Who  showed  it  thee  ?  Love.  What  showed
He  thee?  Love.  Wherefore  showed  it  He?
For  Love.  Hold  thee  therein  and  thou  shalt
learn  and  know  more  in  the  same.  But  thou
shalt  never  know  nor  learn  therein  other
thing  without  end.'  Thus  was  I  learned  that
Love  was  our   Lord's   meanincr.      And    I    saw

O

full  clearly  that   ere   God   made   us    He   loved


78  JULIAN   OF   NORWICH

US ;  which  love  was  never  slacked,  nor  ever
shall  be.  And  in  this  love  He  hath  done
all  His  works;  and  in  this  love  He  hath
made  all  things  profitable  to  us  ;  and  in  this
love  our  life  is  everlasting.  In  our  making
we  had  beginning ;  but  the  love  wherein  He
made  us  was  in  Him  from  without  beginning  ;
in  which  love  we  have  our  beginning.  And
all  this  shall  we  see  in  God,  without  end."

So  Julian  lived  for  the  rest  of  her  long  life
on  the  sweet  memory  of  the  one  revelation
which  came  to  her  during  her  grievous  sick-
ness, and  the  meaning  of  which  became  fully
plain  to  her  fifteen  years  later.  There  is  a
very  curious  parallel  in  the  biography  of
Erskine  of  Linlathen,  a  Scottish  layman  of
great  sanctity  and  beauty  of  character,  who
lived  within  in  the  last  century.  Principal
Shairp  recounts  of  him  :  "  He  spoke  of  the
awful  silence  of  God,  how  it  sometimes
became  oppressive,  and  the  heart  longed  to
hear,  in  answer  to  its  cry,  some  audible
voice.  And  then  he  added  :  '  But  it  has  not
always  been  silence  to  me.  I  have  had  one
levelation  :    it   is   now,    I    am    sorry  to  say,   a


ERSKINE  OF   LINLATHEN  79

matter  of  memory  with  me.  It  was  not  a
revelation  of  anything  that  was  new  to  me.
