the Cross, "like other that were Christ's lovers"; and
she prayed that she might have "a grievous sickness almost unto
death," to wean her from the world and quicken her spiritual sense.
The sickness came, and the vision; for they thought her dying, and
held the crucifix before her, till the figure on the Cross changed
into the semblance of the living Christ. "All this was showed by three
parts--that is to say, by bodily sight, and by words formed in my
understanding, and by ghostly sight.[282]" "But the ghostly sight I
cannot nor may not show it as openly nor as fully as I would." Her
later visions came to her sometimes during sleep, but most often when
she was awake. The most pure and certain were wrought by a "Divine
illapse" into the spiritual part of the soul, the mind and
understanding, for these the devil cannot counterfeit. Juliana was
certainly perfectly honest and perfectly sane. The great charm of her
little book is the sunny hopefulness and happiness which shines from
every page, and the tender affection for her suffering Lord which
mingles with her devotion without ever becoming morbid or irreverent.
It is also interesting to see how this untaught maiden (for she shows
no traces of book learning) is led by the logic of the heart straight
to some of the speculative doctrines which we have found in the
philosophical mystics. The brief extracts which follow will illustrate
all these statements.

The crucified Christ is the one object of her devotion. She refused to
listen to "a proffer in my reason," which said, "Look up to heaven to
His Father." "Nay, I may not," she replied, "for Thou art my heaven.
For I would liever have been in that pain till Doomsday than to come
to heaven otherwise than by Him." "Me liked none other heaven than
Jesus, which shall be my bliss when I come there." And after
describing a vision of the crucifixion, she says, "How might any pain
be more than to see Him that is all my life and all my bliss suffer?"

Her estimate of the value of means of grace is very clear and sound.
"In that time the custom of our praying was brought to mind, how we
use, for lack of understanding and knowing of love, to make [use of]
many means. Then saw I truly that it is more worship to God and more
very delight that we faithfully pray to Himself of His goodness, and
cleave thereto by His grace, with true understanding and steadfast by
love, than if we made [use of] all the means that heart can think. For