OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN 



and are, perhaps, echoes of St. Bernard's sermons 

 on that wondrous allegory of the Spiritual Bride- 

 groom and Bride, as when, in a transport, and 

 attempting to express how God comes to the 

 Soul, she exclaims 



I come to my Beloved 

 Like dew upon the flowers. 



Others suggest reflections of courtly life and 

 poetry, and at the same time seem to anticipate 

 pictures of the Celestial Garden, bright and 

 blossoming, where Saints tread in measured 

 unison, symbolic of their spiritual felicity and 

 harmony. So with her didactic writings, or 

 with her predictions concerning the decay and 

 corruption in the Church, in which, like some 

 prophet of old, she declaims against such evils in 

 no sparing terms, all alike are fraught with a 

 special grace. In them all the most intimate 

 and the most sublime meet in one expression 

 the expression of a soul which sees God in all 

 things, and all things in God. 



During the thirty years which Mechthild 

 spent as a beguine at Magdeburg, she lived an 

 austere life, and one beset with difficulties, 

 largely created by the fearless way in which she 

 warned and denounced those in* high places 

 in the Church. In such denunciations she was 

 not alone, or without good example, for to 

 name two only of those who stand out pre- 

 eminently on account of their positions and 

 personalities St. Bernard and St. Hildegarde 



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