children of God, it returned to its Source and Origin again. When we speak of the mysticism of Ruysbroeck, it is of this that we should think: of this growing spirit, this ardent, unconquerable, creative thing. A veritable part of our own order, therein it was transmuted from unreal to real existence; putting on Divine Humanity, and attaining the goal of all life in the interests of the race. CHAPTER II HIS WORKS In all that I have understood, felt, or written, I submit myself to the judgment of the saints and of Holy Church, for I would live and die Christ’s servant in Christian Faith. The Book of Supreme Truth. Before discussing Ruysbroeck’s view of the spiritual world, his doctrine of the soul’s development, perhaps it will be well to consider the traditional names, general character, and contents of his admittedly authentic works. Only a few of these works can be dated with precision; for recent criticism has shown that the so-called chronological list given by Pomerius[4] cannot be accepted. As to several of them, we cannot tell whether they were composed at Brussels or at Groenendael, at the beginning, middle or end of his mystical life. All were written in the Flemish vernacular of his own day—or, strictly speaking, in the dialect of Brabant—for they were practical books composed for a practical object, not academic treatises on mystical theology. Founded on experience, they deal with and incite to experience; and were addressed to all who felt within themselves the stirrings of a special grace, the call of a superhuman love, irrespective of education or position—to hermits, priests, nuns, and ardent souls still in the world who were trying to live the one real life—not merely to learned professors trying to elucidate the doctrines of that life. Ruysbroeck therefore belongs to that considerable group of mystical writers whose gift to the history of literature is only less important than their gift to the history of the spiritual world; since they have helped to break down the barrier between the written and the spoken word. At the moment in which poetry first forsakes the ‘literary’ language and uses the people’s speech, we nearly always find a mystic thus trying to tell his message to the race. His enthusiasm it is which is equal to the task of subduing a new medium to the purposes of art. Thus at the very beginning of Italian poetry we find St. Francis of Assisi singing in the popular tongue his great Canticle of the Sun, and soon after him come the sublime lyrics of Jacopone da Todì. Thus German literature owes much to Mechthild of Magdeburg, and English to Richard Rolle—both forsaking Latin for the common speech of their day. Thus in India the poet Kabir, obedient to the same impulse, sings in Hindi rather than in Sanscrit his beautiful songs of Divine Love.