The Press.
London, England, 1857-01-10 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

In the essay on "Foreign Relations" his lord-
ship expresses an opinion, which has now bo•
come incorporated in our national policy, on
the beneficial results of the Anglo-French
alliance :

The salutary influence of this amity and union be.
tween those great powers is felt to the very ends of the
earth ; it tends to the security, the improvement, the paci-
fication of the world.

And he asserts :
He would be a bold as well as a wicked Minister, in
either country, who should attempt to revive the old hos-
tility between the two; but he would speedily be a de-
feated, and disgraced, and punished Minister.

But how, if a public journal, with more influ-
ence than any Minister, were to labour for such
an end ? Lord Brougham did not foresee the
possibility of such danger, and has not touched
on it.

The History and Life of the Rev. Dr. John
Tauler, with Twenty jive of his Sermons.
(Temp. 1340). Translated from the German,
with Additional Notioes of Tauler's Life and
Times, by Susanna Winkworth. And a

Preface by the Rev. Charles Kingsley.

London : Smith and Elder.
Tilts volume has several claims to notice. It
is a biography of an eloquent Dominican
preacher of the fourteenth century. It gives
a history of a peculiar spiritual sect, the
" Friends of God," with which he was con-
nected; it raises (particularly in Mr. Kings-
ley's preface) the question how far spiritual
mysticism has a foundation in truth ; and in
the fine sermons of Tauler the consideration
is forced upon us how far an active pursuit of
worldly concerns is compatible with that de-
votion of the heart to God which Christianity
requires.
The facts of Tattler's life are few. He was
born at Strasburg, in 1290, and appears to
have renounced the world and become a
Dominican in 1308. His mind, naturally
prone to mystical speculation, was much in.
finenecd by Master Eckart, a brother of his
own order, who, escaping the bonds of purely
scholastic philosophy and Papal theology, be-
came eminent for his metaphysical teaching.
It has been asserted that he was the founder
of that school of German philosophy which
has been developed by Hegel and his disci-
ples. He taught that all beings were a part
of God, and that their whole striving was to
be reunited to Him. His notion of hell was,
that it consisted in deprivation of God :

I say if God and those who iLre in the light of His
countenance have aught of true blessedness which those
have not who are separated from God, it is that same Not
which tortures the souls that are in hell more than any fire
or than self-will.

His teaching was not likely to find favour
with the Romish Church. He was accused of
heresy, and his writings condemned by a Bull
of the Pope. The manner of his death does
not appear. Tauler himself never left the
Roman Church ; but in the disputes between
the Papal power and the Emperor Louis,
Tauler sided with the Emperor throughout,
and persisted in preaching in places which
had been laid under the Papal interdict. In
principle he belonged to what may perhaps be
termed the Evangelical portion of his order.
The division which arose among both the
Franciscans and Dominicans is traced by the
authoress of this memoir to certain inevitable
causes :

While the higher ecclesiastics, above all the Papal
Court, were enormously wealthy—and with few exceptions
absorbed in secular objects and pursuits—the parochial
clergy, likewise often worldly and vicious—generally iglu).
rant and inert—the wandering friars came among the
neglected flocks, roused them from the sleep of sin—
reclaimed the vicious—convinced the scoffer—brought
hope to the wretched, consolation to the sick and dying;
and, as a natural result, the people were eager to express
their gratitude by placing their property in the hands of
the order which had shown zeal for their souls. And
tlins, though forbidden by their original constitution to
hold property, in a few years the amount of wealth which
they accumulated from the bequests of the dying was so
large as to excite the jealousy of the regular clergy, already
irritated by the friars' denunciation of worldliness and the
tacit censure of themselves implied in the ascetic lives and
burning zeal of their rivals. and they repeatedly demanded
the simpreasion of the two orders. lion within the orders
themaelves had soon sprung up the old strife and division
that seems to threaten the life of all spirituel organism i.,na
in the second generation, arising front the innate
nntagonistu between the seltindulgence, prudence, and
acquisflivene.,a inherent in !Inman nature, and the pure

SATURDAY,

but unreasoning spiritual impulses to which they have
owed their existence. The borninicans, with their cha-
racteristic address, retained the conflicting elements
within their own bosom, and equally availed themselves of
fervent piety and worldly power. The Franciscans, more
enthusiastic and less far.sighted, divided into two parties,
those who consented to hold property in trust for the See
of Rome, and those termed spiritual Franciscans, who ad-
hered rigidly to the literal interpretation of their rule of
absolute poverty.

Tauler saw clearly the vices of his Church,
and preached boldly and faithfully the doc-
trine of renunciation of the world. It was in
1340 that, according to the tractate printed at
the commencement of this volume—" The
" History and Life of the Reverend Doctor
" John Tauler,"—he became acquainted with
Nicholas of Basle, the head of the sect the
Friends of God. Until lately this tractate was
supposed to be fictitious. The extensive re-
searches of Professor Schmidt tend to show
its genuineness, though there are difficulties
in the way of supposing that it literally relates
occurrences in the life of Tauler. The history
of this sect is one of the most interesting
parts of Miss Winkworth's memoir:—

To the name they adopted the text John iv. 15 seems to
have given occasion ; for Tattler says, " Then said our
Lord to his Disciples, ` From henceforth I call you not
servants, but friends.' The henceforth' that he spoke
was from the time when they had forsaken all things and
followed Him. Then they were His friends, and not ser-
vants ; and therefore he who will be a true friend of God
must leave all things and follow Him."

The " History " purports that a layman,
having heard Tauler preach, had much con-
versation with him, and gradually led bim to
the perception of a much higher spiritual life
than he had previously imagined. Thence-
forth, his preaching became more earnest, and
produced far greater effect. But if the his-
tory is to be literally received, Tauter must
have died about ten years after what is called
his " Conversion," or about 1350, whereas he
really lived till 1301. The " Friends " must
have resembled in some respects the Friends
of our own day—the Quakers. Their chiefs
underwent great persecution ; and some of
them—among others, Nicholas suffered
martyrdom. It is not impossible that further
research, seeing what has already been accom-
plished, may reveal new facts in the life of
this remarkable man.

It is principally, we presume, in relation to
Tauler's connection with this sect, and the
influence thus produced on his teaching,
that Mr. Kingsley's preface on " the Mystics "
is contributed. The passage front page xxix.
to xl. is a most masterly defence of the essen-
tial principle of mysticism. He maintains
that, after making all allowance for mental
illusions and nervous fantasies, to which
" mystics" or " saints " might have been
subject
There still remained in each and every one of them,
and not to be explained away by auy theory of diseased
body or mind, cue of the very loveliest and noblest human
characters ; and on that discovery the question must have
followed—Was that, too, the product of disease? And to
that there, can be, I trust, but one answer from the many.
If here and there a man shall be found daring enough to
assert that the most exquisite developments of humanity
are grounded on a lie ; that its seemingly loveliest flowers
are but fungi bred of corruption ; then the general heart of
mankind will give their eynieism the lie, and answer—
`. Not so, this is too beautiful and too righteous to have
been born of aught but Clod."

He contends that "mystic raptures" or
" beatific visions " should be received like
other wonders, on the strength of the testi-
mony which attests them ; and that from the
very loneliness, anguish, and bereavement of
the my sties may be drawn a strong presump-
tion that God would give more to these lonely
suffer ers than to the many, because they
needed more. He concludes .

As for the impossibility of such a direct assurance, it is
an assertion too silly to be seriously answered in the nine-
teenth century, which is weekly revealing wonders in the
natural world which would have seemed impossible to our
fathers. Shall the natural world at every step transcend
our boldest dreams; and shall the spiritual world be
limited by us to the merest commonplaces of every-day
experience, especially when those very commonplaces are
yet utterly unexplained and miraculous ? When will men
open their eyes to the plain axiom, that nothirg is impos-
sible with God save that he should transgress His own
nature by being unjust and unloving.
If this doctrine of divine illumination, in
connection with devout aseetism, is to be re-
ceived at all, wide limits must be accorded to
it. Every faith has had its mystics who in
their way have earnestly sought God, awl