Hours with the Mystics: A Contribution to the History of Religious Opinion

HOURS WITH THE MYSTICS




             _Uniform with this volume, crown 8vo, cloth._


                                   I.


                       THE SYMBOLISM OF CHURCHES
                                  AND
                            CHURCH ORNAMENTS

                    A TRANSLATION OF THE FIRST BOOK
                                 OF THE
                     RATIONALE DIVINORUM OFFICIORUM
                          OF WILLIAM DURANDUS

               _With Introductory Essay and Notes by the_
                   REV. J. M. NEALE AND REV. B. WEBB


                                  II.


                        SYMBOLISM, OR EXPOSITION
                                 OF THE
                         DOCTRINAL DIFFERENCES
                                BETWEEN
                       CATHOLICS AND PROTESTANTS
               As evidenced by their Symbolical Writings

                       BY JOHN ADAM MOEHLER, D.D.




                         HOURS WITH THE MYSTICS

                    A Contribution to the History of
                           Religious Opinion

                                   BY

                      ROBERT ALFRED VAUGHAN, B.A.

                            _SIXTH EDITION_

                           TWO VOLUMES IN ONE

                                 VOL. I


                                NEW YORK
                        CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
                           743 & 745 BROADWAY
                                  1893




                     PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.


The work which is now again published was the result of too many years’
steady application, and has served too great an intellectual use in the
special department of thought of which it treats, to be allowed to fall
into oblivion. Certainly the reading which the author thought it
necessary to accomplish before he presented his conclusions to the
public was vast, and varied. That the fruit of his labours was
commensurate may be gathered from the honest admiration which has been
expressed by men knowing what hard study really means. The first edition
of the ‘Hours with the Mystics’ appeared in 1856; the second was, to a
great extent, revised by the author, but it did not appear until after
his death. It was edited by his father, though most of the work of
correction and verification was done by the author’s widow.

There is no intention of writing a memoir here. That has already been
done. But it has been suggested that it might be interesting to trace
how Mysticism gradually became the author’s favourite study. To do that
it may be well to give a very short sketch of his literary career.

From the time he was quite a child he had the fixed idea that he must be
a literary man. In his twenty-first year (1844) he published a volume of
poems, entitled ‘The Witch of Endor, and other Poems.’ The poetry in
this little volume—long since out of print—was held to give promise of
genius. It was, of course, the production of youth, and in after years
the author was fully conscious of its defects. But even though some
critics (and none could be a harder critic of his own work than himself)
might point out an ‘overcrowding of metaphor’ and a ‘want of clearness,’
others could instance evidences of ‘high poetical capability’ and ‘happy
versification.’ But at the time it was thought desirable that the young
poet should turn his attention to prose composition with the same
earnestness. With that object his father proposed to him the study of
the writings of Origen, with a view to an article on the subject in the
_British Quarterly Review_. When just twenty-two the author finished
this task, his first solid contribution to the literature of the day.
The article showed signs of diligence and patient research in gaining a
thorough knowledge of the opinions of the great thinker with whom it
dealt. ‘It is nobly done,’ Judge Talfourd wrote. ‘If there is some
exuberance of ornament in the setting forth of his (Origen’s) brilliant
theories, it is only akin to the irregular greatness and the Asiatic
splendour of the mind that conceived them.’ And the words of the late
Sir James Stephen were not less flattering: ‘If I had been told that the
writer of it (the article) was a grandfather, I should have wondered
only that the old man had retained so much spirit and been able to
combine it with a maturity of judgment so well becoming his years.’ We
believe it is no presumption to say that the article has not ceased to
be useful to those who wish to gain an idea of the character of one
whose name has often been the subject of bitter wordy war between
Christian men.

In 1846, a dramatic piece by Alfred Vaughan, entitled ‘Edwin and
Elgiva,’ appeared in the _London University Magazine_. The subject was
one of a most sensational character, and was treated accordingly.
Dunstan and his companions are painted in very black colours, and any
doubts as to the reality of the cruelties alleged to have been practised
on the unhappy Queen are not entertained.