Hours with the Mystics: A Contribution to the History of Religious Opinion

by Robert Alfred Vaughan

1342. January 6.—Alas! that I should have to write what now I must! I forced a way into the crowded church—every part filled with people, wedged in below so that they could not move, clustered like bees where they had climbed above into every available place, and a dense mass in the porch besides. The Doctor came, looking woefully ill, changed as I scarce ever saw a man, to live. He mounted the lectorium, held his cap before his eyes, and said:

‘O merciful and eternal God, if it be thy will, give me so to speak that thy divine name may be praised and honoured, and these men bettered thereby.’

With that he began to weep. We waited, breathless. Still he wept, and could speak no word, his sobs audible in the stillness, and the tears making their way through his fingers as he hid his face in his hands. This continued till the people grew restless. Longer yet, with more manifest discontent. At last a voice cried out from among the people (I think it was that roughspoken Carvel, the butcher), ‘Now then, Sir, how long are we to stop here? It is getting late, if you don’t mean to preach, let us go home.’

I saw that Tauler was struggling to collect himself by prayer, but his emotion became only the more uncontrollable, and at last he said, with a broken voice,—

‘Dear brethren, I am sorry from my heart to have kept you so long, but at this time I cannot possibly speak to you. Pray God for me that he would help me, and I may do better at another time.’

So we went away, and the report thereof was presently all over Strasburg. The snowball had plenty of hands to roll it, and lost nothing by the way. The people, numbers of them, seemed to me with a wicked glee to delight in showing how the learned Doctor had made a fool of himself. Those who had counted him mad before reckoned themselves now little short of prophets. Many such whom I met in the streets looked and spoke with such a hateful triumph of the matter as well nigh put me beside myself. Not so long ago, no one could satisfy them but Tauler; not the name of the most popular of saints oftener on their lips; the very ground he trod on was blessed; a kindly word from his lips food for days—and now the hands stretched out almost in adoration, throw mire on the fallen idol, and not a ‘prentice lad behind his stall but hugs himself in his superior sanity. Had he been a hunter after popularity, what a judgment! Verily that man has the folly of a thousand fools who lives for the applause of the multitude. But I know how Tauler’s heart bled for them.

Friar Bernard came over this evening. He says the superiors are wroth beyond measure with Tauler for the scandal he has brought upon the order, and will forbid him to preach more. Entertained my jovial gauger of monks’ bellies with the best cheer I had—he has a good heart after all, and is unfeignedly sorry for Tauler’s disgrace. Says he thinks the Doctor has fasted and done penance beyond his strength, that the sudden coming out from his cell to preach to such numbers was too much for his weakness,—that he will get over it and be himself again, and much more,—to the hope whereof he pledged me in another glass, and left me not a little comforted.

1342. January. St. Vincent’s Day.—Saw Bernard again, who gives me the good news that Dr. Tauler obtained permission from the prior to deliver a Latin address in the school, and did acquit himself to such admiration, that he is to be allowed to preach in public when he will.

1342. January 23.—Tauler preached to-day in the chapel of the nunnery of St. Agatha, on ‘Behold the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.’ A wondrous discourse—a torrent that seems to make me dizzy yet. As he was describing, more like an angel than a man, the joy of the bride at the approach of the bridegroom, a man cried out, ‘It is true!’ and fell senseless on the floor. As they were about him to bring him to himself, a woman among them shrieked, ‘Oh, stop, sir, stop! or he will die in our arms!’ Whereat he said calmly, and with his face lighted up as though he saw the heavens opened, ‘Ah, dear children, and if the bridegroom will call home the bride, shall we not willingly suffer him? But nevertheless I will make an end.’ Then after sermon he read mass again, and, as I came out, I saw the people gathered about several persons in the court who lay on the ground, as though dead, such had been the power of his words.

1342. February. St. Blasius’ Day.—Now Tauler is continually preaching, not only in the church of his convent, but in those of various monasteries and nunneries, in the Beguinasia, and in the cells wherein little companies of pious women have gathered themselves together to hide from the dangers of the world. He never cited so much Latin as some, now less than heretofore. More alive than ever, it would seem, to our wants, he addresses himself mightily to heart and conscience, which he can bind up or smite at will. His love and care, for the laity most of all, is a marvel; he lives for us, and yet appears to hold himself no greater than the least. Before, there was none like him, now we feel that in heavenliness of nature he has gone beyond his former self. So earnestly does he exhort to active love to man, as well as to perfect resignation to God, that already a new spirit seems to pervade many, and they begin to care for others, as he tells us the first Christians did. He tells them mere prayers, and mass, and alms, and penance, will help them nothing unless the Holy Spirit breathes life into them. He says the priests are not of necessity better men because they oftener taste the Lord’s body, that outward things such as those profit nothing alone, and that those who love their fellows most are the truest instructors, and teach more wisely than all the schools.