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

by Robert Alfred Vaughan

‘When I came back to the inn, knowing nothing of all this, the host told me what had befallen Peter, and how this evil rumour had stirred up the whole fair against me. I hastened off to the bailiff to beg Peter’s release. He refused. I spent nearly the whole day in trying to prevail with him, and in going about in vain to get bail. At last, about vesper time, with a heavy sum of gulden I opened the heart of the bailiff and the doors of the jail.

‘Then my greatest troubles began. As I passed through the village, hoping to escape unknown, I was recognised by some of the mob, and in a moment they were swarming about me. ‘Down with the poisoner!’ they cried. ‘His gold shall not serve him with us as it did with the bailiff.’ I ran a little way, but they closed me in again, some saying, ‘Drown him in the Rhine;’ others answering, ‘No, burn him! he’ll poison the whole river if you throw him in.’ Then I saw (methinks I see him now) a gigantic peasant in a russet jerkin, forcing his way through the crowd, with a pike in his hand. Seizing me by the throat with one hand, and flourishing the pike in the other, he shouted, ‘Hear me, all of you. Let me spit him with my long pike, like a poisonous toad, and then plant it in this stout hedge here, and let the caitiff howl and twist in the air till his soul goes home to the devil. Then every one that goes by will see his withered carcass, rotting and wasting, and sink him deeper down in hell with curses. Come on,—it serves him right.’

‘My brain swam round. I closed my eyes. I expected the next instant to feel the iron. By some merciful interposition, the wretch was not suffered to execute his purpose. I thought I saw some of the better sort looking on with horror-stricken faces, but they dared not interfere. The women shrieked and wrung their hands. I made my way from one to another of those who seemed least pitiless, beseeching them to save me. Heaven must have heard my cries, though man did not. They stood round watching me, disputing with horrid oaths among themselves what they should do. At length—as I had sunk on my knees under the hedge, praying for deliverance—I saw a priest, more like an angel than a man, mightily thrusting them from side to side, and when he reached me, laying his hand on my arm, he looked round on the ring of savage faces, and threatened them with the hottest curses of the Church if they harmed a hair upon the head of her servant; outvoiced their angry cries with loud rebukes of their cowardice, cruelty, and sacrilege, and led me out safely through them all. He brought me to his house, made fast the doors, refreshed and sheltered me for the night, and by the earliest dawn I was away and safe upon my journey, while that abode of the wicked was sunk in its drunken sleep. I keep the anniversary of that dreadful day, and never shall I cease to praise the goodness which answered my prayer in the hour of need, and delivered me as a bird from the snare of the fowler.[^[169]]

‘On one other occasion only,’ continued Suso, ‘did I taste so nearly the bitterness of death.’

We begged him to tell us the adventure, and so he did, somewhat thus—

‘I was once on my way home from Flanders, travelling up the Rhine. A great feebleness and sickness had been upon me for some days, so that I could not walk fast, and my companion, young and active, had gone on about two miles ahead. I entered an old forest whose trees overhung the steep river bank. It was evening, and it seemed to grow dark in a moment as I entered the chilling shadow of a wood, in which many a defenceless passenger had been robbed and slain. I had gone on deeper and deeper into the growing gloom, the wind among the pines sounding like a hungry sea. The fall of my own footsteps seemed like the tread of one coming after me. I stood still and hearkened. It was no one; when suddenly I saw, not far off among the trees, two persons, a man and a woman, talking together and watching me. I trembled in every limb, but I made the sign of the cross, and passed on. Soon I heard quick footsteps behind me. I turned—it was the woman. She was young and fair to look on. She asked my name, and when she learnt it, said she knew and reverenced me greatly, told me how that robber with whom I saw her had forced her to become his wife, and prayed me there and then to hear her confession.

‘When I had shriven her, think how my fear was heightened to see her go back and talk long and earnestly with the robber, whose brow grew dark, as he left her without a word, and advanced gloomily towards where I stood. It was a narrow pathway; on the one side the forest, on the other the precipice, sheer down to the rapid river. Alas, thought I, as my heart sank within me, now I am lost. I have not strength to flee: no one will hear a cry for help: he will slay me, and hide the body in the wood. All was still. I listened in vain for the sound of a boat, a voice, or even the bark of a dog. I only heard the feet of the outlaw and the violent beating of my own heart. But, lo! when he approached me, he bowed his knee, and began to confess. Blessed Mary, what a black catalogue! While he spake I heard, motionless, every word of the horrible recital, and yet I was all the time listening for rescue, watching his face, and minutely noting every little thing about his person. I remember the very graining of the wood of his lance which he laid aside on the grass when he knelt to me—the long knife in his belt—his frayed black doublet—his rough red hair, growing close down to his shaggy eyebrows—two great teeth that stood out like tusks—and his hands clasped, covered with warts, and just the colour of the roots of the tree by which I stood. Even during those fearful moments, I can call to mind distinctly how I marked a little shining insect that was struggling among the blades of grass, climbing over a knot of wood, and that got upon a fir-cone and fell off upon its back.

‘After revealing to me crimes that made my blood run cold, he went on to say, ‘I was once in this forest, just about this hour of the day, on the look-out for booty as I was this evening, when I met a priest, to whom I confessed myself. He was standing just where you are now, and when my shrift was ended, I drew out this knife, stabbed him to the heart, and rolled his body down there into the Rhine.’ When I heard this, the cold sweat burst out upon my face; I staggered back giddy, almost senseless, against the tree. Seeing this, the woman ran up, and caught me in her arms, saying, ‘Good sir, fear nothing, he will not kill you.’ Whereat the murderer said, ‘I have heard much good of you, and that shall save your life to-day. Pray for me, good father, that, through you, a miserable sinner may find mercy in his last hour.’ At this I breathed again, and promised to do as he would have me. Then we walked on some way together, till they parted from me, and I reached the skirts of the wood, where sat my companion waiting. I could just stagger up to him, and then fell down at his side, shivering like a man with the ague. After some time I arose, and we went on our way. But I failed not, with strong inward groaning, to plead with the Lord for the poor outlaw, that he might find grace and escape damnation. And, in sooth, I had so strong an assurance vouchsafed to me of God, that I could not doubt of his final salvation.’

With stories such as these of what befel himself, and many others, whom he knew in Suabia and the Oberland, or met with on his journeys, the holy man whiled away our windy March nights by the ingle. Very edifying it was to hear him and Rulman Merswin talk together about the higher experiences of the inward life.

Concerning the stages thereof, Suso said that the first consisted in turning away from the world and the lusts of the flesh to God: the second, in patient endurance of all that is contrary to flesh and blood, whether inflicted of God or man: the third, in imitating the sufferings of Christ, and forming ourselves after his sweet doctrine, gracious walk, and pure life. After this, the soul must withdraw itself into a profound stillness, as if the man were dead, willing and purposing nought but the glory of Christ and our heavenly Father, and with a right lowly demeanour toward friend and foe. Then the spirit, thus advanced in holy exercise, arriveth at freedom from the outward senses, before so importunate; and its higher powers lose themselves in a supernatural sensibility. Here the spirit parts with its natural properties, presses within the circle which represents the eternal Godhead, and reaches spiritual perfection. It is made free by the Son in the Son.