The Power

Representative Text

Rest from longing and desire
O thou weary heart!
Dost thou ween thy choice has been
Not the lower but the higher,
Thine the better part?
And therefore dost thou long with bitter longing
From the day dawn to the night.
For the holiness, the rest of His beloved
Who walk with Him in white?
Thou art wearied with the striving and the yearning
For the crown that thou wouldst win;
Thou hast learnt but thine immensity of weakness,
But the mystery of thy sin.
Beloved, the Lord spake to me in comfort
When thus it was with me—
“Wert thou cast all alone upon thy mantle,
All alone upon the sea—
Nought round thee but immensity of waters,
No strength in thee to swim,
How, seeing only God in Heaven above thee,
Wouldst thou cast thyself on Him?”
Therefore thank Him for thy helplessness, beloved,
And if thou needs must long,
Let it be but for the rest of utter weakness,
In the Arms for ever strong.
Long only that He make thee bare and empty—
Take all that is thine own,
Thy prowess, and thy strength, and thine endeavour,
And leave thee God alone.
In the stillness of that peace the work is ended
By Him, and not by thee;
The end of His desire and His longing
To see thee stand in stainless white before Him
Is that which needs must be.

Source: Hymns of Ter Steegen and Others (Second Series) #9

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Author: Johannes Tauler

Tauler, Johannes, was born at Strassburg about 1300, and seems to have been the son of Nikolus Tauler or Taweler, of Finkweiler, who in 1304 was a member of the Strassburg Town Council (Mitglied des Raths). About the year 1318 he entered the Dominican convent at Strassburg. He studied for eight years at Strassburg, where the famous Meister Eckhart (d. 1327) was Dominican Professor of Theology from 1312 to 1320. He then went to Cologne to undergo a further training, in theory and practical work, extending over four years. Thereafter he returned to Strassburg where he soon came into note as an eloquent and practical preacher. When much of Germany was laid under interdict by Pope John XXII., because of resenting his interference with the elect… Go to person page >

Translator: Frances Bevan

Bevan, Emma Frances, née Shuttleworth, daughter of the Rev. Philip Nicholas Shuttleworth, Warden of New Coll., Oxford, afterwards Bishop of Chichester, was born at Oxford, Sept. 25, 1827, and was married to Mr. R. C. L. Bevan, of the Lombard Street banking firm, in 1856. Mrs. Bevan published in 1858 a series of translations from the German as Songs of Eternal Life (Lond., Hamilton, Adams, & Co.), in a volume which, from its unusual size and comparative costliness, has received less attention than it deserves, for the trs. are decidedly above the average in merit. A number have come into common use, but almost always without her name, the best known being those noted under “O Gott, O Geist, O Licht dea Lebens," and "Jedes Herz will etwas… Go to person page >

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