The most lengthy this of all Ruysbroeck's works. It consists of a mystic interpretation, a long-drawn-out allegory, in which the Tabernacle of the Old Testament is considered as a type of the course of love. The outer and the inner courts, the altar of sacrifice, the hangings, the pillars and their sockets, the rings, the names of the workmen, the seven-branch candlestick, the brazen laver, the priestly ornaments, the ephod and the twelve stones, the holy oils and the incense, the table of the loaves of proposition, the different sacrifices with the distinction between the clean and the unclean animals, the holy of holies, the ark and its appurtenances,--all are applied with a wealth of detail, which, however, never lacks dignity, and with a wondrous skill to Ruysbroeck's usual three divisions of the exterior moral life, the interior, and the purely contemplative. The Tabernacle was a subject which naturally lent itself to allegory and to mystic interpretation, and Hugh of St. Victor had already preceded our author, as doubtless also he inspired him with his _De Arca mystica_. Though sometimes the thread is lost in the multiplicity of details, this treatise is most attractive and contains some of the best pages of Blessed Ruysbroeck. Of the Seven Cloisters This was composed for a penitent of our Saint, Margaret von Meerbeke, a Poor Clare of Brussels, and it gives a rule of life for Religious. The holy Prior traces out an order of the day, insisting especially on the need of cultivating the interior life; he mentions the virtues which his penitent should exercise, and inveighs against the abuses which have crept into convents, pointing out the danger of communication with the outer world. In all things Margaret should imitate the example of her foundress, St. Clare, who gained her glorious place in Heaven by shutting herself up within the seven cloisters. After dwelling on these, viz., by expounding seven means of retreating from the world and living close to God, the author turns again to practical details and condemns the softness and luxury of certain Religious in their dress. Each day, he says, should close with a peep into three books: the book of our own conscience, which shows the imperfections which must be purified; the book of the Life and Passion of our Lord, which we should imitate; and finally the book of eternal life, to which we ought to tend with all our strength. The Mirror of Eternal Life