A movement which rivaled Jansenism in its peculiar fanaticism was that Quietism which owes its public notoriety to a Spanish priest, Michael Molinos, who in 1675 published a work entitled: _Spiritual Guide Leading the Soul, by Means of Interior Progress, to Attain Perfect Contemplation, and to the Rich Treasure of Interior Peace_. Therein was developed a religious system that was apparently in harmony with the most orthodox asceticism, but which upon examination proved to be fundamentally false and seducing towards the most rampant error. The writings of Molinos were condemned by Pope Innocent XI. and their author compelled to do severe penance for the harm they had caused. In substance Quietism taught that the interior life or spiritual perfection is reached when the soul, by union with God, holds itself in a thoroughly passive state with regard to everything else. In all things whether of this life or of the next, in questions of virtue as in questions of sin, the perfect soul wishes for nothing and fears nothing, not even hell; it is simply in a state of inactivity. Hence good works are not only unnecessary for salvation, but are even a hindrance to perfection, since the soul must act to perform them. Farther still went this theory in insinuating that when a person is attacked by even the grossest temptations he should never offer any positive resistance, such resistance being in itself action. Hence that the tempted person was never responsible for his actions, be they ever so infamous, since the criminality affects only the sensitive part of the soul, not the higher part which is united with God. It is quite evident that a theory such as this could only lead to grave excesses not only in the matter of doctrine, but especially in that of morality. Examples were not wanting to show the practical workings of the new movement, which, however, rapidly disappeared under the watchful eye of the Holy See. It is worthy of note that a discussion over the orthodoxy of the writings of one of this class, a certain Madame Guyon, residing at the time in France, effected an estrangement between those two brilliant lights of the French Church, Bossuet and Fenelon. The latter, in his too great sympathy for one whom he believed too harshly judged, published a sort of defence of her. The defence was at once condemned by the Pope, and Fenelon out of the humility and true loyalty of his great heart submitted immediately and without reserve to the decision of the Holy See. _GALLICANISM._ [Illustration: LOUIS XIV.]