The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Autobiography of Madame Guyon, by
Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon

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Title: The Autobiography of Madame Guyon

Author: Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon

Release Date: August 8, 2007 [EBook #22269]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MADAME GUYON ***

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AUTOBIOGRAPHY

OF

MADAME GUYON

IN TWO PARTS

MOODY PRESS
CHICAGO

_Printed in the United States of America_

INTRODUCTION

In the history of the world few persons have attained that high degree
of spirituality reached by Madame Guyon.

Born in a corrupt age, in a nation marked for its degeneracy; nursed
and reared in a church, as profligate as the world in which it was
embedded; persecuted at every step of her career; groping as she did in
spiritual desolation and ignorance, nevertheless, she arose to the
highest pinnacle of pre-eminence in spirituality and Christian
devotion.

She lived and died in the Catholic Church; yet was tormented and
afflicted; was maltreated and abused; and was imprisoned for years by
the highest authorities of that church.

Her sole crime was that of loving God. The ground of her offense was
found in her supreme devotion and unmeasured attachment to Christ. When
they demanded her money and estate, she gladly surrendered them, even
to her impoverishment, but it availed nothing. The crime of loving Him
in whom her whole being was absorbed, never could be mitigated, or
forgiven.

She loved only to do good to her fellow-creatures, and to such an
extent was she filled with the Holy Ghost, and with the power of God,
that she wrought wonders in her day, and has not ceased to influence
the ages that have followed.

Viewed from a human standpoint, it is a sublime spectacle, to see a
solitary woman subvert all the machinations of kings and courtiers;
laugh to scorn all the malignant enginery of the papal inquisition, and
silence, and confound the pretensions of the most learned divines. She
not only saw more clearly the subl