It was not a thorn in the flesh touching the unchaste love he bore
towards Tecla, as the Papists dream.

I should like to know how high this strange legend can be traced. The
other tradition that St. Paul was subject to epileptic fits, has a less
legendary character. The phrase 'thorn in the flesh' is scarcely
reconcilable with Luther's hypothesis, otherwise than as doubts of the
objectivity of his vision, and of his after revelations may have been
consequences of the disease, whatever that might be.


Ib. p. 399.

Our Lord God doth like a printer, who setteth the letters backwards;
we see and feel well his setting, but we shall see the print yonder in
the life to come.

A beautiful simile. Add that even in this world the lives, especially
the autobiographies, of eminent servants of Christ, are like the
looking-glass or mirror, which, reversing the types, renders them
legible to us.


Ib. p. 403.

'Indignus sum, sed dignus fui--creari a Deo', &c. Although I am
unworthy, yet nevertheless 'I have been' worthy, 'in that I am'
created of God, &c.

The translation does not give the true sense of the Latin. It should be