mysteries in religion as in all things, where
it is better not to intrude behind the veil. Wisdom is justified of
all her children: and folly may be justified of some of her children
also.

Equally unfair it seems to us is the notice of St. Brigitta--in our
eyes a beautiful and noble figure. A widow she, too--and what worlds
of sorrow are there in that word, especially when applied to the pure
deep-hearted Northern woman, as she was--she leaves her Scandinavian
pine-forests to worship and to give wherever she can, till she
arrives at Rome, the centre of the universe, the seat of Christ's
vicegerent, the city of God, the gate of Paradise. Thousands of
weary miles she travels, through danger and sorrow--and when she
finds it, behold it is a lie and a sham! not the gate of Paradise,
but the gate of Sodom and of hell. Was not that enough to madden
her, if mad she became? What matter after that her "angel dictated
discourses on the Blessed Virgin," "bombastic invocations to the
Saviour's eyes, ears, hair?"--they were at least the best objects of
worship which the age gave her. In one thing she was right, and kept
her first love. "What was not quite so bad, she gives to the world a
series of revelations, in which the vices of popes and prelates are
lashed unsparingly and threatened with speedy judgment." Not quite
so bad? To us the whole phenomenon wears an utterly different
aspect. At the risk of her life, at the risk of being burned alive--
did anyone ever consider what that means?--the noble Norse-woman,
like an Alruna maid of old, hurls out her divine hereditary hatred of
sin and filth and lies. At last she falls back on Christ Himself, as
the only home for a homeless soul in such an evil time. And she is
not burnt alive. The hand of One mightier than she is over her, and
she is safe under the shadow of His wings till her weary work is done
and she goes home, her righteousness accepted for His sake: her
folly, hysterics, dreams--call them by what base name we will--
forgiven and forgotten for the sake of her many sorrows and her
faithfulness to the end.

But whatever fault we can find with these sketches, we can find none
with Mr. Vaughan's reflections on them:

What a condemning comment on the pretended tender mercies of the
Church are those narratives which Rome delights to parade of the
sufferings, mental and bodily, which her devotees were instructed to
inflict upon themselves! I am reminded of t