D.G. ROSSETTI.
The concept of the German mystics was infinitely more profound than the
concept of the merely external poverty of the Franciscans, which in the
case of St. Francis and Jacopone was an inherent characteristic and
pure, but in the case of the others more or less vicious. "Man cannot
live in this world without labour," says Eckhart, "but labour is man's
portion; therefore he must learn to have God in his heart, although
surrounded by the things of this world, and not let his business or his
surroundings be a barrier." There is a passage in the book of an unknown
author, entitled _The Imitation of Christ's Poverty_ (formerly ascribed
to Tauler), which reads as follows: "Poverty is equality with God, a
mind turned away from all creatures; poverty clings to nothing and
nothing clings to it; a man who is poor clings to nothing which is
beneath him, but to that alone which is greater than all things. And
that is the loftiest virtue of poverty that it clings only to that which
is sublime and takes no heed of the things which are base, so far as it
is possible.
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