in the light or darkness of a mystery which he is as little able to
define as to resist. Far below him, illimitably vast and yet infinitely
little, extends the prospect of the lower levels which, whether
beautiful or sordid, are too remote to seem a part of the new world in
which he finds himself, and strike his senses only as a foil and a
background to the severer hues, the more majestic lines and contours of
the snow-capped mountain-ranges. On such heights of moral exaltation the
medieval mystics built their tabernacles and sang their
_Benedicite_, calling all nature to bear witness with them that God
in His heaven was very near, and all well with a universe which existed
only to fulfil His word. It was a noble optimism; and those who embraced
it are the truest poets of the Middle Ages, none the less poets because
they expressed their high imaginings in life instead of language.
Philosophers they neither were nor sought to be; the temperament which
feels the mystery of things most keenly is not that which probes into
the how and why; but the world of their dreams was at least superior to
ours in being founded upon an ever-present and overwhelming reverence
for the truth behind the veil. The vision of the mountain-peaks, however
clouded, was worth the toil of the ascent; and there was reason in the
docility with which the vulgar bowed themselves before the forms and
ceremonies and rules of outward conduct which the visible Church
prescribed; since they believed that so they might find the way, in this
life or a better, to that higher rule of service, exemplified in the
finest characters of their experience, which as Scripture said and the
saints testified was perfect life and freedom. It is no wonder that they
were disposed to go further still; to stake their earthly fortunes and
the future of society on the bidding of those among the elect who from
time to time descended among them, like Moses from the mountain, with
transfigured faces and the message of a new revelation. And if the
result was sometimes calamitous or pitiable, there were compensating