The Divine Specialists

Extract

Although every type of Christian may derive much profit from the writings of Walter Hilton so that his Scale in particular has become a popular work of spirituality, we should not forget that the people for whom he wrote were of a very specialised type. He was addressing a particular person who must have been living the same sort of life as Mother Julian at Norwich, an anchoress shut up in her little house and devoted to the work of contemplation. He does in fact draw a sharp distinction, which many readers have to pass over in puzzlement and try to forget, between the common man and the one who is specially called. The gift of contemplation may be bestowed by God upon, any kind of person he may choose, ‘learned or lewd, men and women, those occupied in prelacy and to solitary also’.