seventeenth century. The monks of Mount Athos in the fourteenth, the
Molinosists, Madame Guyon, Fenelon, and others in the seventeenth century,
all belonged to that contemplative company of Christians who thought that
the highest state of perfection consisted in the repose and complete
inaction of the soul, that life ought to be one of entire passive
contemplation, and that good works and active industry were only fitting
for those who were toiling in a lower sphere and had not attained to the
higher regions of spiritual mysticism. Thus the '[Greek: Aesuchastai]' on
Mount Athos contemplated their nose or their navel, and called the effect
of their meditations "the divine light," and Molinos pined in his dungeon,
and left his works to be castigated by the renowned Bossuet. The pious,
devout, and learned Spanish divine was worthy of a better fate, and
perhaps a little more quietism and a little less restlessness would not be
amiss in our busy nineteenth century.

The noblest prey ever captured by those keen hunters, the Inquisitors, was
Bartholomew Carranza, Archbishop of Toledo, in 1558, one of the richest
and most powerful prelates in Christendom. He enjoyed the favour of his
sovereign Philip II. of Spain, whom he accompanied to England, and helped
to burn our English Protestants. Unfortunately in an evil hour he turned
to authorship, and published a catechism under this title: _Commentarios
sobre el Catequismo Cristiano divididos en quatro partes las quales
contienen fodo loque professamor en el sancto baptismo, como se vera en la
plana seguiente dirigidos al serenissimo Roy de Espana_ (Antwerp). On
account of this work he was accused of Lutheranism, and his capture
arranged by his enemies. At midnight, after the Archbishop had retired to
rest, a knock was heard at the door of the chamber. "Who calls?" asked the
attendant friar. "Open to the Holy Office," was the answer. Immediately
the door flew open, for none dared resist that terrible summons, and
Ramirez, the Inquisitor-General of Toledo, entered. The Archbishop raised