III.

LIGHT BREAKS IN.

About this time a pious lady, an English exile, came to reside at her father’s house; and though she could but imperfectly understand her devout conversation, Madame Guyon saw in her face a sweet satisfaction which she herself had not as yet attained.  Then her cousin De Toissi arrived from the East, and, with sincere concern for her welfare, encouraged her in her search after happiness in God.  To him she unburdened her soul, giving him a full account of all her faults and all her wants.  He tendered the best counsel he could.  She now tried to meditate continually on God, saying prayers and uttering ejaculatory petitions.  But all was in vain.  The advice of these excellent persons led her to look too much inwardly upon her own heart, instead of upward to the Saviour as revealed in His word.  So she still laboured along in deep darkness and depression.

It was with a sudden brilliance that light and joy broke in upon her spirit.  In July, 1668, she was once more at the parental home, to nurse her father, who was dangerously ill.  Knowing well his daughter’s unhappiness, M. de la Mothe recommended her to consult his confessor, an aged Franciscan, who had been of service to himself.  This good man, after listening for some time to the story of her restless wanderings after peace, said, “Madame, you are seeking outside what you have within.  Accustom yourself to seek God in your heart, and you will find Him there.”  These few and simple words turned her gaze from her own efforts and feelings to see that peace was a thing to be found not in outward deeds but in a heart right with God; and so she was enabled to realise the bounteous love of God, which at that instant was broadening her heart by the Holy Spirit.  The next morning when she told the old Franciscan of the effect of his words, he was much astonished.

“These words,” she observes, “brought into my heart what I had been seeking so many years; or rather they made me discover what was there, but what I had not been enjoying for want of knowing it.  O my Lord, Thou wast in my heart, and didst require of me only a simple turning inward to make me perceive Thy presence.  O Infinite Goodness, Thou wast so near, and I went running hither and thither in search of Thee, and did not find Thee.  My life was wretched, yet my happiness lay there within me.  I was poor in the midst of riches, and I was dying of hunger close by a table spread and a continual feast.  O Beauty, ancient and new, why have I known Thee so late?  Alas!  I sought Thee where Thou wast not, and did not seek Thee where Thou wast.  It was for want of understanding these words of Thy Gospel, where Thou sayest, ’The kingdom of God is not here or there; but the kingdom of God is within you.’” [1]

[Footnote 1:  La Vie, premiere partie, ch. viii., 7.]

There can be no doubt that her heart now realised something of the great fundamental truth that “God is Love.”  She had been trying to propitiate Him, as a Being of awful majesty and purity, by good works, strict conduct, severe penances.  Now she saw at a glance the mistakes of her former conceptions of the Divine Being, and all her faculties drank in the grand verity of the boundless love of God.