author of ‘Characters and Characteristics of William Law’ etc. Oliphant Anderson & Ferrier 30 St. Mary Street, Edinburgh, and 24 Old Bailey, London 1895 This lecture was delivered at the opening of my Classes for the study of the pre-Reformation, Reformation, and post-Reformation Mystics during Session 1894-5.  A Lecture on William Law was delivered at the opening of a former Session as an Introduction to the whole subject of Mysticism. A. W. St. George’s Free Church , 5 th November 1894

Jacob Behmen, the greatest of the mystics, and the father of German philosophy, was all his life nothing better than a working shoemaker.  He was born at Old Seidenberg, a village near Goerlitz in Silesia, in the year 1575, and he died at Goerlitz in the year 1624.  Jacob Behmen has no biography.  Jacob Behmen’s books are his best biography.  While working with his hands, Jacob Behmen’s whole life was spent in the deepest and the most original thought; in piercing visions of God and of nature; i