in ipso."

MANILIUS.

PRACTICAL AND DEVOTIONAL MYSTICISM

"We all, with unveiled face reflecting as a mirror the glory of the
Lord, are transformed into the same image, from glory to glory."--2
COR. iii. 18.

The school of Eckhart[257] in the fourteenth century produced the
brightest cluster of names in the history of Mysticism. In Ruysbroek,
Suso, Tauler, and the author of the _Theologia Germanica_ we see
introspective Mysticism at its best. This must not be understood to
mean that they improved upon the philosophical system of Eckhart, or
that they are entirely free from the dangerous tendencies which have
been found in his works. On the speculative side they added nothing of
value, and none of them rivals Eckhart in clearness of intellect. But
we find in them an unfaltering conviction that our communion with God
must be a fact of experience, and not only a philosophical theory.
With the most intense earnestness they set themselves to live through
the mysteries of the spiritual life, as the only way to understand and
prove them. Suso and Tauler both passed through deep waters; the
history of their inner lives is a record of heroic struggle and
suffering. The personality of the men is part of their message, a
statement which could hardly be made of Dionysius or Erigena, perhaps
not of Eckhart himself.

John of Ruysbroek, "doctor ecstaticus," as the Church allowed him to
be called, was born in 1293, and died in 1381. He was prior of the
convent of Gruenthal, in the forest of Soignies, where he wrote most of
his mystical treatises, under the direct guidance, as he believed, of
the Holy Spirit. He was the object of great veneration in the later
part of his life. Ruysbroek was not a learned man, or a clear
thinker.[258] He knew Dionysius, St. Augustine, and Eckhart, and was
no doubt acquainted with some of the other mystical writers; but he
does not write like a scholar or a man of letters. He resembles Suso
in being more emotional and less speculative than most of the German
school.

Ruysbroek reverts to the mystical tradition, partially broken by
Eckhart, of arranging almost all his topics in three or seven
divisions, often forming a progressive scale. For instance, in the
treatise "On the Seven Grades of Love," we have the following series,
which he calls the "Ladder of Love": (1) goodwill; (2) voluntary
poverty; (3) chastity; (4) humility; (5) desire for the glory of God;
(6) Divine contemplation, which