Found Mystic: Thomas Traherne

London, 1896. A dusty old bookstall overflows with piles of tomes and manuscripts.

- Rick Hamlin

Fog rises off the Thames as a book lover stumbles across an unsigned folio, filled with ancient handwriting, a masterpiece of mystical revelation. He buys it and rushes home with his treasure— and a mind-boggling question: Who wrote this gem of spiritual wisdom?

The folio exchanges hands several times over the next dozen years. Each new owner is baffled by the mystery of its creator. The author was clearly educated, capable of impressive flights of inquiry—someone of considerable polish—and most likely from the seventeenth century. He sounded like one of the metaphysical poets of that era, someone like George Herbert or John Donne. But who was he? He’d excluded his name from his work, exhibiting the humility of a holy man.

Finally, after much literary detective work, it’s determined that this masterpiece was composed by Thomas Traherne (1637–1674), an Anglican priest who wrote essays and poems and seemingly left this world with hardly a trace.

Except for this sweet book, which he had apparently written for a friend encouraging a spiritual journey by putting down his own beliefs and insights.

The manuscript is published under the title Centuries of Meditations, and its unique wisdom and charm are soon widely recognized. The English mystery novelist Dorothy Sayers praises it. The visionary monk Thomas Merton studies it. The indomitable Christian apologist C.S. Lewis calls it “almost the most beautiful book in English.” (That almost makes you wonder what other candidates Lewis had in mind.)