_The Book of the Spiritual Tabernacle_ (_Dat boec van den Gheesteleken Tabernacule_). _In Tabernaculum Mosis et ad id pertinentia commentaria, ubi multa etiam Exodi, Levitici, Numerorum mysteria, divino spiritu explicantur_, as Surius describes it, is the longest work of the hermit, and contains a strange, naïve, and arbitrary interpretation of the symbols of the ark of the covenant, and of the sacrifices of the ancient law. I shall give somewhat copious extracts from this work, for it shows an interesting and brotherly aspect of his Flemish soul; and the artistic subtlety with which he labours to elucidate his emblems, as well as his amusing and childlike delight in certain effects of colour and of figures, reminds us now and then of his marvellous contemporaries of the Cologne school, the old dreamy painters, Meister Wilhelm and Lochner, and of the splendid succession of nameless dreamers, who, in lands far off from his, gave a fixed form to the almost supernatural reflections of the spiritual joys of that and the following century, which passed away so near to God and so far from earth. Here is what he says with regard to the offering of the poor as commanded in the Jewish law:-- “And they (the doves) shall keep near streams and beside clear waters, so that if any bird flies downwards to seize them or to do them any injury, they may recognise him by his reflection in the water and beware of him. The clear water is Holy Scripture, the lives of saints, and the mercy of God. We shall reflect ourselves therein when we are tempted, and so none shall be able to hurt us. These doves have a loving nature, and young doves are often born of them, for whenever, to the glory of God and for our own felicity, we think of sin with scorn and hatred, and of virtue with love, we give birth to young doves--that is to say, to new virtues.” In the following passages he pictures, with the help of these same doves, the offering of Saint Paul:-- “And our Lord replied that His grace should be sufficient for him, for virtue is perfected in the weakness of temptations. When he understood this he offered these two doves into the hands of our Lord. For he renounced self, and willingly became poor, and bent the necks of his doves (that is, his desires) under the hands of our Lord Jesus Christ and of the Holy Church. And Christ broke the necks and the wings of the doves, and then he became incapable of desiring or of flying towards any desire except that which was God’s will. And then Christ placed the head (that is to say, the will, which was dead and powerless) under the broken wings, and then the doves were ready to be consumed; and so the holy apostle says: ‘Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my weakness, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.’” Let us consider further the extraordinary interpretation of the spiritual flowers embroidered on the hangings of the tabernacle:--