Guyon, Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte, an eminent mystic writer of the seventeenth century, was born at Montargis, France, April 13, 1648. Her father, Claude Bouvier, was the Lord Proprietor of La Motte Vergonville. She was religiously inclined from her youth and desired to enter a convent; but her parents prevented this by giving her in marriage in her sixteenth year to Jacques Guyon, a man twenty-two years her senior and in every way uncongenial. Am unhappy married life of twelve years terminated in the death of her husband in 1676, leaving her three children, to whose education and to the care of her estate she now devoted herself. She later devoted herself to religious works and to writing on her peculiar views of spiritual religion. Her published volumes soon brought on her the persecution of the Roman Catholic Church. She was twice imprisoned, the first imprisonment lasting eight months and the second seven years, ending in the Bastile. After her release she lived with her children and continued her writings. Most of her hymns were written during this imprisonment. Thirty-seven of the choicest of her hymns were translated by Cowper. She was a strong believer in the witness of the Spirit, perfect faith, and perfect love. She died June 9, 1717, in her seventieth year. Deeply religious, enthusiastic and impassioned In the advocacy of her views, whether by tongue or pen, persecuted by enemies, and ardently loved by friends, she was one of the most remarkable women in the entire range of religious biography. Though criticized and persecuted by Romanists through well-nigh her whole life, she heard mass daily and died in full communion with the Church of Rome. Her published works fill forty volumes.