It was a far cry from the sanguinary struggle against sin and the armed Christianity of the Jansenists; the sublime and specious visions of Madame Guy on fascinated lofty and gentle souls:  the Duchess of Charost, daughter of Fouquet, Mesdames de Beauvilliers, de Chevreuse, de Mortemart, daughters of Colbert, and their pious husbands, were the first to be chained to her feet.  Fenelon, at that time, preceptor to the children of France (royal family), saw her, admired her, and became imbued with her doctrines.  She was for a while admitted to the intimacy of Madame de Maintenon.  It was for this little nucleus of faithful friends that she wrote her book of Torrents.  The human soul is a torrent which returns to its source, in God, who lives in perfect repose, and who would fain give it to those who are His.  The Christian soul has nothing more that is its, neither will nor desire.  It has God for soul; He is its principle of life.”  In this way there is nothing extraordinary.  No visions, no ecstasies, no entrancements.  The way is simple, pure, and plain; there the soul sees nothing but in God, as God sees Himself and with His eyes.”  With less vagueness, and quite as mystically, Fenelon defined the sublime love taught by Madame Guyon in the following maxim, afterwards condemned at Rome:  “There is an habitual state of love of God which is pure charity, without any taint of the motive of self-interest.  Neither fear of punishment nor desire of reward have any longer part in this love; God is loved not for the merit, or the perfection, or the happiness to be found in loving Him.”  What singular seductiveness in those theories of pure love which were taught at the court of Louis XIV., by his grandchildren’s preceptor, at a woman’s instigation, and zealously preached fifty years afterwards by President (of New Jersey College) Jonathan Edwards, in the cold and austere atmosphere of New England!

Led away by the generous enthusiasm of his soul, Fenelon had not probed the dangers of his new doctrine.  The gospel and church of Christ, whilst preaching the love of God, had strongly maintained the fact of human individuality and responsibility.  The theory of mere (pure) love absorbing the soul in God put an end to repentance, effort to withstand evil, and the need of a Redeemer.  Bossuet was not deceived.  The elevation of his mind, combined with strong common sense, caused him to see through all the veils of the mysticism.  Madame Guyon had submitted her books to him; he disapproved of them, at first quietly, then formally, after a thorough examination in conjunction with two other doctors.  Madame Guyon retired to a monastery of Meaux; she soon returned to Paris, and her believers rallied round her.  Bossuet, in his anger, no longer held his hand.  Madame Guyon was shut up first at Vincennes, and then in the Bastille; she remained seven years in prison, and ended by retiring to near Blois, where she died in 1717, still absorbed in her holy and vague reveries,