I asked him one day who was his Director. Taking from his pocket the
_Spiritual Combat_, he said: "You see my Director in this book, which,
from my earliest youth, has, with the help of God, taught me and been my
master in spiritual matters and in the interior life. When I was a student
at Padua, a Theatine Father instructed and gave me advice from it, and
following its directions all has been well with me. It was written by a
very holy member of that celebrated congregation, the author concealing his
own name under that of his Orders which makes use of the book almost in the
same way as the Jesuits make use of the Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola."
I reminded him that in his Philothea[1] he recommends people to have a
living Director. "That is true," he answered, "but have you not noticed
that I say he must be chosen out of ten thousand?[2] Because there is
scarcely one in a thousand to be found having all the qualities necessary
for this office, or who, if he has them, displays them constantly and
perseveringly; men being so variable that they never remain in one state,
as Holy Scripture assures us."[3]
I asked him if we must then run uncertainly and pursue our way without
guidance. He answered: "We must seek it among the dead; among those who are
no longer subject to passion or change, and who have ceased to be swayed
by human interests. As an Emperor of old said that his most faithful
counsellors were the dead, meaning books, so we may say that our safest
spiritual directors are books of piety."
"But what," I asked, "are those who cannot read to do?" "They," he replied,
"must have good books read to them by people in whom they can have absolute
confidence. Besides, such simple souls as these do not, as a rule, trouble
themselves much about methods of devotion, or, if they do, God for the most
part bestows on them such graces as to make it plain that He Himself is
their Teacher, and that they are truly _Theodidacts, or taught by God_."
"Must we then," I asked, "give up all spiritual guides?" "By no means," he
answered, "for besides the fact that we are bound to obey the law of God
coming to us through our Superiors, both spiritual and temporal, we must
also defer most humbly to our Confessors, to whom we lay bare the secrets
of our conscience. Then, when we find difficulties in the books which we
have chosen for our guidance, difficulties which, as we read, we cannot
settle to our satisfaction, we must consult those who are well versed in
mystic language, or rather, I should say, in spiritual matters, and listen
humbly to their opinion. We must not, however, always consult the same man;
for, besides the fact that Holy Scripture warns us that _there is safety
where there is much counsel_,[4] we must remember that if we always
consulted the same living oracle, he would in time become superior to the
dead one; that he would make himself a supplanter, a second Jacob, pushing
aside the book which we had chosen for our guide, and assuming dominion and
mastery over both dead and living, that is, over the book and the reader
who had chosen it for his direction. To prevent this encroachment, I had
almost said this unfelt and imperceptibly increasing tyranny, it is well
when we meet with difficulties to consult several persons, following the
advice given by the Holy Ghost through the Apostle St. Paul not to make
ourselves the slaves of men, having been delivered and redeemed at so great
a price, even that of the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ."[5]
In answer to my remark that I very much preferred as a book _The Imitation
of Christ_ to the _Spiritual Combat_, he said that they were both the works
of writers truly animated by the Spirit of God, that they were indeed
different in many respects, but that it might be said of each of them as it
is of the Saints: _There was not found the like to him._[6]
He added that in such matters comparisons were always more or less odious;
that beauty, however it might vary, was always beauty; that the book of
_the Imitation_ had in some respects great advantages over _the Combat_,
but that the latter had also some advantages over _the Imitation_. Among
these he mentioned with special commendation its arrangement and that it
goes deeper into things and more thoroughly to the root of the matter. He
concluded by saying that we should do well to read the one and not neglect
the other, for that both books were so short that to do this would not put
us to much expenditure of time or trouble.
He valued _the Imitation_, he said, greatly for its brevity and conciseness
as an aid to prayer and contemplation, but _the Combat_ as a help in active
and practical life.
[Footnote 1: Book 1. c. 10.]
[Footnote 2: This hyperbole of St. Francis is sometimes pushed to excess,
It is a question, too, if M. Camus always understood him rightly. [ED.]]
[Footnote 3: Job xiv. 2.]
[Footnote 4: Prov. xi. 14.]
[Footnote 5: 1 Cor. vii. 23.]
[Footnote 6: Eccle. xliv. 20.]