class, how far did their mysticism help them to realize true manhood—make them strong to bear and strong to do? How far did it tend, or did it not tend, towards the complete development and consecration of their nature? To derive from such inquiries their full benefit, two qualifications are indispensable:—the judgment must be clear, the sympathies must be warm. The inquirer must retain self-possession enough not to be too readily fascinated, or too soon offended, by certain strange and startling forms of expression; he must not suppose, that because, for a long time, the mystics have been unduly depreciated, it is wisdom now to cover them with thoughtless and indiscriminate praise. He must not suppose that the mystics are an exception to the ordinary limitations of mortals—that the glorious intensity of some among them was realized without any diminution of breadth, and that their view embraced, with equal fondness and with equal insight, every quarter in the heaven of truth. And, on the other hand, let him beware how he seeks to understand these men without fellow-feeling and without love. The weak and volatile nature is smitten, on a first interview with the mystics, with a rage for mysticism—is for turning mystic straightway, and is out of patience, for six weeks, with every other form of Christianity. The cold and proud nature scorns their ardour as a phantasy, and (to its own grievous injury) casts out the warmth they bring. The loving nature and the wise says not, ‘I will be blind to their errors,’ but, ‘I will always look at those errors in the light of their excellences.’