{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_68646/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_68646","id":"gutenberg_68646","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/68646","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - Religious","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Mysticism -- History"],"text":"HOURS WITH THE MYSTICS\n\n\n\n\n _Uniform with this volume, crown 8vo, cloth._\n\n\n I.\n\n\n THE SYMBOLISM OF CHURCHES\n AND\n CHURCH ORNAMENTS\n\n A TRANSLATION OF THE FIRST BOOK\n OF THE\n RATIONALE DIVINORUM OFFICIORUM\n OF WILLIAM DURANDUS\n\n _With Introductory Essay and Notes by the_\n REV. J. M. NEALE AND REV. B. WEBB\n\n\n II.\n\n\n SYMBOLISM, OR EXPOSITION\n OF THE\n DOCTRINAL DIFFERENCES\n BETWEEN\n CATHOLICS AND PROTESTANTS\n As evidenced by their Symbolical Writings\n\n BY JOHN ADAM MOEHLER, D.D.\n\n\n\n\n HOURS WITH THE MYSTICS\n\n A Contribution to the History of\n Religious Opinion\n\n BY\n\n ROBERT ALFRED VAUGHAN, B.A.\n\n _SIXTH EDITION_\n\n TWO VOLUMES IN ONE\n\n VOL. I\n\n\n NEW YORK\n CHARLES SCRIBNER\u2019S SONS\n 743 & 745 BROADWAY\n 1893\n\n\n\n\n PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.\n\n\nThe work which is now again published was the result of too many years\u2019\nsteady application, and has served too great an intellectual use in the\nspecial department of thought of which it treats, to be allowed to fall\ninto oblivion. Certainly the reading which the author thought it\nnecessary to accomplish before he presented his conclusions to the\npublic was vast, and varied. That the fruit of his labours was\ncommensurate may be gathered from the honest admiration which has been\nexpressed by men knowing what hard study really means. The first edition\nof the \u2018Hours with the Mystics\u2019 appeared in 1856; the second was, to a\ngreat extent, revised by the author, but it did not appear until after\nhis death. It was edited by his father, though most of the work of\ncorrection and verification was done by the author\u2019s widow.\n\nThere is no intention of writing a memoir here. That has already been\ndone. But it has been suggested that it might be interesting to trace\nhow Mysticism gradually became the author\u2019s favourite study. To do that\nit may be well to give a very short sketch of his literary career.\n\nFrom the time he was quite a child he had the fixed idea that he must be\na literary man. In his twenty-first year (1844) he published a volume of\npoems, entitled \u2018The Witch of Endor, and other Poems.\u2019 The poetry in\nthis little volume\u2014long since out of print\u2014was held to give promise of\ngenius. It was, of course, the production of youth, and in after years\nthe author was fully conscious of its defects. But even though some\ncritics (and none could be a harder critic of his own work than himself)\nmight point out an \u2018overcrowding of metaphor\u2019 and a \u2018want of clearness,\u2019\nothers could instance evidences of \u2018high poetical capability\u2019 and \u2018happy\nversification.\u2019 But at the time it was thought desirable that the young\npoet should turn his attention to prose composition with the same\nearnestness. With that object his father proposed to him the study of\nthe writings of Origen, with a view to an article on the subject in the\n_British Quarterly Review_. When just twenty-two the author finished\nthis task, his first solid contribution to the literature of the day.\nThe article showed signs of diligence and patient research in gaining a\nthorough knowledge of the opinions of the great thinker with whom it\ndealt. \u2018It is nobly done,\u2019 Judge Talfourd wrote. \u2018If there is some\nexuberance of ornament in the setting forth of his (Origen\u2019s) brilliant\ntheories, it is only akin to the irregular greatness and the Asiatic\nsplendour of the mind that conceived them.\u2019 And the words of the late\nSir James Stephen were not less flattering: \u2018If I had been told that the\nwriter of it (the article) was a grandfather, I should have wondered\nonly that the old man had retained so much spirit and been able to\ncombine it with a maturity of judgment so well becoming his years.\u2019 We\nbelieve it is no presumption to say that the article has not ceased to\nbe useful to those who wish to gain an idea of the character of one\nwhose name has often been the subject of bitter wordy war between\nChristian men.\n\nIn 1846, a dramatic piece by Alfred Vaughan, entitled \u2018Edwin and\nElgiva,\u2019 appeared in the _London University Magazine_. The subject was\none of a most sensational character, and was treated accordingly.\nDunstan and his companions are painted in very black colours, and any\ndoubts as to the reality of the cruelties alleged to have been practised\non the unhappy Queen are not entertained. Two poems, the \u2018Masque of\nAntony\u2019 and \u2018Disenchantment,\u2019 though not published until later, were\nwritten about the same date.\n\nAt this time, the author was attending the theological course at\nLancashire Independent College, of which his father was the president.\nHaving completed his term of residence there, he went over to Halle in\norder to spend a year in a German University, before entering upon any\nfixed pastoral work. There he had a good opportunity of studying the\nstate of German religious thought. The following extract from his\njournal shows the effect produced on his mind:\u2014\u2018If I am spared to\nreturn, I will preach more of what is called the Gospel than I did\nbefore. _The talk about adapting religion to the times which is\nprevalent here, even among the religious, appears to me a miserable\nmistake. It never needed adapting so much as when the apostles preached\nit, but they made no such effort._\u2019 It was, too, while studying German\nspeculations that the author adopted the system of philosophy, distinct\nalike from sceptical and mystical, which is apparent in this his chief\nwork.\n\nIt is, we believe, impossible for an earnest mind to go through life\nwithout periods of sad and painful doubt. The author was no exception to\nthis rule, and while at Halle he seems to have suffered bitterly. But he\nknew the one refuge for the doubting heart, and turned to it. In the\n\u2018Dream of Philo,\u2019 written at this time and published in the volumes of\n\u2018Essays and Remains,\u2019 we see some reflection of his own feelings, and\nthe following verses which we venture to quote must, we think, strike a\nresponsive chord in many a heart yearning for peace amidst the turmoil\nof the world:\u2014\n\n Not a pathway in life\u2019s forest,\n Not a pathway on life\u2019s sea;\n Who doth heed me, who doth lead me,\n Ah, woe is me!\n\n Vain the planting and the training,\n For life\u2019s tree on every side\n Ever launches useless branches,\n Springs not high but spreadeth wide.\n\n Ah, my days go not together\n In an earnest solemn train,\n But go straying for their playing,\n Or are by each other slain.\n\n Listen, listen, thou forgettest\n Thou art one of many more;\n All this ranging and this changing\n Has been law to man of yore.\n\n And thou canst not in life\u2019s city\n Rule thy course as in a cell\n There are others, all thy brothers,\n Who have work to do as well.\n\n Some events that mar thy purpose\n May light _them_ upon their way;\n Our sun-shining in declining\n Gives earth\u2019s other side the day.\n\n Every star is drawn and draweth\n Mid the orbits of its peers;\n And the blending thus unending\n Makes the music of the spheres.\n\n If thou doest one work only,\n In that one work thou wilt fail;\n Use thou many ropes if any\n For the shifting of thy sail.\n\n Then will scarce a wind be stirring\n But thy canvas it shall fill;\n Not the near way as thou thoughtest,\n But through tempest as thou oughtest,\n Though not straightly, not less greatly,\n Thou shalt win the haven still.\n\nThese verses have been called \u2018Alfred Vaughan\u2019s Psalm of Life.\u2019 The\nlessons taught may be an encouragement to others, as they have been to\nthe author\u2019s son, in times of trial and disappointment.\n\nBut it must not be supposed that at this time the author\u2019s thoughts were\nall devoted to painful doubts and yearnings. He determined while in\nGermany to unite the labours of a literary man to the work of a pastor.\nHis first plan was to take special periods of Church History and lay\nthem before his readers in the form of dramas. He thus describes his\nidea:\u2014\u2018I shall commence the series with Savonarola. I think it will not\nbe necessary to pay regard to chronological order in the order of\ncomposition. I may afterwards take up Chrysostom, perhaps Hildebrand,\nendeavouring in all not merely to develop the character of the principal\npersonage, but to give an exact picture of the religious and political\nspirit of the times. They must be dramas on the principles of _King\nJohn_ or _Henry IV._, rather than those of _Hamlet_ or _Macbeth_.\u2019 With\nthis scheme his father did not entirely agree, and the consequence was a\nconsiderable correspondence. Dr. Vaughan never doubted the genius of his\nson, or that something definite would come of his literary tastes, but\nhe appears to have thought that the dramatic form was not a good way in\nwhich to bring the result of genuine hard work before the public. As it\nhappened, none of these dramas saw the light, though the plan of the\n\u2018Hours with the Mystics\u2019 shows the strong attachment the author felt for\nthat kind of writing, and it also shows the way in which he could\novercome any difficulties arising from its peculiarities. The notion of\ngentlemen discussing the Mystics, over their wine and walnuts, or in the\ngarden with the ladies in the twilight of a summer evening, has had to\nencounter the sneers of some harsh critics, but we cannot help thinking\nthat advantage is gained by the device of these conversations, because\nthe talking by various speakers affords an easy opportunity of glancing\nover many varying theories upon any subject at the same time, while the\nessayist would find it difficult to keep his line of argument clear, and\nat the same moment state the divergent lines of thought necessary for\nthe right understanding of the position generally.\n\nThe author began definite ministerial work at Bath in 1848. The\nthoroughness with which he performed his pastoral duties did not give\nhim much time for literary work. The articles written during his stay in\nthat city were those on Schleiermacher and Savonarola. The materials for\nboth essays were collected while at Halle. When writing to inform his\nfather of the completion of the first of the articles, he refers to the\nMystics in the following way:\u2014\n\n\u2018I shall not begin to write another article at once. But I should like\nto fix on one to have more-or-less in view. There are three subjects on\nwhich I should like to write some time or other\u2014(1) Savonarola, for\nwhich I have much material; (2) on Mysticism, tracing it in the East, in\nthe Greek Church, in the German Mystics of the 14th century, in the\nFrench Mystics, and lastly in those most recent; (3) Leo the Great and\nhis stirring times. I should like to do the Savonarola next. But I\nshould also like to know what you think on these subjects, or on any\nother you would perhaps like better. The first and third would consist\nlargely of interesting narrative. The second would be rather less\npopular but more novel.\u2019\n\nThe \u2018second\u2019 subject was worked up into the two volumes now republished.\nAs it gradually became his favourite study, he felt that the field was\nexpanding before him, and that it would be necessary, if he did justice\nto his theme, to treat it at a greater length than could be allowed to a\nmagazine article. In the _British Quarterly Review_ articles appeared on\n\u2018Madame Guyon,\u2019 and \u2018The Mystics and the Reformers,\u2019 which were simply\nthe first results of his reading for the great work. It was at\nBirmingham that most of this writing was done: while there he was an\nindefatigable student. \u2018There,\u2019 says a writer in the _Eclectic Review_,\nNov. 1861, p. 508, \u2018he made himself familiar with many languages\u2014the old\nGerman, the Spanish, even the Dutch, adding these to the Italian,\nFrench, Latin, and Greek in the classical and later forms, and all as\npreparations to the History of Mysticism to which he had pledged\nhimself. The Mystics had thrown a spell upon him. Seldom have they\nwrought their charms without seducing to their bewildering\nself-abandonment.... In the case of Alfred Vaughan it was not so; he\ncontinued faithful to the high duties of life. He trod the sphere of\naction and compelled the ghostly band he visited, or who visited him, to\npay tribute to the highest religious teaching of Christian truth and\nlife.\u2019 But the body would not keep pace with his mind. In 1855 he was\nobliged to resign his pastoral charge at Birmingham, and from that time\nhe devoted himself entirely to literature. He wrote several articles and\ncriticisms, chiefly in the _British Quarterly_ amongst these, one on\nKingsley\u2019s \u2018Hypatia,\u2019 which we believe was much appreciated by the\nfuture Canon of Westminster. An article on \u2018Art and History\u2019 appeared in\n_Fraser\u2019s Magazine_ about the same time. And now we reach the first\npublication of his greater achievement, the \u2018Hours with the Mystics.\u2019 In\nAugust, 1855, the printing of the original edition began, and was\ncompleted in the February of the following year. The author lived long\nenough afterwards to witness its success, and then swiftly came the end.\nIn October, 1857, Alfred Vaughan passed away into another world where he\nhas doubtless found many of those on whose characters he loved to muse.\nWe will not attempt any analysis of _his_ character, but we cannot\nresist the impulse to insert one loving tribute to his memory, which\nappeared in a Birmingham paper (_Aris\u2019 Gazette_, Nov. 27th, 1857). \u2018It\nhas seemed fit to the All-Wise Disposer of events to withdraw from this\nworld one of its holiest and most gifted inhabitants, one who, had his\nlife been prolonged, bade fair to have taken rank among its brightest\nlights and most distinguished ornaments.... The strength and sweetness,\nso happily blended in his character, were apparent in his preaching; he\nwas tender enough for the most womanly heart, he was intellectual enough\nfor the most masculine mind. As a writer he had already attained\nconsiderable reputation, and promised to become one of the chief\nluminaries of the age. As a Christian, he was sound in faith, benignant\nin spirit, and most holy in life; a delighter in the doctrine of God,\nhis Saviour, and an eminent adorner of that doctrine.\u2019\n\nBefore venturing on any remarks upon the subject-matter of the book\nitself, we may be allowed to make a slight reference to opinions\nexpressed upon it at the time of its publication. In _Fraser\u2019s Magazine_\nfor September, 1856, there was a long review by Canon Kingsley. In this\narticle weak points are shown and sometimes the criticisms are rather\nsevere; but there was too much real sympathy between the two men (though\nthey never knew each other personally) for the reviewer not fully to\nappreciate the good qualities in the work before him. Now that Charles\nKingsley\u2019s name is such a household word in England, no apology is\nneeded for quoting two passages from the above-mentioned essay. \u2018There\nis not a page,\u2019 it says in one place, \u2018nor a paragraph in which there is\nnot something worth recollecting, and often reflections very wise and\nweighty indeed, which show that whether or not Mr. Vaughan has\nthoroughly grasped the subject of Mysticism, he has grasped and made\npart of his own mind and heart many things far more practically\nimportant than Mysticism, or any other form of thought; and no one ought\nto rise up from the perusal of his book without finding himself, if not\na better, at least a more thoughtful man, and perhaps a humbler one\nalso, as he learns how many more struggles and doubts, discoveries,\nsorrows and joys, the human race has passed through, than are contained\nin his own private experience.\u2019 In another place, while pointing out\nvarious improvements which he would like to see in another edition, Mr.\nKingsley adds, \u2018But whether our hope be fulfilled or not, a useful and\nhonourable future is before the man who could write such a book as this\nis in spite of all defects.\u2019 The reviewer adds later in a reprint of\nthis essay, \u2018Mr. Vaughan\u2019s death does not, I think, render it necessary\nfor me to alter any of the opinions expressed here, and least of all\nthat in the last sentence, fulfilled now more perfectly than I could\nhave foreseen.\u2019\n\nWith the mention of Charles Kingsley\u2019s name we are reminded of others of\nthe same school of thought, and therefore the following comparison in an\narticle in the _Eclectic Review_ (November, 1861) may prove interesting.\nThe reader must judge of its truth. \u2018While Robertson of Brighton,\u2019 says\nthe reviewer, \u2018was preaching his sermons, and Archer Butler was\npreparing his Lectures on Philosophy, Alfred Vaughan about the same age,\nbut younger than either, was accumulating material for, and putting into\nshape, the \u201cHours with the Mystics.\u201d He died within a year or two of\ntheir departure, and still nearer to the period of youth than those\nextraordinary men. His name suggests their names to the mind\u2014all victims\nto the fatal thirty-four and thirty-seven. He had not the wonderful\ntouch of Robertson\u2019s \u201cvanished hand\u201d; he had not the tenacity of muscle\nand fibre of Archer Butler; but he combined many of the characteristics\nof both, and added that which gave individuality to his genius. He had\nnot the fine subtle sense of insight possessed by Robertson; he had not\nthe rapid and comprehensive power of Butler. They again had not his\nlarge and generous culture.\u2019 More of such favourable criticisms and\nkindly words from men of learning might be quoted, but we forbear. The\ntask of referring to such sentiments is not unnaturally attractive to\nthe son of such a man; but it is simply desired to put forward this book\nonce again on its own merits, in the hope that there are still many who\nwill rightly appreciate the labour and genius to which it bears witness.\n\nAbout the work itself it will be necessary to say only a few words.\n\nWhen the \u2018Hours with the Mystics\u2019 first appeared it traversed ground\nwhich was to a great extent untrodden, at any rate in England.\nMysticism, though a favourite study of the author, was not then, and can\nscarcely be said to be now, a popular subject. A matter-of-fact age puts\nsuch ideas on one side, as something too weak for serious consideration.\nThe majority indeed have but a very hazy notion as to what Mysticism is;\nthey only have an idea that something is meant which is very inferior,\nand they pass it by. Well has Mr. Maurice said that such terms (Medi\u00e6val\nPhil. p. 143) \u2018are the cold formal generalisations of a late period,\ncommenting on men with which it has no sympathy.\u2019 In the minds of\nthoughtful men the name of mystic points to a special and recognisable\ntendency, and the history given in this book shows that the same\ntendency has been working in the world for ages;\u2014Hindus and Persians,\nNeoplatonists and Schoolmen, Anabaptists and Swedenborgians, have all\nfelt its force. The main principle of all their doctrine was the\nnecessity of a closer union with the Deity. Among Christians,\u2014with whom\nwe are chiefly concerned,\u2014this close connection, it was thought, could\nonly be gained after passing through stages of illumination and\npurification; and progress in the way of perfection was to be made not\nby labour and study, but by solitude, and asceticism. In these volumes\nthis doctrine is exhibited; especially we trace the influence which the\npseudo-Dionysius had in the fourth century; how, under his guidance,\nthese ideas spread in the East, and thence to the West; the position\ntaken up by Mystics against the Schoolmen, and the condition of\nMysticism at the time of the Reformation. These topics are interesting,\nand to the questions which must be raised in connection with them in\nevery thoughtful mind, it is hoped that the reader will find\nsatisfactory answers in the following pages.\n\nIt will be seen that the field over which the reader is taken by the\nauthor is very large. It is believed that though there have been during\nrecent years various contributions made to the literature on this\nsubject, no writer has attempted to take in all the various phases which\nare pictured in this book. In German Mystics some writers have found a\ncongenial theme; others have taught us more about the mysterious\nreligions of the East. It is, we think, to be regretted that more\nattention has not been paid to the Mystics of the Scholastic period. The\nposition held by Hugo of S. Victor and his followers was by no means\ninsignificant. As a mystic, Hugo showed that it was possible to combine\ncontemplation with common sense and learning. In an age when\nScholasticism was submitting religion to cold and exact logic, it was\nlike turning from some dusty road into a quiet grass-grown lane, to hear\nof devout contemplation leading up to perfect holiness and spiritual\nknowledge. Most of us are ready to agree with these men when they\nmaintain that there are mysteries of Divine Truth which cannot be\nanalysed by the understanding, but which can be embraced by thoughtful\nand reverent contemplation. So long as the use of both learning and\ndevotion was admitted, we are able to sympathise with them. But it is a\ntruism to say that the tendency of any movement is to go to extremes.\nThe Mystics of this period appear to have recoiled horror-struck from\nwhat seemed to them rationalistic or materialistic ideas. In that, they\nmight be right enough. But starting from the true standpoint that there\nare mysteries in the Infinite which we finite creatures cannot fathom\nwith our finite minds, they proceeded to the extreme of putting devotion\nbefore knowledge. Next, they thought there was nothing to which they\ncould not attain by devout yearning, even to absorption into the Deity.\nThe logical conclusion of these theories tended to pantheism: those who\ndiscarded logic yielded to fanaticism. Into that error fell most of the\ndisciples of the great Scholastic Mystics. And has not the like occurred\nelsewhere in history? Putting religion out of the question, Wycliffe may\nhave been a socialist, but he was far behind his followers. But as such\na falling away on the part of the disciple cannot justly take from the\ncharacter of the master, so we would still say a word for Hugo of S.\nVictor. A man whose aim in life was the knowledge of God, and who worked\nfor that end with courage and diligence, is not a character to be\nneglected. \u2018His name,\u2019 says Mr. Maurice (Medi\u00e6val Phil. p. 148), \u2018has\nbeen less remembered in later times than it deserves, because it has\nbeen overshadowed by those of other men who met some of the tastes of\nthe age more successfully, though their actual power was not greater\nthan his, perhaps not equal to it.\u2019\n\nIn Hugo of S. Victor and his predecessors, Bernard and Anselm, we see\nthe combination of Scholasticism and Mysticism. To some extent they were\nable to keep a middle course. They would not allow their reason to run\nriot over sacred mysteries, and their firm hold on the articles of the\nCatholic faith prevented them from sinking into vague pantheism.\n\nAmong the Mystics of Germany who come next in the hasty survey we are\nhere attempting, there does not appear to have been so much steadiness.\nWe do not mean to say that the Scholastic Mystics were perfect; they\nwere not free from exaggerations, but their extravagances appear to us\nless dangerous than were those of the old German Mystics. The names of\nthe leading German Mystics are more familiar to most people than are any\nothers. Who has not heard of Tauler? What the influence of his teaching\nwas is shown in the following pages. He may be exonerated from all\ncharge of pantheism, as may, also, be Ruysbroek and Suso; but it is very\ndoubtful whether the writings left by Eckart acquit him of all\nconnection with these errors. He has been claimed as orthodox by\nchurchmen, and as a pantheist by many pantheists; and extracts can be\nquoted from his works in support of either theory. Eckart\u2019s position was\ndifficult. The general temper of the world at the time was restless; the\nerrors and abuses of the Church drove earnest men to look within. They\nturned their attention to personal holiness, to the neglect of the fact\nthat they had any duties towards the Christian brotherhood at large. To\nurge his hearers to a closer union with God was a noble subject for a\npreacher. But must it not be confessed that Eckart had gone too far when\nhe could utter such words as these, \u2018a truly divine man has been so made\none with God that henceforth he does not think of God or look for God\noutside himself?\u2019 His teaching certainly approached often towards the\nbrink of the abyss of pantheism, and as Archbishop Trench says (Med. Ch.\nHist., p. 348), \u2018sometimes it does not stop short of the brink.\u2019\n\nBetween these two schools, the Scholastic and the German, many\ncomparisons may be made. The effect of them on the Catholic Church as it\nthen existed was very different: the teaching of Anselm and Bernard was\ncalculated to strengthen the Church, while that of the later school was\nnot. Anselm and his friends were aware of the necessity for personal\nholiness, but they were always willing for their disciples to climb the\nroad to perfection by the help of the means of grace held out in the\nChurch, as well as by devout contemplation. The Germans, on the\ncontrary, felt there was something wrong with the existing\necclesiastical arrangements, and through indifference to them drew their\ndisciples away from many practices which were then accounted necessary\nto salvation. By this disregard for rites and ceremonies, and by their\nuse of the German language in their teaching, they paved the way for the\nReformers, and that is a great claim on our respect. At the same time,\nwe cannot help thinking their hazy ideas rather chilling. Surely the\nhighest point in the history of Mysticism had been reached and passed\nwhen the struggle to make reason and imagination work together gave way\nto mere ecstatic rhapsody.\n\nQuietism is discussed in the second volume at considerable length; the\nfamiliar names of Madame Guyon, Bossuet and F\u00e9n\u00e9lon are brought before\nus. The story is a sad one. There may be some who think that Madame\nGuyon was not worthy of the friendship of such a saint as F\u00e9n\u00e9lon,\u2014that\nmust be a matter of opinion; but on one point all will agree, the\nconduct of Bossuet under the circumstances was not very creditable.\nThose who have a high opinion of the piety of Bossuet will confess that\nhe does not appear in the narrative to advantage, even though they may\nnot be able to agree with all the statements the author of this work\nmakes about the Bishop of Meaux. F\u00e9n\u00e9lon was tender, gentle, loving, and\nBossuet was firm, stern, and strict, but they both did their best to\nserve God in their relative positions, and He, whose servants they were,\nwill judge them.\n\nGlancing, then, through the entire length of this history, we see that\nthe great principle which appears to have actuated all Mystics was a\ndesire for union with God. This they tried to cultivate by seclusion and\nasceticism. They neglected social duties and fled away into monasteries\nand deserts; and sometimes their practical life was not equal in\nholiness to the reported spirituality of their ecstasies. Their excesses\nof mortification appear almost ludicrous when they themselves alone are\nconcerned, but when their mad conduct is seen affecting others our\nfeelings grow stronger. But let us speak gently of such eccentricities.\nThese good people, for good they certainly were, could not appreciate\nthe fact that God was in the busy town as well as in the lonely desert.\nThey heard no voice within them urging them to treat a beggar kindly for\nthe sake of the Son of God. Some of them were very charitable, but what\nwas the nature of their charity? Was it not simply done for their own\nadvantage? Did they really think of charity as an act done to God, not\nmeritorious, but as being an offering to their Heavenly Father of His\nown? It is to be feared that that was not the general idea. The more\nextravagant Mystics appear really to have been horribly selfish. They\nhad yet to learn that the closer union for which they longed is not\nattained by efforts to \u2018faire son salut,\u2019 or by sitting still in the\ncomfortable assurance of an imputed righteousness. Then it must be\nremembered that all these frantic efforts or dreamy ecstasies were made\nwith a view to union with God. And this \u2018union\u2019 was of a novel kind\u2014in\nmany cases there was a notion of an absorption into the Deity, together\nwith other ideas which clearly involved erroneous views of God. It was\nthe old story of carrying one particular article of faith or pious\nopinion to extremes, and this to the disregard, more or less complete,\nof all else. The same thing had happened before in the history of the\nChristian Church. It is not for us to lay down a definition of what is\ntrue union with God; but we may say that the fellowship which all true\nbelievers enjoy with the Father through the Son was not enough for the\nMystic. He struggled and panted for more. How each one succeeded or\nfailed the individual reader of the work must judge, and decide for\nhimself.\n\nBefore going further, it may be well to refer to an attack which was\nmade on the author for his treatment of medi\u00e6val saints and of the\nstories connected with them. Obviously, a man who sympathises with an\nemotional form of religion would not be inclined to confine these\nenthusiasts within such narrow limits as would one of a colder\ntemperament. This may explain the feelings of the critics in question.\nThere can be little doubt that the ascetic and the nun, with their\nmortifications and trances, had not for the author much attraction. Even\nthe style in which the book was written may have led him to write too\nlightly on some details of this period; but if such were the case, he\nknew, as well as any critic, that these people were trying to do their\nduty, even if they failed. The ascetic who thought he had no duty in the\nworld, and therefore ran away and refused to \u2018fight a battle for the\nLord,\u2019 and the \u2018hysterical sister,\u2019 are rather subjects for pity than\nfor jest; and contrary as all the author\u2019s convictions may have been to\nasceticism, he would rather have wept over their strange acts and mad\nfancies than scoffed at them. We feel convinced that any harsh remarks\nshould be taken as referring to the system which brought its victims\ninto such a condition, and not to the victims themselves. Though\ndisapproving of the system, the author would never have withheld his\nadmiration from any individual act of self-sacrifice, when it was done\nfrom a right motive and was the offering of a loving heart.\n\nThe fact that this book is again published by request is a sign that the\nauthor\u2019s labours have been appreciated and that his name is not\nforgotten. \u2018Some men,\u2019 he once wrote in a letter, \u2018who have died young,\nhave lived far longer than others who have outpassed their three-score\nyears and ten. Life consists not in the abundance of things a man\npossesseth, nor in the abundance of things a man doeth, but in the\nabundance of thoughts he thinks leading toward some special result in\nthis world or the next.\u2019 So, again, he writes in his diary,\n\u2018Reputation\u2014consider it, soul of mine, not as an end, but as a means of\nsowing right thoughts and feelings among thy fellows. Strive towards\npower over the thoughts of men\u2014power that may be solemnly used in God\u2019s\nsight as being a faithful steward for His glory. Have I a brain that\nmust be busy, a will in this direction which\u2014with all my vacillation\nelsewhere\u2014has been and is unconquerable? Let me pray to use it with\nreverent lowliness of heart as a talent committed to me, fearing to\nmisuse it, to allow any corner of the estate to be waste, or any wain of\nthe harvest to fall into the enemy\u2019s hand.\u2019\n\nIf it now be asked, what are the uses of this book, we may answer that\nit has proved helpful as a history of religious thought. Further, it is\nhoped that it has been, and still will be, useful on account of the\nmoral lessons to be drawn from the historical facts. It may also be used\nas showing how necessary it is to associate Christianity with our daily\nlives; how desirable it is that preachers should avoid confining their\nhearers\u2019 attention to their own individual souls. And then it further\nteaches that, while we take religion into the world, we may learn also\nto value more the privileges of quiet and retired communion with God. In\nthese practical modern days the idea of contemplation appears out of\nplace; and yet it was our Divine Master who said, \u2018Come apart into a\ndesert place and rest awhile.\u2019 Perhaps the world would have been better\nif the hermits had paid more attention to the little word \u2018_awhile_.\u2019\nBut the bustle of the present day is just as likely to make us forget\nthe injunction altogether.\n\nThe book\u2019s republication now seems to have a special opportuneness, for\nin much of the more spiritual progress going on around us there is a\ngood deal of Mysticism. As in times past men sought refuge in devout\ncontemplation from Materialism, so now a horror of Rationalism and a\nsense of injustice are likely to drive many to the same extreme. Whether\nor not there has been any undue extravagance developed as yet, it is not\nfor us to decide. But this history will show how easy and possible it is\nto carry a good principle beyond its proper limits.\n\n * * * * *\n\nBefore concluding, one further personal word must be permitted. No\npreface to this book, however short, would be complete without at least\na reference to her who helped the author in his labours as only a good\nwife can, and who has taught his son to love God and reverence his\nfather\u2019s memory as only a good mother can. To her, the reappearance of\nthis work causes a ray of light amidst a life darkened by much trouble\nand suffering.\n\nIt need scarcely be added that the writer of these words esteems it an\nhonour to be in any way connected with his father\u2019s labours. What the\nloss of such a father has been to him cannot be described in words. The\nfollowing remarks of a clerical friend of the author may partly express\nthe writer\u2019s present feelings: \u2018He is gone, young in years\u2014but for him\nwe may not lament the dispensation\u2014since assuredly he was not only\nmature in intellect but rich in grace. I delight to think of him as one\nof that \u201cblessed company,\u201d the Church above\u2014to the perfect love and\nfriendship of some members of which I love to look forward, if by God\u2019s\ngrace I may be found worthy to attain to it.\u2019\n\nThis book never had any public dedication. It was the work of the best\nyears of a life offered to God. What was not done for the first edition\nwill not be done now; but let these few lines of the author\u2019s son be an\noffering to the glory of God\u2014to the memory of his father\u2014to the\nself-devotion of his mother.\n\nIn one of the author\u2019s poems is the following verse which is strangely\nappropriate at this place:\u2014\n\n Let us toil on\u2014the work we leave behind us,\n Though incomplete, God\u2019s hand will yet embalm,\n And use it some way; and the news will find us\n In heaven above, and sweeten endless calm.\n\n WYCLIFFE VAUGHAN.\n\n LITTLEMORE, NEAR OXFORD,\n\n _November, 1879_.\n\n\n\n\n PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.\n\n\nThe subject of the present work is one which will generally be thought\nto need some words of explanation, if not of apology. Mysticism is\nalmost everywhere synonymous with what is most visionary in religion and\nmost obscure in speculation. But a _history_ of Mysticism\u2014old visions\nand old obscurities\u2014who is bold enough to expect a hearing for that? Is\nthe hopeful present, struggling toward clear intelligence, to pause and\nhear how, some hundreds of years ago, men made themselves elaborately\nunintelligible? Is our straining after action and achievement to be\nrelaxed while you relate the way in which Mystics reduced themselves to\nutter inactivity? While we are rejoicing in escape from superstitious\ntwilight, is it well to recall from Limbo the phantasms of forgotten\ndreamers, and to people our sunshine with ghostly shadows? And since\nMysticism is confessedly more or less a mistake, were it not better to\npoint out to us, if you can, a something true and wise, rather than\noffer us your portrait of an exaggeration and a folly?\n\nSuch are some of the questions which it will be natural to ask. The\nanswer is at hand. First of all, Mysticism, though an error, has been\nassociated, for the most part, with a measure of truth so considerable,\nthat its good has greatly outweighed its evil. On this ground alone, its\nhistory should be judged of interest. For we grow more hopeful and more\ncharitable as we mark how small a leaven of truth may prove an antidote\nto error, and how often the genuine fervour of the spirit has all but\nmade good the failures of the intellect.\n\nIn the religious history of almost every age and country, we meet with a\ncertain class of minds, impatient of mere ceremonial forms and technical\ndistinctions, who have pleaded the cause of the heart against\nprescription, and yielded themselves to the most vehement impulses of\nthe soul, in its longing to escape from the sign to the thing\nsignified\u2014from the human to the divine. The story of such an ambition,\nwith its disasters and its glories, will not be deemed, by any\nthoughtful mind, less worthy of record than the career of a conqueror.\nThrough all the changes of doctrine and the long conflict of creeds, it\nis interesting to trace the unconscious unity of mystical temperaments\nin every communion. It can scarcely be without some profit that we essay\nto gather together and arrange this company of ardent natures; to\naccount for their harmony and their differences, to ascertain the extent\nof their influence for good and evil, to point out their errors, and to\nestimate even dreams impossible to cold or meaner spirits.\n\nThese Mystics have been men of like passions and in like perplexities\nwith many of ourselves. Within them and without them were temptations,\nmysteries, aspirations like our own. A change of names, or an interval\nof time, does not free us from liability to mistakes in their direction,\nor to worse, it may be, in a direction opposite. To distinguish between\nthe genuine and the spurious in their opinion or their life, is to erect\na guide-post on the very road we have ourselves to tread. It is no idle\nor pedantic curiosity which would try these spirits by their fruits, and\nsee what mischief and what blessing grew out of their misconceptions and\ntheir truth. We learn a lesson for ourselves, as we mark how some of\nthese Mystics found God within them after vainly seeking Him\nwithout\u2014hearkened happily to that witness for Him which speaks in our\nconscience, affections, and desires; and, recognising love by love,\nfinally rejoiced in a faith which was rather the life of their heart\nthan the conclusion of their logic. We learn a lesson for ourselves, as\nwe see one class among them forsaking common duties for the feverish\nexaltation of a romantic saintship, and another persisting in their\nconceited rejection of the light without, till they have turned into\ndarkness their light within.\n\nBut the interest attaching to Mysticism is by no means merely historic.\nIt is active under various forms in our own time. It will certainly play\nits part in the future. The earlier portion of this work is occupied, it\nmust be confessed, with modes of thought and life extremely remote from\nanything with which we are now familiar. But only by such inquiry into\nthose bygone speculations could the character and influence of Christian\nMysticism be duly estimated, or even accounted for. Those preliminaries\nonce past, the reader will find himself in contact with opinions and\nevents less removed from present experience.\n\nThe attempt to exhibit the history of a certain phase of religious life\nthrough the irregular medium of fiction, dialogue, and essay, may appear\nto some a plan too fanciful for so grave a theme. But it must be\nremembered, that any treatment of such a subject which precluded a\ngenial exercise of the imagination would be necessarily inadequate, and\nprobably unjust. The method adopted appeared also best calculated to\nafford variety and relief to topics unlikely in themselves to attract\ngeneral interest. The notes which are appended have been made more\ncopious than was at first designed, in order that no confusion may be\npossible between fact and fiction, and that every statement of\nimportance might be sustained by its due authority. It is hoped that, in\nthis way, the work may render its service, not only to those who deem\nsecondary information quite sufficient on such subjects, but also to the\nscholar, who will thus be readily enabled to test for himself my\nconclusions, and who will possess, in the extracts given, a kind of\nanthology from the writings of the leading Mystics. To those familiar\nwith such inquiries it may perhaps be scarcely necessary to state that I\nhave in no instance allowed myself to cite as an authority any passage\nwhich I have not myself examined, with its context, in the place to\nwhich I refer. In the _Chronicle of Adolf Arnstein_ the minimum of\ninvention has been employed, and no historical personage there\nintroduced utters any remark bearing upon Mysticism for which ample\nwarrant cannot be brought forward. Wherever, in the conversations at\nAshfield, any material difference of opinion is expressed by the\nspeakers, Atherton may be understood as setting forth what we ourselves\ndeem the truth of the matter. Some passages in these volumes, and the\nsubstance of the chapters on Quietism, have made their appearance\npreviously in the pages of one of our quarterly periodicals.\n\nIt should be borne in mind that my design does not require of me that I\nshould give an account of all who are anywhere known to have entertained\nmystical speculation, or given themselves to mystical practice. I have\nendeavoured to portray and estimate those who have made epochs in the\nhistory of Mysticism, those who are fair representatives of its stages\nor transitions, those whose enthusiasm has been signally benign or\nnotoriously baneful. I have either mentioned by name only, or passed by\nin silence, the followers or mere imitators of such men, and those\nMystics also whose obscure vagaries neither produced any important\nresult nor present any remarkable ph\u00e6nomena. Only by resolute omission\non this principle has it been possible to preserve in any measure that\nhistorical perspective so essential to the truth of such delineations.\n\nThe fact that the ground I traverse lies almost wholly unoccupied, might\nbe pleaded on behalf of my undertaking. The history of Mysticism has\nbeen but incidentally touched by English writers. Germany possesses many\nmonographs of unequal value on detached parts of the subject. Only\nrecently has a complete account of Christian Mysticism appeared, at all\non a level with the latest results of historical inquiry.[1] This\nlaborious compilation presents the dry bones of doctrinal opinion,\ncarefully separated from actual life\u2014a grave defect in any branch of\necclesiastical history, absolutely fatal to intelligibility and\nreadableness in this. If we except the researches of the Germans into\ntheir own medi\u00e6val Mysticism, it may be truly said that the little done\nin England has been better done than the much in Germany. The Mysticism\nof the Neo-Platonists has found a powerful painter in Mr. Kingsley. The\nMysticism of Bernard meets with a wise and kindly critic in Sir James\nStephen.\n\nIf, then, the subject of this book be neither insignificant in itself,\nnor exhausted by the labours of others, my enterprise at least is not\nunworthy, however questionable its success.\n\nTHE AUTHOR.\n\n_February 1st, 1856._\n\nFootnote 1:\n\n _Die Christliche Mystik._ Von Dr. Ludwig Noack. K\u00f6nigsberg.\n\n\n\n\n PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.\n\n\nThis work has been some time out of print. It was my hope that the\nSecond Edition might have been brought within a single volume. But that\nhas not been practicable.\n\nThe present edition has been revised by the Author, and some fifty pages\nof new matter have been introduced. This new matter will be found mainly\nin the Sixth Chapter of the Sixth Book. In that enlarged treatment of\nthe topic of \u201cGerman Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century\u201d the reader\nwill meet with a slight recurrence of former trains of thought, which\nthe Author might have been inclined to suppress, but with which I have\nnot deemed it well to intermeddle. It will be seen that the design of\nthe supplementary matter is, in part, as a reply to criticisms which\nseemed to call for some such explanation; and, in part, that points\ntouched upon elsewhere might be given with more fulness.\n\nTo see this Second Edition through the press has been the work of one\nwhose intelligent sympathy and patient effort assisted and encouraged\nthe Author, in many ways, in the prosecution of his studies, and who now\nfinds the solace of her loneliness in treasuring up the products of his\nmind, and in cherishing the dear ones he has left to her wise love and\noversight.\n\nIf Mysticism be often a dream, it is commonly a dream in the right\ndirection. Its history presents one of the most significant chapters in\nthe story of humanity.\n\nROBERT VAUGHAN.\n\n_September 7th, 1860._\n\n\n\n\n CONTENTS OF VOL I.\n\n\n BOOK I.\u2014INTRODUCTION.\n\n CHAPTER I.\n\n Henry Atherton 3\n Lionel Gower 5\n Frank Willoughby 7\n\n\n CHAPTER II.\n\n Connection of the Arts 9\n Mysticism in an Emblem 11\n History 15\n\n\n CHAPTER III.\n\n Etymology 17\n Definitions 21\n Christian Mysticism 22\n\n\n CHAPTER IV.\n\n Causes of Mysticism 27\n Reaction against Formalism 28\n Weariness of the World 30\n The Fascination of Mystery 31\n\n\n CHAPTER V.\n\n Classification of Mystics 35\n Theopathetic Mysticism 37\n Theosophy 39\n Theurgy 45\n\n\n BOOK II.\u2014EARLY ORIENTAL MYSTICISM.\n\n CHAPTER I.\n\n The Bagvat-Gita 51\n\n\n CHAPTER II.\n\n Characteristics of Hindoo Mysticism 54\n The Yogis 57\n\n\n BOOK III.\u2014THE MYSTICISM OF THE NEO-PLATONISTS.\n\n\n CHAPTER I.\n\n\n Philo 64\n The Therapeut\u00e6 66\n Asceticism 67\n\n\n CHAPTER II.\n\n\n Plotinus 71\n Alexandria 72\n Eclecticism 75\n Platonism and Neo-Platonism 76\n Plotinus on Ecstasy 81\n\n\n CHAPTER III.\n\n\n Neo-Platonism in the Christian Church 85\n Analogies between Ancient and Modern Speculation 87\n Intuition 89\n Theurgy 91\n\n\n CHAPTER IV.\n\n\n Porphyry 94\n Philosophy seeks to rescue Polytheism 96\n Theurgic Mysticism of Iamblichus 100\n Proclus 105\n\n\n BOOK IV.\u2014MYSTICISM IN THE GREEK CHURCH.\n\n\n CHAPTER I.\n\n\n Saint Anthony 109\n The Pseudo-Dionysius 111\n\n\n CHAPTER II.\n\n\n The Hierarchies of Dionysius 114\n The Via Negativa and the Via Affirmativa 115\n Virtues human and superhuman 121\n Stagnation 122\n\n\n BOOK V.\u2014MYSTICISM IN THE LATIN CHURCH.\n\n\n CHAPTER I.\n\n\n Intellectual Activity of the West 130\n The Services of Platonism 132\n Clairvaux 132\n The Mysticism of Bernard 136\n Mysticism opposed to Scholasticism 141\n Moderation of Bernard 144\n\n\n CHAPTER II.\n\n\n Hugo of St Victor 153\n Mysticism combined with Scholasticism 154\n The Eye of Contemplation 157\n Richard of St Victor 159\n The Six Stages of Contemplation 162\n The Truth and the Error of Mystical Abstraction 164\n The Inner Light and the Outer 166\n The Faculty of Intuition 169\n\n\n BOOK VI.\u2014GERMAN MYSTICISM IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.\n\n\n CHAPTER I.\n\n\n The Chronicle of Adolf Arnstein of Strasburg 181\n Hermann of Fritzlar and his Legends 182\n The Heretics of the Rhineland 184\n The Preaching of Master Eckart 188\n From the Known God to the Unknown 189\n Disinterested Love 193\n Eckart\u2019s Story of the Beggar 197\n Ju-ju 199\n The Nameless Wild 201\n\n\n CHAPTER II.\n\n\n The Doctrine of Eckart discussed 204\n Resemblance to Hegel 206\n Pantheism Old and New 209\n\n\n CHAPTER III.\n\n\n The Interdict 214\n Henry of N\u00f6rdlingen 216\n Insurrection in Strasburg 218\n The Friends of God 224\n Tauler on the Image of God 226\n\n\n CHAPTER IV.\n\n\n Tauler\u2019s Disappearance 230\n His Disgrace 233\n His Restoration 234\n The People comforted and the Pope defied 236\n\n\n CHAPTER V.\n\n\n Nicholas of Basle and Tauler 239\n The Theology of Tauler 244\n His Advice to Mystics 248\n Estimate of his Doctrine 251\n\n\n CHAPTER VI.\n\n\n Further Thoughts on Tauler and Middle-Age Mysticism 260\n Tests of Mysticism 268\n Spiritual Influence 272\n Views of God and the Universe 277\n Immanence of God 280\n Montanism 284\n Ground of the Sou 291\n Origen and Tauler 302\n Luther and Tauler 304\n Teufelsdr\u00f6ckh 307\n\n\n CHAPTER VII.\n\n\n The Black Death 313\n The Flagellants 316\n A Visit to Ruysbroek at Gr\u00fcnthal 325\n Ruysbroek on Mystical Union 328\n Heretical Mystics 330\n Ecclesiastical Corruption 332\n\n\n CHAPTER VIII.\n\n\n Heinrich Suso 341\n His Austerities 343\n His Visions 345\n His Adventures 348\n The Monks of Mount Athos 356\n\n\n CHAPTER IX.\n\n\n Nicholas of Basle 359\n Brigitta 361\n Angela de Foligni 362\n Catharine of Siena 364\n The \u201cGerman Theology\u201d 366\n The \u201cImitation of Christ\u201d 367\n Gerson 368\n\n\n\n\n BOOK THE FIRST\n INTRODUCTION\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER I.\n\n\n Wie fruchtbar ist der kleinste Kreis,\n Wenn man ihn wohl zu pflegen weiss.[2]\n\n GOETHE.\n\n\nIt was on the evening of a November day that three friends sat about\ntheir after-dinner table, chatting over their wine and walnuts, while\nthe fire with its huge log crackled and sparkled, and the wind without\nmoaned about the corners of the house.\n\nEveryone is aware that authors have in their studies an unlimited supply\nof rings of Gyges, coats of darkness, tarn-caps, and other means of\ninvisibility,\u2014that they have the key to every house, and can hear and\nsee words and actions the most remote. Come with me, then, kindly\nreader, and let us look and listen unseen; we have free leave; and you\nmust know these gentlemen better.\n\nFirst of all, the host. See him leaning back in his chair, and looking\ninto the fire, one hand unconsciously smoothing with restless thumb and\nfinger the taper stem of his wineglass, the other playing with the ears\nof a favourite dog. He appears about thirty years of age, is tall, but\nloses something of his real height by a student\u2019s stoop about the\nshoulders. Those decided almost shaggy eyebrows he has would lead you to\nexpect quick, piercing eyes,\u2014the eyes of the observant man of action.\nBut now that he looks towards us, you see instead eyes of hazel, large,\nslow-rolling, often dreamy in their gaze,\u2014such for size and lustre as\nHomer gives to ox-eyed Juno. The mouth, too, and the nose are delicately\ncut. Their outline indicates taste rather than energy. Yet that massive\njaw, again, gives promise of quiet power,\u2014betokens a strength of that\nsort, most probably, which can persevere in a course once chosen with\nindomitable steadiness, but is not an agile combative force, inventive\nin assaults and rejoicing in adventurous leadership. Men of his species\nresemble fountains, whose water-column a sudden gust of wind may drive\naslant, or scatter in spray across the lawn, but\u2014the violence once\npast\u2014they play upward as truly and as strong as ever.\n\nPerhaps it is a pity that this Henry Atherton is so rich as he is,\u2014owns\nhis Ashfield House, with its goodly grounds, and has never been forced\ninto active professional life, with its rough collisions and straining\nanxieties. Abundance of leisure is a trial to which few men are equal.\nGray was in the right when he said that something more of genius than\ncommon was required to teach a man how to employ himself. My friend\nbecame early his own task-master, and labours harder from choice than\nmany from necessity. To high attainment as a classical scholar he has\nadded a critical acquaintance with the literature and the leading\nlanguages of modern Europe. Upstairs is a noble library, rich especially\nin historical authorities, and there Atherton works, investigating now\none historic question, now another, endeavouring out of old,\nyellow-faced annals to seize the precious passages which suggest the\nlife of a time, and recording the result of all in piles of manuscript.\n\nHow often have I and Gower\u2014that youngest of the three, on the other\nside, with the moustache\u2014urged him to write a book. But he waits, and,\nwith his fastidiousness, will always wait, I am afraid, till he has\npractically solved this problem;\u2014given a subject in remote history, for\nwhich not ten of your friends care a straw; required such a treatment of\nit as shall at once be relished by the many and accredited as standard\nby the few. So, thinking it useless to write what scarcely anyone will\nread, and despairing of being ever erudite and popular at the same time,\nhe is content to enquire and to accumulate in most happy obscurity.\nDoubtless the world groans under its many books, yet it misses some good\nones that would assuredly be written if able men with the ambition were\noftener possessed of the time required, or if able men with the time\nwere oftener possessed of the ambition.\n\nYou ask me, \u2018Who is this Gower?\u2019\n\nAn artist. Atherton met with him at Rome, where he was tracing classic\nsites, and Gower worshipping the old masters. Their pathway chanced on\none or two occasions to coincide, and by little and little they grew\nfast friends. They travelled through Germany together on their way home,\nand found their friendship robust enough to survive the landing on our\nBritish shore. Unquestionably the pictured Vatican, sunny Forum, brown\nCampagna, garlanded baths of Caracalla, with quaint, ingenious\nNuremberg, and haunted Hartz, made common memories for both. But this\nwas not all. Atherton had found the young painter in a sentimental\nfever. He raved about Shelley; he was full of adoration for the\nflimsiest abstractions\u2014enamoured of impersonations the most impalpable;\nhe discoursed in high strain on the dedication of life as a Hymn to\nIntellectual Beauty. The question of questions with him concerned not\nTruth or Fable, but the Beautiful or the Not-Beautiful. Whatever charmed\nhis taste was from Ormuzd, the Good: whatever revolted it, from Ahriman,\nthe Evil; and so the universe was summarily parted. He fancied he was\nmaking art religious, while, in fact, he made religion a mere branch of\nart,\u2014and that branch, of all others, the most open to individual\ncaprice.\n\nFrom these wanderings Atherton reclaimed him, wisely, and therefore\nalmost insensibly. Gower never forgot the service. In his admiration for\nAtherton, when fully conscious of it, he little suspected that he, too,\nhad conferred a benefit in his turn. Atherton had looked too much\nwithin, as Gower too exclusively without. A certain imaginative, even\npoetical element, dormant in the mind of the former, was resuscitated by\nthis friendship.\n\nGower rejoices in the distressingly novelish Christian name of Lionel.\nWhy will parents give names to their offspring which are sure to entail\nridicule during the most susceptible period of existence? No sooner did\nyoung Lionel enter school, with that delicate red-and-white complexion,\nand long curling hair, than he was nicknamed Nelly. But he fought his\nway stoutly till he won a title from the first part of his name rather\nthan the last, and in school traditions figures still as Lion, royally\ngrim and noble. That open countenance and high forehead, with the deep\npiercing eyes set rather far apart, constitute not merely a promising\nphysiognomy for the artist, they bear faithful witness to mental power\nand frankness of character, to practical sagacity and force. In one\nrespect only can he be charged with asserting in his person his\nprofessional pretensions,\u2014his hair is parted in the middle, falling in\nnatural waves on either side; long enough, as your eye tells you, for\ngrace; too short for affectation.\n\nOne quality in Gower I have always especially liked,\u2014his universality.\nNot that he sets up for Encyclop\u00e6dism; on the contrary, he laments more\nthan he need the scantiness of his knowledge and his want of time for\nits enlargement. What I mean is that with every kind of enquiry, every\nprovince of culture, he seems to have intuitively the readiest sympathy.\nThough his notion of the particular art or science may be only cursory\nand general, his imagination puts him in some way in the place of its\nexclusive devotees, and he enters into their feelings till their utmost\nworship appears scarcely excessive to him. I have heard such votaries\npour out unreservedly into his ear, as into that of a brother\nenthusiast, all those delightful details of adventure, of hope and fear,\nof research and of conjecture, which make the very life of the most\nminute or the most arid pursuits, and which books impart to us so\nrarely. And all this (making the world to him such a wide one) without\ntaking aught from his allegiance to painting. Already have his genius\nand his diligence achieved success\u2014you will find his pictures realizing\nhigh prices\u2014and that snug little box of his, only ten minutes\u2019 walk from\nAshfield, is furnished much too handsomely to accord with the popular\nidea of what must be the residence of a young artist, five-and-twenty,\nbut newly started in his profession, and with all his \u2018expectations\u2019\ngathered up within his brush.\n\nThe third member of the trio, Mr. Author, has not certainly the personal\nadvantages of our friend Gower. I suppose you expect me to say \u2018our\u2019\nnow, if only as a compliment. Yet stay\u2014a very expressive face, with a\ngenial hearty look about it;\u2014there! now he is smiling, that rather\nclumsy mouth is quite pleasant; but he lets too much beard grow for my\ntaste.\n\nBearded Willoughby, O Reader, is a literary man, a confirmed bachelor,\nthey say; and encrusted with some roughnesses and oddities which conceal\nfrom the eyes of strangers his real warmth of heart and delicacy of\nfeeling. His parents destined him for the Church from those tender years\nwherein the only vocation manifest is that which summons boyhood to\npeg-top and jam tart. When the time drew near in which he should have\ntaken orders, Willoughby went up to London, brimful of eager\nphilanthropy, of religious doubts, and of literary ambition, to become\none of the High-priests of Letters. His first work was a novel to\nillustrate the mission of the literary Priesthood, a topsy-turvy affair,\nbut dashingly clever\u2014by the way, you can scarcely offend him more than\nto mention it now;\u2014with this book he succeeded in producing a sensation,\nand the barrier thus passed, his pen has found full employment ever\nsince. He has now abandoned the extravagances of hero-worship, and I\nhave even heard him intimate a doubt as to whether \u2018able editors\u2019 were,\nafter all, the great, divinely-accredited hierophants of the species.\n\nAt present Willoughby is occupied, as time allows, with a philosophical\nromance, in which are to be embodied his views of society as it is and\nas it should be. This desperate enterprise is quite a secret; even\nAtherton and Gower know nothing of it; so you will not mention it, if\nyou please, to more than half-a-dozen of your most intimate friends.\n\nWilloughby was first introduced to Atherton as the author of some\narticles in favour of certain social reforms in which the latter had\ndeeply interested himself. So remarkable were these papers for breadth,\ndiscrimination, and vivacity of style, that the admiring Atherton could\nnot rest till he had made the acquaintance of the writer. The new\ncombatant awakened general attention, and Frank Willoughby was on the\npoint of becoming a lion. But his conversational powers were\ninconsiderable. His best thoughts ran with his ink from the point of the\npen. So Atherton, with little difficulty, carried him off from the\nlion-hunters.\n\nThe three friends were agreed that the crowning locality of all for any\nmortal was a residence a few miles from town, with congenial neighbours\nclose at hand,\u2014a house or two where one might drop in for an evening at\nany time. As was their theory so was their practice, and the two younger\nmen are often to be found in the evening at Atherton\u2019s, sometimes in the\nlibrary with him, sometimes in the drawing-room, with the additional\nenjoyment afforded by the society of his fair young wife and her sister.\n\nBut while I have been Boswellizing to you about the past history of\nthese friends of mine, you cannot have heard a word they have been\nsaying. Now I will be quiet,\u2014let us listen.\n\nFootnote 2:\n\n How fruitful may the smallest circle grow,\n If we the secret of its culture know.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER II.\n\n\n Philosophy itself\n Smacks of the age it lives in, nor is true\n Save by the apposition of the present.\n And truths of olden time, though truths they be,\n And living through all time eternal truths,\n Yet want the seas\u2019ning and applying hand\n Which Nature sends successive. Else the need\n Of wisdom should wear out and wisdom cease,\n Since needless wisdom were not to be wise.\n\n EDWIN THE FAIR.\n\n\nATHERTON. A pleasant little knot to set us, Gower,\u2014to determine the\nconditions of your art.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. And after dinner, too, of all times.\n\nGOWER. Why not? If the picture-critics would only write their verdicts\nafter dinner, many a poor victim would find his dinner prospects\nbrighter. This is the genial hour; the very time to discuss \u00e6sthetics,\nwhere geniality is everything.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Do you remember that passage in one of our old plays (I\nthink it was in Lamb I saw it), where the crazed father asks all sorts\nof impossible things from the painter. He wants him to make the tree\nshriek on which his murdered son hangs ghastly in the moonlight.\n\nGOWER. Salvator has plenty of them, splintered with shrieking.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. But this man\u2019s frenzy demands more yet:\u2014make me cry, make me\nmad, make me well again, and in the end leave me in a trance,\u2014and so\nforth.\n\nATHERTON. Fortunate painter\u2014a picture gallery ordered in a breath!\n\nWILLOUGHBY. By no means. Now does this request, when you come to think\nof it, so enormously violate the conditions of the art? Seriously, I\nshould state the matter thus:\u2014The artist is limited to a moment only,\nand yet is the greater artist in proportion as he can not only\nadequately occupy, but even transcend that moment.\n\nGOWER. I agree with you. Painting reaches its highest aim when it\ncarries us beyond painting; when it is not merely itself a creation, but\nmakes the spectator creative, and prompts him with the antecedents and\nthe consequents of the represented action.\n\nATHERTON. But all are not equal to the reception of such suggestions.\n\nGOWER. And so, with unsusceptible minds, we must be satisfied if they\npraise us for our imitation merely.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Yet even they will derive more pleasure, though unable to\naccount for it, from works of this higher order. Those, assuredly, are\nthe masterpieces of art, in any branch, which are, as it were, triumphal\narches that lead us out into the domain of some sister art. When poetry\npourtrays with the painter,\u2014\n\nGOWER. My favourite, Spenser, to wit.\u2014\n\nWILLOUGHBY. When painting sings its story with the minstrel, and when\nmusic paints and sings with both, they are at their height. Take music,\nfor instance. What scenes does some fine overture suggest, even when you\nknow nothing of its design, as you close your eyes and yield to its\ninfluence. The events, or the reading of the previous day, the incidents\nof history or romance, are wrought up with glorious transfigurations,\nand you are in the land of dreams at once. Some of them rise before me\nat this moment, vivid as ever:\u2014now I see the fair damosels of the olden\ntime on their palfreys, prancing on the sward beside a castle gate,\nwhile silver trumpets blow; then, as the music changes, I hear cries far\noff on forlorn and haunted moors; now it is the sea, and there sets the\nsun, red, through the ribs of a wrecked hull, that cross it like\nskeleton giant bars. There is one passage in the overture to Fra\nDiavolo, during which I always emerge, through ocean caves, in some\nsilken palace of the east, where the music rises and rains in the\nfountains, and ethereally palpitates in their wavering rainbows. But\ndream-scenery of this sort is familiar to most persons at such times.\n\nGOWER. I have often revelled in it.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. And what is true for so many with regard to music, may\nsometimes be realized on seeing pictures.\n\nATHERTON. Only, I think, in a way still more accidental and arbitrary.\nAn instance, however, of the thing you mention did happen to me last\nweek. I had been reading a German writer on mysticism, searching, after\nmany disappointments, for a satisfactory definition of it. Page after\npage of metaphysical verbiage did I wade through in vain. At last, what\nswarms of labouring words had left as obscure as ever, a picture seemed\nto disclose to me in a moment. I saw that evening, at a friend\u2019s house,\na painting which revealed to me, as I imagined, the very spirit of\nmysticism in a figure; it was a visible emblem or hieroglyph of that\nmysterious religious affection.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Your own subjectivity forged both lock and key together, I\nsuspect.\n\nGOWER. What in the world did the piece represent?\n\nATHERTON. I will describe it as well as I can. It was the interior of a\nSpanish cathedral. The most prominent object in the foreground below was\nthe mighty foot of a staircase, with a balustrade of exceeding richness,\nwhich, in its ascent, crosses and recrosses the picture till its highest\nflight is lost in darkness,\u2014for on that side the cathedral is built\nagainst a hill. A half-light slanted down\u2014a sunbeam through the vast\nmisty space\u2014from a window without the range of the picture. At various\nstages of the mounting stairway figures on pillars, bearing escutcheons,\nsaints and kings in fretted niches, and painted shapes of gules and\nazure from the lofty window in the east, looked down on those who were\nascending, some in brightness, some in shadow. At the foot of the stairs\nwere two couchant griffins of stone, with expanded spiny wings, arched\nnecks fluted with horny armour, and open threatening jaws.\n\nGOWER. Now for the interpretation of your parable in stone.\n\nATHERTON. It represented to me the mystic\u2019s progress\u2014my mind was full of\nthat\u2014his initiation, his ascent, his consummation in self-loss. First of\nall the aspirant, whether he seeks superhuman knowledge or superhuman\nlove, is confronted at the outset by terrible shapes\u2014the Dwellers of the\nThreshold, whether the cruelty of asceticism, the temptations of the\nadversary, or the phantoms of his own feverish brain. This fiery baptism\nmanfully endured, he begins to mount through alternate glooms and\nilluminations; now catching a light from some source beyond the grosser\norgans of ordinary men, again in darkness and barren drought of soul.\nThe saintly memories of adepts and of heroes in these mystic labours are\nthe faithful witnesses that cheer him at each stage, whose far glories\nbeacon him from their place of high degree as he rises step by step. Are\nnot those first trials fairly symbolized by my griffins, those\nvicissitudes of the soul by such light and shadow, and those exalted\nspectators by the statues of my stairway and the shining ones of my\noriel window? Then for the climax. The aim of the mystic, if of the most\nabstract contemplative type, is to lose himself in the Divine Dark[3]\u2014to\nescape from everything definite, everything palpable, everything human,\ninto the Infinite Fulness; which is, at the same time, the \u2018intense\ninane.\u2019 The profoundest obscurity is his highest glory; he culminates in\ndarkness; for is not the deathlike midnight slumber of the sense, he\nwill ask us, the wakeful noonday of the spirit? So, as I looked on the\npicture, I seemed to lose sight of him where the summit of the stair was\nlost among the shadows crouched under the roof of that strange\nstructure.\n\nGOWER. I perceive the analogy. I owe you thanks for enabling me to\nattach at least some definite idea to the word mysticism. I confess I\nhave generally used the term mystical to designate anything\nfantastically unintelligible, without giving to it any distinct\nsignificance.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. I have always been partial to the mystics, I must say. They\nappear to me to have been the conservators of the poetry and heart of\nreligion, especially in opposition to the dry prose and formalism of the\nschoolmen.\n\nATHERTON. So they really were in great measure. They did good service,\nmany of them, in their day\u2014their very errors often such as were possible\nonly to great souls. Still their notions concerning special revelation\nand immediate intuition of God were grievous mistakes.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Yet without the ardour imparted by such doctrines, they\nmight have lacked the strength requisite to withstand misconceptions far\nmore mischievous.\n\nATHERTON. Very likely. We should have more mercy on the one-sidedness of\nmen, if we reflected oftener that the evil we condemn may be in fact\nkeeping out some much greater evil on the other side.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. I think one may learn a great deal from such erratic or\nmorbid kinds of religion. Almost all we are in a position to say,\nconcerning spiritual influence, consists of negatives\u2014and what that\ninfluence is _not_ we can best gather from these abnormal phases of the\nmind. Certainly an impartial estimate of the good and of the evil\nwrought by eminent mystics, would prove a very instructive occupation;\nit would be a trying of the spirits by their fruits.\n\nGOWER. And all the more useful as the mistakes of mysticism, whatever\nthey may be, are mistakes concerning questions which we all feel it so\nimportant to have rightly answered; committed, too, by men of like\npassions with ourselves, so that what was danger to them may be danger\nalso to some of us, in an altered form.\n\nATHERTON. Unquestionably. Rationalism overrates reason, formalism\naction, and mysticism feeling\u2014hence the common attributes of the last,\nheat and obscurity. But a tendency to excess in each of these three\ndirections must exist in every age among the cognate varieties of mind.\nYou remember how Pindar frequently introduces into an ode two opposite\nmythical personages, such as a Pelops or a Tantalus, an Ixion or a\nPerseus, one of whom shall resemble the great man addressed by the poet\nin his worse, the other in his better characteristics; that thus he may\nbe at once encouraged and deterred. Deeper lessons than were drawn for\nHiero from the characters of the heroic age may be learnt by us from the\nreligious struggles of the past. It would be impossible to study the\nposition of the old mystics without being warned and stimulated by a\nweakness and a strength to which our nature corresponds;\u2014unless, indeed,\nthe enquiry were conducted unsympathizingly; with cold hearts, as far\nfrom the faith of the mystics as from their follies.\n\nGOWER. If we are likely to learn in this way from such an investigation,\nsuppose we agree to set about it, and at once.\n\nATHERTON. With all my heart. I have gone a little way in this direction\nalone; I should be very glad to have company upon the road.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. An arduous task, when you come to look it in the face,\u2014to\ndetermine that narrow line between the genuine ardour of the Christian\nand the overwrought fervours of the mystical devotee,\u2014to enter into the\nphilosophy of such a question; and that with a terminology so misleading\nand so defective as the best at our service. It will be like shaping the\nsecond hand of a watch with a pair of shears, I promise you. We shall\nfind continually tracts of ground belonging to one of the rival\nterritories of True and False inlaid upon the regions of the other, like\nthose patches from a distant shire that lie in the middle of some of our\ncounties. Many of the words we must employ to designate a certain cast\nof mind or opinion are taken from some accidental feature or transitory\ncircumstance,\u2014express no real characteristic of the idea in question.\nThey indicate our ignorance, like the castles with large flags, blazoned\nwith the arms of sovereigns, which the old monkish geographers set down\nin their maps of Europe to stand instead of the rivers, towns, and\nmountains of an unknown interior.\n\nATHERTON. True enough; but we must do the best we can. We should never\nenter on any investigation a little beneath the surface of things if we\nconsider all the difficulties so gravely. Besides, we are not going to\nbe so ponderously philosophical about the matter. The facts themselves\nwill be our best teachers, as they arise, and as we arrange them when\nthey accumulate.\n\nHistory fairly questioned is no Sphinx. She tells us what kind of\nteaching has been fruitful in blessing to humanity, and why; and what\nhas been a mere boastful promise or powerless formula. She is the true\ntest of every system, and the safeguard of her disciples from\ntheoretical or practical extravagance. Were her large lessons learned,\nfrom how many foolish hopes and fears would they save men! We should not\nthen see a fanatical confidence placed in pet theories for the summary\nexpulsion of all superstition, wrongfulness, and ill-will,\u2014theories\nwhose prototypes failed ages back: neither would good Christian folk be\nso frightened as some of them are at the seemingly novel exhibitions of\nunbelief in our time.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. A great gain\u2014to be above both panic and presumption. I have\nnever heartily given myself to a historic study without realizing some\nsuch twofold advantage. It animated and it humbled me. How minute my\npower; but how momentous to _me_ its conscientious exercise! I will hunt\nthis mystical game with you, or any other, right willingly; all the more\nso, if we can keep true to a historic rather than theoretical treatment\nof the subject.\n\nGOWER. As to practical details, then:\u2014I propose that we have no rules.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Certainly not; away with formalities; let us be Thelemites,\nand do as we like. We can take up this topic as a bye-work, to furnish\nus with some consecutive pursuit in those intervals of time we are so\napt to waste. We can meet\u2014never mind at what intervals, from a week to\nthree months\u2014and throw into the common stock of conversation our several\nreading on the questions in hand.\n\nATHERTON. Or one of us may take up some individual or period; write down\nhis thoughts: and we will assemble then to hear and talk the matter\nover.\n\nGOWER. Very good. And if Mrs. Atherton and Miss Merivale will sometimes\ndeign to honour our evenings with their society, our happiness will be\ncomplete.\n\nThis mention of the ladies reminds our friends of the time, and they are\nbreaking up to join them.\n\nThe essays and dialogues which follow have their origin in the\nconversation to which we have just listened.\n\nFootnote 3:\n\n The writer, who goes by the name of Dionysius Areopagita, teaches that\n the highest spiritual truth is revealed only to those \u2018who have\n transcended every ascent of every holy height, and have left behind\n all divine lights and sounds and heavenly discoursings, and have\n passed into that Darkness where He really is (as saith the Scripture)\n who is above all things.\u2019\u2014_De Mystic\u00e2 Theologi\u00e2_, cap. i. \u00a7 3.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER III.\n\n\n If we entertain the inward man in the purgative and illuminative\n way, that is, in actions of repentance, virtue, and precise duty,\n that is the surest way of uniting us to God, whilst it is done by\n faith and obedience; and that also is love; and in these peace and\n safety dwell. And after we have done our work, it is not discretion\n in a servant to hasten to his meal, and snatch at the refreshment of\n visions, unions, and abstractions; but first we must gird ourselves,\n and wait upon the master, and not sit down ourselves, till we all be\n called at the great supper of the Lamb.\u2014JEREMY TAYLOR.\n\n\n\u2018So, we are to be etymological to-night,\u2019 exclaimed Gower, as he stepped\nforward to join Willoughby in his inspection of a great folio which\nAtherton had laid open on a reading desk, ready to entertain his\nfriends.\n\n\u2018What says Suidas about our word mysticism?\u2019\n\nWILLOUGHBY. I see the old lexicographer derives the original word from\nthe root _mu_, to close: the secret rites and lessons of the Greek\nmysteries were things about which the mouth was to be closed.[4]\n\nGOWER. We have the very same syllable in our language for the same\nthing\u2014only improved in expressiveness by the addition of another\nletter,\u2014we say, \u2018to be _mum_.\u2019\n\nATHERTON. Well, this settles one whole class of significations at once.\nThe term mystical may be applied in this sense to any secret language or\nritual which is understood only by the initiated. In this way the\nphilosophers borrowed the word figuratively from the priests, and\napplied it to their inner esoteric doctrines. The disciple admitted to\nthese was a philosophical \u2018myst,\u2019 or mystic.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. The next step is very obvious. The family of words relating\nto mystery, initiation, &c., are adopted into the ecclesiastical\nphraseology of the early Christian world,\u2014not in the modified use of\nthem occasionally observable in St. Paul, but with their old Pagan\nsignificance.\n\nGOWER. So that the exclusive and aristocratic spirit of Greek culture\nre-appears in Christianity?\n\nATHERTON. Just so. Thus you see the church doors shutting out the\ncatechumens from beholding \u2018the mystery\u2019 (as they came to call the\nEucharist, _par excellence_) quite as rigidly as the brazen gates of\nEleusis excluded the profane many. You hear Theodoret and Ambrose\nspeaking freely before the uninitiated on moral subjects, but concerning\nthe rites they deemed of mysterious, almost magical efficacy, they will\ndeliver only obscure utterances to such auditors; their language is\npurposely dark and figurative,\u2014suggestive to the initiated,\nunintelligible to the neophyte. How often on approaching the subject of\nthe sacrament, does Chrysostom stop short in his sermon, and break off\nabruptly with the formula,\u2014\u2018the initiated will understand what I mean.\u2019\nSo Christianity, corrupted by Gentile philosophy, has in like manner its\nprivileged and its inferior order of votaries,\u2014becomes a respecter of\npersons, with arbitrary distinction makes two kinds of religion out of\none, and begins to nourish with fatal treachery its doctrine of\nreserve.[5]\n\nWILLOUGHBY. But Suidas has here, I perceive, a second meaning in store\nfor us. This latter, I suspect, is most to our purpose,\u2014it is simply an\nextension of the former. He refers the word to the practice of closing\nas completely as possible every avenue of perception by the senses, for\nthe purpose of withdrawing the mind from everything external into\nitself, so as to fit it (raised above every sensuous representation) for\nreceiving divine illumination immediately from above.\n\nGOWER. Platonic abstraction, in fact.\n\nATHERTON. So it seems. The Neo-Platonist was accustomed to call every\nother branch of science the \u2018lesser mysteries:\u2019 this inward\ncontemplation, the climax of Platonism, is the _great_ mystery, the\ninmost, highest initiation. Withdraw into thyself, he will say, and the\nadytum of thine own soul will reveal to thee profounder secrets than the\ncave of Mithras. So that his _mysticus_ is emphatically the enclosed,\nself-withdrawn, introverted man.[6] This is an initiation which does not\nmerely, like that of Isis or of Ceres, close the lips in silence, but\nthe eye, the ear, every faculty of perception, in inward contemplation\nor in the ecstatic abstraction of the trance.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. So then it is an effort man is to make\u2014in harmony with the\nmatter-hating principles of this school\u2014to strip off the material and\nsensuous integuments of his being, and to reduce himself to a purely\nspiritual element. And in thus ignoring the follies and the phantasms of\nAppearance\u2014as they call the actual world\u2014the worshipper of pure Being\nbelieved himself to enjoy at least a transitory oneness with the object\nof his adoration?\n\nATHERTON. So Plotinus would say, if not Plato. And now we come to the\ntransmission of the idea and the expression to the Church. A writer,\ngoing by the name of Dionysius the Areopagite, ferries this shade over\ninto the darkness visible of the ecclesiastical world in the fifth\ncentury. The system of mystical theology introduced by him was eminently\nadapted to the monastic and hierarchical tendencies of the time. His\n\u2018_Mystic_\u2019 is not merely a sacred personage, acquainted with the\ndoctrines and participator in the rites called mysteries, but one also\nwho (exactly after the Neo-Platonist pattern) by mortifying the body,\nclosing the senses to everything external, and ignoring every\n\u2018intellectual apprehension,\u2019[7] attains in passivity a divine union, and\nin ignorance a wisdom transcending all knowledge.\n\nGOWER. Prepared to say, I suppose, with one of old George Chapman\u2019s\ncharacters\u2014\n\n I\u2019ll build all inward\u2014not a light shall ope\n The common out-way.\u2014\n I\u2019ll therefore live in dark; and all my light,\n Like ancient temples, let in at my top.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Not much light either. The mystic, as such, was not to\n_know_ anything about the Infinite, he was \u2018to gaze with closed eyes,\u2019\npassively to receive impressions, lost in the silent, boundless \u2018Dark\u2019\nof the Divine Subsistence.\n\nATHERTON. This, then, is our result. The philosophical perfection of\nAlexandria and the monastic perfection of Byzantium belong to the same\nspecies. Philosophers and monks alike employ the word mysticism and its\ncognate terms as involving the idea, not merely of initiation into\nsomething hidden, but, beyond this, of an internal manifestation of the\nDivine to the intuition or in the feeling of the secluded soul. It is in\nthis last and narrower sense, therefore, that the word is to be\nunderstood when we speak of mystical death, mystical illumination,\nmystical union with God, and, in fact, throughout the phraseology of\nwhat is specially termed _Theologia Mystica_.[8]\n\nGOWER. I have often been struck by the surprising variety in the forms\nof thought and the modes of action in which mysticism has manifested\nitself among different nations and at different periods. This arises, I\nshould think, from its residing in so central a province of the mind\u2014the\nfeeling. It has been incorporated in theism, atheism, and pantheism. It\nhas given men gods at every step, and it has denied all deity except\nself. It has appeared in the loftiest speculation and in the grossest\nidolatry. It has been associated with the wildest licence and with the\nmost pitiless asceticism. It has driven men out into action, it has\ndissolved them in ecstasy, it has frozen them to torpor.\n\nATHERTON. Hence the difficulty of definition. I have seen none which\nquite satisfies me. Some include only a particular phase of it, while\nothers so define its province as to stigmatise as mystical every kind of\nreligiousness which rises above the zero of rationalism.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. The Germans have two words for mysticism\u2014_mystik_ and\n_mysticismus_. The former they use in a favourable, the latter in an\nunfavourable, sense.\u2014\n\nGOWER. Just as we say piety and pietism, or rationality and rationalism;\nkeeping the first of each pair for the use, the second for the abuse. A\nconvenience, don\u2019t you think?\n\nATHERTON. If the adjective were distinguishable like the nouns\u2014but it is\nnot; and to have a distinction in the primitive and not in the\nderivative word is always confusing. But we shall keep to the usage of\nour own language. I suppose we shall all be agreed in employing the word\nmysticism in the unfavourable signification, as equivalent generally to\n_spirituality diseased_, grown unnatural, fantastic, and the like.\n\nGOWER. At the same time admitting the true worth of many mystics, and\nthe real good and truth of which such errors are the exaggeration or\ncaricature.\n\nATHERTON. I think we may say thus much generally\u2014that mysticism, whether\nin religion or philosophy, is that form of error which mistakes for a\ndivine manifestation the operations of a merely human faculty.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. There you define, at any rate, the characteristic\nmisconception of the mystics.\n\nGOWER. And include, if I mistake not, enthusiasts, with their visions;\npretended prophets, with their claim of inspiration; wonder-workers,\ntrusting to the divine power resident in their theurgic formulas; and\nthe philosophers who believe themselves organs of the world-soul, and\ntheir systems an evolution of Deity.\n\nATHERTON. Yes, so far; but I do not profess to give any definition\naltogether adequate. Speaking of _Christian_ mysticism, I should\ndescribe it generally as the exaggeration of that aspect of Christianity\nwhich is presented to us by St. John.\n\nGOWER. That answer provokes another question. How should you\ncharacterize John\u2019s peculiar presentation of the Gospel?\n\nATHERTON. I refer chiefly to that admixture of the contemplative\ntemperament and the ardent, by which he is personally distinguished,\u2014the\nopposition so manifest in his epistles to all religion of mere\nspeculative opinion or outward usage,\u2014the concentration of Christianity,\nas it were, upon the inward life derived from union with Christ. This\nwould seem to be the province of Christian truth especially occupied by\nthe beloved disciple, and this is the province which mysticism has in so\nmany ways usurped.\n\nGOWER. Truly that unction from the Holy One, of which John speaks, has\nfound some strange claimants!\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Thus much I think is evident from our enquiry\u2014that\nmysticism, true to its derivation as denoting a _hidden_ knowledge,\nfaculty, or life (the exclusive privilege of sage, adept, or recluse),\npresents itself, in all its phases, as more or less the religion of\ninternal as opposed to external revelation,\u2014of heated feeling, sickly\nsentiment, or lawless imagination, as opposed to that reasonable belief\nin which the intellect and the heart, the inward witness and the\noutward, are alike engaged.\n\n\n Note to page 21.\n\n\nNumerous definitions of \u2018Mystical Theology\u2019 are supplied by Roman\nCatholic divines who have written on the subject. With all of them the\nterms denote the religion of the heart as distinguished from\nspeculation, scholasticism, or ritualism; and, moreover, those higher\nexperiences of the divine life associated, in their belief, with\nextraordinary gifts and miraculous powers. Such definitions will\naccordingly comprehend the theopathetic and theurgic forms of mysticism,\nbut must necessarily exclude the theosophic. Many of them might serve as\ndefinitions of genuine religion. These mystical experiences have been\nalways coveted and admired in the Romish Church; and those, therefore,\nwho write concerning them employ the word mysticism in a highly\nfavourable sense. That excess of subjectivity\u2014those visionary raptures\nand supernatural exaltations, which we regard as the symptoms of\nspiritual disease, are, in the eyes of these writers, the choice rewards\nof sufferings and of aspirations the most intense,\u2014they are the vision\nof God and things celestial enjoyed by the pure in heart,\u2014the dazzling\nglories wherewith God has crowned the heads of a chosen few, whose\nexample shall give light to all the world.\n\nTwo or three specimens will suffice. Gerson gives the two following\ndefinitions of the _Theologia Mystica_:\u2014\u2018Est animi extensio in Deum per\namoris desiderium.\u2019 And again: \u2018Est motio anagogica in Deum per purum et\nfervidum amorem.\u2019 Elsewhere he is more metaphorical, describing it as\nthe theology which teaches men to escape from the stormy sea of sensuous\ndesires to the safe harbour of Eternity, and shows them how to attain\nthat love which snatches them away to the Beloved, unites them with Him,\nand secures them rest in Him. Dionysius the Carthusian (associating\nevidently _mystica_ and _mysteriosa_) says,\u2014\u2018Est autem mystica Theologia\nsecretissima mentis cum Deo locutio.\u2019 John \u00e0 Jesu Maria calls it,\n\u2018c\u0153lestis qu\u00e6dam Dei notitia per unionem voluntatis Deo adh\u00e6rentis\nelicita, vel lumine c\u0153litus immisso producta.\u2019 This mystical theology,\nobserves the Carthusian Dionysius, farther, (commentating on the\nAreopagite), is no science, properly so called; even regarded as an act,\nit is simply the concentration (defixio) of the mind on God\u2014admiration\nof his majesty\u2014a suspension of the mind in the boundless and eternal\nlight\u2014a most fervid, most peaceful, transforming gaze on Deity, &c.\n\nAll alike contrast the mystical with the scholastic and the symbolical\ntheology. The points of dissimilarity are thus summed up by Cardinal\nBona:\u2014\u2018Per scholasticam discit homo recte uti intelligibilibus, per\nsymbolicam sensibilibus, per hanc (mysticam) rapitur ad supermentales\nexcessus. Scienti\u00e6 human\u00e6 in valle phantasi\u00e6 discuntur, h\u00e6c in apice\nmentis. Ill\u00e6 multis egent discursibus, et erroribus subject\u00e6 sunt: h\u00e6c\nunico et simplici verbo docetur et discitur, et est mere supernaturalis\ntam in substanti\u00e2 quam in modo procedendi.\u2019\u2014_Via Compendii ad Deum_,\ncap. iii. 1-3.\n\nThe definition given by Corderius in his introduction to the mystical\ntheology of Dionysius is modelled on the mysticism of John de la\nCruz:\u2014\u2018Theologia Mystica est sapientia experimentalis, Dei affectiva,\ndivinitus infusa, qu\u00e6 mentem ab omni inordinatione puram, per actus\nsupernaturales fidei, spei, et charitatis, cum Deo intime\nconjungit.\u2019\u2014_Isagoge_, cap. ii.\n\nThe most negative definition of all is that given by Pachymeres, the\nGreek paraphrast of Dionysius, who has evidently caught his master\u2019s\nmantle, or cloak of darkness. \u2018Mystical theology is not perception or\ndiscourse, not a movement of the mind, not an operation, not a habit,\nnothing that any other power we may possess will bring to us; but if, in\nabsolute immobility of mind we are illumined concerning it, we shall\nknow that it is beyond everything cognizable by the mind of man.\u2019\u2014_Dion.\nOpp._ vol. i. p. 722.\n\nIn one place the explanations of Corderius give us to understand that\nthe mysticism he extols does at least open a door to theosophy itself,\n_i.e._ to inspired science. He declares that the mystical theologian not\nonly has revealed to him the hidden sense of Scripture, but that he can\nunderstand and pierce the mysteries of any natural science whatsoever,\nin a way quite different from that possible to other men\u2014in short, by a\nkind of special revelation.\u2014_Isagoge_, cap. iv.\n\nThe reader will gather the most adequate notion of what is meant, or\nthought to be meant, by mystical theology from the description given by\nLudovic Blosius, a high authority on matters mystical, in his\n_Institutio Spiritualis_. Corderius cites him at length, as\n\u2018sublimissimus rerum mysticarum interpres.\u2019\n\nHappy, he exclaims, is that soul which steadfastly follows after purity\nof heart and holy introversion, renouncing utterly all private\naffection, all self-will, all self-interest. Such a soul deserves to\napproach nearer and ever nearer to God. Then at length, when its higher\npowers have been elevated, purified, and furnished forth by divine\ngrace, it attains to unity and nudity of spirit\u2014to a pure love above\nrepresentation\u2014to that simplicity of thought which is devoid of all\nthinkings. Now, therefore, since it hath become receptive of the\nsurpassing and ineffable grace of God, it is led to that living fountain\nwhich flows from everlasting, and doth refresh the minds of the saints\nunto the full and in over-measure. Now do the powers of the soul shine\nas the stars, and she herself is fit to contemplate the abyss of\nDivinity with a serene, a simple, and a jubilant intuition, free from\nimagination and from the smallest admixture of the intellect.\nAccordingly, when she lovingly turns herself absolutely unto God, the\nincomprehensible light shines into her depths, and that radiance blinds\nthe eye of reason and understanding. But the simple eye of the soul\nitself remains open\u2014that is _thought_, pure, naked, uniform, and raised\nabove the understanding.\n\nMoreover, when the natural light of reason is blinded by so bright a\nglory, the soul takes cognizance of nothing in time, but is raised above\ntime and space, and assumes as it were a certain attribute of eternity.\nFor the soul which has abandoned symbols and earthly distinctions and\nprocesses of thought, now learns experimentally that God far transcends\nall images\u2014corporeal, spiritual, or divine, and that whatsoever the\nreason can apprehend, whatsoever can be said or written concerning God,\nwhatsoever can be predicated of Him by words, must manifestly be\ninfinitely remote from the reality of the divine subsistence which is\nunnameable. The soul knows not, therefore, what that God is she feels.\nHence, by a foreknowledge which is exercised without knowledge, she\nrests in the nude, the simple, the unknown God, who alone is to be\nloved. For the light is called _dark_, from its excessive brightness. In\nthis darkness the soul receives the hidden word which God utters in the\ninward silence and secret recess of the mind. This word she receives,\nand doth happily experience the bond of mystical union. For when, by\nmeans of love, she hath transcended reason and all symbols, and is\ncarried away above herself (a favour God alone can procure her),\nstraightway she flows away from herself and flows forth into God (_a se\ndefluens profluit in Deum_), and then is God her peace and her\nenjoyment. Rightly doth she sing, in such a transport, \u2018I will both lay\nme down in peace and sleep.\u2019 The loving soul flows down, I say, falls\naway from herself, and, reduced as it were to nothing, melts and glides\naway altogether into the abyss of eternal love. There, dead to herself,\nshe lives in God, knowing nothing, perceiving nothing, except the love\nshe tastes. For she loses herself in that vastest solitude and darkness\nof Divinity: but thus to lose is in fact to find herself. There, putting\noff whatsoever is human, and putting on whatever is divine, she is\ntransformed and transmuted into God, as iron in a furnace takes the form\nof fire and is transmuted into fire. Nevertheless, the essence of the\nsoul thus deified remains, as the glowing iron does not cease to be\niron....\n\nThe soul, thus bathed in the essence of God, liquefied by the consuming\nfire of love, and united to Him without medium, doth, by wise ignorance\nand by the inmost touch of love, more clearly know God than do our\nfleshly eyes discern the visible sun....\n\nThough God doth sometimes manifest himself unto the perfect soul in most\nsublime and wondrous wise, yet he doth not reveal himself _as he is_ in\nhis own ineffable glory, but as it is possible for him to be seen in\nthis life.\u2014_Isagoge Cord._ cap. vii.\n\nFootnote 4:\n\n On the word \u03bc\u03cd\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 Suidas says, \u0395\u1f34\u03c1\u03b7\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b4\u1f72 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u1f70 \u03c4\u1f78 \u03c4\u1f70 \u03bc\u03c5\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76\n \u1f00\u03c0\u03cc\u03c1\u1fe5\u03b7\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b5\u03bb\u03b5\u1fd6\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9\u00b7 \u1f24 \u03b4\u03b9\u1f70 \u03c4\u1f78 \u03bc\u03c5\u03cc\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c4\u1f70\u03c2 \u03b1\u1f30\u03c3\u03b8\u03ae\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f10\u03c0\u03ad\u03ba\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd\u03b1\n \u03c3\u03c9\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03c6\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c3\u03af\u03b1\u03c2 \u03bd\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2, \u03c4\u1f70\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b5\u03af\u03b1\u03c2 \u03b5\u1f30\u03c3\u03b4\u03ad\u03c7\u03b5\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9 \u1f10\u03bb\u03bb\u03ac\u03bc\u03c8\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2.\n\n Suicer also cites Hesychius: _Etym. Mag._\u2014\u039c\u03cd\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2, \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u1f70 \u03c4\u1f78 \u03bc\u03cd\u03c9, \u03c4\u1f78\n \u03ba\u03b1\u03bc\u03bc\u03cd\u03c9. \u03bc\u03cd\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c2 \u03b3\u1f70\u03c1 \u03c4\u1f70\u03c2 \u03b1\u1f30\u03c3\u03b8\u03ae\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f14\u03be\u03c9 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c3\u03b1\u03c1\u03ba\u03b9\u03ba\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c6\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03af\u03b4\u03c9\u03bd\n \u03b3\u03b9\u03bd\u03cc\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9, \u03bf\u1f55\u03c4\u03c9 \u03c4\u1f70\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b5\u03af\u03b1\u03c2 \u1f00\u03bd\u03b1\u03bb\u03ac\u03bc\u03c8\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u1f10\u03b4\u03ad\u03c7\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03bf.\n\nFootnote 5:\n\n See Bingham, _Antiq. of the Christian Church_, vol. ix. pp. 96-105.\n Clement of Alexandria abounds in examples of the application to\n Christian doctrine of the phraseology in use concerning the heathen\n mysteries;\u2014_e.g._ _Protrept._ cap. xii. \u00a7 120.\n\nFootnote 6:\n\n Both Plotinus and Proclus speak of the highest revelation concerning\n divine things as vouchsafed to the soul which withdraws into itself,\n and, dead to all that is external, \u2018gazes with closed eyes\u2019 (\u03bc\u03cd\u03c3\u03b1\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd).\n See Tholuck\u2019s _Bl\u00fcthensammlung aus der Morgenlandischen Mystik_;\n _Einleitung_, \u00a7 I, p. 6. Dr. Tholuck is the only German writer I have\n seen who throws light on the word in question by accurately\n investigating its etymology and successive meanings; and I readily\n acknowledge my debt to his suggestions on this point.\n\nFootnote 7:\n\n Dionysius thus describes the mystical adept who has reached the summit\n of union:\u2014\u2018Then is he delivered from all seeing and being seen, and\n passes into the truly mystical darkness of ignorance, where he\n excludes all intellectual apprehensions (\u03c4\u1f70\u03c2 \u03b3\u03bd\u03c9\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u1f70\u03c2 \u1f00\u03bd\u03c4\u03b9\u03bb\u03ae\u03b7\u03c8\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2),\n and abides in the utterly Impalpable and Invisible; being wholly His\n who is above all, with no other dependence, either on himself or any\n other; and is made one, as to his nobler part, with the utterly\n Unknown, by the cessation of all knowing; and at the same time, in\n that very knowing nothing, he knows what transcends the mind of\n man.\u2019\u2014_De Mystic\u00e2 Theologi\u00e2_, cap. i. p. 710. _S. Dion. Areop. Opp._\n Paris, 1644.\n\n So again he exhorts Timothy \u2018by assiduous practice in mystical\n contemplations to abandon the senses and all operations of the\n intellect; all objects of sense and all objects of thought, all things\n non-existent and existent (\u03b1\u1f30\u03c3\u03b8\u03b7\u03c4\u1f70 = \u03bf\u1f50\u03ba \u1f44\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1, \u03bd\u03bf\u03b7\u03c4\u1f70 = \u1f44\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1), and\n ignorantly to strive upwards towards Union as close as possible with\n Him who is above all essence and knowledge:\u2014inasmuch as by a pure,\n free, and absolute separation (\u1f10\u03ba\u03c3\u03c4\u03ac\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9) of himself from all things,\n he will be exalted (stripped and freed from everything) to the\n superessential radiance of the divine darkness.\u2019\u2014p. 708.\n\n About the words rendered \u2018intellectual apprehensions\u2019 commentators\n differ. The context, the antithesis, and the parallel passage in the\n earlier part of the chapter, justify us in understanding them in their\n strict sense, as conveying the idea of cessation from all mental\n action whatsoever.\n\nFootnote 8:\n\n See Note, p. 23.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER IV.\n\n\n The desire of the moth for the star,\n Of the night for the morrow,\n The devotion to something afar\n From the sphere of our sorrow.\n\n SHELLEY.\n\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Here\u2019s another definition for you:\u2014Mysticism is _the romance\nof religion_. What do you say?\n\nGOWER. True to the spirit\u2014not scientific, I fear.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Science be banished! Is not the history of mysticism bright\nwith stories of dazzling spiritual enterprise, sombre with tragedies of\nthe soul, stored with records of the achievements and the woes of\nmartyrdom and saintship? Has it not reconciled, as by enchantment, the\nmost opposite extremes of theory and practice? See it, in theory,\nverging repeatedly on pantheism, ego-theism, nihilism. See it, in\npractice, producing some of the most glorious examples of humility,\nbenevolence, and untiring self-devotion. Has it not commanded, with its\nindescribable fascination, the most powerful natures and the most\nfeeble\u2014minds lofty with a noble disdain of life, or low with a weak\ndisgust of it? If the self-torture it enacts seems hideous to our\nsobriety, what an attraction in its reward! It lays waste the soul with\npurgatorial pains\u2014but it is to leave nothing there on which any fire may\nkindle after death. What a promise!\u2014a perfect sanctification, a divine\ncalm, fruition of heaven while yet upon the earth!\n\nATHERTON. Go on, Willoughby, I like your enthusiasm. Think of its\nadventures, too.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Aye, its adventures\u2014both persecuted and canonized by kings\nand pontiffs; one age enrolling the mystic among the saints, another\ncommitting him to the inquisitor\u2019s torch, or entombing him in the\nBastille. And the principle indestructible after all\u2014some minds always\nwho must be religious mystically or not at all.\n\nATHERTON. I thought we might this evening enquire into the causes which\ntend continually to reproduce this religious phenomenon. You have\nsuggested some already. Certain states of society have always fostered\nit. There have been times when all the real religion existing in a\ncountry appears to have been confined to its mystics.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. In such an hour, how mysticism rises and does its deeds of\nspiritual chivalry\u2014\u2014\n\nGOWER. Alas! Quixotic enough, sometimes.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. How conspicuous, then, grows this inward devotion!\u2014even the\nsecular historian is compelled to say a word about it\u2014\u2014\n\nATHERTON. And a sorry, superficial verdict he gives, too often.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. How loud its protest against literalism, formality,\nscholasticism, human ordinances! what a strenuous reaction against the\ncorruptions of priestcraft!\n\nATHERTON. But, on the other side, Willoughby\u2014and here comes the pathetic\npart of its romance\u2014mysticism is heard discoursing concerning things\nunutterable. It speaks, as one in a dream, of the third heaven, and of\ncelestial experiences, and revelations fitter for angels than for men.\nIts stammering utterance, confused with excess of rapture labouring with\nemotions too huge or abstractions too subtile for words, becomes utterly\nunintelligible. Then it is misrepresented: falls a victim to reaction in\nits turn; the delirium is dieted by persecution, and it is consigned\nonce more to secrecy and silence.\n\nGOWER. There, good night, and pleasant dreams to it!\n\nWILLOUGHBY. It spins still in its sleep its mingled tissue of good and\nevil.\n\nATHERTON. A mixture truly. We must not blindly praise it in our hatred\nof formalism. We must not vaguely condemn it in our horror of\nextravagance.\n\nGOWER. What you have both been saying indicates at once three of the\ncauses we are in search of,\u2014indeed, the three chief ones, as I suppose:\nfirst of all, the reaction you speak of against the frigid formality of\nreligious torpor; then, heart-weariness, the languishing longing for\nrepose, the charm of mysticism for the selfish or the weak; and, last,\nthe desire, so strong in some minds, to pierce the barriers that hide\nfrom man the unseen world\u2014the charm of mysticism for the ardent and the\nstrong.\n\nATHERTON. That shrinking from conflict, that passionate yearning after\ninaccessible rest, how universal is it; what wistful utterance it has\nfound in every nation and every age; how it subdues us all, at times,\nand sinks us into languor.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Want of patience lies at the root\u2014who was it said that he\nshould have all eternity to rest in?\n\nATHERTON. Think how the traditions of every people have embellished with\ntheir utmost wealth of imagination some hidden spot upon the surface of\nthe earth, which they have pourtrayed as secluded from all the tumult\nand the pain of time\u2014a serene Eden\u2014an ever-sunny Tempe\u2014a vale of\nAvalon\u2014a place beyond the sterner laws and rougher visitations of the\ncommon world\u2014a fastness of perpetual calm, before which the tempests may\nblow their challenging horns in vain\u2014they can win no entrance. Such, to\nthe fancy of the Middle Age, was the famous temple of the Sangreal, with\nits dome of sapphire, its six-and-thirty towers, its crystal crosses,\nand its hangings of green samite, guarded by its knights, girded by\nimpenetrable forest, glittering on the onyx summit of Mount Salvage, for\never invisible to every eye impure, inaccessible to every failing or\nfaithless heart. Such, to the Hindoo, was the Cridavana meadow, among\nthe heights of Mount Sitanta, full of flowers, of the song of birds, the\nhum of bees\u2014\u2018languishing winds and murmuring falls of waters.\u2019 Such was\nthe secret mountain Kinkadulle, celebrated by Olaus Magnus, which stood\nin a region now covered only by moss or snow, but luxuriant once, in\nless degenerate days, with the spontaneous growth of every pleasant\nbough and goodly fruit. What places like these have been to the popular\nmind, even such a refuge for the Ideal from the pursuit of the\nActual\u2014that the attainment of Ecstasy, the height of Contemplation, the\nbliss of Union, has been for the mystic.\n\nGOWER. So those spiritual Lotos-eaters will only\n\n \u2014\u2014hearken what the inner spirit sings,\n There is no joy but calm;\n\nor, in their \u2018fugitive and cloistered virtue,\u2019 as Milton calls it, say,\n\n \u2014\u2014let us live and lie reclined\n On the hills like gods together, careless of mankind.\n\nATHERTON. Some; not all, however. Neither should we suppose that even\nthose who have sunk to such a state\u2014\u2014\n\nWILLOUGHBY. They would say\u2014risen\u2014\n\nATHERTON. Be it by sinking or rising, they have not been brought to that\npass without a conflict. From life\u2019s battle-field to the hospital of the\nhermitage has been but a step for a multitude of minds. Hiding\nthemselves wounded from the victor (for the enemy they could not conquer\nshall not see and mock their sufferings), they call in the aid of an\nimaginative religionism to people their solitude with its glories. The\nPrometheus chained to his rock is comforted if the sea nymphs rise from\nthe deep to visit him, and Ocean on his hippogriff draws near. And thus,\nlet the gliding fancies of a life of dreams, and Imagination, the\nmonarch of all their main of thought, visit the sorrow of these\nrecluses, and they think they can forget the ravages of that evil which\nso vexed them once. Hence the mysticism of the visionary. He learns to\ncrave ecstasies and revelations as at once his solace and his pride.\n\nGOWER. Is it not likely, too, that some of these mystics, in seasons of\nmental distress of which we have no record, tried Nature as a resource,\nand found her wanting? Such a disappointment would make that ascetic\ntheory which repudiates the seen and actual, plausible and even welcome\nto them. After demanding of the natural world what it has not to bestow,\nthey would hurry to the opposite extreme, and deny it any healing\ninfluence whatever. Go out into the woods and valleys, when your heart\nis rather harassed than bruised, and when you suffer from vexation more\nthan grief. Then the trees all hold out their arms to you to relieve you\nof the burthen of your heavy thoughts; and the streams under the trees\nglance at you as they run by, and will carry away your trouble along\nwith the fallen leaves; and the sweet-breathing air will draw it off\ntogether with the silver multitudes of the dew. But let it be with\nanguish or remorse in your heart that you go forth into Nature, and\ninstead of your speaking her language, you make her speak yours. Your\ndistress is then infused through all things, and clothes all things, and\nNature only echoes, and seems to authenticate, your self-loathing or\nyour hopelessness. Then you find the device of your sorrow on the argent\nshield of the moon, and see all the trees of the field weeping and\nwringing their hands with you, while the hills, seated at your side in\nsackcloth, look down upon you prostrate, and reprove you like the\ncomforters of Job.\n\nATHERTON. Doubtless, many of these stricken spirits suffered such\ndisappointment at some early period of their history. Failure was\ninevitable, and the disease was heightened. How Coleridge felt this when\nhe says so mournfully in his Ode to Dejection,\u2014\n\n It were a vain endeavour\n Though I should gaze for ever\n On that green light that lingers in the west:\n I may not hope from outward forms to win\n The passion and the life whose fountains are within.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. The feeling of the other class we spoke of\u2014the men of bolder\ntemperament\u2014has been this: \u2018I am a king and yet a captive; submit I\ncannot; I care not to dream; I must in some way act.\u2019\n\nGOWER. And, like Rasselas, a prince and yet a prisoner in the narrow\nvalley, such a man, in his impatience, takes counsel of a philosopher,\nwho promises to construct a pair of wings wherewith he shall overfly the\nsummits that frown around him. The mystagogue is a philosopher such as\nRasselas found, with a promise as large and a result as vain.\n\nATHERTON. Hence the mysticism of the theurgist, who will pass the bounds\nof the dreaded spirit-world; will dare all its horrors to seize one of\nits thrones; and aspires\u2014a Manfred or a Zanoni\u2014to lord it among the\npowers of the air.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. And of the mysticism of the theosophist, too, whose science\nis an imagined inspiration, who writes about plants and minerals under a\ndivine afflatus, and who will give you from the resources of his special\nrevelation an explanation of every mystery.\n\nGOWER. The explanation, unhappily, the greatest mystery of all.\n\nATHERTON. Curiously enough, the Bible has been made to support mysticism\nby an interpretation, at one time too fanciful, at another too literal.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. We may call it, perhaps, the innocent cause of mysticism\nwith one class, its victim with another: the one, running into mysticism\nbecause they wrongly interpreted the Bible; the other interpreting it\nwrongly because they were mystics. The mystical interpreters of school\nand cloister belong to the latter order, and many a Covenanter and godly\ntrooper of the Commonwealth to the former.\n\nGOWER. Not an unlikely result with the zealous Ironside\u2014his reading\nlimited to his English Bible and a few savoury treatises of\ndivinity\u2014pouring over the warlike story of ancient Israel, and\nidentifying himself with the subjects of miraculous intervention, divine\nbehest, and prophetic dream. How glorious would those days appear to\nsuch a man, when angels went and came among men; when, in the midst of\nhis husbandry or handicraft, the servant of the Lord might be called\naside to see some \u2018great sight:\u2019 when the fire dropped sudden down from\nheaven on the accepted altar, like a drop spilt from the lip of an\nangel\u2019s fiery vial full of odours; when the Spirit of the Lord moved men\nat times, as Samson was moved in the camp of Dan, between Zorah and\nEshtaol; and when the Lord sent men hither and thither by an inward\nimpulse, as Elijah was sent from Gilgal to Bethel, and from Bethel back\nto Jericho, and from Jericho on to Jordan. Imagination would reproduce\nthose marvels in the world within, though miracles could no longer cross\nhis path in the world without. He would believe that to him also words\nwere given to speak, and deeds to do; and that, whether in the house,\nthe council, or the field, he was the Spirit\u2019s chosen instrument and\nmessenger.\n\nATHERTON. This is the practical and active kind of mysticism so\nprevalent in that age of religious wars, the seventeenth century.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. The monks took the opposite course. While the\nParliamentarian soldier was often seen endeavouring to adapt his life to\na mistaken application of the Bible, the ascetic endeavoured to adapt\nthe Bible to his mistaken life.\n\nGOWER. The New Testament not authorising the austerities of a Macarius\nor a Maximus, tradition must be called in\u2014\u2014\n\nWILLOUGHBY. And side by side with tradition, mystical interpretation.\nThe Bible, it was pretended, must not be understood as always meaning\nwhat it seems to mean.\n\nATHERTON. It then becomes the favourite employment of the monk to detect\nthis hidden meaning, and to make Scripture render to tradition the same\nservice which the mask rendered to the ancient actor, not only\ndisguising the face, but making the words go farther. To be thus busied\nwas to secure two advantages at once; he had occupation for his leisure,\nand an answer for his adversaries.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER V.\n\n\n Oh! contemplation palls upon the spirit,\n Like the chill silence of an autumn sun:\n While action, like the roaring south-west wind,\n Sweeps, laden with elixirs, with rich draughts\n Quickening the wombed earth.\n\n _Guta._ And yet what bliss,\n When, dying in the darkness of God\u2019s light,\n The soul can pierce these blinding webs of nature,\n And float up to the nothing, which is all things\u2014\n The ground of being, where self-forgetful silence\n Is emptiness,\u2014emptiness fulness,\u2014fulness God,\u2014\n Till we touch Him, and, like a snow-flake, melt\n Upon his light-sphere\u2019s keen circumference!\n\n THE SAINT\u2019S TRAGEDY.\n\n\nGOWER. Thanks, if you please, not reproaches. I was calling help for\nyou, I was summoning the fay to your assistance, to determine the best\npossible order of your mystics.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. The fay?\n\nGOWER. The fay. Down with you in that arm-chair, and sit quietly. Know\nthat I was this morning reading Andersen\u2019s M\u00e4rchen\u2014all about\nOle-Luk-Oie, his ways and works\u2014the queer little elf. Upstairs he\ncreeps, in houses where children are, softly, softly, in the dusk of the\nevening, with what do you think under his arm?\u2014two umbrellas, one plain,\nthe other covered with gay colours and quaint figures. He makes the eyes\nof the children heavy, and when they are put to bed, holds over the\nheads of the good children the painted umbrella, which causes them to\ndream the sweetest and most wonderful dreams imaginable; but over the\nnaughty children he holds the other, and they do not dream at all. Now,\nthought I, let me emulate the profundity of a German critic. Is this to\nbe treated as a simple child\u2019s tale? Far from it. There is a depth of\nphilosophic meaning in it. Have not the mystics been mostly childlike\nnatures? Have not their lives been full of dreams, manifold and\nstrange\u2014and they therefore, if any, especial favourites of Ole-Luk-Oie?\nThey have accounted their dreams their pride and their reward. They have\nlooked on the sobriety of dreamlessness as the appropriate deprivation\nof privilege consequent on carnality and ignorance; in other words, the\nnon-dreamers have been with them the naughty children. To learn life\u2019s\nlessons well is, according to them, to enjoy as a recompence the faculty\nof seeing visions and of dreaming dreams. Here then is the _idea_ of\nmysticism. You have its myth, its legend. Ole-Luk-Oie is its presiding\ngenius. Now, Atherton, if you could but get hold of his umbrella, the\nsegments of that silken hemisphere, with its painted constellations,\nwould give you your divisions in a twinkling. That was why I wanted him.\nBut I do not see him letting himself down the bellrope, or hear his tap\nat the door. I am afraid we must set to work without him.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. So be it. A local or historical classification of the\nmystics is out of the question. I scarcely think you can find a\nmetaphysical one that will bear the test of application and be\npractically serviceable. Then the division some adopt, of heterodox and\northodox, saves trouble indeed, but it is so arbitrary. The Church of\nRome, from whom many of these mystics called heretical, dared to differ,\nis no church at all in the true sense, and assuredly no standard of\northodoxy. In addition to this I have a nervous antipathy to the terms\nthemselves; for, as I have a liking for becoming the champion of any\ncause which appears to be borne down by numbers, I find my friends who\nare somewhat heterodox, frequently charging me with what is called\northodoxy, and those again who are orthodox as often suspecting me of\nheterodoxy.\n\nATHERTON. Hear my proposed division. There are three kinds of mysticism,\n_theopathetic_, _theosophic_, and _theurgic_. The first of these three\nclasses I will subdivide, if needful, into _transitive_ and\n_intransitive_.\n\nGOWER. Your alliteration is grateful to my ear; I hope you have not\nstrained a point to secure us the luxury.\n\nATHERTON. Not a hair\u2019s breadth, I assure you.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Etymologically such a division has the advantage of showing\nthat all the forms of mysticism are developments of the _religious_\nsentiment; that in all its varieties the relationship, real or\nimaginary, which mysticism sustains to the Divine, is its primary\nelement;\u2014that its widely differing aspects are all phases it presents in\nits eccentric orbit about the central luminary of the Infinite.\n\nGOWER. Your theopathetic mysticism must include a very wide range. By\nthe term theopathetic you denote, of course, that mysticism which\nresigns itself, in a passivity more or less absolute, to an imagined\ndivine manifestation. Now, one man may regard himself as overshadowed,\nanother as impelled by Deity. One mystic of this order may do nothing,\nanother may display an unceasing activity. Whether he believes himself a\nmirror in whose quiescence the Divinity \u2018glasses himself;\u2019 or, as it\nwere, a leaf, driven by the mighty rushing wind of the Spirit, and thus\nthe tongue by which the Spirit speaks, the organ by which God works\u2014the\nprinciple of passivity is the same.\n\nATHERTON. Hence my subdivision of this class of mystics into those whose\nmysticism assumes a transitive character, and those with whom mysticism\nconsists principally in contemplation, in Quietism, in negation, and so\nis properly called intransitive.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Yet some of those whose mysticism has been pre-eminently\nnegative, who have hated the very name of speculation, and placed\nperfection in repose and mystical death, have mingled much in active\nlife. They appear to defy our arrangement.\n\nATHERTON. It is only in appearance. They have shrunk from carrying out\ntheir theory to its logical consequences. Their activity has been a\nbye-work. The diversities of character observable in the mysticism which\nis essentially intransitive arise, not from a difference in the\nprinciple at the root, but from varieties of natural temperament, of\nexternal circumstances, and from the dissimilar nature or proportion of\nthe foreign elements incorporated.\n\nGOWER. It is clear that we must be guided by the rule rather than the\nexception, and determine, according to the predominant element in the\nmysticism of individuals, the position to be assigned them. If we were\nto classify only those who were perfectly consistent with themselves, we\ncould include scarcely half-a-dozen names, and those, by the way, the\nleast rational of all, for the most thorough-going are the madmen.\n\nATHERTON. The mysticism of St. Bernard, for example, in spite of his\npreaching, his travels, his diplomacy, is altogether contemplative\u2014the\nintransitive mysticism of the cloister. His active labours were a work\napart.\n\nGOWER. Such men have been serviceable as members of society in\nproportion to their inconsistency as devotees of mysticism. A heavy\ncharge this against their principle.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. In the intransitive division of the theopathetic mysticism\nyou will have three such names as Suso, Ruysbrook, Molinos, and all the\nQuietists, whether French or Indian.\n\nATHERTON. And in the transitive theopathy all turbulent prophets and\ncrazy fanatics. This species of mysticism usurps the will more than the\nemotional part of our nature. The subject of it suffers under the\nDivine, as he believes, but the result of the manifestation is not\nconfined to himself, it passes on to his fellows.\n\nGOWER. If you believe Plato in the Ion, you must range here all the\npoets, for they sing well, he tells us, only as they are carried out of\nthemselves by a divine madness, and mastered by an influence which their\nverse communicates to others in succession.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. We must admit here also, according to ancient superstition,\nthe Pythoness on her tripod, and the Sibyl in her cave at Cum\u00e6, as she\nstruggles beneath the might of the god:\u2014\n\n Ph\u0153bi nondum patiens immanis in antro\n Bacchatur vates, magnum si pectore possit\n Excussisse Deum: tanto magis ille fatigat\n Os rabidum, fera corda domans, fingitque premendo.\n\nATHERTON. I have no objection. According to Virgil\u2019s description, the\npoor Sibyl has earned painfully enough a place within the pale of\nmysticism. But those with whom we have more especially to do in this\nprovince are enthusiasts such as Tanchelm, who appeared in the twelfth\ncentury, and announced himself as the residence of Deity; as Gichtel,\nwho believed himself appointed to expiate by his prayers and penance the\nsins of all mankind; or as Kuhlmann, who traversed Europe, the imagined\nhead of the Fifth monarchy, summoning kings and nobles to submission.\n\nGOWER. Some of these cases we may dismiss in a summary manner. The poor\nbrainsick creatures were cast on evil times indeed. What we should now\ncall derangement was then exalted into heresy, and honoured with\nmartyrdom. We should have taken care that Kuhlmann was sent to an\nasylum, but the Russian patriarch burned him, poor fellow.\n\nATHERTON. We must not forget, however, that this species of mysticism\nhas sometimes been found associated with the announcement of vital\ntruths. Look at George Fox and the early Quakers.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. And I would refer also to this class some of the milder\nforms of mysticism, in which it is seen rather as a single morbid\nelement than as a principle avowed and carried out. Jung Stilling is an\ninstance of what I mean. You see him, fervent, earnest, and yet weak;\nwithout forethought, without perseverance; vain and irresolute, he\nchanges his course incessantly, seeing in every variation of feeling and\nof circumstance a special revelation of the Divine will.\n\nATHERTON. Add to this modification a kindred error, the doctrine of a\n\u2018_particular faith_\u2019 in prayer, so much in vogue in Cromwell\u2019s court at\nWhitehall. Howe boldly preached against it before the Protector himself.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Now, Atherton, for your second division, theosophic\nmysticism. Whom do you call theosophists?\n\nATHERTON. Among the Germans I find mysticism generally called theosophy\nwhen applied to natural science. Too narrow a use of the word, I think.\nWe should have in that case scarcely any theosophy in Europe till after\nthe Reformation. The word itself was first employed by the school of\nPorphyry. The Neo-Platonist would say that the priest might have his\ntraditional _discourse_ concerning God (theology), but he alone, with\nhis intuition, the highest _wisdom_ concerning him.\n\nGOWER. I can\u2019t say that I have any clear conception attached to the\nword.\n\nATHERTON. You want examples? Take Plotinus and Behmen.\n\nGOWER. What a conjunction!\n\nATHERTON. Not so far apart as may appear. Their difference is one of\napplication more than of principle. Had Plotinus thought a metal or a\nplant worth his attention, he would have maintained that concerning\nthat, even as concerning the infinite, all truth lay stored within the\nrecesses of his own mind. But of course he only cared about ideas.\nMystical philosophy is really a contradiction in terms, is it not?\n\nGOWER. Granted, since philosophy must build only upon reason.\n\nATHERTON. Very good. Then when philosophy falls into mysticism I give it\nanother name, and call it theosophy. And, on the other side, I call\nmysticism, trying to be philosophical, theosophy likewise. That is all.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. So that the theosophist is one who gives you a theory of\nGod, or of the works of God, which has not reason, but an inspiration of\nhis own for its basis.\n\nATHERTON. Yes; he either believes, with Swedenborg and Behmen, that a\nspecial revelation has unfolded to him the mystery of the divine\ndispensations here or hereafter\u2014laid bare the hidden processes of\nnature, or the secrets of the other world; or else, with Plotinus and\nSchelling, he believes that his intuitions of those things are\ninfallible because divine\u2014subject and object being identical,\u2014all truth\nbeing within him. Thus, while the mystic of the theopathetic species is\ncontent to contemplate, to feel, or to act, suffering under Deity in his\nsublime passivity, the mysticism I term theosophic aspires to know and\nbelieves itself in possession of a certain supernatural divine faculty\nfor that purpose.\n\nGOWER. You talk of mysticism trying to be philosophical; it does then\nsometimes seek to justify itself at the bar of reason?\n\nATHERTON. I should think so\u2014often: at one time trying to refute the\ncharge of madness and prove itself throughout rational and sober; at\nanother, using the appeal to reason up to a certain point and as far as\nserves its purpose, and then disdainfully mocking at demands for proof,\nand towering above argument, with the pretence of divine illumination.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Some of these mystics, talking of reason as they do, remind\nme of Lysander at the feet of Helena, protesting (with the magic juice\nscarce dry upon his eyelids) that the decision of his spell-bound\nfaculties is the deliberate exercise of manly judgment\u2014\n\n The mind of man is by his reason swayed,\n And _reason_ says you are the worthier maid.\n\nGOWER. Now you come to Shakspeare, I must cap your quotation with\nanother: I fit those mystics Atherton speaks of as using reason up to a\ncertain point and then having done with it, with a motto from the\n_Winter\u2019s Tale_\u2014much at their service. They answer, with young enamoured\nFlorizel, when Reason, like a grave Camillo, bids them \u2018be advised\u2019\u2014\n\n I am; and by my fancy: if my reason\n Will thereto be obedient, I have reason;\n If not, my senses better pleased with madness\n Do bid it welcome.\n\nATHERTON. To classify the mystics adequately, we should have a\nterminology of dreams rich as that of Homer, and distinguish, as he\ndoes, the dream-image of complete illusion from the half-conscious dream\nbetween sleeping and waking;\u2014\u1f44\u03bd\u03b1\u03c1 from \u1f54\u03c0\u03b1\u03c1. How unanimous, by the way,\nwould the mystics be in deriving \u1f44\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd from \u1f44\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1\u03c1\u2014_dream_ from\n_enjoyment_.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. To return from the poets to business; was not all the\nscience of the Middle Age theosophic rather than philosophic? Both to\nmystical schoolmen and scholastic mystics the Bible was a book of\nsymbols and propositions, from which all the knowable was somehow to be\ndeduced.\n\nATHERTON. Most certainly. The mystical interpretation of Scripture was\ntheir measuring-reed for the temple of the universe. The difference,\nhowever, between them and Behmen would be this\u2014that, while both essayed\nto read the book of nature by the light of grace, Behmen claimed a\nspecial revelation, a divine mission for unfolding these mysteries in a\nnew fashion; schoolmen, like Richard of St. Victor, professed to do so\nonly by the supernatural aid of the Spirit illuminating the data\nafforded by the Church. And again, Behmen differs from Schelling and\nmodern theosophy in studying nature through the medium of an external\nrevelation mystically understood, while they interpret it by the\nunwritten inward revelation of Intellectual Intuition. I speak only of\nthe difference of principle, not of result. But no one will dispute that\nnearly every scientific enquiry of the Middle Age was conducted on\nmystical principles, whether as regarded our source of knowing or its\nmethod.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. And what wonder? Does not Milton remind us that Julian\u2019s\nedict, forbidding Christians the study of heathen learning, drove the\ntwo Apollinarii to \u2018coin all the seven liberal sciences\u2019 out of the\nBible? The jealous tyranny of the Papacy virtually perpetuated the\npersecution of the Apostate. Every lamp must be filled with church oil.\nEvery kind of knowledge must exist only as a decoration of the\necclesiastical structure. Every science must lay its foundation on\ntheology. See a monument attesting this, a type of the times, in the\ncathedral of Chartres, covered with thousands of statues and symbols,\nrepresenting all the history, astronomy, and physics of the age\u2014a sacred\nencyclop\u00e6dia transferred from the pages of Vincent of Beauvais to the\nenduring stone, so to bid all men see in the Church a Mirror of the\nUniverse\u2014a _speculum universale_. Who can be surprised that by the aid\nof that facile expedient, mystical interpretation, many a work of mortal\nbrain should have been bound and lettered as \u2018HOLY BIBLE,\u2019 or that\nresearch should have simulated worship, as some Cantab, pressed for\ntime, may study a problem at morning chapel?\n\nATHERTON. What interminable lengths of the fine-spun, gay-coloured\nribbons of allegory and metaphor has the mountebank ingenuity of that\nmystical interpretation drawn out of the mouth of Holy Writ!\n\nGOWER. And made religion a toy\u2014a tassel on the silken purse of the\nspendthrift Fancy.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Granting, Atherton, your general position that the undue\ninference of the objective from the subjective produces mysticism, what\nare we to say of a man like Descartes, for example? You will not surely\ncondemn him as a mystic.\n\nATHERTON. Certainly, not altogether; reason holds its own with him\u2014is\nnot swept away by the hallucinations of sentiment, or feeling, or\nspecial revelation; but none of our powers act quite singly\u2014_nemo\nomnibus horis sapit_\u2014a mystical element crops out here and there. I\nthink he carried too far the application of a principle based, in great\npart at least, on truth. In his inference of the objective from the\nsubjective, I think he was so far right that our ability to conceive of\na Supreme Perfection affords a strong presumption that such a God must\nexist. It is not to be supposed that the conception can transcend the\nreality. His argument from within is a potent auxiliary of the argument\nfrom without, if not by itself so all-sufficient as he supposes. There\nare, too, I think, certain necessary truths which, by the constitution\nof our mind, we cannot conceive as possibly other than they are, when\nonce presented to us from without. But we surely should not on this\naccount be justified in saying with the mystic Bernard, that each soul\ncontains an infallible copy of the ideas in the Divine Mind, so that the\npure in heart, in proportion as they have cleansed the internal mirror,\nmust in knowing themselves, know also God. It must be no less an\nexaggeration of the truth to say, with the philosopher Descartes, that\ncertain notions of the laws of Nature are impressed upon our minds, so\nthat we may, after reflecting upon them, discover the secrets of the\nuniverse. On the strength of this principle he undertakes to determine\nexactly how long a time it must have required to reduce chaos to order.\nThe effort made by Descartes to insulate himself completely from the\nexternal world and the results of experience, was certainly similar in\nmode, though very different in its object, from the endeavours after\nabsolute self-seclusion made by many of the mystics. The former sought\nto detect by abstraction the laws of mind; the latter, to attain the\nvision of God.\n\nGOWER. There is much more of mysticism discernible in some of the\nsystems which have followed in the path opened by Descartes. What can be\nmore favourable than Schelling\u2019s _Identity_ principle to the error which\nconfounds, rather than allies, physics and metaphysics, science and\ntheology?\n\nATHERTON. Behmen himself is no whit more fantastical in this way than\nOken and Franz Baader.\n\nGOWER. These theosophies, old and new, with their self-evolved\ninexplicable explanations of everything, remind me of the Frenchman\u2019s\nplay-bill announcing an exhibition of the Universal Judgment by means of\nthree thousand five hundred puppets. The countless marionette figures in\nthe brain of the theosophist\u2014Elements, Forms, Tinctures, Mothers of\nNature, Fountain-spirits, Planetary Potencies, &c., are made to shift\nand gesticulate unceasingly, through all possible permutations and\ncombinations, and the operator has cried \u2018Walk in!\u2019 so long and loudly,\nthat he actually believes, while pulling the wires in his metaphysical\ndarkness, that the great universe is being turned and twitched after the\nsame manner as his painted dolls.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. I must put in a word for men like Paracelsus and Cornelius\nAgrippa. They helped science out of the hands of Aristotle, baptized and\nspoiled by monks. Europe, newly-wakened, follows in search of truth, as\nthe princess in the fairy-tale her lover, changed into a white dove; now\nand then, at weary intervals, a feather is dropped to give a clue; these\naspirants caught once and again a little of the precious snowy down,\nthough often filling their hands with mere dirt, and wounding them among\nthe briars. Forgive them their signatures, their basilisks and\nhomunculi, and all their restless, wrathful arrogance, for the sake of\nthat indomitable hardihood which did life-long battle, single-handed,\nagainst enthroned prescription.\n\nATHERTON. With all my heart. How venial the error of their mysticism\n(with an aim, at least, so worthy), compared with that of the enervating\nRomanist theopathy whose \u2018holy vegetation\u2019 the Reformers so rudely\ndisturbed. On the eve of the Reformation you see hapless Christianity,\nafter vanquishing so many powerful enemies, about to die by the hand of\nascetic inventions and superstitions, imaginary sins and imaginary\nvirtues,\u2014the shadowy phantoms of monastic darkness; like the legendary\nhero Wolf-Dietrich, who, after so many victories over flesh-and-blood\nantagonists, perishes at last in a night-battle with ghosts.\n\nGOWER. The later mystical saints of the Romish calendar seem to me to\nexhibit what one may call the degenerate chivalry of religion, rather\nthan its romance. How superior is Bernard to John of the Cross! It is\neasy to see how, in a rough age of fist-law, the laws of chivalry may\ninculcate courtesy and ennoble courage. But when afterwards an age of\ntreaties and diplomacy comes in\u2014when no Charles the Bold can be a match\nfor the Italian policy of a Louis XI.\u2014then these laws sink down into a\nmere fantastic code of honour. For the manly gallantry of Ivanhoe we\nhave the euphuism of a Sir Piercie Shafton. And so a religious\nenthusiasm, scarcely too fervent for a really noble enterprise (could it\nonly find one), gives birth, when debarred from the air of action and\nturned back upon itself, to the dreamy extravagances of the recluse, and\nthe morbid ethical punctilios of the Director.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. The only further question is about your third division,\nAtherton,\u2014theurgic mysticism. We may let the Rabbinical\nSolomon\u2014mastering the archd\u00e6mon Aschmedai and all his host by the divine\npotency of the Schemhamporasch engraven on his ring, chaining at his\nwill the colossal powers of the air by the tremendous name of\nMetatron,\u2014stand as an example of theurgy.\n\nGOWER. And Iamblichus, summoning Souls, Heroes, and the Principalities\nof the upper sphere, by prayer and incense and awful mutterings of\nadjuration.\n\nATHERTON. All very good; but hear me a moment. I would use the term\ntheurgic to characterize the mysticism which claims supernatural powers\ngenerally,\u2014works marvels, not like the black art, by help from beneath,\nbut as white magic, by the virtue of talisman or cross, demi-god, angel,\nor saint. Thus theurgic mysticism is not content, like the theopathetic,\nwith either feeling or proselytising; nor, like the theosophic, with\nknowing; but it must open for itself a converse with the world of\nspirits, and win as its prerogative the power of miracle. This broad use\nof the word makes prominent the fact that a common principle of\ndevotional enchantment lies at the root of all the pretences, both of\nheathen and of Christian miracle-mongers. The celestial hierarchy of\nDionysius and the benign d\u00e6mons of Proclus, the powers invoked by Pagan\nor by Christian theurgy, by Platonist, by Cabbalist, or by saint, alike\nreward the successful aspirant with supernatural endowments; and so far\nApollonius of Tyana and Peter of Alcantara, Asclepigenia and St.\nTheresa, must occupy as religious magicians the same province. The error\nis in either case the same\u2014a divine efficacy is attributed to rites and\nformulas, sprinklings or fumigations, relics or incantations, of mortal\nmanufacture.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. It is not difficult to understand how, after a time, both\nthe species of mysticism we have been discussing may pass over into this\none. It is the dream of the mystic that he can elaborate from the depth\nof his own nature the whole promised land of religious truth, and\nperceive (by special revelation) rising from within, all its green\npastures and still waters,\u2014somewhat as Pindar describes the sun\nbeholding the Isle of Rhodes emerging from the bottom of the ocean,\nnew-born, yet perfect, in all the beauty of glade and fountain, of\ngrassy upland and silver tarn, of marble crag and overhanging wood,\nsparkling from the brine as after a summer shower. But alas, how tardily\narises this new world of inner wonders! It must be accelerated\u2014drawn up\nby some strong compelling charm. The doctrine of passivity becomes\nimpossible to some temperaments beyond a certain pass. The enjoyments of\nthe vision or the rapture are too few and far between\u2014could they but be\nproduced at will! Whether the mystic seeks the triumph of superhuman\nknowledge or that intoxication of the feeling which is to translate him\nto the upper world, after a while he craves a sign. Theurgy is the art\nwhich brings it. Its appearance is the symptom of failing faith, whether\nin philosophy or religion. Its glory is the phosphorescence of decay.\n\nATHERTON. Generally, I think it is; though it prevailed in the age of\nthe Reformation\u2014borrowed, however, I admit, on the revival of letters,\nfrom an age of decline.\n\n\n\n\n BOOK THE SECOND\n EARLY ORIENTAL MYSTICISM\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER I.\n\n\n From worldly cares himselfe he did esloyne,\n And greatly shunned manly exercise;\n From everie worke he chalenged essoyne,\n For contemplation sake: yet otherwise\n His life he led in lawlesse riotise;\n By which he grew to grievous maladie:\n For in his lustlesse limbs through evill guise,\n A shaking fever raignd continually;\n Such one was Idlenesse, first of this company.\n\n SPENSER.\n\n\nHaving free access to the Commonplace Book of my friend Atherton, I now\nextract therefrom a few notes, written after reading Wilkins\u2019\ntranslation of the Bagvat-Gita. This episode in a heroic poem of ancient\nIndia is considered the best exponent of early oriental mysticism. I\ngive these remarks just as I find them, brief and rough-hewn, but not, I\nthink, hasty.\n\n\n Observations on Indian mysticism, \u00e0 propos of the Bagvat-Gita.\n\n\nThis poem consists of a dialogue between the god Crishna and the hero\nArjoun. Crishna, though wearing a human form, speaks throughout as\nDeity. Arjoun is a young chieftain whom he befriends. A great civil war\nis raging, and the piece opens on the eve of battle. Crishna is driving\nthe chariot of Arjoun, and they are between the lines of the opposing\narmies. On either side the war-shells are heard to sound\u2014shells to which\nthe Indian warriors gave names as did the paladins of Christendom to\ntheir swords. The battle will presently join, but Arjoun appears\nlistless and sad. He looks on either army; in the ranks of each he sees\npreceptors whom he has been taught to revere, and relatives whom he\nloves. He knows not for which party to desire a bloody victory: so he\nlays his bow aside and sits down in the chariot. Crishna remonstrates,\nreminds him that his hesitation will be attributed to cowardice, and\nthat such scruples are, moreover, most unreasonable. He should learn to\nact without any regard whatever to the consequences of his actions. At\nthis point commence the instructions of the god concerning faith and\npractice.\n\nSo Arjoun must learn to disregard the consequences of his actions. I\nfind here not a \u2018holy indifference,\u2019 as with the French Quietists, but\nan indifference which is unholy. The _sainte indiff\u00e9rence_ of the west\nessayed to rise above self, to welcome happiness or misery alike as the\nwill of Supreme Love. The odious indifference of these orientals\ninculcates the supremacy of selfishness as the wisdom of a god. A steep\ntoil, that apathy towards ourselves; a _facilis descensus_, this apathy\ntoward others. One Quietist will scarcely hold out his hand to receive\nheaven: another will not raise a finger to succour his fellow.\n\nMysticism, then, is born armed completely with its worst extravagances.\nAn innocent childhood it never had; for in its very cradle this Hercules\ndestroys, as deadly serpents, Reason and Morality. Crishna, it appears,\ncan invest the actions of his favourites with such divineness that\nnothing they do is wrong. For the mystical adept of Hindooism the\ndistinction between good and evil is obliterated as often as he pleases.\nBeyond this point mysticism the most perverted cannot go; since such\nemancipation from moral law is in practice the worst aim of the worst\nmen. The mysticism of a man who declares himself the Holy Ghost\nconstitutes a stage more startling but less guilty; for responsibility\nends where insanity begins.\n\nThe orientals know little of a system of forces. They carry a single\nidea to its consequences. The dark issue of the self-deifying tendency\nis exhibited among them on a large scale,\u2014the degrees of the enormity\nare registered and made portentously apparent as by the movement of a\nhuge hand upon its dial. Western mysticism, checked by many better\ninfluences, has rarely made so patent the inherent evil even of its most\nmischievous forms. The European, mystic though he be, will occasionally\npause to qualify, and is often willing to allow some scope to facts and\nprinciples alien or hostile to a favourite idea.\n\nIt should not be forgotten that the doctrine of metempsychosis is\nlargely answerable for Crishna\u2019s cold-blooded maxim. He tells Arjoun\nthat the soul puts on many bodies, as many garments, remaining itself\nunharmed: the death of so many of his countrymen\u2014a mere transition,\ntherefore\u2014need not distress him.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER II.\n\n\n Quel diable de jargon entends-je ici? Voici bien du haut style.\n\n MOLI\u00c8RE.\n\n\nMysticism has no genealogy. It is no tradition conveyed across frontiers\nor down the course of generations as a ready-made commodity. It is a\nstate of thinking and feeling, to which minds of a certain temperament\nare liable at any time or place, in occident and orient, whether\nRomanist or Protestant, Jew, Turk, or Infidel. It is more or less\ndetermined by the positive religion with which it is connected. But\nthough conditioned by circumstance or education, its appearance is ever\nthe spontaneous product of a certain crisis in individual or social\nhistory.\n\nA merely imitative mysticism, as exemplified by some Tractarian\necclesiastics, is an artificial expedient, welcome to ambitious minds as\nan engine, to the frivolous as a devotional diversion, to the weak and\nservile as a softly-cushioned yoke.\n\nWere mysticism a transmitted principle we should be able to trace it\nthrough successive translations to a form which might be termed\nprimitive. We might mark and throw off, as we ascended, the accretions\nwith which it has been invested, till we reached its origin\u2014the simple\nidea of mysticism, new-born. The mysticism of India, the earliest we can\nfind, shows us that nothing of this sort is possible. That set of\nprinciples which we repeatedly encounter, variously combined, throughout\nthe history of mysticism, exhibits itself in the Bagvat-Gita almost\ncomplete. The same round of notions, occurring to minds of similar make\nunder similar circumstances, is common to mystics in ancient India and\nin modern Christendom. The development of these fundamental ideas is\nnaturally more elevated and benign under the influence of Christianity.\n\nSummarily, I would say, this Hindoo mysticism\u2014\n\n (1.) Lays claim to disinterested love, as opposed to a mercenary\n religion;\n\n (2.) Reacts against the ceremonial prescription and pedantic\n literalism of the Vedas;\n\n (3.) Identifies, in its pantheism, subject and object, worshipper\n and worshipped;\n\n (4.) Aims at ultimate absorption in the Infinite;\n\n (5.) Inculcates, as the way to this dissolution, absolute passivity,\n withdrawal into the inmost self, cessation of all the powers,\u2014giving\n recipes for procuring this beatific torpor or trance;\n\n (6.) Believes that eternity may thus be realized in time;\n\n (7.) Has its mythical miraculous pretentions, _i.e._, its theurgic\n department;\n\n (8.) And, finally, advises the learner in this kind of religion to\n submit himself implicitly to a spiritual guide,\u2014his Guru.\n\nWith regard to (1), it is to be observed that the disinterestedness of\nthe worship enjoined by Crishna is by no means absolute, as Madame Guyon\nendeavoured to render hers. The mere ritualist, buying prosperity by\ntemple-gifts, will realise, says Crishna, only a partial enjoyment of\nheaven. Arjoun, too, is encouraged by the prospect of a recompence, for\nhe is to aspire to far higher things. \u2018Men who are endowed with true\nwisdom are unmindful of good or evil in this world,\u2014wise men who have\nabandoned all thought of the fruit which is produced from their actions\nare freed from the chains of birth, and go to the regions of eternal\nhappiness.\u2019\n\nIn some hands such doctrine might rise above the popular morality; in\nmost it would be so interpreted as to sink below even that ignoble\nstandard.\n\n(3.) \u2018God,\u2019 saith Crishna, \u2018is the gift of charity; God is the offering;\nGod is in the fire of the altar; by God is the sacrifice performed; and\nGod is to be obtained by him who maketh God alone the object of his\nworks.\u2019 Again, \u2018I am moisture in the water, light in the sun and moon,\n... human nature in mankind, ... the understanding of the wise, the\nglory of the proud, the strength of the strong,\u2019 &c.\n\n(4.) This eternal absorption in Brahm is supposed to be in some way\nconsistent with personality, since Crishna promises Arjoun enjoyment.\nThe mystic of the Bagvat-Gita seeks at once the highest aim of the\nHindoo religion, the attainment of such a state that when he dies he\nshall not be born again into any form on earth. Future birth is the\nHindoo hell and purgatory.\n\nSo with Buddhism, and its Nirwana.\n\nBut the final absorption which goes by the name of Nirwana among the\nBuddhists is described in terms which can only mean annihilation.\nAccording to the Buddhists all sentient existence has within it one\nspiritual element, homogeneous in the animal and the man,\u2014Thought, which\nis a divine substance. This \u2018Thought\u2019 exists in its highest degree in\nman, the summit of creation, and from the best among men it lapses\ndirectly out of a particular existence into the universal. Thus the mind\nof man is divine, but most divine when nearest nothing. Hence the\nmonastic asceticism, inertia, trance, of this kindred oriental\nsuperstition. (_See_ Spence Hardy\u2019s _Eastern Monachism_.)\n\n(5.) \u2018Divine wisdom is said to be confirmed when a man can restrain his\nfaculties from their wonted use, as the tortoise draws in his limbs.\u2019\n\nThe devotees who make it their principal aim to realise the emancipation\nof the spirit supposed to take place in trance, are called Yogis.\n\n\u2018The Yogi constantly exerciseth the spirit in private. He is recluse, of\na subdued mind and spirit, free from hope and free from perception. He\nplanteth his own seat firmly on a spot that is undefiled, neither too\nhigh nor too low, and sitteth upon the sacred grass which is called\nKoos, covered with a skin and a cloth. There he whose business is the\nrestraining of his passions should sit, with his mind fixed on one\nobject alone; in the exercise of his devotion for the purification of\nhis soul, keeping his head, his neck, and body steady, without motion;\nhis eyes fixed on the point of his nose, looking at no other place\naround.\u2019\n\nThe monks of Mount Athos, whose mysticism was also of this most degraded\ntype, substituted, as a gazing-point, the navel for the nose.\n\nWard, in describing the Yogi practice, tells us that at the latest stage\nthe eyes also are closed, while the fingers and even bandages are\nemployed to obstruct almost completely the avenues of respiration. Then\nthe soul is said to be united to the energy of the body; both mount, and\nare as it were concentrated in the skull; whence the spirit escapes by\nthe basilar suture, and, the body having been thus abandoned, the\nincorporeal nature is reunited for a season to the Supreme.[9]\n\nStupefying drugs were doubtless employed to assist in inducing this\nstate of insensibility.\n\nCrishna teaches that \u2018the wisely devout\u2019 walk in the night of time when\nall things rest, and sleep in the day of time when all things wake. In\nother words, the escape from sense is a flight from illusion into the\nundeceiving condition of trance. So the Code of Menu pronounces the\nwaking state one of deceptive appearances\u2014a life among mere phantasmata;\nthat of sleep a little nearer reality; while that of ecstasy, or trance,\npresents the truth\u2014reveals a new world, and enables the inner eye (which\nopens as the outer one is closed) to discern the inmost reality of\nthings.\n\nThese are pretensions which mysticism has often repeated. This notion\nunderlies the theory and practice of spiritual clairvoyance.\n\n(6.) \u2018The learned behold him (Deity) alike in the reverend Brahmin\nperfected in knowledge; in the ox and in the elephant; in the dog, and\nin him who eateth the flesh of dogs. Those whose minds are fixed on this\nequality gain eternity even in this world\u2019 (transcend the limitation of\ntime).\n\n(7.) The following passage, given by Ward, exhibits at once the nature\nof the miraculous powers ascribed to the highest class of devotees, and\nthe utter lawlessness arrogated by these \u2018god-intoxicated\u2019 men:\u2014\n\n\u2018He (the Yogi) will hear celestial sounds, the songs and conversation of\ncelestial choirs. He will have the perception of their touch in their\npassage through the air. He is able to trace the progress of intellect\nthrough the senses, and the path of the animal spirit through the\nnerves. He is able to enter a dead or a living body by the path of the\nsenses, and in this body to act as though it were his own.\n\n\u2018He who in the body hath obtained liberation is of no caste, of no sect,\nof no order; attends to no duties, adheres to no shastras, to no\nformulas, to no works of merit; he is beyond the reach of speech; he\nremains at a distance from all secular concerns; he has renounced the\nlove and the knowledge of sensible objects; he is glorious as the\nautumnal sky; he flatters none, he honours none; he is not worshipped,\nhe worships none; whether he practises and follows the customs of his\ncountry or not, this is his character.\u2019\n\nIn the fourteenth century, mystics were to be found among the lower\norders, whose ignorance and sloth carried negation almost as far as\nthis. They pretended to imitate the divine immutability by absolute\ninaction. The dregs and refuse of mysticism along the Rhine are equal in\nquality to its most ambitious produce on the banks of the Ganges.\n\n(8.) The Guru is paralleled by the Pir of the Sufis, the Confessor of\nthe Middle Age, and the Directeur of modern France.[10]\n\nA mysticism which rests ultimately on the doctrine that the human soul\nis of one substance with God, is fain to fall down and worship at the\nfeet of a man. Such directorship is, of course, no essential part of\nmysticism\u2014is, in fact, an inconsistency; but, though no member, or\ngenuine outgrowth, it is an entozoon lamentably prevalent. The mystic,\nafter all his pains to reduce himself to absolute passivity, becomes not\ntheopathetic, but _anthropopathetic_\u2014suffers, not under God, but man.\n\nFootnote 9:\n\n See Wilkins\u2019 _Bagvat-Gita_, pp. 63-65. _Ward_, ii. 180. Also, _Asiatic\n Researches_, vol. xvii. pp. 169-313, containing an account of these\n Yogis, by Horace Hayman Wilson. One sect, we are told, have a way of\n contemplating Vishnu in miniature, by imagining the god in their\n heart, about the size of an open hand, and so adoring him from top to\n toe. In this gross conception of an indwelling deity these Hindoos do\n indeed exceed St. Theresa, who after swallowing the wafer conceives of\n Christ as prisoner in her inwards, and, making her heart a\n doll\u2019s-house, calls it a temple. But beyond her, and beyond the\n Indians, too, in sensuousness, are the Romanist stories of those\n saints in whom it is declared that a _post-mortem_ examination has\n disclosed the figure of Christ, or the insignia of his passion,\n miraculously modelled in the chambers of the heart.\n\nFootnote 10:\n\n _Asiatic Researches_, _loc. cit._ The worshipped principle of\n Hindooism is not love, but power. Certain objects are adored as\n containing divine energy. The Guru is a representative and vehicle of\n divine power\u2014a Godful man, and accordingly the most imperious of\n task-masters. The prodigies of asceticism, so abundant in Indian\n fable, had commonly for their object the attainment of superhuman\n powers. Thus Taraki, according to the Siva Puran, stood a hundred\n years on tip-toe, lived a hundred years on air, a hundred on fire, &c.\n for this purpose.\u2014Notes to _Curse of Kehama_, p. 237.\n\n The following passage, cited by Ward, exhibits the subjective idealism\n of these Hindoos in its most daring absurdity. \u2018Let every one meditate\n upon himself; let him be the worshipper and the worship. Whatever you\n see is but yourself, and father and mother are nonentities; you are\n the infant and the old man, the wise man and the fool, the male and\n the female; it is you who are drowned in the stream\u2014you who pass over;\n you are the sensualist and the ascetic, the sick man and the strong;\n in short, whatsoever you see, that is you, as bubbles, surf, and\n billows are all but water.\u2019\n\n Now, there is an obvious resemblance between this idealism and that of\n Fichte. The Indian and the German both ignore the notions formed from\n mere sensible experience; both dwell apart from experience, in a world\n fashioned for themselves out of \u2018pure thought;\u2019 both identify thought\n and being, subject and object. But here the likeness ends. The points\n of contrast are obvious. The Hindoo accepts as profoundest wisdom what\n would be an unfair caricature of the system of Fichte. The idealism of\n the Oriental is dreamy and passive; it dissolves his individuality; it\n makes him a particle, wrought now into this, now into that, in the\n ever-shifting phantasmagoria of the universe; he has been, he may be,\n he, therefore, in a sense is, anything and everything. Fichte\u2019s\n philosophy, on the contrary, rests altogether on the intense\n activity\u2014on the autocracy of the Ego, which posits, or creates, the\n Non-Ego. He says, \u2018The activity and passivity of the Ego are one and\n the same. For in as far as it does _not_ posit a something in itself,\n it posits that something in the Non-Ego. Again, the activity and\n passivity of the Non-Ego are one and the same. In as far as the\n Non-Ego works upon the Ego, and will absorb a something in it, the Ego\n posits that very thing in the Non-Ego.\u2019 (_Grundlage der gesammten\n Wissenschaftslehre_, \u00a7 3. _S\u00e4mmtliche Werke_, v. i. p. 177.) Action is\n all in all with him. God he calls \u2018a pure Action\u2019 (_reines Handeln_),\n the life and principle of a supersensuous order of the world\u2014just as I\n am a pure Action, as a link in that order. (_Gerichtliche\n Verantwortung gegen die Anklage des Atheismus, Werke_, v. p. 261.)\n Charged with denying personality to God, Fichte replies that he only\n denied him that conditioned personality which belongs to ourselves\u2014a\n denial, I suppose, in which we should all agree. The only God in his\n system which is not an uninfluential abstraction is manifestly the\n Ego\u2014that is dilated to a colossal height, and deified. Pre-eminently\n anti-mystical as was the natural temperament of Fichte, here he opens\n a door to the characteristic misconception of mysticism\u2014the\n investiture of our own notions and our own will with a divine\n authority or glory. He would say, \u2018The man of genius _does_ think\n divine thoughts. But the man who is unintelligible, who, in the very\n same province of pure thought as that occupied by the true\n philosopher, thinks only at random and incoherently; _he_ is mistaken,\n I grant, in arrogating inspiration\u2014_him_ I call a mystic.\u2019 But of\n unintelligibility or incoherence what is to be the test,\u2014who is to be\n the judge? In this anarchy of gods, numerous as thinkers, one deity\n must have as much divine right as another. There can be no appeal to\n experience, which all confessedly abandon; no appeal to facts, which\n each Ego creates after its own fashion for itself.\n\n\n\n\n BOOK THE THIRD\n THE MYSTICISM OF THE NEO-PLATONISTS\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER I.\n\n\n \u2014\u2014a man is not as God,\n But then most godlike being most a man.\n\n TENNYSON.\n\n\nKATE. What a formidable bundle of papers, Henry.\n\nATHERTON. Don\u2019t be alarmed, I shall not read all this to you; only three\nNeo-Platonist letters I have discovered.\n\nMRS. ATHERTON. We were talking just before you came in, Mr. Willoughby,\nabout Mr. Crossley\u2019s sermon yesterday morning.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Ah, the Tabernacle in the Wilderness; did you not think his\nremarks on the use and abuse of symbolism in general very good? Brief,\ntoo, and suggestive; just what such portions of a sermon should be.\n\nATHERTON. He overtook me on my walk this morning, and I alluded to the\nsubject. He said he had been dipping into Philo last week, and that\nsuggested his topic. I told him I had paid that respectable old\ngentleman a visit or two lately, and we amused ourselves with some of\nhis fancies. Think of the seven branches of the candlestick being the\nseven planets\u2014the four colours employed, the four elements\u2014the forecourt\nsymbolizing the visible, the two sanctuaries the ideal world\u2014and so on.\n\nGOWER. At this rate the furniture in one of Hoffmann\u2019s tales cannot be\nmore alive with spirit than Philo\u2019s temple apparatus. An ingenious\ntrifler, was he not?\n\nATHERTON. Something better, I should say.\n\nGOWER. Not, surely, when his great characteristic is an unsurpassed\nfacility for allegorical interpretation. Is not mystical exegesis an\ninvariable symptom of religious dilettantism?\n\nATHERTON. With the successors and imitators\u2014yes; not with the more\nearnest originals,\u2014such names as Philo, Origen, Swedenborg.\n\nGOWER. But, at any rate, if this spiritualizing mania be Philo\u2019s great\nclaim to distinction, head a list of mystical commentators with him, and\npass on to some one better.\n\nATHERTON. He need not detain us long. For our enquiry he has importance\nchiefly as in a sort the intellectual father of Neo-Platonism\u2014the first\nmeeting-place of the waters of the eastern and the western theosophies.\nThis is his great object\u2014to combine the authoritative monotheism of his\nHebrew Scriptures with the speculation of Plato.\n\nGOWER. Absurd attempt!\u2014to interpret the full, clear utterance of Moses,\nwho has found, by the hesitant and conflicting conjectures of Plato, who\nmerely seeks.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Yet a very natural mistake for a Jew at Alexandria, reared\nin Greek culture, fascinated by the dazzling abstractions of Greek\nphilosophy. He belonged less to Jerusalem, after all, than to Athens.\n\nATHERTON. There lies the secret. Philo was proud of his saintly\nancestry, yet to his eye the virtues of the Old Testament worthy wore a\nrude and homely air beside the refinement of the Grecian sage. The good\nman of Moses and the philosopher of Philo represent two very different\nideals. With the former the moral, with the latter the merely\nintellectual, predominates. So the Hebrew faith takes with Philo the\nexclusive Gentile type,\u2014despises the body, is horrified by matter, tends\nto substitute abstraction for personality, turns away, I fear, from the\npublican and the sinner.\n\nGOWER. So, then, Platonism in Philo does for Judaism what it was soon to\ndo for Christianity,\u2014substitutes an ultra-human standard\u2014an ascetic,\nunnatural, passively-gazing contemplation\u2014an ambitious,\nwould-be-disembodied intellectualism, for the all-embracing activities\nof common Christian life, so lowly, yet so great.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Yet Alexandrian Platonism was the gainer by Philo\u2019s\naccommodation. Judaism enfeebled could yet impart strength to\nheathendom. The infusion enabled the Neo-Platonists to walk with a\nfirmer step in the religious province; their philosophy assumed an\naspect more decisively devout. Numenius learns of Philo, and Plotinus of\nNumenius, and the ecstasy of Plotinus is the development of Philo\u2019s\nintuition.\n\nGOWER. Let me sum up; and forgive an antithesis. Philo\u2019s great mistake\nlay in supposing that the religion of philosophy was necessarily the\nphilosophy of religion. But we have forgotten your letter, Atherton.\n\nATHERTON. Here is the precious document\u2014a letter written by Philo from\nAlexandria, evidently just after his journey to Rome. (_Reads._)\n\n\n PHILO TO HEPH\u00c6STION.\n\n\n I am beginning to recover myself, after all the anxiety and peril of\n our embassy to Caligula. Nothing shall tempt me to visit Rome again\n so long as this Emperor lives. Our divine Plato is doubly dear after\n so long an absence. Only an imperative sense of duty to my\n countrymen could again induce me to take so prominent a part in\n their public affairs. Except when our religion or our trade is\n concerned, the government has always found us more docile than\n either the Greeks or the Egyptians, and we enjoy accordingly large\n privileges. Yet when I saw the ill turn our cause took at Rome, I\n could not but sigh for another Julius C\u00e6sar.\n\n I am sorry to find you saying that you are not likely to visit\n Alexandria again. This restless, wicked city can present but few\n attractions, I grant, to a lover of philosophic quiet. But I cannot\n commend the extreme to which I see so many hastening. A passion for\n ascetic seclusion is becoming daily more prevalent among the devout\n and the thoughtful, whether Jew or Gentile. Yet surely the attempt\n to combine contemplation and action should not be so soon abandoned.\n A man ought at least to have evinced some competency for the\n discharge of the social duties before he abandons them for the\n divine. First the less, then the greater.\n\n I have tried the life of the recluse. Solitude brings no escape from\n spiritual danger. If it closes some avenues of temptation, there are\n few in whose case it does not open more. Yet the Therapeut\u00e6, a sect\n similar to the Essenes, with whom you are acquainted, number many\n among them whose lives are truly exemplary. Their cells are\n scattered about the region bordering on the farther shore of the\n Lake Mareotis. The members of either sex live a single and ascetic\n life, spending their time in fasting and contemplation, in prayer or\n reading. They believe themselves favoured with divine\n illumination\u2014an inner light. They assemble on the Sabbath for\n worship, and listen to mystical discourses on the traditionary lore\n which they say has been handed down in secret among themselves. They\n also celebrate solemn dances and processions, of a mystic\n significance, by moonlight on the shore of the great mere.\n Sometimes, on an occasion of public rejoicing, the margin of the\n lake on our side will be lit with a fiery chain of illuminations,\n and galleys, hung with lights, row to and fro with strains of music\n sounding over the broad water. Then the Therapeut\u00e6 are all hidden in\n their little hermitages, and these sights and sounds of the world\n they have abandoned, make them withdraw into themselves and pray.\n\n Their principle at least is true. The soul which is occupied with\n things above, and is initiated into the mysteries of the Lord,\n cannot but account the body evil, and even hostile. The soul of man\n is divine, and his highest wisdom is to become as much as possible a\n stranger to the body with its embarrassing appetites. God has\n breathed into man from heaven a portion of his own divinity. That\n which is divine is invisible. It may be extended, but it is\n incapable of separation. Consider how vast is the range of our\n thought over the past and the future, the heavens and the earth.\n This alliance with an upper world, of which we are conscious, would\n be impossible, were not the soul of man an indivisible portion of\n that divine and blessed Spirit (\u03b5\u1f30 \u03bc\u1f74 \u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b5\u03af\u03b1\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03b5\u1f50\u03b4\u03b1\u03af\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c8\u03c5\u03c7\u1fc6\u03c2\n \u1f10\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b7\u03c2 \u1f00\u03c0\u03cc\u03c3\u03c0\u03b1\u03c3\u03bc\u03b1 \u1f26\u03bd \u03bf\u1f50 \u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03b9\u03c1\u03b5\u03c4\u03cc\u03bd). Contemplation of the Divine\n Essence is the noblest exercise of man; it is the only means of\n attaining to the highest truth and virtue, and therein to behold God\n is the consummation of our happiness here.\n\n The confusion of tongues at the building of the tower of Babel\n should teach us this lesson. The heaven those vain builders sought\n to reach, signifies symbolically the mind, where dwell divine\n powers. Their futile attempt represents the presumption of those who\n place sense above intelligence\u2014who think that they can storm the\n Intelligible by the Sensible. The structure which such impiety would\n raise is overthrown by spiritual tranquillity. In calm retirement\n and contemplation we are taught that we know like only by like, and\n that the foreign and lower world of the sensuous and the practical\n may not intrude into the lofty region of divine illumination.\n\n I have written a small treatise on the Contemplative Life, giving an\n account of the Therapeut\u00e6. If you will neither visit me nor them, I\n will have a copy of it made, and send you.[11] Farewell.\n\nGOWER. How mistaken is Philo in maintaining that the senses cannot aid\nus in our ascent towards the supersensuous;\u2014as though the maltreatment\nof the body, the vassal, by the soul, the suzerain, were at once the\nmeans and the proof of mastery over it. Duly care for the body, and the\nthankful creature will not forget its place, and when you wish to\nmeditate, will disturb you by no obtrusive hint of its presence. I find\nthat I can rise above it only by attention to its just claims. If I\nviolate its rights I am sued by it in the high court of nature, and cast\nwith costs.\n\nMRS. ATHERTON. And certainly our most favoured moments of ascent into\nthe ideal world have their origin usually in some suggestion that has\nreached us through the senses. I remember a little song of Uhland\u2019s\ncalled _The Passing Minstrel_\u2014a brief parable of melody, like so many of\nhis pieces,\u2014which, as I understood it, was designed to illustrate this\nvery truth. The poet falls asleep on a \u2018hill of blossoms\u2019 near the road,\nand his soul flutters away in dream to the golden land of Fable. He\nwakes, as one fallen from the clouds, and sees the minstrel with his\nharp, who has just passed by, and playing as he goes, is lost to sight\namong the trees. \u2018Was it he,\u2019 the poet asks, \u2018that sang into my soul\nthose dreams of wonder?\u2019 Another might inform the fancy with another\nmeaning, according to the mood of the hour. It appeared to me an emblem\nof the way in which we are often indebted to a sunset or a landscape, to\na strain of music or a suddenly-remembered verse, for a voyage into a\nworld of vision of our own, where we cease altogether to be aware of the\nexternal cause which first transported us thither.\n\nATHERTON. That must always be true of imagination. But Platonism\ndiscards the visible instead of mounting by it. Considered morally, too,\nthis asceticism sins so grievously. It misuses the iron of the will,\ngiven us to forge implements withal for life\u2019s husbandry, to fashion of\nit a bolt for a voluntary prison. At Alexandria, doubtless, Sin was\nimperious in her shamelessness, at the theatre and at the mart, in the\nhall of judgment and in the house of feasting, but there was suffering\nas well as sin among the crowds of that great city, with all their\nignorance and care and want, and to have done a something to lessen the\nsuffering would have prepared the way for lessening the sin.\n\nFootnote 11:\n\n Philo gives an account of the Therapeut\u00e6 referred to in the letter, in\n his treatise _De Vit\u00e2 Contemplativ\u00e2_.\n\n Passages corresponding with those contained in the letter contributed\n by Atherton, concerning the enmity of the flesh and the divine nature\n of the soul, are to be found in the works of Philo, _Sacr. Leg.\n Alleg._ lib. iii. p. 101 (ed. Mangey); lib. ii. p. 64; _De eo quod\n det. potiori insid. soleat_, pp. 192, 208.\n\n Philo\u2019s interpretation of the scriptural account concerning Babel is\n contained in the _De Confus. Linguarum_, p. 424. His exposition of\n Gen. i. 9, illustrates the same principle, _Sacr. Leg. Alleg._ lib. i.\n p. 54; so of Gen. xxxvii. 12; _De eo quod pot._ p. 192.\n\n Eusebius shows us how Eleazar and Aristobulus must have prepared the\n way for Philo in this attempt to harmonize Judaism with the letters\n and philosophy of Greece. _Pr\u00e6p. Evang._ lib. viii. 9, 10.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER II.\n\n\n La philosophie n\u2019est pas philosophie si elle ne touche \u00e0 l\u2019ab\u00eeme;\n mais elle cesse d\u2019\u00eatre philosophie si elle y tombe.\u2014COUSIN.\n\n\nGOWER. I hope you are ready, Atherton, to illumine my darkness\nconcerning Neo-Platonism, by taking up that individual instance you were\nspeaking of last Monday.\n\nATHERTON. I have something ready to inflict; so prepare to listen\nstoutly. (_Reads._)\n\n Plato pronounces Love the child of Poverty and Plenty\u2014the\n Alexandrian philosophy was the offspring of Reverence and Ambition.\n It combined an adoring homage to the departed genius of the age of\n Pericles with a passionate, credulous craving after a supernatural\n elevation. Its literary tastes and religious wants were alike\n imperative and irreconcilable. In obedience to the former, it\n disdained Christianity; impelled by the latter, it travestied Plato.\n But for that proud servility which fettered it to a glorious past,\n it might have recognised in Christianity the only satisfaction of\n its higher longings. Rejecting that, it could only establish a\n philosophic church on the foundation of Plato\u2019s school, and,\n forsaking while it professed to expound him, embrace the\n hallucinations of intuition and of ecstasy, till it finally vanishes\n at Athens amid the incense and the hocus-pocus of theurgic\n incantation. As it degenerates, it presses more audaciously forward\n through the veil of the unseen. It must see visions, dream dreams,\n work spells, and call down deities, demi-gods, and d\u00e6mons from their\n dwellings in the upper air. The Alexandrians were eclectics, because\n such reverence taught them to look back; mystics, because such\n ambition urged them to look up. They restore philosophy, after all\n its weary wanderings, to the place of its birth; and, in its second\n childhood, it is cradled in the arms of those old poetic faiths of\n the past, from which, in the pride of its youth, it broke away.\n\n The mental history of the founder best illustrates the origin of the\n school. Plotinus, in A.D. 233, commences the study of philosophy in\n Alexandria, at the age of twenty-eight. His mental powers are of the\n concentrative rather than the comprehensive order. Impatient of\n negation, he has commenced an earnest search after some truth which,\n however abstract, shall yet be positive. He pores over the Dialogues\n of Plato and the Metaphysics of Aristotle, day and night. To promote\n the growth of his \u2018soul-wings,\u2019 as Plato counsels, he practises\n austerities his master would never have sanctioned. He attempts to\n live what he learns to call the \u2018angelic life;\u2019 the \u2018life of the\n disembodied in the body.\u2019 He reads with admiration the life of\n Apollonius of Tyana, by Philostratus, which has recently appeared.\n He can probably credit most of the marvels recorded of that strange\n thaumaturgist, who, two hundred years ago, had appeared\u2014a revived\n Pythagoras, to dazzle nation after nation through which he passed,\n with prophecy and miracle; who had travelled to the Indus and the\n Ganges, and brought back the supernatural powers of Magi and\n Gymnosophists, and who was said to have displayed to the world once\n more the various knowledge, the majestic sanctity, and the\n superhuman attributes, of the sage of Crotona. This portraiture of a\n philosophical hierophant\u2014a union of the philosopher and the priest\n in an inspired hero, fires the imagination of Plotinus. In the\n New-Pythagoreanism of which Apollonius was a representative,\n Orientalism and Platonism were alike embraced.[12] Perhaps the\n thought occurs thus early to Plotinus\u2014could I travel eastward I\n might drink myself at those fountain-heads of tradition whence\n Pythagoras and Plato drew so much of their wisdom. Certain it is,\n that, with this purpose, he accompanied, several years subsequently,\n the disastrous expedition of Gordian against the Parthians, and\n narrowly escaped with life.\n\n At Alexandria, Plotinus doubtless hears from orientals there some\n fragments of the ancient eastern theosophy\u2014doctrines concerning the\n principle of evil, the gradual development of the Divine Essence,\n and creation by intermediate agencies, none of which he finds in his\n Plato. He cannot be altogether a stranger to the lofty theism which\n Philo marred, while he attempted to refine, by the help of his\n \u2018Attic Moses.\u2019 He observes a tendency on the part of philosophy to\n fall back upon the sanctions of religion, and on the part of the\n religions of the day to mingle in a Deism or a Pantheism which might\n claim the sanctions of philosophy. The signs of a growing toleration\n or indifferentism meet him on every side. Rome has long been a\n Pantheon for all nations, and gods and provinces together have found\n in the capitol at once their Olympus and their metropolis. He cannot\n walk the streets of Alexandria without perceiving that the very\n architecture tells of an alliance between the religious art of Egypt\n and of Greece. All, except Jews and Christians, join in the worship\n of Serapis.[13] Was not the very substance of which the statue of\n that god was made, an amalgam?\u2014fit symbol of the syncretism which\n paid him homage. Once Serapis had guarded the shores of the Euxine,\n now he is the patron of Alexandria, and in him the attributes of\n Zeus and of Osiris, of Apis and of Pluto, are adored alike by East\n and West. Men are learning to overlook the external differences of\n name and ritual, and to reduce all religions to one general\n sentiment of worship. For now more than fifty years, every educated\n man has laughed, with Lucian\u2019s satire in his hand, at the gods of\n the popular superstition. A century before Lucian, Plutarch had\n shown that some of the doctrines of the barbarians were not\n irreconcilable with the philosophy in which he gloried as a Greek.\n Plutarch had been followed by Apuleius, a practical eclectic, a\n learner in every school, an initiate in every temple, at once\n sceptical and credulous, a sophist and a devotee.\n\n Plotinus looks around him, and inquires what philosophy is doing in\n the midst of influences such as these. Peripateticism exists but in\n slumber under the dry scholarship of Adrastus and Alexander of\n Aphrodisium, the commentators of the last century.[14] The New\n Academy and the Stoics attract youth still, but they are neither of\n them a philosophy so much as a system of ethics. Speculation has\n given place to morals. Philosophy is taken up as a branch of\n literature, as an elegant recreation, as a theme for oratorical\n display. Plotinus is persuaded that philosophy should be\n worship\u2014speculation, a search after God\u2014no amusement, but a prayer.\n Scepticism is strong in proportion to the defect or weakness of\n everything positive around it. The influence of \u00c6nesidemus, who, two\n centuries ago, proclaimed universal doubt, is still felt in\n Alexandria. But his scepticism would break up the foundations of\n morality. What is to be done? Plotinus sees those who are true to\n speculation surrendering ethics, and those who hold to morality\n abandoning speculation.\n\n In his perplexity, a friend takes him to hear Ammonius Saccas. He\n finds him a powerful, broad-shouldered man, as he might naturally be\n who not long before was to be seen any day in the sultry streets of\n Alexandria, a porter, wiping his brow under his burden. Ammonius is\n speaking of the reconciliation that might be effected between Plato\n and Aristotle. This eclecticism it is which has given him fame. At\n another time it might have brought on him only derision; now there\n is an age ready to give the attempt an enthusiastic welcome.\n\n \u2018What,\u2019 he cries, kindling with his theme, \u2018did Plato leave behind\n him, what Aristotle, when Greece and philosophy had waned together?\n The first, a chattering crew of sophists: the second, the lifeless\n dogmatism of the sensationalist. The self-styled followers of Plato\n were not brave enough either to believe or to deny. The successors\n of the Stagyrite did little more than reiterate their denial of the\n Platonic doctrine of ideas. Between them morality was sinking fast.\n Then an effort was made for its revival. The attempt at least was\n good. It sprang out of a just sense of a deep defect. Without\n morality, what is philosophy worth? But these ethics must rest on\n speculation for their basis. The Epicureans and the Stoics, I say,\n came forward to supply that moral want. Each said, we will be\n practical, intelligible, utilitarian. One school, with its hard\n lesson of fate and self-denial; the other, with its easier doctrine\n of pleasure, more or less refined, were rivals in their profession\n of ability to teach men how to live. In each there was a certain\n truth, but I will honour neither with the name of a philosophy. They\n have confined themselves to mere ethical application\u2014they are\n willing, both of them, to let first principles lie unstirred. Can\n scepticism fail to take advantage of this? While they wrangle, both\n are disbelieved. But, sirs, can we abide in scepticism?\u2014it is death.\n You ask me what I recommend? I say, travel back across the past. Out\n of the whole of that by-gone and yet undying world of thought,\n construct a system greater than any of the sundered parts. Repudiate\n these partial scholars in the name of their masters. Leave them to\n their disputes, pass over their systems, already tottering for lack\n of a foundation, and be it yours to show how their teachers join\n hands far above them. In such a spirit of reverent enthusiasm you\n may attain a higher unity, you mount in speculation, and from that\n height ordain all noble actions for your lower life. So you become\n untrue neither to experience nor to reason, and the genius of\n eclecticism will combine, yea, shall I say it, will surpass while it\n embraces, all the ancient triumphs of philosophy!\u2018[15]\n\n Such was the teaching which attracted Longinus, Herennius, and\n Origen (not the Father). It makes an epoch in the life of Plotinus.\n He desires now no other instructor, and is preparing to become\n himself a leader in the pathway Ammonius has pointed out. He is\n convinced that Platonism, exalted into an enthusiastic illuminism,\n and gathering about itself all the scattered truth upon the field of\n history,\u2014Platonism, mystical and catholic, can alone preserve men\n from the abyss of scepticism. One of the old traditions of Finland\n relates how a mother once found her son torn into a thousand\n fragments at the bottom of the River of Death. She gathered the\n scattered members to her bosom, and rocking to and fro, sang a magic\n song, which made him whole again, and restored the departed life.\n Such a spell the Alexandrian philosophy sought to work\u2014thus to\n recover and re-unite the relics of antique truth, dispersed and\n drowned by time.\n\n Plotinus occupied himself only with the most abstract questions\n concerning knowledge and being. Detail and method\u2014all the stitching\n and clipping of eclecticism, he bequeathed as the handicraft of his\n successors. His fundamental principle is the old _petitio principii_\n of idealism. Truth, according to him, is not the agreement of our\n apprehension of an external object with the object itself\u2014it is\n rather the agreement of the mind with itself. The objects we\n contemplate and that which contemplates, are identical for the\n philosopher. Both are thought; only like can know like; all truth is\n within us. By reducing the soul to its most abstract simplicity, we\n subtilise it so that it expands into the infinite. In such a state\n we transcend our finite selves, and are one with the infinite; this\n is the privileged condition of ecstasy. These blissful intervals,\n but too evanescent and too rare, were regarded as the reward of\n philosophic asceticism\u2014the seasons of refreshing, which were to make\n amends for all the stoical austerities of the steep ascent towards\n the abstraction of the primal unity.\n\n Thus the Neo-Platonists became ascetics and enthusiasts: Plato was\n neither. Where Plato acknowledges the services of the earliest\n philosophers\u2014the imperfect utterances of the world\u2019s first\n thoughts,\u2014Neo-Platonism (in its later period, at least) undertakes\n to detect, not the similarity merely, but the identity between\n Pythagoras and Plato, and even to exhibit the Platonism of Orpheus\n and of Hermes. Where Plato is hesitant or obscure, Neo-Platonism\n inserts a meaning of its own, and is confident that such, and no\n other, was the master\u2019s mind. Where Plato indulges in a fancy, or\n hazards a bold assertion, Neo-Platonism, ignoring the doubts Plato\n may himself express elsewhere, spins it out into a theory, or bows\n to it as an infallible revelation.[16] Where Plato has the doctrine\n of Reminiscence, Neo-Platonism has the doctrine of Ecstasy. In the\n Reminiscence of Plato, the ideas the mind perceives are without it.\n Here there is no mysticism, only the mistake incidental to\n metaphysicians generally, of giving an actual existence to mere\n mental abstractions. In Ecstasy, the ideas perceived are within the\n mind. The mystic, according to Plotinus, contemplates the divine\n perfections in himself; and, in the ecstatic state, individuality\n (which is so much imperfection), memory, time, space, phenomenal\n contradictions, and logical distinctions, all vanish. It is not\n until the rapture is past, and the mind, held in this strange\n solution, is, as it were, precipitated on reality, that memory is\n again employed. Plotinus would say that Reminiscence could impart\n only inferior knowledge, because it implies separation between the\n subject and the object. Ecstasy is superior\u2014is absolute, being the\n realization of their identity. True to this doctrine of absorption,\n the Pantheism of Plotinus teaches him to maintain, alike with the\n Oriental mystic at one extreme of time, and with the Hegelian at the\n other, that our individual existence is but phenomenal and\n transitory. Plotinus, accordingly, does not banish reason, he only\n subordinates it to ecstasy where the Absolute is in question.[17] It\n is not till the last that he calls in supernatural aid. The wizard\n king builds his tower of speculation by the hands of human workmen\n till he reaches the top story, and then summons his genii to fashion\n the battlements of adamant, and crown them with starry fire.\n\nGOWER. Thanks. These Neo-Platonists are evidently no mere dreamers. They\nare erudite and critical, they study and they reason, they are logicians\nas well as poets; they are not mystics till they have first been\nrationalists, and they have recourse at last to mysticism only to carry\nthem whither they find reason cannot mount.\n\nATHERTON. Now, I have a letter by Plotinus. It is without a date, but\nfrom internal evidence must have been written about A.D. 260.\n\n PLOTINUS TO FLACCUS.\n\n I applaud your devotion to philosophy; I rejoice to hear that your\n soul has set sail, like the returning Ulysses, for its native\n land\u2014that glorious, that only real country\u2014the world of unseen\n truth. To follow philosophy, the senator Rogatianus, one of the\n noblest of my disciples, gave up the other day all but the whole of\n his patrimony, set free his slaves, and surrendered all the honours\n of his station.\n\n Tidings have reached us that Valerian has been defeated, and is now\n in the hands of Sapor. The threats of Franks and Allemanni, of Goths\n and Persians, are alike terrible by turns to our degenerate Rome. In\n days like these, crowded with incessant calamities, the inducements\n to a life of contemplation are more than ever strong. Even my quiet\n existence seems now to grow somewhat sensible of the advance of\n years. Age alone I am unable to debar from my retirement. I am weary\n already of this prison-house, the body, and calmly await the day\n when the divine nature within me shall be set free from matter.\n\n The Egyptian priests used to tell me that a single touch with the\n wing of their holy bird could charm the crocodile into torpor; it is\n not thus speedily, my dear friend, that the pinions of your soul\n will have power to still the untamed body. The creature will yield\n only to watchful, strenuous constancy of habit. Purify your soul\n from all undue hope and fear about earthly things, mortify the body,\n deny self,\u2014affections as well as appetites, and the inner eye will\n begin to exercise its clear and solemn vision.\n\n You ask me to tell you how we know, and what is our criterion of\n certainty. To write is always irksome to me. But for the continual\n solicitations of Porphyry, I should not have left a line to survive\n me. For your own sake and for your father\u2019s, my reluctance shall be\n overcome.\n\n External objects present us only with appearances. Concerning them,\n therefore, we may be said to possess opinion rather than knowledge.\n The distinctions in the actual world of appearance are of import\n only to ordinary and practical men. Our question lies with the ideal\n reality that exists behind appearance. How does the mind perceive\n these ideas? Are they without us, and is the reason, like sensation,\n occupied with objects external to itself? What certainty could we\n then have, what assurance that our perception was infallible? The\n object perceived would be a something different from the mind\n perceiving it. We should have then an image instead of reality. It\n would be monstrous to believe for a moment that the mind was unable\n to perceive ideal truth exactly as it is, and that we had not\n certainty and real knowledge concerning the world of intelligence.\n It follows, therefore, that this region of truth is not to be\n investigated as a thing external to us, and so only imperfectly\n known. It is _within_ us. Here the objects we contemplate and that\n which contemplates are identical,\u2014both are thought. The subject\n cannot surely _know_ an object different from itself. The world of\n ideas lies within our intelligence. Truth, therefore, is not the\n agreement of our apprehension of an external object with the object\n itself. It is the agreement of the mind with itself. Consciousness,\n therefore, is the sole basis of certainty. The mind is its own\n witness. Reason sees in itself that which is above itself as its\n source; and again, that which is below itself as still itself once\n more.\n\n Knowledge has three degrees\u2014Opinion, Science, Illumination. The\n means or instrument of the first is sense; of the second, dialectic;\n of the third, intuition. To the last I subordinate reason. It is\n absolute knowledge founded on the identity of the mind knowing with\n the object known.[18]\n\n There is a raying out of all orders of existence, an external\n emanation from the ineffable One (\u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03bf\u03b4\u03bf\u03c2). There is again a\n returning impulse, drawing all upwards and inwards towards the\n centre from whence all came (\u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u03ae). Love, as Plato in the\n _Banquet_ beautifully says, is the child of Poverty and Plenty.[19]\n In the amorous quest of the soul after the Good, lies the painful\n sense of fall and deprivation. But that Love is blessing, is\n salvation, is our guardian genius; without it the centrifugal law\n would overpower us, and sweep our souls out far from their source\n toward the cold extremities of the Material and the Manifold. The\n wise man recognises the idea of the Good within him. This he\n develops by withdrawal into the Holy Place of his own soul. He who\n does not understand how the soul contains the Beautiful within\n itself, seeks to realize beauty without, by laborious production.\n His aim should rather be to concentrate and simplify, and so to\n expand his being; instead of going out into the Manifold, to forsake\n it for the One, and so to float upwards towards the divine fount of\n being whose stream flows within him.\n\n You ask, how can we know the Infinite?[20] I answer, not by reason.\n It is the office of reason to distinguish and define. The Infinite,\n therefore, cannot be ranked among its objects. You can only\n apprehend the Infinite by a faculty superior to reason, by entering\n into a state in which you are your finite self no longer, in which\n the Divine Essence is communicated to you. This is Ecstasy. It is\n the liberation of your mind from its finite consciousness. Like only\n can apprehend like; when you thus cease to be finite, you become one\n with the Infinite. In the reduction of your soul to its simplest\n self (\u1f05\u03c0\u03bb\u03c9\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2), its divine essence, you realize this Union, this\n Identity (\u1f14\u03bd\u03c9\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd).\n\n But this sublime condition is not of permanent duration. It is only\n now and then that we can enjoy this elevation (mercifully made\n possible for us) above the limits of the body and the world. I\n myself have realized it but three times as yet, and Porphyry\n hitherto not once. All that tends to purify and elevate the mind\n will assist you in this attainment, and facilitate the approach and\n the recurrence of these happy intervals. There are, then, different\n roads by which this end may be reached. The love of beauty which\n exalts the poet; that devotion to the One and that ascent of science\n which makes the ambition of the philosopher; and that love and those\n prayers by which some devout and ardent soul tends in its moral\n purity towards perfection. These are the great highways conducting\n to that height above the actual and the particular, where we stand\n in the immediate presence of the Infinite, who shines out as from\n the deeps of the soul.[21]\n\n Note to page 75.\n\n\nThis imaginary fragment from Ammonius Saccas is, I believe, true to what\nseems fairly inferred concerning his teaching. See _Brucker_, ii. p.\n211; and _Jules Simon_, i. 205; ii. 668.\n\nPlotinus appears to have been indebted to Numenius even more than to\nAmmonius or Potamon for some of the ideas peculiar to his system. The\nmodicum of information concerning Numenius which Eusebius has handed\ndown shows that this Platonist anticipated the characteristic doctrine\nof Neo-Platonism concerning the Divine Being. Like the Neo-Platonist, he\npursued philosophical inquiry in a religious spirit, imploring, as\nPlotinus does, divine illumination. He endeavoured to harmonize\nPythagoras and Plato, to elucidate and confirm the opinions of both by\nthe religious dogmas of the Egyptians, the Magi, and the Brahmins, and,\nlike many of the Christian Fathers, he believed that Plato stood\nindebted to the Hebrew as well as to the Egyptian theology for much of\nhis wisdom. He was pressed by the same great difficulty which weighed\nupon Plotinus. How could the immutable One create the Manifold without\nself-degradation? He solved it in a manner substantially the same. His\nanswer is\u2014by means of a hypostatic emanation. He posits in the Divine\nNature three principles in a descending scale. His order of existence is\nas follows:\u2014\n\nI. _God_, the Absolute.\n\nII. _The Demiurge_; he is the Artificer, in a sense, the imitator of the\nformer. He contemplates matter, his eye ordains and upholds it, yet he\nis himself separate from it, since matter contains a concupiscent\nprinciple,\u2014is fluctuating, and philosophically non-existent. The\nDemiurge is the \u1f04\u03c1\u03c7\u1f74 \u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03ad\u03c3\u03b5\u03c9\u03c2, and good; for goodness is the original\nprinciple of Being. The second Hypostasis, engaged in the contemplation\nof matter, does not attain the serene self-contemplation of the First.\n\nIII. _Substance_ or Essence, of a twofold character, corresponding to\nthe two former.\n\nThe Universe is a copy of this third Principle.\n\nThis not very intelligible theory, which of course increases instead of\nlessening the perplexity in which the Platonists were involved, though\ndiffering in detail from that of Plotinus, proceeds on the same\nprinciple;\u2014the expedient, namely, of appending to the One certain\nsubordinate hypostases to fill the gap between it and the Manifold.\n(See, on his opinions, _Euseb. Pr\u00e6p. Evang._ lib. viii. p. 411 (ed.\nViger); lib. xi. c. 18, p. 537; capp. 21, 22, and lib. xv. c. 17.)\n\n\n Note to page 81.\n\n\nPlotinus and his successors are the model of the Pseudo-Dionysius in his\nlanguage concerning the Deity. Of his abstract primal principle neither\nbeing nor life can be predicated; he is above being and above life.\n_Enn._ iii. lib. 8, c. 9. But man by simplifying his nature to the\nutmost possible extent may become lost in this Unity. In _Enn._ v. lib.\n5, c. 8, the mind of the contemplative philosopher is described as\nillumined with a divine light. He cannot tell whence it comes, or\nwhither it goes. It is rather he himself who approaches or withdraws. He\nmust not pursue it (\u03bf\u1f50 \u03c7\u03c1\u1f74 \u03b4\u03b9\u03ce\u03ba\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd) but abide (a true Quietist) in\npatient waiting, as one looking for the rising of the sun out of the\nocean. The soul, blind to all beside, gazes intently on the ideal vision\nof the Beautiful, and is glorified as it contemplates it\u2014\u1f10\u03ba\u03b5\u1fd6 \u1f11\u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03c0\u1fb6\u03c2\n\u03c4\u03c1\u03ad\u03c0\u03c9\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03b4\u03b9\u03b4\u03bf\u1f7a\u03c2 \u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2 \u03b4\u1f72 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03bf\u1f37\u03bf\u03bd \u03c0\u03bb\u03b7\u03c1\u03c9\u03b8\u03b5\u1f76\u03c2 \u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2, \u03b5\u1f36\u03b4\u03b5 \u03bc\u1f72\u03bd \u03c4\u1f70 \u03c0\u03c1\u1ff6\u03c4\u03b1\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb\u03af\u03c9 \u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03cc\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd \u1f11\u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u1f78\u03bd, \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03af\u03bb\u03b2\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1 \u1f61\u03c2 \u1f10\u03b3\u03b3\u1f7a\u03c2 \u1f44\u03bd\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6.\n\nBut this is only a preliminary stage of exaltation. The Absolute or the\nOne, has no parts; all things partake of him, nothing possesses him; to\nsee impartially is an impossibility, a contradiction,\u2014if we imagine we\nrecognise a portion he is far from us yet,\u2014to see him mediately (\u03b4\u03b9\u1fbd\n\u1f11\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03c9\u03bd) is to behold his traces, not himself. \u1f4d\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd \u03bc\u1f72\u03bd \u1f41\u03c1\u1fb6\u03c2 \u1f41\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd \u03b2\u03bb\u03ad\u03c0\u03b5.\nBut, asks Plotinus, is not seeing him wholly identity with him? cap. 10.\n\nThe mystical aspirant is directed therefore to leave the glorified image\nof himself, radiant with the transforming effulgence of Beauty, to\nescape from his individual self by withdrawing into his own unity,\nwherein he becomes identified with the Infinite One\u2014\u03b5\u1f30\u03c2 \u1f13\u03bd \u03b1\u1f51\u03c4\u1ff7 \u1f10\u03bb\u03b8\u1f7c\u03c5,\n\u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03bc\u03ae\u03ba\u03b5\u03c4\u03b9 \u03c3\u03c7\u03af\u03c3\u03b1\u03c2, \u1f13\u03bd \u1f41\u03bc\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1 \u1f10\u03c3\u03c4\u1f76 \u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u1fbd \u1f10\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u1fe6, \u1f00\u03c8\u03bf\u03c6\u03b7\u03c4\u1f76\n\u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2. Retreating into the inmost recesses of his own being, he there\n\u1f14\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9 \u03c0\u1fb6\u03bd, \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f00\u03c6\u03b5\u1f76\u03c2 \u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u03b1\u1f34\u03c3\u03b8\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u03b5\u1f30\u03c2 \u03c4\u1fbd \u03bf\u1f50\u03c0\u03af\u03c3\u03c9, \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u1f15\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b5\u1f36\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c6\u03cc\u03b2\u1ff3,\n\u03b5\u1f36\u03c2 \u1f10\u03c3\u03c4\u03af\u03bd \u1f10\u03ba\u03b5\u1fd6. No language could more clearly express the doctrine of\nidentity\u2014the object seen and the subject seeing are one. Plotinus\ntriumphantly asks\u2014\u03c0\u1ff6\u03c2 \u03bf\u1f56\u03bd \u1f15\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03af; \u1f10\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u1ff7, \u03bc\u1f74 \u1f41\u03c1\u03bc\u1ff6\u03bd \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u03cc\u00b7 \u1f24 \u1f41\u03c1\u1ff6\u03bd \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1f78\n\u1f61\u03c2 \u1f15\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd, \u03bf\u1f50\u03b4\u03ad\u03c0\u03c9 \u1f10\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u1ff7\u00b7 \u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03cc\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b4\u1f72 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1f78, \u03bf\u1f55\u03c4\u03c9 \u03bc\u03ac\u03bb\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1 \u1f10\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u1ff7 \u03b5\u1f30\n\u03bf\u1f56\u03bd \u1f45\u03c1\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u1f14\u03be\u03bf, \u1f45\u03c1\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u03bc\u1f7a\u03bd \u03bf\u1f50 \u03b4\u03b5\u1fd6 \u03b5\u1f36\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9, \u1f22 \u03bf\u1f54\u03c4\u03c9\u03c2 \u1f61\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1\u1f7a\u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03c4\u1ff7 \u1f41\u03c1\u03b1\u03c4\u1ff7.\n_Ibid._ pp. 552-3.\n\nFootnote 12:\n\n The testimony of Cicero and Iamblichus may be received as indicating\n truly the similarity of spirit between Pythagoras and Plato,\u2014their\n common endeavour to escape the sensuous, and to realize in\n contemplative abstraction that tranquillity, superior to desire and\n passion, which assimilated men to gods. The principles of both\n degenerated, in the hands of their latest followers, into the\n mysteries of a theurgic freemasonry. The scattered Pythagoreans were,\n many of them, incorporated in the Orphic associations, and their\n descendants were those itinerant vendors of expiations and of\n charms\u2014the \u1f00\u03b3\u03cd\u03c1\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 of whom Plato speaks (_Repub._ ii. p. 70)\u2014the\n Grecian prototypes of Chaucer\u2019s Pardonere. Similarly, in the days of\n Iamblichus, the charlatans glorified themselves as the offspring of\n Plato.\n\nFootnote 13:\n\n Clement of Alexandria gives a full account of the various stories\n respecting this idol, _Protrept._ c. iv. p. 42 (ed. Potter); moreover\n an etymology and legend to match, _Strom._ lib. i. p. 383.\n\n Certain sorts of wood and metal were supposed peculiarly appropriate\n to certain deities. The art of the theurgist consisted partly in\n ascertaining the virtues of such substances; and it was supposed that\n statues constructed of a particular combination of materials,\n correspondent with the tastes and attributes of the deity represented,\n possessed a mysterious influence attracting the Power in question, and\n inducing him to take up his residence within the image. Iamblichus\n lays down this principle of sympathy in the treatise _De Mysteriis_,\n v. 23, p. 139 (ed. Gale, 1678). Kircher furnishes a description of\n this statue of Serapis, _\u0152dip. \u00c6gypt._ i. 139.\n\nFootnote 14:\n\n See _Histoire de l\u2019Ecole d\u2019Alexandrie_, par M. Jules Simon, tom. i. p.\n 99.\n\nFootnote 15:\n\n See Note, p. 82.\n\nFootnote 16:\n\n See _Jules Simon_, ii. pp. 626, &c.\n\nFootnote 17:\n\n See Note to Chap. III. p. 92.\n\nFootnote 18:\n\n The statements made in this and the preceding paragraph, and the\n reasons adduced by Plotinus in support of them, will be found in the\n fifth Ennead, lib. v. c. i. He assumes at once that the mind must be,\n from its very nature, the standard of certitude. He asks (p. 519) \u03a0\u1ff6\u03c2\n \u03b3\u1f70\u03c1 \u1f04\u03bd \u1f14\u03c4\u03b9 \u03bd\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c2, \u1f00\u03bd\u03bf\u03b7\u03c4\u03b1\u03af\u03bd\u03c9\u03bd \u03b5\u1f34\u03b7\u00b7 \u03b4\u03b5\u1fd6 \u1f04\u03c1\u03b1 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u1f00\u03b5\u1f76 \u03b5\u1f30\u03b4\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76\u00b7 \u03bc\u1f74\n \u03b4\u1fbd\u1f02\u03bd \u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03bb\u03b1\u03b8\u03ad\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03af \u03c0\u03cc\u03c4\u03b5. He urges that if Intelligibles were without the\n mind it could possess but images of them; its knowledge, thus mediate,\n would be imperfect, p. 521. Truth consists in the harmony of the mind\n with itself. \u039a\u03b1\u1f76 \u03b3\u1f70\u03c1 \u03b1\u1f56, \u03bf\u1f54\u03c4\u03c9\u03c2 \u03bf\u1f50\u03b4\u1fbd \u1f00\u03c0\u03bf\u03b4\u03b5\u03af\u03be\u03b5\u03c9\u03c2 \u03b4\u03b5\u1fd6, \u03bf\u1f50\u03b4\u1f72 \u03c0\u03af\u03c3\u03c4\u03b5\u03c9\u03c2 \u1f45\u03c4\u03b9\n \u03bf\u1f55\u03c4\u03c9\u03c2 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1f78\u03c2 \u03b3\u1f70\u03c1 \u03bf\u1f55\u03c4\u03c9\u03c2. \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f10\u03bd\u03b1\u03c1\u03b3\u1f74\u03c2 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1f78\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u1ff7. \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03b5\u1f34 \u03c4\u03b9 \u03c0\u03c1\u1f78 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6,\n \u1f45\u03c4\u03b9 \u1f10\u03be \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6. \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03b5\u1f34 \u03c4\u03b9 \u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u1fbd \u1f10\u03ba\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bd\u03bf, \u1f45\u03c4\u03b9 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2. \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03bf\u1f50\u03b4\u03b5\u1f76\u03c2 \u03c0\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03cc\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2\n \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1ff7 \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u1f76 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6. \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f45\u03c4\u03b9, \u1f10\u03ba\u03b5\u1fd6 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c4\u03bf, \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f44\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03c2. \u1f65\u03c3\u03c4\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f21 \u1f44\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03c2\n \u1f00\u03bb\u03ae\u03b8\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1, \u03bf\u1f7a \u03c3\u03c5\u03bc\u03c6\u03c9\u03bd\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c3\u03b1 \u1f04\u03bb\u03bb\u1ff3, \u1f04\u03bb\u03bb\u1fbd \u1f11\u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u1fc6. \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03bf\u1f50\u03b4\u1f72\u03bd \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1 \u03b1\u1f51\u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u1f04\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\n \u03bb\u03ad\u03b3\u03b5\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f14\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9. \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f45 \u1f14\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c4\u03bf \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03bb\u03ad\u03b3\u03b5\u03b9, p. 522.\n\nFootnote 19:\n\n _Enn._ iii. lib. v. capp. 2 & 7. There the gardens of Jove, and Porus,\n with his plenty, are said to be allegorical representations of the\n intellectual food of a soul nourished and delighted by the truths of\n Reason. Poverty, again, with its sense of need, is the source of\n intellectual desire. Comp. Plato, _Symp._ p. 429 (_Bekk_).\n\nFootnote 20:\n\n See Note 2, p. 82.\n\nFootnote 21:\n\n _Enn._ i. lib. 3, c. 1.\n\n CHAPTER III.\n\n\n Lume \u00e8 lass\u00f9 che visibile face\n Lo creatore a quella creatura\n Che solo in lui vedere ha la sua pace.[22]\n\n DANTE.\n\n\nMRS. ATHERTON. I confess I cannot understand what that state of mind can\nbe which Plotinus calls ecstasy in the letter you read us last night,\nand about which most of your mystical fraternity talk so mysteriously.\n\nKATE. I think I shall have myself mesmerised some day to form an idea.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. I suppose the mystic, by remaining for many hours\n(enfeebled, perhaps, by fast and vigil), absolutely motionless, ceasing\nto think of anything\u2014except that he _thinks_ he is successful in\nthinking of nothing, and staring pertinaciously at vacancy, throws\nhimself at last into a kind of trance. In this state he may perceive,\neven when the eyes are closed, some luminous appearance, perhaps the\nresult of pressure on the optic nerve\u2014I am not anatomist enough to\nexplain; and if his mind be strongly imaginative, or labouring with the\nground-swell of recent excitement, this light may shape itself into\narchetype, d\u00e6mon, or what not. In any case, the more distinct the object\nseen, the more manifestly is it the projection of his own mind\u2014a\nBrocken-phantom, the enlarged shadow of himself moving on some shifting\ntapestry of mist.\n\nKATE. Like the woodman described by Coleridge as beholding with such awe\nan appearance of the kind, when he\n\n Sees full before him gliding without tread\n An image with a glory round its head,\n This shade he worships for its golden hues,\n And _makes_ (not knowing) that which he pursues.\n\nATHERTON. Such has been the god of many a mystic. He will soar above\nmeans, experience, history, external revelation, and ends by mistaking a\nhazy reflex of his own image for Deity.\n\nGOWER. But we must not forget that, according to Plotinus, all sense of\npersonality is lost during ecstasy, and he would regard any light or\nform whatever (presented to what one may call his cerebral vision) as a\nsign that the trance was yet incomplete. He yearns to escape from\neverything that can be distinguished, bounded, or depicted, into the\nillimitable inane.\n\nATHERTON. Very true. And it is this extreme of negation and abstraction\nfor which Plotinus is remarkable, that makes it alone worth our while to\ntalk so much about him. His philosophy and that of his successors,\nmistaken for Platonism, was to corrupt the Christian Church. For\nhundreds of years there will be a succession of prelates, priests, or\nmonks, in whose eyes the frigid refinements of Plotinus will be\npractically, though not confessedly, regarded as representing God far\nmore worthily than the grand simplicity and the forcible figurativeness\nof Scripture language. For the Christian\u2019s God will be substituted that\nsublime cypher devised by Plotinus\u2014that blank something, of which you\ncannot say that it exists, for it is above existence.\n\nStop a moment\u2014let me tell my beads, and try to count off the doctrines\nwe shall meet with again and again in those forms of Christian mysticism\nwhere the Neo-Platonist element prevails\u2014the germs of all lie in\nPlotinus.\n\nThere is, first of all, the principle of negation; that all so-called\nmanifestations and revelations of God do in fact veil him; that no\naffirmative can be predicated of him, because he is above all our\npositive conceptions; that all symbols, figures, media, partial\nrepresentations, must be utterly abandoned because, as finite, they fall\ninfinitely short of the Infinite.\n\nHere we are sunk below humanity\u2014our knowledge consists in ignorance\u2014our\nvision in darkness.\n\nThe next step raises us in an instant from this degrading limitation up\nto Deity\u2014\u2018sets our feet in a large room,\u2019 as the later mystics phrased\nit\u2014even in infinity, and identifies us for a time with God.\n\nSince the partial finite way of knowing God is so worthless, to know him\ntruly we must escape from the finite, from all processes, all media,\nfrom the very gifts of God to God himself, and know him immediately,\ncompletely, in the infinite way\u2014by receiving, or being received into,\nhim directly.\n\nTo attain this identity, in which, during a brief space of rapture at\nleast, the subject and object, the knower and the known, are one and the\nsame, we must withdraw into our inmost selves, into that simple oneness\nof our own essence which by its very rarity is susceptible of blending\nwith that supreme attenuation called the Divine Essence. So doing, we\nawait in passivity the glory, the embrace of Union. Hence the inmost is\nthe highest\u2014introversion is ascension, and _introrsum ascendere_ the\nwatchword of all mystics. God is found within, at once radiating from\nthe depths of the soul, and absorbing it as the husk of personality\ndrops away.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. And so the means and faculties God has given us for knowing\nhim are to lie unused.\n\nATHERTON. Certainly; night must fall on reason, imagination, memory\u2014on\nour real powers\u2014that an imaginary power may awake. This is what the\nmystics call the absorption of the powers in God, leaving active within\nus nothing natural, in order that God may be substituted for ourselves,\nand all operations within be supernatural, and even divine.\n\nGOWER. Then mysticism is a spiritual art whereby the possible is\nforsaken for the impossible\u2014the knowable for the unknowable.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Or a contrivance, say, for reaching Divinity which realizes\nonly torpor.\n\nGOWER. A sorry sight this misdirection and disappointment of spiritual\naspiration. Does it not remind you of that ever-suggestive legend of\nPsyche\u2014how she has to carry the box of celestial beauty to Venus, and by\nthe way covets some of this loveliness for herself. She lifts the lid,\nand there steals out a soporific vapour, throwing her into a deep\nslumber on the edge of a dizzy precipice. There she lies entranced till\nEros comes to waken and to rescue her.\n\nATHERTON. I should grow very tiresome if I were now to attempt to\nindicate the likeness and the difference between ancient and modern\nspeculation on these questions, and where I think the error lies, and\nwhy. But you must bear with me, Kate, if I hang some dry remarks on what\nyou said just now.\n\nKATE. I am sure I\u2014\n\nATHERTON. You quoted Coleridge a minute since. He first, and after him\nCarlyle, familiarized England with the German distinction between\nreason and understanding. In fact, what the Epicureans and the Stoics\nwere to Plotinus in his day, that were Priestley and Paley to\nColeridge. The spiritualist is the sworn foe of your rationalist and\npleasures-of-virtue man. Romance must loathe utilitarianism,\nenthusiasm scorn expediency. Hence the reaction which gives us\nSchelling as the Plotinus of Berlin, and Coleridge as the Schelling of\nHighgate. The understanding had been over-tasked\u2014set to work\nunanimated and unaided by the conscience and the heart. The result was\npitiable\u2014lifeless orthodoxy and sneering scepticism. Christianity was\nelaborately defended on its external evidences; the internal evidence\nof its own nature overlooked.\n\nWhat was needful at such a juncture? Surely that _both_ should be\nemployed in healthful alliance\u2014the understanding and the conscience\u2014the\nfaculty which distinguishes and judges, and the faculty which presides\nover our moral nature, deciding about right and wrong. These are\nadequate to recognise the claims of Revelation. The intellectual faculty\ncan deal with the historic evidence, the moral can pronounce concerning\nthe tendency of the book, righteous or unrighteous. In those features of\nit unexplained and inexplicable to the understanding, if we repose on\nfaith, we do so on grounds which the understanding shows to be sound.\nHence the reception given to Christianity is altogether reasonable.\n\nBut no such moderate ground as this would satisfy the ardour which\nessayed reform; the understanding, because it could not do\neverything\u2014could not be the whole mind, but only a part\u2014because it was\nproved unequal to accomplish alone the work of all our faculties\ntogether, was summarily cashiered. We must have for religion a new, a\nhigher faculty. Instead of reinforcing the old power, a novel\nnomenclature is devised which seems to endow man with a loftier\nattribute. This faculty is the intuition of Plotinus, the\n_Intellectuelle Anschauung_ of Schelling; the Intuitive Reason, Source\nof Ideas and Absolute Truths, the Organ of Philosophy and Theology, as\nColeridge styles it. It is a direct beholding, which, according to\nPlotinus, rises in some moments of exaltation to ecstasy. It is,\naccording to Schelling, a realization of the identity of subject and\nobject in the individual, which blends him with that identity of subject\nand object called God; so that, carried out of himself, he does, in a\nmanner, think divine thoughts\u2014views all things from their highest point\nof view\u2014mind and matter from the centre of their identity.[23] He\nbecomes recipient, according to Emerson, of the Soul of the world. He\nloses, according to Coleridge, the particular in the universal reason;\nfinds that ideas appear within him from an internal source supplied by\nthe Logos or Eternal Word of God\u2014an infallible utterance from the divine\noriginal of man\u2019s highest nature.[24]\n\nWILLOUGHBY. One aim in all\u2014to escape the surface varieties of our\nindividual (or more properly dividual) being, and penetrate to the\nuniversal truth\u2014the absolute certainty everywhere the same:\u2014a\nshaft-sinking operation\u2014a descent into our original selves\u2014digging down,\nin one case from a garden, in another from a waste, here from the heart\nof a town, there from a meadow, but all the miners are to find at the\nbottom a common ground\u2014the prim\u00e6val granite\u2014the basis of the eternal\ntruth-pillars. This I take to be the object of the self-simplification\nPlotinus inculcates\u2014to get beneath the finite superficial accretions of\nour nature.\n\nATHERTON. And what comes of it after all? After denuding ourselves of\nall results of experience, conditioned distinctions, &c., we are landed\nin a void, we find only hollow silence, if we may accept a whisper or\ntwo, saying that ingratitude, treachery, fraud, and similar crimes, are\nvery wrong.\n\nGOWER. And even these dictates are those of our moral sense, not of an\nintellectual power of insight. For surely to call conscience practical\nReason, as Kant does, is only to confound our moral and intellectual\nnature together.\n\nATHERTON. Very well, then. Seclude and simplify yourself thoroughly, and\nyou do not find data within you equal to your need\u2014equal to show you\nwhat God is, has done, should do, &c.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. But all these intuitionalists profess to evolve from their\ndepths very much more than those simplest ethical perceptions.\n\nATHERTON. By carrying down with them into those depths the results of\nthe understanding, of experience, of external culture, and then bringing\nthem up to light again as though they had newly emerged from the\nrecesses of the Infinite. This intuitional metal, in its native state,\nis mere fluent, formless quicksilver; to make it definite and\nserviceable you must fix it by an alloy; but then, alas! it is _pure_\nReason no longer, and, so far from being universal truth, receives a\ncountless variety of shapes, according to the temperament, culture, or\nphilosophic party, of the individual thinker. So that, in the end, the\nresult is merely a dogmatical investiture of a man\u2019s own notions with a\nsort of divine authority. You dispute with Schelling, and he waves you\naway as a profane and intuitionless laic. What is this but the\nsacerdotalism of the philosopher? The fanatical mystic who believes\nhimself called on to enforce the fantasies of his special revelation\nupon other men, does not more utterly contemn argument than does the\ntheosophist, when he bids you kick your understanding back into its\nkennel, and hearken in reverend awe to _his_ intuitions.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Telling you, too, that if your inward witness does not agree\nwith his, you are, philosophically speaking, in the gall of bitterness\nand the bond of iniquity.\n\nATHERTON. You are catching the approved style of expression so much in\nvogue with our modern religious infidelity. This is the artifice\u2014to be\nscriptural in phrase, and anti-scriptural in sense: to parade the secret\nsymbols of Christianity in the van of that motley army which marches to\nassail it.\n\nGOWER. The expedient reminds me of the device of Cambyses, who, when he\ndrew out his forces against the Egyptians, placed a row of ibises in\nfront of his line, and the Egyptians, it is said, suffered defeat rather\nthan discharge an arrow which might wound the birds they worshipped.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. To go back to Plotinus.[25] That doctrine of the\nEpistrophe\u2014the return of all intelligence by a law of nature to the\ndivine centre\u2014must inevitably be associated with the unhealthy morality\nalways attendant on pantheism. It is an organic process godward, ending\nin loss of personal existence, no moral or spiritual elevation.\n\nGOWER. His abstract Unity has no character, only negation of all\nconceivable attributes\u2014so will and character can have no place in his\ntheory of assimilation to God. Self-culture is self-reduction. What a\nplan of the universe!\u2014all intelligence magnetically drawn to the Centre,\nlike the ships to the Mountain of the Loadstone in the _Arabian\nNights_\u2014as they approach, the nails which hold them together are\nwithdrawn, they fall apart, and all the fabric is dissolved.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. It is curious to observe how rapidly the mind gives way\nunder the unnatural strain of this super-essential abstraction, and\nindemnifies itself by imaginative and fantastical excesses for the\nattempt to sojourn in an atmosphere so rare. At first, ecstasy is an\nindescribable state\u2014any form or voice would mar and materialize it. The\nvague boundlessness of this exaltation, in which the soul swoons away,\nis not to be hinted at by the highest utterance of mortal speech. But a\ndegenerate age or a lower order of mind demands the detail and imagery\nof a more tangible marvel. The demand creates supply, and the mystic,\ndeceiver or deceived, or both, begins to furnish forth for himself and\nothers a full itinerary of those regions in the unseen world which he\nhas scanned or traversed in his moments of elevation. He describes the\nstarred baldrics and meteor-swords of the a\u00ebrial panoply; tells what\nforlorn shapes have been seen standing dark against a far depth of\nbrightness, like stricken pines on a sunset horizon; what angelic forms,\nin gracious companies, alight about the haunts of men, thwarting the\nevil and opening pathways for the good; what genii tend what mortals,\nand under what astral influences they work weal or woe; what beings of\nthe middle air crowd in embattled rows the mountain side, or fill some\nvast amphitheatre of silent and inaccessible snow,\u2014how some encamp in\nthe valley, under the pennons of the summer lightning, and others find a\ntented field where the slow wind unrolls the exhalations along the\nmarsh, and builds a billowy canopy of vapours: all is largely told,\u2014what\nethereal heraldry marshals with its blazon the thrones and dominions of\nthe unseen realm; what giant powers and principalities darken with long\nshadow, or illumine with a winged wake of glory, the forms of following\nmyriads,\u2014their ranks and races, wars and destiny, as minutely registered\nas the annals of some neighbour province, as confidently recounted as\nthough the seer had nightly slipped his bonds of flesh, and mingled in\ntheir council or their battle.\n\nATHERTON. A true portraiture. Observe how this mysticism pretends to\nraise man above self into the universal, and issues in giving us only\nwhat is personal. It presents us, after all, only with the creations of\nthe fancy, the phenomena of the sensibility peculiar to the\nindividual,\u2014that finite, personal idiosyncrasy which is so despised. Its\nphilosophy of the universe subsides into a morbid psychology. Man is\npersuaded that he is to traverse the realms of fire and air, where the\nintelligible essences and archetypes of all things dwell; and, like the\nKnight of La Mancha, he never stirs in reality from the little\ngrass-plot of individual temperament on which his wondrous wooden horse\nstands still. This theosophy professes to make man divine, and it fails\nat last to keep him even rational. It prevents his becoming what he\nmight be, while it promises to make him what he never can become.\n\n\n Note to page 90.\n\n\nM. Simon has shown, with much acuteness, in what way the exigencies of\nthe system of Plotinus compelled him to have recourse to a new faculty,\ndistinct from reason. Plotinus perceived that Plato had not been true to\nthe consequences of his own dialectics. When he had reached the summit\nof his logical abstraction,\u2014had passed through definition after\ndefinition, each more intangible than the last, on his way upward\ntowards the One, he arrived at last at a God who was above Being itself.\nFrom this result he shrank, and so ceased to be consistent. How could\nsuch a God be a God of Providence, such a shadow of a shade a creator?\nPlato was not prepared, like Plotinus, to soar so completely above\nexperience and the practical as to accept the utmost consequences of his\nlogical process. So, that his God might be still the God of Providence,\nhe retained him within the sphere of reason, gave him Being, Thought,\nPower, and called him the Demiurge. When Plotinus, like a true eclectic,\ncarried still farther his survey of what history afforded him, he found\nAristotle postulating a Deity so restricted by his own abstraction and\nimmutability as to render it impossible to associate with his nature the\nidea of superintendence. It was feared that to represent God as the God\nof Creation and of Providence would be to dualize him. And yet the world\ndid exist. How were the serene and remote Unity demanded by logic, and\nthat activity and contact with matter no less imperatively demanded for\nGod by experience, to be reconciled with each other? It is scarcely\nnecessary to observe that there was no real difficulty. The whole\nproblem was the result of the notion, so universal, concerning the evil\nof matter, and of the wrong answer given by ancient philosophy to the\nvexed question\u2014Does the Supreme work \u03c4\u1ff7 \u03b5\u1f36\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9, or \u03c4\u1ff7 \u03b2\u03bf\u03cd\u03bb\u03b5\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9?\nPhilosophy maintained the former; the Christian Church the latter. To\nremove this obstacle which philosophy had itself constructed, Plotinus\nproposed his theory of these hypostases, in the Divine Nature. Above and\nbeyond a God such as that of Plato, he places another like that of\nAristotle, and above him a simple Unity, like the God of the Eleatics.\nThe last was the ultimatum of the process of logical simplification\u2014a\nsomething above being. But the hypothesis was destitute of proof\u2014it was,\nin fact, contrary to reason. Plotinus must therefore either surrender\nhis theory or bid farewell to reason. He chose the latter course. He\ndoes not deny the important services of reason, but he professes to\ntranscend its limits. He calls in mysticism to substantiate, by the\ndoctrines of Illumination and Identity, his imaginary God. He affirms a\nGod beyond reason, and then a faculty beyond reason to discern that God\nwithal.\n\nThis attempt to solve the problem in question is of course a failure. It\nis still more open than the system of Plato to Aristotle\u2019s objection,\nthat it resembled the expedient of an arithmetician who should endeavour\nto simplify a calculation he found perplexing by taking still higher\nfigures. Plotinus does not explain what he means by a Hypostasis. If the\nHypostases in his Trinity have reality, the ideal unity he is so anxious\nto preserve in the Divine Nature is after all destroyed. If they have\nnot, the gap between the One and the Manifold is still without a bridge,\nand the difficulty they are introduced to remove remains in effect where\nit was. If this hypothesis had made no part of the system of Plotinus,\nthe great occasion for the doctrine of Ecstasy and the most powerful\ninternal inducement to mysticism would have been wanting. The\nphilosopher escapes from his labyrinth by borrowing the wings of the\nmystic.\u2014See _Jules Simon_, tom. i. pp. 63, 84; ii. 462.\n\nFootnote 22:\n\n There is above a light which makes visible the Creator to that\n creature who finds his peace only in the vision of Him.\n\nFootnote 23:\n\n See Schelling\u2019s _System des Trancendentalen Idealismus_, pp. 19-23\n (T\u00fcbingen, 1800), and Chalyb\u00e6us, _Hist. Entw. d. Spec. Phil._ p. 244.\n\nFootnote 24:\n\n _Aids to Reflection_, pp. 225, 249. The reader is referred to a\n discriminating criticism of this doctrine in the _British Quarterly\n Review_, No. xxxvii.\n\nFootnote 25:\n\n See Note, p. 92.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER IV.\n\n\n _Stargaze._ \u2019Tis drawn, I assure you, from the aphorisms of the old\n Chaldeans, Zoroaster the first and greatest magician; Mercurius\n Trismegistus, the later Ptolemy, and the everlasting prognosticator,\n old Erra Pater.\u2014MASSINGER.\n\n\nWILLOUGHBY. We have now about done, I suppose, with the theosophic\nbranch of the Neo-Platonist school; with its latest leaders it\ndegenerates into theurgic mysticism.\n\nKATE. I hope it is going to degenerate into something one can\nunderstand.\n\nGOWER. The great metaphysician, Plotinus, is off the stage, that is some\ncomfort for you, Miss Merivale. Magic is less wearisome than\nmetaphysics.\n\nATHERTON. The change is marked, indeed. Plotinus, wrapt in his proud\nabstraction, cared little for fame. His listening disciples were his\nworld. Porphyry entered his school fresh from the study of Aristotle. At\nfirst the daring opponent of the master, he soon became the most devoted\nof his scholars. With a temperament more active and practical than that\nof Plotinus, with more various ability and far more facility in\nadaptation, with an erudition equal to his fidelity, blameless in his\nlife, pre-eminent in the loftiness and purity of his ethics, he was well\nfitted to do all that could be done towards securing for the doctrines\nhe had espoused that reputation and that wider influence to which\nPlotinus was so indifferent. His aim was twofold. He engaged in a\nconflict hand to hand with two antagonists at once, by both of whom he\nwas eventually vanquished. He commenced an assault on Christianity\nwithout, and he endeavoured to check the progress of superstitious usage\nwithin the pale of Paganism. But Christianity could not be repulsed, and\nheathendom would not be reformed. In vain did he attempt to substitute a\nsingle philosophical religion which should be universal, for the\nmanifold and popular Polytheism of the day. Christian truth repelled his\nattack on the one side, and idolatrous superstition carried his defences\non the other.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. A more false position could scarcely have been assumed. Men\nlike Porphyry constituted themselves the defenders of a Paganism which\ndid but partially acknowledge their advocacy. Often suspected by the\nEmperors, they were still oftener maligned and persecuted by the\njealousy of the priests. They were the unaccredited champions of\nPaganism, for they sought to refine while they conserved it. They\ndefended it, not as zealots, but as men of letters.[26] They defended it\nbecause the old faith could boast of great names and great achievements\nin speculation, literature, and art, and because the new appeared novel\nand barbarian in its origin, and humiliating in its claims. They wrote,\nthey lectured, they disputed, in favour of the temple and against the\nchurch, because they dreamed of the days of Pericles under the yoke of\nthe Empire: not because they worshipped idols, but because they\nworshipped Plato.\n\nMRS. ATHERTON. And must not that very attempt, noticed just now, to\nrecognise all religions, have been as fatal to them as the causes you\nmention?\n\nATHERTON. Certainly. Mankind does not require a revelation to give them\na religion, but to give them one which shall be altogether true. These\nNeo-Platonists were confronted by a religion intolerant of all others.\nThey attempted, by keeping open house in their eclectic Pantheon, to\nexcel where they thought their antagonist deficient. They failed to see\nin that benign intolerance of falsehood, which stood out as so strange a\ncharacteristic in the Christian faith, one of the credentials of its\ndivine origin. No theory of the universe manufactured by a school can be\na gospel to man\u2019s soul. They forgot that lip-homage paid to all\nreligions is the virtual denial of each.\n\nGOWER. Strange position, indeed, maintaining as their cardinal doctrine\nthe unity and immutability of the divine nature, and entering the lists\nas conservators of polytheism; teaching the most abstract and defending\nthe most gross conceptions of deity; exclaiming against vice, and\nsolicitous to preserve all the incentives to it which swarm in every\nheathen mythology. Of a truth, no clean thing could be brought out of\nthat unclean,\u2014the new cloth would not mend the old garment. Men know\nthat they _ought_ to worship; the question is, Whom? and How?\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Then, again, their attempt to combine religion and\nphilosophy robbed the last of its only principle, the first of its only\npower. The religions lost in the process what sanctity and\nauthoritativeness they had to lose, while speculation abandoned all\nscientific precision, and deserted its sole consistent basis in the\nreason. This endeavour to philosophise superstition could only issue in\nthe paradoxical product of a philosophy without reason, and a\nsuperstition without faith. To make philosophy superstitious was not\ndifficult, and they did that; but they could not\u2014do what they would\u2014make\nsuperstition philosophical.\n\nATHERTON. Add, too, that Greek philosophy, which had always repelled the\npeople, possessed no power to seclude them from the Christianity that\nsought them out. In vain did it borrow from Christianity a new\nrefinement, and receive some rays of light from the very foe which\nfronted it\u2014\u2014\n\nWILLOUGHBY. As is very visible in the higher moral tone of Porphyry\u2019s\n_Treatise on Abstinence_.\n\nATHERTON. The struggles of heathendom to escape its doom only the more\ndisplay its weakness and the justice of the sentence.\n\nGOWER. Like the man in the _Gesta Romanorum_, who came to the gate where\nevery humpbacked, one-eyed, scald-headed passenger had to pay a penny\nfor each infirmity: they were going only to demand toll for his hunch,\nbut he resisted, and in the struggle was discovered to be amenable for\nevery deformity and disease upon the table. So, no doubt, it must always\nbe with systems, states, men, and dogs, that won\u2019t know when they have\nhad their day. The scuffle makes sad work with the patched clothes,\nfalse teeth, wig, and cosmetics.\n\nATHERTON. Life is sweet.\n\nAs to Porphyry it was doubtless his more practical temperament that led\nhim to modify the doctrine of Plotinus concerning ecstasy. With Porphyry\nthe mind does not lose, in that state of exaltation, its consciousness\nof personality. He calls it a dream in which the soul, dead to the\nworld, rises to an activity that partakes of the divine. It is an\nelevation above reason, above action, above liberty, and yet no\nannihilation, but an ennobling restoration or transformation of the\nindividual nature.[27]\n\nGOWER. One of Porphyry\u2019s notions about the spirits of the air, of which\nyou told me in our walk yesterday, quite haunted me afterwards. It\ncontains a germ of poetry.\n\nKATE. By all means let us have it.\n\nGOWER. Our philosopher believed in a certain order of evil genii who\ntook pleasure in hunting wild beasts,\u2014d\u00e6mons, whom men worshipped by the\ntitle of Artemis and other names, falsely attributing their cruelty to\nthe calm and guiltless gods, who can never delight in blood. Some of\nthese natures hunted another prey. They were said to chase souls that\nhad escaped from the fetters of a body, and to force them to re-enter\nsome fleshly prison once more. How I wish we could see a design of this\nby David Scott! Imagine the soul that has just leaped out of the door of\nthat dungeon of ignorance and pain, the body, as Porphyry would term it,\nfluttering in its new freedom in the sunshine among the tree-tops, over\nwild and town\u2014all the fields of air its pleasure-ground for an exulting\ncareer on its upward way to join the journeying intelligences in their\ncars above. But it sees afar off, high in mid-air, a troop of dark\nshapes; they seem to approach, to grow out of the airy recesses of the\ndistance\u2014they come down the white precipices of the piled clouds, over\nthe long slant of some vapour promontory\u2014forms invisible to man, and,\nwith them, spectre-hounds, whose baying spirits alone can hear. As they\napproach, the soul recognises its enemies. In a moment it is flying\naway, away, and after it they sweep\u2014pursuers and pursued, shapes so\nethereal that the galleries of the ant are not shaken as hunters and\nquarry glide into the earth, and not a foam-bell is broken or brushed\nfrom the wave when they emerge upon the sea, and with many a winding and\ndouble mount the air. At last hemmed in, the soul is forced\u2014spite of\nthat desperate sidelong dart which had all but eluded them\u2014down into a\nbody, the frame of a beggar\u2019s babe or of a slave\u2019s; and, like some\nstruggling bird, drawn with beating wings beneath the water, it sinks\ninto the clay it must animate through many a miserable year to come.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. I wish you would paint it for us yourself. You might\nrepresent, close by that battle of the spirits, a bird singing on a\nbough, a labourer looking down, with his foot upon his spade, and\npeasants dancing in their \u2018sunburnt mirth\u2019 and jollity\u2014wholly\nunconscious, interrupted neither in toil nor pleasure by the conflict\nclose at hand. It might read as a satire on the too common indifference\nof men to the spiritual realities which are about them every hour.\n\nMRS. ATHERTON. The picture would be as mysterious as an Emblem by Albert\nDurer.\n\nGOWER. It is that suggestiveness I so admire in the Germans. For the\nsake of it I can often pardon their fantastic extravagances, their\nincongruous combinations, their frequent want of grace and symmetry.\n\nATHERTON. So can I, when an author occupies a province in which such\nindirectness or irony, such irregularity, confusion, or paradox, are\nadmissible. Take, as a comprehensive example, Jean Paul. But in\nphilosophy it is abominable. There, where transparent order should\npreside, to find that under the thick and spreading verbiage meaning is\noften lacking, and, with all the boastful and fire-new nomenclature, if\nfound, is old and common,\u2014that the language is commonly but an array of\nwhat one calls\n\n Rich windows that exclude the light,\n And passages that lead to nothing;\u2014\n\nThis puts me out of all patience.\n\nGOWER. The fault you object to reminds me of some Flemish\nlandscape-pieces I have seen; there are trees, so full of grand life,\nthey seem with their outstretched arms to menace the clouds, and as\nthough, if they smote with their many hundred hands, they could beat\naway the storm instead of being bowed by it; and underneath these great\nones of the forest, which should shadow nothing less than a woodland\ncouncil of Titans or a group of recumbent gods, the painter places only\na rustic with a cow or two, an old horse, a beggar, or some other most\nevery-day of figures.\n\nMRS. ATHERTON. And you mean that the German words are large-looking as\nthe trees, and the ideas worn and ordinary as the figures? What will Mr.\nWilloughby say to that?\n\nATHERTON. I think Willoughby will agree with me that it is high time\nthat we should go back to our theurgic mysticism and Iamblichus. Here is\na letter of his:\u2014\n\n IAMBLICHUS TO AGATHOCLES.\n\n I assure you, my friend, that the efforts of Porphyry, of whom you\n appear disposed to think so highly, will be altogether in vain. He\n is not the true philosopher you imagine. He grows cold and sceptical\n with years. He shrinks with a timid incredulity from reaping in that\n field of supernatural attainment which theurgy has first opened, and\n now continually enlarges and enriches. Theurgy, be sure of it, is\n the grand, I may say, the sole path to the exaltation we covet. It\n is the heaven-given organum, in the hands of the wise and holy, for\n obtaining happiness, knowledge, power.\n\n The pomp of emperors becomes as nothing in comparison with the glory\n that surrounds the hierophant. The priest is a prophet full of\n deity. The subordinate powers of the upper world are at his bidding,\n for it is not a man, but a god who speaks the words of power. Such a\n man lives no longer the life common to other men. He has exchanged\n the human life for the divine. His nature is the instrument and\n vehicle of Deity, who fills and impels him (\u1f44\u03c1\u03b3\u03b1\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c2 \u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03c0\u03bd\u03ad\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9\n \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c2.) Men of this order do not employ, in the elevation they\n experience, the waking senses as do others (\u03bf\u1f54\u03c4\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u1fbd \u03b1\u1f34\u03c3\u03b8\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd\n \u1f10\u03bd\u03b5\u03c1\u03b3\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u03bf\u1f54\u03c4\u03b5 \u1f10\u03b3\u03c1\u03b7\u03b3\u03cc\u03c1\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9). They have no purpose of their own, no\n mastery over themselves. They speak wisdom they do not understand,\n and their faculties, absorbed in a divine power, become the\n utterance of a superior will.\n\n Often, at the moment of inspiration, or when the afflatus has\n subsided, a fiery Appearance is seen,\u2014the entering or departing\n Power. Those who are skilled in this wisdom can tell by the\n character of this glory the rank of the divinity who has seized for\n the time the reins of the mystic\u2019s soul, and guides it as he will.\n Sometimes the body of the man subject to this influence is violently\n agitated, sometimes it is rigid and motionless. In some instances\n sweet music is heard, in others, discordant and fearful sounds. The\n person of the subject has been known to dilate and tower to a\n superhuman height; in other cases, it has been lifted up into the\n air. Frequently, not merely the ordinary exercise of reason, but\n sensation and animal life would appear to have been suspended; and\n the subject of the afflatus has not felt the application of fire,\n has been pierced with spits, cut with knives, and been sensible of\n no pain. Yea, often, the more the body and the mind have been alike\n enfeebled by vigil and by fasts, the more ignorant or mentally\n imbecile a youth may be who is brought under this influence, the\n more freely and unmixedly will the divine power be made manifest. So\n clearly are these wonders the work, not of human skill or wisdom,\n but of supernatural agency! Characteristics such as these I have\n mentioned, are the marks of the true inspiration.\n\n Now, there are, O Agathocles, four great orders of spiritual\n existence,\u2014Gods, D\u00e6mons, Heroes or Demi-gods, and Souls. You will\n naturally be desirous to learn how the apparition of a God or a\n D\u00e6mon is distinguished from those of Angels, Principalities, or\n Souls. Know, then, that their appearance to man corresponds to their\n nature, and that they always manifest themselves to those who invoke\n them in a manner consonant with their rank in the hierarchy of\n spiritual natures. The appearances of Gods are uniform (\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u03bf\u03b5\u03b9\u03b4\u1fc6),\n those of D\u00e6mons various (\u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u03ba\u03af\u03bb\u03b1). The Gods shine with a benign\n aspect. When a God manifests himself, he frequently appears to hide\n sun or moon, and seems as he descends too vast for earth to contain.\n Archangels are at once awful and mild; Angels yet more gracious;\n D\u00e6mons terrible. Below the four leading classes I have mentioned are\n placed the malignant D\u00e6mons, the Anti-gods (\u1f00\u03bd\u03c4\u03b9\u03b8\u03ad\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2).\n\n Each spiritual order has gifts of its own to bestow on the initiated\n who evoke them. The Gods confer health of body, power and purity of\n mind, and, in short, elevate and restore our natures to their proper\n principles. Angels and Archangels have at their command only\n subordinate bestowments. D\u00e6mons, however, are hostile to the\n aspirant,\u2014afflict both body and mind, and hinder our escape from the\n sensuous. Principalities, who govern the sublunary elements, confer\n temporal advantages. Those of a lower rank, who preside over matter\n (\u1f51\u03bb\u03b9\u03ba\u03ac), display their bounty in material gifts. Souls that are pure\n are, like Angels, salutary in their influence. Their appearance\n encourages the soul in its upward efforts. Heroes stimulate to great\n actions. All these powers depend, in a descending chain, each\n species on that immediately above it. Good D\u00e6mons are seen\n surrounded by the emblems of blessing, D\u00e6mons who execute judgment\n appear with the instruments of punishment.\n\n There is nothing unworthy of belief in what you have been told\n concerning the sacred sleep, and divination by dreams. I explain it\n thus:\u2014\n\n The soul has a twofold life, a lower and a higher. In sleep that\n soul is freed from the constraint of the body, and enters, as one\n emancipated, on its divine life of intelligence. Then, as the noble\n faculty which beholds the objects that truly are\u2014the objects in the\n world of intelligence\u2014stirs within, and awakens to its power, who\n can be surprised that the mind, which contains in itself the\n principles of all that happens, should, in this its state of\n liberation, discern the future in those antecedent principles which\n will make that future what it is to be? The nobler part of the soul\n is thus united by abstraction to higher natures, and becomes a\n participant in the wisdom and foreknowledge of the Gods.\n\n Recorded examples of this are numerous and well authenticated;\n instances occur, too, every day. Numbers of sick, by sleeping in the\n temple of \u00c6sculapius, have had their cure revealed to them in dreams\n vouchsafed by the god. Would not Alexander\u2019s army have perished but\n for a dream in which Dionysus pointed out the means of safety? Was\n not the siege of Aphutis raised through a dream sent by Jupiter\n Ammon to Lysander? The night-time of the body is the day-time of the\n soul.\n\n What I have now said\u2014with little method, I confess\u2014sets before you\n but a portion of the prerogatives in which the initiated glory.\n There is much behind for which words are too poor. I have written\n enough, I am sure, to kindle your ambition, to bid you banish doubt,\n and persevere in the aspirations which so possessed you when I saw\n you last.[28] Farewell.\n\nGOWER. That explanation of prophetic dreams and the temple sleep is very\ncurious and characteristic. No doubt the common phenomena of mesmerism\nmay have been among the sacred secrets preserved by the priests of Egypt\nand of Greece.\n\nKATE. The preference for young and weakly persons, who would possess an\norganization more susceptible of such influences, makes it look very\nlikely.\n\nATHERTON. Observe how completely the theurgic element, with Iamblichus,\nsupersedes the theosophic. In the process of time the philosophical\nprinciples on which the system of Plotinus rested are virtually\nsurrendered, little by little, while divination and evocations are\npractised with increasing credulity, and made the foundation of the most\narrogant pretensions. Plotinus declared the possibility of an absolute\nidentification of the divine with the human nature. Here was the\nbroadest basis for mysticism possible. Porphyry retired from this\nposition, took up narrower ground, and qualified the great mystical\nprinciple of his master. He contended that in the union which takes\nplace in ecstasy, we still retain the consciousness of personality.\nIamblichus, the most superstitious of all in practice, diminished the\nreal principle of mysticism still farther in theory. He denied that man\nhas a faculty inaccessible to passion, and eternally active.[29]\n\nWILLOUGHBY. And so the metaphysics and the marvels of mysticism stand in\nan inverse ratio to each other. But it is not unnatural that as the\nmystic, from one cause or another, gives up those exaggerated notions of\nthe powers of man and those mistaken views of the relationship between\nman and God, which went together to make up a mystical system of\nphilosophy, he should endeavour to indemnify himself by the evocations\nof theurgy, so as to secure, if possible, through a supernatural\nchannel, what speculation had unsuccessfully attempted.\n\nATHERTON. True; but in this case I should invert the order, and say that\nas the promise of theurgy exercised an attraction of growing strength on\nan order of mind less fitted for speculation, such temperaments would\nreadily drop the speculative principle of mysticism in their eagerness\nto grasp the illusive prize\u2014apparently so practical\u2014which a commerce\nwith superior natures held out.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. And so the intellectual ambition and the poetical spirit, so\nlofty in Plotinus, subside, among the followers of Iamblichus, into the\ndoggrel of the necromancer\u2019s charm.\n\nGOWER. Much such a descent as the glory of Virgil has suffered, whose\ntomb at Pausilipo is now regarded by the populace of degenerate Naples\nless with the reverence due to the poet than with the awe which arises\nfrom the legendary repute of the medi\u00e6val magician.\n\nATHERTON. So the idealism of strong minds becomes superstition in the\nweak. In the very shrine where culture paid its homage to art or\nscience, feebleness and ignorance, in an age of decline, set up the\nimage-worship of the merely marvellous.\n\nMRS. ATHERTON. I think you mentioned only one other of these worthies.\n\nATHERTON. Proclus. He is the last great name among the Neo-Platonists.\nHe was the most eclectic of them all, perhaps because the most learned\nand the most systematic. He elaborated the trinity of Plotinus into a\nsuccession of impalpable Triads, and surpassed Iamblichus in his\ndevotion to the practice of theurgy. Proclus was content to develop the\nschool in that direction which Iamblichus\u2014(successful from his very\nfaults)\u2014had already given it. With Proclus, theurgy was the art which\ngives man the magical passwords that carry him through barrier after\nbarrier, dividing species from species of the upper existences, till, at\nthe summit of the hierarchy, he arrives at the highest. According to\nhim, God is the Non-Being who is above all being. He is apprehended only\nby negation. When we are raised out of our weakness, and on a level with\nGod, it seems as though reason were silenced, for then we are above\nreason. We become intoxicated with God, we are inspired as by the nectar\nof Olympus. He teaches philosophy as the best preparation for Quietism.\nFor the scientific enquirer, toiling in his research, Proclus has a God\nto tell of, supreme, almighty, the world-maker and governor of Plato.\nFor him who has passed through this labour, a God known only by\necstasy\u2014a God who is the repose he gives\u2014a God of whom the more you deny\nthe more do you affirm.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. And this is all! After years of austerity and toil,\nProclus\u2014the scholar, stored with the opinions of the past, surrounded by\nthe admiration of the present\u2014the astronomer, the geometrician, the\nphilosopher,\u2014learned in the lore of symbols and of oracles, in the rapt\nutterances of Orpheus and of Zoroaster\u2014an adept in the ritual of\ninvocations among every people in the world\u2014he, at the close, pronounces\nQuietism the consummation of the whole, and an unreasoning\ncontemplation, an ecstasy which casts off as an incumbrance all the\nknowledge so painfully acquired, the bourne of all the journey.\n\nMRS. ATHERTON. As though it were the highest glory of man, forgetting\nall that his enquiry has achieved, hidden away from the world,\u2014to gaze\nat vacancy, inactive and infantine;\u2014to be like some peasant\u2019s child left\nin its cradle for a while in the furrow of a field, shut in by the\nlittle mound of earth on either side, and having but the blue \u00e6ther\nabove, dazzling and void, at which to look up with smiles of witless\nwonder.\n\n\n Note to page 103.\n\n\n_Iamblichus, de Mysteriis_, sect. x. cc. 1, 4, 6; iii. 4, 8, 6, 24; i.\n5, 6; ii. 3; iii. 31; ii. 4, 6, 7; iii. 1, 3. These passages, in the\norder given, will be found to correspond with the opinions expressed in\nthe letter as those of Iamblichus.\n\nThe genuineness of the treatise _De Mysteriis_ has been called in\nquestion, but its antiquity is undoubted. It differs only in one or two\nvery trivial statements from the doctrines of Iamblichus as ascertained\nfrom other sources, and is admitted by all to be the production, if not\nof Iamblichus himself, of one of his disciples, probably writing under\nhis direction. _Jules Simon_, ii. 219.\n\nFor the opinions ascribed to Porphyry in this letter, see his _Epistola\nad Anebonem_, passim. He there proposes a series of difficult questions,\nand displays that sceptical disposition, especially concerning the\npretensions of Theurgy, which so much scandalized Iamblichus. The _De\nMysteriis_ is an elaborate reply to that epistle, under the name of\nAbammon.\n\nIn several passages of the _De Mysteriis_ (ii. 11; v. 1, 2, 3, 7; vi. 6)\nIamblichus displays much anxiety lest his zeal for Theurgy should lead\nhim to maintain any position inconsistent with the reverence due to the\ngods. He was closely pressed on this weak point by the objections of\nPorphyry. (_Ep. ad Anebon._ 5, 6.) His explanation in reply is, that the\ndeities are not in reality drawn down by the mere human will of the\nTheurgist, but that man is raised to a participation in the power of the\ngods. The approximation is real, but the apparent descent of divinity is\nin fact the ascent of humanity. By his long course of preparation, by\nhis knowledge of rites and symbols, of potent hymns, and of the\nmysterious virtues of certain herbs and minerals, the Theurgist is\nsupposed to rise at last to the rank of an associate with celestial\npowers; their knowledge and their will become his, and he controls\ninferior natures with the authority of the gods themselves.\n\nIamblichus supposes, moreover, that there is an order of powers in the\nworld, irrational and undiscerning, who are altogether at the bidding of\nman when by threats or conjurations he chooses to compel them. _De\nMyst._ vi. 5.\n\nFootnote 26:\n\n _J. Simon_, i. 154; ii. 173.\n\nFootnote 27:\n\n _J. Simon_, liv. iii. chap. 4.\n\nFootnote 28:\n\n See Note, p. 106.\n\nFootnote 29:\n\n _Jules Simon_, ii. 218.\n\n\n\n\n BOOK THE FOURTH\n MYSTICISM IN THE GREEK CHURCH\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER I.\n\n\n Questi ordini di su tutti s\u2019ammirano\n E di gi\u00f9 vincon si che verso Iddio\n Tutti tirati sono e tutti tirano.\n E Dionisio con tanto disio\n A contemplar questi ordini si mise,\n Che li nom\u00f2 e distinse com\u2019 io.[30]\n\n DANTE.\n\n\nKATE. I have been looking at the pictures in Mrs. Jameson\u2019s _Sacred and\nLegendary Art_, of those strange creatures, the hermit saints\u2014the\nFathers of the desert. Only see this one, what a mane and claws! The two\nlions digging the grave there are own brothers to the holy men\nthemselves.\n\nATHERTON. Yet they claimed powers as much above humanity as, to look at\nthem, you would think them beneath it.\n\nGOWER. Religious Nebuchadnezzars.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. No shavelings, at any rate, like the smooth-faced sanctities\nof the later calendar.\n\nATHERTON. You will find among these anchorites almost all the\nwonder-working pretensions of medi\u00e6val mysticism in full development,\nthus early;\u2014the discernment of spirits, gift of prophecy, miraculous\npowers of various kinds, ecstasy, exorcism, &c. &c. I should take St.\nAntony as a fair specimen of the whole class.[31]\n\nMRS. ATHERTON. Look, here is his picture; there he stands, with crutch\nand bell and pig.\n\nATHERTON. The bell denotes his power over evil spirits, and the pig the\nvanquished d\u00e6mon of sensuality. In his life, by Athanasius, there is a\nfull account of his battle with many d\u00e6mons in the shape of lions,\nbulls, and bears. He passed twenty years in an old castle which he found\nfull of serpents. The power of the saint expelled those unpleasant\naborigines. That nose, you see there, was supposed to possess the\nfaculty of detecting by its miraculous keenness of scent the proximity\nof an evil spirit. There is an odour of iniquity, you must know, as well\nas an odour of sanctity. This disposition to literalize metaphors gave\ncurrency to the monkish stories of after times concerning the refreshing\nfragrance found to arise from the remains of disinterred saints. In\nfact, the materialization of the spiritual, or what passes for such, is\nthe characteristic principle of the theurgic mysticism within the Roman\nCatholic Church. St. Antony, on one occasion, sees his own soul,\nseparated from the body, carried through the air.\n\nGOWER. A striking instance, I should say, of the objectivity of the\nsubject.\n\nATHERTON. One of his visions is not without grandeur. The brethren had\nbeen questioning him one day concerning the state of departed spirits.\nThe following night he heard a voice saying, \u2018Antony, get up; go out and\nlook!\u2019 He obeyed, and saw a gigantic figure, whose head was in the\nclouds, and whose outstretched arms extended far across the sky. Many\nsouls were fluttering in the air, and endeavouring, as they found\nopportunity, to fly upward past this dreadful being. Numbers of them he\nseized in the attempt, and dashed back upon the earth. Some escaped him\nand exulted above, while he raged at their success. Thus sorrowing and\nrejoicing were mingled together, as some were defeated and others\ntriumphant. This, he was given to understand, was the rise and fall of\nsouls.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. That picture would be really Dantesque, if only a little\nmore definite. Macarius is another great name, too, among these\nChristian ascetics and theurgists\u2014the one who retired to the deserts of\nNitria in the fourth century.\n\nATHERTON. He is not only famous for his measure of the supernatural\npowers ascribed to his brethren, but his homilies have been appealed to\nby modern theopathetic mystics as an authority for Quietism. He teaches\nperfectionist doctrine, certainly, but I do not think his words will\nbear the construction Poiret and others would give them. He was at least\ninnocent of the _sainte indiff\u00e9rence_.[32]\n\nMRS. ATHERTON. You said we were to discuss Dionysius the Areopagite this\nevening.\n\nKATE. Pray introduce me first. I know nothing about him.\n\nATHERTON. No one does know who really wrote the books which passed under\nthat name. It is generally admitted that the forgery could not have been\ncommitted earlier than the middle of the fifth century, probably\nsomewhat later. So all I can tell you is, that somewhere or other (it is\nnot unlikely at Constantinople, but there is no certainty), about the\ntime when Theodoric was master of Italy\u2014when the Vandal swarms had not\nyet been expelled from northern Africa\u2014while Constantinople was in\nuproar between the greens and the blues, and rival ecclesiastics headed\ncity riots with a rabble of monks, artizans, and bandit soldiery at\ntheir heels\u2014while orthodoxy was grappling with the Monophysite and\nEutychian heresies on either hand, and the religious world was rocking\nstill with the groundswell that followed those stormy synods in which\nPalestine and Alexandria, Asia and Constantinople, from opposite\nquarters, gathered their strength against each other\u2014a monk or priest\nwas busy, in his quiet solitude, with the fabrication of sundry\ntreatises and letters which were to find their way into the Church under\nthe all-but apostolic auspices of that convert made by the Apostle of\nthe Gentiles when he spoke on Mars Hill. The writings would seem to have\nbeen first appealed to as genuine in the year 533. As heretics cited\nthem, their authority was disputed at the outset; but being found\nfavourable to the growing claims of the hierarchy, and likely to be\nuseful, they were soon recognised and employed accordingly.[33]\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Proclus could not have been long dead, and his reputation\nmust have been still at its height, when this anonymous\u2014let us call him\nDionysius at once\u2014was writing his Platonized theology.\n\nATHERTON. With the divines of Byzantium Proclus represented the grand\nold world of Greek thought. Even those who wrote against him as a\nheathen betray the influence he exercised on their doctrines. The object\nof Dionysius evidently was to accommodate the theosophy of Proclus to\nChristianity. Another aim, not less conspicuous, was to strengthen all\nthe pretensions of the priesthood, and to invest with a new traditionary\nsanction the ascetic virtues of the cloister.\n\nFootnote 30:\n\n All these orders gaze admiring upward, and exert an influence downward\n (each on that immediately beneath it), so that they all together\n reciprocally draw and are drawn toward God. Dionysius gave himself\n with such zeal to the contemplation of them that he named and\n distinguished them as I have done.\n\nFootnote 31:\n\n _Athanasii Opp. Vita S. Antonii._ The vision alluded to is related p.\n 498.\n\nFootnote 32:\n\n Poiret, _Bibliotheca Mysticorum_, p. 95. Macarius gives great\n prominence to the doctrine of Union\u2014describes the streaming in of the\n Hypostatic Light\u2014how the spiritual nature is all-pervaded by the\n glory, and even the body is not so gross as to be impenetrable by the\n divine radiance. Some centuries later we find the monks of Mount Athos\n professing to discern this supernatural effulgence illuminating their\n stomachs. Gass, _Die Mystik des N. Cabasilas_, p. 56.\n\nFootnote 33:\n\n In the year 533 the books of Dionysius were cited by the Severians,\n and their genuineness called in question by the bishop because neither\n Athanasius nor Cyril had made any allusion to them. _Acta Concil.\n Hard._ ii. p. 1159.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER II.\n\n\n They that pretend to these heights call them the secrets of the\n kingdom; but they are such which no man can describe; such which God\n hath not revealed in the publication of the Gospel; such for the\n acquiring of which there are no means prescribed, and to which no\n man is obliged, and which are not in any man\u2019s power to obtain; nor\n such which it is lawful to pray for or desire; nor concerning which\n we shall ever be called to account.\u2014JEREMY TAYLOR.\n\n\n\u2018I have here,\u2019 said Atherton on the next evening, \u2018some notes on the\ndoctrine of this pretended Areopagite\u2014a short summary; shall I read it?\u2019\n\n\u2018By all means.\u2019\n\nSo the following abstract was listened to\u2014and with creditable\npatience.[34]\n\n(1.) All things have emanated from God, and the end of all is return to\nGod. Such return\u2014deification, he calls it\u2014is the consummation of the\ncreature, that God may finally be all in all. A process of evolution, a\ncentrifugal movement in the Divine Nature, is substituted in reality for\ncreation. The antithesis of this is the centripetal process, or movement\nof involution, which draws all existence towards the point of the Divine\ncentre. The degree of real existence possessed by any being is the\namount of God in that being\u2014for God is the existence in all things. Yet\nHe himself cannot be said to exist, for he is above existence. The more\nor less of God which the various creatures possess is determined by the\nproximity of their order to the centre.\n\n(2.) The chain of being in the upper and invisible world, through which\nthe Divine Power diffuses itself in successive gradations, he calls the\nCelestial Hierarchy. The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy is a corresponding\nseries in the visible world. The orders of Angelic natures and of\npriestly functionaries correspond to each other. The highest rank of the\nformer receive illumination immediately from God. The lowest of the\nheavenly imparts divine light to the highest of the earthly hierarchy.\nEach order strives perpetually to approximate to that immediately above\nitself, from which it receives the transmitted influence; so that all,\nas Dante describes it, draw and are drawn, and tend in common towards\nthe centre\u2014God.\n\nThe three triads of angelic existences, to whom answer the ranks of the\nterrestrial hierarchy, betrays the influence of Proclus, whose hierarchy\nof ideas corresponds, in a similar manner, to his hierarchy of\nhypostases.\n\nGOWER. The system reminds one of those old pictures which are divided\ninto two compartments, the upper occupied by angels and cherubs on the\nclouds, and the lower by human beings on the earth, gazing devoutly\nupward at their celestial benefactors.\n\nATHERTON. The work of Christ is thrown into the background to make room\nfor the Church. The Saviour answers, with Dionysius, rather to the Logos\nof the Platonist than to the Son of God revealed in Scripture. He is\nallowed to be, as incarnate, the founder of the Ecclesiastical\nHierarchy; but, as such, he is removed from men by the long chain of\npriestly orders, and is less the Redeemer, than remotely the\nIlluminator, of the species.\n\nPurification, illumination, perfection,\u2014the three great stages of ascent\nto God (which plays so important a part in almost every succeeding\nattempt to systematise mysticism) are mystically represented by the\nthree sacraments,\u2014Baptism, the Eucharist, and Unction. The Church is the\ngreat Mystagogue: its liturgy and offices a profound and elaborate\nsystem of symbolism.\n\n(3.) The Greek theory, with its inadequate conception of the nature of\nsin, compels Dionysius virtually to deny the existence of evil.\nEverything that exists is good, the more existence the more goodness, so\nthat evil is a coming short of existence. He hunts sin boldly from place\nto place throughout the universe, and drives it at last into the\nobscurity of the limbo he contrives for it, where it lies among things\nunreal.\n\nAll that exists he regards as a symbolical manifestation of the\nsuper-existent. What we call creation is the divine allegory. In nature,\nin Scripture, in tradition, God is revealed only in figure. This sacred\nimagery should be studied, but in such study we are still far from any\nadequate cognizance of the Divine Nature. God is above all negation and\naffirmation: in Him such contraries are at once identified and\ntranscended. But by negation we approach most nearly to a true\napprehension of what He is.\n\nNegation and affirmation, accordingly, constitute the two opposed and\nyet simultaneous methods he lays down for the knowledge of the Infinite.\nThese two paths, the _Via Negativa_ (or Apophatica) and the _Via\nAffirmativa_ (or Cataphatica) constitute the foundation of his\nmysticism. They are distinguished and elaborated in every part of his\nwritings. The positive is the descending process. In the path downward\nfrom God, through inferior existences, the Divine Being may be said to\nhave many names;\u2014the negative method is one of ascent; in that, God is\nregarded as nameless, the inscrutable Anonymous. The symbolical or\nvisible is thus opposed, in the Platonist style, to the mystical or\nideal. To assert anything concerning a God who is above all affirmation\nis to speak in figure, to veil him. The more you deny concerning Him,\nthe more of such veils do you remove. He compares the negative method of\nspeaking concerning the Supreme to the operation of the sculptor, who\nstrikes off fragment after fragment of the marble, and progresses by\ndiminution.\n\n(4.) Our highest knowledge of God, therefore, is said to consist in\nmystic ignorance. In omni-nescience we approach Omniscience. This Path\nof Negation is the highway of mysticism. It is by refraining from any\nexercise of the intellect or of the imagination\u2014by self-simplification,\nby withdrawal into the inmost, the divine essence of our nature\u2014that we\nsurpass the ordinary condition of humanity, and are united in ecstasy\nwith God. Dionysius does not insist so much on Union as the later\nmystics, but he believes, at all events, that the eminent saint may\nattain on earth an indescribable condition of soul\u2014an elevation far\ntranscending the reach of our natural faculties\u2014an approach towards the\nbeatific vision of those who are supposed to gaze directly on the Divine\nEssence in heaven. His disciple is perpetually exhorted to aspire to\nthis climax of abstraction\u2014above sight, and thought, and feeling, as to\nthe highest aim of man.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. What contradictions are here! With one breath he extols\nineffable ignorance as the only wisdom; with the next he pretends to\nelucidate the Trinity, and reads you off a muster-roll of the heavenly\nhierarchies.\n\nGOWER. And are not these, supplemented by the hierarchy of\necclesiastics, his real objects of worship? No man could make an actual\nGod of that super-essential ultimatum, that blank Next-to-Nothingness\nwhich the last Neo-Platonists imagined as their Supreme. Proclus could\nnot; Dionysius could not. What then? A reaction comes, which, after\nrefining polytheism to an impalpable unity, restores men to polytheism\nonce more. Up mounts speculation, rocket-like: men watch it, a single\nsoaring star with its train of fire, and, at the height, it breaks into\na scattering shower of many-coloured sparks. From that Abstraction of\nwhich nothing can be predicated, nothing can be expected. The figment\nabove being is above benignity. So the objects of invocation are gods,\ndemi-gods, d\u00e6mons, heroes; or, when baptized, cherubim, seraphim,\nthrones, dominions, powers, archangels, angels, saints; in either case,\nwhether at Athens or at Constantinople, the excessive subtilisation of\nthe One contributes toward the worship of the Manifold.\n\nATHERTON. The theology of the Neo-Platonists was always in the first\ninstance a mere matter of logic. It so happened that they confounded\nUniversals with causes. The miserable consequence is clear. The Highest\nbecomes with them, as he is with Dionysius, merely the most\ncomprehensive, the universal idea, which includes the world, as genus\nincludes species.[35]\n\nMRS. ATHERTON. The divinity of this old Father must be a bleak affair\nindeed\u2014Christianity frozen out.\n\nGOWER. I picture him to myself as entering with his philosophy into the\ntheological structure of that day, like Winter into the cathedral of the\nwoods (which an autumn of decline has begun to harm already);\u2014what life\nyet lingers, he takes away,\u2014he untwines the garlands from the pillars of\nthe trees, extinguishes the many twinkling lights the sunshine hung\nwavering in the foliage, silences all sounds of singing, and fills the\ndarkened aisles and dome with a coldly-descending mist, whose silence is\nextolled as above the power of utterance,\u2014its blinding, chill\nobscureness lauded as clearer than the intelligence and warmer than the\nfervour of a simple and scriptural devotion.\n\nATHERTON. You have described my experience in reading him, though I must\nsay he suggested nothing to me about your cathedral of the woods, &c.\nHis verbose and turgid style, too, is destitute of all genuine\nfeeling.[36] He piles epithet on epithet, throws superlative on\nsuperlative, hyperbole on hyperbole, and it is but log upon log,\u2014he puts\nno fire under, neither does any come from elsewhere. He quotes\nScripture\u2014as might be expected\u2014in the worst style, both of the schoolman\nand the mystic. Fragments are torn from their connexion, and carried\naway to suffer the most arbitrary interpretation, and strew his pages\nthat they may appear to illustrate or justify his theory.\n\nGOWER. How forlorn do those texts of Scripture look that you discern\nscattered over the works of such writers, so manifestly transported from\na region of vitality and warmth to an expanse of barrenness. They make\nthe context look still more sterile, and while they say there must be\nlife _somewhere_, seem to affirm, no less emphatically, that it is not\nin the neighbourhood about them. They remind me of those leaves from the\nchestnut and the birch I once observed upon a glacier. There they lay,\nforeign manifestly to the treeless world in which they were found; the\nice appeared to have shrunk from them, and they from the ice; each\nisolated leaf had made itself a cup-like cavity, a tiny open sarcophagus\nof crystal, in which it had lain, perhaps for several winters.\nDoubtless, a tempest, which had been vexing some pleasant valley far\ndown beneath, and tearing at its trees, must have whirled them up\nthither. Yet the very presence of the captives reproached the poverty of\nthe Snow-King who detained them, testifying as they did to a genial\nclime elsewhere, whose products that ice-world could no more put forth,\nthan can such frozen speculations as this of Dionysius, the ripening\n\u2018fruits of the Spirit.\u2019\n\nWILLOUGHBY. His lurking fatalism and his pantheism were forgiven him, no\ndoubt, on consideration of his services to priestly assumption. He\ndescends from his most cloudy abstraction to assert the mysterious\nsignificance and divine potency of all the minuti\u00e6 of the ecclesiastical\napparatus and the sacerdotal etiquette. What a reputation these writings\nhad throughout the middle age!\n\nATHERTON. Dionysius is the mythical hero of mysticism. You find traces\nof him everywhere. Go almost where you will through the writings of the\nmedi\u00e6val mystics, into their depths of nihilism, up their heights of\nrapture or of speculation, through their over-growth of fancy, you find\nhis authority cited, his words employed, his opinions more or less fully\ntransmitted, somewhat as the traveller in the Pyrenees discerns the fame\nof the heroic Roland still preserved in the names and in the legends of\nthe rock, the valley, or the flower. Passages from the Areopagite were\nculled, as their warrant and their insignia, by the priestly ambassadors\nof mysticism, with as much care and reverence as the sacred verben\u00e6 that\ngrew within the enclosure of the Capitoline by the Feciales of Rome.\n\nMRS. ATHERTON. \u2018Oh, sweet Fancy, let her loose,\u2019 as Keats says. I think\nmy husband has been learning in Mr. Gower\u2019s school. How far he went to\nfetch that simile!\n\nGOWER. Perhaps he has my excuse in this case, that he could not help it.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Or he may at once boldly put in the plea of Sterne, who in\none place lays claim to the gratitude of his readers for having voyaged\nto fetch a metaphor all the way to the Guinea coast and back.\n\nATHERTON. It contributed greatly to the influence of the Areopagite that\nhe became confounded with the Dionysius, or St. Denys, who was adopted\nas the patron-saint of France.\n\nKATE. A singular fortune, indeed: so that he was two other people\nbesides himself;\u2014like Mrs. Malaprop\u2019s Cerberus, three gentlemen at once.\n\nGOWER. I think we have spent time enough upon him. Grievously do I pity\nthe miserable monks his commentators, whose minds, submerged in the\n_mare tenebrosum_ of the cloister, had to pass a term of years in the\nmazy arborescence of his verbiage,\u2014like so many insects within their\ncells in the branches of a great coral.[37]\n\nATHERTON. Don\u2019t throw away so much good compassion, I dare say it kept\nthem out of mischief.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. I cannot get that wretched abstraction out of my head which\nthe Neo-Platonists call deity. How such a notion must have dislocated\nall their ethics from head to foot! The merest anthropomorphism had been\nbetter;\u2014yes, Homer and Hesiod are truer, after all.\n\nATHERTON. I grant the gravity of the mischief. But we must not be too\nhard on this ecclesiastical Neo-Platonism. It does but follow Aristotle\nhere. You remember he considers the possession of virtues as quite out\nof the question in the case of the gods.\n\nGOWER. Is it possible? Why, that is as though a man should lame himself\nto run the faster. Here is a search after God, in which, at starting,\nall moral qualities are removed from him; so that the testimony of\nconscience cannot count for anything;\u2014the inward directory is sealed;\nthe clue burnt. Truly the world by wisdom knew not God!\n\nWILLOUGHBY. This unquestionably is the fatal error of Greek\nspeculation\u2014the subordination of morals to the intellectual refinements\nof an ultra-human spiritualism. Even with Numenius you have to go down\nthe scale to a subordinate god or hypostasis before you arrive at a\ndeity who condescends to be _good_.\n\nGOWER. How much \u2018salt\u2019 there must still have been in the medi\u00e6val\nChristianity to survive, as far as it did, the reception of these old\nethical mistakes into the very heart of its doctrine!\n\nATHERTON. Aristotle reasons thus: how can the gods exhibit fortitude,\nwho have nothing to fear\u2014justice and honesty, without a\nbusiness\u2014temperance, without passions? Such insignificant things as\nmoral actions are beneath them. They do not toil, as men. They do not\nsleep, like Endymion, \u2018on the Latmian hill.\u2019 What remains? They lead a\nlife of contemplation;\u2014in contemplative energy lies their\nblessedness.[38] So the contemplative sage who _energises_ directly\ntoward the central Mind\u2014the intellectual source and ultimatum, is the\ntrue imitator of the divine perfections.\n\nGOWER. Transfer this principle to Christianity, and the monk becomes\nimmediately the highest style of man.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. And you have a double morality at once: heroic or superhuman\nvirtues, the graces of contemplation for the saintly few,\u2014glorious in\nproportion to their uselessness; and ordinary virtues for the\nmany,\u2014social, serviceable, and secondary.\n\nATHERTON. Not that the schoolman would release his saint altogether from\nthe obligations of ordinary morality; but he would say, this ordinary\nmorality does not fit the contemplatist for heaven\u2014it is but a\npreliminary exercise\u2014a means to an end, and that end, the transcendence\nof everything creaturely, a superhuman exaltation, the ceasing from his\nlabours, and swooning as it were into the divine repose.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Then I must put in a word for our mystics. It is not they\nwho corrupted Christian morals by devising this divorce between the\nvirtues of daily life and certain other virtues which are _un_human,\nanti-terrestrial, hypercreaturely\u2014forgive the word\u2014they drive us hard\nfor language. They found the separation already accomplished; they only\ntilled with ardour the plot of ground freely allotted them by the\nChurch.\n\nATHERTON. Just so; in this doctrine of moral dualism\u2014the prolific mother\nof mystics\u2014Aquinas is as far gone as Bernard.\n\nGOWER. The mention of Bernard\u2019s name makes one impatient to get away\nfrom the Greek Church, westward.\n\nATHERTON. We may say farewell to Byzantium now. That Greek Church never\ngrew beyond what it was in the eighth and ninth centuries.\n\nGOWER. I have always imagined it a dwarf, watching a Nibelungen hoard,\nwhich after all never enriches anybody. Nothing but that tedious\ncounting, and keeping tidy, and standing sentinel, for ages.\n\nATHERTON. See what good a little fighting does. The Greek Church had its\nscholastic element\u2014witness John of Damascus; it had its mystical\u2014as we\nhave seen; but neither the one nor the other was ever developed to such\nvigour as to assert itself against its rival, and struggle for mastery.\nIn the West the two principles have their battles, their armistices,\ntheir reconciliations, and both are the better. In the East they are\ncoupled amicably in the leash of antiquity, and dare not so much as\nsnarl.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. I suppose the mysticism of the Greek Church was more\nobjective, as the Germans would say,\u2014dependent on its sacramental media\nand long trains of angelic and human functionaries, handing down\nillumination; that of the West, subjective.\n\nATHERTON. That will be generally true. The eastern mysticism creeps\nunder the sacerdotal vestments, is never known to quit the precincts of\nchurch and cloister, clings close to the dalmatica, and lives on whiffs\nof frankincense. The western is often to be found far from candle, book,\nand bell, venturing to worship without a priest.\n\nIn short, as Gower would antithetically say, the mystic of the East is\nalways a slave, the mystic of the West often a rebel; Symbolism is the\nbadge of the one, Individualism the watch-word of the other.\n\nGOWER. How spiteful you are to-night, Atherton. I propose that we break\nup, and hear nothing more you may have to say.\n\n\n Note to Page 121.\n\n\nAristotle extols contemplation, because it does not require means and\nopportunity, as do the social virtues, generosity, courage, &c. Plotinus\nlays still more stress on his distinction between the mere political\nvirtues\u2014which constitute simply a preparatory, purifying process, and\nthe superior, or exemplary\u2014those divine attainments whereby man is\nunited with God. Aquinas adopts this classification, and distinguishes\nthe virtues as _exemplares_, _purgatori\u00e6_ and _politic\u00e6_. He even goes\nso far as to give to each of the cardinal virtues a contemplative and\nascetic turn; designating Prudence, in its highest exercise, as contempt\nfor all things worldly; Temperance is abstraction from the sensuous;\nFortitude, courage in sustaining ourselves in the aerial regions of\ncontemplation, remote from the objects of sense; Justice, the absolute\nsurrender of the spirit to this law of its aspiration. He argues that,\nas man\u2019s highest blessedness is a beatitude surpassing the limits of\nhuman nature, he can be prepared for it only by having added to that\nnature certain principles from the divine;\u2014such principles are the\ntheological or superhuman virtues, Faith, Hope, and Charity. See\nM\u00fcnscher\u2019s _Dogmengeschichte_, 2 Abth. 2 Absch. \u00a7 136.\n\nIn consequence of the separation thus established between the human and\nthe divine, we shall find the mystics of the fourteenth century\nrepresenting regeneration almost as a process of dehumanization, and as\nthe substitution of a divine nature for the human in the subject of\ngrace. No theologians could have been further removed from Pelagianism;\nfew more forgetful than these ardent contemplatists that divine\ninfluence is vouchsafed, not to obliterate and supersede our natural\ncapacities by some almost miraculous faculty, but to restore and elevate\nman\u2019s nature, to realise its lost possibilities, and to consecrate it\nwholly, in body and soul\u2014not in spirit, merely\u2014to the service of God.\n\nWith one voice both schoolmen and mystics would reason thus:\u2014\u2018Is not\nheaven the extreme opposite of this clouded, vexed, and sensuous life?\nThen we approach its blessedness most nearly by a life the most contrary\npossible to the secular,\u2014by contemplation, by withdrawment, by total\nabstraction from sense.\u2019\n\nThis is one view of our best preparation for the heavenly world. At the\nopposite pole stands Behmen\u2019s doctrine, far less dangerous, and to be\npreferred if we must have an extreme, _viz._, that the believer is\nvirtually in the heavenly state already\u2014that eternity should be to us as\ntime, and time as eternity.\n\nBetween these two stands the scriptural teaching. St. Paul does not\nattempt to persuade himself that earth is heaven, that faith is sight,\nthat hope is fruition. He groans here, being burdened; he longs to have\ndone with shortcoming and with conflict; to enter on the vision face to\nface, on the unhindered service of the state of glory. But he does not\ndeem it the best preparation for heaven to mimic upon earth an imaginary\ncelestial repose,\u2014he will rather labour to-day his utmost at the work\nto-day may bring,\u2014he will fight the good fight, he will finish his\ncourse, and then receive the crown.\n\nFootnote 34:\n\n For the passages authenticating this account, see _Dion. Areop. Opp._\n as follows:\u2014\n\n (1.) _De Div. Nom._ c. iv. \u00a7 1; v. 3, 6, 8; vi. 2, 3; i. 1. _De Eccl.\n Hier._ i. 3.\n\n (2.) _De C\u0153l. Hier._ i. 2, 3; v. 3, 4; vii. _De Eccl. Hier._ i. 1; x.\n 3. The resemblance of this whole process to the Pr\u00f6odos and Epistrophe\n of Plotinus is sufficiently obvious.\n\n (3.) _De Div. Nom._ iv. 20, p. 488. The chase after evil runs through\n sections 24-34. He sums up in one place thus:\u2014\u2018In a word, good springs\n from the sole and complete cause, but evil from many and partial\n defects. God knows the evil as good, and with him the causes of things\n evil are beneficent powers.\u2019 Proclus seeks escape from the hopeless\n difficulty in precisely the same way.\n\n Concerning the _Via negativa_ and _affirmativa_, see _De Div. Nom._ i.\n 1, 5, 4; _De C\u0153l. Hier._ xv.; and _De Myst. Theol._ i. 2, 3.\n\n (4.) _Ibid._ Also, _Ep. ad. Dorotheum_, _De Myst. Theol._ iii. pp.\n 714, 721.\n\nFootnote 35:\n\n See Meier, \u2018_Dionysii Areop. et Mysticorum s\u00e6culi_ xiv. _doctrin\u00e6\n inter se comparantur_.\u2019 He remarks justly \u2018caus\u00e6 ad Causatum\n relationem cum relatione generis ad speciem confudit\u2019, p. 13.\n\nFootnote 36:\n\n The _hyper_ and the _a_ privative are in constant requisition with\n Dionysius. He cannot suffer any ordinary epithet to go alone, and many\n of his adjectives march pompously, attended by a _hyper_ on one side,\n and a superlative termination on the other.\n\nFootnote 37:\n\n The later Greek theology modified the most objectionable parts of the\n Dionysian doctrine, while continuing to reverence him as a Father. See\n Ullmann\u2019s _Nicholas von Methone_.\n\nFootnote 38:\n\n Aristot. _Eth. Nic._ lib. x. c. 8.\u2014See Note, Page 123.\n\n\n\n\n BOOK THE FIFTH\n MYSTICISM IN THE LATIN CHURCH\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER I.\n\n\n Look up, my Ethel!\n When on the glances of the upturned eye\n The plumed thoughts take travel, and ascend\n Through the unfathomable purple mansions,\n Threading the golden fires, and ever climbing\n As if \u2019twere homewards winging\u2014at such time\n The native soul, distrammelled of dim earth,\n Doth know herself immortal, and sits light\n Upon her temporal perch.\n\n VIOLENZIA.\n\n\nThe winter had now broken up his encampment, and was already in full\nretreat. With the approach of spring the mystical conversations of our\nfriends entered on the period of the Middle Ages. The lengthening\nmornings found Atherton early at his desk, sipping a solitary and\npreliminary cup of coffee, and reading or writing. Willoughby felt his\ninvention quickened by the season, and a new elasticity pervade him. His\nromance advanced with fewer hindrances from that cross-grained\ndissatisfaction which used so frequently to disfigure his manuscript\nwith the thorny scratches and interlineations of an insatiable\ncorrection.\n\nGower, too, could enter once more on the enjoyment of his favourite walk\nbefore breakfast. In wandering through the dewy meadows, in \u2018the\nslanting sunlight of the dawn,\u2019 he felt, as we all must, that there is\ntruth in what the chorus of mystics have ever said or sung about the\ninadequacy of words to express the surmise and aspiration of the soul.\nIn a morning solitude there seems to lie about our fields of thought an\naerial wealth too plenteous to be completely gathered into the granary\nof language.\n\n O who would mar the season with dull speech,\n That must tie up our visionary meanings\n And subtle individual apprehensions\n Into the common tongue of every man?\n And of the swift and scarce detected visitants\n Of our illusive thoughts seek to make prisoners,\n And only grasp their garments.\n\nIt is one of the pleasant pastimes of the spring to watch day by day the\nvarious ways in which the trees express, by a physiognomy and gesture of\ntheir own, their expectation of the summer. Look at those young and\ndelicate ones, alive with impatience to the tip of every one of the\nthousand sprays that tremble distinct against the sky, swaying uneasily\nto and fro in the sharp morning breeze. They seem longing to slip their\nrooted hold upon the earth, and float away to embrace their bridegroom\nsun in the air. And see those veterans\u2014what a gnarled, imperturbable\ngravity in those elder citizens of park or wood: they are used to it;\nlet the day bring new weatherstains or new buds, they can bide their\ntime. And are they not already wrapped, many of them, in hood and habit\nof dark glossy ivy\u2014woodland senatorial fur\u2014they can afford to wait.\nHere, look, close beside us, the eyes of the buds are even now peeping\nthrough the black lattice of the boughs, and those amber-coloured clouds\noverhead are looking them promises of kindly showers as they sail by.\nWhat is that sparkling on yonder hill? Only the windows of a house with\neastern aspect: the sun lights his beacon-fire regularly there, to\nsignal to his children down in the hollow that he is coming, though they\ncannot see him yet, and will roll away the cloud from the valley mouth,\nand make the place of their night-sepulchre glorious with his shining\nraiment.\n\nAmidst these delights of nature, and the occupation of his art, Gower\nthought sometimes of the mystics who enjoy such things so little. He had\neven promised to write a short paper on the mystical schoolmen of St.\nVictor, Hugo and Richard, and was himself surprised to find how soon he\nwarmed to the subject\u2014with what zest he sought for glimpses of\ncloister-life in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.\n\nWhen next our friends met in the library, Gower expressed his hearty and\nunceremonious satisfaction at their having done, as he hoped, with that\n\u2018old bore,\u2019 Dionysius Areopagita. By none was the sentiment echoed with\nmore fervour than by Atherton, whose conscience perhaps smote him for\nsome dry reading he had inflicted on his auditors. But he made no\napology, that Gower might not think he took his remark to himself, and\nreturn him a compliment.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. To see how this world goes round! Only think of Proclus\nhaving his revenge after all,\u2014he and his fellows ruling from their urns\nwhen dead the Christianity which banished them while living.\n\nATHERTON. Not altogether satisfactory, either, could he have looked in\nupon the world, and seen the use to which they put him. It was true\nthat, under the name of Dionysius, his ideas were reverenced and\nexpounded by generations of dreaming monks,\u2014that under that name he\ncontributed largely to those influences which kept stagnant the\nreligious world of the East for some nine hundred years. But it was also\ntrue that his thoughts were thus conserved only to serve the purpose of\nhis ancient enemies; so that he assisted to confer omnipotence on those\nChristian priests whom he had cursed daily in his heart while lecturing,\nsacrificing, and conjuring at Athens.\n\nGOWER. Again I say, let us turn from the stereotyped Greek Church to the\nWest,\u2014I want to hear about St. Bernard.\n\nATHERTON. Presently. Let us try and apprehend clearly the way in which\nNeo-Platonism influenced medi\u00e6val Europe.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. A trifling preliminary! Atherton means us to stay here all\nnight. You may as well resign yourself, Gower.\n\nATHERTON. Never fear; I only want to look about me, and see where we are\njust now. Suppose ourselves sent back to the Middle Age\u2014what will be our\nnotion of Platonism? We can\u2019t read a line of Greek. We see Plato only\nthrough Plotinus, conserved by Augustine, handed down by Apuleius and\nBoethius. We reverence Aristotle, but we care only for his dialectics.\nWe only assimilate from antiquity what seems to fall within the province\nof the Church. Plato appears to us surrounded by that religious halo\nwith which Neo-Platonism invested philosophy when it grew so devotional.\nWe take Augustine\u2019s word for it that Plotinus really enunciated the\nlong-hidden esoteric doctrine of Plato. The reverent, ascetic, ecstatic\nPlatonism of Alexandria seems to us so like Christianity, that we are\nalmost ready to believe Plato a sort of harbinger for Christ. We are\ndevoted Realists; and Realism and Asceticism make the common ground of\nPlatonist and Christian. If scholastic in our tendencies, Aristotle may\nbe oftener on our lips; if mystical, Plato; but we overlook their\ndifferences. We believe, on Neo-Platonist authority, that the two great\nones were not the adversaries which had been supposed. Aristotle is in\nthe forecourt, and through study of him we pass into that inner shrine\nwhere the rapt Plato (all but a monk in our eyes) is supposed to\nexemplify the contemplative life.\n\nDionysius in the East, then, is soporific. Mysticism, there, has nothing\nto do save drowsily to label all the Church gear with symbolic meanings\nof wondrous smallness.\n\nDionysius in the West has come into a young world where vigorous minds\nhave been long accustomed to do battle on the grandest questions; grace\nand free-will\u2014how they work together; sin and redemption\u2014what they\nreally are; faith and reason\u2014what may be their limits.\n\nGOWER. Compare those great controversies with that miserable Monophysite\nand Monothelite dispute for which one can never get up an interest. How\nmuch we owe still to that large-souled Augustine.[39]\n\nATHERTON. Well, for this very reason, they might worship Dionysius as a\npatron saint to their hearts\u2019 content at St. Denis, but he could never\nbe in France the master mystagogue they made him at Byzantium. His name,\nand some elements in his system, became indeed an authority and rallying\npoint for the mystical tendency of the West, but the system as a whole\nwas never appropriated. He was reverentially dismembered, and so mixed\nup with doctrines and questions foreign to him, by a different order of\nminds, with another culture, and often with another purpose, that I\nwould defy his ghost to recognise his own legacy to the Church.\n\nGOWER. Good Hugo of St. Victor, in his _Commentary on the Hierarchies_,\ndoes certainly wonderfully soften down the pantheism of his original.\nDionysius comes out from under his hands almost rational, quite a decent\nChristian.\n\nATHERTON. And before Hugo, if you remember, John Scotus Erigena\ntranslated him, and elaborated on his basis a daring system of his own,\npantheistic I fear, but a marvel of intellectual power\u2014at least two or\nthree centuries in advance of his age. And these ideas of Erigena\u2019s,\napparently forgotten, filter through, and reappear once more at Paris in\nthe free-thinking philosophy of such men as David of Dinant and Amalric\nof Bena.[40]\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Strange enough: so that, could Dionysius have returned to\nthe world in the thirteenth century, he, the worshipper of the\npriesthood, would have found sundry of his own principles in a new\nlivery, doing service in the ranks of the laity against the clergy, and\nstrengthening the hands of that succession of heretics so long a thorn\nin the side of the corrupt hierarchy of France.\n\nATHERTON. In Germany, a century later, many of the mystics put Platonist\ndoctrine to a similar use. In fact, I think we may say generally that\nthe Neo-Platonist element, which acted as a mortal opiate in the East,\nbecame a vivifying principle in the West. There the Alexandrian doctrine\nof Emanation was abandoned, its pantheism nullified or rejected, but its\nallegorical interpretation, its exaltation, true or false, of the spirit\nabove the letter,\u2014all this was retained, and Platonism and mysticism\ntogether created a party in the Church the sworn foes of mere scholastic\nquibbling, of an arid and lifeless orthodoxy, and at last of the more\nglaring abuses which had grown up with ecclesiastical pretension.\n\nGOWER. Now for Bernard. I see the name there on that open page of your\nnote-book. Read away\u2014no excuses.\n\nATHERTON. Some old notes. But before I read them, look at this rough\nplan of the valley of Clairvaux, with its famous abbey. I made it after\nreading the _Descriptio Monasterii Clar\u00e6-Vallensis_, inserted in the\nBenedictine edition of Bernard\u2019s works. It will assist us to realize the\nlocality in which this great church-father of the twelfth century passed\nmost of his days. It was once called the Valley of Wormwood\u2014was the\nill-omened covert of banditti; Bernard and his monks come clearing and\nchanting, praying and planting; and lo! the absinthial reputation\nvanishes\u2014the valley smiles\u2014is called, and made, Clairvaux, or\nBrightdale.\n\nKATE. Transformed, in short, into \u2018a serious paradise,\u2019 as Mr. Thackeray\nwould say.\n\nATHERTON. Yes, you puss. Here, you see, I have marked two ranges of\nhills which, parting company, enclose the broad sweep of our Brightdale,\nor Fairvalley. Where the hills are nearest together you see the one\neminence covered with vines, the other with fruit trees; and on the\nsides and tops dusky groups of monks have had many a hard day\u2019s work,\ngetting rid of brambles and underwood, chopping and binding faggots, and\npreparing either slope to yield them wherewithal to drink, from the\nright hand, and to eat, from the left. Not far from this entrance to the\nvalley stands the huge pile of the abbey itself, with its towers and\ncrosses, its loop-hole windows and numerous outbuildings. That is the\nriver Aube (Alba) running down between the heights; here, you see, is a\nwinding channel the monks have dug, that a branch of it may flow in\nunder the convent walls. Good river! how hard it works for them. No\nsooner under the archway than it turns the great wheel that grinds their\ncorn, fills their caldarium, toils in the tannery, sets the fulling-mill\nagoing. Hark to the hollow booming sound, and the regular tramp, tramp\nof those giant wooden feet; and there, at last, out rushes the stream at\nthe other side of the building, all in a fume, as if it had been ground\nitself into so much snowy foam. On this other side, you see it cross,\nand join the main course of its river again. Proceeding now along the\nvalley, with your back to the monastery, you pass through the groves of\nthe orchard, watered by crossing runnels from the river, overlooked by\nthe infirmary windows\u2014a delightful spot for contemplative invalids. Then\nyou enter the great meadow\u2014what a busy scene in hay-making time, all the\nmonks out there, helped by the additional hands of _donati_ and\n_conductitii_, and the country folk from all the region round\nabout,\u2014they have been working since sunrise, and will work till vespers;\nwhen the belfry sounds for prayers at the fourth hour after sunrise,\nthey will sing their psalms in the open air to save time, and doubtless\ndine there too\u2014a monastic pic-nic. On one side of the meadow is a small\nlake, well stored with fish. See some of the brethren angling on its\nbank, where those osiers have been planted to preserve the margin; and\ntwo others have put off in a boat and are throwing their net, with\nedifying talk at whiles perhaps, on the parallel simplicity of fish and\nsinners. At the extremity of the meadow are two large farm-houses, one\non each side the river; you might mistake them for monasteries from\ntheir size and structure, but for the ploughs and yokes of oxen you see\nabout.\n\nMRS. ATHERTON. Thank you; so much for the place; and the man\u2014his\npersonal appearance\u2014is anything known about that?\n\nATHERTON. You must imagine him somewhat above the middle height, very\nthin, with a clear, transparent, red-and-white complexion; always\nretaining some colour on his hollow cheeks; his hair light; his beard\ninclining to red\u2014in his later years, mixed with white; his whole aspect\nnoble and persuasive, and when he speaks under excitement losing every\ntrace of physical feebleness in the lofty transformation of a benign\nenthusiasm.[41]\n\nNow I shall trouble you with some of my remarks, on his mysticism\nprincipally. You will conceive what a world of business he must have had\nupon his shoulders, even when at home at Clairvaux, and acting as simple\nabbot; so much detail to attend to,\u2014so many difficulties to smooth, and\nquarrels to settle, and people to advise, in connexion with his own\nnumerous charge and throughout all the surrounding neighbourhood; while\nto all this was added the care of so many infant monasteries, springing\nup at the rate of about four a year, in every part of Europe, founded on\nthe pattern of Clairvaux, and looking to him for counsel and for men. I\nscarcely need remind you how struggling Christendom sent incessant monks\nand priests, couriers and men-at-arms, to knock and blow horn at the\ngate of Clairvaux Abbey; for Bernard, and none but he, must come out and\nfight that audacious Abelard; Bernard must decide between rival Popes,\nand cross the Alps time after time to quiet tossing Italy; Bernard alone\nis the hope of fugitive Pope and trembling Church; he only can win back\nturbulent nobles, alienated people, recreant priests, when Arnold of\nBrescia is in arms at Rome, and when Catharists, Petrobrusians,\nWaldenses, and heretics of every shade, threaten the hierarchy on either\nside the Alps; and at the preaching of Bernard the Christian world pours\nout to meet the disaster of a new crusade.\n\nGOWER. And accomplishing a work like this with that emaciated,\nwretchedly dyspeptic frame of his!\u2014first of all exerting his\nextraordinary will to the utmost to unbuild his body; and then putting\nforth the same self-control to make the ruins do the work of a sound\nstructure.\n\nATHERTON. Could we have seen him at home at Clairvaux, after one of\nthose famous Italian journeys, no look or word would have betrayed a\ntaint of spiritual pride, though every rank in church and state united\nto do him honour\u2014though great cities would have made him almost by force\ntheir spiritual king\u2014though the blessings of the people and the plaudits\nof the council followed the steps of the peacemaker\u2014and though, in the\nbelief of all, a dazzling chain of miracles had made his pathway\nglorious. We should have found him in the kitchen, rebuking by his\nexample some monk who grumbled at having to wash the pots and pans; on\nthe hill-side, cutting his tale and bearing his burthen with the meanest\nnovice; or seen him oiling his own boots, as they say the arch-tempter\ndid one day; we should have interrupted him in the midst of his tender\ncounsel to some distressed soul of his cloistered flock, or just as he\nhad sat down to write a sermon on a passage in Canticles against the\nnext church-festival.[42] But now to my notes. (_Atherton reads._)\n\n In considering the religious position of Bernard, I find it not at\n all remarkable that he should have been a mystic,\u2014very remarkable\n that he should not have been much more the mystic than he was. This\n moderation may be attributed partly to his constant habit of\n searching the Scriptures\u2014studying them devotionally for himself,\n unencumbered with the commentaries reverenced by tradition.[43]\n Rigid exemplar and zealous propagator of monasticism as he was,\n these hours with the Bible proved a corrective not unblessed, and\n imparted even to the devotion of the cloister a healthier tone. Add\n to this his excellent natural judgment, and the combination, in his\n case, of the active with the contemplative life. He knew the world\n and men; he stood with his fellows in the breach, and the shock of\n conflict spoiled him for a dreamer. The distractions over which he\n expended so much complaint were his best friends. They were a\n hindrance in the way to the monastic ideal of virtue\u2014a help toward\n the Christian. They prevented his attaining that pitch of\n uselessness to which the conventual life aspires, and brought him\n down a little nearer to the meaner level of apostolic labour. They\n made him the worse monk, and by so much the better man.\n\n With Bernard the monastic life is the one thing needful. He began\n life by drawing after him into the convent all his kindred; sweeping\n them one by one from the high seas of the world with the\n irresistible vortex of his own religious fervour. His incessant cry\n for Europe is\u2014Better monasteries, and more of them. Let these\n ecclesiastical castles multiply; let them cover and command the\n land, well garrisoned with men of God, and then, despite all heresy\n and schism, theocracy will flourish, the earth shall yield her\n increase, and all people praise the Lord. Who so wise as Bernard to\n win souls for Christ\u2014that is to say, recruits for the cloister? With\n what eloquence he paints the raptures of contemplation, the vanity\n and sin of earthly ambition or of earthly love! Wherever in his\n travels Bernard may have preached, there, presently, exultant monks\n must open wide their doors to admit new converts. Wherever he goes\n he bereaves mothers of their children, the aged of their last solace\n and last support; praising those the most who leave most misery\n behind them. How sternly does he rebuke those Rachels who mourn and\n will not be comforted for children dead to them for ever! What\n vitriol does he pour into the wounds when he asks if they will drag\n their son down to perdition with themselves by resisting the\n vocation of heaven! whether it was not enough that they brought him\n forth sinful to a world of sin, and will they now, in their insane\n affection, cast him into the fires of hell?[44] Yet Bernard is not\n hard-hearted by nature. He can pity this disgraceful weakness of the\n flesh. He makes such amends as superstition may. I will be a father\n to him, he says. Alas! cold comfort. You, their hearts will answer,\n whose flocks are countless, would nothing content you but our ewe\n lamb? Perhaps some cloister will be, for them too, the last resource\n of their desolation. They will fly for ease in their pain to the\n system which caused it. Bernard hopes so. So inhuman is the humanity\n of asceticism; cruel its tender mercies; thus does it depopulate the\n world of its best in order to improve it.\n\n To measure, then, the greatness of Bernard, let me clearly apprehend\n the main purpose of his life. It was even this convent-founding,\n convent-ruling business. This is his proper praise, that, though\n devoted body and soul, to a system so false, he himself should have\n retained and practised so much of truth.\n\n The task of history is a process of selection. The farther we recede\n from a period, the more do we eliminate of what interests us no\n longer. A few leading events stand clearly out as characteristic of\n the time, and about them all our details are clustered. But when\n dealing with an individual, or with the private life of any age, the\n method must be reversed, and we must encumber ourselves again with\n all the cast-off baggage that strews the wayside of time\u2019s march.\n\n So with Bernard. The Abelard controversy, the schism, the quarrels\n of pope and emperor, the crusade, are seen by us\u2014who know what\n happened afterwards\u2014in their true importance. These facts make the\n epoch, and throw all else into shade. But we could not so have\n viewed them in the press and confusion of the times that saw them\n born. Bernard and his monks were not always thinking of Abelard or\n Anaclet, of Arnold of Brescia, Roger of Sicily, or Lothaire. In the\n great conflicts which these names recal to our minds, Bernard bore\n his manful part as a means to an end. Many a sleepless night must\n they have cost him, many a journey full of anxiety and hardship,\n many an agonizing prayer, on the eve of a crisis calling for all his\n skill and all his courage. But these were difficulties which he was\n summoned to encounter on his road to the great object of his\n life\u2014the establishment of ecclesiastical supremacy by means of the\n conventual institute. The quarrels within the Church, and between\n the Church and the State, must be in some sort settled before his\n panacea could be applied to the sick body of the time. In the midst\n of such controversies a host of minor matters would demand his\n care,\u2014to him of scarcely less moment, to us indifferent. There would\n be the drawing out of convent charters and convent rules, the\n securing of land, of money, of armed protection for the rapidly\n increasing family of monasteries; election of abbots and of bishops;\n guidance of the same in perplexity; holding of synods and councils,\n with the business thereto pertaining; delinquencies and spiritual\n distresses of individuals; jealous squabbles to be soothed between\n his Cistercian order and them of Cluny; suppression of clerical\n luxury and repression of lay encroachment, &c. &c. Thus the year\n 1118 would be memorable to Bernard and his monks, not so much\n because in it Gelasius ascended the chair of St. Peter, and the\n Emperor Henry gave him a rival, or even because then the order of\n Knights Templars took its rise, so much as from their joy and labour\n about the founding of two new monasteries,\u2014because that year saw the\n establishment of the first daughter of Clairvaux, the Abbey of\n Fontaines, in the diocese of Chalons; and of a sister, Fontenay,\n beside the Yonne;\u2014the one a growth northward, among the dull plains\n of Champagne, with their lazy streams and monotonous poplars; the\n other a southern colony, among the luscious slopes of vine-clad\n Burgundy.[45]\n\n Bernard had his wish. He made Clairvaux the cynosure of all\n contemplative eyes. For any one who could exist at all as a monk,\n with any satisfaction to himself, that was the place above all\n others. Brother Godfrey, sent out to be first abbot of Fontenay,\u2014as\n soon as he has set all things in order there, returns, only too\n gladly, from that rich and lovely region, to re-enter his old cell,\n to walk around, delightedly revisiting the well-remembered spots,\n among the trees or by the waterside, marking how the fields and\n gardens have come on, and relating to the eager brethren (for even\n Bernard\u2019s monks have curiosity) all that befel him in his work. He\n would sooner be third prior at Clairvaux than abbot of Fontenay. So,\n too, with brother Humbert, commissioned in like manner to regulate\n Igny Abbey (fourth daughter of Clairvaux). He soon comes back, weary\n of the labour and sick for home, to look on the Aube once more, to\n hear the old mills go drumming and droning, with that monotony of\n muffled sound\u2014the associate of his pious reveries\u2014often heard in his\n dreams when far away; to set his feet on the very same flagstone in\n the choir where he used to stand, and to be happy. But Bernard,\n though away in Italy, toiling in the matter of the schism, gets to\n hear of his return, and finds time to send him across the Alps a\n letter of rebuke for this criminal self-pleasing, whose terrible\n sharpness must have darkened the poor man\u2019s meditations for many a\n day.[46]\n\n Bernard had farther the satisfaction of improving and extending\n monasticism to the utmost; of sewing together, with tolerable\n success, the rended vesture of the papacy; of suppressing a more\n popular and more scriptural Christianity, for the benefit of his\n despotic order; of quenching for a time, by the extinction of\n Abelard, the spirit of free inquiry; and of seeing his ascetic and\n superhuman ideal of religion everywhere accepted as the genuine type\n of Christian virtue.\n\n At the same time the principles advocated by Bernard were deprived,\n in his hands, of their most noxious elements. His sincere piety, his\n large heart, his excellent judgment, always qualify, and seem\n sometimes to redeem, his errors. But the well-earned glory and the\n influence of a name achieved by an ardour and a toil almost passing\n human measure, were thrown into the wrong scale. The mischiefs\n latent in the teaching of Bernard become ruinously apparent in those\n who entered into his labours. His successes proved eventually the\n disasters of Christendom. One of the best of men made plain the way\n for some of the worst. Bernard, while a covert for the fugitive\n pontiff, hunted out by insurgent people or by wrathful emperor,\n would yet impose some rational limitations on the papal\n authority.[47] But the chair upheld by Bernard was to be filled by\n an Innocent III., whose merciless arrogance should know no bounds.\n Bernard pleaded nobly for the Jews, decimated in the crusading\n fury.[48] Yet the atrocities of Dominic were but the enkindling of\n fuel which Bernard had amassed. Disciple of tradition as he was, he\n would allow the intellect its range; zealous as he might be for\n monastic rule, the spontaneous inner life of devotion was with him\n the end\u2014all else the means. Ere long, the end was completely\n forgotten in the means. In succeeding centuries, the Church of Rome\n retained what life it could by repeating incessantly the remedy of\n Bernard. As corruption grew flagrant, new orders were devised.\n Bernard saw not, nor those who followed in his steps, that the evil\n lay, not in the defect or abuse of vows and rules, but in the\n introduction of vows and rules at all,\u2014that these unnatural\n restraints must always produce unnatural excesses.\n\n What is true concerning the kind of religious impulse imparted to\n Europe by the great endeavour of Bernard\u2019s life is no less so as\n regards the character of his mysticism.\n\n In the theology of Bernard reason has a place, but not the right\n one. His error in this respect is the primary source of that\n mystical bias so conspicuous in his religious teaching. Like Anselm,\n he bids you believe first, and understand, if possible, afterwards.\n He is not prepared to admit the great truth that if Reason yields to\n Faith, and assigns itself anywhere a limit, it must be on grounds\n satisfactory to Reason. To any measure of Anselm\u2019s remarkable\n speculative ability, Bernard could lay no claim. He was at home only\n in the province of practical religion. But to enquiries and\n reasonings such as those in which Anselm delighted, he was ready to\n award, not blame, but admiration. Faith, with Bernard, receives the\n treasure of divine truth, as it were, wrapped up (_involutum_);\n Understanding may afterwards cautiously unfold the envelope, and\n peep at the prize, but may never examine the contents first, to\n determine whether it shall be received or not.[49] If the chase be\n so dear to that mighty hunter, Intellect, he shall have his sport,\n on certain conditions. Let him admit that the Church has caught and\n killed the quarry of truth, and brought it to his door. That\n granted, he may, if he will, cry boot and saddle, ride out to see\n where the game broke cover, or gallop with hounds, and halloo over\n hill and dale, pursuing an imaginary object, and learning how truth\n _might_ have been run down. Great, accordingly, was Bernard\u2019s horror\n when he beheld Abelard throwing open to discussion the dogmas of the\n Church; when he saw the alacrity with which such questions were\n taken up all over France, and learnt that not the scholars of Paris\n merely, but an ignorant and stripling laity were discussing every\n day, at street corners, in hall, in cottage, the mysteries of the\n Trinity and the Immaculate Conception. Faith, he cried, believes;\n does not discuss; Abelard holds God in suspicion, and will not\n believe even Him without reason given.[50] At the same time, the\n _credo ut intelligam_ of Bernard is no indolent or constrained\n reception of a formula. Faith is the divine persuasion of the pure\n in heart and life. Bernard would grant that different minds will\n apprehend the same truth in different aspects; that an absolute\n uniformity is impossible. But when faith is made to depend so\n entirely on the state of the heart, such concessions are soon\n withdrawn. A difference in opinion from the acknowledged standard of\n piety is regarded as a sure sign of a depraved heart. A divine\n illumination as to doctrine is assumed for those whose practical\n holiness caused them to shine as lights in the Church.[51]\n\n Thus, on the elementary question of faith, the mystical tendency of\n Bernard is apparent; the subjective and even the merely emotional\n element assumes undue prominence; and a way is opened for the error\n incident to all mysticism\u2014the unwarrantable identification of our\n own thoughts with the mind of God. But if, in his starting-point,\n Bernard be a mystic, much more so is he in the goal he strains every\n power to reach.\n\n The design of Christianity is, in his idea, not to sanctify and\n elevate all our powers, to raise us to our truest manhood,\n accomplishing in every excellence all our faculties both of mind and\n body, but to teach us to nullify our corporeal part, to seclude\n ourselves, by abstraction, from its demands, and to raise us, while\n on earth, to a super-human exaltation above the flesh,\u2014a vision and\n a glory approaching that of the angelic state. Thus he commences his\n analysis of meditation by describing the felicity of angels. They\n have not to study the Creator in his works, slowly ascending by the\n media of sense. They behold all things in the Word\u2014more perfect\n there, by far, than in themselves. Their knowledge is immediate\u2014a\n direct intuition of the primal ideas of things in the mind of the\n Creator. To such measure of this immediate intuition as mortals may\n attain he exhorts the devout mind to aspire. They do well who\n piously employ their senses among the things of sense for the divine\n glory and the good of others. Happier yet are they who, with a true\n philosophy, survey and explore things visible, that they may rise\n through them to a knowledge of the Invisible. But most of all does\n he extol the state of those who, not by gradual stages of ascent,\n but by a sudden rapture, are elevated at times, like St. Paul, to\n the immediate vision of heavenly things. Such favoured ones are\n adepts in the third and highest species of meditation. Totally\n withdrawn into themselves, they are not only, like other good men,\n dead to the body and the world, and raised above the grosser\n hindrances of sense, but even beyond those images and similitudes\n drawn from visible objects which colour and obscure our ordinary\n conceptions of spiritual truths.[52]\n\n But if, so far, Bernard betrays the mystic, in this ambition to\n transcend humanity and to anticipate the sight and fruition of the\n celestial state, let him have full credit for the moderation which\n preserved him from going farther. Compared with that of many\n subsequent mystics, the mysticism of Bernard is sobriety itself.\n From the practical vice of mysticism in his Church,\u2014its tendency to\n supersede by extraordinary attainments the humbler and more arduous\n Christian virtues\u2014Bernard was as free as any one could be in those\n times. Against the self-indulgence which would sacrifice every\n active external obligation to a life of contemplative sloth he\n protested all his days, by word and by example. He is equally\n removed from the pantheistic extreme of Eckart and the imaginative\n extravagances of St. Theresa. His doctrine of Union with God does\n not surrender our personality or substitute God for the soul in man.\n When he has occasion to speak, with much hesitation and genuine\n humility, of the highest point of his own experience, he has no\n wonderful visions to relate. The visit of the Saviour to his soul\n was unattended by visible glory, by voices, tastes, or odours; it\n vindicated its reality only by the joy which possessed him, and the\n new facility with which he brought forth the practical fruits of the\n Spirit.[53] He prays God for peace and joy and charity to all men,\n and leaves other exaltations of devotion to apostles and apostolic\n men,\u2014\u2018the high hills to the harts and the climbing goats.\u2019 The\n fourth and highest stage of love in his scale,\u2014that transformation\n and utter self-loss in which we love ourselves only for the sake of\n God, he believes unattainable in this life,\u2014certainly beyond his own\n reach. To the mystical death, self-annihilation, and holy\n indifference of the Quietists, he is altogether a stranger.[54]\n\n It is worth while at least to skim and dip among his sermons on the\n Canticles. The _Song of Solomon_ is a trying book for a man like\n Bernard, and those expositions do contain much sad stuff,\n interspersed, however, with many fine reaches of thought and\n passages of consummate eloquence. Mystical interpretation runs riot.\n Everything is symbolized. Metaphors are elaborated into allegories,\n similitudes broken up into divers branches, and about each\n ramification a new set of fancies clustered. The sensuous imagery\n borrowed from love and wine\u2014the kisses, bedchambers, and winecellars\n of the soul, remind us at every page of that luscious poetry in\n which the Persian Sufis are said to veil the aspirations of the\n spirit of man after its Maker. Yet, with all the faults of a taste\n so vicious there is no affectation, no sentimentality, nothing\n intentionally profane. It was with Bernard a duty and a delight to\n draw as much meaning as possible from the sacred text, by the aid of\n an inexhaustible fancy and an inventive ingenuity in that way, which\n only Swedenborg has surpassed. Even in his letters on comparatively\n ordinary topics, he always gives a certain largeness to his subject\n by his lofty imaginative style of handling it. He seldom confines\n himself to the simple point in hand, but starts off to fetch for it\n adornments, illustrations, or sanctions from quarters the most\n remote, or heights the most awful. Always in earnest, yet always the\n rhetorician, he seems to write as though viewing, not the subject\n itself, but some vast reflection of it projected on the sky. In\n those sermons on _Solomon\u2019s Song_, it is generally rather the\n glowing and unseemly diction, than the thought, we have to blame.\n With such allowance, it is not difficult to discern, under that\n luxuriance of flowers and weeds, many a sentiment true and dear to\n the Christian heart in every age.\n\n Bernard appears to have believed himself invested on some occasions\n with miraculous powers. So far he has a place in the province of\n theurgic mysticism. Perhaps the worst thing of this sort to be laid\n to his charge is his going so far as he did towards endorsing the\n prophecies of the Abbess Hildegard.[55]\n\n\n Note to page 131.\n\n\nThe writings of Augustine handed Neo-Platonism down to posterity as the\noriginal and esoteric doctrine of the first followers of Plato. He\nenumerates the causes which led, in his opinion, to the negative\nposition assumed by the Academics, and to the concealment of their real\nopinions. He describes Plotinus as a resuscitated Plato. _Contra\nAcadem._ iii. 17-20.\n\nHe commends Porphyry for his measure of scepticism as regards Theurgy,\nand bestows more than due praise on the doctrine of Illumination held by\nPlotinus, for its similarity to the Christian truth concerning divine\ngrace. _De Civitate Dei_, x. 10; x. 2.\n\nHe gives a scale of the spiritual degrees of ascent to God, formed after\nthe Platonist model (the \u1f10\u03c0\u03b1\u03bd\u03b1\u03b2\u03b1\u03b8\u03bc\u03bf\u1f76 of the Symposium), and so furnished\na precedent for all the attempts of a similar kind in which scholastic\nmysticism delighted to exercise its ingenuity. _De Quantitate Anim\u00e6_, c.\n35.\n\nHe enumerates three kinds of perception,\u2014corporeal, intellectual\n(_scientia_) and spiritual (_sapientia_); and in describing the last\nuses the words _introrsum ascendere_ (_De Trin._ xii. 15; and comp. _De\nLib. Arbit._ ii. 12). But this phrase does not appear to have carried,\nwith Augustine, the sense it bore when gladly adopted by mystical\ndivines of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. He says elsewhere\nthat man, like the prodigal, must come to himself before he can arise\nand go to his Father. (_Retract._ i. 8.) Here what the wanderer finds\nwithin is the voice of conscience, and in this sense it is quite true\nthat the step inward is a step upward. But it is not true that the\ninmost is the highest in the sense that man is able by abstraction and\nintrospection to discover within himself a light which shall supersede,\nor supplement, or even supply the place of external Revelation.\n\n\n Note to page 131.\n\n\nJOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA.\u2014This remarkable man began to teach in the \u2018School\nof the Palace,\u2019 under Charles the Bald, about the middle of the ninth\ncentury. He translated Dionysius, took part in the Gottschalk\ncontroversy, and, at last, when persecuted for the freedom of his\nopinions, found a refuge with Alfred the Great.\n\nErigena idolizes Dionysius and his commentator Maximus. He believes in\ntheir hierarchies, their divine Dark, and supreme Nothing. He declares,\nwith them, that God is the essence of all things. Ipse namque omnium\nessentia est qui solus vere est, ut ait Dionysius Areopagita. _Esse_,\ninquit, _omnium est Superesse Divinitatis_.\u2014_De Div. Nat._ i. 3, p. 443.\n(_Jo. Scoti Opp._, Paris, 1853.)\n\nBut though much of the language is retained, the doctrine of Dionysius\nhas assumed a form altogether new in the brain of the Scotchman. The\nphraseology of the emanation theory is, henceforth, only metaphor. What\nmen call creation is, with Erigena, a necessary and eternal\nself-unfolding (_analysis_, he calls it) of the divine nature. As all\nthings are now God, self-unfolded, so, in the final restitution, all\nthings will be resolved into God, self-withdrawn. Not the mind of man\nmerely, as the Greek thought, but matter and all creatures will be\nreduced to their primordial causes, and God be manifested as all in all.\n_De Div. Nat._ i. 72. Postremo universalis creatura Creatori adunabitur,\net erit in ipso et cum ipso unum. Et hic est finis omnium visibilium et\ninvisibilium, quoniam omnia visibilia in intelligibilia, et\nintelligibilia in ipsum Deum transibunt, mirabili et ineffabili\nadunatione, non autem, ut s\u00e6pe diximus, essentiarum aut substantiarum\nconfusione aut interitu\u2014v. 20, p. 894. In this restitution, the elect\nare united to God with a degree of intimacy peculiar to themselves\u2014v.\n39. The agent of this restoration, both for beings above and below\nmankind, is the Incarnate Word\u2014v. 25, p. 913. Erigena regards our\nincarceration in the body, and the distinction of sex, as the\nconsequence of sin. He abandons the idea of a sensuous hell. What is\ntermed the fire of hell is with him a principle of law to which both the\ngood and evil are subject, which wickedness assimilates and makes a\ntorment; goodness a blessing. So, he says, the light is grateful to the\nsound eye, painful to the diseased; and the food which is welcome to\nhealth is loathed by sickness. _De Predestinatione_, cap. xvii. p. 428.\nThis idea, in which there lies assuredly an element of truth, became a\nfavourite one with the mystics, and re-appears in many varieties of\nmysticism. Erigena, farther, anticipates Kant in regarding time and\nspace as mere modes of conception peculiar to our present state. He\nhimself is much more rationalist than mystic (except in the fanciful\ninterpretations of Scripture to which he is compelled to resort); but\nhis system was developed, three centuries later, into an extreme and\nrevolutionary mysticism.\n\nThe combination of Platonism and Christianity, so often attempted,\nabandoned, and renewed, assumes five distinct phases.\n\nI. In the East, with Dionysius; dualistic, with real and ideal worlds\napart, removing man far from God by an intervening chain of hierarchic\nemanations.\n\nII. In the West, with Scotus Erigena; abandoning emanation for ever, and\ntaking up instead the idea to which the Germans give the name of\n_Immanence_. God regarded more as the inner life and vital _substratum_\nof the universe, than as radiating it from a far-off point of\nabstraction.\n\nIII. In the thirteenth century, at Paris, with Amalric of Bena and David\nof Dinant. They pronounce God the material, essential cause of all\nthings,\u2014not the _efficient_ cause merely. The Platonic identification of\nthe _velle_ and the _esse_ in God. David and his sect blend with their\npantheism the doctrine that under the coming new dispensation\u2014that of\nthe Holy Ghost\u2014all believers are to regard themselves as incarnations of\nGod, and to dispense (as men filled with the Spirit) with all sacraments\nand external rites. They carry the spiritualizing tendency of Erigena to\na monstrous extreme, claim special revelation, declare the real\nresurrection accomplished in themselves, and that they are already in\nheaven, which they regard as a state and not a place. They maintain that\nthe good are sufficiently rewarded and the bad adequately punished by\nthe blessedness or the privation they inwardly experience in time,\u2014in\nshort, that retribution is complete on this side the grave, and heavy\nwoes, accordingly, will visit corrupt Christendom. The practical\nextravagance of this pantheism was repeated, in the fourteenth century,\nby fanatical mystics among the lower orders.\n\nIV. With Eckart, who reminds us of Plotinus. The \u2018Intuition\u2019 of Plotinus\nis Eckart\u2019s \u2018Spark of the Soul,\u2019 the power whereby we can transcend the\nsensible, the manifold, the temporal, and merge ourselves in the\nchangeless One. At the height of this attainment, the mystic of Plotinus\nand the mystic of Eckart find the same God,\u2014that is, the same blank\nabstraction, above being and above attributes. But with Plotinus such\nescape from finite consciousness is possible only in certain favoured\nintervals of ecstasy. Eckart, however (whose very pantheism is the\nexaggeration of a Christian truth beyond the range of Plotinus), will\nhave man realize habitually his oneness with the Infinite. According to\nhim, if a man by self-abandonment attains this consciousness, God has\nrealized Himself within him\u2014has brought forth his Son\u2014has evolved his\nSpirit. Such a man\u2019s knowledge of God is God\u2019s knowledge of Himself. For\nall spirit is one. To distinguish between the divine ground of the soul\nand the Divinity is to disintegrate the indivisible Universal Spirit\u2014is\nto be far from God\u2014is to stand on the lower ground of finite\nmisconception, within the limits of transitory Appearance. The true\nchild of God \u2018breaks through\u2019 such distinction to the \u2018Oneness.\u2019 Thus,\ncreation and redemption are resolved into a necessary process\u2014the\nevolution and involution of Godhead. Yet this form of medi\u00e6val pantheism\nappears to advantage when we compare it with that of ancient or of\nmodern times. The pantheism of the Greek took refuge in apathy from\nFate. The pantheism of the present day is a plea for self-will. But that\nof Eckart is half redeemed by a sublime disinterestedness, a confiding\nabnegation of all choice or preference, which betrays the presence of a\nmeasure of Christian element altogether inconsistent with the basis of\nhis philosophy.\n\nV. With Tauler and the \u2018German Theology.\u2019 This is the best,\nindisputably, of all the forms assumed by the combination in question.\nThe Platonism is practically absorbed in the Christianity. Tauler speaks\nof the ideal existence of the soul in God\u2014of the loss of our nameless\nGround in the unknown Godhead, and we find language in the _Theologia\nGermanica_ concerning God as the substance of all things\u2014concerning the\npartial and the Perfect, the manifold and the One, which might be\npantheistically construed. But such interpretation would be most unfair,\nand is contradicted by the whole tenour both of the sermons and the\ntreatise. An apprehension of the nature of sin so searching and profound\nas that in the \u2018Theology,\u2019 is impossible to pantheism. Luther could see\ntherein only most Christian theism. These mystics still employed some of\nthe terms transmitted by a revered philosophy. Tauler cites with\ndeference the names of Dionysius, Proclus, and Plotinus. This mysticism\nclothes its thought with fragments from the old philosopher\u2019s cloak\u2014but\nthe heart and body belong to the school of Christ. With Dionysius, and\neven with Erigena, man seems to need but a process of approximation to\nthe divine subsistence\u2014a rise in the scale of being by becoming\n_quantitatively_ rather than _qualitatively_ more. With the German\nmystics he must be altogether unmade and born anew. To shift from one\ndegree of illumination to another somewhat higher, is nothing in their\neyes, for the need lies not in the understanding, but in heart and will.\nAccording to them, man must stand virtually in heaven or hell\u2014be God\u2019s\nor the devil\u2019s. The Father of our spirits is not relegated from men by\necclesiastical or angelic functionaries, but nearer to every one, clerk\nor lay, gentle or simple, than he is to himself. So the exclusiveness\nand the frigid intellectualism so characteristic of the ancient ethnic\nphilosophy, has vanished from the Teutonic mysticism. Plato helps rather\nthan harms by giving a vantage ground and defence to the more true and\nsubjective, as opposed to a merely institutional Christianity.\n\nBoth Eckart and the _Theologia Germanica_ would have man \u2018break through\u2019\nand transcend \u2018distinction.\u2019 But it is true, with slight exception, that\nthe distinctions Eckart would escape are natural; those which the\n\u2018Theology\u2019 would surpass, for the most part artificial. The asceticism\nof both is excessive. The self-reduction of Eckart is, however, more\nmetaphysical than moral; that of the \u2018Theology\u2019 moral essentially. Both\nwould say, the soul of the regenerate man is one with God\u2014cannot be\nseparated from Him. But only Eckart would say, such soul is not\n_distinct_ from God. Both would essay to pass from the Nature to the\nBeing of God\u2014from his manifested Existence to his Essence, and they both\ndeclare that our nature has its being in the divine. But such assertion,\nwith Tauler and the _Theologia Germanica_, by no means deifies man. It\nis but the Platonic expression of a great Christian doctrine\u2014the real\nFatherhood of God.\n\n\n Note to page 142.\n\n\nItaque tum per totam fere Galliam in civitatibus, vicis, et castellis, a\nscholaribus, non solum intra scholas, sed etiam triviatim; nec a\nlitteratis, aut provectis tantum, sed a pueris et simplicibus, aut certe\nstultis, de sancta Trinitate, qu\u00e6 Deus est, disputaretur, &c.\u2014_Epist._\n337, and comp. _Epist._ 332. Bernard at first refused to encounter\nAbelard, not simply because from his inexperience in such combats he was\nlittle fitted to cope with that dialectic Goliath\u2014a man of war from his\nyouth\u2014but because such discussions were in themselves, he thought, an\nindignity to the faith.\u2014_Epist._ 189. Abelard he denounces as wrong, not\nonly in his heretical results, but in principle,\u2014Cum ea ratione nititur\nexplorare, qu\u00e6 pia mens fidei vivacitate apprehendit. Fides piorum\ncredit, non discutit. Sed iste Deum habens suspectum, credere non vult,\nnisi quod prius ratione discusserit.\u2014_Epist._ 338.\n\n\n Note to page 143.\n\n\nIn the eyes both of Anselm and Bernard, to deny the reality of Ideas is\nto cut off our only escape from the gross region of sense. Neither faith\nnor reason have then left them any basis of operation. We attain to\ntruth only through the medium of Ideas, by virtue of our essential\nrelationship to the Divine Source of Ideas\u2014the Infinite Truth. That\nSupreme Truth which gives to existing things their reality is also the\nsource of true thoughts in our minds. Thus our knowledge is an\nillumination dependent on the state of the heart towards God. On this\nprinciple all doubt must be criminal, and every heresy the offspring,\nnot of a bewildered brain, but of a wicked heart.\n\nThe fundamental maxim of the medi\u00e6val religio-philosophy\u2014Invisibilia non\ndecipiunt, was fertile in delusions. It led men to reject, as\nuntrustworthy, the testimony of sense and of experience. Thus, in the\ntransubstantiation controversy of the ninth century, Realism and\nSuperstition conquered together. It taught them to deduce all knowledge\nfrom certain mental abstractions, Platonic Ideas and Aristotelian Forms.\nThus Bonaventura (who exhibits this tendency at its height) resolves all\nscience into union with God. The successive attainment of various kinds\nof knowledge is, in his system, an approximation, stage above stage, to\nGod\u2014a scaling of the heights of Illumination, as we are more closely\nunited with the Divine Word\u2014the repertory of Ideas. Thus, again, the\nScriptures were studied by the schoolmen less as a practical guide for\nthe present life than as so much material whence they might deduce\nmetaphysical axioms and propositions\u2014discover more of those divine\nabstractions which they regarded as the seminal principles of all\nthought and all existence. They were constantly mistaking results which\ncould only have been attained by revelation or tradition from without,\nfor truth evolved from within the depths of the finite mind, by virtue\nof its immediate commerce with the Infinite. Anselm found no difficulty\nin assuming that the God of his ontological proof was identical with the\nGod of the Bible.\n\n\n Note to page 144.\n\n\nThus, speaking of the angelic state, he says,\u2014Creatura c\u0153li illa est,\npr\u00e6sto habens per quod ista intueatur. Videt Verbum, et in Verbo facta\nper Verbum. Nec opus habet ex his qu\u00e6 facta sunt, factoris notitiam\nmendicare.\u2014_De Consid._ V. i., and comp. _Serm. in Cantica_, v. 4.\n\nThe three kinds of meditation, or stages of Christian proficiency,\nreferred to in the text, Bernard calls _consideratio dispensativa_,\n_\u00e6stimativa_, and _speculativa_. The last is thus defined:\u2014Speculativa\nest consideratio se in se colligens, et, quantum divinitus adjuvatur,\nrebus humanis eximens ad contemplandum Deum. He who reaches it is among\nthe greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. At omnium maximus, qui spreto\nipso usu rerum et sensuum, quantum quidem human\u00e6 fragilitati fas est,\nnon ascensoriis gradibus, sed inopinatis excessibus, avolare interdum\ncontemplando ad illa sublimia consuevit. Ad hoc ultimum genus illos\npertinere reor excessus Pauli. Excessus non ascensus: nam raptum potius\nfuisse, quam ascendisse ipse se perhibet.\u2014_De Consid._ v. ii. In one of\nthe _Sermons on the Canticles_, Bernard discourses at more length on\nthis kind of exaltation. Proinde et ego non absurde spons\u00e6 exstasim\nvocaverim mortem, qu\u00e6 tamen non vita, sed vit\u00e6 eripiat laqueis....\nExcedente quippe anima, etsi non vita certe vit\u00e6 sensu, necesse est\netiam ut nec vit\u00e6 tentatis sentiatur.... Utinam hac morte frequenter\ncadam.... Bona mors, qu\u00e6 vitam non aufert, sed transfert in melius;\nbona, qua non corpus cadit, sed anima sublevatur. Verum h\u00e6c hominum est.\nSed moriatur anima mea morte etiam si dici potest, Angelorum, ut\npresentium memoria excedens rerum se inferiorum corporearumque non modo\ncupiditatibus, _sed et similitudinibus_ exuat.... Talis, ut opinor,\nexcessus, aut tantum, aut maxime contemplatio dicitur. Rerum etenim\ncupiditatibus vivendo non teneri, human\u00e6 virtutis est; corporum vero\nsimilitudinibus speculando non involvi, angelic\u00e6 puritatis est....\nProfecisti, separasti te; sed nondum elongasti, nisi et irruentia\nundique phantasmata corporearum similitudinum transvolare mentis\npuritate pr\u00e6valeas. Hucusque noli tibi promittere requiem.\u2014_In Cantica_,\n_Serm._ lii. 4, 5.\n\n\n Note to page 144.\n\n\nFateor et mihi adventasse Verbum, in insipientia dico, et pluries.\nCumque s\u00e6pius intraverit ad me, non sensi aliquoties cum intravit.\nAdesse sensi, adfuisse recordor, interdum et pr\u00e6senti\u00e6 potui introitum\nejus, sentire nunquam, sed ne exitum quidem.... Qua igitur introivit? An\nforte nec introivit quidem, quia non deforis venit? Neque enim est unum\naliquid ex iis que foris sunt. Porro nec deintra me venit quoniam bonum\nest, et scio quoniam non est in me bonum. Ascendi etiam superius meum:\net ecce supra hoc Verbum eminens. Ad inferius quoque meum curiosus\nexplorator descendi: et nihilominus infra inventum est. Si foras aspexi,\nextra omne exterius meum comperi illud esse: si vero intus, et ipsum\ninterius erat.... Ita igitur intrans ad me aliquoties Verbum sponsus,\nnullis unquam introitum suum indiciis innotescere fecit, non voce, non\nspecie, non incessu. Nullis denique suis motibus compertum est mihi,\nnullis meis sensibus illapsum penetralibus meis: tantum ex motu cordis,\nsicut pr\u00e6fatus sum, intellexi pr\u00e6sentiam ejus; et ex fuga vitiorum\ncarnaliumque compressione affectuum, &c.\u2014_In Cantica, Serm._ lxxiv. 5,\n6. The metaphors of Bernard are actual sounds, sights, and fragrances\nwith St. Theresa. From this sensuous extreme his practical devotion is\nas far removed, on the one side, as from the cold abstraction of\nDionysius on the other. His contemplation is no staring at the Divine\nEssence till we are blind\u2014no oblivion or disdain of outward means. We\nsee God, he says, not as He is, but as He wills\u2014sicuti vult non sicuti\nest. So when describing that ascent of the soul to God, or descent of\nGod into the soul, which constitutes Union, he says,\u2014In Spiritu fit ista\nconjunctio.... Non ergo sic affecta et sic dilecta (anima) contenta erit\nomnino vel illa, qu\u00e6 multis per ea qu\u00e6 facta sunt; vel, illa qu\u00e6 paucis\nper visa et somnia facta est manifestatio sponsi, nisi et speciali\npr\u00e6rogativa intimis illum affectibus atque ipsis medullis cordis c\u0153litus\nillapsum suscipiat, habeatque pr\u00e6sto quem desiderat non figuratum, sed\ninfusum: non apparentem sed afficientem; nec dubium quin eo jucundiorem,\nquo intus, non foris. Verbum nempe est, non sonans, sed penetrans; non\nloquax, sed efficax; non obstrepens auribus, sed affectibus blandiens,\n&c.\u2014_In Cantica, Serm._ xxxi. 6 and 1. Comp. also his remarks at the\nclose of the sermon, on the difference between faith and sight, p. 2868.\n\nBernard describes three kisses of the soul,\u2014the kiss of the feet of God,\nof the hand, and of the mouth. (_Serm. de diversis_, 87, and _In\nCantica, Serm._ iv.) This is his fanciful way of characterising, by the\nelaboration of a single figurative phrase of Scripture, the progress of\nthe soul through conversion and grace to perfection. Here, as in so many\ninstances, his meaning is substantially correct; it is the expression\nwhich is objectionable. He is too much in earnest for the artificial\ngradations and metaphysical refinements of later mysticism. Compare him,\nin this respect, with John of the Cross. Bernard would have rejected as\nunprofitable those descriptions of the successive absorption of the\nseveral faculties in God; those manifold kinds of prayer\u2014prayers of\nquiet, prayers of union, prayers of ecstasy, with their impalpable\ndistinctions; that analysis, miraculously achieved, of miraculous\nravishments, detailed at such length in the tedious treatises of the\nSpanish mystics. The doctrine taught by John of the Cross, that God\ncompensates the faithful for the mortification of the senses by sensuous\ngratifications of a supernatural kind, would have revolted the more pure\ndevotion of the simple-minded Abbot of Clairvaux.\u2014See _La Mont\u00e9e du Mont\nCarmel_, livre ii. chapp. 16, 17; pp. 457, &c.\n\nIt should be borne in mind that the highest kind of Consideratio is\nidentical, in Bernard\u2019s phraseology, with Contemplatio; and the terms\nare thus often used interchangeably. Generally, Consideratio is applied\nto inquiry, Contemplatio to intuition. _De Consid._ lib. ii. cap. 2.\n\n\n Note to page 146.\n\n\nSee _Vita_, ii. cap. 27, where his biographer gives Bernard\u2019s own modest\nestimate of these wonders.\n\nWide, indeed, is the difference between the spiritual mysticism of\nBernard and the gross materialism and arrogant pretension which\ncharacterise the vision and the prophecy to which Hildegard laid claim.\nThe morbid ambition of theurgic mysticism received a new impulse from\nthe sanction afforded her by Bernard and the contemporary popes. Bernard\nmakes no doubt of the reality of her gifts, and desires a place in her\nprayers. (_Epist._ 366.) He did not foresee that the most extravagant\nand sensuous mysticism must soon of necessity displace the simpler and\nless dazzling. He would be afraid of taking his place with Rationalist\nmockers, and a superstitious awe would readily persuade him that it was\nbetter to believe than to doubt. When emperors and popes corresponded on\nfamiliar terms with the seeress; when haughty nobles and learned\necclesiastics sought counsel at her oracle concerning future events, and\neven for the decision of learned questions; when all she said in answer\nwas delivered as subject to and in the interest of the Church\nCatholic\u2014was often the very echo of Bernard\u2019s own warnings and\nexhortations\u2014who was he, that he should presume to limit the operations\nof the Spirit of God? Many of Hildegard\u2019s prophecies, denouncing the\necclesiastical abuses of the day, were decidedly reformatory in their\ntendency. In this respect she is the forerunner of the Abbot Joachim of\nCalabria, and of St. Brigitta, whose prophetic utterances startled the\ncorrupt Church in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In her\nsupernatural gift of language, her attendant divine radiance, and her\nfantastic revelations, she, like her friend Elizabeth of Schonau (who\nhad an angel to wait upon her, and saw the eleven thousand virgins),\nprepares the way for Catharine of Siena, Angela of Foligni, and St.\nTheresa.\n\nFootnote 39:\n\n See Note 1, p. 146.\n\nFootnote 40:\n\n See Note 2, p. 146.\n\nFootnote 41:\n\n _Vita_, ii. cap. v.\n\nFootnote 42:\n\n See the account of his diet, and of the feebleness and sickness\n consequent on his austerities, by the same biographer (Alanus),\n _Vita_, ii. cap. x., in the Paris reprint of 1839, from the\n Benedictine edition of Bernard, tom. ii. p. 2426. John Eremita\n describes the devil\u2019s visit to Bernard, \u2018ut ungeret sandalia sua\n secundum consuetudinem,\u2019 and relates the rebuke of the proud monk who\n would not wash the _scutell\u00e6_ in the kitchen.\u2014_Vita_, iv. p. 2508.\n\nFootnote 43:\n\n _Vita_, ii. cap. x. 32.\n\nFootnote 44:\n\n _Epp._ cx., cxi.\n\nFootnote 45:\n\n _Chronologia Bernardina, Opp._ tom. i. p. 83.\n\nFootnote 46:\n\n _Epist._ cxli.\n\nFootnote 47:\n\n _De Consideratione_, IV. iii. 7, and II. vi. 11, pp. 1028 and 1060.\n\nFootnote 48:\n\n _Epist._ ccclxv. to the Archbishop of Mayence, against the fanatic\n Rudolph.\n\nFootnote 49:\n\n He thus distinguishes Faith, Intellection, and Opinion:-Fides est\n voluntaria qu\u00e6dam et certa pr\u00e6libatio necdum propalat\u00e6 veritatis.\n Intellectus est rei cujuscumque invisibilis certa et manifesta\n notitia. Opinio est quasi pro vero habere aliquid; quod falsum esse\n nescias.... Quid igitur distat (fides) ab intellectu? Nempe quod etsi\n non habet incertum non magis quam intellectus, habet tamen involucrum,\n quod non intellectus.... Nil autem malumus scire, quam qu\u00e6 fide jam\n scimus. Nil supererit ad beatitudinem, cum qu\u00e6 jam certa sunt nobis,\n erunt \u00e6que et nuda.\u2014_De Consideratione_, V. 4, p. 1075.\n\nFootnote 50:\n\n See Note, p. 149.\n\nFootnote 51:\n\n See Note, p. 149.\n\nFootnote 52:\n\n See Note 1, p. 150.\n\nFootnote 53:\n\n See Note 2, p. 150.\n\nFootnote 54:\n\n Sane in hoc gradu (tertio) diu statur: et nescio si a quoquam hominum\n quartus in hac vita perfecte apprehenditur, ut se scilicet diligat\n homo tantum propter Deum. Asserant hoc si qui experti sunt: mihi,\n fateor, impossibile videtur.\u2014_De diligendo Deo_, xv. and _Epist._ xi.\n 8. And, again, in the same treatise (vii. 17),\u2014Non enim sine pr\u00e6mio\n diligitur Deus, etsi absque pr\u00e6mii intuitu diligendus sit.... Verus\n amor se ipso contentus est. Habet pr\u00e6mium, sed id quod amatur.\n\nFootnote 55:\n\n See Note, p. 151.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER II.\n\n\n _Licht und Farbe._\n\n Wohne, du ewiglich Eines, dort bei dem ewiglich Einen!\n Farbe, du wechselnde, komm\u2019 freundlich zum Menschen herab![56]\n\n SCHILLER.\n\n\nOn the next evening of meeting, Gower commenced as follows his promised\npaper on Hugo and Richard of St. Victor.\n\n\n _Hugo of St. Victor._\n\n\n The celebrated School of St. Victor (so called from an ancient\n chapel in the suburbs of Paris) was founded by William of Champeaux\n at the commencement of the twelfth century. This veteran\n dialectician assumed there the habit of the regular canons of\n Augustine, and after an interval, began to lecture once more to the\n students who flocked to his retirement. In 1114, king and pope\n combined to elevate the priory to an abbacy. Bishops and nobles\n enriched it with their gifts. The canons enjoyed the highest repute\n for sanctity and learning in that golden age of the canonical\n institute. St. Victor colonized Italy, England, Scotland, and Lower\n Saxony, with establishments which regarded as their parent the\n mighty pile of building on the outskirts of Paris. Within a hundred\n years from its foundation it numbered as its offspring thirty abbeys\n and more than eighty priories.\n\n Hugo of St. Victor was born in 1097, of a noble Saxon family. His\n boyhood was passed at the convent of Hamersleben. There he gave\n promise of his future eminence. His thirst after information of\n every kind was insatiable. The youth might often have been seen\n walking alone in the convent garden, speaking and gesticulating,\n imagining himself advocate, preacher, or disputant. Every evening he\n kept rigid account of his gains in knowledge during the day. The\n floor of his room was covered with geometrical figures traced in\n charcoal. Many a winter\u2019s night, he says, he was waking between\n vigils in anxious study of a horoscope. Many a rude experiment in\n musical science did he try with strings stretched across a board.\n Even while a novice, he began to write. Attracted by the reputation\n of the abbey of St. Victor, he enrolled his name among the regular\n canons there. Not long after his arrival, the emissaries of an\n archdeacon, worsted in a suit with the chapter, murdered the prior,\n Thomas. Hugo was elected to succeed him in the office of instructor.\n He taught philosophy, rhetoric, and theology. He seldom quitted the\n precincts of the convent, and never aspired to farther preferment.\n He closed a peaceful and honoured life at the age of forty-four,\n leaving behind him those ponderous tomes of divinity to which\n Aquinas and Vincent of Beauvais acknowledge their obligations, and\n which gained for their author the name of a second Augustine.[57]\n\n Hitherto mysticism, in the person of Bernard, has repudiated\n scholasticism. In Hugo, and his successor Richard, the foes are\n reconciled. Bonaventura in the thirteenth, and Gerson in the\n fifteenth century, are great names in the same province. Indeed,\n throughout the middle ages, almost everything that merits the title\n of mystical _theology_ is characterized by some such endeavour to\n unite the contemplation of the mystic with the dialectics of the\n schoolman. There was good in the attempt. Mysticism lost much of its\n vagueness, and scholasticism much of its frigidity.\n\n Hugo was well fitted by temperament to mediate between the extreme\n tendencies of his time. Utterly destitute of that daring originality\n which placed Erigena at least two centuries in advance of his age,\n his very gentleness and caution would alone have rendered him more\n moderate in his views and more catholic in sympathy than the intense\n and vehement Bernard. Hugo, far from proscribing science and\n denouncing speculation, called in the aid of the logical gymnastics\n of his day to discipline the mind for the adventurous enterprise of\n the mystic. If he regarded with dislike the idle word-warfare of\n scholastic ingenuity, he was quite as little disposed to bid common\n sense a perpetual farewell among the cloudiest realms of mysticism.\n His style is clear, his spirit kindly, his judgment generally\n impartial. It is refreshing in those days of ecclesiastical\n domination to meet with at least a single mind to whom that Romanist\n ideal\u2014an absolute uniformity in religious opinion\u2014appeared both\n impossible and undesirable.[58]\n\n A few words may present the characteristic outlines of his\n mysticism. It avails itself of the aid of speculation to acquire a\n scientific form\u2014in due subjection, of course, to the authority of\n the Church. It will ground its claim on a surer tenure than mere\n religious emotion or visionary reverie. Hugo, with all his\n contemporaries, reverenced the Pseudo-Dionysius. His more devout and\n practical spirit laboured at a huge commentary on the _Heavenly\n Hierarchy_, like a good angel, condemned for some sin to servitude\n under a paynim giant. In the hands of his commentator, Dionysius\n becomes more scriptural and human\u2014for the cloister, even edifying,\n but remains as uninteresting as ever.\n\n Hugo makes a threefold division of our faculties. First, and lowest,\n _Cogitatio_. A stage higher stands _Meditatio_: by this he means\n reflection, investigation. Third, and highest, ranges\n _Contemplatio_: in this state the mind possesses in light the truth\n which, in the preceding, it desired and groped after in\n twilight.[59]\n\n He compares this spiritual process to the application of fire to\n green wood. It kindles with difficulty; clouds of smoke arise; a\n flame is seen at intervals, flashing out here and there; as the fire\n gains strength, it surrounds, it pierces the fuel; presently it\n leaps and roars in triumph\u2014the nature of the wood is being\n transformed into the nature of fire. Then, the struggle over, the\n crackling ceases, the smoke is gone, there is left a tranquil,\n friendly brightness, for the master-element has subdued all into\n itself. So, says Hugo, do sin and grace contend; and the smoke of\n trouble and anguish hangs over the strife. But when grace grows\n stronger, and the soul\u2019s eye clearer, and truth pervades and\n swallows up the kindling, aspiring nature, then comes holy calm, and\n love is all in all. Save God in the heart, nothing of self is\n left.[60]\n\n Looking through this and other metaphors as best we may, we discover\n that Contemplation has two provinces\u2014a lower and a higher. The lower\n degree of contemplation, which ranks next above Meditation, is\n termed Speculation. It is distinct from Contemplation proper, in its\n strictest signification. The attribute of Meditation is Care. The\n brow is heavy with inquiring thought, for the darkness is mingled\n with the light. The attribute of Speculation is Admiration\u2014Wonder.\n In it the soul ascends, as it were, a watch-tower (_specula_), and\n surveys everything earthly. On this stage stood the Preacher when he\n beheld the sorrow and the glory of the world, and pronounced all\n things human Vanity. To this elevation, whence he philosophizes\n concerning all finite things, man is raised by the faith, the\n feeling, and the ascetic practice of religion. Speculative\n illumination is the reward of devotion. But at the loftiest\n elevation man beholds all things in God. Contemplation, in its\n narrower and highest sense, is immediate intuition of the Infinite.\n The attribute of this stage is Blessedness.\n\n As a mystic, Hugo cannot be satisfied with that mediate and\n approximate apprehension of the Divine Nature which here on earth\n should amply satisfy all who listen to Scripture and to Reason.\n Augustine had told him of a certain spiritual sense, or eye of the\n soul. This he makes the organ of his mysticism. Admitting the\n incomprehensibility of the Supreme, yet chafing as he does at the\n limitations of our finite nature, Faith\u2014which is here the natural\n resource of Reason\u2014fails to content him. He leaps to the conclusion\n that there must be some immediate intuition of Deity by means of a\n separate faculty vouchsafed for the purpose.\n\n You have sometimes seen from a hill-side a valley, over the\n undulating floor of which there has been laid out a heavy mantle of\n mist. The spires of the churches rise above it\u2014you seem to catch the\n glistening of a roof or of a vane\u2014here and there a higher house, a\n little eminence, or some tree-tops, are seen, islanded in the white\n vapour, but the lower and connecting objects, the linking lines of\n the roads, the plan and foundation of the whole, are completely\n hidden. Hugo felt that, with all our culture, yea, with Aristotle to\n boot, revealed truth was seen by us somewhat thus imperfectly. No\n doubt certain great facts and truths stand out clear and prominent,\n but there is a great deal at their basis, connecting them, attached\n to them, which is impervious to our ordinary faculties. We are, in\n fact, so lamentably far from knowing all about them. Is there not\n some power of vision to be attained which may pierce these clouds,\n lay bare to us these relationships, nay, even more, be to us like\n the faculty conferred by Asmodeus, and render the very roofs\n transparent, so that from topstone to foundation, within and\n without, we may gaze our fill? And if to realize this wholly be too\n much for sinful creatures, yet may not the wise and good approach\n such vision, and attain as the meed of their faith, even here, a\n superhuman elevation, and in a glance at least at the Heavenly Truth\n unveiled, escape the trammels of the finite?\n\n Such probably was the spirit of the question which possessed, with a\n ceaseless importunity, the minds of men, ambitious alike to define\n with the schoolman and to gaze with the seer. Hugo answers that the\n eye of Contemplation\u2014closed by sin, but opened more or less by\n grace\u2014furnishes the power thus desiderated.[61] But at this, his\n highest point, he grasps a shadow instead of the substance.\n Something within the mind is mistaken for a manifestation from\n without. A mental creation is substituted for that Divine Existence\n which his rapture seems to reveal. He asserts, however, that this\n Eye beholds what the eye of sense and the eye of reason cannot see,\n what is both within us and above us\u2014God. Within us, he cries, is\n both _what_ we must flee and _whither_ we must flee. The highest and\n the inmost are, so far, identical.[62] Thus do the pure in heart see\n God. In such moments the soul is transported beyond sense and\n reason, to a state similar to that enjoyed by angelic natures. The\n contemplative life is prefigured by the ark in the deluge. Without\n are waves, and the dove can find no rest. As the holy ship narrowed\n toward the summit, so doth this life of seclusion ascend from the\n manifold and changeful to the Divine Immutable Unity.\n\n The simplification of the soul he inculcates is somewhat analogous\n to the Haplosis of the Neo-Platonists. All sensuous images are to be\n discarded; we must concentrate ourselves upon the inmost source, the\n nude essence of our being. He is careful, accordingly, to guard\n against the delusions of the imagination.[63] He cautions his\n readers lest they mistake a mere visionary phantasm\u2014some shape of\n imaginary glory, for a supernatural manifestation of the Divine\n Nature to the soul. His mysticism is intellectual, not sensuous. Too\n practical for a sentimental Quietism or any of its attendant\n effeminacies, and, at the same time, too orthodox to verge on\n pantheism, his mystical doctrine displays less than the usual\n proportion of extravagance, and the ardent eloquence of his \u2018Praise\n of Love\u2019 may find an echo in every Christian heart.\n\n\n _Richard of St. Victor._\n\n\n Now, let us pass on to Richard of St. Victor. He was a native of\n Scotland, first the pupil and afterwards the successor of Hugo.\n Richard was a man whose fearless integrity and energetic character\n made themselves felt at St. Victor not less than the intellectual\n subtilty and flowing rhetoric which distinguished his prelections.\n He had far more of the practical reformer in him than the quiet\n Hugo. Loud and indignant are his rebukes of the empty disputation of\n the mere schoolman,\u2014of the avarice and ambition of the prelate. His\n soul is grieved that there should be men who blush more for a false\n quantity than for a sin, and stand more in awe of Priscian than of\n Christ.[64] Alas! he exclaims, how many come to the cloister to seek\n Christ, and find lying in that sepulchre only the linen clothes of\n your formalism! How many mask their cowardice under the name of\n love, and let every abuse run riot on the plea of peace! How many\n others call their hatred of individuals hatred of iniquity, and\n think to be righteous cheaply by mere outcry against other men\u2019s\n sins! Complaints like these are not without their application nearer\n home.[65]\n\n His zeal did not confine itself to words. In the year 1162 he was\n made prior. Ervisius the abbot was a man of worldly spirit, though\n his reputation had been high when he entered on his office. He\n gradually relaxed all discipline, persecuted the God-fearing\n brethren, and favoured flatterers and spies; he was a very Dives in\n sumptuousness, and the fair name of St. Victor suffered no small\n peril at his hands. The usual evils of broken monastic rule were\n doubtless there, though little is specified\u2014canons going in and out,\n whither they would, without inquiry, accounts in confusion, sacristy\n neglected, weeds literally and spiritually growing in holy places,\n wine-bibbing and scandal carried on at a lamentable rate, sleepy\n lethargy and noisy brawl, the more shameful because unpunished.\n Ervisius was good at excuses, and of course good for nothing else.\n If complaints were made to him, it was always that cellarer, that\n pittanciar, or that refectorarius\u2014never his fault. These abuses must\n soon draw attention from without. Richard and the better sort are\n glad. The pope writes to the king about the sad accounts he hears.\n Bishops bestir themselves. Orders come from Rome forbidding the\n abbot to take any step without the consent of the majority of the\n chapter. Richard\u2019s position is delicate, between his vow of\n obedience to his superior and the good of the convent. But he plays\n his part like a man. An archbishop is sent to St. Victor to hold a\n commission of inquiry. All is curiosity and bustle, alarm and hope\n among the canons, innocent and guilty. At last, Ervisius, after\n giving them much trouble, is induced to resign. They choose an able\n successor, harmony and order gradually return, and Richard, having\n seen the abbey prosperous once more, dies in the following year.[66]\n\n In the writings of Richard, as compared with those of Hugo, I find\n that what belongs to the schoolman has received a more elaborate and\n complex development, while what belongs to the mystic has also\n attained an ampler and more prolific growth. All the art of the\n scholastic is there\u2014the endless ramification and subdivision of\n minute distinctions; all the intellectual fortification of the\n time\u2014the redoubts, ravelins, counterscarps, and bastions of dry,\n stern logic; and among these, within their lines and at last above\n them all, is seen an almost oriental luxuriance of fancy and of\n rhetoric\u2014palm and pomegranate, sycamore and cypress, solemn cedar\n shadows, the gloom in the abysses of the soul,\u2014luscious fruit and\n fragrant flowers, the triumphs of its ecstasy, all blissful with the\n bloom and odours of the upper Paradise. He is a master alike in the\n serviceable science of self-scrutiny, and in the imaginary one of\n self-transcendence. His works afford a notable example of that\n fantastic use of Scripture prevalent throughout the Middle Age. His\n psychology, his metaphysics, his theology, are all extracted from\n the most unlikely quarters in the Bible by allegorical\n interpretation. Every logical abstraction is attached to some\n personage or object in the Old Testament history, as its authority\n and type. Rachel and Leah are Reason and Affection. Bilhah and\n Zilpah are Imagination and Sense. His divinity is embroidered on the\n garments of Aaron, engraven on the sides of the ark, hung on the\n pins and rings of the tabernacle. His definitions and his fancies\n build in the eaves of Solomon\u2019s temple, and make their \u2018pendent bed\n and procreant cradle\u2019 in the carved work of the holy place. To\n follow the thread of his religious philosophy, you have to pursue\n his agile and discursive thoughts, as the sparrow-hawk the sparrow,\n between the capitals, among the cedar rafters, over the gilded roof,\n from court to court, column to column, and sometimes after all the\n chase is vain, for they have escaped into the bosom of a cloud.[67]\n\n On a basis similar to that of Hugo, Richard erects six stages of\n Contemplation. The two first grades fall within the province of\n Imagination; the two next belong to Reason; the two highest to\n Intelligence. The objects of the first two are _Sensibilia_; of the\n second pair, _Intelligibilia_ (truths concerning what is invisible,\n but accessible to reason); of the third, _Intellectibilia_ (unseen\n truth above reason). These, again, have their subdivisions, into\n which we need not enter.[68] Within the depths of thine own soul, he\n would say, thou wilt find a threefold heaven\u2014the imaginational, the\n rational, and the intellectual. The third heaven is open only to the\n eye of Intelligence\u2014that Eye whose vision is clarified by divine\n grace and by a holy life. This Eye enjoys the immediate discernment\n of unseen truth, as the eye of the body beholds sensible objects.\n His use of the word Intelligence is not always uniform. It would\n seem that this divinely-illumined eye of the mind is to search first\n into the deeps of our own nature (_inferiora invisibilia nostra_),\n and then upward into the heights of the divine (_superiora\n invisibilia divina_).[69]\n\n For the highest degrees of Contemplation penitence avails more than\n science; sighs obtain what is impossible to reason. This exalted\n intuition begins on earth, and is consummated in heaven. Some, by\n divine assistance, reach it as the goal of long and arduous effort.\n Others await it, and are at times rapt away unawares into the heaven\n of heavens. Some good men have been ever unable to attain the\n highest stage; few are fully winged with all the six pinions of\n Contemplation. In the ecstasy he describes, there is supposed to be\n a dividing asunder of the soul and the spirit as by the sword of the\n Spirit of God. The body sleeps, and the soul and all the visible\n world is shut away. The spirit is joined to the Lord, and one with\n Him,\u2014transcends itself and all the limitations of human thought. In\n such a moment it is conscious of no division, of no change; all\n contraries are absorbed, the part does not appear less than the\n whole, nor is the whole greater than a part; the universal is seen\n as particular, the particular as universal; we forget both all that\n is without and all that is within ourselves; all is one and one is\n all; and when the rapture is past the spirit returns from its trance\n with a dim and dizzy memory of unutterable glory.[70]\n\n This account presents in some parts the very language in which\n Schelling and his disciples are accustomed to describe the privilege\n of Intellectual Intuition.\n\nATHERTON. I move thanks to Gower.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Which I second. It has been strange enough to see our\npainter turn bookworm, and oscillating, for the last fortnight or more,\nbetween the forest sunset on his easel and Atherton\u2019s old black-letter\ncopy of _Richard of St. Victor_.\n\nGOWER. The change was very pleasant. As grateful, I should think, as the\nactual alternation such men as Hugo and Richard must have enjoyed when\nthey betook themselves, after the lassitude that followed an ecstasy, to\na scholastic argumentation; or again refreshed themselves, after the\ndryness of that, by an imaginative flight into the region of allegory,\nor by some contemplative reverie which carried them far enough beyond\nthe confines of logic. The monastic fancy found this interchange\nsymbolized in the upward and downward motion of the holy bell. Is it not\nin Longfellow\u2019s _Golden Legend_ that a friar says\u2014\n\n And the upward and downward motions show\n That we touch upon matters high and low;\n And the constant change and transmutation\n Of action and of contemplation;\n Downward, the Scripture brought from on high,\n Upward, exalted again to the sky;\n Downward, the literal interpretation,\n Upward, the Vision and Mystery!\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Much as a miracle-play must have been very refreshing after\na public disputation, or as the most overwrought and most distinguished\nmembers of the legal profession are said to devour with most voracity\nevery good novel they can catch.\n\nATHERTON. It is remarkable to see the mystical interpreters of that day\ncommitting the two opposite mistakes, now of regarding what is\nsymbolical in Scripture as literal, and again of treating what is\nliteral as symbolical.\n\nGOWER. Somewhat like the early travellers, who mistook the hybrid\nfigures of the hieroglyphic sculptures they saw for representations of\nliving animals existing somewhere up the country, and then, at other\ntimes, fancied they found some profound significance in a simple\ntradition or an ordinary usage dictated by the climate.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Yet there lies a great truth in the counsel they give us to\nrise above all sensuous images in our contemplation of the Divine\nNature.\n\nATHERTON. No doubt. God is a spirit. The Infinite Mind must not be\nrepresented to our thought through the medium of any material image, as\nthough in that we had _all_ the truth. We must not confound the medium\nwith the object. But the object is in fact inaccessible without a\nmedium. The Divine Nature is resolved into a mere blank diffusion when\nregarded as apart from a Divine Character. We are practically without a\nGod in the presence of such an abstraction. To enable us to realize\npersonality and character there must be a medium, a representation, some\nanalogy drawn from relationships or objects with which we are\nacquainted.\n\nThe fault I find with these mystics is, that they encourage the\nimagination to run riot in provinces where it is not needed, and\nprohibit its exercise where it would render the greatest service.\nOrthodox as they were in their day, they yet attempt to gaze on the\nDivine Nature in its absoluteness and abstraction, apart from the\nmanifestation of it to our intellect, our heart, and our imagination,\nwhich is made in the incarnate Christ Jesus. God has supplied them with\nthis help to their apprehension of Him, but they hope by His help to\ndispense with it. They neglect the possible and practical in striving\nafter a dazzling impossibility which allures their spiritual ambition.\nThis is a natural consequence of that extravagance of spirituality which\ntells man that his highest aim is to escape from his human nature\u2014not to\nwork under the conditions of his finite being, but to violate and escape\nthem as far as possible in quest of a superhuman elevation. We poor\nmortals, as Schiller says, must have _colour_. The attempt to evade this\nlaw always ends in substituting the mind\u2019s creation for the mind\u2019s\nCreator.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. I cannot say that I clearly understand what this\nmuch-extolled introspection of theirs is supposed to reveal to them.\n\nATHERTON. Neither, very probably, did they. But though an exact\nlocalization may be impossible, I think we can say _whereabout_ they are\nin their opinion on this point. Their position is intermediate. They\nstand between the truth which assigns to an internal witness and an\nexternal revelation their just relative position, and that extreme of\nerror which would deny the need or possibility of any external\nrevelation whatever. They do not ignore either factor; they unduly\nincrease one of them.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Good. Will you have the kindness first to give me the truth\nas you hold it? Then we shall have the _terminus a quo_.\n\nATHERTON. There is what has been variously termed an experimental or\nmoral evidence for Christianity, which comes from within. If any one\nreverently searches the Scriptures, desiring sincerely to know and do\nthe will of God as there revealed, he has the promise of Divine\nassistance. He will find, in the evil of his own heart, a reality\nanswering to the statements of the Bible. He will find, in repentance\nand in faith, in growing love and hope, that very change taking place\nwithin which is described in the book without. His nature is being\ngradually brought into harmony with the truth there set forth. He has\nexperienced the truth of the Saviour\u2019s words, \u2018If any man will do his\nwill, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God.\u2019\n\nBut in this experimental evidence there is nothing mystical. It does not\nat all supersede or infringe on the evidence of testimony,\u2014the\nconvincing argument from without, which may at first have made the man\nfeel it his duty to study a book supported by a claim so strong. Neither\ndoes he cease to use his reason, when looking within, any more than when\nlistening to witness from without. In self-observation, if in any\nexercise, reason must be vigilant. Neither is such inward evidence a\nmiraculous experience peculiar to himself. It is common to multitudes.\nIt is open to all who will take the same course he has done. He does not\nreach it by a faculty which transcends his human nature, and leaves in\nthe distance every power which has been hitherto in such wholesome\nexercise. There is here no special revelation, distinct from and\nsupplementary to the general. Such a privilege would render an appeal\nfrom himself to others impossible. It would entrench each Christian in\nhis individuality apart from the rest. It would give to conscientious\ndifferences on minor points the authority of so many conflicting\ninspirations. It would issue in the ultimate disintegration of the\nChristian body.\n\nThe error of the mystics we are now considering consists in an\nexaggeration of the truth concerning experimental evidence. They seem to\nsay that the Spirit will manifest to the devout mind verities within\nitself which are, as it were, the essence and original of the truths\nwhich the Church without has been accustomed to teach; so that,\nsupposing a man to have rightly used the external revelation, and at a\ncertain point to suspend all reference to it, and to be completely\nsecluded from all external influences, there would then be manifest to\nhim, in God, the Ideas themselves which have been developed in time into\na Bible and a historical Christianity. The soul, on this Platonist\nprinciple, enjoys a commerce once more with the world of Intelligence in\nthe depth of the Divine Nature. She recovers her wings. The\nobliterations on the tablet of Reminiscence are supplied. A theosophist\nlike Paracelsus would declare that the whole universe is laid up\npotentially in the mind of man\u2014the microcosm answering to the macrocosm.\nIn a similar way these mystics would have us believe that there is in\nman a _microdogma_ within, answering to the _macrodogma_ of the Church\nwithout. Accordingly they deem it not difficult to discover a\nChristology in psychology, a Trinity in metaphysics. Hence, too, this\nerroneous assertion that if the heathen had only known themselves, they\nwould have known God.\n\nGOWER. If some of our modern advocates of the theory of Insight be\nright, they ought to have succeeded in both.\n\nATHERTON. That \u2018_Know thyself_\u2019 was a precept which had its worth in\nthe sense Socrates gave it. In the sense of Plotinus it was a\ndelusion. Applied to morals,\u2014regarded as equivalent to a call to obey\nconscience, it might render service. And yet varying and imperfect\nconsciences\u2014conflicting inner laws, could give men as an inference no\nimmutable and perfect Lawgiver. Understood as equivalent to saying\nthat the mind is in itself an all-sufficient and infallible repertory\nof spiritual truth, history in every page refutes it. The\nmonstrosities of idolatry, the disputes of philosophical schools, the\naspirations among the best of the sages of antiquity after a divine\nteaching of some sort\u2014all these facts are fatal to the notion. It is\none thing to be able in some degree to appreciate the excellence of\nrevealed truth, and quite another to be competent to discover it for\nourselves. Lactantius was right when he exclaimed, as he surveyed the\nsad and wasteful follies of heathendom, _O quam difficilis est\nignorantibus veritas, et quam facilis scientibus!_\n\nWILLOUGHBY. I must say I can scarcely conceive it possible to exclude\nfrom the mind every trace and result of what is external, and to gaze\ndown into the depths of our simple self-consciousness as the mystic bids\nus do. It is like forming a moral estimate of a man exclusive of the\nslightest reference to his _character_.\n\nGOWER. I think that as the result of such a process, we should find only\nwhat we bring. Assuredly this must continually have been the case with\nour friends Hugo and Richard. The method reminds me of a trick I have\nheard of as sometimes played on the proprietor of a supposed coal-mine\nin which no coal could be found, with a view to induce him to continue\nhis profitless speculation. Geologists, learned theoretical men, protest\nthat there can be no coal on that estate\u2014there is none in that part of\nEngland. But the _practical_ man puts some lumps slyly in his pocket,\ngoes down with them, and brings them up in triumph, as fresh from the\ndepths of the earth.\n\nATHERTON. Some German writers, even of the better sort have committed a\nsimilar mistake in their treatment of the life of Christ. First they set\nto work to construct the idea of Christ (out of the depths of their\nconsciousness, I suppose), then they study and compare the gospels to\nfind that idea realized. They think they have established the claim of\nEvangelists when they can show that they have found their idea developed\nin the biography they give us. As though the German mind could have had\nany idea of Christ at all within its profundities, but for the fishermen\nin the first instance.\n\nGOWER. This said Eye of Intelligence appears to me a pure fiction. What\nam I to make of a faculty which is above, and independent of, memory,\nreason, feeling, imagination,\u2014without cognizance of those external\ninfluences (which at least contribute to make us what we are), and\nwithout organs, instruments, or means of any kind for doing any sort of\nwork whatever? Surely this complete and perpetual separation between\nintuition and everything else within and without us, is a most\nunphilosophical dichotomy of the mind of man.\n\nATHERTON. Equally so, whether it be regarded as natural to man or as a\nsupernatural gift. Our intuitions, however rapid, must rest on the\nbelief of some fact, the recognition of some relationship or sense of\nfitness, which rests again on a judgment, right or wrong.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. And in such judgment the world without must have large\nshare.\n\nGOWER. For the existence of such a separate faculty as a spiritual gift\nwe have only the word of Hugo and his brethren. The faith of Scripture,\ninstead of being cut off from the other powers of the mind, is sustained\nby them, and strengthens as we exercise them.\n\nATHERTON. President Edwards, in his _Treatise on the Affections_,\nappears to me to approach the error of those mystics, in endeavouring to\nmake it appear that regeneration imparts a new power, rather than a new\ndisposition, to the mind. Such a doctrine cuts off the common ground\nbetween the individual Christian and other men. According to the\nVictorines it would seem to be the glory of Christianity that it enables\nman, at intervals at least, to denude himself of reason. To me its\ntriumph appears to consist in this, that it makes him, for the first\ntime, truly reasonable, who before acted unreasonably because of a\nperverted will.\n\n\n Note to page 158.\n\n\nThe treatise by Hugo, entitled _De Vanitate Mundi_, is a dialogue\nbetween teacher and scholar, in which, after directing his pupil to\nsurvey the endless variety and vicissitude of life, after showing him\nthe horrors of a shipwreck, the house of Dives, a marriage feast, the\ntoils and disputes of the learned, the instructor bids him shelter\nhimself from this sea of care in that ark of God, the religious life. He\nproceeds to describe that inner Eye, that _oculus cordis_, whose vision\nis so precious. \u2018Thou hast another eye,\u2019 he says (lib. i. p. 172), \u2018an\neye within, far more piercing than the other thou speakest of,\u2014one that\nbeholds at once the past, the present, and the future; which diffuses\nthrough all things the keen brightness of its vision; which penetrates\nwhat is hidden, investigates what is impalpable; which needs no foreign\nlight wherewith to see, but gazes by a light of its own, peculiar to\nitself (luce aliena ad videndum non indigens, sed sua ac propria luce\nprospiciens).\n\nSelf-collection is opposed (p. 175) to distraction, or attachment to the\nmanifold,\u2014is declared to be _restauratio_, and at the same time\n_elevatio_. The scholar inquires, \u2018If the heart of man be an ark or\nship, how can man be said to enter into his own heart, or to navigate\nthe universe with his heart? Lastly, if God, whom you call the harbour,\nbe above, what can you mean by such an unheard-of thing as a voyage\nwhich carries the ship upwards, and bears away the mariner out of\nhimself?\u2019 The teacher replies, \u2018When we purpose elevating the eye of the\nmind to things invisible, we must avail ourselves of certain analogies\ndrawn from the objects of sense. Accordingly, when, speaking of things\nspiritual and unseen, we say that anything is highest, we do not mean\nthat it is at the top of the sky, but that it is the inmost of all\nthings. To ascend to God, therefore, is to enter into ourselves, and not\nonly so, but in our inmost self to transcend ourselves. (Ascendere ergo\nad Deum hoc est intrare ad semet ipsum, et non solum ad se intrare, sed\nineffabili quodam modo in intimis etiam se ipsum transire, p. 176.)\n\nHugo, like Richard, associates this illumination inseparably with the\npractices of devotion. The tree of Wisdom within is watered by Grace. It\nstands by Faith, and is rooted in God. As it flourishes, we die to the\nworld, we empty ourselves, we sigh over even the necessary use of\nanything earthly. Devotion makes it bud, constancy of penitence causes\nit to grow. Such penitence (compunctio) he compares to digging in search\nof a treasure, or to find a spring. Sin has concealed this hoard\u2014buried\nthis water-source down beneath the many evils of the heart. The watching\nand the prayer of the contrite spirit clears away what is earthly, and\nrestores the divine gift. The spirit, inflamed with heavenly desire,\nsoars upward\u2014becomes, as it ascends, less gross, as a column of smoke is\nleast dense towards its summit, till we are all spirit; are lost to\nmortal ken, as the cloud melts into the air, and find a perfect peace\nwithin, in secret gazing on the face of the Lord. _De Arca morali_, lib.\niii. cap. 7.\n\n\n Note to page 162.\n\n\nSee the introductory chapters of the _Benjamin Minor_, or _De prep.\nanim. ad contemp._ fol. 34, &c.\u2014Richard rates this kind of\ninterpretation very highly, and looks for success therein to Divine\nIllumination. (_De eruditione interioris hominis_, cap. vi. fol. 25.) A\npassage or two from an appendix to his Treatise on Contemplation, may\nserve, once for all, as a specimen of his mystical interpretation. It is\nentitled _Nonnull\u00e6 allegori\u00e6 tabernaculi f\u0153deris_. \u2018By the tabernacle of\nthe covenant understand the state of perfection. Where perfection of the\nsoul is, there is the indwelling of God. The nearer we approach\nperfection, the more closely are we united with God. The tabernacle must\nhave a court about it. Understand by this the discipline of the body; by\nthe tabernacle itself, the discipline of the mind. The one is useless\nwithout the other. The court is open to the sky, and so the discipline\nof the body is accessible to all. What was within the tabernacle could\nnot be seen by those without. None knows what is in the inner man save\nthe spirit of man which is in him. The inner man is divided into\nrational and intellectual; the former represented by the outer, the\nlatter by the inner part of the tabernacle. We call that rational\nperception by which we discern what is within ourselves. We here apply\nthe term intellectual perception to that faculty by which we are\nelevated to the survey of what is divine. Man goes out of the tabernacle\ninto the court in the exercise of works. He enters the first tabernacle\nwhen he returns to himself. He enters the second when he transcends\nhimself. Self-transcendence is elevation into Deity. (Transcendendo sane\nseipsum elevatur in Deum.) In the former, man is occupied with the\nconsideration of himself; in the latter, with the contemplation of God.\n\n\u2018The ark of the covenant represents the grace of contemplation. The\nkinds of contemplation are six, each distinct from the rest. Two of them\nare exercised with regard to visible creatures, two are occupied with\ninvisible, the two last with what is divine. The first four are\nrepresented in the ark, the two others are set forth in the figures of\nthe cherubim. Mark the difference between the wood and the gold. There\nis the same difference between the objects of imagination and the\nobjects of reason. By imagination we behold the forms of things visible,\nby ratiocination we investigate their causes. The three kinds of\nconsideration which have reference to things, works, and morals, belong\nto the length, breadth, and height of the ark respectively. In the\nconsideration of _form_ and _matter_, our knowledge avails a full cubit.\n(It is equivalent to a cubit when complete.) But our knowledge of the\n_nature_ of things is only partial. For this part, therefore, we reckon\nonly half a cubit. Accordingly, the length of the ark is two cubits and\na half.\u2019... And thus he proceeds concerning the crown, the rings, the\nstaves, the mercy-seat, the cherubim, &c.\u2014Fol. 63, &c.\n\n\n Note to page 163.\n\n\nThe three heavens within the mind are described at length. (_De\nContemp._ lib. iii. cap. 8.) In the first are contained the images of\nall things visible; in the second lie the definitions and principles of\nthings seen, the investigations made concerning things unseen; in the\nthird are contemplations of things divine, beheld as they truly are\u2014a\nsun that knows no going down,\u2014and there, and there alone, the kingdom of\nGod within us in its glory.\u2014Cap. x. fol 52.\n\nThe eye of Intelligence is thus defined (cap. ix.):\u2014Intelligenti\u00e6\nsiquidem oculus est sensus ille quo invisibilia videmus: non sicut oculo\nrationis quo occulta et absentia per investigationem qu\u00e6rimus et\ninvenimus; sicut s\u00e6pe causas per effectus, vel effectus per causas, et\nalia atque alia quocunque ratiocinandi modo comprehendimus. Sed sicut\ncorporalia corporeo sensu videre solemus visibiliter potentialiter et\ncorporaliter; sic utique intellectualis ille sensus invisibilia capit\ninvisibiliter quidem, sed potentialiter, sed essentialiter. (Fol. 52.)\nHe then goes on to speak of the veil drawn over this organ by sin, and\nadmits that even when illuminated from above, its gaze upon our inner\nself is not so piercing as to be able to discern the _essence_ of the\nsoul. The inner verities are said to be within, the upper, beyond the\nveil. \u2018It may be questioned, however, whether we are to see with this\nsame eye of Intelligence the things beyond the veil, or whether we use\none sense to behold the invisible things which are divine, and another\nto behold the invisible things of our own nature. But those who maintain\nthat there is one sense for the intuition of things above and another\nfor those below, must prove it as well as they can. I believe that in\nthis way they introduce much confusion into the use of this word\nIntelligence,\u2014now extending its signification to a speculation which is\noccupied with what is above, and now confining it to what is below, and\nsometimes including both senses. This twofold intuition of things above\nand things below, whether we call it, as it were, a double sense in one,\nor divide it, is yet the instrument of the same sense, or a twofold\neffect of the same instrument, and whichever we choose, there can be no\nobjection to our saying that they both belong to the intellectual\nheaven.\u2019 There is certainly much of the confusion of which he complains\nin his own use of the word,\u2014a confusion which is perhaps explained by\nsupposing that he sometimes allows Intelligence to extend its office\nbelow its proper province, though no other faculty can rise above the\nlimits assigned to it. Intelligence may sometimes survey from her\naltitude the more slow and laborious processes of reason, though she\nnever descends to such toil.\n\nHe dwells constantly on the importance of self-knowledge,\nself-simplification, self-concentration, as essential to the ascent of\nthe soul.\u2014_De Contemp._ lib. iii. c. 3, c. 6; and on the difficulty of\nthis attainment, lib. iv. c. 6.\n\n\n Note to page 163.\n\n\n_De Contemp._ lib. iv. cap. 6. _Ibid._ cap. 23, and comp. lib. v. cap.\n1. Also iv. cap. 10. He calls it expressly a vision face to\nface:\u2014Egressus autem quasi facie ad faciem intuetur, qui per mentis\nexcessus extra semetipsum ductus summ\u00e6 sapienti\u00e6 lumen sine aliquo\ninvolucro figurarum ve adumbratione; denique non per speculum et in\nenigmate, sed in simplici (ut sic dicam) veritate contemplatur.\u2014Fol. 56.\nSee also lib. v. c\u0153pp. 4, 5, where he enters at large on the degrees and\nstarting-points of self-transcendence. Comp. iv. c. 2, fol. 60.\n\n_De Contemp._ i. cap. 10, describes the six wings, and declares that in\na future state we shall possess them all. Speaking of ecstasy, he\nsays:\u2014\u2018Cum enim per mentis excessum supra sive intra nosmetipsos in\ndivinorum contemplationem rapimur exteriorum omnium statim immo non\nsolum eorum qu\u00e6 extra nos verum etiam eorum qu\u00e6 in nobis sunt omnium\nobliviscimur.\u2019 When explaining the separation of soul and spirit, he\nexclaims,\u2014\u2018O alta quies, O sublimis requies, ubi omnis quod humanitus\nmoveri solet motum omnem amittit; ubi omnis qui tunc est motus divinitus\nfit et in Deum transit. Hic ille spiritus efflatus in manus patris\ncommendatur, non (ut ille somniator Jacob) scala indiget ut ad tertium\n(ne dicam ad primum) c\u0153lum evolet. Quid qu\u00e6so scala indigeat quem pater\ninter manus bajulat ut ad tertii c\u0153li secreta rapiat intantum ut\nglorietur, et dicat, Dextera tua suscepit me.... Spiritus ab infimis\ndividitur ut ad summa sublimetur. Spiritus ab anima scinditur ut Domino\nuniatur. Qui enim adh\u00e6ret Domino unus spiritus est.\u2014_De extermin. mali\net promotione boni_, cap. xviii. Again (_De Contemp._ lib. iv. c. 4), In\nhac gemina speculatione nihil imaginarium, nihil fantasticum debet\noccurrere. Longe enim omnem corpore\u00e6 similitudinis proprietatem excedit\nquicquid spectaculi tibi h\u00e6c gemina novissimi operis specula\nproponit.... Ubi pars non est minor suo toto, nec totum universalius suo\nindividuo; immo ubi pars a toto non minuitur, totum ex partibus non\nconstituitur; quia simplex est quod universaliter proponitur et\nuniversale quod quasi particulare profertur; ubi totum singula, ubi\nomnia unum et unum omnia. In his utique absque dubio succumbit humana\nratio, et quid faciat ibi imaginatio? Absque dubio in ejusmodi\nspectaculo officere potest; adjuvare omnino non potest. Elsewhere he\ndescribes the state as one of rapturous spiritual intoxication.\nMagnitudine jocunditatis et exultationis mens hominis a seipsa\nalienatur, quum intima illa intern\u00e6 suavitatis abundantia potata, immo\nplene inebriata, quid sit, quid fuerit, penitus obliviscitur; et in\nabalienationis excessum tripudii sui nimietate traducitur; et in\nsupermundanum quendam affectum sub quodam mir\u00e6 felicitatis statu raptim\ntransformatur.\u2014_Ibid._ lib. v. c. 5, fol. 60.\n\nFootnote 56:\n\n _Light and Colour._\u2014Light, thou eternally one, dwell above by the\n great One Eternal; Colour, thou changeful, in love come to Humanity\n down!\n\nFootnote 57:\n\n Liebner\u2019s _Hugo of St. Victor_, p. 21.\u2014This account of his early\n studies is given by Hugo in his _Didascalion_.\n\nFootnote 58:\n\n Schmid, _Der Mysticismus des M. A._, p. 303.\n\nFootnote 59:\n\n Comp. _De Sacramentis_, lib. v. p. x. c. 4. (tom. iii. p. 411.\n Garzon\u2019s edition of his works, Cologne, 1617.)\n\nFootnote 60:\n\n See Liebner, p. 315.\n\nFootnote 61:\n\n _De Sacramentis_, lib. i. p. i. cap. 12.\u2014Quisquis sic ordinatus est,\n dignus est lumine solis: ut mente sursum erecta et desiderio in\n superna defixo lumen summ\u00e6 veritatis contemplanti irradiet: et jam non\n per speculum in \u00e6nigmate, _sed in seipsa ut est_ veritatem agnoscat et\n sapiat.\n\nFootnote 62:\n\n See Note, p. 170.\n\nFootnote 63:\n\n Tom. iii. p. 356.\u2014In speaking of the days of creation and of the\n analogous seasons in the new creation within man, he says that as God\n first saw the light, that it was good, and then divided it from the\n darkness, so we must first try the spirit and examine our light with\n care, ere we part it from what we call darkness, since Satan can\n assume the garb of an angel of light.\n\n For an elaborate account of his entire theology, the reader is\n referred to Liebner\u2019s _Hugo von St. Victor und die Theologischen\n Richtungen seiner Zeit_; one of the best of the numerous monographs\n German scholarship has produced.\n\nFootnote 64:\n\n _Richardi S. Victoris Opp._ (Lyons, 1534), _De Preparatione animi ad\n contemplationem_, fol. 39.\n\nFootnote 65:\n\n _Ibid._ cap. xli.\n\nFootnote 66:\n\n Engelhardt, _Richard von St. Victor_, p. 6.\n\nFootnote 67:\n\n See Note, p. 171.\n\nFootnote 68:\n\n The six degrees of contemplation are as follows (_De Contemp._ i. 6,\n fol. 45):\n\n 1 In imaginatione secundum solam imaginationem.\n 2 In imaginatione secundum rationem.\n 3 In ratione secundum imaginationem.\n 4 In ratione secundum rationem.\n 5 Supra rationem sed non pr\u00e6ter rationem.\n 6 Supra rationem videtur esse pr\u00e6ter rationem.\n\n The office of Imagination to which the first two belong is Thought\n (_Cogitatio_); the office of Reason, Investigation (_Meditatio_); that\n of Intelligence, Contemplation (_Contemplatio_).\u2014_Ibid._ cap. 3. These\n three states are distinguished with much care, and his definition of\n the last is as follows:\u2014Contemplatio est perspicax et liber animi\n contuitus in res perspiciendas undequaque diffusus.\u2014_Ibid._ cap. 4. He\n draws the distinction between intelligibilia and intellectibilia in\n cap. 7; the former = invisibilia ratione tamen comprehensibilia; the\n latter = invisibilia et human\u00e6 rationi incomprehensibilia. The four\n lower kinds are principally occupied, he adds, with created objects,\n the two last with what is uncreated and divine.\u2014Fol. 45.\n\nFootnote 69:\n\n See Note, p. 171.\n\nFootnote 70:\n\n See Note, p. 172.\n\n\n\n\n BOOK THE SIXTH\n GERMAN MYSTICISM IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER I.\n\n\n I pray thee, peace; I will be flesh and blood,\n For there was never yet philosopher,\n That could endure the toothache patiently;\n However they have writ the style of gods,\n And made a pish at chance and sufferance.\n\n MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.\n\n It is more healthful and nutritive to dig the earth, and to eat of\n her fruits, than to stare upon the greatest glories of the heavens,\n and live upon the beams of the sun: so unsatisfying a thing is\n rapture and transportation to the soul; it often distracts the\n faculties, but seldom does advantage piety, and is full of danger in\n the greatest of its lustre.\u2014JEREMY TAYLOR.\n\n\nThe approach of summer separated the members of the Ashfield circle for\na time. Atherton purposed spending a few weeks in Germany, and\nWilloughby consented to accompany him. They were to visit once more\nBonn, Heidelberg, and Frankfort, then to make Strasburg their head\nquarters, and thence to ramble about Alsace.\n\nAs soon as Atherton had left them, Mrs. Atherton and Kate Merivale set\nout for the West of England, to visit their friends Mr. and Mrs.\nLowestoffe. Gower projected a sketching excursion along the banks of the\nWye. He knew the Lowestoffes, and gladly bound himself by the promise\nthey exacted, that he would make Summerford House his home for a day or\ntwo now and then, in the course of his wanderings. The beauty of the\ngrounds and neighbourhood would have rendered such visits eminently\ndelightful, even had the hospitable host and hostess been less\naccomplished admirers of art, or had Gower found no irresistible\nattraction in one of their guests.\n\nThe days at Summerford glided by in the enjoyment of those innumerable\nminor _satisfactions_ which, far more than highly pleasurable\nexcitements, make up the happiness of existence. If you doubt it,\nconsult Abraham Tucker on the matter. To many persons, life at the\nLowestoffes\u2019 would have been intolerably dull. There were few visitors.\nThe family seldom emerged from their retirement to visit the\nneighbouring city. Their amusements and their occupations, though\nvaried, were confined within limits which some would find lamentably\nnarrow. Lowestoffe himself was an early man and a punctual. It cost him\nsomething to smile a courteous forgiveness when even a favourite guest\ntransgressed any of the family regulations on which his comfort so much\ndepended. His horses and dogs, his grounds and his flowers, everything\nabout him and all dependent upon him, were methodically cared for,\ninspected, or commanded by himself in person. In one respect only was\nthere irregularity,\u2014no servant, labourer, or workman could be sure of\nany moment in which the master might not suddenly appear to see that all\nwent rightly. Though scrupulously just, and of a generous nature,\nLowestoffe was only too subject to a nervous dread of being defrauded by\nthose he employed, and used often to declare that men were ruined, not\nso much by what they spent themselves, as by what they allowed others to\nspend for them. In his early days he had contented himself with the mere\nnecessaries of his position in life, to discharge the debts which he\ninherited. He would actually have gone into business (to the horror of\nhis aristocratic friends, but with the applause of every impartial\nconscience), had there been no other way whereby to emancipate his\nproperty and honour. All declared he would have made a fortune if he\nhad. A few years of self-denial, and a few more of frugality and\nindustrious vigilance, realized the full accomplishment of his most\ncherished desire. His care and activity enabled him to deal very\nliberally whatever his confidence was at last bestowed, and to expend in\ndiscriminating charity a large annual sum. He was a connoisseur and a\nliberal patron of art, but no solicitation could induce him to purchase\nan old master. He knew well how skilfully imitations of antiquity are\nprepared, and had he bought a reputed Titian or Correggio, he would have\nfidgeted himself into a fever in a fortnight, by ruminating on the\nprobabilities of deception. He spent his money far more wisely on choice\npieces by living artists. When the morning was over, the afternoon and\nevening found him a cheerful and fascinating companion. His cares were\nthrown off, and he was restless and anxious no longer about little\nthings. Literature and art, even mere frolic, play with a child, or a\ngame of any kind, were welcome. Gower whispered an antithesis one day,\nto the effect that Lowestoffe gave one half the day to childish wisdom\nand the other to wise childishness.\n\nWe have mentioned what was not to be found at Summerford. What the two\nsisters did find there was amply sufficient for enjoyment. There was a\nlong avenue winding up to the house, so beset with ancient trees, that\nit seemed a passage through the heart of a wood. The lawn on which it\nopened was dotted with islands and rings of flower-bed,\u2014perfect magic\ncircles of horticulture, one all blue, another red, another yellow.\nThere was the house itself, with its old-fashioned terraces, urns, and\nbalustrades, and behind it\u2014oh, joy\u2014a rookery! A conservatory shot out\nits transparent glittering wing on one side of the edifice. At the foot\nof a slope of grass descending from the flower-palace lay a pool, shut\nin by a mound and by fragments of rock overgrown with flowers, and\narched above by trees. On the surface spread the level leaves of the\nwater-lilies, with the sparkling bubbles here and there upon their\nedges, and everywhere the shadowed water was alive with fish, that might\nbe seen darting, like little ruddy flames, in and out among the arrowy\nsheaves of reeds. Then farther away there were old irregular walks,\nrichly furred with moss, wandering under trees through which the\nsunbeams shot, now making some glossy evergreen far in among the stems\nand underwood shine with a startling brightness (so that the passer-by\nturned to see if there were not running water there, and fancied Undine\nhad been at her tricks again),\u2014now rendering translucent some plume of\nfern, now kindling some rugged edge of fir, and again glistening on some\nold tree-trunk, mailed with its circular plates of white lichen. These\nwood pathways\u2014often broken into natural steps by the roots of the trees\nwhich ran across their course\u2014led up a steep hill. From the summit were\nseen, in front, opposite heights, thickly covered with foliage, through\nwhich it was only here and there that a jutting point of rock could show\nitself to be reddened by the setting sun. Beneath, at a great depth, a\nshallow brook idled on its pebbles, and you looked down on the heads of\nthose who crossed its rustic bridge. On the one hand, there stretched\naway to the horizon a gentle sweep of hills, crossed and re-crossed with\nhedgerows and speckled with trees and sheep, and, on the other, lay the\nsea, in the haze of a sultry day, seen like a grey tablet of marble\nveined with cloud-shadows.\n\nAll this without doors, and books, pictures, prints, drawing, chess,\nchat, so choice and plentiful within, made Summerford \u2018a dainty place\u2019\u2014\n\n Attempred goodly well for health and for delight.\n\nMeanwhile Atherton in Germany was reviving old acquaintanceships and\nforming new, studying the historic relics of old Strasburg under the\nshadow of its lofty minster, and relieving his research by rides and\nwalks, now with student and now with professor. Early in August he and\nWilloughby returned to England, and repaired straightway to Summerford.\nThere, accordingly, the mystical circuit was complete once more. In a\nday or two the discovery was made, through some mysterious hints dropped\nby Willoughby, that Atherton had brought home a treasure from the Rhine.\nCross-examination elicited the fact that the said treasure was a\nmanuscript. Something to do with mysticism? Partly so. Then we must hear\nit. Atherton consented without pretending reluctance. The document\npurported to be his translation of a narrative discovered among the\nStrasburg archives, written by one Adolf Arnstein, an armourer of that\ncity,\u2014a personage who appears to have lived in the fourteenth century,\nand kept some record of what he saw and heard.\n\nSo the manuscript was read at intervals, in short portions, sometimes to\nthe little circle grouped on the grass under the trees, sometimes as\nthey sat in the house, with open windows, to let in the evening song of\nthe birds.\n\nAtherton commenced his first reading as follows:\u2014\n\n\n THE CHRONICLE OF ADOLF ARNSTEIN OF STRASBURG.\n\n _This book was begun in the year after the birth of our Lord, one\n thousand three hundred and twenty. Whosoever readeth this book, let\n him pray for the soul of Adolf Arnstein, a poor sinful man, who\n wrote it. And to all who read the same, or hear it read, may God\n grant everlasting life. Amen._\n\n 1320. _September. St. Matthew\u2019s Day._\u2014Three days ago I was surprised\n by a visit from Hermann of Fritzlar,[71] who has travelled hither\n from Hesse to hear Master Eckart preach. How he reminded me of what\n seem old times to me now\u2014ay, old times, though I am but twenty this\n day\u2014of the days when my honoured father lived and I was a merry boy\n of fifteen, little thinking that I should so soon be left alone to\n play the man as I best might.\n\n Hermann is the cause of my writing this. We were talking together\n yesterday in this room, while the workmen were hammering in the yard\n below, and the great forge-bellows were groaning away as usual. I\n told him how I envied his wonderful memory. He replied by reminding\n me that I could write and he could not. \u2018Ah,\u2019 said I, \u2018but your mind\n is full of things worth writing down. You scarcely hear or read a\n legend, a hymn, or a godly sermon, but it is presently your own, and\n after it has lain working in your brain for some time, you produce\n it again, and say or sing it after a way you have, so that it is\n quite delightful to hear.\u2019\n\n [The night before last I had taken him down into the work-shop, and\n told the men to stop their clatter for awhile, and hear something to\n do them good\u2014none of your Latin mumbling, but a godly history in\n their mother-tongue. And then did my friend tell them the Legend of\n Saint Dorothea, with such a simple tenderness that my rough fellows\n stood like statues till he had done. I saw a tear run down Hans\u2019\n sooty face, making a white channel over his cheek. He would have it\n afterwards that some dust had blown into his eye.]\n\n \u2018My good friend,\u2019 said Hermann, \u2018I am a dozen years at least older\n than you; let me counsel you not to set light by your gift, and let\n it lie unused. Had I that same scrivening art at my service, I\n should write me a book setting forth what I heard and observed while\n it was fresh in my mind. I know many good men who would hold such a\n book, written by a God-fearing man, as great treasure. They would\n keep it with care and hand it down to those who came after them, so\n that the writer thereof should be thought on when his hand was cold.\n I have it in my thoughts to dictate one day or other to some cunning\n scribe, some of the legends I so love. Haply they may not be the\n worse for their passage through the mind of a plain man with a\n loving heart, who has carried them about with him whithersoever he\n went, lived in them and grown one with them. But you can do much\n more if you list. I know, moreover, that you, Adolf, are not the man\n to turn away from your father\u2019s old friends because the great ones\n despise and daily vex them.\u2019\n\n This evening I do herewith begin to act on the resolution his words\n awakened. I am but a layman, and so is he, but for that matter I\n have hearkened to teachers who tell me that the layman may be nearer\n to heaven than the clerk, and that all such outer differences are of\n small account in the eye of God.\n\n * * * * *\n\n My father was an armourer and president of the guild. All looked up\n to him as the most fearless and far-seeing of our counsellors. He\n taught us how to watch and to resist the encroachments of the bishop\n and the nobles. We have to thank his wisdom mainly that our position\n has been not a little strengthened of late. Still, how much wrong\n have we oftentimes to suffer from the senate and their presidents!\n Strasburg prospers\u2014marvellously, considering the dreadful pestilence\n seven years back; but there is much to amend, Heaven knows! My\n father fell on a journey to Spires, in an affray with Von Otterbach\n and his black band. He could use well the weapons he made, and\n wounded Von Otterbach well nigh to the death before he was\n overpowered by numbers. The Rhenish League was strong enough, and\n for once bold enough, to avenge him well. That castle of Otterbach,\n which every traveller and merchant trembled to pass, stands now\n ruinous and empty. I, alas! was away the while, on my\n apprentice-travels. The old evil is but little abated, though our\n union has, I doubt not, prevented many of the worst mischiefs of the\n fist-law. Every rock along the Rhine is castled. They espy us\n approaching from far off, and at every turn have we to wrangle, and\n now and then, if strong enough, to fight, with these vultures about\n their robber-toll. Right thankful am I that my father died a man\u2019s\n death, fighting\u2014that I have not to imagine his fate as like that of\n some, who, falling alive into their hands, have been horribly\n tortured, and let down by a windlass, with dislocated limbs, into\n the loathsome dog-hole of a keep, to writhe and die by inches in\n putrid filth and darkness. Yet our very perils give to our calling\n an enterprise and an excitement it would otherwise lack. The\n merchant has his chivalry as well as the knight. Moreover, as rich\n old Gersdorf says, risk and profit run together\u2014though, as to money,\n I have as much already as I care for. We thrive, despite\n restrictions and extortions innumerable, legal and illegal. My\n brother Otto sends me word from Bohemia that he prospers. The\n Bohemian throats can never have enough of our wines, and we are good\n customers for their metal. Otto was always a rover. He talks of\n journeying to the East. It seems but yesterday that he and I were\n boys together, taking our reading and writing lessons from that poor\n old Waldensian whom my father sheltered in our house. How we all\n loved him! I never saw my father so troubled at anything as at his\n death. Our house has been ever since a refuge for such persecuted\n wanderers.\n\n The wrath of Popes, prelates, and inquisitors hath been especially\n kindled of late years against sundry communities, sects, and\n residues of sects, which are known by the name of Beghards,\n Beguines, Lollards, Kathari, Fratricelli, Brethren of the Free\n Spirit,[72] &c. Councils, they tell me, have been held at Cologne,\n Mayence, and Narbonne, to suppress the Beghards. Yet their numerous\n communities in the Netherlands and the Rhineland are a blessing to\n the poor folk, to whom the hierarchy are a curse. The clergy are\n jealous of them. They live single, they work with their hands, they\n nurse the sick, they lay out the dead, they lead a well-ordered and\n godly life in their Beguinasia, under the Magister or Magistra; but\n they are bound by no vows, fettered by no harassing minuti\u00e6 of\n austerity, and think the liberty of the Spirit better than monkish\n servitude. Some of them have fallen into the notions of those\n enthusiastic Franciscans who think the end of the world at hand, and\n that we live in, or near, the days of Antichrist. And no wonder,\n when the spiritual heads of Christendom are so unchristian. There\n are some sturdy beggars who wander about the country availing\n themselves of the name of Beghard to lead an idle life. These I\n excuse not. They say some of these Beghards claim the rank of\n apostles\u2014that they have subterranean rooms, where both sexes meet to\n hear blasphemous preachers announce their equality with God. Yea,\n worse charges than these\u2014even of grossest lewdness\u2014do they bring. I\n know many of them, both here and at Cologne, but nothing of this\n sort have I seen, or credibly heard of. They are the enemies of\n clerical pomp and usurpation, and some, I fear, hold strange\n fantastical notions, coming I know not whence. But the churchmen\n themselves are at fault, and answerable for it all. They leave the\n artisans and labourers in besotted ignorance, and when they do get a\n solitary religious idea that comes home to them, ten to one but it\n presently confounds or overthrows what little sense they have. Many\n deeply religious minds among us, both of laity and clergy, are at\n heart as indignant at the crimes of the hierarchy as can be the\n wildest mob-leading fanatic who here and there appears for a moment,\n haranguing the populace, denouncing the denouncers, and bidding men\n fight sin with sin. We who sigh for reform, who must have more\n spiritual freedom, have our secret communications, our meetings now\n and then for counsel, our signs and counter-signs. Folks call the\n Rhineland the Parsons\u2019 Walk\u2014so full is it of the clergy, so enjoyed\n and lorded over by them. Verily, it is at least as full of those\n hidden ones, who, in various wise which they call heresy, do worship\n God without man coming in between.\n\n The tide of the time is with us.[73] Our once famous Godfrey of\n Strasburg is forgotten. Wolfram von Eschenbach is the universal\n model. His _Parzival and Titurel_ live on the lips of the many\n rhymesters and minstrels who wander from town to town now, as once\n they did from court to court and castle to castle. It is the\n religiousness and the learning of Wolfram that finds favour for him\n and countless imitators. This is the good sign I mean. Our singers\n have turned preachers. They are practical, after their fashion. They\n are a Book of Proverbs, and give us maxims, riddles, doctrines,\n science, in their verses. If they sing of chivalry, it is to\n satirize chivalry\u2014such knighthood as now we have. They are spreading\n and descending towards the people. Men may have their songs of\n chivalry in Spain, where, under the blessed St. Iago, good knights\n and true have a real crusade against those heathen hounds the Moors,\n whom God confound. But here each petty lord in his castle has\n nothing to do but quarrel with his neighbour and oppress all weaker\n than himself. What to such men, robbing, drinking, devouring their\n living with harlots, are Arthur and the Round Table, or Oliver and\n Roland? So the singers come to us. In good sooth, the old virtues of\n knighthood\u2014its truth and honour, its chastity and courage\u2014are found\n far more among the citizens than with the nobles. We relish the sage\n precepts and quaint abstruseness of Reimar of Zweter, though he be\n somewhat of a pedant. Albertus Magnus is the hero with him, instead\n of Charlemagne. His learning is a marvel, and he draws all morality\n by allegory out of the Seven Sciences in most wondrous wise.\n Frauenlob himself (alas! I heard last year that he was dead) could\n not praise fair ladies more fairly. He assails, in the boldest\n fashion, the Pope and Rome, and their daughters Cologne and Mayence.\n The last time he was over here from Bohemia, we laughed nigh to\n bursting at his caricature of a tournament, and applauded till the\n rafters rang again when he said that not birth, but virtue, made\n true nobleness. Then our ballads and popular fables are full of\n satire on the vices of ecclesiastics. All this tends to keep men\n awake to the abuses of the day, and to deepen their desire for\n reform. We shall need all the strength we can gather, political and\n religious, if in the coming struggle the name of German is not to be\n a shame. Our Holy Father promises to indemnify himself for the\n humiliation he suffers at Avignon by heaping insults upon Germany.\n If Louis of Bavaria conquers Frederick, I should not wonder if we\n Strasburgers wake up some morning and find ourselves excommunicate.\n All true hearts must be stirring\u2014we shall have cowards and sluggards\n enow on all hands.\n\n Last month the Emperor Louis was here with his army for a few days.\n Our bishop Ochsenstein and the Zorn family espouse the cause of his\n rival Frederick the Fair. Louis has on his side, however, the best\n of us\u2014the family of the M\u00fcllenheim, the chief burghers, and the\n people generally. Every true German heart, every hater of foreign\n domination, must be with him. Many a skirmish has there been in our\n streets between the retainers of the two great houses of Zorn and\n M\u00fcllenheim, and now their enmity is even more bitter than\n heretofore. The senate received Louis with royal honours. When\n Frederick was here five years ago, we would only entertain him as a\n guest. The clergy and most of the nobles hailed him as Emperor. Now,\n when Louis came, it was their turn to stand aloof. There were few of\n them in the cathedral the other day, when he graciously confirmed\n our privileges. The bishop issued orders to put a stop to the\n performance of all church offices while Louis was here; whereupon,\n either from prudence or consideration for our souls, he shortened\n his visit.[74]\n\n 1320. _September. St. Maurice\u2019s Day._\u2014A long conversation with\n Hermann to-day. He has heard Eckart repeatedly, and, as I looked\n for, is both startled and perplexed. Of a truth it is small marvel\n that such preaching as his stirred up all Cologne, gathered crowds\n of wondering hearers, made him fast friends and deadly enemies, and\n roused the wrath of the heretic-hunting archbishop. Hermann brought\n me home some of the things this famous doctor said which most struck\n him. I wrote them down from his lips, and place them here.\n\n \u2018He who is at all times alone is worthy of God. He who is at all\n times at home, to him is God present. He who standeth at all times\n in a present Now, in him doth God the Father bring forth his son\n without ceasing.[75]\n\n \u2018He who finds one thing otherwise than another\u2014to whom God is dearer\n in one thing than another, that man is carnal, and still afar off\n and a child. But he to whom God is alike in all things hath become a\n man.[76]\n\n \u2018All that is in the Godhead is one. Thereof can we say nothing. It\n is above all names, above all nature. The essence of all creatures\n is eternally a divine life in Deity. God works. So doth not the\n Godhead. Therein are they distinguished,\u2014in working and not working.\n The end of all things is the hidden darkness of the eternal Godhead,\n unknown and never to be known.[77]\n\n \u2018I declare, by good truth and truth everlasting, that in every man\n who hath utterly abandoned self, God must communicate Himself\n according to all His power, so completely that he retains nothing in\n His life, in His essence, in His Nature, and in His Godhead\u2014He must\n communicate all to the bringing forth of fruit.[78]\n\n \u2018When the Will is so united that it becometh a One in oneness, then\n doth the Heavenly Father produce his only-begotten Son in Himself\n and in me. Wherefore in Himself and in me? I am one with Him\u2014He\n cannot exclude me. In the self-same operation doth the Holy Ghost\n receive his existence, and proceeds from me as from God. Wherefore?\n I am in God, and if the Holy Ghost deriveth not his being from me,\n He deriveth it not from God. I am in nowise excluded.[79]\n\n \u2018There is something in the soul which is above the soul, divine,\n simple, an absolute Nothing, rather unnamed than named, unknown than\n known. So long as thou lookest on thyself as a _Something_, so long\n thou knowest as little what this is as my mouth knows what colour\n is, or as my eye knows what taste is. Of this I am wont to speak in\n my sermons, and sometimes I have called it a Power, sometimes an\n uncreated Light, sometimes a divine Spark. It is absolute and free\n from all names and forms, as God is free and absolute in Himself. It\n is higher than knowledge, higher than love, higher than grace. For\n in all these there is still distinction. In this power doth blossom\n and flourish God, with all His Godhead, and the Spirit flourisheth\n in God. In this power doth the Father bring forth His only-begotten\n Son, as essentially as in Himself, and in this light ariseth the\n Holy Ghost. This Spark rejects all creatures, and will have only\n God, simply as he is in Himself. It rests satisfied neither with the\n Father, nor the Son, nor the Holy Ghost, nor with the three Persons,\n as far as each exists in its respective attributes. I will say what\n will sound more marvellous yet. This Light is satisfied only with\n the super-essential essence. It is bent on entering into the simple\n Ground, the still Waste, wherein is no distinction, neither Father,\n Son, nor Holy Ghost,\u2014into the Unity where no man dwelleth. There is\n it satisfied in the light, there it is one; then is it in itself, as\n this Ground is a simple stillness in itself, immoveable; and yet by\n this Immobility are all things moved.[80]\n\n \u2018God in himself was not God\u2014in the creature only hath He become God.\n I ask to be rid of God\u2014that is, that God, by his grace, would bring\n me into the Essence\u2014that Essence which is above God and above\n distinction. I would enter into that eternal Unity which was mine\n before all time, when I was what I would, and would what I was;\u2014into\n a state above all addition or diminution;\u2014into the Immobility\n whereby all is moved.[81]\n\n \u2018Folks say to me often\u2014\u201cPray God for me.\u201d Then I think with myself,\n \u201cWhy go ye out? Why abide ye not in your own selves, and take hold\n on your own possession? Ye have all truth essentially within\n you?.\u201d[82]\n\n \u2018God and I are one in knowing. God\u2019s Essence is His knowing, and\n God\u2019s knowing makes me to know Him. Therefore is His knowing my\n knowing. The eye whereby I see God is the same eye whereby He seeth\n me. Mine eye and the eye of God are one eye, one vision, one\n knowledge, and one love.[83]\n\n \u2018If any man hath understood this sermon, it is well for him. Had not\n a soul of you been here, I must have spoken the very same words. He\n who hath not understood it, let him not trouble his heart therewith,\n for as long as a man is not himself like unto this truth, so long\n will he never understand it, seeing that it is no truth of\n reflection, to be thought out, but is come directly out of the heart\n of God without medium.\u2019[84]\n\n Of all this I can understand scarcely anything. The perpetual\n incarnation of God in good Christians, the nameless Nothing, the\n self-unfolding and self-infolding of God (I know not what words to\n use) are things too high for my grosser apprehension. I shall let\n the sayings lie here; some one else who reads may comprehend them. I\n am content to be a child in such matters. I look with awe and\n admiration on men who have attained while yet in the flesh heights\n of wisdom which will be, perhaps to all eternity, beyond the reach\n of such as I am.\n\n 1320. _October. St. Francis\u2019 Day._\u2014Went with Hermann this morning to\n hear mass. Master Eckart preached again. Dr. Tauler in the church.\n How every one loves that man! As several of his brethren made their\n way to their places, I saw the people frown on some of them, and\n laugh and leer to each other as two or three of them passed. They\n had reason, I know, to hate and to despise certain among them. But\n to Tauler all bowed, and many voices blessed him. He has a kind\n heart to feel for us, the commonalty. He and his sermons are one and\n the same. He means all he says, and we can understand much, at\n least, of what he means. There is a cold grandeur about Master\n Eckart. He seems above emotion: his very face, all intellect, says\n it is a weakness to feel. At him we wonder; with Master Tauler we\n weep. How reverently did Tauler listen, as a son to a father, to the\n words of the great Doctor. No doubt he understood every syllable. He\n is and shall be my sole confessor. I will question him, some day,\n concerning these lofty doctrines whereby it would seem that the\n poorest beggar may outpass in wisdom and in blessedness all the\n Popes of Christendom.\n\n Master Eckart said to-day:\u2014\u2018Some people are for seeing God with\n their eyes, as they can see a cow, and would love God as they love a\n cow (which thou lovest for the milk and for the cheese, and for\n thine own profit). Thus do all those who love God for the sake of\n outward riches or of inward comfort; they do not love aright, but\n seek only themselves and their own advantage.[85]\n\n \u2018God is a pure good in Himself, and therefore will He dwell nowhere\n save in a pure soul. There He may pour Himself out; into that He can\n wholly flow. What is Purity? It is that man should have turned\n himself away from all creatures, and have set his heart so entirely\n on the pure good, that no creature is to him a comfort, that he has\n no desire for aught creaturely, save as far as he may apprehend\n therein the pure good which is God. And as little as the bright eye\n can endure aught foreign in it, so little can the pure soul bear\n anything in it, any stain, aught between it and God. To it all\n creatures are pure to enjoy, for it enjoyeth all creatures in God,\n and God in all creatures. Yea, so pure is that soul that she seeth\n through herself, she needeth not to seek God afar off, she finds him\n in herself, when, in her natural purity, she hath flowed out into\n the super-natural of the pure Godhead. And thus is she in God and\n God in her, and what she doeth that she doeth in God and God doeth\n it in her.[86]\n\n \u2018Then shall a man be truly poor when he is as free from his creature\n will as he was before he was born. And I say to you, by the eternal\n truth, that so long as ye desire to fulfil the will of God, and have\n any desire after eternity and God, so long are ye not truly poor. He\n alone hath true spiritual poverty who wills nothing, knows nothing,\n desires nothing.[87]\n\n \u2018For us, to follow truly what God willeth, is to follow that whereto\n we are most inclined,\u2014whereto we feel most frequent inward\n exhortation and strongest attraction. The inner voice is the voice\n of God.\u2019[88]\n\n After the service, Hermann left me to go and see a sick friend. I\n mingled with the crowd. There was a knot of people gathered before\n All-Saints, discussing what they had heard. A portly, capon-lined\n burgomaster declared he had first been hungry, then sleepy, and that\n was all he knew. He had verily, as a wag presently told him, obeyed\n the master, and lost consciousness of all external things. Whereat\n the jolly citizen was so tickled that he took the joker home to dine\n with him, promising mountains of pickled pork, a whole Black Forest\n of sauer kraut, and boundless beakers of hippocras.\n\n An innocent novice from the country (looking fresh as a new-caught\n trout) began to say, \u2018Well, it doth seem to me that though Doctor\n Eckart received his Doctorate from Rome, at the hands of our Holy\n Father, though he hath studied and taught at Paris, though he hath\n been Provincial of our order in Saxony, and Vicar-General in\n Bohemia\u2014where he played the cat with the mice, I can tell you\u2014yet\n that some things he said were\u2014\u2014\u2019\n\n \u2018Hold your tongue for a jackass,\u2019 quoth a senior brother, who liked\n not, methinks, to hear a whisper against the orthodoxy of the order,\n by whomsoever or against whomsoever uttered.\n\n \u2018He is a blasphemer,\u2019 said a friar. \u2018Good people, did not you hear\n him say that what burned in hell was the Nothing?[89] Then nothing\n burns; _ergo_, there is no hell.\u2019\n\n \u2018I don\u2019t think he believes in God at all,\u2019 cried one:\u2014\u2018Did he not\n say something about caring no more for God than for a stone?\u2019\n\n \u2018Ay, but,\u2019 urged the friar, \u2018no hell, and so no purgatory\u2014think of\n that. Why, he has swept the universe as clean of the devil as a\n housewife\u2019s platter at a christening.\u2019\n\n Some one in the crowd shouted out, \u2018That fellow cares not what\n becomes of God, but he can\u2019t give up his devil.\u2019 Whereon the friar\n grew very red in the face, as we all laughed, but could not bethink\n him of any answer, and went capped with the name of Brother\n Brimstone ever after.\n\n \u2018What was that he said,\u2019 asked a slip-shod, sottish-looking tailor,\n \u2018about doing what you like, and that is what God likes?\u2019\n\n \u2018Friends,\u2019 cries next a rainbow-coloured, dandified puppy, a\n secretary of the bishop\u2019s, stroking the down of a would-be\n moustache, evidently as yet only in a state of Becoming\n (_Werden_)\u2014\u2018I would fain have moderately kicked him,\u2014\u2014\n\n \u2018My friends\u2019 (smiling with a patronizing blandness at the tailor),\n \u2018you are right; the public morals are in danger. Evil men and\n seducers wax worse and worse. But the Holy Church will protect her\n children. We have heard pestilent heresy this day. To hear that man\n talk, you would fancy he thought there was as much divinity in his\n little finger as in the whole body of the Virgin Mother of God.\u2019\n\n Whereupon up starts a little man whom I knew for one of the brethren\n of the Free Spirit\u2014takes his place on a stone that lay in the mud of\n the middle of the street, and begins\u2014\u2018Good people, did you not hear\n the doctor say that those who cannot understand his doctrine are to\n hold by the common faith? Did not Saint Peter say of the Epistles of\n the blessed Saint Paul that there were some things therein hard to\n be understood, which the ignorant would wrest to their own\n destruction? I\u2019ll tell you the ignorance he means and the knowledge\n he means. Friend Crispin there, whom you carried home drunk in a\n barrow last night, and Master Secretary here, who transgresses in\n like wise and worse in a daintier style, and hath, by the way, as\n much perfumery about him as though the scent thereof, rising towards\n heaven, were so much incense for the taking away of his many\n sins\u2014they are a couple of St. Paul\u2019s ignoramuses. The knowledge St.\n Paul means is the thoughtful love of doing the right thing for the\n love of Christ. But the Pope himself may be one of these witless\n ones, if the love of sin be stronger in him than the love of\n holiness. The preaching of all the twelve Apostles would be turned\n to mischief and to licence by such as you, you feather-brained,\n civet-tanned puppet of a man, you adulterous, quill-driving\n hypocrite.\u2019\n\n \u2018Seize him,\u2019 shouts my Secretary, and darted forward; but an\n apprentice put out his foot, and over he rolled into the mire,\n grievously ruffling and besmutching all his gay feathers, while the\n little man mingled with the laughing people, and made his escape. I\n hope he is out of Strasburg, or he may be secluded in a darkness and\n a solitude anything but divine. He was a trifle free of tongue,\n assuredly; I suppose that makes a part of the freedom of the Spirit\n with him. He had right, however, beyond question.\n\n The confusion created by this incident had scarcely ceased, when I\n saw advancing towards us the stately form of Master Eckart himself.\n He looked with a calm gravity about upon us, as he paused in the\n midst\u2014seemed to understand at once of what sort our talk had been,\n and appeared about to speak. There was a cry for silence\u2014\u2018Hear the\n Doctor! hear him!\u2019 Whereon he spoke as follows:\u2014\n\n \u2018There was once a learned man who longed and prayed full eight years\n that God would show him some one to teach him the way of truth. And\n on a time, as he was in a great longing, there came unto him a voice\n from heaven, and said, \u201cGo to the front of the church, there wilt\n thou find a man that shall show thee the way to blessedness.\u201d\n\n \u2018So thither he went, and found there a poor man whose feet were\n torn, and covered with dust and dirt, and all his apparel scarce\n three hellers worth. He greeted him, saying, \u201cGod give thee good\n morrow.\u201d Thereat made he answer, \u201cI never had an ill morrow.\u201d Again\n said he, \u201cGod prosper thee.\u201d The other answered, \u201cNever had I aught\n but prosperity.\u201d\n\n \u2018\u201cHeaven save thee,\u201d said the scholar, \u201chow answerest thou me so?\u201d\n\n \u2018\u201cI was never other than saved.\u201d\n\n \u2018\u201cExplain to me this, for I understand not.\u201d\n\n \u2018\u201cWillingly,\u201d quoth the poor man. \u201cThou wishest me good morrow. I\n never had an ill morrow, for, am I an hungered, I praise God; am I\n freezing, doth it hail, snow, rain, is it fair weather or foul, I\n praise God; and therefore had I never ill morrow. Thou didst say,\n God prosper thee. I have been never unprosperous, for I know how to\n live with God; I know that what he doth is best, and what God giveth\n or ordaineth for me, be it pain or pleasure, that I take cheerfully\n from Him as the best of all, and so I had never adversity. Thou\n wishest God to bless me. I was never unblessed, for I desire to be\n only in the will of God, and I have so given up my will to the will\n of God, that what God willeth I will.\u201d\n\n \u2018\u201cBut if God were to cast thee into hell,\u201d said the scholar, \u201cwhat\n wouldst thou do then?\u201d\n\n \u2018\u201cCast me into hell? His goodness holds him back therefrom. Yet if\n he did, I should have two arms to embrace him withal. One arm is\n true Humility, and therewith am I one with his holy humanity. And\n with the right arm of Love, that joineth his holy Godhead, I would\n embrace him, so He must come with me into hell likewise. And even\n so, I would sooner be in hell, and have God, than in heaven, and not\n have Him.\u201d\n\n \u2018Then understood this Master that true Abandonment, with utter\n Abasement, was the nearest way to God.\n\n \u2018Moreover the Master asked: \u201cFrom whence comest thou?\u201d\n\n \u2018\u201cFrom God.\u201d\n\n \u2018\u201cWhere hast thou found God?\u201d\n\n \u2018\u201cWhere I abandoned all creatures. I am a king. My kingdom is my\n soul. All my powers, within and without, do homage to my soul. This\n kingdom is greater than any kingdom on the earth.\u201d\n\n \u2018\u201cWhat hath brought thee to this perfection?\u201d\n\n \u2018\u201cMy silence, my heavenward thoughts, my union with God. For I could\n rest in nothing less than God. Now I have found God, and have\n everlasting rest and joy in Him.\u201d[90]\n\n With that Master Eckart ceased, and went on his way again, leaving\n us in wonderment; and I watched him, as far as I could see along the\n winding street, walking on under the over-hanging gables, with his\n steady step and abstract air, and his silver locks fluttering out in\n the wind from under his doctor\u2019s hat. When I looked round, I found\n myself almost alone. He is a holy man, let what will be said about\n heresy.\n\n I set down here a new hymn Hermann sang me\u2014sweet, as he sang it\u2014with\n a ringing repetition that chimes right pleasantly, and makes amends\n for some lack of meaning in the words.[91]\n\n Oh be glad, thou Zion\u2019s daughter,\n Joyous news to thee are sent;\n Thou shalt sing a strain of sweetness,\n Sing it to thy heart\u2019s content.\n Now the friend of God thou art,\n Therefore shalt thou joy at heart,\n Therefore know no sorrow-smart.\n Lo! \u2019tis ju-ju-jubilation,\n Meditation;\n Ju-ju-ju-ju-jubilation,\n Contemplation;\n Ju-ju-ju-jubilation;\n Ju-ju-ju-jubilation;\n Speculation;\n Ju-ju-ju-jubilation,\n Conciliation!\n\n Meditation, that is goodly,\n When a man on God will muse;\n Jubilation worketh wonder,\n \u2019Tis the harp the soul doth use.\n Speculation, that is sheen,\n Contemplation crowns, I ween,\n Concord leads, the dance\u2019s queen,\n Lo! ju-ju-ju-\n Conciliation!\n \u2019Tis jubilation\n At the sweets of contemplation!\n\n Have been haunted by this ju-ju, in-doors and out, whatever I have\n been doing for the last three days, and I hear it in every stroke\n upon the anvil.\n\n 1320. _Second week in October._\u2014A ride over to Fegersheim about Sir\n Rudolf\u2019s new bascinet with the beaked ventaille. As I reached the\n castle the ladies were just coming out for hawking, with a brave\n company of knights and squires. They were fair to see, with their\n copes and kirtles blue and white, and those fanciful new-fashioned\n crowns on their heads, all glittering with gold and jewels. Sir\n Rudolf stayed for me awhile and then followed them.\n\n On my way back, rested at noon at a little hostelry, where I sat\n before the door at a table, chatting with mine host. There ride up a\n priest and monk with attendants. Holy Mary, what dresses! The monk\n with bells on his horse\u2019s bridle, his hood fastened with a great\n golden pin, wrought at the head into a true-love knot, his hair\n growing long so as to hide his tonsure, his shoes embroidered and\n cut lattice-wise.[92] There was the priest with broad gold girdle,\n gown of green and red, slashed after the newest mode, and a long\n sword and dagger, very truly militant. I marvelled at the variety\n and unction of the oaths they had at their service. The advantage of\n a theological training was very manifest therein.\n\n Scarcely were these worthies, with bag and baggage, well on their\n way again when I espied, walking towards the inn, a giant of a\n man\u2014some three inches higher than I am (a sight I have not often\n seen), miserably attired, dusty and travel-worn. When he came to\n where I was he threw down his staff and bundle, cast his huge limbs\n along the bench, gave a careless, surly glance at me, and, throwing\n back his shaggy head of black hair, seemed about to sleep. Having\n pity on his weariness I said, \u2018Art thirsty, friend? the sun hath\n power to-day.\u2019 Thereupon he partly raised himself, looked fixedly at\n me, and then drank off the tankard I pushed towards him, grunting\n out a something which methought was meant for thanks. Being now\n curious, I asked him straight, \u2018Where he came from?\u2019\n\n _He._ I never came from anywhere.\n\n _I._ What are you?\n\n _He._ I am not.\n\n _I._ What will you?\n\n _He._ I will not.\n\n _I._ This is passing strange. Tell me your name.\n\n _He._ Men call me the Nameless Wild.\n\n _I._ Not far off the mark either; you talk wildly enough. Where do\n you come from? whither are you bound?\n\n _He._ I dwell in absolute Freedom.\n\n _I._ What is that?\n\n _He._ When a man lives as he list, without distinction (Otherness,\n _Anderheit_), without before or after. The man who hath in his\n Eternal Nothing become nothing knows nought of distinctions.\n\n _I._ But to violate distinction is to violate order, and to break\n that is to be a slave. That is not the freedom indeed, which the\n truth gives. He that committeth sin is the servant of sin. No man\n can be so utterly self-annihilated and lost in God,\u2014can be such a\n very nothing that there remains no remnant of the original\n difference between creature and Creator. My soul and body are one,\n are not separate; but they are distinct. So is it with the soul\n united to God. Mark the difference, friend, I prithee, between\n separation and distinction (_Geschiedenheit und Unterschiedenheit_).\n\n _He._ The teacher saith that the saintly man is God\u2019s son, and what\n Christ doth, that doth he.\n\n _I._ He saith that such man followeth Christ in righteousness. But\n our personality must ever abide. Christ is son of God by nature, we\n by grace. Your pride blinds you. You are enlightened with a false\n light, coming whence I know not. You try and \u2018break through\u2019 to the\n Oneness, and you break through reason and reverence.\n\n He replied by telling me that I was in thick darkness, and the boy\n coming with my horse, I left him.[93]\n\n As I rode homeward I thought on the contrast I had seen. This man\n who came last is the natural consequent on the two who preceded him.\n So doth a hypocritical, ghostly tyranny produce lawlessness. I have\n seen the Priest and the Levite, and methinks one of the\n thieves,\u2014where is our good Samaritan? I know not which extreme is\n the worst. One is selfish absoluteness, the other absolute\n selfishness. Oh, for men among us who shall battle with each in the\n strength of a truth above them both! Poor Alsace!\n\nHere Atherton laid aside his manuscript, and conversation commenced.\n\nFootnote 71:\n\n The _Heiligenleben_ of Hermann von Fritslar has been recently edited\n by Franz Pfeiffer, in his _Ausgabe der Deutschen Mystiker_ (Leipsig,\n 1845). Hermann says himself repeatedly that he had caused his book to\n be written (_schreiben lassen_) and there is every reason to believe\n that he was, like Rulman Merswin and Nicholas of Basle, his\n contemporaries, a devout layman,\u2014one of a class among the laity\n characteristic of that age and neighbourhood, who, without entering\n into an order, spent the greater part of their time in the exercises\n of religion, and of their fortune on religious objects. Though he\n could not write, he could read, and his book is confessedly a\n compilation from many books and from the sermons and the sayings of\n learned and godly men. He says, Diz buch ist zu sammene gelesen \u00fbzze\n vile anderen bucheren und \u00fbzze vile predig\u00e2ten und \u00fbzze vil\n l\u00ear\u00earen.\u2014_Vorrede._\n\nFootnote 72:\n\n Concerning these sects, see Ullmann, _Reformatoren vor der\n Reformation_, vol. ii. pp. 1-18. The fullest account is given of them\n in a masterly Latin treatise by Mosheim, _De Beghardis et Beguinabus_.\n He enters at length into the discussion of their name and origin;\n details the various charges brought against them, and gives the bulls\n and acts issued for their suppression. See especially the circular of\n John Ochsenstein, Bishop of Strasburg, cap. iv. \u00a7 xi. p. 255.\n\nFootnote 73:\n\n Authority for these statements concerning the literature of the\n period, will be found in Gervinus, _Geschichte der poetischen\n National-Literatur der Deutschen_, part vi. \u00a7\u00a7 1, 2, 5.\n\nFootnote 74:\n\n _Johannes Tauler von Strasburg_, by Dr. Carl Schmidt, pp. 8-10; and\n Laguille\u2019s _Histoire d\u2019Alsace_, liv. xxiv.\n\nFootnote 75:\n\n Meister Eghart spricht: wer alle cit allein ist, der ist gottes\n wirdige; vnt wer alliu cit do heimenen ist, dem ist got gegenw\u00fcrtig;\n vnt wer alliu cit stat in einem gegenw\u00fcrtigen nu, in dem gebirt got\n der vatter sinen sune an vnderlas.\u2014_Spr\u00fcche Deutscher Mystiker_, in\n Wackernagel\u2019s _Altdeutsches Lesebuch_, p. 889.\n\nFootnote 76:\n\n Meister Eghart sprach: vnt wem in einem anders ist denne in dem\n andern, vnt dem got lieber ist in einem denne in dem andern, der\n mensche ist grobe, vnt noch verre vnt ein kint. Aber dem got gelich\n ist in allen, der ist ce man worden.\u2014_Ibid._\n\n Both this saying and the foregoing are expressions for that total\n indifference and self-abandonment so strenuously inculcated by the\n mystics. He who lives weaned from the world, alone with God, without\n regrets, without anticipations, \u2018stands in a present Now,\u2019 and sees\n the divine love as clearly in his sorrows as in his joys,\u2014does not\n find \u2018one thing other than another.\u2019 There is exaggeration in\n suppressing, as Eckart would do, the instinct of thanksgiving for\n special benefaction; but in his strong language lies couched a great\n truth,\u2014that only in utter self-surrender can man find abiding peace.\n\nFootnote 77:\n\n Alles das in der gottheyt ist, das ist ein, vnd davon ist nicht zu\n sprechen. Got der w\u00fcrcket, die gotheyt nit, sy hat auch nicht zu\n w\u00fcrckende, in ir ist auch kein werck. Got vnt gotheyt hat underscheyd,\n an w\u00fcrcken vnd an nit w\u00fcrcken.\n\n Was ist das letst end? Es ist die verborgen finsternusz der ewigen\n gotheit, vnd ist unbekant, vnd wirt nymmerme bekant. (See a paper on\n Eckart, by Dr. Carl Schmidt in the _Theol. Stud. u. Kritiken_, 1839,\n 3, p. 693.) Comp. the following:\u2014Got ist noch gut noch besser, noch\n allerbest, vnd ick thue also unrecht, wenn ick Got gut heisse, rechte\n ase ob ick oder er etwas wiz weiss und ick es schwarz heisse.\u2014_Ibid._\n p. 675. This last assertion was one of the counts of accusation in the\n bull of 1330.\n\nFootnote 78:\n\n Martensen\u2019s _Meister Eckart_ (Hamburg, 1842), p. 22.\u2014The divine\n communication assumes with Eckart the form of philosophical necessity.\n The man emptied of Self is infallibly full of Deity, after the fashion\n of the old principle, \u2018Nature abhors a vacuum.\u2019 Yet even this doctrine\n is not wholly false. It is the misrepresentation of a Christian truth.\n Its correlative verity is this,\u2014that the kingdom of grace, like the\n kingdom of nature, has its immutable laws. He who seeks shall find; as\n we sow we reap, with unerring certainty. Gravitation is not more sure\n than the announcement, \u2018With that man will I dwell who is of a meek\n and contrite spirit.\u2019\n\nFootnote 79:\n\n Martensen, p. 23. Comp. _Stud. u. Krit._ _loc. cit._ Alles das denn\n got yn gegab seinem eingebornen sun, das hat er mir gegeben.... _Was\n got w\u00fcrcket, das ist ein_, darumb gebiret er mich seinen sun, on aller\n underscheyd.\u2014These words exhibit the pantheistic principle on which\n this assumption is based. All spirit (whether in so called creature or\n Creator) is substantially one and the same. It cannot be divided; it\n can have no distinctive operations. Our dividual personal\n consciousness is, as it were, a temporary accretion on the Universal\n Soul with which we are in contact. Escaping this consciousness, we\n merge in\u2014that is, we become\u2014the Universal Soul. We are brought into\n the Essence,\u2014the calm, unknown oneness beyond all manifestation, above\n creation, providence, or grace. This is Eckart\u2019s escape from\n distinction,\u2014lapse into the totality of spirit. This doctrine he\n teaches, not in opposition to the current Christian doctrine, but as a\n something above it,\u2014at once its higher interpretation and its climax.\n\nFootnote 80:\n\n These statements concerning the \u2018f\u00fcncklin der vernunfft\u2019 are the\n substance of passages given by Martensen, pp. 26, 27, and Schmidt\n (_Stud. u. Krit._ _l. c._), pp. 707, 709.\u2014Ich sprich es bey gutter\n warheit, und bey yemmerwerender warheit, und bey ewiger warheit, das\n disem liechte nit ben\u00fcget an dem einfaltigem stilstanden g\u00f6tlichen\n wesen, von wannen disz wesen harkommet, es will in den einfaltigen\n grundt in die stillen w\u00fcste, das nye underscheyd ingeluget, weder\n vatter noch sun noch heiliger geist, in dem einichen, da niemant\n daheim ist, da ben\u00fcget es im liechte, und da ist es einicher, denn\n es sey in im selber, wann diser grundt ist ein einfeltig stille die\n in ir selber unbeweglich ist, und von diser Unbeweglichkeit werdent\n beweget alle ding, &c. Hermann von Fritslar, in a remarkable\n passage, enumerates the various and conflicting names given to this\n organ of mysticism. \u2018Und das leben was daz licht der l\u00fbte.\u2019 Daz\n meinet, daz di s\u00eale einen funken in ir h\u00e2t, der ist in gote\n \u00eawicl\u00eechen gewest leben und licht. Und dirre funke ist mit der s\u00eale\n geschaffen in allen menschen und ist ein l\u00fbter licht in ime selber\n und strafet allewege umme sunde und hat ein st\u00eate heischen zu der\n tugende und kriget allewege wider in s\u00eenen ursprung.... Dar umme\n heizen in etl\u00eeche meistere einen wechter der s\u00eale. Also sprach\n Dani\u00eal: \u2018der wechter \u00fbf dem turme der rufet gar s\u00eare. Etliche heizen\n disen funken einen haven der s\u00eale. Etl\u00eeche heizen in di worbele\n (axis, or centre) der s\u00eale. Etel\u00eeche heizen in ein gotechen in der\n s\u00eale. Etel\u00eeche heizen in ein antlitze der s\u00eale. Eteliche heizen\n _intellectus_, daz ist ein inst\u00eande kraft in der s\u00eale. Etl\u00eeche\n heizen _in sinderisis_. Etliche heizen in daz w\u00f4 der s\u00eale. Etl\u00eeche\n heizen in daz nirgen der s\u00eale.\u2014_Heiligenleben. Di dritte messe_, p.\n 32.\n\nFootnote 81:\n\n Martensen, p. 27. Schmidt, _loc. cit._\n\nFootnote 82:\n\n The passage in Martensen, p. 20.\n\nFootnote 83:\n\n Martensen, pp. 19, 29.\n\nFootnote 84:\n\n _Ibid._ p. 29.\n\nFootnote 85:\n\n Etlich leut w\u00f6llent got mit den ougen ansehn, als sy ein ku ansent\n unnd w\u00f6llent gott liebhan, als sy ein ku liebhaben (die hastu lieb umb\n die milch, und umb den k\u00e4tz, und umb dein eigen nutz). Also thund alle\n die leut die got liebhand, um uszwendigen reichtum, oder umb\n inwendigen trost, und die hand gott nit recht lieb, sunder sy suchent\n sich selbs und ir eigen nutz.\u2014_Schmidt_, p. 712.\n\nFootnote 86:\n\n Got ist ein luter guot an ime selben, vnt do von wil er nienen wonen\n denne in einer lutern sele: in die mag er sich ergiessen vnt\n genzeclichen in si fliessen. was ist luterkeit? das ist das sich der\n mensche gekeret habe von allen creaturen, vnt sin herce so gar uf\n gerichtet habe gen dem lutern guot, das ime kein creature tr\u0153stlichen\n si, vnt ir ouch nit begere denne als vil als si das luter guot, das\n got ist, darinne begriffen mag. vnt also wenig das liechte ouge icht\n in ime erliden mag, also wenig mag diu luter sele icht an ir erliden\n keine vermasung vnt das si vermitlen mag. ir werdent alle creaturen\n luter ce niessen: wanne si niusset alle creaturen in got vnt got in\n allen creaturen. Denne si ist also luter, das si sich selben\n durschowet, denne endarf si got nit verre suochen: si vindet in ir\n selben, wanne si in ir natiurlichen luterkeit ist geflossen in das\n \u00fcbernatiurliche der lutern gotheit. vnt also ist si in got, vnt got in\n ir; vnt was si tuot, das tuot si in got, vnt tuot es got in\n ir.\u2014_Wackernagel_, p. 891.\n\nFootnote 87:\n\n Wann sol der mensch warlich arm sein, so soll er seynes geschaffnen\n willes also ledig sein, als er was do er noch nit was. Und ich sag\n euch bey der ewigen warheit, _als lang ir willen hand zu erf\u00fcllend den\n willen gottes, vnd icht begerung hand der ewigkeit und gottes, also\n lang seind ir nitt recht arm_, wann das ist ein arm mensch der nicht\n wil, noch nicht bekennet, noch nicht begeret\u2014_Schmidt_, p. 716. Here\n again is the most extravagant expression possible of the doctrine of\n _sainte indiff\u00e9rence_, in comparison with which Madame Guyon is\n moderation itself.\n\nFootnote 88:\n\n See _Schmidt_, p. 724.\n\nFootnote 89:\n\n He was charged with denying hell and purgatory, because he defined\n future punishment as deprivation,\u2014\u2018Das Nicht in der helle\n brinnet.\u2019\u2014_Schmidt_, p. 722.\n\nFootnote 90:\n\n The narrative here put into the mouth of Eckart is found in an\n appendix to Tauler\u2019s _Medulla anim\u00e6_. There is every reason to believe\n that it is Eckart\u2019s. Martensen gives it, p. 107.\n\nFootnote 91:\n\n A literal translation of a curious old hymn in Wackernagel\u2019s\n collection, p. 896.\n\nFootnote 92:\n\n C. Schmidt (_Johannes Tauler von Strasburg_, p. 42) gives examples of\n the extravagant display in dress common among the clergy at that time.\n\nFootnote 93:\n\n The substance of this dialogue will be found in the works of Heinrich\n Suso (ed. Melchior Diepenbrock, Regensburg, 1837), Book iii. chap.\n vii. pp. 310-14. Suso represents himself as holding such a\n conversation with \u2018ein vernunftiges Bilde, das war subtil an seinen\n Worten und war aber unge\u00fcbt an seinen Werken und war ausbr\u00fcchig in\n florirender Reichheit,\u2019 as he sat lost in meditation on a summer\u2019s\n day. Atherton has ventured to clothe this ideal of the enthusiast of\n those times in more than a couple of yards of flesh and blood, and\n supposed Arnstein to have picked up divinity enough in his\n sermon-hearing to be able to reason with him just as Suso does in his\n book.\n\n The wandering devotees, who at this time abounded throughout the whole\n region between the Netherlands and Switzerland, approximated, some of\n them, to Eckart\u2019s portraiture of a religious teacher, others to Suso\u2019s\n ideal of the Nameless Wild. In some cases the enthusiasm of the same\n man may have approached now the nobler and now the baser type.\n\n CHAPTER II.\n\n\n For as though there were metempsychosis, and the soul of one man\n passed into another; opinions do find, after certain revolutions,\n men and minds like those that first begat them.\u2014SIR THOMAS BROWNE.\n\n\nWILLOUGHBY. What struck me most as novel in the mysticism of this\nstrange Master Eckart was the stress he laid on our own consciousness of\nbeing the sons of God. Neither the ecclesiastical nor the scholastic\ngradations and preparatives for mysticism, so important with his\npredecessors, seem of much moment with him in comparison with the\nattainment, _per saltum_, as it were, of this blessed certainty. Perhaps\nthe secret of his reaction against the orthodoxy of his day lay here. He\ncraves a firm resting-place for his soul. The Church cannot satisfy the\nwant. He will supply it for himself, and, to do so, builds together into\na sort of system certain current notions that suit his purpose, some new\nand others old, some in tolerable harmony with Christianity, others more\nhostile to it than he was altogether aware. These pantheistic\nmetaphysics may have seemed to him his resource and justification\u2014may\nhave been the product of the brain labouring to assure the heart.\n\nATHERTON. A very plausible conjecture. Amalric of Bena, who had been\nfamous as a teacher in Paris nearly a hundred years before Eckart went\nto study there, maintained that a personal conviction of our union to\nChrist was necessary to salvation. He was condemned for the doctrine,\nbut it survived.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Thank you. That fact supports me. Might not Eckart have\ndesired to assert for our inward religious life a worthier and more\nindependent place, as opposed to the despotic externalism of the time\u2014to\nmake our access to Christ more immediate, and less subject to the\nprecarious mercies of the Church?\n\nATHERTON. A grand aim, if so: but to reach it he unfortunately absorbs\nthe objective in the subjective element of religion\u2014rebounds from\nservility to arrogance, and makes humanity a manifestation of the Divine\nEssence.\n\nGOWER. In order to understand his position, the question to be first\nasked appears to me to be this. If Eckart goes to the Church, and says,\n\u2018How can I be assured that I am in a state of salvation?\u2019 what answer\nwill the Holy Mother give him? Can you tell me, Atherton?\n\nATHERTON. She confounds justification and sanctification together, you\nwill remember. So she will answer, \u2018My son, as a Christian of the\nordinary sort, you cannot have any such certainty\u2014indeed, you are much\nbetter without it. You may conjecture that you are reconciled to God by\nlooking inward on your feelings, by assuring yourself that at least you\nare not living in any mortal sin. If, indeed, you were appointed to do\nsome great things for my glory, you might find yourself among the happy\nfew who are made certain of their state of grace by a special and\n_extra_ revelation, to hearten them for their achievements.\u2019\n\nGOWER. Shameful! The Church then admits the high, invigorating influence\nof such certainty, but denies it to those who, amid secular care and\ntoil, require it most.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. While discussing Eckart, we have lighted on a doctrine which\nmust have produced more mysticism than almost any other you can name. On\nreceiving such reply, how many ardent natures will strain after visions\nand miraculous manifestations, wrestling for some token of their safety!\n\nGOWER. And how many will be the prey of morbid introspections, now\ncatching the exultant thrill of confidence, and presently thrown\nheadlong into some despairing abyss.\n\nATHERTON. As for the mass of the people, they will be enslaved for ever\nby such teaching, trying to assure themselves by plenty of sacraments,\nbelieving these the causes of grace, and hanging for their spiritual all\non the dispensers thereof.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Then, to apply the result of your question, Gower, to\nEckart,\u2014as he has in him nothing servile, and nothing visionary, he\nresolves to grasp certainty with his own hand\u2014wraps about him relics of\nthe old Greek pallium, and retires to his extreme of majestic isolation.\n\nGOWER. Pity that he could not find the scriptural _Via Media_\u2014that\ncommon truth which, while it meets the deepest wants of the individual,\nyet links him in wholesome fellowship with others\u2014that pure outer light\nwhich nurtures and directs the inner.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. No easy way to find in days when Plato was installed high\npriest, and the whole biblical region a jungle of luxuriant allegoric\nconceits or thorny scholastic formulas.\n\nGOWER. This daring Eckart reminds me of that heroic leader in Beaumont\nand Fletcher\u2019s _Bonduca_. I think I hear him cry with Caratach,\n\n Cease your fretful prayers,\n Your whinings, and your tame petitions;\n The gods love courage armed with confidence,\n And prayers fit to pull them down: weak tears\n And troubled hearts, the dull twins of cold spirits,\n They sit and smile at. Hear how I salute \u2019em.\n\nLOWESTOFFE. Did you not say yesterday, Atherton, that Eckart\u2019s system\nhad received high praise from Hegel?\n\nATHERTON. Oh yes, he calls it \u2018a genuine and profound philosophy.\u2019\nIndeed the points of resemblance are very striking, and, setting aside\nfor the moment some redeeming expressions and the more religious spirit\nof the man, Eckart\u2019s theosophy is a remarkable anticipation of modern\nGerman idealism. That abstract ground of Godhead Eckart talks about,\nanswers exactly to Hegel\u2019s _Logische Idee_. The Trinity of process, the\nincarnation ever renewing itself in men, the resolution of redemption\nalmost to a divine self-development, constitute strong features of\nfamily likeness between the Dominican and both Hegel and Fichte.[94]\n\nGOWER. One may fancy that while Hegel was teaching at Heidelberg it must\nhave fared with poor Eckart as with the dead huntsman in the Danish\nballad, while a usurper was hunting with his hounds over his patrimony,\u2014\n\n With my dogs so good,\n He hunteth the wild deer in the wood;\n And with every deer he slays on the mould,\n He wakens me up in the grave so cold.\n\nATHERTON. Nay, if we come to fancying, let us call in Pythagoras at\nonce, and say that the soul of Eckart transmigrated into Hegel.\n\nGOWER. With all my heart. The Portuguese have a superstition according\nto which the soul of a man who has died, leaving some duty unfulfilled\nor promised work unfinished, is frequently known to enter into another\nperson, and dislodging for a time the rightful soul-occupant, impel him\nunconsciously to complete what was lacking. On a dreamy summer day like\nthis, we can imagine Hegel in like manner possessed by Eckart in order\nto systematize his half-developed ideas.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. It is certainly very curious to mark the pathway of these\npantheistic notions through successive ages. Seriously, I did not know\ntill lately how venerably antique were the discoveries of absolute\nidealism.\n\nLOWESTOFFE. I confess that the being one in oneness, the nothing, the\nsoul beyond the soul, the participation in the all-moving Immobility of\nwhich Eckart speaks, are to me utterly unintelligible.\n\nGOWER. Do not trouble yourself. No one will ever be able to get beyond\nthe words themselves, any more than Bardolph could with the phrase which\nso tickled the ear of Justice Shallow. \u2018Accommodated; that is, when a\nman is, as they say, accommodated: or, when a man is,\u2014being,\u2014whereby,\u2014he\nmay be thought to be accommodated; which is an excellent thing.\u2019\n\nATHERTON. Yet, to do Eckart justice, he has his qualifications and his\ndistinctions in virtue of which he imagines himself still within the\npale of orthodoxy, and he strongly repudiates the Antinomian\nconsequences to which his doctrines were represented as tending.\n\nGOWER. Ay, it is just in this way that the mischief is done. These\ndistinctions many a follower of his could not or would not understand,\nand so his high philosophy produced in practice far oftener such men as\nthe Nameless Wild than characters resembling the more pure and lofty\nideal he drew himself in his discourse to the good people of Strasburg.\nThese philosophical edge-tools are full perilous. Modern Germany is\nreplete with examples of that fatal facility in the common mind for a\npractical application of philosophic paradox which our friend Adolf\nlamented at Fegersheim. When a philosophy which weakens the embankments\nthat keep licence out has once been popularized, the philosopher cannot\nstop the inundation by shouting from his study-window. De Wette himself\nat last became aware of this, and regretted it in vain. Such speculation\nresembles the magic sword of Sir Elidure\u2014its mysterious virtue sometimes\nfilled even its owner with a furor that hurried him to an indiscriminate\nslaughter, but wielded by any other hand its thirst could be satisfied\nonly with the blood of every one around, and at last with the life of\nhim who held it.\n\nLOWESTOFFE. Still there is far more excuse for Eckart than for our\nnineteenth century pantheists. Even the desperation of some of those\npoor ignorant creatures, who exaggerated Eckart\u2019s paradoxes till they\ngrew a plea for utter lawlessness, is not so unnatural, however\nlamentable. Who can wonder that some should have overwrought the\ndoctrine of Christ _in_ us and neglected that of Christ _for_ us, when\nthe _opus operatum_ was in its glory, ghostly comfort bought and sold,\nand Christ our sacrifice pageanted about in the mass, as Milton says,\u2014a\nfearful idol? Or that the untaught many, catching the first thought of\nspiritual freedom from some mystic, should have been intoxicated\ninstantly. The laity, forbidden so long to be Christians on their own\naccount, rise up here and there, crying, \u2018We will be not Christians\nmerely, but so many Christs.\u2019 They have been denied what is due to man,\nthey will dreadfully indemnify themselves by seizing what is due to God.\nHas not the letter been slaying them by inches all their days? The\nspirit shall give them life!\n\nGOWER. Like the peasant in the apologue;\u2014religion has been so long doled\nout to them in a few pitiful drops of holy water, till in their\nimpatience they must have a whole Ganges-flood poured into their\ngrounds, obliterating, with a vengeance, \u2018all distinctions,\u2019 and\ndrowning every logical and social landmark under the cold grey level\u2014the\nblank neutral-tint of a stoical indifference which annihilates all order\nand all law.\n\nATHERTON. By a strange contradiction, Eckart employs Revelation at one\nmoment only to escape it the next\u2014and uses its beacon-lights to steer\n_from_, not to the haven. He pays homage to its authority, he consults\nits record, but presently leaves it far behind to lose himself in the\nunrevealed Godhead\u2014floats away on his \u2018sail-broad vans\u2019 of speculation\nthrough the vast vacuity in search of\n\n \u2014\u2014a dark\n Illimitable ocean, without bound,\n Without dimension, where length, breadth, and height,\n And time and place are lost.\n\nWhen there, he finds his cloudy seat soon fails him; he returns once\nmore to the realities of revelation, only to forsake this lower ground\nagain when he has renewed his strength. This oscillation betrays a fatal\ncontradiction. To shut behind us the gate on this inferior world is not\nnecessarily to open the everlasting doors of the upper one.\n\nGOWER. I very much admire the absolute resignation of that devout\nmendicant described by Eckart. He is a Quietist of the very best\nsort\u2014his life a \u2018Thy will be done.\u2019 He is a F\u00e9nelon in rags.\n\nATHERTON. After all, make what allowance we will,\u2014giving Eckart all the\nbenefit due from the fact that his life was pure, that he stood in no\navowed antagonism to Christian doctrine or institute, that devout men\nlike Tauler and Suso valued his teaching so highly,\u2014still, he stands\nconfessed a pantheist; no charity can explain that away.\n\nGOWER. I am afraid not. What else can we call him when he identifies\nhimself and all Christian men with the Son, as we have heard, makes\nhimself essential to God, will share with him in the evolution of the\nHoly Ghost, and, forbidding you to regard yourself as a something\ndistinct from God, exhorts you (if you would be a justified person and\nchild of God indeed) to merge the ground of your own nature in the\ndivine, so that your knowledge of God and his of you are the same\nthing,\u2014_i.e._, you and He one and the same? But can you conjecture,\nAtherton, by what process he arrived at such a pass?\n\nATHERTON. Perhaps in this way:\u2014John Scotus Erigena (with whose writings\nEckart could scarcely have failed to make acquaintance at Paris) asserts\nthe identity of Being and Willing, of the _Velle_ and the _Esse_ in God;\nalso the identity of Being and Knowing. Applying this latter proposition\nto the relationship between God and man, he comes logically enough to\nthis conclusion,\u2014\u2018Man, essentially considered, may be defined as God\u2019s\nknowledge of him; that is, man reduced to his ultimate\u2014his ground, or\nsimple subsistence\u2014is a divine Thought. But, on the same principle, the\nthoughts of God are, of course, God. Hence Eckart\u2019s doctrine\u2014the ground\nof your being lies in God. Reduce yourself to that simplicity, that\nroot, and you are in God. There is no longer any distinction between\nyour spirit and the divine,\u2014you have escaped personality and finite\nlimitation. Your particular, creature self, as a something separate and\ndependent on God, is gone. So also, obviously, your creaturely will.\nHenceforth, therefore, what seems an inclination of yours is in fact the\ndivine good pleasure. You are free from law. You are above means. The\nvery will to do the will of God is resolved into that will itself. This\nis the Apathy, the Negation, the Poverty, he commends.\n\nWith Eckart personally this self-reduction and deification is connected\nwith a rigorous asceticism and exemplary moral excellence. Yet it is\neasy to see that it may be a merely intellectual process, consisting in\na man\u2019s thinking that he is thinking himself away from his personality.\nHe declares the appearance of the Son necessary to enable us to realize\nour sonship; and yet his language implies that this realization is the\nperpetual incarnation of that Son\u2014does, as it were, constitute him.\nChristians are accordingly not less the sons of God by grace than is\nChrist by nature. Believe yourself divine, and the Son is brought forth\nin you. The Saviour and the saved are dissolved together in the blank\nabsolute Substance.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. So then, Eckart would say,\u2014\u2018To realize himself, God must\nhave Christians;\u2019 and Hegel,\u2014\u2018To realize him self, He must have\nphilosophers.\u2019\n\nATHERTON. Miserable inversion! This result of Eckart\u2019s speculation was\nexpressed with the most impious enormity by Angelus Silesius, in the\nseventeenth century. In virtue of the necessity God is under (according\nto this theory) of communicating himself, _bon gr\u00e9, mal gr\u00e9_, to\nwhomsoever will refine himself down to his \u2018_Nothing_,\u2019 he reduces the\nAlmighty to dependence, and changes places with Him upon the eternal\nthrone on the strength of his self-transcending humility!\n\n\n Note to page 207.\n\n\nBoth Hegel and Eckart regard _Thought_ as the point of union between the\nhuman nature and the divine. But the former would pronounce both God and\nman unrevealed, _i.e._, unconscious of themselves, till Thought has been\ndeveloped by some Method into a philosophic System. Mysticism brings\nEckart nearer to Schelling on this matter than to the dry schoolman\nHegel. The charge which Hegel brings against the philosophy of Schelling\nhe might have applied, with a little alteration, to that of Eckart.\nHegel says, \u2018When this knowledge which claims to be essential and\nignores apprehension (is _begrifflose_), professes to have sunk the\npeculiarity of Self in the _Essence_, and so to give forth the utterance\nof a hallowed and unerring philosophy,[95] men quite overlook the fact\nthat this so-called wisdom, instead of being yielded up to the influence\nof Divinity by its contempt of all proportion and definiteness, does\nreally nothing but give full play to accident and to caprice. Such men\nimagine that by surrendering themselves to the unregulated ferment of\nthe Substance (_Substanz_), by throwing a veil over consciousness, and\nabandoning the understanding, they become those favourites of Deity to\nwhom he gives wisdom in sleep; verily, nothing was ever produced by such\na process better than mere dreams.\u2019\u2014_Vorrede zur Ph\u00e6nomenologie_, p. 6.\n\nThese are true and weighty words: unfortunately Hegel\u2019s remedy proves\nworse than the disease.\n\nWe seem to hear Eckart speak when Fichte exclaims, \u2018Raise thyself to the\nheight of religion, and all veils are removed; the world and its dead\nprinciple passes away from thee, and the very Godhead enters thee anew\nin its first and original form, as Life, as thine own life which thou\nshalt and oughtest to live.\u2014_Anweisung zum sel. Leben_, p. 470.\n\nAnd again, \u2018Religion consists in the inward consciousness that God\nactually lives and acts in us, and fulfils his work.\u2019\u2014_Ibid._ p. 473.\n\nBut Eckart would not have affirmed with Fichte (a few pages farther on)\nthat, were Christ to return to the world, he would be indifferent to the\nrecognition or the denial of his work as a Saviour, provided a man were\nonly united to God _somehow_!\n\nFootnote 94:\n\n See Note, p. 212.\n\nFootnote 95:\n\n Eckart does not make use of his lapse into the Essence to philosophise\n withal; it is simply his religious _ultimatum_.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER III.\n\n\n With that about I tourned my hedde,\n And sawe anone the fifth rout\n That to this lady gan lout,\n And doune on knees, anone, to fall,\n And to her tho besoughten all,\n To hiden hir good workes eke,\n And said, they yeve not a leke\n For no fame, ne soch renoun,\n For they for contemplacioun,\n And Goddes love had it wrought,\n Ne of fame would they nought.\n\n CHAUCER: THE HOUSE OF FAME.\n\n\nOn the next occasion when our little Summerford circle was ready to hear\nsome more of Arnstein\u2019s Chronicle, they were informed by Atherton that\nfour years of the manuscript were missing,\u2014that such intervals were only\ntoo frequent,\u2014in fact, the document was little more than a collection of\nfragments.\n\n\u2018The next entry I find,\u2019 said he, \u2018is in 1324, and the good armourer, in\nmuch excitement, begins with an exclamation.\n\n 1324. _July. St. Kylian\u2019s Day._\u2014What a day this has been! Strasburg,\n and all the states which adhere to Louis, are placed under the bann.\n The bells were ringing merrily at early morning; now, the Interdict\n is proclaimed, and every tongue of them is silent. As the news flew\n round, every workman quitted his work. The busy stalls set out on\n either side of the streets were left empty. The tools and the wares\n lay unlooked at and untouched. The bishop and the clergy of his\n party, and most of the Dominicans, keep out of sight. My men are\n furious. I have been all day from house to house, and group to\n group, telling the people to keep a good heart. We shall have a sad\n time of it, I see. It is so hard for the poor creatures to shake off\n a fear in which they have been cradled.\n\n The clergy and the monks will pour out of Strasburg, as out of a\n Sodom, in shoals. A mere handful will stay behind,\u2014not nearly enough\n to christen those who will be born and to shrive those who will die\n in this populous city. They may name their price: the greedy of gain\n may make their fortunes. The miserable poor will die, numbers of\n them, in horror, unable to purchase absolution. And then, out of the\n few priests who do remain, scarcely any will have the courage to\n disobey the pope, and, despite the Interdict, say mass.\n\n \u2019Tis an anxious time for either party. Louis has most of the states\n on his side, and the common voice, in all the towns of the\n Rhineland\u2014(in the princely Cologne most of all), is, I hear, loud in\n his favour. The Minorites will be with him, and all of that sort\n among the friars, who have little favour to lose with his Holiness.\n But France is with the Pope against him; Duke Leopold is a doughty\n adversary; John of Bohemia restless and fickle, and no doubt the\n Pope will set on the Polacks and pagan Lithuanians to waste most\n horribly all the north and eastern frontiers. Since the victory of\n M\u00fchldorf, Frederick has lain in prison. That battle is the\n grievance. The enemies of the Emperor are more full of rancour than\n ever. Yet, with all the mischief it may bring in the present, what\n lover of the Fatherland can sorrow therefor? Gallant little\n Schweppermann, with his lame foot and grey hair, and his glorious\n two eggs, long may he live to do other such deeds![96] Louis holds a\n high spirit at present, and goes about under the bann with a brave\n heart. But it is only the outset as yet. I much fear me he may lack\n the staunchness to go through as he has begun. There is store of\n thunder behind at Avignon. Methinks he hankers, like a child, mainly\n after the lance and sword and crown of Charlemagne, to dress him out\n perfectly withal King of the Romans, and seeth not the full bearing\n of the very war he wages.\n\n We shall not be idle. It is already proposed to send off troops to\n the aid of Louis. I have half a mind to go myself; but home can ill\n spare me now, and I render the Emperor more service by such little\n influence as I have in Strasburg. To-morrow, to consult about the\n leagues to be formed with neighbouring towns and with the Swiss\n burghers, to uphold the good cause together.\n\n * * * * *\n\n 1326. _March. St. Gregory\u2019s Day._\u2014Duke Leopold died here yesterday,\n at the Ochsenstein Palace.[97] After ravaging the suburbs of Spires,\n he came hither in a raging fever to breathe his last. The bishop\n told him he must pardon the Landgrave of Lower Alsace from the\n bottom of his heart. They say he struggled long and wrathfully\n against the condition, till, finding the bishop firm in refusing\n absolution on other terms, he gave way. But, just as he was about to\n receive the host, a fit of vomiting came on, wherein he presently\n expired, without the sacrament after all.\n\n Frederick has been now at liberty some months. Louis visited him in\n his prison. To think of their having been together all their\n boyhood, and loving each other so, to meet thus! Frederick the\n Handsome, haggard with a three years\u2019 imprisonment\u2014his beard down to\n his waist; and Louis, successful and miserable. They say Frederick\n cut off his beard at first, and sent it, by way of memorial, to John\n of Bohemia, and that when he went back to his castle he found his\n young wife had wept herself blind during his captivity. He swore on\n the holy wafer to renounce his claim to the empire. The Pope\n released him from his oath soon after, but he keeps his word like\n knight, not like priest, and holds to it yet. It is whispered that\n they have agreed to share the throne. But that can never be brought\n to pass.\n\n Heard to-day, by a merchant, of Hermann.[98] He is travelling\n through Spain. I miss him much. Before he left Strasburg he was full\n of Eckart\u2019s doctrine, out of all measure admiring the wonderful man,\n and hoarding every word that dropped from his lips. Eckart is now\n sick at Cologne, among his sorrowing disciples. Grieved to hear that\n the leeches say he hath not long to live.\n\n A long conversation with Henry of N\u00f6rdlingen.[99] He has journeyed\n hither, cast down and needy, to ask counsel of Tauler. Verily he\n needs counsel, but hath not strength of mind to take it when given.\n Tauler says Henry has many friends among the excellent of the earth;\n all love him, and he is full of love, but sure a pitiful sight to\n see. His heart is with us. He mourns over the trouble of the time.\n He weeps for the poor folk, living and dying without the sacraments.\n But the Interdict crushes his soul. Now he has all but gathered\n heart to do as Tauler doth\u2014preach and labour on, unmoved by all this\n uproar, but anon his courage is gone, and he falls back into his\n fear again as soon as he is left alone. He sits and pores over those\n letters of spiritual consolation which Margaret Ebner has written to\n him. He says sometimes she alone retains him on the earth. Verily I\n fear me that, priest as he is, some hopeless earthly love mingles\n with his friendship for that saintly woman. He has had to flee from\n his home for refusing to perform service. Strasburg, in that case,\n can be no abiding place for him. I see nothing before him but a\n wretched wandering, perhaps for years. I cannot get him to discern\n the malice of Pope John, rather than the wrath of heaven, in the\n curse that withers us. I gave him a full account of what the Pope\u2019s\n court at Avignon truly is, as I gathered from a trusty eye-witness,\n late come from thence, whom I questioned long the other day.[100] I\n told him that gold was the one true god there\u2014our German wealth,\n wrung out from us, and squandered on French courtiers, players,\n buffoons, and courtezans\u2014Christ sold daily for it\u2014the palace full of\n cardinals and prelates, grey-haired debauchees and filthy mockers,\n to a man\u2014accounting chastity a scandal, and the soul\u2019s immortality\n and coming judgment an old wife\u2019s fable;\u2014yea, simony, adultery,\n murder, incest, so frequent and unashamed, that the Frenchmen\n themselves do say the Pope\u2019s coming hath corrupted them. I asked him\n if these were the hands to take up God\u2019s instruments of wrath to\n bruise with them his creatures? But all in vain. There is an\n awfulness in the very name of Pope which blinds reason and strikes\n manhood down, in him, as in thousands more.\n\n * * * * *\n\n A.D. 1332. _Fourth week after Easter._\u2014But now awaked from the first\n sleep I have had for the last three days and nights. I set down in a\n word or two what hath happened, then out to action again. Last\n Wednesday, at the great festival, the nobles, knights, and senators,\n with a brave show of fair ladies, banqueted at the grand house in\n the Brandgasse.[101] Within, far into the night, minstrelsy and\n dancing; without, the street blocked up with a crowd of serving men\n and grooms with horses, torch-bearers, and lookers-on of all\n sorts\u2014when, suddenly, the music stopped\u2014they heard shouts and the\n clash of swords and shrill screams. There had been a quarrel between\n a Zorn and a M\u00fcllenheim\u2014they drew\u2014Von Hunefeld was killed on the\n spot, another of the Zorns avenged him by cutting down Wasselenheim;\n the conflict became general, in hall, in the antechambers, down the\n great staircase, out on the steps, the retainers took part on either\n side, and the fray ended in the flight of the Zorns, who left six\n slain in the house and in the street. Two were killed on the side of\n the M\u00fcllenheims. All who fell were of high rank, and several of\n either faction are severely wounded. They draw off to their\n quarters, each breathing vengeance, preparing for another conflict\n at daybreak. All the rest of the night the Landvogt and Gotzo von\n Grosstein were riding to and fro to pacify them\u2014to no purpose. Each\n party declared they would send for the knights and gentry of their\n side from the country round about. I was with Burckard Zwinger when\n we heard this. \u2018Now,\u2019 said I, \u2018or all is lost. Off, and harangue the\n people. I will get the best of the burghers together.\u2019 We parted.\n All the city was astir. As I made my way from house to house, I sent\n the people I met off to the market place to hear Zwinger. I could\n hear their shouts, summons enough now, without any other. When I got\n back to the Roland\u2019s pillar, I found that his plain, home-thrust\n speech had wrought the multitude to what we would, and no more.\n Snatches of it flew from mouth to mouth, like sparks of fire,\u2014he had\n struck well while the iron was hot. \u2018To the Stadtmeister!\u2019 was the\n cry. \u2018The keys! The seal! The standard! We will have our standard.\n Let the citizens defend their own!\u2019 Most of the burghers were of one\n mind with Zwinger, and we went in a body (the crowd shouting behind\n us, a roaring sea of heads, and the bell on the townhouse ringing as\n never before) to demand the keys of young Sieck. He yielded all with\n trembling. By daybreak we had dispersed; the several corporations\n repaired armed to their quarters; the gates were shut; the bridges\n guarded; the walls manned. All was in our hands. So far safe. The\n nobles, knights, and gentry of the neighbourhood came up in the\n morning in straggling groups, approaching the city from various\n quarters, with as many of their men as could be hastily gathered,\n but drew off again when they saw our posture of defence. It was\n truly no time for them. This promptitude has saved Strasburg from\n being a field of battle in every street for counts and men at arms,\n who despise and hate the citizens\u2014whose victory, on whatever side,\n would have been assured pillage and rapine, and, in the end, the\n loss of our privilege to deal solely for ourselves in our own\n affairs. Well done, good Zwinger, thou prince of bakers, with thy\n true warm heart, and cool head, and ready tongue! To our praise be\n it said, no deed of violence was done; there was no\n blood-thirstiness, no spoiling, but a steady purpose in the vast\n crowd that, hap what would, no strangers should come in to brawl and\n rob in Strasburg.\n\n While the gates have been closed and the Town Hall guarded, we have\n been deliberating on a new senate. Four new Stadtmeisters elected.\n Zwinger made Amtmeister. The magistracy taken out of the exclusive\n hands of the great families and open to the citizens generally,\n gentlemen, burghers, and artizans, side by side. The workmen no\n longer to be slaves to the caprice of the gentry. The nobles are\n disarmed for a time, to help them settle their quarrel more quickly.\n I go the rounds with the horse patrol every night. The gates are\n never to be opened except when the great bell has rung to give\n permission. We sit in the Town Hall with our swords. I took my place\n there this morning, armed to the teeth, and verily my Margarita\n seemed proud enough when she sent me forth, with a kiss, to my new\n dignity, clad in good steel instead of senatorial finery. We have\n every prospect of peace and prosperousness. The nobles see our\n strength, and must relinquish with as good a grace as they may a\n power they have usurped. The main part of the old laws will abide as\n before. All is perfectly quiet. There has been no mere vengeance or\n needless rigour. I hear nothing worse than banishment will be\n inflicted upon any\u2014that only on a few. The bishop\u2019s claws will be\n kept shorter.\n\n * * * * *\n\n 1338. _August. St. Bartholomew\u2019s Day._\u2014Now is the rent between clerk\n and layman, pope and emperor, wider even than heretofore. Last month\n was held the electorial diet at Rhense. The electors, by far the\n greater part, with Louis; and their bold doings now apparent.\n Yesterday was issued, at Frankfort, a manifesto of the Emperor\u2019s,\n wherein Benedict, he and all his curses, are set at nought, and the\n mailed glove manfully hurled in his teeth. Thereby he declares, that\n whomsoever the electors choose they will have acknowledged rightful\n emperor, whether the pope bless or bann, and all who gainsay this\n are traitors;\u2014that the emperor is not, and will not be, in anywise\n dependent on the pope. All good subjects are called on to disregard\n the Interdict, and such towns or states as obey the same are to\n forfeit their charters.[102]\n\n It was indeed high time to speak out. Louis, losing heart, tried\n negotiation, and made unworthy concessions to the pope, whereon he\n (impatient, they say, to get back to Italy) would have come to an\n agreement, but the French cardinals took care to cross and undo all.\n The emperor even applied to Philip personally\u2014asking the King of\n France, forsooth, to suffer him to be king of the Romans\u2014then,\n finding that vain, is leagued with the English king, and war\n declared against France. This sounds bravely. Shame on the electors\n if they hold not to their promise now.\n\n As to our Strasburg, we stand by the emperor, as of old, despite our\n bishop Berthold, who, with sword instead of crook, has done battle\n with the partisans of Louis for now some years, gathering help from\n all parts among the nobles and the gentry, burning villages,\n besieging and being besieged, spoiling and being spoiled; moreover,\n between whiles, thinking to win himself the name of a zealous pastor\n by issuing decrees against long hair growing on clerks\u2019 heads, and\n enforcing fiercely all the late bulls against the followers of\n Eckart, the Beghards, and others.[103] Last year he tasted six\n weeks\u2019 imprisonment, having quarrelled with the heads of the\n chapter. Rudolph von Hohenstein and others of the opposite party,\n surrounded one night the house of the Provost of Haselach, where he\n lay, and carried him off in his shirt to the Castle of Vendenti; and\n smartly did they make him pay before he came out. We have full\n authority to declare war against him, if he refuses now to submit to\n Louis, as I think not likely, seeing how matters go at present. He\n had the conscience to expect that we magistrates would meddle in his\n dispute and take his part. Even the senators, who adhere mainly to\n the Zorn family, were against him, and methinks after all he has\n done to harass and injure us, we did in a sort return good for evil\n in being merely lookers-on.\n\n Tauler is away on a visit to Basle, where the state of parties is\n precisely similar to our own, the citizens there, as in Friburg,\n joining our league for Louis and for Germany; and the bishop against\n them, tooth and nail.[104] My eldest boy (God bless him, he is\n fifteen this day, and a lad for a father to be proud of) hath\n accompanied the Doctor thither, having charge of sundry matters of\n business for me there. Had word from him last week. They have\n somehow procured a year\u2019s remission of the Interdict for Basle. He\n says Suso came to see Tauler, and that they had long talk together\n for two days. Henry of N\u00f6rdlingen is there likewise, and now that\n the pope hath kennelled his barking curse for a twelvemonth,\n preaches, to the thronging of the churches, wherever he goes.\n\n A.D. 1339. _January._\u2014The new year opens gloomily. Without loss of\n time, fresh-forged anathemas are come, and coming, against the\n outspoken emperor and this troublesome Germany. Some of the\n preachers, and the bare-footed friars especially, have yet remained\n to say mass and perform the offices; now, even these are leaving the\n city. Some cloisters have stood for now two or three years quite\n empty. Many churches are deserted altogether, and the doors nailed\n up. The magistracy have issued orders to compel the performance of\n service. The clerks are fairly on the anvil; the civil hammer\n batters them on the one side, and the ecclesiastical upon the other\n with alternate strokes.\n\n Bitter wind and sleet this morning. Saw three Dominicans creeping\n back into the town, who had left it a month ago, refusing to say\n mass. Poor wretches, how starved and woe-begone they looked, after\n miserable wanderings about the country in the snow, winter showing\n them scant courtesy, and sure I am the boors less; and now coming\n back to a deserted convent and to a city where men\u2019s faces are\n towards them as a flint. Straight, as I saw them, there came into my\n mind that goodly exhortation of Dr. Tauler\u2019s, that we should show\n mercy, as doth God, unto all, enemies and friends alike, for he that\n loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God, whom\n he hath not seen?[105] Ran after them, called them in, thawed them,\n fed them, comforted them with kind words and good ale by the great\n fire,\u2014then argued with them. They thought it a cruel thing that they\n must starve because pope and emperor are at feud. \u2018And is it not,\u2019\n urged I, \u2018a crueller that thousands of innocent poor folk should\n live without sacrament, never hear a mass, perhaps die unshriven,\n for the very same reason? Is not God\u2019s law higher than the\n pope\u2019s,\u2014do to others as ye would they should do unto you? Could you\n look for other treatment at the hands of our magistrates, and expect\n to be countenanced and sustained by them in administering the\n malediction of their enemies?\u2018 Thought it most courteous, however,\n to ply them more pressingly with food than with arguments.\n\n While they were there, in comes my little Otto, opens his eyes wide\n with wonder to see them, and presently breaks out with the words,\n now on the tongue of every Strasburger, a rhyming version of the\n decree:\u2014\n\n They shall still their masses sing,\n Or out of the city we\u2019ll make them spring.[106]\n\n Told him he should not sing that just then, and, when he was out of\n the room, bade them mark by that straw which way the wind blew.\n\n I record here a vision vouchsafed to that eminent saint the abbess\n Christina Ebner, of Engelthal, near Nurnberg. She beheld the Romish\n Church in the likeness of a great minster, fair to see, but with\n doors closed by reason of the bann. Priestly voices, solemn and\n sweet, were heard to chant within; and, without, stood a multitude\n waiting and hearkening, but no man dared enter. Then came there to\n the nun one in the habit of a preacher, and told her that he would\n give her words to speak to comfort the poor folk withal that stood\n outside,\u2014and that man was the Lord Christ.\n\n And verily, in some sort, so hath God done, having pity upon us, for\n through all Rhineland hath he moved godly men, both clerks and\n laity, to draw nearer the one to the other, forming together what we\n call the association of the _Friends of God_, for the better tending\n of the inward life in these troublous times, for wrestling with the\n Almighty on behalf of his suffering Christendom, and for the succour\n of the poor people, by preaching and counsel and sacrament, that are\n now as sheep without a shepherd, and perishing for lack of spiritual\n bread.[107] Tauler is of the foremost among them, and with his\n brethren, Egenolph of Ehenheim and Dietrich of Colmar, labours\n without ceasing, having now the wider field and heavier toil, as so\n few are left in Strasburg who will perform any church service for\n love or money. Ah! well might the Abbess Christina say of him that\n the Spirit of God dwelt within him as a sweet harping. He has\n travelled much of late, and wherever he goes spreads blessing and\n consolation; the people flock to hear him; the hands of the Friends\n of God are strengthened; and a savour of heavenly love and wisdom is\n left behind. His good name hath journeyed, they say, even beyond the\n Alps, and into the Low Countries. Neither are there wanting many\n like-minded, though none equal to him. He found at Cologne Henry of\n L\u00f6wen, Henry, and Franke, and John of Sterngasse,[108] brother\n Dominicans all of them, preaching constantly, with much of his own\n fervour, if with a doctrine more like that of Eckart. In Switzerland\n there is Suso, and I hear much of one Ruysbroek, in the Netherlands,\n a man younger than Tauler, and a notable master in the divine art of\n contemplation.\n\n Among the Friends of God are numbers both of men and women of every\n rank, abbots and farmers, knights and nuns, monks and artizans.\n There is Conrad, Abbot of Kaisersheim: there are the nuns of\n Unterlinden and Klingenthal, at Colmar and Basle, as well as the\n holy sisters of Engelthal; the knights of Rheinfeld, Pfaffenheim,\n and Landsberg; our rich merchant here, Rulman Merswin, and one,\n unworthy of so good a name, that holds this pen. Our law is that\n universal love commanded by Christ, and not to be gainsaid by his\n vicar. Some have joined themselves to us for awhile, and gone out\n from us because they were not of us; for we teach no easy road to\n heaven for the pleasing of the flesh. Many call us sectaries,\n Beghards, brethren of the Free Spirit, or of the New Spirit, and\n what not. They might call us by worse names, but we are none of\n these. The prophecies of some among us, concerning judgments to be\n looked for at the hands of God, and the faithful warnings of others,\n have made many angry. Yet are not such things needed, when, as Dr.\n Tauler saith, the princes and prelates are, too many of them, worse\n than Jews and infidels, and mere horses for the devil\u2019s riding.[109]\n So far from wishing evil, we mourn as no others over the present\n woe, and the Friends of God are, saith Dr. Tauler again, pillars of\n Christendom, and holders off for awhile of the gathered cloud of\n wrath. Beyond all question, if all would be active as they are\n active in works of love to their fellows, the face of the times\n would brighten presently, and the world come into sunshine.\n\n It was but yesterday that in his sermon Tauler repeated the saying\n of one\u2014an eminent Friend of God\u2014\u2018I cannot pass my neighbour by\n without wishing for him in my heart more of the blessedness of\n heaven than for myself;\u2018\u2014\u2018and that,\u2019 said the good Doctor, \u2018I call\n true love.\u2019 Sure I am that such men stand between the living and the\n dead.[110]\n\n 1339. _March._\u2014Much encouraged on hearing Dr. Tauler\u2019s sermon on\n \u2018Whose is the image and superscription?\u2018[111] It was the last part\n that gladdened me more especially, when he was enforcing\n watchfulness and self-examination, and yet showed that the command\n might be obeyed by men such as I am, in the midst of a worldly\n calling. Many, said he, complain that they are so busied with\n outward things as to have no time to look inward. But let such, for\n every six steps they have to take outward in their daily duty, take\n one step inward, and observe their hearts, and their business will\n be to them no stumbling-block. Many are cloistered in body while\n thought and desire wander to and fro over the earth. But many others\n do, even amid the noise and stir of the market-place and the shop,\n keep such watch over their hearts, and set such ward on their\n senses, that they go unharmed, and their inner peace abides\n unbroken. Such men are much more truly to be called monks than those\n who, within a convent wall, have thought and senses so distraught\n that they can scarce say a single Paternoster with true devotion.\n\n He said that God impressed his image and superscription on our souls\n when he created us in his image. All true Christians should\n constantly retire into themselves, and examine throughout their\n souls wherein this image of the Holy Trinity lieth, and clear away\n therefrom such images and thoughts as are not of God\u2019s\n impressing,\u2014all that is merely earthly in love and care, all that\n hath not God purely for its object. It must be in separateness from\n the world, withdrawal from all trust and satisfaction in what is\n creaturely, that we present God the image he hath engraven, clear\n and free from rust. This image and superscription lies in the inmost\n inmost of the soul, whither God only cometh, and neither men nor\n angels, and where he delights to dwell. He will share it with no\n other. He hath said, \u2018My delight is in the sons of men.\u2019 Thus is the\n inmost of our soul united to the inmost of the very Godhead, where\n the eternal Father doth ever speak and bring forth his eternal\n essential Word, his only-begotten Son, equal in honour, power, and\n worthiness, as saith the Apostle\u2014\u2018He is the brightness of his glory\n and the express image of his person.\u2019 By him hath the Father made\n all things. As all things have their beginning and source from the\n Godhead, by the birth of the eternal Word out of the Father, so do\n all creatures in their essence subsist by the same birth of the Son\n out of the Father, and therefore shall they all return in the same\n way to their source, to wit, through the Son to the Father. From\n this eternal birth of the Son ariseth the love of God the Father to\n his divine Son, and that of the Son to his divine Father, which love\n is the Holy Ghost\u2014an eternal and divine Bond, uniting the Father and\n the Son in everlasting Love. These three are essentially one\u2014one\n single pure essential unity, as even the heathen philosophers bear\n witness. Therefore, saith Aristotle, \u2018There is but one Lord who\n ordaineth all things.\u2019\n\n He, therefore, that would be truly united to God must dedicate the\n penny of his soul, with all its faculties, to God alone, and join it\n unto Him. For if the highest and most glorious Unity, which is God\n himself, is to be united to the soul, it must be through oneness\n (_Einigkeit_). Now when the soul hath utterly forsaken itself and\n all creatures, and made itself free from all manifoldness, then the\n sole Unity, which is God, answers truly to the oneness of the soul,\n for then is there nothing in the soul beside God. Therefore between\n such a soul and God (if a man be so prepared that his soul hangs on\n nothing but God himself) there is so great a oneness that they\n become one, as the Apostle saith, \u2018He that is joined to the Lord is\n one spirit.\u2019\n\n But there are some who will fly before they have wings, and pluck\n the apples before they are ripe, and, at the very outset of the\n Divine life, be so puffed up that it contents them not to enter in\n at the door and contemplate Christ\u2019s humanity, but they will\n apprehend his highness and incomprehensible Deity only. So did once\n a priest, and fell grievously, and bitterly mourned his folly, and\n had to say, \u2018Ah, most Merciful! had I followed truly the pattern of\n thy holy humanity, it had not been thus with me!\u2019 Beware of such\n perilous presumption\u2014your safe course is to perfect yourselves first\n in following the lowly life of Christ, and in earnest study of the\n shameful cross.\n\n Methinks this is true counsel, and better, for our sort at least,\n than Master Eckart\u2019s exhortation to break through into the essence,\n and to exchange God made manifest for the absolute and inscrutable\n Godhead.\n\n 1339. _March 20._\u2014Finished to-day a complete suit of armour for\n young Franz M\u00fcllenheim. The aristocratic families bear the change of\n government more good-humouredly than I looked for. Their influence\n is still great, and they can afford to make a virtue of necessity.\n Most of them now, too, are on the right side.\n\n A great improvement\u2014locking our doors at night.[112] This is the\n first time I have thought to record it, though the custom has been\n introduced these nine years. Before, there was not a lock to a\n house-door in Strasburg, and if you wanted to shut it, on ever so\n great a need, you had to work with spade and shovel to remove a\n whole mountain of dirt collected about the threshold. Several new\n roads, too, made of late by the merchant-league of the Rhineland.\n\nFootnote 96:\n\n Louis was indebted for this important victory to the skill of\n Schweppermann. After the battle the sole supply of the imperial table\n was found to consist of a basket of eggs, which the emperor\n distributed among his officers, saying, \u2018To each of you one egg\u2014to our\n gallant Schweppermann two.\u2019\u2014_Menzel._\n\nFootnote 97:\n\n See Laguille, _Histoire d\u2019Alsace_, liv. xxiii. p. 271.\n\nFootnote 98:\n\n Many passages in his _Heiligenleben_ are altogether in the spirit of\n Eckart, and have their origin, beyond question, in his sayings, or in\n those of his disciples.\u2014See pp. 114, 125, 150, 187 (_Pfeiffer_), and\n also the extracts in Wackernagel, _Altd. Leseb._ p. 853.\n\nFootnote 99:\n\n See Schmidt\u2019s Tauler, Appendix, p. 172, &c., where such information as\n can be obtained concerning Henry of N\u00f6rdlingen is given.\n\nFootnote 100:\n\n Compare Petrarch\u2019s account in his letters, cited by Gieseler: \u2018Mitto\n stupra, raptus, incestus, adulteria, qui jam pontificalis lascivi\u00e6\n ludi sunt: mitto raptarum viros, ne mutire audeant, non tantum avitis\n laribus, sed finibus patriis exturbatos, qu\u00e6que contumeliarum\n gravissima est, et violatas conjuges et externo semine gravidas rursus\n accipere, et post partum reddere ad alternam satietatem abutentium\n coactos.\u2019\n\nFootnote 101:\n\n Laguille gives an account of this revolution, _Hist. d\u2019Alsace_, p.\n 276.\n\nFootnote 102:\n\n Schmidt\u2019s Tauler, p. 12.\n\nFootnote 103:\n\n Laguille, liv. xxiv. p. 280.\n\nFootnote 104:\n\n Schmidt, p. 22.\n\nFootnote 105:\n\n Tauler\u2019s _Sermon on the Twenty-second Sunday after Trinity_ contains\n an exhortation to Christian love, remarkable for beauty and\n discrimination. Tauler\u2019s _Predigten_, vol ii. p. 591 (Berlin, 1841).\n\nFootnote 106:\n\n Schmidt, p. 14:\u2014\n\n \u2018do soltent s\u00fc ouch f\u00fcrbas singen\n oder aber us der statt springen.\u2019\n\nFootnote 107:\n\n Schmidt\u2019s Tauler, _Anhang \u00fcber die Gottesfreunde_.\n\nFootnote 108:\n\n Passages from two of these mystics, Heinrich von L\u00f6wen and Johannes\n von Sterngasse, are given among the _Spr\u00fcche Deutscher Mystiker_, in\n Wackernagel, p. 890.\n\nFootnote 109:\n\n See Tauler\u2019s _Predigten_, vol. ii. p. 584; and also, concerning the\n charge of sectarianism, p. 595; and the services of the Friends of\n God, vol. i. pred. xxvi. p. 194; pred. xi. p. 85.\n\nFootnote 110:\n\n _Ibid._, vol. ii. pred. lxvi. p. 594.\n\nFootnote 111:\n\n The sermon referred to is that on the _Twenty-third Sunday after\n Trinity_, vol. ii. p. 598.\n\n While he is careful to warn his hearers against the presumption of\n attempting at once to contemplate Deity apart from its manifestation\n in the humanity of Christ, he yet seems to admit that when the soul\n has been thoroughly exercised in the imitation of Christ,\u2014has become\n conformed, as far as man can be, to his spirit and his sufferings,\n then there commences a period of repose and joy in which there is an\n extraordinary intuition of Deity, which approximates to that perfect\n vision promised hereafter, when we shall see, not \u2018through a glass\n darkly,\u2019 but face to face.\u2014Vol. ii. p. 609.\n\nFootnote 112:\n\n Meiners, _Hist. Vergleichung der Sitten, &c., des Mittelalters_, vol.\n ii. p. 117.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER IV.\n\n\n If you would be pleased to make acquaintance with a solid theology\n of the good old sort in the German tongue, get John Tauler\u2019s\n sermons; for neither in Latin nor in our own language have I ever\n seen a theology more sound or more in harmony with the\n Gospel.\u2014LUTHER (_to Spalatin_).\n\n Die Sehnsucht und der Tra\u00fcme Weben\n Sie sind der weichen Seele s\u00fcss,\n Doch edler ist ein starkes Streben\n Und macht den sch\u00f6nen Traum gewiss.[113]\n\n UHLAND.\n\n\nOn another evening, after Kate had played a plaintive air on the piano\nas an overture; when Atherton had praised it as expressive of the upward\nfluttering struggle of the Psyche of Mysticism, and Gower had quoted\nJean Paul\u2019s fancy, where he says that sweet sounds are the blue waves\nthat hide the sea-monsters which lurk in the deeps of life\u2014Adolf\u2019s\njournal was continued, as follows:\u2014\n\n 1339. _December. St. Barbara\u2019s Day._\u2014Three days ago, at the close of\n his sermon, Doctor Tauler said he would preach to-day on the highest\n perfection attainable in this life. Went to hear him. The\n cloister-chapel crowded long before the time. He began by telling us\n that he had much to say, and so would not to-day preach from the\n gospel according to his wont, and moreover would not put much Latin\n into his sermon, but would make good all he taught with Holy Writ.\n Then he went on to preach on the necessity of dying utterly to the\n world and to our own will, and to yield ourselves up, \u2018dying-wise,\u2019\n into the hands of God. He gave further four-and-twenty marks,\n whereby we may discern who are the true, righteous, illuminated,\n contemplative men of God.[114]\n\n Observed close under the pulpit a stranger (by his dress, from the\n Oberland) who did diligently write down, from time to time, what the\n Doctor said\u2014a man of notable presence, in the prime of life, with\n large piercing eyes under shaggy brows, eagle nose, thoughtful\n head\u2014altogether so royal a man as I never before saw. He mingled\n with the crowd after sermon, and I could not learn who he was.\n Several others, as curious, and no wiser than myself. This\n mysterious personage may perhaps be one of the Friends of God, who\n are numerous in the Oberland. Methought he wished to escape notice.\n Perhaps he is a Waldensian, and dreads the evil eye of the\n inquisitor.\n\n 1340. _January. Eve of St. Agnes._\u2014Strange; nothing has been seen of\n the Doctor for this whole month. His penitents are calling\n continually at the convent, craving admittance to their confessor,\n but he will see no one. He is not ill, they say, and takes his part\n in the convent services with the rest, but never stirs beyond the\n walls. None of his many friends can tell us what is the matter.\n\n 1340. _July. St. Alexius\u2019 Day._\u2014All things much as aforetime, that\n is, ill enough. Business slack generally, but our hammers going. The\n worst is this loss of Tauler, our comfort in our trouble. Many\n reports, no certainty. Some say he has committed some crime, and\n sits now in the convent prison. This I everywhere contradict. Others\n will have it that he is gone mad. Many of his former friends are now\n turned against him, and his enemies make them merry. Went again to\n the convent to get what news I could. Enquired of the porter why the\n Doctor had shut himself up. He replied, \u2018Indeed, sir, and I cannot\n know.\u2019 Methought a wonderful close answer for a porter. Went into\n the locutory. In the passage the cook ran by me, having just\n received twenty-five cuffs on the head for leaving the vessels and\n linen dirty on Saturday night. Much laughter thereat. Several monks\n in the locutory, among them brother Bernard, the cellarer, an\n acquaintance of mine\u2014a bustling, shrewd little man, provider of the\n monastic prog[115] to general satisfaction, talking often of\n pittances and profound in beeves,\u2014a brave blade, and seen swaggering\n now and then on holidays with sword at his side, affecting, more\n than beseems, secular gallantry. Said, when I asked him concerning\n Tauler, \u2018Oh, poor fellow, the devil\u2019s clawing him a bit, that\u2019s\n all.\u2019 Another said, \u2018We always knew it would be this way.\u2019 A third,\n \u2018I said so from the first\u2014spiritual pride, Lucifer\u2019s sin, Lucifer\u2019s\n sin!\u2019 Looked at the rascal\u2019s paunch\u2014thought he ran little danger of\n such sin from any over-mortifying of the flesh. His flesh ought to\n have mortified _him_, the brazen-face. Spake up for Tauler as I\n could, but saw that he was the jest of his brethren\u2014having doubtless\n to bear cruelty and mocking along with some melancholy inward fight\n of afflictions\u2014and came away home with a heavy heart. Could not get\n speech with the abbot, who was busy looking to the monks\u2019 beds, that\n they were not too soft.\n\n 1342. _New Year\u2019s Day._\u2014Public notice given, that in three days\n Tauler will preach once more. The news makes great talk. My heart\n sings jubilate thereat. I look back on two weary years that he has\n now been hidden from those who so need him. I have confessed to no\n one the while\u2014somehow, could not to any other\u2014yet I fear me such\n neglect is a sin. Those like-minded with Tauler have been busy among\n us in their work of love, but the master-spirit is sorely missed,\n notwithstanding. One Ludolph of Saxony, who was a Dominican, and has\n come over hither from Cologne lately, to be prior of the new\n Carthusian convent, has been a great blessing unto us. He speaks out\n boldly against abuses, and persuades men tenderly to follow Christ\n carrying the cross.\n\n Bishop Berthold quieter of late; finds it prudent to keep on better\n terms at present with the emperor.\n\n Little Hans a month old to-day. A household of now five children.\n Henry of great service to me. Think sometimes of leaving the\n business with him almost altogether, if only to have him near.\n Margarita not again ill since the first times of the interdict. A\n great mercy! Getting richer yet, and tremble sometimes lest it\n should ensnare my soul, therefore, I disencumber myself at intervals\n of considerable sums for sick and poor folk. Must bear in mind\n Tauler\u2019s counsel to use and enjoy everything intending God therein.\n Find my affections go forth much\u2014I hope not too much\u2014towards this\n last babe. He thrives well; verily, no child could be more unlike\n the blessed St. Nicholas, of whom I have heard a friar say that,\n when hanging on his mother\u2019s breast, he fasted Wednesdays and\n Fridays, and could not be brought to suck more than once a day. But\n if I stay to number up my blessings, I shall have a list longer than\n the curse-roll of the Pope. God give me an unworldly, thankful,\n watchful spirit!\n\n 1342. _January 6._\u2014Alas! that I should have to write what now I\n must! I forced a way into the crowded church\u2014every part filled with\n people, wedged in below so that they could not move, clustered like\n bees where they had climbed above into every available place, and a\n dense mass in the porch besides. The Doctor came, looking woefully\n ill, changed as I scarce ever saw a man, to live. He mounted the\n lectorium, held his cap before his eyes, and said:\n\n \u2018O merciful and eternal God, if it be thy will, give me so to speak\n that thy divine name may be praised and honoured, and these men\n bettered thereby.\u2019\n\n With that he began to weep. We waited, breathless. Still he wept,\n and could speak no word, his sobs audible in the stillness, and the\n tears making their way through his fingers as he hid his face in his\n hands. This continued till the people grew restless. Longer yet,\n with more manifest discontent. At last a voice cried out from among\n the people (I think it was that roughspoken Carvel, the butcher),\n \u2018Now then, Sir, how long are we to stop here? It is getting late, if\n you don\u2019t mean to preach, let us go home.\u2019\n\n I saw that Tauler was struggling to collect himself by prayer, but\n his emotion became only the more uncontrollable, and at last he\n said, with a broken voice,\u2014\n\n \u2018Dear brethren, I am sorry from my heart to have kept you so long,\n but at this time I cannot possibly speak to you. Pray God for me\n that he would help me, and I may do better at another time.\u2019\n\n So we went away, and the report thereof was presently all over\n Strasburg. The snowball had plenty of hands to roll it, and lost\n nothing by the way. The people, numbers of them, seemed to me with a\n wicked glee to delight in showing how the learned Doctor had made a\n fool of himself. Those who had counted him mad before reckoned\n themselves now little short of prophets. Many such whom I met in the\n streets looked and spoke with such a hateful triumph of the matter\n as well nigh put me beside myself. Not so long ago, no one could\n satisfy them but Tauler; not the name of the most popular of saints\n oftener on their lips; the very ground he trod on was blessed; a\n kindly word from his lips food for days\u2014and now the hands stretched\n out almost in adoration, throw mire on the fallen idol, and not a\n \u2018prentice lad behind his stall but hugs himself in his superior\n sanity. Had he been a hunter after popularity, what a judgment!\n Verily that man has the folly of a thousand fools who lives for the\n applause of the multitude. But I know how Tauler\u2019s heart bled for\n them.\n\n Friar Bernard came over this evening. He says the superiors are\n wroth beyond measure with Tauler for the scandal he has brought upon\n the order, and will forbid him to preach more. Entertained my jovial\n gauger of monks\u2019 bellies with the best cheer I had\u2014he has a good\n heart after all, and is unfeignedly sorry for Tauler\u2019s disgrace.\n Says he thinks the Doctor has fasted and done penance beyond his\n strength, that the sudden coming out from his cell to preach to such\n numbers was too much for his weakness,\u2014that he will get over it and\n be himself again, and much more,\u2014to the hope whereof he pledged me\n in another glass, and left me not a little comforted.\n\n 1342. _January. St. Vincent\u2019s Day._\u2014Saw Bernard again, who gives me\n the good news that Dr. Tauler obtained permission from the prior to\n deliver a Latin address in the school, and did acquit himself to\n such admiration, that he is to be allowed to preach in public when\n he will.\n\n 1342. _January 23._\u2014Tauler preached to-day in the chapel of the\n nunnery of St. Agatha, on \u2018Behold the bridegroom cometh; go ye out\n to meet him.\u2019 A wondrous discourse\u2014a torrent that seems to make me\n dizzy yet. As he was describing, more like an angel than a man, the\n joy of the bride at the approach of the bridegroom, a man cried out,\n \u2018It is true!\u2019 and fell senseless on the floor. As they were about\n him to bring him to himself, a woman among them shrieked, \u2018Oh, stop,\n sir, stop! or he will die in our arms!\u2019 Whereat he said calmly, and\n with his face lighted up as though he saw the heavens opened, \u2018Ah,\n dear children, and if the bridegroom will call home the bride, shall\n we not willingly suffer him? But nevertheless I will make an end.\u2019\n Then after sermon he read mass again, and, as I came out, I saw the\n people gathered about several persons in the court who lay on the\n ground, as though dead, such had been the power of his words.\n\n 1342. _February. St. Blasius\u2019 Day._\u2014Now Tauler is continually\n preaching, not only in the church of his convent, but in those of\n various monasteries and nunneries, in the Beguinasia, and in the\n cells wherein little companies of pious women have gathered\n themselves together to hide from the dangers of the world. He never\n cited so much Latin as some, now less than heretofore. More alive\n than ever, it would seem, to our wants, he addresses himself\n mightily to heart and conscience, which he can bind up or smite at\n will. His love and care, for the laity most of all, is a marvel; he\n lives for us, and yet appears to hold himself no greater than the\n least. Before, there was none like him, now we feel that in\n heavenliness of nature he has gone beyond his former self. So\n earnestly does he exhort to active love to man, as well as to\n perfect resignation to God, that already a new spirit seems to\n pervade many, and they begin to care for others, as he tells us the\n first Christians did. He tells them mere prayers, and mass, and\n alms, and penance, will help them nothing unless the Holy Spirit\n breathes life into them. He says the priests are not of necessity\n better men because they oftener taste the Lord\u2019s body, that outward\n things such as those profit nothing alone, and that those who love\n their fellows most are the truest instructors, and teach more wisely\n than all the schools.\n\n 1344. _March._\u2014Tauler hath of late, besides preaching constantly as\n ever, begun to send forth from time to time sundry small books, full\n of consolation and godly counsel for these days. Copies of them are\n fast multiplied, and people gather to hear them read at each other\u2019s\n houses. This is a new thing, and works powerfully.\n\n The greatest stir has been made by two letters issued by Tauler,\n Ludolph the Carthusian, and others, and sent out, not only through\n Strasburg, but all the region round about.[116] The bishop is very\n angry thereat; though, before, he had come several times to hear\n Tauler, and had professed no small admiration of him. One of these\n letters is to comfort the people, and exhorts all priests to\n administer the sacraments to all who shall desire, the bann\n notwithstanding. \u2018For,\u2019 it saith, \u2018ye are bound to visit and console\n the sick, remembering the bitter pain and death of Christ, who hath\n made satisfaction, not for your sins only, but also for those of the\n whole world, who doth represent us all before God, so that if one\n falleth innocently under the bann, no Pope can shut him out of\n heaven. Ye should, therefore, give absolution to such as wish\n therefor\u2014giving heed rather to the bidding of Christ and his\n Apostles than to the bann, which is issued only out of malice and\n avarice.\u2019\n\n Thus truly have these good men done, and many with them, so that\n numbers have died in peace, fearing the bann not a whit, whereas\n before, many thousands, unshriven, gave up the ghost in the horrors\n of despair.\n\n The other letter is addressed to the learned and great ones among\n the clergy. It saith that there are two swords\u2014a spiritual, which is\n God\u2019s word, and the temporal, the secular power:\u2014that these two are\n to be kept distinct; both are from God, and ought not to be contrary\n the one to the other. The spiritual power should fulfil its proper\n duty and uphold the temporal, while that again should protect the\n good and be a terror to evil-doers. If temporal princes sin, such as\n are spiritual should exhort them, in love and humility, to amend\n their ways. It is against the law of Christ that the shepherds, when\n one of these falls beneath their displeasure, should for that reason\n presume to damn a whole country, with all its cities, towns, and\n villages, where dwell the poor innocent folk who are no partakers in\n the sin. It cannot be proved from Scripture that all those who will\n not kiss the Pope\u2019s foot, or receive a certain article of faith, or\n who hold by an emperor duly elected and well fulfilling his office,\n and do him service as set over them by God, do therein sin against\n the Church and are heretics. God will not demand of vassals an\n account of the sins of their lords, and neither should subjects,\n bound to obey the emperor as the highest temporal power, be given\n over to damnation as though answerable for the faults of their\n rulers. Therefore all who hold the true Christian faith, and sin\n only against the person of the Pope, are no heretics. Those, rather,\n are real heretics who obstinately refuse to repent and forsake their\n sins; for let a man have been what he may, if he will so do, he\n cannot be cast out of the Church. Through Christ, the truly penitent\n thief, murderer, traitor, adulterer, all may have forgiveness. Such\n as God beholdeth under an unrighteous bann, he will turn for them\n the curse into a blessing. Christ himself did not resist the\n temporal power, but said, My kingdom is not of this world. Our souls\n belong unto God, our body and goods to C\u00e6sar. If the emperor sins,\n he must give account to God therefor\u2014not to a poor mortal man.\n\nFootnote 113:\n\n To long and weave a woof of dreams is sweet unto the feeble soul, but\n nobler is stout-hearted striving, and makes the dream reality.\n\nFootnote 114:\n\n This sermon is given entire in the second chapter of the\n _Lebenshistorie des ehrw\u00fcrdigen Doctors Johann Tauler_, prefixed to\n his sermons. The succeeding incidents are all related by the same\n authority. The cellarer only and the family affairs of Adolf, appear\n to be invented by Atherton.\n\nFootnote 115:\n\n Atherton defends this word by the usage of Thomas Fuller.\n\nFootnote 116:\n\n These letters are preserved in substance in Specklin\u2019s _Collectanea_,\n and are inserted, from that source, in the introduction by G\u00f6rres to\n Diepenbrock\u2019s edition of Suso\u2019s works; pp. xxxv. &c.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER V.\n\n\n The meanes, therefore, which unto us is lent\n Him to behold, is on his workes to looke,\n Which he hath made in beautie excellent,\n And in the same, as in a brasen booke,\n To read enregistred in every nooke\n His goodnesse, which his beautie doth declare;\n For all that\u2019s good is beautifull and faire.\n\n Thence gathering plumes of perfect speculation,\n To impe the wings of thy high-flying mynd,\n Mount up aloft through heavenly contemplation,\n From this darke world, whose damps the soule do blynd,\n And, like the native brood of eagles kynd,\n On that bright Sunne of Glorie fixe thine eyes,\n Cleared from grosse mists of fraile infirmities.\n\n SPENSER: HYMNE OF HEAVENLY BEAUTIE.\n\n\nWILLOUGHBY. I did not think Atherton had so much artifice in him. He\nbroke off his last reading from Arnstein\u2019s Chronicle with a mystery\nunexplained, quite in the most approved _feuilleton_ style.\n\nGOWER. You have excited the curiosity of the ladies most painfully, I\nassure you. I believe I am empowered to say that they cannot listen to\nany more of the armourer\u2019s journal until you have accounted for Tauler\u2019s\nsingular disappearance.\n\nKATE. One word for us and two for yourself, Mr. Gower.\n\nATHERTON. Ungrateful public! You all know I haven\u2019t a particle of\ninvention in my nature. It is just because I am not a novelist that I\nhave not been able to explain everything. Arnstein is, like me, a\nmatter-of-fact personage, and could not be in two places at once.\n\nHowever, to relieve you, I am ready to acknowledge that I am in\npossession of information about these incidents quite independent of the\nirregular entries in his record. There is no secret; it is all matter of\nsober history. The facts are these\u2014\n\nOne day there came a stranger to Tauler, desiring to confess to him. It\nwas the remarkable man who had so attracted the attention of Adolf in\nthe church. He was called Nicholas of Basle, and was well known in the\nOberland as an eminent \u2018Friend of God.\u2019 He was one of those men so\ncharacteristic of that period\u2014a layman exercising a wider spiritual\ninfluence than many a bishop. He was perhaps a Waldensian, holding the\nopinions of that sect, with a considerable infusion of visionary\nmysticism. The Waldenses, and the Friends of God, were drawn nearer to\neach other by opposition, and the disorders of the time, as well as by\nthe more liberal opinions they held in common, and it is not always easy\nto distinguish them.\n\nAfter confession, the layman requested, much to the Doctor\u2019s surprise,\nthat he would preach a sermon on the highest spiritual attainment a man\nmay reach in time. Tauler yielded at length to his importunity, and\nfulfilled his promise. Nicholas brought his notes of the sermon to\nTauler, and in the course of their conversation, disclosed the object of\nhis visit. He had travelled those thirty miles, he said, not merely to\nlisten to the doctor, of whom he had heard so much, but, by God\u2019s help,\nto give him some counsel that should do him good. He told him plainly\nthat the sermon, though excellent in its way, could teach him\nnothing\u2014the Great Teacher could impart to him more knowledge in an hour\nthan Tauler and all his brethren, preaching till the day of doom. Tauler\nwas first astonished, then indignant, to hear a mere layman address him\nin such language. Nicholas appealed to that very anger as a proof that\nthe self-confidence of the Pharisee was not yet cleansed away, that the\npreacher trusted with unbecoming pride in his mastership and great\nlearning.\n\nYou must remember the vast distance which at that day separated the\nclerk from the layman, to give to the candour and humility of Tauler its\ndue value. The truth flashed across his mind. Deeply affected, he\nembraced the layman, saying, \u2018Thou hast been the first to tell me of my\nfault. Stay with me here. Henceforth I will live after thy counsel; thou\nshalt be my spiritual father, and I thy sinful son.\u2019\n\nNicholas acceded to his request, and gave him, to begin with, a kind of\nspiritual A B C,\u2014a list of moral rules, commencing in succession with\nthe letters of the alphabet, which he was to commit to memory and to\npractise, together with sundry bodily austerities, for five weeks, in\nhonour of the five wounds of Christ. But the discipline which followed\nwas yet more severe. Tauler was directed to abstain from hearing\nconfession, from study and from preaching, and to shut himself up in his\ncell, that, in solitary contemplation of the sufferings and death of\nChrist, he might attain true humility and complete renewal. The\nanticipated consequences ensued. His friends and penitents forsook him;\nhe became the by-word of the cloister; his painful penances brought on a\nlingering sickness. Borne down by mental and bodily sufferings together,\nhe applied to his friend for relief. The layman told him that he was\ngoing on well\u2014it would be better with him ere long\u2014he might remit his\nseverer self-inflictions, and should recruit the body by a more generous\ndiet.\n\nNicholas was now called away by important business, he said, and Tauler\nwas left to himself. His parting advice to his spiritual scholar was,\nthat if he came to want, he should pawn his books, but sell them on no\naccount, for the day would come when he would need them once more.\n\nTauler continued in this trying seclusion for nearly two years,\ncontemned by the world without as one beside himself, oppressed within\nby distress of mind and feebleness of body. It had been forbidden him to\ndesire, even when thus brought low, any special communication from God\nthat might gladden him with rapture or consolation. Such a request would\nspring from self and pride. He was there to learn an utter\nself-abandonment\u2014to submit himself without will or choice to the good\npleasure of God\u2014to be tried with this or any other affliction, if need\nwere, till the judgment day.\n\nNow it came to pass, when he had become so ill that he could not attend\nmass or take his place in the choir as he had been wont, that, as he lay\non his sickbed, he meditated once more on the sufferings and love of our\nLord and Saviour, and thought on his own life, what a poor thing it had\nbeen, and how ungrateful. With that he fell into a marvellous great\nsorrow, says the history, for all his lost time and all his sins, and\nspake, with heart and mouth, these words:\u2014\n\n\u2018O merciful God, have mercy upon me, a poor sinner; have mercy in thine\ninfinite compassion, for I am not worthy to live on the face of the\nearth.\u2019\n\nThen as he sat up waking in his sickness and sorrow, he heard a voice\nsaying, \u2018Stand fast in thy peace, trust God, remember that he was once\non the earth in human nature, healing sick bodies and sick souls.\u2019 When\nhe heard these words he fell back fainting, and knew no more. On coming\nto himself, he found that both his inward and outward powers had\nreceived new life. Much that had before been strange now seemed clear.\nHe sent for his friend, who heard with joy what he had to tell.\n\n\u2018Now,\u2019 said Nicholas, \u2018thou hast been for the first time moved by the\nHighest, and art a partaker of the grace of God, and knowest that though\nthe letter killeth, the Spirit giveth life. Now wilt thou understand the\nScripture as never before\u2014perceive its harmony and preciousness, and be\nwell able to show thy fellow Christians the way to eternal life. Now one\nof thy sermons will bring more fruit than a hundred aforetime, coming,\nas it will, from a simple, humbled, loving heart; and much as the people\nhave set thee at nought, they will now far more love and prize thee. But\na man with treasure must guard against the thieves. See to it that thou\nhold fast thy humility, by which thou wilt best keep thy riches. Now\nthou needest my teaching no longer, having found the right Master, whose\ninstrument I am, and who sent me hither. Now, in all godly love, thou\nshalt teach me in turn.\u2019\n\nTauler had pledged his books for thirty gulden. The layman went\nimmediately and redeemed them at his own cost, and by his advice Tauler\ncaused it to be announced that in three days he would preach once more.\nYou have already heard how our good friend Adolf records the unhappy\nresult of this first attempt. Tauler went with his trouble to Nicholas,\nwho comforted him by the assurance that such farther trial was but a\nsign of the careful love which carried on the work within. There must\nhave been some remnant of self-seeking which was still to be purged\naway. He advised him to wait awhile, and then apply for permission to\ndeliver a Latin address to the brethren in the school. This he at last\nreceived, and a better sermon they never heard. So the next preacher, at\nthe close of his discourse, made the following announcement to the\ncongregation: \u2018I am requested to give notice that Doctor Tauler will\npreach here to-morrow. If he succeeds no better than before, the blame\nmust rest with himself. But this I can say, that he has read us in the\nschool a prelection such as we have not heard for many a day; how he\nwill acquit himself now, I know not, God knoweth.\u2019\n\nThen followed the overpowering discourse, of whose effects you have\nheard; and from this time forward commenced a new \u00e6ra in Tauler\u2019s public\nlife. For full eight years he laboured unremittingly, with an\nearnestness and a practical effect far surpassing his former efforts,\nand in such esteem with all classes that his fellow-citizens would seem\nto have thought no step should be taken in spiritual matters, scarcely\nin temporal, without first seeking counsel of Tauler.\n\nLOWESTOFFE. A most singular story. But how have all these minute\ncircumstances come down to us?\n\nATHERTON. When Tauler was on his death-bed he sent for Nicholas, and\ngave him a manuscript, in which he had written down their conversations,\nwith some account of his own life and God\u2019s dealings towards him, His\nunworthy servant, requesting him to make thereof a little book. The\nlayman promised to do so. \u2018But see to it,\u2019 continued the Doctor, \u2018that\nyou can conceal our names. You can easily write \u2018The Man and the\nDoctor\u2019\u2014for the life and words and works which God hath wrought through\nme, an unworthy, sinful man, are not mine, but belong unto Almighty God\nfor ever. So let it be, for the edifying of our fellow men; but take the\nwriting with thee into thy country, and let no man see it while I live.\u2019\nThis narrative has been preserved, and there is no difficulty in\ndiscerning in the Doctor and the man, Tauler and Nicholas of Basle.[117]\n\nYou will now let me resume my reading, I suppose.\n\n Chronicle of Adolf Arnstein, continued.\n\n 1344. _Eve of St. Dionysius._\u2014I here set down passages from sermons\n I have at sundry times heard Doctor Tauler preach. I have made it my\n wont to go straight home as soon as the service has been ended, and\n write what I could best remember. The goodly sayings which follow\n are copied from those imperfect records, and placed here for my\n edification and that of my children and others after me.\n\n From a sermon on Christ\u2019s teaching the multitude out of the\n ship.\u2014The soul of the believing man, wherein Christ is, doth find\n its representation in that ship. Speaking of the perpetual peace\n such souls may have, despite what storm and commotion soever, he\n added (not a little to my comfort): \u2018But some of you have not felt\n all this; be not ye dismayed. There are poor fishers as well as\n rich; yea, more poor than rich. Hold this as unchangeably sure, that\n the trials and struggle of no man are of small account. If a man be\n but in right earnest, longeth to be a true lover of God, and\n perseveres therein, and loves those he knows or deems to be\n such,\u2014doth heartily address himself to live fairly after Job\u2019s\n pattern, and intend God unfeignedly in his doing or not doing, such\n a man will assuredly enter into God\u2019s peace, though he should tarry\n for it till his dying day. Even those true friends and lovers of God\n who enjoy so glorious a peace have disquiet and trouble of their own\n in that they cannot be towards their faithful God all they would,\n and in that even what God giveth is less large than their desires.\u2019\n\n \u2018In the highest stage of divine comfort is that peace which is said\n to pass all understanding. When that noblest part of the soul to\n which no name can be given is completely turned to God and set on\n Him, it takes with it all those faculties in man to which we can\n give names. This conversion involves both that in God which is\n Nameless and that in the consciousness of man which can be named.\n These are they whom St. Dionysius calls godly-minded men. As Paul\n saith, \u2018That ye may be rooted and grounded in love; and understand\n with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and height, and\n depth.\u2019 For the height and depth which are revealed in such men can\n be apprehended by no human sense or reason; they reach beyond all\n sense out into a deep abyss. This great good, light, and comfort, is\n inwardly revealed only to those who are outwardly sanctified and\n inwardly illuminated, and who know how to dwell inwardly within\n themselves. To such, heaven and earth and all creatures are as an\n absolute Nothing, for they themselves are a heaven of God, inasmuch\n as God dwelleth and rests in them.\u2019\n\n \u2018God draweth these men in such wise into Himself, that they become\n altogether pleasing unto Him, and all that is in them becomes, in a\n super-essential way, so pervaded and transformed, that God himself\n doeth and worketh all their works. Wherefore, clearly, such persons\n are called with right\u2014Godlike (_Gottformige_). For if we could see\n such minds as they truly are, they would appear to us like God,\n being so, however, not by nature, but by grace. For God lives,\n forms, ordaineth, and doeth in them all his works, and doth use\n Himself in them.\u2019\n\n \u2018It fares with such men as with Peter, when, at the miraculous\n draught of fishes, he exclaimed, \u2018Depart from me, for I am a sinful\n man, O Lord!\u2019 See! he can find no words, no way of utterance, for\n that within. So is it, I say, with such men\u2014they find themselves\n empty of fit words and works. And that is the first mode. The other\n is that they fall utterly into their own groundless Nothing (_in ihr\n grundloses Nichts_), and become so small and utterly nothing in God\n as quite to forget all gifts they have received before, and do, as\n it were, pour themselves back again absolutely into God (whose they\n properly are) as though such bestowments had never been theirs. Yea,\n they are withal as barely nothing as though they had never been. So\n sinks the created Nothing in the Uncreated, incomprehensibly,\n unspeakably. Herein is true what is said in the Psalter, \u2018Deep\n calleth unto deep.\u2019 For the uncreated Deep calls the created, and\n these two deeps become entirely one. Then hath the created spirit\n lost itself in the spirit of God, yea, is drowned in the bottomless\n sea of Godhead. But how well it is with such a man passeth all\n understanding to comprehend. Such a man becomes, thirdly, essential,\n virtuous, godly; in his walk, loving and kindly, condescending and\n friendly towards all men, so that no man can detect in him any fault\n or transgression, any vice or crime. Moreover, he is believing and\n trustful towards all men, hath mercy and sympathy for every man\n without distinction; is not austere and stern, but friendly, gentle,\n and good, and it is not possible that such men should ever be\n separated from God. Unto such perfectness may all we be graciously\n helped of God our Saviour, unto whom be praise for ever. Amen.\u2019[118]\n\n \u2018The ground or centre of the soul is so high and glorious a thing,\n that it cannot properly be named, even as no adequate name can be\n found for the Infinite and Almighty God. In this ground lies the\n image of the Holy Trinity. Its kindred and likeness with God is such\n as no tongue can utter. Could a man perceive and realize how God\n dwelleth in this ground, such knowledge would be straightway the\n blessedness of salvation. The apostle saith, \u2018be renewed in the\n spirit of your mind (_Gem\u00fcthes_).\u2019 When the mind is rightly\n directed, it tendeth towards this ground whose image is far beyond\n its powers. In this mind we are to be renewed, by a perpetual\n bringing of ourselves into this ground, truly loving and intending\n God immediately. This is not impossible for the mind itself, though\n our inferior powers are unequal to such unceasing union with God.\n This renewal must take place also in the spirit. For God is a\n spirit, and our created spirit must be united to and lost in the\n uncreated, even as it existed in God before its creation. Every\n moment in which the soul so re-enters into God, a complete\n restoration takes place. If it be done a thousand times in a day,\n there is, each time, a true regeneration: as the Psalmist\n saith,\u2014\u2018This day have I begotten thee.\u2019 This is when the inmost of\n the spirit is sunk and dissolved in the inmost of the Divine Nature,\n and thus new-made and transformed. God pours Himself out thus into\n our spirit, as the sun rays forth its natural light into the air,\n and fills it with sunshine, so that no eye can tell the difference\n between the sunshine and the air. If the union of the sun and air\n cannot be distinguished, how far less this divine union of the\n created and the uncreated Spirit! Our spirit is received and utterly\n swallowed up in the abyss which is its source. Then the spirit\n transcends itself and all its powers, and mounts higher and higher\n towards the Divine Dark, even as an eagle towards the sun.\u2019\n\n \u2018Yet let no man in his littleness and nothingness think of himself\n to approach that surpassing darkness,\u2014rather let him draw nigh to\n the darkness of his ignorance of God, let him simply yield himself\n to God, ask nothing, desire nothing, love and mean only God, yea,\n and such an unknown God. Let him lovingly cast all his thoughts and\n cares, and his sins too, as it were, on that unknown Will. Beyond\n this unknown will of God he must desire and purpose nothing, neither\n way, nor rest, nor work, neither this nor that, but wholly subject\n and offer himself up to this unknown will. Moreover, if a man, while\n busy in this lofty inward work, were called by some duty in the\n Providence of God to cease therefrom and cook a broth for some sick\n person, or any other such service, he should do so willingly and\n with great joy. This I say that if it happened to me that I had to\n forsake such work and go out to preach or aught else, I should go\n cheerfully, believing not only that God would be with me, but that\n He would vouchsafe me it may be even greater grace and blessing in\n that external work undertaken out of true love in the service of my\n neighbour than I should perhaps receive in my season of loftiest\n contemplation.\u2019\n\n \u2018The truly enlightened man\u2014alas! that they should be so few\u2014scarce\n two or three among a thousand\u2014sinks himself the deeper in his Ground\n the more he recognises his honour and his blessedness, and of all\n his gifts ascribes not even the least unto himself. Our\n righteousness and holiness, as the prophet saith, is but filthiness.\n Therefore must we build, not on our righteousness, but on the\n righteousness of God, and trust, not in our own words, works, or\n ways, but alone in God. May this God give us all power and grace to\n lose ourselves wholly in Him, that we may be renewed in truth, and\n found to His praise and glory. Amen.\u2019[119]\n\n Speaking of the publican in the temple, he put up a prayer that God\n would give him such an insight as that man had into his own Nothing\n and unworthiness;\u2014\u2018That,\u2019 said he, \u2018is the highest and most\n profitable path a man can tread. For that way brings God continually\n and immediately into man. Where God appears in His mercy, there is\n He manifest also with all His nature\u2014with Himself.\u2019[120]\n\n I understand the Doctor as teaching three states or conditions\n wherein man may stand; that of nature, by the unaided light of\n reason, which in its inmost tends Godward, did not the flesh hinder;\n that of grace; and a higher stage yet, above grace, where means and\n medium are as it were superseded, and God works immediately within\n the transformed soul. For what God doeth that He is. Yet that in\n this higher state, as in the second, man hath no merit; he is\n nothing and God all. In the course of this same sermon he described\n humility as indispensable to such perfectness, since the loftiest\n trees send their roots down deepest. He said that we should not\n distress ourselves if we had not detailed to our confessor all the\n short-coming and sin of our hearts, but confess to God and ask His\n mercy. No ecclesiastical absolution can help us unless we are\n contrite for our sin before God. We are not to keep away from the\n Lord\u2019s body because we feel so deeply our unworthiness to partake of\n the sacrament, seeing that they who are whole need not a physician,\n but they that are sick.[121]\n\n \u2018There are some who can talk much and eloquently of the incarnation\n and bitter sufferings of Christ, who do with tears apostrophise him\n from head to foot as they present him to their imagination. Yet is\n there often in this more of sense and self-pleasing than of true\n love to God. They look more to the means than to the end. For my\n part, I would rather there were less of such excitement and\n transport, less of mere sweet emotion, so that a man were diligent\n and right manful in working and in virtue, for in such exercise do\n we learn best to know ourselves. These raptures are not the highest\n order of devotion, though would that many a dull heart had more of\n such sensibility! There are, as St. Bernard hath said, three kinds\n of love, the sweet, the wise, and the strong. The first is as a\n gilded image of wood, the second as a gilded image of silver, the\n third an image of pure gold. One to whom God hath vouchsafed such\n sweetness should receive it with lowliness and thankfulness,\n discerning therein his weakness and imperfection, in that God has to\n allure and entice him as a little child. He should not rest at this\n point, but press on, through images, above all image and figure;\n through the outward exercise of the senses to the inward ground of\n his soul, where properly the kingdom of God is. There are many\n altogether at home amid sensuous imagery, and having great joy\n therein, whose inner ground is as fast shut to them as a mountain of\n iron through which there is no way.\u2019\n\n \u2018Dionysius writeth how God doth far and superessentially surpass all\n images, modes, forms, or names that can be applied to Him. The true\n fulness of divine enlightenment is known herein that it is an\n essential illumination, not taking place by means of images or in\n the powers of the soul, but rather in the ground itself of the soul,\n when a man is utterly sunk in his own Nothing. This I say against\n the \u2018free spirits,\u2019 who persuade themselves that by means of certain\n appearances and glances of revelation they have discerned the truth,\n and please themselves with their own exaltation, knowledge, and\n wisdom; going about in a false emptiness (_Ledigkeit_) of their own;\n and speaking to others as though they were not yet advanced beyond\n the use of forms and images; bringing, with their frivolous\n presumption, no small dishonour upon God. But know ye, Christians\n beloved, that no truly pious and God-fearing man gives himself out\n as having risen above all things, for things in themselves utterly\n insignificant and mean are yet, in the truth, right and good; and\n though any one may be in reality elevated above such lesser matters,\n yet doth he love and honour them not less than heretofore; for the\n truly pious account themselves less than all things, and boast not\n that they have surpassed or are lifted above them.\u2019[122]\n\n \u2018O, dear child, in the midst of all these enmities and dangers, sink\n thou into thy ground and thy Nothingness, and let the tower with all\n its bells fall on thee, yea, let all the devils in hell storm out\n upon thee, let heaven and earth with all their creatures assail\n thee, all shall but marvellously serve thee\u2014sink thou only into thy\n Nothingness, and the better part is thine!\u2018[123]\n\n \u2018Yet some will ask what remains after a man hath thus lost himself\n in God? I answer, nothing but a fathomless annihilation of himself,\n an absolute ignoring of all reference to himself personally, of all\n aims of his own in will and heart, in way, in purpose, or in use.\n For in this self-loss man sinks so deep into the ground that if he\n could, out of pure love and lowliness, sink himself deeper yet, and\n become absolutely nothing, he would do so right gladly. For such a\n self-annihilation hath been brought to pass within him that he\n thinketh himself unworthy to be a man, unfit to enter God\u2019s house\n and temple, and to look upon a crucifix painted on the wall; yea,\n such a man deemeth himself not so good by far as the very worst.\n Nevertheless, as far as regards the sufferings and death of the\n Lord\u2014the birth and incarnation of the Son of God\u2014His holy and\n perfect life that He lived on earth among sinful men, all this such\n a man did never before so heartily and strongly love as now he doth;\n yea, now his care is how he may order his life right Christianly,\n and fashion it anew, and out of fervent love toward his Lord and\n Saviour, exercise himself without ceasing in all good work and\n virtue.\u2019[124]\n\n \u2018There are those who thoughtlessly maim and torture their miserable\n flesh, and yet leave untouched the inclinations which are the root\n of evil in their hearts. Ah, my friend, what hath thy poor body done\n to thee, that thou shouldst so torment it? Oh folly! mortify and\n slay thy sins, not thine own flesh and blood.\u2019[125]\n\nWILLOUGHBY. My dear Atherton, this is grand doctrine. May I never be\nfarther from the kingdom of heaven than such a mystic. Surely Luther\u2019s\npraise is just. Compare such theology as this with the common creed and\npractice of that day. The faults are nearly all those of the time\u2014the\nexcellence his own.\n\nATHERTON. It is wonderful to see how little harm his Platonism can do to\na man so profoundly reverent, so fervent in his love to Christ. How\noften he seems to tread the verge of Eckart\u2019s pantheistic abyss, but\nnever falls into it! His heart is true; he walks uprightly, and so,\nsurely. That conception of sin as selfishness\u2014that doctrine of\nself-abandonment, death in ourselves and life in God\u2014these are\nconvictions with him so deep and blessed\u2014so far beyond all Greek\nphilosophy\u2014so fatal to the intellectual arrogance of pantheism, that\nthey bear him safe through every peril.\n\nGOWER. His sermons cannot fail to do one good\u2014read with the heart and\nimagination. But if you coldly criticise, and can make no allowance for\nthe allegories and metaphors and vehement language of the mystic, you\nmay shut the book at once.\n\nATHERTON. And shut out blessing from your soul. It is not difficult to\nsee, however, where Tauler\u2019s danger lies. There is an excess of negation\nin his divinity. He will ignore, deny, annihilate almost everything you\ncan name,\u2014bid you be knowledgeless, desireless, motionless,\u2014will enjoin\nsubmission to the _unknown_ God (when it is our triumph in Christ that\nwe submit to the Revealed and Known)\u2014and, in short, leaves scarcely\nanything positive save the mysterious lapse of the soul\u2019s Ground, or\nSpark, into the Perfect, the Essential One. He seems sometimes to make\nour very personality a sin, as though the limitations of our finite\nbeing were an element in our guilt. The separation of a particular\nfaculty or higher power of the soul which unites with God, while the\ninferior powers are either absorbed or occupied in the lower sphere,\nthis is the great metaphysical mistake which lies at the root of so many\nforms of mysticism. With Tauler the work of grace consists too much of\nextremes\u2014it dehumanizes in order to deify.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. But that, remember, is no fault of Tauler\u2019s especially. He\ndoes but follow here the ascetic, superhuman aspiration of a Church\nwhich, trying to raise some above humanity, sinks myriads below it.\n\nATHERTON. Granted. That error does not lessen my love and admiration for\nthe man.\n\nGOWER. Your extracts show, too, that the Nothingness towards which he\ncalls men to strive is no indolent Quietism, nor, as with Eckart, a kind\nof metaphysical postulate, but in fact a profound spiritual\nself-abasement and the daily working out of a self-sacrificing\nChrist-like character.\n\nATHERTON. Blessed are his contradictions and inconsistencies! Logic\ncannot always reconcile Tauler with himself\u2014our hearts do.[126]\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Never surely was a theory so negative combined with an\naction more fervently intense\u2014a positiveness more benign.\n\nGOWER. In his life we understand him,\u2014that is at once the explanation\nand vindication of what his mysticism means.\n\nATHERTON. Few, however, of his fellow-mystics rose, so far as Tauler,\nabove the peculiar dangers of mysticism. Even the good layman, Nicholas\nof Basle, was a man of vision, and assumed a kind of prophecy. Tauler\nand the _Theologia Germanica_ stand almost alone in rejecting the\nsensuous element of mysticism\u2014its apparitions, its voices, its celestial\nphantasmagoria. With many of his friends mysticism became secluded,\neffeminate, visionary, because uncorrected, as in his case, by\nbenevolent action, by devoted conflict against priestly wrong.\n\nKATE. Tauler, then, was a Protestant in spirit\u2014a genuine forerunner of\nthe Reformation?\n\nATHERTON. Unquestionably.\n\nMRS. ATHERTON. But what could the common people make of this high ideal\nhe sets before them? Could they be brought heartily to care about that\nkind of ultra-human perfectness? Beautiful it must have been to hear\nthis eloquent man describe the divine passion of the soul, how\u2014\n\n Love took up the harp of life and smote on all the chords with\n might,\n Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, passed in music out of\n sight,\n\n\u2014but bewildering, rather?\n\nATHERTON. I am afraid so. Yet there was much they evidently did\nunderstand and relish.\n\nGOWER. In fact the Reformers were wanted, with their Bible, with their\nsimpler, homelier teaching\u2014so much less ascetic, so much more human\u2014and\nwith their written word, interpreted more soundly; coming, not to\nextinguish that inner light, but to enclose, as in a glass, the precious\nflame, otherwise fitfully blown about by the gusts of circumstance and\nfeeling.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. But none the less let us praise the man who lived so nobly\nby the light he had\u2014who made human works as nothing, that God might be\nall\u2014who took the heavenly kingdom from the hands of the priest, and\nproclaimed it in the heart of every spiritual worshipper.\n\nGOWER. Though Tauler adopts at times the language of Eckart, no one can\nfail to discern a very different spirit. How much more profound his\napprehension of sin\u2014his sense of need; how much more prominent Christ,\nrescuing and purifying the stricken soul. Tauler lays man in the dust,\nand keeps him there. Eckart suffers him to expand from Nothing to\nInfinity. Summarily, I would put the difference thus:\u2014With Eckart the\nlanguage of Christianity becomes the metaphorical expression for\npantheism; with Tauler, phraseology approaching pantheism is the\nmetaphorical expression of a most truly Christian conviction. If the\nformer sins even more in the spirit than in the letter, in the case of\nthe latter the sins of the letter are redeemed by the excellence of the\nspirit.\n\n\n Note to page 246.\n\n\nThe passages in the text are from the second _Sermon on Fifth Sunday\nafter Trinity_, _Predigten_, ii. pp. 353, &c. The spiritual conflict and\ndesolation which had shaken Tauler\u2019s nature to its depths bears fruit in\nthis profound humility. Self-abasement is the cardinal doctrine of all\nhis sermons; his lowliness of spirit the safeguard of his theology from\nall dangerous error. The troubles through which he and Suso were made to\npass, gave them an antidote to the poison of the current ecclesiastical\ndoctrine. Consciences so stirred were not to be cast into a sleep by the\nmesmeric passes of a priestly hand. He only who had hurt could heal;\nthey fled from man to God\u2014from means to the End, and so, like the\npatriarch, their eye saw God, and they repented and abhorred themselves\nas in dust and ashes. Never after that could they believe in salvation\nby works, and so they became aliens from the spirit of that Church whose\npale retained them to the last.\n\nTauler and his brethren will \u2018escape _distinction_;\u2018\u2014not that which is\nbetween creature and Creator, or between good and evil\u2014that rather which\nthe Pharisee makes when he says, \u2018I am holier than thou.\u2019 It is their\nvery anxiety to escape all assumption of merit which partly vitiates the\nletter of their theology, and makes them speak as though grace\nsubstituted God for man within the renewed nature. They will escape the\ndry and fruitless distinctions of the schoolman. They will escape the\ndistinction which selfish comfort-worshippers make so broad between ease\nand hardship. Sorrow and joy, pain and pleasure, are trustfully accepted\nas alike coming from the hand of love.\n\nEven when Tauler speaks of self-surrender to an \u2018_unknown_ Will,\u2019 we\nmust not press his words too far. It is very evident that he who reaches\nthis coveted abandonment is not supposed to have forgotten that gracious\ncharacter under which God has made Himself known\u2014of which Christ is the\nmanifestation. In casting his care on an unknown Will, Tauler acts on\nthe conviction that he is cared for,\u2014this fact he knows; but precisely\nwhat that care may deem best for him he does not know. He surrenders, in\ntrue self-distrust, his personal notion of what may be the Divine good\npleasure in any particular case. Few lessons were more needed than this\nin Tauler\u2019s day, when superstition found signs and wonders everywhere,\nand fanaticism so recklessly identified human wrath and Divine\nrighteousness.\n\nTauler\u2019s \u2018state above grace,\u2019 and \u2018transformed condition of the soul, in\nwhich God worketh all its works,\u2019 are perhaps little more than\ninjudicious expressions for that more spontaneous and habitual piety\ncharacteristic of the established Christian life,\u2014that religion which\nconsists so much more in a pervading spirit of devotion than in\nprofessed and special religious acts. He certainly inculcates no proud\nand self-complacent rejection and depreciation of any means. Rather\nwould the man who learnt Tauler\u2019s doctrine well find all persons,\nobjects, and circumstances, made more or less \u2018means of grace\u2019 to him.\nIn a landscape or a fever, an enemy or an accident, his soul would find\ndiscipline and blessing, and not in mass and penance and paternoster\nmerely;\u2014for is not God in all things near us, and willing to make\neverything minister to our spiritual growth? Such teaching was truly\nreformatory, antagonistic as it was to that excessive value almost\neverywhere attached in those days to works and sacraments.\n\nSo again with Tauler\u2019s exhortation to rise above symbol, image, or\nfigure. He carries it too far, indeed. Such asceticism of the soul is\ntoo severe a strain for ordinary humanity. It is unknown to His\nteaching, who spake as never man spake. Yet there lay in it a most\nwholesome protest against religious sentimentalism, visionary\nextravagance, hysterical inoperative emotions,\u2014against the fanciful\nprettinesses of superstitious ritual and routine.\n\nTauler\u2019s \u2018Nothing,\u2019 or \u2018Ground\u2019 of the soul, may be metaphysically a\nfiction\u2014religiously it indicates the sole seat of inward peace. Only as\nwe put no trust in things earthly,\u2014only as amidst our most strenuous\naction the heart saith ever, \u2018Thy will be done,\u2019\u2014only as we strive to\nreduce our feverish hopes and fears about temporal enjoyment as nearly\nas we can to Nothing,\u2014are we calm and brave, whatever may befal. This\nloving repose of Faith is Eternal Life, as sin is so much present\ndeath;\u2014it is a life lived, in harmony with the everlasting, above the\nrestlessness of time;\u2014it is (in Eckart\u2019s phrase, though not in Eckart\u2019s\nsense) a union with the Allmoving Immobility\u2014the divine serenity of Love\nOmnipotent, guiding and upholding all without an effort.\n\n\n Note to page 248.\n\n\nThe above is from the _Sermon on the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity_,\nii. p. 546. He says in this discourse that the soul has various names,\naccording to the different operations and attributes belonging to it. It\nis called Anima, or soul; Spirit; and Disposition (_gem\u00fcth_), a\nmarvellous and very lovely thing\u2014for the memory, the understanding, and\nthe will of man are all collected therein. The Disposition hath an\n_objectum_ above the other powers, and as it follows or forsakes that\naim so is it well or ill with the rest of man\u2019s nature. Fourthly, the\nsoul is called mens or mensch (_man_), and that is the ground which is\nnameless, and wherein dwells hidden the true image of the Holy Trinity.\n(Compare _Third Serm. on Third Sunday after Trin._, ii. p. 305, and\n_Serm. on Eleventh Sunday after Trin._, ii. p. 435.) By the synteresis,\nor synderesis, Tauler appears to mean the native tendency of the soul\ntowards God. With Tauler and the mystics generally this tendency is an\noriginal capacity for knowing God immediately. The term is not peculiar\nto the mystics, but it bears in their writings a signification which\nnon-mystical theologians refuse to admit. The distinction usually made\nbetween \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 and \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03b5\u03af\u03b4\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 is simply this: the former expresses\nthat constitution of our nature whereby we assent at once to the axioms\nof morality, while the latter denotes that judgment which man passes on\nhimself in conformity with such constitution of his moral nature. The\nsecond is related to the first somewhat as recollection is to memory.\n\nOn this divine centre or substratum of the soul rests the fundamental\ndoctrine of these mystics. So Hermann of Fritslar says, speaking of\u2014di\nkraft in der s\u00eale di her heizit _sinderisis_. In dirre kraft mac inkein\nkr\u00eaat\u00fbre wirken noch inkein kr\u00eaat\u00fbrl\u00eech bilde, sunder got der wirket dar\nin \u00e2ne mittel und \u00e2ne underl\u00e2z. _Heiligenleben_, p. 187. Thus, he says\nelsewhere, that the masters speak of two faces of the soul, the one\nturned toward this world, the other immediately to God. In the latter\nGod doth flow and shine eternally, whether man knoweth it or not. It is,\ntherefore, according to man\u2019s nature as possessed of this divine ground,\nto seek God, his original; it must be so for ever, and even in hell the\nsuffering there has its source in the hopeless contradiction of this\nindestructible tendency.\n\n\n Note to page 251.\n\n\nThis passage is from the _Third Serm. on Thirteenth Sun. after Trin._,\nii. p. 480. The same remarkable combination of inward aspiration and\noutward love and service is urged with much force and beauty in the\n_Sermon on Fifth Sunday after Trinity_, and in that on the _Sixteenth\nSunday after Trinity_, ii. p. 512.\n\nTauler speaks of this Ground of the soul as that which is inseparable\nfrom the Divine nature, and wherein man hath by Grace what God is by\nnature. _Predigten_, ii. p. 199. He quotes Proclus as saying that, while\nman is busied with images, which are beneath us, and clings to such, he\ncannot possibly return into his Ground or Essence. \u2018If thou wilt know by\nexperience that such a Ground truly is, thou must forsake all the\nmanifold and gaze thereon with thine intellectual eye alone. But wouldst\nthou come nearer yet, turn thine intellectual eyesight therefrom\u2014for\neven the intellect is beneath thee\u2014and become one with the One\u2014that is,\nunite thyself with Unity.\u2019 This unity Proclus calls the \u2018calm, silent,\nslumbering, and incomprehensible divine Darkness.\u2019 \u2018To think, beloved in\nthe Lord, that a heathen should understand so much and go so far, and we\nbe so behind, may well make us blush for shame. To this our Lord Jesus\nChrist testifies when he says the kingdom of God is within you. That is,\nthis kingdom is born in the inmost Ground of all, apart from all that\nthe powers of the mind can accomplish.... In this Ground the eternal\nheavenly Father doth bring forth his only-begotten Son, a hundred\nthousand times quicker than an instant, according to our\napprehension,\u2014ever anew in the light of Eternity, in the glory and\nunutterable brightness of his own Self. He who would experience this\nmust turn himself inward far away from all working of his outward and\ninward powers and imaginations\u2014from all that ever cometh from without,\nand then sink and dissolve himself in the Ground. Then cometh the power\nof the Father, and calls the man into Himself through his only-begotten\nSon; and so the Son is born out of the Father and returneth unto the\nFather, and such a man is born in the Son of the Father, and floweth\nback with the Son into the Father again, and becomes one with them\u2019 (p.\n203, and Schmidt, p. 127). Yet, with all this, Tauler sincerely\nrepudiates any pantheistic confusion of the Divine and human, and is\nalways careful to state that this highest attainment\u2014the vanishing point\nof Humanity, is the work of Grace. Some of his expressions in describing\nthis union are almost as strong as those of Eckart (_Third Serm. on\nThird Sun. after Trin._, ii. p. 310), but his general tone far more\nlowly, practical, and true.\n\n\n Note to page 253.\n\n\nWe best ascertain the true meaning of Tauler\u2019s mystical phraseology, and\ndiscover the point at which he was desirous that mysticism should arrest\nits flight, by listening to the rebukes he administers to the\nunrighteous, pantheistic, or fantastical mystics of the day. A sermon of\nhis on Psalm xci. 5 (_Pred._ vol. i. p. 228) is of great importance in\nthis respect.\n\nSpeaking of such as embrace a religious life, without any true vocation,\nhe points out how, as they follow only their own inclinations, they\nnaturally desire rest, but are satisfied with a merely natural inaction\ninstead of that spiritual calm which is the gift of God. Consequently,\nwhile the devout mind (as Gregory saith) cannot tolerate self-seeking,\nor be content with any such mere negation, these men profess to have\nattained the elevation of true peace while they have done nothing more\nthan abstain from all imagination and action. Any man, remarks Tauler,\nvery sensibly, may do this, without any especial grace from God. Such\npersons live in indolence, become self-complacent and full of pride.\nTrue love ever longs to love more; the more of God it hath the more it\ncovets. God is never to be found in the pretended quiet of such men,\nwhich any Turk or heathen could find in the same way, as easily as they.\nThey are persuaded by the devil that devout exercises and works of\ncharity will only disturb their inward quiet, and do, in fact, disobey\nand resist God in their self-satisfied delusion.\n\nHe next exposes the error of those who undergo great austerities to be\nthought holy,\u2014suffering for their own glory rather than that of God; and\nwho think their penance and their works give them an extraordinary claim\non the Most High. He shows how often they fall into temptation by their\nwayward and passionate desire after special spiritual manifestations,\nand by their clamorous importunity for particular bestowments on which\ntheir unmortified self-will has been obstinately set. Divine love, he\nsays, offers itself up without reserve to God\u2014seeks His glory alone, and\ncan be satisfied with nothing short of God Himself. Natural love seeks\nitself in all things, and falls ere long, as Adam did, into mortal\nsin\u2014into licence, pride, and covetousness.\n\nThen he proceeds to describe an error, \u2018yet more dangerous than this,\u2019\nas follows:\u2014\u2018Those who compose this class call themselves God-seeing\n(_Gott schauende_) men. You may know them by the natural rest they\nprofess to experience, for they imagine themselves free from sin and\nimmediately united to God. They fancy themselves free from any\nobligation to obey either divine or human laws, and that they need no\nlonger be diligent in good works. They believe the quiet to which they\nhave devoted themselves so lofty and glorious a thing that they cannot,\nwithout sin, suffer themselves to be hindered or disturbed therein.\nTherefore will they be subject to no man\u2014will work not at all, either\ninwardly or outwardly, but lie like an idle tool awaiting its master\u2019s\nhand. They think, if they were to work, God\u2019s operation within them\nwould be hindered; so they sit inactive, and exercise themselves in no\ngood work or virtue. In short, they are resolved to be so absolutely\nempty and idle that they will not so much as praise and thank God\u2014will\nnot desire or pray for anything\u2014will not know or learn anything. All\nsuch things they hold to be mischievous\u2014persuade themselves that they\npossess already all that can be requested, and that they have the true\nspiritual poverty because, as they flatter themselves, they live without\nany will of their own, and have abandoned all choice. As to the laws and\nordinances of the Church, they believe that they have not only fulfilled\nthem, but have advanced far beyond that state for which such\ninstitutions were designed. Neither God nor man (they say) can give or\ntake from them aught, because they suffered all that was to be suffered\ntill they passed beyond the stage of trial and virtue, and finally\nattained this absolute Quiet wherein they now abide. For they declare\nexpressly that the great difficulty is not so much to attain to virtue\nas to overcome or surpass it, and to arrive at the said Quiet and\nabsolute emptiness of all virtue. Accordingly they will be completely\nfree and submit to no man,\u2014not to pope or bishops, or to the priests and\nteachers set over them; and if they sometimes profess to obey, they do\nnot in reality yield any obedience either in spirit or in practice. And\njust as they say they will be free from all laws and ordinances of the\nHoly Church, so they affirm, without a blush, that as long as a man is\ndiligently striving to attain unto the Christian virtues he is not yet\nproperly perfect, and knows not yet what spiritual poverty and spiritual\nfreedom or emptiness really are. Moreover, they believe that they are\nexalted above the merits of all men and angels; that they can neither\nadd to their virtues nor be guilty of any fault or sin, because (as they\nfancy) they live without will, have brought their spirit into Quiet and\nEmptiness, are in themselves nothing, and veritably united unto God.\nThey believe, likewise, madly enough, that they may fulfil all the\ndesires of their nature without any sin, because, forsooth, they have\narrived at perfect innocence, and for them there is no law. In short,\nthat the Quiet and freedom of their spirit may not be hindered, they do\nwhatsoever they list. They care not a whit for fasts, festivals, or\nordinances, but what they do is done on account of others, they\nthemselves having no conscience about any such matters.\u2019\n\nA fourth class brought under review are less arrogant than these\nenthusiasts, and will admit that they may progress in grace. They are\n\u2018God-suffering (_Gottesleidende_) men\u2019\u2014in fact, mystics of the\nintransitive theopathetic species _par excellence_. Their relation\ntoward God is to be one of complete passivity, and all their doings (of\nwhatever character) are His work. Tauler acknowledges duly the humility\nand patient endurance of these men. Their fault lies, he says, in their\nbelief that every inward inclination they feel is the movement of the\nHoly Ghost, and this even when such inclinations are sinful, \u2018whereas\nthe Holy Spirit worketh in no man that which is useless or contrary to\nthe life of Christ and Holy Scriptures.\u2019 In their constancy as well as\nin their doctrine they nearly resemble the early Quakers. They would\nsooner die, says Tauler, than swerve a hair\u2019s breadth from their opinion\nor their purpose.\n\nTauler\u2019s reprobation of these forms of mysticism\u2014which his own\nexpressions, too literally understood, might appear sometimes to\napproach\u2014shows clearly that he was himself practically free from such\nextremes. His concluding remarks enforce very justly the necessity of\ngood works as an evidence to our fellow-men of our sincerity. He dwells\non the indispensableness of religious ordinance, worship, and\nthanksgiving, as at once the expression and the nourishment of devout\naffection. He precludes at the same time, in the strongest language, all\nmerit in the creature before God. \u2018I say that if it were possible for\nour spiritual nature to be deprived of all its modes of operation, and\nto be as absolutely inactive as it was when it lay yet uncreated in the\nabyss of the Divine Nature,\u2014if it were possible for the rational\ncreature to be still as it was when in God prior to creation,\u2014neither\nthe one nor the other could even thus merit anything, yea, not now any\nmore than then; it would have no more holiness or blessedness in itself\nthan a block or a stone\u2019 (p. 243). He points to the example of Christ as\nthe best refutation of this false doctrine of Quiet, saying, \u2018He\ncontinued without ceasing to love and desire, to bless and praise his\nHeavenly Father, and though his soul was joined to and blessed in the\nDivine Essence, yet he never arrived at the Emptiness of which these men\ntalk.\u2019\n\nFootnote 117:\n\n The substance of the foregoing narrative concerning Tauler and the\n laymen will be found in the _Lebenshistorie des ehrw\u00fcrdigen Doctors\n Joh. Tauler_. See also C. Schmidt\u2019s account of Nicholas in his\n monograph on Tauler (p. 28), and a characteristic letter by Nicholas\n concerning visions of coming judgment given in the Appendix.\n\nFootnote 118:\n\n See Note, p. 254.\n\nFootnote 119:\n\n See first Note, p. 256.\n\nFootnote 120:\n\n _Serm. on Eleventh Sun. after Trinity_, ii. p. 436.\n\nFootnote 121:\n\n _Serm. on Eleventh Sun. after Trin._, ii. pp. 442, 443. Also,\n _Predigten_, vol. iii. p. 19, and _Schmidt_, p. 125.\n\nFootnote 122:\n\n _Third Serm. on Thirteenth Sun. after Trin._, ii. pp. 474-478.\n\nFootnote 123:\n\n _First Serm. on Thirteenth Sun. after Trin._, ii. p. 459.\n\nFootnote 124:\n\n See second Note, p. 256.\n\nFootnote 125:\n\n _Twenty-first Sun. after Trin._, ii. p. 584.\n\nFootnote 126:\n\n See Note, p. 257.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER VI.\n\n\n Keep all thy native good, and naturalize\n All foreign of that name; but scorn their ill.\n Embrace their activeness, not vanities;\n Who follows all things forfeiteth his will.\n\n HERBERT.\n\n\nThe day after the conversation recorded in the last chapter, Atherton\nwas called to a distance from Summerford on legal business. Before\nleaving, he had some further talk with Willoughby on several topics\nsuggested by what had passed on the previous day. The lawyers did not\nrelease him so promptly as he had expected, and as he had taken a copy\nof Tauler\u2019s sermons with him, and had time at his disposal, he wrote\nmore than once to his friend in the course of the next week. This\nchapter will consist of extracts from the letters thus written, and will\nform a fitting supplement to matters dealt with in several preceding\nconversations.\n\n * * * * *\n\nI scarcely need remind you that there are great practical advantages to\nbe derived from a course of mental travel among forms of Christian\nbelief in many respects foreign to our own. Nothing so surely arrests\nour spiritual growth as a self-complacent, insular disdain of other\nmen\u2019s faith. To displace this pride by brotherly-kindness\u2014to seek out\nlovingly the points whereon we agree with others, and not censoriously\nthose wherein we differ, is to live in a clearer light, as well as a\nlarger love. Then again, the powers of observation and of discrimination\ncalled into exercise by such journeyings among brethren of another\nspeech will greatly benefit us. The very endeavour to distinguish\nbetween the good in others which we should naturalize and assimilate for\nourselves, and the error which could be profitable neither for them nor\nfor us, is most wholesome. Such studies lead us to take account of what\nwe already have and believe; so that we come to know ourselves better by\nthe comparison both in what we possess and in what we lack. Every\nsection of the Church of Christ desires to include in its survey the\nwhole fabric of revealed truth. What party will admit to an antagonist\nthat its study of the divine edifice has been confined to a single\naspect? And yet the fact is beyond all candid questioning that each\ngroup of worshippers, with whatever honesty of intention they may have\nstarted to go round about the building, and view it fairly from every\nside, have, notwithstanding, their favourite point of contemplation\u2014one\nspot where they are most frequently to be found, intent on that side of\ntruth to which, from temperament or circumstance, they are most\nattached. There is both good and evil in this inevitable partiality; but\nthe good will be most happily realized, and the evil most successfully\navoided, if we have liberality enough now and then to take each other\u2019s\nplaces. It is possible, in this way, both to qualify and to enrich our\nown impressions from the observations of those who have given\nthemselves, with all the intensity of passion, to some aspect of truth,\nwhich, while it may be the opposite, is yet the complement of the view\npreferred by ourselves. How often, as the result of an acquaintance made\nwith some such diverse (and yet kindred) species of devotion, are we led\nto ask ourselves\u2014\u2018Is there not a fuller meaning than I had supposed in\nthis passage, or that other, of Holy Writ? Have I not, because certain\npassages have been abused, allowed myself unconsciously to slight or to\ndefraud them of their due significance?\u2019 And, in this way both those\nparts of Scripture we have most deeply studied, and those which we have\nbut touched with our plummet, may disclose their blessing to us, and\nfill higher the measure of our joy.\n\nNor is this all. We gather both instruction and comfort from the\nspiritual history of others who have passed through the same darkness,\ndoubt, or sorrow, which we ourselves have either encountered, or may be\non our way to meet. How glad was Christian when he heard the voice of a\nfellow-pilgrim in the Valley of the Shadow of Death! And when suns are\nbright, and the waters calm, and the desired wind blows steadily, he is\nthe wise mariner who employs his leisure in studying the records of\nothers who have made voyage already in those latitudes; who learns from\ntheir expedients, their mishaps, or their deliverances, how best to\nweather the storms, or to escape the quicksands that await him. Of all\nwho have sailed the seas of life, no men have experienced a range of\nvicissitude more wide than has fallen to the lot of some among the\nmystics. Theirs have been the dazzling heights; the lowest depths also\nhave been theirs. Their solitary vessels have been swept into the frozen\nNorth, where the ice of a great despair has closed about them like the\nribs of death, and through a long soul\u2019s winter they have lain hidden in\ncold and darkness, as some belated swallow in the cleft of a rock. It\nhas been theirs, too, to encounter the perilous fervours of that zone\nwhere never cooling cloud appears to veil insufferable radiance, and to\nglow beneath those glories with an ardour so intense that some men, in\ntheir pity, have essayed to heal it as a fever, and others, in their\nwrath, to chain it as a frenzy. Now afflicted, tossed with tempest, and\nnot comforted, ere long there hath been built for them at once a palace\nand a place of rest; their foundations have been laid with sapphires,\ntheir windows have been made of agates, and their gates of carbuncles,\nand all their borders of pleasant stones.\n\nA place of rest! Yes, in that one word REST lies all the longing of the\nmystic. Every creature in heaven above, and in the earth beneath, saith\nMaster Eckart, all things in the height and all things in the depth,\nhave one yearning, one ceaseless, unfathomable desire, one voice of\naspiration: it is for rest; and again, for rest; and ever, till the end\nof time, for rest! The mystics have constituted themselves the\ninterpreters of these sighs and groans of the travailing creation; they\nare the hierophants to gather, and express, and offer them to heaven;\nthey are the teachers to weary, weeping men of the way whereby they may\nattain, even on this side the grave, a serenity like that of heaven.\nWhat the halcyon of fable is among the birds, that are the mystics among\ntheir kind. They essay to build them a marvellous nest, which not only\nfloats upon the waves of life, but has the property of charming those\nwaves to a glassy stillness, so that in mid-winter, and the very heart\nof storms, their souls enjoy, for a season, what the ancients called\n\u2018the halcyon days,\u2019\u2014that wondrous week of calm ordained for the favoured\nbird when the year is roughest. \u2019Tis pity, murmurs old Montaigne, that\nmore information hath not come down to us concerning the construction of\nthese nests. Tradition has it, that the halcyon first of all fashions\nthe said nest by interlacing the bones of some fish. When it is put\ntogether she takes it, like a boat ready for launching, and lays it on\nthe beach: the waves come up: they lift it: they let it fall: they toss\nit gently among the rocks and pebbles; what is faultily made their play\nbreaks, or makes to gape, so that the bird discovers the weak places,\nand what parts must be more duly finished; what is well knit together\nalready, their strokes only season and confirm. Now when we read the\nlives of the mystics\u2014each of whom has a method, more or less his own, of\nweaving such a nest, in other words, his _Theory and Practice of\nQuietude_\u2014we see the structure on trial. Experience, with its buffeting,\ntests each man\u2019s method for the attainment of Rest. If we watch\ncarefully, we shall see that some things in the doctrine of many of them\nbreak away under trial, while others are rendered only more compact and\nbuoyant thereby. The examination of the appliances and the processes\nadopted by these searchers after the Divine Stillness, ought to be very\nhelpful to ourselves. As far as we have their history before us, we can\ntry them by their fruits. We ask, in the case of one man, by what divine\nart was it that his ark was so skilfully framed as to out-ride those\ndeluges of trouble as though they had been the waters of some windless\nmere? We ask, in the case of another, by what fault came it in the\nstructure of his sailing nest, that the waters entered, and he sank, or\nseemed to sink, finding not the rest of soul he sought, but the vexation\nof soul he fled? We ask, in the several most signal examples of the\nclass, how far did their mysticism help them to realize true\nmanhood\u2014make them strong to bear and strong to do? How far did it tend,\nor did it not tend, towards the complete development and consecration of\ntheir nature?\n\nTo derive from such inquiries their full benefit, two qualifications are\nindispensable:\u2014the judgment must be clear, the sympathies must be warm.\nThe inquirer must retain self-possession enough not to be too readily\nfascinated, or too soon offended, by certain strange and startling forms\nof expression; he must not suppose, that because, for a long time, the\nmystics have been unduly depreciated, it is wisdom now to cover them\nwith thoughtless and indiscriminate praise. He must not suppose that the\nmystics are an exception to the ordinary limitations of mortals\u2014that the\nglorious intensity of some among them was realized without any\ndiminution of breadth, and that their view embraced, with equal fondness\nand with equal insight, every quarter in the heaven of truth. And, on\nthe other hand, let him beware how he seeks to understand these men\nwithout fellow-feeling and without love. The weak and volatile nature is\nsmitten, on a first interview with the mystics, with a rage for\nmysticism\u2014is for turning mystic straightway, and is out of patience, for\nsix weeks, with every other form of Christianity. The cold and proud\nnature scorns their ardour as a phantasy, and (to its own grievous\ninjury) casts out the warmth they bring. The loving nature and the wise\nsays not, \u2018I will be blind to their errors,\u2019 but, \u2018I will always look at\nthose errors in the light of their excellences.\u2019\n\n\u2018The critic of Tauler no man has a right to become, who has not first\nascertained that he is a better man than Tauler.\u2019[127] What are we to\nunderstand by these words? If such an assertion be true at all, it\ncannot be true for Tauler only. Would Mr. Kingsley say that no man has a\nright to become the critic of Augustine, of Luther, of Calvin, of\nWesley, of George Fox, who has not first ascertained himself a better\nman? Ought every biographer, who is not a mere blind eulogist, to start\nwith the presumption that he is a better man than he of whom he writes?\nOught the historian, who forms his critical estimate of the qualities\npossessed or lacking\u2014of the service rendered in this direction or in\nthat, by the worthies of the Church, to suppose himself superior to each\nin turn? As in art he who estimates the worth of a poem is not required\nto write better poetry, so in morals, he who estimates the worth of a\ncharacter is not required to display superior virtue. Or is it the\n_opinions_, rather than the character of Tauler, which only a better man\nthan Tauler may criticise? Any one who, on being made acquainted with\ncertain opinions, differs from them, is supposed to have criticised\nthem. In as far as Mr. Kingsley may not agree with some of the\nwell-known opinions of Augustine, Luther, or Fox, so far has he ventured\nto be their critic; yet he does not suppose himself a better man. Why\nshould Tauler alone be thus fenced about with a statement that virtually\nprohibits criticism? Such advocacy harms a client\u2019s cause. People are\napt to suspect that their scrutiny is feared, when such pains are taken\nto keep them at a distance. So confident am I that the dross in Tauler\nis as nothing beside the gold, that I would invite, rather than deter,\nthe most candid and sober exercise of the critical judgment with regard\nto him. Perhaps Mr. Kingsley may be, in reality, much of the same mind;\nif so, he should not write as though he thought quite otherwise.\n\nI cannot suppose that Mr. Kingsley would seriously maintain that the\nmystic ought, from the very nature of his claims, to be exempt from that\nscrutiny to which history continually subjects the fathers, the\nschoolmen, and the reformers. Yet there are those who would have us\nhearken to every voice professing to speak from the \u2018everlasting deeps\u2019\nwith a reverence little more discriminating than that which the\nMussulman renders to idiocy and madness. Curiously ignorant concerning\nthe very objects of their praise, these admirers would seem to suppose\nthat every mystic repudiates the exercise of understanding, is\nindifferent to the use of language, and invariably dissolves religious\nopinion in religious sentiment. These eulogists of mysticism imagine\nthat they have found in the virtues of a Tauler, a platform whence to\nplay off with advantage a volley of commonplaces against \u2018literalisms,\u2019\n\u2018formulas,\u2019 \u2018creeds,\u2019 \u2018shams,\u2019 and the like. It is high time to rescue\nthe mystics from a foolish adoration, which the best among them would be\nthe most eager to repudiate. So far from forbidding men to try the\nspirits, the most celebrated among the mystics lead the way in such\nexamination. It is the mystics themselves who warn us so seriously that\nmysticism comprises an evil tendency as well as a good, and has had its\nutterances from the nether realms as well as from the upper. The great\nmystics of the fourteenth century would have been indignant with any man\nwho had confounded, in a blind admiration, their mysticism with the\nself-deifying antinomianism that prevailed among the \u2018Brethren of the\nFree Spirit.\u2019 In many of Tauler\u2019s sermons, in the _Theologia Germanica_,\nin the writings of Suso and of Ruysbroek, care is taken to mark, with\nall the accuracy possible to language, the distinction between the False\nLight and the True. There is not a confession of faith in the world\nwhich surpasses in clearness and precision the propositions in F\u00e9nelon\u2019s\n_Maxims of the Saints_, whereby it is proposed to separate the genuine\nQuietism from the spurious. The mystic Gerson criticises the mystic\nRuysbroek. Nicholas of Strasburg criticises Hildegard and Joachim;\nBehmen criticises Stiefel and Meth; Henry More criticises the followers\nof George Fox. So far are such mystics from that indifference to the\ntrue or the false in doctrine, which constitutes, with some, their\nhighest claim to our admiration. It is absurd to praise men for a folly:\nit is still more absurd to praise them for a folly of which they are\nguiltless.\n\nBut here I can suppose some one ready to interrupt me with some such\nquestion as this:\u2014Is it not almost inevitable, when the significance of\nthe word mysticism is so broad and ill-defined, that those who speak of\nit should misunderstand or be misunderstood? What two persons can you\nmeet with who will define the term in precisely the same way? The word\nis in itself a not less general and extensive one than _revolution_, for\ninstance. No one speaks of revolution in the abstract as good or evil.\nEvery one calls this or that revolution glorious or disastrous, as they\nconceive it to have overthrown a good government or a bad. But the best\namong such movements are not without their evil, nor are the worst\nperhaps absolutely destitute of good. Does not mysticism, in like\nmanner, sometimes rise up against a monstrous tyranny, and sometimes\nviolate a befitting order? Has there been no excess in its triumphs? Has\nthere been no excuse for its offences? See, then, what opposites are\ncoupled under this single word! Is it not mainly for this reason that\nyou hear one man condemning and another extolling mysticism? He who\napplauds is thinking of such mystics as Bernard, or Tauler, or F\u00e9nelon;\nhe who denounces is thinking of the Carlstadts, the M\u00fcnzers, or the\nSouthcotes. He who applauds is thinking of men who vanquished formalism;\nhe who denounces is thinking of men who trampled on reason or morality.\nHas not each his right? Are not your differences mere disputes about\nnomenclature, and can you ever come to understanding while you employ so\nambiguous a term?\n\nSo it seems to me that Common Sense might speak, and very forcibly, too.\nIt is indeed to be regretted that we have not two words\u2014one to express\nwhat may be termed the true, and another for the false, mysticism. But\nregret is useless. Rather let us endeavour to show how we may employ,\nleast disadvantageously, a term so controverted and unfortunate.\n\nOn one single question the whole matter turns:\u2014Are we or are we not to\ncall St. John a mystic? If we say \u2018Yes,\u2019 then of course all those are\nmystics whose teaching is largely impregnated with the aspect of\nChristianity presented in the writings of that Apostle. Then he is a\nmystic who loves to dwell on the union of Christians with Christ; on His\nabode in us, and our abiding in Him; on the identity of our knowledge of\nGod with our likeness to Him; of truth with love; of light with life; on\nthe witness which he who believes hath within himself. Then he is a\nmystic who regards the Eternal Word as the source of whatever light and\ntruth has anywhere been found among men, and who conceives of the Church\nof Christ as the progressive realization of the Redeemer\u2019s prayer\u2014\u2018I in\nthem and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one.\u2019\n\nNow, I think that, in the strict use of language, the word mystic should\nbe applied, not to St. John, but to those who more or less exaggerate\nhis doctrine concerning spiritual influence and life in God. The\nScripture is the standard whereby alone the spirits are to be tried, in\nall candour and charity. To those who repudiate this authority I do not\nwrite. But if any one, understanding by \u2018mystics\u2019 simply those who give\nfull force to the language of St. John, shall praise them, however\nhighly, I am perfectly at one with him in his admiration\u2014my only\ndifference is about the use of the mere word.\n\nSo much then is settled. It will be obvious, however, that the\n_historian_ of mysticism will scarcely find it possible always to\nconfine his use of the word to the exaggeration just specified. For he\nmust take up, one after the other, all those personages who have at any\ntime been reckoned by general consent among the mystics. But an age\nwhich has relapsed into coldness will inevitably stigmatize as a mystic\nany man whose devout ardour rises a few degrees above its own frigidity.\nIt is as certain as anything can be that, if a German had appeared among\nthe Lutherans of the seventeenth century, teaching in his own way just\nas St. John taught, without one particle of exaggeration, he would have\nbeen denounced as a mystic from a hundred pulpits. Hence it has come to\npass that some men, who have figured largely as mystics in the history\nof the Church, have in them but a comparatively small measure of that\nsubjective excess which we would call mysticism, in the strict sense.\nTauler is one of these.\n\nBut it may be said,\u2014You talk of testing these men by Scripture; yet you\ncan only mean, by _your interpretation_ of Scripture. How are you sure\nthat your interpretation is better than theirs? Such an objection lies\nequally against every appeal to Scripture. For we all appeal to what we\nsuppose to be the meaning of the sacred writers, ascertained according\nto the best exercise of our judgment. The science of hermeneutics has\nestablished certain general principles of interpretation which are\nacknowledged by scholars of every creed. But if any one now-a-days\nresolves the New Testament into allegory, and supposes, for example,\nthat by the five husbands of the woman of Samaria we are to understand\nthe five Senses, I cannot of course try my cause with him before a Court\nwhere he makes the verdict what he pleases. I can only leave him with\nhis riddles, and request him to carry my compliments to the Sphinx.\n\nThere is, then, a twofold test by which Tauler and other mystics are to\nbe judged, if their teaching is to profit rather than to confuse and\nmislead us. We may compare the purport of his discourses with the\ngeneral tenor and bearing of the New Testament, as far as we can\napprehend it as a whole. Are some unquestionable truths but rarely\ntouched, and others pushed to their utmost limits? If we think we see a\ncertain disproportionateness\u2014that there is a joyousness, and freedom,\nand warm humanity about the portraiture of Christian life in St. John,\nwhich we lack in his very sincere disciple, the ascetic and the\nmystic,\u2014we trifle with truth if we do not say so. The other test is the\n_historical_. Was a certain mystic on the side of the truth and\nonwardness of his time, or against it? Did he rise above its worst\nerrors, or did he aggravate them? And here Tauler stands with a glory\nround his head. Whatever exaggeration there may have been of the inward\nas against the outward, it was scarcely more than was inevitable in the\ncase of a man who had to maintain the inmost verities of Christian life\namidst almost universal formality and death.\n\nWhat then, it may be asked, is that exaggeration of which you speak? For\nhitherto your account of mysticism proper is only negative\u2014it is a\nsomething which St. John does _not_ teach.\n\nI will give a few examples. If a man should imagine that his inward\nlight superseded outward testimony, so that the words of Christ and his\ninspired disciples became superfluous to him; if he regarded\nindifference to the facts and recorded truths of the New Testament as a\nsign of eminent spirituality, such a man would, I think, abuse the\nteaching of St. John concerning the unction from the Holy One. The same\nApostle who declares that he who hateth his brother abideth in darkness,\nrefuses to bid God speed to him who brings not the doctrine of Christ,\nand inseparably associates the \u2018anointing\u2019 which his children had\nreceived, with their abiding in the truth they had heard from his lips.\n(1 John ii. 24.) If, again, any man were to pretend that a special\nrevelation exempted him from the ordinary obligations of morality\u2014that\nhis union with God was such as to render sinless in him what would have\nbeen sin in others, he would be condemned, and not supported, by\nconscience and Scripture. Neither could that mystic appeal to St. John\nwho should teach, instead of the discipline and consecration of our\nfaculties, such an abandonment of their use, in favour of supernatural\ngifts, as should be a premium on his indolence, and a discouragement to\nall faithful endeavour to ascertain the sense of Holy Writ. Nor, again,\ndoes any mystic who disdains hope as a meanness abide by the teaching of\nSt. John. For the Apostle regards the hope of heaven as eminently\nconducive to our fitness for it, and says\u2014\u2018He that hath this hope\npurifieth himself.\u2019 The mystical ascetic who refuses to pray for\nparticular or temporal bestowments is wrong in his practice, however\nelevated in his motive. For St. John can write,\u2014\u2018I pray (\u03b5\u1f54\u03c7\u03bf\u03bc\u03b1\u03b9) above\nall things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul\nprospereth.\u2019 (3 John 2.) Nowhere does that Apostle prescribe absolute\nindifference, or absolute passivity. Lastly, John is not so afraid of\nanthropomorphism as to discourage or refine away the symbol and the\nfigure. It is evident that he regards the fatherhoods and the\nbrotherhoods of this earthly life, not as fleshly ideas which profane\nthings spiritual, but as adumbrations, most fit (however inadequate) to\nset forth the divine relationship to us,\u2014yea, farther, as facts which\nwould never have had place in time, had not something like their\narchetype from the first existed in that Eternal Mind who has made man\nin his own image.\n\nI remember hearing of an old lady, a member of the Society of Friends,\nwho interrupted a conversation in which the name of Jerusalem had been\nmentioned, by the exclamation, \u2018Jerusalem\u2014umph\u2014Jerusalem\u2014it has not yet\nbeen revealed to me that there is such a place!\u2019 Now I do not say that\nour friend the Quakeress might not have been an excellent Christian; but\nI do venture to think her far gone in mysticism. Her remark puts the\nidea of mysticism, in its barest and most extreme form, as a tendency\nwhich issues in refusing to acknowledge the external world as a source\nof religious knowledge in any way, and will have every man\u2019s\nChristianity evolved _de novo_ from the depths of his own consciousness,\nas though no apostle had ever preached, or evangelist written, or any\nChristian existed beside himself. It is not, therefore, the holding the\ndoctrine of an inward light that makes a mystic, but the holding it in\nsuch a way as to ignore or to diminish the proper province of the outer.\n\n * * * * *\n\nI should certainly like to see some one settle for us definitively the\nquestions which lie at the root of mysticism, such as these, for\nexample:\u2014Is there an immediate influence exerted by the Spirit of God on\nthe spirit of man? And if so, under what conditions? What are those\nlimits which, once passed, land us in mysticism? But the task, I fear,\nis beyond all hope of satisfactory execution. Every term used would have\nto be defined, and the words of the definition defined again, and every\ndefinition and subdefinition would be open to some doubt or some\nobjection. Marco Polo tells us that the people of Kin-sai throw into the\nfire, at funerals, pieces of painted paper, representing servants,\nhorses, and furniture; believing that the deceased will enjoy the use of\nrealities corresponding to these in the other world. But, alas, for our\npoor definition-cutter, with his logical scissors! Where shall he find a\nfaith like that of the Kin-sai people, to believe that there actually\nexist, in the realm of spirit and the world of ideas, realities\nanswering to the terms he fashions? No; these questions admit but of\napproximate solution. The varieties of spiritual experience defy all but\na few broad and simple rules. Hath not One told us that the influence in\nwhich we believe is as the wind, which bloweth as it listeth, and we\ncannot tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth?\n\nFor my own part, I firmly believe that there is an immediate influence\nexerted by the Divine Spirit. But is this immediate influence above\nsense and consciousness, or not? Yes, answers many a mystic. But, if it\nbe above consciousness, how can any man be conscious of it? And what\nthen becomes of the doctrine\u2014so vital with a large class of mystics\u2014of\nperceptible guidance, of inward impulses and monitions? Speaking with\ndue caution on a matter so mysterious, I should say that, while the\nindwelling and guidance of the Spirit is most real, such influence is\nnot ordinarily perceptible. It would be presumption to deny that in\ncertain cases of especial need (as in some times of persecution, sore\ndistress, or desolation) manifestations of a special (though not\nmiraculous) nature may have been vouchsafed.\n\nWith regard to the witness of the Spirit, I think that the language of\nSt. John warrants us in believing that the divine life within us is its\nown evidence. Certain states of physical or mental distemper being\nexcepted, in so far as our life in Christ is vigorously and watchfully\nmaintained, in so far will the witness of the Spirit with our spirit\ngive us direct conviction of our sonship. How frequently, throughout his\nfirst Epistle, does the Apostle repeat that favourite word, \u03bf\u1f34\u03b4\u03b1\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd,\n\u2018_we know!_\u2019\n\nAgain, as to the presence of Christ in the soul. Says the Lutheran\nChurch, \u2018We condemn those who say that the gifts of God only, and not\nGod himself, dwell in the believer.\u2019 I have no wish to echo any such\ncondemnation, but I believe that the Lutheran affirmation is the\ndoctrine of Scripture. Both Christ himself and the Spirit of Christ are\nsaid to dwell within the children of God. We may perhaps regard the\nindwelling of Christ as the abiding source or principle of the new life,\nand the indwelling of the Spirit as that progressive operation which\nforms in us the likeness to Christ. The former is vitality itself; the\nlatter has its degrees, as we grow in holiness.\n\nOnce more, as to passivity. If we really believe in spiritual guidance,\nwe shall agree with those mystics who bid us abstain from any\nself-willed guiding of ourselves. When a good man has laid self totally\naside that he may follow only the leading of the Spirit, is it not\nessential to any practical belief in Divine direction that he should\nconsider what then appears to him as right or wrong to be really such,\nin his case, according to the mind of the Spirit? Yet to say thus much\nis not to admit that the influences of the Spirit are ordinarily\nperceptible. The motion of a leaf may indicate the direction of a\ncurrent of air; it does not render the air visible. The mystic who has\ngathered up his soul in a still expectancy, perceives at last a certain\ndominant thought among his thoughts. He is determined, in one direction\nor another. But what he has perceived is still one of his own thoughts\nin motion, not the hand of the Divine Mover. Here, however, some mystics\nwould say, \u2018You beg the question. What we perceive _is_ a something\nquite separate from ourselves\u2014in fact, the impelling Spirit.\u2019 In this\ncase the matter is beyond discussion. I can only say, my consciousness\nis different. I shall be to him a rationalist, as he to me a mystic; but\nlet us not dispute.\n\nObviously, the great difficulty is to be quite sure that we have so\nannihilated every passion, preference or foregone conclusion as to make\nit certain that only powers from heaven can be working on the waters of\nthe soul. That ripple, which has just stirred the stillness! Was it a\nbreath of earthly air? Was it the leaping of a desire from within us? Or\nwas it indeed the first touch, as it were, of some angelic hand,\ncommissioned to trouble the pool with healing from on high? If such\nquestions are hard to answer, when judging ourselves, how much more so\nwhen judging each other!\n\nWhen we desire to determine difficult duty by aid of the illumination\npromised, self must be abandoned. But what self? Assuredly, selfishness\nand self-will. Not the exercise of those powers of observation and\njudgment which God has given us for this very purpose. A divine light is\npromised, not to supersede, but to illuminate our understanding. Greatly\nwould that man err who should declare those things only to be his duty\nto which he had been specially \u2018drawn,\u2019 or \u2018moved,\u2019 as the Friends would\nterm it. What can be conceived more snug and comfortable, in one sense,\nand more despicable, in another, than the easy, selfish life which such\na man might lead, under pretence of eminent spirituality? Refusing to\nread and meditate on the recorded example of Christ\u2019s life\u2014for that is a\nmere externalism\u2014he awaits inertly the development of an inward Christ.\nAs he takes care not to expose himself to inducements to unpleasant\nduty\u2014to any outward teachings calculated to awaken his conscience and\nelevate his standard of obligation\u2014that conscience remains sluggish,\nthat standard low. He is honest, respectable, sober, we will say. His\ninward voice does not as yet urge him to anything beyond this. Others,\nit is true, exhaust themselves in endeavours to benefit the souls and\nbodies of men. They are right (he says), for so their inward Christ\nteaches them. He is right (he says), for so does _not_ his inward Christ\nteach him. It is to be hoped that a type of mysticism so ignoble as this\ncan furnish but few specimens. Yet such is the logical issue of some of\nthe extravagant language we occasionally hear concerning the bondage of\nthe letter and the freedom of the spirit. When the letter means what God\nchooses, and the spirit what _we_ choose, Self is sure to exclaim, \u2018The\nletter killeth.\u2019 If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is\nthat darkness!\n\nSuch, then, in imperfect outline, is what I hold to be true on this\nquestion concerning the reality and extent of the Spirit\u2019s influence. As\nthere are two worlds\u2014the seen and the unseen\u2014so have there been ever two\nrevelations\u2014an inward and an outward\u2014reciprocally calling forth and\nsupplementing each other. To undervalue the outward manifestation of\nGod, in nature, in providence, in revelation, because it _is_\noutward\u2014because it is vain without the inward manifestation of God in\nthe conscience and by the Spirit, is the great error of mysticism. Hence\nit has often disdained means because they are not\u2014what they were never\nmeant to be\u2014the end. An ultra-refinement of spirituality has rejected,\nas carnal and unclean, what God has commended to men as wholesome and\nhelpful. It is not wise to refuse to employ our feet because they are\nnot wings.\n\n * * * * *\n\nBut it is not mysticism to believe in a world of higher realities, which\nare, and ever will be, beyond sight and sense; for heaven itself will\nnot abrogate manifestation, but substitute a more adequate manifestation\nfor a less. What thoughtful Christian man supposes that in any heaven of\nheavens, any number of millenniums hence, the Wisdom, Power, or Goodness\nof God will become manifest to him, as so many visible entities, with\nform, and hue, and motion? It is not mysticism to believe that the\nuncreated underlies all created good. Augustine will not be suspected of\npantheism; and it is Augustine who says\u2014\u2018From a good man, or a good\nangel, take away angel, take away man\u2014and you find God.\u2019 We may be\nrealists (as opposed to the nominalist) without being mystics. For the\nsurmise of Plato, that the world of Appearance subsisted in and by a\nhigher world of Divine Thoughts is confirmed (while it is transcended)\nby Christianity, when it tells us of that Divine Subsistence, that\nEternal Word, by whom and in whom, all things consist, and without whom\nwas not anything made that is made. And herein lies that real, though\noften exaggerated, affinity between Platonism and Christianity, which a\nlong succession of mystics have laboured so lovingly to trace out and to\ndevelop. In the second and third centuries, in the fourteenth, and in\nthe seventeenth; in the Christian school at Alexandria, in the pulpits\nof the Rhineland, at Bemerton, and at Cambridge, Plato has been the\n\u2018Attic Moses\u2019 of the Clements and the Taulers, the Norrises and the\nMores.\n\nBut when mysticism, in the person of Plotinus, declares all thought\nessentially one, and refuses to Ideas any existence external to our own\nminds, it has become pantheistic. So, also, when the Oriental mystic\ntells us that our consciousness of not being infinite is a delusion\n(_maya_) to be escaped by relapsing ecstatically into the universal\nLife. Still more dangerous does such mysticism become when it goes a\nstep farther and says\u2014That sense of sin which troubles you is a delusion\nalso; it is the infirmity of your condition in this phantom world to\nsuppose that right is different from wrong. Shake off that dream of\npersonality, and you will see that good and evil are identical in the\nAbsolute.\n\nIn considering the German mysticism of the fourteenth century it is\nnatural to inquire, first of all, how far it manifests any advance\nbeyond that of preceding periods. An examination of its leading\nprinciples will show that its appearance marks an epoch of no mean\nmoment in the history of philosophy. These monks of the Rhineland were\nthe first to break away from a long-cherished mode of thought, and to\nsubstitute a new and profounder view of the relations subsisting between\nGod and the universe. Their memorable step of progress is briefly\nindicated by saying that they substituted the idea of the _immanence_ of\nGod in the world for the idea of the _emanation_ of the world from God.\nThese two ideas have given rise to two different forms of pantheism; but\nthey are neither of them necessarily pantheistic. To view rightly the\nrelationship of God to the universe it is requisite to regard Him as\nboth above it and within it. So Revelation taught the ancient Hebrews to\nview their great \u2018I am.\u2019 On the one hand, He had His dwelling in the\nheavens, and humbled Himself to behold the affairs of men; on the other,\nHe was represented as having beset man behind and before, as giving life\nto all creatures by the sending forth of His breath, as giving to man\nunderstanding by His inspiration, and as dwelling, in an especial sense,\nwith the humble and the contrite. But philosophy, and mysticism,\nfrequently its purest aspiration, have not always been able to embrace\nfully and together these two conceptions of transcendence and of\nimmanence. We find, accordingly, that from the days of Dionysius\nAreopagita down to the fourteenth century, the emanation theory, in one\nform or another, is dominant. The daring originality of John Scotus\ncould not escape from its control. It is elaborately depicted in Dante\u2019s\n_Paradiso_. The doctrine of immanence found first utterance with the\nDominican Eckart; not in timid hints, but intrepid, reckless, sounding\nblasphemous. What was false in Eckart\u2019s teaching died out after a while;\nwhat was true, animated his brother mystics, transmigrated eventually\ninto the mind of Luther, and did not die.\n\nTo render more intelligible the position of the German mystics it will\nbe necessary to enter into some farther explanation of the two theories\nin question. The theory of emanation supposes the universe to descend in\nsuccessive, widening circles of being, from the Supreme\u2014from some such\n\u2018trinal, individual\u2019 Light of lights, as Dante seemed to see in his\nVision. In the highest, narrowest, and most rapid orbits, sing and shine\nthe refulgent rows of Cherubim and Seraphim and Thrones. Next these, in\nwider sweep, the Dominations, Virtues, Powers. Below these, Princedoms,\nArchangels, Angels, gaze adoring upwards. Of these hierarchies the\nlowest occupy the largest circle. Beneath their lowest begins our\nhighest sphere\u2014the empyrean, enfolding within its lesser and still\nlesser spheres, till we reach the centre\u2014\u2018that dim spot which men call\nearth.\u2019 Through the hierarchies of heaven, and the corresponding\nhierarchies of the church, the grace of God is transmitted, stage by\nstage, each order in its turn receiving from that above, imparting to\nthat below. This descent of divine influence from the highest point to\nthe lowest is designed to effect a similar ascent of the soul from the\nlowest to the highest. Of such a theory John Scotus Erigena is the most\nphilosophical exponent. With him the restitution of all things consists\nin their resolution into their ideal sources (_caus\u00e6 primordiales_). Man\nand nature are redeemed in proportion as they pass from the actual up to\nthe ideal; for in his system, the actual is not so much the realization\nof the ideal as a _fall_ from it. So, in the spirit of this theory, the\nmounting soul, when it anticipates in imagination the redemption of the\ntravailing universe, will extract from music the very essence of its\nsweetness, and refine that again (far above all delight of sense) into\nthe primal idea of an Eternal Harmony. So likewise, all form and\ncolour\u2014the grace of flowers, the majesty of mountains, the might of\nseas, the red of evening or of morning clouds, the lustre of precious\nstones and gold in the gleaming heart of mines\u2014all will be concentrated\nand subtilized into an abstract principle of Beauty, and a hueless\noriginal of Light. All the affinities of things, and instincts of\ncreatures, and human speech and mirth, and household endearment, he will\nsublimate into abstract Wisdom, Joy, or Love, and sink these\nabstractions again into some crystal sea of the third heaven, that they\nmay have existence only in their fount and source\u2014the superessential\nOne.\n\nVery different is the doctrine of Immanence, as it appears in the\n_Theologia Germanica_, in Eckart, in Jacob Behmen, and afterwards in\nsome forms of modern speculation. The emanation theory supposes a\nradiation from above; the theory of immanence, a self-development, or\nmanifestation of God from within. A geometrician would declare the\npyramid the symbol of the one, the sphere the symbol of the other. The\nformer conception places a long scale of degrees between the heavenly\nand the earthly: the latter tends to abolish all gradation, and all\ndistinction. The former is successive; the latter, immediate,\nsimultaneous. A chemist might call the former the sublimate, the latter\nthe diluent, of the Actual. The theory of immanence declares God\neverywhere present with all His power\u2014will realize heaven or hell in the\npresent moment\u2014denies that God is nearer on the other side the grave\nthan this\u2014equalizes all external states\u2014breaks down all steps, all\npartitions\u2014will have man at once escape from all that is not God, and so\nknow and find only God everywhere. What are all those contrasts that\nmake warp and woof in the web of time; what are riches and poverty,\nhealth and sickness; all the harms and horrors of life, and all its joy\nand peace,\u2014what past and future, sacred and secular, far and near? Are\nthey not the mere raiment wherewith our narrow human thought clothes the\nEver-present, Ever-living One? Phantoms, and utter nothing\u2014all of them!\nThe one sole reality is even this\u2014that God through Christ does assume\nflesh in every Christian man; abolishes inwardly his creature self, and\nabsorbs it into the eternal stillness of His own \u2018all-moving\nImmobility.\u2019 So, though the storms of life may beat, or its suns may\nshine upon his lower nature, his true (or uncreated) self is hidden in\nGod, and sits already in the heavenly places. Thus, while the Greek\nDionysius bids a man retire into himself, because there he will find the\nfoot of that ladder of hierarchies which stretches up to heaven; the\nGermans bid man retire into himself because, in the depths of his being,\nGod speaks immediately to him, and will enter and fill his nature if he\nmakes Him room.\n\nIn spite of some startling expressions (not perhaps unnatural on the\nfirst possession of men by so vast a truth), the advance of the German\nmysticism on that of Dionysius or Erigena is conspicuous. The Greek\nregards man as in need only of a certain illumination. The Celt saves\nhim by a transformation from the physical into the metaphysical. But the\nTeuton, holding fast the great contrasts of life and death, sin and\ngrace, declares an entire revolution of will\u2014a totally new principle of\nlife essential. It is true that the German mystics dwell so much on the\nbringing forth of the Son in all Christians _now_, that they seem to\nrelegate to a distant and merely preliminary position the historical\nincarnation of the Son of God. But this great fact is always implied,\nthough less frequently expressed. And we must remember how far the\nChurch of Rome had really banished the Saviour from human sympathies, by\nabsorbing to the extent she did, his humanity in his divinity. Christ\nwas by her brought really near to men only in the magical transformation\nof the Sacrament, and was no true Mediator. The want of human sympathy\nin their ideal of Him, forced them to have recourse to the maternal love\nof the Virgin, and the intercession of the saints. Unspeakable was the\ngain, then, when the Saviour was brought from that awful distance to\nbecome the guest of the soul, and vitally to animate, here on earth, the\nmembers of his mystical body. Even Eckart, be it remembered, does not\nsay, with the Hegelian, that every man is divine already, and the\ndivinity of Christ not different in kind from our own. He attributes a\nreal divineness only to a certain class of men\u2014those who by grace are\ntransformed from the created to the uncreated nature. It is not easy to\ndetermine the true place of Christ in his pantheistic system; but this\nmuch appears certain, that Christ and not man\u2014grace, and not nature, is\nthe source of that incomprehensible deification with which he invests\nthe truly perfect and poor in spirit.\n\nOn the moral character of Eckart, even the malice of persecution has not\nleft a stain. Yet that _unknown_ God to which he desires to escape when\nhe says \u2018I want to be rid of God,\u2019 is a being without morality. He is\n_above_ goodness, and so those who have become identical with Him \u2018are\nindifferent to doing or not doing,\u2019 says Eckart. I can no more call him\ngood, he exclaims, than I can call the sun black. In his system,\nseparate personality is a sin\u2014a sort of robbery of God: it resembles\nthose spots on the moon, which the angel describes to Adam as \u2018unpurged\nvapours, not yet into her substance turned.\u2019 I am not less than God, he\nwill say, there is no distinction: if I were not, He would not be. \u2018I\nhesitate to receive anything from God\u2014for to be indebted to Him would\nimply inferiority, and make a distinction between Him and me; whereas,\nthe righteous man is, without distinction, in substance and in nature,\nwhat God is.\u2019 Here we see the doctrine of the immanence of God\nswallowing up the conception of his transcendence. A pantheism,\napparently apathetic and arrogant as that of the Stoics, is the result.\nYet, when we remember that Eckart was the friend of Tauler and Suso, we\ncannot but suppose that there may have lain some meaning in such\nlanguage less monstrous than that which the words themselves imply.\nEckart would probably apply such expressions, not to his actual\nself;\u2014for that he supposes non-existent, and reduced to its true\nnothing\u2014but to the divine nature which, as he thought, then superseded\nwithin him the annihilated personality. Tauler (and with him Ruysbroek\nand Suso) holds in due combination the correlative ideas of\ntranscendence and of immanence.\n\n * * * * *\n\nSuch, then, is one of the most important characteristics of German\nmysticism in the fourteenth century. I have next to ascertain in which\nof the leading orders of mystics Tauler should be assigned a place.\n\n\u2018Divination,\u2019 saith Bacon, \u2018is of two kinds\u2014primitive, and by\ninfluxion.\u2019 The former is founded on the belief that the soul, when by\nabstinence and observances it has been purified and concentrated, has \u2018a\ncertain extent and latitude of pre-notion.\u2019 The latter is grounded on\nthe persuasion that the foreknowledge of God and of spirits may be\ninfused into the soul when rendered duly passive and mirror-like. Of\nthese two kinds of divining the former is characterized by repose and\nquiet, the latter by a fervency and elevation such as the ancients\nstyled _furor_. Now our mystical divines have this in common with the\ndiviners, that they chiefly aim to withdraw the soul within itself. They\nmay be divided most appropriately after a like manner. A cursory\ninspection will satisfy any one that theopathetic mysticism branches\ninto two distinct, and often contrasted, species. There is the serene\nand contemplative mysticism; and over against it, the tempestuous and\nthe active. The former is comparatively self-contained and intransitive;\nthe latter, emphatically transitive. Its subject conceives himself\nmastered by a divine seizure. Emotions well-nigh past the strain of\nhumanity, make the chest to heave, the frame to tremble; cast the man\ndown, convulsed, upon the earth. Or visions that will not pass away,\nburn into his soul their glories and their terrors. Or words that will\nnot be kept down, force an articulation, with quaking and with spasms,\nfrom organs no longer under his control. The contemplative mystic has\nmost commonly loved best that side of Christian truth which is nearest\nto Platonism; the enthusiastic or practical mystic, that which connects\nit with Judaism. The former hopes to realize within himself the highest\nascents of faith and hope\u2014nay, haply, to surpass them, even while here\nbelow. The latter comes forth from his solitude, with warning,\napocalyptic voice, to shake a sleeping Church. He has a word from the\nLord that burns as a fire in his bones till it be spoken. He lifts up\nhis voice, and cries, exhorting, commanding, or foretelling, with the\nauthority of inspiration.\n\nThe Phrygian mountaineer, Montanus, furnishes the earliest example, and\na very striking one, of this enthusiastic or prophetic kind of\nmysticism. He and his followers had been cradled in the fiercest and\nmost frantic superstitions of heathendom. Terrible was Cybele, the\nmountain mother, throned among the misty fastnesses of Ida. Maddest\nuproar echoed through the glens on her great days of festival. There is\nbeating of drum and timbrel, clashing of cymbals, shrill crying of\npipes; incessant the mournful sound of barbarous horns; loud, above all,\nthe groans and shrieks and yells from frenzied votaries whom the goddess\nhas possessed. They toss their heads; they leap; they whirl; they wallow\nconvulsed upon the rocks, cutting themselves with knives; they brandish,\nthey hurl their weapons; their worship is a foaming, raving, rushing\nto-and-fro, till the driving deity flings them down exhausted,\nsenseless. Among these demoniacs\u2014_sanguine fleti, Terrificas capitum\nquatientes numine cristas_, as Lucretius has described them\u2014these\nCorybantes, or head-tossers, Christianity made its way, exorcising a\nlegion of evil spirits. But the enthusiastic temperament was not\nexpelled. These wild men, become Christians, carried much of the old\nfervour into the new faith. Violent excitement, ecstatic transport,\noracular utterance, were to them the dazzling signs of the divine\nvictory\u2014of the forcible dislodgment of the power of Darkness by the\npower of Light. So Montanus readily believes, and finds numbers to\nbelieve, that he is the subject of a divine possession. Against the\nbloodthirsty mob in the villages and towns\u2014against a Marcus Aurelius,\nordaining massacre from the high places of the C\u00e6sars\u2014had not God armed\nhis own with gifts beyond the common measure\u2014with rapture\u2014with\nvision\u2014with prophecy? Yes! the promised Paraclete was indeed among them,\nand it was not they, but He, who spake. So thought the Montanists, as\nthey announced new precepts to the Church; as they foretold the\ngathering judgment of Antichrist and the dawning triumph of the saints;\nas they hastened forth, defiant and sublime, to provoke from their\npersecutors the martyr\u2019s crown. Let us not overlook the real heroism of\nthese men, while touching on their errors. But their conception of the\nChurch of Christ, so analogous, in many respects, to that of the early\nQuakers\u2014was it the right one? According to Montanus, the Church was to\nbe maintained in the world by a succession of miraculous interventions.\nFrom time to time, fresh outpourings of the Spirit would inspire fresh\ncompanies of prophets to ordain ritual, to confute heresy, to organize\nand modify the Church according to the changing necessities of each\nperiod. He denied that the Scripture was an adequate source, whence to\ndraw the refutation of error and the new supplies of truth demanded by\nthe exigencies of the future. As Romanism sets up an infallible Pope to\ndecide concerning truth, and in fact to supplement revelation, as the\norgan of the Divine Spirit ever living in the Church; so these mystics\nhave their inspired teachers and prophets, raised up from time to time,\nfor the same purpose. But the contemplative mystics, and indeed\nChristians generally, borne out, as we think, by Scripture and by\nhistory, deny any such necessity, and declare this doctrine of\nsupplementary inspiration alien from the spirit of Christianity. While\nMontanus and his prophetesses, Maximilla and Priscilla, were thus\nspeaking, in the name of the Lord, to the country-folk of Phrygia or to\nthe citizens of Pepuza, Clement at Alexandria was teaching, on the\ncontrary, that we _have_ the organ requisite for finding in the\nScriptures all the truth we need\u2014that they are a well of depth\nsufficient, nay inexhaustible; and that the devout exercise of reason in\ntheir interpretation and application is at once the discipline and\nprerogative of the manhood proper to the Christian dispensation. We are\nno longer Jews, he would say, no longer children. The presence of the\nSpirit with us is a part of the _ordinary_ law of the economy under\nwhich we live. It is designed that the supernatural shall gradually\nvindicate itself as the natural, in proportion as our nature is restored\nto its allegiance to God. It is _not_ necessary that we should be\ninspired in the same way as the sacred writers were, before their\nwritings can be adequately serviceable to us.\n\nSuch was the opposition in the second century, and such has it been in\nthe main ever since, between these two kinds of mystical tendency. The\nMontanist type of mysticism, as we see it in a Hildegard, among the\nQuakers, among the Protestant peasantry of the Cevennes, and among some\nof the \u2018Friends of God,\u2019 usually takes its rise with the uneducated, is\npopular, sometimes revolutionary. Animated by its spirit, Carlstadt\nfilled Wittenberg with scandal and confusion; and the Anabaptist mob\nreddened the sky with the burning libraries of Osnaburg and Munster. The\nAlexandrian mysticism, so far from despising scholarship and philosophy,\nas so much carnal wisdom, desires to appropriate for Christianity every\nscience and every art. It is the mysticism of theologians, of\nphilosophers, and scholars. It exists as an important element in the\ntheology of Clement, of Origen, and of Augustine. It assumes still\ngreater prominence in a Hugo or a Richard of St. Victor. It obtained its\nfullest proportions in these German mystics of the fourteenth century.\nIt refined and elevated the scholarship of Reuchlin, Ficinus, and\nMirandola. It is at once profound and expansive in our English\nPlatonists.\n\nYet let it not be supposed that the extravagance of the enthusiastic\nmysticism has not its uses, or that the serenity of the contemplative is\nalways alike admirable. Both have, in their turn, done goodly service.\nEach has had a work given it to do in which its rival would have failed.\nThe eccentric impetuosity of Montanism, ancient and modern, has done\ngood, directly and indirectly, by breaking through traditional\nroutine\u2014by protesting against the abuses of human authority\u2014by stirring\nmany a sleeping question, and daring many an untried path of action. On\nthe other hand, the contemplative mysticism has been at times too timid,\ntoo fond of an elegant or devout, but still unworthy, ease. The\nNicodemuses of the sixteenth century, the Bri\u00e7onnets and the Gerard\nRoussels, were nearly all of them Platonists. They were men whose\nmysticism raised them above the wretched externalism of Rome, and at the\nsame time furnished them with an ingenious excuse for abiding safely in\nher communion. \u2018What,\u2019 they would say, \u2018are the various forms of the\nletter, to the unity of the Spirit? Can we not use the signs of Romanism\nin the spirit of Protestantism\u2014since, to the spiritual and the wise,\nthis outward usage or that, is of small matter?\u2019 The enthusiastic\nmysticism tends to multiply, and the contemplative to diminish, positive\nprecept and ordinance. The former will sometimes revolt against one kind\nof prescription only to devise a new one of its own. So the followers of\nFox exchanged surplice and \u2018steeple-house\u2019 for a singularity of hat,\ncoat, and pronouns. The contemplative mystic loves to inform his common\nlife with the mysterious and the divine. Certain especial sanctities he\nhas, but nothing unsanctified; and he covers his table with an\naltar-cloth, and curtains his bed with a chasuble, and drinks out of a\nchalice every day of his life. A Montanus commends celibacy; an Origen\nsees typified in marriage the espousals of the Church. The zeal of the\nenthusiastic mysticism is ever on the watch for signs\u2014expects a kingdom\ncoming with observation\u2014is almost always Millenarian. The contemplatist\nregards the kingdom of heaven as internal, and sees in the history of\nsouls a continual day of judgment. The one courts the vision and hungers\nafter marvel: the other strives to ascend, above all form and language,\nfrom the valley of phantasmata to the silent heights of \u2018imageless\ncontemplation.\u2019 The one loves violent contrasts, and parts off abruptly\nthe religious world and the irreligious, the natural and the\nsupernatural. The other loves to harmonize these opposites, as far as\nmay be\u2014would win rather than rebuke the world\u2014would blend, in the daily\nlife of faith, the human with the divine working: and delights to trace\neverywhere types, analogies, and hidden unity, rather than diversity and\nstrife. The Old Testament has been always the favourite of the prophetic\nmysticism: the contemplative has drunk most deeply into the spirit of\nthe New.\n\n * * * * *\n\nMysticism, as exhibited in Tauler\u2019s sermons, is much more likely to win\nappreciation at the hands of English readers than mysticism in the\n_Theologia Germanica_. The principles which were there laid down as bare\nabstractions are here warmed by sunshine and clothed with verdure. To\nthe theory of mysticism we find added many a suggestive hint concerning\nits practice. There were general statements in the _Theologia Germanica_\nso dim, so vast, so ultra-human, that many readers would be at a loss to\nunderstand how they could possibly become a practice or a joy in any\nsoul alive. In the sermons, a brother mystic supplies the requisite\nqualification, and shows that the old Teutonic knight had, after all, a\nmeaning not so utterly remote from all the ways and wants of flesh and\nblood.\n\nBrought out to view by Tauler\u2019s fervour, his invisible ink becomes a\nlegible character. The exhortations of the pulpit thus interpret the\nsoliloquy of the cell; and when the preacher illuminates mysticism with\nthe many-coloured lights of metaphor and passion\u2014when he interrogates,\ncounsels, entreats, rebukes, we seem to return from the confines of the\nnameless, voiceless Void to a region within the rule of the sun, and to\nbeings a little lower than the angels. It will reassure many readers to\ndiscover from these sermons that the mystics whom Tauler represents are\nby no means so infatuated as to disdain those external aids which God\nhas provided, or which holy men of old have handed down\u2014that they do not\ncall history a husk, social worship a vain oblation, or decent order\nbondage to the letter\u2014that when they speak of transcending time and\nplace, they pretend to no new commandment, and do but repeat a truth old\nas all true religion\u2014that they are on their guard, beyond most men,\nagainst that spiritual pride which some think inseparable from the\nmystical aspiration\u2014that so far from encouraging the morbid\nintrospection attributed to them, it is their first object to cure men\nof that malady\u2014that instead of formulating their own experience as a\ntest and regimen for others, they tell men to sit down in the lowest\nplace till God calls them to come up higher\u2014and finally, that they are\nmen who have mourned for the sins, and comforted the sorrows of their\nfellows, with a depth and compass of lowly love such as should have\ndisarmed every unfriendly judgment, had their errors been as numerous as\ntheir excellence is extraordinary.\n\nAny one who has attentively read Tauler\u2019s discourses as now accessible\nmay consider himself familiar with the substance of Tauler\u2019s preaching.\nFrom whatever part of Scripture history, prophecy, song, or precept, his\ntext be taken, the sermons, we may be sure, will contain similar\nexhortations to self-abandonment, the same warnings against a barren\nexternalism, the same directions to prepare the way for the inward\nAdvent of the Lord in the Ground of the Soul. The allegorical\ninterpretation, universal in those days, rendered easy such an\never-varied presentation of a single theme. Did the multitude go out\ninto the wilderness to the preaching of John? We are to go forth into\nthe wilderness of the spiritual life. Did Joseph and Mary seek their son\nin vain among their friends and acquaintance, and find him in his\nFather\u2019s house? We also must retire to the inmost sanctuary of the soul,\nand be found no more in the company of those hindering associates, our\nown Thoughts, Will, and Understanding. Did Christ say to Mary Magdalen,\n\u2018I have not yet ascended to my Father?\u2019 He meant, \u2018I have not yet been\nspiritually raised within thy soul;\u2019 for he himself had never left the\nFather.\n\nFrom the sermon on the fifteenth Sunday after Trinity I select a passage\nwhich contains in two sentences the kernel of Tauler\u2019s doctrine\u2014the\nprinciple which, under a thousand varieties of illustration and\napplication, makes the matter of all his sermons. \u2018When, through all\nmanner of exercises the outward man has been converted into the inward,\nreasonable man, and thus the two, that is to say, the powers of the\nsenses and the powers of the reason, are gathered up into the very\ncentre of the man\u2019s being\u2014the unseen depths of his spirit wherein lies\nthe image of God,\u2014and thus he flings himself into the divine abyss, in\nwhich he dwelt eternally before he was created; then when God finds the\nman thus simply and nakedly turned towards Him, the Godhead bends down\nand descends into the depths of the pure, waiting soul, and transforms\nthe created soul, drawing it up into the uncreated essence, so that the\nspirit becomes one with Him. Could such a man behold himself, he would\nsee himself so noble that he would fancy himself God, and see himself a\nthousand times nobler than he is in himself, and would perceive all the\nthoughts and purposes, words and works, and have all the knowledge of\nall men that ever were.\u2019\n\nAn explanation of this extract will be a summary of Tauler\u2019s theology.\nFirst of all, it is obvious that he regards human nature as\ntripartite\u2014it is a temple in three compartments: there is the outer\ncourt of the senses; there is the inner court of the intellectual\nnature, where the powers of the soul, busy with the images of things,\nare ever active, where Reason, Memory, Will, move to and fro, as a kind\nof mediating priests; there is, lastly, and inmost, a Holy of Holies\u2014the\nGround of the Soul, as the mystics term it.\n\n\u2018Yes!\u2019 exclaims some critic, \u2018this _Ground_, of which we hear so much,\nwhich the mystics so labour to describe, what is it, after all?\u2019 Let\nTauler answer. He here calls it \u2018the very centre of man\u2019s being\u2019\u2014\u2018the\nunseen depths of his spirit, wherein lies the image of God.\u2019 I believe\nthat he means to indicate by these and other names that element in our\nnature by virtue whereof we are moral agents, wherein lies that idea of\na right and a wrong which finds expression (though not always adequate)\nin the verdicts of conscience\u2014that _Synderesis_ (to use an Aristotelian\nword) of which the _Syneidesis_ is the particular action and voice\u2014that\npart of our finite nature which borders on the infinite\u2014that gate\nthrough which God enters to dwell with man. Nor is the belief in such a\nprinciple by any means peculiar to the mystics; men at the farthest\nremove, by temperament and education, from mysticism, are yet generally\nfound ready to admit that we can only approach a solution of our great\ndifficulties concerning predestination and free will, by supposing that\nthere is a depth in our nature where the divine and human are one. This\nis Tauler\u2019s spark and potential divinity of man\u2014that face of man\u2019s soul\nwherein God shineth always, whether the man be aware thereof or not.\nThis, to speak Platonically, is the ideal part of man\u2014that part of him\nwhereby, as a creature, he participates in the Word by whose thought and\nwill all creatures exist. It is the unlost and inalienable nobleness of\nman\u2014that from which, as Pascal says, his misery as well as his glory\nproceeds\u2014that which, according to Tauler, must exist even in hell, and\nbe converted into the sorrow there. The Christian Platonist expresses\nhis conception of the consummated redemption of man by saying that he is\nrestored to his original idea\u2014becomes what he was designed to be before\nsin marred him\u2014puts off the actual sinful self, and puts on the truer\nprimal self which exists only in God. In this sense Eckart says, \u2018I\nshall be sorry if I am not younger to-morrow than I am to-day\u2014that is, a\nstep nearer to the source whence I came\u2019\u2014away from this Eckart to the\nDivine Idea of man.\n\nSuch, then, is this Ground. Next, how is the lapse, or transit into it,\neffected? Tauler reminds us that many men live as though God were not in\nthis way nearer to them than they are to themselves. They possess\ninevitably this image\u2014this immediate receptivity of God, but they never\nthink of their prerogative, never seek Him in whom they live and move.\nSuch men live in the outside of themselves\u2014in the sensuous or\nintellectual nature; but never lift the curtain behind which are the\nrays of the Shekinah. It will profit me nothing, says Tauler, to be a\nking, if I know it not. So the soul must break away from outward things,\nfrom passion and self, and in abandonment and nothingness seek God\nimmediately. When God is truly found, then indeed the simplified,\nself-annihilated soul, is passive. But the way thereto, what action it\ndemands, what strong crying and tears, what trampling out of subtle,\nseemly, darling sins!\n\nFirst of all, the senses must be mastered by, and absorbed in, the\npowers of the soul. Then must these very powers themselves\u2014all\nreasonings, willings, hopings, fearings, be absorbed in a simple sense\nof the Divine presence\u2014a sense so still, so blissful, as to annihilate\nbefore and after, obliterate self, and sink the soul in a Love, whose\nheight and depth, and length and breadth, passing knowledge, shall fill\nit with all the fulness of God.\n\n\u2018What!\u2019 it may be said, \u2018and is this death\u2014not of sin merely, but of\nnature\u2014the demand of your mysticism? Is all peace hollow which is not an\nutter passivity\u2014without knowledge, without will, without desire\u2014a total\nblank?\u2019\n\nNot altogether so, the mystic will reply. These powers of the soul must\ncease to act, in as far as they belong to self; but they are not\ndestroyed: their absorption in the higher part of our nature is in one\nsense a death; in another, their truest life. They die; but they live\nanew, animated by a principle of life that comes directly from the\nFather of lights, and from the Light who is the life of men. That in\nthem which is fit to live, survives. Still are they of use in this lower\nworld, and still to be employed in manifold service; but, shall I say\nit? they are no longer quite the same powers. They are, as it were, the\nglorified spirits of those powers. They are risen ones. They are in this\nworld, but not of it. Their life has passed into the life which, by\nslaying, has preserved and exalted them. So have I heard of a\nnightingale, challenged by a musician with his lute; and when all\nnature\u2019s skill was vain to rival the swift and doubling and redoubling\nmazes and harmonies of mortal science, the bird, heart-broken, dropt\ndead on the victorious lute;\u2014and yet, not truly dead, for the spirit of\nmusic which throbbed in that melodious throat had now passed into the\nlute; and ever afterward breathed into its tones a wild sweetness such\nas never Thessalian valley heard before\u2014the consummate blending of the\nwoodland witchery with the finished height of art.\n\n\u2018You see,\u2019 our mystic continues\u2014and let us hear him, for he has somewhat\nmore to say, and to the purpose, as it seems\u2014\u2018you see that we are no\nenemies to the symbol and the figure in their proper place, any more\nthan we are to the arguments of reason. But there are three\nconsiderations which I and my brethren would entreat you to entertain.\nFirst of all, that logical distinctions, and all forms of imagery, must\nof necessity be transcended when we contemplate directly that Being who\nis above time and space, before and after,\u2014the universal Presence,\u2014the\ndweller in the everlasting Now. In the highest states of the soul, when\nshe is concentrated on that part of her which links her with the\ninfinite, when she clings most immediately to the Father of spirits, all\nthe slow technicalities, and the processes and the imaginations of the\nlower powers, must inevitably be forgotten. Have you never known times\nwhen, quite apart from any particular religious means, your soul has\nbeen filled, past utterance, with a sense of the divine presence,\u2014when\nemotion has overflowed all reasoning and all words, and a certain serene\namazement\u2014a silent gaze of wonder\u2014has taken the place of all conclusions\nand conceptions? Some interruption came, or some reflex act dissolved\nthe spell of glory and recalled you to yourself, but could not rob you\nof your blessing. There remained a divine tranquillity, in the strength\nwhereof your heaviest trouble had grown lighter than the grasshopper,\nand your hardest duty seemed as a cloud before the winds of the morning.\nIn that hour, your soul could find no language; but looking back upon\nit, you think if that unutterable longing and unutterable rest could\nhave found speech, it would have been in words such as these\u2014\u201cWhom have\nI in heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside\nThee.\u201d\n\n\u2018Then again, we would have you consider that the mere conclusions of the\nintellect, the handiwork of imagination, the effervescence of sentiment,\nyea, sensible delight in certain religious exercises\u2014all these things,\nthough religion\u2019s hand-maidens, are not religion herself. Sometimes they\nare delusive; always are they dangerous, if they, rather than God,\nbecome in any way our dependence. If the heart\u2014the central fount of\nlife\u2019s issues\u2014be not God\u2019s, what avail the admitted propositions, and\ntouching pictures, and wafts of sweetness\u2014the mere furniture, adornment,\nand incense, of the outer courts of thy nature? Christ in thy soul, and\nnot the truth about Him in thy brain, is thy life\u2019s life; and his agony\nof love must pierce thee somewhat deeper than the pathos of a tragedy.\nThere are those who live complacently on the facilities and enjoyments\nthey have in certain practices of devotion, when all the while it is\nrather they themselves, as thus devout, and not their Lord, whom they\nlove. Some such are not yet Christians at all. Others, who are, have yet\nto learn that those emotions they set such store by, belong, most of\nthem, to the earliest and lowest stages of the Christian life. The\nlotus-flowers are not the Nile. There are those who violently excite the\nimagination and the feeling by long gazing on the crucifix\u2014by picturing\nthe torments of martyrs\u2014by performing repeated acts of Contrition,\u2014by\ntrying to wish to appropriate to themselves, for Christ\u2019s sake, all the\nsufferings of all mankind\u2014by praying for a love above that of all\nseraphim, and do often, in wrestling after such extraordinary gifts, and\nharrowing their souls with such sensuous horrors, work out a mere\npassion of the lower nature, followed by melancholy collapse, and found\npitiably wanting in the hour of trial.[128] In these states does it\noftenest happen that the phantoms of imagination are mistaken for\ncelestial manifestations; and forms which belong to middle air, for\nshiny ones from the third heaven. I have been told that astronomers have\nsometimes seen in the field of their glass, floating globes of light\u2014as\nit seemed, new planets swimming within their ken; and these were but\nflying specks of dust, hovering in the air; but magnified and made\nluminous by the lenses through which they looked, and by the reflection\nof the light. The eye of the mind may be visited by similar illusions. I\ncounsel all, therefore, that they ask only for grace sufficient against\npresent evil, and covet not great things, but be content with such\nmeasures of assurance and sensible delight as God shall think safe for\nthem; and that, above all, they look not at His gifts in themselves, but\nout of themselves, to Him, the Giver.\n\n\u2018The third consideration I have to urge, in justification of precepts\nwhich appear to you unnatural, is this:\u2014there are certain trials and\ndesolations of soul, to which the best are exposed, wherein all\nsubordinate acts are impossible; and then happy is he who has never\nexalted such helps above their due place. I scarcely know how to make\nmyself understood to any save those who have been at some time on the\nedge, at least, of those unfathomable abysses. Good men of prosperous\nand active life may scarcely know them. Few who have lived much in\nretirement, with temperament meditative, and perhaps melancholy, have\naltogether escaped. There are times when, it may be that some great\nsorrow has torn the mind away from its familiar supports, and laid level\nthose defences which in prosperity seemed so stable\u2014when the most rooted\nconvictions of the reason seem rottenness, and the blossom of our\nheavenward imaginations goes up before that blast as dust\u2014when our works\nand joys and hopes, with all their multitude and pomp and glory, seem to\ngo down together into the pit, and the soul is left as a garden that\nhath no water, and as a wandering bird cast out of the nest\u2014when,\ninstead of our pleasant pictures, we have about us only doleful\ncreatures among ruins\u2014when a spirit of judgment and a spirit of burning\nseem to visit the city of the heart, and in that day of trouble and of\ntreading down and of perplexity, the noise of viols, and the mirth of\nthe tabret, and the joy of the harp, are silent as the grave. Now, I\nsay, blessed is the man who, when cast into this utter wretchedness, far\naway from all creatures and from all comfort, can yet be willing, amidst\nall his tears and anguish, there to remain as long as God shall\nplease\u2014who seeks help from no creature\u2014who utters his complaint to the\near of God alone\u2014who still, with ever-strengthening trust, is ready to\nendure till self shall have been purged out by the fires of that\nfathomless annihilation\u2014who, crying out of the depths, while the Spirit\nmaketh intercession within him with groanings that cannot be uttered,\nshall presently be delivered when the right time hath come, and rejoice\nin that glorious liberty of the children of God, wherein they are\nnothing and He is all!\u2019\n\nNow, somewhat thus, I think, would that class of mystics whom Tauler\nrepresents, reply to the very natural objections urged by many in our\ntimes. Nor does such reply, so far, seem to me either unsatisfactory in\nitself, or in any way contrary to Scripture. It is with the aim, and\nunder the qualifications, I have endeavoured to set forth, that these\nmystics would refuge the soul in a height above reasonings, outward\nmeans and methods, in a serenity and an abstraction wherein the subtlest\ndistinctions and most delicate imaginations would seem too gross and\nsensuous\u2014where (as in Endymion\u2019s ecstasy)\n\n \u2018Essences\n Once spiritual, are like muddy lees,\n Meant but to fertilize our earthly root,\n And make our branches lift a golden fruit\n Into the bloom of heaven.\u2019\n\nOn the latter part of the extract given just now I have not yet\ncommented. It suggests a question of no small moment. What, it will be\nasked, is the relation sustained by the Saviour of mankind to this\nmystical process\u2014this drawing up of the created soul into the uncreated\nessence? Is not a blank abstraction\u2014an essential nothing, substituted\nfor the Son of man? How does the abstract Essence in which Tauler would\nsink the soul, differ from the abstract Essence or super-essential Unity\nin which a Plotinus would lose himself, or from that Divine substance in\nwhich the pantheistic Sufis sought to dissolve their personality? In\nthis region (confessedly above distinction), the mystic cannot, by his\nown admission, distinguish one abstraction from the other. There is a\nstory of a lover who, Leander-like, swam nightly across a strait to\nvisit the lady of his heart. A light which she exhibited on the shore\nwas the beacon of the adventurous swimmer. But two brothers (cruel as\nthose who murdered Isabella\u2019s lover in the wood) removed the light one\ndark and stormy night, and placed it in a boat anchored not near shore,\nbut in mid-waters, where the strait was broadest. Their victim struggled\nas long as mortal strength might endure, towards the treacherous\nlight\u2014farther and farther out\u2014into the ocean which engulphed him. Have\nnot the mystics, in like manner, shifted the beacon and substituted an\nexpanse\u2014an abyss, as the object of man\u2019s effort, instead of that love\nand sympathy which await him in the heart of the Son of man?\n\nCan it be possible that the best thing to do with a revelation of God,\nnow we have one, is to throw it behind our backs? Now that the light the\nwisest heathen longed for has come, are we to rid ourselves of it, with\nall speed, and fly, like Eckart, from the known to the old, _unknown_\nGod? To do this, is to account as foolishness the wisdom of God manifest\nin the flesh. Is it not all\u2014as the enemies of Quietism used to say\u2014a\ndevice of the Devil? Does it not look as though the Arch-enemy, unable\nto undo the work of redemption, had succeeded, by a master-stroke of\npolicy, in persuading men to a false spirituality, which should consist\nin obliterating the facts of that redemption from their own minds as\ncompletely as though it had never been wrought?\n\nNow it is much better, I think, to put objections like these in all\ntheir strength, and to give them fair hearing. They will occur to many\npersons in the reading of these sermons. They will awaken a distrust and\na perplexity which are not to be talked down by high words, or by\ntelling men that if they do not sufficiently admire these mystics, so\nmuch the worse for them. One of the objections thus urged is logically\nunanswerable. If Eckart and Plotinus both succeed in reducing their\nminds to a total emptiness of all memory, knowledge, and desire, in\norder to contemplate a super-essential Void, equally blank, the\nChristian and the heathen pantheist are indistinguishable. Vacuum A,\nwould be a vacuum no longer if it contained anything to distinguish it\nfrom vacuum B; and to escape, in the most absolute sense, all\ndistinction, is Eckart\u2019s highest ambition. But it is to be remembered,\nfirst of all, that Tauler does not go so far as Eckart in his impatience\nof everything intelligible, conceivable, or utterable. And next, that,\nhappily, neither Eckart, Tauler, nor any man, can really reduce himself\nto that total nescience and apathy demanded by the theory which makes\npersonality a sin, knowledge an infirmity, imagination a folly. Humanity\nis still too strong for any such de-humanizing ideal. The Absolute of\nTauler is not, like the Absolute of Plotinus, an abstraction above\nmorality. His link between finite and infinite\u2014his image of God, is\nmoral, not metaphysical merely. It is his knowledge, first of all, of\nGod in Christ which enables him to contemplate the Infinite, not as\nboundless being, but as unfathomable love. So he stands firm on the\ngrand Christian foundation, and the Son is his way to the Father.\nFollowing Dionysius, that arch-mystagogue, he does indeed invite the\ntrembling soul into the shadows of a Divine darkness, wherein no\nspecific attribute or act is perceptible to the baffled sight. But\nacross that profound obscure and utter silence, there floats,\nperceptible, some incense from the censer, of the Elder Brother\u2014the\neternal High Priest. It is a darkness, but such an one as we have when\nwe close our eyes after spectacles of glory\u2014a darkness luminous and\nliving with the hovering residue of splendours visible no longer. It is\na silence, but such an one as we have after sweet music\u2014a silence still\nstirred by inward echoes, and repetitions, and floating fragments of\nmelodies that have ceased to fall upon the ear. It seems a chilling\npurity, a hueless veil\u2014but such a veil as the snowfall lays upon an\nAlpine church-yard, hiding all colour but not all form, and showing us\nstill where the crosses are. By their fruits we know these mystics. No\nmen animated by a love so Christ-like as was theirs, could have put an\nabstraction in the place of Christ.\n\nWith regard to the work of Christ, Tauler acknowledges (more readily\nthan George Fox) that the divine element or inward light in man must\nremain a mere surmise or longing, apart from the historic manifestation\nof God in the flesh. It is Jesus of Nazareth who at once interprets to\nthe soul, while He satisfies, its own restless heavenward desire. It is\nHis grace alone which makes a mere capacity of God, a possession\u2014a mere\npotentiality, actual. The view of Christ which Tauler loves to present\nmost frequently is that expressed by those passages of Scripture which\nspeak of Him as the first-born among many brethren, and which remind us\nthat both He that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of\none. He would say that the Saviour now lives upon the earth, in the\nperson of all true believers; and that, in a subordinate sense, the Word\nis being continually made flesh, as Christ is formed in the hearts of\nChristians. With one voice Eckart and Tauler, Ruysbroek and Suso,\nexclaim\u2014\u2018Arise, O man! realize the end of thy being: make room for God\nwithin thy soul, that he may bring forth his Son within thee.\u2019\n\nThe Saviour\u2019s obedience unto death is regarded by Tauler, rather in its\nexemplary, than in its propitiatory aspect. Very important, as\ncharacteristic of his theology, is the distinction he makes between our\nunion to the humanity of Christ, and our union to his divinity. As man,\nHe is the ideal of humanity\u2014the exemplar of self-surrender. All that He\nreceived from the Father was yielded up to Him in that absolute\ndevotedness which all His brethren imitate. We are united to His\nhumanity in proportion as we follow the obedience and self-sacrifice of\nHis earthly life. But above this moral conformity to His example, Tauler\nsets another and a higher union to His divinity. And this union with the\nGodhead of the Son is not a superior degree of moral likeness to Him, it\nis rather an approximation to another mode of existence. It is an inward\ntransit from our actual to our ideal self\u2014not to the _moral_ ideal (for\nthat is already realized in proportion as we are united to His\nhumanity), but to our Platonic archetypal ideal. This higher process of\nunion to the Word, or return to our ideal place in Him, consists in\nescaping from all that distinguishes us as creatures on this earth\u2014in\ndenuding ourselves of reasonings, imaginations, passions,\u2014humanities, in\nfact, and reducing ourselves to that metaphysical essence or germ of our\nbeing, which lay from eternity\u2014not a creature, but the _thought_ of a\ncreature, in the Divine Word.\n\nNow it appears to me that this self-spiritualizing process which seeks\nby a refined asceticism to transcend humanity and creatureliness, is\naltogether a mistake. An ideal sufficiently high, and ever beyond us, is\nalready given in the moral perfection of Christ Jesus. This desire to\nescape from all the modes and means of our human existence came not from\nPaul, but from Plato. It revives the impatience of that noble but\none-sided, Greek ideal, which despised the body and daily life, abhorred\nmatter as a prison-house, instead of using it as a scaffolding, and\nlonged so intensely to become pure, passionless intellect. I know no\nself-transcendence, and I desire none, higher than the self-sacrifice of\nthe good Shepherd, who laid down his life for the sheep. You will\nprobably be reminded here of another great Platonist. Origen, also,\nmakes a distinction between those who know Christ, according to the\nflesh, as he terms it, _i.e._, in his sufferings, death, and\nresurrection, and that higher class of the perfect, or _Gnostici_, who,\non the basis of that fundamental knowledge, rise from the historical\nChrist to the spiritual essence of the Word. Origen, however, supposed\nthat this communion with the Logos, or eternal Reason, might become the\nchannel of a higher knowledge, illumining the _Gnosticus_ with a divine\nphilosophy. With Tauler, on the contrary, the intellectual ambition is\nless prominent; and he who has ascended into the uncreated essence\ncannot bring down from thence any wisdom for this lower world. Thus, in\nour extract, he says that if the soul united to the word could perceive\nitself, it would seem altogether like God, and would appear possessed of\nall knowledge that ever was. Such is the _ideal_; but the first reflex\nact would dissolve that trance of absolute, immediate oneness, and\nrestore the mystic to the humbling consciousness of a separate, actual\nself; and here lies the great difference between Tauler and Eckart.\nTauler, Suso, and Ruysbroek say, that in these moments of exaltation the\nsoul (above distinctions) is not conscious of its distinction as a\nseparate, creature entity. Eckart says, not that the soul has, for a\nmoment, forgotten all that is personal, and that parts it off from God,\nbut that the distinction does not exist at all,\u2014not that _we_ do not\nknow ourselves as separate, but that _God_ does not. To draw the line\nbetween theism and pantheism, is not always easy; but I think it must\nlie somewhere hereabout.\n\nWith regard to the doctrines of holy indifference and disinterested\nlove, the German mystics are by no means so extreme as the French. Their\nviews of the divine character were more profound and comprehensive;\ntheir heaven and hell were less external and realistic. A mysticism like\ntheirs could not concentrate itself, as Quietism did, on the degrees and\nqualities of one particular affection. Their God was one who, by a\nbenign necessity of nature, must communicate Himself in blessing, one\nwhose love lay at the root of His being. \u2018If men would only believe,\u2019\ncries Tauler, in one of his sermons, \u2018how passionately God longs to\nsave, and bring forth His Son in them!\u2019 They care little for being\nthemselves accused of making matter eternal, and creatures necessary to\nGod, if they can free Him from the imputation of selfishness or caprice.\nAnd so they have no scruples as to whether it be not selfish and\ncriminal to pray for our own salvation. In the sense of Tauler\u2014a true\nand deep one\u2014no man can say, \u2018Thy will be done,\u2019 and \u2018Thy kingdom come,\u2019\nwithout praying for his own salvation. When Tauler seems to demand a\nself-abnegation which consents to perdition itself, he is to be\nunderstood in one of two ways: either he would say that salvation should\nbe desired for the sake of God, above our own, and that we should\npatiently submit, when He sees fit to try us by withdrawing our hope of\nit; or that the presence and the absence of God make heaven and\nhell\u2014that no conceivable enjoyment ought to be a heaven to us without\nHim, no conceivable suffering a hell with Him. But how different is all\nthis from teaching, with some of the Quietists, that, since (as they\nsay) God is equally glorified in our perdition and in our salvation, we\nshould have no preference (if our love be truly disinterested) for the\none mode of glorifying Him above the other. That any human being ever\nattained such a sublime indifference I shall not believe, until it is\nattested by a love for man as much above ordinary Christian benevolence,\nas this love for God professes to be above ordinary Christian devotion;\nfor what is true of the principle of love, is true of its degrees\u2014\u2018He\nthat loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how shall he love God\nwhom he hath not seen?\u2019\n\nThe strongly ascetic language of Tauler and his brethren, their almost\nManichean contempt of the world, must be read by the light of their\ntimes, so full of misery and corruption; and by the light, also, of\nthose fearful furnaces of trial through which they had personally\npassed. What soul, into which the iron has entered, will say, while the\npain is still fresh, that the words of Tauler, or of Thomas \u00e0 Kempis,\nare intemperate? It is probable that Tauler would have been less\nimpatient to abolish his very personality, in order to give place to\nGod, had he been able, like Luther, to regard salvation, in greater\nmeasure, as consisting in a work done _for_, as well as wrought _in_\nhim. But his justification is a progressive, approximate process. It is\nnot a something he accepts, but a something he has to work out; and\nseeing, as, with his true humility, he was sure to do, how\nunsatisfactory was his likeness to God, how great the distance still,\nthe only resource open to him is to ignore or annihilate that sorry and\ndisappointing personality altogether, that God, instead of it, may\nperform his actions, and be, in fact, the substitute for his soul. Both\nTauler and Luther believe in substitution. The substitution of Tauler is\ninternal\u2014God takes his place within himself. The substitution of Luther\nis external\u2014when he believed in Christ, the Saviour associated him with\nHimself, and so brought him into sonship. So inevitable is the idea of\n_some_ substitution, where the sense of sin is deep. Luther believes as\nprofoundly as Tauler in a present, inward, living Saviour, as opposed to\na remote historic personage, intellectually acknowledged. In the\ntheology of both the old dualism is broken down, and God is brought near\nto man, yea, within him. But the Son to whom Tauler is united, is the\nuncreated essence, the super-essential Word, from the beginning with the\nFather. The Son to whom Luther is united is emphatically the Godman, as\ntruly human, in all sympathy and nearness, as when He walked the\nGalilean hills. The humanity of Christ is chiefly historic with Tauler,\nand for any practical purpose can scarcely be said to have survived His\nexaltation; but with Luther that humanity is so vital and so perpetual\nthat he will even transfer to it the attributes of Deity. So far from\ndesiring to pass upward from the man Christ Jesus to the Logos, as from\na lower to a higher, Luther calls \u2018that sinking himself so deep in flesh\nand blood,\u2019 the most glorious manifestation of Godhead. He does not,\nwith the Platonists, see degradation in the limitations of our nature;\nthat nature has been honoured unspeakably, and is glorified, not\nannihilated, by the Incarnate One. According to Luther, the undivine\nconsists in sin, and sin alone; not in our human means and modes, and\nprocesses of thought. Thus with him the divine and human are intimately\nassociated, not merely in the religious life, as it is termed, but in\nour temporal hopes and fears, in every part of our complicated,\nstruggling, mysterious humanity. The theology of Luther is more free,\njoyous, and human, partly because the serene and superhuman ideal of\nTauler did not appear to him either possible or desirable, partly\nbecause sanctification was, with him, a change of state consequent on a\nchange of relation\u2014the grateful service of one who, by believing, has\nentered into rest; and partly, also, because he does not lose sight of\nthe humanity of Christ, in His divinity, to the extent which Tauler\ndoes. Both Luther and Tauler say\u2014the mere history alone will not profit:\nChrist must be born in you. Luther adds\u2014Christ begins to be born in you\nas soon as you heartily believe upon Him. Tauler adds\u2014Christ is born in\nyou as soon as you have become nothing.\n\nIt would be very unfair to make it a matter of blame to Tauler that he\ndid not see with Luther\u2019s eyes, and do Luther\u2019s work. Luther in one\ncentury, and Tauler in another, had their tasks appointed, and quitted\nthemselves like men. It was for Tauler to loosen the yoke of asceticism:\nit was for Luther to break it in pieces. But it would be just as\nculpable to disguise the real differences between Tauler and Luther, and\nto conceal the truth, from a desire to make Tauler appear a more\ncomplete reformer than he really was. Our High Churchmen, in their\ninsular self-complacency, love to depreciate Luther and the Continental\nreformers. Idolaters of the past as they are, we do not think that they\nwill be better pleased with that noblest product of the Middle Age\u2014the\nGerman mysticism of the fourteenth century, now placed within their\nreach. These sermons of Tauler assert so audaciously against\nsacerdotalism, the true priesthood of every Christian man. There is so\nlittle in them of the \u2018Church about us,\u2019 so much of the \u2018Christ within\nus.\u2019\n\n * * * * *\n\nIt would have moved the scorn of some of the mystics, and the sorrow of\nothers, could they have been made aware of the strange uses to which\nsome persons were to turn them in this nineteenth century. The\nEmersonian philosophy, for example, is grieved that one series of\nwritings should arrogate inspiration to themselves alone. It is obvious\nthat a ready credence given to professed inspiration in other quarters,\nand later times, must tend to lower the exclusive prestige of the\nScriptures. Thus the mystics may be played off against the Apostles, and\nall that is granted to mysticism may be considered as so much taken from\nthe Bible. A certain door has been marked with a cross. Emerson, like\nthe sly Abigail of the Forty Thieves, proceeds to mark, in like manner,\nall the doors in the street. Very gratifying truly, and comic in the\nhighest degree, to witness the perplexity of mankind, going up and down,\nseeking some indication of the hoped-for guidance from above! I do not\nbelieve that the inspired writers were (to use Philo\u2019s comparison) as\npassive as a lyre under the hand of a musician. But some, who are much\nshocked at this doctrine in their case, would have us be awe-stricken,\nrather than offended, by similar pretension on the part of certain\nmystics. _Then_, they tell us to tread delicately\u2014to remember how little\nthe laws of our own nature are known to us\u2014to abstain from hasty\njudgment. In this way, it is supposed that Bibliolatry may be in some\nmeasure checked, and one of the greatest religious evils of the time be\nhappily lessened. Criticise, if you will, John\u2019s history, or Paul\u2019s\nletters, but let due reverence restrain you from applying the tests of a\nsuperficial common sense to the utterances of the Montanuses, the\nMunzers, the Engelbrechts, the Hildegards, the Theresas. But what saith\nHistory as to mysticism? Very plainly she tells us that the mystics have\nbeen a power in the world, and a power for good, in proportion as their\nteaching has been in accordance with the Bible;\u2014that the instances\nwherein they have failed have been precisely those in which they have\nattempted (whether wittingly, or not) to substitute another and a\nprivate revelation for it. They have come as a blessing to their age,\njust in proportion as they have called the attention of men to some of\nthe deepest lessons of that book\u2014to lessons too commonly overlooked. The\nvery men who might seem, to superficial observers, to bear witness\n_against_ the Bible, do in reality utter the most emphatic testimony\n_for_ it. A fact of this nature lends additional importance to the\nhistory of mysticism at the present time.\n\nAgain, there are some who may suppose there is a real resemblance\nbetween the exhortations of Tauler, and the counsel given men by such\nphilosophers as Fichte or Herr Teufelsdr\u00f6ckh. Do not both urge men to\nabandon introspections\u2014to abstain from all self-seeking\u2014to arise and\nlive in the transcendental world, by abandoning hope and fear, and by\nlosing our finite in an Infinite Will? Some similarity of sound there\nmay occasionally be, but the antipathy of principle between the two\nkinds of teaching is profound and radical.\n\nI will suppose that there comes to our Teufelsdr\u00f6ckh some troubled\nspirit, full of the burden of \u2018this unintelligible world,\u2019\nquestioning,\u2014as to an oracle. The response is ready. \u2018What do you come\nwhining to me about your miserable soul for? The soul-saving business is\ngoing down fast enough now-a-days, I can tell you. So you want to be\nhappy, do you? Pining after your Lubberland, as usual,\u2014your Millennium\nof mere Ease and plentiful supply. Poor wretch! let me tell you\nthis,\u2014the very fact of that hunger of yours proves that you will never\nhave it supplied. Your appetite, my friend, is too enormous. In this\nwild Universe of ours, storming-in, vague-menacing, it is enough if you\nshall find, not happiness, but existence and footing to stand on,\u2014and\nthat only by girding yourself for continual effort and endurance. I was\nwretched enough once\u2014down in the \u201cEverlasting Nay,\u201d thinking this a\nDevil\u2019s-world, because, in the universal scramble of myriads for a\nhandful, I had not clutched the happiness I set my heart on. Now, here I\nam in the \u201cEverlasting Yea,\u201d serene as you see me. How? Simply by giving\nup wanting to be happy, and setting to work, and resigning myself to the\nEternities, Abysses, or whatsoever other name shall be given to the\nfontal Vortices of the inner realms.... Miracles! Fiddlestick! Are not\nyou a miracle to your horse? What can they prove?... Inspiration!\u2014Try\nand get a little for yourself, my poor friend. Work, man: go work, and\nlet that sorry soul of thine have a little peace.\u2019\n\n\u2018Peace,\u2019 repeats our \u2018poor friend,\u2019 as he goes discomfited away. \u2018Peace!\nthe very thing this soul of mine will not let me have, as it seems. I\nknow I am selfish. I dare say this desire of happiness is very mean and\nlow, and all that; but I would fain reach something higher. Yet the\nfirst step thereto he does not show me. To leap into those depths of\nstoical apathy which that great man has reached, is simply impossible to\npoor me. His experience is not mine. He tells a bedridden man to climb\nthe mountains, and he will straightway be well. Let him show me the way\nto a little strength, and in time I may. I will not hunger any more\nafter mere \u201clubberly enjoyment,\u201d if he will offer my affections\nsomething more attractive. But Infinite Will, and Law, and Abysses, and\nEternities, are not attractive\u2014nay, I am not sure that they are\nintelligible to me or any mortal.\u2019\n\nNow the doctrine of Tauler is nowhere more in contrast with that just\nuttered than in its tenderness of Christian sympathy and adaptation, as\ncompared with the dreary and repellent pride of the philosopher. Instead\nof overwhelming the applicant by absurdly demanding, as the first step,\na sublimity of self-sacrifice which only the finished adept may attain,\nTauler is not too proud to begin at the beginning. Disinterested love\nis, with him, a mountain to which he points in the distance, bright with\nheavenly glory. Disinterested love, with Teufelsdr\u00f6ckh, is an avalanche\nhurled down right in the path of the beginner. Tauler does not see, in\nthe unhappiness of the man, so much mere craven fear, or thwarted\nselfishness. He sees God\u2019s image in him; he believes that that hunger of\nhis soul, which he vainly tries to satisfy with things earthly, is a\ndivine craving, a proof that he was born to satisfy it with things\nheavenly. He does not talk grandiloquently about Duty, and the glory of\nmoral Freedom. He tells him that the same Saviour who died upon the\ncross is pleading and knocking at his heart, and doth passionately long\nto bless him. He sends him away to think over this fact, till it shall\nbecome more real to him than house and home, or sun and stars. He does\nnot think that he can improve on \u2018the low morality\u2019 of the gospel by\ndisdaining to appeal to hope and fear in order to snatch men from their\nsins. If so to plead be to speak after the flesh, after the flesh he\nwill speak, to save a brother. There will be time enough, he thinks, if\nGod sees fit to lead the man to the heights of absolute self-loss; and\nGod will take His own way to do it. All Tauler has to do is to declare\nto him the truth concerning a Saviour, not to prescribe out of his own\nexperience a law beyond that which is written. In this way, instead of\nstriking him into despair, or bidding him bury care in work, he comforts\nand strengthens him. He does not despise him for keeping the law simply\nout of love to Him who gave it. He does not think it unmanly, but true\nmanhood rather, when he sees him living, a suppliant, dependent on a\nlife higher than his own\u2014on a Person, whose present character and power\nwere attested of old by history and miracle, as well as now by the\n\u2018witness of the Spirit.\u2019\n\nI think the candid reader of Tauler\u2019s sermons, and of _Sartor Resartus_,\nwill admit that a difference in substance such as I have pointed out,\ndoes exist between them. If so, those who follow the philosophy of\nTeufelsdr\u00f6ckh cannot claim Tauler\u2014have no right to admire him, and ought\nto condemn in _him_ that which they condemn in the Christianity of the\npresent day.\n\nFootnote 127:\n\n Preface to Tauler\u2019s _Life and Sermons_ by Susanna Winkworth.\n\nFootnote 128:\n\n Nicole, in his _Trait\u00e9 de la Pri\u00e8re_, describes and criticises this\n style of devotion. It must always be borne in mind that the warnings\n of Tauler with regard to the image and the symbol are addressed, not\n to us sober Protestant folk, but especially to the devotees of the\n cloister. Those who have some acquaintance with the fantastic excesses\n he combats, will not think his language too strong.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER VII.\n\n\n Alas poor country;\n Almost afraid to know itself! It cannot\n Be called our mother, but our grave. Where nothing,\n But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile;\n Where sighs, and groans, and shrieks that rend the air,\n Are made, not mark\u2019d; where violent sorrow seems\n A modern ecstasy; the dead man\u2019s knell\n Is there scarce asked, for who; and good men\u2019s lives\n Expire before the flowers in their caps,\n Dying or ere they sicken.\n\n MACBETH.\n\n\nThe day after Atherton\u2019s return, Willoughby and Gower met about noon, at\nLowestoffe\u2019s lodge gate, the one returning from a piscatory expedition\nof six hours, with fish, the other from a pictorial ramble of four days,\nwith sketches. Willoughby had to tell of the escapades of tricksy trout,\nand of the hopes and fears which were suspended on his line. But not a\nword, of course, had he to say of the other thoughts which busied him\nthe while,\u2014how his romance was in his head, as he carried those\ncredentials of idleness, the fishing-tackle, and how, while he was\nangling for fish, he was devising the fashion in which Blanche should\nthrow the fly for Florian. Gower had seen such glades and uplands\u2014such\nwondrous effects of light and shadow\u2014he, too, had had his adventures,\nand could show his trophies.\n\nDinner was succeeded by that comparatively somnolent period which\npreceded the early tea so dear to Lowestoffe. Atherton found that a book\nof Schubert\u2019s, which had interested him in the morning, was, in the\nafternoon, only a conducting-rod to lure down the subtile influence of\nsleep. Lowestoffe, lulled by the buzzing flies, dropped off into an\narm-chair doze, without apology or disguise. He had been early up, and\nhad been riding about all day on a new chestnut mare. Violently had he\nobjurgated that wretch of a groom for giving her too many beans, thereby\nrendering her in danger of flying at the heels; and what was worse, the\nmonster had put on a gag snaffle with the martingale, and narrowly\nescaped getting her into mischief. But the flying storm had long since\nswept away. Before tea, Lowestoffe was in his good-humoured, irrational\nhumour; after tea he would be in his good-humoured rational one. As for\nGower and Kate, they had quietly withdrawn together to see a water-lily\nthat had just blown, and were not heard of till tea-time.\n\nAfter tea, when certain sleepy people had again become responsible\ncreatures, conversation began.\n\nGOWER. Don\u2019t you think Atherton has a very manuscriptural air to-night?\n\nKATE. There is a certain aspect of repletion about him.\n\nMRS. ATHERTON. We must bleed him, or the consequences may be serious.\nWhat\u2019s this? (_Pulls a paper out of his pocket._)\n\nKATE. And this! (_Pulls out another._)\n\nWILLOUGHBY. He seems better now.\n\nATHERTON (_abstractedly_). I was thinking of the difference between\nGower\u2019s studies and mine for the last few days. I have been reading a\ndark, miserable chapter in the history of man. He has been the\nchronicler of pleasant passages in the history of rocks and trees,\u2014his\ngreat epochs, a smile of sun-shine or sudden chill of shadow,\u2014the worst\ndisasters, a dull neutral-tint kind of day, or a heavy rain,\u2014his most\nimpracticable subjects, beauties too bright or evanescent to be caught.\nIt is sad to think how every subject of our study deepens in sorrow as\nit rises in dignity.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. And yet it is only by the manful struggles of past\ngenerations through calamity and against wrong, that we have bequeathed\nto us the leisure, the liberty, and the knowledge essential to the\nhighest enjoyment of nature. Atherton, in fact, studies the chequered\nand intricate causes which issue in the taste of Gower as one of their\neffects. I should think it must be no small gain for an artist to be\nplaced beyond the medi\u00e6val idea which set the _Inferno_ in the centre of\nthe earth, and imagined, far below the roots of the mountains and the\nchannels of the sea, eternal flames as the kernel of the world.\n\nGOWER. I have sometimes endeavoured, while lying on the grass, to\nrealise in my own way the conception of the world by the light-hearted\nGreeks as an animal, or as a robe or peplus. I have imagined the clouds\nthe floating breath of the great creature, rising against the crystal\nsphere of the sky, under which it lies as in an enchanter\u2019s glass;\u2014the\nseas, some delicate surfaces of the huge organism, that run wrinkled\ninto a quick shiver at the cold touch of wind;\u2014the forests, a fell of\nhair which is ruffled by the chafing hand of the tempest. Then, when I\nlook at the earth in the other aspect, as a variegated woven robe, I see\nit threaded silverly with branching rivers spangled with eyes of lakes;\nwhere the sleek meadows lie, it is rich with piled velvet, and where the\nwoods are, tufted with emerald feathers. But now I want to hear\nsomething more about our Strasburg people.\n\nATHERTON. Bad news. There is a great hiatus in Arnstein\u2019s journal, which\nhistory fills up with pestilence and bloodshed. I have drawn up a few\nnotes of this interval which must serve you as an outline. (_Reads._)\n\n In the year 1348 that terrible contagion, known as the Black Death,\n which journeyed from the East to devastate the whole of Europe,\n appeared at Strasburg.[129] Everywhere famine, floods, the inversion\n of the seasons, strange appearances in the sky, had been its\n precursors. In the Mediterranean Sea, as afterwards in the Baltic,\n ships were descried drifting masterless, filled only by\n plague-stricken corpses. Every man dreaded, not merely the touch and\n the breath of his neighbour, but his very eye, so subtile and so\n swift seemed the infection. In many parts of France it was computed\n that only two out of every twenty inhabitants were left alive. In\n Strasburg sixteen thousand perished; in Avignon sixty thousand. In\n Paris, at one time, four or five hundred were dying in a day. In\n that city, in the midst of a demoralization and a selfish horror\n like that Thucydides has painted, the Sisters of Mercy were seen\n tending the sufferers who crowded the H\u00f4tel-Dieu; and, as death\n thinned their martyr-ranks, numbers more were ready to fill the same\n office of perilous compassion. Pausanias says that in Athens alone\n out of all Greece there was raised an altar to mercy. But it was an\n altar almost without a ministry. Heathendom, at its best, might\n glory in the shrine; Christianity, at its worst, could furnish the\n priesthood.\n\n In Strasburg Tauler laboured fearlessly, with Thomas and Ludolph,\n among the panic-stricken people\u2014doubly cursed by the Interdict and\n by the plague. Great fires of vine-wood, wormwood, and laurel were\n kept burning in the squares and market-places to purify the air,\n lighting up the carved work of the deserted town-hall, and\n flickering aslant the overhanging gables of the narrow crooked\n streets and the empty tradesmen\u2019s stalls. The village was ravaged as\n fatally as the town. The herds grew wild in the fields of the dead\n peasants, or died strangely themselves\u2014victims, apparently, to the\n universal blight of life. The charlatans of the day drove for awhile\n a golden traffic with quintessences and distillations, filthy and\n fantastic medicines, fumigation of shirts and kerchiefs, charms and\n invocations, only at last to perish in their turn. Even the monks\n had lost their love for gold, since every gift was deadly. In vain\n did trembling men carry their hoards to the monastery or the church.\n Every gate was barred, and the wealthy might be seen tossing their\n bags of bezants over the convent walls. In the outskirts of towns\n and cities, huge pits were opened, whose mouths were daily filled\n with hideous heaps of dead. The pope found it necessary to\n consecrate the river Rhone, and hundreds of corpses were cast out at\n Avignon, from the quays and pleasant gardens by the water-side, to\n be swept by the rapid stream under the silent bridges, past the\n forgotten ships and forsaken fields and mourning towns, livid and\n wasting, out into the sea.\n\n In a frenzy of terror and revenge the people fell upon the miserable\n Jews. They were accused of poisoning the wells, and every heart was\n steeled against them. Fear seemed to render all classes more\n ferocious, and the man who might sicken and die to-morrow found a\n wretched compensation in inflicting death to-day on the imagined\n authors of his danger. Toledo was supposed to be the centre of an\n atrocious scheme by which the Jews were to depopulate Christendom.\n At Chillon several Jews, some after torture and some in terror of\n it, confessed that they had received poison for that purpose. It was\n a black and red powder, made partly from a basilisk, and sent in the\n mummy of an egg. The deposition of the Jews arrested at Neustadt was\n sent by the castellan of Chillon to Strasburg. Bishops, nobles, and\n chief citizens held a diet at Binnefeld in Alsace, to concert\n measures of persecution. The deputies of Strasburg, to their honour\n be it spoken, declared that nothing had been proved against the\n Jews. Their bishop was the most pitiless advocate of massacre. The\n result was a league of priests, lords, and people, to slay or banish\n every Jew. In some places the senators and burgomasters were\n disposed to mercy or to justice. The pope and the emperor raised\n their voices, alike in vain, in behalf of the victims. Some\n Christians, who had sought from pity or from avarice to save them,\n perished in the same flames. The noble of whom they bought\n protection was stigmatised as a Jew master, execrated by the\n populace, at the mercy of his enemies. No power could stem the\n torrent. The people had tasted blood; the priest had no mercy for\n the murderers of the Lord; the baron had debts easily discharged by\n the death of his creditor. At Strasburg a monster scaffold was\n erected in the Jewish burial ground, and two thousand were burnt\n alive. At Basle all the Jews were burnt together in a wooden edifice\n erected for the purpose. At Spires they set their quarter in flames,\n and perished by their own hands. A guard kept out the populace while\n men commissioned by the senate hunted for treasure among the smoking\n ruins. The corrupting bodies of those slain in the streets were put\n up in empty wine casks, and trundled into the Rhine. When the rage\n for slaughter had subsided, hands, red with Hebrew blood, were\n piously employed in building belfries and repairing churches with\n Jewish tombstones and the materials of Jewish houses.\n\n The gloomy spirit of the time found fit expression in the fanaticism\n of the Flagellants.[130] Similar troops of devotees had in the\n preceding century carried throughout Italy the mania of the scourge;\n but never before had the frenzy of penance been so violent or so\n contagious. It was in the summer of 1349 that they appeared in\n Strasburg. All the bells rang out as two hundred of them, following\n two and two many costly banners and tapers, entered the city,\n singing strange hymns. The citizens vied with each other in opening\n to them their doors and seating them at their tables. More than a\n thousand joined their ranks. Whoever entered their number was bound\n to continue among them thirty-four days, must have fourpence of his\n own for each day, might enter no house unasked, might speak with no\n woman. The lash of the master awaited every infraction of their\n rule. The movement partook of the popular, anti-hierarchical spirit\n of the day. The priest or friar could hold no rank, as such, among\n the Flagellants. The mastership was inaccessible to him, and he was\n precluded from the secret council. The scourging took place twice a\n day. Every morning and evening they repaired in procession to the\n place of flagellation outside the city. There they stripped\n themselves, retaining only a pair of linen drawers. They lay down in\n a large circle, indicating by their posture the particular sin of\n which each penitent was principally guilty. The perjured lay on his\n side, and held up three fingers; the adulterer on his face. The\n master then passed round, applying his lash to each in succession,\n chanting the rhyme\u2014\n\n Stand up in virtue of holy pain,\n And guard thee well from guilt again.\n\n One after the other, they rose and followed him, singing and\n scourging themselves with whips in which were great knots and nails.\n The ceremony closed with the reading of a letter, said to have been\n brought by an angel from heaven, enjoining their practice, after\n which they returned home in order as they came. The people crowded\n from far and near to witness the piteous expiation, and to watch\n with prayers and tears the flowing blood which was to mingle with\n that of Christ. The pretended letter was reverenced as another\n gospel, and the Flagellant was already believed before the priest.\n The clergy grew anxious as they saw the enthusiasm spreading on\n every side. But the unnatural furor could not last; its own\n extravagance prepared its downfall. An attempt made by some\n Flagellants in Strasburg to bring a dead child to life was fatal to\n their credit. The Emperor, the Pope, and the prelates took measures\n against them simultaneously, in Germany, in France, in Sicily, and\n in the East. The pilgrimage of the scourge was to have lasted\n four-and-thirty years. Six months sufficed to disgust men with the\n folly, to see their angelic letter laughed to scorn, their\n processions denounced, their order scattered.\n\n Meanwhile the enemies of Tauler were not idle. Louis of Bavaria was\n dead. The new Emperor Charles IV. was of the papal party, and called\n the Parsons\u2019 Kaiser, but a man of vigour and enlightenment; so weary\n Germany, broken by so many calamities, was generally inclined to\n acknowledge his claim. About the year 1348 he visited Strasburg, and\n the clergy brought Tauler and his two friends before him. They were\n to answer for their hard words against priests and princes. Charles\n listened attentively to the statement of their principles, and to\n their spirited defence of what they had said and done. At last he\n said (conceive the dismay of the prelates!) that, after all, \u2018he was\n very much of their mind.\u2019 But the ecclesiastics did not rest till\n they had procured a condemnatory sentence. The accused were\n commanded to publish a recantation, and to promise to refrain for\n the future from such contumacious language concerning the Church and\n the Interdict, on pain of excommunication. It is said that, in spite\n of this decision, they did but speak and write the more in the same\n spirit. This, however, is not certain. It is known that Tauler\n shortly afterwards left his native city, and fixed his residence in\n Cologne, where he mostly spent the remainder of his life, actively\n engaged as a preacher in endeavouring to promote a deeper\n spirituality, and in combating the enthusiasm of the pantheistic\n Beghards who abounded in that city.[131]\n\n\n _Chronicle of Adolf Arnstein, continued._\n\n\n STRASBURG. 1354. _January._\u2014In the comparative leisure of the winter\n time, I set down in order (from such fragmentary notes as I then\n made) records of a journey undertaken last year to Flanders.\n\n When I left Strasburg, to sail down the Rhine, our city had enjoyed\n at last nearly two years\u2019 prosperity. We could scarcely believe the\n respite real. First of all, after so many troubles and dissensions,\n the Black Death had laid us waste. Then came the Flagellants,\n turning all things upside down\u2014the irresistible infection of their\n fury\u2014the thirst for blood they stirred up everywhere\u2014the slaughter\n of the miserable Jews. Then we had the Emperor among us, demanding\n unrighteous imposts. Our old spirit rose. For two years and a half\n our chains and guard-ships barred the passage of the Rhine.[132] We\n would endure any extremity rather than submit, and our firmness won\n the day. Now, for the last three years,\u2014the pestilence and its\n horrors over; blockaded business free again;\u2014our little world has\n been gambolling like children let loose from school. Never such\n rapid and fruitful buying and selling, such marrying and giving in\n marriage, such feasting, pageantry, and merriment, among high and\n low alike.[133] All the year is May for the morris-dancers. No one\n remembers now the scourge or the torch.\n\n The clergy might have learnt a lesson from the outbreak of the\n Flagellants. It should have shown them how hateful their vices and\n their pride had made them to the people. But the universal levity\n now pardons clerical crime and folly as it does every other. The\n odious exaggeration of the Flagellants has given men a pretext for\n licence, and ruined the hopes of reform. The cause of emperor\n against pope exists no longer. In the hour of conflict and of\n sorrow, men hailed the help and listened to the teaching of the\n Friends of God. Tauler himself, were he among us, would find it\n another Strasburg.\n\n Landed at Cologne, I hastened to the cloister of St. Gertrude to\n find Dr. Tauler. With what delight did I see him once more! I\n thought him looking much older, and, indeed, he said he thought the\n same of me. The time has been long but a stepmother to merry faces\n and ruddy cheeks. He told me that he had met with great kindness in\n this city, which he had always loved. His friends were numerous; his\n preaching, he hoped not without fruit, and he had succeeded in\n reforming much that had been amiss.[134] I had many messages for him\n from his old friends in Strasburg, and he had so many questions to\n ask, he knew not where to begin.\n\n He inquired particularly after Rulman Merswin. This rich merchant\n had withdrawn from the world (with the consent of his wife) and\n devoted himself altogether to the contemplative life, a short time\n previous to the coming of the Black Death. His austerities had been\n almost fatal. Tauler\u2019s last counsel to him was to lessen their\n severity. I saw him before I left, and he desired me to tell Tauler\n that the Layman had visited him more than once, and was now his\n spiritual guide. I informed the Doctor, moreover, that during the\n last year Merswin had been privately busied in writing a book, to be\n called _The Nine Rocks_, of which he did me the honour of reading to\n me a part.[135] The Doctor asking what I thought, I said it seemed\n to be the work of a powerful and sombre imagination, excited by the\n sufferings he had inflicted on himself, yet containing many solemn\n and most just rebukes of the vices prevalent. Tauler said that such\n excessive mortification in all classes, and especially among the\n clergy, often weakened, instead of exalting the intellect. He feared\n that the good Rulman would always lean too much on visions, voices,\n ecstasies, and the like, and never rise to the higher calm of\n unsensuous, imageless contemplation.\n\n The second time I visited Tauler, I found him reading\u2014he told me for\n the fourth time\u2014a book called _The Spiritual Nuptials_, by John\n Ruysbroek.[136] The Doctor praised it highly, and as I questioned\n him about it, offered to lend it me to read. I had heard of\n Ruysbroek as a master in spiritual mysteries, often holding\n intercourse by letter with the Friends of God in Cologne, Alsace,\n and even in the Oberland. I took the book home to my inn, and shut\n myself up to read it. Many parts of it I copied out. Not a few\n things in it I found hard to be understood, and consulting with the\n Doctor about them, he told me he purposed setting out in a few days\n to visit the author. Should I like to accompany him? I said \u2018Yes,\n with all my heart.\u2019 So we left Cologne to travel to the convent of\n Gr\u00fcnthal, in the heart of the forest of Soigne, not far from\n Louvain, whither the holy man, now sixty years of age, had of late\n retired.[137]\n\n From Cologne we journeyed direct to Aix-la-Chapelle. There we saw\n the chair in which the emperors sit when they are crowned. Its sides\n are of ivory, and the bottom is made of a piece of wood from Noah\u2019s\n Ark. Tasted the water in the famous hot springs there. It is\n saltish; the physicians say of singular virtue, whether taken\n inwardly or outwardly. Saw near the town a water which is lukewarm,\n by reason of one of the hot springs which passes under it. There are\n bred in it fine fish, they say, which must be put in cold water two\n months before they are eaten.\n\n From Aix-la-Chapelle we went to Maestricht, and thence through\n Tirlemont, to Louvain. This last is a wealthy city, with a fine\n town-hall. The Flemings seem very fond of bells, which are always\n chiming, and the great multitude of storks was a strange thing to\n me; they make their nests on the tops of the chimneys. The country\n round is very fertile, and the great guilds exceeding prosperous.\n The small handicrafts have more power there than with us at\n Strasburg. At Ypres, I hear, they lately mustered five thousand\n strong in the market-place, and headed by their deacons, engaged and\n routed the knights and men-at-arms who wished to hold the town\n against the men of Ghent.[138] They are very brave and determined,\n and keep better together, as it seems to me, than our folk. I found\n no small excitement in the city, on account of the war then carrying\n on between the men of Ghent and their allies, on the one side, and\n the Earl of Flanders on the other. It began with the old rivalry\n between Ghent and Bruges\u2014some dispute about a canal from the Lys.\n The real struggle is between lords and commons. What Bishop Berthold\n and his party have been to us, that is the Count de Male to these\n Flemings. The popular side has lost a brave leader in John Lyon. He\n revived the White Hoods, and stirred up all Flanders against the\n earl. But two at least of the new captains, John Boule and Peter du\n Bois, bid fair to fill his place. When I was at Louvain, the troops\n of the earl were besieged in Oudenarde by upwards of a hundred\n thousand men, gathered out of all the principal towns, well\n provisioned and appointed. The besiegers were very strong in\n cross-bow men, and had with them some great guns, which did no small\n damage. Many hot assaults were made, both by land and water, and on\n both sides many brave men slain (Heaven rest their souls!) for the\n Flemings were no whit behind the knights in foolhardiness. When I\n left Brabant, report said that a peace was, or soon would be\n concluded, to be ratified, according to their wont there, by\n enormous dinners. Certain it is that neither Oudenarde nor\n Dendermonde were carried after all.[139]\n\n They still talked at Louvain about that flower of chivalry Edward\n III. of England, who was there for a season some few years\n back.[140] His princely entertainments to lords and ladies left the\n country full of golden traditions about him. The islanders won all\n hearts by their unparalleled magnificence and generosity. They say\n the English king called James von Artaveld\u2014brewer of metheglin as he\n was\u2014his cousin, and was passing wroth when he heard of his murder.\n Yet methinks he cares but little after all for the Flemish weavers,\n save as they may help him and his knights against France.\n Nevertheless, the weaker France, the better for Germany. I think I\n understand why our emperor Charles so flatters the pope. If his\n Holiness could confide in Germany he would fain break with France.\n Be this as it may, not a word now is heard about the claims of the\n empire. The Ghibelline cause finds no leader. The spirit of the\n Hohenstaufen lives only in the rhymes of the minstrel. No doubt\n times are changed. There may be policy in the submission, but I love\n it not. The Doctor interpreted to me the other day the emperor\u2019s\n Latin motto, which set me thinking. It means\u2014the best use you can\n make of your own wits is to turn to good account the follies of\n other people.[141] So cardinals and envoys riding to and fro,\n plotting and treaty-making, will manage Christendom now, not strong\n arms and sword-strokes. Whether, in the end, this change will lead\n to better or to worse, it baffles my poor brain to decide.\n\n We set out from Louvain for Gr\u00fcnthal, quite a troop of us. There was\n a noble widow-lady, with her attendants, who was going to crave\n ghostly counsel from the prior. She had lost her husband by the\n plague, three years since, and appeared still overwhelmed with\n grief, speaking to no one, and never suffering her face to be seen.\n Her women, when not near her, were merry enough with the followers\n of a young Frenchman of family who carried letters to Ruysbroek from\n his uncle, an abbot in Paris. We had with us besides two Minorite\n friars from Guelders. The head dresses of the women were fit for\n giantesses, rising up like a great horn, with long ribbons\n fluttering from the top. One of them had a little dagger in her\n girdle, and managed a spirited horse to admiration. The Frenchman,\n with whom I had much talk, was an arrant fop, yet a shrewd fellow\n withal. He jingled like a jester with his many silver bells, his\n hair was tied behind in a tail, the points of his shoes turned up,\n his parti-coloured doublet cut short round (a new fashion, adopted\n for greater swiftness in flying from an enemy), and his beard, long\n and bushy, trimmed with a sort of studied negligence. He gave me a\n melancholy account of the state of France, divided within, overrun\n by the English invaders, nobles plundering and burning\u2014here to-day\n and there to-morrow, without pity, law, or loyalty; knights\n destroying, not helping the weak: troops of robbers surprising\n castles and even taking towns; and the wretched peasantry fain often\n to hide themselves and their cattle for weeks and months in great\n caves hollowed out underneath the ground.\n\n One of the friars told me a story current about Prior Ruysbroek,\n how, one day, he was absent longer than usual in the forest, whither\n he was accustomed to retire for meditation, and as some of the\n brethren went to seek him they saw a tree at a distance which\n appeared surrounded by fiery glory. The holy man was sitting at its\n foot, lost in contemplation! The Saviour and our Blessed Lady\n herself are said to have appeared to him more than once.[142]\n\n We reached Gr\u00fcnthal\u2014a great building of exceeding plainness\u2014soon\n after nightfall. Found there visitors from Brussels, so that,\n between us, nearly all the guest chambers were filled. The good\n Ruysbroek has been there but a year, yet if he is always to be thus\n sought unto, methinks he is as far from his longed-for seclusion as\n ever.[143]\n\n We remained three weeks at Gr\u00fcnthal, for whenever the Doctor would\n be going, the good Prior so besought him to tarry longer that he\n could not in courtesy say him nay. Often Ruysbroek and Tauler would\n spend all the summer morning in the forest, now walking, now sitting\n under the trees, talking of the concerns of the soul, or of the\n fears and hopes awakened by these doubtful times. I was permitted\n repeatedly to accompany them, and afterwards wrote down some of the\n more remarkable things I heard said. These two saintly men, prepared\n to love each other as brothers in a common experience, seemed at\n once to grow together into a friendship as strong as though many\n years had been employed in the building thereof. Neither of them\n vain, neither jealous, each was for humbling himself beneath the\n other, and seemed desirous rather to hear and learn than to talk\n about himself.\n\n Speaking about the Son of God and the soul of man, Ruysbroek\n said\u2014\u2018I believe that the Son is the Image of the Father, that in\n the Son have dwelt from all eternity, foreknown and contemplated\n by the Father, the prototypes of all mankind. We existed in the\n Son before we were born\u2014He is the creative ground of all\n creatures\u2014the eternal cause and principle of their life. The\n highest essence of our being rests therefore in God,\u2014exists in his\n image in the Son. After our creation in time, our souls are\n endowed with these properties, which are in effect one; the first,\n the Imageless Nudity, (_die bildlose Nacktheit_)\u2014by means of this\n we receive and are united to the Father; the second, the Higher\n Reason of the Soul (_die h\u00f6here Vernunft der Seele_), the mirror\n of brightness, by which we receive the Son; the third, the Spark\n of the Soul (_Funken der Seele_) by which we receive the love of\n God the Holy Ghost. These three faculties are in us all the ground\n of our spiritual life, but in sinners they are obscured and buried\n under their transgressions.[144]\n\n \u2018The office of the Son in time was to die for us, fulfil the law,\n and give us a divine pattern of humility, love, and patience. He is\n the fountain whence flows to us all needed blessing, and with him\n works the Holy Spirit. What the Son did he did for all\u2014is\n Light-bringer for all mankind, for the Catholic Church especially,\n but also for every devoutly-disposed mind. Grace is common, and\n whoever desires it has it. Without it no natural powers or merits\n can save us. The will is free by nature, it becomes by grace more\n free; yea, a king, lord of every lower power, crowned with Love,\n clad in the might of the Holy Ghost. There is a natural will towards\n good (_Synderesis_) implanted in us all, but damped by sin. We can\n will to follow this better impulse, and of ourselves desire the help\n of divine grace, without which we can never overcome sin and rise\n above ourselves. Everything depends on will. A man must will right\n strongly. Will to have humility and love, and they are thine. If any\n man is without the spirit of God, it is his own fault, for not\n seeking that without which he cannot please Him.[145]\n\n \u2018True penitence is of the heart; bodily suffering is not essential.\n No one is to think he is shut out from Christ because he cannot bear\n the torturing penance some endure. We must never be satisfied with\n any performance, any virtue\u2014only in the abyss, the Nothingness of\n Humility, do we rise beyond all heavens. True desire after God is\n not kept back by the sense of defect. The longing soul knows only\n this, that it is bent on God. Swallowed up in aspiration, it can\n take heed of nothing more.\u2019[146] (A very weighty saying this,\n methinks, and helpful.)\n\n Speaking of the inner life, and the union of the soul with God,\n Ruysbroek said\u2014\n\n \u2018God dwells in the highest part of the soul. He who ascends this\n height has all things under his feet. We are united to God when, in\n the practice of the virtues, we deny and forsake ourselves, loving\n and following God above all creatures. We cannot compel God by our\n love to love us, but He cannot sanctify us unless we freely\n contribute our effort. There is a reciprocal desire on our part and\n that of God. The free inspiration of God is the spring of all our\n spiritual life. Thence flows into us knowledge\u2014an inner revelation\n which preserves our spirit open, and, lifting us above all images\n and all disturbance, brings us to an inward silence. Here the divine\n inspiration is a secret whispering in the inner ear. God dwells in\n the heart pure and free from every image. Then first, when we\n withdraw into the _simplicitas_ of our heart, do we behold the\n immeasurable glory of God, and our intellect is as clear from all\n considerations of distinction and figurative apprehensions, as\n though we had never seen or heard of such things. Then the riches of\n God are open to us. Our spirit becomes desireless, as though there\n were nothing on earth or in heaven of which we stood in need. Then\n we are alone with God, God and we\u2014nothing else. Then we rise above\n all multiplicity and distinction into the simple nakedness of our\n essence, and in it become conscious of the infinite wisdom of the\n Divine Essence, whose inexhaustible depths are as a vast waste, into\n which no corporeal and no spiritual image can intrude. Our created\n is absorbed in our uncreated life, and we are as it were transformed\n into God. Lost in the abyss of our eternal blessedness, we perceive\n no distinction between ourselves and God. As soon as we begin to\n reflect and to consider what that is we feel, we become aware of\n such distinction, and fall back to the level of reason.\u2019[147]\n\n Here Tauler asked whether such language was not liable to abuse by\n the heretics who confound man and God? He referred to a passage in\n the _Spiritual Nuptials_, in which Ruysbroek said that we became\n identical, in this union, with the glory by which we are\n illumined.[148]\n\n Ruysbroek answered, that he had designed to qualify duly all such\n expressions. \u2018But you know, Doctor,\u2019 continued he, \u2018I have not your\n learning, and cannot at all times say so accurately as I would what\n I mean. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings!\u2014I would say that\n in such a state all our powers are in repose, not that they are\n annihilated. If so, we should lose our existence as creatures. We\n are one with God, but yet always creature existences distinct from\n God. I do humbly believe, let my enemies say what they may, that I\n wrote no word of that book save at the impulse of the Holy Ghost,\n and with a peculiar and most blessed presence to my soul of the Holy\n Trinity. But what shall I call this blessedness? It includes peace,\n inward silence, affectionate hanging on the source of our joy, sleep\n in God, contemplation of the heaven of darkness, far above\n reason.\u2018[149]\n\n The conversation then turned on the heresies of the time, the\n corruptions of the Church and of the State, and other practical\n matters more within my compass. Ruysbroek said that the great sin\n and error of these heretics lay in their aspiring to union with God\n by a summary and arrogant method of their own. They persuaded\n themselves that, merely by ceasing to think and distinguish, they\n could withdraw themselves into the essence of their nature, and so,\n without the help of grace or the practice of virtue, attain by bare\n nature the rest and blessedness of absolute simplicity and\n superiority to all modes and images.\n\n \u2018Verily,\u2019 quoth Tauler, \u2018though they give themselves out for the\n wisest and the holiest, it is only themselves, not God, they enjoy.\n Yet mischievous as they are, often as I have preached against them,\n I never have taken, nor shall I take, any part in their\n persecution.\u2019[150]\n\n \u2018I have had plentiful opportunity,\u2019 continued Ruysbroek, \u2018for\n observing these men. I would divide them into four classes.[151]\n First of all there are those whose doctrine sins especially against\n the Holy Ghost. They say the essential Godhead works not, but the\n Holy Ghost doth: that they belong to that Divine Essence, and will\n rest in like manner;\u2014that they are, therefore, above the Spirit of\n God. They hold that, after time, all things will be God, one\n absolute Quiescence, without distinction and without change. So they\n will neither know nor act, neither think nor thank, but be free from\n all desire, all obligation. This they call Poverty of Spirit. I say\n it is a devilish poverty, and such souls must be poor as hell in\n divine love and knowledge.\n\n \u2018The second class say, with like blasphemy, \u2018We are divine by\n nature. There is one God, and we are identical with Him. We with Him\n have created all things; if we had not chosen, we had not been born.\n It was our own choice to exist as we do. God can do nothing without\n us, and we give Him therefore no preference, pay Him no homage.\n Honour to Him is honour to us. What we are we would be, what we\n would be we are; with God we have created ourselves and all things;\n heaven and earth hang on our will.\u2019 This insane spiritual pride is\n flatly contrary to all catholic doctrine.\n\n \u2018The third class sin not less against the Son. They say, we are as\n much incarnate as Christ was, and, in the same sense, divine sons of\n God. Had He lived long enough, He would have attained to the same\n contemplative quiet we enjoy. Retired into our inmost selves, we\n find ourselves the same Wisdom of God which Christ is. When He is\n honoured, we are honoured, for we are identical with Him.\n\n \u2018The fourth class declare that neither God nor themselves,\n heaven nor hell, action nor rest, good nor evil, have any real\n existence. They deny God and the work of Christ, Scripture,\n sacraments,\u2014everything. God is nothing; they are nothing; the\n universe is nothing.\n\n \u2018Some hold doctrines such as these in secret, and conform outwardly,\n for fear. Others make them the pretext for every kind of vice and\n insolent insubordination. Of a truth we should cross ourselves when\n we but speak of them, as in the neighbourhood of spirits from the\n pit.\u2019\n\n \u2018And what hope,\u2019 said Tauler, \u2018of better things, while the Church is\n crowded with hirelings, and, with lust and bravery, everywhere leads\n on the world in sin?\u2019\n\n \u2018What hope, indeed!\u2019 mournfully responded Ruysbroek. \u2018The grace of\n the sacraments is shamefully bought and sold. Rich transgressors may\n live as they list. The wealthy usurer is buried before the altar,\n the bells ring, the priest declares him blessed. I declare that if\n he died in unrighteousness, not all the priests in Christendom, not\n all his hoards lavished to feed the poor, could save him from\n perdition. See, too, the monks, mendicants and all, what riches!\n what sumptuous fare! what licence, in violation of every vow! what\n odious distinctions! Some have four or five garments, another\n scarcely one. Some revel with the prior, the guardian, and the\n lector in the refectory, at a place of their own. Others must be\n content with herring and cabbage, washed down with sour beer. Little\n by little the habit is changed, black becomes brown, grey is\n exchanged for blue, the white must be of the finest stuff, the shape\n of the newest cut.\u2019\n\n \u2018This,\u2019 said Tauler, \u2018is what I so much admire in your little\n community here. You have practically abolished those mischievous\n distinctions, the cause of so much bitterness in our religious\n houses. Every one has his place, but no one is degraded. You\n yourself will perform the meanest offices, as the other morning,\n when Arnstein found you sweeping the lectorium. Yours is the true\n canonical life\u2014the life of a family. Every one is ready to do kind\n offices for his brethren, and your own example teaches daily\n forgetfulness of self.\u2019\n\n Ruysbroek looked uneasy under these praises, and they spoke again of\n the prevalent evils in the Church.[152]\n\n \u2018How many nuns have I seen,\u2019 said Ruysbroek, \u2018daintily attired, with\n silver bells to their girdles, whose prison was the cloister and\n their paradise the world! A retinue of forty reiters is a moderate\n attendance for a prelate out on a visitation. I have known some\n priests who engaged themselves as business agents to laymen; others\n who have entered the service of ladies of rank, and walked behind\n them as footmen into church. A criminal has but to pay money down,\n and he may serve the devil for another year. A trim reckoning, and\n satisfaction for all parties! The bishop gets the gold, the devil\n gets the soul, and the miserable fool the moment\u2019s pleasure of his\n lust.\u2019[153]\n\n When, one day, they were conversing on future rewards and\n punishments, I remember hearing Ruysbroek say\u2014\u2018I trust I am ready\n for all God sends me, life or death, or even hell-pains themselves.\u2019\n An attainment of virtue inconceivable to me.[154]\n\n At Gr\u00fcnthal I saw much of a lay brother named John Affliginiensis,\n the cook of the community.[155] He accompanied Ruysbroek thither.\n Though wholly unlettered, he serves daily as a goodly ensample of\n the active and contemplative life united. It is his calling to see\n to the dinners of the brethren; he is scarce less helpful to their\n devotions. That he is a good plain cook I can bear witness, and to\n the edifying character of the discourses he sometimes delivers to\n the canons, all testify. He scarcely sleeps at all, goes meanly\n clad, and eats the veriest refuse of the convent fare. He is one of\n the meekest and most humble of men\u2014has had his sore fights of\n temptation, fierce inward purgations, and also his favoured hours\n and secret revelations. Ruysbroek loves him like a brother. The\n esteem in which he is held, and the liberty of speech allowed him,\n is characteristic of the simple and brotherly spirit which dwells\n among these worthy canons. Gr\u00fcnthal is not, like so many religious\n houses, a petty image of the pettiest follies of the world. There\n they do seem to have withdrawn in spirit from the strife and pomp of\n secular life. Gladly would I spend my last years among the beeches\n and the oaks that shut in their holy peace. But while I may I must\n be doing; had my call been to the contemplative life I should have\n been moulded in another fashion.\n\n On our journey back from Louvain I had rare entertainment. We had\n scarcely passed out beyond the gates, when Tauler rode forward, in\n deep discourse with an ecclesiastic of the party. A hasty glance at\n our fellow-travellers, as we mustered at the door of the hostelry,\n had not led me to look for any company likely to eke out a day\u2019s\n travel with aught that was pleasant or of profit. But I was\n mistaken. I espied ere long, a neat, merry-looking little man, in a\n minstrel\u2019s habit, with a gittern slung at his back. To him I joined\n himself, and he, pleased evidently with the notice I took of him,\n sang me songs and told me stories all the way. He said his name was\n Muscatblut, and I was not sorry to be able to gratify him by\n answering that his fame had already reached my ears.[156] He had\n store of songs, with short and long lines curiously interwoven in a\n way of his own, a very difficult measure to write, as he assured\n me\u2014the very triumph of his heart. These love-lays he interspersed\n with riddles and rhyming proverbs, with quaint allegories, satires\n on clerks and monks, and stories about husbands and wives, making\n all within hearing roll in their saddles with laughter. He had\n likewise certain coarse songs, half amatory, half devotional, tagged\n with bits of slang and bits of Latin, about the wooing of our Lady.\n I told him, to his surprise, to stop; it was flat blasphemy. He said\n the voluptuous passages of his lay were after Frauenlob\u2019s best\n manner, and as to the sacred personages, by St. Bartholomew! many a\n holy clerk had praised that part most of all, calling it a deep\n allegory, most edifying to the advanced believer.\n\n At Cologne I parted from the Doctor with many embraces. On my way\n back to Strasburg I took boat up the Mayne to Frankfurt, whither\n business called me. We passed a little woody island in the midst of\n the river, which was pointed out to me as the residence of the\n leprous barefooted friar, whose songs and airs are so popular\n throughout the Rhineland. I looked with reverence at the melancholy\n spot. There he dwells alone, shut out from mankind, yet delighting\n and touching every heart. His songs are sweet as the old knightly\n lays of love, full of courtly grace and tenderness, and yet they are\n songs for the people from one truly of themselves. The burgher has\n his minstrelsy now, as well as the noble. This at least is a good\n sign.\n\n\n Note to page 321.\n\n\nFrom this time forward, Rulman Merswin gave himself up to the spiritual\nguidance of Nicholas the layman\u2014taking him to be to him \u2018in God\u2019s\nstead.\u2019 He took no step without his direction, and wrote at his command\nhis book entitled _Von den vier ioren sins anevohenden lebendes_\u2014a\nrecord of what may be called his spiritual apprenticeship. Nicholas took\na copy of it back with him to the Oberland. Schmidt has brought together\nwhat is known of Merswin, in the Appendix to his life of Tauler, pp.\n177, &c.\n\nThe _Book of the Nine Rocks_ was commenced in 1352. It has been\npublished in Diepenbrock\u2019s edition of the works of Suso, to whom it was,\ntill recently, attributed. The claim of Merswin to its authorship is\nestablished beyond question\u2014(Schmidt, 180). The work opens by relating\nhow, early one morning in Advent, a man (the author) was warned of God\nto prepare himself, by inward retirement, for that which He should show\nhim. He was made to behold a vision full of strange and alarming\nappearances. He cried out, \u2018Ah, my heart\u2019s Love! what meanest thou with\nthese mysterious symbols?\u2019 He struggled hard against the phantoms of his\ntrance, but the marvellous forms only multiplied the more. He was\nconstrained by a divine voice to gaze, and commanded, in spite of his\nhumble remonstrances, to write in a book what he saw\u2014the image of the\ncorruptions of Christendom, for the warning of the guilty and the\nedification of the faithful. The dialogues are given at length between\nhim and God\u2014\u2018the Man\u2019 and \u2018the Answer.\u2019 For eleven weeks, in sickness\nand spiritual distress, he wavered. He was but a poor, ignorant layman;\nhow should he presume to exhort the Church? \u2018The Voice of the Answer\u2019 is\nheard saying, \u2018Came not thy reluctance from humility, I would consign\nthee to the pit. I see I must compel thee. In the name of the Holy\nTrinity, I command thee to begin to write this day.\u2019\n\nThe souls of men proceeding from God, but few of them returning to their\nOriginal, are shown him under the similitude of multitudes of fish,\nbrought down by the descent of great waters from the summit of a\nmountain. Men in the valley are catching them in nets. Scarce half of\nthem reach the sea below. There the remnant swim in all directions, and\nat length endeavour to leap back, up to the source whence they came.\nNumbers are taken in the nets; only a few reach even the base of the\nmountain. Some who ascend higher fall back upon the rocks and die. A\nvery few, springing from rock to rock, reach exhausted, the fountain at\nthe top, and there forget their pains.\n\nThe twenty following chapters are occupied with a dialogue, in which the\ndivine Voice enumerates the characteristic sins of all classes of\nmankind, from the pope to the begging friar\u2014from the emperor to the\nserf.\n\nThen commences the vision of the Nine Rocks. A mountain, enormous in\nbreadth and height, fills all the scene. As the eye travels up the\nascent, it beholds nine steep rocks, each loftier than that which\npreceded it,\u2014the highest lost in the heavens. From the lowest the whole\nsurface of the earth is visible. A net is spread over all the region\nbeneath, but it does not reach the mountain. The multitudes seen beneath\nit are men in mortal sin. The men standing on the first and lowest rock\nare religious persons, but such as are lukewarm, defective in aspiration\nand in zeal. They dwell dangerously near the net\u2014(cap. xxiii.). Some,\nfrom the first rock, are seen making their way up the precipice, and\nreaching the second, where they become of dazzling brightness. Those on\nthe second rock have heartily forsaken the world; they will suffer less\nin purgatory, enjoy more in heaven, than those beneath; but they, too,\nare far from their Origin yet, and in danger of spiritual pride,\nself-seeking, and of growing faint and remiss in their painful\nprogress\u2014(cap. xxiv.). Those on the third rock, fewer in number,\nsuffering far more severely in time, are nearer to God, will suffer\nlittle in purgatory, and are of yet more glorious aspect than their\npredecessors\u2014(cap. xxv.). Such is the process to the summit. All the\nnine rocks must be surmounted, would we return to our Divine Source. But\nfew attain the last, which is indeed the Gate of the Origin\u2014the\nconsummate blessedness, in which the believer, fearless of hell and\npurgatory, has annihilated self, and hath no wish or will save that of\nGod. One of these true worshippers brings more blessing to Christendom\nthan thousands of such as live after their own will, and know not that\nthey are nothing.\n\nFinally, \u2018the man\u2019 is permitted a moment\u2019s glance into the Divine\n\u2018Origin.\u2019 The rapture of that moment he attempted in vain to\ndescribe;\u2014no reflection, no image, could give the least hint of it.\n\nBoth Rulman and \u2018the Friend of God in the Oberland\u2019 believed themselves\nrepeatedly warned of God in visions, that they should build a house for\nhim in Strasburg. The merchant purchased a ruined cloister on a little\nisland in the river Ill, without the city walls. He restored the church,\nand erected a stone belfry. Nicholas advised him to bestow it on the\nJohannites, in preference to any other Order,\u2014for there had been no\nlittle rivalry among the monks as to who was to enjoy the gift. The\nconditions of the deed for which he stipulated with the Master of the\nOrder are indicative of the new and more elevated position which\nmysticism had taught the laity to claim. The government of the house was\nto rest entirely with a lay triumvirate; the two survivors always to\nchoose a third. The first three governors were Rulman himself, Heinzmann\nWetzel, knight, and John Merswin, burg-graf. The admission of brethren\nrested with these heads of the house, and they were free to receive any\none, clerk or layman, knight or serving man, whether belonging to the\norder of St. John or not, requiring only that he should bring with him\nthe moderate sum requisite to render his residence no burden on the\nconvent. (Schmidt, p. 189.)\n\n\n Note to page 329.\n\n\nThe passage to which Tauler is made to refer is contained in the third\nbook of the Spiritual Nuptials, chap. 5:\u2014\u2018Ind alle die minschen die\nbouen ir geschaffenheit verhauen sin in eyn schauwende leuen, die synt\neyn mit deser gotlicher clairheit, ind sij sint die clairheit selver.\nInd sy sien ind gevoilen ind vynden sich selver ouermitz dit gotliche\nlicht, dat sy sin der selue eynveldige gront na wijse irre\nungeschaffenheit, da de clairheit sonder mias vs schynt in gotlicher\nwijsen ind na sympelheit des wesens eynueldich binnen blijfft ewelich\nsonder wise. Ind hervm soilen die innyge schauwende minschen vsgayn na\nwijse des schauwens bouen reden ind bouen vnderscheit ind bouen ir\ngeschaffen wesen mit ewigen instarren ouermitz dat ingeboiren licht, soe\nwerden sy getransformeirt ind eyn mit desem seluen licht da sy mede sien\nind dat sy sien. Ind also vervolgen die schauwende minschen ir ewich\nbilde da si zo gemacht sin ind beschauwen got ind alle dinck sonder\nvnderscheit in eyme eynveldigen sien in gotlicher clairheit. In dat is\ndat edelste ind dat vrberlichste schauwen da men zo komen mach in desem\nleuen.\u2019\u2014_Vier Schriften_, p. 144.\n\n[And all men who are exalted above their creatureliness into a\ncontemplative life are _one with this divine glory,\u2014yea, are that\nglory_. And they see, and feel, and find in themselves, by means of this\ndivine light, that they are the same simple Ground as to their uncreated\nnature (_i.e._, in respect of their ideal pre-existence in the Son),\nsince the glory shineth forth without measure, after the divine manner,\nand abideth within them simply and without mode (particular\nmanifestation or medium), according to the simplicity of the essence.\nWherefore interior contemplative men should go forth in the way of\ncontemplation above reason and distinction, beyond their created\nsubstance, and gaze perpetually by the aid of their inborn light, and so\nthey become transformed, and _one with the same light, by means of which\nthey see, and which they see_. Thus do contemplative men arrive at that\neternal image after which they were created, and contemplate God and all\nthings without distinction in a simple beholding, in divine glory. And\nthis is the loftiest and most profitable contemplation whereto men may\nattain in this life.]\n\nThis passage, and others like it, gave rise to the charge of pantheism\nbrought by Gerson against Ruysbroek in the following century. The prior\nof Gr\u00fcnthal found a defender in Sch\u00f6nhoven, who pointed with justice to\nnumerous expressions in the writings of the accused, altogether\nincompatible with the heresy alleged. Quite inconsistent with any\nconfusion of the divine and human is Ruysbroek\u2019s fine description of the\ninsatiable hunger of the soul\u2014growing by that it feeds on,\u2014the\nconsciousness that all possessed is but a drop to the illimitable\nundeemed Perfection yet beyond. (\u2018Wi leren in waerheit sijns aenschijns\ndat al dat wi gesmaken tegen dat ons ontblijft dat en is niet een draep\ntegen al die zee, dit verstormt onsen geest in hetten ende in ongeduer\nvan mynnen.\u2019\u2014_Von dem funkelnden Steine_, x. p. 194.) So again he says,\n\u2018Want wy enmogen te mael niet got werden ende onse gescapenheit\nverliesen, dat is onmoegelic\u2019\u2014p. 190; and similarly that we become one\nwith God in love, not in nature, (\u2018ouerformet ende een mit hem in sijnre\nminnen, niet in sijnre naturen.\u2019)\u2014_Spiegel der Seligkeit_, xxiv.\n\n\n Note to page 329.\n\n\nRuysbroek expressed to Gerard Groot, in these very words, his belief in\nthe special guidance of the Holy Spirit vouchsafed for the composition\nof his books on these \u2018deep things\u2019 of the kingdom. (Engelhardt, p.\n168.)\n\nThe doctrine of Ruysbroek is substantially the same with that of his\nfriend and brother-mystic, Tauler. Whether speaking the high German of\nthe upper Rhine or the low German of the Netherlands, mysticism gives\nutterance to the same complaint and the same aspiration. Ruysbroek is\nindividually less speculative than Eckart, less practical than Tauler.\nThe Flemish mystic is a more submissive son of the Church than the\nstout-hearted Dominican of Strasburg, and lays proportionally more\nstress on what is outward and institutional. He is fond of handling his\ntopics analytically. His numerous divisions and subdivisions remind us\nof the scholastic Richard of St. Victor, but Ruysbroek, less methodical\nby nature, and less disciplined, more frequently loses sight of his own\ndistinctions. The subject itself, indeed, where it possesses the writer,\nrepudiates every artificial treatment. While he specifies with\nminuteness the stages of the mystical ascent, Ruysbroek does not contend\nthat the experience of every adept in the contemplative life must follow\nthe precise order he lays down. (_Geistl. Hochzeit_, ii. \u00a7 30, p. 71.)\nHe loves to ally the distinctions he enumerates in the world of nature,\nin the operations of grace, in the heavenly state, and in the Divine\nBeing, by a relationship of correspondence. Thus the seven planets and\nthe seven gifts of the Holy Spirit answer to each other. The Empyrean in\nthe external world corresponds to Pure Being in the divine nature, to\nthe Spark of the soul in man, and to the Contemplative stage of his\nspiritual experience. This scheme of analogies, incidental in Ruysbroek\nand the earlier mystics, makes up almost the whole system of mystics\nlike Behmen and Swedenborg. His elaborate comparison of the operations\nof grace to a fountain with three streams (one of which refreshes the\nmemory, another clarifies the understanding, while a third invigorates\nthe will), resembles strikingly the fanciful method of Madame Guyon in\nher _Torrents_, and of St. Theresa in her _Degrees of Prayer_. (_Geistl.\nHochzeit_, xvii. \u00a7 36, p. 80.) The mysticism of Ruysbroek is less\nsensuous than that of the poetical Suso. Beyond question the higher\nelevation of the contemplative life must have been a welcome refuge to\nmany devout minds wearied with vain ritual, penance, and routine. As\nacknowledged contemplatists, they could escape without scandal from\ncontact with the grosser machinery of their religion. Accordingly, to\nclaim superiority to means and modes was by no means always the arrogant\npretension it may seem to us. Tauler\u2019s \u2018state above grace\u2019 was the ark\nof an unconscious Protestantism. Where the means were made the end,\nwisdom forsook them, and rejoiced to find that the name of mystic could\nshelter spirituality from the dangers of the suspected heretic.\nRuysbroek, however, felt the want of such a protection for freer\nthought, much less than did Tauler and some of his more active\nfollowers.\n\nFootnote 129:\n\n See Hecker\u2019s _Black Death_ (trans. by Dr. Babington, 1853).\u2014Hecker\n gives the documents relating to the trial of the Neustadt Jews in an\n appendix, from the _Chronicle_ of Jacob of K\u00f6nigshoven. See also pp.\n 103-127.\n\nFootnote 130:\n\n These fanatics were everywhere foremost among the instigators of the\n cruelties perpetrated on the Jews. Women, and even children, joined\n their ranks in great numbers, wearing the hats with red crosses,\n carrying flags, and scourging themselves with the rest. The\n particulars given are taken from the account in Jacob von\n K\u00f6nigshoven\u2019s _Elsassische u. Strassburgische Chronik_, inserted\n entire in Wackernagel,\u2014(p. 931). The chronicler says:\u2014\u2018Zuo Str\u00f4sburg\n kam m\u00ea denne t\u00fbsent manne in ire geselleschaft, und siu teiltent sich\n zuo Str\u00f4sburg: eine parte der geischelaere gieng das lant abe, die\n ander parte das lant \u00fbf. und kam s\u00f4 vil volkes in ire bruoderschaft,\n das es verdr\u00f4s den b\u00f4best und den keiser und die phafheit. und der\n keiser verschreip dem b\u00f4beste das er etwas hie zuo gedaechte: anders\n die geischeler verk\u00eartent alle die welt.\u2019 The Flagellants claimed\n power to confess and give absolution. The thirty-four days\u2019 scourging\n among them was to make a man as innocent as a babe\u2014the virtue of the\n lash was above all sacraments. Thus the people took religion into\n their own hands, blindly and savagely,\u2014no other way was then possible.\n It was a spasmodic movement of the mass of life beneath, when the\n social disorder that accompanied the pestilence had loosened the grasp\n of the power temporal and spiritual which held them down so long.\n\nFootnote 131:\n\n See Schmidt\u2019s _Tauler_, p. 58.\n\nFootnote 132:\n\n Laguille\u2019s _Histoire d'Alsace_, liv. xxv. p. 290.\n\nFootnote 133:\n\n Hecker, p. 81.\n\nFootnote 134:\n\n Schmidt\u2019s _Tauler_, p. 59.\n\nFootnote 135:\n\n See Note, p. 336.\n\nFootnote 136:\n\n Ruysbroek sent a copy of his book, _De ornatu spiritualium nuptiarum_,\n to the Friends of God in the Oberland. He had many friends in Cologne,\n and it is very likely that the work may have reached Tauler there,\n either through them or from the author, who must have heard of him.\n\nFootnote 137:\n\n See _Johannes Ruysbroek_, by Engelhardt, p. 168.\n\nFootnote 138:\n\n Froissart, book ii. chap. 40.\n\nFootnote 139:\n\n Froissart, chapp. 41, 42.\n\nFootnote 140:\n\n _Ibid._, book i. chap. 34.\n\nFootnote 141:\n\n Optimum aliena insania frui.\n\nFootnote 142:\n\n Engelhardt, p. 326.\n\nFootnote 143:\n\n It is certain that Ruysbroek was visited during the many years of his\n residence in Gr\u00fcnthal, much after the manner described, and also that\n Tauler was among the visitors, though the exact time of his journey is\n not known.\n\nFootnote 144:\n\n See Engelhardt, pp. 189, 288.\u2014According to Ruysbroek, the Trinitarian\n process lies at the basis of the kingdoms both of Nature and of Grace.\n There is a flowing forth and manifestation in the creative Word,\u2014a\n return and union of love by the Holy Ghost. This process goes on\n continually in the providential government of the universe, and in the\n spiritual life of believers. The upholding of the world, and the\n maintenance of the work of grace in the heart, are both in different\n ways a perpetual bringing forth of the Son, by whom all things\n consist, and who is formed in every devout soul. Ruysbroek is careful\n to state (as a _caveat_ against pantheism) that such process is no\n necessary development of the divine nature,\u2014it is the good pleasure of\n the Supreme. (See _Vier Schriften von J. Ruysbroek, in niederdeutscher\n Sprache_, by A. v. Arnswaldt; Hanover, 1848.) \u2018Wi hebben alle boven\n onse ghescapenheit een ewich leuen in gode als in onse leuende sake\n die ons ghemaect ende ghescapen heest van niete, maer wi en sijn niet\n god noch wi en hebben ons seluen niet ghemaeckt. _Wi en sijn ooc niet\n wt gode ghevloten van naturen_, maer want ons god ewelijc ghevoelt\n heest ende bekent in hem seluen, so heest hi ons ghemaeckt, niet van\n naturen noch van node, _maer van vriheit sijns willen_,\u2019\u2014p. 291.\n (_Spiegel der Seligkeit_, xvii.)\n\n The bosom of the Father, he says, is our proper ground and origin (der\n schois des vaders is onse eygen gront ind onse oirsprunck); we have\n all, therefore, the capacity for receiving God, and His grace enables\n us to recognise and realise this latent possibility (offenbairt ind\n brengit vort die verboirgenheit godes in wijsen),\u2014p. 144.\n\nFootnote 145:\n\n Engelhardt, pp. 183, 186. Ruysbroek speaks as follows of that\n fundamental tendency godward of which he supposes prevenient grace\n (vurloiffende gracie) to lay hold:\u2014\u2018Ouch hait der mynsche eyn\n naturlich gront neygen zo gode overmitz den voncken der sielen ind die\n overste reden die altzijt begert dat goide ind hasset dat quaide. Mit\n desen punten voirt got alle mynschen na dat sijs behoeven ind\n ecklichen na sinre noit,\u2019 &c.\u2014_Geistl. Hochzeit_, cap. 3.\n\n Ruysbroek lays great stress on the exercise of the will. \u2018Ye are as\n holy as ye truly will to be holy,\u2019 said he one day to two\n ecclesiastics, inquiring concerning growth in grace. It is not\n difficult to reconcile such active effort with the passivity of\n mysticism. The mystics all say, \u2018We strive towards virtue by a\n strenuous use of the _gifts_ which God communicates, but when God\n communicates _Himself_, then we can be only passive\u2014we repose, we\n enjoy, but all operation ceases.\u2019\n\nFootnote 146:\n\n Engelhardt, pp. 195, 199.\n\nFootnote 147:\n\n Engelhardt, pp. 201, 213. In the season of spiritual exaltation, the\n powers of the soul are, as it were, absorbed in absolute essential\n enjoyment (staen ledich in een weselic gebrucken). But they are not\n annihilated, for then we should lose our creatureliness.\u2014Mer si en\n werden niet te niete, want soe verloeren wy onse gescapenheit. Ende\n alsoe lange als wy mit geneichden geeste ende mit apen ogen sonder\n merken ledich staen, alsoe lange moegen wy schouwen ende gebruken. Mer\n in den seluen ogenblijc dat wy proeven ende merken willen wat dat is\n dat wy geuoelen, so vallen wy in reden, ende dan vynden wy onderscheit\n ende anderheit tusschen ons ende gade, ende dan vynden wy gade buten\n ons in onbegripelicheiden.\u2014_Von dem funkelnden Steine_, x.\n\nFootnote 148:\n\n See first Note, p. 338.\n\nFootnote 149:\n\n See second Note, p. 338.\n\nFootnote 150:\n\n Engelhardt, p. 225. Schmidt\u2019s _Tauler_, p. 61.\u2014The same doctrine which\n furnished a sanctuary for the devotion of purer natures supplied also\n an excuse for the licence of the base. Wilful perversion, or mere\n ignorance, or some one of the manifold combinations of these two\n factors, would work the mystical exhortation into some such result as\n that denounced by Ruysbroek. We may imagine some bewildered man as\n speaking thus within himself:\u2014\u2018So we are to covet ignorance, to\n surmount distinctions, to shun what is clear or vivid as mediate and\n comparatively carnal, to transcend means and bid farewell to the\n wisdom of the schools. Wise and devout men forsake all their learning,\n forget their pious toil and penance, to lose themselves in that ground\n in which we are united to God,\u2014to sink into vague abstract confusion.\n But may I not do at first what they do at last? Why take in only to\n take out? I am empty already. Thank heaven! I haven\u2019t a distinct idea\n in my head.\u2019\n\n It is so that the popular mind is sure to travesty the\n ultra-refinements of philosophy.\n\nFootnote 151:\n\n Engelhardt, pp. 224-228.\u2014Eckart, like Hegel, would seem to have left\n behind him a right-hand and a left-hand party,\u2014admirers like Suso and\n Tauler, who dropped his extreme points and held by such saving clauses\n as they found; and headstrong spirits, ripe for anarchy, like these\n New-Lights or High-Fliers, the representatives of mysticism run to\n seed. Ruysbroek\u2019s classification of them is somewhat artificial;\n fanaticism does not distribute itself theologically. In the treatise\n entitled _Spiegel der Seligkeit_, \u00a7 16, he describes them generally as\n follows:\u2014\u2018Ander quade duulische menschen vint men, die segghen dat si\n selue Cristus sijn of dat si god sijn, ende dat haer hant hemel ende\n erde ghemaect heest, ende dat an haer hant hanghet hemel ende erde\n ende alle dinc, ende dat si verheuen sijn boven alle die sacramenten\n der heiligher kerken, ende dat si der niet en behoeuen noch si en\n willen der ooc niet.\u2019 He represents their claim to identity with God\n as leading to a total moral indifference (\u00a7 17):\u2014\u2018Ende sulke wanen god\n sijn, ende si en achten gheen dinc goet noch quaet, in dien dat si hem\n ontbeelden connen ende in bloter ledicheit haer eighen wesen vinden\n ende besitten moghen.\u2019 Their idea of the consummation of all things\n savours of the Parisian heresy\u2014the offspring of John Scotus,\n popularised by David of Dinant and his followers. The final\n restitution is to consist in the resolution of all creatures into the\n Divine Substance:\u2014\u2018So spreken si voort dat in den lesten daghe des\n ordels enghele ende duuele, goede ende quade, dese sullen alle werden\n _een eenvoudighe substancie der godheit_ ... ende na dan, spreken si\n voort, en sal god bekennen noch minnen hem seluen noch ghene\n creature\u2019\u2014(\u00a7 16).\n\nFootnote 152:\n\n Engelhardt, pp. 326-336.\u2014Good Ruysbroek was fully entitled to the\n encomium placed in the mouth of Tauler. He himself, like Bernard,\n would frequently perform the meanest offices of the cloister. The\n happy spirit of brotherhood which prevailed among the canons of\n Gr\u00fcnthal made a deep impression on that laborious practical reformer,\n Gerard Groot, when, in 1378, he visited the aged prior. What he then\n saw was not without its influence in the formation of that community\n with which his name is associated\u2014the Brethren of the Common Life.\u2014See\n Ullmann, _Reformatoren vor der Reformation_, vol. ii.\n\nFootnote 153:\n\n Engelhardt, p. 330.\u2014Ruysbroek inveighs with much detail against the\n vanities of female dress\u2014as to those hair-pads, sticking up like great\n horns, they are just so many \u2018devil\u2019s nests.\u2019\n\nFootnote 154:\n\n Ruysbroek expressed himself in these words to Gerard Groot\n (Engelhardt, p. 168). In his touching description of the \u2018desolation\u2019\n endured by the soul on its way upward toward the \u2018super-essential\n contemplation,\u2019 he makes the sufferer say,\u2014\u2018O Lord, since I am thine\n (want ich din eygen bin), I would as soon be in hell as in heaven, if\n such should be thy good pleasure; only do thy glorious will with me, O\n Lord!\u2018\u2014_Geistl. Hochzeit_, \u00a7 30. Ruysbroek, like F\u00e9nelon, abandons\n himself thus only on the supposition that even in hell he should still\n retain the divine favour;\u2014so impossible after all is the absolute\n disinterestedness toward which Quietism aspires. The Flemish mystic\n distinguishes between the servants of God, the friends, and the sons.\n Those worshippers who stand in the relation of friends have still\n something of their own (besitten oer inwendichkeit mit eygenscap) in\n their love to God. The sons ascend, \u2018dying-wise,\u2019 to an absolute\n emptiness. The friends still set value on divine bestowments and\n experiences; the sons are utterly dead to self, in bare modeless love\n (in bloeter, wiseloeser mynnen). Yet, very inconsistently, he\n represents the sons as more assured of eternal life than the friends.\n (_Von dem funkelnden Steine_, \u00a7 8.)\n\nFootnote 155:\n\n A veritable personage. He died in 1377, and left behind him a book\n recording the conflicts he underwent and the revelations vouchsafed\n him. (Engelhardt, p. 326.)\n\nFootnote 156:\n\n The lyrics of Muscatblut are characterised by Gervinus (ii. p. 225),\n and the same authority gives some account, from the _Limburg\n Chronicle_, of the famous friar, leper, and poet mentioned by\n Arnstein.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER VIII.\n\n\n Unde planctus et lamentum?\n Quid mentem non erigis?\n Quid revolvis monumentum?\n Tecum est quem diligis;\n Jesum qu\u00e6ris, et inventum\n Habes, nec intelligis.\n\n Unde gemis, unde ploras?\n Verum habes gaudium.\n In te latet quod ignoras\n Doloris solatium.\n Intus habes, qu\u00e6ris foras\n Languoris remedium.[157]\n\n HYMN OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.\n\n Vivo sin vivir mi,\n Y tan alta vida espero\n Que muero porque no muero.[158]\n\n ST. THERESA.\n\n\nOn the next evening Atherton resumed his reading as follows:\u2014\n\n\n _Chronicle of Adolph Arnstein, continued._\n\n\n 1354. _March. St. Brigitta\u2019s Day._\u2014A fortnight ago this day, there\n came to me, to buy as goodly a battle-axe as could be made, young\n Sir Ulric\u2014the same who, at the tourney the other day, graced his\n new-won spurs by such gallant feats of arms. We fell into talk about\n the great floods which have everywhere wrought of late such loss of\n life, and cattle, and husbandry. He said he had but the day before\n saved the life of a monk who, with his companion, had been carried\n beyond his depth by the force of the water, as they were wading\n across the fields.\n\n \u2018The one most in danger,\u2019 said Ulric, \u2018had a big book in his bosom.\n As he flounders about, out tumbles the book; he lets go his staff,\n and makes after it; and souse he goes, over head and ears in a\n twinkling. The other stands stock still, and bawls out to me for\n help. I, just sworn to succour the distressed and be true to the\n Church, spur Roland, plunge in, and lift out the draggled, streaming\n father by the hood, half throttled and half drowned, but clutching\n the book in his frozen fingers as though it were a standard or a\n fair lady\u2019s token. I lay him before me across my horse; his fellow\n catches hold of my stirrup, and we land on the rising ground. When\n my monk had somewhat come to himself, he pours as many blessings on\n my head as there were drops running from his habit; not, he said,\n for saving his poor life merely, but that the book was safe. He had\n just finished writing it\u2014there was not another copy in the world\u2014the\n devil had an especial spite against it\u2014no doubt the fiend had raised\n the waters to destroy the seed which fed men\u2019s souls as well as the\n grain which nourished their bodies; but the faithful God had sent\n me, like his angel, just in time for rescue. I saw them in safety,\n and he promised to remember me in his orisons. His name, I think he\n said, was Seusse or Suso.\u2019[159]\n\n So Suso is in Strasburg, thought I,\u2014the man I have long wished to\n see. I lost no time in inquiring after him at the Dominican convent.\n There I found, with no small satisfaction, that he was none the\n worse for his mishap; saw him several times, and persuaded him, at\n last, to honour for a few days my unworthy roof. He has been with us\n for a week, but must pursue his journey to-morrow. On my part, I\n could tell him news about Ruysbroek, and Tauler, and some of his old\n friends at Cologne. On his, he has won the love of all the household\n by his gentle, affectionate nature, blessed us by his prayers, and\n edified every heart by his godly conversation. My good wife would\n love him, if for nothing else, because he so loves the little ones.\n They love him because he always goes with them to feed the old\n falcon, and to throw out crumbs for the sparrows, because he joins\n them in petting Argus, and talks so sweetly about the Virgin and\n Child, and the lilies and violets and roses, and the angels with\n gold-bright wings that live in heaven. Those three tall fellows, my\n boys, fonder of sword-play, wrestling, and camping the bar, than of\n churchmen or church-going, will listen to him by the hour, while he\n tells of his visions, his journeys, his dangers, and his\n deliverances. Rulman Merswin also came over and spent two evenings\n with us. He talked much with Suso about Master Eckart. Suso was full\n of reminiscences and anecdotes about him. In his youthful days he\n had been his disciple at Cologne.\n\n \u2018At one time,\u2019 said Suso, \u2018I was for ten years in the deepest\n spiritual gloom. I could not realize the mysteries of the faith. A\n decree seemed to have gone forth against me, and I thought I was\n lost. My cries, my tears, my penance,\u2014all were vain. I bethought me\n at last of consulting my old teacher, left my cell, sailed down the\n Rhine, and at Cologne the Lord gave to the words of the master such\n power that the prison-doors were opened, and I stepped out into the\n sunshine once more. Neither did his counsel cease with life. I saw\n him in a vision, not long after his death. He told me that his place\n was in the ineffable glory, and that his soul was divinely\n transformed in God. I asked him, likewise, several questions about\n heavenly things, which he graciously answered, strengthening me not\n a little in the arduous course of the inner life of\n self-annihilation. I have marvelled often that any, having tasted of\n the noble wine of his doctrine, should desire any of my poor\n vintage.\u2019[160]\n\n In talking with the brethren at the convent, while Suso was their\n guest, I heard many things related concerning him altogether new to\n me. I was aware that he had been greatly sought after as a preacher\n in German throughout the Rhineland, and stood high in the esteem of\n holy men as a wise and tender-hearted guide of souls. That he was an\n especial friend of the Friends of God wherever he found them, I\n knew. When at Cologne I heard Tauler praise a book of his which he\n had in his possession, called the _Horologe of Wisdom_.[161]\n Something of the fame of his austerities, conflicts, and\n revelations, had come to my ears, but the half had not been told me.\n\n It seems that his life, from his eighteenth to his fortieth year,\n was one long self-torture. The Everlasting Wisdom (who is a tree of\n life to them that lay hold upon her, more precious than rubies, and\n with whom are durable riches and righteousness) manifested herself\n to him. This was his call to the spiritual life. He seemed to behold\n her\u2014a maiden, bright as the sun,\u2014her crown, eternity;\u2014her raiment,\n blessedness;\u2014her words, sweetness; unknown, and yet well known;\n near, and yet afar off; smiling on him, and saying, \u2018My son, give me\n thine heart!\u2019 From that time forth he dedicated his life to her\n service. He called himself the servant of the Eternal Wisdom, armed\n his soul as her knight, wooed her as his heart\u2019s queen, bore without\n a murmur the lover\u2019s pangs of coyness, doubt, and distance, with all\n the hidden martyrdom of spiritual passion.[162]\n\n But the rose of his love, as he is wont to term it, had fearful\n thorns. I heard with a shudder of what he underwent that he might\n crush to death his naturally active, buoyant, impulsive temperament.\n Day and night he wore a close-fitting shirt in which were a hundred\n and fifty sharp nails, the points turned inward on the flesh. In\n this he lay writhing, like a mangled worm; and lest in his sleep he\n should find some easier posture, or relieve with his hands in any\n way the smart and sting that, like a nest of vipers, gnawed him\n everywhere, he had leather gloves made, covered with sharp blades,\n so that every touch might make a wound. Time after time were the old\n scars opened into new gashes. His body appeared like that of one who\n has escaped, half dead, from the furious clutches of a bear. This\n lasted sixteen years, till a vision bade him cease.\n\n Never satisfied with suffering, he devised a new kind of discipline.\n He fashioned a wooden cross, with thirty nails whose points stood\n out beyond the wood, and this he wore between his shoulders\n underneath his garments, till his back was one loathly sore. To the\n thirty nails he added afterwards seven more, in honour of the\n sorrows of the Mother of God. When he would administer the\n discipline, he struck a blow on this cross with his fist, driving\n the points into his wounded flesh. He made himself, moreover, a\n scourge, one of the iron tags of which was bent like a fisher\u2019s\n hook, and with this he lashed himself till it broke in his hand. For\n many years he lay at nights in a miserable hole he called his cell,\n with an old door for his bed, and in the depth of winter thought it\n sin to approach the stove for warmth. His convent lay on a little\n island where the Rhine flows out of the Lake of Constance. He could\n see the sparkling water on every side. His wounds filled him with\n feverish thirst; yet he would often pass the whole day without\n suffering a drop to moisten his lips. His recompence was the vision\n in which, at one time, the Holy Child brought him a vessel of\n spring-water; and, at another, Our Blessed Lady gave him to drink\n from her own heart. Such, they tell me, was his life till his\n fortieth year, when it was signified to him that he should remit\n these terrible exercises. He is now, I believe, little more than\n fifty years old\u2014the mere wreck of a man to look at; but with such\n life and energy of spirit that, now he hath begun to live more like\n other people, he may have a good thirty years before him still.[163]\n\n I questioned him about his book called the _Horologe of Wisdom_, or\n _Book of the Eternal Wisdom_, for it hath gone abroad under both\n names. He said it was finished in the year 1340, since which time he\n hath written sundry other pieces. He declared to me that he wrote\n that treatise only in his most favoured moments, himself ignorant\n and passive, but under the immediate impulse and illumination of the\n Divine Wisdom. He afterwards carefully examined all he had written,\n to be sure that there was nothing in his pages other than the holy\n Fathers had taught, and the Church received.[164] Methought, if he\n was sure of his inspiration, he might have spared himself this pain,\n unless the Holy Spirit could in some sort gainsay his own words.\n\n He is strongly moved by music,\u2014but what must have been his rapture\n to hear the hymns of the heavenly host! He has seen himself\n surrounded by the choir of seraphim and cherubim. He has heard a\n voice of thrilling sweetness lead the response, \u2018Arise and shine,\n Jerusalem,\u2019 and has wept in his cell with joy to hear from angels\u2019\n lips, at early dawn, the soaring words, \u2018Mary, the morning star, is\n risen to-day.\u2019 Many a time has he seen a heavenly company sent down\n to comfort him. They have taken him by the hand, and he has joined\n in spirit in their dance,\u2014that celestial dance, which is a blissful\n undulation to and fro in the depths of the divine glory. One day,\n when thus surrounded in vision, he asked a shining prince of heaven\n to show him the mode in which God had His secret dwelling in his\n soul. Then answered the angel, \u2018Take a gladsome look into thine\n inmost, and see how God in thy loving soul playeth His play of\n love.\u2019 Straightway (said Suso to me) I looked, and behold the body\n about my heart was clear as crystal, and I saw the Eternal Wisdom\n calmly sitting in my heart in lovely wise: and, close by that form\n of beauty, my soul, leaning on God, embraced by His arm, pressed to\n His heart, full of heavenly longing, transported, intoxicated with\n love![165]\n\n We were talking one evening of May-day eve, and asking Suso wherein\n their custom of celebrating that festival differed from our own. He\n said that in Suabia the youths went out, much in our fashion,\n singing songs before the houses of the maidens they loved, and\n craving from them garlands in honour of the May. He told us how he,\n in like manner, besought Our Lady with prayers and tears that he\n might have a garland from her Son, the Eternal Wisdom. It was his\n wont, he said, to set up a spiritual May-pole\u2014the holy cross, that\n May-bough of the soul, blossoming with grace and beauty. \u2018Before\n this,\u2019 he continued, \u2018I performed six venias,[166] and sung the\n hymn, \u2018Hail, holy cross!\u2019 thereafter praising God somewhat thus:\u2014\n\n \u2018Hail! heavenly May of the Eternal Wisdom, whose fruit is\n everlasting joy. First, to honour thee, I bring thee, to-day, for\n every red rose a heart\u2019s love; then, for every little violet a lowly\n inclination; next, for every tender lily, a pure embrace; for every\n bright flower ever born or to be born of May, on heath or grassplot,\n wood or field, tree or meadow, my heart doth bring thee a spiritual\n kiss; for every happy song of birds that ever sang in the kindly\n May, my soul would give thee praises inexhaustible; for every grace\n that ever graced the May, my heart would raise thee a spiritual\n song, and pray thee, O thou blest soul\u2019s May! to help me so to\n glorify thee in my little time below, that I may taste thy living\n fruit for evermore above!\u2018[167]\n\n The beginning of a new stage of trial was made known to him by the\n appearance, in a vision, of an angel, bringing him the attire and\n the shoes of a knight. With these he was to gird himself for new and\n yet more terrible conflicts. Concerning his own austerities he never\n speaks, nor does he show to any one the letters of the name of\n Jesus, which he is said to have cut with a style upon his bosom. But\n of the sufferings which came upon him from without, he talks freely.\n At one time, when in Flanders, he was brought before the chapter on\n a charge of heresy; but his enemies gained not their wicked\n end.[168] He was in greatest danger of his life shortly before the\n coming of the plague, when the fearful rumour was abroad about the\n poisoning of the wells. He himself told me the story, as follows:\u2014\n\n \u2018I was once despatched on a journey in the service of the convent,\n and they gave me as my companion a half-witted lay-brother. We had\n not been many days on the road, when, one morning, having early left\n our quarters for the night, we arrived, after a long, hungry walk\n through the rain, at a village on the banks of the Rhine. It\n happened to be the fair-time. The street was full of booths and\n stalls, horses and cattle, country-folk, players, pedlers, and idle\n roystering soldiers. My fellow-traveller, Peter, catches sight of a\n sign, and turns in straightway to warm himself at the fire, telling\n me I can go on, do what I have to do, and I shall find him there. As\n I learnt after, he sits himself down to table with a ruffianly set\n of drovers and traders that had come to the fair, who first of all\n make him half-drunk, and then seize him, and swear he has stolen a\n cheese. At this moment there come in four or five troopers, hardened\n fellows, ripe for any outrage, who fall on him also, crying, \u2018The\n scoundrel monk is a poisoner.\u2019 The clamour soon gathers a crowd.\n\n \u2018When Peter sees matters at this pass, he piteously cries out to\n them to loose him, and stand still and listen: he will confess\n everything. With that they let go their hold, and he, standing\n trembling in the midst of them, begins: \u2018Look at me, sirs,\u2014you see I\n am a fool; they call me silly, and nobody cares for what I say: but\n my companion, he is a wise man, so our Order has given him the\n poison-bag, and he is to poison all the springs between here and\n Alsace. He is gone now to throw some into the spring here, to kill\n every one that is come to the fair. That is why I stayed here, and\n would not go with him. You may be sure that what I say is true, for\n you will see him when he comes with a great wallet full of bags of\n poison and gold pieces, which he and the Order have received from\n the Jews for this murderous business.\u2019\n\n \u2018At these words they all shouted, \u2018After the murderer! Stop him!\n Stop him!\u2019 One seized a spear, another an axe, others the first tool\n or weapon they could lay hands on, and all hurried furiously from\n house to house, and street to street, breaking open doors,\n ransacking closets, stabbing the beds, and thrusting in the straw\n with their swords, till the whole fair was in an uproar. Some\n friends of mine, who heard my name mentioned, assured them of my\n innocence of such an abominable crime, but to no purpose. At last,\n when they could nowhere find me, they carried Peter off to the\n bailiff, who shut him up in the prison.\n\n \u2018When I came back to the inn, knowing nothing of all this, the host\n told me what had befallen Peter, and how this evil rumour had\n stirred up the whole fair against me. I hastened off to the bailiff\n to beg Peter\u2019s release. He refused. I spent nearly the whole day in\n trying to prevail with him, and in going about in vain to get bail.\n At last, about vesper time, with a heavy sum of gulden I opened the\n heart of the bailiff and the doors of the jail.\n\n \u2018Then my greatest troubles began. As I passed through the village,\n hoping to escape unknown, I was recognised by some of the mob, and\n in a moment they were swarming about me. \u2018Down with the poisoner!\u2019\n they cried. \u2018His gold shall not serve him with us as it did with the\n bailiff.\u2019 I ran a little way, but they closed me in again, some\n saying, \u2018Drown him in the Rhine;\u2019 others answering, \u2018No, burn him!\n he\u2019ll poison the whole river if you throw him in.\u2019 Then I saw\n (methinks I see him now) a gigantic peasant in a russet jerkin,\n forcing his way through the crowd, with a pike in his hand. Seizing\n me by the throat with one hand, and flourishing the pike in the\n other, he shouted, \u2018Hear me, all of you. Let me spit him with my\n long pike, like a poisonous toad, and then plant it in this stout\n hedge here, and let the caitiff howl and twist in the air till his\n soul goes home to the devil. Then every one that goes by will see\n his withered carcass, rotting and wasting, and sink him deeper down\n in hell with curses. Come on,\u2014it serves him right.\u2019\n\n \u2018My brain swam round. I closed my eyes. I expected the next instant\n to feel the iron. By some merciful interposition, the wretch was not\n suffered to execute his purpose. I thought I saw some of the better\n sort looking on with horror-stricken faces, but they dared not\n interfere. The women shrieked and wrung their hands. I made my way\n from one to another of those who seemed least pitiless, beseeching\n them to save me. Heaven must have heard my cries, though man did\n not. They stood round watching me, disputing with horrid oaths among\n themselves what they should do. At length\u2014as I had sunk on my knees\n under the hedge, praying for deliverance\u2014I saw a priest, more like\n an angel than a man, mightily thrusting them from side to side, and\n when he reached me, laying his hand on my arm, he looked round on\n the ring of savage faces, and threatened them with the hottest\n curses of the Church if they harmed a hair upon the head of her\n servant; outvoiced their angry cries with loud rebukes of their\n cowardice, cruelty, and sacrilege, and led me out safely through\n them all. He brought me to his house, made fast the doors, refreshed\n and sheltered me for the night, and by the earliest dawn I was away\n and safe upon my journey, while that abode of the wicked was sunk in\n its drunken sleep. I keep the anniversary of that dreadful day, and\n never shall I cease to praise the goodness which answered my prayer\n in the hour of need, and delivered me as a bird from the snare of\n the fowler.[169]\n\n \u2018On one other occasion only,\u2019 continued Suso, \u2018did I taste so nearly\n the bitterness of death.\u2019\n\n We begged him to tell us the adventure, and so he did, somewhat\n thus\u2014\n\n \u2018I was once on my way home from Flanders, travelling up the Rhine. A\n great feebleness and sickness had been upon me for some days, so\n that I could not walk fast, and my companion, young and active, had\n gone on about two miles ahead. I entered an old forest whose trees\n overhung the steep river bank. It was evening, and it seemed to grow\n dark in a moment as I entered the chilling shadow of a wood, in\n which many a defenceless passenger had been robbed and slain. I had\n gone on deeper and deeper into the growing gloom, the wind among the\n pines sounding like a hungry sea. The fall of my own footsteps\n seemed like the tread of one coming after me. I stood still and\n hearkened. It was no one; when suddenly I saw, not far off among the\n trees, two persons, a man and a woman, talking together and watching\n me. I trembled in every limb, but I made the sign of the cross, and\n passed on. Soon I heard quick footsteps behind me. I turned\u2014it was\n the woman. She was young and fair to look on. She asked my name, and\n when she learnt it, said she knew and reverenced me greatly, told me\n how that robber with whom I saw her had forced her to become his\n wife, and prayed me there and then to hear her confession.\n\n \u2018When I had shriven her, think how my fear was heightened to see her\n go back and talk long and earnestly with the robber, whose brow grew\n dark, as he left her without a word, and advanced gloomily towards\n where I stood. It was a narrow pathway; on the one side the forest,\n on the other the precipice, sheer down to the rapid river. Alas,\n thought I, as my heart sank within me, now I am lost. I have not\n strength to flee: no one will hear a cry for help: he will slay me,\n and hide the body in the wood. All was still. I listened in vain for\n the sound of a boat, a voice, or even the bark of a dog. I only\n heard the feet of the outlaw and the violent beating of my own\n heart. But, lo! when he approached me, he bowed his knee, and began\n to confess. Blessed Mary, what a black catalogue! While he spake I\n heard, motionless, every word of the horrible recital, and yet I was\n all the time listening for rescue, watching his face, and minutely\n noting every little thing about his person. I remember the very\n graining of the wood of his lance which he laid aside on the grass\n when he knelt to me\u2014the long knife in his belt\u2014his frayed black\n doublet\u2014his rough red hair, growing close down to his shaggy\n eyebrows\u2014two great teeth that stood out like tusks\u2014and his hands\n clasped, covered with warts, and just the colour of the roots of the\n tree by which I stood. Even during those fearful moments, I can call\n to mind distinctly how I marked a little shining insect that was\n struggling among the blades of grass, climbing over a knot of wood,\n and that got upon a fir-cone and fell off upon its back.\n\n \u2018After revealing to me crimes that made my blood run cold, he went\n on to say, \u2018I was once in this forest, just about this hour of the\n day, on the look-out for booty as I was this evening, when I met a\n priest, to whom I confessed myself. He was standing just where you\n are now, and when my shrift was ended, I drew out this knife,\n stabbed him to the heart, and rolled his body down there into the\n Rhine.\u2019 When I heard this, the cold sweat burst out upon my face; I\n staggered back giddy, almost senseless, against the tree. Seeing\n this, the woman ran up, and caught me in her arms, saying, \u2018Good\n sir, fear nothing, he will not kill you.\u2019 Whereat the murderer said,\n \u2018I have heard much good of you, and that shall save your life\n to-day. Pray for me, good father, that, through you, a miserable\n sinner may find mercy in his last hour.\u2019 At this I breathed again,\n and promised to do as he would have me. Then we walked on some way\n together, till they parted from me, and I reached the skirts of the\n wood, where sat my companion waiting. I could just stagger up to\n him, and then fell down at his side, shivering like a man with the\n ague. After some time I arose, and we went on our way. But I failed\n not, with strong inward groaning, to plead with the Lord for the\n poor outlaw, that he might find grace and escape damnation. And, in\n sooth, I had so strong an assurance vouchsafed to me of God, that I\n could not doubt of his final salvation.\u2019\n\n With stories such as these of what befel himself, and many others,\n whom he knew in Suabia and the Oberland, or met with on his\n journeys, the holy man whiled away our windy March nights by the\n ingle. Very edifying it was to hear him and Rulman Merswin talk\n together about the higher experiences of the inward life.\n\n Concerning the stages thereof, Suso said that the first consisted in\n turning away from the world and the lusts of the flesh to God: the\n second, in patient endurance of all that is contrary to flesh and\n blood, whether inflicted of God or man: the third, in imitating the\n sufferings of Christ, and forming ourselves after his sweet\n doctrine, gracious walk, and pure life. After this, the soul must\n withdraw itself into a profound stillness, as if the man were dead,\n willing and purposing nought but the glory of Christ and our\n heavenly Father, and with a right lowly demeanour toward friend and\n foe. Then the spirit, thus advanced in holy exercise, arriveth at\n freedom from the outward senses, before so importunate; and its\n higher powers lose themselves in a supernatural sensibility. Here\n the spirit parts with its natural properties, presses within the\n circle which represents the eternal Godhead, and reaches spiritual\n perfection. It is made free by the Son in the Son.\n\n \u2018This I call,\u2019 he said, \u2018the transit of the soul,\u2014it passes beyond\n time and space, and is, with an amorous inward intuition, dissolved\n in God. This entrance of the soul banishes all forms, images, and\n multiplicity; it is ignorant of itself and of all things; it hovers,\n reduced to its essence, in the abyss of the Trinity. At this\n elevation there is no effort, no struggle; the beginning and the end\n are one.[170] Here the Divine Nature doth, as it were, embrace, and\n inwardly kiss through and through, the soul; that they may be for\n ever one.[171] He who is thus received into the Eternal Nothing is\n in the Everlasting Now, and hath neither before nor after. Rightly\n hath St. Dionysius said that God is Non-being\u2014that is, above all our\n notions of being.[172] We have to employ images and similitudes, as\n I must do in seeking to set forth these truths, but know that all\n such figures are as far below the reality as a blackamoor is unlike\n the sun.[173] In this absorption whereof I speak, the soul is still\n a creature, but, at the time, hath no thought whether it be creature\n or no.\u2019[174]\n\n Suso repeated several times this saying\u2014\u2018A man of true\n self-abandonment must be _un_built from the creature, _in_-built\n with Christ, and _over_-built into the Godhead.\u2019[175]\n\n We bid adieu with much regret to this excellent man, and his visit\n will abide long in our memory. We drew from him a half promise that\n he would come to see us yet again.\n\n _May, 1354._\u2014Oh, most happy May! My brother Otto hath returned,\n after trading to and fro so long in foreign parts. He is well and\n wealthy, and will venture forth no more. What store of marvellous\n tales hath he about the East! What hairs-breadth escapes to relate,\n and what precious and curious things to show! Verily, were I to\n write down here all he hath to tell of, I might be writing all my\n days.\n\n Only one thing will I note, while I think of it. He visited Mount\n Athos, now fourteen years ago: he described to me the beauty of the\n mountain, with its rich olives and lovely gardens, and the whole\n neighourhood studded with white convents and hermitages of holy men.\n Some of the monasteries were on rocks so steep that he had to be\n drawn up by a rope in a basket to enter them. The shrines were\n wondrous rich with gold and silver and precious stones. But nowhere,\n he said, was he more martyred by fleas. When he was there, a new\n doctrine or practice which had sprung up among the monks (taught, it\n is said, by a certain Abbot Simeon), was making no small stir. There\n was to be a synod held about it at that time in Constantinople. It\n seems that some of the monks (called, if I mistake not, Hesychasts)\n held that if a man shut himself up in a corner of his cell, with his\n chin upon his breast, turning his thoughts inward, gazing towards\n his navel, and centering all the strength of his mind on the region\n of the heart; and, not discouraged by at first perceiving only\n darkness, held out at this strange inlooking for several days and\n nights, he would at length behold a divine glory, and see himself\n luminous with the very light which was manifested on Mount Tabor.\n They call these devotees Navel-contemplators. A sorry business! All\n the monks, for lack of aught else to do, were by the ears about\n it,\u2014either trying the same or reviling it.[176]\n\n Methought if our heretics have their extravagances and utmost\n reaches of mystical folly here, there are some worse still among\n those lazy Greeks.\n\nKATE. And is that the end of Arnstein\u2019s journal?\n\nATHERTON. No more has come down to posterity.\n\nMRS. ATHERTON. That last piece of news from Mount Athos seems quite\nfamiliar to me. I have just been reading Curzon\u2019s _Monasteries of the\nLevant_, and thanks to him, I can imagine the scenery of the mountain\nand its neighourhood: the Byzantine convents, with their many little\nwindows rounded at the top, the whole structure full of arches and\ndomes,\u2014the little farms interspersed, with their white square towers and\ncottages of stone at the foot,\u2014the forests of gigantic plane trees, with\nan underwood of aromatic evergreens,\u2014flowers like those in the\nconservatory everywhere growing wild,\u2014waterfalls at the head of every\nvalley, dashing down over marble rocks,\u2014and the bells, heard tinkling\nevery now and then, to call the monks to prayer.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. The crass stupidity of those Omphalopsychi shows how little\nmere natural beauty can contribute to refine and cultivate,\u2014at any rate\nwhen the pupils are ascetics. The contemporary mysticism of the East\nlooks mean enough beside the speculation, the poetry, and the action of\nthe German mystics of the fourteenth century. It is but the motionless\nabstraction of the Indian Yogi over again.\n\nATHERTON. Yet you will be unjust to the Greek Church (which has little\nenough to boast of) if you reckon this gross materialist Quietism as the\nonly specimen of mysticism she has to show during this period. There was\na certain Cabasilas, Archbishop of Thessalonica,[177] a contemporary of\nour German friends, an active man in the political and religious\nmovements of the time, whose writings exhibit very fairly the better\ncharacteristics of Byzantine mysticism. His earnest practical devotion\nrests on the basis of the traditional sacerdotalism, but he stands\nbetween the extremes of the objective and the subjective mysticism,\nthough naturally somewhat nearer to the former. He presents, however,\nnothing original to detain us;\u2014so let us away to supper.\n\n\n Note to page 354.\n\n\nThe following passage, placed in the mouth of the Everlasting Wisdom may\nserve as a further specimen of the sensuous and florid cast of Suso\u2019s\nlanguage:\u2014\n\n\u2018I am the throne of joy, I am the crown of bliss. Mine eyes are so\nbright, my mouth so tender, my cheeks so rosy-red, and all my form so\nwinning fair, that were a man to abide in a glowing furnace till the\nLast Day, it would be a little price for a moment\u2019s vision of my beauty.\nBehold! I am so beauteously adorned with a robe of glory, so delicately\narrayed in all the blooming colours of the living flowers\u2014red roses,\nwhite lilies, lovely violets, and flowers of every name, that the fair\nblossoms of all Mays, and the tender flowerets of all sunny fields, and\nthe sweet sprays of all bright meadows, are but as a rugged thistle\nbeside my loveliness.\u2019 (Then he breaks into verse):\u2014\n\n \u2018I play in the Godhead the play of joy,\n And gladden the angel host on high\n With a sweetness such that a thousand years\n Like a vanishing hour of time run by.\n\n\u2018... Happy he who shall share the sweet play, and tread at my side the\njoy-dance of heaven for ever in gladsome security. One word from my\nsweet mouth surpasses all the songs of angels, the sound of all harps,\nand all sweet playing on stringed instruments.... Lo! I am a good so\nabsolute that he who hath in time but one single drop thereof finds all\nthe joy and pleasure of this world a bitterness,\u2014all wealth and honour\nworthless. Those dear ones who love me are embraced by my sweet love,\nand swim and melt in the sole Unity with a love which knows no form, no\nfigure, no spoken words, and are borne and dissolved into the Good from\nwhence they sprang,\u2019 &c.\u2014_Leben_, cap. vii. p. 199.\n\nThe following is a sample of Suso\u2019s old Suabian German, from the\nextracts given by Wackernagel, p. 885:\u2014\n\n\u2018_Entw\u00fcrt der ewigen wisheit._ Zuo uallende lon lit an sunderlicher\nfr\u0153d. die diu sel gewinnet von sunderlichen vnd erwirdigen werken mit\ndien si hie gesiget hat. alz die hohen lerer, die starken marterer. Vnd\ndie reinen iungfrowen. Aber wesentliche lon. lit an sch\u00f6wlicher ver\neinung der sele mit der blossen gotheit. Wan e geruowet si niemer, e si\ngefueret wirt \u00fcber alle ir krefte vnd mugentheit. vnd gewiset wirt in\nder personen naturlich wesentheit. Vnd in dez wesens einvaltig blosheit.\nVnd in dem gegenwurf vindet si denn genuegde vnd ewige selikeit. Vnd ie\nab gescheidener lidiger usgang. ie frier uf gang., Vnd ie frier uf gang.\nie neher in gang. in die wilden wuesti. vnd in daz tief ab gr\u00fcnde der\nwiselosen gotheit in die siu versenket ver swemmet vnd uer einet\nwerdent. daz siu nit anderz mugen wellen denn daz got wil, vnd daz ist\ndaz selb wesen daz do got ist. daz ist daz siu selig sint. von genaden.\nals er selig ist von nature. [_Answer of the Everlasting\nWisdom._\u2014_Adventitious_ reward consists in a particular joy which souls\nreceive for particular worthy deeds wherein they have here been\nconquerors,\u2014such, for example, are the lofty teachers, the stout\nmartyrs, and the pure virgins. But _essential_ reward consists in\ncontemplative union of the soul with the bare Godhead: for she resteth\nnot until she be carried above all her own powers and possibility, and\nled into the natural essentiality of the Persons, and into the simple\nabsoluteness of the Essence. And in the reaction she finds satisfaction\nand everlasting bliss. And the more separate and void the passage out\n(of self), the more free the passage up; and the freer the passage up,\nthe nearer the passage into the wild waste and deep abyss of the\nunsearchable Godhead, in which the souls are sunk and dissolved and\nunited, so that they can will nothing but what God wills, and become of\none nature with God,\u2014that is to say, are blessed by grace as He is\nblessed by nature.]\n\nFootnote 157:\n\n Why smite thy breast and lament? why not lift up thy soul? why\n meditate for ever on the sign? He thou lovest is within thee. Thou\n seekest Jesus\u2014thou hast him; he is found, and thou perceivest it not.\n Why these groans, this weeping? The true joy is thine; hidden within\n thee, though thou knowest it not, lies the solace of thine anguish;\n thou hast within, thou seekest without, the cure for thy languishing\n soul.\n\nFootnote 158:\n\n I live, but with no life of mine, and long towards a life so high\u2014I\n die because I do not die.\n\nFootnote 159:\n\n The _Life of Suso_, published in Diepenbrock\u2019s edition of his works,\n was written by his spiritual daughter, Elsbet St\u00e4glin, according to\n the account she received at various intervals from his own lips. He\n sprang from a good family,\u2014his name, originally Heinrich vom Berg. The\n name of Suso he adopted from his mother, a woman remarkable for her\n devotion. The secret name of Amandus, concealed till after his death,\n was supposed to have been conferred by the Everlasting Wisdom himself\n on his beloved servant.\n\n The incident of the rescue of himself and his book from the floods, by\n the timely intervention of a knight passing that way, is related in\n the twenty-ninth chapter of the _Life_, p. 68.\n\nFootnote 160:\n\n Heinrich Suso\u2019s _Leben und Schriften_, von M. Diepenbrock (1837), pp.\n 15, 51, 86. Diepenbrock\u2019s book is an edition of the biography by\n St\u00e4glin, and of the _Book of the Everlasting Wisdom_, &c., from the\n oldest manuscripts and editions, and rendered into modern German.\n\nFootnote 161:\n\n _Leben_, cap. 48,\u2014where it is also said that, on one occasion, as \u2018the\n servant was preaching at Cologne, one of his auditors beheld his face\n luminous with a supernatural effulgence.\u2019 It is known that Tauler\n possessed a copy of the _Horologium Sapienti\u00e6_.\n\n See also Schmidt\u2019s _Tauler_, p. 169. Comp. _Leben_, cap. xxxi. p. 72,\n and cap. xlix.\n\nFootnote 162:\n\n _Leben_, cap. iv.\n\nFootnote 163:\n\n _Leben_, cap. xvii.-xx. Suso died in 1385 at Ulm; he was born about\n the commencement of the century.\n\nFootnote 164:\n\n Suso sent a Latin version of the book of the Everlasting Wisdom, under\n the title _Horologium Sapienti\u00e6_, to Hugo von Vaucemain, Master of the\n Order, for his approval. The date of the work is fixed between 1333\n and 1342. The prologue contains the account of the \u2018_inspiratio\n superna_\u2019 under which the work was written.\u2014(_Diepenb. Vorbericht_, p.\n 6.) It was translated ere long into French, Dutch, and English, and\n appears to have been in the fourteenth century almost what the\n _Imitatio Christi_ became in the fifteenth.\u2014_Ibid._, p. 15.\n\nFootnote 165:\n\n _Leben_, cap. vi.\n\nFootnote 166:\n\n Reverences or prostrations.\n\nFootnote 167:\n\n _Leben_, capp. x. and xiv.\n\nFootnote 168:\n\n _Leben_, cap. xxii. p 5; and xxv.\n\nFootnote 169:\n\n This incident is related at length in the twenty-seventh chapter of\n the _Life_; and the adventure with the robber, which follows, in the\n succeeding. The account given in the text follows closely in all\n essential particulars the narrative in the biography.\n\nFootnote 170:\n\n _Leben_, cap. lvii. Suso speaks to this effect in a dialogue with his\n spiritual daughter. She describes in another place (p. 74) how she\n drew Suso on to talk on these high themes, and then wrote down what\n follows.\n\nFootnote 171:\n\n _Ibid._, cap. xxxiv. p. 80; and comp. _Buch. d. E. Weisheit_, cap.\n vii. p. 199.\n\nFootnote 172:\n\n _Buchlein von d. E. Weisheit_, Buch. iii. cap. ii.; and _Leben_, cap.\n lvi. p. 168, and p. 302.\n\nFootnote 173:\n\n _Leben_, p. 171.\n\nFootnote 174:\n\n Extravagant as are his expressions concerning the absorption in God,\n Suso has still numerous passages designed to preclude pantheism;\n declaring that the distinction between the Creator and the creature is\n nowise infringed by the essential union he extols. The dialogue with\n the \u2018nameless Wild,\u2019 already alluded to, is an example.\u2014Comp. _Leben_,\n cap. lvi. pp. 166, 167, and _Buch. d. E. W._, Buch. iii. cap. vi.\n\nFootnote 175:\n\n _Leben_, cap. liii. p. 148. See Note, p. 357.\n\nFootnote 176:\n\n Schr\u00f6ckh\u2019s _Kirchengeschichte_, vol. xxxiv. pp. 431-450.\n\nFootnote 177:\n\n See _Die Mystik des Nikolaus Cabasilas vom Leben in Christo_, von Dr.\n W. Gass (1849).\u2014In this work, Dr. Gass publishes, for the first time,\n the Greek text of the seven books, _De Vita in Christo_, with an able\n introduction. The authority for this summary of the theological\n tendency of Cabasilas will be found, pp. 210-224.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER IX.\n\n\n Di Meistere sprechen von zwein antlitzen der s\u00eale. Daz eine antlitze\n ist gekart in dise werlt. Daz ander antlitze ist gekart di richte in\n got. In diseme antlitze l\u00fbchtet und brennet got \u00eawicl\u00eechen, der\n mensche wizzes oder enwizzes nicht.[178]\u2014HERMANN VON FRITZLAR.\n\n\nKATE. I should like to know what became of our mysterious \u2018Layman,\u2019\nNicholas of Basle.\n\nATHERTON. He lived on many years, the hidden ubiquitous master-spirit of\nthe Friends of God; expending his wealth in restless rapid travels to\nand fro, and in aiding the adherents of the good cause; suddenly\nappearing, now in the north and now in the south, to encourage and\nexhort, to seek out new disciples and to confirm the old; and again\nvanishing as suddenly, concealing his abode even from his spiritual\nchildren, while sending them frequent tracts and letters by his trusty\nmessenger Ruprecht; growing ever more sad and earnest under repeated\nvisions of judgment overhanging Christendom; studying the Scriptures\n(which had opened his eyes to so much of Romanist error) somewhat after\nthe old Covenanter fashion, with an indiscriminate application of Old\nTestament history, and a firm belief that his revelations were such as\nprophets and apostles enjoyed,\u2014till, at last, at the close of the\ncentury, he was overtaken at Vienna by the foe he had so often baffled,\nand the Inquisition yet more ennobled a noble life by the fiery gift of\nmartyrdom.[179]\n\nGOWER. I can well imagine what a basilisk eye the Inquisition must have\nkept on these lay-priests\u2014these indefatigable writers and preachers to\nthe people in the forbidden vernacular\u2014these Friends of God, Beghards,\nand Waldenses; and on those audacious Ishmaels, the Brethren of the Free\nSpirit, most of all. I fancy I see it, lurking always on the edge of any\nlight, watching and watching, as they say the Indian lizard does,\ncrouched in the shadow just outside the circle of light a lamp makes\nupon the ceiling, to snatch up with its arrowy tongue the moths which\nfly toward the fascinating brightness.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. And do not let us forget that even those pantheistic\nBrethren of the Free Spirit, with all their coarseness and violence of\nexaggeration, held at least some little truth, and might plead a large\nexcuse. If some of them broke blindly through all restraint, they made\nat any rate a breach in priestcraft better used by better men.\u2014\n\nGOWER.\u2014Just as the track where buffaloes have made their huge crashing\nway through the forest, has often guided the hunter of the backwoods.\n\nATHERTON. We must not think that the efforts of such a man as Nicholas\nwere fruitless, whatever the apparent success of his persecutors.\u2014\n\nGOWER.\u2014Though history has paid him too little attention, and though the\nInquisition paid him too much. How I love to find examples of that\nconsoling truth that no well-meant effort for God and man can ever\nreally die\u2014that the relics of vanished, vanquished endeavours are\ngathered up and conserved, and by the spiritual chemistry of Providence\ntransformed into a new life in a new age, so that the dead rise, and\nmortality puts on immortality. The lessons such men scattered, though\nthey might seem to perish, perpetuated a hidden life till Luther\u2019s\ntime;\u2014like the dead leaves about the winter tree, they preserved the\nroots from the teeth of the frost, and covered a vitality within, which\nwas soon to blossom on every bough in the sunshine of the Reformation.\n\nATHERTON. Our fourteenth century, so full of mysticism both in East and\nWest, has some other mystical products to show, principally of the\nvisionary, theurgic species. There is St. Brigitta, a widow of rank,\nleaving her Swedish pine forests to visit Palestine, and after honouring\nwith a pilgrimage every shrine and relic in southern Europe, fixing her\nresidence at Rome, to the great pecuniary advantage of the faithful\nthere. She writes a discourse on the Blessed Virgin at the dictation of\nan angel, who visited her punctually for the purpose: indites bombastic\ninvocations to the eyes, ears, hair, chin, &c., of the Saviour; and\n_ditto_ to _ditto_ of the Virgin; and, what was not quite so bad, gives\nto the world a series of revelations and prophecies, in which the vices\nof popes and prelates are lashed unsparingly, and threatened with speedy\njudgment.[180]\n\nWILLOUGHBY. It would be interesting to trace this series of reformatory\nprophets, male and female. From the twelfth to the close of the\nfifteenth century there is a succession of them, called forth by the\nhideousness of ecclesiastical corruption\u2014Hildegard, Joachim, Brigitta,\nSavonarola.\n\nGOWER. Do not forget Dante.\n\nATHERTON. You hear them all executing variations, plaintive or\nindignant, menacing or despairing, on the old and never antiquated\ntheme\u2014\n\n Curia Romana non petit ovem sine lan\u00e2,\n Dantes exaudit, non dantibus ostia claudit.\n\nGOWER. And, to silence these complaints, the Church found inquisitors\nand censors of service, but most of all\u2014her pattern children\u2014those\nenthusiasts whose painful labours were employed to quiet the croaking,\nmuch as the lord in old feudal times would often exercise his right of\ncompelling a vassal to spend a night or two in beating the waters of the\nponds, to stop the frog-chorus there, and procure his master an easy\nsleep. Obedient enthusiasm toils all night that cardinals may snore.\n\nATHERTON. Angela de Foligni, who made herself miserable\u2014I must say\nsomething the converse of flourished\u2014about the beginning of the\nfourteenth century, was a fine model pupil of this sort, a genuine\ndaughter of St. Francis. Her mother, her husband, her children dead, she\nis alone and sorrowful. She betakes herself to violent devotion\u2014falls\nill\u2014suffers incessant anguish from a complication of disorders\u2014has\nrapturous consolations and terrific temptations\u2014is dashed in a moment\nfrom a seat of glory above the empyrean to a depth so low that the floor\nof hell might be its zenith. She tells us how, on her way to Assisi, the\nSaviour addressed her, called her his love, his sweet, his joy; and\nmanifested himself within her soul as he had never done to evangelist or\napostle. On one occasion, her face shone with a divine glory, her eyes\nwere as flaming lamps; on another, a star proceeded from her side, broke\ninto a thousand beautiful colours, and glided upwards into the sky.[181]\n\nWILLOUGHBY. A notable example of mystical pyrotechny.\n\nATHERTON. Her etherialised olfactories were gratified by odours of\nindescribable fragrance; and to her exalted taste, the consecrated wafer\nbecame almost insupportably delicious. Visions and ecstasies by scores\nare narrated from her lips in the wretched Latin of Arnold the Minorite.\nAll is naught! The flattest and most insipid reading in the world\u2014from\nfirst to last a repetition of the old stock phrase, \u2018feelings more\nreadily imagined than described.\u2019 She concludes every account by saying,\n\u2018No words can describe what I enjoyed;\u2019 and each rapture is declared to\nsurpass in bliss all the preceding.\n\nLOWESTOFFE. Enough! enough!\n\nATHERTON. Catharine of Siena\u2014\u2014\n\nWILLOUGHBY. No more, pray.\n\nATHERTON. Only this one. Catharine of Siena closes the century. She is a\nspecimen somewhat less wretched, of this delirious mysticism. Her\nvisions began when she was six years old, and a solemn betrothal to our\nLord was celebrated, with ring and vow, not very long after. She\ntravelled through the cities and hamlets of Italy, teaching, warning,\nexpostulating, and proclaiming to assembled crowds the wonders she had\nseen in heaven and hell during that trance in which all had thought her\ndead. She journeyed from Florence to Avignon, and back to Florence\nagain, to reconcile the Pope and Italy; she thrust herself between the\nspears of Guelph and Ghibelline\u2014a whole Medi\u00e6val Peace-Society in her\nwoman\u2019s heart\u2014and when she sank at last, saw all her labour swept away,\nas the stormy waters of the Great Schism closed over her head.[182]\n\nGOWER. What a condemning comment on the pretended tender mercies of\nthe Church are those narratives which Rome delights to parade of the\nsufferings, mental and bodily, which her devotees were instructed to\ninflict upon themselves! I am reminded of the thirsting mule, which\nhas, in some countries, to strike with its hoof among the spines of\nthe cactus, and drink, with lamed foot and bleeding lips, the few\ndrops of milk which ooze from the broken thorns. Affectionate\nsuffering natures came to Rome for comfort; but her scanty kindness\nis only to be drawn with anguish from the cruel sharpness of\nasceticism. The worldly, the audacious, escape easily; but these\npliant excitable temperaments, so anxiously in earnest, may be made\nuseful. The more dangerous, frightful, or unnatural their\nperformances, the more profit for their keepers. Men and women are\ntrained by torturing processes to deny their nature, and then they\nare exhibited to bring grist to the mill\u2014like birds and beasts\nforced to postures and services against the laws of their being\u2014like\nthose who must perform perilous feats on ropes or with lions,\nnightly hazarding their lives to fill the pockets of a manager. The\nself-devotion of which Rome boasts so much is a self-devotion she\nhas always thus made the most of for herself. Calculating men, who\nhave thought only of the interest of the priesthood, have known well\nhow best to stimulate and to display the spasmodic movements of a\nbrainsick disinterestedness. I have not the shadow of a doubt that,\nonce and again, some priest might have been seen, with cold grey\neye, endeavouring to do a stroke of diplomacy by means of the\nenthusiastic Catharine, making the fancied ambassadress of heaven in\nreality the tool of a schemer. Such unquestionable virtues as these\nvisionaries may some of them have possessed, cannot be fairly set\ndown to the credit of the Church, which has used them all for\nmercenary or ambitious purposes, and infected them everywhere with a\nmorbid character. Some of these mystics, floating down the great\necclesiastical current of the Middle Age, appear to me like the\ntrees carried away by the inundation of some mighty tropical river.\nThey drift along the stream, passive, lifeless, broken; yet they are\ncovered with gay verdure, the aquatic plants hang and twine about\nthe sodden timber and the draggled leaves, the trunk is a sailing\ngarden of flowers. But the adornment is not that of nature\u2014it is the\ndecoration of another and a strange element; the roots are in the\nair; the boughs, which should be full of birds, are in the flood,\ncovered by its alien products, swimming side by side with the\nalligator. So has this priestcraft swept its victims from their\nnatural place and independent growth, to clothe them in their\nhelplessness, with a false spiritual adornment, neither scriptural\nnor human, but ecclesiastical\u2014the native product of that\noverwhelming superstition which has subverted and enslaved their\nnature. The Church of Rome takes care that while simple souls think\nthey are cultivating Christian graces, they shall be forging their\nown chains; that their attempts to honour God shall always\ndishonour, because they disenfranchise themselves. To be humble, to\nbe obedient, to be charitable, under such direction, is to be\ncontentedly ignorant, pitiably abject, and notoriously swindled.\n\nATHERTON. Strong language, Lionel,\u2014yet not unjust to the spirit of the\nRomanist system. The charity which pities the oppressed is bound to\ndenounce the oppressor.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. _Rem acu tetigisti._ If you call priestcraft by smooth\nnames, your spurious charity to the tyrant is uncharitableness to the\nslave. It is sickening to hear the unctuous talk with which now-a-days\nultra-liberalism will sometimes stretch out a hand to spiritual tyranny.\n\nATHERTON. Not surprising. It is just like the sentimental sympathy got\nup for some notorious criminal, which forgets the outrage to society and\nthe sufferings of the innocent, in concern for the interesting offender.\n\nAnd now let us bid adieu to that fourteenth century which has occupied\nus so long. I shall only afflict you with one more paper,\u2014to-morrow,\nLowestoffe, if we don\u2019t go to Hawksfell. Some notes I have drawn up on\nthe contemporary Persian mysticism.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Stay\u2014do not let us forget that little book, so much read in\nthe fifteenth century, and praised and edited by Luther,\u2014the _German\nTheology_.[183] I have read it with great interest. It seems to me to\nstand alone as an attempt to systematise the speculative element in the\nmore orthodox mysticism of the age.\n\nATHERTON. We may call it a summary of Tauler\u2019s doctrine, without his\nfancy and vehement appeal; it is a treatise philosophic in its calmness,\ndeservedly popular for its homely, idiomatic diction. What we were\nsaying about Tauler applies substantially to the _Theologia Germanica_.\n\nMRS. ATHERTON. I have been waiting to hear something about Thomas \u00e0\nKempis,[184]\u2014certainly the best known of all your mystics.\n\nATHERTON. Right. Who could forget the comforter of the fifteenth\ncentury? It is curious to compare the third book of his _Imitation of\nChrist_, with its dialogue between Christ and the disciple, and Suso\u2019s\nconversation, in his _Book of the Eternal Wisdom_, between Wisdom and\nthe Servant.\n\nGOWER. There is less genius, less _abandon_, if one may so say, about\nThomas.\n\nATHERTON. Decidedly. That original and daring spirit which carried\nmysticism to such a height in the fourteenth century, could not survive\nin the fifteenth,\u2014an age tending towards consolidation and equilibrium,\nbent on the softening down of extremes. Suso, a poet as much as an\nascetic, is continually quitting his cell to admire nature and to mix\nwith men. He mingles speculation borrowed from his master, Eckart, with\nthe luxuriant play of his own inexhaustible fancy. Thomas \u00e0 Kempis is\nexclusively the ascetic. His mysticism ranges in a narrower sphere.\nHence, to a great extent, his wider influence. He abjures everything\nthat belongs to the thought of the philosopher or the fine feeling of\nthe artist. He appeals neither to the intellect nor to the\nimagination\u2014simply to the heart. He could be understood without\nlearning, appreciated without taste, and so thousands, in castle and in\ncloister, prayed and wept over his earnest page. \u2018See!\u2019 said he, \u2018this\nlife is filled with crosses.\u2019 And multitudes, in misery, or fear of\nmisery, made answer, \u2018It is true.\u2019\u2014\u2018Then,\u2019 urged the comforter, \u2018be\nthyself crucified to it, and it cannot harm thee. Cease to have any\ncare, any aim, any hope or fear, save Christ. Yield thyself, utterly\npassive and dead to this life, into his hands who is Lord of a better.\u2019\nThen the sufferers dried their tears, and strove hard to forget time and\nself in contemplating Christ.\n\nGOWER. And, let us hope, not always quite in vain.\n\nATHERTON. I have one more name yet upon my list, with which the medi\u00e6val\nmysticism reaches its conclusion. It is the great Frenchman, Chancellor\nGerson.[185] His figure stands out prominently among the confusions of\nthe time, half-way between the old age and the new. Up to a certain\npoint, he is a reformer; beyond it, the enemy of reform. He is active in\nthe deposition of John XXII., yet he does not hesitate to burn John\nHuss. He looks on, with a smile of satisfaction, when the royal\nsecretaries stab with their penknives the papal bulls, and the rector\ntears the insolent parchment into shreds. He sees, half with pity and\nhalf with triumph, the emissaries of the Pope, crowned in mockery with\npaper tiaras, and hung with insulting scrolls, dragged through the\nstreets in a scavenger\u2019s tumbril, to be pilloried by angry Paris. But he\nstands aloof in disdain when the University, deserted by the Parliament,\nfraternizes with the mob to enforce reform,\u2014when threadbare students\ncome down from their garrets in the Pays Latin to join the burly\nbutchers of St. Jacques la Boucherie,\u2014when grave doctors shake hands\nwith ox-fellers, and Franciscans and White-hoods shout together for the\ncharter.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. And very wrong he was, too, for those butchers, rough as\nthey were, were right in the main,\u2014honest, energetic fellows, with good\nheads on their shoulders. Could they but have raised money, they would\nhave saved France. But Gerson would rather be plundered than pay their\ntax, and had to hurry down for hiding to the vaults of Notre Dame. I\nremember the story. And when the princes came back to power, the\nmoderates were pillaged like the rest,\u2014and serve them right.\n\nATHERTON. Yes, the reform demanded was just and moderate, and even the\nrioters lost none of their respect for royalty, feeling still in their\nrude hearts no little of that chivalrous loyalty which animated Gerson\nhimself when he bent low before the poor idiot king, and with oriental\nreverence exclaimed, \u2018O King, live for ever!\u2019 Gerson was a radical in\nthe Church and a conservative in the State\u2014the antagonist of the\npolitical republicanism, the champion of the ecclesiastical. His\nsanguine hopes of peace for his country and of reform for his Church,\nwere alike doomed to disappointment.\n\nHis great work on the theory and practice of mysticism was composed\nduring the stormy period of his public life. Imagine how happily he\nforgot popes and councils, Cabochiens and Armagnacs, during those brief\nintervals of quiet which he devoted to the elaboration of a psychology\nthat should give to mysticism a scientific basis. Nominalist as he was,\nand fully conscious of the defects of scholasticism, then tottering to\nits fall, he differs little in his results from Richard of St. Victor.\nHe closes the series of those who have combined mysticism with\nscholasticism, and furnishes in himself a summary and critical _resum\u00e9_\nof all that had previously been accomplished in this direction. He was\ndesirous at once of making mysticism definite and intelligible, and of\nrendering the study of theology as a science more practical, devout, and\nscriptural. Hence his opposition to the extravagance of Ruysbroek on the\none side, and to the frigid disputation of the schools on the other. He\nessays to define and investigate the nature of ecstasy and rapture. He\neven introduces into mysticism that _reflection_ which its very\nprinciple repudiates. He recommends an inductive process, which is to\narrange and compare the phenomena of mysticism as manifest in the\nhistory of saintly men, and thence to determine the true and legitimate\nmystical experience, as opposed to the heterodox and the fantastic. He\nmaintains that man rises to the height of abstract contemplation,\nneither by the intellectual machinery of Realism, nor by the flights of\nImagination. If he attempts the first, he becomes a heretic; if the\nsecond, a visionary. The indispensable requisite is what he calls\n\u2018rapturous love.\u2019 Yet even this is knowledge in the truest sense, and\nquite compatible with a rational, though impassioned self-consciousness.\nHis doctrine of union is so temperate and guarded as almost to exclude\nhim from the genuine mystical fellowship. He has no visions or\nexaltations of his own to tell of. Resembling Richard in this respect,\nto whom he is so much indebted, he elaborates a system, erects a\ntabernacle, and leaves it to others to penetrate to the inmost\nsanctuary. Like Bernard, he thinks those arduous and dazzling heights of\ndevotion are for \u2018the harts and climbing goats,\u2019 not for active\npractical men such as the Chancellor. Above all, urges this reformer\nboth of the schoolmen and the mystics, clear your mind of phantasms\u2014do\nnot mistake the creations of your own imagination for objective\nspiritual realities. In other words, \u2018Be a mystic, but do not be what\nnine mystics out of every ten always have been.\u2019\n\nBut now let us have a walk in the garden.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThither all repaired. They entered the conservatory to look at the\nflowers.\n\n\u2018Which will you have, Mr. Atherton,\u2019 asked Kate, \u2018to represent your\nmystics? These stiff, apathetic cactuses and aloes, that seem to know no\nchanges of summer and winter, or these light stemless blossoms, that\nsend out their delicate roots into the air?\u2019\n\n\u2018Those Aroide\u00e6, do you mean?\u2019 replied Atherton. \u2018I think we must divide\nthem, and let some mystics have those impassive plants of iron for their\ndevice, while others shall wear the silken filaments of these a\u00ebrial\nflowers that are such pets of yours.\u2019\n\nAs they came out, the sun was setting in unusual splendour, and they\nstood in the porch to admire it.\n\n\u2018I was watching it an hour ago,\u2019 said Gower. \u2018Then the western sky was\ncrossed by gleaming lines of silver, with broken streaks of grey and\npurple between. It was the funeral pyre not yet kindled, glittering with\nroyal robe and arms of steel, belonging to the sun-god. Now, see, he has\ndescended, and lies upon it\u2014the torch is applied, the glow of the great\nburning reaches over to the very east. The clouds, to the zenith, are\nwreaths of smoke, their volumes ruddily touched beneath by the flame on\nthe horizon, and those about the sun are like ignited beams in a great\nconflagration, now falling in and lost in the radiance, now sending out\nfresh shapes of flashing fire: that is not to be painted!\u2019\n\nLOWESTOFFE (_starting_). The swan, I declare! How can he have got out?\nThat scoundrel, John!\n\nATHERTON. Never mind. I know what he comes for. He is a messenger from\nLethe, to tell us not to forget good Tauler.\n\nLOWESTOFFE. Lethe! Nonsense.\n\nMRS. ATHERTON. My love, how can you?\n\nATHERTON. The creature reminded me of an allegorical fancy recorded by\nBacon,\u2014that is all. At the end of the thread of every man\u2019s life there\nis a little medal containing his name. Time waits upon the shears, and\nas soon as the thread is cut, catches the medals, and carries them to\nthe river of Lethe. About the bank there are many birds flying up and\ndown, that will get the medals and carry them in their beak a little\nwhile, and then let them fall into the river. Only there are a few\nswans, which, if they get a name, will carry it to a temple, where it is\nconsecrated. Let the name of Tauler find a swan!\n\n\nEND OF VOL. I.\n\nFootnote 178:\n\n The Masters speak of two faces the soul hath. The one face is turned\n towards this world. The other face is turned direct toward God. In\n this latter face shineth and gloweth God eternally, whether man is\n ware or unaware thereof.\n\nFootnote 179:\n\n Schmidt\u2019s _Tauler_, pp. 205, &c.\u2014Mosheim gives the passage in Nieder\n relating the apprehension and death of Nicholas:\u2014\u2018Acutissimus enim\n erat (says this authority) et idcirco manus Inquisitorum diu\n evaserat.\u2019\u2014_Mosheim de Beghardis et Beguinabus_, cap. iv. \u00a7 42, p.\n 454.\n\nFootnote 180:\n\n See _Revelationes Select\u00e6 S. Brigitt\u00e6_ (Heuser, 1851).\u2014This is a\n selection for the edification of good Catholics, and contains\n accordingly the most Mariolatrous and least important of her writings.\n Rudelbach gives some specimens of her spirited rebuke of papal\n iniquity in his _Savonarola_, pp. 300, &c. In her prophetic capacity\n she does not hesitate to call the pope a murderer of souls, and to\n declare him and his greedy prelates forerunners of Antichrist. She\n says,\u2014\u2018If a man comes to them with four wounds, he goes away with\n five.\u2019 Like Savonarola, she placed her sole hope of reform in a\n general council.\n\n A common mode of self-mortification with her found an imitator in\n Madame Guyon:\u2014the Swede dropped the wax of lighted tapers on her bare\n flesh, and carried gentian in her mouth\u2014_Vita_, p. 6. The Frenchwoman\n burned herself with hot sealing-wax in the same manner, and chewed a\n quid of coloquintida.\n\n The _Revelationes de Vit\u00e2 et Passione Jesu Christi et glorios\u00e6\n Virginis_, contain a puerile and profane account of the birth,\n childhood, and death of our Lord, in the style of the apocryphal\n _Gospel of the Infancy_, professedly conveyed in conversations with\n the authoress by the Mother and her Son. The Virgin tells her, in\n reference to her Son,\u2014\u2018quomodo neque aliqua immunditia ascendit super\n eum;\u2019 and that his hair was never in a tangle\u2014(nec perplexitas in\n capillise jus apparuit).\n\nFootnote 181:\n\n \u2018_Angela de Foligni._\u2019 See _Beat\u00e6 Angel\u00e6 Fulginio Visionum et\n Instructionum Liber_; (recens. J. H. Lammertz; Cologne, 1851.)\u2014The\n account of the wonderful star is given by Arnold in his _Prologue_, p.\n 12. At one time it is promised by the Lord that the \u2018whole Trinity\n shall enter into her,\u2019 (capit. xx.); at another, she is transported\n into the midst of the Trinity.\u2014(Capit. xxxii.) In chapter after\n chapter of monotonous inflation, she wearies and disappoints the\n curious reader by declaring her \u2018abysses of delectation and\n illumination\u2019 altogether unutterable,\u2014such as language profanes rather\n than expresses\u2014\u2018inenarrabiles,\u2019 \u2018indicibiles,\u2019 &c. So the miraculous\n taste of the host to her favoured palate was not like bread or flesh,\n but a \u2018sapor sapidissimus,\u2019\u2014like nothing that can be named.\u2014Capit. xl.\n\n The following act of saintship we give in the original, lest in\n English it should act on delicate readers as an emetic. She speaks of\n herself and a sister ascetic:\u2014\u2018Lavimus pedes feminarum ibi existentium\n pauperum, et manus hominum, et maxime cujusdam leprosi, qui habebat\n manus valde f\u0153tidas et marcidas et pr\u00e6peditas et corruptas; _et\n bibimus de ill\u00e2 lotur\u00e2_. Tantam autem dulcedinem sensimus in illo\n potu, quod per totam viam venimus in magn\u00e2 suavitate, et videbatur\n mihi per omnia quod ego gustassem mirabilem dulcedinem, quantum ad\n suavitatem quam ibi inveni. Et quia qu\u00e6dam squamula illarum plagarum\n erat interposita in gutture meo, conata sum ad diglutiendum eam, sicut\n si communicassem, donec deglutivi eam. Unde tantam suavitatem inveni\n in hoc, quod eam non possum exprimere.\u2019\u2014Capit. l. p. 176.\n\n In her \u2018Instructions,\u2019 she lays it down as a rule that none can ever\n be deceived in the visions and manifestations vouchsafed them who are\n truly poor in spirit,\u2014who have rendered themselves as \u2018dead and\n putrid\u2019 into the hands of God. (Capp. liv. lv.) She says that when God\n manifests Himself to the soul, \u2018it sees Him, without bodily form,\n indeed, but more distinctly than one man can see another man, for the\n eyes of the soul behold a spiritual plenitude, not a corporeal,\n whereof I can say nothing, since both words and imagination fail\n here.\u2019 (Capit. lii. p. 192.) Angela died in 1309.\n\nFootnote 182:\n\n \u2018_Catharine of Siena._\u2019 G\u00f6rres gives a short account of her in his\n Introduction to Diepenbrock\u2019s edition of _Suso_, p. 96.\n\nFootnote 183:\n\n The theology of this remarkable little book is substantially the same\n with that already familiar to us in the sermons of Tauler. Luther,\n writing to Spalatin, and praising Tauler\u2019s theology, sends with his\n letter what he calls an epitome thereof,\u2014cujus totius velut epitomen\n ecce hic tibi mitto. (_Epp. De Wette_, No. xxv.) He refers, there can\n be little doubt, to his edition of the _Deutsche Theologie_, which\n came out that year.\n\nFootnote 184:\n\n See, especially, the twelfth chapter of the second book, _On the\n Necessity of bearing the Cross_. Compare Michelet\u2019s somewhat overdrawn\n picture of the effects of the _Imitation_ in his _History of France_.\n\n The _Ignitum cum Deo Soliloquium_ of Gerlacus Petrus is a contemporary\n treatise belonging to the same school. (Comp. capp. xxxix. and xxvi.;\n ed. Strange, 1849.) It is less popular, less impassioned than the\n _Imitation_, and more thoroughly impregnated with the spirit of\n mysticism. Gerlach would seem to have studied Suso: in one place he\n imitates his language. The cast of his imagery, as well as the\n prominence given to mystical phraseology, more peculiar to the\n Germans, shows that he addresses himself to an advanced and\n comparatively esoteric circle.\u2014Comp. capp. xxii, xxiv, p. 78.\n\nFootnote 185:\n\n \u2018_Gerson._\u2018\u2014See an article by Liebner (Gerson\u2019s _Mystische Theologie_)\n in the _Theologische Studien und Kritiken_; 1835, ii.\n\n\n\n\n HOURS WITH THE MYSTICS\n VOL. II.\n\n\n\n\n CONTENTS OF VOL. II.\n\n\n BOOK VII.\u2014PERSIAN MYSTICISM IN THE MIDDLE AGE.\n\n CHAPTER I.\n\n The Sufis; their Mystical Poetry 3\n Mystical Poetry in the West; Angelus Silesius 5\n R. W. Emerson 8\n\n\n CHAPTER II.\n\n Rabia 10\n The Oriental and the Western Mysticism compared 12\n\n\n BOOK VIII.\u2014THEOSOPHY IN THE AGE OF THE REFORMATION.\n\n CHAPTER I.\n\n The Position of the Mystics as regards the Reformation 31\n The Advantage of the Ground occupied by Luther 32\n Menacing Character of the Revolutionary Mysticism 35\n The Anabaptists of Munster 37\n\n\n CHAPTER II.\n\n Luther and the Mystics 41\n The Prophets of Zwickau 44\n Carlstadt 44\n Sebastian Frank 47\n Schwenkfeld 50\n Weigel 51\n\n\n CHAPTER III.\n\n Mysticism and Science 53\n The Cabbala 55\n Nature studied by the Light of Grace 57\n Alchemy 58\n Theurgy 59\n\n\n CHAPTER IV.\n\n Cornelius Agrippa 61\n The Science of Sympathies 63\n Redemption, Natural and Spiritual 67\n\n\n CHAPTER V.\n\n Theophrastus Paracelsus 71\n Signatures 76\n Theological Chemistry 77\n\n\n CHAPTER VI.\n\n Jacob Behmen and his _Aurora_ 79\n Illumination 82\n Troubles 86\n\n\n CHAPTER VII.\n\n Jacob Behmen, his Materials, and Style of Workmanship 90\n The Theory of Development by Contraries 92\n The Three Gates 95\n The _Aurora_ 97\n\n\n CHAPTER VIII.\n\n Jacob Behmen\u2014Sketch and Estimate of his System 103\n The Mysterium Magnum 104\n The Seven Fountain-Spirits 104\n Examination of his Doctrine concerning the Origin of Evil 109\n The Fall 115\n Merits of his Theosophy 119\n\n\n CHAPTER IX.\n\n The Rosicrucians 128\n Romance and Reality 129\n Valentine Andre\u00e4 and his _Fama Fraternitatis_ 134\n Secret Societies 136\n The Creatures of the Elements 138\n Magical Words 140\n Pordage and the Philadelphian Society 142\n Joanna Leade 144\n\n\n BOOK IX.\u2014THE SPANISH MYSTICS.\n\n\n CHAPTER I.\n\n Neo-Platonism revived in Italy 147\n Its Weakness, opposed to the Reformation 148\n The Counter-reformation 150\n Headed by Spain 150\n Character of its Mysticism 151\n St. Theresa 153\n Her Autobiography 156\n The Director 158\n Visions 160\n\n\n CHAPTER II.\n\n Theresa\u2019s Four Degrees of Prayer 167\n Her Quietism 171\n\n\n CHAPTER III.\n\n St. John of the Cross 182\n His Asceticism 183\n His Mystical Night 185\n More elevated Character of his Mysticism 193\n\n\n BOOK X.\u2014QUIETISM.\n\n\n CHAPTER I.\n\n Queen Quietude 201\n The Doctrine of \u2018Pure Love\u2019 discussed 205\n Madame Guyon 207\n Her Unhappy Marriage 208\n The Kingdom of God within us 211\n Efforts to Annihilate Self 213\n Interior Attraction 216\n Madame Guyon and the Romish Saints 218\n Confessors and Small-pox 222\n The Seven Years of Famine 224\n Self-loss in God 227\n Mistakes concerning the Nature of Spiritual Influence 230\n Reformatory Character of her Mysticism 233\n Activity and Persecution 234\n\n\n CHAPTER II.\n\n The Quietist Controversy 242\n Molinos 242\n Madame Guyon at Paris 245\n St. Cyr 248\n F\u00e9n\u00e9lon and Madame Guyon 250\n Signs of Danger 252\n The Conferences at Issy 255\n The Quietism of F\u00e9n\u00e9lon 258\n His Critical Position 262\n Writes the _Maxims of the Saints_ 263\n Appeals to Rome 265\n Bossuet\u2019s _Account of Quietism_ 268\n F\u00e9n\u00e9lon\u2019s _Reply_ 269\n Infallibility submits to Louis 271\n F\u00e9n\u00e9lon submits to Infallibility 272\n The Controversy reviewed 273\n Mysticism in France and in Germany 275\n\n\n CHAPTER III.\n\n Disinterested Love 283\n Antoinette Bourignon 286\n Peter Poiret 287\n Madame de Kr\u00fcdener 288\n\n\n BOOK XI.\u2014MYSTICISM IN ENGLAND.\n\n\n CHAPTER I.\n\n Britain poor in Mystics 301\n George Fox 303\n The Early Friends 305\n Asceticism 309\n Doctrine of the Universal Light 309\n\n\n CHAPTER II.\n\n Doctrine of Perceptible Guidance 313\n The English Platonists 315\n Henry More; Norris of Bemerton 315\n\n\n BOOK XII.\u2014EMANUEL SWEDENBORG.\n\n\n CHAPTER I.\n\n Comprehensive Character of his Mysticism 321\n Doctrine of Correspondences 323\n Stands alone among the Mystics 326\n\n\n CHAPTER II.\n\n His _Memorable Relations_ 329\n His Heaven and Hell 330\n Moderation of his Doctrine concerning Spiritual Influence 331\n Defects of his Doctrine concerning the Work of Christ 332\n The Church of the New Jerusalem 335\n\n\n BOOK XIII.\u2014CONCLUSION.\n\n\n CHAPTER I.\n\n Mystical Tendencies of our own Time 340\n The Faith-Philosophy 341\n Schleiermacher 341\n The Romantic School 343\n Novalis 348\n Revival of antiquated Error 350\n The Modern Mysticism a Repetition of the Old 351\n The Services of Mysticism 352\n Its Dangers 352\n Its Lessons 356\n\n\n CHAPTER II.\n\n Mysticism fostered by the Supposition of a Separate Religious\n Faculty 361\n Reason, how far amenable to Understanding 362\n Historic Reality not opposed to Spirituality 365\n\n\n CHAPTER III.\n\n A Vision of Mystics 368\n\n\n\n\n BOOK THE SEVENTH\n PERSIAN MYSTICISM IN THE MIDDLE AGE\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER I.\n\n\n Also, there is in God\n Which being seen would end us with a shock\n Of pleasure. It may be that we should die\n As men have died of joy, all mortal powers\n Summed up and finished in a single taste\n Of superhuman bliss; or, it may be\n That our great latent love, leaping at once\n A thousand years in stature\u2014like a stone\n Dropped to the central fires, and at a touch\n Loosed into vapour\u2014should break up the terms\n Of separate being, and as a swift rack,\n Dissolving into heaven, we should go back\n To God.\n\n DOBELL.\n\n\nThe next day was fine, as well it might be after such a sunset; to\nHawksfell all the party went, and there was no reading. But on the\nfollowing (sunnier yet, if possible) they assembled immediately after\nbreakfast in the summer-house, Lowestoffe not excepted, for even he grew\ninactive with the heat, and declared himself content to lie on the grass\nby the hour. Atherton congratulated his hearers that they would not for\nsome time be troubled with more lucubrations of his\u2014not till they came,\nin due course, to Madame Guyon. For Willoughby was to take up Jacob\nBehmen, and Gower, who possessed (as the fruit of an artist\u2019s tour) some\nacquaintance with Spanish, St. Theresa. Then, unrolling his manuscript,\nhe began.\n\n\n THE SUFIS, OR MYSTICAL POETRY IN THE EAST AND WEST.\n\n\n Among all the religions of civilized man, it would be difficult to\n find one more unfriendly to the growth of mysticism than that of\n Mohammed. Yet in no religion has mysticism spread more widely or\n raised its head with greater pride. The cold rationalism of the\n Koran, its ritual minuti\u00e6, its formal self-righteousness, its\n prohibition of the monastic order,\u2014all combined to warn the mystic\n from the religious domain of the Crescent. But stronger than\n Mohammedan orthodoxy or the dying commands of the Prophet were the\n wants of the human heart and the spirit of an eastern people. The\n generation which laid Mohammed in the holy earth of Medina saw\n monastic institutions arise and multiply on every side. Mystical\n interpretation could with ease elude the less favourable passages of\n the Koran, and turn others into a warrant. With a single touch of\n this dexterous pencil, the mystic could make the Prophet\u2019s\n portraiture all he desired, and turn the frown into a smile. The\n fatalism of the creed of Islam would furnish a natural basis for the\n holy indifference of Quietism.\n\n Each succeeding century of the Hegira was found more abundant than\n the last in a class of men who revolted against the letter in the\n name of the spirit, and who aspired to a converse and a unity with\n God such as the Koran deemed unattainable on this side heaven. The\n names of the saints and martyrs, the poets and philosophers, of\n mysticism, are among the brightest in the hagiography and the\n literature of the Mohammedan world. The achievements of the former\n class are adorned with legendary extravagances such as those with\n which the Prophet delighted to invest himself. The philosophy of the\n latter (whether sung or said) was not a little aided, in its contest\n with rigid orthodoxy, by the Grecian learning of that Alexandria\n which fell, in the first outbreak of Moslem zeal, before the hosts\n of Amrou. In later times (under the names of Plato and of Aristotle)\n mysticism and method did battle with each other, in the East as in\n the West,\u2014at Shiraz, at Bagdad, or at Cordova, even as in the\n University of Paris or the academies of Italy.\n\n The term Sufism appears to be a general designation for the mystical\n asceticism of the Mohammedan faith. The Sufis cannot be said to\n constitute a distinct sect, or to embrace any particular\n philosophical system. Their varieties are endless; their only common\n characteristics a claim of some sort to a superhuman commerce with\n the Supreme,\u2014mystical rapture, mystical union, mystical identity, or\n theurgic powers;\u2014and a life of ascetic observance. The name is given\n to mystics of every shade, from the sage to the quack, from poets\n like Saadi or philosophers like Algazzali, to the mendicant dervise\n or the crazy fanatic.\n\n Persia has been for several centuries the great seat of Sufism. For\n two hundred years (during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries of\n our era) the descendants of a Sufi occupied the throne,\u2014governing,\n however, as may be supposed, not like mystics, but as men of the\n world.[186] It is with Sufism as exhibited principally by the Sufi\n poets of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, that I propose now\n to occupy your attention.\n\n It will be found worth our while, as we proceed, to compare the\n mystical poetry of the East and West. Oriental mysticism has become\n famous by its poets; and into poetry it has thrown all its force and\n fire. The mysticism of the West has produced prophecies and\n interpretations of prophecy; soliloquies, sermons, and treatises of\n divinity;\u2014it has found solace in autobiography, and breathed out its\n sorrow in hymns;\u2014it has essayed, in earnest prose, to revive and to\n reform the sleeping Church;\u2014but it has never elaborated great poems.\n In none of the languages of Europe has mysticism achieved the\n success which crowned it in Persia, and prevailed to raise and rule\n the poetic culture of a nation. Yet the occidental mysticism has not\n been wholly lacking in poets of its own order. The seventeenth\n century can furnish one, and the nineteenth another,\u2014Angelus\n Silesius and Ralph Waldo Emerson.\n\n The latest research has succeeded only in deciding who Angelus\n Silesius was _not_. Some Roman Catholic priest or monk, assuming the\n name of Angelus, did, in the seventeenth century, send forth sundry\n hymns and religious poems,\u2014among others, one most euphuistically\n entitled _The Cherubic Wanderer_. The author of this book has been\n generally identified, on grounds altogether inadequate, with a\n contemporary named John Scheffler,\u2014a renegade from Jacob Behmen to\n the Pope. Suffice it to say that no two men could be more unlike\n than the virulent fagotty-minded pervert Scheffler, and the\n contemplative pantheistic Angelus\u2014be he who he may.[187]\n\n _The Cherubic Wanderer_ is a collection of religious epigrams or\n rhyming sentences, most of them smart and pithy enough as to\n expression, not a few as destitute of sense as they all are of\n poetry. The Wanderer travelled a little way into the eighteenth\n century, and then, lighting upon one of those oblivious arbours so\n fatal to pilgrims, sat down, and slept long. A few years ago some\n Romanticist litt\u00e9rateurs of Germany woke him up, and announced to\n the world, with much sounding of brass and tinkling of cymbals, that\n they had resuscitated a paragon of saintship and philosophy.\n\n The Silesian\u2019s book reiterates the customary utterances of\n mysticism. But a harsher tone is audible, and the doctrines with\n which we are familiar appear in a more startling and paradoxical\n form. The more dangerous elements are intensified. Pantheism is\n latent no longer. Angelus loves to play at a kind of intellectual\n seesaw with the terms Finite and Infinite, and their subject or\n kindred words. Now mounts one side, now the other, of the restless\n antithesis. Each factor is made to share with its rival every\n attribute of height or lowness. His favourite style of talking may\n run as follows:\u2014\u2018I cannot do without God, nor He without me; He is\n as small as I, and I as great as He:\u2014let time be to thee as\n eternity, and eternity as time; the All as nothing, and nothing as\n the All; then thou hast solved life\u2019s problem, and art one with God,\n above limit and distinction.\u2019 We matter-of-fact folk feel\n irresistibly inclined to parody such an oracle, and say,\u2014\u2018Let whole\n and part, black and white, be convertible terms;\u2014let thy head be to\n thee as thy heels, and thy heels as thy head; and thou hast\n transcended the conditions of vulgar men, and lapsed to Limbo\n irretrievably.\u2019 Silesius, as a good churchman, repudiates, of\n course, the charge of pantheism. He declares that the dissolution in\n Deity he contemplates does not necessitate the loss of personality,\n or confound the Maker and the made. His distinction is\n distinguishable \u2018as water is in water.\u2019 He appeals to the strong\n language he hunts out from Bernard, Tauler, and Ruysbroek. But the\n cold-blooded epigram cannot claim the allowance due to the fervid\n sermon or the often rhapsodical volume of devotion. Extravagant as\n the Sufi, he cannot plead like him a spiritual intoxication.\n Crystals and torrents must have separate laws. And which, moreover,\n of the mystical masters to whom Angelus refers us would have indited\n such presumptuous doggrel as this?\n\n God in my nature is involved,\n As I in the divine;\n I help to make his being up,\n As much as he does mine.\n\n As much as I to God owes God to me\n His blissfulness and self-sufficiency.\n\n I am as rich as God, no grain of dust\n That is not mine too,\u2014share with me he must.\n More than his love unto himself,\n God\u2019s love to me hath been;\n If more than self I too love him,\n We twain are quits, I ween.[188]\n\n On the other hand, there are many terse and happy couplets and\n quatrains in the _Wanderer_, which express the better spirit of\n mysticism. Angelus insists constantly on the vanity of mere\n externals,\u2014the necessity of a Christ formed within, as opposed to a\n dead, unsanctifying faith,\u2014the death of self-will, as the seat of\n all sin,\u2014the reality of the hell or heaven already wrought in time\n by sin or holiness. These were the maxims and ejaculations which\n religious minds, mystically inclined, found so edifying. The\n arrogant egotheism of some passages they took in another sense, or\n deemed the sense beyond them. Moreover, the high-flown devotion\n affected by Rome has always familiarized her children with\n expressions which (as Thomas Fuller has it) \u2018do knock at the door of\n blasphemy, though not always with intent to enter in thereat.\u2019\n\n The second representative of the West, who must assist towards our\n comparative estimate of pantheistic mysticism in its poetical form,\n is Mr. Emerson, the American essayist. Whether in prose or verse he\n is chief singer of his time at the high court of Mysticism. He\n belongs more to the East than to the West\u2014true brother of those\n Sufis with whose doctrine he has so much in common. Luxuriant in\n fancy, impulsive, dogmatic, darkly oracular, he does not reason. His\n majestic monologue may not be interrupted by a question. His\n inspiration disdains argument. He delights to lavish his varied and\n brilliant resources upon some defiant paradox\u2014and never more than\n when that paradox is engaged in behalf of an optimism extreme enough\n to provoke another Voltaire to write another _Candide_. He displays\n in its perfection the fantastic incoherence of the \u2018God-intoxicated\u2019\n man.\n\n In comparing Emerson with the Sufis, it may be as well to state that\n he does not believe in Mohammed and receive the Koran in a manner\n which would satisfy an orthodox Mussulman. Yet he does so (if words\n have meaning) much after the same fashion in which he believes in\n Christ and receives the Bible. Mohammed and Jesus are both, to him,\n extraordinary religious geniuses\u2014the Bible and the Koran both\n antiquated books. He looks with serene indifference on all the forms\n of positive religion. He would agree perfectly with those Sufis who\n proclaimed the difference between the Church and the Mosque of\n little moment. The distance between the Crescent and the Cross is,\n with him, one of degree\u2014their dispute rather a question of\n individual or national taste than a controversy between a religion\n with evidence and a religion without.\n\n In the nineteenth century, and in America, the doctrine of emanation\n and the ascetic practice of the East can find no place. But the\n pantheism of Germany is less elevated than that of Persia, in\n proportion as it is more developed. The tendency of the latter is to\n assign reality only to God; the tendency of the former is to assign\n reality only to the mind of man. The Sufi strove to lose humanity in\n Deity; Emerson dissolves Deity in humanity. The orientals are nearer\n to theism, and the moderns farther from it, than they sometimes\n seem. That primal Unity which the Sufi, like the Neo-Platonist,\n posits at the summit of all things, to ray forth the world of\n Appearance, may possibly retain some vestige of personality. But the\n Over-Soul of Emerson, whose organs of respiration are men of genius,\n can acquire personality only in the individual man. The Persian\n aspired to reach a divinity above him by self-conquest; the American\n seeks to realize a divinity within him by self-will.\n Self-annihilation is the watchword of the one; self-assertion that\n of the other.\n\nFootnote 186:\n\n Malcolm\u2019s _Persia_, vol. ii., p. 383.\n\nFootnote 187:\n\n See Schrader\u2019s _Angelus Silesius und seine Mystik_; Halle, 1853. This\n author shows, that the supposition identifying Scheffler with Angelus\n (copied too readily by one writer from another) may be traced up to a\n source of very slight authority. Scheffler repudiated mysticism after\n entering the Romish communion. Furious polemical treatises by\n Scheffler, and sentimental religious poems by Angelus appeared\n contemporaneously during a considerable interval. Had Scheffler\n published anything mystical during his controversy, his Protestant\n antagonists would not have failed to charge him with it. With\n Scheffler the Church is everything. In the _Wanderer_ of Angelus the\n word scarcely occurs. The former lives in externalisms; the latter\n covets escape from them. The one is an angry bigot; the other, for a\n Romanist, serenely latitudinarian. Characteristics so opposite, urges\n Dr. Schrader, could not exist in the same man at the same time.\n\n The epithet \u2018_Cherubic_\u2019 indicates the more speculative character of\n the book; as contrasted, in the language of the mystics, with the\n devotion of feeling and passion\u2014_seraphic_ love.\n\nFootnote 188:\n\n _Cherubinischer Wandersmann_, i. 100, 9, 18; Schrader, p. 28.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER II.\n\n\n Und so lang du das nicht hast\n Dieses: Stirb und werde!\n Bist du nur ein tr\u00fcber Gast\n Auf der dunkeln Erde.[189]\n\n GOETHE.\n\n\n\u2018Let us proceed, then,\u2019 resumed Atherton, smoothing his manuscript, \u2018on\nour Persian expedition. Dr. Tholuck, with his German translation, shall\nact as interpreter, and we may pause now and then on our way to listen\nto the deliverances of the two men of vision who accompany us from\nBreslau and from Boston.\u2019\n\n The first century of the Hegira has scarcely expired when a\n mysticism, strikingly similar to that of Madame Guyon, is seen to\n arise spontaneously in the devout ardours of a female saint named\n Rabia.[190] There is the same straining after indifference and\n self-abnegation\u2014after a love absolutely disinterested\u2014after a\n devotion beyond language and above means.\n\n By the sick-bed of Rabia stood two holy men. One of them said, \u2018The\n prayers of that man are not sincere who refuses to bear the\n chastening strokes of the Lord.\u2019 The other went beyond him, saying,\n \u2018He is not sincere who does not rejoice in them.\u2019 Rabia, detecting\n something of self in that very joy, surpassed them both as she\n added, \u2018He is not sincere who does not, beholding his Lord, become\n totally unconscious of them.\u2019 The Mohammedan _Lives of the Saints_\n records that, on another occasion, when questioned concerning the\n cause of a severe illness, she replied, \u2018I suffered myself to think\n on the delights of Paradise, and therefore my Lord hath punished\n me.\u2019 She was heard to exclaim, \u2018What is the Kaaba to me? I need God\n only.\u2019 She declared herself the spouse of Heaven,\u2014described her will\n and personality as lost in God. When asked how she had reached this\n state, she made the very answer we have heard a German mystic\n render, \u2018I attained it when everything which I had found I lost\n again in God.\u2019 When questioned as to the mode, she replied, \u2018Thou,\n Hassan, hast found Him by reason and through means; I immediately,\n without mode or means.\u2019\n\n The seeds of Sufism are here. This mystical element was fostered to\n a rapid growth through succeeding centuries, in the East as in the\n West, by the natural reaction of religious fervour against\n Mohammedan polemics and Mohammedan scholasticism.\n\n In the ninth century of our era, Sufism appears divided between two\n distinguished leaders, Bustami and Juneid. The former was notorious\n chiefly for the extravagance of his mystical insanity. The men of\n genius who afterwards made the name of Sufism honourable, and the\n language of its aspiration classical, shrank from such coarse\n excess. It was not enough for Bustami to declare that the\n recognition of our personal existence was an idolatry, the worst of\n crimes. It was not enough for him to maintain that when man adores\n God, God adores himself. He claimed such an absorption in his\n pantheistic deity as identified him with all the power, the wisdom,\n and the goodness of the universe. He would say, \u2018I am a sea without\n bottom, without beginning, without end. I am the throne of God, the\n word of God. I am Gabriel, Michael, Israfil; I am Abraham, Moses,\n Jesus.\u2019\n\n If Epiphanius is to be believed, the Messalians were a sect\n chargeable with the very same folly. If asked, he says, concerning a\n patriarch, a prophet, an angel, or Christ, they would reply, \u2018I am\n that patriarch, that prophet, that angel; I am Christ.\u2019\n\n A reference to Emerson\u2019s Essay on History renders such professions\n perfectly credible. Bustami and the Messalians could not have made\n them in the literal, but (by anticipation) in the Emersonian sense.\n They believed, with him, that \u2018there is one mind common to all\n individual men.\u2019 They find in him their interpreter, when he says,\n \u2018Who hath access to this universal mind is a party to all that is or\n can be done, for this is the only sovereign agent.\u2019 Emerson couches\n their creed in modern rhymes, as he sings exultant,\u2014\n\n I am owner of the sphere,\n Of the seven stars and the solar year,\n Of C\u00e6sar\u2019s hand and Plato\u2019s brain,\n Of Lord Christ\u2019s heart, and Shakspeare\u2019s strain.\n\n In the spirit of the same philosophy, Angelus Silesius hints at the\n possibility of such an empire. He reminds his readers that there is\n no greatness which makes the glory of the past that may not be\n realized by themselves in the present. Thus he asks\u2014\n\n Dost prize alone King Solomon as wisest of the wise?\n Thou also canst be Solomon, and all his wisdom thine.[191]\n\n But what is only potential with him is claimed as actual by mystical\n brethren bolder yet than he.\n\n The first endeavour of the Sufi (as of so many Christian mystics) is\n to achieve that simplifying, purifying process which shall remove\n from the mind everything earthly and human\u2014all its creaturely\n accidents, and reduce it to that abstract essence which mirrors\n Deity, and is itself ultimately divine. An apologue in the Mesnevi\n of Jelaleddin Rumi (a Sufi poet who wrote in the first half of our\n thirteenth century) teaches this doctrine quite in the oriental\n manner.\n\n The Greeks and the Chinese dispute before a certain sultan as to\n which of the two nations is the more skilful in the art of\n decoration. The sultan assigns to the rival painters two structures,\n facing each other, on which they shall exercise their best ability,\n and determine the question of precedence by the issue:\u2014\n\n The Chinese ask him for a thousand colours,\n All that they ask he gives right royally;\n And every morning from his treasure-house\n A hundred sorts are largely dealt them out.\n The Greeks despise all colour as a stain\u2014\n Effacing every hue with nicest care.\n Brighter and brighter shines their polished front,\n More dazzling, soon, than gleams the floor of heaven.\n This hueless sheen is worth a thousand dyes,\u2014\n This is the moon\u2014they but her cloudy veil;\n All that the cloud is bright or golden with\n Is but the lending of the moon or sun.\n And now, at length, are China\u2019s artists ready.\n The cymbals clang\u2014the sultan hastens thither,\n And sees enrapt the glorious gorgeousness\u2014\n Smit nigh to swooning by those beamy splendours.\u2014\n Then, to the Grecian palace opposite.\n Just as the Greeks have put their curtain back,\n Down glides a sunbeam through the rifted clouds,\n And, lo, the colours of that rainbow house\n Shine, all reflected on those glassy walls\n That face them, rivalling: the sun hath painted\n With lovelier blending, on that stony mirror\n The colours spread by man so artfully.\n Know then, O friend! such Greeks the Sufis are,\n Owning nor book nor master; and on earth\n Having one sole and simple task,\u2014to make\n Their hearts a stainless mirror for their God.\n Is thy heart clear and argent as the moon?\n Then imaged there may rest, innumerous,\n The forms and hues of heaven.[192]\n\n So, too, says Angelus Silesius,\u2014\n\n Away with accidents and false appearance,\n Thou must be essence all, and colourless.\n\n And again,\u2014\n\n Man! wouldst thou look on God, in heaven or while yet here,\n Thy heart must first of all become a mirror clear.[193]\n\n Jelaleddin Rumi describes the emancipation of the soul from\n intellectual distinctions\u2014the laws of finite thought, the\n fluctuations of hope and fear, the consciousness of\n personality,\u2014under the image of night. This has been the favourite\n and appropriate symbol of all the family of mystics, from Dionysius,\n with his \u2018Divine Darkness,\u2019 to John of the Cross, in his _De Nocte\n Obscur\u00e2_, and on to Novalis, in his _Hymnen an die Nacht_. In the\n following vigorous passage, Night is equivalent to the state of\n self-abandonment and self-transcendence:\u2014\n\n Every night God frees the host of spirits\u2014\n Makes them clear as tablets smooth and spotless\u2014\n Frees them every night from fleshy prison.\n Then the soul is neither slave nor master,\n Nothing knows the bondman of his bondage,\n Nothing knows the lord of all his lordship,\n Gone from such a night is eating sorrow,\n Gone the thoughts that question good and evil.\n Then, without distraction or division,\n In the One the spirit sinks and slumbers.\n\n Silesius has the same thought, cold and dry, after the poetic\n Persian, yet in words that would furnish no inapt motto to express\n in a sentence this species of mysticism:\u2014\n\n Ne\u2019er sees man in this life, the Light above all light,\n As when he yields him up to darkness and to night.[194]\n\n The ascetic Sufi bids the mystical aspirant close the senses against\n every external impression\u2014for the worlds of sense and of\n contemplation reciprocally exclude each other. We have seen how the\n Hindoos and the Hesychasts endeavoured literally to obey this\n counsel, reiterated so often by so many mystagogues:\u2014\n\n Put wool within the ear of flesh, for that\n Makes deaf the inner hearing, as with wool;\n If that can hear, the spirit\u2019s ear is deaf.\n Let sense make blind no more the spirit\u2019s eye.\n Be without ear, without a sense or thought,\n Hark only to the voice, \u2018Home, wanderer, home!\u2019\n\n It is quite in accordance with such precepts that the judging\n faculty should be abandoned by the Sufi for the intuitive, and the\n understanding sacrificed to the feeling. According to the Koran,\n Mohammed once soared heavenwards, to such a height that Gabriel\n could not overtake him, and far off below, appeared to the Prophet\n no larger than a sparrow. Jelaleddin compares the heart, the divine\n principle in man (the spirit, in his psychology), to Mohammed, and\n the understanding to Gabriel. Names and words, he says, are but\n \u2018nets and shackles.\u2019 With justice, in one sense, he bids men pass\n from the sign to the thing signified, and asks,\u2014\n\n Didst ever pluck a rose from R and O and S?\n Names thou mayst know: go, seek the truth they name;\n Search not the brook, but heaven, to find the moon.\n\n The senses and the lower powers, nourished by _forms_, belong to\n earth, and constitute the mere foster-mother of our nature. The\n intuitive faculty is a ray of Deity, and beholds Essence. The soul\n which follows its divine parent is therefore a wonder, and often a\n scandal to that which recognises only the earthly. Jelaleddin\n compares the rapturous plunge of the soul into its divine and native\n element to the hastening of the ducklings into the water, to the\n terror of the hen that hatched them.[195]\n\n While exulting in a devotion above all means and modes, we find the\n Sufi (in nearly every stage of his ascension save the last) yielding\n implicit obedience to some human guide of his own choice. The\n Persian Pir was to him what the Director was to the Quietist or\n semi-Quietist of France; what the experienced Friend of God was to\n the mystic of Cologne or Strasburg; what Nicholas of Basle was so\n long to Tauler. That a voluntary submission to such authority was\n yielded is certain. Yet we find scarcely an allusion to these\n spiritual guides among the chief bards of Sufism. Each singer claims\n or seeks a knowledge of God which is immediate, and beyond the need\n of at least the orthodox and customary aids and methods. Thus Rumi\n says\u2014\n\n He needs a guide no longer who hath found\n The way already leading to the Friend.\n Who stands already on heaven\u2019s topmost dome\n Needs not to search for ladders. He that lies,\n Folded in favour on the sultan\u2019s breast,\n Needs not the letter or the messenger.\n\n So Emerson,\u2014\n\n \u2018The relations of the soul to the divine spirit are so pure that it\n is profane to seek to interpose helps.... Whenever a mind is simple,\n and receives a divine wisdom, then old things pass away,\u2014means,\n teachers, texts, temples, fall; it lives now and absorbs past and\n future into the present hour.\u2019[196]\n\n Hence, in both cases, the indifference before noticed to all the\n various forms of positive religion. The Persian describes all\n religions as the same liquor in different glasses\u2014all are poured by\n God into one mighty beaker.\n\n The self-abandonment and self-annihilation of the Sufis rest on the\n basis of their pantheism. Personal existence is with them the great\n illusion of this world of appearance\u2014to cling to it is to be blind\n and guilty. Mahmud (a Sufi of the fourteenth century) says, in the\n _Gulschen Ras_,\u2014\n\n All sects but multiply the I and Thou;\n This I and Thou belong to partial being;\n When I and Thou and several being vanish,\n Then Mosque and Church shall bind thee never more.\n Our individual life is but a phantom:\n Make clear thine eye, and see Reality!\n\n Again, (though here the sense may be moral rather than philosophic,\n and selfishness, not personality, abjured)\u2014\n\n Go, soul! with Moses to the wilderness,\n And hear with him that grand \u2018I am the Lord!\u2019\n While, like a mountain that shuts out the sun,\n Thine _I_ lifts up its head, thou shalt not see Me.\n The lightning strikes the mountain into ruins,\n And o\u2019er the levelled dust the glory leaps!\n\n Jelaleddin says of the Sufi in his self-abnegation,\u2014\n\n His love of God doth, like a flame of hell,\n Even in a moment swallow love of self.\n\n Mahmud, to express the same thought, employs the image used by\n Thomas \u00e0 Kempis:\u2014\n\n The path from _Me_ to God is truly found,\n When pure that _Me_ from Self as clearest flame from smoke.\n\n Angelus Silesius bids men lose, in utter Nihilism, all sense of any\n existence separate from the Divine Substance\u2014the Absolute:\u2014\n\n While aught thou art or know\u2019st or lov\u2019st or hast,\n Not yet, believe me, is thy burden gone.\n\n Who is as though he were not\u2014ne\u2019er had been\u2014\n That man, oh joy! is made God absolute.\n\n Self is surpassed by self-annihilation;\n The nearer nothing, so much more divine.[197]\n\n Thus individuality must be ignored to the utmost; by mystical death\n we begin to live; and in this perverted sense he that loseth his\n life shall find it. Hence, by a natural consequence, the straining\n after a sublime apathy almost as senseless as the last abstraction\n of the Buddhist. The absolutely disinterested love, to which the\n Sufi aspires, assumes, however, an aspect of grandeur as opposed to\n the sensuous hopes and fears of Mohammed\u2019s heaven and hell. Rumi\n thus describes the blessedness of those whose will is lost in the\n will of God:\u2014\n\n They deem it crime to flee from Destiny,\n For Destiny to them brings only sweetness.\n Welcome is all that ever can befal them,\n For were it fire it turns to living waters.\n The poison melts to sugar on their lip;\n The mire they tread is lustrous diamond,\n And weal and woe alike, whatever comes.\n They and their kingdom lie in God\u2019s divineness.\n To pray, \u2018O Lord, turn back this trouble from me,\u2019\n They count an insult to the hand that sent it.\n\n Faithful they are, but not for Paradise;\n God\u2019s will the only crowning of their faith:\n And not for seething hell, flee they from sin,\n But that their will must serve the Will Divine.\n It is not struggle, \u2019tis not discipline,\n Wins them a will so restful and so blest;\u2014\n It is that God from his heart-fountain ever\n Fills up their jubilant souls.\n\n So, again, Angelus Silesius, sometimes pushing his negation to\n unconscious caricature:\u2014\n\n True hero he that would as readily\n Be left without God as enjoy him near.\n\n Self-loss finds God\u2014to let God also go,\n That is the real, most rare abandonment.\n\n Man! whilst thou thankest God for this or that,\n Yet art thou slave to finite feebleness.\n\n Not fully God\u2019s is he who cannot live,\n Even in hell, and find in hell no hell.\n\n Nought so divine as to let nothing move thee,\n Here or hereafter (could\u2019st thou only reach it).\n\n Who loves without emotion, and without knowledge knows,\n Of him full fitly say we\u2014he is more God than man.\n\n Compare Emerson, discoursing of Intuition and the height to which it\n raises men:\u2014\n\n \u2018Fear and hope are alike beneath it. It asks nothing. There is\n somewhat low even in hope. We are then in vision. There is nothing\n that can be called gratitude nor properly joy. The soul is raised\n over passion,\u2019 &c. So, again: \u2018Prayer as a means to effect a private\n end is theft and meanness. It supposes dualism in nature and\n consciousness. As soon as the man is at one with God he will not\n beg. He will then see prayer in all action.\u2019[198]\n\n This elevation above petition and above desire, towards which many a\n Sufi toiled, watching, fasting, solitary, through the \u2018seven\n valleys\u2019 of mystic discipline, is cheaply accomplished now-a-days by\n mere nonchalance, and is hit off by a flourish of the pen. It is the\n easy boast of any one who finds prayer distasteful and scoffs at\n psalm singing\u2014who chooses to dub his money-getting with the title of\n worship, and fancies that to follow instinct is to follow God. The\n most painful self-negation and the most facile self-indulgence meet\n at the same point and claim the same pre-eminence.\n\n The eastern mystic ignores humanity to attain divinity. The ascent\n and the descent are proportionate, and the privileges of nothingness\n are infinite. We must accompany the Sufi to his highest point of\n deification, and in that transcendental region leave him. His escape\n from the finite limitations of time and space is thus described,\u2014\n\n On earth thou seest his outward, but his spirit\n Makes heaven its tent and all infinity.\n Space and Duration boundless do him service,\n As Eden\u2019s rivers dwell and serve in Eden.\n\n Again, Said, the servant, thus recounts one morning to Mohammed the\n ecstasy he has enjoyed:\u2014\n\n My tongue clave fever-dry, my blood ran fire,\n My nights were sleepless with consuming love,\n Till night and day sped past\u2014as flies a lance\n Grazing a buckler\u2019s rim; a hundred faiths\n Seemed then as one; a hundred thousand years\n No longer than a moment. In that hour\n All past eternity and all to come\n Was gathered up in one stupendous _Now_,\u2014\n Let understanding marvel as it may.\n Where men see clouds, on the ninth heaven I gaze,\n And see the throne of God. All heaven and hell\n Are bare to me and all men\u2019s destinies,\n The heavens and earth, they vanish at my glance:\n The dead rise at my look. I tear the veil\n From all the worlds, and in the hall of heaven\n I set me central, radiant as the sun.\n Then spake the Prophet:\u2014\u2018Friend, thy steed is warm;\n Spur him no more. The mirror in thy breast\n Did slip its fleshly case, now put it up\u2014\n Hide it once more, or thou wilt come to harm.\u2019\n\n This magniloquence of Said\u2019s is but the vehement poetic expression\n for the \u2018absolute intuition\u2019 of modern Germany\u2014that identity of\n subject and object in which all limitations and distinctions vanish,\n and are absorbed in an indescribable transcendental intoxication. If\n the principle be true at all, its most lofty and unqualified\n utterance must be the best, and what seems to common-sense the\n thorough-going madness of the fiery Persian is preferable to the\n colder and less consistent language of the modern Teutonic\n mysticism. Quite in the spirit of the foregoing extracts, Emerson\n laments that we do not oftener realize this identity, and transcend\n time and space as we ought.\u2014\n\n \u2018We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles.\n Meantime within man is the soul of the whole, the wise silence, the\n universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally\n related,\u2014the eternal ONE. And this deep power in which we exist, and\n whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only self-sufficing\n and perfect every hour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen,\n the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one.\u2019\n And again:\u2014\u2018Time and space are but inverse measures of the force of\n the soul. A man is capable of abolishing them both. The spirit\n sports with time\u2014\n\n \u2018Can crowd eternity into an hour\n Or stretch an hour to eternity.\u2019\n\n So Angelus Silesius:\u2014\n\n Rise above Space and Time, and thou canst be\n At any moment in Eternity.[199]\n\n The following passage from Jelaleddin exhibits the kind of identity\n with God claimed by the more extravagant devotees of Sufism:\u2014\n\n Are we fools, we\u2019re God\u2019s captivity;\n Are we wise, we are his promenade;\n Are we sleeping, we are drunk with God;\n Are we waking, then we are his heralds;\n Are we weeping, then his clouds of wrath;\n Are we laughing, flashes of his love.\n\n Some among them carried their presumption to a practical extreme\n which did away with all distinction between good and evil. They\n declared the sins of the Sufi dearer to God than the obedience of\n other men, and his impiety more acceptable than their faith.[200]\n\n Two extracts more will suffice to show the mode in which this\n pantheistic mysticism confounds, at its acme, the finite and the\n infinite. They are from Feridoddin Attar, who died in the second or\n third decade of the fourteenth century.\u2014\n\n Man, what thou art is hidden from thyself.\n Know\u2019st not that morning, mid-day, and the eve,\n All are within thee? The ninth heaven art thou;\n And from the spheres into this roar of time\n Didst fall erewhile. Thou art the brush that painted\n The hues of all this world\u2014the light of life,\n That rayed its glory on the nothingness.\n\n Joy! joy! I triumph! Now no more I know\n Myself as simply me, I burn with love\n Unto myself, and bury me in love.\n The Centre is within me, and its wonder\n Lies as a circle everywhere about me.\n Joy! joy! no mortal thought can fathom me.\n I am the merchant and the pearl at once.\n Lo, time and space lie crouching at my feet.\n Joy! joy! when I would revel in a rapture,\n I plunge into myself and all things know.\n\n The poet then introduces Allah, as saying that he had cast Attar\n into a trance, and withdrawn him into his own essence, so that the\n words he uttered were the words of God.[201]\n\n Both with Emerson and Angelus, he who truly apprehends God becomes a\n part of the divine nature,\u2014is a son, a god in God, according to the\n latter; and according to the former, grows into an organ of the\n Universal Soul. This notion of identity Emerson seems to arrive at\n from the human, Angelus from the divine side. The salvation of man\n is reduced with the German, very much to a process of divine\n development. With the American, every elevated thought merges man\n for a time in the Oversoul. The idealism of Emerson is more\n subjective, his pantheism more complete and consequent. Angelus is\n bold on the strength of a theory of redemption which makes man\n necessary to God. Emerson is bolder yet, on his own account, for he\n makes his own God. This he does when he adores his own ideal, and,\n expanding Self to Universality, falls down and worships.\n\n Hear him describe this transcendental devotion:\u2014\n\n \u2018The simplest person, who in his integrity worships God, becomes\n God; yet for ever and ever the influx of this better and universal\n self is new and unsearchable.\u2019 Again: \u2018I, the imperfect, adore my\n own Perfect. I am somehow receptive of the great soul, and thereby I\n do overlook the sun and the stars, and feel them to be but the fair\n accidents and effects which change and pass.\u2019 So, speaking of the\n contemplation of Nature:\u2014\u2018I become a transparent eyeball. I am\n nothing. I see all. The currents of the Universal Being circulate\n through me; I am part or particle of God,\u2019 &c.\n\n Angelus says, in virtue of his ideal sonship,\u2014\n\n I am as great as God, and he as small as I;\n He cannot me surpass, or I beneath him lie.\n\n God cannot, without me, endure a moment\u2019s space,\n Were I to be destroyed, he must give up the ghost.\n\n Nought seemeth high to me, I am the highest thing;\n Because e\u2019en God himself is poor deprived of me.[202]\n\n The central idea of the Persian mysticism is _Emanation_. The soul\n is to escape from the manifold to the One. Its tendency (in\n proportion as its votary believes that return accomplished) is to\n confound man with the Father. The leading principle in the mysticism\n of Eckart and Angelus Silesius is _Incarnation_. Angelus is never\n weary of reiterating the doctrine that God became man in order that\n man might become God. He does not labour, like the orientals, to\n attain deification by ascetic efforts of his own. He has a kind of\n Mediator. He seems to believe that through Christ, in some way,\n every man is a divine Son of God, if he will only think so. All he\n has to do is to realize this sonship; then he becomes, by _Grace_,\n all that the Son of God is by _Nature_. The obvious result of this\n mysticism is to identify man with the Son.\n\n In that order of modern mysticism represented by Emerson, the\n central doctrine is _Inspiration_. In the creative efforts of the\n poet, in the generalizations of the philosopher, the man of genius\n speaks as he is moved by the Oversoul. An influx of the universal\n spirit floods his being and carries him beyond himself. In intuition\n the finite Ego is identified with the absolute Ego. Humanity is a\n divine evolution, and each true man (to use Emerson\u2019s apt\n illustration)\u2014a _fa\u00e7ade_ of Deity. Even Angelus would have\n acknowledged that it was in some sort through Christ that his\n boastful sonship became possible. But the believer in the Oversoul\n will admit no such medium, and owns a debt to Christ much as he owns\n a debt to Shakspeare. Mysticism of this order usurps the office of\n the Holy Ghost, and directly identifies the spirit of man with the\n Spirit of God.\n\n Mysticism has always been accustomed to express the transports of\n its divine passion by metaphors borrowed from the amorous\n phraseology of earth. It has done this with every variety of taste,\n from the grossness of some of the most eminent Romanist saints, to\n the beautiful Platonism of Spenser\u2019s Hymns of \u2018Heavenly Love\u2019 and\n \u2018Heavenly Beautie.\u2019 But nowhere has metaphor branched so luxuriantly\n into allegory as in the East, and nowhere in the East with such\n subtilty and such freedom as among the Persian mystics. The admiring\n countrymen of Hafiz, Saadi, and Jami, interpret mystically almost\n everything they wrote. They underlay these poems everywhere with a\n system of correspondence whose ingenuity would have done no\n discredit to Swedenborg himself. Sir William Jones furnishes some\n specimens of a sort of mystical glossary, by aid whereof their\n drinking songs may be read as psalms, and their amatory effusions\n transformed into hymns full of edification for the faithful.[203]\n Never, since the days of Plotinus, was a deity imagined more\n abstract than the Unity toward which the Sufi aspires. Yet never was\n religious language more florid and more sensuous. According to the\n system alluded to, wine is equivalent to devotion; the tavern is an\n oratory; kisses and embraces, the raptures of piety; while\n wantonness, drunkenness, and merriment, are religious ardour and\n abstraction from all terrestrial thoughts.\n\n The following passage from Mahmud\u2019s _Gulschen Ras_ may suffice as a\n specimen of these devout Bacchanalia. It has the advantage of\n exhibiting the key in the lock:\u2014\n\n Know\u2019st thou who the Host may be who pours the spirit\u2019s wine\n Know\u2019st thou what his liquor is whose taste is so divine?\n The Host is thy Beloved One\u2014the wine annihilation,\n And in the fiery draught thy soul drinks in illumination.\n Up, soul! and drink with burning lip the wine of ecstasy,\n The drop should haste to lose itself in His unbounded sea.\n At such a draught mere intellect swims wildered and grows wild;\n Love puts the slave-ring in his ear and makes the rebel mild.\n Our Friend holds out the royal wine and bids us drink it up;\n The whole world is a drinking-house and everything a cup.\n Drunken even Wisdom lies\u2014all in revel sunken;\n Drunken are the earth and heaven; all the angels drunken.\n Giddy is the very sky, round so often hasting,\n Up and down it staggers wide, with but a single tasting.\n Such the wine of might they drink in blest carouse above.\n So the angels higher lift their flaming height of love.\n Now and then the dregs they fling earthward in their quaffing,\n And where\u2019er a drop alights, lo, an Eden laughing![204]\n\nFootnote 189:\n\n And if thy heart know nought of this\u2014\u2018Die that thou mayest be born;\u2019\n then walkest thou the darksome earth a sojourner forlorn.\n\nFootnote 190:\n\n Tholuck, _Ssufismus, sive Theosophia Persarum pantheistica_ (Berlin,\n 1822), pp. 51-54.\n\nFootnote 191:\n\n Tholuck, _Ssufismus_, p. 63. _Cherub. Wand._, ii. 18.\n\nFootnote 192:\n\n Tholuck, _Bl\u00fcthensammlung aus der Morgenl\u00e4ndischen Mystik_ (Berlin,\n 1825), p. 114.\n\nFootnote 193:\n\n _Cherub. Wand._, i. 274; v. 81.\n\nFootnote 194:\n\n _Bl\u00fcthen._, p. 61. _Cherub. Wand._, iv. 23.\n\nFootnote 195:\n\n _Bl\u00fcthen._, pp. 64, 71, 113, 156.\n\nFootnote 196:\n\n _Bl\u00fcthen._, p. 167. Emerson\u2019s _Essays_ (1848), p. 35.\n\nFootnote 197:\n\n _Bl\u00fcthen._, pp. 204-206. _Cherub. Wand._, i. 24, 92, 140.\n\nFootnote 198:\n\n _Bl\u00fcthen._, pp. 180, 181. _Cherub. Wand._, v. 367; ii. 92; i. 91, 39;\n ii. 152, 59. Emerson, pp. 37, 42.\n\nFootnote 199:\n\n _Bl\u00fcthen._, pp. 85, 116. Emerson, pp. 141, 143. _Cherub. Wand._, i.\n 12. Compare _Richard of St. Victor_, cited above, vol. i., p. 172,\n Note to p. 163.\n\nFootnote 200:\n\n _Bl\u00fcthen._, pp. 82, 84.\u2014The truth, of which the licentious doctrine\n alluded to is the abuse, is well put by Angelus,\u2014\n\n \u2018Dearer to God the good man\u2019s very sleep\n Than prayers and psalms of sinners all night long.\u2019\u2014(v. 334.)\n\nFootnote 201:\n\n _Bl\u00fcthen._, pp. 266, 260.\u2014Never does this soaring idealism become so\n definite and apprehensible as when it speaks with the \u2018large\n utterance\u2019 of the Sufis. Angelus has here and there somewhat similar\n imagery for the same thought. What is with him a dry skeleton acquires\n flesh and blood among the Orientals.\n\n \u2018Sit in the centre, and thou seest at once\n What is, what was; all here and all in heaven.\n\n \u2018Is my will dead? Then what I will God must,\n And I prescribe his pattern and his end.\n\n \u2018I must be sun myself, and with my beams\n Paint all the hueless ocean of the Godhead.\u2019\u2014(ii. 183; i. 98,\n 115.)\n\nFootnote 202:\n\n Emerson, pp. 154, 156, 196. _Cherub. Wand._, i. 10, 8, 204.\u2014Angelus\n has various modes of expressing the way in which God realizes his\n nature in the salvation of men.\n\n \u2018I bear God\u2019s image. Would he see himself?\n He only can in me, or such as I.\n\n \u2018Meekness is velvet whereon God takes rest:\n Art meek, O man?\u2014God owes to thee his pillow.\n\n \u2018I see in God both God and man,\n He man and God in me;\n I quench his thirst, and he, in turn,\n Helps my necessity.\u2019\u2014(i. 105, 214, 224.)\n\nFootnote 203:\n\n Works, vol. iv., _On the Mystical Poetry of the Persians and Hindoos_.\n\nFootnote 204:\n\n _Bl\u00fcthen._, p. 218.\n\n\n\n\n BOOK THE EIGHTH\n THEOSOPHY IN THE AGE OF THE REFORMATION\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER I.\n\n\n Amongst them all sate he that wonned there,\n That hight _Phantastes_ by his nature trew;\n A man of years yet fresh, as mote appere,\n Of swarth complexion and of crabbed hew,\n That him full of melancholy did shew;\n Bent hollow beetle brows, sharpe staring eyes\n That mad or foolish seemed: one by his view\n Mote deeme him born with ill disposed skyes,\n When oblique Saturne sate in th\u2019 house or agonyes.\n\n SPENSER.\n\n\nThe autumn is already advanced, and our friends who met at Summerford\nhave returned to the neighbourhood of London. The days of damp and fog\nhave arrived. All nature looks sullen and lustreless. As Gower gazes\nthrough the streaming pane on the narrowed dripping landscape, he\nsometimes tries, as sunny Persia and the Sufis recur to him, to\ntransform the slope before his windows into an eastern valley. Fancy\nshall sow it thick with poppies, and daisies, and hyacinths of brilliant\nred;\u2014a thymy smell breathes up the pass;\u2014and there the ungainly stork,\nand gaily painted quails flutter away at the sound of his horse\u2019s hoofs.\nOr those house-tops at the foot of the hill, among their trees, shall be\na Persian town, on which he looks from an eminence. There are the\nflat-roofed white houses, enclosing in their courts those twinkling\nsilver lights, the fountains; the green of trees among the shining walls\nrelieves the eye; the domes and minarets look down into the narrow\nstreets; there sleeps the burial-ground, under the shadow of its\nsentinel cypresses; and there blows the garland of gardens, surrounding\nthe whole with its wavy line of many colours. But the weather is a\nwater-monster, and swallows up too-venturous Fancy. For a few moments\nimagination can lay light behind the clouds; bright hues flush out on\nthe surface of familiar forms, and the magic power prevails to change\nthem into creatures of the Orient. But the rainy reality is too potent,\nand the wilderness of vapour will receive no form, retain no colour. So\nGower turns away from the windows\u2014pokes the fire\u2014feels idle and fit for\nnothing\u2014struggles with himself\u2014conquers, and finally achieves a\nmorning\u2019s work.\n\nWilloughby has laid aside his romance for a time and taken to the\ntheosophists\u2014to Jacob Behmen more especially. In fact, he had come to an\nexciting point in his story. He thought he had found a kind of seething\nturbulence in his thoughts, like that which certain rivers are said to\nmanifest, when in parts of their course they pass over beds of\nsubterranean fire. Afraid of becoming morbid and unnatural, he stopped\nwork at once, and had recourse to Behmen as a refrigerant and sedative.\nThe remedy succeeded to admiration. Within a day or two the patient\ncould pronounce himself out of poetical danger; and Atherton found him,\nwhen he dropped in one morning, enjoying, with Behmen in his hand, that\nmost promising token of convalescence\u2014a profound sleep.\n\nGower resolved to make himself amends for that uncongenial morning, by\nspending the evening at Ashfield. Thither also Willoughby had found his\nway. A considerable part of the evening was passed in Atherton\u2019s\nlibrary, and conversation turned, before very long, upon the mystics,\nonce more, and their position as regards the Reformation.\n\n * * * * *\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Those Teutonic worthies of the fourteenth century are noble\nspecimens of the mystic.\n\nGOWER. Truly, with them, Mysticism puts on her beautiful garments. See\nher standing, gazing heavenward; \u2018her rapt soul sitting in her eyes,\u2019\nand about her what a troop of shining ones! There is Charity, her cheek\nwet with tears for the dead Christ and pale with love for the living;\ncarrying, too, the oil and the wine\u2014for Mysticism was the good Samaritan\nof the time, and succoured bleeding Poverty, when priest passed by and\nLevite;\u2014there is Truth, withdrawing worship from the form and\nsuperstitious substitute, transferring it from priest and pageantry to\nthe heart alone with God, and pressing on, past every channel, toward\nthe Fount Himself;\u2014there Humility, pointing to the embers of consumed\ngood works, while she declares that man is nothing and that God is\nall;\u2014and there, too, Patriotism, and awakening Liberty\u2014for Mysticism\nappealed to the people in their native tongue; fashioned the speech and\nnerved the arms of the German nation; gave heart to the Fatherland\n(bewildered in a tempest of fiery curses) to withstand, in the name of\nChrist, the vicar of Christ; led on the Teutonic lion of her popular\nfable to foil the plots of Italian Reynard; and dared herself to set at\nnought the infuriate Infallibility.\n\nATHERTON. Go on, Gower.\n\nGOWER. It seems to me that the doctrine of justification by faith, is\npractically involved in a theology like that of Tauler, so deep in its\napprehension of sin as selfishness, so thorough in renouncing all merit\non the part of man.\n\nATHERTON. Yes, practically. What was needful in addition was, that this\ndoctrine should take its due central place in the system of Christian\ntruth, as the principle, if I may so speak, of salvation for all men. It\nwas not enough to arrive at it as the upshot of individual mystical\nexperience.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. There I think you indicate the weak point of this\nmysticism\u2014it is _so_ individual\u2014so much a matter of the personal inward\nlife.\n\nGOWER. That surely is the very secret of its strength.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Yes, of its strength up to a certain limit; beyond that\nlimit, of its weakness. It lacked facility of impartation. Its\nsympathies were broad and humane; its doctrine too narrow and ascetic.\nSpeaking from the depths of a soul that had known the nether darkness\nand the insufferable glory, its utterance was broken and obscure. It\nmust be lived through to be understood. It might attract, but could only\npartially retain, the many. Its message, after all, was to the few.\n\nGOWER. But those few, master-minds, remember.\n\nATHERTON. True, yet what powers could compensate for the want of clear\nspeech\u2014of a ready vehicle for transference of thought? A deep saying\nthat of Jeremy Taylor\u2019s, where he remarks concerning mystical elevations\nand abstractions, that, while in other sciences the terms must first be\nknown and then the rules and conclusions, the whole experience of\nmysticism must first be obtained before we can so much as know what it\nis, and the end acquired first\u2014the conclusion before the premises.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. When Luther appears, appealing to the Bible in the hands of\nthe people, the defect is supplied, and we have the Reformation. That\nvisible and venerable externalism, the Romish Church, could not be\nsuccessfully assailed on merely internal grounds. The testimony of the\nindividual heart against it was variable and uncertain, because more or\nless isolated. But where the Scriptures are set free, and they can be\nmade the basis of assault, an externalism quite as visible, and more\nvenerable, brings the outward to bear against the outward; while the\npower of an inward life, pure and deep and ardent as the best of the\nmystics ever knew, animates the irresistible onset.\n\nGOWER. The testimony of History, then, is decidedly against our modern\nspiritualism, which complains that we make too much of the book, and\nsacrifice the subjective religious development to an outward authority.\nLuther\u2014a true man of the spirit\u2014conquered because he could point to a\nletter. The fire of his own inward life could kindle so grand a flame,\nbecause he was sustained by an authority which no individual mystic\ncould arrogate. The Scriptures were the common ground for the Reformer\nwho had the truth, and the inquirer who sought it. The excessive\nsubjectivity of the mystic deprived him of that advantage.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. But are we not overlooking other causes which enabled Luther\nto accomplish so much, and precluded the mystics from carrying further\ntheir reforming tendency?\n\nATHERTON. By all means let the influence of the interval between the\nfourteenth and sixteenth centuries be duly taken into account. To do so\nwill only make good Gower\u2019s remark. During the fifteenth century you\nfind no fresh development of mysticism. The genuine religion of the\nperiod was still mystical in its complexion, but characterised by a much\nlarger infusion of the scriptural element. This was the real advance of\nthat interim. At the Universities the Bible began to displace the\nschoolmen. A better system of interpretation prevailed. Even with the\nmystics St. Paul was already taking the place of Dionysius, and\nmysticism began to lose its nature, merging in a true spirituality,\nsober-minded while fervent. In the theology of such men as John Wessel\nand Staupitz (who with Tauler and the German theology nourished the\nearly religious life of Luther), we see a clearer apprehension of the\nnature of Christ\u2019s work for us\u2014a better balancing of the outward and the\ninward. In fact, the great step necessary to produce a reformation,\nafter the mystics had made their preparation, was this very bringing\ninto prominence of the word of God. Then, to the ardour and the power of\nmysticism in its noblest form, was added the authority, the guidance,\nand the divine adaptation of that message of salvation announced to all\nmankind.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Then, again, the doctrine of Luther directed men at once to\nthe attainment of that clear hope concerning their spiritual safety\nwhich, say what we will, is the craving of our nature. We have seen how\nan Eckart would become pantheist to extort from philosophy that\nassurance which was denied him by the Church.\n\nGOWER. Yet does not the strength and attraction of Romanism lie in this\nvery characteristic\u2014its tempting facility of comfort? Most men prefer a\nsleeping conscience to a tender one; and for such the Romish Church\noffers a perpetual siesta.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Granted; for this very reason, however, she cannot satisfy\nthe deeper wants of the class I speak of\u2014those men out of whom may be\nmade mystics, reformers, heretics,\u2014but religious Helots never. I am not\nspeaking of mere comfort, but of true peace,\u2014of that entrance into a new\nrelationship towards God which gives us the heart to aspire towards a\nnew nature.\n\nGOWER. Agreed, then. Bunyan follows Paul when he makes Christian lose\nhis burden early in the pilgrimage, so that he treads the onward path\nthenceforward with a lighter step.\n\nATHERTON. And can front Apollyon better. Look round at the Christendom\nof that age. You see only two classes who escape the condition of the\nhired servant\u2014who are the sons of God and not his bondsmen. These are\nthe mystics and the reformers. The mystic realizes adoption through\nappalling griefs and toils; the reformer is led thither straightway, as\nhe exclaims with St. Paul, \u2018Being therefore justified by faith, we have\npeace with God.\u2019\n\nWILLOUGHBY. How strongly does Luther urge men to believe on Christ as a\nSaviour for _them_\u2014to receive in lowly simplicity the peace divinely\noffered. How triumphantly does he show that such a faith is victory\u2014that\nall other is a mere historic belief _about_ Christ, not a belief _in_ an\never-present Deliverer, who lives within, and redeems us daily from\nourselves. Thus did his followers helm them speedily with hope, and\nescape, in great measure, the fearful strain of those alternations\nbetween rapture and despair, for which mysticism did not even seek a\nremedy. The distinction between justification and sanctification is no\nmere theological refinement. Its practical recognition, at least, is\nessential to that solemn joyousness which is the strength and glory of\nthe Christian life.\n\nATHERTON. That is, after all, the true escape from Self which delivers\nyou from bondage to the shifting frames and feelings of the hour\u2014the\nmere accidents of personal temperament, by making clear the external\nground of hope. Mysticism had not light enough to find the way to its\nown ideal of rest. Luther, with his Bible, realized in soberness the\nlonged-for repose of its intense passion.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. We must confess too, I think, that the representatives of\nthe better mysticism were not strong enough to cope with the fanatical\nor lawless leaders of the worse. How Tauler, Suso, Ruysbroek, and the\nauthor of the _Theologia Germanica_, lift up their voices against the\n\u2018false lights\u2019\u2014against men who deified every impulse, who professed to\nhave transcended all virtue, who renounced all moral obligation and\noutward authority, or who resigned themselves to a stupid apathy which\nthey called poverty of spirit.\n\nGOWER. Those who constituted this last class must have been men who\nfound in the false doctrine only an excuse for remaining as they\nwere:\u2014hard, indeed, to raise them to anything better. I imagine them\npoor ignorant hinds, the undermost victims of feudalism. One thinks of\nTennyson\u2019s portraiture of the serf,\u2014\n\n The staring eye glazed o\u2019er with sapless days,\n The long mechanic pacings to and fro,\n The set gray life and apathetic end.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Be that as it may, this bastard mysticism, whether rapacious\nas King Stork, or passive as King Log, multiplies among men. Want and\noppression seize on the sacred pretext of an inward light, and mysticism\nis fast growing fierce and revolutionary. Good men, speaking words of\nspiritual freedom, have unawares awakened licence. They themselves slew\nSelf with vigil and with tears; and, lo! a Hydra-headed Self, rampant\nand ruthless, stalks abroad, and they have been unwittingly his\ncreators.\n\nATHERTON. What could they do, as mystics, but mourn and rebuke? The\ninward testimony would not render an unvarying verdict in every case.\nTheir appeal must be, either to an amount of right moral discernment\nalready in the individual, or to the social judgment of a certain\nreligious circle. Beyond these limits their very consistency is their\nweakness. For the thorough-going mystic, who is resolved to be in all\nthings a light and law unto himself, replies that his inward light is\nquite as divinely authoritative _for him_ as is that of the moderate\nman, reproving his excesses, for himself. He will answer, \u2018Friend, walk\nthou by thy light, as I by mine. The external is nothing to the\ninternal. \u201cWhat is the chaff to the wheat?\u201d saith the Lord. Thou art\nexternal to me, I listen therefore to the voice within me, not to\nthine.\u2019\n\nWILLOUGHBY. We have, too, the express testimony of Melanchthon to the\nfact, that had not Luther appeared when he did, to divert the\nunder-current of popular indignation into the middle course of the\nReformation, a fearful outbreak must have desolated Europe from the fury\nkindled by the intolerable oppressions of Church and State.\n\nGOWER. Certainly mysticism could never have spoken with power enough to\nturn aside such a long-gathered tempest.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Where the revolutionary spirit had once broken out, only the\nstrong hand could avail.\n\nATHERTON. And how ruthlessly was that remedy applied! But\u2014what in the\nworld\u2014Gower, I say, open your eyes. Are you going to sleep?\n\nGOWER. I was trying to recall a dream I had after reading about the\nAnabaptists of Munster.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. A dream! Let us have it.\n\nGOWER. Wait a moment\u2014ah, now I remember. First of all, I saw numbers of\npeople toiling across the fields or along miry roads; weary mothers,\ndelicately nurtured, carrying their babes, and followed by their crying\nlittle ones; the fathers laden, it would seem, with such property as\nthey were allowed to take away. They look back mournfully towards the\nwalls of a city, out of whose gates more of their friends are being\nthrust. These are the magistrates, the rich, the unbelievers, driven\nforth by the populace to find what shelter they may among the boors, or\nin the nearest towns. Then I am suddenly inside the city. I see, in one\nplace, a crowd gathered about a shaggy, wild-eyed preacher, spluttering,\nscreaming, foaming at the mouth; in another is a circle surrounding two\nmen in rags, whirling round like spinning dervishes. One man, with face\nghastly pale, and bandaged head, who seems to have escaped from a\nhospital, moans and wrings his hands, predicting universal ruin. Now,\nwith a yell, he has fallen down in convulsions. There a burly brute has\npushed down a weeping woman from the door-steps of a great house, that\nhe may stand on the spot to roar out his prophecy and exhortation. All\nthis was somehow mingled with hosannas to Mathieson, the baker; and at\nthe end of the high street they were dancing about a bonfire made of all\nthe books in the town, save the Bible only. Then the crowd made way for\nthe favourite wife of John Bokelson, the tailor, riding in a great\ncoach, resplendent in silks and costly stuffs torn from the churches.\nMethought I entered the Town Hall. There, on a throne, in a suit of\nsilver tissue, slashed and lined with crimson, fastened with buckles of\ngold, sat John Bokelson himself.[205]\n\nWILLOUGHBY. A Mormon elder, \u2018all of the olden time!\u2019\n\nATHERTON. Be quiet. He had only eight wives.\n\nGOWER. There he sat, with his triple crown, his globe, and cross of\ngold, his silver and golden swords, and above his head I could read,\n\u2018_King of Righteousness over the whole World_.\u2019 Then came a long\nsuccession of petitioners, thrice kneeling and prostrating themselves\nbefore him. A bell rang. The audience was over. Now he was sending out\nambassadors, calling on the neighbouring towns to rise and establish the\nKingdom of the Holy Ghost,\u2014\u2018for the meek are to inherit the earth, and\nthe time for spoiling the Egyptians is come.\u2019 After this I saw long\ntables spread in the market-place, with fine linen cloths, whereat four\nthousand people partook of the sacrament, and afterwards riotously\nfeasted; the grey towers of the cathedral looking down upon them. I\npassed in at the church doors. All was confusion there, drunken shouts,\nand running to and fro of boys from cook-shops. The great oriel window\nhad been broken by stones, and on the pavement, with its time-worn\nepitaphs, lay the many-coloured fragments of glass, among broken flagons\nand pools of beer. A mad musician had seized upon the organ, and above\nthe uproar rolled the mighty volumes of sound, shaking the old dusty\nbanners. Now came a crash of unearthly music\u2014quite unheeded,\u2014and then\nthe melody melted and trembled away, dying down with a far-off wail of\nunutterable pathos. In the midst of his ecstasy the crazed performer was\nhurled away by a swarm of \u2018prentice lads who had found their way up the\nstaircase. One among them struck up the well-known air of a wanton song.\nThere was an outcry and sound of struggling, and I saw the madman leap\nfrom the clerestory down into the middle of the nave,\u2014\u2014\n\nWILLOUGHBY. And you woke?\n\nGOWER. No. There came over me a kind of blank bewilderment, and all was\nchanged. The sides of the church had become mountains. I was in a\nwinding rocky glen, and the moon was rising over the black fantastic\npeaks that shut in the valley. I saw what made me think of Ezekiel\u2019s\nvision of dry bones. Along the hollow of the gorge, and in the great\nfurrows of the heights on each side, where should have been mountain\nstreams and pebbles, were the glistening bones; and on the rock-ledges\nwhere the moonlight fell I could see them strewn; and on every boulder,\nskeleton-heaps; and at the mouth of every cavern, like icicles hanging\nfrom the stony jaws. I heard a rising wind sweep up the pass,\u2014another\nblast, and another; and then, coming nearer and nearer, a sound as\nthough withered boughs of innumerable trees were snapping in a tempest.\nAll was whirling, darting motion among the white rattling fragments,\nabove, beneath, around; till every clanking bone had been locked to its\nfellow, and a skeleton sat on every crag and lay in every hollow. The\nsinews and the flesh then came up upon them; after that, the breath; and\nthey arose, an exceeding great army. I heard a muttering near me, and\nturning, I saw one gazing on the multitude, having in his hand a torch.\nHis wild, eager look startled me. Now I thought he was Carlstadt, and\nthen he changed into Thomas M\u00fcnzer. Then again I was sure I recognized\nSpenser\u2019s Phantastes. He flung his torch into a cleft, whence it\nbreathed out its last sparks into the windy night, and bowing his head,\nturned slowly away. I heard him say, \u2018Dead Church! Dead Church! How\nshalt thou live? I have learnt it. Flesh and blood first\u2014then breath.\nTruth for a body, then Love for a soul. The spirit must have a form\u2014must\nquicken a letter. First a fact for motive; then let the young life work.\nThe soul must have its sinews; the spirit its instrument, its means, its\nwords. Lie there, fire that destroyest; come hither, fire that\nwarmest,\u2014that warmest to good, and that warnest from evil.\u2019 Then I saw\nthat he had a new book in his hand,\u2014the last part then published of\nLuther\u2019s German New Testament. He vanished. The hills rolled away in\nsmoke, and I awoke with a start.\n\nATHERTON. I wish Phantastes and his kindred had really learnt the lesson\nof your dream. But such hot-brained enthusiasts cannot be taught, not\neven by sore stripes of adversity in the school of fools.\n\nFootnote 205:\n\n A reference to Raumer\u2019s _History of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth\n Centuries_ will satisfy the reader that this dream \u2018was not all a\n dream.\u2019 Most minute details are given in a letter from the MSS. of\n Dupuy.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER II.\n\n\n He that misbelieves and lays aside clear and cautious reason in\n things that fall under the discussion of Reason, upon the pretence\n of hankering after some higher principle, (which, a thousand to one,\n proves but the infatuation of Melancholy and a superstitious\n hallucination), is as ridiculous as if he would not use his natural\n eyes about their proper object till the presence of some\n supernatural light, or till he had got a pair of Spectacles made of\n the Crystalline Heaven, or of the C\u0153lum Empyreum, to hang upon his\n nose for him to look through.\u2014HENRY MORE.\n\n\nATHERTON. I ought to acknowledge, I suppose, that I have by me a rough\ndraught, made some time since, representing the first strife between\nMysticism and Reformation. But, as to reading it, I scarcely think\u2014\u2014\n\nWILLOUGHBY. You will not do so, I beg.\n\nATHERTON. Willoughby, you shall suffer for that. I\u2019ll begin.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Pelt away. I thought I should get a cocoa-nut for my stone.\n(_Atherton reads._)\n\n _Luther and the Mystics._\n\n The estimate to be formed of the mystics who lived before the\n Reformation differs very widely from that which is due to those who\n appeared after it. Previous to the Reformation, there was a far\n larger amount of truth with the mystics than with any other party in\n the Romish Church. They were, in reality, men of progress, and\n belonged to the onward element in their day and generation. For\n reform of some sort many of them laboured\u2014all of them sighed. They\n protested against the corruptions of religion. Many an Augean stable\n would they have cleansed, could they but have found their Hercules.\n In France, Briconnet, Gerard, and Roussel were men of this class\u2014not\n so outspoken as Luther and his followers, but led by mysticism to\n sympathy with reforming views, and enabled by that very mysticism to\n retain their connexion with Rome, regarding externals as\n indifferent.\n\n When Luther comes with his doctrine of justification by faith, and\n his announcement that the Scriptures are the sufficient standard of\n Christian truth, a great change takes place. Mystics of the more\n thoughtful, rightly earnest sort, are among the first to embrace the\n new doctrines. Here they have the guide they longed for\u2014here they\n find what mysticism could never give. They are, some of them, like\n Justin Martyr, who waited long among the schools of the Platonists\n for their promised immediate intuition of Deity, and then discovered\n among Christians that God was to be known in another way far\n better\u2014through the medium of his written Word, by the teaching of\n his Spirit. But those who when a fuller light came, refused to quit\n for its lustre that isolated and flickering torch, about which men\n had gathered for lack of anything brighter, such were given over to\n the veriest absurdity, or speedily consigned to utter forgetfulness.\n By the mystic of the fourteenth century, the way of the Reformation\n was in great part prepared. By the mystic of the sixteenth century\n it was hindered and imperilled. In that huge ship of the state\n ecclesiastic, which all true hearts and hands in those troublous\n times were concerned to work to their very best, a new code of\n regulations had been issued. Such rule came in with Luther. Now some\n of those who would have been among the very best sailors under the\n old management, proved useless, or worse than useless under the new.\n One set of them were insolent and mutinous\u2014had a way of reviling the\n captain in strange gibberish\u2014and a most insane tendency to look into\n the powder-room with a light. Another class lay about useless, till\n having been tumbled over many times by their more active comrades,\n they got kicked into corners, whence they were never more to emerge.\n So fared it with mysticism, attempting to persist in existence when\n its work for that time was done. The mystic so situated was either a\n caricature of reform or a cipher, either a fanatical firebrand or an\n unheeded negation.\n\n We need not go far for examples. Dr. Bodenstein of Carlstadt (best\n known as simple Carlstadt) is professor at Wittenberg, and a\n thorough reformer. He is a little, swarthy, sunburnt man, crotchety\n to the last degree. He follows his intuitions\u2014now this whim, now\n that\u2014right to-day, wrong to-morrow\u2014a man whom you never know where\n to find. He must spring to his conclusion at once; he will not first\n pause for satisfying reasons,\u2014for clear ideas on the various\n bearings of his thought or deed. So his life is a series of starts;\n his actions incongruous and spasmodic, unlinked, unharmonized by any\n thoughtful plan or principle.\n\n But Carlstadt is a man of books as well as of action. He writes\n treatises, repeating the doctrines of Tauler and the German\n Theology, all about abandonment, and not seeing God or enjoying Him\n more in this than in that event or employment; about the sin of\n enjoying ordinances and media, rather than God immediately; about\n the blessed self-loss in the One; about the reduction of ourselves\n to nothing. Ah, Dr. Bodenstein, thou mayest write for ever that way,\n and no one now will read! Men have left all this behind. A ripe full\n vintage invites their thirst; thine acrid and ascetic grape is now\n deserted. Gladly do they, for the most part, exchange the refined\n and impracticable requirements of mysticism, its vagueness, its\n incessant prohibition, for the genial, simple truth of that German\n New Testament which Luther is giving them.\n\n At the juncture of which we are about to speak, Luther lay hidden in\n the Wartburg. In the small town of Zwickau, in the Erzgebirge, there\n arose a knot of enthusiasts for whom Luther did not go half far\n enough. There was Storch, a weaver, to whom Gabriel had made very\n wonderful communications one night; another weaver, named Thomas,\n and a student, St\u00fcbner, who had forsaken the toil of study for the\n easier method of supernatural illumination. To these should be added\n the more notorious Thomas M\u00fcnzer, who has been erroneously regarded\n as the founder of the party. \u2018Why such a slavish reverence for what\n the Bible says?\u2019 cry these mystics. \u2018What is a mere book?\u2019 \u2018Have we\n not immediate voices, impulses, revelations from the Holy Spirit,\n dictating all we should do? Better this than your Bible reading and\n college work.\u2019 Then, next, they prophesy terrible woes and judgments\n to come on Christendom, mainly through the Turks; they themselves,\n perhaps, in fitting time, may draw the sword of the Lord and of\n Gideon, and win the land for the saints.\n\n These worthies were put down by the magistrates of Zwickau. Shaking\n off the Zwickau dust against their enemies, several of them seek a\n \u2018larger sphere of usefulness\u2019 in Wittenberg. They found the city\n already in no small excitement concerning certain reforms which\n Carlstadt was making at full speed. He fraternizes with the Zwickau\n prophets at once. Indeed, he had been heard to say of the whole body\n of Scripture what divines were accustomed to say of the law only,\n that it was a killing letter, leading to nothing more than a sense\n of guilt and deserved condemnation. Faster and faster come his\n changes, so well-meant, but so ill-advised. With a few strokes he\n abolishes auricular confession, makes it incumbent to violate the\n fast days, and renders it customary to come to the sacrament without\n preparation. Next an iconoclast riot is raised. Carlstadt declares\n that the magistrates have power to render criminal those observances\n which the popular voice declares contrary to the Word of God; that\n if they refuse, the community may take the law into its own hands.\n\n A scholar like Carlstadt, a professor of established repute,\n surrenders at last to the vulgar error of the very coarsest\n mysticism. He advises his students to go home; human learning is\n vain; Hebrew and Greek an idle toil; inspiration is far above\n scholarship. Were there not prophets among them, wiser than all the\n doctors, who had never studied anything or anywhere for half an\n hour? He himself went about among the poor people, asking them the\n meaning of Scripture passages, and believing that the hap-hazard\n notions they put forth were a special revelation from Him who hideth\n from the wise and prudent what is revealed unto babes. Imagine the\n Professor bawling a text into the ear of some deaf old crone who\n cowers beside the stove, and awaiting the irrelevant mumblings of\n ignorant decrepitude as the oracle of God! Fancy him accosting the\n shoemaker at his stall, and getting his notion of the text in\n question, noting it down as infallible, and going his way rejoicing;\n while Crispin, who knows him, thinks over and over again what a far\n cleverer answer he might have given, and wishes unsaid what\n Carlstadt believes inspired!\n\n Is there no one in Wittenberg to unmask these follies, and to quiet\n the smouldering excitement dangerously spreading among townspeople\n and students? Melanchthon is young. The loud browbeating volubility\n of the prophets overpowers his gentle nature. He is undecided\u2014he\n fancies he sees some force in what they say about baptism. He is\n timid\u2014he will do nothing.\n\n Friends write to Luther. Back comes an answer from a man who sees to\n the heart of the matter in a moment\u2014a standing confutation of the\n mystic\u2019s ambition, in three sentences. Thus replies Luther\u2014\u2018Do you\n wish to know the place, the time, the manner in which God holds\n converse with men? Hear then\u2014\u2018As a lion so hath he crushed all my\n bones;\u2019 and again, \u2018I am cast out from before thy face;\u2019 and again,\n \u2018My soul is filled with plagues, and my life draweth nigh unto the\n gates of hell.\u2019 The Divine Majesty does not speak to men\n immediately, as they call it, so that they have vision of God, for\n He saith, \u2018No flesh shall see me and live.\u2019 Human nature could not\n survive the least syllable of the Divine utterance. So God addresses\n man through men, because we could not endure His speaking to us\n without medium.\u2019\n\n And the mystics could not say (as mystics so commonly plead) that\n Luther was a man unable, from defective experience, to understand\n them. If any man had sounded the depths of the soul\u2019s \u2018dim and\n perilous way,\u2019 it was he. Nay, it is for him to question _their_\n experience. \u2018Inquire,\u2019 he says to Melanchthon, \u2018if they know aught\n of those spiritual distresses, those divine births, and deaths, and\n sorrows, as of hell.\u2019[206]\n\n Luther receives day by day more alarming intelligence. He fears the\n spread of false doctrine\u2014insurrection in the name of reform. He is\n anxious lest the elector should persecute the new lights\u2014a step\n which the fat, amiable, children-with-sugar-plums-feeding Frederick,\n was not very likely to take. He forms the heroic resolve of quitting\n his refuge, and suddenly reappears in Wittenberg. He preaches\n sermons marvellous for moderation and wisdom\u2014sermons which\n accomplish what is so hard, the calming of heated passion, the\n reconciliation of adversaries. At his voice Violence and Tumult\n slink away\u2014their hounds still in the leash; and Charity descends,\n waving her wand of peace, and shedding the light of her heavenly\n smile on every face. So triumphs Religion over Fanaticism.\n\n Finally, Luther was called on to hold a discussion with two of the\n prophets, St\u00fcbner, and one Cellarius, a schoolmaster. The latter,\n when called upon by Luther to substantiate his positions from the\n Scripture, stamps, strikes the table with his fist, and declares it\n an insult to speak so to a man of God. Luther, at last, seeing this\n man foaming, roaring, leaping about like one possessed, comes to\n believe that there _is_ a spirit in these men\u2014but an unclean one\n from beneath. He cries out finally, after his homely fashion, \u2018I\n smack that spirit of yours upon the snout.\u2019 Howls of indignation\n from the Zwickauer side\u2014universal confusion\u2014dissolution of assembly.\n The prophets after this find themselves moved to quit Wittenberg\n without delay\u2014their occupation gone. Let prosaic or sceptical folk\n regard this discussion as they may, to those who look beneath the\n surface, it is manifest that there really was a conflict of spirits\n going on then and there\u2014the unclean spirit of Arrogance and Misrule\n quailing before that of Truth and Soberness.[207]\n\n Carlstadt and his allies of Zwickau exhibit mysticism rampant,\n making reformation look questionable. A very fair representative of\n the other class of mystic is found in Sebastian Frank. This man,\n born at the close of the fifteenth century, seems to have lived a\n wandering life in different parts of Germany (often brought into\n trouble by his doctrines, probably) for some forty or fifty years.\n He was early enamoured of the German Theology, the writings of\n Tauler, above all, of Eckart\u2019s speculations. The leading principles\n contained in the books he regarded with such veneration, he\n elaborated into a system of his own. Starting with the doctrine of\n the _Theologia Germanica_, that God is the _substans_ of all things,\n he pushes it to the verge of a dreamy pantheism\u2014nay, even beyond\n that uncertain frontier. He conceives of a kind of divine\n life-process (_Lebens-prozess_) through which the universe has to\n pass. This process, like the Hegelian, is threefold. _First_, the\n divine substance, the abstract unity which produces all existence.\n _Second_, said substance appearing as an opposite to itself\u2014making\n itself object. _Third_, the absorption of this opposition and\n antithesis\u2014the consummate realization whereof takes place in the\n consciousness of man when restored to the supreme unity and rendered\n in a sense divine. The fall of man is, in his system, a fall from\n the Divinity within him\u2014that Reason which is the Holy Ghost, in\n which the Divine Being is supposed first to acquire will and\n self-consciousness. Christ is, with him, the divine element in man.\n The work of the historic Saviour is to make us conscious of the\n ideal and inward, and we thus arrive at the consciousness of that\n fundamental divineness in us which knows and is one with the Supreme\n by identity of nature.[208] Such doctrine is a relapse upon Eckart,\n and also an anticipation of modern German speculation.\n\n Yet, shall we say on this account that Sebastian Frank was before\n his age or behind it? The latter unquestionably. He stood up in\n defence of obsolescent error against a truth that was blessing\n mankind. He must stand condemned, on the sole ground of judgment we\n modern judges care to take, as one of the obstructives of his day\n who put forth what strength he had to roll back the climbing wheel\n of truth. We pardon Tauler\u2019s allegorical interpretations\u2014those\n freaks of fancy, so subtile, so inexhaustible, so curiously\n irrelevant in one sense, yet so sagaciously brought home in\n another\u2014we assent to Melanchthon\u2019s verdict, who calls him the German\n Origen; but we remember that every one in his times interpreted the\n Bible in that arbitrary style. The Reformers, aided by the revival\n of letters, were successful in introducing those principles of\n interpretation with which we are ourselves familiar. But for this\n more correct method of exegesis, the benign influence of the\n Scriptures themselves had been all but nullified; for any one might\n have found in them what he would. Yet against this good thing,\n second only to the Word itself, Sebastian Frank stands up to fight\n in defence of arbitrary fancy and of lifeless pantheistic theory\n with such strength as he may. So has mysticism, once so eager to\n press on, grown childishly conservative, and is cast out\n straightway. Luther said he had written nothing against Frank, he\n despised him so thoroughly. \u2018Unless my scent deceive me,\u2019 says the\n reformer, \u2018the man is an enthusiast or spiritualist (_Geisterer_),\n for whom nothing will do but spirit! spirit!\u2014and not a word of\n Scripture, sacrament, or ministry.\u2019\n\n So Frank, contending for the painted dreams of night against the\n realities of day\u2014for fantasy against soberness\u2014and falling,\n necessarily, in the fight, has been curtained over in his sleep by\n the profoundest darkness. Scarcely does any one care to rescue from\n their oblivion even the names of his many books. What is his _Golden\n Ark_, or _Seven Sealed Book_, or collection of most extravagant\n interpretations, called _Paradoxa_, to any human creature?\n\n For a Chronicle he left behind, the historian has sometimes to thank\n him. He had a near-sighted mind. Action immediately about him he\n could limn truly. But he had not the comprehensiveness to see\n whither the age was tending.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. How admirable is that reply of Luther\u2019s;\u2014an unanswerable\nrebuke of that presumptuous mysticism which would boastfully tear aside\nthe veil and dare a converse face to face with God. Semele perishes.\nThat the fanatic survives is proof that he has but embraced a cloud.\n\nATHERTON. A rebuke, rather, of that folly, in all its forms, which\nimagines itself the subject of a special revelation that is no fearful\nsearching of the soul, but merely a flattering reflection of its own\nwishes.\n\nGOWER. And what can most men make of that milder form of the same\nambition\u2014I mean the exhortation to escape all image and figure? How else\ncan we grasp spiritual realities? The figurative language in which\nreligious truth is conveyed to us seems to me to resemble that delicate\nmembrane gummed to the back of the charred papyrus-roll, which otherwise\nwould crumble to pieces in unwinding. The fragile film alone would drop\nto dust, but by this means it coheres, and may be unfolded for\ninspection.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. And when a scripture figure is pressed too far (the\nbesetting sin of systematising divines), it is as though your\ngold-beater\u2019s skin, or whatever it be, had been previously written on,\nand the characters mistaken for those of the roll to which it was merely\nthe support and lining.\n\nGOWER. I can readily conceive how provoking a man like Sebastian Frank\nmust have been to Luther, with his doctrines of passivity and apathy,\nhis holy contempt for rule, for rationality, or practicability, and his\nidle chaotic system-spinning, when every hand was wanted for the goodly\ncause of Reform.\n\nATHERTON. Then there was Schwenkfeld, too, who went off from Luther as\npietist in one direction, while Frank departed as pantheist in the\nother.\n\nGOWER. A well-meaning man, though; a kind of sixteenth-century Quaker,\nwas he not?\n\nATHERTON. Yes. Compound a Quaker, a Plymouth Brother, and an Antip\u00e6do\nBaptist, and the result is something like a Schwenkfeldian.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. For my enquiries concerning Jacob Behmen, I find that the\nmost important of the Lutheran mystics was a quiet man of few words,\npastor at Tschopau during the latter half of the sixteenth century, by\nname Valentine Weigel.\n\nGOWER. You will give us more information about him when you read your\nessay on Jacob Behmen. For the present I confess myself tired of these\nminor mystics.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. I shall have to do with him only in as far as he was a\nforerunner of Jacob. Weigel\u2019s treatises were published posthumously, and\na very pretty quarrel there was over his grave. He bases his theology on\nthe _Theologia Germanica_, adds a modification of Sebastian Frank, and\nintroduces the theosophy of Paracelsus. In this way he brings us near to\nBehmen, who united in himself the two species of mysticism\u2014the\ntheopathetic, represented by Schwenkfeld, on the one side, and the\ntheosophic, by Paracelsus, on the other.\n\nATHERTON. As Lutheranism grew more cold and rigid, mysticism found more\nground of justification, and its genial reaction rendered service to the\nChurch once more.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. I think the sword of the Thirty Years\u2019 War may be said to\nhave cleared legitimate space for it. In that necessary strife for\nopinion the inward life was sorely perilled. It was inevitable, I\nsuppose, that multitudes should at least have sought, not only\nspirituality in mysticism and purity in separation, but wisdom in the\nstars, wealth in alchemy, and the communion of saints in secret\nsocieties.\n\n\n Note to page 46.\n\n\nLuther writes:\u2014Jam vero privatum spiritum explores etiam, qu\u00e6ras, num\nexperti sint spirituales illas angustias et nativitates divinas, mortes,\ninfernosque. Si audieris blanda, tranquilla, devota (ut vocant) et\nreligiosa, etiamsi in tertium c\u0153lum sese raptos dicant, non approbabis.\nTenta ergo et ne Iesum quidem audias gloriosum, nisi videris prius\ncrucifixum. A golden rule.\u2014_Luth. Epist._ De Wette, No. 358. Jan. 13,\n1522. The language he uses elsewhere concerning such fanatics is strong,\nbut not stronger than the occasion demanded. It was indeed no time for\ncompliment\u2014for hesitant, yea-nay utterance upon the question. The\nfreedom claimed by Carlstadt\u2019s followers led straightway to a lawless\npride, which was so much servitude to Satan\u2014was the death-wound, not the\ncrown, of spiritual life. It was from the fulness of his charity\u2014not in\nlack of it\u2014that Luther uttered his manly protest against that perilous\nlie. Michelet selects a passage which shows in a very instructive manner\nhow the strong mind (in this quarrel, as in so many more) breaks in\npieces, with a touch, the idols which seduce the weak. \u2018If you ask\nCarlstadt\u2019s people,\u2019 says Luther, \u2018how this sublime spirit is arrived\nat, they refer you, not to the Gospel, but to their reveries, to their\nvacuum. \u2018Place thyself,\u2019 say they, \u2018in a state of void tedium as we do,\nand then thou wilt learn the same lesson; the celestial voice will be\nheard, and God will speak to thee in person.\u2019 If you urge the matter\nfurther, and ask what this void tedium of theirs is, they know as much\nabout it as Dr. Carlstadt does about Greek and Hebrew.... Do you not in\nall this recognize the Devil, the enemy of divine order? Do you not see\nhim opening a huge mouth, and crying, \u2018Spirit, spirit, spirit!\u2019 and all\nthe while he is crying this, destroying all the bridges, roads,\nladders,\u2014in a word, every possible way by which the spirit may penetrate\ninto you; that is to say, the external order established by God in the\nholy baptism, in the signs and symbols, and in his own Word. They would\nhave you learn to mount the clouds, to ride the wind; but they tell you\nneither how, nor when, nor where, nor what; all these things you must\nlearn of yourself, as they do.\u2019\n\nFootnote 206:\n\n See Note, p. 51.\n\nFootnote 207:\n\n See the account in Ranke\u2019s _History of the Reformation_.\n\nFootnote 208:\n\n See Carriere, _Die philosophische Weltanschauung der Reformationzeit_\n (1847), pp. 196-203.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER III.\n\n\n _Subtle._ Your _lapis philosophicus_?\n\n _Face._ \u2019Tis a stone,\n And not a stone; a spirit, a soul, and a body;\n Which if you do dissolve, it is dissolved;\n If you coagulate, it is coagulated;\n If you make it to fly, it flieth.\n\n THE ALCHEMIST.\n\n\nATHERTON. We are to call on Willoughby to-night, I believe, to conduct\nus to Jacob Behmen\u2014or Boehme, more correctly.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. I shall scarcely bring you so far this evening. I have to\ntrouble you with some preliminary paragraphs on the theosophic mysticism\nwhich arose with the Reformation, some remarks on the theurgic\nsuperstitions of that period, and a word or two about Cornelius Agrippa\nand Paracelsus. A very formidable preamble,\u2014yet necessary, I assure you.\n\nAnd herewith, Willoughby, after solacing himself with a goodly bunch of\ngrapes, began to read his essay.\n\n\n ON THE THEOSOPHY OF JACOB BEHMEN.\n\n\n \u00a7 1. _Mysticism and Science._\n\n\n I have to trace the advance of mysticism into a new world. Prior to\n the Reformation the mystic sought escape in God from all that was\n not God. After that epoch he is found seeking at the hands of his\n Maker a supernatural acquaintance with all that He has made. Once\n his highest knowledge was that surpassing ignorance which swoons in\n the glory of the Infinite. Now he claims a familiarity passing that\n of common mortals with the mysteries of sea and land, of stars and\n elements. Escaping that monastic dualism which abandoned the world\n to Satan, mysticism will now dispute the empire of the prince of\n this world. Inspired from above, and haply not unaided by angelic\n ministries, the master of the hidden wisdom will devoutly elicit the\n benign potencies of the universe, and repel the malevolent. No\n longer a mere contemplatist\u2014gazing up at the heights of the divine\n nature, or down into the depth of the human\u2014the mystic of the new\n age will sweep, with all-piercing vision, the whole horizon of\n things visible. The theosophist covets holiness still, but knowledge\n scarcely less. Virtue (as aforetime) may be regarded by such mystics\n too much as the means to an end. But the end is no longer the same.\n With the theopathetic mysticism the exercise of the Christian graces\n and the discipline of fiery spiritual purgations were the road to a\n superhuman elevation\u2014a vision and repose anticipating heaven. With\n the theosophic, Faith and Charity and Hope were the conditions of\n the higher knowledge. For never to the proud, the greedy, the\n impure, would heaven vouchsafe the keys of mystery and hazardous\n prerogative in the unseen world. To the contemplative mystic the\n three heavenly sisters brought a cloud of glory; for the theosophist\n they unclasped nature\u2019s \u2018infinite book of secrecy;\u2019 in the hand of\n the theurgist they placed an enchanter\u2019s wand.\n\n The sphere of mysticism was not thus extended by any expansive force\n of its own. The spirit of a new and healthier age had ventured to\n depreciate the morbid seclusion of the cloister. Men began to feel\n that it was at once more manly and more divine to enquire and to\n know than to gaze and dream. After the servitude of the schools and\n the collapse of the cloister, the ambition of the intellect would\n acknowledge no limit, would accept of no repose. The highest\n aspirations of religion and the most daring enterprise of science\n were alike mystical. They coalesced in theosophy. Changes such as\n these were wrought by a power from without. Mysticism was awakened\n from its feverish dream by the spirit of the time\u2014as Milton\u2019s Eve by\n Adam from her troubled morning sleep\u2014and invited to go forth and see\n \u2018nature paint her colours.\u2019\n\n As the revival of letters spread over Europe the taste for\n antiquity, and natural science began to claim its share in the\n freedom won for theology, the pretensions of the Cabbala, of Hermes,\n of the Neo-Platonist theurgy, became identified with the cause of\n progress.\n\n That ancient doctrine, familiar to the school of Plotinus, according\n to which the world was a huge animal\u2014a living organism united in all\n its parts by secret sympathies,\u2014received some fresh development in\n the fancy of every adept. The student of white magic believed, with\n Iamblichus, in the divine power inherent in certain words of\n invocation, whereby the aspirant might hold intercourse with powers\n of the upper realm. With the modern, as with the ancient\n Neo-Platonists, religion bore an indispensable part in all such\n attempts. Proclus required of the theurgist an ascetic purity.\n Campanella demands a _fides intrinseca_,\u2014that devout simplicity of\n heart which should qualify the candidate at once to commune with\n holy spirits and to baffle the delusive arts of the malign.[209]\n\n But the theosophists of Germany were not, like the Alexandrians,\n slavish worshippers of the past. They did not resort to theurgy in\n order to prop a falling faith. They did not wield that instrument to\n prolong, by the spasmodic action of superstitious practice, the life\n of an expiring philosophy. Those formul\u00e6 of incantation, those\n \u2018symbola\u2019 and \u2018synthemata,\u2019 which were everything with Iamblichus,\n were with many of them only a bye-work, and by others utterly\n abjured. They believed devoutly in the genuineness of the Cabbala.\n They were persuaded that beneath all the floods of change this oral\n tradition had perpetuated its life unharmed from the days of Moses\n downward,\u2014even as Jewish fable taught them that the cedars alone, of\n all trees, had continued to spread the strength of their\n invulnerable arms below the waters of the deluge. They rejoiced in\n the hidden lore of that book as in a treasure rich with the germs of\n all philosophy. They maintained that from its marvellous leaves man\n might learn the angelic heraldry of the skies, the mysteries of the\n divine nature, the means of converse with the potentates of\n heaven.[210] But such reverence, so far from oppressing, seemed\n rather to enfranchise and excite their imagination. In the tradition\n before which they bowed, the majesty of age and the charm of youth\n had met together. Hierocles brought to them Pythagoras out of an\n immemorial past; and there was no novelty more welcome in that\n restless wonder-loving present. Thus the theosophists could oppose\n age to age, and reverently impugn the venerable. Antiquity, in the\n name of Aristotle, so long absolute, had imposed a shameful bondage.\n Antiquity, in the name of Plato, newly disinterred, imparted a\n glorious privilege. The chains of the past were being filed away by\n instruments which the past had furnished. Ancient prescription\n became itself the plea for change when one half of its demands was\n repudiated in honour of the other.\n\n This theosophy was a strange mixture of the Hellenic, the Oriental,\n and the Christian styles of thought. I shall assume as its emblem\n the church of St. John, at Rhodes, which, full of statues of saints\n and tombs of knights, broken, or rounded into mounds of sullied snow\n by the hand of time, is surmounted by a crescent, and echoes to the\n voice of the muezzin, while sheltering beneath its porch the altar\n of a Grecian God. But our incongruous theosophic structure, ever\n open and ever changing, enlarged its precincts continually. A\n succession of eccentric votaries enriched it ceaselessly with quaint\n devices, fresh flowers of fancy, new characters in mystical mosaic,\n and intricate arabesques of impenetrable significance.\n\n Plotinus, indifferent to the material universe, had been content to\n inherit and transmit the doctrine of the world\u2019s vitality. That\n notion now became the nucleus of a complex system of sympathies and\n antipathies. It suggested remedies for every disease, whether of\n mind or body. It prompted a thousand fantastic appliances and\n symbols. But at the same time it rendered the enquirer more keenly\n observant of natural phenomena. Extolling Trismegistus to the skies,\n and flinging his Galen into the fire, Paracelsus declared the world\n his book.[211] The leaves of that volume were continents and\n seas\u2014provinces, its paragraphs\u2014the plants, the stones, the living\n things of every clime, its illuminated letters.\n\n In the dawn of science hovered a meteor, which at once lured onward\n and led astray the seekers after truth,\u2014it was the hope of special\n illumination. They hastened to generalize on a medley of crude\n fancies and of partial facts. For generalization was with them a\n sudden impulse, not a slow result. It was an exalted act prompted by\n a Divine light that flashed on intuition from without, or radiated\n from the wondrous depths of the microcosm within. Hence (as with\n bees in dahlias) their industry was their intoxication. It is of the\n essence of mysticism to confound an internal creation or process\n with some external manifestation. Often did the theosophist rejoice\n in the thought that nature, like the rock in the desert, had been\n made to answer to his compelling rod,\u2014that a divinely-given stream\n welled forth to satisfy his thirst for knowledge. As we look back\n upon his labours we can perceive that the impulse was by no means a\n wonder, and often anything but a blessing. It was in reality but as\n the rush of the water into the half-sunk shaft of his research,\n flooding the region of his first incautious efforts, and sooner or\n later arresting his progress in every channel he might open. In\n fact, the field of scientific enquiry, which had withered under the\n schoolman, was inundated by the mystic,\u2014so facile and so copious\n seemed the knowledge realized by heaven-born intuition. It was\n reserved for induction to develop by a skilful irrigation that\n wonder-teeming soil. No steady advance was possible when any\n hap-hazard notion might be virtually invested with the sanction of\n inspiration.\n\n The admixture of light and darkness during that twilight period\n reached precisely the degree of shadow most favourable to the\n vigorous pursuit of natural science by supernatural means.\n\n It is true that the belief in witchcraft everywhere prevalent did,\n ever and anon, throw people and rulers alike into paroxysms of fear\n and fury. But an accomplished student of occult art was no longer in\n much danger of being burnt alive as a fair forfeit to Satan. The\n astrologer, the alchemist, the adept in natural magic, were in\n universal demand. Emperors and nobles, like Rudolph and Wallenstein,\n kept each his star-gazer in a turret chamber, surrounded by\n astrolabes and alembics, by ghastly preparations and mysterious\n instruments, and listened, with ill-concealed anxiety, as the\n zodiac-zoned and silver-bearded counsellor, bent with study and\n bleared with smoke, announced, in oracular jargon, the junction of\n the planets or his progress toward projection. The real perils of\n such pretenders now arose from the very confidence they had\n inspired. Such was the thirst for gold and the faith in alchemy,\n that no man supposed to possess the secret was secure from\n imprisonment and torture to compel its surrender. Setonius was\n broken on the wheel because the cruel avarice of the great could not\n wring out of him that golden process which had no existence. The few\n enquirers whose aim was of a nobler order were mortified to find\n their science so ill appreciated. They saw themselves valued only as\n casters of horoscopes and makers of cunning toys. Often, with a\n bitter irony, they assumed the airs of the charlatan for their daily\n bread. Impostors knavish as Sir Arthur Wardour\u2019s Dousterswivel,\n deceived and deceiving like Leicester\u2019s Alasco, swarmed at the petty\n court of every landgrave and elector.\n\n Theurgic mysticism was practically admitted even within the Lutheran\n Church, while the more speculative or devotional mysticism of\n Sebastian Frank, Schwenkfeld, and Weigel, was everywhere proscribed.\n Lutheran doctors, believers in the Cabbala, which Reuchlin had\n vindicated against the monks, were persuaded that theurgic art could\n draw the angels down to mortals. Had not the heaven-sent power of\n the Cabbala wrought the marvels of Old Testament history? Had not\n the power of certain mystic words procured for Hebrew saints the\n privilege of converse with angelic natures? Had not the Almighty\n placed all terrestrial things under the viceregency of the starry\n influences? Had He not united all things, animate and inanimate, by\n a subtle network of sympathies, and was not man the leading chord in\n this system of harmony\u2014the central heart of this circulating\n magnetic force? Thus much assumed, a devout man, wise in the laws of\n the three kinds of vincula between the upper and lower worlds, might\n be permitted to attract to himself on earth those bright\n intelligences who were to be his fellows in heaven. Theurgy rested,\n therefore, on the knowledge of the _intellectual vinculum_ (the\n divine potency inherent in certain words), the _astral_ (the\n favourable conjunction of the planets), and the _elementary_ (the\n sympathy of creatures). In the use of these was, of course, involved\n the usual hocus-pocus of magical performance\u2014talismans, magic\n lights, incense, doves\u2019 blood, swallows\u2019 feathers, _et hoc genus\n omne_.[212]\n\nFootnote 209:\n\n Horst\u2019s _Zauberbibliothek_, vol. iii. p. 21.\n\nFootnote 210:\n\n Agrippa\u2019s _Vanity of Arts and Sciences_, chap. 47.\n\nFootnote 211:\n\n See M. B. Lessing, _Paracelsus, sein Leben und Denken_, p. 60.\n\nFootnote 212:\n\n The third and fourth volumes of Horst\u2019s _Zauberbibliothek_ contain a\n very full account of all these vincula. The vincula of the\n Intellectual World are principally formulas of invocation; secret\n names of God, of celestial principalities and spirits; Hebrew, Arabic,\n and barbarous words; magical figures, signs, diagrams, and circles.\n Those of the Elementary World consist in the sympathetic influence of\n certain animals and plants, such as the mole, the white otter, the\n white dove, the mandrake; of stones and metals, ointments and\n suffumigations. Those of the Astral or Celestial World depend on the\n aspects and dispositions of the heavenly bodies, which, under the sway\n of planetary spirits, infuse their influences into terrestrial\n objects. This is the astrological department of theurgy. Meinhold\u2019s\n _Sidonia_ contains a truthful exhibition of this form of theurgic\n mysticism, as it obtained in Protestant Germany. See Paracelsus, _De\n Spiritibus Planetarum_, passim. (Ed. Dorn., 1584.)\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER IV.\n\n\n For I am siker that there be sciences,\n By which men maken divers apparences,\n Swiche as thise subtil tregetoures play.\n For oft at festes have I well herd say,\n That tregetoures, within an halle large,\n Have made come in a water and a barge,\n And in the halle rowen up and down.\n Sometime hath semed come a grim leoun,\n And sometime floures spring as in a mede,\n Sometime a vine and grapes white and rede,\n Sometime a castel all of lime and ston,\n And whan hem liketh voideth it anon.\n Thus semeth it to every mannes sight.\n\n CHAUCER.\n\n Give me thy hand, terrestrial; so:\u2014Give me thy hand, celestial; so.\n\n MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.\n\n\n WILLOUGHBY\u2019S ESSAY\u2014SECOND EVENING.\n\n\n \u00a7 2. _Cornelius Agrippa._\n\n\n Cornelius Agrippa, of Nettesheim, is a favourable specimen of that\n daring and versatile order of mind which, in the sixteenth century,\n sought adventure and renown in every province of philosophy. His\n restless life is picturesque with the contrast of every imaginable\n vicissitude. A courtier and a scholar, a soldier and a mystic, he\n made the round of the courts of Europe. Patronized and persecuted\n alternately, courted as a prodigy and hunted down as a heretic, we\n see him to-day a Plato, feasted by the Sicilian tyrant, to-morrow a\n Diogenes, crawling with a growl into his tub. He lectures with\n universal applause on the _Verbum Mirificum_ of Reuchlin. He forms a\n secret association for the promotion of occult science. He is\n besieged by swarming boors in some Garde Douloureuse, and escapes\n almost by miracle. He enters the service of Margaret, Regent of the\n Netherlands, then that of the Emperor, and is knighted on the field\n for heroic gallantry in the campaign against the Venetians. He is\n next to be heard of as a teacher of theology at Pavia. Plunged into\n poverty by the reverses of war, he writes for comfort a mystical\n treatise _On the Threefold Way of Knowing God_. The hand of the\n Marquis of Montferrat plucks him from his slough of despond, but ere\n long he is again homeless, hungering, often after bread, ever after\n praise and power. At the court of France, the Queen Mother shows him\n favour, but withholds the honour to which such gifts might well\n aspire. Then appears the famous book _On the Vanity of Arts and\n Sciences_.\n\n It was wormwood to the proud spirit of Agrippa to be treated as a\n mere astrologer. To think that he must toil in obscurity like a\n gnome, calculating aspects, sextile and quartile, reckoning the\n cusps and hours of the houses of heaven, to subserve the ambition of\n an implacable intriguante, when his valour might adorn the tourney\n and his wisdom sway the council! He would fain have been in France\n what that great astrologer of the previous century, Martius\n Galeotti, had been in Hungary, to whom the Czar of Russia and the\n Khan of Tartary were said to have sent respectful presents of more\n than royal magnificence; who was ambassador alike of monarchs and\n the stars; who bore a share in the statecraft of the court at Buda,\n and charging abreast with the crowned helm of Matthias, rode down\n the ranks of the turbaned infidel. So the gallant knight and the\n \u2018courtier of most elegant thread,\u2019 the archimage, the philosopher,\n the divine, became for awhile a sceptic and a Timon. The _De\n Vanitate Scientiarum_ ravages, with a wild Berserker fury, the whole\n domain of knowledge. The monk Ilsan of medi\u00e6val fable did not more\n savagely trample the roses in the enchanted garden of\n Worms,\u2014Pantagruel did not more cruelly roast with fire his six\n hundred and nine and fifty vanquished horsemen, than did Agrippa\n consume with satire every profession and every calling among men.\n With reason might he say in his preface, \u2018The grammarians will rail\n at me\u2014the etymologists will derive my name from the gout\u2014the\n obstreperous rhetoricians will plague me with their big words and\n inimical gestures\u2014the intricate geometrician will imprison me in his\n triangles and tetragonals\u2014the cosmographer will banish me among the\n bears to Greenland.\u2019 Scholastic fanaticism could never pardon the\n man whose sarcasm had left nothing standing, save the Holy\n Scriptures. The monks and doctors of Lyons hurled back his\n tongue-bolts with the dreaded cry of heresy. His disgrace and exile\n they could compass, but they could not arrest those winged words or\n bow that dauntless spirit.\n\n The treatise _On the Threefold Way of Knowing God_, shows how, by\n Divine illumination, the Christian may discern the hidden meanings\n of the New Testament, as the Cabbalist evolves those of the Old. It\n teaches the way in which the devout mind may be united to God, and,\n seeing all things in Him, and participating in His power, may even\n now, according to the measure of faith, foretell the future and\n controul the elements.\n\n The _De Occulta Philosophia_[213] (a youthful work re-written in his\n later years) treats of the three kinds of magic\u2014the _Natural_ (the\n science of sympathies and antipathies, whereby the adept accelerates\n or modifies the process of nature so as to work apparent miracles);\n the _Celestial_, or Mathematical (astrology); and the _Religious_,\n or ceremonial (theurgy).\n\n Once on a time, the savans were sorely puzzled by certain irregular\n holes on the front of an ancient temple. One, more sagacious than\n the rest, suggested that these indentations might be the marks of\n nails used to fasten to the stone metallic plates representing Greek\n characters. And, in fact, lines drawn from one point to the next\n were found to form letters, and the name of the deity stood\n disclosed. In like manner, the student of natural magic sought to\n decipher the secret language of the universe, by tracing out those\n lines of sympathy which linked in a mysterious kindred objects the\n most remote. It was believed that the fields of space were threaded\n in every direction by the hidden highways of magnetic influence;\n traversed from all points by an intricate network of communication\n uniting the distant and the near\u2014the celestial and terrestrial\n worlds. Science was charged with the office of discovering and\n applying those laws of harmony and union which connect the\n substances of earth with each other and with the operation of the\n stars. Through all the stages of creation men thought they saw the\n inferior ever seeking and tending towards the higher nature, and the\n order above shedding influence on that below. The paternal sun laid\n a hand of blessing on the bowed head of the corn. The longing dews\n passed heavenward, up the Jacob\u2019s ladder of the sunbeams, and\n entering among the bright ministeries of the clouds, came down in\n kindly showers. Each planet, according to its mind or mood, shed\n virtues healing or harmful into minerals and herbs. All sweet\n sounds, moving by the mystic laws of number, were an aspiration\n towards the music of the spheres\u2014a reminiscence of the universal\n harmonies. The air was full of phantasms or images of material\n objects. These, said Agrippa, entering the mind, as the air the\n body, produce presentiments and dreams. All nature is oracular. A\n cloudy chill or sultry lull are the Delphi and Dodona of birds and\n kine and creeping things. But the sense of sinful man is dull. The\n master of the hidden wisdom may facilitate the descent of benign\n influences, and aid the travailing creation, sighing for renewal. It\n is for him to marry (in the figurative language of the time) the\n \u2018lower and the higher potencies, the terrestrial and the astral, as\n doth the husbandman the vine unto the elm.\u2019 The sage can make\n himself felt in the upper realm, as on the earth, by touching some\n chord whose vibration extends into the skies. From the law of\n sympathy comes the power of amulets and philtres, images and\n ointments, to produce love or hate, health or sickness, to arrest\n the turning arms of the distant mill, or stay the wings of the\n pinnace on the Indian seas. Such was Agrippa\u2019s world.\n\n According to Baptista Porta, a certain breath of life, or soul of\n the world, pervades the whole organism of the universe, determines\n its sympathies, and imparts, when received into the soul of the\n inquirer, the capacity for magical research. Similarly, in the\n theory of Agrippa, the fifth element, or \u00e6ther, is the breath of\n this World-Soul. Within the spirit thus animating the body of the\n world lie those creative powers, or qualities, which are the\n producers of all things visible. The instruments of this universal\n plastic Power are the stars and the spirits of the elements.\n\n With all the theosophists man is a microcosm\u2014the harmonized epitome\n of the universe: a something representative of all that is contained\n in every sphere of being, is lodged in his nature. Thus he finds\n sympathies everywhere, and potentially knows and operates\n everywhere. Since, therefore, the inmost ground of his being is in\n God, and the rest of his nature is a miniature of the universe,\u2014a\n true self-knowledge is, proportionately, at once a knowledge of God\n and of creation. The sources of Religion and of Science are alike\n within him.\n\n Agrippa borrows from the Ph\u00e6drus four kinds of inspiration,\u2014the\n Poetic, the Dionysian (revealing visions), the Apollinian (imparting\n hidden wisdom), and that of which ascendant Venus is the pure\n patroness\u2014Rapturous Love, which carries us to heaven in ecstasy, and\n in the mystic union with Deity discloses things unutterable. He\n compares the soul, as ordinarily in the body, to a light within a\n dark lantern. In moments of mystical exaltation, it is taken out of\n its prison-house, the divine element is emancipated, and rays forth\n immeasurably, transcending space and time. His Platonism, like that\n of so many, led him from the sensual and the formal to the ideal.\n Greek was, with reason, accounted dangerous. Plato was a reformer\n side by side with Luther among the Germans. How loathsome was\n clerkly vice beside the contemplative ideal of Plato.\n\n In those days almost every great scholar was also a great traveller.\n The wanderings of Agrippa and his theosophic brethren contributed\n not a little to the progress and diffusion of occult science. These\n errant professors of magic, like those a\u00ebrial travellers the\n insects, carried everywhere with them the pollen of their mystic\n Lily, the symbol of theosophy, and sowed the fructifying particles\n in minds of kindred growth wherever they came. Their very crosses\n and buffetings, if they marred their plans of study, widened their\n field of observation; were fertile in suggestions; compelled to new\n resources, and multiplied their points of view,\u2014as a modern\n naturalist, interrupted during his observant morning\u2019s walk, and\n driven under a tree by a shower, may find unexpected compensation in\n the discovery of a new moss upon its bark, or a long-sought fly\n among its dropping-leaves.\n\nGOWER. Agrippa\u2019s philosophy gives us a highly imaginative view of the\nworld.\n\nATHERTON. A beautiful romance,\u2014only surpassed by the actual results of\nmodern discovery.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. In those days every fancied likeness was construed into a\nlaw of relationship: every semblance became speedily reality;\u2014somewhat\nas the Chinese believe that sundry fantastic rocks in one of their\ndistricts, which are shaped like rude sculptures of strange beasts, do\nactually enclose animals of corresponding form. And as for the links of\nconnexion supposed to constitute bonds of mysterious sympathy, they are\nabout as soundly deduced as that connexion which our old popular\nsuperstition imagined, between a high wind on Shrove Tuesday night, and\nmortality among learned men and fish.\n\nGOWER. And yet how fascinating those dreams of science. What a charm,\nfor instance, in a botany which essayed to read in the sprinkled or\nveined colours of petals and of leaves, in the soft-flushing hues, the\nwinding lines, the dashes of crimson, amethyst, or gold, in the tracery\nof translucent tissues empurpled or incarnadine,\u2014the planetary cipher,\nthe hieroglyph of a star, the secret mark of elementary spirits\u2014of the\ngliding Undine or the hovering Sylph.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. So too, in great measure, with anatomy and psychology; for\nman was said to draw life from the central sun, and growth from the\nmoon, while imagination was the gift of Mercury, and wrath burned down\nto him out of Mars. He was fashioned from the stars as well as from the\nearth, and born the lord of both.\n\nATHERTON. This close connexion between the terrestrial and sidereal\nworlds was to aid in the approximation of man to God. The aim was\nnoble\u2014to marry Natural Science, the lower, to Revealed Religion, the\nhigher; elevating at once the world and man\u2014the physical and the\nspiritual; drawing more close the golden chain which binds the world to\nthe footstool of the eternal throne. While a spirit dwelt in all nature,\ntransforming and restoring, and benign influences, entering into the\nsubstances and organisms of earth, blessed them according to their\ncapacities of blessing (transforming some with ease to higher forms of\nbeauty, labouring long, and almost lost in the grossness and\nstubbornness of others), so also in the souls of men wrought the Divine\nSpirit, gladly welcomed by the lowly-hearted, darkly resisted by the\nproud, the grace of God here an odour of life, and there made a\ndeepening of death upon death.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. How close their parallel between the laws of receptivity in\nthe inner world and in the outer. They brought their best,\nfaithfully\u2014these magi,\u2014gold and frankincense and myrrh.\n\nGOWER. Talking of sympathies, I have felt myself for the last quarter of\nan hour rapidly coming into _rapport_ with those old poet-philosophers.\nI seem to thirst with them to pierce the mysteries of nature. I imagine\nmyself one of their aspiring brotherhood. I say, to the dead let nature\nbe dead; to me she shall speak her heart. The changeful expression, the\nspeechless gestures of this world, the languors and convulsions of the\nelements, the frowns and smiles of the twin firmaments, shall have their\narticulate utterance for my ear. With the inward eye I see\u2014here more\ndim, there distinct\u2014the fine network of sympathetic influences playing\nthroughout the universe, as the dancing meshes of the water-shadows on\nthe sides of a basin of marble\u2014\u2014\n\nWILLOUGHBY, (_to Atherton, with a grotesque expression of pity_.) He\u2019s\noff! Almost out of sight already.\n\nGOWER, (_apparently unconscious of the interruption_.) Yes, I will know\nwhat legends of the old elemental wars are stored within yon grey\npromontory, about whose grandsire knees the waves are gambolling; and\nwhat is the story of the sea\u2014what are the passions of the deep that work\nthose enamoured sleeps and jealous madnesses; and what the meaning of\nthat thunder-music which the hundred-handed surf smites out from the\nebon or tawny keys of rock and of sand along so many far-winding\nsolitary shores. I will know what the mountains dream of when, under the\nsummer haze, they talk in their sleep, and the common ear can perceive\nonly the tinkle of the countless rills sliding down their sides. There\nshall be told me how first the Frost-King won his empire, and made the\nvanquished heights of earth to pass under those ice-harrows which men\ncall glaciers.\n\nATHERTON. \u2018The truant Fancy was a wanderer ever!\u2019\n\nGOWER. On the commonest things I see astral influences raining\nbrightness\u2014no homeliness without some sparkle of the upper glory;\u2014as the\nwain and shoon of the peasant on some autumn night grow phosphorescent,\nand are sown with electric jewellery. With purged eyesight I behold the\nnascent and unfledged virtues of herbs and minerals that are growing\nfolded in this swaying nest named earth, look hungering up to their\nparent stars that hover ministering above, radiant in the topmost boughs\nof the Mundane Tree. I look into the heart of the Wunderberg, and see,\nfar down, the palaces and churches of an under-world, see branching\nrivers and lustrous gardens where gold and silver flow and flower; I\nbehold the Wild women, and the jealous dwarfs, and far away, the forlorn\nhaunts of the cairn-people, harping under their mossy stones; while from\nthe central depths sounds up to me the rolling litany of those giants\nwho wait and worship till the Great Restitution-Day. There among those\nwilderness rocks I discern, under a hood of stone, a hermit Potency,\nwaiting for one to lead him up to the sunny multitudinous surface-world,\nand send him forth to bless mankind. O long-tarrying Virtue, be it mine\nto open the doors of thy captivity! Thou mineral Might, thou fragment\nfrom the stones of the New Jerusalem, thou shalt lodge no more in vain\namong us! I have felt thy secret growing up within my soul, as a shoot\nof the tree of life, and therewithal will I go forth and heal the\nnations![214]\n\nATHERTON. No, not till you have had some supper. I hear the bell.\n\nGOWER. It is the nineteenth century, then? Ah, yes, I remember.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Away, you rogue!\n\nFootnote 213:\n\n See Carriere (pp. 89-114), to whom I am indebted as regards the\n character of this and the preceding work, having had access to\n neither.\n\nFootnote 214:\n\n This distressing outbreak on the part of Gower will scarcely seem\n extravagant to those who remember how intensely poetical were many of\n the theosophic hypotheses. Analogies which would only occur to\n imaginative men in their hours of reverie were solidified into\n principles and enrolled in the code of nature. Nothing could be more\n opposite to the sifting process of modern investigation than the\n fanciful combination and impersonation of those days,\u2014more akin, by\n far, to mythology than to science. Conceits such as the following are\n those of the poet,\u2014and of the poet as far gone in madness as Plato\n could wish him.\n\n The waters of this world are mad; it is in their raving that they rush\n so violently to and fro along the great channels of the earth.\n\n Fire would not have burned, darkness had not been, but for Adam\u2019s\n fall. There is a hot fire and a cold. Death is a cold fire.\u2014_Behmen._\n\n All things\u2014even metals, stones, and meteors\u2014have sense and\n imagination, and a certain \u2018fiducial\u2019 knowledge of God in them.\n\n The arctic pole draws water by its axle-tree, and these waters break\n forth again at the axle-tree of the antarctic pole.\n\n Earthquakes and thunder are the work of d\u00e6mons or angels.\n\n The lightnings without thunder are, as it were, the falling flowers of\n the \u2018\u00e6stival\u2019 (or summer) stars.\u2014_Paracelsus._\n\n Hail and snow are the fruits of the stars, proceeding from them as\n flowers and blossoms from herb or tree.\u2014_Paracelsus._\n\n Night is, in reality, brought on by the influence of _dark stars_,\n which ray out darkness, as the others light.\u2014_Paracelsus._\n\n The final fires will transform the earth into crystal. (A summary\n expression for one of Behmen\u2019s doctrines.)\n\n The moon, planets, and stars are of the same quality with the lustrous\n precious stones of our earth, and of such a nature, that wandering\n spirits of the air see in them things to come, as in a magic mirror;\n and hence their gift of prophecy.\n\n In addition to the terrestrial, man has a sidereal body, which stands\n in connexion with the stars. When, as in sleep, this sidereal body is\n more free than usual from the elements, it holds converse with the\n stars, and may acquire a knowledge of future events.\u2014_Paracelsus._ See\n Henry More\u2019s _Enthusiasmus Triumphatus_, \u00a7 44.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER V.\n\n\n The reason that Men do not doubt of many things, is, that they never\n examine common Impressions; they do not dig to the Root, where the\n Faults and Defects lye; they only debate upon the Branches: They do\n not examine whether such and such a thing be true, but if it has\n been so and so understood. It is not inquir\u2019d into, whether _Galen_\n has said anything to purpose, but whether he has said so or\n so.\u2014MONTAIGNE.\n\n WILLOUGHBY\u2019S ESSAY\u2014THIRD EVENING.\n\n\n \u00a7 3. _Theophrastus Paracelsus._\n\n\n Due place must be given to the influence of that medical Ishmael,\n Paracelsus. Born in 1493 at Einsiedeln, near Zurich, he studied\n medicine at Basle, and travelled Europe for fourteen years from\n Sweden to Naples, and from France to Poland. The jealous hatred\n awakened by a most reasonable project of reform drove him from Basle\n soon after his return. Vituperated and vituperating, he became a\n wanderer throughout Germany, everywhere forming, or followed by,\n successive groups of disciples. He died at the age of forty-eight,\n in a little inn\u2014but not, as report has long said, drunk on the\n taproom floor;\u2014a victim, more probably, to the violence of\n assailants despatched against him by some hostile physicians.[215]\n\n Paracelsus found the medical profession of those days more\n disastrously incompetent, if possible, than we see it in the pages\n of Le Sage and Moli\u00e8re. It was so easy of entrance, he complains, as\n to become the tempting resource of knavery and ignorance everywhere.\n With a smattering of Greek a doctor might be finished and famous. A\n dead language was to exorcise deadly maladies. Diseases were\n encountered by definitions, and fact and experiment unheeded amidst\n disputes about the sense of Galen, Hippocrates, and Avicenna. When a\n new life began to struggle to the light from beneath the ruins of\n scholasticism, the fearless vehemence of such a nature became its\n appropriate organ. Paracelsus was the first to lecture in the\n vernacular. Instead of reading and commenting on the text of Galen,\n or extracting fanciful specifics from Raymond Lully, or John de\n Rupecissa, he resolved to observe and judge for himself wherever the\n ravages of disease or war might furnish him with facts. Preposterous\n as many of his own remedies may have been, he merits the title of a\n reformer in effect as well as purpose. He applied, with great\n success, mineral preparations before unknown, or little used;\n performed celebrated cures by the use of opium, and exposed the\n fraudulent pretensions of the alchemist and the astrologer. To the\n persecution and gross abuse of the profession he replied in torrents\n of undiluted and inexhaustible Billingsgate. While his\n velvet-cloaked brethren, with faces blandly inane or portentously\n inscrutable, mounted, with step of cat-like softness, to the chamber\n of the obese burgomaster or the fashionable lady, Paracelsus gloried\n in grandiloquent shabbiness and boisterous vulgarity. He boasted\n that he had picked up many a hint while chatting as an equal with\n pedlars, waggoners, and old women. He loved to drain his can on the\n ale-bench before wayside hostelries with boors such as Ostade has\n painted. Ragged and dusty, footing it with his knapsack on his back\n under a broiling sun, he would swear that there lay more wisdom in\n his beard than in all the be-doctored wiseacres of all the\n universities of Europe.\n\n On the basis of principles substantially the same with those\n represented by Agrippa, Paracelsus developed, in his own way, the\n doctrine of signatures, and the relationships of the macrocosm and\n the microcosm.\n\n The special illumination of the Holy Ghost was not more essential to\n the monastic perfection of preceding mystics, than to the success of\n the theosophist in that devout pursuit of science inculcated by\n Paracelsus. The true Physician\u2014he who would be wise indeed in the\n mysteries of nature, must seek with ceaseless importunity the light\n that cometh from above. In the Scriptures, and in the Cabbala, lies\n the key to all knowledge. Medicine has four pillars: (1)\n _Philosophy_, generally equivalent, as he uses it, to\n physiology,\u2014the study of the true nature of material substances in\n their relation to the microcosm, man; (2) _Astronomy_, embracing\n especially the influences of the heavenly bodies on the human frame;\n (3) _Alchemy_, not gold-making, but the preparation of\n specifics\u2014chemistry applied to medicine; (4) _Religion_, whereby the\n genuine professor of the healing art is taught of God, and works in\n reliance on, and union with, Him.[216] In the spirit of the ancient\n mystics he describes the exaltation of one whose soul is inwardly\n absorbed, so that the ordinary operation of the external senses is\n suspended. A man thus divinely intoxicated, lost in thoughts so\n profound, may seem, says Paracelsus, a mere fool to the men of this\n world, but in the eyes of God he is the wisest of mankind, a\n partaker of the secrecy of the Most High.[217] Like Agrippa (and\n with as good reason) Paracelsus lays great stress on Imagination,\n using the term, apparently, to express the highest realization of\n faith. Bacon observes that Imagination is with Paracelsus almost\n equivalent to Fascination. He speaks of the Trinity as imaged in\n man, in the Heart, (_Gem\u00fcth_), in Faith, and in Imagination,\u2014the\n three forms of that spiritual nature in us which he declares a fiery\n particle from the Divine Substance. By the disposition of the Heart\n we come to God; by Faith to Christ; and by Imagination we receive\n the Holy Spirit. Thus blessed (did we but truly know our own hearts)\n nothing would be impossible to us. This is the true magic, the gift\n of Faith, which, were its strength sufficient, might even now cast\n out devils, heal the sick, raise the dead, and remove\n mountains.[218]\n\n In the sixteenth century we still trace the influence of that\n doctrine, so fertile in mysticism, which Anselm bequeathed to the\n schoolmen of the middle age. We are to know by ascending to the\n fount of being, and in the primal Idea, whence all ideas flow, to\n discern the inner potency of all actual existence. But in\n Paracelsus we see especial prominence given to two new ideas which\n greatly modify, and apparently facilitate the researches of\n theosophy. One of these is the theory of divine manifestation by\n _Contraries_,\u2014teaching (instead of the old division of Being and\n Non-being) the development of the primal ground of existence by\n antithesis, and akin, in fact, to the principle of modern\n speculative philosophy, according to which the Divine Being is the\n absorption (_Aufhebung_) of those contraries which his\n self-evolution, or _lusus amoris_, has posited. This doctrine is\n the key-note in the system of Jacob Behmen. The other is the\n assumption that man\u2014the micro-cosm, is, as it were, a miniature of\n the macro-cosm\u2014the great outer world,\u2014a little parliament to which\n every part of the universe sends its deputy,\u2014his body a compound\n from the four circles of material existence,\u2014his animal nature\n correspondent to, and dependent on, the upper firmament,\u2014and his\n spirit, a divine efflux wherein, though fallen, there dwells a\n magnetic tendency towards its source, which renders redemption\n possible through Christ. There is nothing, accordingly, in the\n heavens above, or in the earth beneath, which may not be found in\n the minor world of man. On this principle, further, depends the\n whole system of signatures in its application to the cure of human\n malady.[219]\n\n Paracelsus defines true magic as the knowledge of the hidden virtues\n and operations of natural objects. The Cabbala imparts instruction\n concerning heavenly mysteries, and teaches the loftiest\n approximation to the Supreme. By the combination of these sources of\n knowledge we come to understand, and can partially produce, that\n marriage between heavenly influences and terrestrial objects,\n called, in the language of theosophy, Gamahea.[220] True magic is\n founded solely \u2018on the Ternary and Trinity of God,\u2019 and works in\n harmony with that universal life which, under the influence of the\n Holy Spirit, animates all nature,\u2014even the granite, the ocean, and\n the flower. The magic of Paracelsus disclaims the use of all\n ceremonies, conjurations, bannings, and blessings, and will rest\n solely on the power of that faith to which the promise was given,\n that spirits should be subject to it, and mountains plucked up at\n its fiat.[221] We are here far enough from the theurgic ritual of\n Iamblichus. But large room still remained for superstitious\n practice, and Paracelsus could not refuse his faith to the potency\n of certain magical words, of waxen images, and of pentacula\n inscribed with magic characters. The universal life of nature was\n mythologically personified in the sylphs and gnomes, the salamanders\n and undines, somewhat as the thought of supernatural presence found\n its representation in the nymphs, the nereids, and the hamadryads,\n of ancient Grecian fable.[222]\n\n In the chemistry of Paracelsus all matter is composed, in varying\n proportions, of salt\u2014the firm coherent principle, of quicksilver\u2014the\n fluid, and of sulphur\u2014the fiery, or combustible.[223]\n\n The theory of signatures proceeded on the supposition that every\n creature bears, in some part of its structure or outward\n conformation, the indication of the character or virtue inherent in\n it\u2014the representation, in fact, of its idea or soul. Southey\n relates, in his _Doctor_, a legend, according to which he who should\n drink the blood of a certain unknown animal would be enabled to hear\n the voice and understand the speech of plants. Such a man might\n stand on a mountain at sunrise, and hearken to their language, from\n the delicate voices of wild flowers and grass blades in the dew, to\n the large utterance of the stately trees making their obeisance in\n the fresh morning airs;\u2014might hear each enumerating its gifts and\n virtues, and blessing the Creator for his bestowments. The knowledge\n thus imparted by a charm, the student of sympathies sought as the\n result of careful observation. He essayed to read the character of\n plants by signs in their organization, as the professor of palmistry\n announced that of men by the lines of the hand. Such indications\n were sometimes traced from the resemblance of certain parts of a\n plant to portions of the human frame, sometimes they were sought in\n the more recondite relations of certain plants to certain stars.\n Thus citrons, according to Paracelsus, are good for heart affections\n because they are heart-shaped; and because, moreover, they have the\n colour of the sun, and the heart is, in a sort, the sun of the body.\n Similarly, the _saphena riparum_ is to be applied to fresh wounds,\n because its leaves are spotted as with flecks of blood. A species of\n _dentaria_, whose roots resemble teeth, is a cure for toothache and\n scurvy.[224]\n\n The theosophists, working on principles very similar to those of the\n alchemists, though with worthier and larger purpose, inherited the\n extraordinary language of their predecessors. That wisdom of\n Gamahea, which was to explain and facilitate the union of the\n celestial and terrestrial in the phenomena and processes of nature,\n naturally produced a phraseology which was a confused mixture of\n theological, astrological, and chemical terms. To add to the\n obscurity, every agent or process was veiled under symbolic names\n and fantastic metaphors, frequently changing with the caprice of the\n adept. Thus the white wine of Lully is called by Paracelsus the glue\n of the eagle; and Lully\u2019s red wine is, with Paracelsus, the blood of\n the Red Lion. Often the metaphor runs into a kind of parable, as\n with Bernard of Treviso. He describes what is understood to be the\n solution of gold in quicksilver, under the regimen of Saturn,\n leaving a residuum of black paste, in the following oriental style:\u2014\n\n \u2018The king, when he comes to the fountain, leaving all strangers\n behind him, enters the bath alone, clothed in golden robes, which he\n puts off, and gives to Saturn, his first chamberlain, from whom he\n receiveth a black velvet suit.\u2019[225]\n\n In like manner, in the _Secretum Magicum_ attributed (to\n Paracelsus), we find mention of the chemical Virgin Mary, of\n chemical deaths and resurrections, falls and redemptions, adopted\n from theological phraseology. We read of the union of the\n philosophic Sol,\u2014Quintessentia Solis, or Fifth Wisdom of Gold, with\n his Father in the Golden Heaven, whereby imperfect substances are\n brought to the perfection of the Kingdom of Gold.[226]\n\n The conclusion of Weidenfeld\u2019s treatise on the Green Lion of\n Paracelsus may suffice as a specimen of this fanciful mode of\n expression, which can never speak directly, and which, adopted by\n Jacob Behmen, enwraps his obscure system in sevenfold darkness:\u2014\n\n \u2018Let us therefore desist from further pursuit of the said Green Lion\n which we have pursued through the meads and forest of Diana, through\n the way of philosophical Saturn, even to the vineyards of\n Philosophy. This most pleasant place is allowed the disciples of\n this art to recreate themselves here, after so much pains and sweat,\n dangers of fortune and life, exercising the work of women and the\n sports of children, being content with the most red blood of the\n Lion, and eating the white or red grapes of Diana, the wine of which\n being purified, is the most secret secret of all the more secret\n Chymy; as being the white or red wine of Lully, the nectar of the\n ancients, and their only desire, the peculiar refreshment of the\n adopted sons, but the heart-breaking and stumblingblock of the\n scornful and ignorant.\u2019[227]\n\nFootnote 215:\n\n See Lessing\u2019s _Paracelsus_, p. 18.\n\nFootnote 216:\n\n Lessing\u2019s _Paracelsus_, \u00a7 26.\n\nFootnote 217:\n\n Language to this effect is cited among the copious extracts given by\n Godfrey Arnold, _Unpartheyische Kirchen- und Ketzer-Historie_, Th. ii.\n p. 309.\n\nFootnote 218:\n\n _De Occulta Philosophia, Prologus_, p. 30, and p. 58. This is one of\n the three treatises edited by Gerard Dorn, and published together in a\n small volume, Basle, 1584. Comp. also Arnold, Th. iv. p. 145.\n\nFootnote 219:\n\n Dorn\u2019s _Dictionarium Paracelsi_ (Frankfort, 1583), Art. Microcosmus.\n Also the _Secretum Magicum_ of Paracelsus, entire in Arnold, p. 150.\n The implanted image of the Trinity, and the innate tendency in man\n toward his Divine Origin, are familiar to us as favourite doctrines\n with the mystics of the fourteenth century.\n\nFootnote 220:\n\n _De Occ. Phil._ cap. iv. p. 45, and cap. xi. p. 78. Also, _Dict.\n Paracels._ Art. Magia. Talis influentiarum c\u0153lestium conjunctio vel\n impressio qua operantur in inferiora corpora c\u0153lestes vires, _Gamahea_\n Magis, vel matrimonium virium et proprietatum c\u0153lestium cum\n elementaribus corporibus, dicta fuit olim.\u2014Paracelsi _Aurora\n Philosophorum_, cap. iv. p. 24 (ed. Dorn).\n\nFootnote 221:\n\n _Aurora Phil._ loc. cit.; _De Occ. Phil._ i. ii.; and xi. p. 79.\n\nFootnote 222:\n\n See _De Occ. Phil._ cap. v. Magical powers are ascribed to images, p.\n 85. A collection of talismanic figures is appended to the treatise. In\n the _Thesaurus Philosophorum_ is to be found (p. 145) the arcanum of\n the Homunculus and the Universal Tincture. The Homunculus is said to\n be a mannikin, constructed by magic, receiving his life and substance\n from an artificial principle, and able to communicate to his\n fabricator all manner of secrets and mysteries of science.\n\nFootnote 223:\n\n The three continents\u2014Europe, Asia, and Africa\u2014were said to represent\n these three constituent principles respectively; the stars contain\n them, as in so many vials; the Penates (a race of sapient but mortal\n spirits) employ them for the manufacture of thunder.\n\nFootnote 224:\n\n Lessing\u2019s _Paracelsus_, \u00a7 58. This fanciful kind of physiognomy\n displaces theurgy, among these inquirers. It led, at least, to much\n accurate observation. It was a sign of health when the chafing-dish\n and conjuring-book were forsaken for the woods and fields. Cardan, who\n repudiates the charge of having ever employed incantations or sought\n intercourse with d\u00e6mons, endeavours to establish chiromancy on what\n were then called astronomical principles. Thus, Mars rules the thumb,\n wherein lies strength; Jupiter, the forefinger, whence come auguries\n of fame and honour, &c.\n\nFootnote 225:\n\n See _Lives of the Alchemistical Philosophers_. This book contains a\n collection of the most celebrated treatises on the theory and practice\n of the Hermetic Art. The passage from Bernard is in _The Book of\n Eiren\u00e6us Philalethes_, p. 166.\n\nFootnote 226:\n\n Thus, Cardan declared that the law of Moses was from Saturn; that of\n Christ, from Jupiter and Mercury. Over that of Mahomet presided, in\n conjunction, Sol and Mars; while Mars and the Moon ruled idolatry. It\n was thought no impiety\u2014only a legitimate explanation, to attribute the\n supernatural wisdom and works of our Lord to the divinely-ordained\n influences of the planetary system.\n\nFootnote 227:\n\n This passage is from the Annotations of Weidenfeld on the _Green Lion_\n of Paracelsus; _Lives of the Alchem. Phil._ p. 201. The _Thesaurus\n Thesaurorum_ contains another choice specimen of the same sort, p.\n 124.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER VI.\n\n\n _Men._ I pray thee tell me,\n For thou art a great dreamer\u2014\n\n _Chi._ I can dream, sir,\n If I eat well and sleep well.\n\n _Men._ Was it never by dream or apparition opened to thee\u2014\n What the other world was, or Elysium?\n Didst never travel in thy sleep?\n\n BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER: _The Mad Lover_.\n\n\n WILLOUGHBY\u2019S ESSAY\u2014FOURTH EVENING.\n\n\n \u00a7 4. _Jacob Behmen and his Aurora._\n\n\n Let us now crave acquaintance with that most notable theosophist,\n Jacob Behmen.\n\n It is evening, and in the little town of G\u00f6rlitz the business of the\n day is over. The shopkeepers are chatting together before their\n doors, or drinking their beer at tables set out in the open air; and\n comfortable citizens are taking wife and children for a walk beyond\n the town. There is a shoe-maker\u2019s shop standing close to the bridge,\n and under its projecting gable, among the signs and samples of the\n craft, may be read the name of Jacob Boehme. Within this house, in a\n small and scantily-furnished room, three men are seated at a table\n whereon lie a few books and papers and a great heap of\n newly-gathered plants and wild-flowers. The three friends have just\n returned from a long ramble in the fields which lie without the\n Neissethor. That little man, apparently about forty years of age, of\n withered, almost mean, aspect, with low forehead, prominent temples,\n hooked nose, short and scanty beard, and quick blue eyes, who talks\n with a thin, gentle voice, is Jacob.[228] On one side of him sits\n Dr. Kober, a medical man of high repute in G\u00f6rlitz. He it is who\n gathered in their walk these flowers, and now he takes up one of\n them from time to time, and asks Behmen to conjecture, from its form\n and colour, its peculiar properties. Often has he to exchange looks\n of wonder with his learned friend on the other side the table, at\n the marvellous insight of their uneducated host. This third member\n of the trio is Dr. Balthasar Walter, the Director of the Laboratory\n at Dresden, a distinguished chemist, who has travelled six years in\n the East, has mastered all the scientific wisdom of the West, and\n who now believes that his long search after the true philosophy has\n ended happily at last, beneath the roof of the G\u00f6rlitz shoemaker.\n He, too, will sometimes pronounce a Greek or an Oriental word, and\n is surprised to find how nearly Behmen divines its significance,\n from the mere sound and the movement of the lips in the formation of\n its syllables.[229] When Walter utters the word _Idea_, Behmen\n springs up in a transport, and declares that the sound presented to\n him the image of a heavenly virgin of surpassing beauty. The\n conversation wanders on\u2014about some theosophic question, it may be,\n or the anxious times, or the spread of Behmen\u2019s writings through\n Silesia and Saxony, with the persecutions or the praises following;\n while good Frau Behmen, after putting a youngster or two to bed, is\n busy downstairs in the kitchen, preparing a frugal supper.\n\n Jacob Behmen was born at the village of Alt-Seidenberg, near\n G\u00f6rlitz, in the year 1575. As a child, he was grave and thoughtful\n beyond his years. The wonders of fairy tradition were said to have\n become objects of immediate vision to the boy, as were the mysteries\n of religion, in after years, to the man. Among the weather-stained\n boulders of a haunted hill, the young herd-boy discovered the golden\n hoard of the mountain folk\u2014fled in terror, and could never again\n find out the spot.[230]\n\n While not yet twenty, Behmen saw life as a travelling apprentice.\n The tender conscience and the pensive temperament of the village\n youth shrank from the dissolute and riotous companionship of his\n fellow-craftsmen. Like George Fox, whom at this period he strongly\n resembled, he found the Church scarcely more competent than the\n world to furnish the balm which should soothe a spirit at once\n excited and despondent. Among the clergy, the shameful servility of\n some, the immoral life of others, the bigotry of almost all,\n repelled him on every hand. The pulpit was the whipping-post of\n imaginary Papists and Calvinists. The churches were the fortified\n places in the seat of war. They were spiritually what ours were\n literally in King Stephen\u2019s days, when the mangonel and the\n cross-bow bolts stood ready on the battlemented tower, when military\n stores were piled in the crypt, and a moat ran through the\n churchyard. The _Augsburg Confession_ and the _Formula Concordi\u00e6_\n were appealed to as though of inspired authority. The names of\n Luther and Melanchthon were made the end of controversy and of\n freedom. The very principle of Protestantism was forsaken when\n ecclesiastics began to prove their positions, not by Scripture, but\n by Articles of Faith. So Behmen wandered about, musing, with his\n Bible in his hand, and grieved sore because of the strife among\n Christian brethren, because evil everywhere was spreading and\n fruitful, and goodness so rare and so distressed; because he saw,\n both near and far away, such seeming waste and loss of human souls.\n A profound melancholy took possession of him\u2014partly that the truth\n which would give rest was for himself so hard to find, but most for\n the sight of his eyes which he saw, when he looked abroad upon God\u2019s\n rational creatures. On his return from his travels he settled in\n G\u00f6rlitz, married early, and worked hard at his trade. Everywhere\n these anxious questing thoughts about life\u2019s mystery are with him,\n disquieting. He reads many mystical and astrological books, not\n improbably, even thus early, Schwenkfeld and Paracelsus.[231] But\n the cloudy working of his mind is not soon to give place to sunshine\n and clear sky. He is to be found still with the pelican and the\n bittern in the desolate places where the salt-pits glisten, and the\n nettles breed, and the wild beasts lie down, and the cedar work is\n uncovered,\u2014among the untimely ruins of that City of Hope which had\n almost won back Christendom in the resistless prime of Luther.\n\n At last, upon an ever-memorable day, as he sat meditating in his\n room, he fell, he knew not how, into a kind of trance. The striving,\n climbing sorrows of his soul had brought him to this luminous\n table-land. A halcyon interval succeeded to the tempest. He did not\n seek, he gazed; he was surrounded by an atmosphere of glory. He\n enjoyed for seven days an unruffled soul-sabbath. He looked into the\n open secret of creation and providence. Such seemed his ecstasy. In\n Amadis of Greece an enchanter shuts up the heroes and princesses of\n the tale in the Tower of the Universe, where all that happened in\n the world was made to pass before them, as in a magic glass, while\n they sat gazing, bound by the age-long spell. So Behmen believed\n that the principles of the Universal Process were presented to his\n vision as he sat in his study at G\u00f6rlitz. We may say that it was the\n work of all his after days to call to mind, to develop for himself,\n and to express for others, the seminal suggestions of that and one\n following glorious dream.\n\n Behmen was twenty-five years of age when the subject of this first\n illumination. He stated that he was thrown into his trance while\n gazing on the dazzling light reflected from a tin vessel, as the\n rays of the sun struck into his room. Distrusting at first the\n nature of the vision, he walked out into the fields to dissipate the\n phantasmagoria; but the strange hues and symbols were still present,\n and seemed to point him to the heart and secret of the universe. For\n several years his gift lay hidden. Behmen was known as a quiet,\n meditative, hard-working man, fond of books; otherwise scarcely\n distinguishable from other cobblers. Ten years after the first\n manifestation he believed himself the recipient of a second, not,\n like the former, mediated by anything external; and revealing, with\n greater fulness and order, what before lay in comparative confusion.\n To fix this communication in a form which might be of abiding\n service to him, he began to write his _Aurora_.\n\n But he shall tell his own story, as he did tell it, one-and-twenty\n years later, to his friend Caspar Lindern.\n\n \u2018I saw and knew,\u2019 he says, \u2018the Being of all Beings, the Byss\n (_Grund_) and the Abyss: _item_, the birth of the Holy Trinity; the\n origin and primal state of this world and of all creatures through\n the Divine Wisdom. I knew and saw in myself all the three\n worlds,\u2014_i.e._ (1) the divine angelic or paradisiacal world; then,\n (2) the dark world, as the original of nature, as to the fire; and\n (3) this external visible world, as a creation and out-birth, or as\n a substance spoken forth out of the two inner spiritual worlds.\n Moreover, I saw and had cognizance of the whole Being in good and in\n evil\u2014how each had its origin in the other, and how the Mother did\n bring forth;\u2014and this all moved me not merely to the height of\n wonder, but made me to rejoice exceedingly. (Incredible as it may\n appear, this passage _has_ a meaning, which may become apparent to\n some readers after a perusal of what is said farther on, in\n explanation of Behmen\u2019s system.)\n\n \u2018Soon it came strongly into my mind that I should set the same down\n in writing, for a memorial, albeit I could hardly compass the\n understanding thereof in my external man, so as to write it on\n paper. I felt that with such great mysteries I must set to work as a\n child that goes to school. In my inward man I saw it well, as in a\n great deep, for I saw right through as into a chaos in which\n everything lay wrapped, but the unfolding thereof I found\n impossible.\n\n \u2018Yet from time to time it opened itself within me, as in a growing\n plant. For the space of twelve years I carried it about within\n me\u2014was, as it were, pregnant therewith, feeling a mighty inward\n impulse, before I could bring it forth in any external form; till\n afterwards it fell upon me, like a bursting shower that hitteth\n wheresoever it lighteth, as it will. So it was with me, and\n whatsoever I could bring into outwardness that I wrote down.\n\n \u2018Thereafter the sun shone on me a good while, yet not steadily and\n without interval, and when that light had withdrawn itself I could\n scarce understand my own work. And this was to show man that his\n knowledge is not his own, but God\u2019s, and that God in man\u2019s soul\n knoweth what and how he will.\n\n \u2018This writing of mine I purposed to keep by me all my life, and not\n to give it into the hands of any man. But it came to pass in the\n providence of the Most High, that I entrusted a person with part of\n it, by whose means it was made known without my knowledge. Whereupon\n my first book, the _Aurora_, was taken from me, and because many\n wondrous things were therein revealed, not to be comprehended in a\n moment by the mind of man, I had to suffer no little at the hands of\n the worldly-wise\u2014(_von den Vernunft-weisen_).\n\n \u2018For three years I saw no more of this said book, and thought it\n verily clean dead and gone, till some learned men sent me copies\n therefrom, exhorting me not to bury my talent. To this counsel my\n outward reason was in no wise willing to agree, having suffered so\n much already. My reason was very weak and timorous at that time, the\n more so as the light of grace had then been withdrawn from me some\n while, and did but smoulder within, like a hidden fire. So I was\n filled with trouble. Without was contempt, within, a fiery driving;\n and what to do I knew not, till the breath of the Most High came to\n my help again, and awoke within me a new life. Then it was that I\n attained to a better style of writing, likewise to a deeper and more\n thorough knowledge. I could reduce all better to outward form\u2014as,\n indeed, my book concerning _The Threefold Life through the Three\n Principles_ doth fully show, and as the godly reader whose heart is\n opened will see.\n\n \u2018So, therefore, have I written, not from book-learning, or the\n doctrine and science of men, but from my own book which was opened\n within me,\u2014the book of the glorious image of God, which it was\n vouchsafed to me to read: \u2019tis therein I have studied\u2014as a child in\n its mother\u2019s house, that sees what its father doth, and mimics the\n same in its child\u2019s-play. I need no other book than this.\n\n \u2018My book has but three leaves\u2014the three principles of Eternity.\n Therein I find all that Moses and the prophets, Christ and his\n apostles, have taught. Therein I find the foundation of the world\n and all mystery,\u2014yet, not I, but the Spirit of the Lord doth it, in\n such measure as He pleaseth.\n\n \u2018For hundreds of times have I prayed him that if my knowledge were\n not for his glory and the edifying of my brethren, he will take it\n from me, only keeping me in his love. But I have found that with all\n my earnest entreaty the fire within me did but burn the more, and it\n is in this glow, and in this knowledge, that I have produced my\n works....\n\n \u2018Let no man conceive of me more highly than he here seeth, for the\n work is none of mine; I have it only in that measure vouchsafed me\n of the Lord; I am but his instrument wherewith he doeth what he\n will. This, I say, my dear friend, once for all, that none may seek\n in me one other than I am, as though I were a man of high skill and\n intellect, whereas I live in weakness and childhood, and the\n simplicity of Christ. In that child\u2019s work which he hath given me is\n my pastime and my play; \u2019tis there I have my delight, as in a\n pleasure-garden where stand many glorious flowers; therewith will I\n make myself glad awhile, till such time as I regain the flowers of\n Paradise in the new man.\u2019[232]\n\n This letter alludes to the way in which the _Aurora_ was made public\n without the knowledge of its author. The friend to whom he showed it\n was Karl von Endern, who, struck by its contents, caused a copy to\n be taken, from which others were rapidly multiplied. The book fell\n into the hands of Gregory Richter, the chief pastor in G\u00f6rlitz. Well\n may Behmen say that the _Aurora_ contained some things not readily\n apprehended by human reason. A charitable man would have forgiven\n its extravagances, catching some glimpses of a sincere and religious\n purpose; a wise man would have said nothing about it; a man the\n wisest of the wise would have been the last to pretend to understand\n it. But Richter\u2014neither charitable nor wise exceedingly, nor even\n moderately stocked with good sense\u2014fell into a blundering passion,\n and railed at Behmen from the pulpit, as he sat in his place at\n church, crimson, but patient, the centre of all eyes.\n\n Behmen had already rendered himself obnoxious to Richter by a\n temperate but firm remonstrance against an act of ecclesiastical\n oppression. Now, his pretensions seem openly to militate against\n that mechanical religious monopoly with which Richter imagined\n himself endowed,\u2014a privilege as jealously watched and as profitably\n exercised by such men as that of the muezzins of the mosque of\n Bajazet, who are alone entitled to supply the faithful with the\n praying compasses that indicate the orthodox attitude. The insolent,\n heretical, blasphemous cobbler shall find no mercy. Richter loudly\n calls for the penalties of law, to punish a fanatic who has taught\n (as he declares) that the Son of God is Quicksilver! G\u00f6rlitz\n magistrates, either of the Shallow family, or, it may be, overborne\n by the blustering Rector, pronounce Behmen \u2018a villain full of\n piety,\u2019 and banish him the town. But by the next day the tide would\n appear to have turned, and the exile is brought back with honour.\n The shoemaker\u2019s booth is the scene of a little ovation, while\n Richter fumes at the parsonage. Behmen, however, must give up the\n manuscript of the _Aurora_, and is required for the future to stick\n to his last.\n\n His book, as it became known, procured him many influential friends\n among men of learning and men of rank throughout Lusatia. He was\n exhorted not to hide his talent, and the ensuing five years became a\n period of incessant literary activity.[233] The scholarship of\n friends like Kober and Walther assisted him to supply some of the\n defects of his education; the liberality of others provided for his\n moderate wants, and enabled him to forsake his business for his\n books.[234] Once more did his old enemy, the primarius Richter,\n appear against him, with a pamphlet of virulent pasquinades in Latin\n verse. Behmen issued an elaborate reply, entering minutely into\n every charge, sending the clerical curses \u2018home to roost,\u2019 and\n praying for the enlightenment of his persecutor with exasperating\n good temper.[235] The magistrates, fluttered and anxious, requested\n him to leave G\u00f6rlitz. Knightly friends opened their castle gates to\n him; he preferred retirement at Dresden. There, a public disputation\n he held with some eminent divines and men of science, was said to\n have excited general admiration. He returned to G\u00f6rlitz in his last\n illness, to die in the midst of his family. He expired early on\n Sunday morning, on the twenty-first of November, 1624, in his\n fiftieth year. He asked his son Tobias if he heard the beautiful\n music, and bade those about him set the doors open that the sounds\n might enter. After receiving the sacrament, he breathed his last, at\n the hour of which a presentiment of dissolution had warned him. His\n last words were, \u2018Now I am going to Paradise!\u2018[236]\n\n\n Note to page 80.\n\n\nBehmen\u2019s learned friends were accustomed thus to test the insight they\nso revered, and would occasionally attempt to mislead his sagacity by\nwrong terms and entrapping questions; but always, we are assured,\nwithout success. See _Ein Schreiben von einem vornehmen Patritio und\nRathsverwandten zu G\u00f6rlitz wegen seel. Jac. Behmen\u2019s Person und\nSchriften_, appended to Franckenberg\u2019s Life of Behmen.\n\nThe rationale of this peculiar significance of letters and syllables he\ngives in the following passage:\u2014\n\nWhen man fell into sin, he was removed from the inmost birth and set in\nthe other two, which presently encompassed him, and mingled their\ninfluences with him and in him (_inqualireten mit ihme und in ihme_), as\nin their own peculiar possession; and man received the spirit and the\nwhole generation of the sidereal, and also of the external birth.\nTherefore he now speaks all words according to the indwelling generative\nprinciple of nature. For the spirit of man, which stands in the sidereal\nbirth, and combines with all nature, and is as all nature itself, shapes\nthe word according to the indwelling principle of birth. When he sees\nanything he gives it a name answering to its peculiar property or\nvirtue; and if he does this he must fashion the word in the form, and\ngenerate it with his voice in the way in which the thing he names\ngenerates; and herein lies the kernel of the whole understanding of the\nGodhead.\u2014_Aurora_, cap. xix. \u00a7\u00a7 74-76. On this principle he examines,\nsyllable by syllable, the opening words of Genesis\u2014not those of the\nHebrew, but the German version (!), as follows:\u2014\u2018_Am Anfang schuff\nGott_,\u2019 &c. These words we must very carefully consider. The word AM\ntakes its rise in the heart, and goes as far as the lips. There it is\narrested, and goes sounding back to whence it came. Now, this shows that\nthe sound went forth from the heart of God, and encompassed the entire\n_locus_ of the world; but when it was found to be evil, then the sound\nreturned to its place again. The word AN pushes forth from the heart to\nthe mouth, and has a long stress. But when it is pronounced, it closes\nin its _sedes_ in the midst with the roof of the mouth, and is half\nwithout and half within. This signifies that the heart of God felt\nrepugnance at the corruption of the world, and cast the corrupt nature\nfrom him, but again seized and stayed it in the midst by his heart. Just\nas the tongue arrests the word, and retains it half without and half\nwithin, so the heart of God would not utterly reject the enflamed\nSalitter, but would defeat the schemes and malice of the Devil, and\nfinally restore the other.\u2014_Aurora_, cap. xviii. \u00a7\u00a7 48-52. A similar\nprecious piece of nonsense is to be found, cap. xviii. \u00a7\u00a7 72, &c. of\nwhich _Barmherzig_ is the thema. He declares, in another place, that\nwhen the spiritual Aurora shall shine from the rising of the sun to the\ngoing-down of the same, RA. RA. R.P. shall be driven into banishment,\nand with him AM. R. P. These are secret words, he says, only to be\nunderstood in the language of nature.\u2014_Aurora_, xxvi. 120.\n\nBehmen was indebted to his conversations with men like Kober and Walther\nfor much of his terminology, and probably to the suggestions awakened by\nsuch intercourse for much of the detailed application of his system. See\n_Lebens-lauff_, \u00a7 20; and compare the _Clavis_, or _Schl\u00fcssel etlicher\nvornehmen Puncten_, &c.\n\nFootnote 228:\n\n The personal appearance of Behmen is thus described by his friend and\n biographer, Abraham von Franckenberg, in the biography prefixed to his\n Works, \u00a7 27.\n\nFootnote 229:\n\n See Note on p. 88.\n\nFootnote 230:\n\n _Lebens-lauff_, \u00a7 4.\n\nFootnote 231:\n\n See his own account of his mental conflict and melancholy, issuing in\n the rapturous intuition which solved all his doubts, _Aurora_, cap.\n xix. \u00a7\u00a7 1-13. He acknowledges having read many astrological books.\n _Aurora_, cap. xxv. \u00a7 43: Ja, lieber, Leser, ich verstehe der\n Astrologorum Meinung auch wol, ich habe auch ein paar zeilen in ihren\n Schrifften gelesen, und weiss wol wie sie den Lauf der Sonnen und\n Sternen schreiben, ich verachte es auch nicht, sondern halte es\n meisten Theil f\u00fcr gut und recht. Compare also cap. x. \u00a7 27: Ich habe\n viel hoher Meister Schrifften gelesen, in Hoffnung den Grund und die\n rechte Tieffe darinnen zu finden, aber ich habe nichts funden als\n einen halb-todten Geist, &c. In a letter to Caspar Lindern he mentions\n sundry mystical writers concerning whom his correspondent appears to\n have desired his opinion,\u2014admits that several of them were men of high\n spiritual gifts, not to be despised, though in many respects capable\n of amendment,\u2014says that they were of good service in their time, and\n would probably express themselves otherwise did they write now,\u2014shows\n where he thinks Schwenkfeld wrong in affirming Christ\u2019s manhood to be\n no creature, and speaks of Weigel as erring in like manner by denying\n the Saviour\u2019s true humanity.\u2014_Theosoph. Sendbr._ \u00a7\u00a7 52-60.\n\nFootnote 232:\n\n _Theosoph. Sendbr._ xii. \u00a7\u00a7 8-20.\n\nFootnote 233:\n\n A full account of the persecution raised by Gregory Richter against\n Behmen, was drawn up by Cornelius Weissner, a doctor of medicine, and\n is appended by Franckenberg to his biography. A young man, who had\n married a relative of Behmen\u2019s, had been so terrified by the\n threatenings of divine wrath launched at him by Richter, about some\n trifling money matter, that he fell into a profound melancholy. Behmen\n comforted the distressed baker, and ventured to remonstrate with the\n enraged primarius, becoming ever after a marked man. For seven years\n after the affair of the Aurora, in 1612, Behmen refrained from\n writing. Everything he published subsequently was produced between the\n years 1619 and 1624, inclusive.\n\nFootnote 234:\n\n Thus he thanks Christian Bernard for a small remittance of\n money.\u2014_Theos. Sendbr._ ix. Sept. 12, 1620.\n\nFootnote 235:\n\n _Apologia wider den Primarium zu G\u00f6rlitz Gregorium Richter_, written\n in 1624.\n\nFootnote 236:\n\n Vide Corn. Weissner\u2019s _Wahrhafte Relation_, &c., and Franckenberg\u2019s\n account of his last hours, \u00a7 29.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER VII.\n\n\n When I myself from mine own self do quit,\n And each thing else; then all-spreaden love\n To the vast Universe my soul doth fit,\n Makes me half equall to all-seeing Jove.\n My mighty wings high stretch\u2019d then clapping light,\n I brush the stars and make them shine more bright.\n\n Then all the works of God with close embrace\n I dearly hug in my enlarged arms,\n All the hid pathes of heavenly love I trace,\n And boldly listen to his secret charms.\n Then clearly view I where true light doth rise,\n And where eternal Night low-pressed lies.\n\n HENRY MORE.\n\n\n WILLOUGHBY\u2019S ESSAY\u2014FIFTH EVENING.\n\n\n \u00a7 5. _Jacob Behmen\u2014his Materials and Style of Workmanship._\n\n\n It has been too much the custom to regard Jacob Behmen as a kind of\n speculative Melchisedek\u2014a prodigy without doctrinal father or\n mother. Let us endeavour to form a correct estimate of the debt he\n owes to his mystical predecessors.\n\n The much-pondering shoemaker consulted the writings of Schwenkfeld\n and Weigel in his distress. He found these authors crying\n unceasingly, \u2018Barren are the schools; barren are all forms;\n barren\u2014worse than barren, these exclusive creeds, this deadly\n polemic letter.\u2019 Weigel bids him withdraw into himself and await, in\n total passivity, the incoming of the divine Word, whose light\n reveals unto the babe what is hidden from the wise and prudent. By\n the same writer he is reminded that he lives in God, and taught that\n if God also dwell in him, then is he even here in Paradise\u2014the state\n of regenerate souls. Paracelsus extols the power of faith to\n penetrate the mysteries of nature, and shows him how a plain man,\n with his Bible only, if he be filled with the Spirit and carried out\n of himself by divine communication, may seem to men a fool, but is\n in truth more wise than all the doctors. Weigel says that man, as\n body, soul, and spirit, belongs to three worlds\u2014the terrestrial, the\n astral, and the celestial. Both Weigel and Paracelsus teach him the\n doctrine of the microcosm. They assure him that as divine\n illumination reveals to him the mysteries of his own being, he will\n discern proportionately the secrets of external nature. They teach\n that all language, art, science, handicraft, exists potentially in\n man; that all apparent acquisition from without is in reality a\n revival and evolution of that which is within.\n\n These instructors furnish the basis of Behmen\u2019s mysticism. Having\n drunk of this somewhat heady vintage, he is less disposed than ever\n to abandon his search. He will sound even those abysmal questions so\n often essayed, and so often, after all, resigned, as beyond the\n range of human faculties. If, according to the promise, importunate\n prayer can bring him light, then shall light be his. When he asks\n for an answer from above to his speculative enquiry into the nature\n of the Trinity, the processes of creation, the fall of angels, the\n secret code of those warring forces whose conflict produces the\n activity and vicissitudes of life, he does not conceive that he\n implores any miraculous intervention. Provision was made, he\n thought, for knowledge thus beyond what is written, in the very\n constitution of man\u2019s nature. Such wisdom was but the realization,\n by the grace of God, of our inborn possibilities. It was making\n actual what had otherwise been only potential. It was bringing into\n consciousness an implicit acquaintance with God and nature which was\n involved in the very idea of man as the offspring of the Creator and\n the epitome of creation.\n\n But of what avail is light on any minor province of enquiry, while\n the fundamental perplexity is unsolved,\u2014Whence and what is evil, and\n why so masterful? How could King Vortigern build his great fortress\n upon Salisbury Plain, when every day\u2019s work was overthrown in the\n night by an earthquake\u2014the result of that nocturnal combat in the\n bowels of the earth between the blood-red and the milk-white\n dragons? And how, pray, was Behmen to come to rest about his own\n doubts\u2014far less erect a system,\u2014till he had reconciled the\n contradiction at the root of all? The eternal opposites must\n harmonize in some higher unity. Here Paracelsus is Behmen\u2019s Merlin.\n The doctrine of Development by Contraries was passed, in the\n torch-race of opinion, from Sebastian Frank to Paracelsus, and from\n him to Weigel. According to this theory, God manifests himself in\n opposites. The peace of Unity develops into the strife of the\n Manifold. All things consist in Yea and Nay. The light must have\n shadow, day night, laughter tears, health sickness, hope fear, good\n evil, or they would not be what they are. Only by resistance, only\n in collision, is the spark of vitality struck out, is power\n realized, and progress possible. Of this hypothesis I shall have\n more to say hereafter. It is the chief estate of Behmen\u2019s\n inheritance. Theosophy bequeathed him, in addition, sundry lesser\n lands;\u2014namely, the Paracelsian Triad of Sulphur, Salt, and Mercury;\n the doctrine of the vitality of the world, with the \u2018Fifth Element,\u2019\n or \u2018Breath of Life,\u2019 for Mundane Soul; the theory of sympathies,\n stellar influence, signatures; and the alchemico-astrotheologico\n jargon of the day.\n\n Such, then, were Behmen\u2019s principal materials. His originality is\n displayed in a most ingenious arrangement and development of them;\n especially in their application to theology and the interpretation\n of Scripture.\n\n The description furnished us by Behmen himself of the deciding epoch\n of his life, indicates the kind of illumination to which he laid\n claim. The light thus enjoyed was not shed upon a mind from which\n all the inscriptions of memory had been effaced, to produce that\n blank so coveted by the mystics of a former day. The cloud of glory\n magnified and refracted the results of those theosophic studies to\n which he confesses himself addicted.\n\n The topographer of Fairyland, Ludwig Tieck, tells us that when the\n Elf-children scatter gold-dust on the ground, waving beds of roses\n or of lilies instantly spring up. They plant the seed of the pine,\n and in a moment mimic pine-trees rise under their feet, carrying\n upward, with the growth of their swaying arms, the laughing little\n ones. So swiftly, so magically\u2014not by labouring experiment and\n gradual induction, but in the blissful stillness of one ecstatic and\n consummate week,\u2014arose the Forms and Principles of Behmen\u2019s system,\n and with them rose the seer. But how, when the season of vision is\n over, shall he retain and represent the complex intricacies of the\n Universal Organism in the heart of which he found himself? Memory\n can only recal the mystery in fragments. Reflection can with\n difficulty supplement and harmonize those parts. Language can\n describe but superficially and in succession what the inner eye\n beheld throughout and at once. The fetters of time and space must\n fall once more on the recovered consciousness of daily life. We have\n heard Behmen describe the throes he underwent, the difficulties he\n overcame, as he persevered in the attempt to give expression to the\n suggestions he received.[237] How long it is before he sees\n\n The lovely members of the mighty whole\u2014\n Till then confused and shapeless to his soul,\u2014\n Distinct and glorious grow upon his sight,\n The fair enigmas brighten from the Night.\n\n To us, who do not share Behmen\u2019s delusion, who see in his condition\n the extraordinary, but nowise the supernatural, it is clear that\n this difficulty was so great, not from the sublime character of\n these cosmical revelations, but because of the utter confusion his\n thoughts were in. Glimpses, and snatches, and notions of possible\n reply to his questions, raying through as from holes in a shutter,\n reveal the clouds of dust in that unswept brain of his, where\n medical recipes and theological doctrines, the hard names of alchemy\n and the super-subtile fancies of theosophy, have danced a whirlwind\n saraband. Yet he believed himself not without special divine aid in\n his endeavours to develop into speech the seed of thought deposited\n within him. He apologises for bad spelling, bad grammar,\n abbreviations, omissions, on the ground of the impetuosity with\n which the divine impulse hurried forward his feeble pen.[238]\n Unfortunately for a hypothesis so flattering, he improves visibly by\n practice, like ordinary folk.\n\n It is scarcely necessary to observe that Behmen and the mystics are\n partly right and partly wrong in turning from books and schools to\n intuition, when they essay to pass the ordinary bounds of knowledge\n and to attain a privileged gnosis. It is true that no method of\n human wisdom will reveal to men the hidden things of the divine\n kingdom. But it is also true that dreamy gazing will not disclose\n them either. Scholarship may not scale the heights of the\n unrevealed, and neither assuredly may ignorance. There is nothing to\n choose between far-seeing Lynceus and a common sailor of the Argo,\n when the object for which they look out together is not yet above\n the horizon. The latter, at all events, should not regard the\n absence of superior endowment as an advantage.\n\n In the more high-wrought forms of theopathetic mysticism we have\n seen reason regarded as the deadly enemy of rapture. The surpassing\n union which takes place in ecstasy is dissolved on the first\n movement of reflection. Self-consciousness is the lamp whereby the\n ill-fated Psyche at once discerns and loses the celestial lover,\n whose visits cease with secrecy and night. But Behmen devoutly\n employs all the powers of a most active mind to combine, to order,\n to analyse, to develop, the heavenly data.\n\n Protestant mysticism generally is, like Behmen\u2019s, communicative. The\n mysticism of the Reformation and of the Counter-Reformation afford,\n in this respect, a striking contrast. That of the Romanists is, for\n the most part, a veiled thing, not to be profaned by speech. It is\n an ineffable privilege which description would deprive of its awe.\n It is commonly a contrivance employed for effect\u2014a flash, and\n darkness. It is a distinction, in some cases, for services past; an\n individual preparation, in others, for services to come. The special\n revelation of the Protestant is a message to some man for his\n fellow-men. It at least contemplates something practical. It is\n generally reformatory. The vision of the Romish saint is a private\n token of favour, or a scar of honour, or a decoration from the court\n of heaven, like a cross or star.\n\n The illumination of Behmen differs, again, from that of Swedenborg,\n in that he does not profess to have held communication with spirits,\n or to have passed into other worlds and states of being. While his\n doctrine is, in many respects, less subjective than that of\n Swedenborg, his mode of vision, so entirely internal, is more so.\n\n The three-leaved book, says Behmen, is within me; hence all my\n teaching. In man are the three gates opening on the three worlds.\n Behmen\u2019s heaven is not wholly above the sky. The subterranean\n regions cannot contain his hell. The inner and spiritual sphere\n underlies everywhere the material and outward.[239] As with those\n hollow balls of carved ivory that come to us from the East, one is\n to be discerned within the other through the open tracery. The world\n is like some kinds of fruit\u2014a plum or apple, for instance,\u2014and has\n its rind-men, its pulp-men, and its core, or kernel-men; yet all\n with the same faculties,\u2014only the first live merely on the surface\n of things; the last perceive how the outer form is determined by the\n central life within. Man intersects the spiritual, sidereal, and\n terrestrial worlds, as a line from the centre to the outermost of\n three concentric circles. Behmen would say that his insight arose\n from his being aided by Divine Grace to live along the whole line of\n his nature, with a completeness attained by few. He travels to and\n fro on his radius. When recipient of celestial truth he is near the\n centre; when he strives to give utterance and form to such\n intimations, he approaches the circumference. When asked how he came\n to know so much about our cosmogony, and about the origin and\n \u0153conomy of the angelic world, he would answer, \u2018Because I have lived\n in that region of myself which opens out upon those regions. I need\n not change my place to have entrance into the heavenly sphere. I\n took no Mahomet\u2019s flight. The highest and the inmost, in the deepest\n sense, are one.\u2019[240] So it is as though man stood at a spot where\n three rivers are about to join; as though to drink of the water of\n each was to give him knowledge of the kind of country through which\n each had passed; how one ran embrowned out of marshy lakes\u2014through\n wealthy plains\u2014under the bridges of cities,\u2014washing away the refuse\n of manufactures; while the second came ruddy from rocks, red with\n their iron rust,\u2014came carrying white blossoms and silver-grey willow\n leaves from glens far up the country, deepfolded in hanging woods;\n and the water of the third, ice-cold and hyaline, presented to the\n soul, as it touched the lips, visions of the glacier-portcullis from\n under whose icicles it leaped at first, and of those unsullied\n tracts of heavenward snow which fed its childhood at the bidding of\n the sun, and watched it from the heights of eternal silence.\n\n * * * * *\n\n The _Aurora_ was the firstfruit of the illumination thus realized.\n He composed it, he reminds us, for himself alone, to give him a hold\n against any refluent doubt that might threaten to sweep him back\n into the waves. It is the worst written of all his treatises. With\n respect to it, the answer of Shakspeare\u2019s Roman shoemaker gives to\n Marullus may be adopted by our Teuton\u2014\u2018Truly, sir, in respect of a\n fine workman, I am but, as you would say, a cobbler.\u2019 Yet this\n botched performance best renders us the genuine Behmen, as he was\n when first the afflatus came, before greater leisure for reading and\n study, and intercourse with men of station or scholarship had given\n him culture. This _Aurora_, then, over which Karl von Endern pored\n in his simplicity till he rose therefrom with a bewildered\n admiration and a sense of baffled amazement, physically expressed by\n a feverish headache,\u2014over whose pages Gregory Richter galloped with\n scornful hoof, striking out pishes and pshaws and bahs over its\n flinty ruggedness,\u2014this _Aurora_\u2014a dawn opening for Behmen with such\n threatening weather within and without\u2014what kind of book does it\n appear to us?\n\n It is at first with curiosity, then with impatience, and ere long\n with the irritation of inevitable fatigue, that we read those wordy\n pages Behmen wrote with such a furious impetus. How wide the\n distance between him and his readers now! Behold him early in his\n study, with bolted door. The boy must see to the shop to-day; no\n sublunary cares of awl and leather, customers and groschen, must\n check the rushing flood of thought. The sunshine streams in\u2014emblem,\n to his \u2018high-raised phantasy,\u2019 of a more glorious light. As he\n writes, the thin cheeks are flushed, the grey eye kindles, the whole\n frame is damp and trembling with excitement. Sheet after sheet is\n covered. The headlong pen, too precipitate for calligraphy, for\n punctuation, for spelling, for syntax, dashes on. The lines which\n darken down the waiting page are, to the writer, furrows into which\n heaven is raining a driven shower of celestial seed. On the chapters\n thus fiercely written the eye of the modern student rests, cool and\n critical, wearily scanning paragraphs digressive as Juliet\u2019s nurse,\n and protesting with contracted eyebrow, that this easy writing is\n abominably hard to read. We survey this monument of an extinct\n enthusiasm,\u2014this structure, many-chambered, intricate, covering so\n broad a space,\u2014as does the traveller the remains of the Pompeian\n baths;\u2014there are the cells and channels of the hypocaust, dusty and\n open to the day, the fires long since gone out, and all that made\n the busy echoing halls and winding passages so full of life\u2014the\n laughter, the quarrel, the chatter of the vestibule, imagination\n must supply, while Signor Inglese, beneath a large umbrella and a\n straw hat, doth gaze and muse, with smarting eyes and liquefying\n body.\n\n Behmen does not suffer much more in this respect than all minds of\n his class must suffer. Imagination, with its delicate sympathy, will\n know how to make allowance for him; but reason will not attempt to\n rescue him from condign sentence of unreadableness. It is obvious,\n after all, that the good man\u2019s inspiration was not born of the mania\n Plato describes as \u2018divine transport;\u2019 that it was akin rather to\n that morbid activity which is but \u2018human distemper.\u2019 It is the\n prerogative of genius to transmit through the dead page, with a glow\n that can never become quite cold, some rays of that central heat of\n heart which burned when the writer held the pen. The power of Behmen\n does not reach so far. That rapidity which was to him the witness of\n the Spirit, leaves for us only the common signs of unpardonable\n haste,\u2014is tediously visible in negligence, disorder, repetitions,\n and diffuseness.\n\n As might be expected, Behmen is often best in those parts of his\n writings to which he himself would have assigned less value. In many\n of his letters, in some of his prefaces, and interspersed throughout\n all his works, exhortations are to be found which in their pungency\n and searching force recal the burning admonitions of Richard Baxter.\n These appeals, summoning to religious simplicity and thoroughness,\n exposing the treacheries of the heart, encouraging the\n feeble-minded, awakening the sleeper, would be as eloquent and\n pathetic as they are earnest and true, did he oftener know where to\n stop. Such passages, however, are preludes or interludes neighboured\n by heavy monologue, monotonous and protracted beyond all patience.\n We descend from those serene uplands, where the air is redolent of\n the cedars of Lebanon, and the voices we hear recal the sounds of\n Hebrew prophecy or psalm, to the poor flats of his mortal\n speculation\u2014muddy, we must say it, in the finest weather, where\n chalky streams wind their slow length by stunted pollards, over\n levels of interminable verbiage.\n\n The same ideas incessantly recur, sometimes almost in the same\n words. Such repetition contributes not a little to the\n discouragement and perplexity of the reader, even when most\n pertinaciously bent on exploring these recesses,\u2014as in threading his\n dim way through the catacombs, the investigator loses count by the\n resemblance of so many passages to each other, and seems to be\n returning constantly to the same spot. With all his imagination,\n Behmen has little power of elucidation, scarcely any original\n illustration. The analogies suggested to him are seldom apt to his\n purpose, or such as really throw light on his abstractions. To a\n mind active in such direction illustrative allusions are like the\n breed of ponies celebrated in the _Pirate_, that graze wild on the\n Shetland hills, from among which the islander catches, as he needs,\n the first that comes to hand, puts on the halter, canters it his\n journey, and lets it go, never to know it more. But Behmen, when he\n has laid hold of a similitude, locks the stable door upon it\u2014keeps\n it for constant service\u2014and at some times rides the poor beast to\n death. The obscurity of his writings is increased by his arbitrary\n chemico-theological terminology, and the hopeless confusion in which\n his philosophies of mind and matter lie entangled. His pages\n resemble a room heaped in disorder, with the contents of a library\n and laboratory together. In this apartment you open a folio divine,\n and knock over a bottle of nitric acid;\u2014you go to look after the\n furnace, and you tumble over a pile of books. You cannot divest\n yourself of the suspicion that when you have left the place and\n locked the door behind you, these strange implements will assume an\n unnatural life, and fantastically change places,\u2014that the books will\n some of them squeeze themselves into the crucible, and theology will\n simmer on the fire, and that the portly alembic will distil a sermon\n on predestination.\n\n The _Aurora_ is broken every here and there by headings in capital\n letters\u2014promising and conspicuous sign-posts, on which are written,\n \u2018MARK!\u2018\u2014\u2018NOW MARK!\u2018\u2014\u2018UNDERSTAND THIS ARIGHT!\u2018\u2014\u2018THE GATE OF THE GREAT\n MYSTERY!\u2018\u2014\u2018MARK NOW THE HIDDEN MYSTERY OF GOD!\u2018\u2014\u2018THE DEEPEST\n DEPTH!\u2018\u2014and similar delusive advertisements, pointing the wayfarer,\n alas! to no satisfactory path of extrication,\u2014places rather of\n deeper peril,\u2014spots like those in the lowlands of Northern Germany,\n verdurous and seemingly solid, but concealing beneath their\n trembling crust depths of unfathomable mire, whence (like fly from\n treacle-jar) the unwary traveller is happy to emerge, miserably\n blinded and besmeared, with a hundred-weight of mud weighing down\n either limb. Often does it seem as though now, surely, a goodly\n period were at hand, and Behmen were about to say something summary\n and transparent: the forest opens\u2014a little cleared land is\n discernible\u2014a solitary homestead or a charcoal-burner\u2019s hut appears\n to indicate the verge of this interminable Ardennes forest of\n words\u2014but only a little further on, the trees shut out the sky\n again; it was but an interstice, not the limit; and the wild\n underwood and press of trunks embarrass and obscure our course as\n before. It is some poor relief when Behmen pauses and fetches breath\n to revile the Devil, and in homely earnest calls him a damned\n stinking goat, or asks him how he relishes his prospects; when he\n stops to anticipate objections and objurgate the objectors,\n dogmatizing anew with the utmost _na\u00efvet\u00e9_, and telling them to take\n care, for they will find him right to a certainty at the last day;\n or, finally, when he refreshes himself by a fling at the Papists,\n quite Lutheran in its heartiness. For in Behmen\u2019s mysticism there\n was nothing craven, effeminate, or sentimental. He would contend to\n the death for the open Bible. All spiritual servitude was his\n abhorrence. Very different was the sickly mysticism for a short time\n in vogue in Germany at a later period of the seventeenth century.\n Behmen was no friend to what was narrow or corrupt in the\n Lutheranism of his day. But a Lutheran he remained, and a genuine\n Protestant. Sickly and servile natures could only sigh over the\n grand religious battle of those days, and would have made away their\n birthright\u2014liberty, for that mess of pottage\u2014peace. They began by\n regarding the strife between tyranny and freedom with unmanly\n indifference. They ended by exercising for the last time their\n feeble private judgment, and securing themselves with obsequious\n haste in the shackles of the infallible Church.\n\nFootnote 237:\n\n While regarding as infallibly certain the main features of the\n doctrine communicated to him, Behmen is quite ready to admit the\n imperfect character both of his knowledge and his setting forth\n thereof. Light was communicated to him, he said, by degrees, at\n uncertain intervals, and never un-mingled with obscurity.\u2014_Aurora_,\n cap. vii. \u00a7 11; cap. x. \u00a7 26, and often elsewhere.\n\nFootnote 238:\n\n _Aurora_, x. \u00a7\u00a7 44, 45.\n\nFootnote 239:\n\n See _Aurora_, cap. xix. \u00a7\u00a7 26-45; cap. xxiii. \u00a7 86.\n\n After speaking of the revolt of Lucifer as the cause of the present\n imperfection and admixture of natural evil in the world, by corrupting\n the influence of the Fountain-Spirits throughout our department of the\n universe, and of the blind and endangered condition of man consequent\n thereon, he adds,\u2014\u2018But thou must not suppose that on this account the\n heavenly light in the Fountain-Spirits of God is utterly extinct. No;\n it is but a darkness which we, with our corrupt eyesight, cannot\n apprehend. But when God removes the darkness which thus broods above\n the light, and thine eyes are opened, then thou seest even on the spot\n where thou sittest, standest, or dost lie in thy room, the lovely face\n of God, and all the gates that open upon heaven. Thou needest not\n first lift thine eyes upwards to heaven, for it is written, \u2018The word\n is near thee, even on thy lips and in thine heart;\u2019 Deut. xxx. 14;\n Rom. x. 8. So near thee, indeed, is God, that the birth of the Holy\n Trinity takes place in thine heart also, and there all three persons\n are born,\u2014Father, Son and Holy Ghost.\u2019\u2014_Aurora_, cap. x. \u00a7\u00a7 57, 58.\n\nFootnote 240:\n\n \u2018The spirit of man,\u2019 says Behmen, \u2018contains a spark from the power and\n light of God.\u2019 The Holy Ghost is \u2018creaturely\u2019 within it when renewed,\n and it can therefore search into the depths of God and nature, as a\n child in its father\u2019s house. In God, past, present, and future;\n breadth, depth, and height; far and near, are apprehended as one, and\n the holy soul of man sees them in like manner, although (in the\n present imperfect state) but partially. For the devil sometimes\n succeeds in smothering the seed of inward light.\u2014_Aurora_, _Vorrede_,\n \u00a7\u00a7 96-105.\n\n According to Behmen, Stephen, when he saw the heavens opened, and\n Christ at the right hand of God, was not spiritually translated into\n any distant upper region,\u2014\u2018he had penetrated into the inmost\n birth\u2014into the heaven which is everywhere.\u2019\u2014_Aurora_, cap. xix. \u00a7 48.\n Similarly, he declares that he had not ascended into heaven, and seen\n with the eye of the flesh the creative processes he describes, but\n that his knowledge comes from the opening within him of the gate to\n the inner heavenly world, so that the divine sun arose and shone\n within his heart, giving him infallible inward certainty concerning\n everything he announces. If an angel from heaven had told him such\n things, he must have doubted. It might have been Satan in a garb of\n light: it would have been an external testimony: it would have been\n beyond his comprehension; but this light and impulse from within\n precludes all doubt. The holy Soul is one spirit with God, though\n still a creature; sees as the angels see, and far more, since they\n discern only heavenly things, but man has experience both of heaven\n and hell, standing as he does midway between the two.\u2014_Aurora_, cap.\n xi. \u00a7\u00a7 68-72 and cap. xii. \u00a7 117. Comp. also cap. xxv. \u00a7\u00a7 46-48.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER VIII.\n\n\n \u039c\u03cd\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2 \u03b4\u1f72 \u03bd\u03cc\u03bf\u03c2\n \u03a4\u03ac \u03c4\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c4\u03ac \u03bb\u03ad\u03b3\u03b5\u03b9,\n \u0392\u03c5\u03b8\u1f78\u03bd \u1f04\u03c1\u1fe5\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd\n \u1f08\u03bc\u03c6\u03b9\u03c7\u03bf\u03c1\u03b5\u03cd\u03c9\u03bd.\n \u03a3\u1f7a \u03c4\u1f78 \u03c4\u03af\u03ba\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u1f14\u03c6\u03c5\u03c2,\n \u03a3\u1f7a \u03c4\u1f78 \u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u03c4\u03cc\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd,\n \u03a3\u1f7a \u03c4\u1f78 \u03c6\u03c9\u03c4\u03af\u03b6\u03bf\u03bd,\n \u03a3\u1f7a \u03c4\u1f78 \u03bb\u03b1\u03bc\u03c0\u03cc\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd.\n \u03a3\u1f7a \u03c4\u1f78 \u03c6\u03b1\u03b9\u03bd\u03cc\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd,\n \u03a3\u1f7a \u03c4\u1f78 \u03ba\u03c1\u03c5\u03c0\u03c4\u03cc\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd\n \u1f38\u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b1 \u03b3\u03b1\u1fd6\u03c2.\n \u1f18\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\n \u1f18\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u1fbd \u1f11\u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u1f78,\n \u039a\u03b1 \u03b4\u03b9\u1f70 \u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd.[241]\n\n SYNESIUS.\n\n\n WILLOUGHBY\u2019S ESSAY\u2014SIXTH EVENING.\n\n\n \u00a7 6. _Jacob Behmen.\u2014Sketch and Estimate of his System._\n\n\n So our Behmen, rejoicing in his supernatural light, is prepared to\n answer more questions than ever the Northern hero, Ganglar, put to\n the throned phantoms in the palace roofed with golden shields. Let\n us listen to some of his replies. We have been long in the\n penumbra\u2014now for the depth of the shadow.\n\n To begin with, Behmen must have an \u2018immanent,\u2019 as distinguished from\n the revealed Trinity. He attempts to exhibit the _principle_ of that\n threefold mode of the divine existence, concerning which we could\n have known nothing, apart from Revelation, and which Revelation\n discloses only in its practical connexion with the salvation of man.\n His theory of the Trinity is not one whit more unsubstantial than\n many suggested by modern philosophical divines of high repute. In\n the Abyss of the divine nature, the Nothing of unrevealed Godhead,\n Behmen supposes that there exists Desire\u2014a going forth, on the part\n of what is called the Father. The object and realization of such\n tendency is the Son. The bond and result of this reciprocal love is\n the Holy Spirit.[242]\n\n Here a marked difference must be noted between Behmen and recent\n German speculation. With Hegel, for example, humanity is an\n indispensable link in the Trinitarian process. God depends on man\n for his self-consciousness and development. The deity of Behmen, on\n the contrary, is self-sufficing, and the circle of the divine\n blessedness does not stand indebted to man for its completion.\n\n But does not every inward suppose an outward? As, therefore, there\n is an Eternal Spirit, so also is there an Eternal Nature. God is not\n mere being; He is Will. This Will manifests itself in an external\n universe.\n\n The Eternal Nature, or _Mysterium Magnum_, may be described as the\n external correlative of the divine Wisdom. In other words, what are\n Ideas in the divine Wisdom, assume external form, as natural\n properties, in the Eternal Nature. Suso and Spenser sing the praises\n of the heavenly Wisdom. Behmen, too, personifies this attribute as\n the eternal Virgin. But Nature is distinguished from the maiden\n Wisdom as the prolific Mother of the Universe.\n\n In the Eternal Nature, are seven \u2018Forms of Life,\u2019 or \u2018Active\n Principles,\u2019 or \u2018Fountain-Spirits\u2019 (_Quellgeister_), or \u2018Mothers of\n Existence,\u2019\u2014typified in the seven golden candlesticks of the\n Apocalypse, and in the many examples of that significant number.\n These Forms reciprocally generate and are generated by each other.\n Each one of them is at once the parent and offspring of all the\n rest. As King Arthur for his knights, so Behmen has a kind of round\n table for them, that no one may hold precedence. He compares them to\n a skeleton globe, or a system of wheels revolving about a common\n centre. This heart or centre is the Son of God, as the sun is the\n heart and lord of the seven planets. The antitheses which these\n various qualities present to each other, in their action and\n reaction, are harmonized in the Supreme Unity. The opposition and\n reconciliation of ideal principles manifest the divine\n fulness,\u2014constitute a play of love and life in the Divine Nature,\n the blessedness of Godhead. But the simultaneous action of these\n qualities becomes concrete in the visible universe. On our planet\n their operation has been corrupted by moral evil, and is therefore\n accompanied by painful strife; so that, with harsh clangour, the\n great wheel of life is turned by hostile forces.\n\n The shortest method will be at once to catalogue the mighty\n Seven\u2014the besiegers of that Thebes, your patience.\n\n\n I. _The Astringent Quality._\n\n\n This first Fountain-Spirit is the principal of all contractive\n force. It is desire, and draws, producing hardness, solidity, &c.\n Rocks are hard because this quality is dominant, or _primus_ in\n them, as Behmen phrases it. In organic nature it produces the woody\n fibre. It predominates in the planet Saturn, in salt, in bone, in\n wolves.\n\n\n II. _The Sweet Quality._\n\n\n The second is the antagonist of the first,\u2014the principle of\n expansion and movement. The pliant forms of plants, fluids,\n quicksilver,\u2014and, among animals, the subtle fox, are examples of its\n characteristic supremacy.\n\n\n III. _The Bitter Quality._\n\n\n This is the principle generated from the conflict of those two\n contraries, the first and second. It is manifest in the anguish and\n strife of being,\u2014in the alterations of the revolving wheel of life.\n It may become heavenly rapture or hellish torment. Its influence is\n dominant in sulphur, in the planet Mars, in war, in dogs. It\n produces red colours, and reigns in choleric temperaments.\n\n\n IV. _The Quality of Fire._\n\n\n The first three qualities belong more especially to the kingdom of\n the Father\u2014of wrath, necessity, death. The last three to the kingdom\n of the Son\u2014of love, freedom, life. The fourth quality is the\n intermediate or transition point between the two members of this\n antithesis of evolution. In the quality of Fire, light and darkness\n meet; it is the root of the soul of man; the source, on either side,\n of heaven and hell, between which our nature stands. In this lower\n material world, it is manifest in the principle of growth. In the\n sidereal world, its planet is the central sun. It produces yellow\n colours; reigns, among metals, in gold,\u2014among animals, in the lion.\n\n\n V. _The Quality of Love._\n\n\n This principle, in its higher operations, is the source of wisdom\n and glory. It predominates in all sweet things, in birds, in the\n intercourse of the sexes; and its star is Venus. Behmen, in some\n places, assigns this quality especially to the gracious Son.\n\n\n VI. _The Quality of Sound._\n\n\n Hence, in heaven, the songs of the angels, the harmony of the\n spheres; in man, the five senses, understanding, and the gift of\n speech. This quality is _primus_ in jovial temperaments, and\n produces blue colours.\n\n\n VII. _The Quality of Corporeity, or Essential Substance._\n\n\n This is the quality by which all the rest come to manifestation. It\n falls, with the preceding, more peculiarly under the province of the\n Holy Spirit, as the searching and formative principle. It is the\n source in the heavenly world of the beautiful forms of Paradise, as\n the preceding is of its sweet sounds. On earth it is the plastic\n power ruling matter\u2014the operative spirit of nature.[243]\n\n * * * * *\n\n It is curious to observe how Behmen\u2019s theory takes hold of Chemistry\n with one hand, and Theology with the other. Paracelsus pronounced\n all matter composed of salt, mercury, and sulphur. Behmen adds, \u2018It\n is even so, considering salt as the representative of the astringent\n or attractive principle\u2014mercury, of the fluent or separative,\u2014and\n sulphur, of nature\u2019s pain in the resultant process of production.\u2019\n Again, the Father is the dark or fiery principle; the Son, the\n principle of light or grace; and the Holy Ghost, the creative,\n formative, preserving principle\u2014the outbirth or realization of the\n two former. There are no materials so incongruous that a dexterous\n use of imaginative or superficial analogies cannot combine them. In\n this way, a medley of terms from the nomenclature of every science\n may be catalogued and bracketed in symmetrical groups of twos and\n threes. Behmen was too much in earnest, however, to carry such\n artificial method very far. He was more concerned about thought than\n orderly form. He could not postulate a fact to fill a gap in a\n synopsis. Though he mingles in much confusion the sciences of mind\n and matter, he does not confound their subjects, and regard them as\n different states of one substance. He would not affirm, with\n Schelling, that matter was mind dormant; and mind, matter realized\n and self-conscious.\n\n We have seen that Behmen assigns the first three principles to the\n dark kingdom of the Father. When he describes that as a realm of\n wrath and darkness, he speaks chiefly from the human point of view.\n God is love. The Father regarded as the wrath-principle, cannot\n strictly be called God. But the very principle which makes love what\n it is, becomes, in respect to sin, so much wrath.\n\n Yet, independently of man, and of such wrath as he may know, God\n would still have manifested himself in contraries. The divine One,\n the unmanifested Subject, seeking an object\u2014desiring, as it were, to\n find himself, becomes what, for lack of better terms, Behmen has to\n call a craving darkness, or burning sense of want. Not that Deity\n suffers pain; but a certain passion must form the base of action.\n Realizing that object, the darkness becomes light. That light\u2014the\n Son\u2014had not been, but for the darkness\u2014the Father. Then from the\n two, which are one, arise, in the Holy Spirit, the archetypal Forms\n of the universe. Thus, from the depth of the divine nature itself\n spring these opposites, Power and Grace, Wrath and Love, Darkness\n and Light; and thence, by a combination of forces, the manifestation\n of God in the quickened, changeful universe. But for such antithesis\n God had remained unrevealed. Without so much of antagonism as is\n essential to action, the Divine Being had not realized the glory of\n his nature.\n\n At the same time, Behmen carefully excludes the notion of modern\n pantheism, that the Divine Idea develops itself by a process, and\n grows as the world grows.[244] \u2018I have to relate in succession,\u2019 he\n would say, \u2018what takes place simultaneously in God,\u2014to describe\n separately what is one in Him. He needs no method, no medium. The\n Eternal Nature is not his instrument for creating the visible\n universe. Thought and realization, with God, take place together,\n and are in Him identical.\u2019 So, in describing a landscape, we have to\n relate severally the sounds and appearances of birds and clouds,\n hills and waters. But to him who is on the spot, the birds sing, the\n waters shine, the clouds fly, the trees bow on the hill, and the\n corn waves along the valley, at one and the same time. His senses\n are the focus of the whole: he sits in the centre. But description\n must travel the circumference.\n\n We now arrive once more at Behmen\u2019s \u2018Yea and Nay\u2019\u2014that theory of\n antithesis before noticed: his explanation of the origin of Evil.\n These Contraries are his trade-winds, whereby he voyages to and fro,\n and traverses with such facility the whole system of things. He\n teaches that the Divine Unity, in its manifestation or\n self-realization, parts into two principles, variously called Light\n and Darkness, Joy and Sorrow, Fire and Light, Wrath and Love, Good\n and Evil. Without what is termed the Darkness and the Fire, there\n would be no Love and Light. Evil is necessary to manifest Good. Not\n that anything is created by God for evil. In everything is both good\n and evil: the predominance decides its use and destiny. What is so\n much pain and evil in hell, is, in heaven, so much joy and goodness.\n The bitter fountain and the sweet flow originally from one divine\n Source. The angels and the devils are both in God, of whom, and in\n whom, all live and move. But from their divine basis, or root, the\n former draw joy and glory, the latter shame and woe. The point of\n collision is the gate of anguish and of bliss.\n\n Thus Behmen, from far away, echoes Heraclitus, and declares Strife\n the father of all things. What were Virtue, he would ask, without\n temptation? In life\u2019s warfare lies its greatness. Our full wealth of\n being is only realized by a struggle for very life. Not till the\n height of the conflict between Siegfried and the dragon\u2014not till the\n mountain is all flames and earthquake with that fearful fight, do\n the dwarfs bring out their hoard, and untold riches glitter round\n the victor.\n\n Behmen was by no means the first to devise a hypothesis so\n plausible. We meet with it in quarters widely remote\u2014in the\n pantheism of Jelaleddin Rumi and of John Scotus Erigena. But nowhere\n does it occupy so central a place, undergo such full development,\n receive such copious illustration, as in the theosophy of the\n G\u00f6rlitz shoemaker.\n\n Like most of those attempts to explain the inexplicable which have\n proved more than usually attractive, this theory has its truth and\n its falsehood. It is true that the harmonious development of life is\n neither more nor less than a successive reconciliation of\n contraries. The persistent quality, representing our individuality\n and what is due to the particular self, must not exist alone. The\n diffusive quality, or fluent, having regard only to others, must not\n exist alone. The extreme of either defeats itself. Each is necessary\n to, or, as Behmen would say, lies in the other. The two factors are\n reconciled, and consummated in a higher unity when the command is\n obeyed\u2014\u2018Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.\u2019 Towards this\n standard all moral development must tend. Pairs of principles, like\n the Personal and the Relative, the Ideal and the Actual, &c.\u2014at once\n twin and rival\u2014where each is the complement of the other, are very\n numerous. They are designed for union, as heat and cold combine to\n produce a temperate or habitable clime. Had Behmen confined his\n theory of contraries within such limits, we might have questioned\n his expressions;\u2014we must, I think, have admitted his principle.\n\n But when he takes good and evil as the members of such an\n antithesis, he is deceived by an apparent likeness. It would be a\n strange thing should any one declare courage and meekness, lowliness\n and aspiration, the work of God and the work of man, incapable of\n harmony. It is still more strange to hear any man pronounce any\n harmony possible between good and evil, sin and holiness. The former\n set of terms belong to one family, the latter are reciprocally\n destructive, totally incompatible. Here lies Behmen\u2019s fallacy.\n\n To regard goodness as a quality which would remain inert and\n apathetic were it not endowed with individuality and consistence by\n evil, and goaded to activity by temptation, is altogether to mistake\n its nature. An adequate conception of Virtue must require that it be\n benignly active within its allotted range.\n\n The popular saying that a man should have enough of the devil in him\n to keep the devil from him, expresses Behmen\u2019s doctrine. But the\n proverb has truth only as it means that of two evils we should\n choose the less: supposing imperfection inevitable, better too much\n self-will than too much pliability. It is true that greatness of\n soul is never so highly developed or so grandly manifest as amid\n surrounding evils. But it is not true that the good is intrinsically\n dependent on the evil for its very being as goodness. No one will\n maintain that He in whom there was no sin lacked individuality and\n character, or that he was indebted to the hostility of scribes and\n Pharisees for his glorious perfectness. Indeed, such a position\n would subvert all our notions of right and wrong; for Evil\u2014the\n awakener of dormant virtue\u2014would be the great benefactor of the\n universe. Sin would be the angel troubling that stagnant\n Bethesda\u2014mere goodness, and educing hidden powers of blessing.\n\n Moreover, we must not argue from the present to the original\n condition of man. Nor can any one reasonably rank among the causes\n by which he professes to account for sin, that which God has seen\n fit to do in order to obviate its consequences. To say, \u2018where sin\n abounded, grace did much more abound,\u2019 is not to explain the origin\n of evil.\n\n Once more, if evil be a necessary factor in our development, that\n world from which all evil will be banished cannot be an object of\n desire. Heaven seems to grow wan and insipid. To exhort us to root\n out the evil of our nature is to enjoin a kind of suicide. It is to\n bid us annihilate the animating, active seed of moral progress. So\n death is life, and life death. Again, if man\u2019s nature be progressive\n and immortal, his immortality must be one of unending conflict.\n Modern Pantheism escapes this conclusion by annihilating\n personality, and by resolving the individual into the All. A poor\n solution, surely\u2014_dis_-solution. To Behmen, no consequence could\n have been more repugnant. No man could hold more strongly than did\n he, the doctrine of a future and eternal state, determined by the\n deeds done in the body. Yet such a cessation of personality might be\n logically urged from the theory which seemed to him triumphantly to\n remove so much perplexity.[245]\n\n A tale of chivalry relates how fair Astrid wandered in the\n moonlight, seeking flowers for the wreath she was twining, but\n always, when the last had just been woven in, the garland would drop\n asunder in her hands, and she must begin again her sad endeavour,\n ever renewed and ever vain. Human speculation resembles that ghostly\n maiden. Each fresh attempt has all but completed the circuit of our\n logic. But one link remains, and in the insertion of that the whole\n fabric falls to pieces. It is a habit with fevered Reason to dream\n that she has solved the great mystery of life. And when Reason does\n so dream, her wild-eyed sister, Imagination, is sober and\n self-distrustful in comparison.\n\n Neither the theist nor the pantheist can claim Behmen as exclusively\n his own. He would perhaps have reckoned their dispute among those\n which he could reconcile. Certain it is, that he holds, in\n combination, the doctrine which teaches a God _within_ the world,\n and the doctrine which proclaims a God _above_ it.\n\n Says the pantheist, \u2018Do you believe in a God who is the heart and\n life of the universe, the soul of that vast body, the world?\u2019 Behmen\n answers, \u2018Yes; but I do not believe in a God who is a mere vital\n force\u2014a God of necessary process\u2014a God lost in the matter He has\n evolved.\u2019\n\n Says the theist, \u2018Do you believe in a God who has Personality and\n Character; who creates of self-conscious free-will; who rules, as He\n pleases, the work of his hands?\u2019 Behmen answers, \u2018Yes; but I do not\n relegate my Deity beyond the skies. I believe that He is the life of\n all creatures, all substance; that He dwelleth in me; that I am in\n His heaven, if I love Him, wherever I go; that the universe is born\n out of Him and lives in Him.\u2019\n\n Like Erigena, Behmen supposed that the \u2018Nothing,\u2019 out of which God\n made all things, was his own unrevealed abstract nature, called,\n more properly, Non-being.\n\n And, now, to Behmen\u2019s version of the story of our world. He tells us\n how God created three circles, or kingdoms of spirits, corresponding\n to the three persons of the Trinity. To each a monarch and seven\n princes were assigned, corresponding to the seven Qualities or\n Fountain-Spirits. One of these angelic sovereigns, Lucifer, fell,\n through pride, and all his kingdom with him. Straightway, as the\n inevitable consequence of sin, the operation of all the seven\n Qualities throughout his dominion became perverted and corrupt. The\n Fiery principle, instead of being the root of heavenly glory, became\n a principle of wrath and torment. The Astringent quality, instead of\n ministering due stability, or coherence, became hard and stubborn;\n the Sweet, foul and putrescent; the Bitter, fierce and raging. So\n with all the rest. Now, it so happened that the seventh Quality of\n Lucifer\u2019s realm coincided, in space, with this world of ours. This\n earth, therefore,\u2014once a province of the heavenly world,\u2014was broken\n up into a chaos of wrath and darkness, roaring with the hubbub of\n embattled elements. Before man was created, nature had fallen. The\n creative word of God brought order into the ruins of this devastated\n kingdom. Out of the chaos He separated sun and planets, earth and\n elements.[246]\n\n In the Black Forest lies a lake, bordered deep with lilies. As the\n traveller gazes on that white waving margin of the dark waters, he\n is told that those lilies, on the last moonlighted midnight, assumed\n their spirit-forms,\u2014were white-robed maidens, dancing on the mere;\n till, at a warning voice, they resumed, ere daybreak, the shape of\n flowers. Similarly, on Behmen\u2019s strange theory, all our natural has\n been previously spiritual beauty. The material of this world was,\n erewhile, the fine substance of an angel realm. All our fair scenes\n are as much below the higher forms of celestial fairness, as are the\n material flowers of lower rank in loveliness than the phantom\n dancers of that haunted lake. The \u2018Heavenly Materiality,\u2019 or \u2018Glassy\n Sea,\u2019 of the angelic kingdom, was a marvellous mirror of perfect\n shapes and colours, of sounds and virtues. Therein arose, in endless\n variety, the ideal Forms of heaven\u2014jubilant manifestations of the\n divine fulness, gladdening the spirits of the praising angels with a\n blessedness ever new. All the growth and productive effort of our\n earth is an endeavour to bring forth as then it brought forth. Every\n property of nature, quickened from its fall by the divine\n command\u2014\u2018Be fruitful and multiply,\u2019 strives to produce in time as it\n did in eternity.[247] But for that fall, this earth had never held\n perilous sands nor cruel rocks; never put forth the poisonous herb,\n nor bred the ravenous beast; and never would earthquake, pestilence,\n or tempest, the deadly outbreaks of water or of fire, have\n accompanied the warfare of disordered elements. The final fires will\n redeem nature, purging away the dross, and closing the long strife\n of time.\n\n Adam was created to be the restoring angel of this world. His nature\n was twofold. Within, he had an angelic soul and body, derived from\n the powers of heaven. Without, he had a life and body derived from\n the powers of earth. The former was given him that he might be\n separate from, and superior to the world. He was endowed with the\n latter, that he might be connected with, and operative in the world.\n His external nature sheltered his inner from all acquaintance with\n the properties of our corrupted earth. His love and his obedience\n surrounded him with a perpetual paradise of his own. He could not\n feel the fierceness of fire, the rigour of cold; he was inaccessible\n to want or pain. He was designed to be the father of a like\n angelic-human race, who should occupy and reclaim the earth for\n God,\u2014keeping down the ever-emerging Curse, and educing and\n multiplying the Blessing which God had implanted.\n\n But the will of Adam gradually declined from the inward paradisiacal\n life towards the life of this world. He commenced his downward\n course by desiring to know the good and evil of the world about him.\n Then Eve was fashioned out of him, and the distinction of sex\n introduced. This was a remedial interposition to check his descent.\n It was deemed better that he should love the feminine part of his\n own nature rather than the external world.[248] Each step of decline\n was mercifully met by some new aid on the part of God, but all in\n vain. He ate of the earthly tree, and the angelic life within him\n became extinct.\n\n Behmen contends stoutly that no arbitrary trial or penalty was\n imposed on Adam. No divine wrath visited his sin on his descendants.\n His liability to suffering and death was the natural consequence\n (according to the divine order) of his breaking away from God, and\n falling from the angel to the animal life. It is characteristic of\n Behmen\u2019s theology to resolve acts of judgment, or of sovereign\n intervention, as much as possible, into the operation of law. Thus,\n he will not believe that God inflicts suffering on lost souls or\n devils. Their own dark and furious passions are their chain and\n flame. He shares this tendency in common with most of the Protestant\n mystics. And I am by no means prepared to say that our mystics are\n altogether wrong on this matter.\n\n No sooner had man fallen, than the mercy of God implanted in him the\n seed of redemption. He lodged in the depths of our nature a hidden\n gift of the Spirit, the inner light, the internal \u2018serpent-bruiser,\u2019\n the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world. All\n our beginnings of desire towards God and heaven are the working of\n this indwelling seed of life. Thus, salvation is wholly of grace. At\n the same time, it rests with us whether we will realize or smother\n the nascent blessing. Man is the arbiter of his own destiny, and\n voluntarily develops, from the depths of his nature, his heaven or\n his hell.\n\n Lessons of self-abandonment, similar to those of the _Theologia\n Germanica_, are reiterated by Jacob Behmen. We are never to forget\n the \u2018Nothingness\u2019 of man, the \u2018All\u2019 of God. He pronounces means and\n ordinances good only as they lead us directly to God,\u2014as they\n prepare us to receive the divine operation. With Behmen, as with the\n mystics of the fourteenth century, redemption is our deliverance\n from the restless isolation of Self, or Ownhood, and our return to\n union with God. It is a new birth, a divine life, derived from\n Christ, the true vine.[249]\n\n But to this idea the theosophists add another. They have a physical\n as well as a spiritual regeneration, and believe in the revival,\n within the regenerate, of a certain internal or angelic body. The\n Lutheran doctrine of consubstantiation gave much encouragement to\n such fancies. According to Weigel, Christ had a twofold body\u2014one\n truly human; another, called the heavenly, a procession from the\n divine nature. Furthermore, theosophy extends the influence of\n redemption to external nature. In the latter-day, \u2018the time of the\n Lilies,\u2019 all men will be the true servants of Christ, our race will\n have recovered its lost lordship over nature, and the Philosopher\u2019s\n Stone will be discovered. That is, man will be able to extract from\n every substance its hidden perfectness and power.\n\n The strongly subjective bent of Behmen\u2019s mind has its good as well\n as its evil. He never long loses sight of his great aim\u2014the\n awakening and sustenance of the inward life. That life was\n imperilled by formalism, by fatalism, by dogmatical disputes, by the\n greedy superstition of the gold-seeker. So Behmen warns men\n incessantly, that no assent to orthodox propositions can save\n them.[250] He argues against the Hyper-Calvinist, and against what\n he regarded as the Antinomian consequence of the doctrine of\n \u2018imputed righteousness.\u2019[251] He was a man of peace,\u2014little disposed\n to add one more to so many controversies; seldom entering the lists\n unless challenged.[252] He justly condemned as profitless the\n Millenarian speculations in which some about him were\n entangled.[253] He had no sympathy with those who endeavoured to\n make ancient Jewish prophecy the fortune-teller of the present day.\n He declared that the true Philosopher\u2019s Stone, to be coveted by all,\n was \u2018the new life in Christ Jesus.\u2019[254] Only by victory over Self\n could any win victory over nature. To the selfish and the godless no\n secrets would be revealed. Such men were continually within reach of\n wonders they might not grasp. So the sinful Sir Launcelot slept by\n the ruined chapel, and had neither grace nor power to awake, though\n before him stood the holy vessel of the Sangreall on its table of\n silver. The treatise on the _Three Principles_ abounds in counsels\n and exhortation designed to promote practical holiness. The\n _B\u00fcchlein vom heiligen Gebet_ is a collection of prayers for the\n private use of \u2018awakened and desirous souls,\u2019 somewhat after the\n manner of those in Doddridge\u2019s _Rise and Progress of Religion_.\n\n When Behmen finds that Scripture contradicts his scheme, on some\n minor point, he will frequently, instead of resorting to a forced\n allegorical interpretation, break away without disguise from the\n authority of its text. Thus, he says more than once, concerning\n passages in the Mosaic account of the creation, \u2018It is evident that\n the dear man Moses did not write this, for it is contrary to,\u2019 &c.,\n &c.[255]\n\n Such, then, is the track of Behmen\u2019s journeying across the\n speculative wilderness, following the fiery pillar of an imaginary\n illumination\u2014a pillar, be it observed, much like that column of\n glory which, as we stand upon the sea-shore, descends to us from the\n setting sun,\u2014a luminous line which moves as we move, and which,\n whatever point we occupy, glows from the ripples at our feet up to\n the fiery horizon beneath which day is sinking. Behmen\u2019s work was\n done chiefly among the educated. Had his mission been to the lower\n orders, we should probably have heard of him as the founder of a\n sect. His object was, however, at once to awaken the life and\n expound the philosophy of religion, within the Lutheran Church. He\n called attention to aspects of Christian truth which the systematic\n theology of that day had too much overlooked. The extensive\n circulation of his books, and the general welcome given to the main\n positions of his doctrine, show that his teaching supplied a real\n want in those times. There can be little doubt that one considerable\n class of minds, repelled by the assumption or the harshness of the\n current orthodoxy, was attracted once more to religion under the\n more genial form in which Behmen presented it. Others were shaken\n from the sleep of formalism by his vehement expostulations. When the\n Creed had so largely superseded the Word,\u2014when Protestants were more\n embittered against each other than brave against the common foe, the\n broader, deeper doctrine of Behmen would offer to many a blessed\n refuge. For gold and precious stones shine among his wood and\n stubble. The darker aspect which some theologians had given to the\n Divine Sovereignty seemed to pass away, as the trembler studied\n Behmen\u2019s reassuring page. Apart from scientific technicalities, and\n the nomenclature of his system, Behmen\u2019s style and spirit were\n mainly moulded upon Luther\u2019s _German Bible_. Any one who will take\n the trouble to look, not into the Aurora, but into the _Book of the\n Three Principles_, will find, along with much clouded verbosity and\n a certain crabbed suggestiveness, a racy idiomatic cast of\n expression, a hearty manliness of tone, indicating very plainly that\n Behmen had studied man, and the book which manifests man.\n\n Though his voice is, for us, so faint and distant, we feel how near\n he must have come to the hearts of his time. Through volumes of\n speculative vapour, glance and glow the warm emotions of the man, in\n his apostrophes, appeals, and practical digressions. His philosophy\n is never that of the artificial abstraction-monger, or the pedantic\n book-worm. He writes of men and for them as though he loved them.\n Modern idealism expresses itself with a grace to which the\n half-educated craftsman was a total stranger. But its rhetorical\n adornment is a painted flame compared with Behmen\u2019s fire. Unlike the\n earlier mystics, his theosophy embraces the whole of man. Unlike so\n much recent speculation, it is wrought out more by the aspiration of\n the soul than the ambition of the intellect. Amidst the fantastic\n disorder of his notions, and the strange inequalities of his\n insight\u2014now so clear and piercing, now so puerile or perverse,\u2014a\n single purpose stands unquestionable,\u2014he desired to justify the ways\n of God to men. His life was a waking dream; but never did mystical\n somnambulist more sincerely intend service to man and praise to God.\n\n\n Note to page 107.\n\n\nBehmen derives _Qualit\u00e4t_ from _quallen_, or _quellen_ (our _well_), and\nunderstands by it the characteristic virtue or operation of anything.\nThus the seven Qualities are the seven _Fountain_-Spirits\u2014the prolific\nsources of their several species of influence. _Aurora_, i. \u00a7 3. The\nnotion of pain (_qual_) in giving birth enters also into his conception\nof Quality.\n\nThe description of these seven Qualities occupies (amidst many\ndigressions) a considerable portion of the _Aurora_, and is repeated,\nwith additions and varieties of expression, throughout all his larger\nworks. The summary here given is derived principally from the account in\nthe _Aurora_, and the _Tabula Principiorum_, _Wercke_, vol. iv. p. 268.\nSimilar classifications and definitions are contained in the three first\nchapters of the _Drei Principien_, and with more clearness and precision\nin the _Mysterium Magnum_, cap. vi. Compare also especially _Aurora_,\ncap. iv. \u00a7\u00a7 8, 9; xiv. \u00a7\u00a7 89, &c.; and xiii. 70-78.\n\nThese seven Fountain-Spirits, or Mothers of Nature, are a contrivance\nreally novel. Paracelsus bequeathed to Behmen the term _Mysterium\nMagnum_, applying it to the Chaos whence he supposed light and darkness,\nheaven and hell, to derive their origin. But Behmen\u2019s furniture or\nfitting-up of the idea is wholly original. Of the early Gnostics he\ncould know nothing, and his Heptarchy of Nature is totally distinct from\ntheirs. Basilides has seven intellectual and moral impersonations,\u2014the\nfirst rank of successive emanations of seven, comprised in his mystical\nAbraxas. Saturninus has seven star-spirits\u2014the lowest emanations in his\nscheme, and bordering on matter. Ancient Gnosticism devised these\nagencies to bridge the space between the supreme Spirit and Hyle. But\nBehmen recognises no such gulph, and requires no such media. With him,\nthe thought becomes at once the act of God. Matter is not a foreign\ninert substance, on which God works, like a sculptor. The material\nuniverse exhibits, incorporate, those very attributes which constitute\nthe divine glory. Nature is not merely of, but out of, God. Did there\nlie no divineness in it, the Divine Being would (on Behmen\u2019s theory) be\ncut off from contact with it. With the Sephiroth of the Cabbala Behmen\nmay possibly have had acquaintance. But, in the Cabbala, each Sephira is\ndependent on that immediately above it, as in the hierarchies of Proclus\nand Dionysius Areopagita. Behmen\u2019s seven equal Qualities, reciprocally\nproducing and produced, are not links in a descending chain,\u2014they are\nexpressions for the collective possibilities of being. Compare with them\nthe seven lower Sephiroth of the Cabbala, called Might, Beauty, Triumph,\nGlory, Foundation, and Kingdom. Here we have mere arbitrary\npersonifications of the magnificence displayed in creation. Behmen\u2019s\nqualities are arbitrary, it is true. They might have been different in\nname, in nature, in number, and the fundamental principles of the system\nstill retained. But who could have resisted the obvious advantages of\nthe sacred planetary number, seven? Behmen, however, goes much deeper\nthan the Cabbalists. He does not idly hypostatise visible attributes.\nHis attractive and diffusive Qualities are the results of\ngeneralisation. His Fountain-Spirits are the seminal principles of all\nbeing. They are, he believes, the vital laws of universal nature. They\nare Energies operative, through innumerable transformations, in every\nrange of existence,\u2014in heaven, on earth, and under the earth.\n\n\n Note to page 108.\n\n\nIn the following passage, Behmen endeavours to explain himself, and\nrepels the charge of material pantheism.\n\n\u2018I know the sophist will accuse me for saying that the power of God is\nin the fruits of the earth, and identifies itself with the generative\nprocesses of nature. But, harkye, friend, open thine eyes a moment. I\nask thee\u2014How hath Paradise existence in this world?.... Is it in this\nworld or without it? In the power of God, or in the elements? Is the\npower of God revealed or hidden?.... Tell me, doth not God live in time\nalso? Is He not all in all? Is it not written, \u201cAm not I He that filleth\nall things,\u201d and \u201cThine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for\never?\u201d\n\n\u2018Here I bethink myself. I would stand clear of all blame from your\nmisconception. I say not that Nature is God, far less that the fruits of\nthe earth are He. I say God gives to all life its power\u2014be that power\nused for good or evil,\u2014gives power to every creature according to its\ndesire. He Himself is all, yet is not in all natures to be called God,\nbut only where there is light, in respect of that (_nach dem Liechte_)\nwherein He Himself dwells, and shines with power throughall his nature.\nHe communicates his power to all his nature and works (_allen seinen\nWesen und Wercken_), and everything appropriates that power of his\naccording to its property. One appropriates darkness, another light: the\nappetite of each demands what is proper to it, and the whole substance\nis still all of God, whether good or evil. For from Him, and through\nHim, are all things; and what is not of his love is of his wrath.\n\n\u2018Paradise is still in the world, but man is not in Paradise, unless he\nbe born again of God; in that case he stands therein in his new birth,\nand not with the Adam of the four elements,\u2019 &c., &c.\u2014_De Signatura\nRerum_, cap. viii. \u00a7\u00a7 45-47.\n\n\n Note to page 117.\n\n\nIn his practical writings, and especially in his letters, Behmen handles\nwell the great theme of the life of Christ in us. The prayer of\nsalutation in most of his letters is\u2014\u2018The open fountain in the heart of\nChrist Jesus refresh and illumine us ever.\u2019\n\nHear him, on this matter, in a letter to N. N., dated 1623:\u2014\n\n\u2018That man is no Christian who doth merely comfort himself with the\nsuffering, death, and satisfaction of Christ, and doth impute it to\nhimself as a gift of favour, remaining still himself a wild beast, and\nunregenerate.... I say, therefore, that no show of grace imputed from\nwithout can make a true Christian. Sin is not forgiven him by the\nspeaking of a word once for all from without, as a lord of this world\nmay give a murderer his life by an outward act of favour. No, this\navaileth nothing with God.\n\n\u2018There is no grace whereby we can come to adoption, save simply in the\nblood and death of Christ. For Him alone hath God appointed to be a\nthrone of grace in His own love, which He hath set in Him, in the sweet\nname Jesus (from Jehovah). He is the only sacrifice God accepteth to\nreconcile His anger.\n\n\u2018But if this said sacrifice is to avail for me, it must be wrought _in_\nme. The Father must communicate or beget His Son in my desire-of-faith\n(_Glaubensbegierde_), so that my faith\u2019s hunger may apprehend Him in His\nword of promise. Then I put Him on, in His entire process of\njustification, in my inward ground; and straightway there begins in me\nthe killing of the wrath of the devil, death, and hell, from the inward\npower of Christ\u2019s death.\n\n\u2018For I can do nothing; I am dead to myself; but Christ worketh in me\nwhen He ariseth within. So am I inwardly dead, as to my true man; and He\nis my life; the life I live, I live in Him, and not in mine-hood\n(_Meinheit_), for grace slays my will and establisheth itself lord in\nplace of my self-hood (_Ichheit_), so that I am an instrument of God\nwherewith He doth what He will.\n\n\u2018Henceforth I live in two kingdoms;\u2014with my outward mortal man, in the\nvanity of time, wherein the yoke of sin yet liveth, which Christ taketh\non Himself in the inward kingdom of the divine world, and helpeth my\nsoul to bear it.... The Holy Scripture everywhere testifieth that we are\njustified from sin, not by meritorious works of ours, but through the\nblood and death of Christ. Many teach this, but few of them rightly\nunderstand it.\u2019\n\nThe other kingdom which, in his haste, Behmen forgot to specify, is the\ninward world of spiritual and eternal life, which he calls\nParadise.\u2014_Theosophische Sendbriefe_, xlvi. \u00a7\u00a7 7, &c. He inveighs\nfrequently against an antinomian Calvinism. But if any one will compare\nthis letter with Calvin\u2019s _Institutes_ III. i. and III. ii. 24, he will\nfind that, on the doctrine of union with Christ, Calvin and Behmen, in\nspite of all their differences, hold language precisely similar.\n\n\n Note to page 117.\n\n\nBehmen was well entitled to teach that lesson of tolerance which his age\nhad so forgotten. In one of his letters he says, \u2018I judge no man; that\nanathematizing one of another is an empty prating. The Spirit of God\nHimself judgeth all things. If He be in us, why need we trouble\nourselves about such idle chatter? On the contrary, I rejoice much\nrather in the gifts of my brethren, and if any of them have received\nanother gift to utter than have I, why should I therefore condemn them?\nDoth one herb, or flower, or tree, say to another, Thou art sour and\ndark; I cannot stand in thy neighbourhood? Have they not all one common\nMother, whence they grow? Even so do all souls, all men, proceed from\nOne. Why boast we of ourselves as the children of God, if we are no\nwiser than the flowers and herbs of the field,\u2019 &c.\u2014_Theos. Sendbr._ 12,\n\u00a7\u00a7 35, 36. Again, in the same letter (\u00a7 61), \u2018Doth not a bee gather\nhoney out of many flowers; and though some flowers be far better than\nothers, what cares the bee for that? She takes what serves her purpose.\nShould she leave her sting in the flower, if its juices are not to her\ntaste, as man doth in his disdainfulness? Men strive about the husk, but\nthe noble life-juice they forsake.\u2019\n\nExhortations to try the spirits, and warnings like those adverted to,\nnot lightly to take whatever fancies may enter the brain, for special\nrevelation, are given in _Theos. Send._ xi. \u00a7 64. The test he gives for\ndecision between a true and a false claim to revelation, is the\nsincerity of desire for the divine\u2014not self-glory; a genuine charity\ntowards man; a true hunger, \u2018not after bread, but God.\u2019-Compare\n_Aurora_, cap. xix. \u00a7 77.\n\n\n Note to page 118.\n\n\nCarriere, in an excellent summary of Behmen\u2019s doctrine, is inclined to\nidealize his expressions on this point. He would regard Behmen\u2019s\nlanguage concerning the fall and restitution of nature as symbolical,\nand understand him only in a subjective sense. But such, I feel\npersuaded, was not Behmen\u2019s meaning. The idea that man, himself\ndisordered, sees nature and the world as out of joint,\u2014that the\nrestoration of light within him will glorify the universe without, is\ncomparatively modern. The original design of man, in Behmen\u2019s system,\nrequires a restitution in which man shall be once more the angelic lord\nof life,\u2014the summoner and monarch of all its potencies. Carriere has\npointed out, with just discrimination, the distinction between Behmen\u2019s\nposition and that of German pantheism in our times. But on some points\nhe seems to me to view him too much with the eyes of the nineteenth\ncentury, and his judgment is, on the whole, too favourable. See his\n_Phil. Weltanschauung der Reformationzeit_, chap. xi.\n\nThe _De Signatura Rerum_ abounds in examples of that curious admixture\nof chemical or astrological processes and phenomena with the facts of\nthe gospel narrative, to which allusion has been made. The following\nspecimen may suffice:\u2014\n\n\u2018Adam had brought his will into the poison of the external Mercury. So,\nthen, must Christ, as Love, yield up his will also in the venomous\nMercury. Adam ate of the evil tree; Christ must eat of the wrath of God;\nand as it came to pass inwardly in the spirit, so must it also outwardly\nin the flesh. And even thus is it in the philosophic work. Mercury, in\nthe philosophic work, signifieth the Pharisees, who cannot endure the\ndear child. When he sees it, it gives him trembling and anguish. Thus\ntrembles Venus also, before the poison of the wrathful Mercury: they\nare, one with the other, as though a sweat went from them, as the\nArtista will see. Mars saith, \u2018I am the fire-heart in the body: Saturn\nis my might, and Mercury is my life: I will not endure Love. I will\nswallow it up in my wrath.\u2019 He signifies the Devil, in the wrath of God;\nand because he cannot accomplish his purpose, he awakens Saturn, as the\nImpression, who signifies the secular government, and therewith seeks to\nseize Venus, but cannot succeed; for she is to him a deadly poison.\nMercury can still less bear the prospect of losing his dominion,\u2014as the\nhigh priests thought Christ would take away their dominion, because He\nsaid He was the Son of God. So Mercury is greatly troubled about the\nchild of Venus,\u2019 &c., &c.\u2014_De Signatura Rerum_, cap. xi. \u00a7\u00a7 18-22.\n\n\n Note to page 118.\n\n\nA word or two should find place here concerning the fate of Behmen\u2019s\ndoctrine. His friends, Balthasar Walther and Abraham von Franckenberg,\nwere indefatigably faithful to his memory. The son of the very Richter\nwho had so persecuted him, became their fellow-labourer in the\ndissemination of his writings. Throughout the latter half of the\nseventeenth century, Germans, Swiss, Hollanders, Englishmen, were busy\nwith translations, commentaries, or original works, in exposition and\ndevelopment of his philosophy. Gichtel published the first complete\nedition of his writings in 1682, and afterwards went off on his own\naccount into one of the craziest phases of mysticism. Orthodox\nLutheranism long continued to assail the doctrine, as it had assailed\nthe man. But the genial piety of Spener, and the large charity of\nArnold\u2014that generous advocate of ecclesiastical outcasts\u2014did justice to\nthe devout earnestness of the theosophist. In France, St. Martin became\nat once a translator and a disciple. His best representative in England\nis William Law. That nonjuring clergyman was elevated and liberalised by\nhis intercourse with the mind of the German mystic, and well did he\nrepay the debt. Law may be said to have introduced Behmen to the English\npublic, both by his services as a translator, and by original writings\nin advocacy of his leading principles. As might be expected, the\neducated and more practical Englishman frequently expresses the thoughts\nof the Teuton with much more force and clearness than their originator\ncould command. Several other Englishmen, then and subsequently,\nspeculated in the same track. But they met with small encouragement, and\ntheir names are all but forgotten. Here and there some of their books\nare to be found among literary curiosities, whose rarity is their only\nvalue. If any would make acquaintance with Behmen\u2019s theology, unvexed by\nthe difficulties of his language or the complexity in which he involves\nhis system, let them read Law. The practical aspect of Behmen\u2019s\ndoctrines concerning the fall and redemption are well exhibited in his\nlucid and searching treatise entitled _The Spirit of Prayer_; or, _The\nSoul rising out of the Vanity of Time into the Riches of Eternity_.\n\nIn Germany Behmen became the great mystagogue of the Romantic school.\nNovalis and Tieck are ardent in their admiration; but they are cold to\nFrederick Schlegel. This unconscious caricature of Romanticism (always\nin some frantic extreme or other) places Behmen above Luther and beside\nDante. A plain translation of the Bible, like that of Luther, he could\nscarcely account a benefit. But a symbolical interpretation, like that\nof Behmen, was a Promethean gift. Christian art was defective, he\nthought, because it wanted a mythology. In Behmen\u2019s theosophy he saw\nthat want supplied. Alas, that Thorwaldsen did not execute a statue of\nthe Astringent Quality\u2014that Cornelius did not paint the Fiery\u2014that Tieck\nhas never sung the legend of the Mysterium Magnum\u2014and that a Gallery of\nthe Seven Mothers should be still the desideratum of Europe! Hegel\ncondescends to throw to Behmen some words of patronising praise, as a\ndistant harbinger of his own philosophical Messiahship. Carriere\ndeclares that Schelling borrowed many choice morsels from his\nterminology without acknowledgment. Franz Baader published a course of\nlectures on Behmen\u2014revived and adapted him to modern thought, and\ndeveloped a theosophy, among the most conspicuous of recent times,\naltogether upon Behmen\u2019s model. Baader assures us that had Schelling\nthought less of Spinosa and more deeply studied Behmen, his philosophy\nwould have been far more rich in valuable result than we now find it.\nCarriere, pp. 721-725.\u2014Hegel\u2019s _Encyclop\u00e6die, Vorr. z. zweiten Aufl._ p.\n22. Hoffman\u2019s _Franz Baader im Verh\u00e4ltnisse zu Spinosa_, &c. p. 23.\n\nThe judgment of Henry More concerning Behmen is discriminating and\nimpartial. \u2018But as for Jacob Behmen I do not see but that he holds firm\nthe fundamentals of the Christian religion, and that his mind was\ndevoutly united to the Head of the Church, the crucified Jesus, to whom\nhe breathed out this short ejaculation with much fervency of spirit upon\nhis death-bed,\u2014Thou crucified Lord Jesus, have mercy on me, and take me\ninto thy kingdom....\n\n\u2018But the case seems to me to stand thus:\u2014There being two main ways\nwhereby our mind is won off to assent to things: viz., the guidance of\nreason, or the strength and vigour of fancy; and according to the\ncomplexion or constitution of the body, we being led by this faculty\nrather than by that, suppose, by the strength or fulness of fancy rather\nthan the closeness of reason (neither of which faculties are so sure\nguides that we never miscarry under their conduct; insomuch that all\nmen, even the very best of them that light upon truth, are to be deemed\nrather fortunate than wise), Jacob Behmen, I conceive, is to be reckoned\nin the number of those whose imaginative faculty has the pre-eminence\nabove the rational; and though he was an holy and good man, his natural\ncomplexion, notwithstanding, was not destroyed, but retained its\nproperty still; and therefore his imagination being very busy about\ndivine things, he could not without a miracle fail of becoming an\nenthusiast, and of receiving divine truths upon the account of the\nstrength and vigour of his fancy: which being so well qualified with\nholiness and sanctity, proved not unsuccessful in sundry apprehensions,\nbut in others it fared with him after the manner of men, the sagacity of\nhis imagination failing him, as well as the anxiety of reason does\nothers of like integrity with himself.\n\n\u2018Which things I think very worthy of noting, that no man\u2019s writings may\nbe a snare to any one\u2019s mind; that none may be puzzled in making that\ntrue which of itself is certainly false; nor yet contemn the hearty and\npowerful exhortations of a zealous soul to the indispensable duties of a\nChristian, by any supposed deviations from the truth in speculations\nthat are not so material nor indispensable. Nay, though something should\nfall from him in an enthusiastic hurricane that seems neither suitable\nto what he writes elsewhere, nor to some grand theory that all men in\ntheir wits hitherto have allowed for truth, yet it were to be imputed\nrather to that pardonable disease that his natural complexion is\nobnoxious to, than to any diabolical design in the writer; which rash\nand unchristian reproach is as far from the truth, if not further, as I\nconceive, than the credulity of those that think him in everything\ninfallibly inspired.\u2014_Mastix, his Letter to a private Friend_, appended\nto the _Enthusiasmus Triumphatus_, &c., p. 294 (1656).\n\nIt will be sufficient to enumerate the mere names of several minor\nmystics, whose fancies are of little moment in the history of mystical\ndoctrine. In the sixteenth century appeared David Joris, a Dutchman, who\nhad almost fatal ecstasies and visions, and wrote and exhorted men, in\nmystical language, to purity and self-abandonment. Also Postel, a\nFrenchman, more mad than the former, who believed in a female devotee,\nnamed Johanna, as the second Eve, through whom humanity was to be\nregenerated. Guthmann, Lautensack, and Conrad Sperber, were theosophists\nwho mingled, in hopeless confusion, religious doctrine and alchemic\nprocess, physics and scripture, tradition, vision, fancy, fact. During\nthe first half of the seventeenth century, Brunswick was agitated by one\nEngelbrecht, a sickly hypochondriacal weaver, who imagined himself\ntranslated to heaven and hell, and commissioned to expound and preach\nincessantly. During the latter part of the same century, the madman\nKuhlmann roved and raved about Europe, summoning sovereigns to his bar:\nConrad Dippel improvised a medley of Paracelsus, Schwenkfeld, and\nBehmen; and John George Gichtel, a fanatical Quietist, bathed his soul\nin imaginary flames, believed himself destined to illumine all mankind,\nfounded the sect of the Angel-Brethren, and seems to have ended in sheer\nmadness. An account of these and other mystics, even less notable, will\nbe found in Arnold\u2019s _Kirchen-undKetzergeschichte_, Th. iii.\n\nFootnote 241:\n\n The initiate mind saith this and saith that, as it circles around the\n unspeakable Depth. Thou art the bringer-forth, thou too the offspring;\n thou the illuminer, thou the illuminate; thou art the manifest, thou\n art the hidden one,\u2014hid by thy glories. One, and yet all things, one\n in thyself alone, yet throughout all things!\n\nFootnote 242:\n\n _Von den drei Principien des G\u00f6ttlichen Wesens_, cap. vii. \u00a7\u00a7 22, &c.,\n cap. ix. 30, _et passim_. _Aurora_, cap. ii. \u00a7 41; cap. xxiii. 61-82.\n Compare _Aurora_, cap. xx. \u00a7\u00a7 49, &c. _Drei Princip._ cap. vii. 25.\n _Aurora_, cap. x. \u00a7 58. Also cap. iii. throughout. There he describes\n the way in which every natural object\u2014wood, stone, or plant, contains\n three principles,\u2014the image, or impress of the divine Trinity; first,\n the Power (_Krafft_) whereby it possesses a body proper to itself;\n secondly, the sap (_Safft_) or heart; thirdly, the peculiar virtue,\n smell, or taste proceeding from it; this is its _spirit_ (\u00a7 47). So,\n in the soul of man, do Power, and Light, and a Spirit of\n Understanding\u2014the offspring of both\u2014correspond to the three persons of\n the Trinity (\u00a7 42).\n\nFootnote 243:\n\n See Note on p. 120.\n\nFootnote 244:\n\n See Note on p. 121.\n\nFootnote 245:\n\n Here I am much indebted to the masterly discussion of the theory in\n question, contained in M\u00fcller\u2019s _Lehre von der S\u00fcnde_, Buch ii. cap.\n 4.\n\nFootnote 246:\n\n _Aurora_, cap. ix. \u00a7 42; cap. xviii. \u00a7 10-15; cap. xxiii. \u00a7\u00a7 92, &c.\n The remarks in the text, concerning Behmen\u2019s position as between\n theism and pantheism, are only true if the word theism be there\n understood as equivalent to deism. For theism, understanding by it\n belief in a personal deity, does not remove God from the universe.\n Theism ought to represent the true mean between the deism which\n relegates a divine Mechanician far from the work of his hands, and the\n pantheism which submerges him beneath it.\n\nFootnote 247:\n\n _Aurora_, cap. iv. \u00a7\u00a7 10, 11. Comp. \u00a7 15, and also cap. xxi. \u00a7 37.\n\nFootnote 248:\n\n _Aurora_, cap. v. \u00a7 4; cap. xvii. \u00a7 16.\n\nFootnote 249:\n\n _Aurora._, \u00a7 27; cap. xiv. \u00a7 104; cap. x. \u00a7\u00a7 42, 65; xix. \u00a7 50.\n\nFootnote 250:\n\n For example, in the _Drei Principien_, cap. xxvi. \u00a7\u00a7 13-34, and in the\n _Aurora_, cap. xii. \u00a7 65.\n\nFootnote 251:\n\n See Note on p. 121.\n\nFootnote 252:\n\n _Theos. Sendbr._ 46, \u00a7\u00a7 51-54. See also Note on page 122.\n\nFootnote 253:\n\n Behmen supposed the latter day not far distant (_Aurora_, iv. 2), but\n his remarks on the vanity of eschatological speculations generally\n might be read with advantage by some of our modern interpreters of\n prophecy. See the letters to Paul Kaym, _Theos. Send._ viii. and xi.\n\nFootnote 254:\n\n _Theos. Sendbr._ x. \u00a7 20. See also Note on page 123.\n\nFootnote 255:\n\n _Aurora_, cap. xx. \u00a7 1; xxii. 26. See also second Note on page 123.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER IX.\n\n\n O sola, mica, rama lamahi,\n Volase, cala, maja, mira, salame,\n Viemisa molasola, Rama, Afasala.\n Mirahel, Zorabeli, Assaja!\n\n _Citation for all Spirits, from the_ BLACK RAVEN.\n\n\nA strict regard for historical accuracy compels me to state that the\nfollowing conversation took place in the drawing-room, and not in the\nlibrary. By such an arrangement, that bright feminine presence was\nsecured which, according to Gower, deprived mysticism itself of half its\nobscurity.\n\n\u2018Did Jacob Behmen frighten you away?\u2019 asked Willoughby of Mrs. Atherton,\nsomewhat remorsefully. \u2018I think Atherton and Gower will bear me out in\nsaying that it was not easy to render the worthy shoemaker\nentertaining.\u2019\n\nMRS. ATHERTON. Mr. Gower was telling us just before you came in, that he\nfound him, from your account, a much more imaginative personage than he\nhad supposed\u2014quite a poetical philosopher.\n\nGOWER. Behmen holds a poet\u2019s doctrine, surely, when he represents all\nnature as struggling towards an ideal,\u2014striving to bring forth now, as\nit once did\u2014ere Lucifer had fallen,\u2014longing and labouring, in fellowship\nwith our human aspiration.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Such a notion must tend to remove from the mind that painful\nsense we sometimes have of the indifference of nature to our thoughts\nand doings.\n\nATHERTON. To remove that feeling from the imagination, at least.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. And that is enough; for only in imagination can it have\nexistence. Man is so much greater than nature.\n\nGOWER. It does, indeed, make all the difference to poets and artists,\nwhether they read sympathy or apathy in the face of creation. Think of\nthe various forms and agencies of nature\u2014of the swart Cyclopean forces\nunder the earth\u2014of the deftly-woven threadwork of the tissues\u2014of\nvapour-pageantries, and cloud-cupolas, and fairy curls of smoke\u2014of the\nchangeful polity of the seasons, advancing and disgracing frost or\nsunshine\u2014of the waves lashing at the land, and the land growing into the\nwaves,\u2014of all these ministries as working, like thoughtful man, toward a\ndivine standard; as rejoicing, in their measure, through every\ndescending range of being, under the restoring hand of the Divine\nArtificer, and panting to recover the order and the beauty of the\nParadise which shines above,\u2014of the Eden which once blossomed here\nbelow. Think of the earth, resigning herself each winter to her space of\nsleep, saying inwardly, \u2018I have wrought another year to bring the\noffspring of my breast nearer to the heavenly pattern hidden in my\nheart. I rest, another circuit nearer to the final consummation.\u2019 Then\nthere is that upper Paradise\u2014substantial, yet ethereal,\u2014as full of\nbeauty, for finer senses, as earth\u2019s fairest spots for more gross,\nwithout aught that is hurtful or discordant. Fill up Behmen\u2019s outline.\nPicture the heavenly hills and valleys, whispering one to another in\nodorous airs,\u2014a converse only broken sweetly, from time to time, by the\nfloating tones of some distant angel-psalm, as the quiet of a lake by a\ngliding swan. There run rivers of life\u2014the jubilant souls of the\nmeditative glens through which they wend. There are what seem birds,\ngorgeous as sunset clouds, and less earthly,\u2014animal forms, graceful as\nthe antelope, leaping among crags more lustrous than diamond,\u2014creatures\nmightier than leviathan; and mild-eyed as the dove couching among\nimmortal flowers, or bathing in the crystal sea. The very dust is\ndazzling and priceless, intersown with the sapphire, the sardonyx, the\nemerald of heaven; and all the ground and pavement of that world\nbranching with veins as of gold and silver, an arborescent glory,\ninstinct with mysterious life.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Thank you, Gower.\n\nGOWER. Thank you, Willoughby. You are my informant. I never read a line\nof Behmen on my own account, and, what is more, never will.\n\nKATE. Helen and I want you very much to tell us something about the\nRosicrucians.\n\nATHERTON. You have read _Zanoni_\u2014\u2014\n\nKATE. And we are all the more curious in consequence. How much of such a\nstory may I think true?\n\nATHERTON. As an ideal portraiture of that ambition which seeks lordship\nwithin the marches of the unseen world, I think _Zanoni_ perfect.\n\nMRS. ATHERTON. The Rosicrucians pretended, did they not, that they could\nprolong life indefinitely,\u2014laid claim to all sorts of wonderful power\nand knowledge? Have you not once or twice met with a person, or heard of\none, who would certainly have been suspected of being a Rosicrucian by\nsuperstitious people? I mean, without any pretence on his part, merely\nfrom a singular appearance, or a mysterious manner, or uncommon\ncleverness.\n\nATHERTON. Oh, yes; such men would keep up the Rosicrucian tradition\nbravely among the common folk.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. And among great folk, too, if they took the pains.\n\nMRS. ATHERTON. I was thinking of Colonel Napier\u2019s description of George\nBorrow, which we were reading the other day. He pictures him youthful in\nfigure, yet with snow-white hair; inscrutable, therefore, as to age, as\nthe Wandering Jew; he has deep-black mesmeric eyes, terrible to dogs and\nPortuguese; he is silent about himself to the most tantalizing height of\nmystery, no man knowing his whence or whither; he is master of\ninformation astoundingly various, speaks with fluency English, French,\nGerman, Spanish, Greek, Hindee, Moultanee, the gipsy tongue, and more\nbeside, for aught I know. So equipped, within and without, he might have\nset up for a Zanoni almost anywhere, and succeeded to admiration.\n\nATHERTON. How small the charlatans look beside such a specimen of true\nmanhood. But where shall we find the distance wider between the ideal\nand the actual than in this very province of supernatural pretension?\nWhat a gulf between the high personage our romance imagines and that\nroving, dare-devil buccaneer of science, or that shuffling quacksalver\nwhich our matter-of-fact research discovers. Don\u2019t you agree with me,\nWilloughby?\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Altogether. Only compare the two sets of figures\u2014what we\nfancy, and what we find. On the one side you picture to yourself a man\nPlatonically elevated above the grossness and entanglement of human\npassions, disdaining earth, dauntlessly out-staring the baleful eyes of\nthat nameless horror\u2014the Dweller on the Threshold; commanding the\nprescience and the power of mightiest spirits; and visited, like\nShelley\u2019s Witch of Atlas, as he reads the scrolls of some Saturnian\nArchimage, by universal Pan, who comes with homage \u2018out of his\neverlasting lair,\u2019\u2014\n\n \u2018Where the quick heart of the great world doth pant.\u2019\n\nThis is the theurgist, as imagination paints him. Now turn, on the other\nside, to the actual gallery of theosophic and theurgic worthies, as\nhistory reveals them. Baptista Porta dwells in a house which is the\ntriumph of legerdemain,\u2014the palace of Puck, the most intricate nest of\ntraps, surprises, optical delusions, grotesque transformations,\u2014throwing\nhost and guests into paroxysms of laughter or of fear. You see Cornelius\nAgrippa, in threadbare bravery, with his heart upon his sleeve, and\nevery expression by turns upon his brow, save that of the Platonic\nserenity. Paracelsus swears worse than my uncle Toby\u2019s comrades in\nFlanders, and raves about his Homunculus. But from such men we cannot\nwithhold sympathy, respect, even a certain admiration. In that\neighteenth century, behold that grand magnet for all the loose and\ndupable social particles in every class and country\u2014the soi-disant Count\nCagliostro, with his Seraphina, his Egyptian Lodge, his elixirs and red\npowder, his magical caraffes, his phosphorous glories, his Pentagon and\nColumbs, his Seven Planetary Spirits, his Helios, Mene, Tetragrammaton.\nIn that age of professed Illuminism, in the times of Voltaire and\nDiderot, when universal _Aufkl\u00e4rung_ was to banish every medi\u00e6val\nphantasm, you see Father Gassner, with his miraculous cures, followed by\ncrowds through Swabia and Bavaria;\u2014Mesmer attracting Paris and Vienna to\nhis darkened rooms and hidden music, to be awe-stricken by the\ncataleptic horrors there achieved;\u2014the Count St. Germain declaring\nhimself three hundred years old, and professing the occult science of\ndiamond-manufacturing Brahmins;\u2014the coffee-house keeper, Schr\u00f6pfer,\ndeluding Leipsic and Frankfort with his pretended theurgic art;\u2014and St.\nMaurice, swindling the sceptical wits and _rou\u00e9s_ who flutter in the\ndrawing-rooms of Mesdames Du Maine and De Tencin, pretending to open\nconverse for them with sylphs and Salamanders, invoking the genius\nAla\u00ebl, and finally subsiding into the Bastille. Such are some among the\nactual caricatures of the artistic conception embodied in the character\nof Zanoni.\n\nATHERTON. Truly a bad symptom of the general disease, when men grow\nunable to see that the highest dignity lies close at hand.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. As though man could never exhibit magnanimity unless in some\nthrilling dramatic \u2018situation.\u2019\n\nGOWER. Or could not believe in the unseen world save by help of\nnecromancers, miracle-mongers, and clairvoyantes.\n\nATHERTON. The ancient saying abides true,\u2014He that ruleth his own spirit\nis greater than he that taketh a city,\u2014greater than even he who should\ncarry the cloud-capital of the whole world of spirits, pull down its\nmeteor-flag, and make all the weird garrison his thralls. I think, if I\nwere a preacher, I should some day take up the phase of man\u2019s mental\nhistory we have now reviewed as a practical exposition of Christ\u2019s\nwords\u2014\u2018Nevertheless, in this rejoice not that the spirits are subject\nunto you, but rather that your names are written in heaven.\u2019\n\nKATE. I should like to know, after all, precisely who and what these\nRosicrucians were. When did they make their first appearance?\n\nWILLOUGHBY. They were originally neither more nor less than the \u2018Mrs.\nHarris\u2019 of a Lutheran pastor.\n\nMRS. ATHERTON. Mr. Willoughby!\n\nATHERTON. Fact, Lily. Willoughby never said anything truer.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Allow me to tell you the story.\u2014About the year 1610, there\nappeared anonymously a little book, which excited great sensation\nthroughout Germany. It was entitled, _The Discovery of the Brotherhood\nof the Honourable Order of the Rosy Cross_, and dedicated to all the\nscholars and magnates of Europe.[256]\n\nIt commenced with an imaginary dialogue between the Seven Sages of\nGreece, and other worthies of antiquity, on the best method of\naccomplishing a general reform in those evil times. The suggestion of\nSeneca is adopted, as most feasible, namely, a secret confederacy of\nwise philanthropists, who shall labour everywhere in unison for this\ndesirable end. The book then announces the actual existence of such an\nassociation. One Christian Rosenkreuz, whose travels in the East had\nenriched him with the highest treasures of occult lore, is said to have\ncommunicated his wisdom, under a vow of secresy, to eight disciples, for\nwhom he erected a mysterious dwelling-place called The Temple of the\nHoly Ghost. It is stated further, that this long-hidden edifice had been\nat last discovered, and within it the body of Rosenkreuz, untouched by\ncorruption, though, since his death, one hundred and twenty years had\npassed away. The surviving disciples of the institute call on the\nlearned and devout, who desire to co-operate in their projects of\nreform, to advertise their names. They themselves indicate neither name\nnor place of rendezvous. They describe themselves as true Protestants.\nThey expressly assert that they contemplate no political movement in\nhostility to the reigning powers. Their sole aim is the diminution of\nthe fearful sum of human suffering, the spread of education, the\nadvancement of learning, science, universal enlightenment, and love.\nTraditions and manuscripts in their possession have given them the power\nof gold-making, with other potent secrets; but by their wealth they set\nlittle store. They have _arcana_, in comparison with which the secret of\nthe alchemist is a trifle. But all is subordinate, with them, to their\none high purpose of benefiting their fellows both in body and soul.\n\nMRS. ATHERTON. No wonder the book made some noise.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. I could give you conclusive reasons, if it would not tire\nyou to hear them, for the belief that this far-famed book was written by\na young Lutheran divine named Valentine Andre\u00e4. He was one of the very\nfew who understood the age, and had the heart to try and mend it. You\nsee him, when his college days are over, starting on his travels\u2014his old\nmother giving him her tearful \u2018God bless you,\u2019 as she puts into his hand\nall the treasure of her poverty,\u2014a rusty old coin, and twelve kreuzer.\nFrom the cottage-door her gaze follows with many a prayer the good son,\nwhose beloved form lessens along the country road. Years after, he comes\nback, bringing with him the same old coin, and with it several hundred\ngulden. He has seen the world, toiling, with quick observant eye and\nbrave kindly heart, through south and western Germany, among the Alps,\nthrough Italy and France. He has been sometimes in clover as a\ntravelling tutor, sometimes he has slept and fared hard, under\nvine-hedges, in noisy, dirty little inns, among carriers, packmen, and\ntravelling apprentices. The candidate becomes pastor, and proves himself\nwise in men as well as books. A philanthropist by nature, he is not one\nof those dreamers who hate all that will not aid their one pet scheme,\nand cant about a general brotherhood which exempts them from particular\ncharity. Wherever the church, the school, the institute of charity have\nfallen into ruin or disorder by stress of war, by fraud, or selfish\nneglect, there the indefatigable Andre\u00e4 appears to restore them. He\ndevises new plans of benevolence,\u2014appealing, persuading, rebuking. He\nendures the petulence of disturbed indolence, the persecution of exposed\nabuse; bearing with, and winning over, all sorts of hopeless crabbed\npeople, thrusting men\u2019s hands into their pockets, they know not how. He\nis an arch bore in the eyes of miserly burgomasters and slumberous\nbrother clergy\u2014a very patron-saint for the needy and distressed, the\norphan and the widow. To this robust practical benevolence was added a\ngenial humour, not uncommon in minds of strength like his, and a certain\ntrenchant skill in satirical delineation which renders some of his\nwritings among the most serviceable to the historian of those times.\n\nGOWER. Oh, how I love that man!\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Well, this Andre\u00e4 writes the _Discovery of the Rosicrucian\nBrotherhood_, a _jeu-d\u2019esprit_ with a serious purpose, just as an\nexperiment to see whether something cannot be done by combined effort to\nremedy the defect and abuses\u2014social, educational, and religious, so\nlamented by all good men. He thought there were many Andre\u00e4s scattered\nthroughout Europe\u2014how powerful would be their united systematic action!\n\nKATE. But why mix up with his proposal all this idle fabling about\nRosenkreuz and his fraternity?\n\nWILLOUGHBY. But for that spice of romance, this notion of his could\nnever have done more than chip the shell or sprawl helpless in the nest.\nThe promise of supernatural powers awakened universal attention\u2014fledged,\nand gave it strength to fly through Europe.\n\nMRS. ATHERTON. But the hoax could not last long, and would, after all,\nencourage those idle superstitions which were among the most mischievous\nof the errors he was trying to put down.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. So indeed it proved. But his expectation was otherwise. He\nhoped that the few nobler minds whom he desired to organize would see\nthrough the veil of fiction in which he had invested his proposal; that\nhe might communicate personally with some such, if they should appear;\nor that his book might lead them to form among themselves a practical\nphilanthropic confederacy, answering to the serious purpose he had\nembodied in his fiction. Let the empty charlatan and the ignoble\ngold-seeker be fooled to the top of their bent, their blank\ndisappointment would be an excellent jest; only let some few, to whom\nhumanity was more dear than bullion, be stimulated to a new enterprise.\n\nGOWER. The scheme was certain, at any rate, to procure him some\namusement.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Many a laugh, you may be sure, he enjoyed in his parsonage\nwith his few friends who were in the secret, when they found their fable\neverywhere swallowed greedily as unquestionable fact. On all sides they\nheard of search instituted to discover the Temple of the Holy Ghost.\nPrinted letters appear continually, addressed to the imaginary\nbrotherhood, giving generally the initials of the candidate, where the\ninvisibles might hear of him, stating his motives and qualifications for\nentrance into their number, and sometimes furnishing samples of his\ncabbalistic acquirements. Still, no answer. Not a trace of the Temple.\nProfound darkness and silence, after the brilliant flash which had\nawakened so many hopes. Soon the mirth grew serious. Andre\u00e4 saw with\nconcern that shrewd heads of the wrong sort began to scent his artifice,\nwhile quacks reaped a rogue\u2019s harvest from it. The reality was ridiculed\nas fiction, and the fiction hailed as reality. Society was full of the\nrotten combustible matter which his spark had kindled into a\nconflagration he could not hope to stay. A cloud of books and pamphlets\nissued from the press, for and against the fraternity, whose actual\nhouse lay beneath the Doctor\u2019s hat of Valentine Andre\u00e4. Medical\npractitioners of the old school, who denounced the spagiric method, and\nto whom the name of Paracelsus was an abomination, ridiculed the\nRosicrucian secrets, and scoffed at their offer of gratuitous cures.\nOrthodox divines, like Libavius, swinging a heavy club, cruelly\ndemolished the little book,\u2014which, of a truth, was not fit to sustain\nrough handling. They called down fire from heaven on its unknown\nauthors, and declared that their _rosa_ should be _rota_\u2014their rose, the\nwheel. Meanwhile a number of enthusiasts became volunteer expositors of\nthe principle and aim of this undiscoverable brotherhood. Andre\u00e4 saw his\nscheme look as ridiculous in the hands of its credulous friends as it\nseemed odious in those of its enemies. A swarm of impostors pretended to\nbelong to the Fraternity, and found a readier sale than ever for their\nnostrums. Andre\u00e4 dared not reveal himself. All he could do was to write\nbook after book to expose the folly of those whom his handiwork had so\nbefooled, and still to labour on, by pen and speech, in earnest aid of\nthat reform which his unhappy stratagem had less helped than hindered.\n\nMRS. ATHERTON. And was no society ever actually formed?\n\nWILLOUGHBY. I believe not; nothing, at least, answering in any way to\nAndre\u00e4\u2019s design. Confederacies of pretenders appear to have been\norganized in various places; but Descartes says he sought in vain for a\nRosicrucian lodge in Germany. The name Rosicrucian became by degrees a\ngeneric term, embracing every species of occult pretension,\u2014arcana,\nelixirs, the philosopher\u2019s stone, theurgic ritual, symbols, initiations.\nIn general usage the term is associated more especially with that branch\nof the secret art which has to do with the creatures of the elements.\n\nATHERTON. And from this deposit of current mystical tradition sprang, in\ngreat measure, the Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism of the eighteenth\ncentury,\u2014that golden age of secret societies. Then flourished\nassociations of every imaginable kind, suited to every taste. The\ngourmand might be sure of a good dinner in one; the alchemist might hope\nto catch his secret in a second; the place-hunter might strengthen his\ninterest in the brotherhood of a third; and, in all, the curious and the\ncredulous might be fleeced to their hearts\u2019 content. Some lodges\nbelonged to Protestant societies, others were the implements of the\nJesuits. Some were aristocratic, like the Strict Observance; others\ndemocratic, seeking in vain to escape an Argus-eyed police. Some\u2014like\nthe Illuminati under Weishaupt, Knigge, and Von Zwackh, numbering (among\nmany knaves) not a few names of rank, probity, and learning\u2014were the\nprofessed enemies of mysticism and superstition. Others existed only for\nthe profitable juggle of incantations and fortune-telling. The lodges\ncontended with each other and among themselves; divided and subdivided;\nmodified and remodified their constitutions; blended and dispersed;\ntill, at last, we almost cease to hear of them. The best perished at the\nhands of the Jesuits, the worst at the hands of the police.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. At Vienna, the Rosicrucians and Freemasons were at one time\nso much the rage that a modification of the mason\u2019s apron became a\nfashionable part of female dress, and chatelaines were made of miniature\nhammers, circles, and plumblines.\n\nKATE. Very pretty, some of them, I dare say.\n\nATHERTON. Do you remember, Gower, that large old house we saw at Vienna,\ncalled the Stift?\n\nGOWER. Perfectly, and the Stift-gasse, too, leading to it, for there I\ngot wet through.\n\nATHERTON. That building is the relic of a charity founded by a professed\nRosicrucian. He took the name of Chaos (after their fashion)\u2014every\nbrother changing his name for some such title as Sol, Aureus, Mercurius,\nand so on, according to his taste. He came to Vienna in the seventeenth\ncentury, and somehow, whether by his alchemy or not I cannot say,\nacquired both fortune and nobility. Ferdinand III. made him\nHofkammerath, and prefixed a Von to the Chaos. This good man founded an\ninstitution for orphans, who were once educated in that house, since\nconverted into a military academy, and bearing still, in its name and\nneighbourhood, traces of the original endowment.\n\nMRS. ATHERTON. Andre\u00e4 would have taken some comfort could he but have\nseen at least that practical fruit of his Rosicrucian whim. How his\nheart would have rejoiced to hear the hum of the orphan school-room, and\nto see their smoking platters!\n\nKATE. My curiosity is not yet satisfied. I should like to know something\nmore about those most poetical beings, the creatures of the\nelements,\u2014Sylph, Undine, and Co.\n\nATHERTON. On this subject, Kate, I am happy to be able to satisfy you. I\ncan conduct you at once to the fountain-head. I will read you the\nprocess enjoined in the _Comte de Gabalis_ for attaining to converse\nwith some of these fanciful creations. (_Taking down a little book._)\nHere is the passage.[257] (_Reads._)\n\n\u2018If we wish to recover our empire over the salamanders, we must purify\nand exalt the element of fire we have within us, and restore the tone of\nthis chord which desuetude has so relaxed. We have only to concentrate\nthe fire of the world, by concave mirrors, in a globe of glass. This is\nthe process all the ancients have religiously kept secret; it was\nrevealed by the divine Theophrastus. In such a globe is formed a solar\npowder, and this, self-purified from the admixture of other elements,\nand prepared according to the rules of art, acquires, in a very short\ntime, a sovereign virtue for the exaltation of the fire within us, and\nrenders us, so to speak, of an igneous nature. Henceforth the\ninhabitants of the fiery sphere become our inferiors. Delighted to find\nour reciprocal harmony restored, and to see us drawing near to them,\nthey feel for us all the friendship they have for their own species, all\nthe respect they owe to the image and vicegerent of their Creator, and\npay us every attention that can be prompted by the desire of obtaining\nat our hands that immortality which does not naturally belong to them.\nThe salamanders, however, as they are more subtile than the creatures of\nthe other elements, live a very long time, and are therefore less urgent\nin seeking from the sage that affection which endows them with\nimmortality....\n\n\u2018It is otherwise with the sylphs, the gnomes, and the nymphs. As they\nlive a shorter time, they have more inducement to court our regard, and\nit is much easier to become intimate with them. You have only to fill a\nglass vessel with compressed air, with earth, or with water, close it\nup, and leave it exposed to the sun\u2019s rays for a month. After that time,\neffect a scientific separation of the elements, which you will easily\naccomplish, more especially with earth or water. It is wonderful to see\nwhat a charm each of the elements thus purified possesses for attracting\nnymphs, sylphs, and gnomes. After taking the smallest particle of this\npreparation every day for a few months, you see in the air the flying\ncommonwealth of the sylphs, the nymphs coming in crowds to the\nwaterside, and the guardians of hidden treasure displaying their stores\nof wealth. Thus, without magical figures, without ceremonies, without\nbarbarous terms, an absolute power is acquired over all these people of\nthe elements. They require no homage from the philosopher, for they know\nwell that he is their superior.... Thus does man recover his natural\nempire, and become omnipotent in the region of the elements, without aid\nof d\u00e6mon, without illicit art.\u2019\n\nOf course you have all learnt from Undine that the creatures of the\nelements are supposed to obtain a soul, and become immortal by alliance\nwith one of our race. There is a double advantage, too, for these happy\nphilosophers may not only raise their nymph or sylphide to a share with\nthem in the happiness of heaven, if they reach it, but if the sage\nshould be so unfortunate as not to be predestined to an immortality of\nblessedness, his union with one of these beings will operate on himself\nconversely,\u2014that is, will render his soul mortal, and deliver him from\nthe horrors of the endless second death. So Satan misses his prey in\neither sphere.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. I never knew before that these cabbalists were Calvinists.\n\nATHERTON. This touch of Jansenism excites the same astonishment in the\nauthor of the _Comte de Gabalis_. A delightful wag, that Abb\u00e9 Villars!\n\nThe philosophers are described by the Count as the instructors and the\nsaviours of the poor elementary folk, who, but for their assistance in\nforming _liaisons_ with mortals, would inevitably at last fall into the\nhands of their enemy, the devil. As soon, he says, as a sylph has learnt\nfrom us how to pronounce cabbalistically the potent name\nNEHMAHMIHAH,[258] and to combine it, in due form, with the delicious\nname ELIAEL, all the powers of darkness take to flight, and the sylph\nenjoys, unmolested, the love he seeks!\n\nWILLOUGHBY. How universal seems to have been the faith in the magical\nefficacy of certain words, from the earliest to the latest times, among\nthe more sober as well as the most extravagant theurgists. A long list\nof them might be drawn up. There is the Indian O-U-M; there are the\nEphesian letters; with Demogorgon, \u2018dreaded name,\u2019 as Milton reminds us;\nthe barbarous words, too, which the Chaldean oracles and Psellus declare\nmust on no account be Hellenised.\n\nGOWER. And the word AGLA, I remember, in Colin de Plancy, which, when\nduly pronounced, facing the east, makes absent persons appear, and\ndiscovers lost property.[259] I suppose the potency is in proportion to\nthe unintelligibility of the terms.\n\nATHERTON. The Comte de Gabalis tells us how the Salamander Oramasis\nenabled Shem and Japhet to restore the patriarch Noah to his former\nvigour by instructing them how to pronounce six times alternately,\nwalking backward, the tremendous name JABAMIAH.\n\nBut the word above every word is the SHEMHAMPHORASH of the Talmud.[260]\nThe latter rabbins say that Moses was forty days on Mount Sinai, to\nlearn it of the angel Saxael. Solomon achieved his fiend-compelling\nwonders by its aid. Jesus of Nazareth, they say, stole it from the\nTemple, and was enabled by its virtue to delude the people. It is now,\nalas! lost; but could any one rightly and devoutly pronounce it, he\nwould be able to create therewith a world. Even approximate sounds and\nletters, supplied by rabbinical conjecture, give their possessor power\nover the spirit-world, from the first-class archangel to the vulgar\nghost: he can heal the sick, raise the dead, and destroy his enemies.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. It is curious to see some of these theosophists, who cry out\nso against the letter, becoming its abject bondsmen among the\npuerilities of the Cabbala. They protest loudly that the mere letter is\nan empty shell\u2014and then discover stupendous powers lying intrenched\nwithin the curves and angles of a Hebrew character.\n\nATHERTON. Our seventeenth century mystics, even when most given to\nromancing, occupied but a mere corner of that land of marvel in which\ntheir Jewish contemporaries rejoiced. The Jews, in their d\u00e6monology,\nleave the most fantastic conceptions of all other times and nations at\nan immeasurable distance. Their affluence of devils is amazing. Think of\nit!\u2014Rabbi Huna tells you that every rabbi has a thousand d\u00e6mons at his\nleft hand, and ten thousand at his right: the sensation of closeness in\na room of Jewish assembly comes from the press of their crowding\nmultitudes: has a rabbi a threadbare gabardine and holes in his shoes,\nit is from the friction of the swarming devilry that everywhere attends\nhim.[261]\n\nGOWER. To return to societies\u2014did you ever hear, Willoughby, of the\nPhiladelphian Association?[262]\n\nWILLOUGHBY. That founded by Pordage, do you mean\u2014the doctor who fought\nthe giant so stoutly one night?\n\nGOWER. The same. I picked up a book of his at a stall the other day.\n\nKATE. Who was he? Pray tell us the story of the battle.\n\nGOWER. A Royalist clergyman who took to medicine under the Protectorate.\nThe story is simply this.\u2014Pordage, whose veracity even his enemies do\nnot impugn, declares that he woke from sleep one night, and saw before\nhis bed a giant \u2018horrible and high,\u2019 with an enormous sword drawn in one\nhand, and an uprooted tree in the other. The monster evidently means\nmischief. The Doctor seizes his walking-stick. Round swings the\nlumbering tree-trunk, up goes the nimble staff\u2014\u2014\n\nATHERTON. What became of the bedposts?\n\nGOWER. Hush, base materialist! The weapons were but the symbols of the\nconflict, and were symbolically flourished. The real combat was one of\nspirit against spirit\u2014wholly internal; what would now be called\nelectro-biological. Each antagonist bent against his foe the utmost\nstrength of will and imagination.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Somewhat after the manner of the Astras which the Indian\ngods hurled at each other\u2014spells of strong volition, which could parch\ntheir object with heat, freeze him with cold, lash him with hail, shut\nhim up in immobility, though hundreds of miles away.\n\nATHERTON. Surpassing powers those, indeed; not even requiring the\npresent eye and will of the operator to master the imagination of the\nsubject mind.\n\nKATE. And the battle in the bedroom?\n\nGOWER. Lasted half an hour; when the giant, finding Dr. Pordage a tough\ncustomer, took his departure.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Pordage was a great student and admirer of Behmen; but,\nunlike his master, an inveterate spirit-seer. I dare say he actually had\na dream to the effect you relate.\n\nGOWER. But he and the whole Philadelphian Society\u2014a coterie of some\ntwenty ghost-seers\u2014profess to have seen apparitions of angels and\ndevils, in broad daylight, every day, for nearly a month.\n\nMRS. ATHERTON. What were they like?\n\nGOWER. The chief devils drove in chariots of black cloud, drawn by\ninferior d\u00e6mons in the form of dragons, bears, and lions. The spirits of\nwicked men were the ugliest of all,\u2014cloven-footed, cats-eared, tusked,\ncrooked-mouthed, bow-legged creatures.\n\nATHERTON. Did the Philadelphians profess to see the spirits with the\ninward or the bodily eye?\n\nGOWER. With both. They saw them in whole armies and processions, gliding\nin through wall or window-pane\u2014saw them as well with the eyes shut as\nopen. For, by means of the sympathy between soul and body, the outer\neye, says Pordage, is made to share the vision of the inner. When we\ncease to use that organ, the internal vision is no less active. I should\nadd that the members were conscious of a most unpleasant smell, and were\ntroubled with a sulphurous taste in the mouth while such appearances\nlasted.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Mrs. Leade is one of the most conspicuous of their number,\u2014a\nwidow of good family from Norfolk, who forsook the world and retired\ninto her inmost self, holding intercourse with spirits and writing her\nrevelations.\n\nGOWER. She, I believe, carried to its practical extreme the Paracelsian\ndoctrine concerning the magical power of faith.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. That is her one idea. By union with the divine will, she\nsays, the ancient believers wrought their miracles. Faith has now the\nsame prerogative: the will of the soul, wholly yielded to God, becomes a\nresistless power, can bind and loose, bless and ban, throughout the\nuniverse. Had any considerable number among men a faith so strong,\nrebellious nature would be subdued by their holy spells, and Paradise\nrestored.\n\nATHERTON. Some of the German Romanticists have revived this idea\u2014never,\nperhaps, wholly dead. Some stir was made for awhile by the theory that\nthe power of miracle was native in man\u2014and haply recoverable.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Such a doctrine is but one among the many retrogressions of\nthe medi\u00e6val school.\n\nFootnote 256:\n\n See, concerning the history of this book, and its author, Valentine\n Andre\u00e4, J. G. Buhle, _Ueber den Ursprung und die Vornehmsten Schiksale\n der Orden der Rosenkreuzer und Freymaurer_ (G\u00f6ttingen, 1804), chapp.\n iii. and iv. Arnold gives a full account of the controversy, and\n extracts, which appear to indicate very fairly the character of the\n Fama Fraternitatis, _Kirchen-und-Ketzergeschichte_, Th. ii. Buch xvii.\n cap. 18.\n\n The derivation of the name Rosicrucian from _ros_ and _crux_, rather\n than _rosa_ and _crux_, to which Brucker alludes (_Hist. Phil._ Per.\n III. Pars i. lib. 3, cap. 3), is untenable. By rights, the word, if\n from _rosa_, should no doubt be Rosacrucian; but such a malformation,\n by no means uncommon, cannot outweigh the reasons adduced on behalf of\n the generally-received etymology. See Buhle, pp. 174, &c.\n\nFootnote 257:\n\n _Le Comte de Gabalis, ou Entretiens sur les Sciences Secr\u00e8tes_ (Metz,\n an cinq. r\u00e9publicain), pp. 53-56.\n\n The following passage is a sample of those high-sounding promises with\n which the pretenders to the Rosicrucian science allured the neophyte:\u2014\n\n \u2018You are about to learn (says the Count to the author) how to command\n all nature: God alone will be your master; the philosophers alone your\n equals. The highest intelligences will be ambitious to obey your\n desire; the demons will not dare to approach the place where you are;\n your voice will make them tremble in the depths of the abyss, and all\n the invisible populace of the four elements will deem themselves happy\n to minister to your pleasures.... Have you the courage and the\n ambition to serve God alone, and to be lord over all that is not God?\n Have you understood what it is to be a man? Are you not weary of\n serving as a slave,\u2014you, who were born for dominion?\u2018\u2014(p. 27.)\n\nFootnote 258:\n\n _Comte de Gabalis_, p. 185. See the story of Noah\u2019s calamity, and the\n salamander Oromasis, p. 140.\n\nFootnote 259:\n\n See Colin de Plancy\u2019s _Dictionnaire Infernal_, Art. Cabale. Horst\n furnishes a number of such words, _Zauberbibliothek_, vol. III. xvi.\n 2.\n\nFootnote 260:\n\n Horst inserts in his _Zauberbibliothek_ the whole of a once famous\n cabbalistic treatise, entitled _Semiphoras et Shemhamphoras Salomonis\n Regis_, a medley of astrological and theurgic doctrine and\n prescription. The word Shemhamphorash is not the real word of power,\n but an expression or conventional representative of it. The Rabbis\n dispute whether the genuine word consisted of twelve, two-and-forty,\n or two-and seventy-letters. Their Gematria or cabbalistic arithmetic,\n endeavours partially to reconstruct it. They are agreed that the\n prayers of Israel avail now so little because this word is lost, and\n they know not \u2018the _name_ of the Lord.\u2019 But a couple of its real\n letters, inscribed by a potent cabbalist on a tablet, and thrown into\n the sea, raised the storm which destroyed the fleet of Charles V. in\n 1542. Write it on the person of a prince (a ticklish business,\n surely), and you are sure of his abiding favour. Eisenmenger gives a\n full account of all the legends connected therewith, _Entdecktes\n Judenthum_, vol. i. pp. 157, 424, 581, &c. (Ed. 1711).\n\n The rationale of its virtue, if we may so call it, affords a\n characteristic illustration of the cabbalistic principle. The Divine\n Being was supposed to have commenced the work of creation by\n concentrating on certain points the primal universal Light. Within the\n region of these was the appointed place of our world. Out of the\n remaining luminous points, or foci, he constructed certain letters\u2014a\n heavenly alphabet. These characters he again combined into certain\n creative words, whose secret potency produced the forms of the\n material world. The word Shemhamphorash contains the sum of these\n celestial letters, with all their inherent virtue, in its mightiest\n combination.\u2014Horst, _Zauberbibliothek_, vol. iv. p. 131.\n\nFootnote 261:\n\n See _Das transcendentale magie und magische Heilarten im Talmud_, von\n Dr. G. Brecher, p. 52. Eisenmenger, _Entdecktes Judenthum_, ii. pp.\n 445, &c.\n\n The _Tractat Berachoth_ says the devils delight to be about the\n Rabbis, as a wife desireth her husband, and a thirsty land longeth\n after water,\u2014because their persons are so agreeable. Not so, rejoins\n Eisenmenger, but because both hate the gospel and love the works of\n darkness.\u2014(p. 447.)\n\nFootnote 262:\n\n See Horst\u2019s _Zauberbibliothek_, vol. i. pp. 314-327.\n\n\n\n\n BOOK THE NINTH\n THE SPANISH MYSTICS\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER I.\n\n\n It is no flaming lustre, made of light,\n No sweet concert nor well-timed harmony,\n Ambrosia, for to feast the appetite,\n Of flowery odour mixed with spicery,\u2014\n No soft embrace, or pleasure bodily;\n And yet it is a kind of inward feast,\n A harmony that sounds within the breast,\n An odour, light, embrace, in which the soul doth rest.\n\n A heavenly feast no hunger can consume;\n A light unseen yet shines in every place;\n A sound no time can steal; a sweet perfume\n No winds can scatter; an entire embrace\n That no satiety can e\u2019er unlace;\n Engraced into so high a favour there,\n The saints with all their peers whole worlds outwear,\n And things unseen do see, and thing unheard do hear.\n\n GILES FLETCHER.\n\n\nGower fulfilled his promise, and read, on two successive evenings, the\nfollowing paper on the Mysticism of the Counter-Reformation, as\nillustrated principally by its two Spanish champions, St. Theresa and\nSt. John of the Cross:\u2014\n\n\n I. _Saint Theresa._\n\n On the revival of letters the mysticism of Alexandria reappeared in\n Florence. That lamp which, in the study of Ficinus, burnt night and\n day before the bust of Plato, proclaimed, in reality, the worship of\n Plotinus. The erudite feebleness of Alexandrian eclecticism lived\n again in Gemisthus Pletho,\u2014blended, as of old, Platonic ideas,\n oriental emanations, and Hellenic legend,\u2014dreamed of a philosophic\n worship, emasculated and universal, which should harmonize in a\n common vagueness all the religions of the world. Nicholas of Cusa\n re-adapted the allegorical mathematics which had flourished beneath\n the Ptolemies and restored the Pythagoras of the Neo-Platonists.\n Pico of Mirandola (the admirable Crichton of his time) sought to\n reconcile the dialectics of Aristotle with the oracles of Chald\u00e6a,\n and to breathe into withered scholasticism the mysterious life of\n Cabbalistic wisdom. An age so greedy of antiquity was imposed on by\n the most palpable fabrications; and Greece beheld the servile\n product of her second childhood reverenced as the vigorous promise\n of her first. Patricius sought the sources of Greek philosophy in\n writings attributed to Hermes and Zoroaster. He wrote to Gregory\n XIV. proposing that authors such as these should be substituted for\n Aristotle in the schools, as the best means of advancing true\n religion and reclaiming heretical Germany.\n\n The position of these scholars with regard to Protestantism\n resembles, not a little, that of their Alexandrian predecessors when\n confronted by Christianity. They were the philosophic advocates of a\n religion in which they had themselves lost faith. They attempted to\n reconcile a corrupt philosophy and a corrupt religion, and they made\n both worse. The love of literature and art was confined to a narrow\n circle of courtiers and literati. While Lutheran pamphlets in the\n vernacular set all the North in a flame, the philosophic refinements\n of the Florentine dilettanti were aristocratic, exclusive, and\n powerless. Their intellectual position was fatal to sincerity; their\n social condition equally so to freedom. The despotism of the Roman\n emperors was more easily evaded by a philosopher of ancient times\n than the tyranny of a Visconti or a D\u2019Este, by a scholar at Milan or\n Ferrara. It was the fashion to patronise men of letters. But the\n usual return of subservience and flattery was rigorously exacted.\n The Italians of the fifteenth century had long ceased to be familiar\n with the worst horrors of war, and Charles VIII., with his ferocious\n Frenchmen, appeared to them another Attila. Each Italian state\n underwent, on its petty scale, the fate of Imperial Rome. The\n philosophic and religious conservatism of Florence professed\n devotion to a church which reproduced, with most prolific abundance,\n the superstitions of by-gone Paganism,\u2014of that very Paganism in\n whose behalf the Neo-Platonist philosopher entered the lists against\n the Christian father. To such men, the earnest religious movement of\n the North was the same mysterious, barbaric, formidable foe which\n primitive Christianity had been to the Alexandrians. The old\n conflict between Pagan and Christian\u2014the man of taste and the man of\n faith\u2014the man who lived for the past, and the man who lived for the\n future, was renewed, in the sixteenth century, between the Italian\n and the German. The Florentine Platonists, moreover, not only shared\n in the weakness of their prototypes, as the occupants of an attitude\n radically false; they failed to exhibit in their lives that\n austerity of morals which won respect for Plotinus and Porphyry,\n even among those who cared nothing for their speculations. Had\n Romanism been unable to find defenders more thoroughly in earnest,\n the shock she then received must have been her deathblow. She must\n have perished as Paganism perished. But, wise in her generation, she\n took her cause out of the hands of that graceful and heartless\n Deism, so artificial and so self-conscious,\u2014too impalpable and too\n refined for any real service to gods or men. She needed men as full\n of religious convictions as were these of philosophical and poetic\n conceits. She needed men to whom the bland and easy incredulity of\n such symposium-loving scholars was utterly inconceivable\u2014abhorrent\n as the devil and all his works. And such men she found. For by\n reason of the measure of truth she held, she was as powerful to\n enslave the noblest as to unleash the vilest passions of our nature.\n It was given her, she said, to bind and to loose. It was time, she\n knew, to bind up mercy and to loose revenge. A succession of\n ferocious sanctities fulminated from the chair of St. Peter. Science\n was immured in the person of Galileo. The scholarship, so beloved by\n Leo, would have been flung into the jaws of the Inquisition by\n Caraffa. Every avenue, open once on sufferance, to freer thought and\n action, was rigorously blocked up. Princes were found willing to cut\n off the right hand, pluck out the right eye of their people, that\n Rome might triumph by this suicide of nations. But nowhere did she\n find a prince and a people alike so swift to shed blood at her\n bidding, as among that imperious race of which Philip II. was at\n once the sovereign and the type. In Spain was found, in its\n perfection, the chivalry of persecution: there dwelt the aristocracy\n of fanaticism. It was long doubtful whether the Roman or the Spanish\n Inquisition was the more terrible for craft, the more ingenious in\n torments, the more glorious with blood.\n\n But Spain was not merely the political and military head of the\n Counter-Reformation. She contributed illustrious names to relume the\n waning galaxy of saints. Pre-eminent among these luminaries shine\n Ignatius Loyola, Theresa, and John of the Cross. The first taught\n Rome what she had yet to learn in the diplomacy of superstition.\n Education and intrigue became the special province of his order: it\n was the training school of the teachers: it claimed and merited the\n monopoly of the vizard manufacture. Rome found in Theresa her most\n famous seeress; in John, her consummate ascetic. It was not in the\n upper region of mysticism that the narrow intellect and invincible\n will of Loyola were to realize distinction. He had his revelations,\n indeed,\u2014was rapt away to behold the mystery of the Trinity made\n manifest, and the processes of creation detailed. But such favours\n are only the usual insignia so proper to the founder of an order.\n Compared with St. Francis the life of Ignatius is poor in vision and\n in miracle. But his relics have since made him ample amends. Bartoli\n enumerates a hundred miraculous cures.[263] John and Theresa were\n mystics _par excellence_: the former, of the most abstract\n theopathetic school; the latter, with a large infusion of the\n theurgic element, unrivalled in vision\u2014angelic and d\u00e6moniacal.\n\n But one principle is dominant in the three, and is the secret of the\n saintly honours paid them. In the alarm and wrath awakened by the\n Reformation, Rome was supremely concerned to enforce the doctrine of\n blind obedience to ecclesiastical superiors. These Spanish saints\n lived and laboured and suffered to commend this dogma to the Church\n and to all mankind. Summoned by the Rule of Obedience, they were\n ready to inflict or to endure the utmost misery. Their natures were\n precisely of the kind most fitted to render service and receive\n promotion at that juncture. They were glowing and ductile. Their\n very virtues were the dazzle of the red-hot brand, about to stamp\n the brow with slavery. Each excellence displayed by such\n accomplished advocates of wrong, withered one of the rising hopes of\n mankind. Their prayers watered with poisoned water every growth of\n promise in the field of Europe. Their Herculean labours were\n undertaken, not to destroy, but to multiply the monsters which\n infested every highway of thought. Wherever the tears of Theresa\n fell, new weeds of superstition sprang up. Every shining austerity\n endured by John gilded another link in the chain which should bind\n his fellows. The jubilant bells of their devotion rang the knell of\n innumerable martyrs.\n\n In the fourteenth century, mysticism was often synonymous with\n considerable freedom of thought. In the sixteenth and seventeenth\n centuries, it was allowed to exist only as it subserved the\n ecclesiastical scheme. The problem was,\u2014how to excite the feeling\n and imagination of the devotee to the highest pitch, and yet to\n retain him in complete subjection to the slightest movement of the\n rein. Of this problem John and Theresa are the practical and\n complete solution. All their fire went off by the legitimate\n conducting-rod: every flash was serviceable: not a gleam was wasted.\n Once mysticism was a kind of escape for nature. The mystic left\n behind him much of the coarse externalism necessary to his Church,\n and found refuge in an inner world of feeling and imagination. But\n now the Church, by means of the confessor, made mysticism itself the\n innermost dungeon of her prison-house. Every emotion was\n methodically docketed; every yearning of the heart minutely\n catalogued. The sighs must always ascend in the right place: the\n tears must trickle in orthodox course. The prying calculations of\n the casuist had measured the sweep of every wave in the heaving\n ocean of the soul. The instant terrible knife cut off the first\n spray of love that shot out beyond the trimly-shaven border of\n prescription. Strong feelings were dangerous guests, unless they\n knew (like the old Romans) when to go home and slay themselves, did\n that Tiberius, the director, but bestow on them a frown.\n\n In France, too, mysticism was to fall under the same yoke; but the\n Frenchman could never reach the hard austerity of the Spaniard. The\n sixteenth century produced St. Francis de Sales on the north, and\n St. John of the Cross on the south, of the Pyr\u00e9n\u00e9es. With the\n former, mysticism is tender, genial, graceful; it appeals to every\n class; it loves and would win all men. With the latter, it is a dark\n negation\u2014a protracted suffering\u2014an anguish and a joy known only to\n the cloister. De Sales was to John, as a mystic, what Henry IV. was\n to Philip as a Catholic King. Even in Italy, the Counter-Reformation\n was comparatively humane and philanthropic with Carlo Borromeo. In\n Spain alone is it little more, at its very best, than a fantastic\n gloom and a passionate severity.\n\n But everywhere the principle of subserviency is in the ascendant.\n The valetudinarian devotee becomes more and more the puppet of his\n spiritual doctor. The director winds him up. He derives his\n spiritless semblance of life wholly from the priestly mechanism. It\n may be said of him, as of the sick man in Massinger\u2019s play,\n\n That he lives he owes\n To art, not Nature; she has given him o\u2019er.\n He moves, like the fairy king, on screws and wheels\n Made by his doctor\u2019s recipes, and yet still\n They are out of joint, and every day repairing.\n\n Theresa was born at Avila, in the year 1515, just two years (as\n Ribadeneira reminds us) before \u2018that worst of men,\u2019 Martin\n Luther.[264] The lives of the saints were her nursery tales.\n Cinderella is matter of fact; Jack and the Beanstalk commonplace,\n beside the marvellous stories that must have nourished her infantine\n faculty of wonder. At seven years old she thinks eternal bliss\n cheaply bought by martyrdom; sets out with her little brother on a\n walk to Africa, hoping to be despatched by the Moors, and is\n restored to her disconsolate parents by a cruel matter-of-fact\n uncle, who meets them at the bridge. Her dolls\u2019 houses are\n nunneries. These children construct in the garden, not dirt pies,\n but mud-hermitages; which, alas! will always tumble down.\n\n As she grows up, some gay associates, whose talk is of ribbons,\n lovers, and bull-fights, secularise her susceptible mind. She reads\n many romances of chivalry, and spends more time at the glass. Her\n father sends her, when fifteen, to a convent of Augustinian nuns in\n Avila, to rekindle her failing devotion. A few days reconcile her to\n the change, and she is as religious as ever.\n\n Then, what with a violent fever, Jerome\u2019s Epistles, and a\n priest-ridden uncle, she resolves on becoming a nun. Her father\n refuses his consent; so she determines on a pious elopement, and\n escapes to the Carmelite convent. There she took the vows in her\n twentieth year.[265]\n\n We find her presently vexed, like so many of the Romanist female\n saints, with a strange complication of maladies,\u2014cramps,\n convulsions, catalepsies, vomitings, faintings, &c. &c. At one time\n she lay four days in a state of coma; her grave was dug, hot wax had\n been dropped upon her eyelids, and extreme unction administered; the\n funeral service was performed; when she came to herself, expressed\n her desire to confess, and received the sacrament.[266] It is not\n improbable that some of the trances she subsequently experienced,\n and regarded as supernatural, may have been bodily seizures of a\n similar kind. But at this time she was not good enough for such\n favours; so the attacks are attributed to natural causes. It is\n significant that the miraculous manifestations of the Romish Church\n should have been vouchsafed only to women whose constitution (as in\n the case of the Catharines and Lidwina) was thoroughly broken down\n by years of agonizing disease. After three years (thanks to St.\n Joseph) Theresa was restored to comparative health, but remained\n subject all her life, at intervals, to severe pains.[267]\n\n On her recovery, she found her heart still but too much divided\n between Christ and the world. That is to say, she was glad when her\n friends came to see her, and she enjoyed witty and agreeable chat,\n through the grating, with ladies whose conversation was not always\n confined to spiritual topics. Grievously did her conscience smite\n her for such unfaithfulness, and bitterly does she regret the laxity\n of her confessors, who failed to tell her that it was a heinous\n crime.\n\n In her twenty-fourth year she resumed the practice of mental prayer,\n and for the next twenty years continued it, with many inward\n vicissitudes, and alternate tendernesses and desertions on the part\n of the Divine Bridegroom. Her forty-fourth year is memorable as the\n season of her entrance on those higher experiences, which have made\n her name famous as the great revivalist of supernatural prayer and\n mystical devotion in the sixteenth century.\n\n The Saint Bartholomew\u2019s day of 1562 was a day of glory for our\n saint. Then was consecrated the new Convent of St. Joseph, at Avila,\n established in spite of so much uproar and opposition; that convent\n wherein the primitive austerity of the Carmelite Order was to be\n restored,\u2014where Theresa is presently appointed prioress (against her\n will, as usual),\u2014where there shall be no chats at the grating, no\n rich endowment; but thirteen \u2018fervent virgins\u2019 shall dwell there,\n discalceated (that is sandalled not shod), serge-clad,\n flesh-abhorring, couched on straw, and all but perpetually\n dumb.[268] The remainder of her life, from about her fiftieth year,\n would appear to have been somewhat less fertile in marvellous\n experiences. She was now recognised as the foundress of the Reformed\n Carmelites, and could produce warrant from Rome, authorizing her to\n found as many convents of the Bare-footed as she pleased. She was\n harassed by the jealous intrigues of the old \u2018mitigated\u2019 Order, but\n indefatigably befriended by John of the Cross, and other\n thorough-going ascetics. She lived to see established sixteen\n nunneries of the Reformed, and fourteen monasteries for friars of\n the same rule. She has left us a long history of her foundations, of\n all the troubles and difficulties she overcame; showing how funds\n were often not forthcoming, but faith was; how apathy and opposition\n were done away; and how busy she must have been (too busy for many\n visions); all of which let whomsoever read that can.\n\n * * * * *\n\n In the year 1562, when Theresa had successfully commenced the\n reformation of her Order, she wrote her life, at the bidding of her\n confessor. In this autobiography her spiritual history is laid bare\n without reserve. The narrative was published by her superiors, and\n therein the heretic may listen to what she whispered in the ear of\n her director during the years most prolific in extravagance. We can\n thus discern the working of the confessional. Commanded to disclose\n her most secret thoughts, we see her nervously afraid of omitting to\n indicate the minutest variations of the religious thermometer, of\n approaching the committal of that sin which Romanist devotees only\n can commit\u2014concealment from a confessor. She searches for evil in\n herself, and creates it by the search. The filmiest evanescence of\n the feeling has to be detained and anatomized, and changes into\n something else under the scrutiny. It is as though she had let into\n her crucifix a piece of looking-glass, that she might see reflected\n every transport of devotion, and faithfully register the same in her\n memory against the next shrift. After some excess of rapture, she\n must set to work at her technical analysis; observe what faculties\n were dormant, and what still active\u2014what regions of the mind were\n tenanted by divinity, and what still left to the possession of her\n sinful self. Her intellect was never strong. She confesses that she\n found her understanding rather in the way than otherwise.[269] Under\n this omnipresent spiritual despotism it fell prostrate utterly. When\n she has been favoured with a vision, she is not to know whether it\n has steamed up from hell or been let down from heaven, until the\n decision of her confessor fills her with horror or delight. The\n cloister is her universe. Her mind, unformed, and uninformed, is an\n empty room, papered with leaves from her breviary. She knew little\n of that charity which makes gracious inroads on the outer world;\n which rendered human so many of her sister-saints; which we admire\n and pity in Madame de Chantal, admire and love in Madame Guyon. No\n feet-washing do we read of, open or secret; no hospital-tending, no\n ministry among the poor. The greater activity of her later years\n brought her in contact with scarcely any but \u2018religious\u2019 persons.\n Her ascetic zeal was directed, not for, but against, the mitigation\n of suffering. It made many monks and nuns uncomfortable; but I am\n not aware that it made any sinners better, or any wretched happy.\n Peter of Alcantara is her admiration; he who for forty years never\n slept more than one hour and a half in the twenty-four, and then in\n a sitting posture, with his head against a wooden peg in the wall;\n who ate in general only every third day; and who looked, she says,\n as if he were made of the roots of trees (_hecho de reyzes de\n arboles_[270]). Lodged in her monastic cranny of creation, she\n convulses herself with useless fervours, absolutely ignorant of all\n things and persons non-ecclesiastical. Her highest ambition is to\n reduce the too-palpable reality of herself to the minutest possible\n compass, and to hide herself\u2014a kind of parasitical insect or\n entozo\u00f6n\u2014in the personality of her confessor. Yet, complete as is\n this suicide, she is never sure that she is sufficiently dead, and\n incessantly asks him if _he_ is quite sure that she is sincere. Such\n a life is an object of compassion more than blame. She was herself\n the victim of the wicked system to which her name was to impart a\n new impulse. The spasmodic energy she at last displays about her\n Reformation is not native strength. She was surrounded from the\n first by those who saw clearly what Rome needed at that time, who\n beheld in her first almost accidental effort the germ of what they\n desired, and in herself a fit instrument. A whisper from one of\n these guides would be translated by such an imagination into a\n direct commission from heaven. They had but to touch a spring, and\n her excitable nature was surrounded with the phantasmagoria of\n vision; one scene produced another, and that unfolded into more\u2014all,\n the reiteration and expansion of the bent once given to her fixed\n idea.\n\n Theresa experienced her first rapture while reciting the _Veni\n Creator_, when she heard these words spoken in the interior of her\n heart\u2014\u2018I will have thee hold converse, not with men, but\n angels.\u2018[271] She had been conscious, on several previous occasions,\n of supernatural excitements in prayer, and was much perplexed\n thereby, as indeed were several of her confessors. Here were\n irresistible devotional seizures for which they had no rule ready.\n They suspected an evil spirit, advised a struggle against such\n extraordinary influences. But the more she resists, the more does\n the Lord cover her with sweetnesses and glories, heap on her favours\n and caresses. At last the celebrated Francis Borgia comes to Avila.\n The Jesuit bids her resist no more; and she goes on the mystical way\n rejoicing. The first rapture took place shortly after her interviews\n with the future General of the Society of Jesus.\n\n A word on this system of spiritual directorship. It is the vital\n question for mystics of the Romish communion. Nowhere is the duty of\n implicit self-surrender to the director or confessor more constantly\n inculcated than in the writings of Theresa and John of the Cross,\n and nowhere are the inadequacy and mischief of the principle more\n apparent. John warns the mystic that his only safeguard against\n delusion lies in perpetual and unreserved appeal to his director.\n Theresa tells us that whenever our Lord commanded her in prayer to\n do anything, and her confessor ordered the opposite, the Divine\n guide enjoined obedience to the human; and would influence the mind\n of the confessor afterwards, so that he was moved to counsel what he\n had before forbidden![272] Of course. For who knows what might come\n of it if enthusiasts were to have visions and revelations on their\n own account? The director must draw after him these fiery and\n dangerous natures, as the lion-leaders of an Indian pageantry\n conduct their charge, holding a chain and administering opiates. The\n question between the orthodox and the heterodox mysticism of the\n fourteenth century was really one of theological doctrine. The same\n question in the sixteenth and seventeenth was simply one of\n ecclesiastical interests.[273] The condemned quietists were merely\n mystics imperfectly subservient\u2014unworkable raw material, and as such\n flung into the fire. Out of the very same substance, duly wrought\n and fashioned, might have come a saint like Theresa. By the great\n law of Romish policy, whatever cannot be made to contribute to her\n ornament or defence is straightway handed over to the devil.\n Accordingly, the only mysticism acknowledged by that Church grows up\n beneath her walls, and invigorates, with herbs of magic potency, her\n garrison,\u2014resembles the strip of culture about some eastern frontier\n town, that does but fringe with green the feet of the ramparts; all\n the panorama beyond, a wilderness;\u2014for Bedouin marauders render\n tillage perilous and vain. Thus, O mystic, not a step beyond that\n shadow; or hell\u2019s black squadrons, sweeping down, will carry thee\n off captive to their home of dolour!\n\n The confessions of Theresa are a continual refutation of her\n counsels. She acknowledges that she herself had long and grievously\n suffered from the mistakes of her early directors. She knew others\n also who had endured much through similar incompetency. The judgment\n of one conductor was reversed by his successor. She exhorts her nuns\n to the greatest care in the selection of a confessor,\u2014on no account\n to choose a vain man or an ignorant. She vindicates their liberty to\n change him when they deem it desirable.[274] John of the Cross, too,\n dilates on the mischief which may be done by an inexperienced\n spiritual guide. At one time Theresa was commanded to make the sign\n of the cross when Christ manifested Himself to her, as though the\n appearance had been the work of some deceiving spirit.[275] Her next\n guide assured her that the form she beheld was no delusion. Dreadful\n discovery, yet joyful! She had attempted to exorcise her Lord; but\n the virtue of obedience had blotted out the sin of blasphemy. Thus\n does each small infallibility mould her for his season, and then\n pass her on to another. Her soul, with despair stamped on one side\n and glory imaged on the other, spins dizzy in the air; and whether,\n when it comes down, heaven or hell shall be uppermost, depends\n wholly upon the twist of the ecclesiastical thumb.\n\n But to return to her marvellous relations; and, first of all, to\n those of the infernal species. On one occasion, she tells us, she\n was favoured with a brief experience of the place she merited in\n hell:\u2014a kind of low oven, pitch dark, miry, stinking, full of\n vermin, where sitting and lying were alike impossible; where the\n walls seemed to press in upon the sufferer\u2014crushing, stifling,\n burning; where in solitude the lost nature is its own tormentor,\n tearing itself in a desperate misery, interminable, and so intense,\n that all she had endured from racking disease was delightful in\n comparison.[276]\n\n At another time, while smitten for five hours together with\n intolerable pains, the Lord was pleased to make her understand that\n she was tempted by the devil; and she saw him at her side like a\n very horrible little negro, gnashing his teeth at her. At last she\n contrived to sprinkle some holy water on the place where he was.\n That moment he and her pains vanished together, and her body\n remained as though she had been severely beaten. It is as well to\n know that holy water will be found incomparably your best weapon in\n such cases. The devils will fly from the cross, but may presently\n return. The drops the Church has blest, do their business\n effectually. Two nuns, who came into the room after the victory just\n related, snuffed up the air of the apartment with manifest disgust,\n and complained of a smell of brimstone. Once the sisters heard\n distinctly the great thumps the devil was giving her, though she, in\n a \u2018state of recollection,\u2019 was unconscious of his belabouring. The\n said devil squatted one day on her breviary, and at another time had\n all but strangled her.[277] She once saw, with the eye of her soul,\n two devils, encompassing, with their meeting horns, the neck of a\n sinful priest; and at the funeral of a man who had died without\n confession, a whole swarm of devils tearing and tossing the body and\n sporting in the grave.\n\n But much more numerous, though as gross as these, are her visions of\n celestial objects. \u2018Being one day in prayer,\u2019 she tells us, \u2018our\n Lord was pleased to show me his sacred hands, of excessive and\n indescribable beauty; afterwards his divine face, and finally, at\n mass, all his most sacred humanity.\u2019 At one of his appearances, he\n drew out with his right hand, the nail which transfixed his left,\n some of the flesh following it. Three times did she behold in her\n raptures the most sublime of all visions\u2014the humanity of Christ in\n the bosom of the Father; very clear to her mind, but impossible to\n explain. While reciting the Athanasian Creed the mystery of the\n Trinity was unfolded to her, with unutterable wonderment and\n comfort. Our Lord paid her, one day, the compliment of saying, that\n if He had not already created heaven, He would have done so for her\n sake alone.[278]\n\n Some of her \u2018Memorable Relations\u2019 are among the most curious\n examples on record of the materialization of spiritual truth. With\n all the mystics, she dwells much on the doctrine of Christ in us.\n But while some of them have exaggerated this truth till they bury\n under it all the rest, and others have authenticated by its plea\n every vagary of special revelation, in scarcely any does it assume a\n form so puerile and so sensuous as with St. Theresa. Repeatedly does\n she exhort religious persons to imagine Christ as actually within\n the interior part of their soul. The superstition of the mass\n contributed largely in her case to render this idea concrete and\n palpable. In a hymn, composed in a rapturous inspiration after\n swallowing the consecrated wafer, she describes God as her\n prisoner.[279] She relates in the following passage how she saw the\n figure of Christ in a kind of internal looking-glass.\n\n \u2018When reciting the hours one day with the nuns, my soul suddenly\n lapsed into a state of recollection, and appeared to me as a bright\n mirror, every part of which, back and sides, top and bottom, was\n perfectly clear. In the centre of this was represented to me Christ\n our Lord, as I am accustomed to see him. I seemed to see him in all\n the parts of my soul also, distinctly as in a mirror, and at the\n same time this mirror (I do not know how to express it) was all\n engraven in the Lord himself, by a communication exceeding amorous\n which I cannot describe. I know that this vision was of great\n advantage to me, and has been every time I have called it to mind,\n more especially after communion. I was given to understand, that\n when a soul is in mortal sin, this mirror is covered with a great\n cloud, and grows very dark, so that the Lord cannot be seen or\n represented in us, though he is always present as the Author of our\n being. In heretics, this mirror is as it were broken, which is much\n worse than to have it obscured.\u2019[280]\n\n Here the _simplicitas_ and _nuditas_ of other mystics become a kind\n of concrete crystal, inhabited by a divine miniature. In a Clara de\n Montfaucon, this sensuous supra-naturalism goes a step further, and\n good Catholics read with reverence, how a Lilliputian Christ on the\n cross, with the insignia of the passion, was found, on a\n _post-mortem_ examination, completely formed inside her heart.[281]\n\n Similar in its character was a vision with which Theresa was\n sometimes favoured, of a pretty little angel, with a golden dart,\n tipped with fire, which he thrust (to her intolerable pain) into her\n bowels, drawing them out after it, and when thus eviscerated, she\n was inflamed with a sweet agony of love to God.[282]\n\n A multitude more of such favours might be related:\u2014how the Lord gave\n her a cross of precious stones\u2014a matchless specimen of celestial\n jewellery to deck his bride withal; how, after communion one day,\n her mouth was full of blood, that ran out over her dress, and Christ\n told her it was his own\u2014shed afresh, with great pain, to reward her\n for the gratification her devotion had afforded him; how (doubtless\n in imitation of Catherine of Siena) she saw and heard a great white\n dove fluttering above her head; and how, finally, she repays the\n attentions of the Jesuit Borgia, by repeated praises of the Order;\n by recording visions of Jesuits in heaven bearing white banners,\u2014of\n Jesuits, sword in hand, with resplendent faces, gloriously hewing\n down heretics; and by predicting the great things to be accomplished\n through the zeal of that body.[283] Enough!\n\n\n Note to page 159.\n\n\nThe dispute which agitated the Romish Church for more than half a\ncentury (1670-1730), concerning the _Mistica Ciudad de Dios_, attributed\nto Maria d\u2019Agreda, furnishes a striking instance in proof of the\ncharacter here ascribed to the controversies of the period. This\nmonstrous book was given to the world as the performance of a Spanish\nnun, at the dictation of the Virgin, or of God;\u2014both assertions are\nmade, and the difference is not material. Its object is to establish, by\npretended special revelation, all the prerogatives assigned to the Queen\nof Heaven, on the basis of her Immaculate Conception. It is replete with\nthe absurdities and indecencies of prurient superstition. Dufresnoy\napplies to it, with justice, the words of John of Salisbury,\u2014\u2018Erumpit\nimpudens et in facie erubescentium populorum genialis thori revelat et\ndenudat arcana.\u2019 It states that the embryo of the Virgin was formed on a\nSunday, seventeen days before the ordinary time,\u2014relates how, at\neighteen months, the infant demands a nun\u2019s habit from St. Anna, of the\ncolour worn by the Franciscans,\u2014how she sweeps the house, and has nine\nhundred angels to wait upon her. The partizans of the book maintained,\nnot only that the work itself was a miracle from beginning to end, but\nthat its translation was miraculous also,\u2014a French nun receiving\ninstantaneously the gift of the Spanish tongue, that these disclosures\nfrom heaven might pass the Pyrenees. Such was the mass of corruption\nabout which the gadflies and the \u2018shard-borne beetles\u2019 of the Church\nsettled in contending swarms. This was the book on whose wholesomeness\nfor the flock of Christ his Vicars could not venture to\ndecide\u2014eventually, rather evading reply than pronouncing sentence. No\nsuch scruple concerning the unwholesomeness of the Bible.\n\nThe Abb\u00e9 Dufresnoy handles the question broadly, but most of the\ncombatants are furious, this side or that, from some small party motive.\nThe French divines censure the book, for fear it should encourage\nQuietism\u2014their great bugbear at that time. The Spanish ecclesiastics,\njealous of the honour done their countrywoman, retorted with a _Censura\nCensur\u00e6_. But about the habit the battle was hottest. Every Carmelite\nmust reject the book with indignation, for had they not always believed,\non the best authority, that the Virgin wore a dress of _their_ colour?\nThe Franciscans again, and the religious of St. Clare, would defend it\nas eagerly, for did not its pages authorize anew from heaven their\nbeloved ashen hue? Again, did not these revelations represent the\nAlmighty as adopting the Scotist doctrine? On this great question, of\ncourse, Scotist and Thomist would fight to the death. Some account of\nthe controversy, and an examination of the book, will be found in\nDufresnoy, _Trait\u00e9 Historique et Dogmatique sur les Apparitions, les\nVisions et les R\u00e9v\u00e9lations particuli\u00e8res_, tom. II. chap. xi. (1751).\n\nThe same spirit betrays itself in the instance of Molinos. Even after he\nhad written his _Guida Spirituale_, he was patronized by the Jesuits\nbecause he had employed his pen against Jansenism, and the Franciscans\napproved his book, while the Dominicans rejected it, because he had\ndelighted the one party and disgusted the other by speaking somewhat\ndisparagingly of Thomas Aquinas.\n\nFootnote 263:\n\n Alban Butler, July 31.\n\nFootnote 264:\n\n Ribadeneira, _Flos Sanctorum_, Appendix, p. 35 (Ed. 1659).\n\nFootnote 265:\n\n _Los Libros de la B. M. Teresa de Jesus_, _Vida_, capp. i. iii. This\n edition of 1615 contains the _Camino de la Perfecion_, and the\n _Castillo espiritual_, with the _Life_. The _Foundations_, at which I\n have only glanced in the French, are devoted to business, not\n mysticism.\n\nFootnote 266:\n\n _Vida_, cap. v. p. 26.\n\nFootnote 267:\n\n Teresa confesses that during the first year of her seizure her\n disorder was such as sometimes completely to deprive her of her\n senses:\u2014Tan grave, que casi me privava el sentido siempre, y algunas\n vezes del todo quedava sin el.\u2014Pp. 17.\n\nFootnote 268:\n\n _Vida_, cap. xxxvi.\n\nFootnote 269:\n\n _Vida_, p. 83.\n\nFootnote 270:\n\n _Vida_, cap. xxvii. p. 196.\n\nFootnote 271:\n\n _Vida_, cap. xxiv. p. 171.\n\nFootnote 272:\n\n _Vida_, cap. xxvi. p. 186. Siempre que el Se\u00f1or me mandava alguna cosa\n en la oracion, si el confessor me dezia otra, me tornava el Se\u00f1or a\n dezir que le obedeciesse: despues su Magestad le bolvia para que me lo\n tornasse a mandar. She speaks in the very same page of bad advice\n given her by one of her confessors.\n\nFootnote 273:\n\n See Note on p. 164.\n\nFootnote 274:\n\n _Vida_, p. 85; _Camino de Perfecion_, capp. 4 and 5.\n\nFootnote 275:\n\n _Vida_, cap. xxix., p. 209.\n\nFootnote 276:\n\n _Vida_, cap. xxxii.\n\nFootnote 277:\n\n _Ibid._, cap. xxxi.\n\nFootnote 278:\n\n _Vida_, pp. 198, 301, 209, 321. This last communication is not related\n by herself: we have it on the authority of Ribadeneira:\u2014Itidem ei\n rursus apparens dixit: C\u0153lum nisi creassem, ob te solam crearem.\u2014_Vita\n Teresi\u00e6_, p. 41.\n\nFootnote 279:\n\n Originally:\n\n Mas causa en mi tal passion\n Ver \u00e0 Dios mi prisionero\n Que muero porque no muero.\n\nFootnote 280:\n\n _Vida_, cap. xl. p. 324.\n\nFootnote 281:\n\n The biographers of the saints differ both as to the time of her death\n (1308, 1299, 1393, are dates assigned), and as to the number and\n nature of the miraculous formations discovered within her heart.\n Ribadeneira\u2019s account is by no means the most extravagant. He\n says:\u2014Aperto ejus corde amplo et concavo, eidem repererunt impressa\n Dominic\u00e6 passionis insignia, nempe crucifixum cum tribus clavis,\n lancea, spongia, et arundine hinc, et illinic flagris, virgis,\n columna, corona spinea; atque h\u00e6c insignia Dominic\u00e6 Passionis, nervis\n validis durisque constabant.\u2014_Vida S. Clar\u00e6_, p. 161.\n\nFootnote 282:\n\n _Vida_, cap. xxix, p. 213. Speaking of the delicious anguish, she\n says:\u2014No es dolor corporal, sino espiritual, aunque no dexa de\n participar el cuerpo algo, y aun harto. Es un requiebro tan suave que\n passa entre el almo y Dios que suplico yo a su bondad lo d\u00e8 a gustar a\n quien pensare que miento.\n\nFootnote 283:\n\n _Vida_, cap. xxxviii. pp. 300, 301; and xl. 328.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER II.\n\n\n Indeed, when persons have been long softened with the continual\n droppings of religion, and their spirits made timorous and apt for\n impression by the assiduity of prayer, and perpetual alarms of\n death, and the continual dyings of mortification,\u2014the fancy, which\n is a very great instrument of devotion, is kept continually warm,\n and in a disposition and aptitude to take fire, and to flame out in\n great ascents; and when they suffer transportations beyond the\n burdens and support of reason, they suffer they know not what, and\n call it what they please.\u2014JEREMY TAYLOR.\n\n\n I. _Saint Theresa_\u2014(CONTINUED).\n\n\n What disinterested love is to the mysticism of F\u00e9nelon, that is\n supernatural passive prayer to the mysticism of St. Theresa. She\n writes to describe her experience in the successive stages of\n prayer; to distinguish them, and to lay down directions for those\n who are their subjects. She professes no method whereby souls may be\n conducted from the lowest to the highest degree. On the contrary,\n she warns all against attempting to attain, by their own efforts,\n that blissful suspension of the powers which she depicts in colours\n so glowing. Unlike Dionysius, she counsels no effort to denude the\n soul of thought: she does not, with Tauler, bid the mystic\n laboriously sink into the ground of his being. She is emphatically a\n Quietist; quite as much so as Molinos, far more so than F\u00e9n\u00e9lon.\n Spiritual consolation and spiritual desertion are to be alike\n indifferent. By a singular inconsistency, while tracing out the way\n of perfection, she forbids the taking of a step in that path.[284]\n You will be borne along, she would say, if you wait, as far as is\n fitting. Her experience receives its complexion, and some of her\n terminology is borrowed from the _Lives of the Saints_. Of the past\n career of Mystical Theology she is utterly ignorant. She hears,\n indeed, of a certain time-honoured division of the mystical process\n into Purgative, Illuminative, and Unitive; but she does not adopt\n the scheme. The Platonic and philosophic element is absent\n altogether from her mysticism. Her metaphysics are very simple:\u2014the\n soul has three powers\u2014Understanding, Memory, and Will. Now one, now\n another, now all of these, are whelmed and silenced by the incoming\n flood of Divine communication.\n\n In addition to sundry chapters in her _Life_ on the various kinds of\n prayer, she has left two treatises, _The Way of Perfection_ (Camino\n de Perfecion) and _The Castle of the Soul_ (Castillo\n Interior)\u2014verbose, rambling, full of repetitions. For the conventual\n mind there is no rotation of crops; and the barrenness which limits\n such monotonous reproduction supervenes very soon. From these\n sources, then, we proceed to a brief summary of her theopathy.\n\n There are in her scale four degrees of prayer. The first is _Simple\n Mental Prayer_,\u2014fervent, inward, self-withdrawn; not exclusive of\n some words, nor unaided by what the mystics called discursive acts,\n _i.e._, the consideration of facts and doctrines prompting to\n devotion. In this species there is nothing extraordinary. No\n mysticism, so far.\n\n SECOND DEGREE:\u2014_The Prayer of Quiet_ called also _Pure\n Contemplation_. In this state the Will is absorbed, though the\n Understanding and Memory may still be active in an ordinary way.\n Thus the nun may be occupied for a day or two in the usual religious\n services, in embroidering an altar-cloth, or dusting a chapel; yet\n without the Will being engaged. That faculty is supposed to be, as\n it were, bound and taken up in God. This stage is a supernatural\n one. Those who are conscious of it are to beware lest they suffer\n the unabsorbed faculties to trouble them. Yet they should not exert\n themselves to protract this \u2018recollection.\u2019 They should receive the\n wondrous sweetness as it comes, and enjoy it while it lasts,\n absolutely passive and tranquil. The devotee thus favoured often\n dreads to move a limb, lest bodily exertion should mar the\n tranquillity of the soul. But happiest are those who, as in the case\n just mentioned, can be Marys and Marthas at the same time.[285]\n\n THIRD DEGREE:\u2014_The Prayer of Union_, called also _Perfect\n Contemplation_. In this prayer, not the Will only, but the\n Understanding and Memory also, are swallowed up in God. These powers\n are not absolutely inactive; but we do not work them, nor do we know\n how they work. It is a kind of celestial frenzy\u2014\u2018a sublime madness,\u2019\n says Theresa. In such a transport she composed her ecstatic hymn,\n without the least exercise of the understanding on her part. At this\n stage the contemplatist neither thinks nor feels as a human being.\n The understanding is stunned and struck dumb with amazement. The\n heart knows neither why it loves, nor what. All the functions of the\n mind are suspended. Nothing is seen, heard, or known. And wherefore\n this sudden blank? That for a brief space (which seems always\n shorter than it really is) the Living God may, as it were, take the\n place of the unconscious spirit\u2014that a divine vitality may for a\n moment hover above the dead soul, and then vanish without a trace;\n restoring the mystic to humanity again, to be heartened and edified,\n perhaps for years to come, by the vague memory of that glorious\n nothingness.[286]\n\n Some simple nun might ask, \u2018How do you know that God did so\n plenarily enter into you, if you were conscious of nothing\n whatever?\u2019\n\n \u2018My daughter,\u2019 replies the saint, \u2018I know it by an infallible\n certainty (_una certidumbre_) that God alone bestows.\u2019[287]\n\n After this nothing remains to be said.\n\n FOURTH DEGREE:\u2014_The Prayer of Rapture, or Ecstasy_. This estate is\n the most privileged, because the most unnatural of all. The bodily\n as well as mental powers are sunk in a divine stupor. You can make\n no resistance, as you may possibly, to some extent, in the Prayer of\n Union. On a sudden your breath and strength begin to fail; the eyes\n are involuntarily closed, or, if open, cannot distinguish\n surrounding objects; the hands are rigid; the whole body cold.\n\n Alas! what shall plain folk do among the rival mystics! Swedenborg\n tells us that bodily cold is the consequence of defective faith:\n Theresa represents it as the reward of faith\u2019s most lofty exercise.\n\n Were you reading, meditating, or praying, previous to the seizure,\n the book, the thought, the prayer, are utterly forgotten. For that\n troublesome little gnat, the memory (_esta maraposilla importuna de\n la memoria_), has burnt her wings at the glory. You may look on\n letters\u2014you cannot read a word; hear speech\u2014you understand nothing.\n You cannot utter a syllable, for the strength is gone. With intense\n delight, you find that all your senses are absolutely useless\u2014your\n spiritual powers inoperative in any human mode. The saint is not\n quite certain whether the understanding, in this condition,\n understands; but she is sure that, if it does, it understands\n without understanding, and that its not understanding cannot be\n understood. Time of this beatific vacuum,\u2014very long, if half an\n hour; though obviously a difficult point to decide, as you have no\n senses to reckon by.\n\n Remarkable were the effects of the rapture on the body of the saint.\n An irrepressible lifting force seemed to carry her off her feet\n (they preserve the right foot in Rome to this day): it was the swoop\n of an eagle; it was the grasp of a giant. In vain, she tells us, did\n she resist. Generally the head, sometimes the whole body, was\n supernaturally raised into the air! On one occasion, during a sermon\n on a high day, in the presence of several ladies of quality, the\n reckless rapture took her. For in vain had she prayed that these\n favours might not be made public. She cast herself on the ground.\n The sisters hastened to hold her down; yet the upward struggling of\n the divine potency was manifest to all. Imagine the rush of the\n sisterhood, the screams of the ladies of quality, the pious\n ejaculations from the congregation,\u2014watching that knot of swaying\n forms, wrestling with miracle, and the upturned eyes, or\n open-mouthed amazement, of the interrupted preacher![288]\n\n The state of rapture is frequently accompanied by a certain \u2018great\n pain\u2019 (_gran pena_), a sweet agony and delicious torment, described\n by Theresa in language as paradoxical as that which Juliet in her\n passion applies to the lover who has slain her cousin\u2014\n\n Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical!\n Dove-feathered raven! wolfish-ravening lamb!\n\n After some two or three hours\u2019 endurance of this combined spiritual\n and corporeal torture, the sisters would find her almost without\n pulsation, the bones of the arms standing out (_las canillas muy\n abiertas_), her hands stiff and extended: in every joint were the\n pains of dislocation: she was apparently at the point of death.[289]\n\n This mysterious \u2018pain\u2019 is no new thing in the history of mysticism.\n It is one of the trials of mystical initiation. It is the depth\n essential to the superhuman height. With St. Theresa, the physical\n nature contributes towards it much more largely than usual; and in\n her map of the mystic\u2019s progress it is located at a more advanced\n period of the journey. St. Francis of Assisi lay sick for two years\n under the preparatory miseries. Catharine of Siena bore five years\n of privation, and was tormented by devils beside. For five years,\n and yet again for more than three times five, Magdalena de Pazzi\n endured such \u2018aridity,\u2019 that she believed herself forsaken of God.\n Balthazar Alvarez suffered for sixteen years before he earned his\n extraordinary illumination.[290] Theresa, there can be little doubt,\n regarded her fainting-fits, hysteria, cramps, and nervous seizures,\n as divine visitations. In their action and reaction, body and soul\n were continually injuring each other. The excitement of\n hallucination would produce an attack of her disorder, and the\n disease again foster the hallucination. Servitude, whether of mind\n or body, introduces maladies unknown to freedom. Elephantiasis and\n leprosy\u2014the scourge of modern Greece\u2014were unknown to ancient Hellas.\n The cloister breeds a family of mental distempers, elsewhere unheard\n of.\n\n The mystics generally, from Dionysius downward, inculcate earnest\n endeavours to denude the mind of images, to suspend its reflex or\n discursive operations. Theresa goes a step farther, and forbids her\n pupils to strive towards such a state. If such a favour is to be\n theirs, it will be wrought in them as by enchantment. Passivity here\n reaches its extreme. On this ground a charge of Quietism might have\n been brought against Theresa with more justice than against F\u00e9n\u00e9lon,\n or even Molinos. The _Guida Spirituale_ of Molinos was designed to\n assist the mystic in attaining that higher contemplation of God\n which rises above the separate consideration of particular\n attributes. This indistinct and dazzled apprehension of all the\n perfections together is the very characteristic of Theresa\u2019s _Prayer\n of Rapture_. Molinos cites her very words. The introduction to his\n condemned manual contains some very strong expressions. But nothing\n of his own is so extravagant as the passages from Dionysius and\n Theresa.\n\n Who then is the Quietist\u2014Molinos or Theresa? Both write books to\n mark out the mystic\u2019s pathway. Theresa adds the caution, \u2018Sit\n still.\u2019 Manifestly, then, the excess of passivity lies with her. The\n oars of Molinos are the sails of Theresa,\u2014erected, like the broad\n paddles of the Indian, to catch the breeze, and urge onward the\n canoe without an effort.[291] But the followers of Molinos were\n found guilty of neglecting ceremonial gewgaws for devout\n abstraction,\u2014of escaping those vexatious observances so harassing to\n patients and so lucrative to priests. So Rome condemned him, and not\n Theresa, as the Quietist heretic. For his head the thundercloud; for\n hers the halo.[292]\n\n Here the reader may naturally ask, \u2018How do these mystics reconcile\n such extremes of abstraction and such extremes of sensuousness? If\n the state above symbols and above reasoning\u2014above all conscious\n mental operations, distinctions, or figures, be so desirable (as\n they all admit),\u2014must not crucifixes, images, and pictures of\n saints, yea, the very conception of our Saviour\u2019s humanity itself,\n be so many hindrances?\u2019\n\n To this Theresa would answer, \u2018I thought so once. But I was happily\n led to see my error ere long. In the _Prayer of Rapture_, all\n recognition of Christ\u2019s humanity\u2014as, indeed, of everything else\u2014is\n doubtless obliterated. But, then, _we_ do not effect this. There is\n no effort on our part to remove from our minds the conception of\n Christ\u2019s person. The universal nescience of Rapture is\n supernaturally wrought, without will of ours.\u2019[293] John of the\n Cross, who carries his negative, imageless abstraction so far, is\n fain (as a good son of the Church) to insert a special chapter in\n commendation of images, pictures, and the sensuous aids to devotion\n generally. It was unfortunate for the flesh and blood of Molinos\n that he failed to do the same.[294]\n\n In the seventeenth century the Quietists were accused of rejecting\n the idea of Christ\u2019s humanity, as a corporeal image which would only\n mar their supersensuous contemplation of abstract deity. Bossuet\n attempted to fasten the charge on F\u00e9n\u00e9lon: it was one of the hottest\n points of their controversy. F\u00e9n\u00e9lon completely clears himself. From\n the evidence within my reach, I am disposed to acquit Molinos\n also.[295]\n\n Theresa relates with peculiar pleasure those passages in the\n marvellous history of the soul in which surpassing heights of\n knowledge, or of virtue, are supposed to be realized, on the\n instant, without processes or media. No transition is too violent\n for her faith. She is impatient of all natural growth; will\n acknowledge no conditions of development. The sinner turns into a\n seraph in the twinkling of an eye. The splendid symmetry of all the\n Christian virtues can arise, like the palace of Aladdin, in a single\n night. In one particular kind of Rapture\u2014the Flight of the Soul\n (_Buelo del Espiritu_), the soul is described by her as, in a\n manner, blown up. It is discharged heavenwards by a soundless but\n irresistible explosive force from beneath, swift as a bullet (_con\n la presteza que sale la pelota de un arcabuz_). Thus transported the\n spirit is taught without the medium of words, and understands\n mysteries which long years of search could not even have\n surmised.[296]\n\n Visions are intellectual or representative. The former is a\n consciousness of spiritual proximity, indescribable, unaccompanied\n by any appearances. The representative or imaginative vision,\n presents some definite form or image.[297]\n\n There is a kind of supernatural tuition, she tells us, in which the\n Lord suddenly places in the centre of the soul, what he wishes it to\n understand, without words or representation of any kind. This\n privilege Theresa compares very truly to an ability to read without\n having learnt letters, or to nutriment derived from food without\n eating it.[298] In other instances certain efficacious words (the\n \u2018substantial words\u2019 of John), are spoken divinely in the centre of\n the soul, and immediately produce there the actual effects proper to\n their significance.[299] If something is thus inwardly spoken about\n humility, for example, the subject of such words is that moment\n completely humble. So the soul is supplied with virtues as the\n _tables volantes_ of Louis XV. with viands,\u2014a spring is touched, and\n presto! the table sinks and re-appears\u2014spread.\n\n\n Note to page 168.\n\n\nTheresa compares the four degrees of prayer to four ways of watering the\nsoul-garden: the first, to drawing water out of a well; the second, to\nraising it by means of a rope with buckets (less laborious and more\nplentiful); the third, to the introduction of a rivulet; and the fourth,\nto a copious shower, whereby God Himself abundantly waters the garden,\nwithout any effort of ours.\u2014Cap. xi. p. 67. The second degree is fully\ndescribed in the fourteenth chapter of her life, and in the thirty-first\nof the _Camino de Perfecion_.\n\nThe difference between the first degree and the three others is simply\nthat generic distinction between Meditation and Contemplation with which\nthe earlier mystics have made us familiar. Theresa\u2019s second, third, and\nfourth degrees of prayer are her more loose and practical arrangement of\nthe species of contemplation. She identifies Mystical Theology with\nPrayer, employing the latter term in a very comprehensive sense. So also\ndoes St. Francis de Sales:\u2014En somme, l\u2019oraison et th\u00e9ologie mystique\nn\u2019est autre chose qu\u2019une conversation par laquelle l\u2019\u00e2me s\u2019entretient\namoureusement avec Dieu de sa tr\u00e8s-aimable bont\u00e9 pour s\u2019unir et joindre\n\u00e0 icelle.\u2014_Trait\u00e9 de l\u2019Amour de Dieu_, livre vi. chap. i. He likens the\nsoul in the prayer of Quiet when the will is engaged but the other\npowers free, to an infant which can see and hear and move its arms,\nwhile adhering to the breast. The babe which removes its little mouth\nfrom the bosom to see where its feet are, resembles those who are\ndistracted in the prayer of Quiet by self-consciousness, and disturb\ntheir repose by curiosity as to what the mind is doing the\nwhile.\u2014_Ibid._ chap. x.\n\n\n Note to page 170.\n\n\n_Vida_, capp. xviii. xix.:\u2014Estandoassi el alma buscando a Dios, siente\ncon un deleyte grandissimo y suave casi desfallecerse toda con una\nmanera de desmayo, que le va faltando el huelgo, y todas las fuer\u00e7as\ncorporales, demanera que sino es con mucha pena, no puede aun menear las\nmanos; los ojos se le cierran sin querer, los cerrar, y si los tiene\nabiertos no vee casi nada; ni si lee, acierta a dezir letra ni casi\natina a conocerla bien; vee que ay letra, mas como el entendimiento no\nayuda, no sabe leer, aunque quiera. Oye, mas no entiende lo que oye.\nAssi que de los sentidos no se aprovecha nada, sino es para no la acabar\nde dexar a su plazer, y assi antes la da\u00f1an. Hablar, es por de mas, que\nno atina a formar palabra; ni ay fuer\u00e7a ya que atinasse, para poderla\npronunciar: porque toda la fuer\u00e7a exterior se pierde, y se aumenta en\nlas del alma, para mejor poder gozar de su gloria. El deleyte exterior\nque se siente es grande, y muy conocido.\u2014P. 118.\n\nAs to the elevation of the body in the air during rapture, it is common\nenough in the annals of Romish saintship, and a goodly page might be\nfilled with the mere names of the worthies who are represented as\novercoming not only sin, but gravitation. Maria d\u2019Agreda was seen, times\nwithout number, poised on nothing in a recumbent attitude, in an\nequilibrium so delicate, that by blowing, even at a distance, she was\nmade to waft this way or that, like a feather. Dominic of Jesu Maria had\nthe honour of being blown about, while in this soap-bubble condition, by\nthe heretic-slaying breath of Philip II. G\u00f6rres furnishes a long list of\nexamples, and believes them all; _Die Christliche Mystik_, Buch. v. iv.\n\u00a7 2.\n\nIt is curious to see how Francis de Sales, who follows Theresa somewhat\nclosely in his chapter on the Prayer of Quietude, grows wisely cautious\nas he treats of Rapture, softens down extravagance, avoids theurgy, and\nkeeps to piety, and admirably substitutes practical devotion for the\nunintelligibility and the materialism of the Spanish saint. He\nenumerates three kinds of Rapture or ecstasy (ravissement and extase are\nidentical),\u2014that of the intellect, that of the affection, and that of\naction,\u2014manifested, respectively, by glory, by fervour, and by\ndeed,\u2014realized by admiration, by devotion, and by operation. On the last\nhe dwells most fully; on that he concentrates all his exhortations. To\nlive without profaneness, he says, without falsehood, without robbery,\nto honour parents, to obey law, to reverence God,\u2014this is to live\naccording to the natural reason of man. But to embrace poverty, to hail\nreproach and persecution as blessings, and martyrdom as joy, by\nunceasing self-renunciation, to forsake the world, surmount its opinion,\ndeny its rule,\u2014this is to live, not humanly, but superhumanly;\u2014to live\nout of ourselves and above ourselves, by supernatural energy,\u2014this is to\nenjoy the noblest ecstasy, not of a moment, but of a life-time. Many\nsaints have died without enjoying ecstatic trance\u2014all have lived the\necstatic life.\u2014_Trait\u00e9 de l\u2019Amour de Dieu_, livre vii. chapp. iii. and\nvii.\n\n\n Note to page 170.\n\n\nThis pain is described by Theresa in the twentieth chapter of the\n_Life_, and in the _Castillo Interior, Morada_ vi. capp. 1 and 2. In the\nformer place she gives a kind of rationale thereof, in the following\nwords:\u2014Parece me que esta assi el alma, que ni del cielo le viene\nconsuelo, ni esta en el; ni de la tierra le quiere, ni esta en ella;\nsino como crucificada entre el cielo y la tierra, padeciendo sin venirle\nsocorro di ningun cabo. Porque el que le viene del cielo (que es como he\ndicho una noticia de Dios tan admirable, muy sobre todo lo que podemos\ndessear) es para mas tormento, porque acreciento el desseo de manera que\na mi parecer la gran pena algunas vezes quita el sentido, sino que dura\npoco sin el. Parecen unos transitos de la muerte, salvo que trae consigo\nun tan contento este padecer, que no se yo a que lo comparar.\u2014P. 135.\n\nThe _Castillo Interior_ describes the mystic\u2019s progress under the emblem\nof a Castle, divided into seven apartments; the inmost, where God\nresides, representing the centre of the soul (termed the _apex_ by some;\nthe _Ground_ by others); and each of these successive abodes, from the\noutermost to the central, corresponding to the advancing stages of\ndiscipline and privilege through which the mystic passes. The liability\nto the pain in question supervenes at the sixth apartment, prior to the\nlast and most glorious stage attainable on earth.\n\nVictor Gelenius of Treves (writing 1646) has seven degrees, and places\nthis stage of misery and privation in the fourth, as the transition\nbetween the human and superhuman kinds of devotion. It is the painful\nweaning-time, wherein the soul passes (in an agony of strange\nbewilderment) from a religion which employs the faculties we possess, to\nthat which is operated in us in a manner altogether incomprehensible and\ndivine. Whatever division be adopted, such alone is the legitimate\nlocality for this portion of the mystical experience. Here Gelenius and\nJohn of the Cross are perfectly agreed, though their graduation and\nnomenclature are different.\n\n\n Note to page 171.\n\n\nThis pain is the \u2018pressura interna\u2019 of Tauler: the \u2018horribile et\nindicibile tormentum\u2019 of Catharine of Genoa; the \u2018purgatory\u2019 of Thomas \u00e0\nJesu; the \u2018languor infernalis\u2019 of Harphius; the \u2018terrible martyrium\u2019 of\nMaria Vela, the Cistercian; the \u2018divisio natur\u00e6 ac spiritus\u2019 of\nBarbanson; the \u2018privation worse than hell\u2019 of Angela de Foligni. See\nCard. Bona\u2019s _Via Compendii ad Deum_, cap. 10. _Angel\u00e6 de Fulginio\nVisiones_, cap. xix.\n\nThese sufferings are attributed by the mystics to the surpassing nature\nof the truths manifested to our finite faculties (as the sun-glare pains\nthe eye),\u2014to the anguish involved in the surrender of every ordinary\nreligious support or enjoyment, when the soul, suspended (as Theresa\ndescribes it) between heaven and earth, can derive solace from\nneither,\u2014to the intensity of the aspirations awakened, rendering those\nlimitations of our condition here which detain us from God an\nintolerable oppression,\u2014and to the despair by which the soul is tried,\nbeing left to believe herself forsaken by the God she loves.\n\nOn this subject John of the Cross and Theresa are most extravagant. In\ncontrast with their folly stands the good sense of F\u00e9n\u00e9lon. The middle\nground is occupied by the comparative moderation of Francis de Sales.\nThe privation described by John is preparatory to a state of complete\nde-humanization, in which we shall know, feel, do, nothing in the mortal\nmanner, as our whole nature suffers a divine transformation. The\nprivation of which F\u00e9n\u00e9lon speaks is simply a refining process, to\npurify our love more thoroughly from self. The causes and the various\nspecies of this pain are detailed at length by John of the Cross in the\n_Nuit Obscure_, liv. ii. chapp. v. vi. vii.\n\nDe Sales says speaking of the \u2018blessure d\u2019amour:\u2018\u2014Mais, Theotrine,\nparlant de l\u2019amour sacr\u00e9, il y a en la practique d\u2019iceluy une sorte de\nblesseure que Dieu luy-meme faict quelquesfois pour sa souveraine bont\u00e9,\ncomme la pressant et solicitant de l\u2019aymer; et lors elle s\u2019eslance de\nforce comme pour voler plus haut vers son divin object; mais demeurant\ncourte parce qu\u2019elle ne peut pas tant aymer comme elle desire, o Dieu!\nelle sent une douleur qui n\u2019a point d\u2019esgale.... La voil\u00e0 donc rudement\ntourment\u00e9e entre la violence de ses eslans et celle de son\nimpuissance.\u2014_Trait\u00e9 de l\u2019Amour de Dieu_, liv. vi. ch. xiii.\n\nTheresa declares that the intensity of this delicious agony is such as\nfrequently to endanger life.\u2014_Castillo Int._ vi. c. xi.\n\nFrancis de Sales, in whom the sufferings in question assume a highly\nsentimental character, adduces instances in which they proved fatal. The\nsoul, springing forward to obey the attraction of the Well-beloved,\nsooner than be detained by the body amid the miseries of this life,\ntears herself away, abandons it, and mounts alone, like a lovely little\ndove, to the bosom of her celestial spouse. St. Theresa herself, he\nsays, made it known, after her departure, that she died of an impetuous\nassault of love, too violent for nature to sustain.\u2014_Trait\u00e9 de l\u2019Amour\nde Dieu_, liv. vii. chapp x.-xii.\n\nWe may contrast the obscure and feverish utterances of Theresa, and the\namorous phraseology of De Sales, on this topic, with the lucid and\ncautious language of F\u00e9n\u00e9lon.\n\nLa sainte indiff\u00e9rence, qui n\u2019est jamais que le d\u00e9sint\u00e9ressement de\nl\u2019amour, devient dans les plus extr\u00eames \u00e9preuves ce que les saints\nmystiques ont nomm\u00e9 abandon, c\u2019est-\u00e0-dire, que l\u2019\u00e2me d\u00e9sint\u00e9ress\u00e9e\ns\u2019abandonne totalement et sans r\u00e9serve \u00e0 Dieu pour tout ce qui regarde\nson int\u00e9r\u00eat propre; mais elle ne renonce jamais ni \u00e0 aucune des choses\nqui int\u00e9ressent la gloire et le bon plaisir du bien-aim\u00e9.... Cette\nabn\u00e9gation de nous-m\u00eames n\u2019est que pour l\u2019int\u00e9r\u00eat propre, et ne doit\njamais emp\u00eacher l\u2019amour d\u00e9sint\u00e9ress\u00e9 que nous nous devons \u00e0 nous-m\u00eames\ncomme au prochain, pour l\u2019amour de Dieu. Les \u00e9preuves extr\u00eames o\u00f9 cet\nabandon doit \u00eatre exerc\u00e9 sont les tentations par lesquelles Dieu jaloux\nveut purifier l\u2019amour, en ne lui faisant voir aucune ressource ni aucune\nesp\u00e9rance pour son int\u00e9r\u00eat m\u00eame \u00e9ternel. Ces \u00e9preuves sont repr\u00e9sent\u00e9es\npar un tr\u00e8s-grand nombre des saints comme un purgatoire terrible, qui\npeut exempter du purgatoire de l\u2019autre vie les \u00e2mes qui le souffrent\navec une enti\u00e8re fid\u00e9lit\u00e9.... Ces \u00e9preuves ne sont que pour un temps.\nPlus les \u00e2mes y sont fid\u00e8les \u00e0 la gr\u00e2ce pour se laisser purifier de tout\nint\u00e9r\u00eat propre par l\u2019amour jaloux, plus ces \u00e9preuves sont courtes. C\u2019est\nd\u2019ordinaire la r\u00e9sistance secr\u00e8te des \u00e2mes \u00e0 la gr\u00e2ce sous des beaux\npr\u00e9textes, c\u2019est leur effort int\u00e9ress\u00e9 et empress\u00e9 pour retenir les\nappuis sensibles dont Dieu veut les priver, qui rend leurs \u00e9preuves si\nlongues et si douloureuses: car Dieu ne fait point souffrir sa cr\u00e9ature\npour la faire souffrir sans fruit, ce n\u2019est que pour la purifier et pour\nvaincre ses r\u00e9sistances.\u2014_Explic. des Maximes des Saints_, Art. VIII.\n\n\n Note to page 172.\n\n\nSee the passage already cited (page 166, note), where Theresa expressly\nforbids any attempt on our part to suspend the powers of the mind.\nEffort to produce inaction appears to her a contradiction in terms. Yet\nsuch effort Dionysius expressly enjoins; and, indeed, without it, how\ncan the swarming words or images that float about the mind be excluded?\nThe \u2018phantasmata irruentia,\u2019 to be barred out, are the images of\nsensible objects, according to the old theory of perception\u2014the\n\u2018imagines rerum sensibilium et corporearum.\u2019 Bona expresses the spirit\nof the old Platonist mysticism in the Romish Church, when he says, \u2018H\u00e6c\nomnia abdicanda et extirpanda prorsus sunt, ut Deum inveniamus.\u2019\u2014_Via\nCompendii ad Deum_, p. 26. Theresa is quite agreed with all the mystics\nas to the previous heart-discipline, and the ascetic process essential\nto the higher forms of contemplation.\n\nThe mystics generally rank the \u2018contemplatio caliginosa\u2019 much above the\n\u2018contemplatio pura:\u2019 the more indistinct our apprehensions, the more\ndivine. John of the Cross comes next, in this respect, after Dionysius.\nMolinos borrows his doctrine, that as the distance between the Infinite\nand all our sensuous images, conclusions, and finite conceptions must be\ninfinite after all, such things embarrass rather than aid our\ncontemplation. But even he does not soar into a darkness so absolute as\nthat of Dionysius. He says expressly, in the introduction to his\n_Spiritual Guide_:\u2014\u2018In answer to the objection that the will must be\ninactive where no clear conception is given to the understanding,\u2014that a\nman cannot love what he can take no cognizance of, my reply is this:\nAlthough the understanding does not distinctively recognise certain\nimages and conceptions, by a discursive act or mental conclusion, it\napprehends, nevertheless, by a dim and comprehensive faith. And though\nthis knowledge be very cloudy, vague, and general, yet it is far more\nclear and perfect than any sensuous or scientific apprehensions that man\ncan devise in this life, since all corporeal images must be immeasurably\nremote from God.\u2019 See Arnold\u2019s _Kirchen-und-Ketzergeschichte_, th. III.\nch. xvii., where the Introduction is inserted entire.\n\nTheresa also admits that during the ecstatic pain the soul adores no\nparticular attribute of God, but, as it were, all his perfections\ncollectively. Bien entiende que no quiere sino a su Dios, mas no ama\ncosa particular del, sino todo junto lo quiere, y no sabe lo que\nquiere.\u2014_Vida_, cap. xx. p. 135. But it is a sore trial to her when her\nfancy is limed, and the key to her chamber of vision, for a season,\nlost.\n\nWhen we leave Dionysius and John, and come to the French mystics, how\ngreat the difference! The soul hangs no longer in a lightless void,\ntrembles no more on the verge of swooning ecstacy. This \u2018Visio\ncaliginosa\u2019 becomes, not merely a comprehensible thing, but so\nclarified, humanized, and we may say Christianized, as to come within\nthe range of every devout consciousness. The \u2018indistinct contemplation\u2019\nof St. Francis de Sales is a summary and comprehensive view of Divine\ntruth or the Divine Nature,\u2014simple, emotional, jubilant, as\ndistinguished from the detailed and partial views of searching\nMeditation. As he fancifully expresses it, this simplicity of\ncontemplation does not pluck the rose, the thyme, the jessamine, the\norange-flower, inhaling the scent of each separately,\u2014this the\nflower-gatherer Meditation does;\u2014Contemplation rejoices in the fragrance\ndistilled from them all. An example perfectly explains his meaning. O\nque bien-heureux sont ceux qui, apr\u00e8s avoir discouru (the discursive\nacts above spoken of) sur la multitude des motifs qu\u2019ils ont d\u2019aymer\nDieu, reduisans tous leurs regards en une seule veu\u00eb et toutes leurs\npens\u00e9es en une seule conclusion, arrestant leur esprit en l\u2019unit\u00e9 de la\ncontemplation, \u00e0 l\u2019exemple de S. Augustin ou de S. Bruno, pronon\u00e7ant\nsecrettement en leur ame, par une admiration permanente, ces paroles\namoureuses: O bont\u00e9! bont\u00e9! bont\u00e9! tousjours ancienne et tousjours\nnouvelle!\u2014_Trait\u00e9 de l\u2019Amour de Dieu_, liv. vi. chap. v.\n\nEvery religious man must remember times when he was the subject of some\nsuch emotion, when the imagination bodied forth no form, the reason\nperformed no conscious process, but, after some train of thought, at the\nsight of some word, or while gazing on some scene of beauty, an old\ntruth seemed to overwhelm him (as though never seen till then) with all\nits grandeur or endearment,\u2014times when he felt the poverty of words, and\nwhen utterance, if left at all, could only come in the fervid, broken\nsyllables of reiterated ejaculation. In such melting or such tumult of\nthe soul, there is no mysticism. Even Deism, in a susceptible Rousseau,\ncannot escape this passion. He speaks of a bewildering ecstasy awakened\nby nature, which would overcome him with such force, that he could but\nrepeat, in almost delirious transport, \u2018O Great Being! O Great Being!\u2019\nNeither is it mystical to prefer the kindling masterful impulse of a\nfaith which possesses us, rather than we it, to the frigid exactitude of\nlifeless prescription. The error of the mystics lay in the undue value\nthey attached to such emotions, and their frequent endeavours to excite\nthem for their own sake; in transferring what was peculiar to those\nseasons to the other provinces of life; and in the constant tendency of\ntheir religionism to underrate the balanced exercise of all our\nfaculties, neglecting knowledge and action in a feverish craving for\nevanescent fervours.\n\nF\u00e9n\u00e9lon, speaking of the negative character of pure and direct\ncontemplation, teaches a doctrine widely different from that of\nDionysius, even while referring with reverence to his name. He is\ncareful to state that the attributes of God do not, at such times, cease\nto be present to the mind, though no sensible image be there, no\ndiscursive act performed; that the essence, without the attributes,\nwould be the essence no longer; that, in the highest contemplation, the\ntruths of revelation do not cease to be admissible to the mind; that the\nhumanity of Christ, and all his mysteries, may then be distinctly\npresent,\u2014seen simply, lovingly, as faith presents them, only that there\nis no systematic effort to impress the several details on the\nimagination, or to draw conclusions from them.\u2014_Explic. des Maximes des\nSaints_, art. xxvii.\n\n\n Note to page 173.\n\n\nSee the clear and guarded language of the twenty-eighth article in the\n_Maximes des Saints_, and the _Troisi\u00e8me Lettre en r\u00e9ponse \u00e0 divers\nEcrits, Seconde Partie_.\n\nThe language of Molinos on this point is as follows:\u2014\u2018Although the\nhumanity of Christ is the most perfect and most holy mean of access to\nGod, the highest mean of our salvation, yea the channel through which\nalone we receive every blessing for which we hope, yet is the humanity\nnot the supreme good, for that consists in the contemplation of God. But\nas Jesus Christ is what he is more through his divine nature than his\nhuman, so that man contemplates Christ continually and thinks of Him,\nwho thinks on God, and hath regard constantly to Him. And this is the\ncase more especially with the contemplative man, who possesses a faith\nmore purified, clear, and experimental.\u2019\u2014_Arnold_, _loc. cit._, p. 183.\n\nSuch a passage proves merely thus much, that Molinos shared in the\ngeneral tendency of the authorised medi\u00e6val mysticism,\u2014a tendency\nleading the contemplatist to see Christ in God, rather than God in\nChrist, and placing him in danger of resolving Redemption into self-loss\nin the abstract Godhead. Similar expressions are frequent in Tauler, in\nRuysbroek, in Suso, in the German theology. Now we know by what these\nsame men say at other times, that it was not their intention to\ndisparage or discard the humanity of Christ. Similar allowance must be\nmade for Molinos\u2014quite as far from such practical Docetism as they were.\nThe words just quoted should be compared with the title of the sixteenth\nchapter in his first book: \u2018How in the inward recollection, or drawing\nin of our powers, we may enter into the internal Ground, _through the\nmost holy Humanity of Jesus Christ_.\u2019 A gross and materialised\napprehension of the bodily sufferings of the Saviour had become general\nin the Romish Church. They were dramatized in imagination and in fact,\ninto a harrowing spectacle of physical anguish. The end was lost sight\nof in the means. To such sensible representations\u2014such excesses of\nover-wrought sentiment, Molinos was doubtless unfriendly; and so, also,\nthe more refined and elevated mysticism of that communion has generally\nbeen. Molinos is nearer to the spiritual Tauler than to the sensuous\nTheresa. Where he speaks of passivity and acquiescence in desertion (\u00a7\n5), of contemplation (\u00a7\u00a7 17, 18), of self-abandonment (\u00a7 30), of the\ndivine vocation and elevation necessary to the attainment of the\ncontemplative heights, where he says that we must not, without the\ndirection of an experienced adviser, seek to raise ourselves from one\nstage to a higher (\u00a7 24), he does but repeat what the most orthodox\nmystics had said before him. Holy indifference to spiritual enjoyments\nand manifestations, and complete passivity, are not more earnestly\nenjoined by John of the Cross than by Molinos. Yet one main charge\nagainst the Quietists was, that they made mysticism a human method, and\nproposed to raise to mystical perfection all who were ready to go\nthrough their process. The accusations brought against Quietism by\nBerthier in his _Discours sur le Non-Qui\u00e9tisme de S. Theresa_, and in\nhis tenth letter on the works of John of the Cross, are\nself-destructive. In one place he finds the Quietists guilty of making\n\u2018their pretended spiritual man\u2019 an insensible kind of being, who remains\nalways apathetic\u2014dans une inalt\u00e9ration et une inaction entiere en la\npr\u00e9sence de Dieu. In another, he represents them as offering to teach\ncontemplation to all (irrespective of the director\u2019s consent, he fears)\nby reducing it to a method. Either way the unhappy Quietists cannot\nescape: they must always do too much or too little. It was against the\nartificial methods of devotion, so much in vogue, that Molinos\nprotested, when he called his readers away from the puerile manuals and\nbead-counting of the day, to direct and solitary communion with God.\nSeveral of the articles of condemnation are such as would have been\ndrawn out against a man suspected of Protestantism. On the question of\nthe humanity of Christ, the proposition professedly deduced from the\ndoctrines of Molinos, and censured accordingly, runs thus\u2014\u2018We must do no\ngood works of our own motion, and render no homage to Our Lady, the\nSaints, or Christ\u2019s humanity,\u2019 &c.\u2014Art. xxxv.\n\nFootnote 284:\n\n _Vida_, pp. 71 and 75. In the latter passage, Theresa says\n expressly:\u2014En la mystica Teologia, que comence a dezir, pierde de\n obrar el entendimiento, porque le suspende Dios, como despues\n declarar\u00e8 mas, si supiere, y el me diere para el lo su favor.\n Presumir, ni pensar de suspenderle nosotros, es lo que digo no se\n haga, ni se dexe de obrar con el, porque nos quedaremos bouos y frios,\n y ni haremos lo uno ni lo otro. Que quando el Se\u00f1or le suspende, y\n haze parar, dale de que se espante, y en que se ocupe, y que sin\n discurrir entienda mas en un credo que nosotros podemos entendir con\n todas nuestras diligencias de tierra en muchos a\u00f1os.\n\nFootnote 285:\n\n See Note on p. 175.\n\nFootnote 286:\n\n _Vida_, cap. xvii. and _Castillo Interior, Moradas Quintas_, cap. i.\n\nFootnote 287:\n\n _Castillo Interior_, p. 580.\n\nFootnote 288:\n\n See second Note on p. 175.\n\nFootnote 289:\n\n See Note on p. 176.\n\nFootnote 290:\n\n See Note on p. 177.\n\nFootnote 291:\n\n See Note on p. 178.\n\nFootnote 292:\n\n See the account of the proceedings against Molinos and his followers,\n in Arnold, th. III., c. xvii., and more fully in an Appendix to the\n English translation of Madame Guyon\u2019s Autobiography.\n\nFootnote 293:\n\n _Vida_, chap. xxii.:\u2014Quando Dios quiere suspender todas las potencias\n (como en los modos de oracion que quedan dichos hemos visto) claro\n est\u00e2 que aunque no queramos se quita esta presencia.... Mas que\n nosotros de ma\u00f1a y con cuydado nos acostumbremos a no procurar con\n todas nuestras fuer\u00e7as traer delante siempre (y pluguiesse al Se\u00f1or\n fuesse siempre) esta sacratissima humanidad esto digo que no me parece\n bien, y que es andar el alma en ayre, como dizen: porque parece no\n trae arrimo, por mucho que la parezca anda llena de Dios.\u2014P. 154.\n\nFootnote 294:\n\n The words of John are:\u2014Mais il faut remarquer que quand je dis qu\u2019il\n est \u00e0 propos d\u2019oublier les esp\u00e8ces et les connaissances des objets\n mat\u00e9riels, je ne pr\u00e9tends nullement parler de J\u00e9sus-Christ ni de son\n humanit\u00e9 sacr\u00e9e. Quoique l\u2019\u00e2me n\u2019en ait pas quelquefois la m\u00e9moire\n dans sa plus haute contemplation et dans le simple regard de la\n divinit\u00e9, parce que Dieu \u00e9l\u00e8ve l\u2019esprit \u00e0 cette connaissance confuse\n et surnaturelle, n\u00e9anmoins il ne faut jamais n\u00e9gliger expr\u00e8s la\n repr\u00e9sentation de cette adorable humanit\u00e9 ni en effacer le souvenir ou\n l\u2019id\u00e9e, ni en affaiblir la connaissance.\u2014_La Mont\u00e9e du Mont Carmel_,\n liv. III. chap. 1. I have used the French translation of his works,\n edited by the Abb\u00e9 Migne, in his _Biblioth\u00e8que Universelle du Clerg\u00e9_.\n 1845.\n\n The chapter on images is the fourteenth of the same book.\n\n Father Berthier (_Lettres sur les \u0152uvres de S. Jean de la Croix_)\n attempts to show the difference between the mysticism of his author\n and that of the false mystics. He succeeds only in pointing out a\n manifest disagreement between the opinions of John and those which he\n himself believes (or pretends to believe) are those of Quietism\u2014the\n accusations, in fact, against the Quietists\u2014the exaggerated\n conclusions drawn by their enemies.\n\nFootnote 295:\n\n See Note on p. 180.\n\nFootnote 296:\n\n _Castillo Interior. Morada_ vi., c. v.\n\nFootnote 297:\n\n _Ibid._, capp. viii., ix., x.\n\nFootnote 298:\n\n _Vida_, cap. xxvii., pp. 191, &c. Here the supernatural illumination\n without means or mode, longed for by so many mystics, is professedly\n realised. Molinos puts forward no claim so dangerous as this special\n revelation. Theresa is confident that this most inexplicable species\n of communication is beyond the reach of any delusion, and inaccessible\n altogether to the father of lies. Her language concerning the absolute\n passivity of those who are its subjects, is as strong as it could be.\n No Quietist could push it farther. It so happens that the saint, in\n his chapter, contravenes expressly the three criteria, afterwards laid\n down by F\u00e9n\u00e9lon, to distinguish the true mysticism from the false. The\n genuine contemplation according to him is not purely infused, not\n purely gratuitous (_i.e._, without correspondence on the part of the\n soul to the grace vouchsafed), not miraculous. With Theresa this form\n of passive contemplation _is_ all three. So much more Quietist was the\n mysticism authorised than the mysticism condemned by Rome. See\n _Maximes des Saints_, art. xxix. What F\u00e9n\u00e9lon rejects in the following\n section as false, answers exactly to the position of Theresa. F\u00e9n\u00e9lon\n supports his more refined and sober mysticism by the authority of\n preceding mystics. He finds among them ample credentials, and indeed\n more than he wants. Their extravagances he tacitly rejects. Not that,\n as a good Catholic, he could venture openly to impugn their\n statements, but their fantastic extremes, and choice wonders, find a\n place with him rather as so much religious tradition, or extraordinary\n history, than as forming any essential part of the mysticism he\n himself represents and commends.\n\nFootnote 299:\n\n _Vida_, cap. xxv.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER III.\n\n\n And those that endeavour after so still, so silent, and demure\n condition of minde, that they would have the sense of nothing there\n but peace and rest, striving to make their whole nature desolate of\n all _Animal Figurations_ whatsoever, what do they effect but a clear\n Day, shining upon a barren Heath, that feeds neither Cow nor\n Horse,\u2014neither Sheep nor Shepherd is to be seen there, but only a\n waste, silent Solitude, and one uniform parchednesse and vacuity.\n And yet while a man fancies himself thus wholly divine, he is not\n aware how he is even then held down by his _Animal Nature_; and that\n it is nothing but the stillnesse and fixednesse of _Melancholy_ that\n thus abuses him, instead of the true divine Principle.\u2014HENRY MORE.\n\n\n II. _St. John of the Cross._\n\n Little John of the Cross\u2014a hero, like Tydeus, small in body, but\n great in soul\u2014was in the prime of life when Theresa was growing old.\n Early distinguished by surpassing austerity and zeal, he was\n selected by the Saint as her coadjutor in the great work of\n Carmelite reform. The task was no easy one, though sanctioned by the\n highest spiritual authority. This troculus service\u2014the picking the\n teeth of the gorged ecclesiastical crocodile\u2014has always been a\n somewhat delicate and dangerous affair. The great jaws closed with a\n horrible crash one day on poor Madame Guyon, as she was working away\n with her solitary bill and the best intentions. On John, too, busy\n at a little scavenger\u2019s work, those jaws had once almost met, and at\n least knocked him fluttering into a hollow tooth,\u2014in other words, a\n dark and noisome dungeon at Toledo. But what between St. Theresa\u2019s\n intercession and that of the Mother of God, he is let fly again.\n Vicar-provincial of Andalusia, he plies his task anew, with\n admirable intrepidity and self-devotion; courts hatred and\n opprobrium on every side; flourishes his whip; overturns\n secularities; and mouses for flaws of regulation. He succeeds in\n excavating in every direction spiritual catacombs and mummy-caves,\n where, swathed up in long rows, the religious dumb and withered line\n the cloister-walls\u2014motionless\u2014satisfactorily dead. Next to Ignatius\n Loyola, he was, perhaps, the greatest soul-sexton that ever handled\n shovel.\n\n John of the Cross obtained this distinctive name through his love of\n crosses. He was consumed by an insatiable love of suffering. It was\n his prayer that not a day of his life might pass in which he did not\n suffer something. Again and again does he exhort the monk,\n saying\u2014\u2018Whatsoever you find pleasant to soul or body, abandon;\n whatsoever is painful, embrace it.\u2019 \u2018Take pains,\u2019 he says, \u2018to give\n your name an ill savour; burrow deep and deeper under heaped\n obloquy, and you are safe.\u2019[300] Thus is the odour of sanctity best\n secured; and the disguised saint resembles that eastern prince who\n concealed himself from his pursuers beneath a heap of onions, lest\n the fragrance of his perfumes should betray him. The man who is\n truly dead and self-abandoned will not only thus disguise his\n virtues before others; he will be unconscious of them himself. The\n whole life of John was an attempt towards a practical fulfilment of\n such precepts. The party of his enemies gained the upper hand in the\n chapter, and the evening of his days was clouded by the disgrace of\n which he was covetous. He passed existence in violent extremes, now\n gazing with delight on some celestial mirage, swimming in seas of\n glory that waft him to the steps of the burning throne,\u2014and anon\n hurled down into the abyss, while vampyre wings of fiends \u2018darken\n his fall, with victory,\u2019 and his heart itself is a seething\n hell-cauldron, wherein demon talons are the raking fleshhooks.\n\n The piety of John is altogether of the Romanist type. In his\n doctrine of humility, truth is not to be considered, but\n expediency,\u2014that is, an edifying display of self-vilification. On\n his own principles, John ought to have persuaded himself, and\n assured others, that he was a self-indulgent, pleasure-loving\n drone,\u2014though perfectly aware of the contrary. St. Paul is content\n to bid men think of themselves not more highly than they ought to\n think. John of the Cross is not satisfied unless they think worse\n than they ought,\u2014unless they think untruly, and labour to put a\n pious fraud upon themselves. John disturbs the equilibrium of\n Quietism. There is quite as much self-will in going out of the way\n of a blessing to seek a misery, as in avoiding a duty for the sake\n of ease. Many men will readily endure a score of mortifications of\n their own choosing, who would find it hard to display tolerable\n patience under a single infliction from a source beyond their\n control. This extreme of morbid asceticism is more easy, because\n more brilliant in its little world, than the lowly fortitude of\n ordinary Christian life. How many women, at this hour, in poverty,\n in pain, in sorrow of heart, are far surpassing St. Theresa in their\n self-sacrifice and patience, unseen and unpraised of men.\n\n Banished to the little Convent of Pegnuela, he completed among the\n crags of the Sierra Morena his great mystical treatises, _The\n Obscure Night_, and _The Ascent of Carmel_. He follows in the steps\n of the Pseudo-Dionysius. He describes the successive denudations of\n the soul as it passes,\u2014the shadow of itself, into the infinite shade\n of the Divine Dark.[301] We have seen how instantaneously Theresa\n could attain at times this oblivious self-reduction. Her soul falls\n prostrate, with the ordinary attire of faculties, but rises,\n stripped of all in a moment. Not more dexterously was the fallen\n Andrew Fairservice stripped in a twinkling by the Highlanders, so\n that he who tumbled down a well-clothed, decent serving-man, stood\n up \u2018a forked, uncased, bald-pated, beggarly-looking scarecrow.\u2019 John\n of the Cross describes with almost scientific method the process of\n spiritual unclothing,\u2014preaches a series of sermons on the successive\n removal of each integument,\u2014and perorates on the blessed reduction\n of the soul to a supernatural state of nature.\n\n The \u2018Obscure Night,\u2019 would be the most fitting title for both\n treatises; for the night of mysticism is their sole subject, and\n Mount Carmel does but figure as a frontispiece, in compliment to the\n Order probably. Sundry verses head the works as texts; the first of\n these, with its exposition, will sufficiently indicate the character\n of the whole.\n\n En una noche escura\n Con ansias en amores inflammada\n \u00a1O dichosa ventura!\n Sal\u00ed sin ser notada\n Estando ya mi casa sosegada.\n\n \u2018\u2019Twas in a darksome night, inflamed with restless love, O fortune\n full of bliss, I ventured forth unmarked, what time my house was\n still.\u2019\n\n The Saint interprets his stanza, in substance, as follows:\u2014\n\n Here the soul says, \u2018I went out unhindered by sensuality or the\n devil. I went out, that is, of myself\u2014out from my own poor and\n feeble manner of knowing, loving, and tasting God. I went out,\n unassisted by any action of my own powers; while my understanding\n was wrapped in darkness; while will and memory were overwhelmed by\n affliction. I went out, abandoning myself in pure faith to\n darkness\u2014that is, to the night of my spirit and my natural powers.\n\n \u2018This going forth has crowned me with happiness; for I have been\n straightway elevated to operations entirely divine\u2014to most familiar\n intercourses with God; in other words, my understanding has passed\n from a human to a divine condition. Uniting myself to God by this\n purgation, my knowledge is no longer weak and limited as formerly;\n but I know by the divine wisdom, to which I am conjoined.\n\n \u2018My will also has gone out of itself, and become in a sort divine;\n for being united to the Divine Love, it does not love any longer by\n its own former powers, but by the powers of the Divine Spirit. Thus,\n its acts of love towards the Creator are rendered no more in a human\n manner.\n\n \u2018My memory is filled with images of heavenly glory. All my powers,\n in short, and all my affections, are renovated by the Night of the\n spirit and the despoliation of the old man, in such sort that their\n very nature seems changed, and they can relish only spiritual and\n divine delights.\u2019[302]\n\n Thus, the soul is to resemble the wondrous eastern tree of the old\n travellers, which by daylight stands leafless and flowerless, but\n after sundown puts forth countless white blossoms, shining in the\n darkness like the drops of a silver fountain; and when the sun is\n risen again, sheds all its beauty, and stands bare and barren as\n before. When all our natural powers, slain and buried, lie dead\n under the midnight;\u2014then arise, instead of them, certain divine\n substitutes, which will, and love, and know, as the Infinite does,\n not as men.\n\n The FIRST NIGHT is that of the _Sense_: the long process of vigil\n and austerity which, with the caduceus of asceticism, tames and\n lulls to slumber the Argus-eyed monster of the flesh.[303] A painful\n work, but not without meet recompence. New pleasures, even of the\n sense, are supernaturally vouchsafed to the steadfast votary. The\n wearied eye and the unvisited ear are regaled by glorious visions\n and seraphic melody; yea, the parched tongue, and haggard, bleeding\n flesh, are made to know delights of taste and touch, that melt with\n most delicious pleasure through the frame, and beggar with their\n transport all the joys of banquets or of love.\n\n But rejoice not, O mystic! for even now, lest thou shouldst grow\n greedy of these high luxuries, there strides towards thee the\n darkness of\u2014\n\n The SECOND NIGHT\u2014the Night of the _Spirit_. Here all caresses are\n withdrawn. The deserted soul cannot think, or pray, or praise, as of\n old. The great pains are to begin. Pitiless purgation and privation\n absolute are about to make the second night not night only, but\n midnight. You seem to descend, God-abandoned, alive into hell. Make\n no resistance: utter no cry for comfort. Solace is a Tantalus\u2019\n bough, which will wave itself away as you stretch forth your hand.\n Acquiesce in all: be in your desertion as absolutely passive as in\n your rapture. So, from the bright glassy edge and summit of this\n awful fall, you shoot down helpless, blind, and dizzy,\u2014down through\n the surging cataract, among the giant vapour columns, amid the\n eternal roar, to awake at the boiling foot, and find that you yet\n live, in your tossing shallop,\u2014or rather, you no longer, for you\n yourself are dead\u2014so much mere ballast in the bottom of the boat: a\n divine and winged Radiance has taken your place, who animates rather\n than steers, guiding, in your stead, by mysterious impulse.[304]\n\n To the higher faculty, then, there are already visible, after the\n first horrors, breaking gleams of a super-celestial dawn. Visions\n are seen; forms of glory come and go: gifts of subtlest discernment\n are vouchsafed: substantial words are spoken within, which make you,\n in that moment, all they mean.[305]\n\n But all such particular and special manifestations you are\n peremptorily to reject, come they from God or come they from the\n Devil;\u2014not even to reflect upon and recall them afterwards, lest\n grievous harm ensue. For the philosophy of John is summary. Two\n ideas alone have room there\u2014All and Nothing. Whatsoever is created\n is finite: whether actual or ideal, it bears no proportion to the\n All,\u2014it cannot therefore be helpful to any on their way to the All.\n The Something is no link between the opposites of All and Nothing.\n Therefore, if any view of a particular divine perfection, any\n conception of Deity, or image of saint or angel, be even\n supernaturally presented to the mind, reject it. You are aiming at\n the highest\u2014at loss in the All. Everything definite and\n particular\u2014all finite apprehension, must be so much negation of the\n Infinite,\u2014must limit that All. You should pass beyond such things to\n blend immediately with the Universal,\u2014to attain that view of God\n which is above means\u2014is unconditioned\u2014is, from its illimitable\n vastness, an anguish of bliss,\u2014a glory which produces the effect of\n darkness.[306]\n\n But why, it will be asked, does God grant these favours of vision to\n the saints at all, if it is their duty to disregard them?\n\n John answers, \u2018Because some transition stage is unavoidable. But the\n higher you attain, the less of such manifestation will you meet\n with. This portion of your progress is a grand stair-case hung with\n pictures;\u2014hurry up the steps, that you may enter the darkened\n chamber above, where divine ignorance and total darkness shall make\n you blest. If in doubt about a vision, there is always your\n confessor, to whom, if you have not constant resort, woe be to you!\n But you are safe, at any rate, in not receiving and cherishing such\n inferior bestowments. To reject them will be no sin\u2014no loss. For the\n beneficial effects they are designed to produce will be wrought by\n God internally, if you only abide passive, and refuse to exert about\n such signs those lower faculties which can only hinder your\n advance.\u2019[307]\n\n Such a reply is but a fence of words against a serious difficulty.\n He should be the last to talk of necessary intermediate steps who\n proclaims the rejection of everything mediate,\u2014who will have the\n mystic be reduced to the Nothing and rapt to the All, by a single\n entrancing touch.[308]\n\n But much higher than any visions of the picture-gallery are certain\n manifestations (sometimes granted in this state) of divine truth in\n its absolute nakedness. These are glimpses of the _veritas\n essentialis nude in se ipsa_, beyond all men, and angels, and\n heavenly splendours, which Tauler bids the mystic long for. John\n forbids us to seek them\u2014for effort would unseal our slumber. They\n come altogether without consent of ours. Though we are not to hold\n ourselves so negative towards them as we should towards more\n palpable and inferior favours.\n\n The Quietists were charged with excluding all human co-operation in\n the mystical progress. John must plead guilty on this count. His\n writings abound with reiterated declarations that the soul does\n absolutely nothing in its night,\u2014with prohibitions against seeking\n any supernatural favour or manifestation whatever.[309]\n\n Urganda the fairy could find no way of raising the paladins she\n loved above the common lot of mortals, save that of throwing them\n into an enchanted sleep. So Galaor, Amadis, and Esplandian, sink\n into the image of death beneath her kindly wand. Such is the device\n of John\u2014and so does he lull and ward venturous Understanding,\n learned Memory, and fiery Will. Faith is the night which\n extinguishes Understanding; Hope, Memory; and Love, Will. The very\n desire after supernatural bestowments, (though for no other purpose\n has everything natural been doomed to die) would be a stirring in\n the torpor\u2014a restless, not a perfect sleep. The serenest Quiet may\n be ruffled by no such wish.\n\n This, therefore, is John\u2019s fundamental principle. All faculties and\n operations not beyond the limits of our nature must cease, that we\n may have no natural knowledge, no natural affection; but find,\n magically substituted, divine apprehensions and divine sentiments\n quite foreign to ourselves. Then, still farther, we are desired to\n ignore even supernatural manifestations, if they represent to us\n anything whatever; that we may rise, or sink (it is the same), to\n that swooning gaze on the Infinite Ineffable, wherein our dissolving\n nature sees, hears, knows, wills, remembers nothing.[310]\n\n The THIRD NIGHT\u2014that of the _Memory_ and the _Will_.[311] Here, not\n only do all the \u2018trivial fond records\u2019 that may have been inscribed\n upon remembrance vanish utterly, but every trace of the divinest\n tokens and most devout experience. The soul sinks into profound\n oblivion. The flight of time is unmarked, bodily pain unfelt, and\n the place of Memory entirely emptied of its stored \u2018species and\n cognitions,\u2019\u2014of everything particular and distinct. The patient\n forgets to eat and drink,\u2014knows not whether he has done or not done,\n said or not said, heard or not heard this or that.\n\n \u2018Strange exaltation this,\u2019 cries the objector, \u2018which imbrutes and\n makes a blank of man\u2014sinks him below idiotic ignorance of truth and\n virtue!\u2019\n\n John is ready with his answer. This torpor, he replies, is but\n transitory. The perfect mystic, the adept established in union, has\n ceased to suffer this oblivion. Passing through it, he acquires a\n new and divine facility for every duty proper to his station. He is\n in the supernatural state, and his powers have so passed into God\n that the Divine Spirit makes them operate divinely,\u2014all they do is\n divine. The Spirit makes such a man constantly ignorant of what he\n ought to be ignorant; makes him remember what he ought to remember;\n and love what is to be loved\u2014God only. Transformed in God, these\n powers are human no more.[312]\n\n In the same way the night of will extinguishes joy,\u2014joy in sensible\n good, in moral excellence, in supernatural gifts, that the soul may\n soar to a delight above delight, be suspended as in a limitless\n expanse of calm, far beyond that lower meteoric sky which is figured\n over with wonders and with signs.\n\n Thus John\u2019s desired _contemplatio infusa_ is always, at the same\n time, a _contemplatio confusa_.\n\n At his culminating point the mystic is concealed as \u2018on the secret\n top of Horeb;\u2019 he ascends by a hidden scale, cloaked with darkness\n (_por la secreta escala\u2014a escuras y enzelada_).\n\n Mark the advantage of this enclouded state. The Devil, it is said,\n can only get at what is passing in our mind by observing the\n operations of the mental powers. If, therefore, these are inactive\n and absorbed, and a divine communication goes on, in which they have\n no part whatever, Satan is baffled. These highest manifestations,\n absolutely pure, nude, and immediate he cannot counterfeit or\n hinder. The soul is then blissfully incognito and anonymous. This\n secrecy preserves the mystic from malign arts, as the concealment of\n their real names was thought the safeguard of ancient cities, since\n hostile sooth-sayers, ignorant of the true name to conjure by, could\n not then entice away their tutelary gods.[313]\n\n Such then is the teaching of the _Mount Carmel_ and the _Obscure\n Night_, starred with numerous most irrelevant quotations from the\n psalms and the prophecies, as though David and Isaiah were\n Quietists, and spent their days in trying to benumb imagination,\n banish the sensuous images which made them poets, and tone down all\n distinct ideas to a lustreless, formless neutral tint. The Spanish\n painters have not more anachronisms than the Spanish mystics; and I\n think of Murillo\u2019s \u2018Moses striking the Rock,\u2019 where Andalusian\n costumes make gay the desert, Andalusian faces stoop to drink, and\n Andalusian crockery is held out to catch the dashing streams.\n\n In John of the Cross we behold the final masterpiece of Romanist\n mysticism, and the practice (if here the term be applicable) of\n supernatural theopathy is complete. The Art of Sinking in\n Religion\u2014the divinity of diving, could go no deeper. The natives of\n South America say that the lobo or seal has to swallow great stones\n when he wishes to sink to the river-bed\u2014so little natural facility\n has he that way. We sinners, too, have no native alacrity for the\n mystical descent: our gravitation does not tend towards that depth\n of nothing; and huge and hard are the stones (not bread) with which\n this mystagogue would lade us to bring us down. And when, in\n imagination at least, at the bottom, we are smothered in an obscure\n night of mud. What a granite boulder is this to swallow,\u2014to be told\n that the faintest film of attachment that links you with any human\n being or created thing will frustrate all your aim, and be stout as\n a cable to hold back your soul,\u2014that with all your mind, and soul,\n and strength, you must seek out and adore the Uncomfortable, for its\n own sake\u2014that, drowned and dead, you must lie far down, hidden, not\n from the pleasant sunshine only, but from all sweet gladness of\n faith and hope and love\u2014awaiting, in obstruction, an abstraction.\n This resurrection to a supersensuous serenity, wherein divine powers\n supersede your own, is a mere imagination\u2014a change of words; the old\n hallucination of the mystic. After going through a certain amount of\n suffering, the devotee chooses to term whatever thoughts or feelings\n he may have, his own no longer: he fancies them divine. It is the\n same man from first to last.\n\n Admitting its great fundamental error\u2014this unnaturalness,\u2014as though\n grace came in to make our flesh and blood a senseless puppet pulled\n by celestial wires,\u2014it must be conceded that the mysticism of John\n takes the very highest ground. It looks almost with contempt upon\n the phantoms, the caresses, the theurgic toys of grosser mystics. In\n this respect, John is far beyond Theresa. He has a purpose; he\n thinks he knows a way to it; and he pursues it, unfaltering, to the\n issue. He gazes steadily on the grand impalpability of the\n Areopagite, and essays to mount thither with a holy ardour of which\n the old Greek gives no sign. And this, too, with the vision-craving\n sentimental Theresa at his side, and a coarsely sensuous Romanism\n all around him. No wonder that so stern a spiritualism was little to\n the taste of some church-dignitaries in soft raiment. It is\n impossible not to recognize a certain grandeur in such a man.\n Miserably mistaken as he was, he is genuine throughout as mystic and\n ascetic. Every bitter cup he would press to the lips of others he\n had first drained himself. His eagerness to suffer was no bravado\u2014no\n romancing affectation, as with many of his tribe. In his last\n illness at Pegnuela he was allowed his choice of removal between two\n places. At one of them his deadly enemy was prior. He bade them\n carry him thither, for there he would have most to endure. That\n infamous prior treated with the utmost barbarity the dying saint, on\n whom his implacable hatred had already heaped every wrong within his\n power.[314] Let, then, a melancholy admiration be the meed of\n John\u2014not because the mere mention of the cross was sufficient,\n frequently, to throw him into an ecstasy,\u2014not because his face was\n seen more than once radiant with a lambent fire from heaven,\u2014these\n are the vulgar glories of the calendar,\u2014but because, believing in\n mystical death, he did his best to die it, and displayed in\n suffering and in action a self-sacrificing heroism which could only\n spring from a devout and a profound conviction. We find in him no\n sanctimonious lies, no mean or cruel things done for the honour of\n his Church\u2014perhaps he was not thus tempted or commanded as others\n have been,\u2014and so, while he must have less merit with Rome as a\n monk, let him have the more with us as a man.\n\n\n Note to page 188.\n\n\n_Mont\u00e9e du Carmel_, liv. II. ch. ii. and iv.; also _La Nuit Obscure_, I.\nviii. and II. ch. v.-ix. This night is far more dark and painful than\nthe first and third; and while the first is represented as common to\nmany religious aspirants, the second is attained but by a few.\n\nSi quelqu\u2019un demande pourquoi l\u2019\u00e2me donne le nom de nuit obscure \u00e0 la\nlumi\u00e8re divine qui dissipe ses ignorances, je r\u00e9ponds que cette divine\nsagesse est non-seulement la nuit de l\u2019\u00e2me, mais encore son supplice,\npour deux raisons: la premi\u00e8re est, parce que la sublimit\u00e9 de la sagesse\ndivine surpasse de telle sorte la capacit\u00e9 de l\u2019\u00e2me, que ce n\u2019est que\nnuit et t\u00e9n\u00e8bres pour elle; la seconde, la bassesse et l\u2019impuret\u00e9 de\nl\u2019\u00e2me sont telles, que cette sagesse la remplit de peines et\nd\u2019obscurit\u00e9s.\u2014P. 593.\n\nMais le plus grand supplice de l\u2019\u00e2me est de croire que Dieu la hait, la\nd\u00e9laisse, et la jette pour cette raison dans les t\u00e9n\u00e8bres.... En effet,\nlorsque la contemplation dont Dieu se sert pour purifier l\u2019\u00e2me la\nmortifie en la d\u00e9pouillant de tout, l\u2019\u00e2me \u00e9prouve, avec une vivacit\u00e9\np\u00e9n\u00e9trante, toute l\u2019horreur que cause la mort, et toutes les douleurs et\ntous les g\u00e9missements de l\u2019enfer, &c.... On peut dire avec probabilit\u00e9,\nqu\u2019une \u00e2me qui a pass\u00e9 par ce purgatoire spirituel, ou n\u2019entrera pas\ndans le purgatoire de l\u2019autre monde, ou n\u2019y demeurera pas longtemps.\u2014P.\n597.\n\nBut the most characteristic passage on this subject is the following: it\ncontains the essence of his mysticism:\u2014Les affections et les\nconnaissances de l\u2019esprit purifi\u00e9 et \u00e9lev\u00e9 \u00e0 la perfection sont d\u2019un\nrang sup\u00e9rieur aux affections et aux connaissances naturelles, elles\nsont surnaturelles et divines; de sorte que, pour en acqu\u00e9rir les actes\nou les habitudes, il est n\u00e9cessaire que celles _qui ne sortent point des\nbornes de la nature_ soient \u00e9teintes. C\u2019est pourquoi il est d\u2019une grande\nutilit\u00e9 en cette mati\u00e8re que l\u2019esprit perde dans cette nuit obscure ses\nconnaissances naturelles, pour \u00eatre rev\u00eatu de cette lumi\u00e8re tr\u00e8s-subtile\net toute divine, et pour devenir lui-m\u00eame, en quelque fa\u00e7on, tout divin\ndans son union avec la sagesse de Dieu. Cette nuit ou cette obscurit\u00e9\ndoit durer autant de temps qu\u2019il en faut pour contracter l\u2019habitude dans\nl\u2019usage qu\u2019on fait de cette lumi\u00e8re surnaturelle. On doit dire la m\u00eame\nchose de la volont\u00e9: elle est oblig\u00e9e de se d\u00e9faire de toutes ses\naffections qui l\u2019attachent aux objets naturels, pour recevoir les\nadmirables effets de l\u2019amour qui est extr\u00eamement spirituel, subtil,\nd\u00e9licat, intime, qui surpasse tous les sentiments naturels et toutes les\naffections de la volont\u00e9, qui est enfin tout divin; et afin qu\u2019elle soit\ntoute transform\u00e9e en cette amour par l\u2019union qui lui est accord\u00e9e dans\nla perte de tous ses biens naturels.\n\nIl faut encore que la m\u00e9moire soit d\u00e9nu\u00e9e des images qui lui forment les\nconnaissances douces et tranquilles des choses dont elle se souvient,\nafin qu\u2019elle les regarde comme des choses \u00e9trang\u00e8res, et que ces choses\nlui paraissent d\u2019une mani\u00e8re diff\u00e9rente de l\u2019id\u00e9e qu\u2019elle en avait\nauparavant. Par ce moyen, cette nuit obscure retirera l\u2019esprit du\nsentiment commun et ordinaire qu\u2019il avait des objets cr\u00e9\u00e9s, et lui\nimprimera _un sentiment tout divin_, qui lui semblera \u00e9tranger; en sorte\nque l\u2019\u00e2me vivra comme hors d\u2019elle-m\u00eame, et \u00e9lev\u00e9e au-dessus de la vie\nhumaine; elle doutera quelquefois si ce qui se passe en elle n\u2019est point\nun enchantement, ou une stupidit\u00e9 d\u2019esprit; elle s\u2019\u00e9tonnera de voir et\nd\u2019entendre des choses qui lui semblent fort nouvelles, quoiqu\u2019elles\nsoient les m\u00eames que celles qu\u2019elle avait autrefois entre les mains. _La\ncause de ce changement est parce que l\u2019\u00e2me doit perdre enti\u00e8rement ses\nconnaissances et ses sentiments humains, pour prendre des connaissances\net des sentiments divins; ce qui est plus propre de la vie future que de\nla vie pr\u00e9sente._\u2014P. 601.\n\n\n Note to page 191.\n\n\n\u2018Pour r\u00e9pondre \u00e0 cette objection, je dis que plus la m\u00e9moire est unie \u00e0\nDieu, plus elle perd ses connaissances distinctes et particuli\u00e8res,\njusqu\u2019\u00e0 ce qu\u2019elle les oublie enti\u00e8rement: ce qui arrive lorsque l\u2019\u00e2me\nest \u00e9tablie dans l\u2019union parfaite. C\u2019est pourquoi elle tombe d\u2019abord\ndans un grand oubli, puisque le souvenir des esp\u00e8ces et des\nconna\u00edssances s\u2019\u00e9vanouit en elle. Ensuite elle se comporte \u00e0 l\u2019\u00e9gard des\nchoses ext\u00e9rieures avec une n\u00e9gligence si notable et un si grand m\u00e9pris\nd\u2019elle-m\u00eame, qu\u2019\u00e9tant toute ab\u00eem\u00e9e en Dieu, elle oublie le boire et le\nmanger, et elle ne sait si elle a fait quelque chose ou non, si elle a\nvu ou non; si on lui a parl\u00e9 ou non. Mais lorsqu\u2019elle est affermie dans\nl\u2019habitude de l\u2019union, qui est son souverain bien, elle ne souffre plus\nces oubliances dans les choses raisonnables, dans les choses morales, ni\ndans les choses naturelles: au contraire, elle est plus parfaite dans\nles op\u00e9rations convenables \u00e0 son \u00e9tat, quoiqu\u2019elle les produise par le\nminist\u00e8re des images et des connaissances que Dieu excite d\u2019une fa\u00e7on\nparticuli\u00e8re dans la m\u00e9moire. Car lorsque l\u2019habitude de l\u2019union, qui est\nun \u00e9tat surnaturel, est form\u00e9e, la m\u00e9moire et les autres puissances\nquittent leurs op\u00e9rations naturelles et passent jusqu\u2019\u00e0 Dieu, qui est \u00e0\nleur \u00e9gard un terme surnaturel. En sorte que la m\u00e9moire \u00e9tant toute\ntransform\u00e9e en Dieu, ses op\u00e9rations ne lui sont plus imprim\u00e9es, et ne\ndemeurent plus attach\u00e9es \u00e0 elle. La m\u00e9moire et les autres facult\u00e9s de\nl\u2019\u00e2me sont occup\u00e9es de Dieu avec un empire si absolu, qu\u2019elles semblent\n\u00eatre toutes divines, et que c\u2019est lui-m\u00eame qui les meut par son esprit\net par sa volont\u00e9 divine, et qui les fait op\u00e9rer en quelque fa\u00e7on\ndivinement: \u201cPuisque celui,\u201d dit l\u2019Ap\u00f4tre, \u201cqui s\u2019unit au Seigneur,\ndevient un m\u00eame esprit avec lui\u201d (1 Cor. vi. 17). Il est donc v\u00e9ritable\nque les op\u00e9rations de l\u2019\u00e2me, \u00e9tant unies totalement \u00e0 Dieu, sont toutes\ndivines.\u2019\u2014_Mont\u00e9e du Carmel_, liv. III. ch. i.\n\n\n Note to page 192.\n\n\n_La Nuit Obscure_, liv. II. ch. xvii. xviii.:\u2014\u2018L\u2019esprit malin ne peut\nconna\u00eetre ce qui se passe dans la volont\u00e9 que par les op\u00e9rations de ces\npuissances. Ainsi, plus les communications de Dieu son spirituelles,\nint\u00e9rieures, et \u00e9loign\u00e9es des sens, moins il peut d\u00e9couvrir et les\np\u00e9n\u00e9trer\u2019.\u2014P. 621.\n\nEvil angels may counterfeit those supernatural communications which are\nvouchsafed through the agency of the good. But the infused passive\ncontemplation, in which neither the understanding, the imagination, nor\nthe sense, exercise their representative office, is secret and safe.\n\u2018Quand Dieu la (l\u2019\u00e2me) comble imm\u00e9diatement par lui-m\u00eame de ses gr\u00e2ces\nspirituelles, elle se d\u00e9robe enti\u00e8rement \u00e0 la vue de son adversaire,\nparce que Dieu, qui est son souverain Seigneur, demeure en elle, et ni\nles bons ni les mauvais anges ne peuvent y avoir entr\u00e9e, ni d\u00e9couvrir\nles communications intimes et secr\u00e8tes qui se font entre Dieu et l\u2019\u00e2me.\nElles sont toutes divines, elles sont infiniment \u00e9lev\u00e9es, elles sont en\nquelque sorte les sacr\u00e9s attouchements des deux extr\u00e9mit\u00e9s qui se\ntrouvent entre Dieu et l\u2019\u00e2me dans leur union: et c\u2019est l\u00e0 o\u00f9 l\u2019\u00e2me\nre\u00e7oit plus de biens spirituels qu\u2019en tous les autres degr\u00e9s de la\ncontemplation (_Cant._ I. 1). C\u2019est aussi ce que l\u2019\u00e9pouse demandait,\nquand elle priait l\u2019Epoux divin de lui donner un saint baiser de sa\nbouche\u2019.\u2014Chap. xxiii. p. 623.\n\nThus, this culminating point of negation is at least, to some extent, a\nsafeguard. The extinction of knowledge, by confining ourselves to the\nincomprehensible (_Lettres Spirituelles_, p. 724), and of joy, by\nrenouncing spiritual delights, the refusal to entertain any\nextraordinary manifestations that assume a definite form or purport,\ndoes at the same time shut out all that region of visionary\nhallucination in which many mystics have passed their days. It is\nindisputably true that the more the mystic avoids, rather than craves,\nthe excitements of imagination, sentiment, and miracle, the safer must\nhe be from the delusions to which he is exposed, if not by the juggle of\nlying spirits, by the fever of his own distempered brain. No one who\nobeys John\u2019s great maxim, \u2018Il ne faut pas voyager pour voir, mais pour\nne pas voir,\u2019 will trouble the holy darkness of his church by any\nerratic novelties of light. Indeed, against such danger careful\nprovision is made by that law which is with him the _sine qu\u00e2 non_ of\nmystical progress,\u2014Ne regardez jamais votre sup\u00e9rieur, quel qu\u2019il soit,\nque comme Dieu m\u00eame, puisqu\u2019il vous est donn\u00e9 comme lieutenant de\nDieu.\u2019\u2014_Pr\u00e9cautions Spirituelles_, p. 734.\n\nFootnote 300:\n\n His exhortations here carry ascetic self-abnegation far beyond the\n Quietist indifference of F\u00e9n\u00e9lon or Madame Guyon. They were\n satisfied\u2014he, always, and she throughout her later life\u2014to seek a\n state of calm, to hail joy or sorrow alike, with the trustful\n equanimity of perfect resignation. John is too violent\u2014too much\n enamoured of miseries, to await the will of Providence. His ambition\n will command events, and make them torments.\n\n \u2018Au reste, le meilleur moyen, le plus m\u00e9ritoire et le plus propre pour\n acqu\u00e9rir les vertus; le moyen, dis-je, le plus s\u00fbr pour mortifier la\n joie, l\u2019esp\u00e9rance, la crainte et la douleur, est de se porter toujours\n aux choses non pas les plus faciles, mais les plus difficiles; non pas\n les plus savoureuses, mais les plus insipides; non pas les plus\n agr\u00e9ables, mais les plus d\u00e9sagr\u00e9ables; non pas \u00e0 celles qui consolent,\n mais \u00e0 celles qui causent de la peine; non pas aux plus grandes, mais\n aux plus petites; non pas aux plus sublimes et aux plus pr\u00e9cieuses,\n mais aux plus basses et aux plus m\u00e9prisables. Il faut enfin d\u00e9sirer et\n rechercher ce qu\u2019il y a de pire, et non ce qu\u2019il y a de meilleur, afin\n de se mettre, pour l\u2019amour de J\u00e9sus Christ, dans la privation de\n toutes les choses du monde, et d\u2019entrer dans l\u2019esprit d\u2019une nudit\u00e9\n parfaite....\n\n \u2018Premi\u00e8rement, il faut que celui qui veut r\u00e9primer cette passion t\u00e2che\n de faire les choses qui tournent \u00e0 son d\u00e9shonneur, et il aura soin de\n se faire m\u00e9priser aussi par le prochain.\n\n \u2018Secondement, il dira lui-m\u00eame et fera dire aux autres les choses qui\n lui attirent du m\u00e9pris.\u2019\u2014_Mont\u00e9e du Carmel_, liv. II. ch. xiii.\n\nFootnote 301:\n\n Dionysius is very clearly followed into his darkness in _La Mont\u00e9e du\n Carmel_, liv. II. chap. viii.; and his Hierarchies reappear in _La\n Nuit Obscure_, liv. II. ch. xii.\n\nFootnote 302:\n\n _La Nuit Obscure_, liv. II. ch. iv.; _et passim_.\n\nFootnote 303:\n\n This first Night is treated of at length in the first book of the\n _Mont\u00e9e du Carmel_, and in the first of the _Nuit Obscure_. The\n supernatural sensuous enjoyments, alluded to, are described in the\n _Mont\u00e9e du Carmel_, liv. II. ch. xi. They are placed in the second\n Night,\u2014the compensation not taking place immediately; and their\n recipient is on no account to rely on them, or desire their\n continuance (p. 444). By \u2018sense,\u2019 John understands, not the body\n merely, but the least disorder of the passions, and all those\n imperfections so common to beginners which arise from an undue\n eagerness for religious enjoyments, such, for example, as what he\n calls spiritual avarice, spiritual luxury, spiritual _gourmandise_,\n &c.\n\nFootnote 304:\n\n See Note on p. 195.\n\nFootnote 305:\n\n _Mont\u00e9e du Carmel_, liv. II. ch. xxv.-xxxii.\n\nFootnote 306:\n\n _Ibid._ ch. viii. and vi.\n\nFootnote 307:\n\n _Ibid._ ch. xvii. and liv. III. ch. xii.\n\nFootnote 308:\n\n What a scope for the indignant eloquence of Bossuet, had F\u00e9n\u00e9lon\n proclaimed as possible such a sudden equipment with all imaginable\n virtues as this:\u2014Quelques-unes de ces connaissances et de ces touches\n int\u00e9rieures que Dieu r\u00e9pand dans l\u2019\u00e2me l\u2019enrichissent de telle sorte\n qu\u2019une seule suffit, non-seulement pour la d\u00e9livrer tout d\u2019un coup des\n imperfections qu\u2019elle n\u2019avait pu vaincre durant tout le cours de sa\n vie, mais aussi pour l\u2019orner des vertus chr\u00e9tiennes et des dons\n divins.\u2014_Mont\u00e9e du Carmel_, liv. II. ch. xxvi. p. 484.\n\nFootnote 309:\n\n In the chapter just cited, John says expressly, \u2018Elle ne saurait\n cependant s\u2019\u00e9lever \u00e0 ces connaissances et \u00e0 ces touches divines par sa\n co-op\u00e9ration,\u2019 and describes these gifts as coming from God,\n \u2018subitement et sans attendre le consentement de la volont\u00e9.\u2019\u2014P. 485.\n So again, quite as strongly, liv. II. chap. xi. p. 445. He\n discountenances the attempt to seek perfection by the \u2018voies\n surnaturelles,\u2019 yet his books are an introduction to the mystical\n evening, and a guide through the mystical midnight.\n\nFootnote 310:\n\n _La Nuit Obscure_, liv. II. ch. ix.; especially the passage cited in\n note on p. 195.\n\nFootnote 311:\n\n This night occupies the third book of the _Mont\u00e9e du Carmel_.\n\nFootnote 312:\n\n See Note on p. 196.\n\nFootnote 313:\n\n See second Note on p. 196.\n\nFootnote 314:\n\n See the life of the saint in Alban Butler, Nov. 24.\n\n\n\n\n BOOK THE TENTH\n QUIETISM.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER I.\n\n\n Love! if thy destined sacrifice am I,\n Come, slay thy victim, and prepare thy fires;\n Plunged in thy depths of mercy let me die\n The death which every soul that lives desires!\n\n MADAME GUYON.\n\n\n\u2018Do you remember,\u2019 said Atherton to Willoughby, when he had called to\nsee him one morning, \u2018the hunt we once had after that passage in Jeremy\nTaylor, about Bishop Ivo\u2019s adventure? Coleridge relates the story\nwithout saying exactly where it is, and his daughter states in a note\nthat she had been unable to find the place in Taylor.\u2019\n\n\u2018I recollect it perfectly; and we discovered it, I think, in the first\npart of his sermon _On the Mercy of the Divine Judgments_. Ivo, going on\nan embassy for St. Louis, meets by the way a grave, sad woman, doesn\u2019t\nhe?\u2014with fire in one hand, and water in the other; and when he inquires\nwhat these symbols may mean, she answers, \u201cMy purpose is with fire to\nburn Paradise, and with my water to quench the flames of hell, that men\nmay serve God without the incentives of hope and fear, and purely for\nthe love of God.\u201d\n\n\u2018Well, Gower has painted her portrait for us,\u2014Queen Quietude, he calls\nher: and it is to be hung up here over my chimney-piece, by the next\nevening we meet together.\u2019\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe evening came. Atherton was to read a paper on \u2018Madame Guyon and the\nQuietist Controversy,\u2019 and Gower was to exhibit and explain his\nallegorical picture.\n\nThis painting represented a female figure, simply clad in sombre\ngarments, sitting on a fragment of rock at the summit of a high hill. On\nher head hung a garland, half untwined, from neglect, which had been\nfantastically woven of cypress, bound about with heart\u2019s-ease. Many\nflowers of the heart\u2019s-ease had dropped off, withered; some were lying\nunheeded in her lap. Her face was bent downward; its expression\nperfectly calm, and the cast of sadness it wore rather recorded a past,\nthan betrayed a present sorrow. Her eyes were fixed pensively, and\nwithout seeming to see them, on the thin hands which lay folded on her\nknees. No anxious effort of thought contracted that placid brow; no\neager aspiration lifted those meekly-drooping eyelids.\n\nAt her feet lay, on her right, the little brazier in which she had\ncarried her fire, still emitting its grey curls of smoke; and, on her\nleft, the overturned water-urn\u2014a Fortunatus-purse of water,\u2014from whose\nsilver hollow an inexhaustible stream welled out, and leaping down, was\nlost to sight among the rocks.\n\nBehind her lay two wastes, stretching from east to west. The vast\ntracts, visible from her far-seeing mountain, were faintly presented in\nthe distance of the picture. But they were never looked upon; her back\nwas toward them; they belonged to a past never remembered. In the east\nstretched level lands, covered far as the eye could reach with cold grey\ninundation. Here and there coal-black ridges and dots indicated the\nhighest grounds still imperfectly submerged; and in some places clouds\nof steam, water-spouts, and jets of stones and mire,\u2014even boulders of\nrock, hurled streaming out of the waters into the air,\u2014betrayed the last\nstruggles of the Fire-Kingdom with the invasion of those illimitable\ntides. So have her enchantments slain the Giant of Fire, and laid him to\nrest under a water-pall. The place of dolours and of endless burning\u2014so\npopulous with Sorrows\u2014is to be a place of great waters, where the slow\nvacant waves of the far-glittering reaches will come and go among the\nchannels and the pools, and not even the bittern shall be there, with\nhis foot to print the ooze, with his wing to shadow the sleeping\nshallows, with his cry to declare it all a desolation.\n\nIn the western background, the saintly art of Queen Quietude has made a\nwhole burnt-offering of the cedar shades, and flowery labyrinths, and\nangel-builded crystal domes of Paradise. Most fragrant holocaust that\never breathed against the sky! Those volumes of cloud along the west,\nthrough which the sun is going down with dimmed and doubtful lustre (as\nthough his had been the hand which put the torch to such a burning)\u2014they\nare heavy with spicy odours. Such sweet wonders of the Eden woodlands\ncannot but give out sweetness in their dying. The heavens grow dusk and\nslumbrous with so much incense. A dreamy faintness from the laden air\nweighs down the sense. It seems time to sleep\u2014for us, for all nature, to\nsleep, weary of terrestrial grossness and of mortal limitation,\u2014to\nsleep, that all may awake, made new; and so, transformed divinely to the\nfirst ideal, have divine existence only, and God be all and in all. For\nGod is love, and when hope and fear are dead, then love is all.\n\nSomewhat thus did Gower describe his picture; whereon, in truth, he had\nexpended no little art,\u2014such a haze of repose, and likewise of\nunreality, had he contrived to throw over this work of fancy; and such a\ntone had he given, both to the work of the fire on the one side, and to\nthat of the water on the other. The fire did not seem a cruel fire, nor\nthe water an inhospitable water. Golden lines of light from the sun, and\nrose-red reflections from clouds whose breasts were feathered with fire,\nrested on the heads of the waves, where the great flood lay rocking. The\nvery ruins of Paradise,\u2014those charred tree-trunks\u2014those dusty\nriver-beds\u2014that shrivelled boskage and white grass,\u2014did not look utterly\nforlorn. Some of the glassy walls still stood, shining like rubies in\nthe sunset, and glittering at their basements and their gateways with\nsolid falls and pools of gold and silver, where their rich adornment had\nrun down molten to their feet. The Destroyer was the Purifier; and the\nwaiting sigh for renewal was full of trust.\n\n\u2018A better frontispiece,\u2019 said Atherton, \u2018I could not have for my poor\npaper. I might have been raised to a less prosaic strain, and omitted\nsome less relevant matter, had I been able to place your picture\nbefore me while writing. For upon this question of disinterested love,\nand so of quietude, our mysticism now mainly turns. With F\u00e9n\u00e9lon and\nMadame Guyon, mysticism hovers no longer on the confines of pantheism.\nIt deals less with mere abstractions. It is less eager to have\neverything which is in part done away, that the perfect may come, even\nwhile we are here. It is more patient and lowly, and will oftener use\ncommon means. Its inner light is not arrogant\u2014for submissive love is\nthat light; and it flames forth with no pretension to special\nrevelations and novel gospels; neither does it construct any inspired\nsystem of philosophy. It is less feverishly ecstatic, less grossly\ntheurgic, than in the lower forms of its earlier history. Comparative\nhealth is indicated by the fact that it aspires chiefly to a state of\ncontinuous resignation,\u2014covets less starts of transport and\ninstantaneous transformations. It seeks, rather, a long and even reach\nof trustful calm, which shall welcome joy and sorrow with equal\nmind,\u2014shall live in the present, moment by moment, passive and\ndependent on the will of the Well-Beloved.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. With Madame Guyon, too, I think the point of the old\nantithesis about which the mystics have so much to say is shifted;\u2014I\nmean that the contrast lies, with her, not between Finite and\nInfinite\u2014the finite Affirmation, the infinite Negation,\u2014between sign and\nthing signified\u2014between mode and modelessness\u2014mediate and immediate,\u2014but\nsimply between God and Self.\n\nATHERTON. And so mysticism grows somewhat more clear, and reduces itself\nto narrower compass.\n\nGOWER. And, just as it does so, is condemned by Rome.\n\nATHERTON. No doubt the attempt to reach an unattainable\ndisinterestedness was less dangerous and less unwholesome than the\nstrain after superhuman knowledge and miraculous vision.\n\nMRS. ATHERTON. I have just opened on one of her verses in Cowper here,\nwhich exactly expresses what Mr. Willoughby was suggesting:\u2014\n\n The love of Thee flows just as much\n As that of ebbing self subsides;\n Our hearts, their scantiness is such,\n Bear not the conflict of two rival tides.\n\nStay; here is one I marked, which goes farther still. It is an\nallegorical poem. Love has bidden her embark, and then withdraws the\nvessel,\u2014leaves her floating on the rushes and water-flowers, and spreads\nhis wings for flight, heedless of her cries and prayers. At last she\nsays,\u2014\n\n Be not angry; I resign\n Henceforth all my will to thine:\n I consent that thou depart,\n Though thine absence breaks my heart;\n Go then, and for ever too;\n All is right that thou wilt do.\n\n This was just what Love intended,\n He was now no more offended;\n Soon as I became a child,\n Love returned to me and smiled:\n Never strife shall more betide\n \u2019Twixt the bridegroom and his bride.\n\nATHERTON. Yes, this is the pure love, the holy indifference of Quietism.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. May not this imaginary surrender of eternal happiness\u2014or, at\nleast, the refusal to cherish ardent anticipations of heaven, really\ninvigorate our spiritual nature, by concentrating our religion on a\n_present_ salvation from sin?\n\nATHERTON. I think it possibly may, where contemplation of heaven is the\nresource of spiritual indolence or weariness in well-doing,\u2014where the\nmind is prone to look forward to the better world, too much as a place\nof escape from the painstaking, and difficulty, and discipline of time.\nBut where the hope of heaven is of the true sort\u2014to put it out of sight\nis grievously to weaken, instead of strengthening, our position. I think\nwe should all find, if we tried, or were unhappily forced to try, the\nexperiment of sustaining ourselves in a religion that ignored the\nfuture, that we were lamentably enfeebled in two ways. First of all, by\nthe loss of a support\u2014that heart and courage which the prospect of final\nvictory gives to every combatant; and then, secondly, by the immense\ndrain of mental energy involved in the struggle necessary to reconcile\nourselves to that loss. There can be no struggle so exhaustive as this,\nfor it is against our nature,\u2014not as sin has marred (so Madame Guyon\nthought), but as God has made it. Fearful must be the wear and tear of\nour religious being, in its vital functions,\u2014and this, not to win, but\nto abandon an advantage. \u2018He that hath this hope purifieth himself.\u2019 So\nfar from being able to dispense with it, we find in the hope of\nsalvation, the helmet of our Christian armour. It is no height of\nChristian heroism, but presumption rather, to encounter, bare-headed,\nthe onslaughts of sin and sorrow\u2014even though the sword of the Spirit may\nshine naked in our right hand. But we should, at the same time, remember\nthat our celestial citizenship is realised by _present_\nheavenly-mindedness:\u2014a height and purity of temper, however, which grows\nmost within as we have the habit of humbly regarding that kingdom as a\nplace prepared for us. We should not limit our foretastes of heaven to\nintervals of calm. We may often be growing most heavenly amid scenes\nmost unlike heaven.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. In persecution, for example.\n\nATHERTON. We should not think that we catch its glory only in happy\nmoments of contemplation, though such musing may well have its permitted\nplace. Let us say also that every victory over love of ease, over\ndiscontent, over the sluggish coldness of the heart, over reluctance to\nduty, over unkindly tempers, is in fact to us an earnest and foretaste\nof that heaven, where we shall actively obey with glad alacrity, where\nwe shall be pleased in all things with all that pleases God, where\nglorious powers shall be gloriously developed, undeadened by any\nlethargy, unhindered by any painful limitation; and where that Love,\nwhich here has to contend for very life, and to do battle for its\nrightful enjoyments, shall possess us wholly, and rejoice and reign\namong all the fellowships of the blest throughout the everlasting day.\n\nGOWER. But all this while we have been very rude. Here is Madame Guyon\ncome to tell us her story, and we have kept her, I don\u2019t know how long,\nstanding at the door.\n\nKATE. Yes, let us hear your paper first, Mr. Atherton: we can talk\nafterwards, you know.\n\nSo Atherton began to read.\n\n\n _QUIETISM._\n\n\n _Part I.\u2014Madame Guyon._\n\n\n I.\n\n\n Jeanne Marie Bouvi\u00e8res de la Mothe was born on Easter-eve, April\n 13th, 1648, at Montargis. Her sickly childhood was distinguished by\n precocious imitations of that religious life which was held in\n honour by every one around her. She loved to be dressed in the habit\n of a little nun. When little more than four years old, she longed\n for martyrdom. Her school-fellows placed her on her knees on a white\n cloth, flourished a sabre over her head, and told her to prepare for\n the stroke. A shout of triumphant laughter followed the failure of\n the child\u2019s courage. She was neglected by her mother, and knocked\n about by a spoiled brother. When not at school, she was the pet or\n the victim of servants. She began to grow irritable from\n ill-treatment, and insincere from fear. When ten years old, she\n found a Bible in her sick room, and read it, she says, from morning\n to night, committing to memory the historical parts. Some of the\n writings of St. Francis de Sales, and the Life of Madame de Chantal,\n fell in her way. The latter work proved a powerful stimulant. There\n she read of humiliations and austerities numberless, of charities\n lavished with a princely munificence, of visions enjoyed and\n miracles wrought in honour of those saintly virtues, and of the\n intrepidity with which the famous enthusiast wrote with a red-hot\n iron on her bosom, the characters of the holy name Jesus. The girl\n of twelve years old was bent on copying these achievements on her\n little scale. She relieved, taught, and waited on the poor; and, for\n lack of the red-hot iron or the courage, sewed on to her breast with\n a large needle a piece of paper containing the name of Christ. She\n even forged a letter to secure her admission to a conventual\n establishment as a nun. The deceit was immediately detected; but the\n attempt shows how much more favourable was the religious atmosphere\n in which she grew up, to the prosperity of convents than to the\n inculcation of truth.\n\n With ripening years, religion gave place to vanity. Her handsome\n person and brilliant conversational powers fitted her to shine in\n society. She began to love dress, and feel jealous of rival\n beauties. Like St. Theresa, at the same age, she sat up far into the\n night, devouring romances. Her autobiography records her experience\n of the mischievous effects of those tales of chivalry and passion.\n When nearly sixteen, it was arranged that she should marry the\n wealthy M. Guyon. This gentleman, whom she had seen but three days\n before her marriage, was twenty-two years older than herself.\n\n The faults she had were of no very grave description, but her\n husband\u2019s house was destined to prove for several years a pitiless\n school for their correction. He lived with his mother, a vulgar\n and hard-hearted woman. Her low and penurious habits were\n unaffected by their wealth; and in the midst of riches, she was\n happiest scolding in the kitchen about some farthing matter. She\n appears to have hated Madame Guyon with all the strength of her\n narrow mind. M. Guyon loved his wife after his selfish sort. If\n she was ill, he was inconsolable; if any one spoke against her, he\n flew into a passion; yet, at the instigation of his mother, he was\n continually treating her with harshness. An artful servant girl,\n who tended his gouty leg, was permitted daily to mortify and\n insult his wife. Madame Guyon had been accustomed at home to\n elegance and refinement,\u2014beneath her husband\u2019s roof she found\n politeness contemned and rebuked as pride. When she spoke, she had\n been listened to with attention,\u2014now she could not open her mouth\n without contradiction. She was charged with presuming to show them\n how to talk, reproved for disputatious forwardness, and rudely\n silenced. She could never go to see her parents without having\n bitter speeches to bear on her return. They, on their part,\n reproached her with unnatural indifference towards her own family\n for the sake of her new connexions. The ingenious malignity of her\n mother-in-law filled every day with fresh vexations. The high\n spirit of the young girl was completely broken. She had already\n gained a reputation for cleverness and wit\u2014now she sat nightmared\n in company, nervous, stiff, and silent, the picture of stupidity.\n At every assemblage of their friends she was marked out for some\n affront, and every visitor at the house was instructed in the\n catalogue of her offences. Sad thoughts would come\u2014how different\n might all this have been had she been suffered to select some\n other suitor! But it was too late. The brief romance of her life\n was gone indeed. There was no friend into whose heart she could\n pour her sorrows. Meanwhile, she was indefatigable in the\n discharge of every duty,\u2014she endeavoured by kindness, by cheerful\n forbearance, by returning good for evil, to secure some kinder\n treatment\u2014she was ready to cut out her tongue that she might make\n no passionate reply\u2014she reproached herself bitterly for the tears\n she could not hide. But these coarse, hard natures were not so to\n be won. Her magnanimity surprised, but did not soften minds to\n which it was utterly incomprehensible.[315]\n\n Her best course would have been self-assertion and war to the very\n utmost. She would have been justified in demanding her right to be\n mistress in her own house\u2014in declaring it incompatible with the\n obligations binding upon either side, that a third party should be\n permitted to sow dissension between a husband and his wife\u2014in\n putting her husband, finally, to the choice between his wife and his\n mother. M. Guyon is the type of a large class of men. They stand\n high in the eye of the world\u2014and not altogether undeservedly\u2014as men\n of principle. But their domestic circle is the scene of cruel wrongs\n from want of reflection, from a selfish, passionate\n inconsiderateness. They would be shocked at the charge of an act of\n barbarity towards a stranger, but they will inflict years of mental\n distress on those most near to them, for want of decision,\n self-control, and some conscientious estimate of what their home\n duties truly involve. Had the obligations he neglected, the\n wretchedness of which he was indirectly the author, been brought\n fairly before the mind of M. Guyon, he would probably have\n determined on the side of justice, and a domestic revolution would\n have been the consequence. But Madame Guyon conceived herself bound\n to suffer in silence. Looking back on those miserable days, she\n traced a father\u2019s care in the discipline she endured. Providence had\n transplanted Self from a garden where it expanded under love and\n praise, to a highway where every passing foot might trample it in\n the dust.\n\n A severe illness brought her more than once to the brink of the\n grave. She heard of her danger with indifference, for life had no\n attraction. Heavy losses befel the family\u2014she could feel no concern.\n To end her days in a hospital was even an agreeable anticipation.\n Poverty and disgrace could bring no change which would not be more\n tolerable than her present suffering. She laboured, with little\n success, to find comfort in religious exercises. She examined\n herself rigidly, confessed with frequency, strove to subdue all care\n about her personal appearance, and while her maid arranged her\n hair\u2014how, she cared not\u2014was lost in the study of Thomas \u00e0 Kempis. At\n length she consulted a Franciscan, a holy man, who had just emerged\n from a five years\u2019 solitude. \u2018Madame,\u2019 said he, \u2018you are\n disappointed and perplexed because you seek without what you have\n within. Accustom yourself to seek God in your heart, and you will\n find Him.\u2019\n\n\n II.\n\n\n These words of the old Franciscan embody the response which has been\n uttered in every age by the oracle of mysticism. It has its truth\n and its falsehood, as men understand it. There is a legend of an\n artist, who was about to carve from a piece of costly sandal-wood an\n image of the Madonna; but the material was intractable\u2014his hand\n seemed to have lost its skill\u2014he could not approach his ideal. When\n about to relinquish his efforts in despair, a voice in a dream bade\n him shape the figure from the oak-block which was about to feed his\n hearth. He obeyed, and produced a masterpiece. This story represents\n the truth which mysticism upholds when it appears as the antagonist\n of superstitious externalism. The materials of religious happiness\n lie, as it were, near at hand\u2014among affections and desires which are\n homely, common, and of the fireside. Let the right direction, the\n heavenly influence, be received from without; and heaven is regarded\n with the love of home, and home sanctified by the hope of heaven.\n The far-fetched costliness of outward works\u2014the restless, selfish\n bargaining with asceticism and with priestcraft for a priceless\n heaven, can never redeem and renew a soul to peace. But mysticism\n has not stopped here; it takes a step farther, and that step is\n false. It would seclude the soul too much from the external; and, to\n free it from a snare, removes a necessary help. Like some\n overshadowing tree, it hides the rising plant from the force of\n storms, but it also intercepts the appointed sunshine\u2014it protects,\n but it deprives\u2014and beneath its boughs hardy weeds have grown more\n vigorously than precious grain. Removing, more or less, the\n counterpoise of the letter, in its zeal for the spirit, it promotes\n an intense and morbid self-consciousness. Roger North tells us that\n when he and his brother stood on the top of the Monument, it was\n difficult for them to persuade themselves that their weight would\n not throw down the building. The dizzy elevation of the mystic\n produces sometimes a similar overweaning sense of personality.\n\n Often instead of rising above the infirmities of our nature, and the\n common laws of life, the mystic becomes the sport of the idlest\n phantasy, the victim of the most humiliating reaction. The excited\n and overwrought temperament mistakes every vibration of the fevered\n nerves for a manifestation from without; as in the solitude, the\n silence, and the glare of a great desert, travellers have seemed to\n hear distinctly the church bells of their native village. In such\n cases an extreme susceptibility of the organ, induced by\n peculiarities of climate, gives to a mere conception or memory the\n power of an actual sound; and, in a similar way, the mystic has\n often both tempted and enraptured himself\u2014his own breath has made\n both the \u2018airs from heaven,\u2019 and the \u2018blasts from hell;\u2019 and the\n attempt to annihilate Self has ended at last in leaving nothing but\n Self behind. When the tide of enthusiasm has ebbed, and the channel\n has become dry, simply because humanity cannot long endure a strain\n so excessive, then that magician and master of legerdemain, the\n Fancy, is summoned to recal, to eke out, or to interpret the\n mystical experience; then that fantastic acrobat, Affectation, is\n admitted to play its tricks\u2014just as, when the waters of the Nile are\n withdrawn, the canals of Cairo are made the stage on which the\n jugglers exhibit their feats of skill to the crowds on either bank.\n\n\n III.\n\n\n To return to Madame Guyon. From the hour of that interview with the\n Franciscan she was a mystic. The secret of the interior life flashed\n upon her in a moment. She had been starving in the midst of fulness;\n God was near, not far off; the kingdom of heaven was within her. The\n love of God took possession of her soul with an inexpressible\n happiness. Beyond question, her heart apprehended, in that joy, the\n great truth that God is love\u2014that He is more ready to forgive, than\n we to ask forgiveness\u2014that He is not an austere being whose regard\n is to be purchased by rich gifts, tears, and penance. This\n emancipating, sanctifying belief became the foundation of her\n religion. She raised on this basis of true spirituality a mystical\n superstructure, in which there was some hay and stubble, but the\n corner stone had first been rightly laid, never to be removed from\n its place.\n\n Prayer, which had before been so difficult, was now delightful and\n indispensable; hours passed away like moments\u2014she could scarcely\n cease from praying. Her trials seemed great no longer; her inward\n joy consumed, like a fire, the reluctance, the murmur, and the\n sorrow, which had their birth in self. A spirit of confiding peace,\n a sense of rejoicing possession, pervaded all her days. God was\n continually present with her, and she seemed completely yielded up\n to God. She appeared to feel herself, and to behold all creatures,\n as immersed in the gracious omnipresence of the Most High. In her\n adoring contemplation of the Divine presence, she found herself\n frequently unable to employ any words, or to pray for any particular\n blessings.[316] She was then little more than twenty years of age.\n The ardour of her devotion would not suffer her to rest even here.\n It appeared to her that self was not yet sufficiently suppressed.\n There were some things she chose as pleasant, other things she\n avoided as painful. She was possessed with the notion that every\n choice which can be referred to self is selfish, and therefore\n criminal.\n\n On this principle, \u00c6sop\u2019s traveller, who gathered his cloak about\n him in the storm, and relinquished it in the sunshine, should be\n stigmatized as a selfish man, because he thought only of his own\n comfort, and did not remember at the moment his family, his country,\n or his Maker. It is not regard for self which makes us selfish, but\n regard for self to the exclusion of due regard for others. But the\n zeal of Madame Guyon blinded her to distinctions such as these. She\n became filled with an insatiable desire of suffering.[317] She\n resolved to force herself to what she disliked, and deny herself\n what was gratifying, that the mortified senses might at last have no\n choice whatever. She displayed the most extraordinary power of will\n in her efforts to annihilate her will. Every day she took the\n discipline with scourges pointed with iron. She tore her flesh with\n brambles, thorns, and nettles. Her rest was almost destroyed by the\n pain she endured. She was in very delicate health, continually\n falling ill, and could eat scarcely anything. Yet she forced herself\n to eat what was most nauseous to her; she often kept wormwood in her\n mouth, and put coloquintida in her food, and when she walked she\n placed stones in her shoes. If a tooth ached she would bear it\n without seeking a remedy; when it ached no longer, she would go and\n have it extracted. She imitated Madame Chantal in dressing the sores\n of the poor, and ministering to the wants of the sick. On one\n occasion she found that she could not seek the indulgence offered by\n her Church for remitting some of the pains of purgatory. At that\n time she felt no doubt concerning the power of the priest to grant\n such absolution, but she thought it wrong to desire to escape any\n suffering. She was afraid of resembling those mercenary souls, who\n are afraid not so much of displeasing God, as of the penalties\n attached to sin. She was too much in earnest for visionary\n sentimentalism. Her efforts manifest a serious practical endeavour\n after that absolute disinterestedness which she erroneously thought\n both attainable and enjoined. She was far from attaching any\n expiatory value to these acts of voluntary mortification, they were\n a means to an end. When she believed that end attained, in the\n entire death of self, she relinquished them.\n\n\n IV.\n\n\n Situated as Madame Guyon was now, her mind had no resource but to\n collapse upon itself, and the feelings so painfully pent up became\n proportionately vehement. She found a friend in one M\u00e8re Granger;\n but her she could see seldom, mostly by stealth. An ignorant\n confessor joined her mother-in-law and husband in the attempt to\n hinder her from prayer and religious exercises. She endeavoured in\n everything to please her husband, but he complained that she loved\n God so much she had no love left for him. She was watched day and\n night; she dared not stir from her mother-in-law\u2019s chamber or her\n husband\u2019s bedside. If she took her work apart to the window, they\n followed her there, to see that she was not in prayer. When her\n husband went abroad, he forbade her to pray in his absence. The\n affections even of her child were taken from her, and the boy was\n taught to disobey and insult his mother. Thus utterly alone, Madame\n Guyon, while apparently engaged in ordinary matters, was constantly\n in a state of abstraction; her mind was elsewhere, rapt in devout\n contemplation. She was in company without hearing a word that was\n said. She went out into the garden to look at the flowers, and could\n bring back no account of them, the eye of her reverie could mark\n nothing actually visible. When playing at piquet, to oblige her\n husband, this \u2018interior attraction\u2019 was often more powerfully felt\n than even when at church. In her _Autobiography_ she describes her\n experience as follows:\u2014\n\n \u2018The spirit of prayer was nourished and increased from their\n contrivances and endeavours to disallow me any time for practising\n it. I loved without motive or reason for loving; for nothing passed\n in my head, but much in the innermost of my soul. I thought not\n about any recompence, gift, or favour, or anything which regards the\n lover. The Well-beloved was the only object which attracted my heart\n wholly to Himself. I could not contemplate His attributes. I knew\n nothing else but to _love_ and to _suffer_. Oh, ignorance more truly\n learned than any science of the Doctors, since it so well taught me\n Jesus Christ crucified, and brought me to be in love with His holy\n cross! In its beginning I was attracted with so much force, that it\n seemed as if my head was going to join my heart. I found that\n insensibly my body bent in spite of me. I did not then comprehend\n from whence it came; but have learned since, that as all passed in\n the will, which is the sovereign of the powers, _that_ attracted the\n others after it, and reunited them in God, their divine centre and\n sovereign happiness. And as these powers were then unaccustomed to\n be united, it required the more violence to effect that union.\n Wherefore it was the more perceived. Afterwards it became so\n strongly riveted as to seem to be quite natural. This was so strong\n that I could have wished to die, in order to be inseparably united\n without any interstice to Him who so powerfully attracted my heart.\n As all passed in the will, the imagination and the understanding\n being absorbed in it, in a union of enjoyment, I knew not what to\n say, having never read or heard of such a state as I experienced;\n for, before this, I had known nothing of the operations of God in\n souls. I had only read _Philothea_ (written by St. Francis de\n Sales), with the _Imitation of Christ_ (by Thomas \u00e0 Kempis), and the\n Holy Scriptures; also the _Spiritual Combat_, which mentions none of\n these things.\u2019[318]\n\n In this extract she describes strange physical sensations as\n accompanying her inward emotion. The intense excitement of the soul\n assumes, in her over-strained and secluded imagination, the\n character of a corporeal seizure. The sickly frame, so morbidly\n sensitive, appears to participate in the supernatural influences\n communicated to the spirit. On a subsequent occasion, she speaks of\n herself as so oppressed by the fulness of the Divine manifestations\n imparted to her, as to be compelled to loosen her dress. More than\n once some of those who sat next her imagined that they perceived a\n certain marvellous efflux of grace proceeding from her to\n themselves. She believed that many persons, for whom she was\n interceding with great fervour, were sensible at the time of an\n extraordinary gracious influence instantaneously vouchsafed, and\n that her spirit communicated mysteriously, \u2018in the Lord,\u2019 with the\n spirits of those dear to her when far away. She traced a special\n intervention of Providence in the fact, that she repeatedly \u2018felt a\n strong draught to the door\u2019 just when it was necessary to go out to\n receive a secret letter from her friend, M\u00e8re Granger; that the rain\n should have held up precisely when she was on her road to or from\n mass; and that at the very intervals when she was able to steal out\n to hear it, some priest was always found performing, or ready to\n perform the service, though at a most unusual hour.[319]\n\n\n V.\n\n\n Imaginary as all this may have been, the Church of Rome, at least,\n had no right to brand with the stigma of extravagance any such\n transference of the spiritual to the sensuous, of the metaphysical\n to the physical. The fancies of Madame Guyon in this respect are\n innocent enough in comparison with the monstrosities devised by\n Romish marvel-mongers to exalt her saints withal. St. Philip Neri\n was so inflamed with love to God as to be insensible to all cold,\n and burned with such a fire of devotion that his body, divinely\n feverish, could not be cooled by exposure to the wildest winter\n night. For two-and-fifty years he was the subject of a supernatural\n palpitation, which kept his bed and chair, and everything moveable\n about him, in a perpetual tremble. For that space of time his breast\n was miraculously swollen to the thickness of a fist above his heart.\n On a post-mortem examination of the holy corpse, it was found that\n two of the ribs had been broken, to allow the sacred ardour of his\n heart more room to play! The doctors swore solemnly that the\n phenomenon could be nothing less than a miracle. A divine hand had\n thus literally \u2018enlarged the heart\u2019 of the devotee.[320] St. Philip\n enjoyed, with many other saints, the privilege of being miraculously\n elevated into the air by the fervour of his heavenward aspirations.\n The _Acta Sanctorum_ relates how Ida of Louvain\u2014seized with an\n overwhelming desire to present her gifts with the Wise Men to the\n child Jesus\u2014received, on the eve of the Three Kings, the\n distinguished favour of being permitted to swell to a terrific size,\n and then gradually to return to her original dimensions. On another\n occasion, she was gratified by being thrown down in the street in an\n ecstacy, and enlarging so that her horror-stricken attendant had to\n embrace her with all her might to keep her from bursting. The noses\n of eminent saints have been endowed with so subtile a sense that\n they have detected the stench of concealed sins, and enjoyed, as a\n literal fragrance, the well-known odour of sanctity. St. Philip Neri\n was frequently obliged to hold his nose and turn away his head when\n confessing very wicked people. In walking the streets of some\n depraved Italian town, the poor man must have endured all the pains\n of Coleridge in Cologne, where, he says,\n\n \u2018I counted two-and-seventy stenches,\n All well-defined, and several stinks!\u2019\n\n Maria of Oignys received what theurgic mysticism calls the gift of\n jubilation. For three days and nights upon the point of death, she\n sang without remission her ecstatic swan-song, at the top of a voice\n whose hoarseness was miraculously healed. She felt as though the\n wing of an angel were spread upon her breast, thrilling her heart\n with the rapture, and pouring from her lips the praises, of the\n heavenly world. With the melodious modulation of an inspired\n recitative, she descanted on the mysteries of the Trinity and the\n incarnation\u2014improvised profound expositions of the Scripture\u2014invoked\n the saints, and interceded for her friends.[321] A nun who visited\n Catharina Ricci in her ecstasy, saw with amazement her face\n transformed into the likeness of the Redeemer\u2019s countenance. St.\n Hildegard, in the enjoyment and description of her visions, and in\n the utterance of her prophecies, was inspired with a complete\n theological terminology hitherto unknown to mortals. A glossary of\n the divine tongue was long preserved among her manuscripts at\n Wiesbaden.[322] It is recorded in the life of St. Veronica of\n Binasco, that she received the miraculous gift of tears in a measure\n so copious, that the spot where she knelt appeared as though a jug\n of water had been overset there. She was obliged to have an earthen\n vessel ready in her cell to receive the supernatural efflux, which\n filled it frequently to the weight of several Milan pounds! Ida of\n Nivelles, when in an ecstasy one day, had it revealed to her that a\n dear friend was at the same moment in the same condition. The friend\n also was simultaneously made aware that Ida was immersed in the same\n abyss of divine light with herself. Thenceforward they were as one\n soul in the Lord, and the Virgin Mary appeared to make a third in\n the saintly fellowship. Ida was frequently enabled to communicate\n with spiritual personages, without words, after the manner of\n angelic natures. On one occasion, when at a distance from a priest\n to whom she was much attached, both she and the holy man were\n entranced at the same time; and, when wrapt to heaven, he beheld her\n in the presence of Christ, at whose command she communicated to him,\n by a spiritual kiss, a portion of the grace with which she herself\n had been so richly endowed. To Clara of Montfaucon allusion has\n already been made. In the right side of her heart was found,\n completely formed, a little figure of Christ upon the cross, about\n the size of a thumb. On the left, under what resembled the bloody\n cloth, lay the instruments of the passion\u2014the crown of thorns, the\n nails, &c. So sharp was the miniature lance, that the Vicar-General\n Berengarius, commissioned to assist at the examination by the Bishop\n of Spoleto, pricked therewith his reverend finger. This marvel was\n surpassed in the eighteenth century by a miracle more piquant still.\n Veronica Giuliani caused a drawing to be made of the many forms and\n letters which she declared had been supernaturally modelled within\n her heart. To the exultation of the faithful\u2014and the everlasting\n confusion of all Jews, Protestants, and Turks\u2014a post-mortem\n examination disclosed the accuracy of her description, to the\n minutest point. There were the sacred initials in a large and\n distinct Roman character, the crown of thorns, two flames, seven\n swords, the spear, the reed, &c.\u2014all arranged just as in the diagram\n she had furnished.[323] The diocese of Li\u00e8ge was edified, in the\n twelfth century, by seeing, in the person of the celebrated\n Christina Mirabilis, how completely the upward tendency of\n protracted devotion might vanquish the law of gravitation. So\n strongly was she drawn away from this gross earth, that the\n difficulty was to keep her on the ground. She was continually flying\n up to the tops of lonely towers and trees, there to enjoy a rapture\n with the angels, and a roost with the birds. In the frequency, the\n elevation, and the duration of her ascents into the air, she\n surpassed even the high-flown devotion of St. Peter of Alcantara,\n who was often seen suspended high above the fig-trees which\n overshadowed his hermitage at Badajos\u2014his eyes upturned, his arms\n outspread\u2014while the servant sent to summon him to dinner, gazed with\n open mouth, and sublunary cabbage cooled below. The limbs of\n Christina lost the rigidity, as her body lost the grossness, common\n to vulgar humanity. In her ecstasies she was contracted into the\n spherical form\u2014her head was drawn inward and downward towards her\n breast, and she rolled up like a hedgehog. When her relatives wished\n to take and secure her, they had to employ a man to hunt her like a\n bird. Having started his game, he had a long run across country\n before he brought her down, in a very unsportsmanlike manner, by a\n stroke with his bludgeon which broke her shin. When a few miracles\n had been wrought to vindicate her a\u00ebrostatic mission, she was\n allowed to fly about in peace.[324] She has occupied, ever since,\n the first place in the ornithology of Roman-catholic saintship. Such\n are a few of the specimens which might be collected in multitudes\n from Romanist records, showing how that communion has bestowed its\n highest favour on the most coarse and materialised apprehensions of\n spiritual truth. Extravagant inventions such as these\u2014monstrous as\n the adventures of Baron M\u00fcnchausen, without their wit\u2014have been\n invested with the sanction and defended by the thunder of the Papal\n chair. Yet this very Church of Rome incarcerated Molinos and Madame\n Guyon as dangerous enthusiasts.\n\n\n VI.\n\n\n Madame Guyon had still some lessons to learn. On a visit to Paris,\n the glittering equipages of the park, and the gaieties of St. Cloud,\n revived the old love of seeing and being seen. During a tour in the\n provinces with her husband, flattering visits and graceful\n compliments everywhere followed such beauty, such accomplishments,\n and such virtue, with a delicate and intoxicating applause.\n Vanity\u2014dormant, but not dead\u2014awoke within her for the last time. She\n acknowledged, with bitter self-reproach, the power of the world, the\n weakness of her own resolves. In the spiritual desertion which\n ensued, she recognised the displeasure of her Lord, and was\n wretched. She applied to confessors\u2014they were miserable comforters,\n all of them. They praised her while she herself was filled with\n self-loathing. She estimated the magnitude of her sins by the\n greatness of the favour which had been shown her. The bland\n worldliness of her religious advisers could not blind so true a\n heart, or pacify so wakeful a conscience. She found relief only in a\n repentant renewal of her self-dedication to the Saviour, in\n renouncing for ever the last remnant of confidence in any strength\n of her own.\n\n It was about this period that she had a remarkable conversation with\n a beggar, whom she found upon a bridge, as, followed by her footman,\n she was walking one day to church. This singular mendicant refused\n her offered alms\u2014spoke to her of God and divine things\u2014and then of\n her own state, her devotion, her trials, and her faults. He declared\n that God required of her not merely to labour as others did to\n secure their salvation, that they might escape the pains of hell,\n but to aim at such perfection and purity in this life, as to escape\n those of purgatory. She asked him who he was. He replied, that he\n had formerly been a beggar, but now was such no more;\u2014mingled with\n the stream of people, and she never saw him afterwards.[325]\n\n The beauty of Madame Guyon had cost her tender conscience many a\n pang. She had wept and prayed over that secret love of display which\n had repeatedly induced her to mingle with the thoughtless amusements\n of the world. At four-and-twenty the virulence of the small-pox\n released her from that snare. M. Guyon was laid up with the gout.\n She was left, when the disorder seized her, to the tender mercies of\n her mother-in-law. That inhuman woman refused to allow any but her\n own physician to attend her, yet for him she would not send. The\n disease, unchecked, had reached its height, when a medical man,\n passing that way, happened to call at the house. Shocked at the\n spectacle Madame Guyon presented, he was proceeding at once to bleed\n her, expressing, in no measured terms, his indignation at the\n barbarity of such neglect. The mother-in-law would not hear of such\n a thing. He performed the operation in spite of her threats and\n invectives, leaving her almost beside herself with rage. That lancet\n saved the life of Madame Guyon, and disappointed the relative who\n had hoped to see her die. When at length she recovered, she refused\n to avail herself of the cosmetics generally used to conceal the\n ravages of the disorder. Throughout her suffering she had never\n uttered a murmur, or felt a fear. She had even concealed the cruelty\n of her mother-in-law. She said, that if God had designed her to\n retain her beauty, He would not have sent the scourge to remove it.\n Her friends expected to find her inconsolable\u2014they heard her speak\n only of thankfulness and joy. Her confessor reproached her with\n spiritual pride. The affection of her husband was visibly\n diminished; yet the heart of Madame Guyon overflowed with joy. It\n appeared to her, that the God to whom she longed to be wholly given\n up had accepted her surrender, and was removing everything that\n might interpose between Himself and her.[326]\n\n\n VII.\n\n\n The experience of Madame Guyon, hitherto, had been such as to teach\n her the surrender of every earthly source of gratification or ground\n of confidence. Yet one more painful stage on the road to\n self-annihilation remained to be traversed. She must learn to give\n up cheerfully even spiritual pleasures. In the year 1674, according\n to the probable calculation of Mr. Upham, she was made to enter what\n she terms a state of desolation, which lasted, with little\n intermission, for nearly seven years.[327] All was emptiness,\n darkness, sorrow. She describes herself as cast down, like\n Nebuchadnezzar, from a throne of enjoyment, to live among the\n beasts. \u2018Alas!\u2019 she exclaimed, \u2018is it possible that this heart,\n formerly all on fire, should now become like ice?\u2019 The heavens were\n as brass, and shut out her prayers; horror and trembling took the\n place of tranquillity; hopelessly oppressed with guilt, she saw\n herself a victim destined for hell. In vain for her did the church\n doors open, the holy bells ring, the deep-voiced intonations of the\n priest arise and fall, the chanted psalm ascend through clouds of\n azure wandering incense. The power and the charm of the service had\n departed. Of what avail was music to a burning wilderness athirst\n for rain? Gladly would she have had recourse to the vow, to the\n pilgrimage, to the penance, to any extremity of self-torture. She\n felt the impotence of such remedies for such anguish. She had no ear\n for comfort, no eye for hope, not even a voice for complaint.\n\n During this period the emotional element of religion in her mind\n appears to have suffered an almost entire suspension. Regarding the\n loss of certain feelings of delight as the loss of the divine\n favour, she naturally sank deeper and deeper in despondency. A\n condition by no means uncommon in ordinary Christian experience\n assumed, in her case, a morbid character. Our emotions may be\n chilled, or kindled, in ever-varying degrees, from innumerable\n causes. We must accustom ourselves to the habitual performance of\n duty, whether attended or not with feelings of a pleasurable nature.\n It is generally found that those powerful emotions of joy which\n attend, at first, the new and exalting consciousness of peace with\n God, subside after awhile. As we grow in religious strength and\n knowledge, a steady principle supplies their place. We are\n refreshed, from time to time, by seasons of heightened joy and\n confidence, but we cease to be dependent upon feeling. At the same\n time, there is nothing in Scripture to check our desire for\n retaining as constantly as possible a sober gladness, for finding\n duty delightful, and the \u2018joy of the Lord\u2019 our strength. These are\n the truths which the one-sided and unqualified expressions of Madame\n Guyon at once exaggerate and obscure.\n\n During this dark interval M. Guyon died. His widow undertook the\n formidable task of settling his disordered affairs. Her brother gave\n her no assistance; her mother-in-law harassed and hindered to her\n utmost; yet Madame Guyon succeeded in arranging a chaos of papers,\n and bringing a hopeless imbroglio of business matters into order,\n with an integrity and a skill which excited universal admiration.\n She felt it was her duty; she believed that Divine assistance was\n vouchsafed for its discharge. Of business, she says, she knew as\n little as of Arabic; but she knew not what she could accomplish till\n she tried. Minds far more visionary than hers have evinced a still\n greater aptitude for practical affairs.\n\n The 22nd of July, 1680, is celebrated by Madame Guyon as the happy\n era of her deliverance. A letter from La Combe was the instrument of\n a restoration as wonderful, in her eyes, as the bondage. This\n ecclesiastic had been first introduced by Madame Guyon into the path\n of mystical perfection. His name is associated with her own in the\n early history of the Quietist movement. He subsequently became her\n Director, but was always more her disciple than her guide. His\n admiration for her amounted to a passion. Incessant persecution and\n long solitary imprisonment combined, with devotional extravagance,\n to cloud with insanity at last an intellect never powerful. This\n feeble and affectionate soul perished, the victim of Quietism, and\n perhaps of love. It should not be forgotten, that before the inward\n condition of Madame Guyon changed thus remarkably for the better,\n her outward circumstances had undergone a similar improvement. She\n lived now in her own house, with her children about her. That\n Sycorax, her mother-in-law, dropped gall no longer into her daily\n cup of life. Domestic tormentors, worse than the goblins which\n buffeted St. Antony, assailed her peace no more. An outer sky grown\n thus serene, an air thus purified, may well have contributed to\n chase away the night of the soul, and to give to a few words of\n kindly counsel from La Combe the brightness of the day-star. Our\n simple-hearted enthusiast was not so absolutely indifferent as she\n thought herself to the changes of this transitory world.\n\n\n VIII.\n\n\n Madame Guyon had now triumphantly sustained the last of those\n trials, which, like the probation of the ancient mysteries, made the\n porch of mystical initiation a passage terrible with pain and peril.\n Henceforward, she is the finished Quietist: henceforward, when she\n relates her own experience, she describes Quietism. At times, when\n the children did not require her care, she would walk out into a\n neighbouring wood, and there, under the shade of the trees, amidst\n the singing of the birds, she now passed as many happy hours as she\n had known months of sorrow. Her own language will best indicate the\n thoughts which occupied this peaceful retirement, and exhibit the\n principle there deepened and matured. She says here in her\n Autobiography\u2014\n\n \u2018When I had lost all created supports, and even divine ones, I then\n found myself happily necessitated to fall into the pure divine, and\n to fall into it through all which seemed to remove me farther from\n it. In losing all the gifts, with all their supports, I found the\n Giver. Oh, poor creatures, who pass along all your time in feeding\n on the gifts of God, and think therein to be most favoured and\n happy, how I pity you if ye stop here, short of the true rest, and\n cease to go forward to God, through resignation of the same gifts!\n How many pass all their lives this way, and think highly of\n themselves therein! There are others who, being designed of God to\n die to themselves, yet pass all their time in a dying life, and in\n inward agonies, without ever entering into God through death and\n total loss, because they are always willing to retain something\n under plausible pretexts, and so never lose _self_ to the whole\n extent of the designs of God. Wherefore, they never enjoy God in his\n fulness,\u2014a loss that will not perfectly be known until another\n life.\u2019[328]\n\n She describes herself as having ceased from all self-originated\n action and choice. To her amazement and unspeakable happiness, it\n appeared as though all such natural movement existed no longer,\u2014a\n higher power had displaced and occupied its room. \u2018I even perceived\n no more (she continues) the soul which He had formerly conducted by\n His rod and His staff, because now He alone appeared to me, my soul\n having given up its place to Him. It seemed to me as if it was\n wholly and altogether passed into its God, to make but one and the\n same thing with Him; even as a little drop of water cast into the\n sea receives the qualities of the sea.\u2019 She speaks of herself as now\n practising the virtues no longer _as virtues_\u2014that is, not by\n separate and constrained efforts. It would have required effort\n _not_ to practise them.[329]\n\n Somewhat later she expresses herself as follows:\u2014\n\n \u2018The soul passing out of itself by dying to itself necessarily\n passes into its divine object. This is the law of its transition.\n When it passes out of self, which is limited, and therefore is not\n God, and consequently is _evil_, it necessarily passes into the\n unlimited and universal, which is God, and therefore is the true\n good. My own experience seemed to me to be a verification of this.\n My spirit, disenthralled from selfishness, became united with and\n lost in God, its Sovereign, who attracted it more and more to\n Himself. And this was so much the case, that I could seem to see and\n know God only, and not myself.... It was thus that my soul was lost\n in God, who communicated to it His qualities, having drawn it out of\n all that it had of its own.... O happy poverty, happy loss, happy\n nothing, which gives no less than God Himself in his own\n immensity,\u2014no more circumscribed to the limited manner of the\n creation, but always drawing it out of that to plunge it wholly into\n His divine Essence. Then the soul knows that all the states of\n self-pleasing visions, of intellectual illuminations, of ecstasies\n and raptures, of whatever value they might once have been, are now\n rather obstacles than advancements; and that they are not of service\n in the state of experience which is far above them; because the\n state which has props or supports, which is the case with the merely\n illuminated and ecstatic state, rests in them in some degree, and\n has pain to lose them. But the soul cannot arrive at the state of\n which I am now speaking, without the loss of all such supports and\n helps.... The soul is then so submissive, and perhaps we may say so\n passive,\u2014that is to say, is so disposed equally to receive from the\n hand of God either good or evil,\u2014as is truly astonishing. It\n receives both the one and the other without any selfish emotions,\n letting them flow and be lost as they came.\u2019[330]\n\n These passages convey the substance of the doctrine which,\n illustrated and expressed in various ways, pervades all the writings\n of Madame Guyon. This is the principle adorned by the fancy of her\n _Torrents_ and inculcated in the practical directions of her _Short\n Method of Prayer_. Such is the state to which Quietism proposes to\n conduct its votaries. In some places, she qualifies the strength of\n her expressions,\u2014she admits that we are not at all times equally\n conscious of this absolute union of the soul with its centre,\u2014the\n lower nature may not be always insensible to distress. But the\n higher, the inmost element of the soul is all the while profoundly\n calm, and recollection presently imparts a similar repose to the\n inferior nature. When the soul has thus passed, as she phrases it,\n out of the Nothing into the All, when its feet are set in \u2018a large\n room\u2019 (nothing less, according to her interpretation, than the\n compass of Infinity), \u2018a substantial or essential word\u2019 is spoken\n there. It is a continuous word\u2014potent, ineffable, ever uttered\n without language. It is the immediate unchecked operation of\n resident Deity. What it speaks, it effects. It is blissful and\n mysterious as the language of heaven. With Madame Guyon, the events\n of Providence are God, and the decisions of the sanctified judgment\n respecting them are nothing less than the immediate voice of God in\n the soul. She compares the nature thus at rest in God to a tablet on\n which the divine hand writes,\u2014it must be held perfectly still, else\n the characters traced there will be distorted or incomplete. In her\n very humility she verges on the audacity which arrogates\n inspiration. If she, passive and helpless, really acts no more, the\n impulses she feels, her words, her actions, must all bear the\n impress of an infallible divine sanction. It is easy to see that her\n speech and action\u2014always well-meant, but frequently ill-judged,\u2014were\n her own after all, though nothing of her own seemed left. She\n acknowledges that she was sometimes at a loss as to the course of\n duty. She was guided more than once by random passages of the Bible,\n and the casual expressions of others, somewhat after the fashion of\n the _Sortes Virgilian\u00e6_ and the omens of ancient Rome. Her knowledge\n of Scripture, the native power of her intellect, and the tenderness\n of her conscience, preserved her from pushing such a view of the\n inward light to its worst extreme.\n\n\n IX.\n\n\n The admixture of error in the doctrine which Madame Guyon was\n henceforward to preach with so much self-denying love, so much\n intrepid constancy, appears to us to lie upon the surface. The\n passages we have given convey, unquestionably, the idea of a\n practical substitution of God for the soul in the case of the\n perfectly sanctified. The soul within the soul is Deity. When all is\n desolate, silent, the divine Majesty arises, thinks, feels, and\n acts, within the transformed humanity. It is quite true that, as\n sanctification progresses, Christian virtue becomes more easy as the\n new habit gains strength. In many respects it is true, as Madame\n Guyon says, that effort would be requisite to neglect or violate\n certain duties or commands rather than to perform them. But this\n facility results from the constitution of our nature. We carry on\n the new economy within with less outcry, less labour, less confusion\n and resistance than we did when the revolution was recent, but we\n carry it on still\u2014working with divine assistance. God works _in_\n man, but not _instead_ of man. It is one thing to harmonize, in some\n measure, the human will with the divine, another to substitute\n divine volitions for the human. Every man has within him\n Conscience\u2014the judge often bribed or clamoured down; Will\u2014the\n marshal; Imagination\u2014the poet; Understanding\u2014the student; Desire\u2014the\n merchant, venturing its store of affection, and gazing out on the\n future in search of some home-bound argosy of happiness. But all\n these powers are found untrue to their allegiance. The ermine\u2014the\n baton\u2014the song\u2014the books\u2014the merchandize, are at the service of a\n usurper\u2014Sin. When the Spirit renews the mind, there is no\n massacre\u2014no slaughterous sword filling with death the streets of the\n soul\u2019s city, and making man the ruin of his former self. These\n faculties are restored to loyalty, and reinstated under God. Then\n Conscience gives verdict, for the most part, according to the divine\n statute-book, and is habitually obeyed. Then the lordly Will assumes\n again a lowly yet noble vassalage. Then the dream of Imagination is\n a dream no longer, for the reality of heaven transcends it. Then the\n Understanding burns the magic books in the market-place, and breaks\n the wand of its curious arts\u2014but studies still, for eternity as well\n as time. The activity of Desire amasses still, according to its\n nature,\u2014for _some_ treasure man must have. But the treasure is on\n earth no longer. It is the advantage of such a religion that the\n very same laws of our being guide our spiritual and our natural\n life. The same self-controul and watchful diligence which built up\n the worldly habits towards the summits of success, may be applied at\n once to those habits which ripen us for heaven. The old experience\n will serve. But the mystic can find no common point between himself\n and other men. He is cut off from them, for he believes he has\n another constitution of being, inconceivable by them\u2014not merely\n other tastes and a higher aim. The _object_ of Christian love may be\n incomprehensible, but the affection itself is not so. It is\n dangerous to represent it as a mysterious and almost unaccountable\n sentiment, which finds no parallel in our experience elsewhere. Our\n faith in Christ, as well as our love to Christ, are similar to our\n faith and love as exercised towards our fellow-creatures.\n Regeneration imparts no new faculty, it gives only a new direction\n to the old.\n\n\n X.\n\n\n Quietism opposed to the mercenary religion of the common and\n consistent Romanism around it, the doctrine of disinterested love.\n Revolting from the coarse machinery of a corrupt system, it took\n refuge in an unnatural refinement. The love inculcated in Scripture\n is equally remote from the impracticable indifference of Quietism\n and the commercial principle of Superstition. Long ago, at\n Alexandria, Philo endeavoured to escape from an effete and carnal\n Judaism to a similar elevation. The Persian Sufis were animated with\n the same ambition in reaction against the frigid legalism of the\n creed of Islam. Extreme was opposed to extreme, in like manner, when\n Quietism, disgusted with the unblushing inconsistencies of nominal\n Christianity, proclaimed its doctrine of _perfection_\u2014of complete\n sanctification by faith. This is not a principle peculiar to\n mysticism. It is of little practical importance. It is difficult to\n see how it can be applied to individual experience. The man who has\n reached such a state of purity must be the last to know it. If we do\n not, by some strange confusion of thought, identify ourselves with\n God, the nearer we approach Him the more profoundly must we be\n conscious of our distance. As, in a still water, we may see\n reflected the bird that sings in an overhanging tree, and the bird\n that soars towards the zenith\u2014the image deepest as the ascent is\n highest\u2014so it is with our approximation to the Infinite Holiness.\n Madame Guyon admits that she found it necessary jealously to guard\n humility, to watch and pray\u2014that her state was only of\n \u2018_comparative_ immutability.\u2019 It appears to us that perfection is\n prescribed as a goal ever to be approached, but ever practically\n inaccessible. Whatever degree of sanctification any one may have\n attained, it must always be possible to conceive of a state yet more\n advanced,\u2014it must always be a duty diligently to labour towards it.\n\n Quietist as she was, few lives have been more busy than that of\n Madame Guyon with the activities of an indefatigable benevolence. It\n was only self-originated action which she strove to annihilate. In\n her case, especially, Quietism contained a reformatory principle.\n Genuflexions and crossings were of little value in comparison with\n inward abasement and crucifixion. The prayers repeated by rote in\n the oratory, were immeasurably inferior to that Prayer of Silence\n she so strongly commends\u2014that prayer which, unlimited to times and\n seasons, unhindered by words, is a state rather than an act, a\n sentiment rather than a request,\u2014a continuous sense of submission,\n which breathes, moment by moment, from the serene depth of the soul,\n \u2018Thy will be done.\u2019[331]\n\n As contrasted with the mysticism of St. Theresa, that of Madame\n Guyon appears to great advantage. She guards her readers against\n attempting to form any image of God. She aspires to an intellectual\n elevation\u2014a spiritual intuition, above the sensuous region of\n theurgy, of visions, and of dreams. She saw no Jesuits in heaven\n bearing white banners among the heavenly throng of the redeemed. She\n beheld no Devil, \u2018like a little negro,\u2019 sitting on her breviary. She\n did not see the Saviour in an ecstasy, drawing the nail out of His\n hand. She felt no large white dove fluttering above her head. But\n she did not spend her days in founding convents\u2014a slave to the\n interests of the clergy. So they made a saint of Theresa, and a\n confessor of Madame Guyon.\n\n\n XI.\n\n\n In the summer of 1681, Madame Guyon, now thirty-four years of age,\n quitted Paris for Gex, a town lying at the foot of the Jura, about\n twelve miles from Geneva. It was arranged that she should take some\n part in the foundation and management of a new religious and\n charitable institution there. A period of five years was destined to\n elapse before her return to the capital. During this interval, she\n resided successively at Gex, Thonon, Turin, and Grenoble. Wherever\n she went, she was indefatigable in works of charity, and also in the\n diffusion of her peculiar doctrines concerning self-abandonment and\n disinterested love. Strong in the persuasion of her mission, she\n could not rest without endeavouring to influence the minds around\n her. The singular charm of her conversation won a speedy ascendency\n over nearly all with whom she came in contact. It is easy to see how\n a remarkable natural gift in this direction contributed both to the\n attempt and the success. But the Quietest had buried nature, and to\n nature she would owe nothing,\u2014these conversational powers could be,\n in her eyes, only a special gift of utterance from above. This\n mistake reminds us of the story of certain monks upon whose cloister\n garden the snow never lay, though all the country round was buried\n in the rigour of a northern winter. The marvellous exemption, long\n attributed by superstition to miracle, was discovered to arise\n simply from certain thermal springs which had their source within\n the sacred inclosure. It is thus that the warmth and vivacity of\n natural temperament has been commonly regarded by the mystic, as\n nothing less than a fiery impartation from the altar of the\n celestial temple.\n\n At Thonon her apartment was visited by a succession of applicants\n from every class, who laid bare their hearts before her, and sought\n from her lips spiritual guidance or consolation. She met them\n separately and in groups, for conference and for prayer. At\n Grenoble, she says she was for some time engaged from six o\u2019clock in\n the morning till eight at evening in speaking of God to all sorts of\n persons,\u2014\u2018friars, priests, men of the world, maids, wives, widows,\n all came, one after another, to hear what I had to say.\u2019[332] Her\n efforts among the members of the House of the Novitiates in that\n city, were eminently successful, and she appears to have been of\n real service to many who had sought peace in vain, by the\n austerities and the routine of monastic seclusion. Meanwhile, she\n was active, both at Thonon and Grenoble, in the establishment of\n hospitals. She carried on a large and continually increasing\n correspondence. In the former place she wrote her _Torrents_, in the\n latter, she published her _Short Method of Prayer_, and commenced\n her _Commentaries on the Bible_.[333]\n\n But alas! all this earnest, tireless toil is unauthorized. Bigotry\n takes the alarm, and cries the Church is in danger. Priests who were\n asleep\u2014priests who were place-hunting\u2014priests who were\n pleasure-hunting, awoke from their doze, or drew breath in their\n chase, to observe this woman whose life rebuked them\u2014to observe and\n to assail her; for rebuke, in their terminology, was scandal.\n Persecution hemmed her in on every side; no annoyance was too petty,\n no calumny too gross, for priestly jealousy. The inmates of the\n religious community she had enriched were taught to insult\n her\u2014tricks were devised to frighten her by horrible appearances and\n unearthly noises\u2014her windows were broken\u2014her letters were\n intercepted. Thus, before a year had elapsed, she was driven from\n Gex. Some called her a sorceress; others, more malignant yet,\n stigmatized her as half a Protestant. She had indeed recommended the\n reading of the Scriptures to all, and spoken slightingly of mere\n bowing and bead-counting. Monstrous contumacy\u2014said, with one voice,\n spiritual slaves and spiritual slave-owners\u2014that a woman desired by\n her bishop to do one thing, should discover an inward call to do\n another. At Thonon the priests burnt in the public square all the\n books they could find treating of the inner life, and went home\n elated with their performance. One thought may have embittered their\n triumph\u2014had it only been living flesh instead of mere paper! She\n inhabited a poor cottage that stood by itself in the fields, at some\n distance from Thonon. Attached to it was a little garden, in the\n management of which she took pleasure. One night a rabble from the\n town were incited to terrify her with their drunken riot,\u2014they\n trampled down and laid waste the garden, hurled stones in at the\n windows, and shouted their threats, insults, and curses, round the\n house the whole night. Then came an episcopal order to quit the\n diocese. When compelled subsequently, by the opposition she\n encountered, to withdraw secretly from Grenoble, she was advised to\n take refuge at Marseilles. She arrived in that city at ten o\u2019clock\n in the morning, but that very afternoon all was in uproar against\n her, so vigilant and implacable were her enemies.\n\n\n Note to page 214.\n\n\n_Autobiography_, chapp. viii. and x. In describing her state of mind at\nthis time, she says,\u2014\u2018This immersion in God immerged all things. I could\nno more see the saints, nor even the blessed Virgin, out of God; but I\nbeheld them all in Him. And though I tenderly loved certain saints, as\nSt. Peter, St. Paul, St. Mary Magdalen, St. Theresa, with all those who\nwere spiritual, yet I could not form to myself images of them, nor\ninvoke any of them out of God.\u2019 Here a genuine religious fervour,\ndescribed in the language of mystical theology, has overcome\nsuperstition, and placed her, unconsciously, in a position similar to\nthat of Molinos with regard to these professedly subordinate objects of\nRomanist worship. It may be observed, in passing, that while Rome\npretends to subordinate saint-worship, she denounces those of her\nchildren who really do so, as heretical, _i.e._, reformatory, in their\ntendency.\n\nMadame Guyon was enabled at this period to enjoy a habitual inward\nprayer,\u2014\u2018a prayer of rejoicing and possession, wherein the taste of God\nwas so great, so pure, unblended, and uninterrupted, that it drew and\nabsorbed the powers of the soul into a profound recollection, without\nact or discourse. For I had now no sight but of Jesus Christ alone. All\nelse was excluded, in order to love with the greater extent, without any\nselfish motives or reasons for loving.\u2019 With much good sense, she\ndeclares this continual and immediate sense of the Divine presence far\nsafer and higher than the sensible relish of ecstasies and\nravishments,\u2014than distinct interior words or revelations of things to\ncome,\u2014so often imaginary, so apt to divert our desires from the Giver to\nthe gifts;\u2014this is the revelation of Jesus Christ, which makes us new\ncreatures, the manifestation of the Word within us, who cannot\ndeceive,\u2014the life of true and naked faith, which darkens all\nself-pleasing lights, and reveals the minutest faults, that pure love\nmay reign in the centre of the soul. Thus, while inheriting the\nphraseology of the mystics (and we discern in these accounts of her\nearly experience the influence of her later readings in mystical\ntheology), she is less sensuous than Theresa, less artificial than John.\nLike the latter, she assigns to love the office of annihilating the\nwill, to faith that of absorbing the understanding, \u2018so as to make it\ndecline all reasonings, all particular brightnesses and illustrations.\u2019\nThe Annihilation of the Will, or the Union in the Will of God, consists,\nwith her, simply in a state of complete docility, the soul yielding\nitself up to be emptied of all which is its own, till it finds itself by\nlittle and little detached from every self-originated motion, and placed\n\u2018in a holy indifference for willing;\u2014wishing nothing but what God does\nand wills.\u2019\u2014P. 70.\n\n\n Note to page 218.\n\n\nShe describes herself, when at Thonon, as causing sundry devils to\nwithdraw with a word. But the said devils, like some other sights\nand sounds which terrified her there, were probably the contrivance\nof the monks who persecuted her, with whom expertness in such tricks\nwas doubtless reckoned among the accomplishments of sanctity. When\nat the same place (she was then a little past thirty), Madame Guyon\nbelieved that a certain virtue was vouchsafed her\u2014a gift of\nspiritual and sometimes of bodily healing, dependent, however, for\nits successful operation, on the degree of susceptibility in the\nrecipients.\u2014_Autobiography_, part II. c. xii.\n\nThere also she underwent some of her most painful and mysterious\nexperiences with regard to Father La Combe. She says,\u2014\u2018Our Lord gave me,\nwith the weaknesses of a child, such a power over souls, that with a\nword I put them in pain or in peace, as was necessary for their good. I\nsaw that God made Himself to be obeyed, in and through me, like an\nabsolute Sovereign. I neither resisted Him nor took part in anything....\nOur Lord had given us both (herself and La Combe) to understand that He\nwould unite us by faith and by the cross. Ours, then, has been a union\nof the cross in every respect, as well as by what I have made him\nsuffer, as by what I have suffered for him.... The sufferings which I\nhave had on his account were such as to reduce me sometimes to\nextremity, which continued for several years. For though I have been\nmuch more of my time far from him than near him, that did not relieve my\nsuffering, which continued till he was perfectly emptied of himself, and\nto the very point of submission which God required of him.... He hath\noccasioned me cruel pains when I was near a hundred leagues from him. I\nfelt his disposition. If he was faithful in letting SELF be destroyed, I\nwas in a state of peace and enlargement. If he was unfaithful in\nreflection or hesitation, I suffered till that was passed over. He had\nno need to write me an account of his condition, for I knew it; but when\nhe did write, it proved to be such as I had felt it.\u2019\u2014_Ibid._ p. 51.\n\nShe says that frequently, when Father La Combe came to confess her, she\ncould not speak a word to him; she felt take place within her the same\nsilence toward him, which she had experienced in regard to God. I\nunderstood, she adds, that God wished to teach me that the language of\nangels might be learnt by men on earth,\u2014that is, converse without words.\nShe was gradually reduced to this wordless communication alone, in her\ninterviews with La Combe; and they imagined that they understood each\nother, \u2018in a manner ineffable and divine.\u2019 She regarded the use of\nspeech, or of the pen, as a kind of accommodation on her part to the\nweakness of souls not sufficiently advanced for these internal\ncommunications.\n\nHere Madame Guyon anticipates the Quakers. Compare Barclay\u2019s _Apology_,\nProp. xi. \u00a7\u00a7 6, 7.\n\nShortly after her arrival in Paris, she describes herself as favoured,\nfrom the plenitude which filled her soul, with \u2018a discharge on her\nbest-disposed children to their mutual joy and comfort, and not only\nwhen present, but sometimes when absent.\u2019 \u2018I even felt it,\u2019 she adds,\n\u2018to flow from me into their souls. When they wrote to me, they informed\nme that at such times they had received abundant infusions of divine\ngrace.\u2019\u2014_Ibid._ part III. c. i.\n\n\n Note to page 223.\n\n\n_Autobiography_, part I. c. xiii. Here Madame Guyon has found confessors\nblind guides, and confessions profitless; and furthermore, she is\nencouraged and instructed in the inward life by a despised layman. There\nis every reason to believe that the experience of Madame Guyon, and the\ndoctrines of the beggar, were shared to some extent by many more. Madame\nGuyon speaks as Theresa does of the internal pains of the soul as\nequivalent to those of purgatory. (c. xi.) The teaching of the quondam\nmendicant concerning an internal and present instead of a future\npurgatory, was not in itself contrary to the declarations of orthodox\nmysticism. But many were beginning to seek in this perfectionist\ndoctrine a refuge from the exactions of the priesthood. With creatures\nof the clergy like Theresa, or with monks like John of the Cross, such a\ntenet would be retained within the limits required by the ecclesiastical\ninterest. It might stimulate religious zeal\u2014it would never intercept\nreligious obedience. But it was not always so among the people\u2014it was\nnot so with many of the followers of Molinos. The jealous vigilance of\npriestcraft saw that it had everything to fear from a current belief\namong the laity, that a state of spiritual perfection, rendering\npurgatory needless, was of possible attainment\u2014might be reached by\nsecret self-sacrifice, in the use of very simple means. If such a notion\nprevailed, the lucrative traffic of indulgences might totter on the\nverge of bankruptcy. No devotee would impoverish himself to buy\nexemption hereafter from a purifying process which he believed himself\nnow experiencing, in the hourly sorrows he patiently endured. It was at\nleast possible\u2014it had been known to happen, that the soul which\nstruggled to escape itself\u2014to rise beyond the gifts of God, to God\u2014to\nascend, beyond words and means, to repose in Him,\u2014which desired only the\nDivine will, feared only the Divine displeasure,\u2014which sought to ignore\nso utterly its own capacity and power, might come to attach paramount\nimportance no longer to the powers of the priesthood and the ritual of\nthe Church. Those aspirations which had been the boast of Rome in the\nfew, became her terror in the many. The Quietest might believe himself\nsincere in orthodoxy, might choose him a director, and might reverence\nthe sacraments. But such abasement and such ambition\u2014distress so deep,\nand aims so lofty\u2014would often prove alike beyond the reach of the\nordinary confessional. The oily syllables of absolution would drop in\nvain upon the troubled waves of a nature thus stirred to its inmost\ndepths. And if it could receive peace only from the very hand of God,\npriestly mediation must begin with shame to take a lower place. The\nvalue of relics and of masses, of penances and paternosters, would\neverywhere fall. An absolute indifference to self-interest would induce\nindifference also to those priestly baits by which that self-interest\nwas allured. Such were the presentiments which urged the Jesuits of Rome\nto hunt down Molinos, with all the implacability of fear. The craft was\nin danger. _Hinc ill\u00e6 lachrym\u00e6._\n\n\n Note to page 224.\n\n\nSee the _Life and Religious Opinions and Experience of Madame de la\nMothe Guyon_, &c., by Thomas C. Upham (New York, 1851); vol. i. p. 153.\nMr. Upham, in this and in some other parts of his excellent biography,\nappears to me to have fallen into the same error with Madame Guyon. He\nperceives her mistake in regarding the absence of joy as evidence of the\nabsence of the divine favour. But he contrasts the state in which we are\nconscious of alacrity and joy in religion\u2014as one in which we still live\ncomparatively by _sight_, with that condition of privation in which all\nsuch enjoyment is withdrawn\u2014a state wherein we are called to live, not\nby sight, but by pure and naked _faith_. Now, faith and sight are not\nthus opposed in Scripture. In the New Testament, faith is always\npractical belief in what God has revealed; and sight, as the opposite\ncourse of life, always so much unbelief\u2014undue dependence on things seen\nand temporal. It is quite true that too much stress should not be laid\nby us on the intensity or the displays of mere emotion,\u2014since religion\nis a principle rather than a sentiment. But not a few have been nursed\nin dangerous delusion by supposing that when they feel within them\nscarce a trace of any of those desires or dispositions proper to every\nChristian heart\u2014when they have no glimpse of what they incorrectly term\n\u2018sight\u2019\u2014then is the time to exercise what they suppose to be faith,\u2014that\nis, to work themselves up to the obstinate persuasion that they\npersonally are still the children of God.\n\nIt may well be questioned, moreover, whether we have any scriptural\nground for believing that it is usual with the Almighty, for the growth\nof our sanctification, to withdraw Himself,\u2014the only source of it. To\nthese supposed hidings of His face Madame Guyon, and every Quietist,\nwould patiently submit, as to the sovereign and inscrutable caprice of\nthe divine Bridegroom of the soul. Rather should we regard such\nobscurations as originating with ourselves and not with Him, and at once\nmake the lost sense of His gracious nearness the object of humble and\nearnest search. \u2018Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation!\u2019\n\nMadame Guyon describes her \u2018state of total privation\u2019 in the\ntwenty-first chapter of the _Autobiography_, part I.\n\nFootnote 315:\n\n See the first six chapters of her _Autobiography_. This life was\n published posthumously at Cologne, in 1720. I have used an anonymous\n English translation, published at Bristol, in 1772.\n\nFootnote 316:\n\n See Note on p. 238.\n\nFootnote 317:\n\n _Autobiography_, chap. x.\n\nFootnote 318:\n\n _Autobiography_, chap. xii. p. 87.\n\nFootnote 319:\n\n See second Note on p. 238.\n\nFootnote 320:\n\n G\u00f6rres, _Die Christliche Mystik_, b. IV. c. i.\n\nFootnote 321:\n\n G\u00f6rres, _Die Christliche Mystik_, pp. 70-73.\n\nFootnote 322:\n\n Specimens of the language may be seen in G\u00f6rres, p. 152.\n\nFootnote 323:\n\n G\u00f6rres, _Die Christliche Mystik_, pp. 465, &c.\n\nFootnote 324:\n\n _Ibid._ pp. 532, &c.\n\nFootnote 325:\n\n See Note on p. 239.\n\nFootnote 326:\n\n _Autobiography_, part I. c. xv.\n\nFootnote 327:\n\n See Note on p. 240.\n\nFootnote 328:\n\n _Autobiography_, part I. c. xxviii. p. 163.\n\nFootnote 329:\n\n This spontaneity she likens to a fountain, as compared with a pump;\n love in the heart prompts every issue of life: outward occasions and\n stimulants are no longer awaited; and a glad inward readiness gives\n facility in every duty, patience under every trial. Such also is the\n teaching of F\u00e9n\u00e9lon here\u2014the genuine doctrine of spiritual life. But\n the enemies of Quietism were not slow to represent this \u2018practising\n the virtues no longer as virtues,\u2019 as a dangerous pretence for evading\n the obligations of virtue altogether.\n\nFootnote 330:\n\n Upham, vol. I. pp. 262, 263.\n\nFootnote 331:\n\n This Prayer of Silence became hers at an early period in her religious\n career, not as the result of direct effort in pursuance of a theory,\n but simply as the consequence of overpowering emotion. She says, \u2018I\n had a secret desire given me from that time to be wholly devoted to\n the disposal of my God, let it be what it would. I said, \u2018What couldst\n Thou demand of me, that I would not willingly sacrifice or offer Thee?\n Oh, spare me not.\u2019 I could scarce hear speak of God, or our Lord Jesus\n Christ, without being almost ravished out of myself. What surprised me\n the most, was the great difficulty I had to say the vocal prayers I\n had been used to say. As soon as I opened my lips to pronounce them,\n the love of God seized me so strongly that I was swallowed up in a\n profound silence, and a peace not to be expressed. I made fresh\n essays, but still in vain. I began, but could not go on. And as I had\n never before heard of such a state, I knew not what to do. My\n inability therein still increased, because my love to God was still\n growing more strong, more violent, and more overpowering. There was\n made in me, without the sound of words, a continual prayer, which\n seemed to me to be the prayer of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself; a\n prayer of the Word, which is made by the Spirit, which, according to\n St. Paul, \u2018asketh for us that which is good, perfect, and conformable\n to the will of God.\u2019\u2014_Autobiography_, part I. c. xiii.\n\n Here we find genuine devout fervour, emancipating itself, very\n naturally in private, from allotted forms of prayer; but no mysticism,\n till we come to the last sentence\u2014even that, admitting a favourable\n explanation.\n\nFootnote 332:\n\n _Autobiography_, part II. c. xvii. \u2018God supplied me,\u2019 she adds, \u2018with\n what was pertinent and satisfactory to them all, after a wonderful\n manner, without any share of my study or meditation therein. Nothing\n was hid from me of their interior state, and of what passed within\n them. Here, O my God! thou madest an infinite number of conquests,\n known to Thyself only. They were instantly furnished with a wonderful\n facility of prayer. God conferred on them His grace plentifully, and\n wrought marvellous changes in them. The most advanced of these souls\n found, when with me, in silence, a grace communicated to them, which\n they could neither comprehend nor cease to admire. The others found an\n unction in my words, and that they operated in them what I said to\n them. They said they had never experienced anything like it. Friars of\n different orders, and priests of merit, came to see me, to whom our\n Lord granted very great favours, as indeed he did to all without\n exception, who came in sincerity. One thing was surprising, and that\n was, that I had not a word to say to such as came only to watch my\n words and to criticise them. Even when I thought to try to speak to\n them, I felt that I could not, and that God would not have me do\n it.... I felt that what I spoke flowed from the fountain, and that I\n was only the instrument of Him who made me speak.\u2019\u2014P. 86.\n\nFootnote 333:\n\n The little book to which she gave the name of _The Torrents_, was\n written, she tells us, at the suggestion of La Combe. When she took up\n her pen she knew not what she was to say, but soon came thoughts and\n words abundantly\u2014as, indeed, they were sure to do. She compares the\n different kinds of spiritual progress to the mountain streams she had\n seen hurrying down the sides of the Alps. She describes the varieties\n in the gravitation of devout souls toward God\u2014the ocean which they\n seek. Some proceed slowly, by means of meditations, austerities, and\n works of charity,\u2014dependent mostly on outward appliances,\u2014deficient in\n spontaneity and ardour,\u2014little exercised by inward experience. Another\n class flow in a fuller stream,\u2014grow into laden rivers\u2014haste with more\n strength and speed; but these are apt to dwell, with too much\n complacence, on those rich gifts for which they are conspicuous. A\n third order (and to these she herself belonged) dash out from the\n poverty of the rocks, impetuous, leaping over every obstacle,\n unburdened by wealthy freightage, inglorious in the eyes of men, but\n simple, naked, self-emptied, with resistless eagerness foaming up out\n of abysmal chasms that seemed to swallow them, and finding, soonest of\n all, that Sea divine, wherein all rivers rest.\n\n Her commentaries on Scripture were written with extraordinary\n rapidity. The fact that she consulted no book except the Bible in\n their composition must doubtless have contributed to their speed:\n certainly not, as she fancied, to their excellence. No writers are so\n diffuse as the mystics, because no others have written so fast,\n imagining headlong haste an attribute of inspiration. The transcriber\n could not copy in five days what she had written in one night. We may\n conjecture that the man must have been paid by the day. The commentary\n on the Canticles was written in a day and a half, and several visits\n received beside.\u2014_Autobiography_, part II. c. xxi.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER II.\n\n\n O Mensch wiltu geimpffet werdn,\n Und sein versetzt in d\u2019himlisch erdn!\n So mustu vor dein \u00e4sten wilt,\n Gantz hawen ab, das fr\u00fcchte milt\n F\u00fcrkommen nach Gotts ebenbildt.[334]\n\n HYMN OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.\n\n\n _Part II.\u2014The Quietist Controversy._\n\n\n I.\n\n\n In the year 1686, Madame Guyon returned to Paris, and entered the\n head-quarters of persecution. Rumours reached her, doubtless, from\n beyond the Alps, of cruel measures taken against opinions similar to\n her own, which had spread rapidly in Italy. But she knew not that\n all these severities originated with Louis XIV. and his Jesuit\n advisers,\u2014that her king, while revoking the Edict of Nantes, and\n dispatching his dragoons to extirpate Protestantism in France, was\n sending orders to D\u2019Estr\u00e9es, his ambassador at Rome, to pursue with\n the utmost rigour Italian Quietism\u2014and that the monarch, who shone\n and smiled at Marly and Versailles, was crowding with victims the\n dungeons of the Roman Inquisition.\n\n The leader of Quietism in Italy was one Michael de Molinos, a\n Spaniard, a man of blameless life, of eminent and comparatively\n enlightened piety. His book, entitled _The Spiritual Guide_, was\n published in 1675, sanctioned by five famous doctors, four of them\n Inquisitors, and one a Jesuit, and passed, within six years, through\n twenty editions in different languages. His real doctrine was\n probably identical in substance with that of Madame Guyon.[335] It\n was openly favoured by many nobles and ecclesiastics of\n distinguished rank; by D\u2019Etrees among the rest. Molinos had\n apartments assigned him in the Vatican, and was held in high esteem\n by Infallibility itself. But the Inquisition and the Jesuits,\n supported by all the influence of France, were sure of their game.\n The audacity of the Inquisitors went so far as to send a deputation\n to examine the orthodoxy of the man called Innocent XI.; for even\n the tiara was not to shield the patron of Molinos from suspicions of\n heresy. The courtier-cardinal D\u2019Etrees found new light in the\n missives of his master. He stood committed to Quietism. He had not\n only embraced the opinions of Molinos, but had translated into\n Italian the book of Malaval, a French Quietist, far more extreme\n than Molinos himself.[336] Yet he became, at a moment\u2019s notice, the\n accuser of his friend. He produced the letter of Louis rebuking the\n faithless sloth of the pontiff who could entertain a heretic in his\n palace, while he, the eldest son of the Church, toiled incessantly\n to root out heresy from the soil of France. He read before the\n Inquisitorial Tribunal extracts from the papers of Molinos. He\n protested that he had seemed to receive, in order at the proper\n juncture more effectually to expose, these abominable mysteries. If\n these professions were false, D\u2019Etrees was a heretic; if true, a\n villain. The Inquisitors, of course, deemed his testimony too\n valuable to be refused. In the eyes of such men, the enormous crime\n which he pretended was natural, familiar, praiseworthy. Depths of\n baseness beyond the reach of ordinary iniquity, are heights of\n virtue with the followers of Dominic and Loyola. Guilt, which even a\n bad man would account a blot upon his life, becomes, in the annals\n of their zeal, a star. The Spanish Inquisitor-General, Valdes, who\n raised to the highest pitch his repute for sanctity, secured the\n objects of his ambition, averted the dangers which threatened him,\n and preserved his ill-gotten wealth from the grasp of the crown,\n simply by his activity as a persecutor, made a practice of sending\n spies to mix (under pretence of being converts or inquirers) among\n the suspected Lutherans of Valladolid and Seville. Desmarets de St.\n Sorlin denounced, and caused to be burnt, a poor harmless madman,\n named Morin, who fancied himself the Holy Ghost. Counselled by the\n Jesuit confessor of Louis, Father Canard, he pretended to become his\n disciple, and then betrayed him. This Desmarets, be it remembered,\n had written a book called _Les D\u00e9lices de l\u2019Esprit_, happily\n characterised by a French wit, when he proposed for _d\u00e9lices_ to\n read _d\u00e9lires_. Those immoral consequences which the enemies of\n Madame Guyon professed to discern in her writings are drawn openly\n in the sensual and blasphemous phraseology of this religious\n extravaganza. But because Desmarets was a useful man to the\n Jesuits\u2014because he had drawn away some of the nuns of the Port\n Royal\u2014because he had given the flames a victim\u2014because he was\n protected by Canard,\u2014the same Archbishop of Paris who imprisoned\n Madame Guyon, honoured with his sanction the ravings of the\n licentious visionary.[337] So little had any sincere dread of\n spiritual extravagance to do with the hostility concentrated on the\n disciples of Quietism. The greater portion of the priesthood feared\n only lest men should learn to become religious on their own account.\n The leaders of the movement against Madame Guyon were animated by an\n additional motive. They knew they should delight his Most Christian\n Majesty by affording him another opportunity of manifesting his zeal\n for orthodoxy; and they wished to strike at the reputation of\n F\u00e9n\u00e9lon through Madame Guyon. The fate of Molinos decided hers, and\n hers that of the Archbishop of Cambray.\n\n The only crime brought home to the followers of Molinos was a\n preference for the religion of the heart to that of the rosary; the\n substitution of a devout retirement for the observance of certain\n superstitious forms and seasons. His condemnation was determined.\n After an imprisonment of two years he was exhibited in the Temple of\n Minerva, his hands bound, and a lighted taper between them. A\n plenary indulgence was granted to all who should be present; a vast\n concourse listened to the sentence; hired voices cried, \u2018To the\n fire! to the fire!\u2019 the mob was stirred to a frenzy of fanaticism.\n His last gaze upon the world beheld a sea of infuriate faces, the\n pomp of his triumphant adversaries,\u2014then to the gloom and solitude\n of the dungeon in which he was to languish till death bestowed\n release.[338]\n\n\n II.\n\n\n At Paris, Madame Guyon became the centre of a small but illustrious\n circle, who listened with delight to her exposition of that Quietism\n to which the tender earnestness of her language, and her manner lent\n so indescribable a charm. There were the Duke and Duchess of\n Beauvilliers, the Duke and Duchess of Chevreuse, the Duchess of\n Bethune, and the Countess of Guiche. The daughters of Colbert and of\n Fouquet forgot the long enmity of their fathers in a religious\n friendship, whose tie was yet more closely drawn by their common\n admiration for Madame Guyon.[339] But letters filled with complaints\n against La Combe and Madame Guyon poured in upon Harlay, Archbishop\n of Paris.[340] He procured the arrest of La Combe, who spent the\n remainder of his days in various prisons. A little calumny and a\n forged letter obtained from the king a _lettre de cachet_ confining\n Madame Guyon to an apartment in the Convent of St. Marie. The\n sisters were strongly prejudiced against her, but her gentle\n patience won all hearts, and her fair jailors soon vied with each\n other in praises of their fascinating prisoner. An examination\n elicited nothing decidedly unfavourable. Not a stain could be\n detected in her character; she offered to submit all her papers and\n her writings to investigation. The intercession of Madame Miramion\n and other friends with Madame de Maintenon, procured her release,\n after a captivity of eight months.\n\n The most dangerous enemy Madame Guyon had as yet was her own\n half-brother, P\u00e8re La Mothe. He had calumniated her in secret while\n in Switzerland; he was still more active now she was in Paris. He\n wished to become her Director, but La Combe was in the way. The\n artifices of La Mothe procured his arrest. He advised Madame Guyon,\n with hypocritical protestations of friendship, to flee to Montargis\n from the scandalous reports he himself had circulated, and from\n adversaries he himself had raised up. Then she would have been at\n his mercy\u2014he would have pointed to her flight as a proof of guilt,\n and her own property and the guardianship of her children might have\n been secured for himself. He injured her as a relation only could.\n People said her cause must be a bad one, since her own brother was\n constrained, from regard to the credit of religion, to bear witness\n against her. A woman who had committed sacrilege at Lyons, and had\n run away from the Convent of Penitents at Dijon, was employed by him\n to forge letters which should damage the character of Madame Guyon;\n to personate one of her maids, and to go from confessor to confessor\n throughout Paris, asserting that after living sixteen or seventeen\n years with her mistress, she had quitted her at last, in disgust at\n her abominable life.\n\n\n III.\n\n\n Released from the Convent of St. Marie, Madame Guyon was conducted\n by her court friends to express her thanks to Madame de Maintenon at\n St. Cyr. This institution had been founded, ten years previously,\n for the education of the daughters of noble but impoverished\n families. The idea originated with Madame de Maintenon: it was\n executed with royal speed and magnificence by Louis, and St. Cyr\n became her favourite resort. In fifteen months two thousand six\n hundred workmen raised the structure, on a marshy soil, about half a\n league from Paris. The genius of Mansart presided over the\n architecture. The style of the ordinances was revised by Boileau and\n Racine. There three hundred young ladies of rank, dressed in gowns\n of brown crape, with white quilted caps, tied with ribbons whose\n colour indicated the class to which they belonged in the school,\n studied geography and drawing, heard mass, sang in the choir, and\n listened to preachments from the lips of Madame Brinon\u2014who\n discoursed, so swore some of the courtiers, as eloquently as\n Bourdaloue himself. Tired out with the formal splendours of\n Versailles, Madame de Maintenon was never so happy as when playing\n the part of lady abbess at St. Cyr. Often she would be there by six\n in the morning, would herself assist at the toilette of the pupils,\n would take a class throughout the day, would give the novices\n lessons on spiritual experience; nothing in its routine was dull,\n nothing in its kitchen was mean. She hated Fontainebleau, for it\n tore her from her family at St. Cyr. For the private theatricals of\n St. Cyr, Racine wrote _Esther_, at the request of Madame de\n Maintenon. Happy was the courtier who could obtain permission to\n witness one of these representations, who could tell with triumph to\n envious groups of the excluded, what an admirable Ahasuerus Madame\n de Caylus made, what a spirited Mordecai was Mademoiselle de\n Glapion, how the graceful Mademoiselle de Veillenne charmed the\n audience in the prayer of Esther\u2014in short, how far the Esther\n surpassed the Phedra; and the actresses excelled the Raisins and the\n Chammel\u00e9s of the Parisian boards. Louis himself drew up the list of\n admissions, as though it were for a journey to Marly\u2014he was the\n first to enter\u2014and stood at the door, with the catalogue of names in\n one hand and his cane held across as a barrier in the other, till\n all the privileged had entered.[341] But the fashion of asceticism\n which grew with every year of Maintenon\u2019s reign threw its gloom over\n St. Cyr. The absolute vows were introduced, and much of the\n monotonous austerity of conventual life. Religious excitement was\n the only resource left to the inmates if they would not die of\n ennui. This relief was brought them by Madame Guyon.\n\n Madame de Maintenon was touched with pity for the misfortunes of\n Madame Guyon, with admiration for such patience, such forgetfulness\n of self,\u2014she found in the freshness and fervour of her religious\n conversation, a charm which recalled the warmer feelings of youth;\n which was welcome, for its elevation, after the fatigue and anxiety\n of state, for its sweetness, as contrasted with the barren minuti\u00e6\n of rigid formalism. She invited her constantly to her table\u2014she\n encouraged her visits to St. Cyr\u2014she met with her, and with F\u00e9n\u00e9lon,\n at the H\u00f4tels de Chevreuse and Beauvilliers, where a religious\n coterie assembled three times a week to discuss the mysteries of\n inward experience. Thus, during three or four years of favour with\n Madame de Maintenon, Madame Guyon became in effect the spiritual\n instructress of St. Cyr, and found herself at Paris surrounded by\n disciples whose numbers daily increased, and whom she withdrew from\n the licentious gaieties of the capital. At St. Cyr the young ladies\n studied her books, and listened to her as an oracle\u2014the thoughtless\n grew serious\u2014the religious strained every faculty to imitate the\n attainments of one in whom they saw the ideal of devotion. In Paris,\n mystical terminology became the fashionable language\u2014it was caught\n up and glibly uttered by wits and rou\u00e9s\u2014it melted from the lips of\n beauties who shot languishing glances at their admirers, while they\n affected to be weary of the world, and who coquetted while they\n talked significantly of holy indifference or pure love. Libertines,\n like Treville, professed reform, and wrote about mysticism,\u2014atheists\n turned Christians, like Corbinelli, now became Quietists, and might\n be seen in the salon of Madame le Maigre, where Corbinelli shone,\n the brilliant expositor of the new religious romanticism.[342]\n\n\n IV.\n\n\n During this period, Madame Guyon became acquainted with F\u00e9n\u00e9lon. At\n their first interview she was all admiration, he all distrust. \u2018Her\n mind,\u2019 she says, \u2018had been taken up with him with much force and\n sweetness;\u2019 it seemed to be revealed to her that he should become\n one of her spiritual children. F\u00e9n\u00e9lon, on his part, thought she had\n neglected her duty to her family for an imaginary mission. But he\n had inquired concerning her life at Montargis, and heard only\n praise. After a few conversations his doubts vanished: he had\n proposed objections, requested explanations, pointed out unguarded\n expressions in her books\u2014she was modest, submissive,\n irresistible.[343] There was a power in her language, her manner,\n her surviving beauty, which mysteriously dissipated prejudice; which\n even Nicole, Bossuet, Boileau, Gaillard, could not withstand when\n they conversed with her,\u2014which was only overcome when they had\n ceased to behold her face, when her persuasive accents sounded no\n longer in their ears. She recalled to the thoughts of F\u00e9n\u00e9lon his\n youthful studies at St. Sulpice;\u2014there he had perused the mystical\n divines in dusty tomes, clasped and brazen-cornered,\u2014now he beheld\n their buried doctrine raised to life in the busy present, animating\n the untaught eloquence of a woman, whom a noble enthusiasm alone had\n endowed with all the prerogatives of genius, and all the charms of\n beauty. This friendship, which events rendered afterwards so\n disastrous for himself, was beneficial to Madame Guyon. F\u00e9n\u00e9lon\n taught her to moderate some of her spiritual excesses. Her\n extravagance reached its culminating point at Thonon. At Paris,\n influenced doubtless by F\u00e9n\u00e9lon, as well as by more frequent\n intercourse with the world, she no longer enjoys so many picturesque\n dreams, no more heals the sick and casts out devils with a word, and\n no longer\u2014as in her solitude there\u2014suffers inward anguish consequent\n on the particular religious condition of Father La Combe when he is\n three hundred miles off.[344] It is curious to observe how the\n acquaintance of F\u00e9n\u00e9lon with Madame Guyon began with suspicion and\n ripened into friendship, while that of Bossuet, commencing with\n approval, and even admiration, ended in calumny and persecution.\n Bossuet declared to the Duc de Chevreuse that while examining her\n writings, for the first time, he was astonished by a light and\n unction he had never before seen, and, for three days, was made to\n realize the divine Presence in a manner altogether new. Bossuet had\n never, like F\u00e9n\u00e9lon, studied the mystics.[345]\n\n\n V.\n\n\n The two most influential Directors at St. Cyr were Godet des Marais,\n Bishop of Chartres, and F\u00e9n\u00e9lon. These two men form a striking\n contrast. Godet was disgusting in person and in manners\u2014a sour\n ascetic\u2014a spiritual martinet\u2014devoted to all the petty austerities of\n the most formal discipline. F\u00e9n\u00e9lon was dignified and gentle,\n graceful as a courtier, and spotless as a saint\u2014the most pure, the\n most persuasive, the most accomplished of religious guides. No\n wonder that most of the young inmates of St. Cyr adored F\u00e9n\u00e9lon, and\n could not endure Godet. Madame de Maintenon wavered between her two\n confessors; if F\u00e9n\u00e9lon was the more agreeable, Godet seemed the more\n safe. Godet was miserably jealous of his rival. He was not sorry to\n find that the new doctrines had produced a little insubordination\n within the quiet walls of St. Cyr\u2014that F\u00e9n\u00e9lon would be compromised\n by the indiscretion of some among his youthful admirers. He brought\n a lamentable tale to Madame de Maintenon. Madame du Peron, the\n mistress of the novices, had complained that her pupils obeyed her\n no longer. They neglected regular duties for unseasonable prayers.\n They had illuminations and ecstasies. One in the midst of sweeping\n her room would stand, leaning on her broom, lost in contemplation:\n another, instead of hearing lessons, became inspired, and resigned\n herself to the operation of the Spirit. The under-mistress of the\n classes stole away the enlightened from the rest, and they were\n found in remote corners of the house, feasting in secret on the\n sweet poison of Madame Guyon\u2019s doctrine. The precise and methodical\n Madame de Maintenon was horrified. She had hoped to realize in her\n institute the ideal of her Church, a perfect uniformity of opinion,\n an unerring mechanism of obedience. We wished, said she, to promote\n intelligence, we have made orators; devotion, we have made\n Quietists; modesty, we have made prudes; elevation of sentiment, and\n we have pride. She commissioned Godet to reclaim the wanderers, to\n demand that the books of Madame Guyon should be surrendered, setting\n herself the example by publicly delivering into his hand her own\n copy of the _Short Method_. She requested Madame Guyon to refrain\n from visiting St. Cyr. She began to doubt the prudence or the\n orthodoxy of F\u00e9n\u00e9lon.[346] What would the king say, if he heard of\n it\u2014he, who had never liked F\u00e9n\u00e9lon\u2014who hated nothing so much as\n heresy\u2014who had but the other day extinguished the Quietism of\n Molinos? She had read to him some of Madame Guyon\u2019s exposition of\n the Canticles; and he called it dreamy stuff. Doctrines really\n dangerous to purity were insinuated by some designing monks, under\n the name of Quietism. The odium fell on the innocent Madame Guyon;\n and her friends would necessarily share it. Malicious voices charged\n her with corrupting the principles of the Parisian ladies. Madame\n Guyon replied with justice,\u2014\u2018When they were patching, and painting,\n and ruining their families by gambling and by dress, not a word was\n said against it; now that they have withdrawn from such vanities,\n the cry is, that I have ruined them.\u2019 Rumour grew more loud and\n scandalous every day: the most incredible reports were most\n credited. The schools, too, had taken up the question of mysticism,\n and argued it with heat. Nicole and Lami had dissolved an ancient\n friendship to quarrel about it,\u2014as F\u00e9n\u00e9lon and Bossuet were soon to\n do. No controversy threatened to involve so many interests, to fan\n so many passions, to kindle so many hatreds, as this variance about\n disinterestedness, about indifference, about love.\n\n The politic Madame de Maintenon watched the gathering storm, and\n became all caution. At all costs, she must free herself from the\n faintest suspicion of fellowship with heresy. She questioned, on the\n opinions of Madame Guyon, Bossuet and Noailles, Bourdaloue, Joly,\n Tiberge, Brisacier, and Tronson; and the replies of these esteemed\n divines, uniformly unfavourable, decided her. It would be necessary\n to disown Madame Guyon: her condemnation would become inevitable.\n F\u00e9n\u00e9lon must be induced to disown her too, or his career was at a\n close; and Madame de Maintenon could smile on him no longer.[347]\n\n Madame Guyon, alarmed by the growing numbers and vehemence of her\n adversaries, had recourse to the man who afterwards became her\n bitterest enemy. She proposed to Bossuet that he should examine her\n writings. He complied; held several private interviews with her, and\n expressed himself, on the whole, more favourably than could have\n been expected. But these conferences, which did not altogether\n satisfy Bossuet, could do nothing to allay the excitement of the\n public.[348]\n\n\n VI.\n\n\n Madame Guyon now requested the appointment of commissioners, who\n should investigate, and pronounce finally concerning her life and\n doctrine.[349] Three were chosen\u2014Bossuet; Noailles, Bishop of\n Chalons; and Tronson, Superior of St. Sulpice. Noailles was a\n sensible, kind-hearted man; Tronson, a worthy creature, in poor\n health, with little opinion of his own; Bossuet, the accredited\n champion of the Gallican Church, accustomed to move in an atmosphere\n of flattery\u2014the august dictator of the ecclesiastical world\u2014was\n absolute in their conferences. They met, from time to time, during\n some six months, at the little village of Issy, the country\n residence of the Superior of St. Sulpice. When Madame Guyon appeared\n before them, Bossuet alone was harsh and rude; he put the worst\n construction on her words; he interrupted her; now he silenced her\n replies, now he burlesqued them; now he affected to be unable to\n comprehend them; now he held up his hands in contemptuous amazement\n at her ignorance; he would not suffer to be read the justification\n which had cost her so much pains; he sent away her friend, the Duke\n of Chevreuse. This ominous severity confused and frightened\n her.[350] She readily consented to retire to a convent in the town\n of Meaux, there to be under the surveillance of Bossuet. She\n undertook this journey in the depth of the most frightful winter\n which had been known for many years; the coach was buried in the\n snow, and she narrowly escaped with life. The commissioners remained\n to draw up, by the fireside, certain propositions, which should\n determine what was, and what was not, true mysticism. These\n constitute the celebrated Articles of Issy.\n\n Bossuet repeatedly visited Madame Guyon at Meaux. The great man did\n not disdain to approach the sick-bed of his victim, as she lay in\n the last stage of exhaustion, and there endeavour to overreach and\n terrify her. He demanded a submission, and promised a favourable\n certificate. The submission he received, the certificate he\n withheld. He sought to force her, by threats, to sign that she did\n not believe in the Incarnation. The more timid she appeared, the\n more boisterous and imperative his tone. One day, he would come with\n words of kindness, on another, with words of fury; yet, at the very\n time, this Pilate could say to some of his brethren, that he found\n no serious fault in her. He declared, on one occasion, that he was\n actuated by no dislike\u2014he was urged to rigorous measures by others;\n on another, that the submission of Madame Guyon, and the suppression\n of Quietism, effected by his skill and energy, would be as good as\n an archbishopric or a cardinal\u2019s hat to him. Justice and ambition\n contended within him; for a little while the battle wavered, till\n presently pride and jealousy brought up to the standard of the\n latter, reinforcements so overwhelming, that justice was beaten for\n ever from the field. After six months\u2019 residence at Meaux, Madame\n Guyon received from Bossuet a certificate attesting her filial\n submissiveness to the Catholic faith, his satisfaction with her\n conduct, authorizing her still to participate in the sacrament of\n the Church, and acquitting her of all implication in the heresy of\n Molinos.[351]\n\n Meanwhile, F\u00e9n\u00e9lon had been added to the number of the commissioners\n at Issy. He and Bossuet were still on intimate terms; but Bossuet,\n like all vain men, was a dangerous friend. He knew how to inspire\n confidence which he did not scruple to betray. Madame Guyon,\n conscious of the purity of her life, of the orthodoxy of her\n intention, persuaded that such a man must be superior to the meaner\n motives of her persecutors, had placed in the hands of Bossuet her\n most private papers, not excluding the _Autobiography_, which had\n not been submitted even to the eye of F\u00e9n\u00e9lon. To Bossuet, F\u00e9n\u00e9lon\n had, in letters, unfolded his most secret thoughts\u2014the conflicts and\n aspirations of his spiritual history, so unbounded was his reliance\n on his honour, so exalted his estimate of the judgment of that\n powerful mind in matters of religion. The disclosures of both were\n distorted and abused to crush them; both had to rue the day when\n they trusted one who could sacrifice truth to glory. At Issy, the\n deference and the candour of F\u00e9n\u00e9lon were met by a haughty reserve\n on the part of Bossuet. The meekness of F\u00e9n\u00e9lon and the timidity of\n Madame Guyon only inflamed his arrogance; to bow to him was to be\n overborne; to confront him was at once to secure respect, if not\n fairness. The Articles were already drawn up when the signature of\n F\u00e9n\u00e9lon was requested. He felt that he should have been allowed his\n fair share in their construction; as they were, he could not sign\n them; he proposed modifications; they were acceded to; and the\n thirty-four Articles of Issy appeared in March, 1695, with the name\n of F\u00e9n\u00e9lon associated with the other three.[352]\n\n\n VII.\n\n\n To any one who reads these Articles, and the letter written by\n F\u00e9n\u00e9lon to Madame de la Maisonfort, after signing them, it will be\n obvious that the Quietism of F\u00e9n\u00e9lon went within a moderate compass.\n When he comes to explain his meaning, the controversy is very much a\n dispute about words. He did not, like Madame Guyon, profess to\n conduct devout minds by a certain method to the attainment of\n perfect disinterestedness. He only maintained the possibility of\n realizing a love to God, thus purified from self. He was as fully\n aware as his opponents, that to evince our love to God by\n willingness to endure perdition, was the same thing as attesting our\n devotion to Him by our readiness to hate Him for ever. This is the\n standing objection against the doctrine of disinterested love. The\n great Nonconformist divine, John Howe, urges it with force. It is\n embodied in the thirty-second of the Articles in question. But it\n does not touch F\u00e9n\u00e9lon\u2019s position. His assertion is, that we should\n will our own salvation only because God wills it; that, supposing it\n possible for us to endure hell torments, retaining the grace of God\n and our consciousness that such suffering was according to His will,\n and conducive to His glory, the soul, animated by pure love, would\n embrace even such a doom.[353] It is but the supposition of an\n impossible case,\u2014a supposition, moreover, which involves a very\n gross and external conception of hell. It could find no place in a\n mysticism like that of Behmen or Swedenborg, where hell is regarded,\n much more truly, less as an infliction from without, than as the\n development of dominant evil from within. The Quietism of F\u00e9n\u00e9lon\n does not preclude the reflex actions of the mind, or confine the\n spirit of the adept to the sphere of the immediate. It forbids only\n the introspection of self-complacency.[354] It does not merge\n distinct acts in a continuous operation, nor discourage effort for\n self-advancement in holiness, or for the benefit of others\u2014it only\n teaches us to moderate that impatience which has its origin in self,\n and declares that our own co-operation becomes, in certain cases,\n unconscious\u2014is, as it were, lost in a \u2018special facility.\u2019[355] The\n indefatigable benevolence of his life abundantly repudiates the\n slanderous conclusion of his adversaries, that the doctrine of\n indifference concerning the future, involves indifference likewise\n to moral good and evil in the present. Bossuet himself is often as\n mystical as F\u00e9n\u00e9lon, sometimes more so.[356] St. Francis de Sales\n and Madame de Chantal said the very same things,\u2014not to mention the\n unbridled utterances of the earlier and the medi\u00e6val mystics\n canonized by the Church of Rome. Could the controversy have been\n confined to the real question, no harm would have been done. It\n would have resembled the duel, in Ben Jonson\u2019s play, between\n Fastidious Brisk and Signor Puntarvolo, where the rapiers cut\n through taffeta and lace, gold embroidery and satin doublets, but\n nowhere enter the skin. Certain terms and certain syllogisms, a\n well-starched theory, or an argument trimmed with the pearls of\n eloquence\u2014might have been transfixed or rent by a dexterous pen, on\n this side or on that, but the prize of the conqueror would not have\n been court favour, nor the penalty of the conquered, exile.\n Theologians might have written, for a few, the learned history of a\n logical campaign, but the eyes of Europe would never have been\n turned to a conflict for fame and fortune raging in the Vatican and\n at Versailles, enlisting every religious party throughout\n Roman-catholic Christendom, and involving the rise or fall of some\n of the most illustrious names among the churchmen and nobility of\n France.\n\n\n VIII.\n\n\n The writings of Madame Guyon had now been condemned, though without\n mention of her name; Bossuet had intimated that he required nothing\n further from her; she began to hope that the worst might be over,\n and returned with her friends from Meaux to Paris, to live there as\n much retired as possible. This flight, which he chose to call\n dishonourable, irritated Bossuet. She had suffered him to see that\n she could trust him no longer. He endeavoured to recover the\n certificate he had given. An order was procured for her arrest. The\n police observed that a house in the Faubourg St. Antoine was always\n entered by a pass-key. They made their way in, and found Madame\n Guyon. They brought away their prisoner, ill as she was, and the\n king was induced, with much difficulty, to sign an order for her\n incarceration at Vincennes. The despot thought a convent might\n suffice,\u2014not so the persecutors.[357]\n\n Bossuet had been for some time occupied in writing a work which\n should demolish with a blow the doctrine of Madame Guyon, and hold\n her up to general odium. It consisted of ten books, and was entitled\n _Instructions on the States of Prayer_. He showed the manuscript to\n F\u00e9n\u00e9lon, desiring him to append a statement, approving all it\n contained, which should accompany the volume when published. F\u00e9n\u00e9lon\n refused. Six months ago he had declared that he could be no party to\n a personal attack on Madame Guyon: the _Instructions_ contained\n little else. That tremendous attack was no mere exposure of\n unguarded expressions\u2014no mere deduction of dangerous consequences,\n possibly unforeseen by a half-educated writer; it charged Madame\n Guyon with having for her sole design the inculcation of a false\n spirituality, which abandoned, as an imperfection, faith in the\n divine Persons and the humanity of Christ; which disowned the\n authority of Scripture, of tradition, of morality; which dispensed\n with vocal prayer and acts of worship; which established an impious\n and brutal indifference between vice and virtue, between everlasting\n hate of God and everlasting love; which forbade resistance to\n temptation as an interruption to repose; which taught an imaginary\n perfection extinguishing the nobler desires only to inflame the\n lower, and clothing the waywardness of self-will and passion with\n the authority of inspiration and of prophecy. F\u00e9n\u00e9lon knew that this\n accusation was one mass of falsehood. If Bossuet himself believed\n it, why had he suffered such a monster still to commune; why had he\n been so faithless to his high office in the Church, as to give his\n testimonials declaring the purity of her purpose and the soundness\n of her faith, when he had not secured the formal retraction of a\n single error? To sign his approval of that book, would be not merely\n a cowardly condemnation of a woman whom he knew to be innocent\u2014it\n would be the condemnation of himself. His acquaintance with Madame\n Guyon was matter of notoriety. It would be to say that he\u2014a student\n of theology, a priest, an archbishop, the preceptor of princes\u2014had\n not only refrained from denouncing, but had honoured with his\n friendship, the teacher of an abominable spiritualism which\n abolished the first principles of right and wrong. It would be to\n declare, in fact, such a prelate far more guilty than such a\n heretic. And Bossuet pretended to be his friend\u2014Bossuet, who had\n laid the snare which might have been the triumph of the most\n malignant enemy. It was not a mere question of persons\u2014Madame Guyon\n might die in prison\u2014he himself might be defamed and disgraced\u2014he did\n not mean to become her champion\u2014surely that was enough, knowing what\n he knew,\u2014let her enemies be satisfied with his silence\u2014he could not\n suffer another man to take his pen out of his hand to denounce as an\n emissary of Satan one whom he believed to be a child of God.[358]\n\n Such was F\u00e9n\u00e9lon\u2019s position. He wished to be silent concerning\n Madame Guyon. To assent to the charges brought against her would not\n have been even a serviceable lie, if such a man could have desired\n to escape the wrath of Bossuet at so scandalous a price. Every one\n would have said that the Archbishop of Cambray had denounced his\n accomplice out of fear. Neither was he prepared to embrace the\n opposite extreme and to defend the personal cause of the accused,\n many of whose expressions he thought questionable, orthodox as might\n be her explanation, and many of whose extravagances he disapproved.\n His enemies wished to force him to speak, and were prepared to\n damage his reputation whether he appeared for or against the\n prisoner at Vincennes. At length it became necessary that he should\n break silence; and when he did, it was not to pronounce judgment\n concerning the oppressed or her oppressors, it was to investigate\n the abstract question,\u2014the teaching of the Church on the doctrine of\n pure love. He wrote the _Maxims of the Saints_.\n\n\n IX.\n\n\n This celebrated book appeared in January, 1697, while F\u00e9n\u00e9lon was at\n Cambray, amazing the Flemings of his diocese by affording them, in\n their new archbishop, the spectacle of a church dignitary who really\n cared for his flock, who consigned the easier duties to his vicars,\n and reserved the hardest for himself; who entered their cottages\n like a father, listened with interest to the story of their\n hardships or their griefs; who consoled, counselled, and relieved\n them; who partook of their black bread as though he had never shared\n the banquets of Versailles, and as though Paris were to him, as to\n themselves, a wonderful place far away, whose streets were paved\n with gold. Madame Guyon was in confinement at the village of\n Vaugirard, whither the compassion of Noailles had transferred her\n from Vincennes, resigned and peaceful, writing poetry and singing\n hymns with her pious servant-girl, the faithful companion of her\n misfortunes. Bossuet was visiting St. Cyr\u2014very busy in endeavouring\n to purify the theology of the young ladies from all taint of\n Quietism\u2014but quite unsuccessful in reconciling Madame de la\n Maisonfort to the loss of her beloved F\u00e9n\u00e9lon.\n\n The _Maxims of the Saints_ was an exposition and vindication of the\n doctrines of pure love, of mystical union, and of perfection, as\n handed down by some of the most illustrious and authoritative names\n in the Roman-catholic Church, from Dionysius, Clement, and\n Augustine, to John of the Cross and Francis de Sales;\u2014it explained\n their terminology;\u2014it placed in juxtaposition with every article of\n legitimate mysticism its false correlative\u2014the use and the\n abuse;\u2014and was, in fact, though not expressly, a complete\n justification (on the principles of his Church) of that moderate\n Quietism held by himself, and in substance by Madame Guyon.[359] The\n book was approved by Tronson, by Fleury, by H\u00e9bert, by Pirot, a\n doctor of the Sorbonne, by P\u00e8re La Chaise, the King\u2019s Confessor, by\n the Jesuits of Clermont,\u2014but it was denounced by Bossuet; it was\n nicknamed the Bible of the Little Church; Pontchartrain, the\n comptroller-general, and Maurice Le Tellier, Archbishop of Reims,\n told the King that it was fit only for knaves or fools. Louis sent\n for Bossuet. The Bishop of Meaux cast himself theatrically at the\n feet of majesty, and, with pretended tears, implored forgiveness for\n not earlier revealing the heresy of his unhappy brother. A\n compromise was yet possible; for F\u00e9n\u00e9lon was ready to explain his\n explanations, and to suppress whatever might be pronounced dangerous\n in his pages. But the eagle of Meaux had seen the meek and dove-like\n F\u00e9n\u00e9lon\u2014once almost more his disciple than his friend\u2014erect the\n standard of independence, and assume the port of a rival. His pride\n was roused. He was resolved to reign alone on the ecclesiastical\n Olympus of the Court, and he would not hear of a peace that might\n rob him of a triumph. Did F\u00e9n\u00e9lon pretend to shelter himself by\n great names,\u2014he, Bossuet, would intrench himself within the awful\n sanctuary of the Church; he represented religion in France; he would\n resent every attack upon his own opinions as an assault on the\n Catholic faith; he had the ear of the King, with whom heresy and\n treason were identical; success was all but assured, and, if so, war\n was glory. Such tactics are not peculiar to the seventeenth century.\n In our own day, every one implicated in religious abuses identifies\n himself with religion,\u2014brands every exposure of his misconduct as\n hostility to the cause of God,\u2014invests his miserable personality\n with the benign grandeur of the Gospel,\u2014and stigmatizes as troublers\n in Israel all who dare to inquire into his procedure,\u2014while\n innumerable dupes or cowards sleepily believe, or cautiously pretend\n to do so, that those who have management in a good object must\n themselves be good.\n\n\n X.\n\n\n F\u00e9n\u00e9lon now requested the royal permission to appeal to Rome; he\n obtained it, but was forbidden to repair thither to plead in person\n the cause of his book, and ordered to quit the Court and confine\n himself to his diocese. The King went to St. Cyr, and expelled\n thence three young ladies, for an offence he could not in reality\n comprehend,\u2014the sin of Quietism.[360] Intrigue was active, and the\n Duke de Beauvilliers was nearly losing his place in the royal\n household because of his attachment to F\u00e9n\u00e9lon. The Duke\u2014noble in\n spirit as in name, and worthy of such a friendship,\u2014boldly told _Le\n Grand Monarque_ that he was ready to leave the palace rather than to\n forsake his friend. Six days before the banishment of F\u00e9n\u00e9lon, Louis\n had sent to Innocent XII. a letter, drawn up by Bossuet, saying in\n effect that the _Maxims_ had been condemned at Paris, that\n everything urged in its defence was futile, and that the royal\n authority would be exerted to the utmost to execute the decision of\n the pontifical chair. Bossuet naturally calculated that a missive,\n thus intimating the sentence Infallibility was expected by a great\n monarch to pronounce,\u2014arriving almost at the same time with the news\n of a disgrace reserved only for the most grave offences,\u2014would\n secure the speedy condemnation of F\u00e9n\u00e9lon\u2019s book.\n\n At Rome commenced a series of deliberations destined to extend over\n a space of nearly two years. Two successive bodies of adjudicators\n were impanelled and dissolved, unable to arrive at a decision. A new\n congregation of cardinals was selected, who held scores of long and\n wearisome debates, while rumour and intrigue alternately heightened\n or depressed the hopes of either party.[361] To write the _Maxims of\n the Saints_ was a delicate task. It was not easy to repudiate the\n mysticism of Molinos without impugning the mysticism of St. Theresa.\n But the position of these judges was more delicate yet. It was still\n less easy to censure F\u00e9n\u00e9lon without rendering suspicious, at the\n least, the orthodoxy of the most shining saints in the Calendar. On\n the one hand, there might be risk of a schism; on the other pressed\n the urgency and the influence of a powerful party, the impatience,\n almost the menaces of a great king.\n\n The real question was simply this,\u2014Is disinterested love possible?\n Can man love God for His own sake alone, with a love, not excluding,\n but subordinating all other persons and objects, so that they shall\n be regarded only in God who is All in All? If so, is it dangerous to\n assert the possibility, to commend this divine ambition, as F\u00e9n\u00e9lon\n has done? But the discussion was complicated and inflamed by daily\n slander and recrimination, by treachery and insinuation, and by the\n honest anger they provoke; by the schemes of personal ambition, by\n the rivalry of religious parties, by the political intrigues of the\n State, by the political intrigues of the Church; by the interests of\n a crew of subaltern agents, who loved to fish in muddy waters; and\n by the long cherished animosity between Gallican and Ultramontanist.\n Couriers pass and repass continually between Rome and Cambray,\n between Rome and Paris. The Abb\u00e9 Bossuet writes constantly from Rome\n to the Bishop of Meaux; the Abb\u00e9 de Chanterac from the same city to\n the Archbishop of Cambray. Chanterac writes like a faithful friend\n and a good man; he labours day and night in the cause of F\u00e9n\u00e9lon; he\n bids him be of good cheer and put his trust in God. The letters of\n the Abb\u00e9 Bossuet to his uncle are worthy a familiar of the\n Inquisition. After circulating calumnies against the character of\n Madame Guyon, after hinting that F\u00e9n\u00e9lon was a partaker of her\n immoralities as well as of her heresy, and promising, with each\n coming post, to produce fresh confessions and new discoveries of the\n most revolting licentiousness, he sits down to urge Bossuet to\n second his efforts by procuring the banishment of every friend whom\n F\u00e9n\u00e9lon yet has at Court; and to secure, by a decisive blow in\n Paris, the ruin of that \u2018wild beast,\u2019 F\u00e9n\u00e9lon, at Rome. Bossuet lost\n no time in acting on the suggestion of so base an instrument.[362]\n\n\n XI.\n\n\n At Paris a hot war of letters, pamphlets, and treatises, was\n maintained by the leaders, whose quarrel everywhere divided the city\n and the court into two hostile encampments. F\u00e9n\u00e9lon offered a\n resistance Bossuet had never anticipated, and the veteran polemic\n was deeply mortified to see public opinion doubtful, whether he or a\n younger rival had won the laurels in argument and eloquence. In an\n evil hour for his fame he resolved to crush his antagonist at all\n costs; he determined that the laws of honourable warfare should be\n regarded no more, that no confidence should be any longer sacred. In\n the summer of 1698 the storm burst upon the head of the exile at\n Cambray. Early in June, F\u00e9n\u00e9lon heard that the Abb\u00e9 de Beaumont, his\n nephew, and the Abb\u00e9 de Langeron, his friend, had been dismissed in\n disgrace from the office of sub-preceptors to the young Duke of\n Burgundy; that Dupuy and De Leschelles, had been banished the Court\n because of their attachment to him; that his brother had been\n expelled from the marine, and a son of Madame Guyon from the guards;\n that the retiring and pacific Fleury had narrowly escaped ignominy\n for a similar cause: that the Dukes of Beauvilliers, Chevreuse, and\n Guiche, were themselves menaced, and the prospect of their downfall\n openly discussed; and that to correspond with him was hereafter a\n crime against the State. Within a month, another Job\u2019s messenger\n brought him tidings that Bossuet had produced a book entitled _An\n Account of Quietism_\u2014an attack so terrible that the dismay of his\n remaining friends had almost become despair. Bossuet possessed three\n formidable weapons\u2014his influence as a courtier, his authority as a\n priest, his powers as an author. He wielded them all at once, and\n all of them dishonourably. If he was unfair in the first capacity,\n when he invoked the thunders of royalty to ruin the cause of a\n theological opponent\u2014if he was unfair in the second, when he\n denounced forbearance and silenced intercession as sins against\n God,\u2014he was yet more so in the third, when he employed all his\n gifts, to weave into a malignant tissue of falsehood and\n exaggeration the memoirs of Madame Guyon, the correspondence of\n F\u00e9n\u00e9lon with Madame de Maintenon, and his former confidential\n letters to himself\u2014letters on spiritual matters to a spiritual\n guide\u2014letters which should have been sacred as the secresy of the\n Confessional. The sensation created by the _Account of Quietism_ was\n prodigious. Bossuet presented his book to the King, whose approval\n was for every parasite the authentication of all its slanders.\n Madame de Maintenon, with her own hand, distributed copies among the\n courtiers; in the salon of Marly nothing else was talked of; in the\n beautiful gardens groups of lords and ladies, such as Watteau would\n have loved to paint, were gathered on the grass, beside the\n fountains, beneath the trees, to hear it read; it was begged,\n borrowed, stolen, greedily snatched, and delightedly devoured; its\n anecdotes were so piquant, its style so sparkling, its bursts of\n indignant eloquence so grand; gay ladies, young and old, dandies,\n wits, and libertines, found its scandal so delicious,\u2014Madame Guyon\n was so exquisitely ridiculous,\u2014La Combe, so odious a\n Tartuffe,\u2014F\u00e9n\u00e9lon, so pitiably displumed of all his shining virtues;\n and, what was best of all, the insinuations were worse than the\n charges,\u2014the book gave much and promised more,\u2014it hinted at\n disclosures more disgraceful yet, and gave free scope to every\n malicious invention and every prurient conjecture.[363]\n\n\n XII.\n\n\n The generous F\u00e9n\u00e9lon, more thoughtful for others than for himself,\n at first hesitated to reply even to such a provocation, lest he\n should injure the friends who yet remained to him at Versailles. But\n he was soon convinced that their position, as much as his, rendered\n an answer imperative. He received Bossuet\u2019s book on the 8th of July,\n and by the 13th of August his defence had been written, printed, and\n arrived at Rome, to gladden the heart of poor Chanterac, to stop the\n mouth of the enemy, and to turn the tide once more in behalf of his\n failing party. This refutation, written with such rapidity, and\n under such disadvantages, was a masterpiece,\u2014it redeemed his\n character from every calumny,\u2014it raised his reputation to its\n height,\u2014it would have decided a fair contest completely in his\n favour. It was composed when his spirit was oppressed by sorrow for\n the ruin of his friends, and darkened by the apprehension of new\n injuries which his justification might provoke,\u2014by a proscribed man\n at Cambray, remote from the assistance and appliances most\n needful,\u2014without a friend to guide or to relieve the labour of\n arranging and transcribing documents and of verifying dates, where\n scrupulous accuracy was of vital importance,\u2014when it was difficult\n to procure correct intelligence from Paris, and hazardous to write\n thither lest he should compromise his correspondents,\u2014when even his\n letters to Chanterac were not safe from inspection,\u2014when it would be\n difficult to find a printer for such a book, and yet more so to\n secure its circulation in the metropolis. As it was, D\u2019Argenson, the\n lieutenant of police,\u2014a functionary pourtrayed by his contemporaries\n as at once the ugliest and most unprincipled of men,\u2014seized a\n package of seven hundred copies at the gates of Paris. The _Reply_\n appeared, however, and was eagerly read. Even the few who were\n neutral, the many who were envious, the host who were prejudiced,\n could not withhold their admiration from that lucid and elegant\n style\u2014that dignified and unaffected eloquence; numbers yielded, in\n secret, at least, to the force of such facts and such arguments;\n while all were astonished at the skill and self-command with which\n the author had justified his whole career without implicating a\n single friend; and leaving untouched the shield of every other\n adversary, had concentrated all his force on exposing the\n contradictions, the treachery, and the falsehood of Bossuet\u2019s\n accusation.[364]\n\n The controversy now draws to a close. Bossuet published _Remarks_ on\n the _Reply_ of F\u00e9n\u00e9lon, and F\u00e9n\u00e9lon rejoined with _Remarks_ on the\n _Remarks_ of Bossuet. Sixty loyal doctors of the Sorbonne censured\n twelve propositions, in the _Maxims_, while Rome was yet undecided.\n Towards the close of the same year (1698) Louis wrote a letter to\n the Pope, yet more indecently urgent than his former one, demanding\n a thorough condemnation of so dangerous a book; and this epistle he\n seconded by depriving F\u00e9n\u00e9lon, a few weeks afterwards, of the title\n and pension of preceptor\u2014that pension which F\u00e9n\u00e9lon had once nobly\n offered to return to a treasury exhausted by ambitious wars.[365]\n\n Innocent XII. had heard, with indignant sorrow, of the arbitrary\n measures adopted against F\u00e9n\u00e9lon and his friends. He was mortified\n by the arrogance of Louis, by the attempts so openly made to\n forestall his judgment. He was accustomed to say that Cambray had\n erred through excess of love to God; Meaux, by want of love to his\n neighbour. But Louis was evidently roused, and it was not safe to\n provoke him too far. After a last effort at a compromise, the Pope\n yielded; and the cardinals pronounced a condemnation, far less\n complete, however, than the vehemence of the accusers had hoped to\n secure. Twenty-three propositions extracted from the _Maxims_, were\n censured, but the Pontiff openly declared that such censure did not\n extend to the explanations which the Archbishop of Cambray had given\n of his book. This sentence was delivered on the 12th of March, 1699.\n The submission of F\u00e9n\u00e9lon is famous in history. He received the\n intelligence as he was about to ascend the pulpit; he changed his\n subject, and preached a sermon on the duty of submission to\n superiors.[366] Bossuet endeavoured, in vain, to represent the\n obedience which was the first to pronounce the sentence of\n self-condemnation, as a profound hypocrisy.\n\n\n XIII.\n\n\n Madame Guyon lingered for four years a solitary prisoner in the\n dungeons of the Bastille. In the same tower was confined the Man of\n the Iron Mask, and she may have heard, in her cell, the melancholy\n notes of the guitar with which her fellow-prisoner beguiled a\n captivity whose horrors had then lasted seven-and-thirty years.\n There, a constitution never strong, was broken down by the stony\n chill of rigorous winters, and by the noxious vapours which steamed\n from the stagnant moat in summer.[367] She was liberated in 1702,\n and sent to Blois,\u2014a picturesque old city, whose steep and narrow\n streets, cut into innumerable steps, overlook the Loire,\u2014crowned on\n the one side by its fine church, and on the other by the royal\n chateau, memorable for the murder of the Guises; its massive\n proportions adorned by the varying tastes of successive generations,\n then newly beautified after the designs of Mansart, and now a ruin,\n the delight of every artist. There she lived in quiet, sought out\n from time to time by visitors from distant provinces and other\n lands,\u2014as patient under the infirmity of declining age as beneath\n the persecutions of her earlier years,\u2014finding, as she had always\n done, some sweet in every bitter cup, and a theme for praise in\n every trial, purified by her long afflictions, elevated by her hope\n of glory, full of charity and full of peace, resigned and happy to\n the last. Her latest letter is dated in 1717,\u2014Bossuet had departed,\n and F\u00e9n\u00e9lon,\u2014and before the close of that year, she also, the\n subject of such long and bitter strife, had been removed beyond all\n the tempests of this lower world.\n\n In the judicial combats of ancient Germany, it was the custom to\n place in the centre of the lists a bier, beside which stood the\n accuser and the accused, at the head and at the foot, leaning there\n for some time in solemn silence before they laid lance in rest and\n encountered in the deadly shock. Would that religious\n controversialists had oftener entered and maintained their combat as\n alike in view of that final appeal in the unseen world of truth\u2014with\n a deeper and more abiding sense of that supreme tribunal before\n which so many differences vanish, and where none but he who has\n striven lawfully can receive a crown. Bossuet was regarded as the\n champion of Hope, and drew his sword, it was said, lest sacrilegious\n hands should remove her anchor. F\u00e9n\u00e9lon girded on his arms to defend\n the cause of Charity. Alas! said the Pope\u2014heart-sick of the\n protracted conflict\u2014they forget that it is Faith who is in danger.\n Among the many witty sayings which the dispute suggested to the\n lookers-on, perhaps one of the most significant is that attributed\n to the daughter of Madame de S\u00e9vign\u00e9. \u2018M. de Cambray,\u2019 said she,\n \u2018pleads well the cause of God, but M. de Meaux yet better that of\n religion, and cannot fail to win the day at Rome.\u2019 F\u00e9n\u00e9lon undertook\n to show that his semi-Quietism was supported by the authority of\n ecclesiastical tradition, and he was unquestionably in the right. He\n might have sustained, on Romanist principles, a doctrine much less\n moderate, by the same argument. But it was his wish to render\n mysticism as rational and as attractive as possible; and no other\n advocate has exhibited it so purified from extravagance, or secured\n for it so general a sympathy. The principle of \u2018holy indifference,\u2019\n however, must be weighed, not by the virtues of F\u00e9n\u00e9lon, but\n according to the standard of Scripture,\u2014and such an estimate must,\n we believe, pronounce it mistaken.\n\n\n XIV.\n\n\n The attempt to make mysticism definite and intelligible must always\n involve more or less of inconsistency. Nevertheless, the enterprise\n has been repeatedly undertaken; and it is a remarkable fact, that\n such efforts have almost invariably originated in France. Mysticism\n and scholasticism\u2014the spirit of the cloud and the spirit of the\n snow\u2014reign as rivals throughout the stormy region of the Middle Age.\n The reaction against the extreme of each nourished its antagonist.\n Hugo and Richard of St. Victor endeavoured to effect a union, and to\n reconcile these contending products of the heart and brain. In that\n ascetic abstraction, which hides in darkness all the objects of\n sense, they sought to develop, from the dull and arid stem of school\n divinity, the most precious blossoms of the feeling; and their\n mysticism resembles those plants of the cactus-tribe which unfold,\n from their lustreless and horny leaves, gorgeous flowers, that\n illumine, with phosphoric radiance, the darkness of the tropical\n night. The Victorines were succeeded in the same path by\n Bonaventura, a Frenchman by education, if not by birth, more a\n schoolman than a mystic; and, in the fifteenth century, by Gerson.\n These are mystics who have no tales to tell of inspiration and of\n vision\u2014their aim is to legitimize rapture, to define ecstasy, to\n explain the higher phenomena of the spirit on the basis of an\n elaborate psychology, to separate the delusive from the real in\n mysticism, and to ascertain the laws of that mystical experience, of\n which they acknowledged themselves to be but very partially the\n subjects. With this view, Gerson introduced into mysticism, strange\n to say, the principle of induction; and proposed, by a collection\n and comparison of recorded examples, to determine its theory, and\n decide its practice. In the _Maxims of the Saints_, F\u00e9n\u00e9lon carries\n out the idea of Gerson, as far as was requisite for his immediate\n purpose. Both are involved in the same difficulty, and fall into the\n same contradiction. What Molinos was to F\u00e9n\u00e9lon, Ruysbroek was to\n Gerson. F\u00e9n\u00e9lon wished to stop short of the spiritualism condemned\n as heretical in Molinos; Gerson, to avoid the pantheism he thought\n he saw in Ruysbroek. Both impose checks, which, if inefficacious,\n amount to nothing; if effective, are fatal to the very life of\n mysticism,\u2014both hold doctrines, to which they dare not give scope;\n and both are, to some extent, implicated in the consequences they\n repudiate by the principles they admit.\n\n Mysticism in France contrasts strikingly, in this respect, with\n mysticism in Germany. Speaking generally, it may be said that\n France exhibits the mysticism of sentiment, Germany the mysticism\n of thought. The French love to generalize and to classify. An\n arrangement which can be expressed by a word, a principle which\n can be crystallized into a sparkling maxim, they will applaud. But\n with them conventionalism reigns paramount\u2014society is ever present\n to the mind of the individual\u2014their sense of the ludicrous is\n exquisitely keen. The German loves abstractions for their own\n sake. To secure popularity for a visionary error in France, it\n must be lucid and elegant as the language\u2014it must be at least an\n ingenious and intelligible falsehood; but in Germany, the most\n grotesque inversions of thought and of expression will be found no\n hindrance to its acceptability, and the most hopeless obscurity\n may be pronounced its highest merit. In this respect, German\n philosophy sometimes resembles Lycophron, who was so convinced\n that unintelligibility was grandeur, as to swear he would hang\n himself if a man were found capable of understanding his play of\n _Cassandra_. Almost every later German mystic has been a secluded\n student\u2014almost every mystic of modern France has been a brilliant\n conversationalist. The genius of mysticism rises, in Germany, in\n the clouds of the solitary pipe; in France, it is a fashionable\n Ariel, who hovers in the drawing-room, and hangs to the pendants\n of the glittering chandelier. If Jacob Behmen had appeared in\n France, he must have counted disciples by units, where in Germany\n he reckoned them by hundreds. If Madame Guyon had been born in\n Germany, rigid Lutheranism might have given her some annoyance;\n but her earnestness would have redeemed her enthusiasm from\n ridicule, and she would have lived and died the honoured precursor\n of modern German Pietism. The simplicity and strength of purpose\n which characterize so many of the German mystics, appear to much\n advantage beside the vanity and affectation which have so\n frequently attended the manifestations of mysticism in France. In\n Germany, theosophy arose with the Reformation, and was as much a\n theology as a science. In France, where the Reformation had been\n suppressed, and where superstition had been ridiculed with such\n success, the same love of the marvellous was most powerful with\n the most irreligious\u2014it filled the antechamber of Cagliostro with\n impatient dandies and grandees, trembling, and yet eager to pry\n into the future\u2014too enlightened to believe in Christ, yet too\n credulous to doubt the powers of a man before whose door fashion\n drew, night after night, a line of carriages which filled the\n street.\n\n\n Note to page 245.\n\n\nA full account of the proceedings against the Quietists will be found in\nthe narrative above referred to and in Arnold\u2019s _Kirchen-und-Ketzer\nGeschichte_, th. III. cap. xvii.\n\nThe motive of P\u00e8re La Chaise in urging this prosecution appears to have\nbeen twofold: partly, to start heretics whom his Most Christian Majesty\nmight magnificently hunt, and still more to weaken the Spanish party and\nembarrass the Pope, who was suspected of leaning toward the house of\nAustria. The audacity of the Jesuits\u2014so formidable always, from their\nnumbers, their union, their unscrupulousness, and now emboldened by\nsupport so powerful, struck all Rome with terror. A man widely reputed\nfor sanctity, throughout a period of twenty years\u2014an honoured guest\nwithin the walls of the Vatican\u2014who had long enjoyed, and not yet\nforfeited, the warm friendship of the Head of the Church\u2014was suddenly\ndeclared the most dangerous enemy to the faith of Christendom. To\naccomplish the ruin of this victim, a venerable pontiff was threatened\nwith the most grievous insult which infallibility could suffer. Within a\nmonth, two hundred persons were thrown into the dungeons of the\nInquisition,\u2014and many of these were eminent for rank, for learning, or\nfor piety. Only the grossly stupid or the scandalously dissolute could\nfeel themselves secure. To hint a question concerning the justice of a\nsingle step in prosecutions remarkable, even at Rome, for the baseness\nand illegality of their agents and their acts\u2014to live a quiet and\nretiring life\u2014to appear infrequently at confession or at mass,\u2014these\nwere circumstances sufficient to render any man suspected of Quietism;\nand if the informer were hungry, or a private enemy alert, from\nsuspicion to conviction was but a step.\n\nBut the persecutors were destined to meet with many mortifications in\ntheir course. Molinos and his friend Petrucci\u2014a bishop, and afterwards a\ncardinal\u2014defended themselves, on their first summons, with such skill\nand intrepidity, that the writings which had been circulated against\nthem were condemned as libellous. The case of Petrucci represents that\nof the great majority against whom the charge of Quietism was brought.\nNot an accusation could be substantiated, save this,\u2014that blameless as\nhis life might be, he had grown remiss in some of those outward\nobservances which are the pride of Pharisaic sanctity. Thus defeated at\nthe outset, the Jesuits were reinforced and rendered victorious by the\nfalsehoods of D\u2019Etrees, who refused to hear a word Molinos had to say in\ndefence of his own writings. The Count and Countess Vespiniani were\narrested, with other persons, to the number of seventy. They were\naccused of omitting the exterior practices of religion, and of giving\nthemselves to solitude and prayer. The Countess bravely answered, that\nshe had discovered her manner of devotion only to her confessor; he must\nhave betrayed her; who but idiots would confess, if confession was made\nthe engine of the persecutor\u2014if no secret was sacred\u2014if to confess might\nbe to lie at the mercy of a villain? Henceforward she would confess to\nGod alone. A rank so high must be respected. Words so bold were\ndangerous. So the Vespiniani were set free. The circular letter sent out\nagainst the Quietists was treated with indifference by most of the\nItalian bishops\u2014not unleavened, many of them, by this obnoxious kind of\npiety. Nay, worse! for once, an epistle from the Inquisition was\npublished. The unfortunate letter escaped somehow\u2014was translated into\nItalian\u2014all Rome was reading it. The world looked in on the procedure of\nthe Holy Office, to the shame and bitter vexation of its holy men. It\nwas said that the Inquisition collected some twenty thousand letters, or\ncopies of letters, sent and received by Molinos, and that when he was\narrested, twenty crowns\u2019 worth of letters addressed to him were seized\nat the post-office. So extended was the influence of the heretic\u2014so\nlittle likely, therefore, to perish with him. Some ecclesiastics had the\ncandour to admit that most of the Quietists showed themselves better\ninstructed than their accusers, and confronted their judges so ably,\nwith passages, authorities, and arguments, that they could only be\nsilenced by authority and force.\n\nThe letter of Cardinal Caraccioli to Innocent, about the Quietists,\nrepresents them as persons who attempt passive mental prayer and\n\u2018contemplatio,\u2019 without the previous preparation of the \u2018via purgativa.\u2019\nDreadful to relate, some of them had been known to leave their rosaries\nunfingered, to refuse to make the sign of the cross, to declare\ncrucifixes rather in their way than otherwise! They trusted rather to\ntheir inward attraction than to directors. Some, though laymen, and\nthough married, communed daily\u2014an ominous sign\u2014for it betokened the\nlowering (in their minds, at least) of that high partition wall, which\nRome had made so strong, between clergy and laity\u2014between the religious\n_par excellence_ and the vulgar herd of Christians, who were to be saved\nonly through the former. See _Bausset\u2019s Histoire de F\u00e9n\u00e9lon_, liv. ii.;\n_Pi\u00e8ces Justificatives_, No. II.\n\n\n Note to page 259.\n\n\nF\u00e9n\u00e9lon could with ease bring from the arsenal of tradition even more\nproofs than he needed for the establishment of his doctrine. No\nprevarication or sophistry could conceal the fact that Bernard, Albertus\nMagnus, Francis de Sales, Theresa, Catharine of Genoa, and other saints,\nhad used language concerning pure love, authenticating more than all\nthat F\u00e9n\u00e9lon was solicitous to defend. Thus much was proven,\u2014even\nsubtracting those passages which F\u00e9n\u00e9lon unwittingly cited from an\nedition of De Sales\u2019 _Entretiens_, said to be full of interpolations.\nThe spiritual history of Friar Laurent and of Francis de Sales furnished\nactual examples of the most extreme case F\u00e9n\u00e9lon was willing to put.\nBossuet\u2019s true answer was the reply he gave on the question to Madame de\nla Maisonfort,\u2014such rare and extraordinary cases should be left out of\nour consideration, they should not be drawn within the range of possible\nexperience, even for Christians considerably advanced. (_Phelipeaux_,\nliv. i. pp. 165-176.) In dispute with F\u00e9n\u00e9lon, instead of admitting the\nfact, as with La Maisonfort, the polemic gets uppermost, and he tries\nvery dishonestly to explain away the language of De Sales, while he\nmisrepresents and garbles that of F\u00e9n\u00e9lon. See _Cinqui\u00e8me Lettre en\nR\u00e9ponse \u00e0 divers Ecrits_; _Premi\u00e8re Lettre en R\u00e9ponse \u00e0 celle de M.\nL\u2019Ev\u00eaque de Meaux_; _Maximes des Saints_, art. v.\n\nF\u00e9n\u00e9lon draws a subtile distinction between the object of love and the\nmotive of love. That love in God which renders him our eternal\nblessedness, is among the _objects_ of our love\u2014for God has so revealed\nhimself, but is not the _motive_ of it. (_Max. des Saints_, art. iv.) Do\nwe desire happiness less, he asks, because we desire it from a worthy\nmotive,\u2014_i.e._, as desired by God? Do we extinguish hope by exalting and\nregulating it? (_Entretiens sur la Religion_; \u0152uvres, tom. i. p. 35.) If\nany one of us knew that he should be annihilated at death, ought he less\nto love the infinitely Good? Is not eternal life a gift which God is\nfree to grant or to withhold? Shall the love of the Christian who is to\nhave eternal life be _less_ than that of him who anticipates\nannihilation, just because the love of God to him is so much _more_?\nShall such a gift serve only to make love interested? (_Sur le Pur\nAmour_, xix. Compare also _Max. des Saints_, art. 10, 11, 12;\n_Correspondance_, let. 43.)\n\nF\u00e9n\u00e9lon is very careful to state that disinterested love is put to its\nmost painful proof only in rare and extreme cases,\u2014that the love which\nis interested is not a sin, only a lower religious stage, and that he\nwho requires that staff is to beware how he throws it aside prematurely,\nambitious of a spiritual perfection which may be beyond his reach.\nBossuet endeavoured to show that if F\u00e9n\u00e9lon\u2019s doctrine were true, any\nlove except the disinterested was a crime. (_Instructions et Avis_, &c.,\nxx.; _Sur le Pur Amour_, p. 329; _Max. des Saints_, art. iii., and\nsundry qualifications of importance, concerning self-abandonment in the\n\u2018\u00e9preuves extr\u00eames,\u2019 art. ix.)\n\n\n Note to page 259.\n\n\nSuch is the explanation in the letter to La Maisonfort. But F\u00e9n\u00e9lon is\nnot always\u2014perhaps, could not possibly be\u2014quite consistent with himself\non this most delicate of questions. Beyond a doubt, the attempt\npractically to apply this doctrine concerning reflex acts constitutes\nthe morbid element in his system\u2014is the one refinement above all others\nfatally unnatural. There is great truth in F\u00e9n\u00e9lon\u2019s warnings against\nnervous, impatient introspection. Against an evil so prevalent, and so\nconstantly fostered by the confessional and the directors, it was high\ntime that some one should protest. But, alas! not only does F\u00e9n\u00e9lon\nhimself uphold, most zealously, that very directorship, but this strain\nafter a love perfectly disinterested tempts the aspirant to be\ncontinually hunting inwardly after traces of the hated self, which will\nnever quite vanish. Happy, according to F\u00e9n\u00e9lon, is that religionist who\ncan sacrifice, not only himself, but the sacrifice of himself\u2014who burns\nthe burnt offering\u2014who gives up the consciousness of having given\nhimself up\u2014and who has reached, without knowing it, the pinnacle of\nChristian perfection. The reader will find specimens of his more guarded\nlanguage in the letter referred to in the _Instructions et Avis_, &c.\nxx.; _Max. des Saints_, art. xiii.; _Lettres Spirituelles_, xiii. This\nlast, a letter to S\u0153ur Charlotte de St. Cyprien, is of importance, as\ncontaining definitions of mystical terms, similar in substance to those\ngiven in the _Maximes_, and moreover, highly approved by Bossuet, a year\nafter the conferences at Issy. The strongest expressions are found in\nthe _Instructions et Avis_, xxii. xxiii. He says,\u2014Pour consommer le\nsacrifice de purification en nous des dons de Dieu, il faut donc achever\nde d\u00e9truire l\u2019holocauste; il faut tout perdre, m\u00eame l\u2019abandon aper\u00e7u par\nlequel on se voit livr\u00e9 \u00e0 sa perte.\u2014P. 342. Compare the allusion to the\nunconscious prayer of St. Anthony, _Max. des Saints_, art. xxi.\n\n\n Note to page 259.\n\n\nL\u2019activit\u00e9 que les mystiques bl\u00e2ment n\u2019est pas l\u2019action r\u00e9elle et la\nco-op\u00e9ration de l\u2019\u00e2me \u00e0 la gr\u00e2ce; c\u2019est seulement une crainte inqui\u00e8te,\nou une ferveur empress\u00e9e qui recherche les dons de Dieu pour sa propre\nconsolation.\u2014_Lettres Spirituelles_, xiii. So also, in the letter to La\nMaisonfort, he shows that the state of passivity does not preclude a\ngreat number of distinct acts. This is what the mystics call\nco-operating with God without activity of our own\u2014a subtlety which those\nmay seek to understand who care. F\u00e9n\u00e9lon means to forbid a selfish\nisolation, which, on pretence of quietude, neglects daily duty. True\nrepose in God calmly discharges such obligations as they come. We have\nseen an example of this in St. Theresa. F\u00e9n\u00e9lon is not prepared to go\nthe length of John of the Cross, who denies our co-operation\naltogether.\u2014_Maximes des Saints_, art. xxx. and xxix. Ils ne font plus\nd\u2019actes empress\u00e9s et marqu\u00e9s par une secousse inqui\u00e8te: ils font des\nactes si paisibles et si uniformes, que ces actes, quoique tr\u00e8s-r\u00e9els,\ntr\u00e8s-successifs, et m\u00eame interrompus, _leur paraissent_ ou un seul acte\nsans interruption, ou un repos continuel.\n\nF\u00e9n\u00e9lon is at any time ready to endorse all the counsels of John of the\nCross, as to the duty of leaving behind (_outre-passer_) all\napparitions, sounds, tastes, everything visionary, sensuous, or\ntheurgic. With the grosser forms of mysticism he has no sympathy. He\neven endeavours to represent St. Theresa as an advocate of the purer and\nmore refined mysticism, adducing the scarce-attainable seventh _Morada_,\nand overlooking the sensuous character of the preceding six. Theresa\nmight, in the abstract, rate the visionless altitude above the valley of\nvision; but she preferred, for herself, unquestionably, the valley to\nthe mountain. (_Max. des Saints_, xix.; _Lettres Spirituelles_, xiv.\nxvi. xvii.) In a letter on extraordinary gifts, he repeats the precept\nof John\u2014\u2018Aller toujours par le non-voir;\u2019 and \u2018outre-passer les grands\ndons, et marcher dans la pure foi comme si on ne les avait pas re\u00e7us.\u2019\nHe consigns the soul, in like manner, to a blank abstraction\u2014to what\nLuther would have called \u2018a void tedium.\u2019 Tout ce qui est go\u00fbt et\nferveur sensible, image cr\u00e9\u00e9e, lumi\u00e8re distincte et aper\u00e7ue, donne une\nfausse confiance, et fait une impression trop vive; on les re\u00e7oit avec\njoie, et on les quitte avec peine. Au contraire, dans la nudit\u00e9 de la\npure foi, on ne doit rien voir; on n\u2019a plus en soi ni pens\u00e9e ni volont\u00e9;\non trouve tout dans cette simplicit\u00e9 g\u00e9n\u00e9rale, sans s\u2019arr\u00eater \u00e0 rien de\ndistinct; on ne poss\u00e8de rien, mais on est poss\u00e9d\u00e9.\u2014_Lettre_ xxiii. The\nvery acts of which Contemplation is made up, are, says F\u00e9n\u00e9lon\u2014\u2018Si\nsimples, si directs, si paisibles, si uniformes, qu\u2019ils n\u2019ont rien de\nmarqu\u00e9 par o\u00f9 l\u2019\u00e2me puisse les distinguer.\u2019\u2014_Max. des Saints_, art. xxi.\nWhat such acts can be, must remain for ever a mystery unfathomable. It\nis for these inexplicable \u2018_actes distincts_\u2019 that the convenient\n\u2018_facilit\u00e9 sp\u00e9ciale_\u2019 is provided. (_Correspondance_, lettre 43; comp.\n_Lettres Spirituelles_, xiii. 448.)\n\nF\u00e9n\u00e9lon is also careful to guard his mysticism against the pretences of\nspecial revelation and any troublesome insubordination on the part of\nthe \u2018inner light,\u2019 or l\u2019attrait int\u00e9rieur. The said \u2018attrait,\u2019 he justly\nobserves, \u2018n\u2019est point une inspiration miraculeuse et proph\u00e9tique, qui\nrende l\u2019\u00e2me infaillible, ni impeccable, ni ind\u00e9pendante, de la direction\ndes pasteurs; ce n\u2019est que la gr\u00e2ce, qui est sans cesse pr\u00e9venante dans\ntous les justes, et qui est plus sp\u00e9ciale dans les \u00e2mes \u00e9lev\u00e9es par\nl\u2019amour d\u00e9sint\u00e9ress\u00e9,\u2019 &c.\u2014_Loc. cit._ p. 450; _Max. des Saints_, art.\nxxix. and vii.\n\n\n Note to page 262.\n\n\nF\u00e9n\u00e9lon gives his reasons for refusing to affix his approval to\nBossuet\u2019s book, in letters to Tronson and Madame de Maintenon, and in\nthe _R\u00e9ponse_. (_Correspondance_, lettres 52, 53, 57; _R\u00e9ponse \u00e0 la\nRelation_, chap, v.) It was a strong point for F\u00e9n\u00e9lon against Bossuet\nthat the latter had administered to Madame Guyon the sacraments, and\ngranted her a favourable certificate, after reading the very books in\nwhich he professed afterwards to discover the most flagitious designs.\nIn thinking better, therefore, of her intentions than of her language,\nF\u00e9n\u00e9lon was no more her partisan or defender than Bossuet himself had\nbeen, up to that point. The act of submission Bossuet made her sign was\nnot a retractation of error, but simply a declaration that she had never\nheld any of the errors condemned in the pastoral letter,\u2014that she always\nmeant to write in a sense altogether orthodox, and had no conception\nthat any dangerous interpretation could be put upon the terms which, in\nher ignorance, she had employed. (_R\u00e9ponse \u00e0 la Relation_, chap. i.)\nPhelipeaux sees in everything F\u00e9n\u00e9lon wrote\u2014the notes for the\n_Maxims_\u2014the memoranda he sent to Bossuet, only one purpose\u2014an insane\nresolve to defend Madame Guyon at all costs. He chooses to imagine that\nevery step taken by her was secretly dictated by F\u00e9n\u00e9lon. In fact,\nhowever, from the time the first suspicions arose, F\u00e9n\u00e9lon began to\nwithdraw from Madame Guyon his former intimacy. Nothing could exceed his\ncaution in the avoidance of all implication with one whose language was\nsusceptible of such fatal misconstruction. He could probably have taken\nno better course. He endeavoured to retain the controversy about the\nreal question, that she might be forgotten. But it soon became evident\nthat he himself was the party attacked, and with a virulence for which\nthe scandals attributed to Madame Guyon furnished an instrument too\ntempting to be neglected. The charges against Madame Guyon increased in\nmagnitude\u2014not with her resistance, for she made none\u2014but with that of\nF\u00e9n\u00e9lon. (_R\u00e9ponse_, xxiii. lxxxiv. lx.)\n\n\n Note to page 264.\n\n\nThe motives with which F\u00e9n\u00e9lon wrote and published the _Maxims_ are\nfully stated by himself. It was not to defend Madame Guyon, but to\nrescue the doctrine of pure love, threatened with destruction by the\ngrowing prejudice against the religion of the \u2018inward way.\u2019 It was not\nto excuse the Quietists, but to preserve, by due distinctions, souls\nattached to the true mysticism, from the illusions of the false. It was\nto give their full and legitimate scope to those venerable principles\nwhich a heretical Quietism was said to have abused. Mysticism was not to\nbe extinguished by denying the truth it contained. Let, then, the true\nbe separated from the false. The _Maxims_ were believed by F\u00e9n\u00e9lon to\ncontain no position contrary to the articles of Issy. The passages which\ncannot be reconciled with the limitations imposed by those articles are\nnot his own, but quotations from De Sales and others. The Andalusian\nIlluminati had rendered the greatest saints suspected. Theresa, Alvarez,\nJohn of the Cross, stood in need of defenders. Ruysbroek, whom\nBellarmine called the great contemplatist; Tauler, the Apostle of\nGermany, had required and had found champions, the one in Dionysius the\nCarthusian, the other in Blosius. The Cardinal Berulle felt compelled to\nenter the lists on behalf of St. Francis de Sales, for suspicions had\nbeen cast upon the wisdom of that eminent saint. Such examples might\nwell alarm all those whose religion was embued with mysticism,\u2014all those\nto whom a faith of that type was a necessity. Let it be openly declared\nwhere the path of safety lies, and where the dangers commence. The\n_Maxims_ were to furnish a _via media_ between the extreme of those who\nrepudiated mystical theology altogether, and the excesses of the false\nmystics. The doctrines stigmatized as false throughout the _Maxims_, are\nwhat F\u00e9n\u00e9lon supposed to be the tenets of Molinos, judging from the\nsixty-eight propositions condemned at Rome. The _Faux_, therefore, which\nopposes to the _Vrai_ is, for the most part, a mere chimera\u2014made up of\ndoctrines really believed by scarcely any one,\u2014only taught, perhaps, now\nand then, by designing priests to women, for the purposes of seduction.\nSee the \u2018Avertissement\u2019 to the _Maxims_; _Premi\u00e8re Lettre en R\u00e9ponse_,\n&c. p. 111; _Correspondance_, lettre 59; and the letter on the _Maxims_,\nto the Pope, _Phelipeaux_, p. 239.\n\n\n Note to page 265.\n\n\nAmong the expelled was the brilliant, unmanageable Madame de la\nMaisonfort\u2014the last woman in the world to have been shut up in the small\nmonotony of St. Cyr. The history of mysticism at St. Cyr is a miniature\nof its history at large. The question by which it is tried is simply\npractical. Will it subordinate itself? If so, let it flourish. If not,\nroot it out. Jean d\u2019Avila, in his _Audi, Filia, et Vide_, has a section\nentitled _Des Fausses R\u00e9v\u00e9lations_. The whole question turns on this\npoint. Is the visionary obedient to director, superior, &c.? If so, the\nvisions are of God. If not, the visions are of the Devil. (_\u0152uvres du B.\nJean D\u2019Avila, Audi, Filia, et Vide_, chapp. 50-55.)\n\nMadame Guyon, in becoming a religious instructress, as she did, only\nfollowed examples honoured by the Romish Church. Angela de Foligni, the\ntwo Catharines of Siena and of Genoa, St. Theresa, and others, had\nbecome the spiritual guides of numbers, both men and women, lay and\necclesiastic. At another juncture the kind of revival introduced by\nMadame Guyon might have met with encouragement. But her tendency was\nprecisely that of which the times were least tolerant, and her\ndisposition to follow her inward attraction rather than the counsels of\nprelates was magnified to proportions so portentous as to exclude all\nhope. The mysticism of F\u00e9n\u00e9lon, judged by the test of obedience, should\ncertainly have been spared. With an anxiety almost nervous, he\ninculcates wherever he can, those precepts of abject servility towards\nthe director which are so agreeable to his Church. Wherever the director\nis in question, we lose sight of F\u00e9n\u00e9lon, we see only the priest. But\nneither his own sincere professions of submission, nor his constant\neffort to place every one else under the feet of some ecclesiastic or\nother, could save him from a condemnation pronounced, not on religious,\nbut political grounds.\n\nIn this respect F\u00e9n\u00e9lon was anything but the _esprit fort_ which the\nscepticism of a later age so fervently admired. His letters on\nreligious subjects abound in directions for absolute obedience, and in\nwarnings against the exercise of thought and judgment on our own\naccount. Though Madame de la Maisonfort knew herself utterly unfit for\nthe religious vocation which Madame de Maintenon wished her to\nembrace, F\u00e9n\u00e9lon could tell her that her repugnance, her anguish, her\ntears, were nothing, opposed to the decision of five courtly\necclesiastics, affirming that she had the vocation. He writes to say,\nLa vocation ne se manifeste pas moins par la d\u00e9cision d\u2019autrui que par\nnotre propre attrait.\u2014_Correspondance_, lettre 19. See also _Lettres\nSpirituelles_, 18, 19, 169. The inward attraction presents some\nperplexity. In one instance it is only another word for taste (_Ibid._\n35), and in another place the attraction of grace is equivalent to an\nact of observation and judgment (_Ibid._ 176). Here, with so many\nmystics, F\u00e9n\u00e9lon can only follow the \u2018_moi_,\u2019 from which he fancies he\nescapes (441). The knot of these interior difficulties is cut by the\ndirectorship.\n\nIf F\u00e9n\u00e9lon speaks uncertainly as to what is the inward attraction, and\nwhat is not, much more would the majority of mystics be sorely perplexed\nin their own case. The mystic, bewildered and wearied with intense\nself-scrutiny, sees all swim before his eyes. He can be sure of nothing.\nWhatever alternative he chooses, he has no sooner acted on the choice\nthan he finds self in the act, and fancies the other road the right one.\nHe is distressed by finding inclination and inward attraction changing,\nwhile he gazes, into each other, and back again, times without number.\nHe is afraid to do what he likes\u2014this may be self-pleasing. He is afraid\nto do what he does not like\u2014for this may be perverseness\u2014some culpable\nself-will, at least. The life of a devotee, so conscientious and so\nunfortunate, is rendered tolerable only by the director. The man who can\nput an end to this inward strife about trifles\u2014which are anything but\ntrifles to the sufferer\u2014is welcomed as an angel from heaven. Casuistry,\nthe creature of the confessional, renders its parent a necessity.\nF\u00e9n\u00e9lon laments the abuses of the system, but he will rather believe\nthat miracles will be continually wrought, to rescue the faithful from\nsuch mischiefs, than question (as bolder mystics, like Harphius had\ndone) the institution itself. Even the mistakes and bad passions of\nsuperiors will be wrought into blessings for the obedient. (_Sur la\nDirection_, pp. 677, 678.)\n\nFootnote 334:\n\n O man, wouldst thou be grafted, and to the heavenly soil transplanted?\n then must thou first thy branches wild hew quite away, that kindly\n fruits may come forth in God\u2019s image.\n\nFootnote 335:\n\n As far as his doctrine differs from that of Madame Guyon, it is for\n the worse, because he approaches more nearly the extreme language of\n some of the orthodox mystics in his communion.\n\nFootnote 336:\n\n This Dialogue of Malaval\u2019s, which goes much beyond the mysticism of\n Molinos, was approved by the Sorbonne, and found so conformable to the\n teachings of St. Theresa, that the translation of it was dedicated to\n the bare-footed Carmelites. The unobtrusive and not unqualified\n mysticism of Molinos was stigmatised by the new epithet of Quietism,\n and condemned as deadly error. The extravagant and wonder-working\n mysticism of Theresa was extolled as the angelic life. See the\n _Account of Molinos and the Quietists_, appended to the\n _Autobiography_ of Madame Guyon: translated, I believe, from a French\n work, entitled, _Recueil de Diverses Pi\u00e8ces concernant le Qui\u00e9tisme et\n les Qui\u00e9tistes_.\n\nFootnote 337:\n\n Michelet, _Priests, Women, and Families_, p. 74.\n\nFootnote 338:\n\n See Note on p. 276.\n\nFootnote 339:\n\n _Upham_, vol. ii. pp. 3, &c. We find among these persons of rank a\n religion of some vitality\u2014no court-fashion merely. It was to the\n _Introduction \u00e0 la Vie D\u00e9vote_ (1608) of St. Francis de Sales that\n Romanism was indebted for such hold as it really had on the upper\n classes. None of the great ecclesiastical writers of France\u2014not even\n that darling of the fifteenth century, the _Imitatio Christi_, could\n win the ears of people of the world. In the _Introduction_, however,\n religion appeared neither ruthlessly stern, nor hopelessly\n fantastical. It was not, on the one side, scowling, unkempt, sordid,\n morose; it was not, on the other, impalpable, supersensuous, utterly\n unintelligible, as well as undesirable, to worldly common sense.\n Fashion and devotion met; piety and politeness embraced each other.\n The _Introduction_ leaves to others the pains and raptures of the\n mystic. It is written for the Marthas, not the Marys. Its readers,\n personified in Philothea, are not supposed to be covetous of any\n extraordinary gifts. De Sales possessed a lively fancy, and the tender\n religious sentiment of his book, graced and lightened by its rainbow\n illustrations, was a bright-winged Psyche, welcome everywhere. These\n illustrations are drawn, sometimes from the farms, the flower-valleys,\n and the snow-peaks of his native Savoy; sometimes from fabulous\n natural history, from classic story, from the legends of the Church,\n or the forms and usages of the world,\u2014oftenest of all, from the ways\n of infants and children, and from the love of mothers. St. Beuve\n happily characterises the work, as \u2018un livre qui, sur la table d\u2019une\n femme comme il faut ou d\u2019un gentilhomme poli de ce temps-l\u00e0, ne\n chassait pas absolument le volume de Montaigne, et, attendait, sans le\n fuir, le volume d\u2019Urf\u00e9.\u2019\u2014_Causeries du Lundi_, tom. vii. p. 216.\n\nFootnote 340:\n\n This Harlay had owed his archbishopric to his libertinism in the days\n of Madame de Montespan. His sun was now setting, ingloriously enough,\n under the decent r\u00e9gime of the Maintenon, and there was nothing for it\n but to atone for the scandals of his life and diocese by exemplary\n rigour in matters of doctrine. The letters sent, and the documents\n shown him, were the fabrication of La Mothe and his creature the\n scrivener Gautier. They forged a letter from Marseilles, pretending\n that La Combe had slept in the same chamber with Madame Guyon\u2014and also\n eaten meat in Lent. La Combe was further accused of having embraced\n and taught the heresy of Molinos.\n\n The real letters which followed Madame Guyon from the scenes of her\n former activity breathe no suspicion of her character or motives. The\n Bishop of Geneva, in a letter quoted by F\u00e9n\u00e9lon, declared that his\n only complaint against her was the indiscreet zeal with which she\n everywhere propagated truths which she believed serviceable to the\n Church. With that exception, \u2018he esteemed her infinitely, and\n entertained for her the highest imaginable regard.\u2019 This was in 1683.\n In 1688 he prohibited her books. But even in 1695, the same bishop\n repeats his praise of her piety and morals, and declares that his\n conscience never would have suffered him to speak of her in other than\n respectful language.\u2014See _Memoirs for the History of Madame de\n Maintenon_ (London, 1757), vol. III. bk. xi. c. 2. _Autobiography_,\n part III. chapp. i. ii. iii. F\u00e9n\u00e9lon\u2019s _R\u00e9ponse \u00e0 la Relation sur le\n Qui\u00e9tisme_, chap. i.\n\nFootnote 341:\n\n _Memoirs for the History of Madame de Maintenon_, bk. ix. Madame\n Guyon\u2019s doctrine entered St. Cyr while the absolute vows were yet\n under discussion.\n\nFootnote 342:\n\n _Memoirs for the History of Madame de Maintenon_, bk. xi. chap. v.\n\nFootnote 343:\n\n _Autobiography_, part III. chap. ix. F\u00e9n\u00e9lon declares that her\n explanations at these interviews were such as to satisfy him of the\n harmlessness and orthodoxy of her intention. She appeared to him often\n extravagant or questionable in expression, from her ignorance; but so\n favoured of God, that the most learned divine might gather spiritual\n wisdom from her lips. She told him of certain instantaneous\n supernatural communications, which came and vanished, she knew not\n how. Yet, like John of the Cross, she did not rest on these, but\n passed on into the obscure path of pure faith. For this he praised\n her, and believed that though these experiences were illusory, a\n spirit so lowly and so obedient had been faithful to grace throughout,\n such involuntary deception notwithstanding.\u2014_R\u00e9ponse \u00e0 la Relation sur\n le Qui\u00e9tisme_, chap. i. 10-13.\n\nFootnote 344:\n\n She still speaks, however, of the \u2018_sense_\u2019 vouchsafed her of the\n state of the souls given to her, even when they were at a distance;\n and of communication in God with those to whom the Lord united her by\n the tie of spiritual maternity. _Autobiography_, part III. ch. viii.\n Nothing was more likely to open her eyes to the questionable character\n of some of her experiences, and to the unguarded nature of many of her\n expressions, than the kindly yet searching inquiries of a man like\n F\u00e9n\u00e9lon, qualified by temperament to enter into her feelings, and a\n master in mystical theology. Mr. Upham seems to me greatly to overrate\n the influence of Madame Guyon on F\u00e9n\u00e9lon. To her fancy, her\n imagination might at times depict him as a spiritual son: he was, in\n fact, a friendly judge.\n\nFootnote 345:\n\n When called to separate the true mysticism from the false in the\n writings of Madame Guyon, Bossuet was not only ignorant of Tauler,\n Ruysbroek, Harphius, and others; he had not even read Francis de Sales\n or John of the Cross. F\u00e9n\u00e9lon, at his request, sent him a collection\n of passages from Suso, Harphius, Ruysbroek, Tauler, Catharine of\n Genoa, St. Theresa, John of the Cross, Alvarez, De Sales, and Madame\n de Chantal. With just indignation does F\u00e9n\u00e9lon expose the artifice by\n which Bossuet afterwards attempted to turn this confidence against\n him.\u2014_R\u00e9ponse \u00e0 la Relation sur le Qui\u00e9tisme_, chap. ii. 18-27.\n\nFootnote 346:\n\n _History of Madame de Maintenon_, bk. XI. chap. vii.\n\nFootnote 347:\n\n _History of Madame de Maintenon_, bk. XI. chap. vii. Bausset,\n _Histoire de F\u00e9n\u00e9lon_, liv. ii. p. 295. The high opinion entertained\n of F\u00e9n\u00e9lon by Madame de Maintenon was, as yet, unshaken. She knew that\n though the friend of Madame Guyon, he was not her advocate. But she\n was called to side with the man of charity or the man of zeal\u2014the\n liberal man or the bigot; and the issue could not long be doubtful.\n F\u00e9n\u00e9lon early saw the signs of danger. We find him striving to\n moderate the enthusiasm of Madame de la Maisonfort\u2014to reconcile her to\n the regulations of Godet\u2014to repress her indiscreet zeal in behalf of\n her cousin, Madame Guyon.\u2014_Correspondance de F\u00e9n\u00e9lon_, Lettres 24, 26,\n 29, 30.\n\nFootnote 348:\n\n _Autobiography_, part III. chap. xiii. Phelipeaux gives in full the\n correspondence on both sides, _Relation de l\u2019Origine, du Progr\u00e8s et de\n la Condamnation du Qui\u00e9tisme r\u00e9pandu en France_ (1732), liv. i. pp.\n 73, &c. His account abounds in misrepresentations, and does little\n more, in the first part, than echo the _Relation sur le Qui\u00e9tisme_ of\n Bossuet, to whom the abb\u00e9 was devoted. But his minuteness of detail,\n and the copious insertion of important letters and documents on either\n side, give to the heavy narrative considerable value. In a subsequent\n interview between Bossuet and Madame Guyon, she declared herself\n unable to pray for any particular thing\u2014the forgiveness of her sins,\n for instance. To do so was to fail in absolute abandonment and\n disinterestedness. Bossuet was shocked. Madame Guyon promised and\n meant, to be all submission; but conscience would be unmanageable at\n times. Bossuet writes her long, sensible, hard-headed letters, in\n which, without much difficulty, he exposes her error, and leaves her\n no ground to stand on. She, however, must still humbly suggest that\n the exercise of love embraces all petitions, and that as there is a\n love without reflexion, so there may be a prayer without reflexion\u2014a\n substantial prayer, comprehending all others.\u2014_Phelipeaux_, p. 111.\n\nFootnote 349:\n\n Her request was made to Madame de Maintenon for commissioners, half\n clerical, half lay, to examine into the scandals which had been set\n afloat against her character.\u2014_Phelipeaux_, liv. i. p. 114.\n _Autobiography_, part III. chap. xv.\n\nFootnote 350:\n\n _Autobiography_, chapp. xvi. xvii. See also her letter to the three\n commissioners, in _Phelipeaux_, p. 117. Harlay heard with indignation\n of this Conference at Issy, to decide upon a heresy which had been\n unearthed in his diocese. He endeavoured to rouse the suspicions of\n Louis, but in vain. He determined himself to condemn the writings of\n Madame Guyon, before the Commissioners could come to a decision.\n Madame de Maintenon informed Bossuet, who paid a visit without loss of\n time to his metropolitan, complimented him on the censure he was about\n to fulminate, gave every explanation, and took his departure with\n polite assurances that the verdict of Issy would but reiterate the\n condemnation pronounced by the vigilant Archbishop of Paris. So\n completely was the cause of Madame Guyon prejudged.\u2014_Phelipeaux_, p.\n 125.\n\nFootnote 351:\n\n _Autobiography_, part III. chapp. xviii. xix. _R\u00e9ponse \u00e0 la Relation_,\n &c., I. ii. 3. _Upham_, vol. II. chapp. x. and xi.\n\nFootnote 352:\n\n The articles at first proposed to F\u00e9n\u00e9lon for his signature were\n thirty in number. The 12th and 13th, the 33rd and 34th, were wanting.\n He said that he could only sign these thirty articles _as they were_,\n \u2018_par d\u00e9f\u00e9rence_,\u2019 and against his persuasion. Two days afterwards,\n when the four additional articles were laid before him, he declared\n himself ready to sign them with his blood. The 34th article is the\n most important of the four, as bearing directly on the most critical\n question arising from the doctrine of disinterested love. It allows\n that doctrine expressly, if words have meaning, and occupies all the\n ground F\u00e9n\u00e9lon himself was concerned to maintain in its defence.\n (_Entretiens sur la Religion_, F\u00e9n. \u0152uvres, tom. i. p. 34.) The\n article is in substance as follows:\u2014On peut inspirer aux \u00e2mes pein\u00e9es\n et vraiment humbles un consentement \u00e0 la volont\u00e9 de Dieu, quand m\u00eame,\n par une supposition tr\u00e8s-fausse, au lieu des biens \u00e9ternels promis aux\n justes, il les tiendrait dans les tourments \u00e9ternels, sans n\u00e9anmoins\n les priver de sa gr\u00e2ce et de son amour.\u2014_R\u00e9ponse \u00e0 la Relation_, &c.,\n chap. iii. _Phelipeaux_, liv. i. pp. 131, 135-137.\n\nFootnote 353:\n\n See Note on p. 278.\n\nFootnote 354:\n\n See second Note on p. 278.\n\nFootnote 355:\n\n See Note on p. 279.\n\nFootnote 356:\n\n Witness the panegyrics of Bossuet on Theresa and John of the Cross.\n Compare also their different verdicts on the former. F\u00e9n\u00e9lon says,\n writing to Madame de Maintenon, \u2018Quelque respect et quelque admiration\n que j\u2019aie pour Sainte Th\u00e9r\u00e8se, je n\u2019aurais jamais voulu donner au\n public tout ce qu\u2019elle a \u00e9crit.\u2019\u2014_Correspondance_, 31. Bossuet,\n writing to Madame Guyon, says, \u2018Je n\u2019ai jamais h\u00e9sit\u00e9 un seul moment\n sur les \u00e9tats de Sainte Th\u00e9r\u00e8se, parceque je n\u2019y ai rien trouv\u00e9, que\n je ne trouvasse aussi dans l\u2019Ecriture,\u2019 &c.\u2014_Phelipeaux_, liv. i. p.\n 104. In the _Instructions sur les Etats d\u2019Oraison_, Bossuet, in\n speaking of the passive state, had allowed of certain miraculous\n suspensions (impuissances) from which F\u00e9nelon shrinks\u2014which he would\n have located in some section _Faux_ of his _Maxims_\u2014and to which\n Noailles refused his approval.\u2014_R\u00e9ponse \u00e0 la Relation_, xxviii. and\n lxii.\n\nFootnote 357:\n\n Her letter to Bossuet furnishes a fair justification of this retreat\n to Paris.\u2014_Phelipeaux_, liv. i. p. 152. It gratifies our curiosity to\n learn from this authority what books were seized when Desgr\u00e8s, the\n detective, entered the little house in the Faubourg St. Antoine, in\n the name of the king. There were some plays of Moli\u00e8re, some romances,\n such as _John of Paris_ and _Richard Lion-heart_, but these, said\n Madame Guyon, belonged to the lacqueys of her son, a lieutenant in the\n guards. But she acknowledged a _Griseldis_ and _Don Quixote_ as her\n books. It is pleasing to find our fair saint, so far of like passions\n with ourselves, amused with Sancho, and pitying Griseldis,\u2014herself a\n patient sufferer at the hands of blinded, pitiless men.\n\nFootnote 358:\n\n See Note on p. 280.\n\nFootnote 359:\n\n See second Note on p. 280.\n\nFootnote 360:\n\n Bausset, _Histoire de F\u00e9n\u00e9lon_, liv. iii. p. 45. See also Note on p.\n 281.\n\nFootnote 361:\n\n Bausset, _Hist. de F\u00e9n\u00e9lon_, liv. iii. 47. A minute, though very\n partial account of all the squabbles and intrigues at Rome, from first\n to last, may be read in _Phelipeaux_.\u2014See also _Memoirs of Madame de\n Maintenon_, xi. 19. _Corr. de F\u00e9n\u00e9lon_, lettre 108.\n\nFootnote 362:\n\n Bausset, iii. 48-50; Aim\u00e9-Martin, _Etudes sur la Vie de F\u00e9n\u00e9lon_, p.\n 14.\n\nFootnote 363:\n\n Bausset, 53-4; _Mem. of Maintenon_, XI. 20; Aim\u00e9-Martin, 15.\n\nFootnote 364:\n\n Bausset, 59-61. The means to which Bossuet could stoop\u2014the falsehoods\n he could coolly repeat, after detection, as though nothing had\n happened\u2014the misquotation, and misrepresentation\u2014the constant reply to\n awkwardly pressing arguments by malicious personalities\u2014all these\n things are exposed in F\u00e9n\u00e9lon\u2019s _Lettres en R\u00e9ponse_, and in the\n _R\u00e9ponse_ itself. They are bad enough; but the student of controversy\n is accustomed to this imperturbable lying, to these arts of\n insinuation. The most detestable feature of all in the part played by\n Bossuet, lies in that sleek cant and tearful unction with which he\n calumniates\u2014as though it almost broke his heart to write what he\n exults in writing. Well might F\u00e9n\u00e9lon request that he would not weep\n over him so profusely while he tore him in pieces, and desire fewer\n tears and more fair play! See the Preface to the _R\u00e9ponse_; _R\u00e9ponse_,\n 59; and _R\u00e9ponse aux Remarques_, \u00a7 vi.\n\nFootnote 365:\n\n Bausset, iii. 68, 69; Upham, vol. ii. p. 289.\n\nFootnote 366:\n\n Bausset, 77, 78.\n\nFootnote 367:\n\n Upham, vol. ii. ch. 18.\n\n CHAPTER III.\n\n\n All opinions and notions, though never so true, about things\n spiritual, may be the very matter of heresy, when they are adhered\n to as the principle and end, with obstinacy and acquiescence; and,\n on the contrary, opinions and speculations, however false, may be\n the subject of orthodoxy, and very well consist with it, when they\n are not stiffly adhered to, but only employed in the service of\n disposing the soul to the faith of entire resignation, which is the\n only true orthodoxy wherein there can be no heresy nor capital\n errours.\u2014POIRET.\n\n\nWILLOUGBY. I think, Atherton, you have been somewhat too indulgent on\nthat question of disinterested love. To me it appears sheer presumption\nfor any man to pretend that he loves God without any regard to self,\nwhen his very being, with its power to know and love, is a gift\u2014when he\nhas nothing that he did not receive,\u2014when his salvation is wholly of\nfavour, and not of merit,\u2014and when, from the very first, he has been\nlaid under an ever-increasing weight of obligation beyond all estimate.\nOn this matter Oliver Cromwell appears to me a better divine than\nF\u00e9n\u00e9lon, when he writes, \u2018I have received plentiful wages beforehand,\nand I know that I shall never earn the least mite.\u2019\n\nGOWER. Yet F\u00e9n\u00e9lon bases disinterested love on the doctrine which denies\nto man all possibility of merit.\n\nATHERTON. I think Willoughby looks at F\u00e9n\u00e9lon\u2019s teaching concerning\ndisinterested love too much apart from his times and his Church. Grant\nthat this disinterestedness is a needless and unattainable refinement,\nsavouring of that high-flown, ultra-human devotion so much affected by\nRomish saintship\u2014still it has its serviceable truth, as opposed to the\nservile and mercenary religionism which the Romanist system must\nordinarily produce.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. It is the less of two evils, perhaps; but, let divines say\nwhat they will, men cannot abjure self as such a doctrine requires. Man\nmay ask it of his fellow-men, but God does not require it of them, when\nhe tells them He would have all men to be saved. That inalienable desire\nof individual well-being, to which God appeals, these theologians\ndisdain.\n\nGOWER. But man comes into this world to live for something higher than\nhappiness.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. That depends on what you mean by the word. Of course, life\nhas a purpose far above that snug animalism which some men call\nhappiness. In opposition to _that_, the outcry revived of late against\nhappiness, as a motive, has its full right. But I mean by happiness,\nman\u2019s true well-being\u2014that of his higher, not his lower nature\u2014that of\nhis nature, not for a moment, but for ever. With such happiness, duty,\nhowever stern, must always ultimately coincide. I say, man was formed to\ndesire such a realisation of the possibilities of his nature, that to\nbid him cease or slacken in this desire is a cruelty and a folly, and\nthat the will of God ought never for an instant to be conceived as\nhostile to such well-being. If He were, why hear we of Redemption? And I\nmay point with reverence to the Incarnate Perfectness, \u2018who, _for the\njoy that was set before him_, endured the cross;\u2019 he would die to know\nthe blessedness of restoring to us our life. Only the most sublime\nself-sacrifice could account such a result a recompense; and that\nrecompense he did not refuse to keep constantly in view.\n\nATHERTON. Your dispute is very much a question of words. True\nself-annihilation certainly does not consist in being without a personal\naim, but in suppressing all that within us which would degrade that aim\nbelow the highest.\n\nGOWER. The Quietists are right in undervaluing, as they do, mere\npleasurable feeling in religion.\n\nATHERTON. Quite so: in as far as they mean to say by such depreciation\nthat God may be as truly near and gracious in spiritual sorrow as in\nspiritual joy,\u2014that inward delights and blissful states of mind are not\nto be put virtually in the place of Christ, as a ground of trust\u2014that\nthe witness of the Spirit does not evince itself in the emotional nature\nmerely, but is realised in the general consciousness of a divine life,\nwhich is its own evidence. But I think the Quietists too much overlook\nthe fact that peace, rising at times to solemn joy, is after all, the\n_normal_ state of the Christian life, and as such, always a legitimate\nobject of desire.\n\nGOWER. As to disinterested love, once more, may we not take Bunyan as a\ngood example of the mean between our two extremes? When in prison, and\nuncertain whether he might not soon be condemned to die, the thought\ncame into his mind:\u2014Suppose God should withdraw Himself at the very last\nmoment\u2014fail to support me at the gallows\u2014abandon me. But he resisted the\ntemptation like a man. He tells how he said within himself, \u2018If God doth\nnot come in (to comfort me), I will leap off the ladder even blindfold\ninto eternity, sink or swim, come heaven, come hell. It was my duty,\u2019 he\ndeclared, \u2018to stand to His word, whether He would ever look upon me, or\nsave me at the last, or not.\u2019\n\nWILLOUGHBY. I can understand Bunyan. He was _driven_ to that\nself-abandonment, and his faith made its brave stand there; he did not\n_seek_ it. But the Quietists would have us cultivate, as the habit of\nChristian perfection, that self-oblivion which is, in fact, only our\nresource in the hottest moment of temptation. Why shut ourselves up in\nthe castle-keep, if not an outwork has been carried?\n\nATHERTON. What a torrent of cant and affectation must have been set a\nflowing when Quietism became the fashion for awhile! What\nself-complacent chatter about self-annihilation; and how easily might\nthe detail of spiritual maladies and imaginary sins be made to minister\nto display! Is it not thus Pope describes Affectation?\u2014how she\n\n Faints into airs, and languishes with pride,\n On the rich quilt sinks with becoming woe\n Wrapt in a gown for sickness, and for show.\n\nGOWER. That reminds me of Zoilus, pretending to be ill, that he might\nexhibit to his friends the new purple counterpane just come from\nAlexandria.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. But I can imagine some, in earnest, seeking refuge in\nQuietism\u2014doing so rather in desperation than in aspiration\u2014heart sick,\nweary of the world. Such would find but cold comfort. In vain would they\nbe surrounded with offers of supersensible manifestations, divine\ntouches, tastes, illapses\u2014ethereal, super-angelic\u2014not to say superhuman,\nfare. Craving some tangible consolation, some food adapted to their\nnature, they would be mocked with these pictures of a feast,\u2014with\npromise of the sustenance proper only to some other race of creatures.\n\nATHERTON. As though one should feed a sick lion on gingerbread and\nliqueurs.\n\nGOWER. Or one might liken such poor disappointed creatures to the lamb\nbrought into the churches on St. Agnes\u2019 day, reclined on its cushion\nfringed with gold, its ears and tail decked with gay ribbon,\u2014bleating to\nchurch music\u2014petted and adorned, in a manner to it most unintelligible\nand unsatisfying\u2014and seeming, to the ear of the satirist, to cry all the\nwhile,\u2014\n\n Alack, and alas!\n What\u2019s all this white damask to daisies and grass!\n\nKATE. Helen and I were much interested in that old book you lent us, Mr.\nAtherton, _The Life of Mistress Antonia Bourignon_,[368] an excellent\nwoman, shamefully persecuted.\n\nATHERTON. I think so. She took upon herself, you see, to rebuke the\nChurch as well as the world.\n\nMRS. ATHERTON. And had large property left her, which excited the\ncupidity of those Fathers of the Oratory, who gave her such trouble.\n\nGOWER. I never heard of her before.\n\nATHERTON. Her Quietism was very similar to that of Madame Guyon, but she\nwas not, like her, mixed up with a controversy famous in history. She\nfound, however, a faithful F\u00e9n\u00e9lon in her accomplished disciple, Peter\nPoiret,[369] a liberal and large-minded Quietist, whose mysticism may be\nsaid to occupy a position between that of the German Theology and our\nEnglish Platonists.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. I greatly enjoyed reading some parts of his _Divine\n\u0152conomy_. Tennyson\u2019s stanza expresses the spirit of his theology:\u2014\n\n Our little systems have their day;\n They have their day and cease to be:\n They are but broken lights of Thee,\n And Thou, O Lord, art more than they.\n\nATHERTON. Yet his six volumes add one more to our many systems. The\nvitiating element, in a theology otherwise very fairly balanced, is the\nextreme to which he carries the doctrine of passivity. In religion, he\nwill have the understanding utterly inert.[370]\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Yet he uses, very effectively, in his writings, the faculty\nhe calls on us to resign.\n\nATHERTON. It is very common with mysticism to demand, in that way, a\nsacrifice which it does not make itself. With Poiret, Philosophy,\nCriticism, and Rhetoric, are the curse of the Church\u2014the sources of all\nfalse theology.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Still there is much truth in his assertion that all positive\nreligion accomplishes its purpose only as it leads to a filial\nsubjection of the soul to God\u2014as it conducts men, beyond itself, to\nimmediate intercourse with Deity.\n\nATHERTON. William Law has the same idea: it constitutes, with him, the\n_natural_ basis of all revealed religion.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. It is mainly on this ground, I suppose, that Poiret adopts\nan eschatology more mild than that of the Calvinism which he forsook. He\nis not without his hopes concerning heathens hereafter. He believes in a\nstate of purification after death, for those who departed, in a state of\ngrace, but not yet ripe for the full enjoyment of heaven.\n\nATHERTON. It is significant that the first step taken by Protestant\nMysticism, after departing from Calvinistic, Lutheran, or Anglican\northodoxy, should always be an endeavour to mitigate the gloom which\nhangs over the doctrine of the future state.\n\nMRS. ATHERTON. I have also been reading M. Eynard\u2019s _Life of Madame de\nKr\u00fcdener_. She appears to me an inferior Madame Guyon\u2014falling very short\nof her predecessor in real elevation of soul and power of mind, and\ndecidedly more credulous.\n\nATHERTON. She was never chastened by trials so severe as those which\nbefel Madame Guyon or Antoinette Bourignon. I do not think her insincere\naltogether,\u2014she meant well, and often deceived herself; but she never\nthoroughly conquered her inordinate vanity and love of display. When her\nnovel of _Valerie_ had outlived its day of puffery\u2014when she had ceased\nto shine in the world of fashion, she achieved distinction as a seeress\nand guide of souls at the Hotel Montchenu.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. A tuft-hunting sort of Quietism, hers. What a picture\nTalleyrand gives of the evening religious service in her drawing-room,\nwhen the allies were in Paris. The Emperor Alexander was a frequent\nvisitor, prominent among notabilities from every court in Europe. M.\nEmpeytaz, in his gown, prayed and preached; Madame de Kr\u00fcdener, with her\nblue eyes and long dark locks, would converse on the interior life, with\nguest after guest, in the inner apartment, or haply come forward and\ndeliver a prophecy.[371]\n\nATHERTON. She had all the tact of a woman of the world, an impressive\nmanner, and a fascinating gift of utterance. Her mysticism received its\nprophetic impulse chiefly from the predictions of a pretended\nclairvoyante, managed by a knave.[372]\n\nMRS. ATHERTON. Jung Stilling and Swedenborg had also their share in\ngiving that bent to her enthusiasm. I think she may have done good in\nsome quarters.\n\nATHERTON. Very likely. The world is seldom the worse for the shock it\nreceives when some one speaks out a strong belief in unseen realities,\neven though not always in the wisest way.\n\n\n Note to page 286.\n\n\nAn anonymous work, entitled _An Apology for Me. Antonia Bourignon_\n(Lond. 1699), contains an account of her life. It was not her design to\nfound a sect, for she taught that of sects there were too many:\nexclusive formulas and hostile systems had corrupted Christendom, and\nmade it a very Babel. She wished to forsake the world, with a few\nassociates, bound by no vows, distinguished by no habit, working with\ntheir hands, and giving themselves to prayer and meditation. She was\nmuch resorted to by religious persons of every communion, as a guide to\nthe higher degrees of the Christian life. She believed that special\nlight was granted her for the interpretation of Scripture, and that it\nwas her mission to recall the Church from formalism and human notions to\nspirituality and Quietist devotion. She appears to have been truly\nsuccessful in awakening and stimulating religious aspiration in very\nmany minds, till the storm of persecution, raised by her sweeping\ncensure of the ecclesiastical world, drove her from one hiding-place to\nanother, throughout Schleswig and Holstein. She died, at last,\nimpoverished and deserted, concealed in a wretched lodging at Amsterdam.\nHer letters are those of a pious and sensible woman, clear-headed,\nprecise, and decided in vexatious business details, and singularly free\nfrom all obscureness or rhapsody. Swammerdam, the naturalist, was one of\nher disciples. Her Quietism was a welcome doctrine to many among\nRomanists, Lutherans, and Calvinists. Her bitterest persecutors were\nfound among the clergy of every denomination. The Jesuits of\nFrederickstadt wished for fuel to burn her. The priests of the Oratory\nat Mechlin defrauded her of her property. Lutheran and Calvinist pastors\nalike, wrote, spoke, and preached against her with such virulence that\nthe zealous populace of Flensburg were ready to tear her in pieces for\nthe glory of God. (_Life_, pp. 310-313. Comp. _Letters_, xxii. xxiii.\nxxiv.: _A Collection of Letters written by Mrs. A. Bourignon_, Lond.\n1708.)\n\n\n Note to page 287.\n\n\nPoiret was a Calvinistic clergyman, who, after his acquaintance with\nAntoinette Bourignon, and much reading of mystical writers, relinquished\nhis office. In his retirement he wrote a number of theological works, of\nwhich the best known is his system of divinity, entitled The _Divine\n\u0152conomy_. He possessed a goodly measure of that scholarship and\nphilosophic culture which, as a mystic, he at once uses and depreciates.\n\nOur higher faculty\u2014the understanding, or intellect, he calls it\u2014is not\n(like what he terms \u2018reason\u2019) a limited capability; but \u2018being made for\nGod is in a manner infinite, so as to be able to exert infinite acts,\nthat is, to raise itself up to the contemplation of God as\nincomprehensible, infinite, and above all particular forms of conceiving\nhim.\u2019 If, therefore, we make an absolute surrender of this faculty to\nGod, and so, by a passive \u2018implicit faith,\u2019 yield ourselves up to\nwhatsoever He may be pleased to communicate to us, we receive Him \u2018in a\nmanner worthy of Him, above all particular and bounded conception,\nlight, and sentiment.\u2019 Then, he says, we practically own this\nfundamental truth, \u2018that God is infinite and incomprehensible; that he\nis a Light, a Good, a Wisdom, a Power, a Justice,\u2014in a word, a Being\nabove all comprehension and thought.\u2019 He bids us remember that our\napprehensions of God, however true, as derived from his own word and\nfrom particular communications of his own, are necessarily partial and\nimperfect, so that \u2018a true and pure faith, while embracing the\nparticular divine lights, will not regard chiefly the particular forms,\nbut the infinite God that is annexed to them, and comprehends in himself\ninfinitely more than the particulars he has disclosed to us.\u2019 (_Div.\n\u0152con_. vol. v. chap. iv. \u00a7\u00a7 37-41.)\n\nWhat is true in this doctrine has seldom been denied\u2014viz. that beyond\nour highest apprehension of God, his nature extends infinitely. We know\nbut parts of his ways. We know _that_ infinity lies behind all our\n\u2018bounded conceptions;\u2019 but _what_ that infinity is, no surrender of the\nIntellect can disclose to us.\n\n\n Note to page 287.\n\n\nHere Poiret shall speak for himself:\u2014\n\n\u2018The Understanding, to pass into the order of faith, must have these two\nconditions; the first, that it be empty, and shut to all ideas of\nworldly things, both heavenly and earthly; the second, that it keep\nitself open before God after an indeterminate and general manner, not\nparticularly fixing upon anything. This being supposed, with the faith\nof desire afore-mentioned, God causes to rise in the soul his divine\nlight, which is his eternal substantial word, which does himself modify\n(if I may so say), or rather fills and quickens the understanding of the\nsoul, and enlightens it as he pleases.\u2019\u2014_Div. \u0152con._ p. 93.\n\n\u2018It will be objected, it may be, to what has been said, that this second\ncondition required here of the intellect that means to be enlightened by\nFaith, is a state of idleness\u2014time lost; and that it is an absurd thing\nnot to make use of the understanding and faculties God has given us, nor\nso much as endeavour to excite in our minds good and bright thoughts.\nHere are several things tacked together, and most of them beside the\npurpose. For at present I am not treating of the means by which one may\nbe introduced, or rather brought, as it were, to the threshold of faith,\nas I may say; nor of that imperfect and beginning faith, by me styled\nactive. Nor yet do I say, that when one has been enlightened by the\nlight of God, one is not to fix one\u2019s mind to the consideration of the\nlights held out by God: but what I say is this: I suppose a man has\nalready had some glimpse of the divine light by the call of preventing\ngrace, and that he has actively co-operated with it, by turning his\nunderstanding towards it, with particular desires of such and such\nlights; and, moreover, that, to confirm himself therein, he has deduced\nin his reason and his other inferior faculties, notions, ratiocinations,\nimages, and words, and other particular exercises wherein he has been\nexercised long enough to be capable of ascending to the state of pure\nand altogether divine faith. Upon this supposition, the question is,\nwhether one whose faith has as yet been but weak, and the small light he\nhas had clouded and mixed with great darkness, prejudices, and errors,\ndesigning to clear the principles of the fight he has from the aforesaid\nmixture, and desiring to see this divine light in its purity and more\nfully,\u2014whether, I say, to this end he ought to apply thereto the\nactivity of his understanding, of his meditations, reflections, and\nreasonings; or else, whether, all this apart, he ought to offer his\nunderstanding in vacuity and silence to the Son of God, the Sun of\nRighteousness, and the true Light of Souls? And this last is what we\naffirm, and against which the objections alleged are of no force.\u2019\u2014P.\n100.\n\n\u2018Thus have I shown what God requires of the intellect in matters of\nfaith\u2014viz. a fund of mind wherein neither reason nor imagination do at\nall act, but where God only may be, and act brightly as He pleases, the\nsoul meanwhile not adhering to the particular manners of God\u2019s acting,\nbut merely because it is God acting, and God infinite and\nincomprehensible, who can dispose of His infinite ways above our\nunderstanding.\u2019\u2014P. 104.\n\nAntoinette Bourignon found in Poiret a learned and philosophical\ndisciple. He was to her, in some respects, what Robert Barclay was to\nGeorge Fox. But her writings appear also to have awakened a response, of\na more practical kind, in many devout minds of whom the world knew\nnothing. Throughout Germany and Holland, France and Switzerland, and in\nEngland also, were scattered little groups of friends who nourished a\nhidden devotion by the study of pietist or mystical writers. Arndt and\nSpener, Bourignon and Guyon, Labadie and Yvon, Thomas \u00e0 Kempis, De\nSales, or translations from the Spanish mystics, furnished the oil for\ntheir inward flame. Some withdrew altogether from the more active duties\nof life; others were separatists from the religion established around\nthem. In some cases they held meetings for worship among themselves; in\nothers, the struggles of a soul towards the higher life were only\nrevealed to one or two chosen intimates. Whenever we can penetrate\nbehind the public events which figure in history at the close of the\nseventeenth and the opening of the eighteenth century, indications are\ndiscernible which make it certain that a religious vitality of this\ndescription was far more widely diffused than is commonly supposed. A\nsingle example will be sufficiently suggestive. One M. de Marsay, who\nthrew up his ensign\u2019s commission in the French army, and retired, with\ntwo friends, into seclusion, after the manner recommended by Antoinette\nBourignon, left behind him an unpublished Autobiography. A copy from a\ntranslation of this curious narrative, in the possession of Mr. Tindall\nHarris, has been kindly placed at my disposal by that gentleman. The\ncopy was executed in 1773, by some one who had known De Marsay\npersonally.\n\nM. de Marsay was born at Paris, in 1688, of Protestant parents. A taste\nfor devotional reading was fostered, in early youth, by the piety of his\nmother. Jurieu\u2019s well-known work on _Divine Love_ found its place among\nsuch studies; but none of the mystical writers. When he had entered the\narmy, sometimes half the day, and often half the night also, was devoted\nto reading, meditation, and prayer. At one time he maintained an inward\nprayer for three or four days without intermission, though the regiment\nwas on the march, and the troops under arms day and night. He fondly\nimagined that such a state would continue all his life. When the\nreaction came, his efforts to overcome the natural exhaustion and regain\nhis spiritual joy were so strenuous and painful that his delicate frame\ngave way, and symptoms of consumption appeared. His distress at this\ntime was similar to that of Madame Guyon, and of many others, at the\nearlier period of their entrance on the \u2018inward way.\u2019 Thomas \u00e0 Kempis\nwas in his hand; but he could not yet understand the lesson which the\nmore experienced mystics so earnestly inculcate,\u2014that spiritual\npleasures may be sought too greedily,\u2014that we should persevere and\ntrust, whether in sensible delight or obscuration, whether in fulness or\n\u2018aridity.\u2019 He lay sick at Lisle for three months, calmly looking for\ndeath, and then, to the surprise of all, recovered.\n\nMeanwhile his friend, Lieutenant Cordier, has been reading Bourignon\u2019s\n_Lux in Tenebris_, in the camp before Bethune. He writes to De Marsay,\nsaying that he was now convinced the devotion they had hitherto\npractised together was as nothing; that he had resolved to quit the army\nand retire to some desert, there to live a life of poverty and devotion.\nM. Barratier, the chaplain of their regiment, was of like mind; if De\nMarsay would read Madame Bourignon, he would probably arrive at the\nconclusion, and join them. So indeed it proved. De Marsay bought her\nnineteen volumes, and determined to live her \u2018poor and evangelical\nlife.\u2019\n\nAfter many delays, he succeeded in obtaining his discharge (diligently\nreading, meanwhile, Theresa\u2019s Life, and John of the Cross); and at last,\nbehold the three friends, in the spring of 1711, settled in a solitude\nsuch as they desired, at Schwartzenau, on the estate of the Countess\nWitgenstein. They rise at four, and begin the day by reading a chapter\nin the Bible. Cordier and De Marsay work in the field, and Barratier has\nbreakfast ready for them at seven o\u2019clock,\u2014dry bread, of their own\nbaking, and cold water. Till noon they spin, card, or knit wool; Cordier\ngoes out on some errand; or De Marsay collects leaves, instead of straw,\nfor their beds. At noon they dine, and Barratier (the cook and\nhousekeeper) boils them the same food all the week through. One week it\nis pease, with bread; another week, barley; next, wheat, groats, or\noatmeal pap; and for drink sometimes, \u2018as a special treat,\u2019 boiled\ngroats, in milk. After dinner one of them reads aloud from Bourignon\u2019s\nwritings. Work again till four, and in the field till seven, when they\nsit down to supper, before a dish of pulse or salad, groats or turnips.\nWork again, in-doors, till nine, and then to bed. It was a rule that\nthey should only speak to each other when it was absolutely necessary.\nThey had no regular hours for prayer, but endeavoured (as Bourignon\ncounsels) to do everything in a spirit of prayer, by living consciously\nin the presence of God, and referring all ceaselessly to Him.\n\nYet in this Paradise of asceticism De Marsay is not happy. The endeavour\nto retain constantly a general sense of the divine presence was far less\nunnatural and arduous than those protracted prayers and meditations at\nwhich he used to labour. But he has little enjoyment, and the clamorous\ndemands of a large appetite sorely disturb his pious thoughts. See him,\none day, sitting on the stump of a tree\u2014the picture of despair. His soul\nis in the abyss. God seems to have abandoned him to himself. What has he\ndone? He has eaten a potato between meals! Only by the most ample\nconfession, the most contrite self-abasement, can he recover peace.\nTerrible tyranny of the misguided conscience over the feeble judgment!\nHere was a moral power that might have made a hero; and it only drives a\nslave.\n\nBut the revulsion must come; and simultaneously the three anchorites\nremit their silence and their introversion, and (the spell once broken)\nchatter incessantly; now one, and now another, bursting into fits of\nunmeaning, involuntary laughter. Yet, through all such mortifying\ndiscouragement, all terror and temptation, De Marsay makes his way. He\ndoes but yield himself, in his helplessness, the more absolutely to God,\nto be delivered from his spiritual adversaries, if He wills, or to be\nabandoned to the countless possibilities of evil, within him and about\nhim. Bourignon brought him to this point. So far she essays to guide\nsouls in the \u2018interior way;\u2019 after that, the Divine Conductor leads them\neach as He will.\n\nWith poor Cordier it fared not so well. They had relaxed their rule, he\nsaid: he would leave them, and live entirely alone. So he was carried\nfrom extreme to extreme, till he reached a spurious resignation\u2014a\npassivity which did not resist evil\u2014a self-forgetfulness which ceased to\nrecognise in himself his most dangerous enemy. From the height of\nspiritual pride he was precipitated into licence. A woman living near,\nwith great affectation of sanctity, beguiled him into marriage. This\nfemale Tartuffe stood afterwards revealed in her real iniquity; and\nCordier eventually returned to the world and a godless libertinism.\n\nThe Countess Witgenstein gave shelter, about this time, to a Lady Clara\nde Callenberg, who had suffered much domestic unhappiness on account of\nher pietism. This lady, considerably his senior, De Marsay saw, wooed,\nand won. Our pair of ascetics resolved to live a life of absolute\ncontinence, and De Marsay renders hearty thanks that (in spite of many\ntemptations) they received grace to adhere to their determination. The\ngood man\u2019s manner of reasoning is curious. The first thought of a change\nof life occurred to him one day, when sitting, \u2018in great calmness of\nmind,\u2019 under a tree, with his knitting-tackle. \u2018It was shown to me,\u2014if\nit was true that I was willing to be the property of God without\nexception, it was his will that I should give Him the first proof\nthereof, in marrying the Lady Clara de Callenberg.\u2019 Barratier married\nthem, and so the original association was finally dissolved.[373] The\nmarriage was a very happy one, their principal outward trial arising\nfrom the frequent indisposition of his wife, who ruined her constitution\nby the miserable austerity of her diet. They were all but penniless; yet\nin this they rejoiced, as so much exercise of faith; and, indeed, such\nmoderate means as they required were generally found forthcoming from\none quarter or another.\n\nDe Marsay did not always remain in their hut at Schwartzenau; he\njourneyed to Switzerland to visit his mother, and again to Paris to see\nhis brother, passing through Blois with letters to Madame Guyon, who\ndied shortly before he reached that city. He travelled also repeatedly,\nin company with his wife, everywhere finding little circles of devout\npersons who received them with open arms. His narrative is full of the\ndifficulties he found in ascertaining the divine will. Again and again\ndoes he discover, after an interval of years, that steps taken in the\nfull persuasion that they were divinely directed, were, in reality,\nself-moved and erroneous. He fears to relax a severity, lest it should\nbe self-indulgence; he fears to prolong it, lest it should be\nself-righteousness. After making one sacrifice, an additional one\nsuggests itself as possible, and the longer the thought is entertained,\nthe more hopeless is peace of mind, till conscience has compelled that\nalso; and all this, sometimes from first to last, in fear and darkness.\nAfter dividing most of their little store among the poor, and selling\ntheir cottage as too large, Madame de Marsay can know no rest from her\nfears till the greater part of the money received has been also given\naway,\u2014that the command may be obeyed, \u2018Sell all that thou hast.\u2019 Yet,\nthrough all self-made troubles, the genuineness of their religion shines\nout. He is ever humble, thankful, trustful. The reading of Madame Guyon\nweans him still farther from \u2018sensible religious delights;\u2019 he enters\ncalmly into the state of \u2018dark faith;\u2019 begins to attach less importance\nto austerities; loses much of his stiffness; will attend public worship,\nand commune.\n\nIt is instructive to mark how few of those concerning whom he writes as\nhaving entered on the higher religious life, are found holding on in\nthat course. After an interval of absence, he returns to a neighbourhood\nwhere he had known several such. He finds most of them in darkness and\ndisappointment. They know not where their souls are, or what has come to\nthem. Some are sunk in apathy. There are those who retain the form,\nthough their fire has gone out long ago. Others have plunged from high\nprofession into vices the most shameless. Yet a remnant are preserved\nthrough all the dangers of the way. Those perplexities and doubts which\nso frequently clouded the pathway of De Marsay, were probably his\nsafeguard. In a life of such excessive introspection, a proper\nself-distrust must almost necessarily take the form of morbid\nscrupulosity. Even he had some narrow escapes, for which he does well to\nsing his lowly _Non nobis Domine!_ He came afterwards to see how\ninjurious was that withdrawment from all public worship (habitual with\nhimself and his wife), in the case of those who had children. The\noffspring of such parents either grew up with a contempt for the\nordinances of religion, or, finding their position as separatists\nhurtful to their advancement in the world, conformed, from interested\nmotives.\n\nIn 1731, Count Zinzendorf came to Schwartzenau, and fascinated the De\nMarsays for a time. But De Marsay\u2014so melancholy, and so given to\nsolitude\u2014was not one long \u2018to find good for his soul\u2019 in connexion with\nany religious community whatever. The Moravian converts met at first at\nhis house, and he preached to them two or three times, with remarkable\nacceptance. But he detected pleasure to sense and self in such exercise\nof his gifts, and left them, resolving to yield himself up to the way of\ndark faith\u2014to \u2018die off from all the creatures\u2019\u2014to be as one\nexcommunicate, and perishing in the wilderness of spiritual desertion\nfor his unfaithfulness.\n\nHis difficulties were not diminished by mystical metaphysics. There is\nthe Ground of his soul, and its inward attraction, to be followed,\nwhatever reason, prudence, reflection, and even that which seems\nconscience, may urge or thunder against it. Whether the attraction be\nfalse or true, is exceedingly hard to determine;\u2014the issue frequently\nproves it the former, and that the common-sense folk about him were\nright after all. He arrives at a state\u2014the wished-for state, in\nfact\u2014free from all form, image, object of hope, &c.\u2014a total blank of the\nsenses and powers, and yet complains bitterly of the misery of that\ncondition. Reason, internal sense, hope,\u2014all have been abandoned, and\nyet, out of the internal ground there arises nothing in the shape of\nlight or encouragement. The most harassing secular life, in which he\nwould have been driven to look out of himself to Christ, had been truer\nand happier than this morbid introversion.\n\nA single passage in his history (and there are several like it) is\nbetter than a treatise in illustration of the dangers which beset the\nnotion of _perceptible_ spiritual guidance. He is at Berleberg (1726),\nand hears of emigration thence to Pennsylvania. As he lies awake one\nnight, it is strongly impressed upon his mind that he ought to go: he\nand his wife might realize a complete solitude in that land of cheapness\nand freedom. For there was too much of the creature for him, even at\nSchwartzenau. They resolve, despite the earnest dissuasion of their\nfriends, to join the next band of emigrants. News arrives that the\ngreater part of those who last went out, died on the voyage, of disease\nor want. De Marsay finds nothing here to stagger him\u2014for should he\nshrink from any such hazard? Again, it is shown him clearly that his\nwife will die if they sail\u2014he seems to see her dead. They resolve,\nnevertheless, to yield themselves up to death; and spend wretched\ntearful days, nerved to that determination. At last, when again alone\nand in stillness, he receives an impression that it is _not_ the will of\nGod that he should go. He communicates the joyful tidings to his wife.\nShe replies that she will go without him, unless she also receives a\nsimilar inward monition for herself. Such impression she happily\nobtains, and they remain. The sacrifice had been made, however, said De\nMarsay, the Isaac offered\u2014but the victim was not to be actually slain.\nFinally, he discovers that his original impulse to go to America was\n\u2018muddy and impure,\u2019 arising from his excessive attachment to seclusion.\nSo is it continually where men\u2019s whims and fancies are identified with\nthe oracles of an imagined perceptible guidance.\n\nAfter many alternations\u2014now rising to a love that casts out fear, and\nanon receding into gloom\u2014his mind is mellowed and liberalized with\nadvancing years. He no longer conceives it necessary to die to the\ncreature by forsaking his religious friends. He lives at Wolfenb\u00fcttel,\nwith Major Botticher, the husband of his niece, and has abandoned every\nascetic singularity. He believes in the mystical states (for he has\nlived them), but he is no longer in any one of them. He looks away from\nhimself only to Christ. He no longer identifies the mysteries of the\ninterior way with spirituality. He has friendly intercourse with\nministers\u2014attends church\u2014rejoices in the good work doing among Reformed\nand Lutherans everywhere.\n\nMadame de Marsay died in 1742, in great mental distress; throughout\nseveral weeks previously having imagined herself abandoned and\ncondemned. But her husband rejoiced in his assurance of her glorious\nrest. His end was a contrast to his distressful life. \u2018I swim and bathe\nin joy,\u2019 said he, \u2018that I shall now soon obtain what, through the grace\nof our Saviour, I have so long and ardently wished and hoped for.\u2019\n\nFootnote 368:\n\n See Note on p. 289.\n\nFootnote 369:\n\n See Note on p. 290.\n\nFootnote 370:\n\n See Second Note on p. 290.\n\nFootnote 371:\n\n See _Revelations from the Life of Prince Talleyrand_; and compare\n Eynard, _Vie de Madame de Kr\u00fcdener_, chap. xvii. Madame de Genlis\n writes of her, \u2018M^e. de Kr\u00fcdener disait les choses les plus\n singuli\u00e8res avec un calme qui les rendait persuasives; elle \u00e9tait\n certainement de tr\u00e8s bonne foi; elle me parut \u00eatre aimable,\n spirituelle et d\u2019une originalit\u00e9 tr\u00e8s piquante.\u2019\u2014P. 30.\n\nFootnote 372:\n\n See the whole story of the pastor Fontaine and Maria Kummerin, in\n Eynard.\n\nFootnote 373:\n\n Barratier subsequently became minister to the French church in Halle.\n\n\n\n\n BOOK THE ELEVENTH\n MYSTICISM IN ENGLAND\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER I.\n\n\n Is virtue then, unless of Christian growth,\n Mere fallacy, or foolishness, or both?\n Ten thousand sages lost in endless woe,\n For ignorance of what they could not know?\n That speech betrays at once a bigot\u2019s tongue;\n Charge not a God with such outrageous wrong.\n Truly not I\u2014the partial light men have,\n My creed persuades me, well employed, may save;\n While he that scorns the noonday beam, perverse,\n Shall find the blessing, unimproved, a curse.\n\n COWPER.\n\n\nOne morning, Willoughby, calling on Atherton, found him and Gower\nlooking over an old-fashioned little volume.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. What have you there, Atherton?\n\nATHERTON. A curious old book\u2014_The History of Hai Ebn Yokhdan_, by Abu\nJaafer Ebn Tophail\u2014an Arabian philosopher of Spain, writing in the\ntwelfth or thirteenth century: \u2018done into English\u2019 by Simon Ockley.\n\nGOWER (_to Willoughby_). I happened to be looking through Barclay\u2019s\n_Apology_\u2014found him referring to this _History of Yokhdan_; and, behold,\nAtherton fetches me down, from one of his topmost dust-of-erudition\nstrata there, the very book. It appears that good Barclay was so hard\nput to it, to find examples for the support of his doctrine concerning\nthe Universal and Saving Light, that he has pressed this shadowy\nphilosophical romance into the service, as an able-bodied\nunexceptionable fact:\u2014sets up a fanciful ornament from the Moorish\narabesques of Toledo as a bulwark for his theory.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Who, then, may this Hai Ebn Yokhdan be?\n\nATHERTON. Simply a mystical Robinson Crusoe. The book relates how a\nchild was exposed in an ark upon the sea, drifted to a Fortunate Island\nin the Indian Ocean, was there suckled by a roe, dresses himself with\nskins and feathers, builds a hut, tames a horse, rises to the discovery\nof \u2018One supreme and necessarily self-existent Being,\u2019 and does, at last,\nby due abstinence and exclusion of all external objects, attain to a\nmystical intuition of Him\u2014a contemplation of the divine essence, and a\nconsciousness that his own essence, thus lost in God, is itself\ndivine:\u2014all this, by the unaided inner Light. A Mussulman hermit who is\nlanded on the island, there to retire from mankind, finds him; teaches\nhim to speak; and discovers, to his devout amazement, that this Ebn\nYokhdan has attained, first by deduction from the external world, and\nthen, abandoning that, by immediate intuition, to the very truth\nconcerning God which he has learnt through the medium of the Koran\u2014the\ntee-totum mysticism of spinning dervishes included.[374]\n\nGOWER. Barclay, citing his Arab, points the moral as teaching \u2018that the\nbest and most certain knowledge of God, is not that which is attained by\npremises premised, and conclusions deduced; but that which is enjoyed by\nconjunction of the Mind of Man with the Supreme Intellect, after the\nmind is purified from its corruption and is separated from all bodily\nimages, and is gathered into a profound stillness.\u2019[375]\n\nWILLOUGHBY. And the simple-hearted apologist of the Friends never\nsuspected that this story was a philosopher\u2019s conjecture\u2014Abu Tophail\u2019s\nideal of what the inner light might be supposed to teach a man, in total\nseclusion?\n\nATHERTON. Not he. At any rate, Yokhdan figures in the first half-dozen\neditions of the _Apology_. I believe, in none later.\n\nGOWER. A curious sight, to see the Arabian Sufi and the English Quaker\nkeeping company so lovingly.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. And yet how utterly repugnant to our English natures, that\ncontemplative Oriental mysticism.\n\nGOWER. In practice, of course. But in the theory lies a common ground.\n\nATHERTON. Our island would be but a spare contributor to a general\nexhibition of mystics. The British cloister has not one great mystical\nsaint to show. Mysticism did not, with us, prepare the way for the\nReformation. John Wycliffe and John Tauler are a striking contrast in\nthis respect. In the time of the Black Death, the Flagellants could make\nno way with us. Whether coming as gloomy superstition, as hysterical\nfervour, or as pantheistic speculation, mysticism has found our soil a\nthankless one.\n\nGOWER. I should like to catch a Hegelian, in good condition, well\nnourished with the finest of thrice-bolted philosophic grain, duly\nignorant of England, and shut him up to determine, from the depths of\nhis consciousness, what would be the form which mysticism must\nnecessarily assume among us.\n\nATHERTON. He would probably be prepared to prove to us _\u00e0 priori_ that\nwe could not possibly evolve such a product at all.\n\nGOWER. Most likely. The torches of the Bacchantes, flung into the Tiber,\nwere said still to burn; but what whirling enthusiast\u2019s fire could\nsurvive a plunge into the Thames? There could be nothing for it but\nsputtering extinction, and then to float\u2014a sodden lump of pine and\npitch, bobbing against the stolid sides of barges.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. The sage might be pardoned for prophesying that our\nmysticism would appear in some time of religious stagnation\u2014a meteoric\nflash spasmodically flinging itself this way and that, startling with\nits radiance deep slimy pools, black rich oozing reaches of plurality\nand sinecure. Remembering the very practical mysticism of the Munster\nAnabaptists, he might invest our mystical day-star with such \u2018trains of\nfire and dews of death;\u2019 or depict it as a shape of terror, like his who\n\u2018drew Priam\u2019s curtain at the dead of night;\u2019 heralding horrors; and\nwaking every still cathedral close to dread the burning fate that\nbefell, \u2018the topless towers of Ilium.\u2019\n\nATHERTON. It certainly would have been hard to foresee that mysticism in\nEngland would arise just when it did\u2014would go so far, and no\nfarther:\u2014that in the time of the Commonwealth, when there was fuller\nreligious freedom by far, and, throughout the whole middle class, a more\nearnest religious life than at any former period of our history,\u2014when\nalong the ranks of triumphant Puritanism the electric light of\nenthusiasm played every here and there upon the steel which won them\nvictory, and was beheld with no ominous misgiving, but hailed rather as\nPentecostal effluence,\u2014that, at such a juncture, Quakerism should have\nappeared to declare this liberty insufficiently free, this spirituality\ntoo carnal, this enthusiasm too cold,\u2014to profess to eject more\nthoroughly yet the world, the flesh, and the devil,\u2014to take its place in\nthe confused throng contending about the \u2018bare-picked bone\u2019 of\nHierarchy, and show itself not to be tempted for a moment by wealth, by\nplace, by power,\u2014to commit many follies, but never a single crime,\u2014to\nendure enumerable wrongs, but never to furnish one example of resistance\nor revenge.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Well done, old England! It is gratifying to think that, on\nour shores, mysticism itself is less fantastic than its wont,\u2014labours\nbenignly, if not always soberly; and is represented, not by nightmared\nvisionaries, or fury-driven persecutors, but by the holy,\ntender-hearted, much-enduring George Fox. The Muggletonians,\nFifth-Monarchy men, and Ranters of those days were the exceptional mire\nand dirt cast up by the vexed times, but assuredly not the\nrepresentatives of English mysticism.\n\nATHERTON. The elements of Quakerism lie all complete in the personal\nhistory of Fox; and the religious sect is, in many respects, the\nperpetuation of his individual character;\u2014the same intellectual\nnarrowness, incident to an isolated, half-disciplined mind, and the\nsame large, loving heart of charity for all men. Remember how he\ndescribes himself as \u2018knowing pureness and righteousness at eleven\nyears of age;\u2019 carefully brought up, so that from his childhood all\nvice and profaneness were an abomination to him. Then there were his\nsolitary musings and sore inward battles, as he walked about his\nnative Drayton many nights by himself: his fastings oft; his much\nwalking abroad in solitary spots many days; his sitting, with his\nBible, in hollow trees and lonesome places, till night came on.\nBecause the religious teachers to whom he applied in his temptations\nto despair were unhappily incompetent to administer relief, he\nconcludes too hastily that the system of ministerial instruction is\nmore often a hindrance than a help to \u2018vital godliness.\u2019 Because\n\u2018priest Stevens\u2019 worked up some of his remarks in conversation into\nhis next Sunday\u2019s sermon,\u2014because the \u2018ancient priest\u2019 at Mansetter,\nto whom he next applied, could make nothing of him, and in despair\nrecommended tobacco and psalm-singing (furthermore violating his\nconfidence, and letting young George\u2019s spiritual distresses get wind\namong a bevy of giggling milk-lasses),\u2014because, after travelling seven\nmiles to a priest of reputed experience at Tamworth, he found him\nafter all \u2018but like an empty hollow cask,\u2019\u2014because horticultural Dr.\nCradock of Coventry fell into a passion with him for accidentally\ntrampling on the border of his flower-bed,\u2014because one Macham, a\npriest in high account, offered him physic and prescribed\nblood-letting,\u2014_therefore_ the institution of a clerical order was an\nerror and a mischief, mainly chargeable with the disputings of the\nchurch, and the ungodliness of the world. So, in his simplicity, he\nregarded it as a momentous discovery to have it opened to him \u2018that\nbeing bred at Oxford or Cambridge was not enough to fit and qualify\nmen to be ministers of Christ.\u2019[376]\n\nGOWER. We may hold that without joining the Society of Friends.\n\nATHERTON. In like manner he argues that because believers are the temple\nof the Spirit, and many venerate places superstitiously, or identify\nchurch-going with religion, therefore \u2018steeple-houses\u2019 are a sinful\ninnovation, diffusing, for the most part, darkness rather than light.\nBecause it appeared to him that in his study of the Scriptures he knew\nChrist \u2018only as the light grew\u2019\u2014by inward revelation\u2014\u2018as he that hath\nthe key did open,\u2019 therefore the doctrine of the inward Light is\nproclaimed to all as the central principle of Redemption.\n\nGOWER. True. This proneness to extremes has led his followers often to\nattach undue importance to the mere externals of a protest against\nexternalism. Those peculiarities of dress and speech are petty\nformalities unworthy of their main principle. In his \u2018_Epistle to\ngathered Churches into outward forms upon the Earth_,\u2019 Fox can see\nscarce a vestige of spiritual religion anywhere beyond the pale of the\nSociety of Friends.\n\nATHERTON. Yet ascetic and narrow on many points as he unquestionably\nwas, and little disposed to make concession to human weakness, in\npractical charity he was most abundant. Oppression and imprisonment\nawakened the benevolent, never the malevolent impulses of his\nnature,\u2014only adding fervour to his plea for the captive and the\noppressed. His tender conscience could know no fellowship with the\npleasures of the world; his tender heart could know no weariness in\nseeking to make less its sum of suffering. He is a Cato-Howard. You see\nhim in his early days, refusing to join in the festivities of the time\ncalled Christmas; yet, if a stranger to the mirth, never to the mercy,\nof that kindly season. From house to house he trudges in the snow,\nvisiting poor widows, and giving them money. Invited to marriage\nmerry-makings, he will not enter the house of feasting; but the next\nday, or soon after, we find him there, offering, if the young couple are\npoor, the effectual congratulation of pecuniary help. In the\nprison-experiences of George Fox are to be found the germs of that\nmodern philanthropy in which his followers have distinguished themselves\nso nobly. In Derby Jail he is \u2018exceedingly exercised\u2019 about the\nproceedings of the judges and magistrates\u2014concerning their putting men\nto death for cattle, and money, and small matters,\u2014and is moved to write\nto them, showing the sin of such severity; and, moreover, \u2018what an\nhurtful thing it was that prisoners should lie so long in jail; how that\nthey learned badness one of another in talking of their bad deeds; and\ntherefore speedy justice should be done.\u2019[377]\n\nWILLOUGHBY. How the spirit of benevolence pervades all the Journals of\nthe early Friends. Look at John Woolman, who will neither write nor have\nletters written to him by post, because the horses are overwrought, and\nthe hardships of the postboys so great. When farthest gone in rhapsody,\nthis redeeming characteristic was never wanting to the Quakers. It may\nbe said of some of them, as was said of dying Pope\u2014uttering, between his\nwanderings, only kindness\u2014\u2018humanity seems to have outlasted\nunderstanding.\u2019\n\nATHERTON. As to doctrine, again, consider how much religious\nextravagance was then afloat, and let us set it down to the credit of\nFox that his mystical excesses were no greater. At Coventry he finds men\nin prison for religion who declared, to his horror, that they were God.\nWhile at Derby, a soldier who had been a Baptist, comes to him from\nNottingham, and argues that Christ and the prophets suffered no one of\nthem externally, only internally. Another company, he says, came to him\nthere, who professed to be triers of spirits, and when he questioned\nthem, \u2018were presently up in the airy mind,\u2019 and said he was mad. The\npriests and magistrates were not more violent against him than the\nRanters, who roved the country in great numbers, professing to work\nmiracles, forbidding other enthusiasts to preach, on pain of damnation;\nand in comparison with whom, Fox was soberness itself. Rice Jones, the\nRanter, from Nottingham, prophesies against him with his company. At\nCaptain Bradford\u2019s house, Ranters come from York to wrangle with him. In\nthe Peak country they oppose him, and \u2018fall a-swearing.\u2019 At Swanington,\nin Leicestershire, they disturb the meeting\u2014hound on the mob against the\nFriends; they sing, whistle, and dance; but their leaders are confounded\neverywhere by the power of the Lord, and many of their followers, says\nthe _Journal_, \u2019were reached and convinced, and received the Spirit of\nGod; and are come to be a pretty people, living and walking soberly in\nthe truth of Christ.\u2019[378] Such facts should be remembered in our\nestimate. Fox\u2019s inner light does not profess to supersede, nor does it\ndesignedly contradict, the external light of Revelation.\n\nBut hand me his _Journal_ a moment. Here is a curious passage. It shows\nwhat a narrow escape Fox had of being resolved into an English Jacob\nBehmen.\n\nHe says, \u2018Now (he was about four-and-twenty at the time) was I come up\nin spirit, through the flaming sword, into the paradise of God. All\nthings were new; and all the creation gave another smell unto me than\nbefore, beyond what words can utter. I knew nothing but pureness and\ninnocency and righteousness, being renewed up into the image of God by\nChrist Jesus; so that I say I was come up to the state of Adam which he\nwas in before he fell. The creation was opened to me; and it was showed\nme how all things had their names given them, according to their nature\nand virtue. And I was at a stand in my mind whether I should practise\nphysic for the good of mankind, seeing the nature and virtues of the\ncreatures were so opened to me by the Lord. But I was immediately taken\nup in spirit to see into another or more stedfast state than Adam\u2019s in\ninnocency, even into a state in Christ Jesus, that should never fall.\nAnd the Lord showed me that such as were faithful to Him in the power\nand light of Christ, should come up into that state in which Adam was\nbefore he fell; in which the admirable works of the creation, and the\nvirtues thereof may be known, through the openings of that divine word\nof wisdom and power by which they were made. Great things did the Lord\nlead me into, and wonderful depths were opened unto me, beyond what can\nby words be declared; but as people come into subjection to the Spirit\nof God, and grow up in the image and power of the Almighty, they may\nreceive the word of wisdom that opens all things, and come to know the\nhidden unity in the Eternal Being.\u2018[379]\n\nHere he has arrived on life\u2019s road where two ways meet;\u2014had he taken the\nwrong alternative, and wandered down that shadowy and mysterious\ntheosophic avenue, ignorant that it was _no thoroughfare_, what a\ndifferent history! Imagine the intrepid, heart-searching preacher\u2014the\nredoubted \u2018man in leather breeches\u2019\u2014transformed into the physician,\nhaply peruked and habited in black, dispensing inspired prescriptions,\nand writing forgotten treatises on Qualities and Signatures, Sympathies\nand Antipathies. What a waste of that indomitable energy!\n\nWILLOUGHBY. How destructive to human life might his very benevolence\nhave proved.\n\nGOWER. Whatever direction the mysticism of a man like Fox might have\ntaken, it must have been always actively benevolent. His mysticism is\nsimple\u2014no artificial stages of abstraction, mounting step by step above\nthe finite, to a solitary superhuman sanctity. It is beneficent\u2014his many\nand various spiritual distresses were permitted by God, he tells us, \u2018in\norder that he might have a sense of all conditions\u2014how else should he\nspeak to all conditions?\u2018[380]\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Truly, metaphysical refinements and Platonic abstraction\ncould have no charm for this most practical of mystics. What a contrast\nhere is his pietism to that of Zinzendorf\u2014as abundant in sentiment as\nFox is devoid of it.\n\nGOWER. Nicholas of Basle is more like Fox than any of the German\nmystics\u2014much more so than Tauler.\n\nATHERTON. Fox is, as you say, eminently practical in one sense, yet not\nenough so in another. In one respect Behmen and Law are more practical\nthan he, because more comprehensive. They endeavour to infuse a higher\nspiritual life into forms and communities already existing. Fox will\nhave no steeple-houses, vestments, forms of prayer, no ministry,\nregularly paid and highly educated. Such a code is not practical, for it\nrests on an abstraction: it does not legislate for men as they are.\nFormalism does not lie in these outward things themselves\u2014it consists in\nthe _spirit_ in which they are used. Here, you see, the mystic, who will\nalways go beneath the surface to the reality, is too superficial.\nFormalism cannot be expelled by any such summary process. The evil lies\ndeeper.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. So with the asceticism of the Friends. The worldly spirit is\ntoo subtile to be exorcised by a strict outward separation between\nchurch and world. How much easier is total abstinence from scenes of\namusement than temperance in money-getting.\n\nGOWER. Yet I know men and women who pique themselves on their\nseparateness from the world, because they were never seen at a concert,\nwhose covetousness, insincerity, or censorious speech, proclaim them\nsteeped in worldliness to the very lips.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. What say you, Atherton, to the doctrine of the Universal\nLight? In their theory on this matter the mystics seem to divide into\ntwo classes. With the mystics of the fourteenth century there is still\nleft in fallen man a native tendency Godward, on which grace lays hold.\nWith Behmen and Fox, on the contrary, the inward Seed is a supernatural\ngift, distinct from conscience, reason, or any relics of natural\ngoodness\u2014the hidden word of promise, inspoken into all men, in virtue of\nthe redeeming work of Christ.[381]\n\nATHERTON. I do not believe that fallen man required a divine bestowment\nof this kind\u2014a supernatural soul within the soul, to give him a moral\nsense, and make him responsible. But I am so far a believer in the\ndoctrine that I would not go beyond what is written, and rigidly confine\nall the benefits of Christ\u2019s redemption to those only who have had\naccess to the Christian Scriptures. The words of the Apostle are still\napplicable,\u2014\u2018Is he the God of the Jews only, is he not of the Gentiles\nalso?\u2019 I cannot suppose that all Pagan minds, past and present, have\nbeen utterly and for ever abandoned by the Divine Spirit, because the\ndispensation under which they have been placed is so much less\nprivileged than our own. God has light enough to be _Himself_, in the\ntwilight, even as in the noonday. Did He rule the rising and falling of\nancient nations, working all things toward the fulness of time;\u2014did He\ncare for the bodies of those heathen, with seedtime and harvest for his\nwitness, and shall we suppose that He debarred Himself from all access\nto their souls?\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Yet no doctrine we can hold on this question materially\nlessens the mystery of that dark fact\u2014the prevalence of Evil.\n\nATHERTON. I am afraid not. Whether we call that better part of man the\nlight of nature, conscience, or the internal Word, we must admit that it\naccomplished next to nothing for the restoration of the vast majority.\nWe must not judge of the moral effects of heathendom by the philosophic\nfew merely; we must remember the state of the superstitious many. And\nmysticism will be the first to admit that an inoperative Christ (like\nthat of the Antinomian, for example) is a deceptive phantom or a vain\nformula.\n\nOur own position, however, is the same, let our theory or our hope,\nconcerning others, be what it may. Whatever it may be possible (under\nthe constitution of our nature) for the Spirit of God to make known\ninwardly to that man who is shut out from external teaching, it is quite\ncertain that _we_ shall receive no inward communications of gracious\ninfluence, while we neglect those outward means which are of divine\nappointment.\n\n\n Note to page 300.\n\n\nThe full title of the work referred to runs as follows: _The Improvement\nof Human Reason, exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokhdan_: written in\nArabick about 500 years ago, by Abn Jaafer Ebn Tophail. In which is\ndemonstrated by what methods one may, by the mere _Light of Nature_,\nattain the knowledge of things _Natural_ and _supernatural_; more\nparticularly the knowledge of God and the affairs of another Life. Newly\ntranslated from the original Arabick by Simon Ockley, &c. 1708.\n\nOckley adds an Appendix, to guard the book from abuse by the Quakers,\nwherein he proposes to examine \u2018the fundamental error\u2019 of his\nauthor\u2014viz. that \u2018God has given such a power or faculty to man whereby\nhe may, without any external means, attain to the knowledge of all\nthings necessary to salvation, and even to the Beatifick Vision itself,\nwhilst in the state.\u2019\n\nThe following is a specimen of the mystical progress which our Arabian\nDefoe describes his Crusoe as making,\u2014precisely that with which Ebn\nTophail was well acquainted, but which no real solitary Ebn Yokhdan\ncould ever have struck out for himself.\n\n\u2018He began, therefore, to strip himself of all bodily properties, which\nhe had made some progress in before, during the time of the former\nexercise, when he was employed in the imitation of the heavenly bodies;\nbut there still remained a great many relicks, as his circular motion\n(motion being one of the most proper attributes of body), and his care\nof animals and plants, compassion upon them, and industry in removing\nwhatever inconvenienced them. Now, all these things belong to corporeal\nattributes, for he could not see these things at first, but by corporeal\nfaculties; and he was obliged to make use of the same faculties in\npreserving them. Therefore he began to reject and remove all those\nthings from himself, as being in nowise consistent with that state which\nhe was now in search of. So he continued, after confining himself to\nrest in the bottom of his cave, with his head bowed down and his eyes\nshut, and turning himself altogether from all sensible things and the\ncorporeal faculties, and bending all his thoughts and meditations upon\nthe necessarily self-existent Being, without admitting anything else\nbesides him; and if any other object presented itself to his\nimagination, he rejected it with his utmost force; and exercised himself\nin this, and persisted in it to that degree, that sometimes he did\nneither eat nor stir for a great many days together. And whilst he was\nthus earnestly taken up in contemplation, sometimes all manner of beings\nwhatsoever would be quite out of his mind and thoughts, except his own\nbeing only.\n\n\u2018But he found that his own being was not excluded from his thoughts; no,\nnot at such times when he was most deeply immersed in the contemplation\nof the first, true, necessarily self-existent Being; which concerned him\nvery much,\u2014for he knew that even this was a mixture in this simple\nvision, and the admission of an extraneous object in that contemplation.\nUpon which he endeavoured to disappear from himself, and be wholly taken\nup in the vision of that true Being; till at last he attained it; and\nthen both the heavens and the earth, and whatsoever is between them, and\nall spiritual forms, and corporeal faculties, and all those powers which\nare separate from matter, and all those beings which know the\nnecessarily self-existent Being, all disappeared and vanished, and were\nas if they had never been; and amongst these his own being disappeared\ntoo, and there remained nothing but this one, true, perpetually\nself-existent Being, who spoke thus in that saying of his (which is not\na notion superadded to his essence):\u2014\u201cTo whom now belongs the kingdom?\nTo this One, Almighty God.\u201d[382] Which words of his Hai Ebn Yokhdan\nunderstood and heard his voice; nor was his being unacquainted with\nwords, and not being able to speak, any hindrance at all to the\nunderstanding him. Wherefore he deeply immersed himself into this state,\nand witnessed that which neither eye hath seen nor ear heard, nor hath\nit ever entered into the heart of man to conceive.\u2019\u2014\u00a7\u00a7 83, 84.\n\nFootnote 374:\n\n See Note on p. 310.\n\nFootnote 375:\n\n _Barclay\u2019s Apology_, propp. v. and vi. \u00a7 27, p. 194. Fourth Edition,\n 1701.\n\nFootnote 376:\n\n Fox\u2019s _Journal_, pp. 76-83.\n\nFootnote 377:\n\n Fox\u2019s _Journal_, vol. i. p. 130.\n\nFootnote 378:\n\n Fox\u2019s _Journal_, vol. i. pp. 109, 129, 232. Vaughan\u2019s _Hist. of\n England under the House of Stuart_, p. 539.\n\nFootnote 379:\n\n _Journal_, vol. i. p. 95.\n\nFootnote 380:\n\n _Journal_, p. 89. This theopathetic mysticism is emphatically\n transitive. Every inward manifestation speedily becomes a something to\n be done, a testimony to be delivered. The Quaker is \u2018exercised,\u2019 not\n that he may deck himself in the glory of saintship, but to fit him for\n rendering service, as he supposes, to his fellows. The early followers\n of Fox often caricatured the acted symbolism of the Hebrew prophets\n with the most profane or ludicrous unseemliness. Yet stark-mad as\n seemed the fashion of their denunciations, their object was very\n commonly some intelligible and actual error or abuse.\n\nFootnote 381:\n\n Barclay\u2019s _Apology_, propp. v. and vi. 16. Sewell\u2019s _History_, p. 544.\n (Barclay\u2019s _Letter to Paets_); also p. 646 (_The Christian Doctrine of\n the People called Quakers_, &c., published 1693). Compare J. J.\n Gurney\u2019s _Observations on the Distinguishing Views and Practices of\n the Society of Friends_, chap. i. p. 59.\n\nFootnote 382:\n\n Koran.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER II.\n\n\n And to such Enthusiasm as is but the triumph of the soul of man,\n inebriated, as it were, with the delicious sense of the divine life,\n that blessed Root, and Original of all holy wisdom and virtue, I am\n as much a friend as I am to the vulgar fanatical Enthusiasm a\n professed enemy.\u2014HENRY MORE.\n\n\nWILLOUGHBY. There is no mysticism in the doctrine of an immediate\ninfluence exercised by the Spirit of God on the spirit of man.\n\nATHERTON. Certainly not. It would be strange if the Creator, in whom we\nlive and move, should have no direct access to the spirits of his own\ncreatures.\n\nGOWER. Does not your admission indicate the line between the true and\nthe false in that aspiration after _immediate_ knowledge, intercourse,\nor intuition, so common among the mystics? It is true that the divine\ninfluence is exerted upon us directly. But it is not true that such\ninfluence dispenses with rather than demands\u2014suspends rather than\nquickens, the desires and faculties of our nature. So it appears to me\nat least.\n\nATHERTON. And to me also.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. And again (to continue your negatives, Gower) it is not\ntrue, as some of the mystics tell us, that we can transcend with\nadvantage the figurative language of Scripture; or gaze directly on the\nDivine Subsistence,\u2014that we can know without knowledge, believe without\na promise or a fact, and so dispense, in religious matters, with modes\nand media.\n\nATHERTON. Agreed. For ourselves, I believe we shall always find it true\nthat the letter and the spirit do reciprocally set forth and consummate\neach other,\u2014\n\n \u2018Like as the wind doth beautify a sail,\n And as a sail becomes the unseen wind.\u2019\n\nWe see truth in proportion as we are true. The outward written word in\nour hands directs us to the unseen Word so high above us, yet so near.\nThe story of Christ\u2019s life and death is our soul\u2019s food. We find that we\nmay\u2014we must, sit in spirit at his feet, who so spake, so lived, so died.\nAnd, having been with him, we find a new power and attraction in the\nwords; we are led by the Spirit of Christ in the keeping of those\ncommandments, concerning which he said, \u2018The words I speak unto you,\nthey are spirit and they are life.\u2019\n\nWILLOUGHBY. So Plotinus is right, in a sense, after all;\u2014like only can\nknow like. Our likeness to Christ is our true knowledge of him.\n\nATHERTON. Yes. But we become partakers of the unseen life and light of\nGod only through the _manifestation_ of that life and light, Christ\nJesus. It is on this point that the theology of Fox is so defective.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. His doctrine that the influence of the Spirit is\n_perceptible_, as well as immediate, is still more questionable, surely?\n\nGOWER. Perceptible! aye, and physically perceptible, he will have it, in\nsome cases,\u2014manifested in a tremulous agitation of the frame.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. True. The convulsive movements among the Protestant\npeasantry of the Cevennes are a similar instance. This spasmodical\nreligious excitement is in a high degree infectious when many are\nassembled together.\n\nATHERTON. Yet we should not reject the doctrine of perceptible spiritual\nguidance because it is so liable to abuse. My objection is that I have\nnever seen satisfactory proof adduced. Do not let us think, however,\nthat we escape from the danger of self-delusion by denying this\ndoctrine, and can afford to be careless accordingly. You often see\npersons who would think the Quaker belief a dangerous superstition,\nunscrupulously identifying their personal or party interests with the\ncause of God, as though they believed themselves divinely commissioned,\nand could not possibly be liable to deception.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Here you see the value of the Quaker doctrine concerning\nstillness and quiet. The soul must be withdrawn in a silent waiting, and\nso hearken for the divine voice. The impulses which stir in the\nunallayed tumult of the feelings are the promptings of passion or of\nself, not of God. Wherever the belief in perceptible guidance is\nentertained, this practice of tranquil tarrying should accompany it, as\nits proper safeguard.\n\nATHERTON. The Quakers are wrong, I think, in separating particular\nmovements and monitions as divine. But, at the same time, the \u2018witness\nof the Spirit,\u2019 as regards our state before God, is something more, I\nbelieve, than the mere attestation to the written word.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. The traditional asceticism of the Friends is their fatal\ndefect as a body.\n\nATHERTON. And their proneness to hazard good principles by pushing them\nto some repulsive extreme. Thus, they propose to abolish physical force\nby yielding everything to it;\u2014to put an end to war by laying Europe at\nthe feet of a great military power,\u2014by apologizing for the oppressor and\nreviling those who resist him.\n\nGOWER. I believe the man who says to me, I am trying to love my\nneighbour as myself: I suspect him who professes to love him better. His\nprofession is worse than worthless unless he be consistent, and will\nallow himself to be swindled with impunity.\n\nATHERTON. We may well be suspicious when we see this super-Christian\nmorality defended by arguments which can only be valid with the meanest\nand most grovelling selfishness. Such ethics are, in promise, more than\nhuman; in performance\u2014less.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. But, leaving this question, I am sure no sect which\nsystematically secludes itself from every province of philosophy,\nliterature, and art, can grow largely in numbers and in influence in a\nstate of society like ours.\n\nGOWER. Our English Platonists contrast strongly, in this respect, with\nGeorge Fox and his followers.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. How incomprehensible must have been the rude fervour and\nsymbolic prophesyings of the Quakers to the refined scholarship and\nretiring devotion of men like More and Norris, Gale and Cudworth. But\ncan you call them mystics?\n\nATHERTON. Scarcely so, except in as far as Platonism is always in a\nmeasure mystical. A vein of mysticism peeps out here and there in their\nwritings. Cold rationalism they hate. They warm, with a ready sympathy,\nto every utterance of the tender and the lofty in the aspirations of the\nsoul. But their practical English sense shows itself in their instant\nrejection of sentimentalism, extravagance, or profanity. This is\nespecially the case with More\u2014as shrewd in some things as he was\ncredulous in others, and gifted with so quick an eye for the ridiculous.\n\nGOWER. Delightful reading, those racy pages of his, running over with\nquaint fancies.\n\nATHERTON. More\u2019s position as regards mysticism is, in the main, that of\na comprehensive and judicial mind. He goes a considerable distance with\nthe enthusiast,\u2014for he believes that love for the supreme Beautiful and\nGood may well carry men out of themselves; but for fanatical presumption\nhe has no mercy.[383]\n\nWILLOUGHBY. The Romanist type of mysticism would be the most repugnant\nof all, I should think, to these somewhat free-thinking English\nscholars.\n\nATHERTON. So I have found. More has no notion of professing to give up\nhis reason, like Poiret; still less of awaiting a suspension of our\npowers, like John of the Cross. He believes that \u2018the Spirit doth\naccomplish and enlarge our humane faculties.\u2019[384]\n\nGOWER. Yet Norris is less remote than More from the Romish mysticism, is\nhe not? I mean that his Platonism seemed to me a little more monastic,\nand less philosophical.\n\nATHERTON. He has, it must be confessed, his four gradations of love\u2014akin\nto the class-religion of the Romish Church;\u2014as though a certain degree\nwere incumbent on all Christians, but higher stages of devout affection\n(above mere duty) were set before the eminently religious.[385] Yet let\nus do full justice to the good sense of that excellent man. The Quietist\ndoctrine of unconsciousness appears to him an unnatural refinement. He\ncannot conceive how it should be expected that a man was to be \u2018such an\nAmerica to himself,\u2019 as not to know what his own wishes and attainments\nare. The infused virtue of the Spanish mystics appears to his\ndiscriminating eye \u2018as great a paradox in divinity, as occult qualities\nin philosophy.\u2018[386]\n\nWILLOUGHBY. And none of them, I think, distress themselves, as did\nF\u00e9n\u00e9lon, about purely disinterested love.\n\nATHERTON. They are too close followers of Plato to do that. They do not\ndisguise their impatience of the bodily prison-house. Neither have they\nany love for the divine ignorance and holy darkness of Dionysius. They\nare eager to catch every ray of knowledge\u2014to know and to rejoice, to the\nutmost that our mortality may, upon its heavenward pilgrimage.[387]\n\nFootnote 383:\n\n Let the reader consult his _Enthusiasmus Triumphatus_, or read his\n caustic observations upon the _Anima Magica Abscondita_, and his\n _Second Lash of Alazonomastix_. Among the high-flyers of his day,\n there appear to have been some who spoke of being \u2018godded with God,\u2019\n and \u2018Christed with Christ,\u2019 much after the manner of some of Eckart\u2019s\n followers.\n\nFootnote 384:\n\n \u2018But now seeing the _Logos_ or steady comprehensive wisdom of God, in\n which all Ideas and their respects are contained, is but _universal\n stable reason_, how can there be any pretence of being so highly\n inspired as to be blown above reason itself, unlesse men will fancy\n themselves wiser than God, or their understandings above the natures\n and reasons of things themselves.\u2019\u2014Preface to the _Conjectura\n Cabbalistica_.\n\nFootnote 385:\n\n See Norris\u2019s _Miscellanies_ (1699):\n\n _An Idea of Happiness: enquiring wherein the greatest happiness\n attainable by Man in this Life does consist_, pp. 326-341.\n\nFootnote 386:\n\n _Miscellanies_, p. 276 (in a Discourse on Rom. xii. 3), and p. 334.\n\nFootnote 387:\n\n Norris says, in his _Hymn to Darkness_\u2014\n\n \u2018The blest above do thy sweet umbrage prize,\n When cloyed with light, they veil their eyes.\n The vision of the Deity is made\n More sweet and beatific by thy shade.\n But we poor tenants of this orb below\n Don\u2019t here thy excellencies know,\n Till death our understandings does improve,\n And then our wiser ghosts thy silent night-walks love.\u2019\n\n In the writings of Henry More we can see, by a notice here and there,\n how Quakerism looked in the eyes of a retired scholar, by no means\n indiscriminately adverse to enthusiasm. The word enthusiasm itself, he\n always uses more in the classical than the modern sense. \u2018To tell you\n my opinion of that sect which are called Quakers, though I must allow\n that there may be some amongst them good and sincere-hearted men, and\n it may be nearer to the purity of Christianity for the life and power\n of it than many others, yet I am well assured that the generality of\n them are prodigiously melancholy, and some few perhaps possessed with\n the devil.\u2019 He thinks their doctrine highly dangerous, as mingling\n with so many good and wholesome things an abominable \u2018slighting of the\n history of Christ, and making a mere allegory of it,\u2014tending to the\n utter overthrow of that warrantable though more external frame of\n Christianity which Scripture itself points out to us.\u2019 Yet he takes\n wise occasion, from the very existence of such a sect, to bid us all\n look at home, and see that we do not content ourselves with the mere\n Tabernacle without the Presence and Power of God therein.\u2014_Mastix, his\n Letter to a Friend_, p. 306.\n\n\n\n\n BOOK THE TWELFTH\n EMANUEL SWEDENBORG\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER I.\n\n\n What if earth\n Be but the shadow of heaven, and things therein\n Each to other like, more than on earth is thought.\n\n MILTON.\n\n\nHere follow extracts from a section in Atherton\u2019s Note-book, entitled\n\u2018Remarks on Swedenborg.\u2019\n\n The doctrine of Correspondence is the central idea of Swedenborg\u2019s\n system. Everything visible has belonging to it an appropriate\n spiritual reality. The history of man is an acted parable; the\n universe, a temple covered with hieroglyphics. Behmen, from the\n light which flashes on certain exalted moments, imagines that he\n receives the key to these hidden significances,\u2014that he can\n interpret the _Signatura Rerum_. But he does not see spirits, or\n talk with angels. According to him, such communications would be\n less reliable than the intuition he enjoyed. Swedenborg takes\n opposite ground. \u2018What I relate,\u2019 he would say, \u2018comes from no such\n mere inward persuasion. I recount the things I have seen. I do not\n labour to recall and to express the manifestation made me in some\n moment of ecstatic exaltation. I write you down a plain statement of\n journeys and conversations in the spiritual world, which have made\n the greater part of my daily history for many years together. I take\n my stand upon experience. I have proceeded by observation and\n induction as strict as that of any man of science among you. Only it\n has been given me to enjoy an experience reaching into two\n worlds\u2014that of spirit, as well as that of matter.\u2019\n\n A mysticism like that of Tauler strives, and strives in vain, to\n escape all image and \u2018figuration.\u2019 A mysticism like that of\n Swedenborg clothes every spiritual truth in some substantial\n envelope, and discerns a habitant spirit in every variety of form.\n The follower of Plato essays to rise from the visible to the\n invisible. But he spurns each ladder in succession by which he has\n ascended. The follower of Swedenborg seeks a similar ascent; but he\n never flings away, as common, the husk which guards the precious\n spiritual kernel. He will not shun the material, or diminish his\n relations to it. Rather will he surround himself by those objects\n and those ties of earth which, spiritually regarded, speak\n constantly of heaven. To look thus on life, I need not enter the\n school of Swedenborg.\n\n But in this freedom from asceticism,\u2014this tendency to see the\n spiritual, not beyond, but in, the natural,\u2014the mysticism of\n Swedenborg, like that of Behmen, has advanced far beyond its\n medi\u00e6val type. Religion no longer plays the despot toward science;\n the flesh is no longer evil; this beautiful world no longer yielded\n over to that father of lies who called it his.\n\n As regards the scriptures, I find Swedenborg less one-sided than\n mystics like Frank, Weigel, or the more extreme among the Quakers.\n He displays no inclination to depreciate the letter of scripture in\n favour of the inward teaching of the Word. Without this\n \u2018book-revelation,\u2019 he tells us, man would have remained in gross\n ignorance concerning his Maker and his future destinies. The literal\n sense of the word is the basis of the spiritual and celestial sense;\n and the word, for this very reason, holy in every syllable. He sets\n up no doctrine based on arbitrary or fantastical interpretations.\n His doctrinal system is drawn from the literal sense, and calmly, if\n not always satisfactorily deduced, by citation, exegesis, and\n comparison of passages, without any mysticism whatever. Thus the\n balance between the letter and the spirit is maintained in his\n theology with a fairness almost unparalleled in the history of\n mysticism.[388]\n\n According to Swedenborg, all the mythology and the symbolisms of\n ancient times were so many refracted or fragmentary\n correspondences\u2014relics of that better day when every outward object\n suggested to man\u2019s mind its appropriate divine truth. Such desultory\n and uncertain links between the seen and the unseen are so many\n imperfect attempts toward that harmony of the two worlds which he\n believed himself commissioned to reveal. The happy thoughts of the\n artist, the imaginative analogies of the poet, are exchanged with\n Swedenborg for an elaborate system. All the terms and objects in the\n natural and spiritual worlds are catalogued in pairs. This method\n appears so much formal pedantry. Our fancies will not work to order.\n The meaning and the life with which we continually inform outward\n objects,\u2014those suggestions from sight and sound, which make almost\n every man at times a poet,\u2014are our own creations, are determined by\n the mood of the hour, cannot be imposed from without, cannot be\n arranged like the nomenclature of a science. As regards the inner\n sense of scripture, at all events, Swedenborg introduces some such\n yoke. In that province, however, it is perhaps as well that those\n who are not satisfied with the obvious sense should find some\n restraint for their imagination, some method for their ingenuity,\n some guidance in a curiosity irresistible to a certain class of\n minds. If an objector say, \u2018I do not see why the ass should\n correspond to scientific truth, and the horse to intellectual\n truth,\u2019 Swedenborg will reply, \u2018This analogy rests on no fancy of\n mine, but on actual experience and observation in the spiritual\n world. I have always seen horses and asses present and\n circumstanced, when, and according as, those inward qualities were\n central.\u2019[389] But I do not believe that it was the design of\n Swedenborg rigidly to determine the relationships by which men are\n continually uniting the seen and unseen worlds. He probably\n conceived it his mission to disclose to men the divinely-ordered\n correspondences of scripture, the close relationship of man\u2019s\n several states of being, and to make mankind more fully aware that\n matter and spirit were associated, not only in the varying analogies\n of imagination, but by the deeper affinity of eternal law. In this\n way, he sought to impart an impulse rather than to prescribe a\n scheme. His consistent followers will acknowledge that had he lived\n in another age, and occupied a different social position, the forms\n under which the spiritual world presented itself to him would have\n been different. To a large extent, therefore, his _Memorable\n Relations_ must be regarded as true for him only,\u2014for such a\n character, in such a day, though containing principles independent\n of personal peculiarity and local colouring. It would have been\n indeed inconsistent, had the Protestant who (as himself a Reformer)\n essayed to supply the defects and correct the errors of the\n Reformation,\u2014had he designed to prohibit all advance beyond his own\n position.\n\n There is great depth and beauty in that idea of Dante\u2019s, according\n to which he represents himself as conscious of ascending from heaven\n to heaven in Paradise, not by perception of a transit through space,\n but by seeing his Beatrice grow more and more lovely:\u2014\n\n Io non m\u2019accorsi del salire in ella;\n Ma d\u2019esserv\u2019 entro mi fece assai fede\n La donna mia ch\u2019 io vidi far pi\u00f9 bella.\n\n What is an imagination with Dante, acquires, in the theosophy of\n Swedenborg, the constancy of law. According to him, the more I have\n of goodness in me, the more shall I discern of the loveliness\n belonging to the form of a good angel. If I am evil, the hideous\n forms of evil natures will not be repulsive to me; and if I were\n placed in heaven, the glory would afflict me with pain. To three\n persons, in three different states of holiness and knowledge, a\n fourth would present three several aspects in the spiritual world.\n Thus, spirits see as they themselves are; their character modifies\n their vision; their nature creates for them their world. All this\n seems so much mere idealism, extended from this life into the next.\n I ask, Where is the absolute truth, then? My German neighbour\n quietly inquires, \u2018Is there, or is there not, any _Ding an sich_?\u2019\n The Swedenborgian replies, \u2018Swedenborg is no idealist, as you\n suspect. The absolute truth is with God; and the more goodness and\n wisdom the creatures have from him, the more truly do they see. The\n reality external to self, I do not take away; yea, rather I\n establish it on a divine basis. For the reality is even this divine\n order, which the Omniscient hath established and maintains,\u2014that\n form and vision shall answer exactly to spirit and insight. Such\n correspondence is but partial in this masquerading world of ours, so\n full of polite pretences and seemly forms. But in the spiritual\n world every one appears by degrees only what he is. He gravitates\n towards that circle or association of spirits where all see as much\n as he does. His character is written, past all disguise, in his\n form; and so \u2018the things spoken in the ear in closets are proclaimed\n upon the housetops.\u2019\n\n Humanity stands high with Behmen, higher yet with Swedenborg. The\n Divine Humanity is at once the Lord and pattern of all creation. The\n innumerable worlds of space are arranged after the human form. The\n universe is a kind of constellation _Homo_. Every spirit belongs to\n some province in Swedenborg\u2019s \u2018Grand Man,\u2019 and affects the\n correspondent part of the human body. A spirit dwelling in those\n parts of the universe which answer to the heart or the liver, makes\n his influx felt in the cardiac or hepatic regions of Swedenborg\u2019s\n frame before he becomes visible to the eye. Evil spirits, again,\n produced their correspondent maladies on his system, during the time\n of his intercourse with them. Hypocrites gave him a pain in the\n teeth, because hypocrisy is spiritual toothache. The inhabitants of\n Mercury correspond to a province of memory in the \u2018grand man:\u2019 the\n Lunarians to the ensiform cartilage at the bottom of the\n breast-bone. With Swedenborg likeness is proximity: space and time\n are states of love and thought. Hence his journeys from world to\n world;\u2014passing through states being equivalent to travelling over\n spaces. Thus it took him ten hours to reach one planet, while at\n another he arrived in two, because a longer time was required to\n approximate the state of his mind to that of the inhabitants of the\n former.[390]\n\n The thoughts of Swedenborg have never to struggle for expression,\n like those of the half-educated Behmen. The mind of the Swedish seer\n was of the methodical and scientific cast. His style is calm and\n clear. He is easily understood in detail. The metaphors of poets are\n objects of vision with him: every abstraction takes some concrete\n form: his illustrations are incessant. He describes with the graphic\n minuteness of Defoe. Nothing is lost in cloud. With a distinct and\n steady outline he pourtrays, to the smallest circumstance, the\n habitations, the amusements, the occupations, the penalties, the\n economy, the marriages of the unseen world. He is never amazed, he\n never exaggerates. He is unimpassioned, and wholly careless of\n effect. Those of his followers with whom I have come in contact,\n partake of their master\u2019s philosophy. They are liberal in spirit,\n and nowise impatient of unbelief in others. Swedenborg never pants\n and strives\u2014has none of the tearful vehemence and glowing emotion\n which choke the utterance of Behmen. He is never familiar in this\n page, and rhapsodical in that. Always serene, this imperturbable\n philosopher is the Olympian Jove of mystics. He writes like a man\n who was sufficient to himself; who could afford to wait. He lived\n much alone; and strong and deep is the stream of this mysticism\n which carries no fleck of foam.\n\n Other mystics seem to know times of wavering, when enthusiasm burns\n low. To Swedenborg sunrise and sunset are not more constant and\n familiar than the divine mission which he claims. Other mystics are\n overpowered by manifestations from the unseen world. Horror seizes\n them, or a dizzy joy, or the vision leaves them faint and trembling.\n They have their alternations; their lights and shadows are in\n keeping; they will topple headlong from some sunny pinnacle into an\n abysmal misery. But Swedenborg is \u2018in the spirit\u2019 for near two score\n years, and in his easy chair, or at his window, or on his walks,\n holds converse, as a matter of course, with angels and departed\n great ones, with patriarchs and devils. He can even instruct some of\n the angels, who have had experience only of their own world, and are\n guileless accordingly.\n\nFootnote 388:\n\n See Swedenborg\u2019s _True Christian Religion_, chap. iv.\n\nFootnote 389:\n\n See _E. Swedenborg, a Biography_, by J. G. Wilkinson, p. 99; a\n succinct and well-written account of the man, and the best\n introduction to his writings I have met with.\n\nFootnote 390:\n\n Wilkinson, pp. 187, 118.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER II.\n\n\n We have but faith: we cannot know;\n For knowledge is of things we see;\n And yet we trust it comes from Thee,\n A beam in darkness: let it grow.\n\n Let knowledge grow from more to more,\n But more of reverence in us dwell;\n That mind and soul, according well,\n May make one music as before,\n\n But vaster.\n\n TENNYSON.\n\n\n I find Swedenborg, in the midst of his spiritual interviews and\n voluminous authorship, taking his part for some time in the Diet of\n 1761, and presenting three memorials with high repute for practical\n sagacity. He publishes \u2018_A New Method of finding the Longitude_,\u2019\n simultaneously with the \u2018_Apocalypse Revealed_.\u2019\n\n He appears to have possessed a remarkable power of inward\n respiration. He says that he received from the Lord a conformation\n enabling him to breathe inwardly for a long time, without the aid of\n the external air, while his outward senses continued their\n operation.[391]\n\n Swedenborg is strongly opposed to ascetic practice in every form. He\n contradicts all the cloistered contemplative mystics, when he\n declares that \u2018man cannot be formed for heaven except by means of\n the world.\u2019 He represents the \u2018religious,\u2019 and devotees who have\n renounced the world for pious meditation, as by no means agreeable\n or enviable personages in the other life. They are of a sorrowful\n temper, despising others, discontented at not having been honoured\n with superior happiness, selfish, turning away from offices of\n charity (the very means of conjunction with heaven), soon betaking\n themselves to solitary places. Truly, many of the first in the\n heaven of the Romish calendar are the last in the heaven of\n Swedenborg. And I doubt not that his arrangement is, in such cases,\n the more near the truth of the two. For, as he justly says, \u2018a life\n of charity towards our neighbour (which consists in doing what is\n just and right in every employment) can only be exercised in general\n as man is engaged in some employment.\u2019 Such a life, he declares,\n tends heavenward,\u2014not so a life of piety without a life of\n charity.[392]\n\n \u2018In heaven,\u2019 says Swedenborg, \u2018instruction is committed, not to\n memory, but to _life_;\u2018\u2014a goodly saying.\n\n Swedenborg\u2019s \u2018Christian Religion\u2019 is a system of theology, calm and\n orderly throughout, illustrated with plates\u2014the _Memorable\n Relations_. I interpret these marvellous narratives much as\n Swedenborg does the Mosaic record. I do not question their historic\n truth, _for Swedenborg_. Such things he saw and heard; for to such a\n mind all abstraction takes substantial form. His mental transitions\n are journeys. Every proposition has its appropriate scenery; every\n group of verities incorporates itself in a drama, and becomes a\n speech and action. But I put an inner sense into these _Relations_,\n and so reading them, find charming allegories, just in moral and\n elegant in style.\n\n What Swedenborg tells us about a future state I am certainly not in\n a position to contradict, for I know nothing about such matters. The\n general conviction of the Christian world seems to me true in the\n main,\u2014that the silence of the scriptures concerning such details is\n an argument for their inspiration\u2014was wisely designed to check\n curiosity and to exercise faith. Yet it cannot be denied that after\n all Swedenborg\u2019s disclosures, the Christian conflict, and the\n motives to that holy warfare, remain very much as the Bible presents\n them. Selfishness is still the root of evil; God the sole foundation\n of truth and goodness; faith alone, working by love, can overcome\n the world. If the arrangements he relates as finding place in heaven\n and hell, be regarded as the unconscious creation of his own brain,\n an extraordinary genius for legislature must be allowed him by all.\n There is generally an obvious fitness in the economy he describes.\n Here and there he is whimsical and Quevedo-like. Sometimes a certain\n grim satire peeps out. As regards individuals, we suspect prejudice\n or caprice. He represents Melanchthon as faring but poorly, for a\n long time, in the other world, because he would not let go his\n doctrine of justification by faith. He elevates Mahomet in his\n heaven, and lowers Paul. Who does not think of Dante, carrying the\n feud of Guelph and Ghibelline beyond the grave?[393]\n\n It shocks such preconceived ideas as we may most of us have formed\n concerning heaven, to find it represented as so like earth. That in\n the spiritual world there should be towns and cities, gymnasia and\n theological discussions, sermons and book-writing, courts of law,\n and games, yea marriage, of a refined species, the progeny whereof\n are inward joys and virtues;\u2014all this is novel.[394] Our notions\n here are mostly taken from Milton, and his, in considerable measure,\n from ecclesiastical and scholastic tradition. After the sublimity of\n the poet, the homely circumstantialities of the theosophist appear\n cruelly prosaic. Yet Swedenborg\u2019s view of the future state may be\n regarded as, in many respects, a wholesome corrective to the popular\n conception. The truth, I should dimly surmise, may lie between the\n two. The general apprehension does perhaps make the transition at\n death too abrupt; forgets too much the great variety of degrees and\n societies of spirits which must distinguish the inhabitants of hell\n and heaven,\u2014how completely the inward tendency will make the grief\n or the joy,\u2014how little mere change of scene and mode of existence\n can constitute the bliss or woe,\u2014and how various must be the\n occupations and enjoyments of a world which is to consummate, not\n our adoration merely, but active love and knowledge.\n\n Very beautiful is Swedenborg\u2019s description of infants in heaven, and\n the instruction they receive \u2018from angels of the female sex, who in\n the life of the body, loved infants tenderly, and at the same time\n loved God.\u2019[395]\n\n Even wicked men, immediately after death, are kindly received by\n good angels\u2014such mercy is there for our poor mortality at the last\n trying hour. But the evil nature of such persons soon resumes its\n former ascendancy. The society of those pure associates grows\n irksome, and is forsaken by the sinful for evil companionship\n similar to themselves.\n\n Swedenborg cannot be considered mystical in his doctrine concerning\n spiritual influence\u2014that customary seat of mysticism. Such influence\n he pronounces immediate on the divine part, but not perceptible on\n ours, nor such as to exclude the necessity of instruction and the\n use of means. The good we do, God alone worketh in us; but we are\n conscious only of effort on our own part, though believing that we\n receive divine assistance. There is to be no tarrying, he says, for\n magical grace; no crying \u2018Wash me!\u2019 while the divinely given means\n of purification lie unused at our side. The _proprium_, or own-hood\n of every angel, spirit, or man, is only evil. (All angels and devils\n were once good and bad men.) To live only from God and not from\n self, is the true purity. Every man is an organ of life, deriving\n his life and free-will from God, and receptive of the Divine\n influx\u2014enjoying more or less, as he opens or closes his nature\n thereto. If the lower regions of his spiritual nature be closed\n against this influx, God is still in him, but he is not in God.[396]\n\n Swedenborg declares that the Church has been corrupted by the\n doctrine of three divine persons existing from eternity. He\n maintains that such a belief must in reality involve the conception\n of three several gods, however loudly those who hold it may profess\n to acknowledge the Divine Unity. In his theology, the Father, Son,\n and Spirit, are \u2018the three essentials of one God, which make One,\n like Soul, Body, and Operation in man.\u2019\n\n The doctrine of Swedenborg concerning the work of Christ appears to\n have received its peculiar complexion, at least in great measure,\n from his repugnance to Calvinism. He saw that the theology of the\n Reformation had unduly elaborated into doctrine, the forensic and\n pecuniary metaphors of Scripture, concerning justification and\n redemption. In his reaction, he is too much inclined to give to\n those figures a meaning considerably short of that which a\n consistent interpretation must assign them. Yet the results at which\n he arrives are not so decidedly opposed to those reached by the\n theology usually termed evangelical, as might have been anticipated.\n But the process of redemption in Swedenborg\u2019s system differs widely.\n He says he cannot believe that the Father, in his wrath, condemned\n the human race, and in his mercy sent his Son to bear their curse;\n that out of love for his suffering Son he cancelled the sentence of\n damnation, yet only in favour of those for whom the Son should\n intercede, who was thus to be a perpetual Mediator in the presence\n of the Father.[397] He declares it a fundamental error of the Church\n to believe the passion of the Cross to be redemption itself. He\n pronounces imputed righteousness a subversion of the divine\n order.\u2014So much for what he denies. On the other hand, he affirms\n that in the fulness of time, Jehovah assumed humanity to redeem and\n save mankind. Both in the spiritual regions and among men, evil had\n been gradually outgrowing and threatening to overpower good. The\n equilibrium between the heavenly and hellish worlds was lost. It was\n as though a dyke had been broken down, and sin were about to\n overflow the universe. Then God took to himself our nature, to\n subjugate the hells and to restore to order the heavens. Every\n victory gained by Christ over the temptations which assailed Him,\n distanced and enfeebled the powers of evil everywhere. It was the\n driving back of ravenous beasts to their dens,\u2014the delivery and\n feeding of his flock, both men and angels. This victory of the\n Saviour is our victory, is that redemption in virtue of which we are\n able, believing in Him, to resist and vanquish evil. Mediation,\n Intercession, Atonement, Propitiation, are forms of speech\n \u2018expressive of the approach which is opened to God, and of the grace\n communicated from God, by means of His Humanity.\u2019 Thus Swedenborg\n also believes in a violated order and an impending perdition; in the\n redemption of the race from such a fate by the incarnate One; in the\n vindication or restoration of the divine law and order by his\n conflict and victory on our behalf; and in a life lived _for_ us,\n which becomes also a life quickened _in_ us. He appears to object to\n the idea of sacrifice as necessarily concentrating the work of\n redemption in the shedding of the Saviour\u2019s blood. Such may have\n been the limited conception of sacrifice in the theology he opposed;\n but that error could be no good reason for explaining away the idea\n of sacrifice altogether. The language of Christ concerning himself\n must be strangely misinterpreted if no such idea is to be found\n there. But that sacrifice was constituted by his whole life, as well\n as by its last act\u2014the laying down thereof. The distinction drawn by\n some divines between the active and passive obedience\u2014as though the\n death alone were our atonement, and the life alone our example\u2014is a\n most unhappy refinement.\n\n In Swedenborg\u2019s doctrine concerning union with Christ there is\n nothing mystical. From the passionate and sensuous union of some\n mystics, and from the pantheistic confusion of others, he is\n completely free.\n\n It is to be regretted that the work of redemption should still be so\n partially regarded by opposing sections of the Church. On the one\n side are those who hold the doctrine of an exact satisfaction (the\n commercial theory); who suppose that, in virtue of imputed\n righteousness, God sees in his people no sin; and who would say that\n men _may_, rather than that they _must_, be exhorted to maintain\n good works. This covert and generally theoretical antinomianism is\n happily rare. Yet there are some well-meaning men, desirous of doing\n a reforming work among us, who actually imagine such an extreme as\n this to be the ordinary evangelical doctrine. On the other side are\n those whose tendency is to resolve the historical into the inward\n Christ. From any such leaning Swedenborg is more free than George\n Fox. On this side, too, stand those with whom Christ\u2019s work is\n rather a first sample of restored humanity than the way of\n restoration, and who seem to suppose that in admitting God to be\n just, they make Him cruel. In this extreme aversion to acknowledge\n an external law, and an external danger consequent on its violation,\n Swedenborg does not share. But, like most of the mystics, he\n conceives of redemption as wrought for us only as it is wrought in\n us; takes justification for granted, if we have but sanctification;\n and regards our sins as remitted just in proportion as we are\n reclaimed from them. If we must lean towards some extreme, this is\n the more safe, because containing the larger measure of truth. It\n appears to me that the \u2018divine order\u2019 requires that man be accepted\n of God in a way consistent with the divine righteousness; and so\n also as, at the very same time, to become conformed to that\n righteousness. The sacred writers constantly combine those two\n aspects of redemption which our systems are so prone to separate. On\n the one side, Christ\u2019s example is pressed upon us, even in those\n very acts which are peculiar to Himself as divine. On the other, the\n blood of Christ is represented as sanctifying us\u2014purging our\n consciences from dead works to serve the living God; while it is\n also stated expressly that He died, the just for the unjust.\n\n Similar as Swedenborg\u2019s theology is in its spirit to that of Behmen,\n I find him expressly stating that he had never read the German\n theosophist.\n\n Concerning the Church of the New Jerusalem, Swedenborg says, \u2018Since\n the Lord cannot manifest himself in person (to the world), which has\n just been shown to be impossible, and yet He has foretold that He\n would come and establish a New Church, which is the New Jerusalem,\n it follows that He will effect this by the instrumentality of a man,\n who is able not only to receive the doctrines of that Church in his\n understanding, but also to make them known by the press. That the\n Lord manifested Himself before me His servant, that He sent me on\n this office, and afterwards opened the sight of my spirit, and so\n let me into the spiritual world, permitting me to see the heavens\n and the hells, and also to converse with angels and spirits; and\n this now continually for many years, I attest in truth; and farther,\n that from the first day of my call to this office, I have never\n received anything appertaining to the doctrines of that Church from\n any angel, but from the Lord alone, whilst I was reading the\n Word.\u2019\u2014_True Christian Religion_, \u00a7 779.\n\nFootnote 391:\n\n Wilkinson, pp. 79, 130.\n\nFootnote 392:\n\n _Heaven and Hell_, \u00a7 360.\n\nFootnote 393:\n\n _True Christian Religion_, \u00a7 796.\n\nFootnote 394:\n\n See the description of the heavenly palaces, of divine worship in\n heaven, and of the angelic employments, _Heaven and Hell_, \u00a7\u00a7 183,\n 221, 387. _True Christian Religion_, \u00a7\u00a7 694, 697. Also concerning\n marriages in heaven, _Heaven and Hell_, \u00a7\u00a7 366-386.\n\nFootnote 395:\n\n _Heaven and Hell_, \u00a7\u00a7 329-345.\n\nFootnote 396:\n\n _True Christian Religion_, chap. vi. 6, 7; _Heaven and Hell_, \u00a7 592.\n\nFootnote 397:\n\n _True Christian Religion_, chap. ii. 1-7. I give here Swedenborg\u2019s\n idea of the evangelical theology. See especially \u00a7\u00a7 132-135, where he\n represents himself as correcting the false doctrine of certain spirits\n in the other world concerning the Divine Nature.\n\n\n\n\n BOOK THE THIRTEENTH\n CONCLUSION\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER I.\n\n\n W\u00e4r nicht das Auge sonnenhaft,\n Wie k\u00f6nnten wir zur Sonne blicken?\n W\u00e4r nicht in uns des Gottes eigne Kraft,\n Wie k\u00f6nnt uns G\u00f6ttliches entz\u00fccken?[398]\n\n GOETHE.\n\n\nEarly in December, Atherton was called away from Ashfield by some\nmatters of business. His solitary evenings were spent in the chief inn\nof a quiet cathedral town, and solaced by the drawing up of a kind of\nsummary, which was to indicate the main results arrived at by so much\nreading and talking about the mystics. This final review was despatched\nin a letter to Gower,\u2014was read aloud by him to a full auditory\n(comprising, beside its ordinary members, Mr. and Mrs. Lowestoffe, who\nhad come up to spend Christmas),\u2014and is here inserted.\n\n _Old Red Dragon, Snorumbury._\n\n MY DEAR GOWER,\n\n I had purposed keeping this concluding paper, which you asked of me,\n till I could rejoin you once more, and we might read and talk over\n it together. But I cannot say how long I may be detained here: so I\n send it you at once, that our mystical inquiries may be wound up\n before the Christmas merry-makings begin.\n\n In the present day, there are few who will acknowledge the name of\n mystic. Indeed, Mysticism is now held in combination with so many\n modifying or even counteracting elements, that a very\n strongly-marked or extreme expression of it is scarcely possible.\n Yet in many and very diverse forms of religious opinion, a mystical\n tendency may be discerned. It is apparent in the descendant of\n Irving, with his supernatural gifts; among some of the followers of\n Fox, where the inner light eclipses the outer; in the disciple of\n Swedenborg, so familiar with the world of spirits. The mystical\n tendency is present, also, wherever the subjective constituent of\n religion decidedly overbalances the objective. It is to be found\n whereever the religionist (under whatever pretence) refuses to allow\n the understanding to judge concerning what falls within its proper\n province. Thus, I tend toward mysticism, if I invest either my\n religious intuitions or my particular interpretation of scripture,\n with a divine halo\u2014with a virtual infallibility\u2014and charge with\n profanity the man whose understanding is dissatisfied with my\n conclusions. The \u2018evangelical\u2019 is wrong, if he hastily condemns, as\n \u2018carnal,\u2019 him who does not find his express doctrines in the\n Bible;\u2014if, instead of attempting to satisfy the understanding of the\n objector with reasons, he summarily dismisses it, by misquoting the\n passage, \u2018the natural man discerneth not the things of the spirit.\u2019\n The \u2018spiritualist\u2019 errs, in precisely the same way, when he assumes\n that his intuitions are too holy to be questioned by the logical\n faculty,\u2014proclaims his religious sentiment above criticism, and\n pronounces every objection the utterance of a pedantic formalism, or\n a miserable conventionality. So to do, is to confound the childlike\n and the childish,\u2014to forget that we should be, in malice, children;\n but in understanding, men. If the intuition of the one man, or the\n faith of the other, be removed from the sphere of knowing, and the\n court of evidence,\u2014be an impulse or an instinct, rather than a\n conviction, and be rendered inaccessible utterly to the\n understanding, then is the bridge broken down between them and their\n fellows. The common tongue of interpretation and the common ground\n of argument are taken altogether away. For such faith no reason can\n be rendered to him who has it not.\n\n In Germany, it may be questioned whether the efforts of the\n \u2018faith-philosophers\u2019 were not more injurious than helpful to the\n cause which they espoused. They endeavoured to shelter religion from\n Rationalism by relegating it to the province of feeling or\n sentiment. Hamann and Jacobi[399] might have withstood Rationalism\n on its own ground. But these defenders abandoned, without a blow,\n the fortifications of an impregnable argument, and shut themselves\n up in the citadel\u2014faith. Both were soon eclipsed by the deservedly\n great name of Schleiermacher. His position was a stronger one than\n theirs, and more comprehensive; yet, in the issue, scarcely more\n satisfactory. In Schleiermacher\u2019s theology, the individual\n \u2018Christian consciousness\u2019 is made the test according to which more\n or less of the recorded history of the Saviour is to be received.\n The supposed facts of Christianity contract or expand according to\n the supposed spiritual wants of the individual Christian. Thus, if\n any say, \u2018Certain of the miracles, the resurrection and ascension of\n Christ, do not make a part of my Christian consciousness,\u2014I can\n realize spiritual communion with Christ, independently of these\n accessories,\u2019\u2014Schleiermacher tells him he may dispense with\n believing them. Here, again, too much is conceded: portions of the\n very heart are set aside as non-essentials. Christianity is a\n _living_ whole, and cannot be thus dismembered without peril to\n life. This baptism of Schleiermacher is rapid and sweeping, and the\n veriest sceptics are Christianized in spite of themselves. Men whose\n Christianity is historic, much as Mahommedanism is historic, turn\n out excellent Christians, notwithstanding.\n\n Such a theory is, after all, ignoble, because it does not seek Truth\n alone, at all costs. The first object of religious inquiry is not\n moral expediency, not edification, not what we may deem productive\n of the most wholesome impressions, not what we wish to find true;\n but what _is_ true. Let us seek the Truth, and if faithful to what\n we can find of _that_, these other things will be added to us. Mere\n good nature is a spurious charity. The cause of religion can never\n be served by acquiescence in a falsehood. The Christianity offered\n by Schleiermacher is a glass which mirrors every man\u2014a source of\n motive, never beyond our own level\u2014a provision which is always what\n we like and expect. Now, it may so happen that the kind of religion\n we should like is not that which is the true\u2014not that, therefore,\n which is good for us. We need a religion adapted to us, but yet high\n above us, to raise us up. The untrained eye does not at the first\n view appreciate the old masters of art. If we are sincere in seeking\n God\u2019s truth, we must count on having to receive some things that do\n not at once commend themselves to our judgment, but into which we\n shall grow up, in the process of spiritual education. Now, for this\n kind of self-transcendence Schleiermacher makes no preparation, and\n his easy entrance does, in reality, preclude progress. We are not\n surprised to see the Romish priest considering first, not what is\n truth or fact, but what statement will bring the greatest number\n within the pale of the Church, what will produce the most edifying\n impression, what will do least violence to the current\n preconceptions. The children of the day should disdain the slightest\n approach to such facile complaisance. If Christ did not rise from\n the dead, Christianity is a lie. On this question no inquiry must be\n spared\u2014our minds must be thoroughly made up. But to allow the name\n of Christian to men who do not regard this fact as established,\n looks as though we were afraid of inquiry,\u2014as politic governments\n will seem hot to see offences which it would be dangerous to punish.\n I justify my means by my end\u2014I am wanting in truth and manhood, if,\n having myself rejected some doctrine, I yet appear to hold it,\n because I think it morally expedient that it should be generally\n received. I am guilty of a similar pious fraud if I yield up as\n non-essential some fact on which the Christian faith must hang, in\n order to recall certain wanderers to the fold of a nominal\n Christianity. Schleiermacher\u2019s sincerity can only be saved at the\n expense of his judgment. This was the weak point of his accomplished\n intellect\u2014a weakness shared by many a German divine,\u2014he regarded\n external facts as of small moment compared with inward feeling. The\n continual evaporation of outward reality in sentiment is the\n vitiating principle in his system.[400]\n\n Side by side with the advocates of faith and feeling in the\n religious province, appeared German Romanticism in the field of\n art and literature. The Romanticists were the enthusiastic\n champions of the Ideal against Realism, the assailants of all\n artificial method and servile conventionality, the sworn foes\n everywhere of that low-minded, prosaic narrowness which Germany\n calls Philistinism.[401]\n\n Schelling gave them a poetical philosophy, and young\n Schleiermacher\u2019s _Discourses on Religion_ were, for a time, their\n Bible. French Encyclopedism and German Rationalism had professed a\n summary explanation for every mystery, had exiled the supernatural,\n and ridiculed the Middle Age. In the pages of the _Athen\u00e6um_ and the\n _Europa_, Romanticism undertook the defence of medi\u00e6val\n superstition, extolled its fist-law, its wager by battle, its\n \u2018earnest\u2019 religious wars; and confounding clear thought and definite\n expression with the pert self-complacence of Rationalism, announced\n itself enamoured of every mystical obscurity, for the very shadow\u2019s\n sake.\n\n The evils against which the Romanticists contended were many of them\n real; much they laughed at, well deserving ridicule; but with their\n truth they mingled a world of fantastic folly. Voltaire was, in many\n things, as shallow as he was transparent,\u2014_therefore_ the muddy\n obscurity of every visionary who rhapsodized about the All, must be\n profound as the \u2018everlasting deeps.\u2019 Conventionalism,\n utilitarianism, logic-grinding, old formulas,\u2014all were to be\n dethroned by the inspired votaries of intellectual intuition. The\n most startling extravagance or desperate paradox of opinion was\n hailed with the loudest plaudits, as most surely fraught with the\n divine afflatus. The Romanticists essayed to harmonize the ideal and\n the real. For the most part, they succeeded only in confounding\n their spheres; and ending by absorbing the real in the ideal. In\n their hands, philosophy became imaginative and rhetorical,\u2014a very\n garden of gay fancies; while poetry grew metaphysical and analytic.\n Where they should have created, they dissect; where they should have\n inquired, they imagine.[402]\n\n It is a cardinal doctrine with Romanticism that the common should be\n regarded as the wondrous, and the wondrous as the common. The land\n of fa\u00ebry is to be our beaten business track; its dreamy speech, a\n household language; its spirit-glances, our familiar looks. At the\n same time, the objects and appliances of everyday existence are to\n be informed with supernatural significance, and animated with a\n mysterious life. So, in _Sartor Resartus_ (a book which is simply\n the Evangel of Romanticism, in its more vigorous form), Mr. Carlyle\n reminds the reader that his \u2018daily life is girt with Wonder,\u2019 and\n that his \u2018very blankets and breeches are Miracles.\u2019 Thus our life is\n to be at once a trophy and a bazaar; like old Westminster Hall,\n where the upper story was gorgeous with blazonry and proud with the\n ensigns of chivalrous romance, and the ground-floor laid out in\n shops.\n\n Ere long, Romanticists like Creuzer and G\u00f6rres, began to resolve the\n old mythologies into allegorical science: while Romanticists like\n Frederick Schlegel, were resolving religion into poetry, and\n morality into \u00e6sthetics. Dante and Tasso, Camoens and Goethe, had\n intermingled classic and romantic myths as a poetic decoration, or a\n fanciful experiment. With the Romanticists (so frequently mastered\n by their own materials), such admixture became actual earnest. They\n announced the approach of a new Religion of Humanity and Art. They\n summoned flower-spirits from the Ganges, braceleted crocodiles from\n the Nile, monstrous forms from the Talmud and the Koran, to fill its\n incongruous pantheon of symbols. The novel wonders of animal\n magnetism were to constitute its miracles. Thus, like Proclus, they\n could make philosophy superstitious, they could not make\n superstition philosophical. They attempted the construction of a\n true and universal religion, by heaping together the products of\n every recorded religious falsity, and bowing at all shrines in turn.\n Like Iamblichus, they sought in theurgy for a sign; and in their\n credulous incredulity, grew greedy of every supranaturalism except\n the scriptural. In a moment of especial inspiration, Frederick\n Schlegel, writing in the _Athen\u00e6um_, declared that the only\n opposition which the new religion of philanthropy and good taste was\n likely to encounter, would spring from the few Christians proper\n still in existence; but even they, when the Aurora actually shone,\n would fling aside their prejudice, fall down, and worship.[403]\n\n Such anticipations appear ridiculous enough. But against ridicule,\n to which they were peculiarly sensitive, the Romanticists possessed\n a ready safeguard. This resource consisted in their doctrine of\n Irony. After advancing a paradox, or pushing a fancy to the edge of\n absurdity, let the author turn round, and abandon his own creation;\n or dissipate it, with a serene smile; or assuming another tone, look\n down upon it, as questionable, from some new and superior height.\n Thus, if any dullard begins gravely to criticise, he shall have only\n laughter for his pains, as one too gross for the perception of\n humour; while at the same time, the reader is given to understand\n that beneath that jest there _does_ lie, nevertheless, a kernel of\n most earnest and momentous truth. According to the Ironic theory,\n such saying and unsaying is not convenient merely (as a secret door\n of escape behind the tapestry), but in the highest degree artistic.\n For what is Art, but a sublime play? Does not loftiest genius ever\n sport, godlike, with its material, remote and riddling to the lower\n apprehension of common minds? In _Sartor Resartus_ the English\n public have been familiarized with this ingenious device. After\n professing to translate, from the paper-bags of Teufelsdr\u00f6ckh, some\n ultra-transcendental sally, Mr. Carlyle makes a practice of\n addressing the reader, admits that he may well feel weary and\n perplexed, confesses that he himself does not always see his way in\n these \u2018strange utterances,\u2019 calls them a farrago whose meaning must\n be mainly conjectured, and finally leaves it pleasantly uncertain\n how much is delirium, how much inspiration.\n\n But no artifice could save Romanticism, in the hands of its most\n extravagant representatives, from the condign catastrophe. This\n sensuous \u00e6sthetic religion, this effeminate symbolism, with its\n gallery of arbitrary and incongruous types from the dreams of all\n time,\u2014this worship of Art as Deity, could tend but in one direction.\n The men who began with sentimental admiration for the Church of\n Rome, ended by passing their necks beneath her yoke; and the artist\n terminates miserably in the bigot. They had contemned the\n Reformation, on \u00e6sthetic grounds, as unromantic: they came to dread\n it on superstitious grounds as unsafe. Romanticism, so sanguine and\n so venturous in its revolutionary youth, grew anile in its premature\n decrepitude; mumbled its _credos_; cursed its heretics\u2014and died.\n\n It was at the opening of the present century that the great rush to\n Rome took place: a significant lesson, indicating the constant issue\n of that subjective poetical religionism which divorces Truth from\n Beauty, which craves religious fancies and neglects religious facts,\n till it falls a victim to the greatest religious fallacy. Then was\n celebrated the perversion of Frederick Schlegel, of Adam M\u00fcller, of\n Zachariah Werner\u2014\u2018a born mystic,\u2019 as Carlyle rightly styles him.\n Tieck, who must stand acquitted of the follies of the school; and\n August Wilhelm Schlegel (despite some crotchets, immeasurably\n superior to Frederick) retained their Protestantism.\n\n Novalis, for by this name Friedrich von Hardenberg is most known, is\n perhaps as fair a representative of Romanticism as can be found. He\n had no occasion, like some of the party, to affect, as so much art,\n the language of the mystics whom he studied with such devotion.\n Novalis was to the manner born. To none was the realm of reverie and\n fable\u2014visited by most of us only at intervals\u2014more completely a\n familiar, daily dwelling-place. Scarcely to the morbid phantasy of\n Hoffmann was the ordinary life more visibly inwrought with the\n mysterious. Poetry was his practical staff of every-day existence;\n and practical life, to him, all poetry. The creations of his fancy\n were his Holy Writ; and Holy Writ the most divine creation of the\n fancy. Werner regretted that men should ever have employed two\n distinct terms to designate Art and Religion. With Novalis they are\n perfectly identical. It is his wont to deal with spiritual truth by\n analogies drawn from physics, and to investigate physics by his\n mystical axioms concerning spiritual truth. A mind so desultory and\n discursive was quite unequal to the formation of a system. But to\n what sort of system such a confusion of thought must lead, if ever\n methodically elaborated, has not patient, hard-working Jacob Behmen\n already shown us? Where other men are satisfied with tracing a\n resemblance, Novalis announces an identity. What others use as an\n illustration, he will obey as a principle. With him, as with the old\n theosophists, the laws of the universe are the imaginative analogies\n which link together all its regions, seen and unseen,\u2014analogies bred\n in his own heated brain.\n\n Thus, according to Novalis, he is the true Archimage of Idealism,\n \u2018who can transform external things into thoughts, and thoughts into\n external things.\u2019 \u2018The poet,\u2019 he says, \u2018is the true enchanter: by\n identifying himself with an object he compels it to become what he\n will.\u2019 \u2018Experience is magical, and only magically explicable.\u2019\n \u2018Physics is the theory of imagination.\u2019 \u2018Religion, Love, Nature,\n Politics, all must be treated mystically.\u2019 On such a principle alone\n can we account for the ultra-Neoplatonist rodomontade he utters in\n praise of mathematics. He declares the genuine mathematician the\n enthusiast _par excellence_\u2014mathematics is the life of the gods\u2014it\n is religion\u2014it is virtual omniscience. Mathematical books are to be\n read devoutly, as the word of God.[404]\n\n The suggestive and sparkling aphorisms of Novalis should be read\n with due allowance. Some contain admirable thoughts, pointedly\n expressed; others are curiously perverse or puerile. Now they\n breathe the lofty stoical spirit we find in Schleiermacher\u2019s\n monologues. Presently, Fichte seems forgotten; the strain of Titanic\n self-assertion is relaxed, and Novalis languidly reclines with the\n Lotos-eaters among the flowers. In one page life is but \u2018a battle\n and a march,\u2019 in another, the soul\u2019s activity is an eating poison;\n love, a sickness; life, the disease of the spirit\u2014a brief fever, to\n be soothed by the slumber of mystical repose, and healed at last by\n healthful, restful death. In this latter mood he woos the sleepy\n abstraction of the oriental mysticism. Action is morbid, in his\n eyes; to dream is to overcome. All activity ceases, he says, when\n Knowledge enters. The condition of Knowlege is Eud\u00e6monia\u2014saintly\n calm of contemplation.[405] Such is the aspiration dimly discernible\n through the florid obscurity of his _Hymns to Night_. Shutting out\n the garish outer world of the Actual, forgetting all its tinsel\n glories and its petty pains, the enthusiast seems to rise into that\n mystic meditative Night, whose darkness reveals more truth than the\n searching brightness of the daylight, and in whose recesses his\n transported spirit celebrates its bridal with the Queen of\n Heaven\u2014the \u00e6sthetic Mary, the Eternal Beauty.\n\n Now that the assailants of Revelation have grown so extremely pious,\n we find them zealously enlisting certain modifications of mysticism\n on their side. Modern spiritualism revives the tactics of ancient\n philosophy. It borrows from Christianity (as did Porphyry) a higher\n moral tone than it could otherwise have reached, and then pretends\n to look down upon the ethics of the scriptures. The religious\n sentiment so variously evolved in every age and country, is brought\n forth to overwhelm the religious truth revealed in Christ. A\n philosophic church is set up. The hope full of immortality is\n depreciated as low and selfish. Quietism abased itself so profoundly\n that it would scarcely lift its eyes toward that hope. Spiritualism\n exalts itself so ambitiously, that it will not stoop to make that\n hope its own. In the seventeenth century, mysticism was in sad\n earnest on this question of disinterestedness: in the nineteenth,\n such indifference is the pretence of a preposterous\n self-sufficiency.\n\n But the device which failed so signally, some fourteen centuries\n ago, cannot now prevail, though the hostile approach is more\n artfully contrived. That antichristian sentimentalism which is too\n refined for the medium of a book, and for the morality of the Bible,\n was discomfited as soon as seen, and received its _coup de grace_\n from the \u2018_Eclipse of Faith_,\u2019 amidst universal laughter. But this\n repetition of old ideas is, after all, the most mortifying and\n damnatory fact. To think; that the advocates of a philosophic\n religious sentiment, in opposition to the old Book, should exhibit\n as little novelty as their enemies,\u2014that even after throwing off the\n Biblical fetters, no progress should be visible,\u2014that the haunting\n Past should be with them still,\u2014that after making their escape from\n antiquated Paul and John, they should find themselves in company\n with antiquated Proclus and Plotinus!\n\n The theosophy of Swedenborg was original. Mysticism has produced\n nothing really new in that direction since his day, and the northern\n seer still walks alone within his circle. Franz Baader re-clothes\n the bones of Behmen\u2019s system from the materials of modern science;\n and Oetinger, a student both of Behmen and of Swedenborg, attempts\n to arrange a divine system of science by the mystical interpretation\n of scripture. Even the \u2018holy vegetation\u2019 of oriental mysticism has\n been reproduced. Schelling bids man know God \u2018in silent\n not-knowing,\u2019 as the plant reveals eternal beauty in \u2018stillest\n existence and without reflection.\u2019 Such counsel means much more than\n the maxim, \u2018Il ne faut pas voyager pour voir, mais pour ne pas\n voir,\u2019 so frequent with John of the Cross and F\u00e9n\u00e9lon. Laurence\n Oken, a physiologist of note and a disciple of Schelling, sees in\n the snail an exalted symbol of mind slumbering deeply within itself.\n He beholds in that creature an impersonation of majestic wisdom: it\n is \u2018the prophesying goddess sitting on the tripod.\u2019 What reflection,\n what earnestness, what timidity, what confidence! The same Oken\n travesties Behmen, when he makes red = fire, love, Father; blue =\n air, truth, belief, Son; green = water, formation, hope, Ghost;\n yellow = earth, Satan. He imagined that he wrote his\n Physio-philosophy in a kind of inspiration. Here, again, we see that\n this intellectual intuition, professedly so keen, so spontaneous, so\n free from every formula, does yet continually repeat itself.\n\n Great and various have been the services rendered by mysticism\n throughout the history of the Christian Church. It has exposed\n pretence, it has demanded thoroughness. It has sought, amidst\n surrounding formalism, what was deemed the highest form of\n spirituality. Its strain has been sometimes of a mood so high as to\n \u2018create a soul within the ribs of death.\u2019\n\n But it has been influential for good in proportion to its temperance\n in the doctrine concerning the outward rule and the inner light.\n Wherever it has been extravagant in this respect\u2014has thrown off\n common sense or decency\u2014been turbulent, licentious, or \u2018high\n fantastical,\u2019 there good men and thoughtful have stood mournfully\n aloof from it, while formal men or designing have made its follies a\n plea for tightening the cords of spiritual oppression. It has won\n acceptance from men when it has been sufficiently moderate to urge\n intelligible arguments, and to appeal sincerely (if not always\n warrantably) to that outward Revelation which is commonly received.\n But the world has rarely been disposed to receive boastful\n professions of spirituality or freedom, vague declamation and\n rhapsodical denunciation of reason or the schools, in the place of\n those definite expressions of opinion which, though sometimes\n narrow, are at least readily apprehensible. Incalculable must be the\n advantage of any man or party who can manifest a clear meaning over\n those who cannot.\n\n There is danger in the present day, lest in the reaction against\n logical formalism and prescription, an extravagant value should be\n set on faith for its own sake. The Romanist makes mere faith, blind\n and implicit, a saving virtue. The spiritualist falls into the same\n error when he says, \u2018Only be in earnest\u2014get faith in an idea\u2014in\n something, at any rate\u2014and all will be well.\u2019 But faith is a\n principle, not an instinct. Among the many claimants for my belief,\n I must make an intelligent choice. It is of some consequence whether\n the \u2018idea\u2019 on which I am mounted be false or true. It can be good\n for no man to be recklessly earnest in the devil\u2019s work.\n\n Mysticism has generally apprehended religion rather on its divine\n than on its human side. It makes haste to lose humanity, and to be\n glorified. Grievous afflictions have reminded some of the mystical\n aspirants that they were human still. The spiritual pride of others\n has betrayed them, first to ostentatious sanctity, and then to\n shameful sin. Among those who would surpass humanity, some have\n fallen disgracefully, others ludicrously, below it. There have been\n those whose transformation proved to be downward to a lower sphere,\n not upward to an element more rare. They fare like Lucius in the\n _Golden Ass_ to whom Fotis has given the wrong witch-salve. He\n extends his arms, he sways himself to and fro, he expects the next\n moment to find himself changing into a bird. But his hands and feet\n grow horny, his thickening, irritated skin shoots forth hairs, and\n behold him metamorphosed into an ass. The theatrical devotion, so\n frequent among the ornaments of Roman saintship, overlooks common\n duties, sometimes despises necessary helps, generally mistakes\n altogether the nature of true greatness. The Christianity exhibited\n in the New Testament differs most conspicuously from the Mystical\n Theology in being so much more human. It addresses man as he is; it\n addresses all; it appeals to the whole nature of every man. It knows\n nothing of class-religion. It does not bid men exhaust themselves in\n efforts to live only in the _apex_ of their being\u2014that \u1f04\u03bd\u03b8\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bd\u03cc\u03bf\u03c5 of\n which Plotinus speaks.\n\n The history of mysticism shows us, farther, that the attempt to\n escape all figure or symbol, in our apprehensions of divine truth,\n is useless, or worse than useless. Such endeavour commonly ends in\n substituting for a figure which, though limited and partial, has\n life and heart in it, some vague abstraction, cold and lifeless,\u2014and\n itself, perhaps, ultimately a figure, after all. It is one thing to\n remember that language is _but_ language,\u2014that behind all the\n expressions of love or power lies an infinity that cannot be\n expressed. It is another to leave behind (as many mystics have\n striven to do) even the vital breathing metaphors of Holy Writ, and\n restlessly to peer beyond, into the Unutterable\u2014the Illimitable.\n Surely the words \u2018King,\u2019 \u2018Shepherd,\u2019 \u2018Father,\u2019 express more truth\n concerning God than the \u2018pure Act\u2019 of philosophy. When I speak of\n God as near or distant, pleased or displeased, the change may be in\n me rather than in Him. But in practical result\u2014in the effects I\n feel\u2014it is to me _as though_ such change of disposition were real.\n And mysticism must freely grant me this, if it would not play into\n the hands of scholasticism, its hereditary foe. There is a sickly\n dread of anthropomorphism abroad among us, which is afraid of\n attributing to God a heart.\n\n Mysticism has often spoken out bravely and well against those who\n substitute barren propositions for religious life,\u2014who reject the\n kindly truth to make a tyrant of some rigid theory or system. But\n there is danger also on the other side. An imaginative, brainsick\n man, may substitute religious vagaries, whims, conceits, for\n religious truth. Men may be led as far astray by mere feeling as by\n mere logic. While the man of method makes an idol of his theory, the\n enthusiast may make an idol of his passion or his fancy. To this\n latter snare we have seen mysticism repeatedly fall a prey. The\n fanatic and the formalist both essay to build a temple to the Holy\n Spirit. The formalist is satisfied with raising the structure; and a\n sorry taper, here and there, makes darkness visible. The fanatic\n kindles so many lights, and with so little care, that he burns his\n edifice to the ground, as did the Florentines their Church of the\n San Spirito, from excessive illumination.\n\n Anatomists tell us of what they term vicarious secretion in the\n bodies of men. One organ is found, in some cases of injury, to\n produce the secretion proper to another; and so we survive the hurt.\n I think some process of the kind must supervene for the benefit of\n our minds. With many of the mystics, I doubt not, the heart\n performed, in their spiritual \u0153conomy, the functions of the head. A\n careful scrutiny of the mystical theology will show, I am confident,\n that several of its prominent doctrines are, in fact, most valuable\n correctives, and probably took or maintained their place as such.\n These doctrines, some of which by no means commend themselves to the\n non-mystical mind, are the preservatives of the mystic from his\n peculiar dangers. Mysticism leads to an excessive and morbid\n introspection. How necessary, then, that doctrine of\n \u2018unconsciousness\u2019 reiterated by John of the Cross and\n F\u00e9n\u00e9lon,\u2014itself an extreme, but indispensable to counteract its\n opposite. Mysticism has taught many to expect a perceptible inward\n guidance. How necessary, then, the doctrine of \u2018quiet,\u2019\u2014that the\n soul should be abstracted in a profound stillness, lest the hasty\n impulses of self should be mistaken for a divine monition. Mysticism\n exalts the soul to a fervour and a vision, fraught with strange\n sweetnesses and glories. How necessary, then, that doctrine of the\n more elevated Quietism which bids the mystic pass beyond the\n sensible enjoyments and imaginative delights of religion\u2014escape from\n the finer senses of the soul, as well as the grosser senses of the\n body, into that state of pure and imageless contemplation which has\n no preference or conception of its own. If Quietism is not to become\n a fantastic selfishness, a sensuous effeminacy, a voice must cry,\n \u2018Haste through the picture-gallery\u2014haste through the\n rose-garden\u2014dare the darkness, wherein the glory hides!\u2019\n\n The lawless excesses of which mysticism has been occasionally guilty\n should not serve to commend spiritual despotism. The stock\n alternative with the Church of Rome has been\u2014\u2018Accept these fanatical\n outbreaks as divine, or submit to our rule.\u2019 Unfortunately for this\n very palpable sophism, the most monstrous mystical extravagance,\n whether of pantheism, theurgy, or miracle, is to be found in the\n Romish Church. Angelus Silesius, Angela de Foligni, and Christina\n Mirabilis, are nowhere surpassed in their respective extremes. The\n best of the Romish mystics are questionable Romanists. Tauler and\n Madame Guyon were more Protestant than they were aware. Even the\n submissive F\u00e9n\u00e9lon is but a half-hearted son of the Church, beside\n that most genuine type of her saintship\u2014the zealous Dominic.\n Innocent folk are sometimes inclined to think better of a system\n which could produce a man like F\u00e9n\u00e9lon. They forget that, as a\n product of the system, F\u00e9n\u00e9lon was a very inferior specimen\u2014little\n better than a failure.\n\n There is a considerable class, in these restless, hurrying, striving\n days, who would be much the better for a measure of spiritual\n infusion from the Quietism of Madame Guyon. She has found an\n excellent expositor and advocate in Mr. Upham. The want of leisure,\n the necessity for utmost exertion, to which most of us are subject,\n tends to make us too anxious about trifles, presumptuously eager and\n impatient. We should thank the teacher who aids us to resign\n ourselves, to be nothing, to wait, to trust. But it is to be feared\n that such lessons will have the greatest charm for those who need\n them least\u2014for pensive, retiring contemplatists, who ought rather to\n be driven out to action and to usefulness. There is a danger lest\n passivity should be carried too far\u2014almost as though man were the\n helpless object about which light and darkness were contending,\n rather than himself a combatant, armed by God against the powers of\n night. It seems to me, too, better to watch against, and suppress as\n they arise, our selfish tendencies and tempers\u2014our envy, pride,\n indifference, hate, covetousness\u2014than to be always nervously trying\n (as F\u00e9n\u00e9lon does) to catch that Proteus, SELF, in the abstract.\n\n Finally, in the mischievous or unsuccessful forms of mysticism we\n have the recorded result of a series of attempts to substitute the\n inner light for the outer. When mysticism threw off external\n authority altogether, it went mad\u2014as we have seen in the\n revolutionary pantheism of the Middle Age. When it incorporated\n itself more and more in revealed truth, it became a benign power\u2014as\n on the eve of the Reformation. The testimony of history, then, is\n repeatedly and decisively uttered against those who imagine that to\n set aside the authority of Scripture would be to promote the\n religious life of men. The Divine Spirit is with us yet; and the\n healing, elevating wisdom of the inspired page unexhausted still.\n The hope of our age lies, not in a conceited defiance of controul,\n but in our ability more fully to apprehend the counsels God Himself\n has given us. Argument may be evaded. To speak in the name of\n religion may seem to beg the question. But to resist the verdict of\n the past is not the part of any thoughtful man. He who hopes to\n succeed in superseding letter by spirit\u2014in disseminating a gospel\n more spiritual than that of scripture, by somehow dispensing with\n the vehicle which all truth requires for its conveyance,\u2014who hopes\n to succeed in any attempt approaching this, where more powerful\n minds, sometimes more favourably situated, have met only with\n defeat\u2014such a fanatic must be dismissed with pity as totally\n incurable.\n\n It grows late. Good night all. If I can get back earlier I will.\n\n Yours,\n HENRY ATHERTON.\n\nFootnote 398:\n\n Goethe:\n\n Held our eyes no sunny sheen,\n How could sunshine e\u2019er be seen?\n Dwelt no power divine within us,\n How could God\u2019s divineness win us?\n\nFootnote 399:\n\n See F. H. Jacobi, _Von den G\u00f6ttlichen Dingen und ihrer Offenbarung_\n (1811), where the principles of the Faith-Philosophy are expounded,\n though after a desultory, disjointed manner:\u2014more especially pp.\n 70-93.\n\nFootnote 400:\n\n To Schleiermacher the theology of his country owes great and lasting\n obligation for having led the intellectual promise of his time to a\n momentous crisis of transition. His genius at once kindled the\n enthusiasm of youth, and allowed a space to its scepticism. As much\n opposed as Hamann or Jacobi to the contemptuous Rationalism which then\n held the scorner\u2019s chair, he did not, like them, couch a polemic lance\n against philosophy. But real and important as was his advance beyond\n the low and superficial anti-supranaturalism which preceded him, the\n followers of Schleiermacher found it impossible to rest where he did.\n From among his pupils have sprung the greatest names in this\n generation of German divines, and they have admitted, with scarcely an\n exception, that he conceded so much for the sake of peace as to render\n his position untenable. Their master led them to an elevation whence\n they discerned a farther height and surer resting-place than he\n attained. For a more detailed account of Schleiermacher and his\n theological position, the reader is referred to an article by the\n Author in the _British Quarterly Review_ for May, 1849.\n\nFootnote 401:\n\n The principles of the genuine Romanticism (as distinguished from its\n later and degenerate form) are ably enunciated by Tieck, in a comic\n drama, entitled _Prince Zerbino; or, Travels in Search of Good Taste_.\n One Nestor, a prosaic pedant, who piques himself on understanding\n everything, and on his freedom from all enthusiasm and imaginative\n nonsense, is introduced into the wondrous garden of the Goddess of\n Poesy. There he sees, among others, Dante and Ariosto, Cervantes and\n Sophocles. He complains of not finding Hagedorn, Gellert, Gesner,\n Kleist, or Bodmer; and the Goddess then points him out\u2014as a true\n German bard\u2014stout old Hans Sachs. Dante appears to him a crusty old\n fogie; Tasso, a well-meaning man, but weak; and Sophocles, whom he was\n disposed to respect as a classic, when blamed for the obscurity of his\n choruses, turns upon him like a bear. The conceited impertinence, the\n knowing air, and the puzzle-headedness of the Philistine, are hit off\n to admiration. This Garden of Poesy seems to him a lair of savages, an\n asylum for lunatics, where all his smug conventionalisms are trampled\n on, and every canon of his criticism suffers flagrant violation. Genii\n take him away, and give him something substantial to eat\u2014earth to\n earth. The tables and chairs begin to talk to him. They congratulate\n themselves on being delivered from their old free life in the woods,\n and cut out into _useful_ articles of furniture, so fulfilling the\n purpose of their being. He gets on much better with them than with the\n poets, and thinks them (himself excepted) the most sensible creatures\n in the world.\n\nFootnote 402:\n\n See Julian Schmidt, _Geschichte der Deutschen National Literatur im\n 19n Jahrhundert_, th. I. c. vi.\n\nFootnote 403:\n\n Schmidt, p. 60.\n\nFootnote 404:\n\n Novalis, _Schriften_, th. ii. pp. 152, 159, 221.\n\nFootnote 405:\n\n _Ibid._, p. 158.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER II.\n\n\n La raison, dit saint Augustin, ne se soumettroit jamais, si elle ne\n jugeoit qu\u2019il y a des occasions o\u00f9 elle doit se soumettre. Il est\n donc juste qu\u2019elle se soumette quand elle juge qu\u2019elle doit se\n soumettre; et qu\u2019elle ne se soumette pas, quand elle juge avec\n fondement qu\u2019elle ne doit pas le faire: mais il faut prendre garde \u00e0\n ne pas se tromper.\u2014PASCAL.\n\n\nGower ceased reading. A few irregular remarks and questions followed the\nshort silence. Willoughby expressed his wish that Atherton were with\nthem, and was echoed by the lady of Ashfield. Kate received Atherton\u2019s\nbulky letter from Gower\u2019s hands, and began to look it over for herself,\nas we always do with newspapers, however fully read aloud. Mrs.\nLowestoffe was cutting out some ingenious paper figures, destined to\nthrow little Kate into rapturous glee, and her husband had just\npetitioned for music, when the deep bark of Lion was heard in the\ncourt-yard; then the muffled sound of hoofs and wheels over the snow,\nand a tearing peal of the bell.\n\nIt was Atherton, who, released sooner than he had hoped, had followed\nhis epistle at speed, sweeping with the wind, through the whitening\nhills, for two-thirds of the December day.\n\nIn half an hour he was among his guests\u2014had refreshed him after his\njourney\u2014been upstairs to kiss his sleeping child\u2014and now appeared,\nblithesome and ruddy, diffusing smiles. Enthroned in his favourite\narm-chair, he amused them with the story of what he had seen, and heard,\nand done; nothing uncommon, certainly, but full of life and humour in\nhis style of telling. On his way home that, day he had met with an\nentertaining companion in the railway carriage, a little spherical old\ngentleman, exhibiting between upper and nether masses of fur a narrow\nsegment of face,\u2014gruff and abrupt in speech\u2014ferocious about stoppages\nand windows,\u2014who had been in India, and knew everybody who was \u2018anybody\u2019\nthere.\n\n\u2018We talked,\u2019 said Atherton, \u2018about Brahmins and Buddhists, about the\nBhilsa Topes and Major Cunningham, about the civil service, and what\nnot. On every topic he was surprisingly well informed, and gave me, in\nhis brief way, just the facts I wanted to know. A propos of Ceylon and\nthe famous cinnamon breezes, he said that when he was on board the\nBungagunga Indiaman, they stood one day out at sea, some miles off the\nisland, when the wind was blowing, mark you, right _on_ the land. A\ngroup among the passengers began to dispute about these said\nbreezes\u2014were they a poetic fiction, or an olfactory fact? With that, my\nold gentleman slips away slyly, rubs a little oil of cinnamon on the\nweather hammock nettings, and has the satisfaction of presently seeing\nthe pro-cinnamon party in full triumph, crying, with distended nostrils\nand exultant sniffs, \u2018There! don\u2019t you smell them now?\u2019 One of them, he\ntold me (his multitudinous envelopes shaking the while), actually\npublished an account when he got home, relating his own experience of\nthose spicy gales, said to perfume the ocean air so far away.\u2019\n\nGOWER. Amusing enough. Just the blunder, by the way, of our\nmystics,\u2014mistaking what exists only on board their own personality for\nsomething real that operates from without. Their pleasurable emotions\ncan be nothing less than precious odours\u2014miraculous benisons, breathed\nfrom some island of the blest.\n\nLOWESTOFFE. They seem to me a most monotonous set of gentry\u2014those same\nmystics. Accept my congratulations on your having nearly done with them.\nAs far as I understand them, they go round one old circuit for ever, in\nvarying forms,\u2014just like your gold fish there, Mrs. Atherton, now\nlooking so big about it, and the next moment tapered off to a mere tail.\nSee that fellow now, magnified almost to the size of his glass world,\nwith his huge eyes, like a cabbage rose in spectacles; and now, gone\nagain on his way round and round,\u2014always the same, after all.\n\nATHERTON. And yet religious extravagances, with all their inordinate\nQuixotism, or worse, are full of instruction. Your favourite botanical\nbooks should hint that much to you; for the vegetable physiologists all\nsay that no little light has been thrown on the regularly developed\norganism by the study of monstrous and aberrant forms of growth.\n\nLOWESTOFFE. There is something in that. But these irregularities you\nspeak of have repeatedly broken out in the conduct, have they not, as\nwell as in imagination or opinion?\n\nATHERTON. They have. The dazzling splendour of a superhuman knowledge or\na superhuman fervour, has often distorted the common rule of right and\nwrong,\u2014\u2014\n\nGOWER. As they say the Northern Lights disturb the direction of the\nneedle.\n\nKATE. Yet those glimmers and flashes are of service in the arctic\nnight,\u2014better than total darkness.\n\nLOWESTOFFE. Right, Miss Merivale. I fully admit the plea.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. I think we must allow the substantial justice of Mr.\nLowestoffe\u2019s complaint. There is a sameness in these mystics. Each one\nstarts, to so large an extent, on his own account, with the same bias\nand the same materials. He reiterates, after his manner, the same\nprotest, and the same exaggeration. The same negations, the same\nincoherence, the same metaphors, have attempted in every age the\nutterance of the unutterable.\n\nATHERTON. So science began to make steady progress as soon as it\nconfined itself within the limits of the knowable, and ceased to publish\nfancy maps of the _terra incognita_. Theosophy was perpetually\ntransgressing those limits, and hence its waste of ingenuity in vain\ngyrations.\n\nGOWER. There is one point, Atherton, on which I could wish you had dwelt\nmore at large in your letter. Do we not find, the most prolific source\nof mysticism in the idea that there is a special faculty for the\ndiscernment of spiritual truth,\u2014that there is a kind of soul within the\nsoul which may unite with God, leaving behind it all the ordinary powers\nof the mind,\u2014a potency, in fact, altogether independent of knowledge,\nunderstanding, judgment, imagination, &c., and never amenable to any of\nthem? We have encountered this doctrine over and over again, sometimes\nin a qualified, sometimes in an uncontrollable form. Hugo\u2019s \u2018Eye of\nContemplation\u2019 is such a faculty. Tauler adopts the principle when he\nseparates the Ground of the Soul from all its acts and powers. It lies\nat the root of the inexpressible experiences so precious to the Spanish\nmystics, when every function of the soul underwent divine suspension. It\nappears again in the divorce declared (by Coleridge, for example)\nbetween the Understanding\u2014the reasoning faculty, which deliberates and\njudges, and the Intuitive Reason, which discerns religious and\nphilosophic truth directly.\n\nATHERTON. You make out a strong case, certainly. Declare intuition\nabsolute, with an undivided irresponsible prerogative of this kind, and\nwhat check is provided against any possible vagary of mysticism?\n\nMRS. ATHERTON. I do not clearly understand the question at issue. Pray\nexplain before you go farther.\n\nGOWER. Allow me to make the attempt. I am afraid we are growing\nprosy\u2014speaking for myself, at least. Old travellers used to report that\nthe Danube, near its conjunction with the Drave, flowed in a stream\nquite separate from its tributary, though the same banks confined them\nboth. The two currents were said to be perfectly distinct in colour, and\ntheir waters of quality so opposite, that the fish caught in the one\nwere never to be found in the other. Now the question is, whether Reason\nand Understanding in the mind of man, do, in a similar way, reciprocally\nexclude each other.\n\nATHERTON. Gower says no; and the failures of mysticism powerfully\nsupport his position. I agree with him. I think we have all within us\nwhat I may call Intuition, the poetical, and Understanding, the\npractical man; but that each of the two is the better for close\nfellowship with his brother. Let not Intuition disdain common-sense, and\nthink irrationality a sign of genius. And you, Gower, would be the last\nto give the reins to logic only, and live by expediency, arithmetic, and\nmensuration.\n\nMRS. ATHERTON. Thank you.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. But there was occasion, surely, for Coleridge\u2019s exhortation\nto rise above the dividual particular notions we have gathered about us,\nto the higher region of the Universal Reason.\n\nATHERTON. By all means, let us clear our minds of prejudice, and seek\nthe True for its own sake.\n\nLOWESTOFFE. But I do not find that those who profess to have ascended to\nthe common ground of Universal Reason, are one whit more agreed among\nthemselves, than those who are disputing in the lists of logic about\nevidence.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. They are not, I grant. They would attribute their want of\nunanimity, however, to the fact that some of them have not sufficiently\npurged their intuitional eyesight from everything personal and\nparticular.\n\nLOWESTOFFE. Who is to be judge in the matter? Who will say how much\npurging will suffice to assure a man that he has nowhere mistaken a\n\u2018wholesome Prejudice\u2019 for a divine intuition?\n\nWILLOUGHBY. He must exercise his judgment\u2014\u2014\n\nGOWER. Exactly so; his critical, sifting faculty\u2014his understanding. But\nthat is contrary to the theory in question, which represents\nUnderstanding as utterly incapable in the Intuitional sphere. According\nto Jacobi, it is the instinct of the logical faculty to contradict the\nintuitional\u2014as the bat repudiates the sunshine.\n\nATHERTON. If the Christianity of mere logic hardens into a formula, the\nChristianity of mere intuition evaporates in a phantom.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. But do not let us forget how limited is the logical faculty.\n\nGOWER. So, for that matter, is the intuitional. Undeveloped by culture\nfrom without, its voice is incoherent, various, scarce audible\noftentimes.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. What logic can prove to me the Eternity of the Divine\nNature? Is not that a transcendental truth?\n\nATHERTON. I grant it. But my understanding, observing and reasoning, has\nshown me convincingly that I must receive that truth on pain of\nbelieving an absurdity. In this way, the Understanding is satisfied (as\nPascal observes it always should be), and acquiesces in a truth beyond\nitself. But if I have not thus used my Understanding as far as it will\ngo, I am traversing the transcendental region without the passport it\nshould give me,\u2014I cannot render a reason\u2014I only oracularly affirm\u2014I am\nfast turning mystic.\n\nLOWESTOFFE. But how this Intuition sees to work, or finds means to work,\nwithout contact with the other faculties of the mind, I cannot conceive.\nHas it a set of finer senses of its own? Has no one ever defined it?\n\nGOWER. Several definitions have been attempted. I think Mark Antony\u2019s\nthe best. He delivered it when he gave drunken Lepidus that hoaxing\ndescription of the crocodile. A mind with any depth of insight will\nunderstand at once the fine symbolism of Shakspeare, and see that he is\ndepicting Intuition. \u2018It is shaped, sir, like itself; and it is as broad\nas it hath breadth; it is just so high as it is, and moves with its own\norgans; it lives by that which nourishes it; and, the elements once out\nof it, it transmigrates.\u2019\n\nATHERTON. In fact, Intuition is not to be termed one among or above the\nfaculties of the mind. It is rather, like consciousness, related to them\nas species to individuals. As the man is, so are his intuitions.\nPrevious observation, training, judgment, all combine to bring the mind\nto that point from which Intuition takes its survey, more or less\nextended.\n\nLOWESTOFFE. Good. Our inner and our outer world contradict that\nseparatist theory every day, by their action and reaction on each other.\nThe man who dreads the internal light as an illusive Will-o\u2019-the-Wisp,\nhas often consulted his own inward bent, far more than he supposes, in\nchoosing what authority he shall receive. The man who professes to\ntranscend the external altogether is still moulded by it in a thousand\nunimagined modes.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. The imperfect character of our recollection should make us\nvery cautious, I admit. So much that has been imported into the mind\nlooks native and spontaneous after a lapse of time. Many an idea,\npromulged as the dictum of Intuition\u2014as having its source in the\nimmemorial depths of our being, has been subsequently traced, even by\nits own author, to the external world.\n\nGOWER. That gaberlunzie, Memory (whose wallet has so many holes), would\nstep in oftener, if he did his duty, and say, like Edie Ochiltree, \u2018I\nmind the biggin o\u2019 it.\u2019\n\nATHERTON. It seems to me so unfair and ungrateful that after having been\nso largely indebted, from the first, to the outer world, any man should\npretend, at a certain point, to deny utterly that indispensable\ncoadjutor in his inward development.\n\nGOWER. You remind me of the affectation of the author in _Humphrey\nClinker_, who professed such an antipathy to green fields as made him\ncareful to sit with his back to the window all dinner-time,\u2014though he\nhad, in fact, passed his childhood with the asses on the village common.\n\nLOWESTOFFE. Let us, then, celebrate the reconciliation of the\npair\u2014Reason and Understanding, if the terms are to be retained. So only\ncan our nature realize its full productiveness,\u2014as the richest mines lie\nalways near the junction of two dissimilar rocks.\n\nATHERTON. I think spiritualism, which complains that religion is\nseparated too widely from common life, will scarcely mend the matter by\nteaching men that they use one faculty, or set of faculties, about their\nweek-day business, and a quite distinct one in their worship.\n\nGOWER. As though we were to leave our understandings\u2014like the sandals of\nold\u2014at the door of our holy places.\n\nATHERTON. Enough on this question, I have only one remark to add. We\nhave seen mysticism endeavouring to exclude all distinct form or\nexpression, all vivid figure, from its apprehensions of spiritual truth;\nas if such clearness and warmth belonged to our meaner nature\u2014were low\nand sensuous.\n\nGOWER. Confounding spirituality with abstraction.\n\nATHERTON. Spiritualism now repeats the same error\u2014is the revival of an\nold mistake in a new form. It shrinks from distinctness, mistaking it, I\nsuppose, for so much gross materialism, or artificial formalism. It\nshuns, as far as possible, actual outward persons and events\u2014as though\nreality were carnality\u2014as though the fewer facts we acknowledged, the\nless formal we were sure to be\u2014as though we were spiritual in proportion\nas we resolved sacred narrative into symbols of inward states or\nemotions, forsook history for reverie, and evidence for hazy sentiment.\nThe Spanish Quietists were well nigh enjoining the exclusion of the\nconception of Christ\u2019s humanity from their higher contemplation, as an\nimage too substantial and earthy. Spiritualism, in its tendency to\nescape from objective facts to subjective experience, displays a\nsimilarly unnatural timidity\u2014a morbid aversion to that manly exercise of\nour whole nature on religious questions which we put forth on others.\n\nGOWER. Thinking, I conclude, that the opposite to spirituality is, not\nsensuality or earthliness\u2014but external reality.\n\nWILLOUGHBY. Why look at me? You don\u2019t suppose I have a word to say in\ndefence of such a curious confusion of thought?\n\nLOWESTOFFE (_who has been turning over the leaves of a Shakspeare while\nlistening_.) If any one of you should ever take it into his head to\nwrite a book about mysticism\u2014\u2014\n\nATHERTON. Forbid it, my good genius!\n\nLOWESTOFFE. I have a motto for him\u2014a motto by \u2018sweet Bully Bottom,\u2019\nquite in the past-all-utterance mystical strain.\n\n\u2018I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream\u2014past the wit of man\nto say what dream it was. Man is but an ass if he go about to expound\nthis dream. Methought I was, there is no man can tell what. Methought I\nwas, and methought I had. But man is but a patched fool, if he will\noffer to say what methought I had. The eye of man hath not heard, the\near of man hath not seen; man\u2019s hand is not able to taste, his tongue to\nconceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was. I will get Peter\nQuince to write a ballad of this dream: it shall be called Bottom\u2019s\nDream, because it hath no bottom.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER III.\n\n\n What pale dictatress in the air\n Feeds, smiling sadly, her fine ghostlike form,\n With earth\u2019s real blood and breath, the beauteous life\n She makes despised for ever?\n\n BROWNING.\n\n\nThese lines hovered in Gower\u2019s memory that night, as he walked home\nafter the conversation just recorded. He thought how applicable they\nwere to asceticism,\u2014especially to that intense asceticism of the mind\nwhich, not content with wasting the body and searing the sense, prides\nitself on starving Reason and blinding Imagination,\u2014which eschews all\nform and figure, and affects naked truth, without a medium or an\nenvelope. His was a nature which saw everything in figure. His mind\nmoved everywhere among pictures. For him to dispense with metaphor and\nparable\u2014with significant raiment and dramatic action for his ideas,\nwould have been almost equivalent to dispensing with ideas altogether.\nSo he quickened his steps; for the starless, unfeatured night seemed to\nhim too much to resemble the blank and bleak Abstraction of the severer\nmystics,\u2014that tyrannous curfew of warm natural life and of all bright\nthoughts.\n\nHe soon reached his abode, where a blithe fire awaited him, radiating\nits almost animated welcome over easel, busts, and books. Assuming light\nstudy vesture, he leaned back in his arm-chair, enjoying slippered ease.\nHe would not light his lamp, but reclining in the very mood for reverie,\nwatched the fire\u2014now the undisputed magician of his studio,\u2014as it called\nup or dismissed, with its waving flame, the distorted shadows of\nfamiliar things on wall and ceiling. He himself was soon occupied in\nlike manner, waywardly calling forth, linking, severing, a company of\nshadows out of the past.\n\nIn a half-waking, half-dreaming twilight, Gower seemed to see the dusky\nform of the Indian, crouched on his mat beside a holy river, awaiting\ndivine insensibility. There was the Yogi, gathered up in his patch of\nshade, like an insect rolled under a leaf; while, above, the beating\nsun-glare trampled over the plains, strewn with his reflected rays, as\nover an immeasurable threshing-floor.\n\nThen he dreamed that he stood in a Persian garden, and before him were\ncreeping plants, trained on wires slanting upward to a point, and in and\nout and up and down this flower-minster, hung with bells, darted those\nflying jewels, the humming-birds: the sun\u2019s rays as they slanted on\ntheir glancing coats seemed to dash off in a spray of rainbow colours.\nSome pierced the nectaries of the flowers with their fine bills; others\nsoared upward, and as they were lost in the dazzling air, the roses\nswung their censers, and the nightingales sang an assumption-hymn for\nthem. Yet this scene changed incessantly. Every now and then the\npinnacle of flowers assumed giant size,\u2014was a needle of rock, shooting\nup out of a chasm of hanging vegetation; and innumerable spirits\u2014winged\nsouls of Sufis, were striving to reach the silent glistening peak. There\nwas a flutter and a pulsing in the sky\u2014as with summer lightning at\nnight,\u2014and the palpitation of some vast eyelid made light and darkness\nsucceed each other with quick throbs. Now it was the pyramid of flowers,\nnow the star-crowned point of rock. So time and space were\nsurpassed\u2014sported with. Instants were ages, he thought, and cycles ran\ntheir round in a moment. The vault of heaven was now a hanging\nflower-cup; and presently the feather of a humming-bird expanded to a\nsunset of far-streaming gold and purple.\n\nA leaping flame caused these alternations in Dreamland, as it lit or\nleft in shadow his closed eyes.\n\nThen he stood on the desolate Campagna, where before him stretched the\nruins of the Roman aqueducts. The broken arches, dotting at intervals\nthe far waste of withered green, drew no more water from the hills for\nthe million-mouthed City in the horizon. Their furrowed, beaten age held\nin its wrinkles only roots of maidenhair, and sometimes little\nrain-pools along the crevices,\u2014the scornful charity of any passing\nshower. In a moment the wilderness grew populous with the sound of\nvoices and the clangour of tools.\u2014A swarm of workmen, clustered about\nthe broken links of the chain, were striving to piece them together\nagain\u2014to bind up the mighty artery, and set it flowing as of old. But an\ninsatiable morass sucked down the stones they brought. Waggons full of\ngods (such as moved in the old triumphs), of statues monstrous, bestial,\nmany-limbed, from all the temples of the nations, were unladen, with\nsacrifice and augury, and the idols deposited on the treacherous\nquagmire, only to sink down, a drowning mass, with bowing heads and\nvainly-lifted arms. Then the whole undulating plain appeared to roll up\nin vapour, and a wind, carrying in it a sound of psalms, and driving\nbefore it a snowy foam of acacia blossoms, swept clear the field of\nvision. No; the old influence was to flow no more from the Olympian\nHouses above that blue line of hills. Great Pan was dead. The broken\ncisterns would hold no water.\n\nHe stood next before the mouth of a cavern, partly overhung with a\ndrooping hair of tropical plants. At his side was a nun, who changed, as\nis the wont of dreams, into a variety of persons. At one time, she was\nSt. Theresa, then Christina Mirabilis, and presently Gower thought he\nrecognised Theresa once more. He followed his conductress into the\ncavern, in the gloom of which a hermit rivulet was pattering along,\ntelling its pebble beads. As they passed on, the night-birds in the\nblack recesses of the rock shrieked and hooted at them. As he touched\nthe dank sides of the passage, from time to time his hand would rest on\nsome loathly wet lump, shuffling into a cranny, or some nameless, gelid\nshape fell asunder at his touch, opening gashes in itself where lay, in\nrows, seeds of great tarantula eye-balls, that ran away dissolved in\nvenomous rheum. Bat-like things flapped down from funnel-shaped holes:\npolypi felt after his face with slimy fingers: crabs, with puffed human\nfaces, slid under his tread; and skinny creatures, as it were\nfeatherless birds, with faces like a horse\u2019s skull, leaned over and\nwhinnied at him. \u2018These,\u2019 said Theresa, \u2018are the obscene hell-brood\nwhose temptations make so terrible the entrance on the Higher Life.\u2019\n\nThe long cavern had not yet made a single winding, and he turned, as the\ndarkness increased, to have a last look at the entrance, whence the\nouter sunshine still twinkled after them. He could see a green hill that\nfaced the mouth, lying off like a bright transparency. Or was it a spot\nbrought into the disc of his great rock-telescope, from some planet of\nperpetual summer\u2014one of those that play in the hair of the sun?\nChristina, impatient of this sinful looking back, urged him onward. A\npalm-branch she carried grew luminous, and its plume of flame dropping\nsparks, became their torch. She paused to point out to him some plants\ngrowing in a black mould. Birds had carried in thus far the seeds from\nwhich they sprang; but there had been no sun-light to give them colour,\nand their form was uncertain and defectively developed. \u2018Behold,\u2019 said\nshe, \u2018these saintly flowers. Mark that holy pallor! The sun never\nstained their pureness with those gaudy hues men admire. Yon garish\nworld can show no such perfectness: see them, they are hueless,\nscentless, well-nigh formless!\u2019 \u2018Sickly, blanched abortions!\u2019 exclaimed\nthe dreamer, so loudly that he almost awoke. \u2018We want more life, not\nless\u2014fuller\u2014sunnier!\u2019 Christina crossed herself piously to hear\nabstraction thus blasphemed. And now the passage, widening, opened on\nthe central hall of rock, that branched out into depths of darkness\nevery way, and was fretted with gleaming stalactites. There were amber\nvolutes and brittle clusters of tawny bubbles; lily-bells of stone,\nflowers with sparry thorns and twining stream-like stems; creamy falls\nfrom slabs of enamel, motionless, yet seeming ever to drop from ledge to\nledge; membranous curtains, and net-work, and traceries; tissues and\nlawnlike folds of delicate marble; while in the centre, reaching to the\nmisty summit of the dome, stood a huge sheaf of pillars, like alabaster\norgan-pipes. A solemn music trembled and swelled, and as its rising\nvolume shook the air, voices sang\u2014\u2018Weep for the sins of men!\u2019 There was\na wild burst of sound; then sudden silence; and, above and around,\nnothing was audible but a universal trickling and running, a dripping\nand dropping and plashing, while the palm-torch flashed on innumerable\ntear-drops, hanging on every pendant point and jutting ledge, or sliding\ndown the glistening rock.\n\nAfter a while, it seemed to be Theresa who spoke to him and said, \u2018Here\nin these depths is warmth, when the world above is locked in ice; and\nwhen the surface is parched, here dwells chaste coolness, safe encelled.\nOur fire seems numbness to a blinded world; and we are frost to its\ndog-day rages.\u2019 With that a spell seemed to come over her hearer. The\nspirit of the words became his spirit. The fate of an empire seemed as\nnothing in his eyes beside his next prospect of rapture, or his success\nin straining out another half-pint of tears. In a moment he was turned\nto stone. He had become a gargoyle high up on Strasburg Cathedral, and\nwas spouting water from his lolling tongue at the circling birds.\n\nGower next found himself, on a cold grey morning in spring, in a vine\ncountry, where men and women were toiling up the steep hills on either\nside a river, carrying baskets of earth. Last winter\u2019s rain had swept\naway the thin soil to the bone, and they must lay a new one about their\nvine-sticks. In the midst of their miserable labour, these poor people\nsaw standing among them a majestic stranger, wrapped in a robe. Gower\nthought he recognised Swedenborg at once. \u2018Stay,\u2019 cried the seer, \u2018God\nhath made a soil already for you. Build no other. Your own stony hearts\nhave made the hill seem to you as iron.\u2019 They heard: each seemed to take\na stone out of his bosom, and hurl it down the steep; when straightway\nevery foot sank deep into a rich and kindly earth, and a shout of joy\nbroke forth, echoed far among the cloudy gorges.\n\nOnce more Gower thought he stood upon the shoulder of a volcano, among\nthe clinking scori\u00e6. It was growing dark. A strange shape of fire was\nsuddenly at his side, helmed with a flaring cresset, under the light of\nwhich the rocky projections around glowed like the burnished beaks of\ngalleys. Over his shoulders hung a mantle of azure flame, fringed with\nsparks and tasselled with brushes of fire. On his breast was what seemed\na hauberk of some emerald incandescence, that brightened or paled with\nevery sinuous motion of the lithe frame, as when the wind comes and goes\nabout an ignited tree-trunk in a burning forest. The form said\u2014\u2018I am the\nFlame-king: behold a vision of my works\u2019\u2014and passed his hand before the\neyes of the dreamer. Gower saw columns of steam shot up from an Indian\nsea, with stones and mire, under a great canopy of smoke. Then all was\ncalm: a new island had been born; and the waves licked the black\nfire-cub. Next he saw a burning mountain, lighting, at the dead of\nnight, glaciers and snowy precipices\u2014as the fire-cross of a great\nfestival lights the shafts and arches of some darkened cathedral.\nAvalanches fell, looking, under the glare, like sliding continents of\nruby, and were shut down in their chasm-caskets with a noise of thunder.\nHe beheld the burning of brave palaces, of captured cities, of prairies\nwhere the fire hunts alone, and the earth shakes with the trample of a\nmyriad hoofs flying from the destroyer.\n\nThen he stood on the mountain side, as before; but it was broad day, and\nbeneath him lay in the sun a sky-like bay, white houses, and the\nparti-coloured fields under the haze, like a gay escutcheon, half-hidden\nby a gauzy housing. Beside him, in place of the Flame-king, stood a\nshining One fantastically clad in whatsoever the sunshine loves best to\ninform and turn to glory. The mantle slanting from his shoulders shone\nlike a waterfall which runs gold with sunlight; his breast mirrored a\nsunset; and translucent forest-leaves were woven for his tunic. His\ncheek glowed, delicate as the finely-cut camelia, held against the sun.\n\u2018I am King Sunlight,\u2019 he said. \u2018Mine is the even kindliness of the\nsummer-time. I make ready harvest-home and vintage. I triumph in the\ngreen-meshed tropic forests, with their fern-floors, and\ngarland-galleried tree-tops, where stand the great trunks which,\ninterlaced with their thick twining underwood, are set like fishers\u2019\nstakes with their nets, in those aerial tides of heavy fragrance. There\nI make all things green threaten to shoot faster than the cumbered river\ncan run through the wilds of verdure. I drive Winter away, as though I\nwere his shepherd, and he leaves fragments of his fleece in snow-patches\namong the hills, when I pursue him. I love no flaming ascents, no\ntossing meteoric splendours. I overgrow the strife-scars and fire-rents,\nwhich my Titan brother makes, with peace-breathing green. I urge thee to\nno glittering leap against the rapids of thy natural mortal element.\nWith my shining in thy heart, thou shalt have peace, whether thine\noutward life raise or sink thee,\u2014as he who rows in the glory-wake under\na sunrise, is bright and golden whether on the crest of the wave or in\nthe hollow. I put courage into the heart of the Lady in _Comus_, when\nalone in the haunted wood.\u2014A quite true story, by the way,\u2019 continued\nthe Phantom, with a sudden familiarity, \u2018for those of you mortals who\ncan receive it. Wilt thou come with me, and work humbly at what lies\nnext thy hand, or wait to surpass humanity, or go travelling to find\nMichael\u2019s sword to clear thy land withal? With my shining in thy heart,\nevery flinty obstacle shall furnish thee with new fire; and in thine\naffliction I will bring thee from every blasted pine an Ariel swift to\ndo thee service: so shall thy troubles be thy ministers. Shall it be the\nsplendour, or the inward sunshine?\u2019\n\nAs Gower turned from the approaching Flame-king, he clasped the hand of\nSunlight with such vehemence that he awoke.\n\nIt was one o\u2019clock. He hastened to bed, and there slept soundly: I am\nsure he had dreamed more than enough for one night.\n\nFrom the very church-tower which struck one that winter morning, the\nensuing spring heard a merry peal of bells,\u2014such a rocking and a ringing\nas never since has shaken those old stones. I daresay Willoughby would\ntell you that the bells made so merry because he had just finished his\nromance. Don\u2019t believe him: suspect rather, with your usual sagacity,\nthat Lionel Gower and Kate Merivale had something to do with it.\n\n\n\n\n INDEX.\n\n\n Abelard, i. 142, 149.\n\n Absorption, Mystical, i. 86.\n\n Abstraction, Doctrine of Hugo concerning, i. 157;\n of Ruysbroek, 328;\n of the Quietists, ii. 172;\n not to be mistaken for spirituality, 365.\n\n Adolf Arnstein, his Chronicle, i. 181, 213, 243, 319, 340.\n\n Affliginiensis, John, i. 334.\n\n\n Agrippa, Cornelius, i. 44; ii. 61;\n his _Vanity of Arts and Sciences_, 62;\n his doctrine of the Microcosm, 65.\n\n Alcantara, Peter of, ii. 157, 221.\n\n Alchemy in the sixteenth century, ii. 58;\n Theological, 77.\n\n Alexandria, Rise of its Philosophic School, i. 66, 74;\n Fusion of Religions there, 72;\n Eclecticism, 75;\n its Mysticism revived at Florence, ii. 147.\n\n Algazzali, ii. 5.\n\n Alvarez, Balthazar, ii. 171.\n\n Amalric of Bena, i. 131.\n\n Ammonius Saccas, his Eclecticism, i. 74.\n\n Anabaptists of Munster, ii. 37.\n\n Andre\u00e4, Valentine, ii. 132.\n\n Angela de Foligni, i. 362.\n\n Angelus Silesius, ii. 5;\n his Pantheism, 6;\n his Extravagance of Negation, 18;\n Analogies with Emerson, 22.\n\n Anselm, i. 141, 149.\n\n Antony, St., i. 109.\n\n Apathy, i. 58;\n styled Poverty of Spirit, 331.\n\n Apollonius of Tyana, i. 71.\n\n Aquinas, Thomas, his Classification of Virtues, i. 123.\n\n Areopagita, Dionysius, see Dionysius.\n\n Aristotle, Mischievous Influence of his Ethics, i. 120.\n\n Asceticism, Oriental, i. 56;\n of Plotinus, 71;\n of Neo-Platonism, 76;\n of the Fathers of the Desert, 109;\n mistakes the Design of Christianity, 143;\n its services to Priestcraft, 365;\n of the Friends, ii. 309;\n discouraged by the Mysticism of Swedenborg, 328.\n\n Astras, Indian, ii. 143.\n\n Athos, Mount, Monks of, i. 355.\n\n Atonement, Swedenborg\u2019s doctrine of, ii. 332.\n\n Augustine, i. 131, 146.\n\n _Aurora_ of Behmen, ii. 97.\n\n\n Baader, Franz, ii. 351.\n\n Bagvat-Gita, i. 51.\n\n Barclay, his _Apology_, ii. 300.\n\n Beghards, i. 184.\n\n Behmen, Jacob, i. 39;\n his early life, ii. 80;\n his illumination, 83, 93, 95;\n his _Aurora_, 86;\n his debt to predecessors, 90;\n his style, 99;\n genial and manly character of his Mysticism, 102;\n his Fountain-Spirits, 104, 120;\n his Theory of Contraries, 109;\n his doctrine of the Fall, 115;\n estimate of his position, 118;\n compared with Swedenborg, 326.\n\n Bernard, his personal appearance, i. 134;\n life at Clairvaux, 135;\n moderation of his Mysticism, 136;\n character and extent of his influence, 140;\n undue limitation of Reason in his Theology, 141;\n definition of Faith, 142;\n doctrine concerning Contemplation, 143;\n concerning Disinterested Love, 144;\n definition of Union, 144;\n Sermons on Canticles, 145;\n his mystical Interpretation, 145.\n\n Berulle, Cardinal, defends St. Francis de Sales, ii. 281,\n\n Black Death, in the fourteenth century, i. 313.\n\n Blosius, Ludovic, passage from his _Institutio spiritualis_, i. 24; ii.\n 281.\n\n Bokelson, John, ii. 38.\n\n Bona, Cardinal, i. 24; ii. 178.\n\n Bonaventura, i. 149, 154.\n\n Bossuet, his ignorance of Mysticism, ii. 252, _note_;\n appointed to the Commission of Inquiry concerning Mme. Guyon, 255;\n prejudges the cause of Mme. Guyon, 256, _note_;\n his treatment of F\u00e9n\u00e9lon, 257;\n his panegyric on the Spanish Mystics, 259;\n his _Instructions on the States of Prayer_, 261;\n his jealousy of F\u00e9n\u00e9lon, 264;\n his treachery, 268;\n his _Account of Quietism_, 268;\n his hypocrisy, 270, _note_;\n his misrepresentations, 278.\n\n Bourignon, Antoinette, ii. 286, 289.\n\n Brigitta, St., i. 361.\n\n Buddhism, its Mysticism, i. 56;\n its Monasticism, 56.\n\n Bustami, ii. 11.\n\n\n Cabasilas, Archbishop of Thessalonica, i. 356.\n\n Cabbala, ii. 55, 142.\n\n Cagliostro, ii. 130.\n\n Callenberg, Lady Clara von, ii. 293;\n her death, 295.\n\n Canticles, Bernard\u2019s Sermons on the, i. 145.\n\n Carlstadt, ii. 43;\n opposed by Luther, 51.\n\n _Carmel, Mount, the Ascent of_, by John of the Cross, ii. 185, 192.\n\n Catherine of Siena, i. 364; ii. 171.\n\n Cevennes, Protestants of the, ii. 313.\n\n Christina Ebner, of Engelthal, i. 223.\n\n Christina Mirabilis, ii. 221.\n\n _City of God, Mystical_, of Maria d\u2019Agreda, ii. 164.\n\n Clairvaux, Monastery of, described, i. 132.\n\n Coleridge, i. 87;\n Analogies of Plotinus with, 87;\n his intuitive reason, 88.\n\n Contemplation, doctrine of Philo concerning, i. 66;\n of Bernard, 143;\n of Hugo, 156;\n Richard\u2019s six stages of, 162;\n the \u2018indistinct\u2019 of St. Frances de Sales, ii. 179;\n of F\u00e9n\u00e9lon, 280.\n\n Contraries, Behmen\u2019s Theory of, ii. 109.\n\n Cornelius Agrippa, see Agrippa.\n\n Correspondences, Swedenborg\u2019s doctrine of, ii. 321.\n\n Counter-Reformation, ii. 149;\n character of its Mysticism, 151.\n\n Cross, John of the, see John.\n\n Cyr, St., ii. 248.\n\n\n David of Dinant, i. 131.\n\n Denys, St., of France, identified with the Pseudo-Dionysius, i. 120.\n\n Descartes, i. 43.\n\n Desert, Fathers of the, i. 109.\n\n Desmarets, de St. Sorlin, ii. 244.\n\n D\u2019Etr\u00e9es, ii. 243.\n\n\n Dionysius Areopagita, first appearance of the writings under that name,\n i. 111;\n Theology of the Pseudo-Dionysius, 113-115, 278;\n influence of his Mysticism on the Middle Ages, 119;\n in the East and in the West contrasted, 130;\n identified with St. Denys of France, 120;\n followed by Molinos, ii. 171;\n by John of the Cross, 185.\n\n Dionysius the Carthusian, his definition of mystical theology, i. 24;\n ii. 281.\n\n Dippel, ii. 125.\n\n Director, the Spiritual, ii. 158.\n\n Dominic of Jesu Maria, his miraculous elevation, ii, 176.\n\n Dominicans, Reformatory Preachers among the, i. 224.\n\n\n Ebner, Christina, of Engelthal, i. 223;\n Margaret, 216.\n\n Eckart, his preaching, i. 188, 193;\n compared with Tauler, 192, 254, 282, 302;\n his story of the beggar, 197;\n probable motive of his heresy, 204;\n analogies with Hegel, 206, 212;\n sources of his Pantheism, 210, 282;\n compared with Fichte, 212;\n two classes of followers, 330, _note_.\n\n Eclecticism. Alexandrian, i. 74.\n\n\n Ecstasy, doctrine of Plotinus concerning, i. 77, 78;\n of Porphyry, 97;\n of Iamblichus, 104;\n of Richard of St. Victor, 163;\n described by Said, ii. 19;\n Theresa\u2019s prayer of, 169;\n corporeal effects of, 169;\n the \u2018ecstatic life\u2019 of Francis de Sales, 176.\n\n Edwards, President, i. 169.\n\n Egotheism, i. 331.\n\n Emanation, Neo-Platonist doctrine of, i. 80;\n in the theology of Dionysius, 113;\n in the teaching of Eckart, 278;\n in the Persian Mysticism, ii. 23.\n\n Emerson, Ralph Waldo, i. 306; ii. 8;\n analogies with Angelus Silesius and the Sufis, 9, 20, 22;\n his doctrine of Intuition, 18.\n\n Endern, Karl von, ii. 98.\n\n Engelbrecht, ii. 125.\n\n England, Mysticism in, ii. 301.\n\n English Platonists, see Platonism.\n\n Erigena, John Scotus, i. 131, 146, 279; ii. 110, 113.\n\n Ethics, of Aristotle, i. 121;\n of Monasticism, 122.\n\n\n Faith, how defined by Bernard, i. 142;\n justification by, ii. 31;\n to what extent apprehended by the Mystics, 31;\n to be distinguished from sanctification, 35;\n Paracelsian doctrine of, 73, 90, 144;\n how opposed to Sight, 240;\n Error of Spiritualism concerning, 352.\n\n Faith-Philosophy in Germany, ii. 341.\n\n F\u00e9n\u00e9lon, ii. 173;\n his first interview with Mme. Guyon, 250;\n signs the Articles of Issy, 258;\n his Quietism, 258;\n difficulties of his position, 263;\n his _Maxims of the Saints_, 263;\n appeals to Rome, 265;\n his friends disgraced, 268;\n his reply to Bossuet\u2019s _Account of Quietism_, 270;\n his submission, 272.\n\n Feridoddin Attar, ii. 21.\n\n Fichte, his Idealism compared with that of the East, i. 60;\n his definition of a Mystic, 60;\n compared with Eckart, 212.\n\n Flagellants, i. 316.\n\n Florence, Revival of Neo-Platonism in, ii. 149.\n\n Foligni, Angela de, i. 362.\n\n Fountain-Spirits of Behmen, ii. 104, 120.\n\n\n Fox, George, his early history, ii. 303;\n his narrowness and his benevolence, 304;\n his asceticism, 309;\n principal defect of his Theology, 313.\n\n Francis, St., de Sales, ii. 152;\n his \u2018indistinct contemplation,\u2019 179;\n his _Introduction \u00e0 la Vie D\u00e9vote_, 246, _note_.\n\n Francis, St., of Assisi, ii. 171.\n\n Franciscans, Millenarian, i. 185.\n\n Frank, Sebastian, ii. 47.\n\n Fratricelli, i. 184.\n\n Free Spirit, Brethren of the, i. 184.\n\n Friends, Journal of the Early, ii. 305.\n\n Friends of God, i. 224.\n\n\n Gabalis, Comte de, ii. 138.\n\n Gamahea, ii. 75, 77.\n\n Gassner, ii. 130.\n\n Gelenius, Victor, his Mystical Degrees, ii. 177.\n\n Gematria, ii. 141, _note_.\n\n Gerlacus, Petrus, i. 367, _note_.\n\n Germain, Count St., ii. 130.\n\n Gerson, Chancellor, charges Ruysbroek with Pantheism, i. 338;\n his Mystical Theology, 369.\n\n Gichtel, i. 38; ii. 123, 125.\n\n Gnomes, ii. 139.\n\n God, distinguished from Godhead, by Eckart, i. 190;\n Friends of, 224.\n\n Godet des Marias, ii. 252.\n\n Greek Church, Mysticism in, i. 109;\n stereotyped character of its Theology, 122.\n\n Groot, Gerard, i. 334, _note_.\n\n Guru, i. 59.\n\n Guthmann, ii. 125.\n\n Guyon, Madame, early religious life, ii. 207;\n spiritual desertion, 222;\n self-loss in God, 227;\n Prayer of Silence, 233;\n compared with St. Theresa, 234;\n her activity, 235;\n her _Torrents_, 236, _note_;\n persecution, 237;\n first interview with F\u00e9n\u00e9lon, 250;\n her doctrine at St. Cyr, 253;\n Bossuets conduct to her, 255;\n Flight from Meaux, and imprisonment, 260;\n at Vaugirard, 263;\n in the Bastille, 272;\n dies at Blois, 272.\n\n\n Hamann, ii. 341.\n\n Hardenberg, Friedrich von, see Novalis.\n\n Harlay, Archbishop of Paris, ii. 246.\n\n Harphius, ii. 177, 282.\n\n Heaven, described by Swedenborg, ii, 330.\n\n Hegel, analogies with Eckart, i. 206, 212;\n opinion of Eckart, 206.\n\n Heresies, Mystical, in the fourteenth century, i. 201, 209, 257, 329.\n\n Hermann of Fritzlar, i. 181;\n his _Heiligenleben_, 181, _note_.\n\n Hesychasts, i. 355.\n\n Hierarchies, of Iamblichus, i. 101;\n of Proclus, 105;\n of Dionysius, 114;\n Hugo\u2019s Commentary on, 155.\n\n Hildegard, Abbess, i. 146; ii. 219.\n\n Hindooism, its Mysticism, i. 55.\n\n\n Hugo of St. Victor, character of his Mysticism, i. 154;\n his Commentary on the Hierarchies of Dionysius, 155;\n defines Meditation, 155;\n his Eye of Contemplation, 158;\n defines Abstraction, 158.\n\n\n Iamblichus, his Theurgy, i. 100;\n his Hierarchies, 101;\n his twofold life of the Soul, 102;\n his doctrine concerning Ecstasy, 104;\n his mistakes repeated by Romanticism, ii. 346.\n\n Ida of Louvain, ii. 218.\n\n Ida of Nivelles, ii, 220.\n\n Identity, Schelling\u2019s Philosophy of, i. 44.\n\n Illuminati, ii. 136, 281.\n\n _Imitatio Christi_, The, i. 367.\n\n India, Pantheism of, i. 55.\n\n Indifference, Eckart\u2019s Doctrine of, i. 188, 194;\n of Quietism, ii. 205, 239.\n\n Intelligence, use of the word by Richard of St. Victor, i. 162.\n\n Interpretation, mystical, i. 33;\n of Philo, 64;\n of Bernard, 145;\n of Richard of St. Victor, 161;\n of Swedenborg, ii. 323.\n\n Intuition, \u2018intellectual,\u2019 Schelling\u2019s doctrine of, i. 88;\n resemblance to that of Richard, 163.\n\n Intuition, exaggeration of its claims by the Mystics, i. 168;\n doctrine of Emerson concerning, ii. 18;\n not an isolated faculty, 364.\n\n Irony, Romanticist doctrine of, ii. 346.\n\n Issy, the Conferences at, ii. 255;\n the articles of, 256, 258.\n\n\n Jacobi, ii. 341.\n\n Jean d\u2019Avila, ii. 281.\n\n Jelaleddin Rumi, ii. 12, 14, 15, 17, 110.\n\n Jerusalem, Church of the New, ii. 335.\n\n Jews, persecution of the, i. 315;\n their demonology, ii. 142.\n\n\n John of the Cross, ii. 182;\n his asceticism, 183;\n his _Dark Night_, 185;\n estimate of his Mysticism, 192.\n\n Joris, David, ii. 125.\n\n Jubilation, the gift of, ii. 219.\n\n Juneid, ii. 11.\n\n Justin Martyr, ii. 42.\n\n\n Kant, his practical Reason, i. 89.\n\n Kathari, i. 184.\n\n Kober, ii. 80.\n\n Kr\u00fcdener, Madame de, ii. 288;\n opinion of Madame de Genlis concerning, 289, _note_.\n\n Kuhlmann, i. 38; ii. 125.\n\n\n Labadie, ii. 291.\n\n La Combe, ii. 226.\n\n Lautensack, ii. 125.\n\n Law, William, ii. 124, 288.\n\n Leade, Joanna, ii. 144.\n\n Light, doctrine of the Universal, ii. 309.\n\n Louis the Fourteenth at St. Cyr, ii. 249, 265;\n urges the Pope to condemn F\u00e9n\u00e9lon, 271.\n\n Love, disinterested, doctrine of Bernard, concerning, i. 145;\n of Eckart, 193;\n of Tauler, 303, 309;\n of Ruysbroek, 334, _note_;\n of the Sufis, ii. 10, 17;\n the central doctrine of Quietism, 204;\n F\u00e9n\u00e9lon\u2019s doctrine of, 258;\n its truth and its exaggeration, 283.\n\n Loyola, Ignatius, ii. 150.\n\n Ludolph, the Carthusian, i. 232, 235.\n\n Luther, Martin, his vantage ground as compared with the Mystics, i.\n 304; ii. 32-35;\n his reply concerning the Zwickau Fanatics, 45;\n his encounter with them, 47;\n his protest against the Mysticism of Carlstadt, 51.\n\n\n Macarius, i. 111.\n\n Mahmud, passage from his _Gulschen Ras_, ii. 24.\n\n Maintenon, Madame de, at St. Cyr, ii. 248;\n her interest in Mme. Guyon, 249;\n her caution, 254.\n\n Maisonfort, Madame de la, ii. 258, 282.\n\n Malaval, ii. 243.\n\n Margaret Ebner, i. 216.\n\n Maria d\u2019Agreda, controversy concerning her _Mystical City of God_, ii.\n 164;\n her elevations in the air, 176.\n\n Maria of Oignys, ii. 219.\n\n Marsay, de, ii. 291;\n his retirement to Schwartzenau, 292;\n his marriage, 293;\n his asceticism and melancholy, 294;\n his last years, 295.\n\n Maurice, St., ii. 130.\n\n _Maxims of the Saints_, ii. 263, 280.\n\n Meditation, how defined by Hugo, i. 155.\n\n Merswin, Rulman, his _Book of the Nine Rocks_, i. 321, 336.\n\n Mesmer, ii. 130.\n\n Messalians, ii. 11.\n\n Microcosm, ii. 65.\n\n Molinos, his _Guida Spirituale_, ii. 171, 242;\n charges against him, 180;\n his fate, 245.\n\n Monasticism, Buddhist, i. 56;\n its Ethics, 121;\n promoted by Bernard, 140.\n\n Montanus, i. 284.\n\n Montfaucon, Clara de, ii. 163, 220.\n\n More, Henry, his opinion of Behmen, ii. 124;\n his mysticism, 315;\n his opinion of the Quakers, 317, _note_.\n\n Morin, ii. 244.\n\n M\u00fcnzer, ii. 44.\n\n Muscatblut, i. 335.\n\n Mysticism, the instructive character of its history, i. 13, 260;\n derivation and history of the word, 17;\n definitions, 21;\n its causes, 27-33;\n its classifications, 35;\n theopathetic, 36;\n theosophic, 39;\n theurgic, 45;\n in the early East, 51;\n of the Neo-Platonists, 63;\n in the Greek Church, 109;\n in the Latin Church, 127;\n opposed to Scholasticism, 142;\n reconciled, 154;\n Truth at its root, 164;\n its exaggeration of the truth concerning experimental evidence, 167;\n German, in the fourteenth century, 235; ii. 30;\n Persian, in the Middle Ages, 3;\n Theosophic, in the Age of the Reformation, 29;\n revolutionary, 37;\n before and after the Reformation, 41;\n in Spain, 147;\n of the Counter-Reformation, 150;\n of Madame Guyon, 207;\n in France and in Germany compared, 275;\n in England, 299;\n of Swedenborg, 321;\n its recent modifications, 339;\n its services to Christianity, 351;\n its prevalent misconceptions, 353;\n its correctives, 355.\n\n\n Names, of magical virtue, ii. 140.\n\n Neo-Platonism, eclectic and mystical, i. 70;\n difference between it and Platonism proper, 76;\n its doctrine of Emanation, 80;\n influence on Christianity, 85;\n process of degeneration, 91;\n its Theurgy, 103;\n expires with Proclus, 105;\n introduced into the Church by Dionysius, 113;\n confounds Universals with Causes, 117;\n its power in the Middle Ages, 129;\n its reformatory influence in the West, 132;\n Persian, ii. 4;\n revived on the eve of the Reformation, 55;\n at Florence, 149.\n\n Neri, St. Philip, ii. 218.\n\n Nicholas of Basle, i. 239;\n becomes the spiritual guide of Tauler, 240;\n his labours and fate, 359.\n\n Night, mystical, of the Sufis, ii. 14;\n of John of the Cross, 185, 195;\n of Novalis, 349.\n\n Nihilism, i. 332;\n of Angelus Silesius, ii. 17.\n\n Nirwana, Buddhist Absorption, i. 56.\n\n N\u00f6rdlingen, Henry of, i. 216.\n\n Norris of Bemerton, ii. 315.\n\n\n Novalis, his Aphorisms, ii. 349;\n his _Hymns to Night_, 349.\n\n Numenius, i., 65, 121;\n his hypostatic emanations, 82.\n\n Nymphs, ii. 139.\n\n\n\n Oetinger, ii. 351.\n\n Oken, ii. 351.\n\n Omphalopsychi, i. 356.\n\n Origen, i. 302.\n\n\n Pachymeres, his definition of mystical Theology, i. 24.\n\n Pains, the mystical, ii. 170, 176.\n\n Pantheism, Indian, i. 55;\n Buddhist, 56;\n Neo-Platonist, 78;\n its necessitarian Ethics, 91;\n of Dionysius Areopagita, 119;\n of Erigena, 131;\n of Eckart, 157, 160, 217;\n among the people in the fourteenth century, 201, 209, 257, 278, 331;\n of Angelus Silesius, ii. 6;\n of Emerson, 8, 22;\n of the Sufis, 20;\n cannot claim Behmen, 112, 121.\n\n Paracelsus, i. 44; ii. 71;\n his four pillars of Medicine, 73;\n his Theory of Contraries, 74;\n of Signatures, 76;\n his Green Lion, 78;\n influence on Behmen, 91.\n\n Parzival and Titurel, i. 186.\n\n Passivity, i. 274; ii. 166, 190, 195.\n\n Pazzi, Magdalena de, ii, 171.\n\n Perfection, doctrine of, ii. 232;\n awakens the alarm of the priesthood, 240.\n\n Persia, Neo-Platonism in, ii. 4;\n the seat of Sufism, 5;\n its mystical poetry, 16, 24.\n\n Petrucci, Cardinal, ii, 277.\n\n Philadelphian Association, the, ii. 142.\n\n Philo, i. 63;\n his views on the Contemplative Life, 66;\n his mystical interpretation, 67.\n\n Pico of Mirandola, ii. 148.\n\n\n Platonism, distinguished from Neo-Platonism, i. 76;\n combined with Christianity assumes five distinct phases, 147;\n in England, ii. 315.\n\n Plotinus, his early history and asceticism, i. 71;\n hears Ammonius Saccas, 74;\n object and character of his philosophy, 76;\n doctrine concerning knowledge, 80;\n concerning Ecstasy, 81;\n influence on Christianity, 85;\n analogies with Schelling and Coleridge, 87;\n necessitarian character of his Ethics, 91;\n his Trinity, 93.\n\n Poiret, Peter, ii. 287, 290.\n\n Pordage, ii. 142.\n\n Porphyry, his position, i. 94;\n moderates the doctrine of Plotinus concerning Ecstasy, 97;\n his modern imitators, ii. 350.\n\n Postel, ii. 125.\n\n Prayer, Theresa\u2019s Four Degrees of, ii. 167;\n of Silence, Mme. Guyon\u2019s, 233.\n\n Proclus, i. 105; influence of his philosophy on Dionysius, 112, 114;\n his endeavour renewed by Romanticism, ii. 346.\n\n Protestantism, its Mystics compared with those of Rome, ii. 95, 308,\n _note_.\n\n\n Quakers, see George Fox;\n their asceticism, ii. 309;\n their doctrine of the Universal and Saving Light, 309;\n of perceptible spiritual influence, 313;\n of Silence and Quiet, 314;\n opinion of Henry More concerning, 317.\n\n Quiet, Theresa\u2019s prayer of, ii. 167.\n\n Quietism, licentious form of it in the fourteenth century, i. 258;\n of Molinos and Theresa, ii. 172;\n charged with excluding the conception of Christ\u2019s Humanity, 172;\n misrepresentations of its enemies, 173, _note_;\n of John of the Cross, 190;\n its doctrine of pure love, 204;\n its holy indifference, 205;\n its reaction against mercenary religion, 232;\n of F\u00e9n\u00e9lon, 258;\n in the hands of the Inquisition, 276;\n its doctrine of disinterested Love discussed, 283;\n practical, among the Quakers, 314;\n in the present day, 356.\n\n\n Rabia, ii. 10.\n\n Ranters, ii. 306.\n\n Rapture, see Ecstasy.\n\n Realism, i. 130, 149.\n\n Reason, how enlisted in the service of Mysticism, i. 40;\n how far forsaken by Plotinus, 80;\n Intuitive, of Coleridge, 88;\n Practical, of Kant, 89;\n unduly subordinated by Bernard 141;\n erroneously divorced from Understanding, ii. 361.\n\n Redemption, doctrine of Behmen concerning, ii. 116;\n of Swedenborg, 332;\n misconceptions of, 334.\n\n Reformation, relation of Mysticism to the, ii. 33.\n\n Reformers, their relation to the Mystics, ii. 41.\n\n Regeneration, Tauler\u2019s doctrine of, i. 246;\n mistake of Mme. Guyon concerning, ii. 230.\n\n Reimar of Zweter, i. 186.\n\n \u2018Relations, Memorable,\u2019 of Swedenborg, ii. 329.\n\n Reminiscence, Platonic, i. 77.\n\n Ricci, Catherine, ii. 219.\n\n\n Richard of St. Victor, his Mystical Interpretation, i. 161;\n his Degrees of Contemplation, 162;\n his Doctrine of Ecstasy, 163.\n\n Richter, Primarius, at G\u00f6rlitz, ii. 86, 98.\n\n Romanism, turns Mysticism to account, i. 365; ii. 355.\n\n Romanticism, Tieck, its best representative, ii. 343, _note_;\n opposes Rationalism, 344;\n its philosophy of life, 345;\n its doctrine of Irony, 346;\n subsides in Superstition, 347.\n\n Rome, Church of, her Mystics compared with those of Protestantism, ii.\n 95;\n her debt to Mysticism, 149;\n F\u00e9n\u00e9lon no fair sample of her Mystics, 356.\n\n Rosenkreuz, ii. 132.\n\n Rosicrucians, ii. 128;\n pretended discovery of the, 132, 136.\n\n Rousseau, J. J., ii. 179.\n\n Ruysbroek, his _Spiritual Nuptials_, i. 321;\n visited by Tauler at the Convent of Gr\u00fcnthal, 325;\n his doctrines concerning the Trinity, Abstraction, Union, 326, 329;\n his protest against false Mystics, 330, _note_;\n his doctrine concerning disinterested Love, 334, _note_;\n charged by Gerson with Pantheism, 338;\n compared with contemporary Mystics, 338.\n\n\n Salamanders, ii. 138.\n\n Schelling, compared with Behmen, i. 41;\n his Philosophy of Identity, 44;\n analogies of Plotinus with, 87;\n indebted to Behmen, ii. 124;\n his doctrine of Unconsciousness, 351.\n\n Schlegel, Frederick, his admiration of Behmen, ii. 124;\n his Romanticism, 345;\n his extravagance, 346.\n\n Schlegel, A. W., ii. 348.\n\n Schleiermacher, ii. 341, 343, _note_.\n\n Scholasticism, opposed to Mysticism, i. 142;\n reconciled, 154.\n\n Schr\u00f6pfer, ii. 130.\n\n Schwenkfeld, ii. 50.\n\n Science, its mystical character in the Middle Age, i. 41;\n in the Age of the Reformation, ii. 53;\n union with Religion, 67.\n\n Self-annihilation, Tauler concerning, i. 250;\n of the Sufis and Angelus Silesius, ii. 16.\n\n Self-love, ii. 214.\n\n Shemhamphorash, ii. 141.\n\n Silence, Quaker practice of, ii. 314;\n Mme. Guyon\u2019s Prayer of, 233.\n\n Sleep, sacred, i. 102.\n\n Societies, secret, ii. 136.\n\n Soul, its twofold life, according to Iamblichus, i. 102;\n Spark of the, 190;\n Ground of the, Tauler\u2019s doctrine concerning, 246, 255, 291;\n Theresa\u2019s Flight of the, ii. 174.\n\n Spain, Mysticism in, ii. 150, 152.\n\n Spark of the Soul, i. 190.\n\n Sperber, ii. 125.\n\n Spirit, perceptible Influence of the, i. 272;\n as taught by the Quakers, ii. 313;\n witness of the, 314;\n Swedenborg\u2019s doctrine concerning the, 331.\n\n Spiritualism, its revival of antiquated errors, ii. 350;\n its morbid dread of historic reality, 365.\n\n Staupitz, ii. 33.\n\n Stilling, Jung, i. 39; ii. 289.\n\n Strasburg, Godfrey of, i. 186;\n rival houses in, 187;\n under the Interdict, 213;\n Revolution in, 218;\n Black Death in, 313;\n the Flagellants in, 317;\n resists the Imperial Impost, 319.\n\n Sufis, the, ii. 3;\n their early leaders, 11;\n analogies with Emerson, 16;\n with Angelus Silesius, 17;\n their doctrine concerning disinterested love, 17;\n their allegorical lyrics, 24.\n\n Suso, Heinrich, i. 341;\n his austerities, 344;\n his _Horologe of Wisdom_, 345;\n pursued as a poisoner, 348;\n his adventure with the robber, 351.\n\n Swedenborg, Emanuel, ii. 321;\n comprehensive character of his Mysticism, 322;\n his doctrine of correspondences, 323;\n position of Man in his System, 325;\n scientific character of his Mysticism, 326;\n opposed to Asceticism, 328;\n his Memorable Relations, 329;\n his descriptions of the unseen World, 330;\n his doctrine of Spiritual Influence, 331;\n of the Work of Christ, 332;\n of the New Jerusalem, 335.\n\n Sylphs, ii. 139.\n\n Symbolism, of Philo, i. 64;\n of Dionysius, 114;\n of Richard of St. Victor, 161;\n how far necessary, ii. 353.\n\n Sympathies, Science of, ii. 63.\n\n Synderesis, i. 256, 327.\n\n\n Talmud, its Theurgy, ii. 141.\n\n Tanchelm, i. 38.\n\n Tauler, i. 192, 216, 224, 265;\n Sermon on the Image of God, 226;\n his cautions to Mystics, 228;\n disappearance for two years, 230;\n his restoration, 234;\n he issues circulars and treatises comforting the excommunicated, 236;\n passages from his Sermons, 244-251, 290;\n concerning the \u2018Ground\u2019 of the Soul, 246, 255, 291;\n excellences and defects of his Theology, 251;\n elevated character of his Mysticism, 253;\n prepares the way for the Reformation, 253;\n compared with Eckart, 254, 302;\n his doctrine of Abandonment, and the state above Grace, 255;\n his internal Trinity, 255;\n on Work of Christ, 300;\n summoned before the Emperor, 318;\n retires to Cologne, 319.\n\n Tears, gift of, ii. 220.\n\n Theologia Germanica, i. 148, 288, 367.\n\n Theologia Mystica, i. 21;\n definitions, 23.\n\n Theosophy, i. 40;\n in the age of the Reformation, ii. 29, 69, _note_;\n of Swedenborg, 321.\n\n Therapeut\u00e6, i. 66, 67.\n\n Theresa, St., her early life, ii. 153;\n her reform of the Carmelite order, 155;\n sensuous character of her Mysticism, 162;\n her four degrees of Prayer, 167;\n her Raptures, 170;\n her Torments, 170;\n compared with Madame Guyon, 234.\n\n Theurgy, i. 46;\n of Neo-Platonism, 105;\n Lutheran, ii. 59;\n Modern, 130;\n Rabbinical, 141.\n\n Thomas \u00e0 Kempis, i. 367.\n\n Tieck, ii. 343, _note_, 348.\n\n Tophail, Abu Jaafer Ebn, ii. 299.\n\n Trinity, of Plotinus, i. 93;\n Tauler\u2019s doctrine of the internal, 256, 291;\n doctrine of Ruysbroek concerning, 326;\n of Behmen, ii. 103, 104, _note_;\n of Swedenborg, 332.\n\n\n Understanding, its relation to Reason, ii. 361;\n not to be discarded in religion, 365.\n\n Undine, ii. 138.\n\n Union, doctrine of Plotinus concerning, i. 81;\n of Bernard, 144;\n of Richard of St. Victor, 163;\n of Ruysbroek, 329;\n Prayer of, ii. 168;\n Swedenborg\u2019s doctrine concerning, 334.\n\n Universals, confounded with Causes, by Neo-Platonism, i. 171.\n\n\n Valdes, ii. 244.\n\n Veronica of Binasco, ii. 220.\n\n Vespiniani, Countess, ii. 277.\n\n Victor, St., see Hugo and Richard.\n\n Victor, St., the school of, i. 153.\n\n Vincula, Theurgic, ii. 59.\n\n Virtues, divided into human and superhuman, i. 121;\n how classified by Aquinas, 123.\n\n Visions, intellectual and representative, ii. 174;\n doctrine of John of the Cross concerning, 189.\n\n \u2018Visio caliginosa,\u2019 ii. 179.\n\n\n Walter, Balthasar, ii. 80.\n\n Weigel, Valentine, ii. 51;\n studied by Behmen, 90, 92, 117.\n\n Werner, Zachariah, ii. 347.\n\n Wessel, John, ii. 33.\n\n Wolfram von Eschenbach, i. 186.\n\n Woolman, John, ii. 305.\n\n Words, \u2018substantial,\u2019 ii. 175, 229.\n\n\n\n Yogis, the, i. 57.\n\n Yokhdan, Hai Ebn, history of, ii. 299;\n his practice of contemplation, 311.\n\n Yvon, ii. 291.\n\n\n Zanoni, ii. 128.\n\n Zerbino, Prince, by Tieck, ii. 343, _note_.\n\n Zinzendorf, ii. 308.\n\n Zwickau, the fanatics of, ii. 44.\n\nTHE END.\n\nPRINTED BY BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO.\n\nLONDON AND EDINBURGH\n\n\n\n\n \u25cf Transcriber\u2019s Notes:\n \u25cb Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).\n \u25cb Footnotes have been moved to follow the chapters in which they are\n referenced.","title":"Hours with the Mystics: A Contribution to the History of Religious Opinion","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":260696}