the soul of the believer is united in ecstatic devotion with God, the sins of the flesh are no sins at all. The common-sense of the Spaniard, which was never more conspicuous than in the greatest of his orthodox mystics, Santa Teresa, left him in no doubt as to the real meaning of such teaching as that. The stern handling it received from the Inquisition had his sincere approval. [SN: _Spanish mysticism._] The mysticism of the Spaniards consisted wholly in a certain Platonism or Neo-Platonism, in the doctrine which can be sufficiently well learnt in Spenser’s _Hymne of Heavenly Love_. This might have lent itself to the extreme of Quietism or Antinomianism, but it was restrained by the sense of the necessity for active virtue, which was strong in the Spaniard, and was the result of the Church’s teaching that there is no salvation without works. It is not, however, the doctrine of the mystics, but their importance, and the literary quality of their work, which concern us here. As regards their position in the country, and their influence with all ranks of Spaniards, there can be no question. It was shown not only by the deference of the austere Philip II. to Santa Teresa, but by the docility of his grandson, Philip IV.--a very different and a very pleasure-loving man--to Maria de Jesus de Ágreda, a woman far inferior in intellect and force of character to the reformer of the Carmelites.[57] To their work we may apply the expression, very Platonist and old, which Diego de Estella uses of the soul in his _Very Devout Meditations on the Love of God_. “Da vida,” he says, and “es la forma del cuerpo”--“It gives life, and is the form of the body.” “For soul is form, and doth the body make,”