what we have not understood? May God convert this man if he is in error.
He is a man of marvellously high mental gifts who at present can neither
be condemned nor approved."

Soon afterwards, while Jacob was staying at the house of one of his
noble friends in Silesia he fell into a fever. At his own request he was
carried back to Goerlitz, and there awaited his end. On Sunday, November
21st 1624, in the early hours he called his son Tobias and asked him if
he did not hear that sweet melodious music. As Tobias heard nothing,
Jacob asked him to set wide the door so that he might the better hear
it; then he asked what was the hour, and when he was told that it had
just struck two he said, "My time is not yet; three hours hence is my
time." After some silence he exclaimed, "Oh thou strong God of Sabaoth,
deliver me according to thy Will," and immediately afterwards "Thou
Crucified Lord Jesus Christ have mercy upon me and take me to thyself
into thy Kingdom." At six in the morning he suddenly bade them farewell
with a smile, and said, "Now I go hence into Paradise," and yielded up
his Spirit.

Frankenberg writes of him: "His bodily appearance was somewhat mean; he
was small of stature, had a low forehead but prominent temples, a rather
aquiline nose, a scanty beard, grey eyes, sparkling into heavenly blue,
a feeble but genial voice. He was modest in his bearing, unassuming in
conversation, lowly in conduct, patient in suffering, and
gentle-hearted."

As the shoemaker of Goerlitz had in his life-time some disciples among
highly educated men, so has he always had a few since his departure from
this life. Men so diversely situated as the non-juror William Law in
England; St Martin, the "philosophe inconnu" of the French Revolution;
the sincere Catholic, Franz Baader, in Germany; Martensen, the
Protestant Bishop in Denmark, have found in him their Teacher.

The selections contained in the present book belong rather to the
practical or ethical side of Jacob Behmen's teaching than to his
Cosmogony, or _Vision_, as one may best call it, of the nature of all
things. I think that any old cottager, who had read nothing but his
Bible, but had lived his life, would well understand the general
teaching of most that is contained in these Dialogues, and would find
all Behmen's words most beautiful and comforting. It is not, therefore,
necessary for the present purpose to attempt fully to set forth the
whole Vision of Behmen, nor, in an