Note 10 — Chapter VIII

Scupoli, The Spiritual Combat (Pusey's Trans.), chap. xii.

St. Francis de Sales, in a letter to the Mère de Chastel, has a delightfully characteristic passage, full of paternal tenderness combined with playful and reverent humour, in which he sets forth the mode of action of the two wills. "Indeed, my dear daughter Marie," he writes, "you say truly that there are two beings in you. The one is a Marie who, like St. Peter, is tender, sensitive, ready to be irritated by a touch. This Marie is a daughter of Eve, and so her temper is frail. The other Marie wills to be wholly God's; and in order so to be, she wills in all simplicity to be humble and gentle towards everyone, and she would fain imitate St. Peter after he was converted. This Marie is the child of the Blessed Virgin. These two diverse Maries come into collision, and the bad one is so bad that often the other scarce knows how to defend herself, and then perforce she fancies herself beaten, and believes the bad Marie to be stronger. But not so, my poor, dear child; the bad one is not stronger than you. She is more perverse, more enterprising, more obstinate, and when you lose heart and sit down to cry, she is pleased because it is so much time lost for you; and if she cannot make you lose eternity, at all events she will try to make you lose time. My dear daughter, rouse your courage ... be watchful of your enemy; tread cautiously for fear of the foe; if you are not on your guard against her she will be too much for you. Even if she should take you by surprise, and make you totter, or give you a slight wound, do not be put out.... Now do not be ashamed of all this, my daughter, any more than St. Paul was when he confessed that there were two beings in him, one rebellious against God, the other obedient to Him."—St. Francis de Sales, Spiritual Letters, lvii.