LETTER CXXXIV. Rica to the Same.

I YESTERDAY returned to the same library, where I met with a man very different from him whom I had seen before. His air was simple, his countenance lively, and his address affable. As soon as I signified to him my curiosity, he prepared to gratify it, and even to instruct me, as I appeared to be a stranger. “Reverend father said I, what are those books with which all that side of the library is filled?” “Those are the works of the interpreters of scripture,” answered he. “There is a prodigious number of them, replied I; scripture must have been formerly very obscure,

but very perspicuous at present. Can there possibly be any doubts remaining? Can there possibly be any uncontroverted points? “Can there possibly! answered he, good God! can there possibly! There are almost as many doubts as verses.” “Indeed, said I, what good then have the writings of these authors done?” “These authors, answered he, have not searched the scriptures, for what should be believed, but what they believed themselves; they did not consider the scriptures as books containing the opinions they were bound to embrace, but as a work which might give a sanction to their own opinions: for this reason, they have every where corrupted its sense, and put forced constructions upon every passage. It resembles a country, which men of every sect invade, and to which they go as it were to pillage; it is a field of battle, where the hostile nations that meet have frequent engagements, where they attack each other, and where they have skirmishes of various sorts. Not far from these you see the ascetic books, or books of devotion; then follow the books of morality, which are of much greater utility; theological tracts, doubly intelligible, both on account of the subject there treated of, and the manner in which it is treated; the works of the mystics, that is, of such devotees as have hearts addicted to love and tenderness.” “Hold, reverend father, one moment, said I; let me hear something of those mystics.” “Sir, said he, devotion warms a heart naturally inclined, and causes the animal spirits to mount up to the brain, so as to warm it in the same manner: from hence proceed ecstasies and ravishing visions. This state may be called the delirium of devotion; it often attains to the perfection of, or rather degenerates into quietism: you cannot be ignorant that a quietist is nothing else but a man that is at once mad, devout, and a libertine. Behold there the casuists who reveal the secrets of the night; who form in their imagination all the monsters that the dæmon of love is capable of producing, combine, compare them, and make them the constant objects of their thoughts; happy is it for them if their heart is not catched in the snare, and does not itself become an accomplice in so many debaucheries, so exactly and so plainly described. You see, Sir, that I think freely, and that I freely discover my thoughts. I am naturally of an open disposition, and more with you who are a stranger, and who desire to understand things, and know their true nature. If that was my way of thinking, I should speak of all these things with a tone of astonishment; I should every moment use the terms, that is divine, that is excellent; this abounds with the marvellous; and the consequence would be, that I should either impose upon you, or lessen myself in your opinion.” There our conversation ended, it was suddenly interrupted by the dervise’s being called upon about some business of the convent.

Paris, the 23d of the moon Rhamazan,
1719.