od cost him much more
reading, study, and meditation. In it he paints his own soul. He
describes the feeling sentiments of divine love, its state of fervor, of
dryness, of trials, sufferings, and darkness: in explaining which he
calls in philosophy to his assistance. He writes on this sublime subject
what he had learned by his own experience. Some parts of this book are
only to be understood by those souls who have gone through these states:
yet the author has been ever justly admired for the performance. The
general of the Carthusians had written to him upon his Introduction,
advising him to write no more, because nothing else could equal that
book. But seeing this, he bade him never cease writing, because his
latter works always surpassed the former; and James 1. was so delighted
with the book, that he expressed a great desire to see the author. This
being told the saint, he cried out: "Ah! who will give me the wings of a
dove, and I will fly to the king, into that great island, formerly the
country of saints; but now overwhelmed with the darkness of error. If
the duke will permit me, I will arise, and go to that great Ninive: I
will speak to the king, and will announce to him, with the hazard of my
life, the word of the Lord." In effect, he solicited the duke of Savoy's
consent, but could never obtain it.[5] That jealous sovereign feared
lest he should be drawn in to serve another state, or sell to some other
his right to Geneva; on which account he often refused him leave to go
to preach in France, when invited by many cities. His other works are
sermons which are not finished as they were preached, except, perhaps,
that on the Invention of the Cross. We have also his Preparation for
Mass: his Instructions for Confessors: a collection of his Maxims, pious
Breathings and Sayings, written by the bishop of Bellay; some Fragments,
and his Entertainments to his nuns of the Visitation, in which he
recommends to them the most perfect interior self-denial, a
disengagement of affections from all things temporal, and obedience. The
institution of that Order may be read in the life of B. Frances Chantal.
Saint Francis designing his new Order to be such, that all, even the
sickly and weak, might be admitted into it, he chose for it the rule of
St. Austin, as commanding few extraordinary bodily austerities, and
would have it possess funds and settlements in common, to prevent being
carried off from the interior life by anxious car