Page:Saint Theresa of Avila (Gilman 1889).djvu/41

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WITH THE AUGUSTINIAN NUNS.
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she had learned from experience to despise that led her to retire from it so early, but a superstitious fear lest she could not endure the perils and temptations she had heard so feelingly described. There were no wise friends to counsel this young girl. She had been left alone for weeks with a gloomy, unhappy man who had outlived his usefulness, whose domestic grief naturally led him to take false views of life. Her constant reading had been from the writings of Jerome, the famous Monk of Bethlehem, whose confessions of rapture and despair have always had a mighty influence over the female heart. According to the Bollandist’s record of our saint’s life, Theresa read and re-read Jerome’s “Letters to Paula Marcella and Eutichium,” pondering long over such passages as:—

“O Desert strewn with the flowers of Christ! Solitude, where are to be found the mysterious precious stones out of which the Apostle has built the City of God! Holy retreat where God reveals himself with fulness! Brother, what dost thou find in the world? Believe me, in this solitude I see more light? Here, freed from the weight of the flesh, the soul takes its flight to the skies.”