Centuries of Meditations. Thomas Traherne
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is the one supreme duty and good, that love is wisdom and purity and valour and peace, and that its infinite sorrow is infinitely better than the world's richest joy."
From Thomson's delineation of the Mystics I quote the following passage, though it is much too short to give an adequate idea of the manner in which the whole description applies to Traherne :—
"Lastly there is the Open Secret Society of the
Mystics. These are the very flower and crown of the four already touched upon, Saints of Saints, Heroes of
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Heroes, Philosophers of Philosophers, Poets of Poets; the identity of the masculine ideal of Hero and Philosopher and the feminine ideal of Poet and Saint. Their mysteries have been published to all the world in the choicest visions and actions, thoughts and strophes, of the choicest members of these other fraternities ; yet not only do they remain utterly obscure and illegible to the common world of men, they are dark to all of even those fraternities who have not been initiated to the supreme degree."
There is much more in this remarkable essay that I should like to quote : but I must restrict myself to one other passage, in which Thomson enunciates a truth which Traherne was the first, I think, distinctly to apprehend, and which he was never tired of enforcing :—
"Such are a few of the loftiest Open Secret Societies, these organisations of Nature so perfect and enduring, so superior to the most subtle organisations elaborated by man. And in all of them, I think, we find that the poor and the mean and the ignorant and the simple have their part no less—nay, have their part even more—than the rich and the great and the learned and the clever. Let us praise the impartiality of our Mother Nature, the most venerable, the ever young, the fountain of true democracy, the generous annunciator of true liberty and equality and fraternity : who bestoweth on all her children alike all things most necessary to true health and wealth, the sunshine, the air, the water, the
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fruits of the earth ; and opens to rich and poor alike the golden doors of enfranchisement and initiation into the mysteries of heroism, purity, wisdom, beauty, and infinite love."
To no man who ever lived were these mysteries more open than to Traherne, and no man was ever more constantly in communion with them. It has been said that most men have only enough religion to make them hate one another; and it is at least certain that in the past religion has more often been the cause of strife and division among mankind than of love and concord. But Traherne at least knew well and acted up to the knowledge that "love is the one supreme duty and good, that love is wisdom and purity and valour and peace, and that its infinite sorrow is infinitely better than the world's richest joy." The love of love filled him and possessed him, guided his every action, and ruled all his thoughts. He lived habitually on the highest levels of spiritual life, without any of those ignoble descents to the depths of sensualism which, in men compounded, as most of us are, more of sense than spirit, too often follow hard upon our moods of exaltation.
In writing his latest work it is plain that Traherne's
design, after he had proceeded a little way in it,* was
to produce a manual of devotion suitable for the mem- bers of the Church of England, and more particularly
* That he intended it at first for one person only we may well believe: but he must have seen as he went on that if it was fitted for the edification of his friend, it was equally well fitted for general use.
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for the less learned and cultivated adherents of it. He probably thought that none of the then existing manuals were altogether fitted for their purpose. When he began it was doubtless without any thought of imitating or rivalling the best known of all treatises of the kind, "The Imitation of Christ:" but before he had got to the end of his first "Century" he must have seen that his work was resolving itself into a somewhat similar production. He must have been well acquainted with the "Imitation," since he makes at least one quotation from it: but it can hardly be doubted that he thought it was too exclusively Romanist in its tone and teaching to be fit for use by members of the English Church. Certainly he might justly have thought so: for with all its merits that work, if regarded as a manual for general use, and not merely for the cloister, has at least one serious defect. Instead of pointing out that defect myself—since it might be thought that I am not in this case an impartial judge—I will quote two passages from writers who cannot reasonably be accused of having any undue bias against the book. And first I will quote from the Rev. T. F. Dibdin's Introduction to his fine edition of the "Imitation"
"The ‘Imitation’ is clearly the production of a writer deeply versed in holy writ; but it is also the production of one who has applied that knowledge more exclusively to the purposes of private meditation, confession, and prayer. It is beyond all doubt a work of great singleness of heart and simplicity of character; but its
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cloistered author rarely appears to have raised his eyes through his grated window to contemplate a sun which was shining upon the good and the bad alike ; or to have looked abroad and viewed his fellow creatures, hastening, in their several careers, to perform those offices which Providence had destined them to fulfil."
I will quote next a passage from the Quarterly Review for July 1895, which appears in an article entitled "The Passing of the Monk ":—
"Monastic Christianity finds its most complete expression in that small manual of devotion put forth in the fifteenth century, known The Imitation of Christ.' Its boundless popularity reminds us, said Dean Milman, that it supplies some imperious want in the Christianity of mankind; but like monasticism, of which it is the perfect exponent,
‘it is absolutely and entirely selfish in its aims as in its acts; its sole, single, exclusive object is the purification, the elevation of the individual soul, of the man absolutely isolated from his kind, with no fears, no sympathies, and no hopes of our common nature; he has absolutely withdrawn himself not only from the cares, the sins, the trials, but from the duties, the moral and religious fate of the world.’"
It may be thought at first that I have quoted these passages without any sufficient justification; but I think it will be seen directly that they are entirely relevant and even illuminating. The " Imitation," as Dean Milman so well says, represents the spirit of the Cloister, and—shall we add ?—of a narrow and rigid Catholi-
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cism. The "Centuries of Meditations" represents (in comparison at least) the spirit of free religious thought. In the " Imitation " we behold the doubts, fears, and perplexities of a soul oppressed by the consciousness of real or imaginary sins : in the " Centuries " the rapturous aspirings of a joyful and happy soul, conscious of its kinship with God Himself, and sure of its own divinity and of its glorious destiny. The author of the "Imitation" wanted to save his own soul; Traherne wanted to save the world. However much assured he might have been of his own salvation, the latter writer would never have been content merely with that. He desired with an exceeding great desire to make all men as happy as himself. All were immortal creatures, and it was within the power of all to make their peace with God, and enter into their great inheritance. This is the continual burden of his verse, and the message which informs his prose with its fire of conviction, and its unmatched persuasiveness. He would have rejected with scorn any faith whose benefits were to be confined to himself, or to a narrow circle of the elect. It was a matter of the deepest sorrow to him that men should be so indifferent to those things which to himself seemed to be the only objects worthy of thought. He could not even conceive that God Himself could be content or happy while men rebelled against His ordinances, or rejected His offered love.
Perhaps some readers may think that it is unfair to bring the two writers, whose aims were so different, thus into seeming antagonism. My object, however, as
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I have explained, is not to disparage the " Imitation," but