§ 114.2. =Mystics of Upper Germany after Eckhart.=--A noble band of mystics arose during the 14th and 15th centuries influenced by Eckhart’s writings, who carefully avoided pantheistic extremes by giving a thoroughly practical direction to their speculation. Nearest to Eckhart stands the author of “=The German Theology=,” in which the master’s principles are nobly popularized and explained. Luther, who took it for a work of Tauler, and published it in A.D. 1516, characterized it as “a noble little book, showing what Adam and Christ are, and how Adam should die and Christ live in us.” In the most complete MS. of this tract, found in A.D. 1850, the author is described as a “Friend of God.”--The Dominican =John Tauler= was born at Strassburg, studied at Paris, and came into connection with Eckhart, whose mysticism, without its pantheistic tendencies, he adopted. When Strassburg was visited with the Black Death, he laboured as preacher and pastor among the stricken with heroic devotion. Though the city was under an interdict (§ 110, 3), the Dominicans persisted for a whole year in reading mass, and were stopped only by the severe threats of the master of their order. The magistrates gave them the alternative either to discharge their official duties or leave the city. Tauler now, in A.D. 1341, retired to Basel, and afterwards to Cologne. In A.D. 1437 we find him again in Strassburg, where he died in A.D. 1361. His thirty sermons, with some other short tracts, appeared at Leipzig in A.D. 1498. The most important of all Tauler’s works is, “The Imitation of the Poverty of Christ.” It was thought to be of French authorship, but is now admitted to be Tauler’s.[337]--=Rulman Merswin=, a rich merchant of Strassburg, in his fortieth year, A.D. 1347, with his wife’s consent, retired from his business and forsook the world, gave his wealth to charities, and bought in A.D. 1366 an old, abandoned convent near the city, which he restored and presented to the order of St. John. Here he spent the remainder of his days in pious contemplation, amid austerities and mortifications and favoured with visions. He died in A.D. 1382. Four years after his conversion he attained to clear conceptions and inner peace. His chief work, composed in A.D. 1352, “The Book of the Nine Rocks,” was long ascribed to Suso. It is full of bitter complaints against the moral and religious corruption of all classes, and earnest warnings of Divine judgment. Its starting point is a vision. From the fountains in the high mountains stream many brooks over the rocks into the valley, and thence into the sea; multitudes of fishes transport themselves from their lofty home, and are mostly taken in nets, only a few succeed in reaching their home again by springing over these nine rocks. At the request of the “Friend of God from the Uplands” he wrote the “Four Years from the Beginning of Life.”