Ring is called _The Light of the
Godhead_, and to this you shall give good heed. It shall also serve in
all the houses of the wood, and shall never leave the wood, and shall
remain a month in each house. Also it shall go from one to another as
required, and you shall take special care of it. Pray for me who was
your Confessor, though, alas, unworthy."

In 1235, at the age of twenty-three, Mechthild--not without many a
heart-pang, and prompted to this determination by a troubled
conscience, a determination doubtless brought about by the preaching
of the Dominican friars, who were stirring all classes by their
impassioned zeal--left her home and went to Magdeburg, where she
entered a settlement of beguines. These settlements, semi-monastic in
character, were provided to afford some protection, by living in
community, for women who, whilst devoting themselves to a religious
life, did not wish to separate themselves wholly from the world. It
was at the time of the Crusades, when the land teemed with desolate
women, that their numbers increased so greatly, and the first
beguinage was founded about the beginning of the thirteenth century.
The beguine took no vows, could return to the world and marry if she
so desired, and did not renounce her property. If she was without
means, she neither asked nor accepted alms, but supported herself by
manual labour or by teaching the children of burghers, whilst those
who were able to do so spent their time in taking care of the sick or
in other charitable offices. Each community, with a "Grand-Mistress"
at its head, was complete in itself, and regulated its own order of
living, though, later, many of them adopted the rule of the Third
Order of St. Francis.

Mechthild tells us that she knew but one person in Magdeburg, and that
even from this one she kept away for fear lest she might waver in her
determination. In this very human way she indicated that her spiritual
adventure was no easy matter to her, as, indeed, it could not be so
long as her temperament and ideals were at variance. But gradually,
she says, she got so much joy from communion with God that she could
dispense with the world. As has been well said, "La loi des lois c'est
que tout morceau de l'univers venu de Dieu retourne a Dieu et veut
retourner a lui."

The book of her writings, which, under divine direction as she opens
by saying, she calls _The Flowing Light of the Godhead_,[20] is
composed of seven parts, of which