closes, so typical of the burning love of Christ, shown in devotion
to the name of Jesus, which glows through all the writings of the
school of the Hermit of Hampole, is an addition of the translator:--

"And therefore, what so thou be that covetest to come to
contemplation of God, that is to say, to bring forth such a child
that men clepen in the story Benjamin (that is to say, sight of
God), then shalt thou use thee in this manner. Thou shalt call
together thy thoughts and thy desires, and make thee of them a
church, and learn thee therein for to love only this good word Jesu,
so that all thy desires and all thy thoughts are only set for to
love Jesu, and that unceasingly as it may be here; so that thou
fulfil that is said in the psalm: 'Lord, I shall bless Thee in
churches'; that is, in thoughts and desires of the love of Jesu. And
then, in this church of thoughts and desires, and in this onehead of
studies and of wills, look that all thy thoughts, and all thy
desires, and all thy studies, and all thy wills be only set in the
love and the praising of this Lord Jesu, without forgetting, as far
forth as thou mayst by grace, and as thy frailty will suffer;
evermore meeking thee to prayer and to counsel, patiently abiding
the will of our Lord, unto the time that thy mind be ravished above
itself, to be fed with the fair food of angels in the beholding of
God and ghostly things; so that it be fulfilled in thee that is
written in the psalm: Ibi Benjamin adolescentulus in mentis excessu;
that is: 'There is Benjamin, the young child, in ravishing of
mind."'[8]

The text printed by Pepwell differs slightly from that of the
manuscripts, of which a large number have been preserved. Among
others, it is found in the Arundel MS. 286, and the Harleian MSS.