sonal religion, self-wrought out, self-disciplined, selfmatured, with nothing necessarily intermediate between the grace of God and the soul of man. The man might

be perfect in spirit and in truth within himself, spiritualised only by the Holy Ghost. Tauler's perfect man was a social being, not a hermit; his goodness spread on earth, it was not all drawn up to heaven. Though the perfect man might not rise above duties, he might rise above observances; though never free from the law of love to his fellow-creatures, he claimed a dangerous freedom as regarded the law and usage of the Church, and dependence on the ministers of the Church. Those who were content with ritual observances, however obedient, were still imperfect; outward rites, fastings, were good as means, but the soul must liberate itself from all these outward means. The soul, having discharged all this, must still await in patience something higher, something to which all this is but secondary, inferior; having attained perfection, it may cast all these things away as unnecessary. Tauler's disciple respects the laws of the Church because they are the laws of the Church; he does not willingly break them, but he is often accused of breaking them when intent on higher objects. But the whole vital real work in man is within. Penance is nought without contrition: Mortify not the poor flesh, but mortify sin." Man must confess to God; unless man forsakes sin, the absolution of Pope and Cardinals is of no effect; the Confessor has no power over sin. Tauler's religion is still more inflexibly personal: "His own works make not a man holy, how can those of others? Will God regard the rich man who buys for a pitiful sum the prayers of the poor? Not the intercession of the Virgin, nor of all the Saints, can profit the unrepentant sinner."

66

All this, if not rebellion, was sowing the seeds of rebellion against the sacerdotal domination; if it was not the proclamation, it was the secret murmur preparatory for the assertion of Teutonic independence.

Tauler lived not only in his writings; the cherished treasure of Mysticism was handed down by minds of kindred spirit for nearly two centuries. When they were appealed to by Luther as the harbingers of his own more profound and powerful religiousness, the Friends of God subsisted, if not organised, yet maintaining visibly if not publicly their succession of Apostolic holiness.

Ten years after the death of Tauler, Nicolas of Basle, not yet having ventured on his fatal mission into France, is addressing a long and pious monition to the Brethren of St. John in Strasburg. X

Near the close of the century, Martin, a Monk, was arraigned at Cologne as an infatuated disciple of Nicolas of Basle. From this From this process it appears that many Friends of God had been recently burned at Heidelberg. The heresies with which Martin is charged are obviously misconceptions, if not misrepresentations, of the doctrine of perfection taught by Tauler and by most of the German Mystics.

1377.

Schmidt, Anhang 5, p. 233, dated restored to his state of primitive innocence, emancipated from obedience of the Church, with full liberty to preach and administer the Sacraments without licence of the Church. Of course the charge was darkened into the grossest Antinomianism.

....

"Quod quidam Laicus nomine Nicolaus de Basileâ, cui te funditus submisisti, clarius et perfectius evangelium quam aliqui Apostoli, et beatus Paulus hoc intellexerit. quod prædicto Nicolao ex perfectione submissionis sibi facta contra præcepta cujuscunque Prælati etiam Papæ licite et sine peccato obedire."-He was accused of having said, That he was

z 1393. "Quod judicialiter convicti et per ecclesiam condempnati ac impenitentes heretici aliquando in Heidelbergâ concremati fuerunt et sunt amici Dei."-Anhang 6, p. 238.

Tauler was thus only one of the voices, if the most powerful and influential, which as it were appealed directly to God from the Pope and the Hierarchy; which asserted a higher religion than that of the Church; which made salvation dependent on personal belief and holiness, not on obedience to the Priest; which endeavoured to renew the long-dissolved wedlock between Christian faith and Christian morality; and tacitly at least, if not inferentially, admitted the great Wycliffite doctrine, that the bad Pope, the bad Bishop, the bad Priest, was neither Pope, Bishop, nor Priest. It was an appeal to God, and also to the moral sense of man; and throughout this period of nearly two centuries which elapsed before the appearance of Luther, this inextinguishable torch passed from hand to hand, from generation to generation. Its influence was seen in the earnest demand for Reformation by the Councils; the sullen estrangement, notwithstanding the reunion to the sacerdotal yoke, during the Hussite wars; the disdainful neutrality when reformation by the Councils seemed hopeless; it is seen in the remarkable book, the "German Theology," attributed by Luther to Tauler himself, but doubtless of a later period. Ruder and coarser works, in all the jarring and various dialects, betrayed the German impatience, the honest but homely popular alienation from ecclesiastical dominion, and darkly foreshowed that when the irresistible Revolution should come, it would be more popular, more violent, more irreconcileable.

Two translations have recently | originally appeared. It was not so appeared in England of this book, of much what it taught as "German which the real character and import- Theology," but what it threw aside as ance cannot be appreciated without a no part of genuine Christian Faith. full knowledge of the time at which it

CHAPTER VIII.

Christian Architecture.

LITERATURE was thus bursting loose from Latin Christianity; it had left the cloister to converse with men of the world; it had ceased to be the prerogative of the Hierarchy, and had begun to expatiate in new regions. In Italy erelong, as in its classical studies, so in the new Platonism of Marsilius Ficinus and the Florentine school, it almost threatened to undermine Christianity, or left a Christianity which might almost have won the assent of the Emperor Julian. In all the Teutonic races it had begun to assert its freedom from sacerdotal authority; its poets, even its preachers, were all but in revolt.

faithful to

But Art was more faithful to her munificent patron, her bold and prolific creator, her devout wor- Architecture shipper. Of all the arts Architecture was that the Church. which owed the most glorious triumphs to Christianity. Architecture must still be the slave of wealth and power, for majestic, durable, and costly buildings can arise only at their command; and wealth and power were still to a great extent in the hands of the Hierarchy. The first sign and prophetic omen of the coming revolution was when in the rich commercial cities the town halls began to vie in splendour with the Churches and Monasteries. Yet nobler gratitude, if such incentive were possible, might attach Architecture to the cause of the Church. Under the Church she had perfected old forms, invented new; she had risen to an unrivalled

In her

majesty of design and skill in construction. stateliness, solemnity, richness, boldness, variety, vastness, solidity, she might compete with the whole elder world, and might almost defy future ages.

in Latin

Latin Christianity, during a period of from ten to Churches twelve centuries, had covered the whole of Christendom. Western Europe with its still multiplying Churches and religious buildings. From the Southern shores of Sicily to the Hebrides and the Scandinavian kingdoms, from the doubtful borders of Christian Spain to Hungary, Poland, Prussia, not a city was without its Cathedral, surrounded by its succursal churches, its monasteries, and convents, each with its separate church or chapel. There was not a town but above the lowly houses, almost entirely of wood, rose the churches, of stone or some other solid material, in their superior dignity, strength, dimensions, and height; not a village was without its sacred edifice: no way-side without its humbler chapel or oratory. Not a river but in its course reflected the towers and pinnacles of many abbeys; not a forest but above its lofty oaks or pines appeared the long-ridged roof, or the countless turrets of the conventual church and buildings. Even now, after periods in some countries of rude religious fanaticism, in one, France (next to Italy, or equally with Italy prodigal in splendid ecclesiastical edifices), after a decade of wild irreligious iconoclasm; after the total suppression or great reduction, by the common consent of Christendom, of monastic institutions, the secularisation of their wealth, and the abandonment of their buildings to decay and ruin; our awe and wonder are still commanded, and seem as if they would be commanded for centuries, by the unshaken solidity, spaciousness, height, majesty, nd noble harmony of the cathedrals and churches