Lord," said she, "these graces Thou shouldest shew
to religious men and to priests."

Our Lord said to her again: "Nay, nay, daughter, for that I love
best that they love not, and that is shames, reproofs, scorns, and
despites of the people; and therefore they shall not have this
grace; for, daughter, he that dreadeth the shames of this world may
not perfectly love God."

Here endeth a short treatise of a devout ancress called Margery
Kempe of Lynn

IV.

HERE FOLLOWETH A DEVOUT TREATISE COMPILED BY MASTER WALTER HYLTON OF
THE SONG OF ANGELS

DEAR brother in Christ, I have understanding by thine own speech,
and also by telling of another man, that thou yearnest and desirest
greatly for to have more knowledge and understanding than thou hast
of angel's song and heavenly sound; what it is, and on what wise it
is perceived and felt in a man's soul, and how a man may be siker
that it is true and not feigned; and how it is made by the presence
of the good angel, and not by the inputting of the evil angel. These
things thou wouldest wete of me; but, soothly, I cannot tell thee
for a surety the soothfastness of this matter; nevertheless
somewhat, as me thinketh, I shall shew thee in a short word.

Wete thou well that the end and the sovereignty of perfection
standeth in very onehead[154] of God and of a man's soul by perfect
charity. This onehead, then, is verily made when the mights of the
soul are reformed by grace to the dignity and the state of the first
condition; that is, when the mind is stabled sadly,[155] without
changing and vagation,[156] in God and ghostly things, and when the
reason is cleared from all worldly and fleshly beholdings, and from
all bodily imaginations, figures, and fantasies of creatures, and is
illumined by grace to behold God and ghostly things, and when the
will and the affection is purified and cleansed from all fleshly,
kindly, and worldly love, and is inflamed with brenning love of the
Holy Ghost. This wonderful onehead may not be fulfilled[157]
perfectly, continually, and wholly in this life, for the corruption
of the flesh, but only in the bliss of heaven. Nevertheless, the
nearer that a soul in this present life may come to this onehead,
the more perfect it is. For the more that it is reformed by grace to
the image and the likeness of its Creator here on this wise; the
more joy and bliss shall it have in heaven. Our Lord God is an
endless being without changing, almighty wi