Letter LIX. To his Brother, Coadjutor of Geneva

About mie of their friends who had turned Galvinist and gone into England.

Annecy, 21st November, 1620. Here is a letter which I have opened without perceiving that it was not for me. O God! my dearest brother, what anguish did the reading of it cause to my soul! Certainly it is quite true that in all my life I have not had so painful a surprise. Is it possible that this soul can so have gone to ruin? He used to say so distinctly to me that he would never be aught else than child of the Roman Church; though he thought the Pope exceeded the limits of justice, to extend those of his authority. Meantime, after having cried out so strongly that it did not behove that the supreme Pastor, the ruler of the Church, should undertake to release subjects from the obedience of the supreme prince of the commonwealth, whatever evil this prince might do; — he himself, for these pretended abuses, goes and becomes a rebel against this supreme Pastor; or (to speak after his language), against all the pastors of the Church in which he has been baptized and brought up!

He who did not find clearness enough, he used to say, in the passages of Scripture to prove the authority of St. Peter over the rest of Christians, how has he gone to place himself under the ecclesiastical authority of a king, whose power the Scripture has never authorized save for civil matters?

If he found that the Pope was exceeding the limits of his power by claiming some power over the temporal authority of princes, how will he find that the king, under whom he has gone to live, exceeds the limits of his authority, by claiming rights over the spiritual?

Is it possible that what brought back and kept St. Augustine to the Church has not been able to retain this spirit? Is it possible that the reverence for antiquity and rejection of novelty has not had the power to stop him?

Is it possible that he has believed that all the Church has so greatly erred, and that Huguenots or English Calvinists have so happily met with the truth everywhere, and not erred in the understanding of the Scripture? Whence can such universal knowledge of the sense of Scripture have come into those heads in the matters of our controversies, as that everywhere they should be right, and we everywhere wrong, so that he must leave us to cling to them?

Alas! my dear brother, you will soon perceive the trouble there is in my spirit, when I say all this to you. The modesty with which he behaves in writing to you, the friendship he begs from you with so much affection, and even submission, has made a great wound of condolence in my spirit, which cannot rest when it sees the soul of this friend perishing.

I was on the eve of getting a place made for him here, and M. N. had word to treat with him about it; and now there he is, separated from the rest of the world by the sea, and from the Church by schism and error! However, God will draw his glory from this sin.

I have a particular inclination for that island and its king, and I unceasingly recommend its conversion to the Divine Majesty. I have confidence that I shall be heard with so many souls that sigh after this grace; and henceforth I will pray even more ardently, methinks, in consideration of that soul.

O my dearest brother, blessed are the true children of the Holy Church, in which have died all the true children of God. I assure you, my heart has a continual extraordinary throbbing on account of this fall, and a new courage to serve better the Church of the living God, and the living God of the Church.

Meanwhile we must keep this miserable news secret, though it is sure soon to be spread about on account of the number of the relatives and friends of him who gives it you. And if you write to him, as he seems to ask, through M. Gabaleon, assure him that all the waters of England can never quench the flames of my affection, so long as I can keep any hope of his return to the Church, and to the way of eternal life.

LETTER LXT.

{From the original Latin.)

To his Holiness Paul V.

On the Veneraole Aneina.

I received a very great joy and satisfaction when I heard that there would shortly appear the life and the details of all the actions of the most illustrious and most reverend Father and Lord, Juvenal Aneina. For since bishops, as said the great Bishop of Nazianzum, St. Gregory, are the painters of virtue, and as they have to paint so excellent a thing by their words and their works as accurately as possible, I do not doubt that in the life of our most illustrious and admirable Juvenal, we shall see a complete and perfect image of Christian justice, that is, of all virtues.

And, indeed, during the space of four or five months that I was negotiating at Rome the affairs of this See, by the command of my most devout and virtuous predecessor, Monseigneur Claude de Granier, I saw many men excelling in sanctity and doctrine, who were by their works illustrating The City, and in the City the world (in urbe orbem); but amongst all these great personages, the virtue of this one particularly struck the eyes of my spirit.

For I admired, in the profound science of this man which embraced so many different subjects and with so full an erudition, a corresponding contempt of self; in the perfect gravity of his appearance, of his discourse and of his manners, as much also of grace and modesty; in his great solicitude for devotion, an equal remembrance of politeness and sweetness: so that he did not tread down pride by another pride, as happens with many, but by a true humility; and he did not display his charity by knowledge which puffeth up, but made his knowledge fruitful by the charity which edifieth. He was a man beloved of God and men, because he loved them with the purest charity. Now, I call purest charity that in which can scarce be found the smallest trace of self-love or philautia, a rare and exquisite charity, which is hardly met with even among those who make profession of piety, wherefore from far and from the uttermost coasts is the price thereof.*

I have noticed that when the occasion presented itself, this man of God was accustomed so openly, frankly, and lovingly to praise the different institutes, virtues, teaching, and ways of serving God, of various religions, ecclesiastics, and laymen, as if he were a member of their congregations or meetings. And whilst he embraced with most sweet and entirely filial heart his' own and his most beloved Congregation of * Prov. xxxi. 10.

4*0 St. Francis de Sales.

the Oratory, he did not on that account more coldly, as often happens, or more weakly love, esteem, or extol other houses or assemblies of persons serving God.

This was why, looking only at the greater glory of God, he most lovingly guided with his own hand and influence, into the society which he thought most suited to them, those who, touched interiorly with heavenly love, desired to follow the course of a purer life, and sought his counsel: a man, in sooth, who was neither of Paul, nor of Cephas, nor of Apollo, but of Jesus Christ,* and who listened not to those cold words, mine and thine, either in temporals or in spirituals; but did all things sincerely in Christ and for Christ.

Of this perfect charity of this Apostolic man I have an example now at hand. Just lately there died, in the College of the Clerks Regular of St. Paul in this city of Annecy, a most religious man, William Cramoisy, of Paris; with whom when I was once talking, in an ordinary way, I happened to mention the name of our most Reverend Juvenal Ancina. And he, suddenly filled with joy, said: " How grateful, how precious to me should be the memory of this man! For he as it were brought me forth again in Christ." And when he saw that I had a desire of hearing the whole thing fully, he thus continued:

" When I was twenty-four years old, Divine Providence had already attracted me to the religious life * i Cor. iii.

by many inspirations; but I felt myself, from my weakness, so agitated by contrary temptations, that altogether despondent in my soul, I was seriously thinking of marriage; and the affair had already gone so far among my friends that it seemed almost done.

" But how great is the benignity of God! When I entered the Oratory of Vallicelle, what should I hear but Father Juvenal Ancina preaching to the people, first on the inconstancy and weakness of the human heart, then on the magnanimity with which divine instincts are to be put in execution. He spoke with such skill of language and argument, that he seemed to shake off as with his hand the miserable slothfulness of my heart: so that at length, lifting up his voice as a trumpet, he compelled me to surrender. Wherefore, as soon as ever the sermon was finished, anxious and hesitating I go to him in a corner of the oratory where he was praying, as I think, for the happy issue of his sermon, and expose to him what was taking place in my soul.

" He said: ' This matter must be treated more fully, and there is not time now, as the day grows late. So to-morrow, if you will come to me, we can more conveniently go into everything. Meantime, and this is the chief point, by prayer invoke the heavenly light/

" So I went next day, and sincerely declared all that I was doing about my vocation, on either side; and particularly that I was chiefly afraid of the religious life because I was weak and delicate.

" When lie had attentively heard and weighed all, that servant of God said: l On this very account it is, by Divine Providence, that there are in the Church various orders of religious — namely, that any one who could not give his life to those orders which are austere and devoted to exterior penance, may enter the milder. And here you have the Congregation of Clerks Regular of St. Paul, in which the discipline of religious perfection excellently nourishes; still it is not weighed down by any bodily labour so great but that by almost any man its customs and constitutions may be quite easily observed, with God's favour: go to their college, and see for yourself whether it is not so/ Nor from that time did the man of God cease his efforts till he had seen me enrolled and joined to this most venerable Congregation.'''

From which it is easy to understand how great was the power of the great Juvenal Ancina in preaching, his wisdom in counselling, and his perfect and constant charity in helping his neighbour. For this very thing which I have just mentioned by way of example, I and several others know to have been done; and indeed, for myself, I openly declare that by the many letters which I have received from him through his affection to me, I have been vehemently united to the love of Christian virtue.

But after he was transferred from the excellent life of the Congregation of the Oratory to the most holy Episcopal office, then did his virtue begin to shine more splendidly, and more clearly, as was fitting, to send forth its rays, as a burning and shining light* placed on a candlestick, that it may give light to all that are in the house*

And, indeed, when in 1603, I went a little out of my direct journey, in order to salute him, at Carmagnola, a town of his diocese of Saluces, where he was then fulfilling his duty of pastoral visitation, I saw what love, mingled with veneration, his piety and wealth of virtues had excited in those people. For when they learnt that I had arrived, I cannot sufficiently express the ardour of soul with which, by a certain friendly violence, they drew me from the public hospice into the house of some noble citizen, saying that they would like, if they only could do it, to lodge in the midst of their bosoms a man who had gone out of his way for the sake of honouring their most beloved pastor.

Nor could they ever satisfy themselves in joyously expressing by words, and looks, the satisfaction felt at the presence of such a pastor; whilst he, with a certaiu most dignified familiarity, and most sweet good-will towards all, draw to himself at once their eyes and souls, and as a glorious and loving-hearted shepherd, called his own sheep by name% to verdant pastures, and with his hands full of the salt of wisdom, enticed them, nay, drew them, to come after him.

In fine, I will say one word; may I say it without

• John v. 35. \ Mat. v. 15.

J John x. 3.

offence? I do not remember that I have seen a man more copiously, more splendidly adorned with the gifts which the Apostle so earnestly desired for Apostolic men.