“The Opening of the Door.”
“Death and destruction say, We have heard the fame thereof with our ears.”
“O path which no eagle knoweth,
No vulture’s eye hath seen―
Where never the lion goeth,
Nor the fierce lion’s track hath been―
Not in the land of the living
That wondrous path is known;
But Death and Destruction know it,
Trodden by One alone.
Path of the lonely sorrow,
Path of the Lamb who died,
Path from the Cross to the glory,
No other path beside.
Into the golden Chamber,
Into the secret place,
Paul by that pathway entered,
Saw the beloved Face―
Heard from His lips the wonders
Not to be told again―
The mystery and the glory,
That are wordless unto men.
But of the Cross and the sorrow,
The curse and the shame he told,
The path to the secret chamber
Of the cedar and the gold.
Were I with the trespass laden
Of a thousand worlds beside,
Yet by that path I enter,
The Blood of the Lamb who died.
From the depths of the doom and darkness
Ascends that wondrous road,
Which leads the heart of the sinner
Up to the heart of God.
For from heights of the golden City
He made the glorious road,
Which leads to the heart of the sinner
Down from the heart of God.
Down from the height of the glory,
Down from the love and the kiss,
The joy of the music end singing,
The endless unspeakable bliss.”
―From a Sermon of a “Friend of God,” A.D. 1330.
IT must have been during the period described by Richard as dating from the “beginning of the alteration of his life,” and ending with the “opening of the heavenly door,” that, at the age of nineteen, he suddenly returned to his father’s house, having said that he had feared, in remaining longer at Oxford, “to be entangled in the snares of sin.” Of the events of his life at this time, we have but a dim allusion to one, which may perhaps throw some light on the story that follows.
“There was a fair young woman,” he says, “who loved me not a little in good love.” But it was natural that Richard, who lived in the days when human affection was regarded as a part of the world to be renounced, should offer up to Christ the sacrifice of his earthly love. And he forbade himself to see the fair face and to hear the sweet voice any more.
And having sacrificed the greater love of his heart, he condemned himself also for the love he had to his father, and to the one sister who had been so dear to him, and who loved him so tenderly.
One day he made to her a mysterious request. It was that she would meet him in a solitary wood near the town of Pickering, bringing with her two of her garments, a long white robe and a grey tunic. She was also to bring her father’s rain-hood. When they had reached a sequestered part of the wood, Richard proceeded to cut off the sleeves of the grey tunic, and putting on the white garment with the sleeveless tunic above it, and the hood upon his head, he announced to his sister that he had thus to the best of his ability made for himself a hermit’s dress, according to that worn by the Eremite monks, and the Bonhommes of Ashridge; and that henceforth he should live apart from men, as a hermit in a forest, for he knew of no safety from sin but in a life of prayer in a solitary place.
But his sister looked at him with terror, and cried aloud, “Richard my brother is mad!” And lest her cries should bring others to the spot, Richard fled in his strange disguise, and she saw him no more.
When he had found a quiet spot in the moorland forests, he made himself a cell, and was glad to think that he was there alone with God. But old remembrances haunted him, and in his dreams he saw again the fair face of the woman he had loved. But it seemed to him in his dream, that he perceived she was no woman, but a fiend who had taken the lovely form to ensnare his soul. “Therefore,” he says, “I turned me to God, and with my mind I said, ‘O Jesu, how precious is Thy Blood!’ making the cross with my finger in my breast; and at once I was awake, and suddenly all was away, and I thanked God that delivered me, and soothly from that time I turned me to the love of Jesus, and the more I profit in the love of Jesus, the sweeter do I find it.”
We must bear with the beclouded thoughts of one whose light was dim, but we can thankfully own him as one whose love to his Saviour may put to shame the Luke warmness of our hearts. “There are but few names,” writes his biographer, “which can be put in competition with that of Richard Rolle in his claims to have inscribed upon the record of his life and labors, All for Jesus.” It must have been whilst alone with God in his solitary cell, that the time came which he describes as “the opening of the heavenly door.” “And yet nearly a year,” he says, “followed the opening of the door before the time when the warmth of the eternal love was truly felt in my heart.” Thus he relates this experience: “I was sitting in a certain chapel, and being much delighted with the sweetness of prayer or meditation, suddenly I felt in me a strange and pleasant heat, which was my entering into the heavenly love.
“And whilst this warmth, inexpressibly sweet, kindled and glowed within me, it was leading me to the perception of the celestial and spiritual sound which pertains to the song of everlasting praise, and to the sweetness of the melody, unknown and unheard but by him who has received it.
“And thus there passed by half-a-year more, three months, and some weeks. For as I was sitting in the same chapel, and singing the psalms at night, before supper, as well as I could, there came to me, as it were, a sort of chiming of voices overhead.” And his soul was filled with this heavenly music, and he broke out before God into continual singing. This song of gladness, described in the symbolic speech of mediaeval days, and still “known and heard by him who has received it,” had turned the life of Richard Rolle into an eternal song.
“And soothly now,” he wrote, “I shall sing to the Name of my Lord, that is, I shall sing His Name, even Jesus, in my heart, and show Him in my deed. Singing leadeth into joy, and he that sings well that Name, his joy is more than I can tell. O Lord our Lord, how excellent is Thy Name in all the earth! that is, the joy and fame of Thy Name, Jesu, unto the creatures Thou hast made and redeemed. Truly, my heart shall joy in Thy Salvation, that is, in Jesu, Whom I behold in thought. And to Him I shall sing in gladness of soul, when all the might of my heart is raised unto the song of Heaven. I shall sing with marvelous joy, for He gave to me spiritual gifts to sing His praises, and my works shall also be a song to Him―thus thanking Him in thought and deed.
“For the works of the new and clean life are a song to God, a wonderful joying that lifts the heart to Him, so that our thoughts are taken in to the mirth of Heaven, whilst we are still here living on the earth. For from the feast of Heaven sounds in the heart a sweet note, that makes us to break forth into a voice of joying, because of the wonderful softness of that mirth and song which reaches our souls,—a joying of the spiritual dainties of that heavenly feast. And our souls are glad in joy that no man can tell, because the Lord has bought them with His precious blood.
“In Thy Name, O Lord, we shall joy all the day, for by the love of Thy Son are we led in an even way to Heaven; therefore in Jesus we joy, our hearts singing within us the delights of eternal love.”
The living stream had flowed down into the thirsty heart, and according to the promise of Him who gives the water of life, it was to flow forth from that heart, which had now become a well of living water, in rivers of blessing. For it is the joyful soul that yearns over the miserable and the joyless, if indeed the joy is the joy of Christ.
“For,” said Richard, “Thou, O Lord, who art gentle and sweet, dwellest in them that believe in Thee; therefore their joy is without an end, not a passing joy as of an earthly lover, for they are made Thine everlasting temple. The Name of Jesus is salvation and joy, therefore no wonder if they have entered into the gladness of salvation that love it; and the love is not a passing, but a lasting love of great delight in this life, and in the life hereafter.
“Let other men choose them what they list—my part is God, the portion of my chalice, the cup of all my delight and joyfulness. And together with Christ do the saints drink the joy of God, for it is His joy; ‘the Father,’ He saith, ‘shall give Me a goodly heritage, even My redeemed, once lost in Adam, and restored to the knowledge of My brightness.’
“Thus ‘the Heavens’ (that is, the holy men who have in Heaven their conversation) ‘tell the joy of God, and there is no speech nor language where their voices are not heard.’ Therefore did the Holy Ghost teach the Apostles to speak all language, that they might tell the joy of God, the joy the mickleness whereof none other tongue may tell, none other heart may think, but his to whom God has taught it. Even as in the old law, the possession of priests and deacons was God alone.
“Into my chalice He poureth the wine of His love, warming and strengthening me within, for, O Lord, I take it from Thy hand, and, drinking it, I forget all vain delights of this world, for it gives me the brightness and gladness of life withouten end. O God, give us not to lose our crown, but make us to look and set the eye of our heart in the Face of Thy Christ, where rest is of our travail, and eternal gladness which we have never merited.
“Yea, Lord, my prayer is that thus I dwell in Thy house, and Forever praise Thee. For they who dwell therein drink ever of the river of Thy pleasures, of the mickleness of Thy delight, a river marvelously wide, as in the high tide of flooding waters.
“For truly in this world do God’s lovers drink deeply of His wonderful sweetness, and greatly delight in the ardent glowing of the love of Christ. For God saith He will fill them with endless life, and satisfy them fully, and shall show them His salvation, even Christ, till at last they shall see Him eye to eye, and speak mouth to mouth, that sight all their weed, and their unspeakable joy. And He will say to them, ‘Awake My glory, awake psaltery and harp,’ for He has made them to be the psaltery of high delight, and the harp upon which He makes sweet music; and we answer Him, ‘I myself shall arise right early,’ in the joyful rising of the day of His coming.”
Thus did Richard Rolle go forth from his cell to be the psaltery upon which God could sound the Name of Jesus, and the blessed music sounded far and wide over the Yorkshire moors, and in the forest glens, where the lost sheep of Christ were scattered.
It was indeed with good tidings of great joy that he came forth from his solitude. He was still ignorant of much that we are taught—he still assented to, rather than believed, many fables of man’s invention, for he was humble, and ready to believe others who were authorized teachers and leaders, as far as his own light would permit him to do so.
And, therefore, he never cast aside many strange superstitions and practices, though in his writings it
is a marvel to find so little darkness, and so full a flood of Gospel light.