"Oh, mighty, powerful, happy change! The love of God was shed abroad in my heart, and a flame kindled there with pains so violent, and yet so very ravishing, that my body was almost torn asunder. I sweated, I trembled, I fainted, I sang. Oh, I thought my head was a fountain of water. I was dissolved in love. My beloved is mine, and I am His. He has all charms; He has ravished my heart; He is my comforter, my friend, my all. Oh, I am sick of love. He is altogether lovely, the chiefest among ten thousand. Oh, how Jesus fills, Jesus extends, Jesus overwhelms the soul in which He lives."
The Imitation of Christ has been described by more than one writer as a manual of eroticism, and certainly the chapters "The Wonderful Effects of Divine Love," and "Of the Proof of a True Lover," might well be cited in defence of this view. In the following canticle of St. Francis of Assisi it does not seem possible to distinguish a substantial difference between it and a frankly avowed love poem:—
"Into love's furnace I am cast,
Into love's furnace I am cast,
I burn, I languish, pine, and waste.
Oh, love divine, how sharp thy dart!
How deep the wound that galls my heart!
As wax in heat, so, from above,
My smitten soul dissolves in love.
I live, yet languishing I die,
While in thy furnace bound I lie."[114]
It would certainly be possible to furnish exact parallels from volumes of secular verse that would be strictly 'taboo' among those who fail to see anything objectionable in verses like the above when written in connection
with religion. Such people fail to recognise that their attractiveness lies in the hidden appeal to amatory feeling, and owe their origin to the suppressed or perverted sexual passion of their author. We must not allow ourselves to be blinded by the consideration as to whether the object of adoration be an earthly or a heavenly one. Men and women have not distinct feelings that are aroused as their objective differs, but the same feelings directed now in one direction, now in another. The direction of these feelings, their exciting cause, are sheer environmental accidents. How can one resist the implications of the following, from a devotional work widely circulated amongst the women of France:—
"Praise to Jesus, praise His power,
Praise His sweet allurements.
Praise to Jesus, when His goodness
Reduces me to nakedness;
Praise to Jesus when He says to me,
My sister, my dove, my beautiful one!
Praise to Jesus in all my steps,
Praise to His amorous charms.
Praise to Jesus when His loving mouth
Touches mine in a loving kiss.
Praise to Jesus when His gentle caresses
Overwhelm me with chaste joys.
Praise to Jesus when at His leisure
He allows me to kiss Him."[115]
Against this we may place the following hymn, sung at an American camp meeting of some thousands of persons between the ages of fourteen and twenty-five:—
"Blessed Lily of the Valley, oh, how fair is He;
He is mine, I am His.
Sweeter than the angels' music is His voice to me;
He is mine, I am His.
Where the lilies fair are blooming by the waters calm
There He leads me and upholds me by His strong right arm.
All the air is love around me—I can feel no harm;
He is mine, I am His."[116]