“‘Yes, my Beloved; and I am willing to be brought to nought if Thou willest it.’
“Then, poor creature as I was, I went to my confessor, and told him what the Lord had put into my heart, and asked his counsel. And he said I ought cheerfully to do that to which God had called me. And yet did I weep with shame, seeing before my eyes my great unworthiness, and that God should lead a despicable woman to write the things which come from the heart and mouth of God.”
Then Matilda, as is her wont, runs on into rhyme—
“The love of God has moved my pen,
My book is not from the mind of men.”
And afterwards, she says, “I was warned by some that my book might give much offence, and that it would be burnt as evil teaching. And I turned to my Beloved, as was my wont, and said to Him that if it were so, He had Himself misled me, for it was He who commanded me to write it. Then did He reveal Himself to my sorrowful heart, as if He held the book in His right hand, and said, ‘My beloved one, do not be sorrowful. The truth can be burnt by no man. He who would take it out of My Hand must be stronger than I.’
“And yet I still answered Him, ‘O Lord, if I were a learned clerk to whom Thou hadst shown these wonders, then might I write so as to bring Thee eternal glory. But how can it be that Thou shouldst build a golden house, the house of Thy dwelling place, in a miry pool?’
“And He answered me, that when He gave the gifts of His grace, He sought for the lowest and the smallest and the most unnoticed treasure houses. ‘It is not on the high mountains that men drink of the fountains, for the stream of My Holy Spirit flows downwards to the valleys below. There are many wise in the Scriptures, who are but fools and unlearned in other learning.’”
Further on Matilda says that in the German tongue she found it hard to speak of that which God had shown her, and “of Latin I know nothing. For that which the eye can see, and the ear can hear, and the mouth can speak, is as unlike the truth which is revealed to the soul who loves, as a candle is to the glorious sun. Of the heavenly things which God has shown me I can speak but, as it were, a little word, not more than the honey which a little bee could carry away on his foot from an overflowing vessel.
“And now, Lord, I will commend these writings to Thy tender mercy; and with a heart that sighs, and with eyes that weep, and with a downcast spirit, I pray that they never may be read by a Pharisee, and I pray also that Thy children may so receive them into their hearts, as Thou, O Lord, hast of Thy truth given out of Thy store to me.”