Luther wished to introduce into the religious life the confused ideas begotten of his mysticism, at the expense of the observances which all were bound to fulfil. In this connection it should not be forgotten that Tauler, the teacher whom Luther so much admired, had shown that religious obedience if exercised in the right spirit was capable, by the observance of the Rule in small matters, of leading to greater perfection than could be arrived at by the performance of great works or by contemplation when these were self-chosen. Luther must have been acquainted with the instructive story which Tauler relates and which was often told in conventual houses, of the Child Jesus and the nun. The Divine Child appears to her during her meditation, but, on being suddenly called away to perform some allotted task and obeying the summons, as a reward she finds on her return the Divine Child wearing a still more benign and friendly countenance, and her visitor is also at pains to point out to her that the humble task for which she had left Him, pleases Him better than the meditation in which she had been engaged when He first appeared to her.[715] Teachers of Tauler’s stamp inculcated on monks and laymen alike the highest esteem for small and insignificant tasks when performed in compliance with obedience to the duties of one’s state, whatever it might be. It was unfair to the religious life and at the same time to true Christian mysticism when Luther at a later date, after his estrangement from the Order, in emphasising the works which please God in the secular life, saw fit to speak as though this view had hitherto been unknown. Tauler had summed up the doctrine already well known in earlier ages in the beautiful words: “When the most trivial work is performed in real and simple obedience, such a work of an obedient man is nobler and better and more pleasing to God and is more profitable and meritorious than all the great works which he may do here below of his own choice.”[716] Every artisan and peasant is able, according to Tauler, to serve God in perfect love in his humble calling; he need not neglect his work to tread the paths of sublime charity and lofty prayer. The mystic illustrates this also by a little anecdote: “I know one who is a very great friend of God and who has been all his days a farm-labourer, for more than two score years. He once asked our Lord whether he should leave his calling and go and sit in the churches. But the Lord said No, and that he was to earn his bread with the sweat of his brow and thus honour His true and noble Blood. Every man must choose some suitable time by day or by night during which he may go to the root of things, each one as best he can.”[717] Luther, during the time of his crisis, was not only a monk of dangerously wide views, but he was also inclined to take liberties in practice.