“There has been another marked class of persons, in the extreme opposite sphere of life to those just described—a class nourished in the inmost bosom of the church itself—whose very important influence has acted in harmony with that of science, which seems so wholly contrary to it—acted to melt away dogmatism, free men from hatred and force and fraud, and join them in a heavenly enthusiasm of accord. I allude to the mystics, who cultivated the sinless peace and raptures of the inner life of devotion, absorption in divine contemplation, ecstatic union with God. Boundless is the charm exerted, incalculable the good done, in impregnating the finest strata of humanity with paradisal germs by _Victor_, Bonaventura, Suso, Tauler, Teresa, Behmen, Fénelon, Guyon, John of the Cross, and the rest of these breathing minds, hearts of seraphic passion, souls of immortal flame. This class of believers, devoted to the nurture of exalted virtue and piety, were the choicest depositaries of the grace of religion.” The general reader would suppose that this “marked class of persons, in the extreme opposite sphere of life to those just described,” were not, of course, “monks.” But such is the fact, with the exception of two he mentions. Let us examine this list. Here is the first mystic, Victor. Victor! Who is he? Whom does the essayist mean? There was St. Victor of Marseilles, who suffered martyrdom under Diocletian, July 21, A.D. 303. He surely does not mean this Victor? Then there was the celebrated Abbey of St. Victor, near Paris, named after St. Victor of Marseilles, founded in the first year of the twelfth century; he cannot mean that? There is no telling, though. Then there was Hugh, born in Flanders, and Richard, a Scotchman, the latter a disciple of the former, both inmates of the monastery of St. Victor, both illustrious by their writings on mystical theology, and saintly men. Perhaps he means one of these, or both? Perhaps that is not his meaning. If it be, then his sentence should have run thus: Hugh of St. Victor, or Richard of St. Victor. Let us proceed; both of these were “monks.” St. Bonaventure, disciple of St. Francis, was a “monk.” John Tauler, a disciple of St. Dominic, another monk. St. Teresa, a nun, a “cloistered” nun, consequently as bad, at least, as a “monk.” Behmen? Behmen? _Jacob Boehme_. Oh! yes; a German, a shoemaker—not to his discredit—a Protestant, and mystical writer. O blessed saints in Paradise! do not, we beg, lay it to our charge of making you “acquainted with so strange a bed-fellow!” Then comes Fénelon the saintly archbishop, the friend, be it known, of monks and nuns. Now Mme. Guyon; it is singular that there is always a strange hankering among a class of Protestants after Catholic writers of suspected orthodoxy. St. John of the Cross is next, and the last, though not least, the Aquinas of mystical theology, a Carmelite, a “monk.” Now let us count up.