knowledge of the human heart, his keen insight into the proper workings of nature and grace, his deep spiritual wisdom, and the sweet mystic tone of his piety.  And then the two great principles pervading his writings—­that of pure love to God and that of self-crucifixion as the way to perfect love—­fell in with some of her own favorite views of the Christian life.  In the study of Fenelon, as of Madame Guyon, her aim was a purely practical one; it was not to establish, or verify, a theory, but to get aid and comfort in her daily course heavenward.  What Fenelon was to her in this respect she has herself recorded in the following lines, found, after her death, written on a blank page of her “Spiritual Progress”: 

  Oh wise and thoughtful words! oh counsel sweet,
  Guide in my wanderings, spurs unto my feet,
  How often you have met me on the way,
  And turned me from the path that led astray;
  Teaching that fault and folly, sin and fall,
  Need not the weary pilgrim’s heart appall;
  Yea more, instructing how to snatch the sting
  From timid conscience, how to stretch the wing
  From the low plane, the level dead of sin,
  And mount immortal, mystic joys to win. 
  One hour with Jesus!  How its peace outweighs
  The ravishment of earthly love and praise;
  How dearer far, emptied of self to lie
  Low at His feet, and catch, perchance, His eye,
  Alike content when He may give or take,
  The sweet, the bitter, welcome for His sake!

[1] John Wesley, after having pointed out what he considered the grand source of all her mistakes; namely, the being guided by inward impressions and the light of her own spirit rather than by the written Word, and also her error in teaching that God never purifies a soul but by inward and outward suffering—­then adds:  “And yet with all this dross how much pure gold is mixed!  So did God wink at involuntary ignorance.  What a depth of religion did she enjoy!  How much of the mind that was in Christ Jesus!  What heights of righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost!  How few such instances do we find of exalted love to God, and our neighbor; of genuine humility; of invincible meekness and unbounded resignation!  So that, upon the whole, I know not whether we may not search many centuries to find another woman who was such a pattern of true holiness.”

[2] See the lines MY CUP RUNNETH OVER, Golden Hours, p. 43.

[3] “I know of no book, the Bible excepted as above all comparison, which I, according to my judgment and experience, could so safely recommend as teaching and enforcing the whole saving truth according to the mind that was in Christ Jesus, as the Pilgrim’s Progress.  It is, in my conviction, incomparably the best summa theologiae evangelicae ever produced by a writer not miraculously inspired.  I read it once as a theologian—­and let me assure you, there is great theological acumen in the work—­once with devotional feelings, and once as a poet.  I could not have believed beforehand that Calvinism could be painted in such exquisitely delightful colors.”—­COLERIDGE.