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PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
II THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD, UPPER NORWOOD
LONDON, S.E.
1876.
Price Sixpence.
�LONDON :
FEINTED RY C. W. EEYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET,
HAYMARKET, W.
�INTRODUCTION.
Those who, having given a cursory glance at
this “ Interior,” put it down and never resume it,
have the cordial sympathy of the writer, who "is
well aware that portions of it strongly resemble
passages from the ‘ Lives of the Saints,’ a work
said to have been “ written by knaves and read
by fools.” These pages can interest those only
who have had some experience of earnest, per
severing, fruitless prayer. They can be useful
to those only who may still be running after
phantoms, building beautiful castles upon fallacious texts, and striving to grasp the unattain
9
able.
Those who are satisfied with themselves and
their prayers are advised not to give their atten
tion to this “Interior,” which is calculated to
wound their feelings and to suggest doubts which
may disturb their peace of mind.
�w’-.■j/
�AN INTERIOR.
AM a straightforward1 practical woman. I have
never been into hysterics, and was never fond
of allegories, fairy tales, or ghost stories. I was not
particularly piously brought up. Religion in our
family was viewed mainly from a controversial point
of view. My mother was a consistent churchwoman,
and went to church once a week. My father cared
only for good sermons and good organs ; he generally
waited till all the prayers were over before he entered
any place of worship. There was nothing at home
to draw my attention to the subject of prayer. I
may have been about eighteen when an aunt came to
see us, and hearing that I had not been confirmed,
said it would be “as well” to send in my name,
because, if in after years, I should wish to be con
firmed, I might “feel awkward among the young
people.” This view of the subject was entertained,
and, to’ avoid the contemplated contingency, it was
voted that I might “ as well ” be confirmed. The
Rev. Llewelyn Davies prepared me for the rite. He
did not inquire into the state of my religious belief,
which, considering the praiseworthy motive which
brought me to him, was fortunate. He gave me
many questions, which I answered to his satisfaction,
and obtained my ticket for Confirmation.
I suppose the rite had already been delayed too
I
•
B
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An Interior.
long, for I felt exceedingly awkward on the Confir
mation day; others, especially the boys, looked as if
they felt uncommonly awkward too. However, they
might have felt still more ill at ease in after life, and
it was perhaps “ as well ” to confirm them then.
That day was an eventful one, for my aunt had her
pocket picked in the church, and an impression was
made upon me which may be called the beginning of
my spiritual career. Upon returning to the pew
after kneeling at the altar, I took my seat; therewere no hassocks. Presently the young lady next
me placed herself upon her knees upon the dirty
floor, and began praying with evident fervour. Her
hands covered her face, and I could see the tears
streaming between her fingers. I felt inclined to
laugh, but was ashamed of myself. I ended by
admiring her moral courage, and by envying her her
apparent faith and sincerity.
Converting in the received sense of the word I did
not require. I was a thoughtful, studious girl. I
hated dancing and all other amusements which
involved late hours. I never omitted morning and
evening prayers, and was rather fond of going to
church. I had long been a communicant, so that
Confirmation was not in my case a stepping-stone to
the Lord’s Supper. I had looked upon it as an
optional affair, and went through it without faith or
fervour. By prayer, I understood nothing beyond
reading over or repeating by heart other people’s
compositions. That young girl did not appear to me
to be doing either, and her conduct struck me, though
the impression faded away.
Some months later we passed a few weeks with a
friend who had an Irish cook. One winter’s morning
I rose for some forgotten reason earlier than usual,
and went into the kitchen at a quarter to seven. At
the same moment in walked the Irish cook out of the
foggy street. An unworthy suspicion crossed my
�An Interior.
7
mind, and I wished myself back in my room ; it wasdark enough for me to retreat unobserved, but Nancy
had the gas alight in a trice, and we stood face to
face. In her chapped hand was a well-worn prayer
book, and round her huge wrist was a rosary. She
had been to Mass, and it was not Sunday. “ That,”
said my friend, “ is the best of Nancy, she gets my
husband’s breakfast ready every morning at half-past
seven.” Nancy’s conduct made a deep and lasting
impression upon me. There was something earnest
and practical about it that edified me, and I began to
“meditate upon these things.” I determined to
devote more time and attention to prayer, and, as
there was morning service twice a week at our own
church, I began to attend it with great regularity. I
made quite a study of the Liturgy, and at length
came with reluctance to the conclusion that it was
an inappropriate manual for constant use. I was
not always in the same mood, but the prayers were
always equally melancholy, depressing, and mono
tonous. My spirits were frequently at high water
mark, and on those occasions I felt like a dissembler
while saying my prayers—or rather somebody else’s
prayers—for it never entered my head to use words
of my own when speaking to God, or even to ask
Him for anything that was not named in the Prayer
Book. However, it very often struck me that we
were saying an immense deal to God, and not giving
Him the opportunity of saying anything to us. I
felt attracted towards God, dissatisfied with the
means I was using to get at Him, and very anxious
to feel upon a surer footing with Him. I suppose I
was what is called “ awakened ”—I was in earnest.
I repeated my prayers with unflagging reverence, and
while wishing they were more in harmony with my
grateful happy frame of mind, continued to use them,
until one morning, while the curate was reading a
chapter in the Old Testament consisting principally
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An Interior.
of names, if struck me that I was making no spiritual
progress; that those prayers would remain the same;
that, having admitted for the millionth time that I
was a miserable sinner, I was absolutely unable to
keep my soul in such a penitential attitude any
longer. I required a more varied diet; and though
nobody I knew found any fault with the Liturgy,. I
was painfully conscious that it no longer suited me,, so
I began to. confine my devotions to Sunday. It seems
very strange that it never occurred to me to address
God in words of my own choosing. Though most
anxious to become better acquainted with God, and
to realise something like fervour, I saw no further
than that melancholy Prayer Book, and of mental
prayer I had, no idea whatever. The people I knew
never appeared to care at all about these things, so- I
kept my aspirations to myself. Now and then I
went to dissenting chapels, but the vulgarity of the
extempore prayers I heard there soon thoroughly dis
gusted me, and for a while I took more kindly to my
own sad Liturgy as- the lesser of two evils. I
wonder it never once occurred to me to pray extem
pore myself, for I was deeply interested in my soul’s
welfare, but it did not. I was very well acquainted
with the tenets, of the Church of Rome, but took no
interest in Catholics^ and never went to their chapels.
However, I always defended them whenever I heard
them ridiculed for the absurdity of their doctrines. I
used to say, with pertinent flippancy,, “thosewho live
in glass houses should not throw stones; and you
must give u.p nearly all you hold before you are in a
position, to twit them with the absurdity of what they
hold.” My friends were shocked. We had but one
Roman Catholic acquaintance, and he was far above
the average: at that time he was our most intellectual
visitor.
One morning,, long after my interest in the Church
prayers had considerably diminished, I was walking
�An Interior.
9
in the region of the wretched little French Catholic
Chapel and it began to rain heavily. The door was
open ; I went in, and there I saw one solitary man
kneeling near the altar. I had never noticed a man
on his knees before. He was in a very cramped
position and must have been extremely uncom
fortable ; but there he remained for a long time, and
I sat watching him. He had no book. I could see
his profile. His lips were closed, his eyes were fixed
upon the altar. Not until he turned his full face
towards me as he came down the aisle did I recognise
our highly-cultivated Roman Catholic friend. I
wished myself out in the rain, and fancied he would
feel ashamed of being caught upon his knees in such
a miserable little place as that chapel was then. I
felt myself turn scarlet, but he came forward with
his usual simple, manly manner, and said, “ Say a
little prayer for my intention, I am rather in a fix; ”
then composedly beating the dust off his knees with
his gloves he went away, leaving me with abundant
matter for meditation.
I had never seen any one praying in a church when
no service was going on. I had never seen any one
praying mentally. The people I knew viewed prayer
solely as a duty and were glad if anything prevented
its accomplishment. They never seemed to me to
expect any results to ensue from their prayers, and
they laughed at those who went to church on week
days. Here was a man of more than ordinary acute
ness who came on a week-day to pray upon his knees
for half-an-hour without a book, in an empty church,
to be helped out of “ a fix.” The simplicity of the
scene puzzled me beyond measure. Of course I was
well aware that Adam’s conduct had placed us all in
“ a fix,” and that we must be continually beseeching
God to ‘‘have mercy upon us miserable sinners;” but
here was a man asking his Father to help him out of
a private, personal dilemma, and I envied him his
�IO
An Interior.
filial confidence towards that Being with whom I so
earnestly longed to become better acquainted.
Four years’ practical experience of the lachrymose
Liturgy of the Church of England had wofully
disappointed me. For some months I had been
merely putting up with it, but the idea of leaving
the Anglican communion never occurred to me,
not even on that memorable morning in the little
chapel.
It was not as a Homan Catholic that my friend
came before me, but simply as one who seemed on a
very enviable footing with God. He appeared to
have attained what I was aiming at. Had I seen a
Quaker or a Mahommedan thus earnestly engaged in
prayer, I should have been equally sure that he was
nearer God than I was, and should have envied him
as I envied my friend; moreover he had asked me
to pray for his intention, which nobody had ever
done before. I knew people who were in “a fix,”
but they never said “Let us prayperhaps they
had found out the futility of prayer, as I did later on.
I was just thinking about leaving the chapel when
the door was pushed, and in came a man. He did not
take the trouble to go into a seat, he knelt in the aisle
close to the door, slightly in advance of me. After
several failures he at length succeeded in poising his
dripping hat upon the knob of his umbrella, and
producing a very thick book, began to pray. I
looked over his shoulder and read “ Litany of the
Holy Ghost.” Here was a discovery! there were
other Litanies.
I might have asked for the title of the book, but
in leaning forward, shook the woodwork, and down
went the hat and umbrella; so I merely apologised
and took my leave.
As far as I was concerned there might as well
have been no Holy Ghost, though I was supposed to
have received Him in Confirmation.
�An Interior.
11
I walked home full of good resolutions, which for
fifteen years were, in spite, of many obstacles,
religiously kept.
Before going further it seems necessary to state
what my idea of religion was. I lived in an atmo
sphere of religious discussion, and had come to the
conclusion that doctrinal difficulties had nothing to
do with personal piety. I had seen my father con
found men of different persuasions with the simplest
questions, and was of opinion that the doctrines
about which they grew so vehement could never be
satisfactorily proved, and that therefore salvation
could not depend upon them. I was tired of these
continual discussions, which rarely ended amicably,
and which were so hostile to my notion of piety.
So little interest did I take in the subjects generally
brought forward that I could defend either side
without scruples of conscience. The truth of Chris
tianity and the inspiration of the Bible were never
attacked in our house. I firmly believed both ; but
so contrary to common sense did I consider the
doctrine of the Trinity, that I wondered how
believers in that could cavil at Transubstantiation,
Baptismal Regeneration, &c.
To know and to love God under the name of
Christ, and to get into communication with Him by
His own appointed means—Prayer—was my ambition.
Quite tired of the Church Prayers, and thoroughly
disgusted with the lamentable want of unity among
Christians generally, I found no help from without.
I was in the Anglican Church, but not of it. Still
I had no intention of joining any other sect. Por
forms, ceremonies, choral services, and sermons, I
cared not one whit. Sermons I always thought a
vexatious excrescence thrust in when the attention
was wearied with so many prayers ; my mother and
I often sneaked off before the sermon began. I only
cared for Prayer. Those who are neither tired of
�I2
An Interior.
the Liturgy nor much interested in these matters will
fail to appreciate the intense delight and sense of
relief I experienced while turning over the leaves of
the Catholic prayer-books I bought.
After having addressed God in a minor key until
I no longer felt sorry at all, it was indescribably
refreshing to get into a major key, and find prayers
suggested by a spirit of love from which all fear was
banished—prayers emanating from a feeling of grati
tude, not merely for abstract and contingent blessings,
but for tangible, every-day advantages—prayers, in
short, of which the spirit was in harmony with my
own, and which gave a fillip to my devotion, then on
the wane. It was not that I admired those prayers
—far from it: as compositions they were inferior to
those in our Liturgy, and the translations were less
dignified; but as a bird would rather fly around a
large barn than hop about a golden cage, so I, after
my long confinement to the Liturgy, enjoyed the
wider range afforded by a book in which there were
more varied devotions, and where the Holy Ghost was
prominently brought forward as the great illuminator
and consoler of the faithful.
*
Conscious how utterly I had neglected Him, and
most anxious to be enlightened, I commenced in
voking Him with a fervour and a perseverance which
in the retrospect amazes me.
Casting aside the feeble translations, I committed
the noble Latin hymns to memory, and in the simple
words of the fine old “Veni Sancte Spiritus,” I
invoked the Holy Ghost w’ith all my heart. Not by
fits and starts, but many times a day for many
months did I implore Him to give me light to know
and strength to execute God’s will. I addressed Him
in a spirit of reparation for past neglect, and long
after I had entered the more lofty region of mental
prayer the “ Veni Sancte Spiritus ” was one of my
daily companions. It became painful to me to listen
�An Interior.
13
to the frequent discussions concerning His personality,
mission, procession, etc., which went on in our
family; I ceased to take any share in them, and used
to pray that they might be discontinued. The Ghost,
however, was not invoked to the exclusion of the
Father and the Son. I invoked them all with all the
faith, hope, charity, reverence, and humility I could
command. I did my very best. I used to visit
Catholic chapels merely because they were open, and
as others were praying too, I was not an object of
attention. I always chose times when no service was
going on, and was aiming at feeling alone with God.
Occasionally I prayed mentally, but it was not until
Christ became the main object of my love and
devotion that I dived deeply into the depths of that
unfathomable ocean called mental prayer. I had
been quite ashamed of having for years all but
ignored the existence of the Holy Ghost, and had
been zealously making up for past negligence; but
now it occurred to me that Protestants, at any rate
Anglicans, were extremely remiss in reference to Christ
too ; for they pray to the Father almost exclusively.
There is but one Collect in their Prayer-book to
God the Son, while in my Catholic manual He took
precedence, and the petitions to the Father were few
and far between. I preferred the Son to the Father,
and could no longer blind myself to the fact that I
was of the Roman Catholic Church, but not in it.
Led, as I firmly believed, by the Holy Ghost, whom
I was continually petitioning for light, I abandoned
the Anglicans entirely. Ever since I had found out
that even on Sunday during High Mass Catholics
were quite at liberty to use what prayers they pleased,
and were by no means compelled to follow the priest,
I had given up going to my own Church. I dearly
loved the liberty I enjoyed, and ardently did I thank
God for leading me, through the inspiration of the
Holy Ghost, along the flowery path of prayer. I had
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An Interior.
not a misgiving. I looked upon the tendency of my
mind as an answer to prayer, and was content to
follow the guidance of that Ghost whithersoever it
might lead me ; it led me into the Church of Rome.
Of course my relatives had no faith in the holiness
of any ghost who led the way to Rome, and she
who had formerly promoted my Confirmation now
refused to kiss me !
I had not one Romish acquaintance; he of the
“ fix ” had gone to the colonies. Reared for none of
the Romish ceremonies. I cared solely for what I
believed to be the Holy Ghost and His inspiration ;
if I was mistaken it was not my fault. The ill-will
of my relations did not disturb my peace of mind ; I
went on my way rejoicing, doing all I could to be
good, and trying to imitate the Christ of the Gospels
to the best of my poor ability.
Had it occurred to me (and I wonder it did not) to go
up with the others to Communion as if I were a Catholic
I believe I should never have joined Rome outwardly.
But I longed to get nearer to Jesus'. All the best
prayers were addressed to Him “ in the Blessed Sacra
ment,” and I was most anxious to become one with
Him in that mysterious rite. Knowing that Confes
sion and Absolution preceded Communion in the
Roman Church, I again and with renewed fervour
besought the Holy Ghost to “ show me the way
wherein I should walk,” and he (or, as some Pro
testants would say, a “ lying spirit ”) led me into the
Church of Rome. I went to a Jesuit, told him how
hard I had been praying, explained to him the bent
of my inclination, but assured him that I could not
care at all about Indulgences, Purgatory, Angels,
Saints, Sacred Hearts, Scapulars, &c.
He said that faith in all these things would come
by-and-by, that if I was willing to receive the teaching
of the Church, God would supply what was wanting.
After three interviews he baptised me, and three
�An Interior.
*5
weeks later I made my first Communion. I made it
with boundless faith. I really believed most fervently
that Jesus would help me to overcome some of my
faults. For many years I communicated four times
weekly, and no inducement would have been strong
enough to divert me from my purpose. Through all
weathers, at all seasons, I took a walk of twenty
minutes, before seven, for I was always in church
long before Mass began, and with never-failing fervour
I engaged in earnest mental prayer.
I am sure that no worldly advantages would have
induced me to forego my Communions. I delibe
rately gave up a trip to Paris because I feared that
my devotion might cool amid the festivities of that
gay capital; so I stayed at home by myself.
“ Ask and it shall be given unto you, seek and ye
shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you.” I
was ready to lay down my life for the truth of those
assertions, and though I was painfully conscious that
hitherto I had not realised any of the help I sought,
either for myself or others, I thought it must be my
fault, and turned with importunity to the Holy
Ghost to teach me how to pray.
Prayer now engrossed nearly all my attention and
a great portion of my time.
Of distractions in prayer I knew nothing. Entirely
engrossed with my subject, I could remain for an
hour sunk in a species of mute adoration, called con
templation, so profound that not until it was over was
I aware how stiff and tender my knees had become.
No slamming of doors, tuning of the organ, or any
other disturbance could rouse me. I was intensely
happy. Occasionally all sense of weight seemed to
leave my limbs, and sometimes while walking down
the aisle I was not conscious of the boards. Torrents
of delicious tears gushed from my eyes, and thus
cradled, as I fancied myself, in 11 the everlasting
arms,” I enjoyed every day what S. Climachus calls
�An Interior.
.
a “ spiritual feast; ” for the “ gift of tears” is, accord
ing to him and all the Saints, a very great favour. I
had no difficulty in realising what is called “ The Pre
sence of God,” and whether in the street, a railway
station, or even in a place of amusement, my heart
was always kneeling before the altar. I lost all
interest in the studies which had formerly been my
delight. I gave up the several languages of which
I had previously been so fond, and for ten years or
more I rarely looked into a secular book. God, I
knew, was a jealous God. I was aiming at becoming
a faithful spouse of the Holy Ghost, who demanded
all my heart, all my soul, and all my strength. He
wanted all, and I gave him all, not grudgingly, but
cheerfully, lovingly, and devotedly. I occupied my
time with visiting the sick poor and with other
charitable undertakings. Unaware that mine was an
exceptional class of prayer, and that even to be able to
pray without distractions was extremely rare; unaware,
moreover, that Catholics were encouraged to add
experiences such as mine when they went to Confes
sion, and that these experiences were called a 11 mani
festation of conscience,” I should in all probability
have kept all these things and “ pondered them in my
heart,” without having recourse to priests, had I not
become acquainted with some very fervent and intel
ligent Roman Catholic ladies.
Not a syllable did I utter respecting the state of my
“ interior,” but soon collected that I was the recipient
of unusual “ graces ”—graces which were ordinarily
the portion of great saints; they talked about
“ spiritual direction,” and mentioned St. Teresa and
Penelon. Through them I made the unwelcome dis
covery that it Was very rare indeed to receive an
answer to prayer, so rare that I ought not to expect
any. Prayer, said they, is a duty; if God gave us
what we want we might become proud ; He withholds
His gifts to try us and to keep us humble. It struck
�An Interior.
me that if by prayer they meant the irreverent
gabble which so lamentably disfigures the public
services of the Church of Rome, it was not surprising
that no results ensued.
I did not like what the ladies said. I would not
believe that Christ could deceive. “ Everyone that
asketh receiveth,” were words attributed to Him, and
I clung to them. From £ime to time,, however, an
ominous cloud had crossed, my horizon, many miser
able misgivings had assailed me. Over and. over
again had I struggled with irrepressible doubts as to
the veracity of such assertions as “ all things whatso
ever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive,”
and I could not conceal from myself the budding con
viction that the whole affair was a delusion. Such
notions I did my best to eject as suggestions from
the Evil One; I accused myself in Confession of
“ doubting about God’s mercy,” got absolution, and
recommenced praying with renewed fervour. I never
undertook anything without earnestly imploring God
to enlighten me as to whether it was His will that I
should engage in it. No light came. My prayers
were mainly for others—for the sick, the suffering,
for people in “ fixes,” and, above all, for the conver
sion of sinners. To prayer I added penance, care
fully abstaining from everything that gratified my
senses. Every Friday, by the advice of my Confessor,
I took the discipline for seven minutes, and wore a
hair shirt d discretion; in short, I endeavoured by
every means in. my power to propitiate God in the
various ways approved by the Church of Rome. The
non-success of my prayers I attributed to my own
remissness, want of faith, hope, charity, &c., though
I knew I was doing my best. I was very glad that
my earthly parents were not so inexorable as my
heavenly one, but thought it wicked to draw com
parisons. I did not neglect Mary. For years I said
the rosary daily with a definite object, but nothing
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ever came of it. I thought over what the ladies had
said, and procured Fenelon’s works and Teresa’s
autobiography. The plot thickened. A new era
began in my spiritual life.
To my exceeding amazement, that remarkable
woman’s experience of prayer, &c., seemed marvel
lously like my own. I could have written many of
the pages I was reading w-jth such interest. Here I
found the same love of solitude, devotion to mental
prayer, indifference to transitory things, zeal for the
conversion of sinners, and, above all, the same, though
in her case intensified, mysterious physical sensations,
such as lightness of body, bright light, interior words,
&c. However, though she was in ecstasies with
God, she seemed to have found Joseph more propi
tious, for she very distinctly tells us that she never
appealed to him in vain, and the Church, in a prayer
to St. Joseph called the “ Memorare,” reminds him
that St. Teresa had never had recourse to him
in vain.
I was both amazed and amused. Here was a great
saint, a woman of experience who, after soaring into
celestial regions and communing for hours with the
Blessed Trinity, came down to Joseph io get what she
wanted 1 Hitherto I had been disposed to ridicule
Catholics for having so many strings to their bow. I
thought it so Uncomplimentary to Christ and his pro
mises ; now my eyes were opened. Even the sublime
Teresa sighed for reciprocity—had she found it in God
would it have occurred to her to turn to Joseph ?
After basking in the ineffable rays of God’s myste
rious presence, she went round like any other beggar
to the back door for some broken victuals. Joseph
received her well, gave her what she wanted, and,
like a sensible woman, she made frequent appeals to
his generosity, and was never refused. In simple,
forcible language, she urges everybody to apply to
Joseph; she gives her “experience,” and a verystrik-
�An Interior.
*9
ing one it is. 1 had no faith in Joseph. She and
Fenelon strongly advise “ direction.” I was bewildered
about many things, and determined I would have a
director—but I took my time. It consoled me to find
that St. Teresa had heartily hated manifesting her
interior to her director ; for so thoroughly did I abhor
even the mere thought of it, that I hesitated some
time before I could entertain it at all. My own old
Confessor had gone abroad, and the new one did not
know me so well, which enhanced the difficulty.
Before exposing myself to an ordeal so objection
able, and which was not of obligation, I determined
to take the opinion of an eminent Jesuit. Praying
earnestly to know the will of God from the mouth of
His minister, I entered his confessional and said
“ Father, I have come merely to ask your advice as
to whether it is expedient to expose other things in
dependent of sins to one’s Confessor—to have, in
short, a “ director.”
“Far better,” said he, “for every one to be his or
her own director.” An anwer so opposed to my ex
pectation and so entirely at variance with the opinions
of so many distinguished writers, perplexed and dis
appointed me. I determined to try another priest.
Prefacing my visit with a prayer to the Ghost as
before, I applied to an oblate of St. Charles, a man of
vast psychological experience and well-known piety.
“Hot only,” said he, “ do I earnestly recommend
you to have a director, but I tell you it is your bounden
duty to have one.” There is but one Holy Ghost,
thought I. Two entirely different counsels can never
come from the same ghost. I had better have no
director; he might be under the influence of the
wrong ghost and mislead me. St. Teresa had
suffered grievously for years, owing to an inexpert
director; so might I. However, one morning I
was in Church absorbed as usual with my devo
tions, when, just as the Sanctus bell rang, a bright
�20
An Interior.
light shone round me. I lost all consciousness of the
church, the priest, etc. I saw happy faces, felt in
tensely happy, and,, upon regaining my normal condi
tion at the“Domine non sum dignus,” thought the
altar, the vestments, the flowers^ etc., all looked
wofully faded, and paltry by, comparison with the
scene I had just left. This species . of vision deter
mined me to have a “ spiritual conference ” with my
Confessor.. Fully but briefly I stated all I considered
necessary to enable him to judge of my “ interior.”
With some hesitation he assured me that it was
extremely difficult to distinguish the operations of
God from those of the devil; that Satan could trans
form himself into an angel of light, that even St.
Teresa had pronounced it well nigh impossible to feel
certain on these matters—that he felt unequal to the
responsibility of “directing” me, and advised me to
seek counsel elsewhere.- I did nothing of the sort.
I bought a bottle of medicine to cure the ulcers
which fasting had induced in my throat, and bade a
long farewell to “ directors ” and to ghosts generally !
In my quiet corner of the church I loved so well,
and where I had passed so many hours, not merely
in petitioning but in devoutly worshipping God, I
reviewed my fifteen years’ experience of that eleva
tion of the soul to God commonly called mental
prayer.
. Not once nor twice, but frequently, did I meditate
upon the practice of prayer, and finally determined
to give it up entirely as useless, presumptuous, and
absurd. Not in a moment of fretful impatience, of
unwonted dejection, or of sudden indignation, but
after considerable reflection, with reverence and hu
mility, with confidence and gratitude, did I abandon
a practice from which I had learnt many a solemn
lesson. As we smile at a child who fills his pockets
with salt in the hope of catching birds, so I smiled at
my former self for believing that the Changeless One
�An Interior,
21
would alter His course to suit me, for wishing Him to
do so, and for supposing that He wanted any prompt
ing from me as to the time when He should set about
His own business.
In me the religious faculty was largely developed ;
but in my loftiest flights I had felt the futility, the
want of reciprocity, the chilling discouragement of
the whole affair, and prayer in the sense of mere
petition I had given up long before I had ceased
communing with God in the various methods which,
under the names of meditation, contemplation, prayer
of silence, ecstacy, &c., have engrossed religious
minds of all denominations. I never pray now.
I have left off running after ghosts. I have
given up building castles upon fallacious texts. I
no longer try to grasp the unattainable. I am
happy and contented. Formerly I fancied every
thing would go wrong if I neglected my prayers;
now I am convinced that the power we call God is
and ought to be uninfluenced by our petitions. Now
I am satisfied with God; I am certain He will do the
right thing at the right time, and that fortunately His
creatures can neither say nor do anything which can
interfere with the perfect harmony of His mighty'
operations. “I was blind, now I see.” Upon those
fifteen years I look back with more amazement than
regret. I was in good faith doing my best, and quite
unconscious what a poor, mean, childish idea I bad
formed of our great Creator. I have broader notions
now and live in a healthier atmosphere. It took me
many years to learn my lesson, but at length I mas
tered it, and am daily profiting by it.
PRINTED BY C. W. REYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET, HAYMARKET.
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
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Original Format
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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An interior
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 21 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. A personal account, by an anonymous woman, of religious life and disillusion. Printed by C.W. Reynell, Little Pulteney Street, London.
Publisher
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Thomas Scott
Date
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1876
Identifier
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CT188
Creator
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[Unknown]
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (An interior), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Subject
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Catholic Church
Prayer
Conway Tracts
Faith
Prayer
Roman Catholic Church