its bearings. And the deeper it sinks down by self-abasement in the
presence of God's beauty, like a streak of lightning, the quicker it
is caught up and rapt out of itself. Finally, it occurs that the soul
inebriated by the fulness of interior sweetness utterly forgets what
it is and what it has been, and is transported into a state of
ineffable beatitude and entirely permeated with uncreated love. It is
forced to cry out with the Prophet: 'How lovely are Thy tabernacles, O
Lord of Hosts. My soul longeth and fainteth for the Courts of the
Lord. My heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living God'" (Ps.
LXXXIII.).

Effusions such as these assuredly give us an insight into the
extraordinary love that burned in the soul of Bonaventure. From the
spiritual tepidity that oppresses us we can only contemplate it with
wistful admiration. It proves to us indeed "how wonderful is God in
His Saints," and how profoundly and intimately He influences the
hearts of His chosen ones and attaches them inseparably to Himself.

It will be fitting to bring this chapter to a close by quoting, as
outside testimony, the tribute which Cardinal Wiseman paid [Footnote
36] to this feature of our Saint's life. "There is another writer upon
this inexhaustible subject," said His Eminence, "who more than any
other will justify all that I have {81} said; and, moreover, prove the
influence which these festivals of the Passion may exercise upon the
habitual feelings of a Christian. I speak of the exquisite meditations
of St. Bonaventure upon the life of Christ, a work in which it is
difficult what most to admire, the riches of imagination surpassed by
no poet, or the tenderness of sentiment, or the variety of adaptation.
After having led us through the affecting incidents of Our Saviour's
infancy and life, and brought us to the last moving scenes, his steps
become slower from the variety of his beautiful but melancholy
fancies; he now proceeds, not from year to year, or from month to
month, or from day to day, but each hour has its meditations, and
every act of the last tragedy affords him matter for pathetic
imagination. But when at the conclusion, he comes to propose to us the
method of practising his holy contemplations, he so distributes them,
that from Monday to Wednesday shall embrace the whole, of Our
Saviour's life; but from Thursday to Sunday inclusive each day shall
be entirely taken up with the mystery which the Church in Holy Week
has a