Alonso Rodríguez: The Practice of Christian and Religious Perfection, Vol. 1

cipally in view to promote the advancement in solid virtue of the entire body of the society, he wrote those admirable Treatises on Christian Perfection, to which the Holy Ghost has imparted such unction, that, read again and again, they never tire. Having gone to Seville, in the year 1606, to assist at a provincial congregation, he was ordered by his superiors to remain there, and was placed once more over the novices. He continued at Seville till his death, devoting his leisure moments to the revisal of his writings previous to their publication. Unceasing labour had by this time greatly impaired his strength; and, during the last two years of his life, he became so decrepid, that he was no longer able to support himself on his limbs to celebrate the holy sacrifice of the mass; but the saintly old man received daily from the hands of another the adorable sacrament of the eucharist. At last, loaded with years and merits, he slept in the Lord, at the advanced age of ninety, in the 70th year of his religious life, and 46 years after his solemn profession. He expired on the 21st of February, 1616.

He was a man who never failed to illustrate in his own person, and by his own example, those lessons of virtue and sublime perfection which he inculcated in his works. His union with 4 God was most intimate; he found a heaven in his cell, and seldom left it unless at the call of charity or obedience. During the last years of his life, being released from those obstacles which are inseparable from offices of authority over others, he used to devote four hours each day to prayer. He took no pleasure in walking about the garden attached to the college; his delight was to remain alone with God. He was the first at every public duty, most punctual in the least little observances of religious life, and a strenuous assertor of evangelical poverty. Even in the last stage of his long life, he would admit of no singularity in his diet; and when he happened to be helped to something likely to gratify his palate, he would contrive to spoil its flavour with water. To the very last, he never omitted to crawl to the church to hear the confessions of the people, and, in his turn, threw himself daily at the feet of his own confessor to obtain absolution himself. It was a most edifying sight to behold this venerable man, at the age of ninety, with the most profound sentiments of…