About this time the “Confessions of Saint Augustine” were put into Theresa’s hands,—­one of the few immortal books which are endeared to the heart of Christians.  This book was a comfort and enlightenment to her, she thinking that the Lord would forgive her, as He did those saints who had been great sinners, because He loved them.  When she meditated on the conversion of Saint Augustine,—­how he heard the voice in the garden,—­it seemed to her that the Lord equally spoke to her, and thus she was filled with gratitude and joy.  After this, her history is the enumeration of the favors which God gave her, and of the joys of prayer, which seemed to her to be the very joys of heaven.  She longs more and more for her divine Spouse, to whom she is spiritually wedded.  She pants for Him as the hart pants for the water-brook.  She cannot be separated from Him; neither death nor hell can separate her from His love.  He is infinitely precious to her,—­He is chief among ten thousand.  She blesses His holy name.  In her exceeding joy she cries, “O Lord of my soul, O my eternal Good!” In her ecstasy she sings,—­

     “Absent from Thee, my Saviour dear! 
     I call not life this living here. 
     Ah, Lord I my light and living breath,
     Take me, oh, take me from this death
     And burst the bars that sever me
       From my true life above! 
     Think how I die Thy face to see,
     And cannot live away from Thee,
       O my Eternal Love!”

Thus she composes canticles and dries her tears, feeling that the love of God does not consist in these, but in serving Him with fidelity and devotion.  She is filled with the graces of humility, and praises God that she is permitted to speak of things relating to Him.  She is filled also with strength, since it is He who strengthens her.  She is perpetually refreshed, since she drinks from a divine fountain.  She is in a sort of trance of delight from the enjoyment of divine blessings.  Her soul is elevated to rapture.  She feels that her salvation, through grace, is assured.  She no longer has fear of devils or of hell, since with an everlasting love she is beloved; and her lover is Christ.  She has broken the bondage of the Middle Ages, and she has broken it by prayer.  She is an emancipated woman, and can now afford to devote herself to practical duties.  She visits the sick, she dispenses charities, she gives wise counsels; for with all her visionary piety she has good sense in the things of the world, and is as practical as she is spiritual and transcendental.

And all this in the midst of visions.  I will not dwell on these visions, the weak point in her religious life, though they are visions of beauty, not of devils, of celestial spirits who came to comfort her, and who filled her soul with joy and peace.

     “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.”