r for
his honor, as utterly lost. The inestimable riches which he found in
God, showed him how precious every moment is, in which he had it in his
power to enjoy the divine converse. The immensity of God, who is present
in us and in all creatures, and whom millions of worlds cannot confine
or contain; his eternity, to which all time coexists, and which has
neither beginning, end, nor succession; the unfathomed abyss of his
judgments; the sweetness of his providence; his adorable sanctity; his
justice, wisdom, goodness, mercy, and love, especially as displayed in
the wonderful mystery of the Incarnation, and in the doctrine, actions,
and sufferings of our Blessed Redeemer, in a word, all the
incomprehensible attributes of the Divinity, and the mysteries of his
grace and mercy, successively filled his mind and heart, and kindled in
his soul the most sweet and ardent affections, in which his thirst {629}
and his delight, which were always fresh and always insatiable, gave him
a kind of anticipated taste of paradise. For holy contemplation
discovers to a soul a new and most wonderful world, whose beauty,
riches, and pure delights, astonish and transport her out of herself.
St. Teresa, coming from prayer, said she came from a world greater and
more beautiful beyond comparison, than a thousand worlds, like that
which we behold with our corporal eyes, could be. St. Bernard was always
torn from this holy exercise with regret, when obliged to converse with
men in the world, in which he trembled, lest he should contract some
attachment to creatures, which would separate him from the chaste
embraces of his heavenly spouse. The venerable priest, John of Avila,
when he came from the altar, always found commerce with men insipid and
insupportable.

Footnotes:
1. Cuthbert signifies Illustrious for skill: or G{}bbertus, Worthy of
God.
2. Bede, Hist. b. 4, c. 30.
3. L. 4, Pontif. Angl.
4. Dunelm, or Durham, signifies a hill upon waters, from the Saxon
words Dun, a bill, and Holme, a place situate in or among the
waters.
5. See Dugdale's history of the cathedral of Durham; and Dr. Brown
Willis on the same.
6. See Hickes, Thes. Ling. Septentr. Praef. p. 8.
7. Bp. Smith, Flores Hist. Eccles. p. 120.
8. Dr. Richard Smith, bishop of Chalcedon, relates in his life of
Margaret lady Montaigne, that queen Elizabeth, out of her singular
regard for this lady, from the time she had been lady of honor in
the