‘God and I are one in knowing. God’s Essence is His knowing, and God’s knowing makes me to know Him. Therefore is His knowing my knowing. The eye whereby I see God is the same eye whereby He seeth me. Mine eye and the eye of God are one eye, one vision, one knowledge, and one love.[83] ‘If any man hath understood this sermon, it is well for him. Had not a soul of you been here, I must have spoken the very same words. He who hath not understood it, let him not trouble his heart therewith, for as long as a man is not himself like unto this truth, so long will he never understand it, seeing that it is no truth of reflection, to be thought out, but is come directly out of the heart of God without medium.’[84] Of all this I can understand scarcely anything. The perpetual incarnation of God in good Christians, the nameless Nothing, the self-unfolding and self-infolding of God (I know not what words to use) are things too high for my grosser apprehension. I shall let the sayings lie here; some one else who reads may comprehend them. I am content to be a child in such matters. I look with awe and admiration on men who have attained while yet in the flesh heights of wisdom which will be, perhaps to all eternity, beyond the reach of such as I am. 1320. _October. St. Francis’ Day._—Went with Hermann this morning to hear mass. Master Eckart preached again. Dr. Tauler in the church. How every one loves that man! As several of his brethren made their way to their places, I saw the people frown on some of them, and laugh and leer to each other as two or three of them passed. They had reason, I know, to hate and to despise certain among them. But to Tauler all bowed, and many voices blessed him. He has a kind heart to feel for us, the commonalty. He and his sermons are one and the same. He means all he says, and we can understand much, at least, of what he means. There is a cold grandeur about Master Eckart. He seems above emotion: his very face, all intellect, says it is a weakness to feel. At him we wonder; with Master Tauler we weep. How reverently did Tauler listen, as a son to a father, to the words of the great Doctor. No doubt he understood every syllable. He is and shall be my sole confessor. I will question him, some day, concerning these lofty doctrines whereby it would seem that the poorest beggar may outpass in wisdom and in blessedness all the Popes of Christendom. Master Eckart said to-day:—‘Some people are for seeing God with their eyes, as they can see a cow, and would love God as they love a cow (which thou lovest for the milk and for the cheese, and for thine own profit). Thus do all those who love God for the sake of outward riches or of inward comfort; they do not love aright, but seek only themselves and their own advantage.[85]