When the ‘Hours with the Mystics’ first appeared it traversed ground which was to a great extent untrodden, at any rate in England. Mysticism, though a favourite study of the author, was not then, and can scarcely be said to be now, a popular subject. A matter-of-fact age puts such ideas on one side, as something too weak for serious consideration. The majority indeed have but a very hazy notion as to what Mysticism is; they only have an idea that something is meant which is very inferior, and they pass it by. Well has Mr. Maurice said that such terms (Mediæval Phil. p. 143) ‘are the cold formal generalisations of a late period, commenting on men with which it has no sympathy.’ In the minds of thoughtful men the name of mystic points to a special and recognisable tendency, and the history given in this book shows that the same tendency has been working in the world for ages;—Hindus and Persians, Neoplatonists and Schoolmen, Anabaptists and Swedenborgians, have all felt its force. The main principle of all their doctrine was the necessity of a closer union with the Deity. Among Christians,—with whom we are chiefly concerned,—this close connection, it was thought, could only be gained after passing through stages of illumination and purification; and progress in the way of perfection was to be made not by labour and study, but by solitude, and asceticism. In these volumes this doctrine is exhibited; especially we trace the influence which the pseudo-Dionysius had in the fourth century; how, under his guidance, these ideas spread in the East, and thence to the West; the position taken up by Mystics against the Schoolmen, and the condition of Mysticism at the time of the Reformation. These topics are interesting, and to the questions which must be raised in connection with them in every thoughtful mind, it is hoped that the reader will find satisfactory answers in the following pages.