The doctrine of spiritual childhood is sometimes regarded as the Little Flower’s peculiar contribution to the spiritual life of the Church, yet in The Revelations of Divine Love it is fully described and practised by an English Mystic living five centuries before the Saint of Lisieux. St. Therese did not so much discover as reinstate in its true, paramount position, a truth of the spiritual life which had been obscured and almost forgotten under the weight of Renaissance Humanism and Jansenistic rigorism. For, so long as man’s life and way of looking at life were essentially God-centred and supernatural, the God whom he knew and loved and tried to serve was the God of revelation, the God who has declared himself to be our heavenly Father, and who has raised us to the adoption of sons in his only-begotten Son, Christ our Lord. Consequently a spirit of childlike love and simplicity characterised the piety of both great and small, from Doctors of the Church like S. Thomas Aquinas, S. Albert the Great, and the other theologians to whom heaven was always ‘patria’ “our father’s country”, down to “a simple creature who could no letter”, such as Mother Julian. But once man had fixed his eyes not on God but on himself, then he tended to regard his Maker not as the Father but as the Creator, the Lawgiver, the Master, the just, avenging Judge sternly demanding an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; the God of Sinai rather than of the Gospel.

In a sketch of this nature much must be passed over. Pierre Acarie’s banishment from Paris, the extreme want to which his family was reduced, and the valiant and continued efforts— finally successful—made by his wife for the complete restoration of the family fortunes and the return of her husband, can be hut mentioned. Gladly she endured poverty, many insults, and much suffering, so that she might redeem her husband’s good name and property. Yet from the time of Pierre’s return his temper seems to have become sharper. It has been pointed out by some biographers that this change occurred in Pierre Acarie in direct proportion to his wife’s increase in holiness. Without going so far it may be said, perhaps, that Pierre’s increasing ill-humour, caused to a certain extent, no doubt, by his many reverses, the triumph of all that he abhorred, and the upset of his dearest political plans, was used by God in the sanctification of his wife. Women who sanctify themselves in marriage, as Barbe Acarie did, give to those they love, a love which is extremely pure for it is deprived of all element of self. They love, perhaps, no more than other wives, but surely they love better. For, to be able to live “in one flesh”, without that life becoming a veritable prison for the soul requires harmony of spirit. And such harmony is not attained without sacrifice. Barbe loved her husband, and the pursuit of perfection in no wise decreased her love.

The Early English Text Society have presented the public with a critical edition of the original text of The Cloud of Unknowing and The Epistle of Privy Counsel. The work is that of Dr Phyllis Hodgson. Dr. Hodgson has done her work thoroughly with a description and discussion of the MSS, an elaborate analysis of the language, all in the best traditions of the Society. To this she has added a discussion of the subject-matter, the sources and the author of these two mystical writings, which are the most important in the English language. There is little fresh light to be thrown on the authorship, which remains as unknown as before in spite of much research. But Dr. Hodgson has been more rewarded in her exploration of the sources, for she has established in particular the direct influence of the treatise De Adhaerendo Deo, upon The Cloud and The Epistle of Privy Counsel. This work was formerly attributed simply to S. Albert the Great, but is now regarded as having been amplified by a Benedictine at a later date; it teaches the same doctrine as The Cloud in very much the same style—a guarantee, if one were needed, that the English work is no esoteric, over-spiritualised attempt to short-cut the way of Christ which is the way of the Church. Then there are the direct borrowings from Richard of S. Victor’s Benjamin Major which shows how the author of The Cloud swam in the full stream of mystical doctrine, beginning with the Pseudo-Aropagite whom he specifically acknowledges as his master, and proceeding through the Victorines to the great movement of the 14th century.

I said that the reason why the Saviour redeemed us with such intense suffering was that inestimable and priceless fruit that would result to us from this special remedy. I will speak of this later on. At present let us dwell upon three of the chief ones. To understand the first it should be understood, as Saint Maximus says, that the Christian life, if led conformably with the laws of the Gospel, is a perpetual cross. Our Saviour himself declared this, as Saint Mark tells us: “If any man will follow me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me”. (St. Mark VIII, 34).

The Saviour here specifies three things, each of them difficult enough. For what is more difficult than to deny ourselves, to oppose all our disordered desires and self-will, and take up our cross; to be ready for anything, to prepare for the trials of a,good life, and follow Christ, who in this earthly life walked on no easy road of comfort, but on a hard, a humble, and laborious one? This being so, the Christian life may rightly be called the way of the Cross.

This is so because the Christian life is virtuous and virtue is surrounded by difficulties and trials. For as it is natural to fire to hold heat, so virtue is annexed to difficulty and labour, and without this we do not practice virtue. Therefore I think, though the comparison may be commonplace, that virtue is like the chestnuts on the tree, which are full of prickles like a hedgehog and must be removed before eating the fruit.