Letter LVIII. To Madame de Chantal

The Saint deplores the misfortune of a lady who had fallen into heresy.

2nd December, 1609. O God! What a misfortune! This poor thing then means to be lost with her husband! The Confessions of St. Augustine, and the chapter I showed her when I passed that way, ought to have been enough to hold her back, if she is only driven to the precipice by the considerations she mentions. God, at the day of his great Judgment, will justify himself against her, and will make clearly appear why she has abandoned him. Ah! one abyss calls upon another. I will pray God for her, and especially on the feast of St. Thomas, whom I will conjure by his happy infidelity, to intercede for this poor soul so unhappily unfaithful.

What thanksgivings do we owe to this great God, my dear child? To think that I, so many ways tempted, in a frail and unstable age, to surrender myself to heresy, and that I have not cared so much as even to look upon it except to spit in its face, and that my feeble and young soul, going through all the most infected books should not have had the least emotion of this miserable evil! O God! when I think of this benefit, I tremble with horror at my ingratitude.

But let us calm ourselves in the loss of these souls; for Jesus Christ, to whom they were more dear, would not let them go after their own sense, if his greater glory did not require it. It is true we ought to regret them and sigh after them, like David, over Absalom hanged and lost. There was no great harm in that indignation you showed when speaking with her. Alas! my child, sometimes we cannot contain ourselves in occurrences so deserving of abhorrence.

The other day, at an early hour, a very learned man, and one who had been a minister for a long time, came to see me, and telling me how God had withdrawn him from heresy: — I had for instructor, he said, the most learned bishop in the world. I expected he would name some one of the great reputations of this age: he said, St. Augustine. His name is CorDeille, and he is just now printing a splendid book for the Faith. He is not yet received into the Church, and has given me a hope that I shall receive him. This good man went off contented with me, saying that I had lovingly entertained him, and that I had the true spirit of the Christian. We must conclude that these ancient Fathers have a spirit which breathes against heresy, even in the point's where they are not disputing against it.

"When I was at Paris, and preaching in the Queen's Chapel on The Day of Judgment (it was no sermon of controversy), a young lady was present out of curiosity, named Madame de Perdreauville; she was caught in the meshes, and on this sermon she took a resolution to get instructed, and three weeks afterwards she brought all her family to confession to me, and I was godfather to them all in Confirmation. Do you see? That sermon, which was not made against heresy, still breathed against heresy: for God on that occasion gave me that spirit in favour of those souls.

Since then I have always said that he who preaches with love preaches sufficiently against heretics, though he say not a single word of controversy against them.

And this is the same as to say that in general all the writings of the Fathers are suitable for the conversion of heretics.

O my God, dear child, how many perfections do I wish you! One for all, unity, simplicity. Live in peace and joyous, or at least contented, in all that God wishes and wills to do in your heart. I am in him and by him all yours. Your, &c.