Lord, take me home to Thy palace fair,
So will I ever anoint Thee there.
"I will. But My plighted troth saith, 'Wait;'
And My love saith, 'Work to-day;'
My meekness saith, 'Be of low estate;'
And My longing, 'Watch and pray;'
My shame and sorrow say, 'Bear My cross;'
My song saith, 'Win the crown;'
My guerdon saith, 'All else is loss;'
My patience saith, 'Be still,'
Till thou shalt lay the burden down,
Then, when I will.
Then, beloved, the crown and palm,
And then the music and the psalm;
And the cup of joy My Hand shall fill
Till it overflow;
And with singing I strike the harp of gold
I have tuned below,
The harp I tune in desolate years
Of sorrow and tears,
Till a music sweet the chords repeat,
Which all the heavens shall fill;
For the holy courts of God made meet,
Then, when I will."
A fivefold Song of the Soul to God, and how God is a Robe of the
Soul, and the Soul a robe of God.
Thou hast shone within this soul of mine,
As the sun on a shrine of gold;
When I rest my heart, O Lord, on Thine,
My bliss is manifold.
My soul is the gem on Thy diadem,
And my marriage robe Thou art;
If aught could sever my heart from Thine,
The sorrow beyond all sorrows were mine,
Alone and apart.
Could I not find Thy love below,
Then would my soul as a pilgrim go
To Thy holy land above;
There would I love Thee as I were fain,
With everlasting love.
Now have I sung my tuneless song,
But I hearken, Lord, for Thine;
Then shall a music, sweet and strong,
Pass into mine.
"I am the Light, and the lamp thou art;
The River, and thou the thirsty land;
To thee thy sighs have drawn My heart,
And ever beneath Thee is My hand.
And when thou weepest, it needs must be
Within Mine arms that encompass thee;
Thy heart from Mine can none divide,
For one are, the Bridegroom and the Bride:
It is sweet, beloved, for Me and thee,
To wait for the day that is to be."
O Lord, with hunger and thirst I wait,
With longing before Thy golden gate,
Till the day shall dawn,
When from Thy lips divine have passed
The sacred words that none may hear
But the soul who, loosed from the earth at last,
Hath laid her ear
To the Mouth that speaks in the still sweet morn
Apart and alone;
Then shall the secret of love be told,
The mystery known.
The Lord giveth a tenfold Honour to the Soul.
The mouth of the Lord hath spoken,
Hath spoken a mighty word;
My sinful heart it hath broken,
Yet sweeter I never heard.
"Thou, thou art, O soul, My deep desire,
And My love's eternal bliss;
Thou art the rest where leaneth My breast,
And My mouth's most holy kiss.
Thou art the treasure I sought and found,
Rejoicing over thee;
I dwell in thee, and with thee I am crowned,
And thou dost dwell in Me.
Thou art joined to Me, O Mine own, for ever,
And nearer thou canst not be;
Shall aught on earth or in heaven sever
Myself from Me?"
Between God and the Soul only Love.
'Twixt God and thee but love shall be,
'Twixt earth and thee distrust and fear,
'Twixt sin and thee shall be hate and war,
And hope shall be 'twixt heaven and thee,
Till night is o'er.
How God maketh the Soul to be Free and Wise in His Love.
My love, My dove, thy feet are red,
Thy wings are strong, thy mouth is sweet,
Thine eyes are fair, erect thy head,
Beside the waters dost thou tread,
Thy flight is far and fleet.
O Lord, the Blood that hath ransomed me
Hath dyed my feet;
With Thy faithfulness my wings are strong,
With Thy Spirit my mouth is sweet.
And my eyes are fair with the light of God,
And safe in Thy shelter I lift my head,
And beside the waters of life I tread,
I follow where Thou hast trod;
And my flight is swift, for Thy love hath need
Of me, Lord, even me.
When from the earthly prison freed
My soul shall be;
Then shall she rest through the ages blest,
O Lord, in Thee.
The Road wherein the Soul leadeth the Senses, and where
the Soul is Free from Care.
It is a wondrous and a lofty road
Wherein the faithful soul must tread;
And by the seeing there the blind are led,
The senses by the soul acquaint with God.
On that high path the soul is free,
She knows no care nor ill,
For all God wills desireth she,
And blessed is His will.
How the Bride casts away the Solace of Created Things, and seeks
only the Comfort of God.
Thus speaks the Bride, whose feet have trod
The chamber of eternal rest,
The secret treasure-house of God,
Where God is manifest:
"Created things, arise and flee,
Ye are but sorrow and care to me."
This wide, wide world, so rich and fair,
Thou sure canst find thy solace there?
"Nay, 'neath the flowers the serpent glides,
Amidst the bravery envy hides."
And is not heaven enough for thee?
"Were God not there 'twere a tomb to me."
O Bride, the saints in glory shine,
Can they not fill that heart of thine?
"Nay, were the Lamb, their light, withdrawn,
The saints in gloom would weep and mourn."
Can the Son of God not comfort thee?
"Yea, Christ and none besides for me!
For mine is a soul of noble birth,
That needeth more than heaven and earth;
And the breath of God must draw me in
To the Heart that was riven for my sin.
For the Sun of the Godhead pours His rays
Through the crystal depths of His manhood's grace;
And the Spirit sent by Father and Son
Hath filled my soul, and my heart hath won;
And the longing and love are past and gone,
For all that is less than God alone--
God only, sweet to this heart of mine--
O wondrous death that is life divine!"
Of Love, the Handmaiden of the Soul, and of the Soul whom
Love hath Smitten.
Of old, beloved damsel,
My handmaid thou wouldst be;
But thy ways are strange and wondrous,
Thou hast chased and captured me.
Thou hast wounded me right sore,
Thou hast smitten me amain,
And I know that never more
Can my heart be whole again.
Can the hand that has wounded heal?
Or slay, if no balm there be?
Else had it been for my weal
Thou wert all unknown to me.
"I chased thee, for so was my will;
I captured thee, for my need;
I bound thee, and bind thee still,
For I would not have thee freed;
I wounded thee sore, that for evermore
Thou shouldest live by my life alone:
When I smote thee, mine wert thou life and limb;
I drave the Almighty God from His throne,
Of the life of His manhood despoiled I Him.
I brought Him back in glorious might
To the Father in heaven's eternal light;
And thou, poor worm, shouldst thou go free,
As if my hand had not smitten thee?"
Be thou in Suffering a Lamb, a Dove, and a Bride.
Thou art My Lamb in patience dumb,
My Dove in sighing for Me,
My Bride in waiting till I shall come
In the day that is to be.
Of the Two Golden Chalices of Sorrow and of Comfort.
I, slothful sinner that I am, knelt down at my hour of prayer, and it
seemed to me as if God were unwilling to give me the least measure of His
grace. Then would I fain have wept and mourned, because of my sinful
desires; for it seemed to me that they were the hindrance to my spiritual
gladness.
But no, said my soul, think rather of the faithfulness of God, and praise
Him for His goodness. Glory be to God in the highest!
And as I praised, there shone a great light into my soul; and in the
light, God showed Himself to me in great majesty, and in unspeakable
glory. And it was as if He held up in His hands two golden chalices, and
both were full of living wine. In the left hand was the red wine, the
wine of sorrow, and in the right hand the most holy consolation. Then did
the Lord say, "There are some who drink of this wine alone, although I
pour out both in My divine love. Yet the golden wine is in itself the
noblest, and most noble are those who drink of both, the red wine and the
golden."
The Working of Blessed Love.
It were bitterer than death to me if ever I did that which is good,
without God.
This is the nature of the great love which is of God. She does not flow
forth in tears, but burns in the great fire of heavenly glory. And thus
she spreads to the farthest distances, and yet remains in herself
steadfast and still. She rises up into the nearest converse with God, and
remains in herself in the lowest measure. She grasps the most, and
retains the least.
O blessed Love, who are they who know thee? They are those through whom
the light of God glows and burns. They dwell not in themselves. The more
they are tried, the stronger they grow. Why so? Because the longer they
are in conflict, yet abiding in love, the more glorious is God to their
souls, and the more do they see themselves to be unworthy and vile.
Why so? Because the greater the love, the greater is holy fear; and the
fuller the comfort, the stronger the dread of sin. The loving soul does
not fear with terror, but she fears nobly. There are two things over
which I cannot mourn enough--one is, that God is so forgotten in the
world; the other, that His people are so imperfect. Therefore many fall,
because the godly have fallen before them.
How God speaks to the Soul in Three Places.
In the first of these places does the devil also speak, which he cannot
do in the other two.
The first place is the mind of man, and this stands open not to God only,
but to the devil and to all creatures, who enter in as they will, and
hold converse with the soul through the mind.
The second place in which God speaks, is in the soul itself. And into the
soul none can enter but God only. When God speaks to the soul, it is
without the aid of the senses. It is in a mighty, strong, and swift
communication, in a speech the mind cannot comprehend, unless the mind is
so humbled as to take the lowest place amongst created things.
The third place where God speaks with the soul is in heaven, when God
draws the soul up thither, and brings her into His secret place, where He
shows her all His wonders.
Of False Love.
All, who do not in all things cleave to the truth of God, must fall with
bitter loss. For love, which has not humility for her mother, and holy
fear for her father, will be a barren love.
Matilda's Faith.
Thus far in the five first books of Matilda's writings can we trace the
history of her soul before she found her last refuge in the convent of
Hellfde.
Preger's remarks are valuable as showing how Matilda, in expressions
which she borrowed from the common stock of the writings of the mystics,
as well as in expressions of her own, might appear to have wandered into
the regions of Pantheism. That she herself attached a meaning to these
expressions, which those who were simply mystics, and not believers in
Christ as their Saviour, could not understand, seems, however, clear. But
the expressions were open to the danger of being thus misunderstood. To
those who were mystics, and nothing more, intercourse with God was a
vague sentiment; and what they called the love of God, was merely a name
given to their own human thoughts of God, the God of their imagination.
But Matilda insisted strongly upon the truth, that there is no way to God
but through the Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour of sinners. That otherwise
all communication between the soul and God is cut off, "the bolt fastened
by Adam" holding fast the door between God and men.
In speaking of some (no doubt the "Brethren of the Free Spirit"), she
mentions as the greatest sin, and as the highest degree of unbelief, that
"men should think to enter into the presence of the eternal God, passing
by the holy Manhood of our Lord Jesus Christ. When such people imagine
themselves to have entered into communication with the being of God, they
enter instead into eternal condemnation. And yet by that means they
intend to become holier than others. They set at nought and deride the
words of God, which are written regarding the Manhood of our Lord."
Thus to an unbelieving mystic, the term "union with God" was familiar,
and meant nothing better than the dreams of a Buddhist. But to Matilda,
though she did not, and no doubt could not, clearly define it, the truth
was revealed, expressed in so few words in the fifth chapter of the
Epistle to the Ephesians, where, with reference to Christ and the Church,
it is written, "He that loveth his wife loveth _himself_. For no man ever
yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth it and cherisheth it, even as the
Lord the Church: for we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His
bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall
be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great
mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the Church." And again, in 1
Cor. xii. 12, "As the body is one, and hath many members, and all the
members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also _is Christ_."
That this truth, taught so plainly in many passages of Scripture, notably
by the Lord Himself in the one word which smote the heart of Paul, "Why
persecutest thou _Me_?" was the truth Matilda believed, seems to be
clear. But she was apt to use, when speaking of it, the stereotyped
expression "union with God," not perceiving that this is untrue, and
incapable of being symbolised, as in Ephesians, by the figure of Adam and
Eve. It is not Christ as God, but as the second Adam, who is there
symbolised.
Many such incorrect expressions may, no doubt, be found now in modern
Protestant books.[9]
Preger further remarks, "If we would describe religious life, as shown in
Matilda, by its distinctive features, we should remark, in the first
place, that she is seeking after a consciousness, or is, in fact,
conscious of being in immediate intercourse with God. Whilst the majority
of her contemporaries knew of no relation with God, except through
culture or learning, or the medium of saints, or the ordinances of the
Church, and were satisfied to know no more, Matilda looked upon all these
things merely as helps to personal and immediate communion with God. This
alone could satisfy her.
"And further, she was aware that into this communion with God she could
only be brought through God's free grace. And only by free grace could
she retain it. It is true she speaks of human merit, and alludes to the
intercession of Mary, but in so doing was rather expressing the ruling
thoughts of her age than her own innermost convictions. For it is only in
speaking of others that she admits the merit of human works; she has
another law for herself, finding, as she says, no peace in the good works
of the saints, 'and as for me, unhappily I have no good works to find
peace in.'
"That which is the important matter with regard to Matilda's faith is
this--she grounds her peace not on imparted, but on imputed
righteousness. 'It is a fathomless mystery,' she says, 'that God can look
upon a sinner as a converted man.'
"But in spite of this evangelical tendency in her writings, we cannot but
receive the impression that in the heights of her communion with God she
at times loses the safe path. The reason of this is, that the subordinate
place which she gives to all relations between God and men by Church
ordinances is also given more or less to the knowledge of God by means of
the written Word. It does not appear to be the ring in which her new life
is set; it would seem as though she endeavoured to soar above it, in
order to assure herself more firmly of her state of grace by immediate
communications from God to her soul.
"Therefore she seems in some passages to regard the written Word and the
Divine Word spoken to her as distinct, and on the same level. Thus, as in
mysticism generally, the safe path is lost, and the soul is cast forth
upon the wide sea of subjective self-consciousness.
"We feel the presentiment of this danger, and the need of a safer path,
in which the security of Divine teaching is ours. This can only be when
the written Word is the seed of Divine knowledge, and the faculties of
man the ground in which the seed takes root."
So far Preger. It may also be remarked, that whilst Matilda evidently
grounded her salvation and enjoyment of God upon the atoning work of
Christ, she does not allude to it very frequently. We must remember that
amongst all the errors of mediaeval Catholicism, the blood-shedding of
Christ was still regarded as the means by which sin was expiated. It was
still an article of faith, though disfigured, and often kept out of sight
by all that man had added to the Scriptures.
Matilda, therefore, regarded it as an understood necessity in Christian
faith, and as not demanding frequent assertion or proof. Had she lived in
our days it might have been otherwise.
That "Christ once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He
might bring us to God," was a truth known and believed amongst the
"Friends of God," Catholic or Waldensian. That "it is the Blood that
maketh atonement for the soul," that "without shedding of Blood there is
_no remission_," that on Christ, the Lamb who was slain, did "the Lord
lay the iniquity of us all," they knew, and rejoiced to know. However
overlaid in Roman Catholicism by the teaching of human merit, and of the
mediation and intercession of the saints, this truth was preserved
through God's great mercy in the corruption of the Church. It may be
found yet as the anchor of the soul in the confession of faith of many an
ignorant and unlearned Roman Catholic, who know little of the doctrines
of their Church, but who do know from their service-books that "Christ
died for our sins."
The three have ever borne witness on earth, the Spirit, the Water, and
the Blood, and these three agree in one--a witness never silenced through
the darkest ages of the Church.
It was during the last years of Matilda's life that she wrote for "the
children of the world" a call to Christ.
Wilt thou, sinner, be converted?
Christ, the Lord of glory, see
By His own denied, deserted,
Bleeding, bound, and scourged for thee.
Look again, O soul, behold Him
On the cross uplifted high;
See the precious life-blood flowing,
See the tears that dim His eye.
Love has pierced the heart that brake,
Loveless sinner, for thy sake:
Hearken till thy heart is broken
To His cry so sad and sweet;
Hearken to the hammer smiting
Nails that pierce His hands and feet.
See the side whence flows the fountain
Of His love and life divine,
Riven by a hand unthankful--
Lo! that hand is thine.
See the crown of thorns adorning
God's beloved holy Son,
Then fall down in bitter mourning,
Weep for that which _thou_ hast done.
Thank Him that His heart was willing
So to die for love to thee;
Thank Him for the joy that maketh
This world's joy but gall to be.
And till thou in heaven adore Him
Fight for Him in knightly guise;
Joy in shame and toil and sorrow,
Glorious is the prize!
The Echo of the Book.
Matilda had a friend, called Jutta von Sangershausen. A relation of hers,
Anno von Sangershausen, was the Grand-Master of the Teutonic Order of
Knights. Other members of the family had offered their services to the
order in defence of their country from the invasions of the heathen
Prussians.
Jutta's husband had died on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Her children
entered various convents. Jutta then joined herself to the Beguines, and
was employed for a time in nursing the sick, especially those afflicted
with leprosy. In the year 1260 she determined to go forth as a missionary
amongst the Prussians. She took up her abode in a forest near Culm, where
she lived as a hermitess, making known the faith of Christ by word and
example.
Matilda for a time resolved to go also as a missionary to the heathen.
But she was now growing old, and worn-out by labours and persecutions. It
was evident that she no longer had the needful strength. She was grieved
to the heart that she could not thus make Christ known, and she laid the
matter before the Lord.
He consoled her, and showed her that as He had sent Jutta to the heathen,
so had He also given her His message, which should be sent far and wide
in the book which she was writing.
And so it proved, as her book was widely known and read for a
considerable time after her death. Even now it may be that the words so
lately brought to light in the convent of Einsiedeln may lead some weary
souls to Christ. And still the reflection of the light which shone into
the heart of Matilda shines forth more faintly in the poem known and read
through so many ages, and in so many lands--the great poem of Dante.
It is now more than seventy years ago that a young man travelling in
Italy employed himself at Venice in reading the _Divine Commedia_, for
the sake of learning Italian. He had cared till then for the things of
this world only, but he left Venice with the first beginning of a love
which was to shape his long life, and make him the means of life to many.
It was from the poem of Dante, he said, that he had first learnt to know
Christ as his Saviour. He may be known to many as the writer of the hymn
so often sung--
"A pilgrim through this lonely world
The blessed Saviour passed;
A mourner all His life was He,
A dying Lamb at last"--
a distant echo of Matilda's voice sounding in many places still.
What was it that Dante learnt, or believed that he learnt, from the lady
whose joyful singing sounded to him across the river of forgetfulness,
whose eyes shone with a light greater than that of earthly love?
She explained to him her joy by the words of that psalm, the
ninety-second, which forms a key-note to the poems of the Beguine
Matilda, of her to whom the Lord had taught "the song and the music of
heaven," whom He had made glad through _His_ work, who triumphed in the
work of His hands.
It was in the work "wrought in the land of the Jews," the great work that
"loosed the bolt with which Adam had barred the heavenly door," that
Matilda the Beguine rejoiced, showing forth the Lord's lovingkindness in
the morning, and his faithfulness every night--the work which "the
brutish man knoweth not, neither doth the fool understand it," for "the
preaching of the Cross is to them that perish foolishness," "the
foolishness of God that is wiser than men."
In the work which brought her into the "sweet garden of Paradise," where
she was no more a stranger, which had won for her the right to eat of the
Tree of Life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God, and to pluck
the flowers, which were hers, because they were Christ's.
It may truly be said that if there is anything distinctive in the writing
of Matilda the Beguine, it is that she wrote from her own experience of
the gladness of the heavenly place, revealed to her whilst yet in the
body on the earth. She had learnt that there is an "earthly Paradise,"
earthly not because it is of the earth, but because it is a foretaste and
earnest of the heavenly, given to those who are still pilgrims upon the
earth.
To reach it the river had to be crossed, wherein the old things pass
away, and all things become new; where the things that are behind are
forgotten, and the things that are before become the possession, by
faith, of the redeemed soul. Her sins were amongst the forgotten things,
for God remembered them no more, and the sorrow of the earth was
forgotten, swallowed up in the tide of eternal joy, and
"The longing and love were past and gone,
For all that is less than God alone."
Thus, in the poem of Dante, does Matelda draw him through the water of
the river at the moment when the remembrance of his sin had stung him at
the heart, so that he fell overpowered and helpless and ashamed. It
needed that the sin should be left behind amongst the former things that
had passed away.
Those who have known the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, the Fountain
opened for sin and for uncleanness, will gladly own that this is the true
Christian experience of the saints of God--the land of Canaan beyond the
river, reached and entered before the warfare and the trial of faith are
over; the Father's house become a familiar place before the murmuring of
the self-righteous is for ever silenced.
Did Dante know it as the Beguine knew it? Was it in his case but a vague
sense of a place of joy and beauty which the soul might find on this side
of heaven? Did he know that the river was a river of death--the death
which is the death of deaths, "in the land of the Jews" so long ago?
We cannot know. It needs the simple faith of those who have become fools
that they may be wise. Then does the garden of the Lord become a blessed
reality, no dreamland, but an eternal inheritance.
The Beguine had seen by faith her name engraved on the pierced Hands and
Feet of Christ. Should she not rejoice and sing? Should she not praise
Him that He was wounded for her transgressions, that He was bruised for
her iniquities, that the chastisement of her peace was upon Him, that by
His stripes she was healed? And thus she knew that her "robe was white,
for Christ's was white, and brighter than the sun."
How far this was the experience of Dante, his poem does not tell us. But
he knew that there was an earthly Paradise, and it seems all but certain
that in Matilda's book he had found one who was rejoicing there with
unspeakable joy.
The remarks of Preger in his lecture on Dante's Matelda confirm the
thought that this is the true key to his description of the beautiful
lady, whose appearance formed the great era in his spiritual life. The
song taken from the words of the fifty-first Psalm, "Wash me and I shall
be whiter than snow," the introduction into the knowledge of heavenly
things, are but an echo of the songs of the Beguine.
But the heavenly things of Dante are far more clouded with the evil
teaching of his age than the heavenly experiences of Matilda of
Magdeburg. The glory of the Catholic Church, rather than the glory of
Christ, is the light that lightens his heavenly Paradise. It was the Lamb
who was the light of Matilda's heaven. In the bewildering medley of
Catholic and heathen mythologies in Dante's poem, it is only here and
there that a gleam of the true light can make its way. But Matilda the
Beguine rose above the clouds and mists of man's imagination, and she saw
Jesus.
Preger refers us to the ordinary explanation of Matelda and Beatrice;
namely, that like Leah and Rachel in mediaeval theology, they represent
the life of action and the life of contemplation.
This theory as regards Matelda was, as Preger observes, founded on the
idea that the Countess Matilda of Tuscany was the Matelda of Dante. That
the warlike countess was a fair specimen of activity, we cannot doubt;
but that it had any resemblance to Christian activity, is more than
doubtful. Probably the identity of name was the only foundation of this
idea.
"It is true," writes Preger, "that Dante saw these two women prefigured
in a dream as Leah and Rachel, and that Leah said, referring to her
sister, 'Her seeing, and me doing, satisfies.' But that therefore doing
and seeing are the only characteristics of these women is a conclusion to
which Dante did not advance, nor need we do so. They _both_ looked in the
mirror, but Leah first crowned herself with flowers; and it was after
hearing the call, 'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see
God,' that this dream presented itself to Dante."
Matelda, who corresponds to Leah in the dream, conducts Dante into the
earthly Paradise, and the place accords with the guide. She was not yet
in heaven, the working-day was not yet over, but Matelda was rejoicing,
not in _her_ work, but in _the work of God_. She was glad that the
flowers of His garden were her crown of beauty.