of
God), then shalt thou use thee in this manner. Thou shalt call
together thy thoughts and thy desires, and make thee of them a
church, and learn thee therein for to love only this good word Jesu,
so that all thy desires and all thy thoughts are only set for to
love Jesu, and that unceasingly as it may be here; so that thou
fulfil that is said in the psalm: 'Lord, I shall bless Thee in
churches'; that is, in thoughts and desires of the love of Jesu. And
then, in this church of thoughts and desires, and in this onehead of
studies and of wills, look that all thy thoughts, and all thy
desires, and all thy studies, and all thy wills be only set in the
love and the praising of this Lord Jesu, without forgetting, as far
forth as thou mayst by grace, and as thy frailty will suffer;
evermore meeking thee to prayer and to counsel, patiently abiding
the will of our Lord, unto the time that thy mind be ravished above
itself, to be fed with the fair food of angels in the beholding of
God and ghostly things; so that it be fulfilled in thee that is
written in the psalm: Ibi Benjamin adolescentulus in mentis excessu;
that is: 'There is Benjamin, the young child, in ravishing of
mind."'[8]

The text printed by Pepwell differs slightly from that of the
manuscripts, of which a large number have been preserved. Among
others, it is found in the Arundel MS. 286, and the Harleian MSS.
674, 1022, and 2373. It has been published from the Harl. MS. 1022
by Professor C. Horstman, who observes that "it is very old, and
certainly prior to Walter Hilton."[9] It is evidently by one of the
followers of Richard Rolle, dating from about the middle of the
fourteenth century. External and internal evidence seems to point to
its being the work of the anonymous author of the Divine Cloud of
Unknowing.

This is not the place to tell again the wonderful story of St.
Catherine of Siena (1347-1380), one of the noblest and most truly
heroic women that the world has ever seen. Her life and manifold
activities only touched England indirectly. The famous English
captain of mercenaries, Sir John Hawkwood, was among the men of the
world who, at least for a while, were won to nobler ideals by her
letters and exhortations. Two of her principal disciples, Giovanni
Tantucci and William Flete, both Augustinian hermits, were graduates
of Cambridge; the latter, an Englishman by birth, was appointed by
her on her deathbed to preside over the continuance of her work in