It is not worth while to give a detailed account of St. Teresa’s mystical theology.  Its cardinal points are that the religious life consists in complete conformity to the will of God, so that at last the human will becomes purely “passive” and “at rest”; and the belief in Christ as the sole ground of salvation, on which subject she uses language which is curiously like that of the Lutheran Reformers.  Her teaching about passivity and the “prayer of quiet” is identical with that which the Pope afterwards condemned in Molinos; but it is only fair to remember that Teresa was not canonised for her theology, but for her life, and that the Roman Church is not committed to every doctrine which can be found in the writings of her saints.  The real character of St. Teresa’s piety may be seen best in some of her prayers, such as this which follows:—­

“O Lord, how utterly different are Thy thoughts from our thoughts!  From a soul which is firmly resolved to love Thee alone, and which has surrendered her whole will into Thy hands, Thou demandest only that she should hearken, strive earnestly to serve Thee, and desire only to promote Thine honour.  She need seek and choose no path, for Thou doest that for her, and her will follows Thine; while Thou, O Lord, takest care to bring her to fuller perfection.”

In theory, it may not be easy to reconcile “earnest striving” with complete surrender and abrogation of the will, but the logic of the heart does not find them incompatible.  Perhaps no one has spoken better on this matter than the Rabbi Gamaliel, of whom it is reported that he prayed, “O Lord, grant that I may do Thy will as if it were my will, that Thou mayest do my will as if it were Thy will.”  But quietistic Mysticism often puts the matter on a wrong basis.  Self-will is to be annihilated, not (as St. Teresa sometimes implies) because our thoughts are so utterly different from God’s thoughts that they cannot exist in the same mind, but because self-interest sets up an unnatural antagonism between them.  The will, like the other faculties, only realises itself in its fulness when God worketh in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure.

St. Juan of the Cross, the fellow-workman of St. Teresa in the reform of monasteries, is a still more perfect example of the Spanish type of Mysticism.  His fame has never been so great as hers; for while Teresa’s character remained human and lovable in the midst of all her austerities, Juan carried self-abnegation to a fanatical extreme, and presents the life of holiness in a grim and repellent aspect.  In his disdain of all compromise between the claims of God and the world, he welcomes every kind of suffering, and bids us choose always that which is most painful, difficult, and humiliating.  His own life was divided between terrible mortifications and strenuous labour in the foundation of monasteries.  Though his books show a tendency to Quietism, his character was one of fiery