Shorter Notices
Tins first volume in a new series, " Classics of the Contemplative Life," under the general editorship of Professor Peers himself, introduces a little-known Spanish mystic of the early sixteenth century who greatly in- fluenced Santa Teresa. It is perhaps chiefly for that reason that this Franciscan lay-brother is recommended to our atten- tion. But there is an unpolished quality about the man himself that comes over well in English and that testifies to a genuine and humble experience of Divine Grace. Laredo is by nature an optimist. He assumes that everyone can attain the states he has himself known, and that almost at will. He is prone, like the Flemish and Rhineland mystics, whom he follows and quotes, to indulge in far-fetched Biblical interpreta- tions. But at the same time there is a pleasant Spanish earthiness about some of his analogies that is very much his own. He acts, in fact, as a link between the two great mystical schools of the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries ; and, though he is unlikely to provide for many the steady sustenance to be had from The Cloud of Unknowing or St. John of the Cross, he has a merit that may endear him to some of describing rather the lower slopes of his Mount than the giddy view to be attained from the summit. For this Professor Peers fails to give him fair credit in his otherwise excellent and scholarly introduction.
J. M. C.
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