cause why it shewed so little to my sight was for that I saw it in
the presence of Him that is the Maker of all things: for to a soul
that seeth the Maker of all, all that is made seemeth full little."
"In this Little Thing," she continues, "I saw three properties. The
first is that God made it, the second is that God loveth it, the
third, that God keepeth it. But what is to me verily the Maker, the
Keeper, and the Lover--I cannot tell; for till I am Substantially
oned to Him, I may never have full rest nor very bliss: that is to
say, till I be so fastened to Him, that there is right nought that
is made betwixt my God and me" (_Revelations_, pp. 10, 18).

Julian's vision with regard to sin is of special interest. The problem
of evil has never been stated in terser or more dramatic form.

After this I saw God in a Point, that is to say, in mine
understanding which sight I saw that He is in all things. I beheld
and considered, seeing and knowing in sight, with a soft dread, and
thought: _What is sin?_ (_Ibid_, p. 26).

Here is the age-old difficulty. God, so the mystic sees, is "in the
Mid-point of all thing," and yet, as Julian says, it is "dertain He
doeth no sin." The solution given to her is that "sin is no deed," it
"hath no part of being," and it can only be known by the pain it is
cause of. Sin is a negation, a failure, an emptiness of love, but pain
_is_ something it is a purification. Sin brings with it pain, "to me was
shewed no harder hell than sin"; but we must go through the pain in
order to learn, without it we could never have the bliss. As a wave
draws back from the shore, in order to return again with fuller force;
so sin, the lack of love, is permitted for a time, in order that an
opening be made for an inrush of the Divine Love, fuller and more