nce that grace of heavenly
sweetness which he had received from God, for the use of his neighbour
and them that should come after in the Church. There are eleven books
which he composed either before or after his entrance into the Religious
Life; and less the tale should be incomplete, the book of his letters
doth make that number up to twelve.

There was in the same monastery, under this venerable Master, a Convert
whose name was John, a man very devout, who did humbly devote himself to
his life's end to serving in the kitchen, and he was illumined with
special grace for divine contemplation. He compiled a great and notable
book, filled with high and heavenly doctrine, in the which he doth
commend his most beloved father, John Ruesbroeck, in most excellent wise.

In the same monastery also were certain other most devout Fathers and
Religious Brothers, eminent for their life and wisdom, as their holy
works that have come down to us do testify.

Concerning the life and writings of John Ruesbroeck and Brother John
Cocus, more is told in a little book that hath been put forth of late,
and that is entitled "Of the Origin of the Monastery of the Groenendaal."

CHAPTER III.

_Of the death of the venerable Master Gerard Groote, a man most devout_.

In the year of the Lord 1384, on the Feast day of the blessed Bernard the
Abbot, and at the fifth hour, after Vespers, Gerard, surnamed Groote,
died at Deventer, in the time of the pestilence; he was a venerable man
and beloved of God, and the forty-fourth year of his age was nearly done.

His body was borne to the Parish Church of the most Blessed Virgin,
Mother of God, and therein was laid with due honour not far from the
sanctuary. His father's name was Werner Groote, and he was a Schepen and
magistrate of the same city; his mother was called Heylwige, and both her
husband and she were of high place and mighty in honour and riches,
judged after the measure of worldly dignity; but Gerard, by God's
inspiration, put aside the burden of riches and despised the pomps of the
world on the which he had relied carelessly for a long while, and for the
sake of an humble Christ took upon him a garb of humility. Suddenly he
was changed into another man, so that all wondered, and he became a rule
of life to Clerks and Lay folk alike. Hereafter, by the pattern of his
good conversation and the exhortation of his holy preaching, he withdrew
many persons from the vanities of the w