when I went there. It may be that he was one of those idle
fellows that had come to Master Richard from time to time to ask him to
make them hermits with him, else how did he know the matters of the stag
and the pig and the stream and the rest? But it does not greatly matter
whether his soul were a devil's or a man's, for in any case his words
were Satan's. If I had not heard what came after I should have believed
this temptation to be the most subtle ever devised in hell and permitted
from heaven. He spoke so tenderly and so sweetly; he commanded his
features so perfectly; he seemed to speak with such love and
reasonableness.

Yet I would have you know that Master Richard did not yield by a hair's
breadth in thought. He examined the temptation carefully, setting aside
altogether the question as to whether I had spoken as this young man had
said that I had. Whether I had spoken so or not made no difference. It
was this that he was bidden to do, to say that he had erred in his
tidings, to confess that they were not from God; to be a faithless
messenger to our Lord.

He examined this, then, looking carefully at all parts of the
temptation. [Sir John appends at this point two or three paragraphs,
distinguishing between the observing of a temptation of thought and
the yielding to it. He instances Christ's temptation in the Garden of
Gethsemane.]....

At the end Master Richard opened his eyes and looked steadily upon the
young man's face.

"Take this answer," he said, "to those that sent you. I will neither
hear nor consider such words any more. If I yield in this matter, and
say one word to the King or to any other, by which any may understand
that my message was a delusion, or that I spoke of myself and not from
our Lord, then I pray that our Lord may blot my name out of the Book of
Life."

* * * * *

So Master Richard answered and closed his eyes to commune with God. And
the young man went away sighing but speaking no word.

Of the Dark Night of the Soul

_De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine: Domine exaudi vocem meam._

Out of the depths I have cried to Thee, O Lord: Lord, hear my
voice.--_Ps. cxxix. 1, 2._

XI

The third temptation was so fierce and subtle, that I doubt whether I
wholly understood it when Master Richard tried to tell it to me. He did
not tell me all, and he could answer but few questions, and I fear that
I am not able to tell even all that I heard