estate, and are more present in the hemisphere, considering the glories and the beauties there, than in your own house : till you remember how lately you were made, and how wonderful it was when you came into it : and more rejoice in the palace of your glory, than if it had been made but to-day morning.
" 31. Yet further, you never enjoy the world aright, till you so love the beauty of enjoying it that you are covetous and earnest to persuade others to enjoy it. And so perfectly hate the abominable corruption of men in despising it, that you had rather suffer the flames of hell than willingly be guilty of their error. There is so much blindness, and ingratitude, and damned folly in it. The world is a mirror of infinite beauty, yet no man sees it. It is a Temple of Majesty, yet no man regards it. It is a region of Light and Peace, did not men disquiet it. It is the Paradise of God. It is more to man since he is fallen, than it was before. It is the place of Angels, and the Gate of Heaven. When Jacob awaked out of his dream, he said, God is here, and I wist it not. How dreadful is this place ! This is none other than the House of God, and the gate of Heaven."
Are any words of mine needed in order to make clear how vastly different were the ideas and opinions of the writers of those typical passages ? Surely not. But
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possibly some readers may think that the passages I have chosen from the "Imitation" do not fairly represent its general spirit. Well, let such readers judge for themselves. It will be an easy and profitable task for them to go carefully through the two books, comparing them for themselves. For myself I will say, whatever risks I may thereby run of being accused of undue partiality, or want of critical insight, that I believe the comparison will nowhere be found disadvantageous to Traherne, while it will be in many points much in his favour. I could easily prove this by quoting other parallel passages : but I will not further pursue the subject. I can well imagine that some readers, to whom the "Imitation" has been endeared by long use, and who have derived much spiritual benefit from it, will not be pleased at the manner in which I have spoken of it : but I hope they will not on that account, refuse to make themselves acquainted with Traherne's "Meditations," since it is not he who is responsible for what is said herein.
Of Traherne's theological opinions, and of the sound- ness or otherwise of his teaching, I must, as I have intimated, leave others to speak. My own interest is rather in the man himself than in his beliefs. The latter he shared with many dull and uninspired theologians of his time, though with the difference that his was a living and burning faith while theirs was a matter of custom and convention. It is hardly possible that any one can now believe in the Christian faith (as it was then understood) as Traherne and his contemporaries believed in it. But this, I think, matters not, or matters
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very little. It is not at all necessary to believe as Milton believed in order to appreciate " Paradise Lost " : nor is it any more necessary to subscribe to the doctrines of Christianity as Traherne subscribed to them in order to derive much spiritual benefit from the " Centuries." Notwithstanding the fervour of the author's faith in his creed, it is noteworthy that there is much in his work which is not distinctively Christian, and which may be accepted by men of all shades of opinion. This is not to say that there is anything in the book which is contrary to the Christian faith ; but only that there is much besides in it. It might indeed be fitted by omission only for the use of members of any creed or sect. Nor will Theists or even Pantheists fail to find much in it with which they will be in thorough agreement or complete sympathy. None in short save those who are so firmly wedded to their own narrow creed that they can see nothing good in anything outside it, can fail to find in the " Centuries " guidance, refreshment and inspiration for their spiritual life. The books which render such services are few in number ; and few of those few are so little alloyed with matter of inferior worth or of questionable tendency as the " Centuries." There are, I suppose, hardly any books in which a serious and thoughtful reader cannot discover some blemish, though it may be one which only slightly affects their worth or usefulness. Nor is the present work free from one such blemish : or at least what appears to me to be one. There is a passage in it which to all—or nearly all—readers of the present day will seem entirely repellent, and
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entirely at variance with the general spirit of the work. I wish indeed I could have omitted it ; and I would have done so could I have reconciled the act to my conscience. But Traherne, like Cromwell, is too great to need to have his blemishes concealed. So great was his sense of the necessity of faith in God and in the Christian doctrines that he thought no punishment could be too great for those who, as he judged, wilfully rejected the means of salvation. This was pardonable enough, since it was the frame of mind in which most believers of his time regarded the sins of heresy or unbelief. But Traherne went a step farther even than this. It was a sensation no less of grief than of astonishment that filled me when I first came upon the following passage in the first " Century " (No. 48) :—
" They that look into Hell here may avoid it hereafter. They that refuse to look into Hell upon earth to consider the manner of the torments of the damned shall be forced in Hell to see all the earth, and remember the felicities which they had when they were living. Hell itself is a part of God's kingdom, to wit His prison. It is fitly mentioned in the enjoyment of the world : And is itself by the happy enjoyed, as a part of the world."
That Traherne should have believed in a material hell, can be, of course, no matter of surprise ; though we may regret that he was not, in that respect, in advance of his time. But that he should actually have thought that the knowledge that countless multitudes were suffering eternal torments would add to the xxiv
enjoyment of the blessed (for I cannot see that his words will bear any other construction) is, I must needs think, much to be lamented. It is true that the thought did not originate with Traherne, and that others before and since his time have entertained it ; but that one so enlightened as he should have held so inhuman a belief is surely a thing to be deeply regretted. So much I have felt bound to say, for I hold (as I think most men, whatever their religious opinions may be, now hold) that any belief which shocks our sense of humanity must necessarily be false. Better not believe in God at all than believe Him to be a cruel and unforgiving tyrant. But that was not, unhappily, the general opinion until long after Traherne's time ; and I suppose that even now there are some few zealots who believe in predestination and eternal punishment. That it is not now possible for any good man to think or write as Traherne thought and wrote in the passage I have quoted is at any rate a proof that humanity since his time has gone forward a long way upon the path of enlightenment.
Of our author as a literary artist much might be said ; and it was my first intention to dwell at considerable length upon this aspect of his work. This, however, I will not now attempt to do, except in the merest out- line. A good many critics, judging only from the specimen extracts from the " Centuries " and " Christian Ethicks," which I quoted in the Introduction to the poems, have expressed the opinion that Traherne was a greater master of prose than of verse : and it
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must, I think, be confessed that his prose is free from some defects with which his verse may be fairly charged. His prose style, it seems to me, was entirely his own ; for I know of no model which he could have followed or imitated. Certainly it was not the usual style of his own time, or of the Elizabethan period. It has not the least resemblance to the style of Milton, of Jeremy Taylor, or of Sir Thomas Browne. Nor was it, I think, the result of any conscious effort on the authors' part to distinguish himself as a master of style. He wrote clearly, strongly, and beautifully because his mind was full of his subject, and he had a most earnest desire to impart to others those truths which he himself fervently believed, and which he was convinced that all must believe who
