A younger man than Luis was Juan de Yepes whom Rome later canonized as San Juan de la Cruz. Like Luis de León, like Teresa and Loyola, Juan met with persecution not because he was a mystic and a poet; but a man of action. Haggard, fanatical, almost disembodied, this spirit had body enough to pass like a scourge of flame through the dark cities of Castile, cleansing monastic evil; and like a breath of sweetness, comforting the sick. He, too, is incarnate, in his particular phase, of Spain’s whole will. He is a saint: rapt and ascetic. His voice is the voice of spiritual vision. Yet it, as his life, is marvelously fleshed: a sort of slender fire. The peculiar plasticity of Spain is clear in Juan if one contrast his life with that of Saint Francis of Assisi, or his work with that of Porphyry and Plotinus. Grace here has a hard edge, is the handle of action. This reforming flesh fuses the sweetness of Saint Francis with the acumen of Savonarola. Juan is very close to Christ. For he is ruthless and practical. His charity like Christ’s is sharper than a sword. John of the Cross shares the _graphic_ quality which Spain through her unitary will breathed into her various parts. He is abstract--plastically; he is Idea--incarnate. In no wise is he transcendent. Chained down to rot in some hostile convent cell, he is still concerned with persons and with convents. A titanic pressure--Spain--seems to have columned all the world into this lean, bright figure. His song is like him. The simple words hold an immensity like the deep nights of Spain. Love of conquest, of gold, of glory and of power--the turbulence of Spain is not within them. Yet the essence of will and power, making this intricate turmoil, lives in his poems like a resolution of many chords in silence. Juan’s preceptress and ally in their task of purifying convents was Teresa de Ahumada, known to religion and to letters as Santa Teresa de Jesús. Teresa’s town, Avila, stands for her: stands for the woman of Spain. The unbroken walls, the elliptical towers, the crenellated parapets and gateways, symbolize her virtue. Within, Avila is mellow and is fecund. Her walls shut her safe from the thrusting mountains of Castile. Avila is ordered, within chaos.