THE DIALOGUE OF CATHERINE OF SIENA.* CATHERINE OF SIENA was

born in 1347 and died in 1380; but in her thirty-three years of life she took a remarkable place in the history of the Church. The multifarious occupations and the marvellously important letter-bag of the medieval saint are, indeed, such as show a genius at work. She sprang from one of the trading, but then ruling, families of the small perturbed city, and she died, having left her mark on the lives

• The Dialogue of the Seraphic Virgin, Catherine of Siena, Dictated by Her, whilst in a State of Ecstasy, to Her Secretaries, and Completed in the Year of Our Lord, 1370. Translated from the Original Italian. With an Introduction on the btudy of Mysticism. By Algar Thorold. London ; Kegan Paul and Co.

of the best known persons of her own day, including two Popes ; having founded the Order linked with that of St. Dominic; and having reformed and spiritualised the religious world in a way which it much needed and often bitterly resented. Her life was short, but in what it did and suffered it was a very long life.

The volume before us does not need review as a life of the saint. It is a companion to the various lives, and it is pre- faced by a memoir which has, directly, little to do with her.

Its point of view is this. Mr. Algar Thorold, son of the late Bishop of Winchester, some twelve years ago joined the com- munion of the Church of Rome. He was still very young indeed, and, as he did not seem to be aware that the Anglican communion held asy members who recognised the supernatural, he eagerly flung himself upon all that Rome permits to those who desire some external and material objects of devotion. Our examination of the present ambitious preface shows us the same longing for satisfaction, but this time in mysticism, and there is an intense desire to prove to others that the spiritual life exists. One way of attempting this would have been merely to narrate the life of her who acted on this belief.

The method which Mr. Thorold has chosen is to claim for her work literary genius, and to assert that the secret of all genius is simply insight into the scientific investigation of fact. If this be the case, then he points out to literary people that the statements of mysticism, like the sounds of music, represent some effect—the experience of some state—that can be felt by any sympathetic mind and analysed by any capable intellect. Mr. Thorold's argument or plea is not always quite clear, but this, we believe, ie the gist of what he says.

The editor therefore does not think that he goes out of his way in his preface to a book most suited for contemplative spirits, when he examines the " natural" school of the French writers, and, amongst others, mentions the work of Huysmana as an instance of the impossibility of being an artist and yet suppressing the supernatural. As the preface is dated 1895 Mr. Thorold probably had not seen the only work which could be recommended to readers here, as seeming to prove his case_

This, En Route, lately published in English, with the worst

passages removed as we hear, is, barring certain disfigure- ments, a very beautiful picture of a soul that suddenly found that it could believe, but, steeped in mire, had to pass through

successive stages of the lower grades of the spiritual life, and is, then brought into contact with the Benedictine monks, till it

at last catches sight of That which they aspire to reach. This book, and perhaps some stories in which truth has been stranger than fiction, may make us respect the desire of Mr. Thorold to win the intellectual mind by an appeal to the intellect.

But it is more likely that he will have his success as a translator than as a reasoner. The book has never been so well translated before, nor, we think, has it ever been translated into English as a whole. In its present state it is for libraries, but doubtless it will soon pass into a cheaper form, and be a treasure to many who would have no conception of the meaning of the preface, but can understand far better than the learned that with which the book deals. Fulfil the conditions, say they, and whether you live in one country or in another, you will gain precisely the same experience, as you pass through those grades which all aspiring souls must pass through, very slightly affected by circumstances of the outer life, and not as much modified by individual idiosyncrasies as might be supposed. In our opinion the preface cannot appeal to the same class of readers as does the book; and in any case we feel that Catherine of Siena is her own best interpreter.

The actual dialogue is said to have been dictated whilst in a state of ecstasy, but much that she believed to be peculiar to herself is common to all creative artists. For example, it seemed marvellous that she could dictate several letters at. once. Not all of us have that faculty, but all who have it consider it a commonplace thing. Or again, the rate at which a column of print is taken in by the eye of a rapid reader seems absolutely miraculous to an ordinary reader. Evi- dently Catherine had powers which would have brought her to the front in any age, and, after all, if we do not think very much of gifts not unfrequently found in special types of men and women, they are none the less wonderful.

Nevertheless, the power by which Catherine unconsciously won her future canonisation by the Roman Church, and her reverence from Christendom, was simply that of holiness. It

was holiness so great that it makes us forget the strange medimval mould into which it was poured. It was holiness so remarkable and so pure that though, especially in Italian, the literary expression has literary merit, ordinary criticism upon the Dialogue is out of place. Yet we know that amongst our readers there are some who will wish to hear exactly for what purposes it would be worth their while to possess this volume. It is quite clear that it is excellently suited for use as a standard devotional work for those who have passed the first stages of the spiritual life, or for reading in retreats, quiet days and the like, for those who can select what they require. For a clerical or other theological library belonging to educated religious people it would be a real acquisition. But it is simply the record of the deeper dealings of God with a soul which felt that it knew Him. Yidi arcanum Dei may be described as the keynote of the book, as it was of the life of its author. It may be held by some that there are no such dealings,—but the book is for those who think there are, in fact, for those who know there are. Through pain, accepted and self-inflicted, through prayer, through days of alms-deeds, and nights cruelly and wrongly as we think, spent in perpetual vigil; through practical study of peasants and traders, princes, merchants, and ecclesias- tics; by living through domestic troubles; by going through calumnies and inquisitions to the even more dangerous spiritual achievements in the religious world—Catherine of Siena ac- complished her detachment. Like other holy souls she learnt to love pain. She writes : "By the increase of love grows grief and pain, wherefore be that grows in love grows in grief." Here is another saying :—" The root of discretion is a real knowledge of self and of My Goodness by which the soul im- mediately and discreetly renders to each one his due." She describes the stages of union :—" Learn that this Bridge

has three steps, of which two were made with the wood of the most Holy Cross, and the third still retains the great bitterness He tasted when He was given gall and vinegar to drink." And yet there is a paradox here, true to all spiritual experience, when she says :—" On the first step, then, lifting her feet from the affections of earth, the soul strips herself of vice ; on the second, she fills herself with love and virtue ; and on the third she tastes peace." It might appear impossible that on the same stage there should be bitterness and peace, but has not this been the lesson of the mystical life P—the peace spoken of is that which is shown to the world as possessed by those who would enter into the mystery of vicarious suffering.

Not all is pure contemplation. The treatises of both "Obedience" and "Prayer" are penetrated with shrewdness, and at times with sternness. We feel that the keynote of it all is to be found in words which we once either quoted from Mr. Shorthouse, or used in speaking of his work—" The mystics are terribly practical people."