buried in ecstatic vision that she perceived nothing that occurred around her. What can we say of those strange cataleptic seizures, but that they were the fruit of her peculiar temperament, powerfully wrought upon by rapt devotion and vivid imagination combined, and in its turn again affecting with equal power a physical frame weakened by long and constant ascetic practices? Such seems to us the simple solution of the mystery; and, adopting it, while we free Birgitta, as already said, from the charge of anything in the slightest degree resembling wilful imposition, we, of course, at the same time deny all objective reality to the visions which she witnessed. They were the subjective phantoms of her own preternaturally-excited fancy, and the words she heard were words uttered out of the depths of her own strangely-brooding spiritual consciousness. With regard to the general character of Birgitta's "Revelations," a few sentences shall here suffice. "They bear," says Professor Hammerich," in their every aspect the stamp of herself and of her age; her doubt, her hope, her longing, her joys and sorrows, her prejudices and errors, her most secret thoughts, are all expressed in them. We see a noble soul, proved in the school of life, a politically-cultured, historic, poetic spirit, indeed, I do not hesitate to style her the greatest religious poet-genius which the Catholic North can show. Lovely images from nature and human existence are displayed before us, image after image in endless procession,-for what she but simply touches obtains a peculiar colour of its own; and there are parts of these "Revelations" which belong to all that is most beautiful in the poetry of the Middle Ages. Each grand idea of the period mirrors itself there, assuming a peculiar hue from the idiosyncracy of the writer. 'Onwards' is her maxim; she ever demands reform. We are surprised at the union of fine female perception with a wellnigh masculine energy and boldness, at the strength and purity of will, and at the power of historic discernment these singular works display." The words of Professor Hammerich may appear to contain exaggerated praise; but, on the whole, our own careful study of a portion, at least, of the so-called "Revelations," inclines us to endorse the opinion embodied in the foregoing sentences. Birgitta's mystic theology, however, stands in such close connexion with the whole subject of the "Revelations," that the proper character of the latter cannot be rightly appreciated without a certain knowledge of the former; and we now, therefore, proceed to indicate a few of its leading features.

The mysticism of the Swedish saint partly owed its origin to extraneous influences, partly and mainly to the native

Nature of Birgitta's Mysticism.

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impulse of her own profound and genial spirit. Both by culture and inborn tendency she was related to the whole tribe of the medieval mystics. Acquainted largely with the religious literature of the age, she had derived a kind of inspiration during the earlier periods of her life from some of the writings of that strange religious school,-an inspiration quickened and increased, most probably, by subsequent personal intercourse with certain teachers of the school themselves. When on her pilgrimage to Rome, she travelled through a region famous as the birthplace and the residence of German mystical theology. Cologne was then one of the centres. of the great religious revival in Western Germany and Switzerland, which began with the lessons of the mystics,for we must never forget that although, like pietism, mysticism comes short of the truth, being only a one-sided development of Christian life and doctrine, it yet, like pietism also, has often proved the source of spiritual awakening, and conferred inestimable benefits on the Church of the Redeemer. There, in the Rhenish provinces, and onwards to Southwestern Germany, the mystic theologians most frequently taught and laboured. Tauler, John of Sterngasse, Nicolas of Strasburg, Heinrich of Löwen,-these men came and went through all that fair and fertile region, sending the fresh breeze of reviving religious earnestness into hearts that were paralysed before by deepest spiritual torpor. Their influence, and the influence of the "Gottesfreunde," or "Friends of God," the singular denomination of mediaval religionists which ramified in so many different directions and extended even to Hungary and Italy,-without doubt contributed to mould Birgitta's mysticism into the shape it ultimately assumed; and traces of their pervading spirit are neither infrequently nor indistinctly visible in her pages. With Bernard and the French School, likewise, she stands in somewhat close connexion,-closer indeed than with the German; but, born a mystic, she owed far more to the profound poetry and rich inner experiences of her own nature than to the external influences with which she came in contact. More than any other she, perhaps, resembles Suso, although he, as a German, surpasses her in point both of sentiment and speculation. The mysticism of Birgitta is objective, not subjective; its basis is ethical, and its principle is love. A true child of the Scandinavian North, she never loses herself in a speculative chaos, but loves to unfold, in a series of clear and well-defined pictures, the creations of her glowing fantasy. Like Bernard and Hugo of St. Victor, she makes, as we have already said, the principle of love her central fact,― love, however, revealing itself in labour, in all unwearied

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moral effort for the believer's own soul, and for the souls of others. Herein is found one great redeeming feature of Birgitta's mysticism. With its many and grievous errors, it is still healthy in its general tone, inculcating the necessity of reformation, of revival, of constant individual work. Isolated passages can impart no true idea of the mystic element in Birgitta's writings; and we give two or three random extracts rather as examples of her style than for the purpose of exhibiting her system.

"There is not an atom in heaven, not a grain on earth, not a spark in hell, which does not exist through God's wisdom, and is foreseen and fore-ordained by it. But God is a wondrous God; He throws the haughty under foot, and sets the lowly among the sunbeams. Blessed be Thou, O my God, threefold, and yet one! Thou art goodness, wisdom, beauty and power, justice and truth. Thou art like the flower that grows solitary on the heath, from which all who approach draw pleasure for the eye, and sweetness for the taste, and refreshment for the body. So all who approach Thyself become wiser and better, juster and lovelier. Therefore, O God of all Grace, give me to love what pleases Thee, heroically to resist temptations, despise the whole world, and keep Thee in my heart for ever!"

"Christ says: Heaven and earth cannot contain me, and yet will I dwell in thy heart, that little fragment of flesh. Whom wilt thou then fear, and of what wilt thou stand in need, when thou hast in thyself the Almighty God, the sole and eternal goodness? But thou must bid farewell to all life's aspirations, and bury thy soul in that everlasting goodness; it is the couch on which we can rest together. Thou must draw near to me. The highest joy is to abide with me for aye. And the light which shall enlighten thy darkness is the faith that I can do all things."

"Christ says: The world was like a wilderness, full of forests, so dense and dark that no one was able to penetrate them. There was just a single path, and it ended in the abyss. And those who plunged into the depths exclaimed, 'God of heaven, come and give us help, for only in Thee is salvation!' This voice ascended to heaven and moved me, and I came to the wilderness like a pilgrim, to labour and clear the forest. Before me sounded a voice, 'Now is the axe laid to the tree!'-it was the Baptist, who should preI laboured from dawn to sunset, I bore pare my way. temptations, I endured hatred, I opened up the road to heaven, and rooted out the trees and brushwood that obstructed its course. Then the sharpest thorns pierced my head, and iron nails my hands and feet; I was smitten and

Extracts from her Writings.

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wounded by the wicked. But for their souls' salvation I bore all the torments, and cleared the way in my blood and sweat. Now again the brushwood and thorns and trees have grown thickly as before, and the most have ceased to journey on my road,-while the road to hell is broad and open, and many there be that take it. Only few of my friends pursue my path to reach the heavenly Fatherland; burning with celestial aspiration, and yet afraid of the world, they are like birds that flutter in concealment from bush to bush. I bid them pluck up the thorns and thistles and enter on the way, as it is written, 'Blessed are they who have not seen me, yet believe!' And I run myself to meet them, as the mother meets her erring son, and kindle for them the light of my love, that they may see and not wander astray. And, like the mother, will I embrace them, where there is no heaven above and no earth beneath, but the contemplation of God for ever; where thereis neither meat nor drink, but the glory of celestial blessedness."

"There are tears that resemble the streaming rain, when man weeps over his earthly sorrows; other tears resemble the snow or the hail, when man weeps not from love to God, but with ice-cold heart from fear of hell, and when he would be satisfied if he only had a spot in heaven or on earth where he might be free of pain, and live according to his pleasure. But the tears that draw the soul to heaven, and heaven to the soul, resemble the dew that falls upon a rose-leaf. When man meditates on the love of Jesus, and His sore and bitter torment, then the eye is filled with tears that bathe the soul as the dew-drops bathe the flower, that make it fruitful, and give it the Divine fulness."

"A mother had a son. He was born in a dark chamber, and knew nought else but the darkness and his mother's milk. The mother said, 'Go out, my child, from the dark chamber, and so shalt thou obtain a softer bed and better nourishment than here; but if thou remainest, then will scorpions and serpents spring to life in the darkness in which we dwell, and they shall bite and wound thee.' The child believed her, and did as she commanded. Had she, on the contrary, promised him far greater things, many servants, a palace of ivory, noble steeds, and other treasures, he would not have believed it, because he knew nothing of the world beyond his own dark cell. So God sometimes promises us little, and yet means the most withal."

"When the date-kernel is sown in fruitful soil, it strikes root and springs up, the palm branches unfold themselves, the tree exhales sweet fragrance, and its fruit grows ripe. Thus the thought of God's judgment, when it falls into a

heart that knows its sin. Repentance and self-renunciation are the stem, love makes the branches flourish, and the fruit, which is ripened under the preaching of the Word, is the desire to declare God's glory.'

"The rock yielded water when struck by the rod of Moses, and so tears of penitence stream forth when the hard heart is touched by the fear and love of God."

"The rose has a sweet scent, is fair to the eye, and tender to the touch, and yet it grows only among thorns. So are the Good among the Evil,-the one cannot be without the other. Do thou have patience, therefore, with Christ's enemies, so long as He himself has patience with them!"

With regard to the system of theology, properly so called, which Birgitta has unfolded in those singular books of "Revelations," it is somewhat difficult to speak with certainty. To crystallize religious poetry into dogmatics is always a laborious and at best an unsatisfactory process,especially in the case of a writer like Birgitta. But Professor Hammerich has, in our opinion, very clearly proved that a complete theological system may be built up out of the mass of apparently conflicting elements which lie scattered, in such rich profusion, through the works of the Swedish saint. He has also plainly shown that, with all her numerous doctrinal errors, she still in the main held firmly by the great principles of Gospel truth,—the principles which rose to final, glorious triumph at the following epoch of the Reformation. Birgitta, doubtless, never formally broke off from the recognized creed of the Romish Church,―nay, it must be candidly confessed that some of the most unscriptural dogmas of that Church were maintained by her with a blind and unreasoning fanaticism. Her Mariolatry, for example, was altogether excessive, and forms perhaps the most repulsive feature in the whole of her religious system. On the other hand, what the German Church historians would style her Christology and Soteriology, rests unquestionably on a true scriptural basis, and is strongly pervaded by the evangelic spirit. Little as Birgitta had in common with the schoolmen, the writings of the great "Father of Scholasticism" seem to have exerted a salutary influence on her conceptions of Christ's mediatorial work. The sacrificial, substitutionary nature of the Redeemer's death for sinners,— that grand corner-stone of the orthodox Christian creed,she appears to have grasped as a fundamental fact, and retained, amid all her errors, with the tenacity of a strong and loving soul. Anselm's dialectics and Birgitta's mysticism, in other respects sufficiently opposed to each other, were fused in one at the foot of the blood-stained cross of Calvary. That