When at last he was warned by an angel, he says, to discontinue his austerities, “he spent several weeks very pleasantly,” often weeping for joy at the thought of the grievous sufferings which he had undergone.  But his repose was soon disturbed.  One day, as he sat meditating on “life as a warfare,” he saw a vision of a comely youth, who vested him in the attire of a knight,[262] saying to him, “Hearken, sir knight!  Hitherto thou hast been a squire; now God wills thee to be a knight.  And thou shalt have fighting enough!” Suso cried, “Alas, my God! what art Thou about to do unto me?  I thought that I had had enough by this time.  Show me how much suffering I have before me.”  The Lord said, “It is better for thee not to know.  Nevertheless I will tell thee of three things.  Hitherto thou hast stricken thyself.  Now I will strike thee, and thou shalt suffer publicly the loss of thy good name.  Secondly, where thou shalt look for love and faithfulness, there shalt thou find treachery and suffering.  Thirdly, hitherto thou hast floated in Divine sweetness, like a fish in the sea; this will I now withdraw from thee, and thou shalt starve and wither.  Thou shalt be forsaken both by God and the world, and whatever thou shalt take in hand to comfort thee shall come to nought.”  The servitor threw himself on the ground, with arms outstretched to form a cross, and prayed in agony that this great misery might not fall upon him.  Then a voice said to him, “Be of good cheer, I will be with thee and aid thee to overcome.”

The next chapters show how this vision or presentiment was verified.  The journeys which he now took exposed him to frequent dangers, both from robbers and from lawless men who hated the monks.  One adventure with a murderer is told with delightful simplicity and vividness.  Suso remains throughout his life thoroughly human, and, hard as his lot had been, he is in an agony of fear at the prospect of a violent death.  The story of the outlaw confessing to the trembling monk how, besides other crimes, he had once pushed into the Rhine a priest who had just heard his confession, and how the wife of the assassin comforted Suso when he was about to drop down from sheer fright, forms a quaint interlude in the saint’s memoirs.  But a more grievous trial awaited him.  Among other pastoral work, he laboured much to reclaim fallen women; and a pretended penitent, whose insincerity he had detected, revenged herself by a slander which almost ruined him.[263] Happily, the chiefs of his order, whose verdict he had greatly dreaded, completely exonerated him, after a full investigation, and his last years seem to have been peaceful and happy.  The closing chapters of the Life are taken up by some very interesting conversations with his spiritual “daughter,” Elizabeth Staeglin, who wished to understand the obscurer doctrines of Mysticism.  She asks him about the doctrine of the Trinity, which he expounds on the general lines of Eckhart’s theology.  She, however, remembers some of the