moved to institute this Order of Regulars chiefly by his singular reverence and love for the venerable Dom John Ruysbroeck, the first Prior of Groenendael, and of the other most exemplary Brethren living there religiously in the Regular Order.”

For further information concerning the Devout Brothers and the Windesheim Canons the reader is referred to the various works which have been published of late years on the Venerable à Kempis.^[5] Both Brothers and Canons were living examples of the mystic teachings of Ruysbroeck put to the test of daily practice. Flight from the pleasures and vanities of the world, unbounded humility, constant meditation on the life and especially the Passion of Jesus Christ, the most complete and absolute abandonment to the Divine Will, an intense devotion full of the personal love of God—these were the salient points of Blessed John’s example and doctrine, perpetuated and propagated by the works, words, and writings of the Windesheim Canons Regular and their secular associates, the Brothers of the Common Life. It is scarcely needful to remark also that these are the chief features of the teaching of the Imitation of Christ, that golden little treatise, which, embodying the whole spirit of the School of Windesheim and Groenendael, has carried and still carries light, healing, and consolation to thousands upon thousands who have never so much as heard of either Windesheim or John Ruysbroeck.^[6]

It may be mentioned here that in 1409 the Priory of Groenendael was instituted the Mother-house of a congregation of that name. But a few years later this congregation, with its dependent Priories, was affiliated to the more numerous Windesheim Canons. Thus the twin institutes were merged into one, and the Windesheim Congregation became the direct heir of the virtues and teaching of Blessed John Ruysbroeck. But finally Windesheim was aggregated to the Lateran Congregation of Canons Regular; and thus it is that to-day the Canons Regular of the Lateran are privileged, with the clergy of Mechlin, to keep with proper Office and Mass the Feast of Blessed John Ruysbroeck.

Connected thus intimately with Gerard Groote and Tauler, it is not surprising that Ruysbroeck shares with these, as with à Kempis, Suso, and others, the doubtful honour of being proclaimed in certain quarters as a precursor of the sixteenth-century “Reformation.” In support of this position it is easy enough to gather together expressions of the most poignant sorrow and of the most bitter invective for the lax morality of clergy and laity, mendicant friars, and highly placed prelates. But the same argument would convict several Popes of being heralds of Luther! Not to labour the point at unnecessary length in a non-controversial work of this kind, let it suffice to mention the touchstone which never fails to distinguish the genuine reformer from the mere sectarian: while boldly attacking the vices of those in office, Blessed John Ruysbroeck never assails the office itself. He always speaks in the most submissive and reverent terms of the authority of the Church and of the dignity of the priesthood. His writings without exception treat in the orthodox sense on the subject of grace, the sacraments, etc. We have already remarked his ardent devotion towards the Blessed Eucharist. To this may be added a most tender love for the Virgin Mother of God. Note, finally, his frequent and fervent exhortations to the perfect observance of the three vows of religion, and one can imagine how comfortable he would feel in the company, say, of Luther and his renegade nun!

XI
The Writings of Ruysbroeck

Blessed John’s writings cannot be called voluminous, and yet for a purely contemplative author they are comparatively considerable. The list of his works authenticated up to the present—for earnest students are at work, and other MSS. may yet be discovered—comprises the following, giving an English equivalent for the Old Flemish or Latin titles: (1) The Kingdom of the Lovers of God; (2) The Splendour of the Spiritual Espousals; (3) The Brilliant; (4) Of Four Subtle Temptations; (5) Of the Christian Faith; (6) Of the Spiritual Tabernacle; (7) Of the Seven Cloisters; (8) The Mirror of Eternal Life, or, a Treatise on the Blessed Sacrament; (9) The Seven Degrees of Spiritual Love; (10) Of the Supreme Truth; (11) The Twelve Béguines. And these others are less certainly proved to be his: (12) Of the Twelve Virtues; (13) Seven Letters; (14) A Summary of the Spiritual Life; (15) Two Canticles; (16) A Short Prayer.

Pending a complete and faithful English rendering of all these works, the following descriptive analysis of the principal of them may not prove unacceptable.

The Kingdom of the Lovers of God

This treatise is a detailed interpretation and a mystic application of the text adapted from Wisdom x. 10: Justum deduxit Dominus per vias rectus et ostendit illi regnum Dei in the Breviary Office of a Confessor. Upon these words Ruysbroeck bases a division of his work into five books. The first book treats of God, Dominus, His power and sovereignty. In the second Blessed John explains how Christ conducted, deduxit, man into the liberty of the children of God, chiefly by redemption and by the institution of the seven Sacraments. In the third he treats of the just man, justum, and works out eight items which render a man just, both in the active and in the contemplative life. The fourth book expounds the right ways, vias rectas, which lead to the Kingdom of God: the exterior way, namely, the material universe of three heavens and four elements, the contemplation of which should excite man to the praise of the Creator; the way of natural light, the acquisition of the seven virtues; finally, the supernatural and divine way, the infusion of the supernatural virtues and the gifts of the Holy Ghost. In the last book we have a disquisition on the kingdom of God, ostendit illi regnum Dei, of which we are told there are five aspects or divisions: the sensible kingdom, exterior to God, in which the author finds scope for a description of the last judgment and the qualities of risen bodies, the kingdom of nature, the kingdom of the Scriptures, the kingdom of grace and of glory, and finally the Divine Kingdom itself, which is God. This treatise is full of reflections and considerations of the most elevated order, and there is much therein that is by no means easy to grasp or understand.

The Splendour of the Spiritual Espousals

For his text Ruysbroeck takes Matt. xxv. 6, Ecce, sponsus venit, exite obviam ei. He makes a division into three books, treating respectively of the active, the interior, and the contemplative life. Each book is further subdivided into four parts, corresponding to the four divisions of the text in each stage of perfection as follows. Ruysbroeck expounds and illustrates (1) the rôle of the vision, ecce; man must turn his eyes to God; (2) the divers comings of the Bridegroom,