It was plain, from these words, that the Master did not yet know that he was but a lost, dead sinner. He did not know that he needed, not to better his life, but to receive from God a new life which he could not give himself. He was still hoping so to cultivate the dead tree, that it should at last bear fruit.
How far Nicholas could have put this truth into words, I know not. But the Lord directs the heart, and He puts His words into the mouth of those, however imperfectly taught, who look to Him for guidance.
And thus, just as when the Lord replied to the rich young man, “If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments,” so did Nicholas reply to the Master.
He said, “Dear sir, do not be wroth with me, but I tell you of a truth such counsel is scarcely to be given you; for if you are to be converted, all your wonted habits must be broken through with great pain, because you must altogether change your old way of life. And besides I take you to be near fifty years old.”
Then said the Master, “It may be so; but, O dear son, to him who came into the vineyard at the eleventh hour, was given his penny, the same as to him who came in at the first. I tell thee, dear son, I have well considered the matter, and my heart is so firmly set, that if I knew this moment that I must die for it, I would yet, with the help of God, cease from my carnal life, and my earthly reasonings, and live according to thy counsel. I beseech thee, for God’s sake, not to keep me longer waiting, but to tell me this moment how I must begin.”
Yes, to begin a work! To begin to build the tower whose top was to reach to heaven! To wash and mend the foul and ragged garment, and make of it a dress fit for the courts of the King, whilst he who was to wear it had no place within those courts, even could he have cleansed it and made it new!
Then answered the man, “Dear sir, because through the grace of God you are willing to humble yourself and submit yourself to a poor, mean, unworthy creature; for all this let us give the glory to God, to whom it is due, for this grace proceeds from Him, and flows back to Him. Since then, dear sir, I am to instruct you, and counsel you in God’s name, I will look to Him for help and do so for love of Him. And I will set you a task such as they give children to begin with at school, namely the four-and-twenty letters of the alphabet, beginning with A.”
And Nicholas wrote down for the Master one of the alphabets of practice which were used by the Waldenses from ancient times.
This Alphabet had no pretense to be the Gospel. It was simply a set of rules which were taught to young Christians relating to their daily conduct. Good and wise rules, and taken from the Bible.
It is perplexing to find, that in many of the oldest printed accounts of Dr. Tauler’s conversion, one rule in this Alphabet stands as follows: “Ye shall evermore, without ceasing, beseech our lady that she help you to learn this our lesson well.” But a far older MS. account reads thus, “Ye shall beseech our lady that He help you, &c.” And the word “lady” is evidently written over the true word, “Lord.” “Fronen” (in old German, Lord) could easily be turned into “Frowen” (lady), but the unfaithful scribe overlooked the pronoun following, which tells the tale of the original text.
The master looked ruefully at the little Alphabet.
“Now, dear sir,” said Nicholas, “take kindly this child’s task of the A. B. C.”
Then said the Master, “However thou mayest call this a child’s task, methinks it needs a man’s strength to attack it.
“Letter A. After a manly, and not a childish sort, ye shall with thorough earnestness begin a good life.’
“Letter B. Bad ways ye shall hate, and practice all goodness with diligence, and with full purpose of heart.’
“Tell me now, dear son,” continued the Master sadly, “how long a time wilt thou give me to learn this lesson?” The man answered, “We will take five weeks, in honor of the five wounds of Christ, that you may learn it well.”
To what purpose were the five wounds of Christ, if men could inherit eternal life, by making rules and keeping them? We should perhaps have put the Gospel, clearly, as now we know it, before the Master at once. But Nicholas perceived that the Master had first to learn his need of it. It was well that he should find even the children’s Alphabet too much for him.
It was well that the Master should be thus reminded, that it was not by his own work, but by the work of another, that life was to be won. But the Master did not understand, for his eyes were holden, and he thought only like one of old, “What good thing shall I do, that I may inherit eternal life?”
So the man proceeded, and said “You shall be your own schoolmaster, and when you are not perfect in any one of these letters, and think yourself hardly able to learn it, then cast aside your garment, and chastise your body, that it may be brought to submit to your soul and reason.” And the Master replied, “I will gladly be obedient.”
So the man went his way, and at the end of three weeks he went again to the Master, and he said, “Dear sir, how goes it with you?” The Master said, “Dear son, thou must know that I have received more stripes in these three weeks about your lesson, than I ever did in all my days before.”
Then said the man, “Sir, you well know that no man giveth his pupil a new task before he have learned the first lines.”
Then said the Master, “If I said that I knew them, I should say what is not true.”
Then said the man, “Dear sir, go on as you are doing till you know your lesson right well.”
At the end of another three weeks the Master sent for Nicholas, and said to him, “Dear son, rejoice with me, for I think, with God’s help, I could say the first line. And if thou art willing, I will repeat over the whole lesson to thee.”
“No, dear sir,” said the man, “I will gladly rejoice with you, and take your word for it that you know it.”
Then the Master assured Nicholas that it had been a hard task, and he prayed him now to teach him further.
Then answered the man, “I can for myself teach you nothing further, but if so be that God willeth to teach you through me, I will gladly do my part, and be an instrument in the Lord’s hand by which He may work out His purposes.
“Hearken, dear Master, I will counsel you in godly love, and brotherly faithfulness.
“If it should happen to you as to the young man in the Gospel, to whom our Lord said, 'Go and sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and come and follow Me,’ I will not be answerable.”
Then said the Master, “Dear son, have no fears on that score, for I have already left all that I have, and with God’s help, am resolved to go forward, and be obedient unto God, and unto thee.”
Then Nicholas perceived that the Master had only grown more proud, and satisfied with himself. And he saw that to humble himself, would be like the task which the Lord put before the young man who was bent upon gaining for himself eternal life.
Therefore he told the Master that he must needs first of all be willing not to do, but to suffer; not to fill his treasury with his own works, but to empty it of all things.
That he must be content to be despised and hated, even by his brethren, and that he must let go his proud and ingenious reason, and that he must cease his studies and his preaching.
And should any come to him to confess their sins, he should only say to them, “I will learn how to counsel myself, and when I can do that I will also counsel you.”
“And if,” he continued, “you are asked when you will preach, say, as you can with truth, that you have not time at present, and so you will get rid of the people.”
The Master said, “Dear son, I will willingly do so, but how then shall I occupy myself?”
Nicholas replied that he should sit in his cell, and read his book of prayers, and also go to services if he felt inclined.
“And,” he said further, “what time is left, you shall set before you the sufferings of our Lord, and look at yourself in the mirror of His holy life, and meditate on your wasted time, in which you have been living for yourself, and how small has been your love, compared to His love.”
And Nicholas also said that when the Lord saw that the time was come, He would make of the Master a new man, that he should be born again of God.
For Nicholas saw that the Master could as yet only come to God as rich and increased with goods, and thus be sent empty away. He would have to be hungry, and thirsty, and poor, before he could be filled with good things.
All worldly honor, Nicholas told him, he would have to renounce, all that in his carnal pride he called his own, all the pleasure and delight he had taken in himself, and he would have to fall down, like the sinful woman, at the feet of Christ.
“And then,” he said, “the Lord will put you to the test, that you may be tried and purified as gold, and He shall give you to drink of the bitter cup of suffering and persecution that He gave to His beloved Son. And one bitter drop of this cup,” he went on to say, “will be, in my belief, that all your good works and refraining from evil will be despised and turned to naught in the eyes of the people. Those who learned from you heretofore will forsake you, and think you are gone out of your mind, and your good friends and brethren will be offended, and say that you have taken to strange ways. When this happens, dear sir, be not dismayed, but rejoice, for woe be unto us when all men speak well of us. I see well, for the Lord shows it me, how you are thinking in your heart that I have said very hard things to you, and this is why I begged you beforehand to let me go, and I told you that if you went back like that young man, I would not have it laid to my charge.”
The Master said, “Thou sayest truly. I confess it does seem to me a hard thing to follow your counsel.”
For the Master had just been rejoicing that by means of the Alphabet, he had added somewhat to “those things that were gain to him,” and now must he count them all as loss? as dross and dung, and be nothing before God and man?
Yet he determined that he would try even this, and that he would set to work again with greater earnestness, and with fuller purpose of heart than before.
On the eleventh day after this, he sent again for Nicholas. He told him he had had great agony and struggle, and fighting by day and by night, against the flesh and the Devil. “But, by God’s grace,” he said, “I am purposed to remain steadfast in this work, come weal, come woe.”
He also told Nicholas that the moment he had left him eleven days before, he had written down carefully all that Nicholas had told him, word for word.
Nicholas said he was rejoiced that the Master was so bold and steadfast.
“And now,” he said, “in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, set forward.”
And so saying the man took his leave, and the Master began his work afresh in good earnest.
HOW IT FARED FURTHER WITH THE MASTER: Chapter 11
Now it came to pass that before a year was out, it happened to him as Nicholas had foretold.
He grew to be despised of his familiar friends, and his spiritual children all forsook him, as entirely as if they had never seen him. And this he found very hard to bear, and it caused him such grief that his head was like to turn.
Then he sent for Nicholas, and told him how it fared with him, how he was ill in his whole body, and especially in his head.
Then said the man, “Sir, you must not be dismayed, but you must put your firm trust in God, and commit yourself wholly to Him. Know that this account of yours pleases me well. The same thing happened to me also. Meanwhile, you must take some remedies while you are in this state, and treat your body well with good food which may strengthen it. A box of spices was made for me, and I will have such an one prepared for you, to strengthen your head.”
Then said the Master, “But thou didst tell me before, that I must shun good eating and drinking.”
The man answered, “Yes, sir, but when the body is sick, we may come to its help with remedies, else we should tempt God. Dear sir, commit yourself to God, and wait for His grace to show you what He will have you to do, whether it be bitter or sweet. Further, I beseech you, for God’s sake, not to take it amiss of me, but I must go home on account of a very important matter. But if so be that you could not or would not do without me, send into the town for me, and I will gladly come; but if you can bear up without the aid of any creature, that would be best of all for you.”
Then said the Master, “Dear son, say not so, for I cannot and would not do without thee for any length of time—it would be hard indeed if thou didst forsake me, for then I should have no consolation left in the world.”
The man said, “Dear sir, I will show you a better Comforter, that is the Holy Spirit. I have but served Him in the work that I have done for you. It is His work, and not mine.” So the Master answered, “Dear son, may God be your eternal reward! I will commit myself to God, and bear this suffering as best I may.”
Then the man advised the Master to take care of his body, and not let it suffer from want of needful things.
“But,” he said, “if you lack money, do not sell your books, for you may need them in time to come.”
Then the man took his leave, and departed from that place, but the Master’s eyes filled with tears, and he began to weep.
JESUS OF NAZARETH PASSETH BY: Chapter 12
Two years passed by. Two years of sadness and sorrow for Dr. Tauler. He had sore temptations and assaults of the Devil, and his friends forsook and despised him, and he ceased to preach and to labor; and he fell into great poverty, so that he was obliged to pledge a part of his books.
Moreover he fell into great weakness of body, and continual sorrow of heart; He had lost all in which he once trusted, and all that had made him to be somewhat, and he had at last come to this, that he owned with bitter tears, “I am wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.”
One night, it was at the time known to Dr. Tauler as the “Feast of St. Paul’s Conversion,” he was as it were struck down by the assaults of Satan and the despair of his own heart, and he was thereby so overcome with weakness of body, that when the time came for morning service, he could not go to the chapel, but remained in his cell, and cast himself simply and humbly upon the Lord, without help or consolation in himself, or in any other creature.
And as he lay weak and exhausted after his sleepless night, he thought of Jesus.
He remembered the bitter sufferings of the Lord because of His great love that He had for us.
And he considered his own life, how poor his life had been—for he compared it with the love of God. Whereupon he was overcome with bitter sorrow for all his sins and his wasted time, and he exclaimed with his tongue and heart, “O merciful God, have mercy upon me, a poor sinner, for Thy boundless mercy’s sake, for I am not worthy that the earth should bear me!”
And as he lay there, thus weak and stricken down with sorrow, but fully awake, he heard as it were a voice speaking to him and saying, “Trust in God, and be at peace, and know that when He was on earth as a man, He made the sick, whom He healed in body, sound also in soul.”
Straightway when these words were spoken to him, he lost his senses and reason, and knew not how or where he was. But when he came to himself again, he was filled as it were with a new strength and might in all his being, and those things which aforetime were dark to him were now clear to him.
Then thought he to himself, “How is it that this has come to me? I cannot come to the bottom of this matter. I will send for my friend, and tell him all that has happened.”
So he sent for the man, and when he was come, the Master told him all that had befallen him. Then the man said, “It rejoices me from the bottom of my heart to hear all that you have told me.
“Dear sir, you must know that you have now, for the first time, received the true and mighty gift of God’s grace.
“And I tell you of a truth, that now, for the first time, your soul has been touched by the Most High.
“And know that the letter which has slain you, also maketh you alive again, for it has now reached your heart in the power of the Holy Spirit. Your teaching will now come from the Holy Spirit, which before came from the flesh.
“For you have now received the light of the Holy Spirit by the grace of God, and the Scriptures which you already know will now be made clear to you, for you will have an insight that you never had before.”
To many who read this, it may seem that Nicholas spoke with undue confidence. For we are so accustomed in these days to speak of salvation, and of conversion, in the clear and definite language of the Bible, that we, should have no doubt inquired more fully what truth it was, that the doctor had believed. Had he a clear knowledge of the atoning work of Christ?
But conversion, the blessed work of God, is none the less conversion, in the case of those who are too ignorant to describe it. And yet those who have themselves known it in their own experience, will be able to see where this great miracle has been truly wrought, however imperfectly described. The Master had believed in Jesus, and in Jesus only, as the Healer of his sick soul, and like the blind man in the Gospel of John, who knew even less of the Person of the Lord than did the Master, he could say, “One thing I know, whereas I was blind, now I see.” Nicholas knew that further light would follow, and it is often wiser to leave it to God to work, than to say much ourselves.
And it is a glorious proof of the reality of the great work of conversion, when we see that it is not merely an assent to a statement of truth, but a Divine act, beyond the understanding of him upon whom it is wrought, and in all cases a revelation to the soul, of Jesus, as the only Savior.
“For, as you know,” continued Nicholas, “the Scripture sounds in many places as if it contradicted itself, but now that you have, by the grace of God, the illumination of the Holy Spirit, you will perceive that all Scripture has the same intent. You will now understand that it does not contradict itself.
“And you will also be able rightly to follow the ensample of the Lord Jesus. You ought now to begin to preach again, and to show to others the right path to eternal life. And know that now, one of your sermons will be more profitable than a hundred aforetime, and the people will receive more fruit therefrom.
“But it will be most especially needful that you keep yourself humble, for you know well that he who carries a great treasure exposed to view, must ever be on his guard against thieves.
“I tell you truly, the Devil is in great terror when he perceives that God has bestowed on any man the noble and precious treasure of His grace, and the devils will set all their arts and wisdom to work, to rob you of this costly gift. Wherefore look wisely to your goings. “Now, dear sir, it is no longer needful for me to speak to you as a teacher, as I have done hitherto, for you have now the right and true Teacher, whose instrument I have been. To Him give ear, and obey Him in all things.
“And now, in all godly love, I desire to receive instruction from you, and I would fain, if God will, sojourn here a good while and hear you preach. If God give you to do so, methinks it were well that you should now begin to preach again.”
Then the Master said, “Dear son, I would fain therefore get back some of my books, for I have pledged as many good books as come to thirty florins.”
The man answered, “Look! I will give you that sum, for God’s sake, and if you have any of it left over, give it back to God, for all that we have is His, whether temporal or spiritual.”
So the Master redeemed his books, and gave notice that he would preach again three days after.
The people wondered much thereat, because it was so long since he had preached, and a great crowd gathered together to hear him.
And when the Master came and saw that there was such a multitude, he went up into a high pulpit that they might hear him all the better. Then he held his hood before his eyes, and said—
"O merciful, eternal God, if it be Thy will, give me so to speak that it may be to the praise and glory of Thy Name, and the good of this people.”
As he said these words, his eyes overflowed with tears of tenderness, so that he could not speak a word for weeping, and this lasted so long that the people grew angry. At last a man spoke out of the crowd, and said, “Sir, how long are we to stand here? It is getting late; if you do not mean to preach, let us go home.”
But the Master remained in earnest prayer, and said again to God, “O my Lord, and my God, if it be Thy Divine will, take this weeping from my eyes, and give me to deliver this sermon to Thy praise and glory. But if Thou dost not do it, I take it as a sign that Thou judgest I have not yet been enough put to shame. Now fulfill, dear Lord, Thy Divine will as to me Thy poor creature, to Thy praise, and my necessities.”
This all availed nothing; he wept yet more and more.
Then he saw that God would have it so, and said with weeping eyes, “Dear children, I am sorry from my heart that I have kept you here so long, for I cannot speak a word today for weeping; pray God for me, that He may help me, and then I will make amends to you, if God give me grace, another time, as soon as ever I am able.”
So the people departed, and this tale was spread abroad, and resounded through the whole city, so that he became everywhere a laughing-stock, despised by all.
And the people said, “Now we see that he has become a downright fool.”
And his own brethren strictly forbade him to preach anymore, because he did the convent great injury thereby, and disgraced the order with the senseless practices that he had taken up, and which had disordered his brain.
Then the Master sent for the man, and told him all that had happened. The man said, “Dear Master, be of good cheer, and be not dismayed at these things. The Bridegroom is wont to behave so, to all His best and dearest friends, and it is a certain sign that God is your good Friend, for without a doubt, He has seen some speck of pride concealed within you, that you have not perceived, nor found out in the secret places of your heart. And therefore it is that you have been put to shame. It may be that some great gifts of God are to be given you, by means of this disgrace, for patience is needful to us that we may be perfect and entire. Therefore we must learn to suffer. Be of good cheer then, and be joyful and humble. Neither should you think this a strange thing, for I have seen many such instances in other people. Do not, I beseech you, despise this cross which God has sent you, but count it a great blessing and favor from God.” We can ourselves see in this true story, the blessed Hand of God, holding back the Master awhile from preaching, in order that he might the better learn his message. For the Master as yet knew more of the great change that was wrought in him, than of Him who wrought it, nor could he have preached the Gospel clearly, whilst his own feelings, rather than Christ Himself, were uppermost in his mind. It is often thus with the soul at first. And the Lord has patience, and leads us on from the knowledge of the sin-offering, to the knowledge of the burnt-offering—from our first sight of Christ as the Savior, to the blessed knowledge of Himself.
And the man further counseled the Master, that he should wait in silence for five days, and that he should then ask the Prior of the convent to permit him to read a lecture to the brethren.
And he did so, and he then read to the monks such a lecture as they had never heard in their lives before, so grand and deep and godly was his doctrine. Then they gave him permission to preach a sermon.
And after one of the monks had preached in the church where the Master was wont to preach, he gave notice to the people, and said, “I am ordered to announce that tomorrow the Master intends to preach in this place; but if it should befall him as it did lately, I will not be answerable for it. So much I can say with truth, that in our school he has read us a lecture containing such great and profound instruction, with high and divine wisdom, as we have not heard for a long time. But what he will do this time I know not; God only knoweth.”
The next day after, the Master came to this church (which was the church of a convent of ladies), and began to preach, and of his sermon you shall hear anon.