nor place nor time: 
 My country is in every clime ; 
 I can be calm and free from care 
 On any shore since God is there. 
 
 While place we seek or place we shun, 
 The soul finds happiness in none ; 
 But with a God to guide our way, 
 T is equal joy to go or stay. 
 Could I be cast where Thou art not, 
 That were indeed a dreadful lot; 
 But regions none remote I call, 
 Secure of finding God in all." 
 
 She made no complaints of those who so cruelly 
 used her. "They, believed that they did well," was 
 her only comment The Spirit of her Savior was 
 with her: "Father, forgive them, for they know 
 not what they do." In her biography, written later, 
 she says, "I entreat all such persons as shall read 
 this narrative not to indulge in hard or embittered
 
 THE GREAT CONDUCT. 135 
 
 feejings against those who have treated me with un- 
 kindness." Her sufferings were terrible, but the 
 fortitude and resolution with which she endured 
 them, the steadfastness of her faith, and the meek- 
 ness of her bearing, are worthy of all praise. She 
 does not seem to have doubted for a moment the 
 goodness and truth of God. Her theories were put 
 to the severest of tests, and they did not fail her. 
 It is marvelous that she lived to emerge from the 
 gloomy walls that were the grave of such numbers, 
 or that the tyrannical, bigoted king ever relented so 
 far as to let her go forth. She was liberated when 
 fifty-four years of age (it being evident that she 
 could not survive another year of imprisonment), 
 reduced to great feebleness, her constitution utterlv 
 shattered. Yet her enemies were still afraid to let 
 her stay in the neighborhood of Paris ; so she was 
 banished for the rest of her life to "Blois, one hun- 
 dred miles away, on the river Loire. There, sub- 
 jected to constant maladies which often brought 
 her to the verge of death, but supported by abun- 
 dant spiritual consolations, she did good as she had 
 opportunity to the great numbers of people who 
 came to see her. Her departure from earth oc- 
 curred June 9, 1717, and was both peaceful and 
 triumphant. Just before death, writing to her 
 brother, she says, "Whatever may happen, turn not 
 your eye back upon the world; look forward and 
 onward to the heavenly mansions: be strong in 
 faith, fight courageously the battles of the Lord."
 
 136 FENELON : THE MYSTIC. 
 
 Writing to another friend, and referring to her 
 pains, which she said were so great as to call into 
 exercise all the resources and aids of faith, she 
 adds : "Grace was triumphant. It is trying to na- 
 ture, but I can still say in this last struggle that I 
 love the Hand that smites me." She said in her 
 last hours, "I rely for my salvation, not on any good 
 works in myself, but on Thy mercies, O my God, 
 and on the merits and sufferings of my Lord Jesus 
 Christ." She had no faith in the doctrine of tran- 
 substantiation, read the Scriptures much, and urged 
 others to study them, insisting constantly upon the 
 necessity of a real sanctification of the heart by the 
 Holy Spirit. That she was one of the high saints 
 of God, her soul a real temple of the Holy Ghost, 
 can in no way be questioned. It is also certain that 
 she had great intellectual power, and in the main 
 taught most important and sacred truth. It is easy 
 to find fault with many of her expressions, but her 
 spirit is beyond praise. That she did on the whole 
 a grand good work and will have a high place in 
 glory, we are fully convinced. 
 
 We come now to the great conflict between Bos- 
 suet and Fenelon. Up to this time they had been 
 friends, at least outwardly. But there are grounds 
 for believing that Fenelon's growing and prospect- 
 ive influence aroused the envy of the ambitious Bos- 
 suet, who, no more than the king, was disposed to 
 brook a rival ; and the Quietist controversy speedily 
 took on a character which brought the two bishops
 
 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 137 
 
 into the most direct antagonism. Bossuet com- 
 pleted, after long labor, early in 1696, an exceed- 
 ingly able book against Quietism, entitled "Instruc- 
 tions on the States of Prayer." He secured th 
 approval of the other members of the Conference 
 at Issy, and wished to append a favorable testimonial 
 from Fenelon also. The latter examined the manu- 
 script with care, and was obliged to withhold his 
 indorsement. He did so on two grounds: He 
 thought it contained an absolutely unqualified de- 
 nial of the possibility of the pure, disinterested love 
 of God ; and he considered its censures of Madame 
 Guyon too personal and too severe. He was per- 
 fectly aware that the refusal to comply with the 
 wishes of Bossuet would be a mortal offense to that 
 haughty, self-willed prelate, and would also dis- 
 please the king, probably blasting his worldly pros- 
 pects. But as a man of honor and of true Chris- 
 tian principle he could not and did not hesitate. 
 Writing to M. Tronson at this time, he says, "Am 
 I wrong in wishing not to believe evil sooner than 
 can be helped, and in refusing to curry favor by act- 
 ing against my conscience?" He declared that he 
 would not attack "a poor woman who is trodden 
 down by so many, and whose friend I have been," 
 for the sake of dispelling suspicion against himself; 
 that he would not speak against his conscience or 
 recklessly insult a person whom he had respected 
 as a saint. "It would be infamous weakness in me," 
 he said, "to speak doubtfully in relation to her char-
 
 138 FENEXON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 acter in order to free myself from oppression." 
 Other extracts from his letters at this time, had we 
 space to give them, would show conclusively the 
 nigh ground he took, the only ground which his 
 own character and self-respect, as well as his feel- 
 ing of gratitude toward the persecuted woman, 
 could possibly permit. Had he done otherwise, 
 wh3t would the world now think of him? 
 
 His chief friends approved his course, but in- 
 sisted that he must write his views in full. He did 
 so, producing his elaborate work called "The Max- 
 ims of the Saints," published in January, 1697. 
 Without naming Madame Guy on, it was in fact her 
 defense, the exposition of her opinions as he under- 
 stood them, and as she had explained them to him 
 in private. It was hailed as a golden work by Car- 
 dinal de Noailles, M. Tronson, the Bishop of Char- 
 tres, and many other leading men of France. 1 But 
 Bossuet was roused to fury. "Take your own 
 measures," he said to these men; "I will raise my 
 voice to the heavens against these errors so well 
 known to you ; I will complain to Rome, and to the 
 whole earth. It shall not be said that the cause of 
 God is weakly betrayed. Though I should stand 
 singly in it, I will advocate it." But none better 
 knew than he that so far from standing singly in it 
 he had the warmest possible backing from the king. 
 
 on sending the manuscript to the Archbishop of 
 Paris used these words:. '1 have done what I believed to be my duty, 
 and I leave the rest to God. I do not care about my work. I am not 
 even anxious about truth, God will care for it"
 
 THE; GREAT CONFLICT. 139 
 
 Louis XIV had no love for Fenelon. He had raised 
 him to certain dignities, partly because of his un- 
 common abilities, and partly because of his favor 
 with the public, rather than as a sign of any per- 
 sonal attachment. Fenelon was, throughout his life, 
 the very embodiment of all that Louis did not like, 
 and this, considering Louis' character, was one of 
 his chief glories. The two men were so far apart 
 in most things, and their minds were so differently 
 constituted that there was no common bond of sym- 
 pathy, and the only wonder is how they got along 
 together as well as they did. Fenelon, while pos- 
 sessing a great superiority of genius, exhibited also 
 an elevation of moral and personal character of 
 which the king stood in awe, and he was glad that 
 the accusation of heresy gave him a good oppor- 
 tunity to be rid of his uncomfortable presence. 
 
 The battle was now on, and it was between two 
 giants. Bossuet, the eagle, was essentially mascu- 
 line, marked by solidity, vigor, and logic. Fenelon, 
 the swan, was essentially feminine, filled with ten- 
 derness, spiritual enthusiasm, aspiration. Bossuet 
 had the experience of age, Fenelon the full powers 
 of middle manhood; Bossuet had the greater skill 
 in argument, Fenelon the richer imagination. Bos- 
 suet in style, it has been said, reminds one of the ex- 
 pansive and philosophical mind of Burke, combined 
 with the heavy strength and dictatorial manner of 
 Johnson. Fenelon had a large share of the luxu- 
 riant imagination of Jeremy Taylor, chastened by
 
 140 FENELON : THE MYSTIC 
 
 the refined taste and classic ease of Addison. Fene- 
 lon was naturally mild and forbearing in disposi- 
 tion, but inflexible in his principles and incapable of 
 being influenced by pleasures on the one hand, or 
 by threats on the other; he was amiable without 
 weakness, firm without bitterness. Bossuet, on the 
 other hand, was a man of strong passions, accus- 
 tomed to ascendency, impatient of opposition, and, 
 as the contest went on, irritated by the unexpected 
 difficulties he encountered, he resorted to means 
 for the carrying of his cause which have left a last- 
 ing stain upon his name. But Fenelon came forth 
 from the ordeal, even as John Fletcher did in his 
 controversy with Toplady, elevated all the higher 
 in the admiration of mankind. Bossuet, in the 
 course of the contest, referring to one of Fenelon's 
 publications, made the following remark: "His 
 friends say everywhere that his reply is a triumphant 
 work, and that he has great advantages in it over 
 me. We shall see hereafter whether it is so." Fene- 
 lon thereupon addressed a letter to Bossuet in the 
 following terms : "May heaven forbid that I should 
 strive for victory over any person, least of all over 
 you. It is not man's victory, but God's glory which 
 I seek; and happy, thrice happy shall I be if that 
 object is secured, though it should be attended with 
 my confusion and with your triumph. There is no 
 occasion, therefore, to say, 'We shall see who will 
 have the advantage.' I am ready now, without 
 waiting for future developments, to acknowledge
 
 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 141 
 
 that you are my superior in science, in genius, in 
 everything that usually commands attention. And 
 in respect to the controversy between us, there is 
 nothing which I wish more than to be vanquished 
 by you if the positions which I take are wrong. 
 Two things only do I desire truth and peace; 
 truth which may enlighten, and peace which fnay 
 unite us." 
 
 The two combatants put forth all their strength, 
 and the conflict attracted the eyes of all Europe. 
 Book followed book in close and quick succession 
 on both sides. Each of the antagonists showed a 
 thorough mastery of the subject, and exerted him- 
 self to the utmost, stimulated by the importance of 
 the struggle and the large issues at stake, not only 
 of a personal nature but of a general character. The 
 whole Christian world looked on with deep interest. 
 
 The chief doctrine that Fenelon set himself to 
 defend is summarized by Upham in the following 
 three propositions: "First, the provisions of the 
 Gospel are such that men may gain the entire vic- 
 tory over their sinful propensities, and may live in 
 constant and accepted communion with God; sec- 
 ond, persons are in this state when they love God 
 with all their heart; in other words, with pure or 
 unselfish love; third, there have been instances of 
 Christians, though probably few in number, who, so 
 far as can be decided by man's imperfect judgment, 
 have reached this state, and it is the duty of all, en- 
 couraged by the ample provision which is made, to
 
 143 FENIXON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 strive to attain to it." But the main issue was 
 speedily confused with an abundance of side ques- 
 tions, particular sentences and parts of sentences 
 being picked out for attack, much space being taken, 
 as in all such cases, with merely verbal criticisms 
 founded on misconceptions or on the necessary im- 
 peftection of language. The celebrated Leibnitz 
 remarked that, before the war of words between 
 Bossuet and Fenelon began, the prelates should 
 have agreed on a definition of the word love, and 
 that such a definition might have prevented the dis- 
 pute. The worst thing was that Bossuet, driven to 
 extremities by the trouble he found in making head- 
 way theologically and fearing defeat, descended to 
 a personal attack on Fenelon's character, insinuat- 
 ing things which he had not the audacity to state 
 plainly or the facts to substantiate. This, of course, 
 reacted. For Fenelon against his own wishes, but 
 being shown the necessity of it by his friends 
 wrote a marvelous reply, of which Charles Butler, 
 one of his biographers, and by no means a partisan 
 one, says : "A nobler effusion of the indignation of 
 insulted virtue and genius, eloquence has never pro- 
 duced. In the very first lines of it Fenelon placed 
 himself above his antagonist, and to the last pre- 
 serves his elevation. Never did genius and virtue 
 obtain a more complete triumph. Fenelon's reply, 
 by a kind of enchantment, restored to him every 
 heart. Crushed by the strong arm of power, aban- 
 doned by the multitude, there was nothing to which
 
 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 143 
 
 he could look but his own powers. Obliged to fight 
 for his honor, it was necessary for him, if he did 
 not consent to sink under the accusation, to assume 
 a port still more imposing than that of his mighty 
 antagonist. Much had been expected from him ; but 
 none supposed that he would raise himself to so 
 prodigious a height as would not only repel the at- 
 tack of his antagonist but entirely reduce him to 
 the defensive." 
 
 It was seen at an early period of the controversy 
 that there was no probability of its being settled by 
 any tribunal short of that of the pope himself. 
 Fenelon, seeing the unscrupulous, powerful forces 
 that were arrayed against him in Paris, applied to 
 the king in July, 1697, f r permission to go to 
 Rome under any restrictions His Majesty might 
 think appropriate. This the monarch absolutely re- 
 fused, knowing well, no doubt, that the personal 
 charm of the saintly disputant would be likely to 
 carry everything before it. He would only permit 
 him to send agents there to act in his behalf. Fene- 
 lon himself he curtly ordered to proceed immediately 
 to his diocese, to remain there, and not to stop in 
 Paris on the way any longer than his affairs made 
 his stay absolutely necessary. Fenelon received this 
 undeserved sentence of banishment, very roughly 
 couched, with his customary calmness and submis- 
 sion. In passing through the city he stopped before 
 the seminary of St. Sulpice, where he had spent so 
 many happy hours, and which he was never to see
 
 144 FENEXON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 again; but he forbore from entering the house lest 
 his showing a regard for it might expose its inhab 
 itants to His Majesty's displeasure. The king, with 
 his own hands, some time after this, crossed off 
 Fenelon's name from the list of court officials, and 
 also dismissed from service every one connected 
 with him, save only the Abbe Fleury, who, though a 
 devoted friend of the archbishop, had never taken 
 any part in the exciting topics of the day. But the 
 rest who had been employed about the Duke of Bur- 
 gundy for nine years, not blamelessly alone but how 
 successfully his altered character and advanced edu- 
 cation could show, were rudely sent off without any 
 acknowledgment whatever of their valuable serv- 
 ices, without even a civil word or a penny of re- 
 ward. 
 
 And how went matters at Rome ? The Abbe de 
 Chanterac, an intimate friend and relation, of high- 
 est probity and piety, was Fenelon's agent there. 
 The Abbe Bossuet, a nephew of the bishop, a vulgar, 
 blustering, unscrupulous fellow, with a most violent, 
 intemperate spirit, fitly represented the interests of 
 his uncle. The pope, Innocent XII, a man of a 
 benevolent and equitable temper, found his position 
 a very difficult one, somewhat similar to that of 
 Pilate at the trial of Jesus. His sympathies were 
 wholly with Fenelon, and there is no doubt that he 
 would gladly have given a verdict in his favor, or 
 dismissed the whole matter, could he have done so 
 without mortally offending the, king. He had at
 
 THE; GREAT CONFLICT. 145 
 
 first hoped that the business might be settled in 
 France by mild and conciliatory measures, and had 
 expressed this wish to Louis ; but the suggestion 
 was entirely unavailing. So he was obliged to take 
 up the very unpleasant task. He appointed a com- 
 mission of ten persons called "Consulters" to give a 
 thorough examination of Fenelon's books. But 
 after sixty-four successive and protracted sittings 
 of six or seven hours each, at many of which the 
 pope himself assisted, they found themselves so 
 evenly divided in relation to it that no satisfactory 
 result could reasonably be expected from the con- 
 tinuance of their deliberations. The pope accord- 
 ingly selected a commission of cardinals to pro- 
 nounce upon the matter; but after twelve sittings 
 they were unable to come to any conclusion, and 
 were dissolved. Next a new congregation of cardi- 
 nals were selected, and met in consultation no less 
 than fifty-two times without getting on very far. 
 The long delays and the hesitation shown at Rome 
 to condemn Fenelon were utterly unexpected by 
 either Bossuet or the king, and made them furious. 
 Constantly increasing pressure was brought to bear 
 from Paris to secure the result pleasing to the mon- 
 arch. 
 
 At the very beginning, in July, 1697, the king, 
 by Bossuet's instigation, wrote an urgent letter to 
 the pope calling upon him speedily to condemn 
 Fenelon's book. Missive after missive of similar 
 purport went forward, and all the arts of diplomacy, 
 10
 
 146 FENEXON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 all the influences which Louis could in any way 
 exert, were unblushingly employed for Fenelon's 
 overthrow. Affairs at Rome, indeed, before long 
 involved themselves into a perfect tangle of chican- 
 ery and intrigue, cardinal against cardinal, ambas- 
 sador against ambassador. Other courts besides 
 that of France took a hand. The imperial ambas- 
 sador worked hard for Fenelon; the Spanish min- 
 ister was zealous on the other side ; and a smaller 
 potentate, Cosmo, Grand Duke of Tuscany, a dab- 
 bler in theology, threw his weight in the latter di- 
 rection. The poor pope was violently pulled, now 
 this way, now that. He greatly liked Fenelon, ad- 
 miring his beautiful spirit and appreciating his 
 loyal attachment to the Holy See. He resented 
 the disgraceful attempt to browbeat him on the 
 part of the desperate king and the Bishop of Meaux, 
 a pragmatical, pugnacious bully. He could scarcely 
 see any way of censuring any of Fenelon's proposi- 
 tions without censuring also other writers of the 
 same sort, like St. Bernard and St. Francis of Sales, 
 whom the Church had delighted to honor. It seemed 
 to him also, as was indeed the case, almost if not 
 quite wholly a dispute about words. As to a habit- 
 ual state of disinterested Divine love, the attainment 
 of which was said to be inculcated in Fenelon's 
 writings, Fenelon himself uniformly declared his 
 opinion that a permanent state of Divine love, with- 
 out hope and without fear, was above the lot of man. 
 And Bossuet himself allowed that there might be
 
 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 147 
 
 moments when the soul, dedicated to the love of 
 God, would be lost in heavenly contemplation, and 
 then love and adore without being influenced by 
 either hope or fear, or being sensible of either. 
 Their real ground of difference was, after all, very 
 small, and there was much to be said on both sides. 
 And, under all these circumstances, it is scarcely 
 surprising that it took so long to reach a decision. 
 
 It was postponed from month to month in the 
 hope that some chance the death of the king or of 
 Bossuet might relieve the pressure, and allow the 
 papal conscience its rights as against the papal 
 policy. As late as the autumn of 1698, a whole 
 year after the conference of the ten "Consulters" 
 began, five of them persisted, in defiance of every 
 pressure that could be brought to bear upon them, 
 in pronouncing the book to be absolutely orthodox, 
 and so proceedings had to be begun again. The real 
 issue of the struggle had probably never been doubt- 
 ful in case the French court insisted. For, as the 
 cardinals said: "It will not do to fire great guns 
 at the king. Rome's wisest course demands of her 
 to yield to him whatever may be yielded without 
 wounding the first principles of religion." It is ab- 
 solutely certain that, but for this unseemly influence, 
 the decision would have been in Fenelon's favor. 
 As it was, the pope and his advisers struggled hard 
 to wriggle out of their dilemma with as little vio- 
 lence to their feelings and their honor as they could. 
 After it was settled that they must in some way
 
 148 FENEXON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 give the decision as the king so imperatively de- 
 manded, there were a great many meetings of the 
 Conclave to decide on the precise form it should 
 take. This required months of wrangling and de- 
 bate. It was at first intended to issue a simple brief, 
 distinctly affirming that His Holiness did not 
 intend to condemn the author's explanations of his 
 book, but giving some general disapproval of cer- 
 tain inferences drawn from it, and asserting the 
 Church's true doctrine as opposed to the Ouietists, 
 without casting any blame on the Archbishop of 
 Cambrai. This would have been done had not Bos- 
 suet's agents at Rome, assisted by the Cardinal Cas- 
 sanata, a man of most imperious will and overbear- 
 ing temper, exerted themselves to the utmost, for- 
 tified by fresh letters from the king dictated by Bos- 
 suet, insisting, with hardly veiled threats of the 
 direful consequences that would ensue from diso- 
 bedience, that the decision be "clear, precise, capable 
 of no misinterpretation, such as is necessary to re- 
 move all doubt with regard to doctrine and eradicate 
 the very root of the evil." Thus badgered and 
 driven and terrified, there seemed to be nothing to 
 do but submit; so at length, on the I2th of March, 
 the whole Sacred College was assembled at the 
 palace of Monte Cavallo, where the decree was ac- 
 cepted by the whole body of cardinals, signed by 
 the pope in their presence, and immediately posted 
 in all the principal public places of Rome. 
 
 The book itself, strictly speaking, was not con-
 
 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 149 
 
 demned, but only twenty-three propositions which 
 purported to be extracted from it. The pope took 
 pains to say, and to have it clearly understood, that 
 they were condemned, not in the sense which they 
 might bear or in the sense in which they were ex- 
 plained by Fenelon himself. The propositions were 
 said to be condemned because, not being worded in 
 conformity with the author's real intentions, they 
 might insensibly lead the faithful to errors already 
 condemned by the Catholic Church; because they 
 contained words which, in the sense that more im- 
 mediately presented itself were rash, ill-sounding, 
 offensive to pious ears, and erroneous. The cardi- 
 nals refused to associate the name of heretic, or of 
 anything resembling heresy, with Fenelon his 
 name, indeed, was not once mentioned in the brief 
 and they absolutely rejected the usual appendage 
 to a brief of condemnation, an order for the book 
 to be burned. Very little was really decided. The 
 words were very gentle, and in important ways non- 
 committal. Disinterestedness in the larger sense 
 was neither asserted nor denied; all that was done 
 was to prune Fenelon's system of what might be 
 considered its extravagances. In pronouncing, on 
 the whole, against the "Maxims," Rome had not 
 really declared for Bossuet. Fenelon could lawful!) 
 tell his friends that disinterestedness was not con- 
 demned, but only its exaggerated statement; self- 
 interest had not been made an essential condition 
 of our love of God, it was still possible to love
 
 150 FENELON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 Him for Himself, provided that hope and desire of 
 heaven were not habitually of set purpose excluded. 
 All this soothed the sorrows of the friends of Fene- 
 lon's, as it was designed to do, and considerably 
 mortified his enemies, which mortification was in- 
 creased by a bon mot of the pope, which was soon 
 in every mouth, that "Fenelon was in fault for too 
 great love of God ; and his enemies equally in fault 
 for too little love of their neighbor." The pope, 
 indeed, had repeatedly called Fenelon "a very great 
 archbishop, most pious, most holy, most learned ;" 
 and he gave to the Abbe de Chanterac every indica- 
 tion of the extreme reluctance with which he moved 
 in the matter. 
 
 It was, on the whole, a very barren victory for 
 Eossuet; but he accepted it rather than run any 
 further risk in the long-drawn-out contest, of which 
 all parties were thoroughly weary. It had cost him 
 dear in both reputation and character. No one now, 
 however small his admiration for Fenelon, attempts 
 to defend the steps which Bossuet took or the dis- 
 honorable means to which in his desperation he re- 
 sorted to compass his end. He contended not law- 
 fully, and deserves no crown. He showed an irri- 
 tation, rancor, bitterness, and malignity most lam- 
 entable ; used invective, artifice, and garbled quota- 
 tions ; sullied himself forever by the course he took. 
 With brutal irony and savage harshness he hec- 
 tored, threatened, plotted, violated confidences, and 
 made accusations as base as they were reckless. He
 
 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 151 
 
 used without scruple secret writings which he had 
 received from Madame Guyon, private letters writ' 
 ten to him by Fenelon during their early intimacy, 
 and a letter which, under the seal of friendship, 
 Fenelon had written to Madame de Maintenon, 
 and which in this trying hour she unfeelingly com- 
 municated to Bossuet, having entirely changed in 
 her attitude toward him since the king's animosity 
 was evident. Bossuet's personal charges against 
 his amiable and estimable adversary, not believed 
 by any one, showed the innate smallness of his na- 
 ture, the desperate strait to which he was driven, 
 and the degree to which he had let jealousy and 
 rivalry of one greater than he take possession of 
 his bosom. That he himself was of plebeian birth 
 a bar which kept him from the goal of his ambi- 
 tion in the cardinalate while Fenelon was of the 
 patricians, had doubtless something to do with it. 
 He squandered his waning powers on a controversy 
 which added no luster to his reputation, and brought 
 him no nearer to the summit of his desires. Too 
 late he realized that it was impossible to ruin such a 
 man as Fenelon in the eyes of those who had learned 
 to love him. He might be banished from the Vati- 
 can and from Versailles, silenced by the pope, and 
 disgraced by the king, but he was cherished none 
 the less in the hearts of the devout, idolized and 
 adored as an oracle of piety and virtue. 
 
 Fenelon was not once betrayed into abuse or 
 slander throughout the struggle in which he had so
 
 152 FEXELON : THE MYSTIC. 
 
 much at stake. No unkind word respecting any of 
 his persecutors escaped him. He continually ex- 
 hibited wonderful gentleness and dignity, elevated 
 self-respect, the urbanity of a refined gentleman, 
 and the grace of an exalted Christian. His style 
 was forcible and effective, but with no mixture of 
 sarcasm. Posterity has done him justice; has af- 
 firmed that throughout this contest no stain rests 
 upon his moral character, and that he was absolutely 
 sincere when he said, "I ask God to grant M. de 
 Meaux as many blessings as he has heaped crosses 
 upon me;" curses, he might have said. All this 
 while his enemies were using every means "to hunt 
 him down like a wild beast ;" this was the expression 
 they used. "Never once," says a person who has 
 thoroughly examined the entire correspondence, "in 
 the mass of letters that Fenelon sent to his confi- 
 dential agent at Rome, do we come across a mean 
 or unjust expression ; there is not one letter that 
 one feels inclined to wish had not been kept for 
 the sake of the writer." As attack after attack de- 
 scends upon him, intended to humiliate and crush, 
 he rises above it, greater and nobler, more faithful 
 in following his Master's footsteps than ever. He 
 continually implored the pope to stop the endless 
 war of pamphlets which was doing so much harm 
 to the cause of religion and the Church. It was 
 with the greatest reluctance that he was forced into 
 the fight. Under the grossest of libels he would 
 have remained silent had his friends consented. But
 
 THE; GREAT CONFLICT. 153 
 
 he was compelled by the actions of his adversaries 
 to speak out sometimes with great vigor. And he 
 had to obey the voice of his conscience and the dic- 
 tates of chivalry, being thoroughly indignant at the 
 unjust treatment accorded to his friend, Madame 
 Guyon. His grief at the rupture of the bond be- 
 tween him and Bossuet was deep and sincere. He 
 wrote, "God alone knows what pain it is to me to 
 give pain to one for whom, in all the world, I have 
 the most attachment and respect." He wrote this 
 even when he was defending himself from the most 
 virulent attacks ; and he would not have called God 
 to witness to a profession that was not absolutely 
 true. By his candor and simplicity, his openness 
 and gentleness, the beauty of his genius, and the 
 reputation of his virtue, he commanded the widest 
 possible respect from all who were capable of ap- 
 preciating these things. His challenge to his ma- 
 ligners rang out without ambiguity: "I fear noth- 
 ing, thank God, that will be communicated and ex- 
 amined judicially. I fear nothing but vague report 
 and unexamined allegation." 
 
 Fenelon, when the decision at Rome was com- 
 municated to him, acted as his friends had expected, 
 although some of them had hardly dared hope that 
 even he could rise so magnificently to the occasion. 
 He accepted, simply, sincerely, sweetly, with no 
 reservation or concealment or half-heartedness, 
 what he regarded as, under the circumstances, the 
 voice of God. His brother, the Compte de Fenelon,
 
 154 FENELON : THE MYSTIC. 
 
 heard the tidings first in Paris, and started instantly 
 for Cambrai, thinking that the reception of the news 
 through a kindly channel might at least lighten 
 somewhat the blow. He arrived on the Festival of 
 the Annunciation, just as the archbishop was about 
 to preach in the cathedral. However keenly he felt 
 the blow and he was, of course, human he was 
 not disconcerted, or cast down, or perplexed. Paus- 
 ing a little to arrange his thoughts, he threw aside 
 his intended sermon, and preached on the duty of 
 absolute submission to authority. The congrega- 
 tion, among whom the news was already whispered, 
 was most profoundly impressed with the calm dig- 
 nity, the noble simplicity of their beloved chief pas- 
 tor; and the eyes of most overflowed with tears of 
 admiration, affection, grief, and respect as they 
 listened to his heartfelt words. 
 
 He was not a little harassed, as the days went 
 on, by some zealous, well-meaning folk, who feared 
 that he might not do the best thing, and wrote him 
 long exhortations to submit, telling him of the glory 
 he would find in such humiliation and the heroism 
 he would achieve. He wrote to Beauvilliers : "All 
 this wearies me somewhat; and I am disposed to 
 say to myself, What have I done to all these people 
 that they think I shall find it so difficult to prefer 
 the authority of the Holy See to my own dim 
 knowledge, or the peace of the Church to my own 
 book ? However, I am well aware they are right in 
 attributing large imperfections to me and much
 
 THE; GREAT CONFLICT. 155 
 
 shrinking from an act of humiliation; therefore I 
 can easily forgive them." He wrote : "Doubtless 
 it costs one something to humble one's self ; but the 
 least resistance to the Holy See would cost me a 
 hundred-fold more, and I must confess that I can 
 see no room for hesitation in the matter. One may 
 suffer, but one can not have a moment's doubt." 
 He also said : "Amid these troubles I have the com- 
 fort, little appreciated by the world, but very satis- 
 factory to those who seek God heartily, namely, that 
 my course is clear, and I have nothing to hesitate 
 about." 
 
 His enemies sought in vain to find a flaw in his 
 submission. One of his followers wrote: "Your 
 conduct is a living exemplification of the maxims 
 of the saints;" as indeed it w.as. The dignified 
 humility with which he met misfortune gave him 
 added reputation. He sent out a pastoral letter, 
 short and affecting, which comforted his friends 
 and afflicted his enemies, falsifying every predic- 
 tion which they had made of the nice subtleties and 
 distinctions with which he would seek to disguise 
 his defeat. His letters at this time breathed in all 
 cases the most amiable spirit of peace and resigna- 
 tion. But -in general he declined all writing and 
 discourse on the subject, and at an early moment 
 dismissed the controversy as far as possible from 
 his thoughts. The Bishop of Chartres wrote to 
 Fenelon that he was delighted with his perfect sub- 
 mission : "I have no words to express how my heart
 
 156 FENELON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 is affected with your humble and generous action." 
 The pope wrote most kindly, and all the cardinals, 
 except Cassanata, sent messages to Fenelon by the 
 Abbe de Chanterac, conveying their respect and 
 attachment. "It is impossible*," wrote the abbe, "to 
 praise more than they did your submission, your 
 pastoral letter, your letters to the pope, and the 
 whole of your conduct." As one eminent person 
 wrote from Rome, "He was more glorious than if 
 he had never been condemned." The Chancellor 
 d'Aguesseau writes that Fenelon 's submission made 
 him the hero of the day. "It stands the solitary ex- 
 ample in history of a controversy upon a point of 
 such moment which one single sentence terminated 
 at the instant, without its reproduction in any other 
 form, without any- attempt to reverse it by power 
 or elude it by distinctions. The glory of it is due 
 to Fenelon, who was able to see that a very great 
 desire to justify one's self often does more harm 
 than good, and that the surest way to obliterate 
 wrongs unjustly imputed is to let them be forgotten 
 and die out in silence." 
 
 Fenelon said, "In all this, so far from referring 
 it to my opponents, I see no human agent; I see 
 God only, and I am content to accept what He 
 does." "In the name of God," he writes to a friend, 
 "speak to me only of God, and leave men to judge 
 of me as they like. As for me, I shall seek only 
 peace and silence." He had no resentment toward 
 any one; but he steadily refused, with proper dig-
 
 THE; GREAT CONFLICT. 157 
 
 nity and uncompromising adherence to the right, to 
 utter one syllable which could be perverted into a 
 semblance of retraction. He said that since the 
 head of the Church, with its superior light and 
 authority, had so judged, he must believe himself to 
 have insufficiently explained his meaning, but he 
 declared, in justice to himself, that he never under- 
 stood the text, or supposed any one else could un- 
 derstand it, save in the sole sense which he had 
 himself assigned to it. While ready at all times to 
 meet his opponents in the humblest and most peace- 
 ful spirit, as he declared, he declined to enter into 
 any negotiations that would imply a yielding of 
 what concerned his conscience or his sense of truth 
 in order to win them. He ceased to write and con- 
 verse upon the subject from this time. But in the 
 discharge of his duties among his own people and 
 in his correspondence, he never ceased to inculcate 
 the doctrine of pure love. He thought it his duty 
 to avoid certain forms of expression, and certain 
 illustrations which had been specifically condemned 
 in the Papal Decree, and which were liable to be 
 misconceived, but he went no further. How could 
 he? Nor do we find that room to wonder, which 
 some have done, at the heartiness and promptness of 
 his submission to what he doubtless felt was, from 
 a human point of view, unjust. He refused to con- 
 fine himself to the human point of view. He held, 
 with General Charles George Gordon, and many 
 others in our own day, that, however we may rightly
 
 158 FENEI<ON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 struggle to alter events while they are in the process 
 of formation, when once they have come to pass 
 they register a decree of the Almighty, and any re- 
 luctance to receive them is rebellion against Him, 
 something not to be thought of by a truly loyal 
 heart. This theory and practice made earth to him 
 very heavenly, and life a triumphant march.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 THE GOOD ARCHBISHOP. 
 
 IT is now our privilege to bid farewell to the 
 noise of battle, and look at the good archbishop in 
 the peaceful retirement of his great diocese, where, 
 as all admit, his episcopal duties were perfectly per- 
 formed. Even the most captious carpers and cavil- 
 ers at Fenelon, who can see little or no good in any 
 other part of his life and try hard to find some un- 
 worthy motive at the bottom of the acts that seem 
 so fair, are sore put to it, when they come to this 
 portion, to withhold a meed of hearty praise. They 
 are forced to admit that his misfortunes have helped 
 his character, and that he shines forth with a luster 
 rarely, if ever, equaled. What he would have be- 
 come spiritually had the world continued to smile 
 upon him is, of course, unknown. Had Louis XIV 
 died and the Duke of Burgundy come to the throne, 
 Fenelon would undoubtedly have reached the car- 
 dinalate for which his birth and abilities so well 
 fitted him, and might even have gone higher. But 
 it is not likely that, in the vitiated atmosphere of 
 the court, and surrounded by the temptations in- 
 evitably awaiting on unclouded success, his char- 
 acter could have developed as it did in affliction.
 
 160 FENIXON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 Some measure of adversity seems to be essential 
 to bring out the best there is in us. His career has 
 been called by some superficial observers "a splen- 
 did failure," but the words have no meaning except 
 in the sense in which they might be used of Jesus 
 of Nazareth and a multitude of others who have 
 stood for the highest ideals and have died nobly 
 fighting against wrong. Fenelon did not falter in 
 his course ; he obeyed at eve "the voice obeyed at 
 prime;" he held to the end the supreme purpose 
 which had inspired his earliest reflections. But 
 his years of exile, spent in the single-hearted serv- 
 ice of his people, are a more impressive and edifying 
 conclusion to a life begun under the auspices of St. 
 Sulpice than if they had been attended with all the 
 glories of the papal court. His reverses of fortune 
 gave him an admirable opportunity, magnificently 
 improved, to show that his high theories of resigna- 
 tion and self-surrender, and a serene acceptance of 
 everything from God's hand, could work well in 
 practice. Under the stress of his troubles he gained 
 new depth and breadth of piety, new self-reliance 
 and self-control, larger tranquillity, a more thor- 
 oughly compacted character. 
 
 Cambrai, to which he was banished in 1697, and 
 where he spent the last eighteen years of his life, 
 was a town of no great size or beauty, on the river 
 Scheldt, in the extreme north, near the Flemish 
 frontier. It was the ecclesiastical center of the 
 Flemish provinces which were conquered during the
 
 THE GOOD ARCHBISHOP. 161 
 
 early half of the reign of Louis XIV, and confirmed 
 to France by the treaty of Nimwegen in 1678. For- 
 merly a dependency of the chaotic Empire, there still 
 clung around it some of the prestige of departed 
 glories when its bishop's jurisdiction extended over 
 Brussels, and he governed the territory with almost 
 the power of an independent sovereign, having his 
 own fortresses and garrisons and mint. Fenelon 
 himself ranked both as a Prince of the Holy Roman 
 Empire and as a Duke of France, and, though pos- 
 sessing no feudal privileges, he was still the prin- 
 cipal landholder of the province, with a floating 
 revenue of some hundred thousand francs, perhaps 
 about a hundred thousand dollars in modern money. 
 It was one of the first positions in the kingdom; 
 but it had some serious drawbacks, especially as a 
 place of permanent residence. He had said on re- 
 ceiving the appointment, "All is vanity and vexa- 
 tion of spirit ; I am entering on a state of perpetual 
 servitude in a strange land." The people there 
 were Flemings, not Frenchmen, in their language, 
 their habits, their modes of thought, with little re- 
 finement of any kind, their virtues as coarse-fibered 
 as their manners. It was no small privation for a 
 man like Fenelon born for Olympus as it were, 
 bred to the best society, and fitted to shine in it with 
 so much luster, and in a time when, even more than 
 now, everything centered around the court at the 
 capital to be shut out from it all, losing the sym- 
 pathy and friendship which his earlier years had
 
 162 FENELON : THE MYSTIC. 
 
 brought him, the daily intercourse with minds that 
 reflected his own thoughts yet inspired and ex- 
 hilarated him. For one in the flower of his man- 
 hood and at the zenith of his capacities, possessing 
 the gift of language in a marvelous degree, with 
 a filled and cultured brain, to be thrown so abso- 
 lutely out of his element, out of the world of books 
 and intellectual equals, exiled "to a remote corner 
 of the realm amid strangers, was a calamity whose 
 gravity, on one side, it would be wrong to overlook. 
 His sufferings, as nature goes, must have been 
 acute. Yet he speedily adjusted himself to the sit- 
 uation, and there is no note of repining. For mere 
 court favors, its dignities, pomps, and pleasures, he 
 had no real love, and his whole life bears witness to 
 the truth of his often repeated assertions, that he 
 had no wish to return to Paris or Versailles; no 
 wish, that is, under the divinely appointed circum- 
 stances ; for he was able always to find in such cir- 
 cumstances his highest pleasure. Writing to the 
 Duke de Beauvilliers in November, 1699, he says: 
 "I am sorry, dear duke, to be separated from you, 
 the dear duchess, and a very few other friends. But 
 for all else I rejoice in being away ; I sing my can- 
 ticle of thanksgiving for deliverance, and nothing 
 would cost me so much as to have to return." 
 
 He by no means settled down into "a state of 
 passive quietism," as some ignorantly prate, wholly 
 misconceiving both quietism and the man. The 
 slightest scanning of the records shows how beau-
 
 THE; GOOD ARCHBISHOP. 163 
 
 tifully and zealously active his last years were. If 
 ever a man threw himself into the interests of 
 others, or made the deep love of God, which he 
 breathed as his native air, take loving shape in 
 strenuous acts, it was Fenelon. He was quiet, even 
 as was Madame Guyon, and as all other high saints 
 have been, in so far as to rest with an absolute, un- 
 hesitating, unquestioning faith in God's keeping, 
 asking nothing save that His will might be perfected 
 in him; but he was most active and energetic in 
 body, soul, Mid spirit for his neighbor's good. The 
 unremitting labors which he undertook, and which 
 his vast diocese if properly administered demanded, 
 involved a life of the most regular industry. He 
 gave but a short time to sleep, and his working 
 hours began early, so that he had done nearly a 
 day's work before saying mass. His habit was to 
 say this in his own chapel, after a long time spent 
 previously in prayer, except on Saturdays, when he 
 said it in the cathedral, remaining there to hear the 
 confessions of penitents of any and every class who 
 chose to present themselves. He not infrequently 
 preached in the cathedral, but seems to have pre- 
 ferred the town churches, in some one of which he 
 always preached the Lenten discourses. He made 
 no effort at oratory, aiming chiefly to be plain and 
 intelligible, excluding from his sermons superfluous 
 ornaments as well as obscurity and difficult reason- 
 ings. He preached from the heart rather than from 
 the head, and generally without notes, but not with-
 
 164 FENIXON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 out much meditation and prayer. He used to say, 
 "I must spend much time in my closet in order to 
 be prepared for the pulpit, and to be sure that my 
 heart is filled from the Divine fountain before I 
 pour out the streams upon the people." He de- 
 clared against the practice of committing sermons 
 to writing and then learning them by heart. 
 
 To his clergy he was a father and brother in 
 God, gathering them about him as constantly as pos - 
 sible for instruction and inspiration, moving among 
 them with the utmost wisdom, correcting, advising, 
 assisting. One of his first cares was the improve- 
 ment of the seminary for completing the education 
 of those who were preparing for the Church, -'ft 
 had been at Valenciennes, but he removed it to Cam- 
 brai, that it might be under his own eye. It was his 
 great desire to reconstruct it on the lines of the 
 seminary at St. Sulpice, where he himself had been 
 so profited, and to intrust the supervision of the stu- 
 dents to priests who were members of that congre- 
 gation ; but he found insuperable obstacles to this 
 scheme in the fear of M. Tronson lest any direct 
 connection between St. Sulpice and Cambrai might 
 draw down upon the former the king's displeasure. 
 So Fenelon appointed to the head of it his intimate 
 friend, the Abbe de Chanterac, formerly his agent 
 at Rome, saying, "He has the wit, the piety, and 
 the wisdom to govern it peacefully." But Fenelon 
 devoted great personal care to the students, exam- 
 ing them himself, and endeavoring to estimate their
 
 THE; GOOD ARCHBISHOP. 165 
 
 individual capacities. Besides the instruction he 
 gave them during periods of retreat, and at the 
 chief festivals, he conducted conferences once a 
 week, listening with infinite patience to their diffi- 
 culties and replying with the kindness of a father. 
 No priest proceeded to ordination until he had been 
 five times examined by Fenelon himself. In short, 
 no pains were spared to make the priests of this 
 diocese an example to their degenerate colleagues. 
 In the general administration of his diocese he 
 concentrated all his powers, allowing nothing to 
 escape him, erring, if at all, on the side of mercy 
 and toleration, finding it difficult to believe many of 
 the charges brought against his clergy, and only 
 convinced by the most conclusive evidence. He ab- 
 stained from unnecessary acts of authority, avoided 
 all unnecessary display, removed what was blamable 
 by meekness and moderation, improved with pru- 
 dence and sobriety what was good. His adminis- 
 tration was uniformly wise, strict in some respects, 
 and yet on broad and liberal lines. There was no 
 harrying of Protestants or Jansenists, no bureau- 
 cratic fussiness, no seeking after popularity, but 
 every man, great or small, was treated exactly as 
 was becoming. Between him and his flock, his 
 chapter, or his clergy, there was no discord. 
 Though by his indefatigable zeal he soon made the 
 district committed to his charge the model of a well- 
 regulated diocese, his biographers do not record of 
 him a single instance of what are generally called
 
 166 FENELON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 acts of vigor, or a single instance of gaudy virtue. 
 The peace of heaven was with him, and was com- 
 municated to all around. All local customs, down 
 to the humblest, were handled with a delicate touch, 
 and pardonable eccentricities of usage were never 
 dealt with severely. In the matter of patronage he 
 was careful that no outsider, and still less no rela- 
 tive of his own, should swoop down on the richest 
 livings and secure by interest what the natives nat- 
 urally looked upon as their own by right. He 
 traveled throughout the district, making tours of 
 inspection several times a year, and so coming into 
 touch with every corner, preaching more than once 
 in every one of the six hundred parishes. 
 
 The laity adored him for his charities, for the 
 gentle firmness of his government, for the natural 
 grace of manner that enhanced a hundred-fold the 
 value of everything he said and did. Always ready 
 to help, yet always modest in offering assistance, 
 he seemed when about some kindly action to be re- 
 ceiving rather than doing a favor. He was always 
 a perfect gentleman, a high-bred man of rank, a 
 model of politeness, and was equally adapted to 
 every grade of society. Men of all classes were 
 at ease in his company. He directed every one to 
 the subject he best understood, and then disappeared 
 himself, thus giving them an opportunity to produce 
 out of their own stock the materials they were most 
 able to furnish. Thus every one parted from him 
 well pleased with himself. Perhaps no one ever
 
 THE GOOD ARCHBISHOP. 167 
 
 possessed in a higher degree the happy talent of 
 easy conversation. His mind was entirely given up 
 to the person with whom he conversed. No one felt 
 his superiority; every one found him on his own 
 level. In visits to the sick at home, to the hospitals 
 and wounded soldiers, he was indefatigable, nor 
 was he a stranger to the Cambrai prisons. He went 
 into the cottages of the poor, and spoke to them of 
 God, and comforted them under the hardships 
 which they suffered. If, when he visited them, they 
 presented him with any refreshments in their un- 
 pretending and unpolished manner, he pleased them 
 by seating himself at their humble table and partak- 
 ing cheerfully and thankfully of what was set be- 
 fore him. 
 
 Various anecdotes illustrate his benevolence. In 
 one of his rural excursions he met with a peasant 
 in great affliction. Inquiring the cause, he was in- 
 formed by the man that he had lost his cow, the 
 cnly support of his indigent family. Fenelon at- 
 tempted to comfort him, and gave him money to 
 buy another. The peasant showed gratitude, but 
 still was sad, grieving for the cow he had lost, to 
 which he was much attached. Pursuing his walk, 
 Fenelon found at a considerable distance from the 
 place of the interview the very cow which was the 
 object of so much affection. The sun had set, and 
 the night was dark, but the good archbishop drove 
 her back himself to the poor man's cottage. 
 
 In February, 1697, before Fenelon had perma-
 
 168 FENELON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 nently left Versailles, news came that a fire had 
 burned to the ground the archiepiscopal palace at 
 Cambrai, and consumed many or all of his books 
 and writings. His friend, the Abbe de Langeron, 
 seeing Fenelon conversing at ease with a number of 
 persons, supposed he had not heard these unpleas- 
 ant tidings, and began with some formality and cau- 
 tion to inform him. But Fenelon, perceiving his 
 solicitude, interrupted him by saying that he was 
 fully acquainted with what had happened, adding 
 further that, although the loss was a very great one, 
 he would much rather they were burned than the 
 cottage of a poor peasant. This has been adjudged 
 a more touching and pious rejoinder than that of the 
 literary man whose library was destroyed by fire and 
 who replied to the tidings, "I should have profited 
 little by my books if they had not taught me how 
 to bear the loss of them." Fenelon was taught com- 
 passion for men and acceptance of the Divine will 
 from a higher source than books. At his own ex- 
 pense he rebuilt the palace and furnished it in a 
 suitable style of magnificence, but he did not allow 
 the arms of his family to be affixed or painted on 
 any part of it. 
 
 The archbishop's day was very carefully laid 
 out, and has been quite minutely described. After 
 the early rising, the private devotions, and the pub- 
 lic services, he was visible until nine o'clock to those 
 only who attended him by appointment. After that, 
 till he dined, his doors were open to all persons who
 
 THE GOOD ARCHBISHOP. 169 
 
 had business with him. Noon was the hour for 
 dinner. His table was suitable to his rank, hand- 
 somely dressed, with a great variety and abundance 
 of good food, that his many guests might enjoy 
 themselves, but he himself was extremely abste- 
 mious, eating only the simplest and lightest viands, 
 and of them but sparingly. Contrary to the custom 
 of most prelates, his chaplains, secretaries, attend- 
 ants, and all officers of the household, sat with him 
 at the same table, making a very harmonious house- 
 hold, among whom conversation was briskly car- 
 ried on, Fenelon taking his part, but leaving every 
 one full scope. After dinner all went to the great 
 state bedchamber, which was very finely furnished, 
 but was used mainly as a sitting-room, Fenelon 
 himself sleeping in a little room adjoining, fur- 
 nished simply with some gray woolen materials and 
 only adorned with a few engravings. General con- 
 versation was continued in the large room; but a 
 small table was placed before Fenelon, on which 
 he signed his name to papers which required imme- 
 diate dispatch, and took opportunity to give direc- 
 tions to his chaplains on the affairs of the diocese. 
 He said grace both before and after dinner. He 
 spent the evening with those that were in the house, 
 whoever they might be, supping with the people 
 who happened to be present. Supper was at nine. 
 At ten the whole of the household assembled. One 
 of his chaplains read the night prayers, and at the
 
 170 FENELON : THE; MYSTIC. 
 
 end of them the archbishop rose and gave his gen- 
 eral blessing to the company. 
 
 His chief amusement, when he found it neces- 
 sary to relax a little from his arduous toils, was 
 that of walking and riding. He loved rural scenes. 
 "The country," he says in one of his letters, "de- 
 lights me. In the midst of it I find God's holy 
 peace." Everything seemed to him to be full of 
 infinite goodness ; and his heart glowed with purest 
 happiness as he escaped from the business and cares 
 which necessarily occupied so much of his time, 
 into the air and the fields, into the flowers and sun- 
 shine, of the great Creator. 
 
 Many visitors came to him from far and near, 
 attracted by his great reputation, and the results of 
 the visits were always the same. Whatever the pre- 
 vious sentiments or opinions, or indifferent or hos- 
 tile attitude, all were enchanted and moved to high- 
 est admiration. The Abbe le Dieu, Bossuet's secre- 
 tary, and Canon of Meaux, in September, 1704, was 
 a guest at the palace, and noted everything with the 
 most minute and insatiable curiosity. He found 
 himself treated with the utmost consideration, and 
 given every opportunity to pry into all that inter- 
 ested him, and came away with none but words of 
 hearty praise for all he saw. 
 
 A Scotchman, Andrew Ramsay, sometimes 
 called the Chevalier de Ramsay, scion of an old 
 Scotch family, exiled for his sympathy with the 
 Stuarts, sickened by many aspects of the Protestant-
 
 THE GOOD ARCHBISHOP. 171 
 
 ism in which he had grown up, wandered over all 
 Holland and Germany, hoping to find rest amid the 
 philosophers of those countries, but finding it not. 
 In this condition he came to Cambrai, where the 
 archbishop received him with his wonted fatherly 
 kindness, and speedily won his heart. The com- 
 bination of spiritual religion and practical wisdom 
 which he found in Fenelon, the height of his per- 
 sonal holiness, and the daily-watched beauty of his 
 life, even more than the clear and helpful teachings 
 received, made so deep an impression on him that 
 he became a convert to the Roman Church, and, 
 even when permitted to return to England, he re- 
 mained faithful to the doctrines which he had 
 learned at Cambrai. He continued there for many 
 months, never wearying of studying his host's mind 
 and soul, and eventually writing the first life of him 
 ever published. His literary powers proved of great 
 value in arranging the writings of his master and 
 defending him from calumny. Subsequently Ram- 
 say became teacher to some of the Pretender's fam- 
 ily ; and there is an interesting story on record tell- 
 ing how the friendship of Fenelon stood him in 
 good stead at Oxford some years after, showing 
 how in England the good archbishop's virtues at- 
 tracted highest esteem and his name had more in- 
 fluence than even in France itself. In 1730 Ram- 
 say came to England under a safe conduct, and was 
 received as a member of the Royal Institution on 
 the strength of his connection with the Archbishop
 
 172 FENEXON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 of Cambrai. He further desired to take the Doc- 
 tor's Degree at Oxford. The Earl of Arran, then 
 chancellor of the university, proposed him for that 
 honor. Opposition arose in Convocation on the 
 double ground that he was a Roman Catholic and 
 had been a servant of the Pretender ; but the opposi- 
 tion ceased when Dr. King, head of St. Mary's Hall, 
 observed, "I present to you a pupil of the illustrious 
 Fenelon, and this title is a sufficient guarantee to 
 us." Ramsay was admitted to his degree by a vote 
 of 85 to 17. 
 
 Another Britisher, the eccentric Earl of Peter- 
 boro, in whom the hero, skeptic, and profligate were 
 mingled in about equal proportions, being among 
 the visitors to Marlborough's headquarters in the 
 Netherlands during the war, turned aside to Cam- 
 brai to make its master's acquaintance. He could 
 have had very little sympathy with the saintly Mys- 
 tic there, but he could no more resist his charm 
 than could other men. He wrote subsequently to 
 the philosopher, John Locke, that Fenelon "was 
 cast in a particular mold that was never used for 
 anybody else. He is a delicious creature, but I was 
 forced to cut away from him as fast as I could, 
 else he would have made me pious." He is also 
 reported to have written while there, "On my word, 
 I must quit this place as soon as possible, for if I 
 stay here another week I shall be a Christian in 
 spite of myself." 
 
 Count Munich, afterwards known as Marshal
 
 THE GOOD ARCHBISHOP. 173 
 
 Munich, one of the most distinguished commanders 
 in the armies of Russia, when young was a lieuten- 
 ant-colonel in the forces contending in Flanders. 
 Being taken prisoner in battle and conducted to 
 Cambrai, he was deeply affected by what he saw 
 of the peaceful mind and truly Christian generosity 
 of Fenelon. In all the vicissitudes of his after life, 
 in court and camp, he delighted to the very end of 
 his stormy career to remember the happy days 
 which he passed as a prisoner or ward in the so- 
 ciety of Fenelon. He found the recounting of the 
 things he had witnessed at Cambrai a help in sooth- 
 ing the agitations of his own wild and turbulent 
 spirit and a means of permanent instruction in 
 righteousness. 
 
 The celebrated Cardinal Quirini, whose life was 
 devoted to learned researches and useful studies, 
 and who visited all parts of Europe in the prosecu- 
 tion of literary purposes, speaks in the following 
 language of his interview with Fenelon: "I con- 
 sidered Cambrai as one of the principal objects of 
 my travels in France. I will not hesitate to con- 
 fess that it was toward this single spot, or rather 
 towards the celebrated Fenelon, who resided there, 
 that I was powerfully attracted. With what emo- 
 tions of tenderness I still recall the gentle and af- 
 fecting familiarity with which that great man 
 deigned to discourse with me, and even sought my 
 conversation ; though his palace was then crowded 
 with French generals and commanders-in-chief,
 
 174 FENEI.ON : THE MYSTIC 
 
 towards whom he displayed the most magnificent 
 and generous hospitality. I have still fresh in my 
 recollection all the serious and important subjects 
 which were the topics of our discourse. My ear 
 caught with eagerness every word that issued from 
 his lips. The letters which he wrote me from time 
 to time are still before me ; letters which are an evi- 
 dence alike of the wisdom of his principles and of 
 the purity of his heart. I preserve them among my 
 papers as the most precious treasure which I have 
 in the world." 
 
 His enemies, we are told, practiced the shameful 
 artifice of placing about him an ecclesiastic of high 
 birth whom he considered only as one of his grand 
 vicars, but who was to act as a spy upon him. The 
 man who had consented to take so base an office 
 had, however, the magnanimity to punish himself 
 for it. Utterly subdued by the purity and gentle- 
 ness of spirit that he witnessed in Fenelon, he 
 threw himself at his feet and confessed the un- 
 worthy part he had been led to act, and withdrew 
 from the world to conceal in retirement his grief 
 and shame. 
 
 As will be inferred from these incidents his 
 hospitality to those who came to him from all parts 
 of Europe, as well as from near by, was unbounded. 
 In spite of the urgency and multiplicity of his em- 
 ployments he was always ready, with the greatest 
 kindness of feeling, to pay the utmost attention to 
 all who had the slightest claim upon his time. He
 
 THE; GOOD ARCHBISHOP. 175 
 
 did not hesitate to drop his eloquent pen, with which 
 he conversed with all Europe, whenever Providence 
 called him to listen to the awkward utterances of 
 the most ignorant and degraded among his people. 
 His practice and his preference was to suffer any 
 personal inconvenience, or sacrifice any private in- 
 terest, rather than injure the feelings of a fellow- 
 man or omit an opportunity of usefulness. Writ- 
 ing to a friend about his daily routine he says : "I 
 must confer with the Chapter on a lawsuit ; I must 
 write and dispatch letters ; I must examine accounts. 
 How dreary would be life made up of these per- 
 plexities and details but for the will of God which 
 glorifies all He has given us to do!" This is the 
 keynote on which Fenelon toned and tuned his life 
 at Cambrai, making himself the servant of all, min- 
 istering rather than being ministered unto, glory- 
 ing in the honor of such services, fearful of the 
 outward pomps the Church conferred upon him, yet 
 accepting them in all simplicity because he fully be- 
 lieved the Church to be directed by his Master. 
 
 "I have seen him," says the Chevalier Ramsay, 
 "in the course of a single day, converse with the 
 great and speak their language, ever maintaining 
 the episcopal dignity ; .afterwards discourse with 
 the simple and the little, like a good father instruct- 
 ing his children. This sudden transition from one 
 extreme to the other, was without affectation or 
 effort, like one who, by the extensiveness of his 
 genius, reaches to all the most opposite distances.
 
 176 FENELON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 I have often observed him at such conferences, and 
 have as much, admired the evangelical condescen- 
 sion by which he became all things to all men as 
 the sublimity of his discourses. While he watched 
 over his flock with a daily care, he prayed in the 
 deep retirement of internal solitude. The many 
 things which were generally admired in him were 
 nothing in comparison of that divine life by which 
 he walked with God like Enoch, and was unknown 
 to men." 
 
 The Abbe Galet, another of Fenelon's contem- 
 poraries, bears loud witness to the fact that, how- 
 ever grand the outside accommodations were, the 
 archbishop's personal appointments were of the 
 most modest description. He says that "in the 
 meager simplicity of his private living rooms, fitted 
 up plainly in serge, of his dress a long velvet cas- 
 sock trimmed with scarlet, but without gold tassels 
 or lace =-even of his ecclesiastical vestments, Fene- 
 lon did homage to that idea of holy poverty whose 
 actual practice was forbidden by his station in the 
 world." 
 
 But when it came to others, Fenelon was very 
 considerate and very generous. When he had cause 
 to send his chaplains into the country on any busi- 
 ness of the diocese, it was always in one of his own 
 carriages and with one of his own attendants, that 
 the respect which he showed them might conciliate 
 to them the general respect of his flock. He took, 
 so far as possible, the burdens pf his clergy on him-
 
 THE GOOD ARCHBISHOP. 177 
 
 self, offered to pay more tax than he needed to, 
 even wasted (as it would now seem) money on beg- 
 gars whose appearance moved his sympathies. Yet 
 he also practiced sound economy, that he might 
 have the more to give, held a careful audit of his 
 household accounts, and set aside large portions of 
 his income for the starving soldiers, or the inter- 
 ests of his seminary, or the education of his 
 nephews and their maintenance in the army. He 
 educated great numbers of students at his own ex- 
 pense, sending them to Paris ; especially the young 
 men that were likely to prove good priests, but 
 were too poor to bear the financial burden. He had 
 always a whole string of his nephews and grand- 
 nephews or other relatives gathered about him, 
 young people whose education he was asked to 
 take charge of or those whose interests, for friends' 
 or relationship's sake, he was desirous to promote. 
 He was never without the presence of children in 
 the palace. A suite of rooms above his own was 
 reserved for them. Not only his relatives, but the 
 sons of his intimate friends, were placed in his care, 
 that he might train them to be good and chivalrous 
 gentlemen. Very few of these boys were intended 
 for the priesthood, but the confidence that Fenelon 
 inspired was so great that it was believed a child 
 reared under his eye would be better fitted for court 
 or camp than if he spent his early years in the com- 
 pany of princes at St. Germain or Versailles. The 
 last of his little guests were the grandchildren of
 
 178 FENEXON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 his friend, De Chevreuse, and, harassed though he 
 was by national disasters, he could spare time to 
 "study and report upon them and express his pleas- 
 ure in their company. He wrote of the children, "I 
 delight to have them here ; I love them dearly ; they 
 cheer me much ; they do not trouble me in any way." 
 They were with him to the end ; so that from the day 
 he entered on his duties at Versailles until his death 
 he may be said to have given a definite proportion of 
 his time and energy to the practical demonstration 
 of his excellent theories of education. 
 
 During the contest for the Spanish succession, 
 in the early years of the eighteenth century, between 
 France and Bavaria on the one side, and England, 
 Holland, and Austria on the other, the diocese of 
 Cambrai, not far from the Netherlands, which has 
 sometimes been denominated the battle-field of 
 Europe, was within the realm of war, and suffered 
 much from the cruel ravages of the advancing and 
 retreating armies. Under these circumstances, 
 Fenelon continued his constant visitations to every 
 part of the district, and all the writers dwell upon 
 the singular marks of homage paid on these occa- 
 sions to his eminent virtue by people of every name. 
 So far from putting any obstacle in his way, the 
 English, Germans, and Dutch took every means of 
 showing their admiration and veneration for the 
 archbishop. All distinctions of religion and sect, 
 all those feelings of hatred or jealousy which di- 
 vide nations, disappeared in his presence. He was
 
 GOOD ARCHBISHOP. 179 
 
 often obliged to resort to artifice to avoid the honors 
 which the armies of the enemy intended him. He 
 refused the military escorts which were offered him 
 for his personal security in the exercise of his func- 
 tions, and, with no other attendants than a few ec- 
 clesiastics, he traversed the countries desolated by 
 war. His way was marked by his alms and bene- 
 factions, and by a suspending of the calamities 
 which armies bring. In these short intervals the 
 people breathed in peace, so that his pastoral visits 
 might be termed a truce of God. The Duke of 
 Marlborough, the Prince of Orange, the Duke of 
 Ormond, the distinguished commanders who were 
 opposed to France, embraced every opportunity of 
 showing their esteem. They sent detachments of 
 their men to guard his meadows and his corn ; they 
 caused his grain to be transported with a convoy to 
 Cambrai, lest it should be seized and carried off by 
 their own foragers. St. Simon, by no means his 
 friend, can not say enough in panegyric for his 
 never-ending kindness to the troops brought 
 through Cambrai during the war. The duke paints 
 him as moving among the sick and the whole, the 
 known and the unknown, the officers and the com- 
 mon soldiers, with a knowledge of the world which 
 understood how to gain them all by treating each 
 in his due degree, and yet a true and cheerful shep- 
 herd of their souls, as constant in his ministration 
 to the humblest as though he had no other business 
 in life. And he was no less careful for their bodily
 
 i8o FENELON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 comfort; lodged officers innumerable in his palace; 
 hired other houses besides for the same purpose; 
 filled them with the sick and wounded, and with 
 poor people driven from the neighboring villages ; 
 tended the sick with his own hands, sometimes for 
 many months, until their entire recovery; supplied 
 the hospitals with costly drugs and endless streams 
 of food and delicacies, sent out, for all their abun- 
 dance, in such perfect order that every patient had 
 exactly what he needed. He was on the best of 
 terms with the nobles and government officials, not 
 only of his diocese but of all Flanders, even as far 
 as Brussels, and used his influence with them to 
 beg many temporal favors for his people; got his 
 village schoolmasters exempted from service in the 
 army, saved the farmers and their horses from 
 forced labors in the winter, and even warned the 
 Ministry at Paris that the devastated country could 
 be the theater of no more campaigns. When the 
 commisariat of the king was in extreme want of 
 corn, the archbishop emptied his immense granaries 
 for their subsistence, and absolutely refused all 
 compensation. He said, "The king owes me noth- 
 ing, and in times of calamity it is my duty as a citi- 
 zen and a bishop to give back to the State what I 
 have received from it." It was thus he avenged 
 himself for his disgrace. At another critical mo- 
 ment, only a timely advance from his own purse 
 prevented the garrison of St. Omer from going over 
 in a body to the enemy, as other unpaid regiments
 
 GOOD ARCHBISHOP. 181 
 
 had done. It is no wonder that he became the idol 
 of the troops, who sang his praises even in the ante- 
 chambers of Versailles. And his fame stood equally, 
 high with those who were fighting against the king. 
 
 He was loved by so many because he was him- 
 self so full of love. An instance of his largeness 
 both of mind and heart occurred during these clos- 
 ing years, which deserves to be recorded, for it cer- 
 tainly does not stand alone. The English prince 
 known as the Old Pretender was an officer in the 
 French army in 1709, and his duty took him near to 
 Cambrai. In the conversations which passed be- 
 tween them, the archbishop recommended to him 
 very emphatically never to compel his subjects to 
 change their religion. "Liberty of thought," said 
 he, "is an impregnable fortress which no human 
 power can force. Violence can never convince; it 
 only makes hypocrites. When kings take it upon 
 them to direct in matters of religion instead of pro- 
 tecting it, they bring it into bondage. You ought 
 therefore to grant to all a legal toleration; not as 
 approving everything indifferently, but as suffering 
 with patience what God suffers; endeavoring in a 
 proper manner to restore such as are misled, but 
 never by any measures but those of gentle and 
 benevolent persuasion." 
 
 Even against the Jansenists, who were fierce 
 Augustinians, the ultra Calvinists of that time in 
 the matter of the Divine decrees, and whom he thor- 
 oughly disliked, being himself a firm friend of free
 
 1 82 FENELON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 will, he would by no means have harsh measures 
 taken. The sweetness of his disposition and his 
 idea of the meekness of God, made him strongly 
 averse to the doctrines of Quesnel and Jansen, 
 which he considered as leading to despair. "God," 
 he said, "is to them only a terrible Being ; to me He 
 is a Being good and just. I can not consent to make 
 Him a tyrant who binds us with fetters, and then 
 commands us to walk, and punishes us if we do 
 not." In this he was at one with John Wesley. But 
 he would not, any more than the Methodist, permit 
 persecution of them in his diocese. "Let us," said 
 he, "be to them what they are unwilling that God 
 should be to man, full of compassion and indulg- 
 ence." He was told that the Jansenists were his 
 declared enemies, that they left nothing undone to 
 bring him and his doctrine into discredit. "That 
 is one further reason," said he, "for me to suffer 
 and forgive them." 
 
 On hearing that some peasants in Hainaut, who 
 were descended from Protestants, and who held still 
 the same opinions, had received the sacrament from 
 a minister of their own persuasion, but that, when 
 discovered, they disguised their sentiments and even 
 went to mass, he said to the Reformed minister: 
 "Brother, you see what has happened. It is full 
 time that these good people should have some fixed 
 religion ; go and obtain their names, and those of 
 all their families ; I give you my word that in less 
 than six months they shall all have passports"
 
 GOOD ARCHBISHOP. 183 
 
 that is, to go where they like. The same clergyman, 
 whose name was Brunice, he received at his table 
 as a brother, and treated him with great kindness. 
 
 To an officer of the army who consulted him 
 to know what course he should adopt with such of 
 his soldiers as were Huguenots, Fenelon answered: 
 "Tormenting and teasing heretic soldiers into con- 
 version, will answer no end; it will not succeed; it 
 will only produce hypocrites. The converts so 
 made will desert in crowds." 
 
 The closing years of Fenelon's life were inex- 
 pressibly saddened by the number of deaths that 
 swept away in melancholy succession nearly all with 
 whom his heartstrings were most closely inter- 
 twined. The first to go was his very dear friend 
 Langeron, who died at Cambrai, November 10, 
 1710. He probably held a deeper measure of his 
 love than any one else, possessed his entire confi- 
 dence, which was never in the least degree shaken 
 by mutual disagreement and reproof. He' chose him 
 for a coadjutor on the mission to Saintonge, shared 
 with him the loving care of the little prince, to 
 whom he was reader, kept him with him at Cambrai 
 as one of his chief assistants and a principal amel- 
 ioration of the bonds which tied him there. Three 
 days after the death he wrote: "I have lost the 
 greatest comfort of my life, and the best laborer 
 God has given me in the service of His Church, a 
 friend who has been my delight for thirty-four 
 years. O, how full of sorrow life is ! O God, how
 
 184 FENELON: THE MYSTIC 
 
 much our best friends cost us ! The only solace of 
 life is friendship, and friendship turns into irrepara- 
 ble grief. Let us seek the Friend who does not die, 
 in whom we shall recover all the rest. Nothing 
 could be deeper or truer than the virtues of him 
 who has died. Nothing could be a greater witness 
 of grace than was his death. I have never seen 
 anything more lovely and edifying. . . . God's 
 will is done. He chose to seek my friend's happi- 
 ness rather than my comfort ; and I should be want- 
 ing alike to God and my friend, if I did not will 
 what He wills. In the sharpest moment of my grief 
 I offered up him I so dreaded to lose." 
 
 Still keener, in some respects, was the loss he 
 experienced in the death of the Duke of Burgundy, 
 who passed away February 18, 1712. The ties be- 
 tween them were of the closest description, and the 
 long separation of fifteen years had made no dif- 
 ference in their mutual affection. When the young 
 man fifteen years old at the time of Fenelon's ban- 
 ishment in 1697 heard of the sad event, he ran to 
 his grandfather and flung himself at his feet, and 
 implored with tears his clemency, and as a proof of 
 Fenelon's doctrine appealed to the change in his 
 own conduct and character. Louis was deeply af- 
 fected, but said that what he solicited was not a 
 matter of favor; it concerned the purity of the 
 Church, of which Bossuet was the best judge. All 
 intercourse between the two was interdicted, and as 
 both were closely watched by spies, it was four
 
 THE GOOD ARCHBISHOP. 185 
 
 years before the slightest communication could pass 
 between them. Then the duke contrived to send a 
 letter in which he declared his unshaken love, say- 
 ing that indeed his friendship but increased with 
 time, and that he was proceeding more steadily than 
 before in the path of virtue. When, in 1702, Louis 
 gave the Duke of Burgundy command of the army 
 in Flanders, he petitioned with great earnestness 
 that he might be allowed in his passage to the army 
 to see Fenelon. The king consented only on condi- 
 tion that the interview should be in public. They 
 met at a public dinner, where, of course, but little 
 could be said, as everything was closely watched. 
 But the duke in a loud voice exclaimed, in the hear- 
 ing of all present, "I am sensible, my Lord Arch- 
 bishop, what I owe to you, and you know what I 
 am." Fenelon writes concerning the interview as 
 follows : "I have seen the Duke of Burgundy after 
 five years' separation, but God seasoned the consola- 
 tion with great bitterness. I saw him only in public 
 for a short quarter of an hour. One must take 
 things as they come and give one's self up unre- 
 servedly to God's providence." After this, there 
 was opportunity for a more frequent correspond- 
 ence, and it is most creditable to both parties, filled 
 with affection and profoundest deference on the 
 part of the younger man, and with the deepest 
 solicitude and wisest counsels on the part of the 
 elder. 
 
 The duke's father, the dauphin, or heir apparent,
 
 i86 FENELON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 died in April, 1711, leaving, of course, his son as 
 next in the succession to the throne. Then, indeed, 
 did Fenelon's hopes and the hopes of the nation rise 
 high. Cambrai became thronged with people who 
 thought it well to be in the good graces of one who 
 might very soon be the power behind the throne 
 and the most important man in France. But alas ! 
 alas for human plans and prospects ! The dauphine, 
 Burgundy's wife, died February I2th, of a strange 
 malady which baffled all the physicians; then the 
 duke himself, having caught the infection, died Feb- 
 ruary 1 8th, and their eldest son succumbed to the 
 same complaint, March i8th. The royal household 
 was overwhelmed, the nation was stunned, and no 
 one felt the loss more than, probably no one as 
 much as, Fenelon. He writes : "I am struck down 
 with grief; the shock has made me ill without any 
 malady. My health has suffered terribly, and what- 
 ever revives my grief brings on a certain amount of 
 feverish agitation. I am humbled by my weakness. 
 All my links are broken; there is nothing left to 
 bind me to earth; but the ties which bind me to 
 heaven are strengthened. O, what suffering this 
 true friendship breeds ! But if I could restore him 
 to life by turning a straw I would not do it, for it 
 is God's will." It was undoubtedly the darkest hour 
 of his days. He never wholly rallied from the blow, 
 or took the same interest in his labors that he did 
 before. But there is the best of evidence that his 
 faith in God did not fail, and that in all the suffer-
 
 THE; GOOD ARCHBISHOP. 187 
 
 ing, both for himself and for his country, around 
 which the gloomiest shadows seemed now to be gath- 
 ering, he had no thought of the Almighty unworthy 
 of his goodness. 
 
 In November, 1712, died another most dearly 
 loved and life-long friend, the Duke of Chevreuse, 
 opening up all his wounds afresh, as he says ; but 
 he adds, "God be praised, be it ours to adore his 
 impenetrable purposes!" In August, 1714, Fenelon 
 lost the last of that special group who had stuck to 
 him more closely than brothers, the Duke de Beau- 
 villiers. They had never met since he left Ver- 
 sailles, but their hearts were most closely knit. "Our 
 best friends," he wrote, "are the source of our 
 greatest sorrow and bitterness. One is tempted to 
 say that all good friends should wait and die on 
 the same day. Friendship will be the cause of my 
 death." 
 
 It was to be even so. His frame was feeble, and 
 these fierce attacks affected him severely.* In the 
 following November a carriage accident entailed 
 another shock to his system, from which he had 
 not strength to recover. In the month that followed, 
 his friends recognized that he was failing visibly. 
 On the first of January he was attacked by a sharp 
 fever, and it began to be evident that the end was 
 near. For the whole of the six days that remained 
 to him on earth he permitted only the reading of 
 the Holy Scriptures. Over and over they read to 
 him 2 Cor. iv and v, especially the part about the
 
 i88 FENELON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 "building of God, the house not made with hands, 
 eternal in the heavens." "Repeat that again," he 
 said more than once. Other texts of Scripture par- 
 ticularly suited to his condition were read to him 
 again and again. He would try to repeat them 
 himself with a failing voice, while his eyes and his 
 whole countenance were lighted up with a bright 
 expression of faith and love which the sacred words 
 inspired. Several times he asked those around to 
 repeat St. Martin's dying words, "Lord, if I am yet 
 necessary to Thy people I refuse not labor; Thy 
 will be done." 
 
 On the morning of the 4th he took the blessed 
 sacrament, being carried into the large state bed- 
 chamber for the purpose, and gathering about him 
 his attendants, to whom he spoke a few farewell 
 words of tender exhortation. On the 6th he re- 
 ceived extreme unction, as one about to depart. 
 And immediately after, bidding every one, save his 
 chaplain, leave the room, summoning all his 
 strength, he dictated to him a few lines addressed 
 to Pere Lachaise, the king's confessor. Being thus 
 about to appear before God, he said : "I have never 
 felt aught save docility to the Church and abhor- 
 rence of the novelties attributed to me. I accepted 
 the condemnation of my book with the most abso- 
 lute unreserve. Thiere never was a moment in my 
 life when I did not entertain the liveliest gratitude 
 and most honest zeal for the king's person, as also 
 the most inviolable respect and attachment. I wish
 
 THE GOOD ARCHBISHOP. 189 
 
 long- life for His Majesty, of whom both Church 
 and State have so great need. If it be permitted 
 me to come before the presence of God, I will con- 
 tinually ask this of Him." He makes in the letter 
 two requests of the king, neither of them for him- 
 self or his family: First, that he will appoint to 
 Cambrai a pious, worthy, orthodox prelate ; and 
 secondly, that he will allow the Cambrai seminary 
 to be intrusted to the Sulpician Fathers to whom he 
 owed so much. The rest of that day and the night 
 following he had much agony, and, in a feeble, 
 broken voice, said many times, "Thy will, not mine." 
 He was surrounded by those who loved him best, 
 his two favorite nephews, the Abbe de Beaumont 
 and the Marquis de Fenelon, arriving in haste from 
 Paris. He gave them all his blessing as long as he 
 could speak. He passed away peacefully, amid the 
 tears of all around, at quarter past five in the morn- 
 ing; aged sixty-three years, five months, and one 
 day. 
 
 He was buried in the cathedral of Cambrai, with 
 every tribute of honor and respect, but with all sim- 
 plicity and without ostentation, as he himself di- 
 rected. In his will, dated May 5, 1705, he wrote, 
 after declaring that he cherished no thought con- 
 cerning those who had attacked him save those of 
 prayer and brotherly love : "I wish my burial to be 
 in the metropolitical church at Cambrai, as simple as 
 may be, and with the least possible expenditure. 
 This is not a mere conventional expression of humil-
 
 190 FENEI.ON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 ity, but because I think the money laid out on 
 funerals other than simple had better be kept for 
 more useful purposes ; and also I think the modesty 
 of a bishop's funeral should set the example to the 
 laity and lead them to diminish useless outlay in 
 their burial arrangements." The last clause says: 
 "While I love my family deeply, and am aware of 
 the needy state of their affairs, I do not think it 
 right to leave anything to them. Ecclesiastical 
 property is not meant to support family wants, and 
 should not pass out of the hands of those who min- 
 ister in the Church." It was found, when his af- 
 fairs were settled up, that after administering for 
 twenty years the great income of his office, which 
 was at his own absolute disposal, he ended a life of 
 persistent and rigorous self-denial with no money 
 in his coffers, and no debts to any man. His public 
 and private life had been ruled by the fundamental 
 principle which he did not fear to proclaim again 
 and again as his conception of truest patriotism : "I 
 love my family better than myself ; I love my coun- 
 try better than my family; I love the human race 
 better than my country." All his days declared, 
 also, that he loved God best of all. 
 
 He stood for union with the Divine. He lived 
 ever in the eye of the All-Searcher. All his 
 thoughts and actions had been ruled by the purpose 
 to be perfectly pleasing unto Him. He had, no 
 doubt, failed at some points. He was ever ready to 
 confess it, and lament his weaknesses; for he was
 
 THE GOOD ARCHBISHOP. 191 
 
 human. But not many of mortal frame ever kept 
 more steadily before them from youth to age the 
 high endeavor to be as much as possible like Christ. 
 Neither disgrace nor disappointment daunted him. 
 The failure of earthly ambitions only impressed 
 en him the more that he had a message for man- 
 kind that was above such things. And though there 
 were probably not many in his generation that were 
 ready to receive his lofty words, though there are 
 even now not many who are prepared to accept fully 
 his sublime teachings and follow him as he fol- 
 lowed the Master, yet there will always be an in- 
 ward witness in the hearts of some of every age 
 that responds to such voices, and leaps with joy at 
 the summons to put everything away, that God may 
 take full possession of His own. He was absorbed 
 in the hot pursuit of highest holiness. On this his 
 strength was concentrated. Only thus did he at- 
 tain the success that was vouchsafed him. The 
 spiritual life was to him the only real life. The 
 Presence Divine was ever with him. The Spirit of 
 God filled his heart. 
 
 During the outrages of the French Revolution, 
 in 1793, when the graves of the dead were being 
 brutally violated by order of the government with 
 wanton cruelty and savage merriment, and the 
 bodies of the great and noble, the learned and pious, 
 were being scattered to the four winds, an order 
 from government reached Cambrai directing that 
 all the leaden coffins that were there be sent to the
 
 192 FNEU>N: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 arsenal at Douay to be converted into instruments 
 of warfare. The agents proceeded to the Metropol- 
 itan Cathedral, entered the vault under the altar, 
 took away the bodies of others, but left the remains 
 of Fenelon ; not designedly, it would seem, for they 
 had no veneration for the talents and virtues of the 
 illustrious prelate ; not accidentally, for what men 
 call chance is only the providence of God. It was 
 the counsel of unerring wisdom that issued the 
 commission, "Touch not mine anointed and do my 
 prophet no harm." There are official documents 
 describing the finding of the body afterwards by 
 the mayor of Cambrai. The remains, in a fair state 
 of preservation, were reverently sealed up and re- 
 placed in the vault. In 1800 the Emperor Napo- 
 leon ordered that "a monument or mausoleum be 
 erected to receive the ashes of the immortal Fene- 
 lon;" to which they were to be transferred in due 
 time. This was probably not carried out, as the 
 existing monument to Fenelon is in the new cathe- 
 dral of the date of 1825. But his chief monument 
 is in the hearts of men, in the veneration and affec- 
 tion felt for him by the whole of Christ's Church 
 without distinction of name, and in the gratitude of 
 the many, many souls who have been helped on 
 their heavenward journey by his strong, wise words 
 and beautiful example.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 THE SPIRITUAL LETTERS. 
 
 IT is fitting that we conclude this sketch of 
 Fenelon with some account of his writings, be- 
 cause it is so largely through them that he lives to- 
 day. The most complete collection of his works, is- 
 sued from Paris between 1820 and 1830, is in thirty- 
 four volumes, 8vo, of which eleven volumes are 
 given to the correspondence. Many of these lit- 
 erary labors have been translated into English; for 
 instance, the treatise on the "Education of Daugh- 
 ters," the "Dialogues on Eloquence," the "Demon- 
 stration of the Existence of God," and the "Spiritual 
 Letters." The last has by far the greatest impor- 
 tance at the present time, has indeed an importance 
 for all time. But before taking it up, a few words 
 concerning some of his other productions will be in 
 place. 
 
 While he was superior at the institution for the 
 New Catholics, in 1687 or 1688, he wrote a treatise 
 on the authority of the priesthood or the dogma of 
 the Apostolical Succession, of course defending it; 
 which established his reputation as a writer, and 
 attracted the notice of the king. Much more im- 
 portant was his work on the "Education of Girls ;" 
 
 1 13 193
 
 194 PENNON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 this has been sufficiently dwelt upon in the first 
 chapter. A treatise on the "Existence of God" was 
 begun in these earlier years, but leisure did not seem 
 to be found for its full development. Even the first 
 part was not published till 1712, and the second 
 did not see the light until three years after his death. 
 It is of little value now, but it made a strong im- 
 pression on the metaphysical philosophers of the 
 eighteenth century, and is especially praised by 
 Thomas Reid. His "Dialogues on Eloquence," 
 with special reference to that of the pulpit (an ad- 
 mirable treatise on oratory), was not published at 
 all until after his death ; neither was his "Refutation 
 of Malebranche," his "Letters to the King," treatise 
 on the "Authority of the Sovereign Pontiff," "Ques- 
 tions for Self-Examination on the Duties of a 
 King," "Letters on Religion" to the Duke of Or- 
 leans, "Plans of Government," and "Letter to the 
 Academy." The latter, written a few months be- 
 fore his death, constitutes his answer to the chief 
 literary questions of his age, and treats more es- 
 pecially of the controversy between the Classic and 
 Romantic Schools. He was a thoroughgoing 
 Classicist, an Ancient of the Ancients, insisting on 
 the study of Greek as a panacea for most literary 
 diseases. He has also in the letter a chapter on 
 the "Art of Writing History," making symmetry the 
 first requirement, and impartiality next. In his eyes 
 a history was a work of art, with something in it 
 of the epic poem. He suggested, furthermore, that
 
 THE SPIRITUAL LETTERS. 195 
 
 the Academy should devote itself to a detailed ex- 
 amination of the standard works in the French lan- 
 guage, and prepare popular editions with notes. 
 
 All Fenelon's writings, it may be said, show 
 much grandeur and delicacy of sentiment, great fer- 
 tility of genius, a correct taste, and excited sensi- 
 bility. A poetical character appears in them all. 
 By assiduous study the works of the best writers 
 of antiquity were familiar to him, and his intimate 
 acquaintance with their productions furnished him 
 a resource in every vicissitude of life; they were 
 his ornament in prosperity, his comfort in adversity. 
 The charm of his manner in society is largely com- 
 municated to the products of his pen. They abound 
 in passages of splendor and pathos, but their chief 
 excellence is in their tender simplicity, by which 
 the reader's heart is irresistibly drawn to the writer. 
 
 Of much higher rank in a literary point of view 
 than any of those previously mentioned was his 
 "Adventures of Telemachus ; or, The Education of 
 a Prince." It is a fabulous narrative in the form of 
 a heroic poem, in which he sets down the truths 
 most necessary to be known by one about to reign ; 
 and the faults that cling most closely to sovereign 
 power are also fully described. It was composed by 
 Fenelon while he was preceptor to the royal dukes, 
 and designed exclusively for their instruction; 
 "written at chance moments, hurriedly, and piece 
 by piece," says the author, "sent to the press by an 
 unfaithful copyist, and never intended for the
 
 196 FENEXON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 world." He insisted that he did not borrow from 
 real persons, or sketch in the characters of his own 
 time. This was undoubtedly true; but no human 
 power could convince Louis XIV that it was so, 
 and the unauthorized publication of it in 1698, just 
 when the Quietist controversy was at its height, 
 was extremely unfortunate for Fenelon, and filled 
 the king's cup of wrath to overflowing. He had 
 been more than sufficiently embittered before, but 
 after this there was not the slightest hope of recon- 
 ciliation; for the book is an idealistic portrayal of 
 a commonwealth where virtue has its own again, 
 where there is no tyranny, where the king is the 
 father of all his people and the chief servant of the 
 State, where duty is lifted far above rights, and 
 justice is supreme. Since nothing could be more 
 opposite to all this than the character and conduct 
 of King Louis, it is no wonder that he took it as a 
 personal insult and a deliberate satire. In every 
 part of it disrespectful mention is made of ambi- 
 tion, of extensive conquests, of military fame, of 
 magnificence, and of almost everything else which 
 Louis considered as the glory of his reign. While 
 the author must be acquitted of any intention to 
 affront the monarch, which would have been most 
 ungrateful and most ridiculous, it is evident that 
 he must have had unconsciously in mind the prin- 
 cipal actors in the scenes around him, was wholly 
 out of sympathy with them, and was -training the 
 young princes on a totally different model. The
 
 THE SPIRITUAL LETTERS. 197 
 
 book, suppressed, of course, in Paris, was brought 
 out at once in Holland, and became everywhere the 
 rage, immensely popular all over Europe, and, even 
 to the present day, much read. It has stood the test 
 of two centuries of existence, has been translated 
 into many languages, and has made his name fa- 
 miliar to those whom he could not otherwise have 
 touched. Nevertheless, the effect of its publication 
 on his fortunes at that time was exceedingly disas- 
 trous, and his enemies made the utmost use of it 
 against him. 
 
 "The Explanation of the Maxims of the Saints 
 on the Interior Life," and the great part it played in 
 Fenelon's career has been already referred to in a 
 previous chapter. The reader will enjoy getting a 
 little fuller idea of its contents. Dr. T. C. Upham 
 devoted forty-five pages to summarizing, in a free 
 translation; the forty-five articles constituting the 
 book, and the following extracts are taken from his 
 work, now out of print: 
 
 "Pure love is mixed love carried to its true re- 
 sult. When this result is attained, the motive of 
 God's glory so expands itself, and so fills the mind, 
 that the other motive, that of our own happiness, be- 
 comes so small and so recedes from our inward no- 
 tice as to be practically annihilated. It is then that 
 God becomes what He ever ought to be, the center 
 of the soul, to which all its affections tend ; the great 
 moral sun of the soul, from which all its light and 
 all its warmth proceed. It is then that a man thinks
 
 198 FENELON: THE; MYSTIC. 
 
 no more of himself. He has become the man of a 
 single eye. His own happiness and all that regards 
 himself are entirely lost sight of, in his simple and 
 fixed look to God's will and God's glory." 
 
 "When the sun shines the stars disappear. 
 When God is in the soul, who can think of himself ? 
 So that we love God and God alone ; and all other 
 things in and for God." 
 
 "The second state, which follows that of holy 
 resignation, is that of holy indifference. Such a 
 soul not only desires and wills in submission, but 
 absolutely ceases either to desire or to will, except 
 in co-operation with the Divine leading. Its desires 
 for itself, as it has greater light, are more com- 
 pletely and permanently merged in the one higher 
 and more absorbing desire of God's glory, and the 
 fulfillment of His will. It desires and wills, there- 
 fore, only what God desires and wills." 
 
 "Holy indifference is not inactivity. It is the 
 furthest possible from it. It is indifference to any- 
 thing and everything out of God's will ; but it is the 
 highest life and activity to everything in that will." 
 
 "One of the principles in the doctrine of holy 
 living is, that we should not be premature in draw- 
 ing the conclusion that the process of inward cruci- 
 fixion is complete, and that our abandonment to God 
 is without any reservation whatever. The act of 
 consecration, which is a sort of incipient step, may 
 be sincere; but the reality of the consecration in 
 the full extent to which we suppose it to exist, and
 
 THE; SPIRITUAL LETTERS. 199 
 
 which may properly be described as abandonment 
 or entire self-renunciation, can be known only when 
 God has applied the appropriate tests. We can not 
 know whether we have renounced ourselves, except 
 by being tried on those very points to which our 
 self-renunciation relates. The trial will show 
 whether or not we are wholly the Lord's. Those 
 who prematurely draw the conclusion that they are 
 so, expose themselves to great illusion and injury." 
 
 "Those in the highest state of religious experi- 
 ence desire nothing except that God may be glorified 
 in them by the accomplishment of His holy will." 
 
 "Their continual life of love, which refers every- 
 thing to God, and identifies everything with His 
 will, is essentially a life of continual prayer." 
 
 "The will of God is their ultimate and only rule 
 of action." 
 
 "The most advanced souls are those which are 
 most possessed with the thoughts and the presence 
 of Christ." 
 
 "The soul in the state of pure love acts in sim- 
 plicity. Its inward rule of action is found in the 
 decisions of a sanctified judgment. These decisions, 
 based upon judgments that are free from self-inter- 
 est, may not always be absolutely right, because our 
 views and judgments, being limited, can extend only 
 to things in part ; but they may be said to be rela- 
 tively right; they conform to things so far as we 
 are permitted to see them and understand them, and 
 convey to the soul a moral assurance that, when we
 
 200 FENELON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 act in accordance with them, we are doing as God 
 would have us do." 
 
 We come now to the "Spiritual Letters," which 
 have been called, not unadvisedly, "the most per- 
 fect things of their kind anywhere to be found." 
 They were written to a very large number of cor- 
 respondents, both men and women, on the impulse 
 of the moment, and without the least thought of 
 publication. Hence they become all the more the 
 most authentic revelation of his inmost mind, a 
 necessary and integral part of his character. He 
 wrote as he would have spoken, suiting himself to 
 the knowledge of his hearers, aiming at simplicity 
 rather than ornament, but not disdaining homely 
 similes so far as they will make his meaning plain. 
 He draws freely and constantly upon his own ex- 
 perience, so that the letters are a reflection of him- 
 self, as well as a storehouse of practical religion. 
 Helpful counsel may be found in them for nearly 
 all situations in life and on nearly all topics that 
 are most closely connected with Christian living. 
 For though the persons to whom he wrote were 
 usually in the higher circles dukes, counts, lords, 
 ladies, soldiers, courtiers, and priests nevertheless, 
 they were always men and women, wives and 
 mothers, with human hearts and much the same 
 temptations to combat that come to common people 
 in the present age. The letters were written to meet 
 the individual needs of very real persons, written 
 out of a warm heart and by a mind stored with the
 
 THE; SPIRITUAL LETTERS. 201 
 
 lore of the Church on these subjects, as well as 
 gifted with unusual powers of discernment. Fene- 
 lon was a consummate director of consciences; he 
 moved through life heavily incumbered with the 
 wants of others, carrying many burdens and tax- 
 ing all his great powers to meet the ever-recurring 
 needs of a multitude of perplexed and hungering 
 spirits. 
 
 Those who peruse the epistles will readily per- 
 ceive that they present a very high ideal, yet we do 
 not think they can fairly be pronounced harsh. He 
 does not speak in a tone of asperity. He saw far 
 into the human heart, looked with a piercing eye 
 through the disguises of sin, could follow with un- 
 exampled clearness the turnings and twistings and 
 lurkings of selfishness. Though the severest of cen- 
 sors, he is at the same time the most pitying. He 
 regards human error with indulgent tenderness, and 
 weeps over it as Jesus wept over Jerusalem. Echoes 
 of the Stoic philosophers Marcus Aurelius, Epic- 
 tetus, Seneca will undoubtedly be found in these" 
 letters. Indeed, a very considerable and rather 
 curious parallel has been drawn between Fenelon 
 and Seneca ; which only shows the permanence of 
 the principles that regulate the union between God 
 and the soul under all skies and creeds. There is a 
 close similarity between these letters and those of 
 Francis of Sales, who wrote on the same themes ; 
 for the two saw eye to eye. The effusions of either 
 Francis, although adapted primarily to a different
 
 FENE^ON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 communion and time, can be recommended almost 
 unqualifiedly to-day to that small class it will al- 
 ways be a small class who set themselves, with 
 an aroused intelligence, a high appreciation of the 
 nature of the task before them, and an intense de- 
 termination, to realize, through all available and 
 appointed means, the closest possible approximation 
 to perfect union with the Divine. 
 
 Our criticisms of Fenelon's letters are but few, 
 and yet a little note of warning should undoubtedly 
 be sounded. No one should read them who is not 
 prepared to think for himself, to use a vigorous 
 common-sense, and to select for entire observance 
 only those precepts which commend themselves to 
 his mind as being in complete accord with the Scrip- 
 ture and with the most judicious of other spiritual 
 advisers. Almost everything he finds will, we be- 
 lieve, thus commend itself. But there will be an 
 occasional use of language before which he will 
 pause and make a note of question or dissent. There 
 will be unguarded expressions which need explana- 
 tion. Perhaps the chief words which he will find 
 cause to challenge will be those of most frequent oc- 
 currence self and self-love. Fenelon does not use 
 these terms quite accurately, and whoever takes 
 them literally will be led into trouble. Where he 
 says self-love he almost always means selfishness, 
 which, in our modern nomenclature, is quite a dif- 
 ferent thing, being the inordinate, excessive, or for- 
 bidden love of self, such a regard for the interests
 
 THE SPIRITUAL LETTERS. 203 
 
 and rights of self as disregards the interests and 
 rights of other people. This latter is always wrong, 
 of course. But self-love, strictly speaking, is in 
 itself right, perfectly innocent, and of great im- 
 portance to retain. It is essential to our preserva- 
 tion and prosperity, one of the most vital ingredients 
 in our constitution. Fenelon, we think, never recog- 
 nizes this meaning of the word, never seems to 
 know that we have very important, imperative du- 
 ties to self, as well as to our neighbor and to God. 
 Either he was not familiar with these distinctions so 
 common in ethics now, or he was so profoundly 
 impressed with the danger of overdoing self-love 
 that he did not deem it well to recognize this duty 
 at all. But that surely is a mistake, and with some, 
 minds tends to become a very harmful one, leading 
 straight on to fanaticism. 
 
 He is never tired of insisting on the absolute 
 necessity for the death of self, the destruction of 
 self. But this phrase will not stand critical ex- 
 amination. The peril which always lurks in figures 
 of speech, and the tendency to exaggerate which so 
 frequently besets devotional writers of the intense 
 mystic type, is very manifest here. Such writers 
 put forward their extreme statements with a lauda- 
 ble desire to make a deep impression on the callous 
 sensibilities of the average reader, and with the idea, 
 perhaps, that large deduction will be made in the 
 practical application of their precepts. But many 
 find in this an excuse for throwing the whole sub-
 
 204 FENEXON : THE MYSTIC. 
 
 ject impatiently aside. We are convinced that it is 
 better in such things to state the exact truth with 
 all carefulness and with as few misleading figures 
 of speech as possible. There is certainly an ethical 
 limit to our right of self-abnegation and self-impar- 
 tation. Benevolence has its moral bounds in holi- 
 ness. A man's life finds its largest fulfillment, not 
 in weakly assimilating itself to the wishes of those 
 around it, but in giving forth some new and charac- 
 teristic expression of the life of God. The notions. 
 or even the needs, of one's neighbors are not the 
 highest standard of right living. Every man holds 
 himself in trust for his Creator, and must do his 
 best to manifest that Creator, not necessarily ac- 
 cording to the conception most prevalent in his im- 
 mediate circle, but according to the mandate which 
 has been laid on him. It is this thought which gives 
 the profoundest value to his existence and lifts him 
 above too great dependence on popular standards. 
 And it is this thought, properly carried out, which 
 shows how much of unreason there is in the declara- 
 tion that self must be totally forgotten, renounced, 
 annihilated. 
 
 No person is justified in doing anything of this 
 sort. Self-preservation and self-protection, self- 
 respect and self-esteem, self-defense and self-de- 
 velopment are manifest duties. It may readily be 
 granted that they are not in any great danger of 
 neglect from the ordinary or average individual. 
 But the extraordinary individual, if wrongly in-
 
 THE SPIRITUAL LETTERS. 205 
 
 structed, filled with a zeal not according to knowl- 
 edge, keenly conscientious, morbidly scrupulous, 
 keyed up to an unnatural pitch and straining after 
 an impossible ideal, may do himself much harm and 
 go far astray. To overdo is often as bad as to un- 
 derdo, and causes undoing. 
 
 Denunciations of selfishness are always in order, 
 but its boundaries are not so easily defined. Self- 
 love the instinctive desire or tendency that leads 
 one to seek to promote his own well-being, a due 
 care for one's own happiness, essential to high en- 
 deavor and perfectly compatible with justice, gen- 
 erosity, and benevolence is a component part of 
 our nature, and must be carefully safeguarded. To 
 talk about its annihilation or eradication is to talk 
 foolishness ; and to attempt such eradication is to fly 
 in the face of nature; that is, of God. The whole 
 question, then, between selfishness and self-love is 
 one of degree and adjustment and relative rights. 
 No absolute hard-and-fast line can be drawn. One 
 must use his best judgment, enlightened from all 
 possible sources, as to what in any given case duty 
 to self and duty to others demands. And that judg- 
 ment he must follow, even when it materially dif- 
 fers from the opinion of those who may criticise his 
 conduct. There is no virtue in wasting one's self 
 on impossible tasks. Self-sacrifice is never ethical 
 if it be a willful spending of self to no purpose. 
 One may do a serious wrong to himself, and confer 
 no real good on any one else, by following the Iea4
 
 206 FENBXON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 of generous, uncalculating, unthinking impulses. 
 The exhortation never to think about one's self is 
 thoroughly mischievous, and can only lead to fanat- 
 icism and discouragement. 
 
 Self-control, not self-annihilation or extirpation, 
 is the duty of the Christian. A man has perfect self- 
 control when his highest powers hold the lower in 
 subjection with perfect ease, and are themselves in 
 complete harmony with the will of God. He is per- 
 fectly free from selfishness who gives to self only 
 that degree of attention and care which is due, and 
 in no way infringes on any of the rights of others. 
 And he who is keenly desirous of doing this, bear- 
 ing in mind his natural bias the wrong way, will 
 deem it the safer course to go a little beyond what 
 may seem the due limit. But it is not selfish to be 
 manly, or to insist on being permitted to work out 
 one's calling according to the clear, conscious sum- 
 mons from on high. Self-will so much inveighed 
 against is right, since it is a necessary component 
 part of selfhood. Without self-will and self-con- 
 sciousness there can be no self; in other words, we 
 cease to be, and are non-existent. Masterfulness 
 should be distinguished from willfulness ; the former 
 is not sinful, but a most desirable thing in this world 
 where leadership is so essential to progress. A self- 
 ish will, one at any point divergent from the will of 
 God, so far as we know or can ascertain, is always 
 wrong. To tell where egoism ends and altruism be- 
 gins in our relations with our fellow-men is far from
 
 THE SPIRITUAL LETTERS. 207 
 
 easy ; but it is ever blessed to become absorbed in a 
 great cause, and supremely noble to have 3 as the 
 highest object in life the glory of God. 
 
 Some exceptions must be taken to a few other 
 extreme statements of Fenelon, in which he fol- 
 lows other mistaken writers. The language of such 
 teachers on humility is overstrained and really 
 false, likely to do harm. Fenelon says, for example 
 "Those who are truly humble always take the low- 
 est place, rejoicing when they are despised, and 
 considering every one superior to themselves. We 
 may judge of the advancement we have in humility 
 by the delight we have in humiliation and con- 
 tempt." His motto was, "Ama nesciri" Love to 
 be unknown. Kempis wrote much of this same sort. 
 And John Fletcher of Madeley was constantly of- 
 fering up the prayer which we have in Charles Wes- 
 ley's couplet, 
 
 " Make me little and unknown, 
 Loved and prized by God alone." 
 
 To desire to be despised, thought meanly of, ac- 
 counted as naught, we can not recognize as a fruit 
 of grace in a healthy mind rightly apprehensive of 
 the vast importance to usefulness of a good repu- 
 tation. To think of ourselves more highly than we 
 ought to think is wrong, but so is it wrong to think 
 of ourselves less highly than we ought. The truth 
 above all things, facts at any cost whether to our- 
 selves or other people, is the better attitude. No
 
 ao8 FENEXON : THE MYSTIC. 
 
 gain can come from falsity on the one side, any 
 more trian on the other. To delight unspeakably in 
 the will of God, even when it involves contempt 
 from those who misunderstand our position, is not 
 the same as delighting in contempt itself. To insist 
 on the lowest place when our recognized and lawful 
 place is higher, would be neither wise nor edifying. 
 Fenelon himself took his proper place as archbishop 
 in the cathedral and palace and elsewhere, without 
 diminution from his humility. He showed the lat- 
 ter in his hospital work, and in his familiar relations 
 with those of lower rank. 
 
 A little too much is made in some places of the 
 importance of silence. There is not sufficient recog- 
 nition of the fact that some are in great danger of 
 speaking too little, that there are idle silences as 
 well as idle words. The stress laid upon listening 
 to the interior voice is also carried somewhat be- 
 yond bounds, and needs counterbalancing by the 
 warning that it is very easy to mistake the utter- 
 ances of our own spirits for those of the Spirit of 
 God, the products of a vain imagination for the 
 products of Divine direction. Many have been sadly 
 misled at this point. We need not perhaps specify 
 other strained and unbalanced remarks. There are 
 not many of them, and it would be unjust to make 
 too much of them; but it is also unsafe to ignore 
 them altogether. The letters are all the better in 
 that they demand reflection from the reader, and 
 are not to be taken up in a wooden way as though
 
 THE SPIRITUAL LETTERS. 209 
 
 they were infallible. Properly perused, with prayer 
 and meditation, they can not fail to be of immense 
 service to the inquiring mind and the devotional 
 spirit. There is nothing better as a stimulus to 
 those with lofty aspirations seeking for guidance as 
 to how best they may reach the heights. 
 
 A few extracts from the letters, all that our 
 space permits, are furnished, that the reader's appe- 
 tite may be whetted for the feast to be found in 
 larger volumes^ And we can not better close this 
 unpretentious, but we hope useful, little book than 
 with some of the glowing paragraphs that have 
 already done so much good in the world, and are 
 destined to do so much more as the centuries roll : 
 
 EASY WAYS o$ DIVINE LOVE. 
 Christian perfection is not that rigorous, tedious, 
 cramping thing that many imagine. It demands 
 only an entire surrender of everything to God, from 
 the depths of the soul; and the moment this takes 
 place, whatever is done for Him becomes easy. 
 They who are God's without reserve are in every 
 state content ; for they will only what He wills, and 
 desire to do for Him whatever He desires them to 
 do. They strip themselves of everything, and in 
 this nakedness find all things a hundred-fold. Peace 
 of conscience, liberty of spirit, the sweet abandon- 
 ment of themselves and theirs into the hands of 
 God, the joy of perceiving the light always increas- 
 ing in their hearts, and, finally, the freedom of their 
 14
 
 2io FENELON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 souls from the bondage of the fears and desires of 
 this world, these things constitute that return of 
 happiness which the true children of God receive a 
 hundred-fold in the midst of their crosses while 
 they remain faithful. 
 
 What God requires of us is a will which is no 
 longer divided between Him and any creature; a 
 simple pliable state of will, which desires what He 
 desires, rejects nothing but what He rejects, wills 
 without reserve what He wills, and under no pre- 
 text wills what He does not. In this state of mind 
 all things are proper for us ; our amusements, even, 
 are acceptable in His sight. 
 
 No matter what crosses may overwhelm the true 
 child of God, he wills everything that happens, and 
 would not have anything removed that his Father 
 appoints; the more he loves God, the more is he 
 filled with content; and the most stringent perfec- 
 tion, far from being a burden, only renders his yoke 
 the lighter. 
 
 THE DIVINE PRESENCE. 
 
 The true source of all our perfection is con- 
 tained in the command of God to Abraham, "Walk 
 before me and be thou perfect." (Gen. xvii, I.) The 
 presence of God calms the soul, and gives it quiet 
 and repose, even during the day and in the midst 
 of occupation; but we must be given up to God 
 without reserve. 
 
 Whenever we perceive within us anxious desires
 
 SPIRITUAL LETTERS. 211 
 
 for anything, whatever it may be, and find that na- 
 ture is hurrying us with too much haste to do what- 
 ever is to be done, whether it be to say something, 
 see something, or do something, let us stop short 
 and repress the precipitancy of our thoughts and 
 the agitation of our actions; for God has said that 
 His Spirit does not dwell in disquiet. 
 
 An excellent means of preserving our interior 
 solitude and liberty of soul is to make it a rule to 
 put an end at the close of every action to all reflec- 
 tions upon it, all reflex acts of self-love, whether 
 of a vain joy or sorrow. 
 
 Let us be accustomed to recollect ourselves, dur- 
 ing the day and in the midst of our occupations, by 
 a simple view of God. Let us silence by that means 
 all the movements of our heart, when they appear 
 in the least agitated. Let us separate ourselves from 
 all that does not come from God. Let us suppress 
 our superfluous thoughts and reveries. Let us utter 
 no useless word. Let us seek God within us, and 
 we shall find Him without fail, and with Him joy 
 and peace. 
 
 Let us be careful not to suffer ourselves to be 
 overwhelmed by the multiplicity of our exterior 
 operations, be they what they may. Let us en- 
 deavor to commence every enterprise with a pure 
 view to the glory of God, continue it without dis- 
 traction, and finish it without impatience. The in- 
 tervals of relaxation and amusement are the most 
 dangerous for us, and perhaps the most useful for
 
 212 FENEXON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 others ; we must then be on our guard that we be as 
 faithful as possible to the presence of God. We can 
 never employ our leisure hours better than in re- 
 freshing our spiritual strength by a secret and in- 
 timate communion with God. Prayer is so neces- 
 sary and the source of so many blessings, that he 
 who has discovered the treasure can not be pre- 
 vented from having recourse to it whenever he has 
 an opportunity. 
 
 INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 Do not suffer yourself to get excited by what is 
 said about you. Let the world talk. Do you strive 
 to do the will of God ; as for that of men, you would 
 never succeed in doing it to their satisfaction, and 
 it is not worth the pains. 
 
 Let the water flow beneath the bridge. Let men 
 be men ; that is to say, weak, vain, inconsistent, un- 
 just, false, and presumptuous. Let the world be 
 the world still; you can not prevent it. Let every 
 one follow his own inclination and habits: you can 
 not recast them, and the best course is to let them 
 be as they are and bear with them. Do not think it 
 strange when you witness unreasonableness and in- 
 justice ; rest in peace in the bosom of God : He sees 
 it all more clearly than you do, and yet permits it. 
 Be content to do quietly and gently what it becomes 
 you to do, and let everything else be to you as 
 though it were not. 
 
 As long as the world is anything to us, so long
 
 THE SPIRITUAL LETTERS. 213 
 
 our freedom is but a word, and we are as easily 
 captured as a bird whose leg is fastened by a thread. 
 He seems to be free ; the string is not visible, but he 
 can fly only its length, and he is a prisoner. 
 
 Do not be vexed at what people say. Let them 
 speak while you endeavor to do the will of God. A 
 little silence, peace, and communion with God will 
 compensate you for all the injustice of men. We 
 must love our fellow-beings without depending on 
 their friendship. They leave us, they return, and 
 they go from us again. Let them go or come; it 
 is the feather blown about by the wind. Fix your 
 attention upon God alone in your connection with 
 them. It is He alone who, through them, consoles 
 or afflicts you. 
 
 Possess your soul in patience. Renew often 
 within you the feeling of the presence of God, that 
 you may learn moderation. There is nothing truly 
 great but lowliness, charity, fear of ourselves, and 
 detachment from the dominion of sense. Accustom 
 yourself gradually to carry prayer into your daily 
 occupations. Speak, move, act in peace as if you 
 were in prayer. Do everything without eagerness 
 as if by the Spirit of God. As soon as you perceive 
 your natural impetuosity impelling you, retire into 
 the sanctuary where dwells the Father of spirits ; 
 listen to what you hear there ; and then neither say 
 nor do anything but what He dictates in your heart. 
 You will find that you will become more tranquil, 
 that your words will be fewer and more to the pur-
 
 214 FENELON: THE MYSTIC 
 
 pose, and that with less effort you will accomplish 
 more good. When the heart is fixed on God it can 
 easily accustom itself to suspend the natural move- 
 ments of ardent feeling, and to wait for the favor- 
 able moment when the voice within may speak. This 
 is the continual sacrifice of self, and the life of 
 faith. 
 
 THE FAULTS OF OTHERS. 
 
 Perfection is easily tolerant of the imperfections 
 of others; it becomes all things to all men. We 
 must not be surprised at the greatest defects in good 
 souls, and must quietly let them alone until God 
 gives the signal of gradual removal; otherwise we 
 shall pull up the wheat with the tares. 
 
 They who correct others ought to watch the 
 moment when God touches their hearts; we must 
 bear a fault with patience till we perceive His Spirit 
 reproaching them within. We must imitate Him 
 who gently reproves, so that they feel that it is less 
 God that condemns them than their own hearts. 
 When we blame with impatience, because we are 
 displeased with the fault, it is a human censure and 
 not the disapprobation of God. It is a sensitive self- 
 love that can not forgive the self-love of others. 
 The more self-love we have, the more severe our 
 censures. There is nothing so vexatious as the col- 
 lisions between one excessive self-love and another 
 still more violent and excessive. The passions of 
 others are infinitely ridiculous to those who are 
 under the dominion of their own. The ways of
 
 THE; SPIRITUAL LETTERS. 215 
 
 God are very different. He is ever full of kindness 
 for us; He gives us strength; He regards us with 
 pity and condescension; He remembers our weak- 
 ness ; He waits for us. 
 
 I am very sorry for the imperfections you find 
 in human beings, but you must learn to expect but 
 little from them; this is the only security against 
 disappointment. We must receive from them what 
 they are able to give us, as from trees the fruits 
 that they yield. God bears with imperfect beings 
 even when they resist His goodness. We ought to 
 imitate this merciful patience and endurance. It 
 is only imperfection that complains of what is im- 
 perfect. The more perfect we are, the more gentle 
 and quiet we become toward the defects of others. 
 
 The defects of our neighbors interfere with our 
 own ; our vanity is wounded by that of another ; our 
 own haughtiness finds our neighbor's ridiculous and 
 insupportable; our restlessness is rebuked by the 
 sluggishness and indolence of this person; our 
 gloom is disturbed by the gayety 'and frivolity of 
 that person; and our heedlessness by the shrewd- 
 ness and address of another. If we were faultless 
 we should not be so much annoyed by the defects 
 of those with whom we associate. If we were to 
 acknowledge honestly that we have not virtue 
 enough to bear patiently with our neighbor's weak- 
 nesses, we should show our own imperfection, and 
 this alarms our vanity. We therefore make our 
 weakness pass for strength, elevate it to a virtue,
 
 216 FENELON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 4 
 
 and call it zeal. For it is not surprising to see how 
 tranquil we are about the errors of others when they 
 do not trouble us, and how soon this wonderful zeal 
 kindles against those who excite our jealousy or 
 weary our patience. 
 
 NOT PERFECT IN A MOMENT. 
 
 Neither in His gracious nor providential dealings 
 does God work a miracle lightly. It would be as 
 great a wonder to see a person full of self become 
 in a moment dead to all self-interest and all sensi- 
 tiveness as it would be to see a slumbering infant 
 wake in the morning a fully developed man. God 
 works in a mysterious way in grace as well as in 
 nature, concealing His operations under an imper- 
 ceptible succession of events, and thus keeps us al- 
 ways in the darkness of faith. 
 
 He makes use of the inconstancy and ingratitude 
 of the creature, and of the disappointments and 
 surfeits which accompany prosperity, to detach us 
 from them both. All this dealing appears per- 
 fectly natural, and it is by this succession of natural 
 means that we are burnt as by a slow fire. We 
 should like to be consumed at once by the flames of 
 pure love; but such an end would cost us scarce 
 anything. It is only an excessive self-love that de- 
 sires thus to become perfect in a moment, and at so 
 cheap a rate. 
 
 We cling to an infinity of things which we never 
 suspect; we only feel that they are a part of us
 
 THE SPIRITUAL LETTERS. 217 
 
 when they are snatched away, as I am only con- 
 scious that I have hairs when they are pulled from 
 my head. God develops to us little by little what is 
 within us, of which we are until then entirely ig- 
 norant, and we are astonished at discovering in our 
 very virtues defects of which we should never have 
 believed ourselves capable. 
 
 God spares us by discovering our weakmess to 
 us in proportion as our strength to support the view 
 of it increases. We discover our imperfections one 
 by one as we are able to cure them. Without this 
 merciful preparation that adapts our strength to the 
 light within, we should be in despair. 
 
 To the sincere desire to do the will of God 
 we must add a cheerful spirit that is not overcome 
 when it has failed, but tries again and again to do 
 better ; hoping always to the very end to be able to 
 do it ; bearing with its own involuntary weakness as 
 God bears with it; waiting with patience for the 
 moment when it shall be delivered from it; going 
 straight on in singleness of heart according to the 
 strength that it can command; losing no time by 
 looking back, nor making useless reflections when it 
 falls, which can only embarrass and retard its prog- 
 ress. The first sight of our little failings should 
 humble us, but we must press on; not judging our- 
 selves with a Judaical rigor ; not regarding God as 
 a spy watching for our least offense, or as an enemy 
 who places snares in our path, but as a Father who 
 loves and wishes to save us; trusting in His good-
 
 2i8 FENELON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 ness, invoking His blessing, and doubting all other 
 support. This is true liberty. 
 
 HUMILITY. 
 
 The foundation of peace with all men is humility. 
 Pride is incompatible with pride; hence arise divi- 
 sions in the world. We must stifle all rising jeal- 
 ousies ; all little contrivances to promote our own 
 glory ; vain desires to please or to succeed, or to be 
 praised ; the fear of seeing others preferred to our- 
 selves; the anxiety to have our plans carried into 
 effect; the natural love of dominion and desire to 
 influence others. These rules are soon given, but 
 it is not so easy to observe them. With some people, 
 not only pride and hauteur render these duties very 
 difficult, but great natural sensitiveness makes the 
 practice of them nearly impossible, and, instead of 
 respecting their neighbor with a true feeling of 
 humility, all their charity amounts only to a sort 
 of compassionate toleration that nearly resembles 
 contempt. 
 
 Humility is the source of all true greatness; 
 pride is ever impatient, ready to be offended. He 
 who thinks nothing is due to him never thinks him- 
 self ill-treated ; true meekness is not mere tempera- 
 ment, for this is only softness or weakness. 
 
 There is no true and constant gentleness without 
 humility ; while we are so fond of ourselves we are 
 easily offended with others. Let us be persuaded 
 that nothing is due to us, and then nothing will dis-
 
 THE; SPIRITUAL LETTERS. 219 
 
 turb us. Let us often think of our own infirmities, 
 and we shall become indulgent toward those of 
 others. 
 
 DAILY FAULTS. 
 
 Little faults become great in our eyes in propor- 
 tion as the pure light of God increases in us, just 
 as the sun in rising reveals the true dimensions of 
 objects which were dimly and confusedly discov- 
 ered during the night. Be sure that, with the in- 
 crease of the inward light, the imperfections which 
 you have hitherto seen will be beheld as far greater 
 and more deadly in their foundations than you now 
 conceive them, and that you will witness, in addi- 
 tion, the development of a crowd of others, of the 
 existence of which you have not now the slightest 
 suspicion. You will find the weaknesses necessary 
 to deprive you of all confidence in your own 
 strength ; but this discovery, far from discouraging, 
 will but serve to destroy your self-reliance, and raze 
 to the ground the edifice of pride. 
 
 Our faults, even those most difficult to bear, will 
 all be of service to us if we make use of them for 
 our humiliation without relaxing our efforts to cor- 
 rect them. We must bear with ourselves without 
 either flattery or discouragement, a mean seldom at- 
 tained. Utter despair of ourselves, in consequence 
 of a conviction of our helplessness and unbounded 
 confidence in God, is the true foundation of the 
 spiritual edifice. 
 
 Discouragement is not a fruit of 1 ::mility, but
 
 220 FENELON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 of pride ; nothing can be worse. Suppose we have 
 stumbled, or even fallen, let us rise and run again ; 
 all our falls are useful if they strip us of a disas- 
 trous confidence in ourselves, while they do not take 
 away a humble and salutary trust in God. 
 
 Carefully purify your conscience from daily 
 faults; suffer no sin to dwell in your heart; small 
 as it may seem, it obscures the light of grace, weighs 
 down the soul, and hinders that constant communion 
 with Jesus Christ which it should be your pleasure 
 to cultivate ; you will become lukewarm, forget God, 
 and find yourself growing in attachment to the 
 creature. The great point is never to act in opposi- 
 tion to the inward light, but be willing to go as 
 far as God would have us. 
 
 MOTIVES. 
 
 God does not so much regard our actions as the 
 motives of love from which they spring, and the 
 pliability of our wills to His. Men judge our deeds 
 by their outward appearance ; with God, that which 
 is most dazzling in the eyes of men is of no account. 
 What He desires is a pure intention, a will ready 
 for anything and ever pliable in His hands, and an 
 honest abandonment of self; and all this can be 
 much more frequently manifested on small than on 
 extraordinary occasions ; there will also be much 
 less danger from pride, and the trial will be far 
 more searching. Indeed, it sometimes happens that 
 we find it harder to part with a trifle than with an
 
 THE SPIRITUAL LETTERS. 221 
 
 important interest; it may be more of a cross to 
 abandon a vain amusement than to bestow a large 
 sum in charity. 
 
 The greatest danger of all consists in this, that 
 by neglecting small matters the soul becomes ac- 
 customed to unfaithfulness. We grieve the Holy 
 Spirit, we return to ourselves, we think it a little 
 thing to be wanting toward God. On the other 
 hand, true love can see nothing small; everything 
 that can either please or displease God seems to be 
 great. Not that true love disturbs the soul with 
 scruples, but it puts no limit to its faithfulness; it 
 acts simply with God; and as it does not concern 
 itself about those things which God does not re- 
 quire from it, so it never hesitates an instant about 
 those which He does, be they great or small. 
 
 TRUE PRAYER. 
 
 True prayer is only another name for the love of 
 God. To pray is to desire but to desire what God 
 would have us desire. He who asks what he does 
 not from the bottom of his heart desire, is mistaken 
 in thinking that he prays. O how few there are who 
 pray ; for how few are they who desire what is truly 
 good! Crosses, external and internal humiliation, 
 renouncement of our own wills, the death of self, 
 and the establishment of God's throne upon the 
 ruins of self-love, these are indeed good. Not to 
 desire these is not to pray ; to desire them seriously, 
 soberly, constantly, and with reference to all the
 
 222 FENELON: THS MYSTIC. 
 
 details of life, this is true prayer. Alas! how 
 many souls full of self and of an imaginary desire 
 for perfection in the midst of hosts of voluntary 
 imperfections, have never yet uttered this true 
 prayer of the heart ! It is in reference to this that 
 St. Augustine says, "He that loveth little, prayeth 
 little ; he that loveth much, prayeth much." 
 
 Our intercourse with God resembles that with 
 a friend; at first there are a thousand things to be 
 told and as many to be asked ; but after a time these 
 diminish, while the pleasure of being together does 
 not. Everything has been said, but the satisfaction 
 of seeing each other, of feeling that one is near the 
 other, of reposing in the enjoyment of a pure and 
 sweet friendship, can be felt without conversation; 
 the silence is eloquent and mutually understood. 
 Each feels that the other is in perfect sympath) 
 with him, and that their two hearts are incessantly 
 poured out into each other, and constitute but one. 
 
 Those who have stations of importance to fill 
 have generally so many indispensable duties to per- 
 form that, without the greatest care in the manage- 
 ment of their time, none will be left to be alone with 
 God. If they have ever so little inclination to dis- 
 sipation, the hours that belong to God and their 
 neighbor disappear altogether. We must be firm 
 in observing our rules. This strictness seems ex- 
 cessive, but without it everything falls into con- 
 fusion ; we become dissipated, relaxed, and lose 
 strength; we insensibly separate from God, surren-
 
 THE SPIRITUAL LETTERS. 223 
 
 der ourselves to all our pleasures, and only then be- 
 gin to perceive that we have wandered when it is 
 almost hopeless to think of endeavoring to return. 
 
 THE HUMAN 
 
 True virtue and pure love reside in the will 
 alone. The question is not, What is the state of 
 our feelings? But, What is the condition of our 
 will? Let us will to have whatever we have, and 
 not to have whatever we have not. We would not 
 even be delivered from our sufferings, for it is 
 God's place to apportion to us our crosses and our 
 joys. In the midst of affliction we rejoice, as did 
 the apostles ; but it is not joy of the feelings, joy of 
 the will. The faithful soul has a will which is per- 
 fectly free ; it accepts without questioning whatever 
 bitter blessings God develops, wills them, loves them, 
 and embraces them; it would not be freed from 
 them if it could be accomplished by a simple wish ; 
 for such a wish would be an act originating in self 
 and contrary to its abandonment to Providence ; and 
 it is desirous that this abandonment should be abso- 
 lutely perfect. 
 
 The important question is, not how much you 
 enjoy religion, but whether you will whatever God 
 wills. The essence of virtue consists in the atti- 
 tude of the will. That kingdom of God which is 
 within us consists in our willing whatever God 
 wills, always, in everything, without reservation. 
 Thus nothing can ever come to pass against our
 
 224 FENEU>N: THE; MYSTIC. 
 
 i 
 
 wishes; for nothing can happen contrary to the 
 will of God. The interior life is the beginning of 
 the blessed peace of the saints, who eternally cry, 
 Amen, Alleluia! We adore, we praise, we bless 
 God in everything; we see Him incessantly, and 
 in all things His paternal hand is the sole object of 
 our contemplation. There are my longer any evils ; 
 for even the most terrible that can come upon us 
 work together for our good. Can the suffering that 
 God designs to purify us and make us worthy of 
 Himself be called an evil ? 
 
 Happy is he who never hesitates ; who fears only 
 that he follows with too little readiness ; who would 
 rather do too much against self than too little. 
 Blessed is he who, when asked for a sample, boldly 
 presents his entire stock and suffers God to cut 
 from the whole cloth. It is thought that this state 
 is a painful one. It is a mistake ; here is peace and 
 liberty; here the heart, detached from everything, 
 is immeasurably enlarged, so as to become illimita- 
 ble; nothing cramps it; and, in accordance with 
 the promise, it becomes, in a certain sense, one with 
 God Himself. 
 
 True progress does not consist in a multitude of 
 views, nor in austerities, trouble, and strife; it is 
 simply willing nothing and everything, without 
 reservation and choice, cheerfully performing each 
 day's journey as Providence appoints it for us : 
 seeking nothing, refusing nothing, finding every- 
 thing in the present moment, and suffering God,
 
 THE SPIRITUAL LETTERS. 225 
 
 who does everything, to do His pleasure in and by 
 us without the slightest resistance. 
 
 VARIOUS ADVICES. 
 
 You may be exercised in self-renunciation in 
 every event of every day. 
 
 Peace in this life springs from acquiescence even 
 in disagreeable things, not in an exemption from 
 suffering. 
 
 Whoever will refuse nothing which comes in 
 the order of God, and seek nothing out of that or- 
 der, need never fear to finish his day's work with- 
 out partaking of the cross of Jesus Christ. There 
 is an indispensable providence for crosses as well 
 as for the necessaries of life ; they are a part of our 
 daily bread ; God will never suffer it to fail. 
 
 A life of faith produces two things: First, it 
 enables us to see God in everything; secondly, it 
 holds the mind in a state of readiness for whatever 
 may be His will. This continual, unceasing de- 
 pendence on God, this state of entire peace and ac- 
 quiescence of the soul in whatever may happen, is 
 the true silent martyrdom of self. 
 
 With the exception of sin, nothing happens in 
 this world out of the will of God. It is He who is 
 the author, ruler, and bestower of all ; He has num- 
 bered the hairs of our head, the leaves of every tree, 
 
 IS
 
 226 FEXEXON: THE MYSTIC. 
 
 the sand upon the seashore, and the drops of the 
 ocean. 
 
 This is the whole of religion: to get out of self 
 in order to get into God. 
 
 To be a Christian is to be an imitator of Jesus 
 Christ. In what can we imitate Him if not in his 
 humiliation? Nothing else can bring us near to 
 Him. We may adore Him as omnipotent, fear Him 
 as just, love Him with all our heart as good and 
 merciful, but we can only imitate Him as humble, 
 submissive, poor, and despised. 
 
 What men stand most in need of is the knowl- 
 edge of God. It is not astonishing that men do so 
 little for God, and that the little which they do costs 
 them so much. They do not know Him ; scarcely do 
 they believe that He exists. If He were known He 
 would be loved. 
 
 Thou causest me clearly to understand that 
 Thou makest use of the evils and imperfections of 
 the creature to do the good which Thou hast de- 
 termined beforehand. Thou concealest Thyself 
 under the importunate visitor who intrudes upon the 
 occupation of Thy impatient child, that he may 
 learn not to be impatient, and that he may die to the 
 gratification of being free to study or work as he 
 pleases. Thou availest Thyself of slanderous 
 tongues to destroy the reputation of Thine innocent 
 children, that, besides their innocence, they may
 
 THE SPIRITUAL LETTERS. 227 
 
 offer Thee the sacrifice of their too highly cherished 
 reputation. By the cunning artifices of the envious 
 Thou layest low the fortunes of those whose hearts 
 were too much set upon their prosperity. Thus 
 Thou mercifully strewest bitterness over everything 
 that is not Thyself, to the end that our hearts, 
 formed to love Thee and to exist upon Thy love, 
 may be, as it were, constrained to return to Thee by 
 a want of satisfaction in everything else. 
 
 " O 't is enough whate'er befall, 
 To know that God is all in all. 
 'Tis this which makes my treasure, 
 
 'Tis this which brings my gain; 
 Converting woe to pleasure, 
 And reaping joy from pain." 
 
 Madame Guyon. 
 
 " There are in the loud-stunning tide 
 
 Of human care and crime, 
 With whom the melodies abide 
 
 Of the everlasting chime, 
 Who carry music in their heart 
 Through dusky lane and wrangling mart; 
 Plying their daily task with busier feet, 
 Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat." 
 
 Keble.
 
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