The Interior Life

This higher life . . . is called the interior life by mystical writers. In it there are two factors, the grace of God and the action of the soul: an action which is subject to great varieties of form and manner, according to character, disposition, habit of mind or impulse of heart, in each individual. The direction of the soul, in this union of its own activity with the graces it receives from God, is therefore a science, and an art. That is why so many books have been written on this subject: the safest and readiest means of procuring for the soul the inexpressible happiness of living inwardly with God, and of beginning the life of heaven by the inner life. Simplicity of procedure, such is the aim of the unknown, but surely thoroughly competent, author of this work, presented to us by the Reverend Father Superior of the Missionaries of St. Francis of Sales, and for which he solicits our approbation: The Interior Life simplified and reduced to its Fundamental Principle. The desire to make the interior life more accessible, by curtailing the often very complicated apparatus wherewith it is surrounded by so many masters of the spiritual life, is certainly an excellent thing: how many souls are kept at a distance by the number of acts which they are asked to perform to live in union with God, by the multiplicity of distinctions and minutiae of detail! This idea, which was good in itself, has been happily set forth and carried out. We advise and recommend the attentive and repeated reading of this book to priests and people. Priests will find in it much profit to their own progress in the interior life, and clear light for the guidance of souls whose direction is entrusted to them.