through the pain in
order to learn, without it we could never have the bliss. As a wave
draws back from the shore, in order to return again with fuller force;
so sin, the lack of love, is permitted for a time, in order that an
opening be made for an inrush of the Divine Love, fuller and more
complete than would otherwise be possible. It is in some such way as
this, dimly shadowed, that it was shown to Julian that sin and pain are
necessary parts of the scheme of God. Hence God does not blame us for
sin, for it brings its own blame or punishment with it, nay more, "sin
shall be no shame to man, but worship," a bold saying, which none but a
mystic would dare utter. When God seeth our sin, she says, and our
despair in pain, "His love excuseth us, and of His great courtesy He
doeth away all our blame, and beholdeth us with ruth and pity as
children innocent and unloathful."

It would be pleasant to say more of Julian, but perhaps her own words
have sufficed to show that here we are dealing with one of the great
mystics of the world. Childlike and yet rashly bold, deeply spiritual,
yet intensely human, "a simple creature, unlettered," yet presenting
solutions of problems which have racked humanity, she inherits the true
paradoxical nature of the mystic, to which is added a beauty and
delicacy of thought and expression all her own.

There were many other mystical works written about this time in England.
Of these the best known and the finest is _The Scale, or Ladder, of
Perfection_, by Walter Hylton, the Augustinian, and head of a house of
canons at Thurgarton, near Newark, who died in 1396. This is a practical
and scientific treatise of great beauty on the spiritual life.[66] An
interesting group of writings are the five little treatises, almost
certainly by one author (_c._ 1350-1400), to be found in Harleian 674,
and other MSS. Their names are _The Cloud of Unknowing, The Epistle of
Prayer, The Epistle of Discretion, The Treatise of Discerning Spirits_,
and _The Epistle of Privy Counsel_. We find here for the first time in
English the influence and spirit of Dionysius, and it is probably to the
same unknown writer we owe the first (very free) translation of the
_Mystical Theology_ of Dionysius, _Deonise Hid Divinite_, which is bound
up with these other manuscripts.

These little tracts are written by a practical mystic, one who was able
to describe with peculiar accuracy and vividness the physical and
psychological se