XIII.

FRENCH PIETISTS.

Blaise Pascal, a

PASCAL.

French philosopher and

religious writer, a Port Royalist, and one of the most able defenders of experimental religion was born 1623 and died 1662. The height of his religious attainments often showed him the depth of his own sinfulness, and the measure of his unworthiness, and his mind was sometimes deeply depressed.

PERFECT REST IN THE WILL OF GOD.

"O Lord, take from me that sorrow which the love of self may produce from my sufferings, and from my unsuccessful hopes and

designs in this world, while regardless of thy glory; but create in me a sorrow resembling thine. Let me not henceforth desire health or life, except to spend them for Thee, with Thee, and in Thee. I pray not that Thou wouldst give me either health or sickness, life or death; but that Thou wouldst dispose of my health and my sickness, my life and my death, for thy glory, for my own eternal welfare, for the use of the church, for the benefit of the saints, of whose number, by thy grace, I hope to be. Thou alone knowest what is good for me; Thou art Lord of all; do, therefore, what seemeth Thee best. Give to me, or take from me; conform my will to thine! and grant that with humble and perfect submission, and in holy confidence, I may be disposed to receive the orders of thy eternal providence; and may equally adore every dispensation which will come to me from thy hand, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

MADAME GUYON.

This eminent Quietist was born at Montargis 1648. Her religious experiences, devotions and hymns are among the choicest treasures

of French religious literature. She was imprisoned in 1688, on account of her Protestant tendencies. She was again imprisoned in 1695 in the Castle of Vincennes, and afterwards in the Bastile. She was banished to Bois where she died in triumph in 1717.

The following is one of her prayers in the Bastile.

“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 I ask is, that Thou wilt be with and save those who love Thee; so that neither life nor death, neither principalities nor powers, may ever separate them from the love of God which is in Jesus Christ. As for me, what matters it what men think of me, or what they make me suffer, since they cannot separate me from that Saviour 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. 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. Without his favor I am wretched. O Saviour! I present myself before Thee an offering, a sacrifice. Purify me in thy blood, that I may be accepted of Thee."

Madame Guyon thus speaks of the cause of her first imprisonment :

"I sometime since wrote a little book, as you perhaps know, entitled, A Short and Easy Method of Prayer. The publication of this was one of the alleged causes of my confinement in this place. Since I have been here, persons have been into my prison, and have put to me some formal interrogatories in relation to the book, and other matters. I have found some difficulty in answering; and have been obliged to say, or rather have found it best to say, what the Lord gave me to say at the time, without much deliberation. I have at some times, in the course of these interrogatories, been strongly inclined to answer nothing, to be entirely silent. I certainly have an example of such a proceeding, which it would not be discreditable to follow-that of our blessed Saviour, who, on being interrogated before Pilate, answered not a word. If I

should take the course of declining to answer the questions which may be put to me, I shall of course be regarded as entertaining erroneous opinions, and be denounced as heretical. And is even this to be regarded as among the greatest of evils ? Was not our beloved Saviour looked upon and denounced in the same manner? Is it a hard matter to walk in his footsteps, and to suffer as he suf fered? When I am thinking upon these things, I sometimes find my heart, in its perplexity, looking up and saying in the language of the Vulgate translation of the Bible.

"Judica me, Deus, et discerne causam meam." (Judge me, O God! and plead my cause.)

The following hymn-prayer from one of her poems, presents a view of her frame of mind in persecutions and imprisonments:

"Thou art my bliss! the light by which I move! In Thee, O God! dwells all that I can love. Where'er I turn, I see thy power and grace, Which ever watch, and bless our heedless race.

"O! then, repeat the truth, that never tires; No God is like the God my soul desires;