Part of the reason is connected with the history and fate of Miguel de Molinos, commonly esteemed to be the founder of the Quietists. He was a Spanish theologian, born of noble parentage near Saragossa, December 21, 1627. He acquired a great reputation at Rome and elsewhere for purity of life and vigor of intellect, but steadily refused all ecclesiastical preferment. In 1675 he published his “Spiritual Guide,” which in a few years passed through twenty editions in different languages, and was warmly hailed by people of marked piety in many lands. But it was soon bitterly attacked, especially by the Jesuits, who quickly perceived that Molinos’ system tacitly accused the Romish Church of a departure from the true religion, and that his whole doctrine would militate against the power of the priesthood and the importance of ceremonialism. Although he had a vast number of friends, some of them eminent for learning and piety, and even high in worldly rank, and though the pontiff himself, Innocent XI, was partial to him, he was, in 1685, cited before the Inquisition and subjected to close examination as well as rigid imprisonment. It is said that as many as twenty thousand letters were found in his house, which, if true, shows the degree to which the movement he headed had spread, and the hunger of great multitudes for spiritual food. His trial lasted two years, and in 1687 sixty-eight propositions, purporting to be extracted from his book, were condemned, and he was declared to have taught false and dangerous dogmas contrary to the doctrine of the Church. He was compelled to pass the remainder of his life in the dungeons of the Inquisition, where he died, after many years of close confinement, in which he exhibited the greatest humility and peace of mind. The principles of his book have been much misunderstood and misrepresented. The following statement is believed to be substantially correct. He taught that Christian perfection consists in the peace of the soul, springing from a complete self-surrender into the hands of God, in the renouncement of all external, temporal things, and in the pure love of God free from all considerations of interest or hope of reward. A soul which desires the supreme good must renounce all sensual and material things, silence every impulse, and concentrate itself on God. In a state of perfect contemplation the soul desires absolutely nothing, not even its own salvation; it fears nothing, not even hell; the one only feeling of which it is conscious is utter abandonment to God’s good will and pleasure; it is indifferent to all else; and nothing which does not reach the will, where alone virtue resides, can really pollute the soul. The system was termed Quietism, because it laid so much stress upon inward quiet, passive contemplation, and silent prayer; also upon freedom from hope and fear, the great agitators of the human mind.