themselves from within. Every act they perform, every word they speak,
every wish they entertain,--it all comes out and is fixed for ever in
their character, and even in their appearance. 'Therefore,' says Behmen
in the beginning of his book, 'the greatest understanding lies in the
signature. For by the external form of all creatures; by their voice and
action, as well as by their instigation, inclination, and desire, their
hidden spirit is made known. For Nature has given to everything its own
language according to its innermost essence. And this is the language of
Nature, in which everything continually speaks, manifests, and declares
itself for what it is,--so much so, that all that is spoken or written
even about GOD, however true, if the writer or speaker has not the Divine
Nature within himself, then all he says is dumb to me; he has not got the
hammer in his hand that can strike my bell.'

_The Way to Christ_ was Behmen's next book, and in the four precious
treatises that compose that book our author takes an altogether new
departure. In his _Aurora_, in _The Three Principles_, in the _Forty
Questions_, and in the _Signatura Rerum_, Jacob Behmen has been writing
for philosophers and theologians. Or, if in all these works he has been
writing for a memorial to himself in the first place,--even then, it has
been for himself on the philosophical and theological side of his own
mind. But in _The Way to Christ_ he writes for himself under that
character which, once taken up by Jacob Behmen, is never for one day laid
down. Behmen's favourite Scripture, after our Lord's promise of the Holy
Spirit to them that ask for Him, was the parable of the Prodigal Son. In
all his books Behmen is that son, covered with wounds and bruises and
putrefying sores, but at last beginning to come to himself and to return
to his Father. _The Way to Christ_ is a production of the very greatest
depth and strength, but it is the depth and the strength of the heart and
the conscience rather than the depth and the strength of the