At the same time, much as I trust
and honour and love Teresa, and much good as she has been made of God to
me, she was still, at her best, but an imperfectly sanctified woman, and
her rewards and experiences were correspondingly imperfect. But if a
holy life before such manifestations were made to her, and a still holier
life after them--if that is any test of the truth and reality of such
transcendent and supernatural matters,--on her own humble and adoring
testimony, and on the now extorted and now spontaneous testimony of
absolutely all who lived near her, still more humility, meekness, lowly-
mindedness, heavenly-mindedness and prayerfulness demonstrably followed
those inward and spiritual revelations to her of her Lord. In short and
in sure, ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of
thorns, or figs of thistles? On the whole, then, I for one am strongly
disposed toward Teresa, even in the much-inculpated matter of her inward
voices and visions. The wish may very possibly be father to the thought:
but my thought leans to Teresa, even in her most astounding locutions and
revelations; they answer so entirely to my reading of our Lord and of His
words.
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