With some of the best passages of the Saint’s Writings Selected Adapted and Arranged by Alexander Whyte d.d. Oliphant Anderson & Ferrier Saint Mary Street , Edinburgh , and 21 Paternoster Square , London 1900 Third Edition Completing 6000 copies Edinburgh: T. and A. Constable , Printers to her Majesty...

With a view to the work of my classes this session, I took old Abraham Woodhead’s two black-letter quartos with me to the Engadine last July.  And I spent every rainy morning and every tired evening of that memorable holiday month in the society of Santa Teresa and her excellent old-English translator.  Till, ever, as I crossed the Morteratch and the Roseg, and climbed the hills around Maloggia and Pontresina, a voice would come after me, saying to me, Why should you not share all this spiritual

I had a father and a mother who both feared God.  My father had his chief delight in the reading of good books, and he did his best to give his children the same happy taste.  This also helped me much, that I never saw my father or my mother regard anything but goodness.  Though possessing very great beauty in her youth, my mother was never known to set any store by it.  Her apparel, even in her early married life, was that of a woman no longer young.  Her life was a life of suffering, her death

On one occasion when I was in prayer I had a vision in which I saw how all things are seen in God.  I cannot explain what I saw, but what I saw remains to this day deeply imprinted on my soul.  It was a great act of grace in God to give me that vision.  It puts me to unspeakable confusion, shame, and horror whenever I recall that magnificent sight, and then think of my sin.  I believe that had the Lord been pleased to send me that great revelation of Himself earlier in my life, it would have kep

O my God, what unspeakable sufferings our souls have to endure because they have lost their liberty, and are not their own masters!  What tortures come on them through that!  I sometimes wonder how I can live through such agony of soul as I myself suffer.  God be praised who gives me His own life in my soul, so that I may escape from so deadly a death!  My soul has indeed received great strength from His Divine Majesty.  He has had compassion on my great misery, and has helped me.  Oh, what a di

This has done me a great deal of good, and it has affected me much and opened my eyes in many ways.  It is an ennobling thing to think that God is more in the soul of man than He is in aught else outside of Himself.  They are happy people who have once got a hold of this glorious truth.  In particular, the Blessed Augustine testifies that neither in the house, nor in the church, nor anywhere else, did he find God, till once he had found Him in himself.  Nor had he need to go up to heaven, but on

The true proficiency of the soul consists not so much in deep thinking or eloquent speaking or beautiful writing as in much and warm loving.  Now if you ask me in what way this much and warm love may be acquired, I answer,—By resolving to do the will of God, and by watching to do His will as often as occasion offers.  Those who truly love God love all good wherever they find it.  They seek all good to all men.  They encourage all good in all men.  They commend all good, they always unite themsel

There are only two duties that our Lord requires of us,—the love of God, and the love of our neighbour.  And, in my opinion, the surest sign for discovering our love to God is our love to our neighbour.  And be assured that the further you advance in the love of your neighbour, the further you are advancing in the love of God likewise.  But, oh me, how many worms lie gnawing at the roots of our love to our neighbour!  Self-love, self-esteem, fault-finding, envy, anger, impatience, scorn.  I assu

This is a very fit place for thinking on our wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: the blindness of our minds, the depravity and the bondage of our wills, the forgetfulness of our memories, the slipperiness of our tongues, the levity and frivolity of our hearts, with all their extravagances, presumptions, neglects.  In fine, let there be no spiritual wound within us, great or small, old or new, which we do not daily discover and lay open to our Sovereign Physician, beseeching of Him a remed

I saw that rich and great as she was, she was still a woman, and as much liable to all manner of passion and all womanly weakness as I was myself.  I saw as I lived in her house that rank is of little worth, and the higher it is, the greater the trouble and the anxiety it brings with it.  Great people must be careful of their dignity.  It will not suffer them to live at ease.  They must eat at fixed hours and by rule, for everything must be according to their state, and not according to their co

After my vow of perfection I spake not ill of any creature, how little soever it might be.  I scrupulously avoided all approaches to detraction.  I had this rule ever present with me, that I was not to wish, nor assent to, nor say such things of any person whatsoever, that I would not have them say of me.  And as time went on, I succeeded in persuading those who were about me to adopt the same habit, till it came to be understood that where I was absent persons were safe.  So they were also with

That which I am now to persuade you to, namely, the not excusing of yourselves, causes a great confusion in me.  For it is a very perfect quality and of great merit; and I ought far better to practise what I tell you concerning this excellent virtue.  I confess myself to be but little improved in this noble duty.  For it is a mark of the deepest and truest humility to see ourselves condemned without cause, and to be silent under it.  It is a very noble imitation of our Lord.  Were I truly humble

Observe carefully the stirrings of your heart in matters of superiority.  Pray to be delivered from such thoughts as these: I am older.  I deserve better.  I have laboured more.  I have more talent.  Such thoughts are the plague and poison of the heart.  Believe me, if there remain in you any allowed hankerings after the praises of men, though you may have spent many years in prayer, or rather in idle forms of prayer, you have made no progress, and never will, till your heart is crucified to the

Keep yourselves, my daughters, from that false humility which the devil suggests concerning the greatness of your sins.  For hereby he is wont to disquiet our souls after sundry sorts, and to draw us off Holy Communion, and also from prayer.  It is sometimes a great and a true humility to esteem ourselves as bad as may be, but at other times it is a false and a spurious humility.  I know it, for I have experienced it.  True humility, however great, does not disquiet nor disorder the soul.  It co

It is indeed a very great misery to live on in this evil world where our enemies are ever at our gate, and where we can neither eat nor sleep in peace, but are compelled to have our armour on night and day.  There is no rest here, nor happiness, nor will be till we are with the Everlastingly Blessed.  As I write I am seized with terror, lest I should never escape this sinful life.  Pray for me, my daughters, that Christ may ever live in me: for, otherwise, what security can there be for such as

I always had a great respect and affection for intellectual and learned men.  It is my experience that all who intend to be true Christians will do well to treat with men of mind and books about their souls.  The more learning our preachers and pastors have the better.  For if they have not much experience themselves, yet they know the Scriptures and the recorded experiences of the saints better than we do.  The devil is exceedingly afraid of learning, especially where it is accompanied with hum

(1) The Price of Prayer .—O Thou Lord of my soul, and my Eternal Good, why is it that when a soul resolves to follow Thee, and to do her best to forsake all for Thee,—why is it that Thou dost not instantly perfect Thy love and Thy peace within that soul?  But I have spoken unadvisedly and foolishly, for it is we who are at fault in prayer, and never Thee.  We are so long and so slow in giving up our hearts to Thee.  And then Thou wilt not permit our enjoyment of Thee without our paying well for