NOTES ON THE LIFE OF ST. TERESA. 1812. [1]

Pref. Part I. p. 51. Letter of Father Avila to Mother Teresa de Jesu.

Persons ought to beseech our Lord not to conduct them by the way of
seeing; but that the happy sight of him and of his saints be reserved
for heaven; and that, here he would conduct them in the plain, beaten
road, &c. * * But if, doing all this, the visions continue, and the
soul reaps profit thereby, &c.

In what other language could a young woman check while she soothed her
espoused lover, in his too eager demonstrations of his passion? And yet
the art of the Roman priests,--to keep up the delusion as serviceable,
yet keep off those forms of it most liable to detection, by medical
commentary!


Life, Part I. Chap. IV. p. 15.

But our Lord began to regale me so much by this way, that he
vouchsafed me the favor to give me quiet prayer; and sometimes it came
so far as to arrive at union; though I understood neither the one nor
the other, nor how much they both deserve to be prized. But I believe
it would have been a great deal of happiness for me to have understood
them. True it is, that this union rested with me for so short a time,
that perhaps it might arrive to be but as of an 'Ave Maria'; yet I