FATHER BAKER'S DEVOTIONS
Fr Justin McCann OSB
Ampleforth Journal 34:2 (1929) 135-150

Father Baker's literary history has not been an entirely fortunate one. In saying that we do not allude to the drastic treatment which his texts have received from a succession of pragmatic editors, but to a more curious phenomenon. The fact is that a considerable amount of his authentic work has, in one way or another, been taken from him and now passes as the work of others. The present article deals with a portion of his work which has suffered such alienation and is an attempt at restitution.

It will be admitted by every reader of his works that Father Baker is in a special way a teacher of the art of prayer. Most of his treatises deal with that subject, and it is evident that he regarded prayer as his chief business and as the chief business of any who would be his disciples. Many people, perhaps, are deterred from reading him just because of this preoccupation of his, or rather because his name has become associated with a very high type of prayer, the prayer of contemplation. But there is some mistake here, ft is true that contemplative prayer is the goal towards which all his teaching is ordinated, but before that goal may be attained there is much to do. No one knew better than Father Baker that contemplation was a thing of slow attainment, and that the disciple might have to face "great deserts and long night marches." And so he did not disdain to occupy himself with the most elementary stages of the road, and to give very detailed and definite instructions for them. If he never, in the style of certain enterprising modern writers, composed a Contemplation without Tears, yet the work which we are to consider might very fairly be described as a Primer of the contemplative art.

In fact, anyone who approaches his treatises with the preconception just mentioned will be agreeably surprised to find that he makes many and very favourable references to that Cinderella of spiritual writers, "mere vocal prayer." It is true that he is not directly concerned with vocal prayer as also he is not directly concerned with the discursive prayer of formal meditation. But if he dismisses the latter, rather curtly, as unsuitable for his disciples, he does not so dismiss vocal prayer. Rather he makes of it the basis of that "affective prayer " which is his prayer of predilection. That prayer is one which, beginning in vocal prayer with the repetition of "sensible affections" and "acts", passes upwards to a highly spiritual prayer of "pure aspirations' of the will. His own experience had led him to practise just such a prayer, and his personal experience was confirmed when he came to deal as spiritual director with the souls of others.

Perhaps it is not always sufficiently realised that his teaching in this regard was largely determined by the character and circumstances of his chief disciples, Benedictine nuns practising a strictly cloistered life. He believed them capable of the highest contemplative prayer, but he was sure that the discursive prayer of formal meditation was suitable neither to their sex nor to their life. It was not suitable to their sex, because he held that women generally were incapable of the ratiocination which it entailed ; nor to their life because it was designed for men living in the stress of an active career, and not for cloistered souls. What then ? He concluded that they should be persuaded to practise a prayer of the very simplest character, such a prayer, in fact, as he surmised must have been practised in the centuries before methods of prayer were invented. That prayer was in its essence, he supposed, an affective prayer, which jumping off (so to say) from brief vocal acts of love, sorrow, resignation, etc., ultimately carried the soul by intensity of affection to a very intimate union with God. It was not a mental exercise, but rather an exercise of the will and affections. To such a prayer, then, must he guide his disciples.

In accordance with this theory Father Baker began, very early in the course of his direction, to instruct his disciples in this sense and to provide them with materials for the exercise of this affective prayer. He became attached to the convent at Cambray in the year 1624, not as the regular chaplain and confessor, but as a supernumerary spiritual adviser. At first, as he tells us himself, the nuns made little use of him ; but towards the end of the year 1625 matters changed. A specially gifted member of the community, Dame Gertrude More, submitted herself to his direction. She was then a young religious, eleven months professed. She had tried the recognised methods of prayer, but had been balked and baffled by them, and was in a state of considerable spiritual dissatisfaction. Father Baker took her in hand, found that her case exactly suited his theory, encouraged her to practise the prayer of "sensible affections", and so set her on a course of affective prayer which she never afterwards abandoned and which led her finally, as he testifies, to contemplation and intimate union.

Dame Gertrude was undoubtedly an apt pupil, and undoubtedly also exercised a considerable influence on her director. Father Baker himself tells us, in his life of her, that she made it a practice to copy out affective prayers for her use from such books as the Confessions of St Augustine, and that she added "acts' [1] of her own devising, thus compiling in time quite a store of affective prayer. He narrates further that her sisters in the community made use of Dame Gertrude's store, and that he himself embodied much of it in the second and third parts of the Ideots Devotions. "The second or third part, or both of them, of the bookes called the Ideots Devotion, that are in this howse, do consist of her said doengs, the author having onlie reduced them into some order and into certein exercises."

[1]  Stanbrook MS. 5, page 187.

Dame Gertrude, therefore, has every right to be regarded as a collaborator in the production of those devotions, not only because of the experience which Father Baker gained while directing her soul, but also because of this positive contribution. That is only fair to Dame Gertrude ; but it is surely hard on Father Baker to decide, as some modern editors would seem to have decided, that his share in the devotions was nil, and indeed there exists sufficient evidence to discountenance that conclusion. It is hard on him, further, because he worked on the compilation of these devotions at an early date in his literary career as a writer of spiritual treatises. They appear to be among the first-fruits of his pen, while they are certainly very characteristic of him and embody in a most practical form his fundamental spiritual theory.

What then was the work called by the quaint title of Ideots Devotions? It was a veritable library of affective prayer, an abundant collection of "exercises' consisting each of some twenty "acts," these acts being either original or collected from the Scriptures, St Augustine, the Imitation, Blosius, etc. The exercises dealt with every variety of spiritual affection, from sorrow for sin and resignation up to the purest expressions of disinterested love. Since we shall have to talk a good deal about them, it will be well, in order that our talk may not be entirely in vacuo, to give at this point a specimen of the exercises. Here then is the first exercise of the first book of the Ideots Devotions.

The First ExercisE

(1) 0 most blessed Lord, my God and Saviour Jesus Christ I am utterly confounded within myselfe and know not what to say.

(2) I prostrate myselfe and bow downe the knees of my very heart unto thee, acknowledging the infinite multitude of my offences.

(3) For I have sinned and done evill, O Lord, in thy sight.

(4) I have sinned against thee, my most gratious Creatour.

(5) I have sinned against thee, my most mercifull Redeemer, and against thee, my most bountifull Benefactour, I have infinitely offended.

(6) Woe worth me, wretched caytiff that I am, woe worth me, 0 Lord, that I should ever be thus rebellious against thee, and thus unmindfull of thy benefits.

(7) There liveth not on the earth so vile a creature as myselfe. I am no better then dust and ashes, I am nothing, O Lord, yea, I am worse then nothing.

(8) Be mercifull unto me, be mercifull unto me, sweet Jesu, I most humbly beseech thee.

(9) Alas, what shall I doe then, 0 my most mercifull Saviour, what shall I doe but creepe unto thy most precious wounds and cast into them all my iniquities, my miseries and my abominations.

(10) Which albeit they are most enormius and innumerable, yet will I throw them altogether into the most burning furnace of thy love, and drowne them in the bottomlesse gulph of thy infinite mercyes.

(11) Would God I had never offended thee, O my sweet Lord and Saviour, would God I had never hindred the goodnesse which through thy grace thou hadst determined to have wrought in me.

(12) Would God I had ever more been such as thy blessed will was to have made me.

(13) Would God I had ever more been obedient unto thy will and that I had followed those inspirations which thou vouchsafedst to send me.

(14) I purpose, O Lord, through the assistance of thy grace, never from henceforth to doe anything that may displease thee.

(15) I am ready to suffer death rather then to offend thee any more.

(16) Vouchsafe, O most mercifull Lord, vouchsafe, I most humbly beseech thee, even for the merits of thy sacred Humanity, for the merits of the most B.V. Marie, and of all the holy Saints, to be a gratious and favourable Lord unto me.

(17) Wash me with thy most precious Blood, and leave not one spott uncleansed in me.

(18) Cure me throughly, O Lord, and sanctify me both in soule and body.

(19) O sweet Jesus, that I had never offended thee! Jesus, that I may truly love thee ! O Jesu, that I may truly obey thee !

(20) Give me, O sweet Jesus, purity of soule, humility of heart and poverty of spirit. Pardon my sinnes, O my Redeemer, because they are exceeding great and without number.

That specimen will give the reader an idea of the nature of the work. Not all the items are exercises of this character, for there are also shorter acts and aspirations. And some part of the work was in Latin, which Father Baker recommended to his disciples for its greater power and unction. But he provided translations and his original exercises were all in English. The devotions were divided by him into books, of which there were at first thirteen, and he provided an introductory treatise of Directions for their use. Unfortunately a great deal of the work would seem to have perished, in the almost complete disappearance of the Cambray MSS ; but much has survived in other collections and in print.

The clearest way to set forth the nature of the surviving matter and the relation of the devotions to Father Baker will be to take the extant volumes in order and, describing their contents briefly, to cite such passages as are relevant to our question.

[The writer ought here to express his gratitude to the librarians who have allowed him the privilege of examining the MSS. here described. He ought to mention, further, that the MSS. vary between Ideots Devotion and Ideots Devotions as the title of the work. The first is most probably the form which Father Baker himself used ; but the second obtained currency at an early date and is here used as more familiar and convenient. The MSS. do not Use an apostrophe t6 indicate the possessive case.]

The MSS. and printed books which shall be adduced for this purpose are all of the seventeenth century and lie close together in time within that century. Internal evidence shows that Father Baker was working on the codification of this mass of materials for affective prayer in the year 1630. The general introduction was written in that year, and the copy of it presently to be described was written within ten years or so from that date, probably before Father Baker's death in the year 1641. To begin then with this introduction :

A

Directions to shew how to make use of the exercises called Ideots Devotions or the Desires of Love. Composed by the most Rd. Father Fa. Augustine Baker, preist & monke of the holy Order of St. Benett off of the English Congre. And approved by divers Presidents of the same Order £ff Congregation. Newport Public Library, MS. M 120/012. Date about 1640. A neatly written MS, of 253 pages. Approbations (undated) of FF. Leander Jones, Sigebert Bagshawe and Rudisind Barlow.

Contents: (1) Preface of the author to the reader; (2) An observation for the reader about the use of this booke of Directions; (3) Certeine advises to the reader that is butt a beginner ; (4) Heare followeth the instructions, first concerning the Exercises of Resignation that are in the first part of Ideotts Devotion ; (5) The same . . . abbreviated [an interpolation from another treatise of Father Baker's]; (6) Concerning the Exercises of the love of God ; (7) Of proper aspirations; (8) Collections from Dr Perm, Blosius and an anonymous writer. Colophon:"And here endeth this author [the anonymous writer] and withall this treatise, the first of July 1630."[2]

[2] There are at least two other MS. copies of this treatise, one in the Ampleforth Library (MS. 146) and the other in the Gillow Library. The Ampleforth MS. was transcribed in the year 1656 by a lay-sister of Cambray. Very many of the specific references to the Ideots Devotions have been removed from its text, obviotisly with the intention of turning the book into an independent treatise on affective prayer.]

Indications: The evidence provided by this treatise in support of Father Baker's claim to the authorship of the Ideots Devotions is too abundant to allow of it being quoted in full. He speaks in it of "my present Ideotts Exercises", "my first parte of the Ideotts Devotion", etc. But some important passages shall be given as throwing considerable light on the title and composition of the work.

(1) From the Preface. "Beloved Reader. The tearme Ideot in the title of this booke I use in the sense that it is used in the Actes of the Apostles, where mention is made that the people did admire to heare and see such great matters as they saw and heard spoken and done by Peter and John the Apostles, since they knew them to be Homines Ideotas, which is men without learning and of noe excellency for humane or naturall witt or knowledge. And for such Ideotts as either do not excell in those talentes of witt or learning, or if they doe, yett will but use them humbly and for their soules good, and not for pride, curiosityes, or other humane ends, are the exercises of these bookes of Ideotts Devotions most profitable, convenient and proper.....And now these exercises that are contained in this booke, taken by me out of the ideotts storehouse for the benefitt of other such wise ideotts, I present unto you for your use and practice, so farre as you shall finde them useful and profitable for you. They are but meere plaine and homely affections and desires of the will, without needing speculation, or stirring of the understanding, such as any that hath a good will may prosecute, and which being prosecuted with perseverance and observation of the changeable tracts or drawinges of God, will bring whether all the subtilitye of witt or store of humane learning can never bring him, and that is to mistike theologie, perfect contemplation, union with God, and after the tearme of this life to the coelestiall kingdom, whether the divine grace bring us all. Amen."

(2) "The thirteenth advise shall be butt only to putt you in minde of what other bookes you are to make use of for to hclpe you in prayer. . . . And as to that I say that besides the present worke of my doing and consisting of divers parts (termed the Ideotts Devotion) you have St Austin's Meditations. . . . Butt I have since taken all that I thought best and most proper of St. Austin's Meditations and [the] Following of Christ, and have putt them into some of the partes of Ideotts Devotion/1

(3) ' A nineteenth advise shall be to give you to understand that scarse any matter there is to be found for prayer in any printed English booke that is in this house, butt that I have brought it all in somewhere or other in my bookes of the Ideotts Devotion, and I have (as you may see by my bookes themselves) brought them into points and order, and intirely, and by themselves without intermingling of any matters that are not of prayer . . . You have in my bookes all that I could fine proper for prayer in St Austin s Meditations, Soliloquies, Manuall and Confessions ; all that is in the workes of Blosius ; and of these bookes (and some others also) I have for the most part brought you in the Latine as well as the English; all that is in any of the printed English bookes, as the old English Manuall and the new one of Fa. Mahewes; all that is in Granadoes workes; all that that is in the little booke called the Key of Paradise ; all that is in Dr. Perins booke ; and generally what I could meet with worth the taking in any bookes or papers that I could meete with in this house. And this I signifie to you to the end you spend not your time in looking here and there in those other bookes for that which you may more readily and orderly find in these bookes of my gatheringes and writinges for your ease and benefitt, and for the worshipp of God, to whose only honour (according to all right and justice) be referred all mine and your doinges, and the doings of all other creatures. Amen."

(4) "In my exercises of Ideotts Devotion here and there, especially in the booke that is tearmed the Passion and in that which is tearmed Haile Jesu." [In the margin the first of these is noted as "11 part," the second as "13 part"]

(5) ' I intend (God willing) in every one of my bookes of Ideotts Devotions to add and bring in some devotions towards our Blessed Lady."

(6) ' Commonly those aspirations are most grateful to the soul which are somewhat short and run glibbe and currant, and have no rubbs or jobbs in them, as are those few which I have given you for a forme or patterne in the first part of Ideotts Devotions."

Such are the plainest indications contained in this treatise, and the reader will probably agree that they are plain and explicit enough. The title is evidently of Father Baker's devising, and " ideot "is a common noun without reference to any particular ideot. Hence also Dame Gertrude could use it for her own devotions. It may be noted that Dame Gertrude was alive at the time when this treatise was written and for three years afterwards, so that it is unlikely on that ground that Father Baker could have given her the sobriquet of the "ideot." If it be urged that the "storehouse of the first passage may contain a reference to Dame Gertrude's store of such prayers, it may be replied that the other passages, with their enumeration of the sources, make such a view untenable. It is better to abandon entirely the equation : the ideot = Dame Gertrude More. The general character of the Ideots Devotions becomes plain: it was for the most part a compilation of extracts arranged and edited by Father Baker.

B

Let us turn now to the devotions themselves as represented in the extant seventeenth century documents: The First Part of Ideots Devotion or the Desires of Love. Composed by the most Rd. Fa. Fa. Augustine Baker, Preest and Monke of the holy Order of St. Benedict and of the English Congregation. [Downside MS. 36. Copied in the year 1649 by a very careful scribe, Dame Barbara Constable. Pages, ii + 311. Contents: (a) twelve exercises expressing sorrow for sin, hope, humility, etc ; (b) two exercises of the love of God ; (c) seven exercises of resignation ; (d) aspirations of love (Latin and English) to the number of 157 ; (e) thirteen acts addressed to Our Lady ; (f) eight acts of pure love.

Indications:

(1) "The reader and practiser of the insuinge exercises I wish to look after and peruse another little treatise called Directions, wherein are contained diverse lessons for the righter use of all the exercises conteined in the worke called the Ideots Devotion, but especially of this present first part thereof."

(2) "The two next insuing exercises (b, above) I have taken out of the Book G."

(3) "Heere follow certeine exercises of resignation (the which also is love) for the most part taken out of the Book G/'

(4) "Certein choyce aspirations taken out of the Book G."

(5) "See these devotions to our Blessed Lady continued in the later end of the second part of this Ideots Devotion, and afterwards successively continued in the ends of all the other parts even to the last of all beinge the thirteenth part."

This MS. may safely be regarded as giving the authentic text of the first part of the devotions. From the references to his "Book G" (1629) and to the "Directions' (1630) it follows that the devotions were being codified in or about the year 1630. All the internal evidence supports the explicit statement of the title that Father Baker is the author. The letters here used to indicate the items contained in this MS. shall be used in describing the contents of the volumes which follow, additional items being lettered consecutively. It should be noted, however, that the scribe of D and the editors of E and F, present some of the exercises in an altered form, making acts direct which Father Baker had left indirect, or reducing their number. But it would be confusing to the reader if such differences were noted and they do not affect the argument.

C

The Ideots Devotion or the Desires of Love. Devided into 16 parts or bookes ; every part consisting of severall exercises^ and every exercise of severall points or matters. The first part: Colwich MS. 19. Written about the year 1635 in a very neat hand. Contents: the same as in B, but defective in the items d, e and f of that MS ; then (g) five exercises entitled "Certaine other peculiar loving exercises", presumably from one of the later parts. Indications 1, 2 and 3 as in B.

This MS. must be regarded as an incomplete copy of the first part with an addition from a later part. The "16" of the title looks like a mistake for "13" ; but it appears that Father Baker afterwards added yet more parts to the work. In the summary of approbations of his treatises which is given at the end of Sancta Sophia (1657) occurs "Directions for the Ideots Devotions (contained in 16 severall bookes)".

D

A volume of the devotions without a title, Ampleforth MS 124. Written about the year 1650 in two hand, 358 pages, but many blank leaves intended for further exercises not transcribed. On the whole rather a haphazard piece of work in which some of the items occur twice, and some in the secondary form already alluded to. Contents: practically all that is in B and some of it twice over; then (h) four exercises of contrition; (i) eight exercises of amorous speakings of the soul to herself in prayer, five acts addressed to God as absent, four speakings of God to the soul; (k) nine Latin exercises.

A composite manuscript of the same character as C, but containing more additional matter from the later parts of the devotions. Besides the indications of B there occurs the following note concerning the speakings of the soul to herself: "This form of praier is that which I mentioned and promised in the advise of my booke of Directions to the present exercises of the Idiots Devotion."

The volume was apparently compiled at Cambray or Doway for the use of a Catholic gentleman in Lancashire. It has this interesting direction on the flyleaf at the beginning :

"For Mr Allexander Standish (brother to yong Mr Standish) to whom this booke belongeth. He liveth with his father at his house called Standish neere Weegin in Lancheshire. The instructions belonging unto it are not sent at this time because they are not corrected having wanted the coppie to correct it by."

The young Mr Standish of this note is probably Edward Standish, who succeeded to the estates in 1656. His younger brother, Alexander, served as a Colonel of Horse to King Charles I in the Civil War. See T.C. Porteus, History of Standish, 1928.

E

The Holy Practices of a Devine Lover or the Sainctly Ideots Devotions. Paris, 1657. The editio princeps of the Ideots Devotions. Anonymous, but Father Baker's list of books for contemplatives (pp. 34—37) has here received the addition of his own name, in the first place on the list, and the editor (perhaps Father Francis Gascoigne, brother of Abbess Gascoigne of Cambray), after recommending Father Baker's treatises in the strongest terms, adds this explicit statement : "And all that is in this Summarie, Directions, and Exercises, and all else in this treatise, is taken out of these manuscripts."There could not be more emphatic evidence of authorship. Of the 330 pages of the book the exercises occupy 251 and consist of the following items : b, c, d, e, h, i; and, in addition, (i) Hayle Jesus, or Exercises on the Life and Passion of our Saviour Jesus Christ [parts n and 13 of the Ideots Devotions and taken from Blosius]; (m) an exercise to the Angels and an exercise to St. Benedict. Appended to the latter exercise is the note: "This exercise to St. Bennet was the devotion of the Venerable Father Baker before-mentioned, to give God thanks for the happiness of his religious vocation ; which I have here inserted as being grateful to those of the same profession, and not ungrateful to any devout soul."

The exercises of resignation (c) and of contrition (h) are very comprehensive and embody other exercises on these themes besides those contained in the MSS. already described.

F

Sancta Sophia or Directions for the Prayer of Contemplation, etc. Doway, 1657, 2 vols. A description of this well-known book, Father Serenus Cressy's digest of Father Baker's teaching, is unnecessary. At the end of the work is an appendix of "Certain patterns of devout exercises of immediate acts and affections of the will". [3]

[3] Pages 563—662 in Abbot Sweeney's admirably faithful edition (1876), happily still obtainable. If the publishers of that volume could see their way to reprinting the old frontispiece-portrait and to restoring a couple of pages which Abbot Sweeney abbreviated, we should have a satisfactory modern reproduction of the Sancta Sophia of 1657.

The preface to this appendix refers to promises made in the text. An examination of the passages intended—the reference is not accurate—shows that the chapters in which they occur derive from the treatise of Directions for the Ideots Devotions, with which they agree verbally ; and the exercises themselves are these devotions. The following items occur, either exactly or in a modified form : b, c, d, e, h, i, 1, m ; and in addition there are : (n) Psalmus de Passione ; (o) Actus Contritionis et de Quattuor Novissimis ; (p) seven exercises of acts of the will; (q) A daily constant exercise, from Blosius. The exercises of contrition are a selection from the abundant supply in E. The exercise to St. Benedict has the same attribution in its colophon. A preface to the exercises of resignation refers the reader, for a fuller supply, to the Booke called The Ideots Devotions which can only be E. The two books came out in the same year (1657), but E was evidently in Father Cressy's hands when he was preparing this appendix. All the indications of the book itself suggest that these exercises derive from the same source as the text of Sancta Sophia.

G

The Spiritual Exercises of the Most Vertuous and Religious D. Gertrude More of the holy Order of S. Bennet and English Congregation of our Ladie of Comfort in Cambray. She called them Amor ordinem nescit and Ideots Devotions. Her only Spiritual Father and Directour the Fen. Fa. Baker stiled them Confessiones Amantis, etc. Paris, 1658. Edited by Father Francis Gascoigne.

This book is described here, not because it belongs to Father Baker's Ideots Devotions for it does not, but because it seems to have been confused with his work and is probably part cause of the modern mistake about that work. The title has been given rather fully, to show the traps which it lays for an unwary reader. It is indeed a great pity that the book was not given Father Baker's title : Confessiones Amantis, for that title is a very apt description of the contents. For the most part, in fact, the book contains neither exercises nor devotions in Father Baker's sense, but long continuous prayers, or prayerful soliloquies, of several pages each. These "confessions " to the number of fifty-three form the most considerable item in the book. The next item in extent is D. Gertrude's very interesting apology for her spiritual course. Besides these two items there are some fragmentary pieces, among which are four exercises in the style of the Ideots Devotions. This volume of Dame Gertrude's work was collected by Father Baker after her death and by him arranged for publication. It was not published until much later, but Father Baker is to be regarded as the chief editor. The book has been re-edited recently (1910) by Dom Benedict Weld-Blundell under the title of The Writings of Dame Gertrude More.

Summary

At this point, before passing to the modern history of the devotions it will be convenient to set out the results of the foregoing examination of the sources in the following analytical table:

B Downside MS 36 a, b, c, d, e, f.
C Colwich MS 19 a, b, c, d, f, g.
D Ampleforth MS 124) a, b, c, d, e, f, h, i, k
E Holy Practices b,c,d,e,h,i,l,m
F Sancta Sophia b,c,d,,e,h,i,l,m,n,o,p,q

Such then is the seventeenth century evidence concerning the mass of prayers known as the Ideots Devotions. We venture to think that it proves that there is only one person who has a right to be regarded as the compiler of the devotions, and that person Father Baker. The devotions were compiled by him as an instrument for the exercise of that affective prayer which was the chief item in his spiritual programme. Some of the devotions were of his own composition, but for the greater part they were taken by him from standard spiritual writers, especially from such "affective ' books as the Confessions of St Augustine and the writings of Blosius. Nor did he disdain to incorporate in this body of devotion the collections and compositions of his special disciple, Dame Gertrude More. He tells us that he did so and that he put them into the second and third parts of the work. Those parts do not appear to have survived, or at least cannot now be identified, so far as the evidence goes. But, in any case, if we do not attribute the Ideots Devotions as a whole to St Augustine or Blosius, the most considerable contributors, we should not attribute them to any other, except to their designer and editor, Father Baker.

Modern period

Let us pass now to consider the fortunes of these devotions in the modern period. Their history begins again with the issue in 1873 of a little volume by Father Henry Collins— a most indefatigable editor of the old books of spirituality— entitled Devotions of Dame Gertrude More. In a note to the book (p. 119) Father Collins says: "Her devotions were collected and arranged from her MSS. by Father Baker. They are now presented to the public in a somewhat altered form."_ What are these devotions ? Allowing for the editor's alterations and re-arrangement, an examination of them reveals the astonishing fact that they are the devotions printed in the appendix to Sancta Sophia. (The items are b, c, d, e, h, i, 1, m, n, o, p, q.) How then account for the editor's attribution of them to Dame Gertrude ? May we advance the view that it is due to some or all of these three causes ? (1) a misunderstanding of the passage in D. Gertrude's life where Father Baker says that he had put some of her prayers into his work; (2) a confusion with D. Gertrude's genuine work, the Spiritual Exercises, which Father Baker did arrange for publication ; (3) the equation : the ideot = Dame Gertrude More. But, from whatever cause it arose, is it unreasonable to describe the attribution as a mistake ?

The devotions have been printed again in our own century (1909), edited by Dom Hildebrand Lane Fox, under the title : The Holy Practices of a Divine Lover or The Saintly Ideofs Devotions. By Dame Gertrude More. The editor has re-arranged the contents and modernised the spelling, but except for the title-page, introduction and a few notes, the book is a reprint of the Paris book of 1657. And it contains, in the catalogue of books for contemplatives (page 180), the same explicit testimony concerning its authorship (cited under E), which is in direct conflict with its new title-page.

Such then has been the fate of Father Baker's Ideots Devotions in the modern period. Nor has the trouble remained confined to the books just mentioned. The mistake is reproduced, for instance, in Dom Benedict Weld-Blundell's edition of Father Baker's life of D. Gertrude More (1910, pp. xxxi and 38), and (rather elaborately) in a notice of Dame Gertrude in one of the volumes of the Catholic Record Society (Vol. XIII, 1913, p. 38). And what of the library catalogues?

The British Museum Catalogue of Printed Books describes Father Collins' work as "re-arranged by H. Collins from the work entitled, ' The Spiritual Exercises of'... . G. More.' "But, poor librarians ! what defence have they against such title-pages ? Father Baker's fate in the library catalogues has indeed been a peculiarly hard one. There was a time, in the British Museum catalogue, when he enjoyed a dual existence, appearing in one place as "Baker, Augustine" and again, and quite separately, as "Baker, David" If that might be considered as an error in his favour, and is now corrected, yet there still remains something to be done.

His literary history generally is an illustration of Sic vos non vobis. The Apostolatus Benedictinorum in Anglia (1626) is for four-fifths of its substance his work, and good work, but it is known generally as Reyner's Apostolatus. His historical collections, amassed with great expense of labour and money, helped Father Cressy, in however subordinate a degree, to compose his Church History of Brittany (1668). His Ideots Devotions, as we have seen, have passed to Dame Gertrude More. His life of Dame Gertrude, published by Father Collins in 1877 and by Dom Benedict Weld-Blundell in 1910, is not known to be his work.[4] We are tempted to the extravagant prophecy that the day may yet come when even Sancta Sophia will be taken from him.

[4] Not, at least, by the British Museum or Bodleian, which is another example of the evil wrought by a defective title-page. It is true that the editions mentioned represent the original in a much revised form ; yet the work remains Father Baker's and his name deserved mention in the title.]