tremendous demands upon the mere human nature, was hidden by Providence, with a completeness hardly to be paralleled from the lives of the saints, behind the exercises of a humdrum routine and the practice of virtues which are looked for, if not found, in every young religious.

Almost a victim, ere his birth, to the ignorance and incapacity of the physician who attended his mother, Bernard was an exceedingly feeble and puny infant; but his health seems gradually to have improved up to the close of his life. He was of extremely small and slight stature, which was at first put forward as a difficulty against his entrance into the noviceship. His delicate constitution did not prevent an early indulgence in severe penitential exercises; in his twelfth or thirteenth year these went to such lengths as the use of a discipline of wire bristling with points. Morbid or neurotic he never was. His character seems to have been vigorous and bright, combining in a marked degree ardour with firmness. received a good Christian training, but some family troubles exercised his virtue both before and after his novitiate. His love of study and books was signalized on ore occasion by his running away from home in order to go to school.

He

Long before the canonical age for admission he felt. an ardent desire to enter the Jesuit novitiate. After one or two rejections he was received at Valladolid, by dispensation, when less than fifteen years old; took vows cf devotion the following year and (again by dispensation). the regular vows in 1718. He then immediately entered upon his philosophical course, then upon his theological; was ordained priest (by dispensation) in his twenty-third year; then went on to his third year of probation, and, having had experience of work in the pulpit and in the confessional, died at the age of twenty-five. Such a career may seem extraordinary enough to many of our generation. But in the old Spanish provinces of the Society such rapid advancement to priestly status and work seems to have been not uncommon.

The singular favours wherewith it pleased God to mark out this elect soul began about the fourth month of his. novitiate. It was on the Feast of St. Francis Xavier -one of his special patrons-that he was given a delightful vision of the Infant Jesus, who appeared to him as a fisher for souls in the sea of the world. During the following

Christmas time the vision was renewed in varying forms. Other kindred favours followed and raised the soul of the novice to intense raptures. But with the oncoming of the Lenten season there began a complete and trying change. Severe pains and trials followed upon unearthly delights. The dark night of the soul poured in, and, until Easter dawned, this mere boy of fifteen was strong enough to make his way on and upward through that formidable stage of the higher spiritual life, through its terrifying glooms and storms and evil hauntings. I endured,' wrote Bernard, violent temptations to anger, fury, despair; against faith, against holy images, to blasphemy, and one against purity, which afflicted me most of all.' At Eastertime all these clouds rolled away; he was again in the sunshine of heaven; and the state of consolation and spiritual vigour which followed made it very necessary for wise direction to confine the acts and resolutions of the ardent neophyte within the bounds of discretion.

We cannot here follow up even the more marked stages in the soul's career thus begun. Suffice it is to say that Bernard ascended and left on record all the degrees of the spiritual life as trodden by the greatest contemplatives. More than this, he knew one after another of the most signal and ineffable marks of divine love bestowed on those chosen spirits. Our Lord, His Blessed Mother and various saints and angels held frequent discourse with him. Like SS. Anthony, Cajetan and Stanislaus, he received in his arms the Divine Infant. He was given a vision of eternal torments which, as he has left it recorded, is one of the most vivid and appalling that have ever been put into words. Holy Communion constantly brought him an inundation of joys such as it seemed impossible naturally to experience and to live. The privilege of hearing angelic music, sometimes granted to St. Ignatius during his celebration of Mass, was frequently enjoyed by Bernard; so, too, that of the almost continual presence in visible form of his guardian angel. Like St. Thomas Aquinas, he was girded by angelic hands with a white girdle significant of chastity; this emblem (he was told) did not signify entire exemption from imaginations excited by the demons, but would guarantee him from all sinful consent.

Passing over many incidental favours of which the happy recipient himself says: To some these delicacies and refinements may seem suspicious, as if unworthy of

the imagination of God; but this is because they have not tasted how sweet the Lord is, nor known by experience how great is His delight in being with the children of men'; passing over also certain revelations and trials of his, interesting because of their connexion with troubles through which the Society of Jesus was then passing, we must notice one of the earliest intimations he received of the special work and privilege for which his Master destined him. At the time of the first renewal of his vows (1729), feeling, while he pronounced the sacred engagements, his soul full of an extraordinary sweetness and a longing for closer divine union, he saw, by an intellectual vision, Christ within his soul, in great glory, and within the Saviour's breast the Divine Heart-an object indescribably bright and beautiful. From it issued three slender cords as of the finest gold, which after a short distance met and blended into one cord. This then opened once more into three, and the three cords attached themselves firmly to the heart of Bernard himself; and thus remained bound together (as he himself, duly appreciating this delicate symbolism, wrote), 'the two hearts, the divine and the earthly, the holy and the sinful, the pure and the defiled, that of Christ and that of so unworthy a creature.' Our Lord then said to him, 'Bernard, this sacrifice [namely, the fervent pronouncing of his vows] makes me more desirous of making thy soul my spouse. But know that before this is accomplished thou shalt have severe conflict to endure; enjoy then this hour, that thou mayest the better endure afterwards.'

Terrible, indeed, beyond any previous trials, was the interior storm which followed upon this and other forewarnings. All light seemed to disappear, all joy in welldoing and in prayer, all hope, all faith. The demons were allowed to haunt and harass the sufferer in hideous sensible forms. They claimed him as their own by mortal sin, and showed him the abyss of hell open at his feet to receive him. When he appealed to his God mocking voices cried to him: Where is your God? Where are the delights He used to give you?' In the absence of all sensible grace they were able to stir up in his imagination and senses horrible temptations to blasphemy and other sins; they provoked him to inflict violence on himself, to tear his flesh with his teeth, to fling himself out of windows; they were allowed to make his Masses and Communions a torment,

hissing into his ear: 'Judas communicated and now he is with us,' or even the inspired words of St. Paul concerning unworthy communicants. And these painful trials lasted for months. They may seem to the sceptically-minded to belong to the phenomena of hysteria or mania. But one singular fact seems at once to place them in a different category. Nothing of them was perceived by those whose company and occupations the sufferer shared every day. His external demeanour remained tranquil, his performance of duties faultless.

How great was the heroism with which he passed through the furious and prolonged assault, helped by wise counsel and his own exact obedience, was made evident by the signal consolations, caresses and honours which the Divine Leader, watchfully guardant throughout, lavished at length upon His faithful soldier. It was, once more, on an Easter Sunday that the trial, which had begun in the preceding November, passed suddenly away; he had so foretold to his director at Christmas. Scarcely had calm replaced storm when his new-found happiness culminated in the mystic ceremony of the divine espousals. On this event, however, we will not linger, as it was but the prelude and anticipation of that still higher rite which the authorities on mystical theology name 'the mystic marriage,' and which they regard as the sign and seal of the highest degree of union with God into which the soul can enter while still in the earthly tabernacle. The divine condescension, eager to bring home to human dullness the reality, intensity, and efficacy of divine love, has inspired the writers of Scripture, the teachers of the Church and the saints to use the language of earthly and carnal love for a world of action and passion wholly and sublimely spiritual. Such divine condescensions, like the Incarnation itself, tempt the unspiritual to blaspheme or cavil, while they move enlightened souls to the profoundest humility and most ardent gratitude. Let us, in that wise spirit, so far as we may, speak and read of the unearthly favours granted to Bernard Hoyos.

It was on the Feast of Our Lady's Assumption, so notable for Bernard's young precursors, Stanislaus and John Berchmans, that the crowning privilege fell to the lot of their faithful imitator.

I heard the voices of angels singing: Behold, the Spouse cometh; go forth to meet Him.' My soul was intensely recollected, and saw what

follows by an imaginary vision. I saw that I was clothed (without seeing by whom) with a white garment, adorned richly with precious stones this was a symbol of purity and the accompanying virtues which form the nuptial robe. Forthwith appeared on one side St. Michael, St. Teresa, our Father St. Ignatius, and St. Francis of Sales, and on the other my guardian angel, St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi, the venerable Father Emmanuel Padial,' and St. Francis Xavier. At the end of the two files of saints were seen three beautiful thrones: one smaller than the others and unoccupied, another occupied by our Blessed Mother Mary, and the centre one, all of gold and approached by three steps, occupied by Christ. At the same time, by an intellectual vision, I beheld the Blessed Trinity, and its mystery was given me to understand more clearly than on the preceding occasions. . .. Clad in the robe aforesaid, I advanced to the steps of the centre throne, where Mary presented me to her Son. Kneeling I kissed with rapture the sacred wounds in His feet; and then He asked me if I desired to be united to Him as He desired to be united to me. Feeling lost in my nothingness and His love, I replied I know not what, but I think its sense was: Behold the servant of the Lord; be it done unto me according to Thy word.' Then, raising me from my knees up to the highest step, and taking my right hand with His, He said to me:I, in the name of my divinity and humanity, as high priest, in my divine nature and my human, espouse thee, beloved soul. Sit now upon the throne of my spouses, and taste of what thou art to enjoy eternally.' I took my place upon the vacant throne, while my Lord still held my right hand. Then he placed on it a ring of gold with a stone of brilliant colour but of kind unknown to me, and said: 'Let this ring be a pledge of reciprocal love; thou shalt be mine and I shall be thine; thou shalt be Bernard of Jesus and I shall be Jesus of Bernard; look upon my glory as that of thy spouse, for I shall look upon thy glory as that of my spouse. All mine is thine, and all thine mine: what I am by nature do thou share by grace: thou and I are one.' These and other most loving words the Divine Jesus said to my soul. I gave the ring which I bore upon my middle finger to the Blessed Mother as to the depositary of the gift. Then I asked the saints present to give thanks on my behalf for so great a favour, and to obtain for me grace to correspond with it. As if in confirmation of the rite, the Blessed Trinity gave a blessing, each of the Divine Persons speaking words of ineffable love.

I felt that in my soul was effected all that these visible ceremonies signified On putting on the nuptial robe I felt as if the old man were annihilated within me; at the moment when the Saviour took my hand, my soul received such increase of grace that He seemed to change me into the new man; when I seated myself on the throne it was as if I were entering into glory, for only the Beatific Vision was wanting; when the Lord spoke those words, Jesus of Bernard,' it seemed as if the close union I experienced did make in a certain manner one of us both.

No wonder if after such experiences as these the happy

1 Bernard early began a careful study of works on ascetical and mystical theology, his favourite author being, it would seem, Father Michael Godinez (Wadding). The highest kind of vision for a soul in via is, he tells us, the intellectual, next comes the imaginary, lowest is the sensible.

2 Then recently deceased in the odour of sanctity.