Madame Guyon 1648-1717 was born of wealthy aristocratic parents at Montargis (dep. Loiret), on the 13th of April 1648. She spent much time in reading the Bible, and in committing large portions of it to memory when she was a young girl of about ten years of age. In 1663 she moved, along with her parents, to Paris. In her twenty-first year, on the 22nd of July 1668, she tells us, that, after much reading of Thomas A Kempis, St. Francis de Sales, and other religious writers, much spiritual conversation with those who knew best about the mysteries of the “inner life” and the happiness of the state of “recollection in God,” much groping in deep darkness, and much wrestling in agonized prayer, she at last experienced the change of heart which filled her with joy and peace in the life of faith.
She quotes: “Nothing was more easy to me now than to practice prayer. Hours passed away like moments, while I could hardly do anything else but pray. The fervency of my love allowed me no intermission. It was a prayer of rejoicing and of possession, wherein the taste of God was so great, so pure, unblended, and uninterrupted, that it drew and absorbed the powers of the soul into a profound recollection, a state of confiding and affectionate rest in God, existing without intellectual effort. For I had now no sight bu ...
