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This is true regeneration: this is the salvation offered to man, the healing of his psychic conflict by the unification of his instinctive and his ideal life. The voice which St. Mechthild heard, saying "Come and be reconciled," expresses the deepest need of civilized but unspiritualized humanity.
Some of the trees bore apples, but most of them sweetly scented leaves. Swift streams flowed through it, and warm winds were wafted from the north. The air was sweeter than words can tell. Here, she adds, there were no animals or birds, for God has reserved it for mankind alone, so that he may dwell there undisturbed. This seems to strike a strange note coming from the poetess Mechthild.
Whilst condemning the priesthood, Mechthild eulogises nunnery life in an allegory entitled “The Ghostly Cloister,” in which she pictures the virtues as dwelling. “Charity” is the abbess, who with zeal takes care of the congregation in both body and soul; “Godly Humility” is the chaplain; “The Holy Peace of God” is the prioress; and “Loving Kindness” is the sub-prioress. “Hope” is the chantress, filled with holy, humble devotion, that the heart’s feebleness may sound beautiful in song before God, so that God may love the notes that sing in the heart; “Wisdom” is the schoolmistress, who with all good-will teaches the ignorant, so that the convent is held holy and honoured; “Bounty” is the cellaress; “Mercy” the stewardess; and “Pity” the sick-nurse.
In many passages Mechthild dwells on the clergy, and her reflections some very practical, others, to those not versed in symbolism, very quaint seem to suggest how grievously lacking she considered them to be.
Catherine of Sienna, and to the Holy Mechthild and other saints, have in them something decidedly obnoxious; while, if we take the premise that these saints, by virtue of prayer, aspiration, and intended sacrifice of the mortal self to an ideal, transmuted their sex-nature from the physical to the spiritual, then indeed, we have an approach to a mighty truth, which is at once both explanatory and satisfying.
Or, again, when Mechthild, telling how the Soul, no longer led by the Senses, but leading them to the desired goal, says, “It is a wondrous journey along which the true soul progresses, and leads with it the senses, as a man with sight leads one who is blind. On this journey the soul is free and without sorrow, since it desires naught but to serve its Lord, who orders all things for the best.”
It was here that, harassed and ill, Mechthild of Magdeburg took refuge, and entered as a nun in 1270. But we are anticipating. Mechthild, at first a beguine, and afterwards a nun, but a visionary from the days of her childhood, was born, most probably of noble parents, in the diocese of Magdeburg, in 1212.
Mechthild tells us that she knew but one person in Magdeburg, and that even from this one she kept away for fear lest she might waver in her determination. In this very human way she indicated that her spiritual adventure was no easy matter to her, as, indeed, it could not be so long as her temperament and ideals were at variance. But gradually, she says, she got so much joy from communion with God that she could dispense with the world. As has been well said, “La loi des lois c’est que tout morceau de l’univers venu de Dieu retourne
The tendency of present-day Italian scholarship seems in favour of identifying Mechthild of Hackeborn, rather than Mechthild of Magdeburg, with Dante’s Matelda.
PFEIFFER OF LUCERNE. KUNZ OF GERSAU. JENNI, Fisherman's Son. SEPPI, Herdsman's Son. GERTRUDE, Stauffacher's Wife. HEDWIG, Wife of Tell, daughter of Furst. BERTHA OF BRUNECK, a rich heiress. ARMGART, | MECHTHILD, | Peasant women. WALTER, | Tell's sons. FRIESSHARDT, | Soldiers. RUDOLPH DER HARRAS, Gessler's master of the horse. JOHANNES PARRICIDA, Duke of Suabia. STUSSI, Overseer.
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