{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_29450/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_29450","id":"gutenberg_29450","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29450","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Novels","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Mysticism"],"text":"Produced by Ruth Hart\n\n\n\n\nTHE PRODIGAL RETURNS\n\nBy\n\nLilian Staveley\nThe Author of \"The Golden Fountain\" and \"The Romance of the\nSoul\"\n\n\nLondon\nJohn M. Watkins\n21 Cecil Court, Charing Cross Road, W.C. 2\n1921\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\nPart I.     7\nPart II.   63\nPart III.  81\nPart IV.  102\nPart V.   151\n\n\n\nPART I\n\nSunshine and a garden path . . . flowers . . . the face and neck and\nbosom of the nurse upon whose heart I lay, and her voice telling me\nthat she must leave me, that we must part, and immediately after\nanguish--blotting out the sunshine, the flowers, the face, the voice.\nThis is my first recollection of Life--the pain of love. I was two\nyears old.\n\nNothing more for two years--and then the picture of a pond and my\nbaby brother floating on it, whilst with agonised hands I seized his\nsmall white coat and held him fast.\n\nAnd then a meadow full of long, deep grass and summer flowers,\nand I--industriously picking buttercups into a tiny petticoat to take to\ncook, \"to make the butter with,\" I said.\n\nAnd then a table spread for tea. Our nurses, my two brothers, and\nmyself. Angry words and screaming baby voices, a knife thrown by\nmy little brother. Rage and hate.\n\nAnd then a wedding, and I a bridesmaid, aged five years--the church,\nthe altar, and great awe, and afterwards a long white table, white\nflowers, and a white Bride. Grown men on either side of\nme--smilingly delightful, tempting me with sweets and cakes and wine,\nand a new strange interest rising in me like a little flood of\nexultation--the joy of the world, and the first faint breath of the\nmystery of sex.\n\nThen came winters of travel. Sunshine and mimosa, olive trees\nagainst an azure sky. Climbing winding, stony paths between green\nterraces, tulips and anemones and vines; white sunny walls and\nlizards; green frogs and deep wells fringed around with maidenhair.\nMountains and a sea of lapis blue, and early in the mornings from\nthis lapis lake a great red sun would rise upon a sky of molten gold.\nIn the rooms so near me were my darling brothers, from whom I\noften had to part. Beauty and Joy, and Love and Pain--these made\nup life.\n\nAt ten I twice narrowly escaped death. From Paris we were to take\nthe second or later half of the train to Marseilles. Late the night\nbefore my father suddenly said, \"I have changed my mind; I feel we\nmust go by the first train.\" This was with some difficulty arranged.\n\nOn reaching an immense bridge across a deep ravine I suddenly\nbecame acutely aware that the bridge was about to give way. In a\nterrible state of alarm I called out this fearful fact to my family. I\nburst into tears. I suffered agonies. My mother scolded me, and\nwhen we safely reached the other side of the bridge I was severely\ntaken to task for my behaviour. The bridge broke with the next train\nover it--the train in which we should have been. Some four hundred\npeople perished. It was the most terrible railway disaster that had\never occurred in France.\n\nA few weeks later, death came nearer still. Having escaped from our\ntutor, with a party of other children we ran to two great reservoirs to\nfish for frogs. Laughing and talking and full of childish joy, we\nfished there for an hour, when all at once I was impelled, under an\nextraordinary sense of pressure, to call out, \"If anyone falls into the\nwater, no one must jump in to save them, but must immediately run\nto those long sticks\" (I had never noticed them until I spoke) \"and\ndraw one out and hold it to whoever has fallen in.\" I spoke\nautomatically, and felt as much surprised as my companions that I\nshould speak of such a thing.\n\nWithin five minutes I had fallen in myself. My brother remembered\nmy words, but before he could reach me with the stick I was under\nthe water for the third and last time. It was all that they could do to\ndrag my weight up to the ledge, for the water was a yard below it.\nHad my brother jumped in, as he said he most surely would have\ndone had I not forewarned him, we must both have been drowned,\nfor they would have had neither the strength nor the time to pull us\nboth out alive. I was not at all frightened or upset till I heard\nsomeone say that I was dead; then I wept--it was so sad to be dead!\nThe pressure put upon me to speak as I did had been so great that I\nhave never forgotten the strange impression of it to this day. On both\nthese occasions I consider that I was under immediate Divine\nprotection.\n\nI believed earnestly in God with the complete and peaceful faith of\nchildhood. I thought of Him, and was afraid: but more afraid of a\ngreat Angel who stood with pen and book in hand and wrote down\nall my sins. This terrible Angel was a great reality to me. I prayed\ndiligently for those I loved. Sometimes I forgot a name: then I would\nhave to get out of bed and add it to my prayer. As I grew older, if the\nweather were cold I did not pray upon the floor but from my bed,\nbecause it was more comfortable. I was not always sure if this were\nquite right, but I could not concentrate my mind on God if my body\nwas cold, because then I could not forget my body.\n\nI saw God very plainly when I shut my eyes! He was a White Figure\nin white robes on a white throne, amongst the clouds. He heard my\nprayers as easily as I saw His robes. He was by no means very far\naway, though sometimes He was further than at others. He took the\ntrouble to make everything very beautiful: and He could not bear\nsinful children. The Angel with the Book read out to Him my faults\nin the evenings.\n\nWhen I was twelve years old my grandmother died, and for three\nmonths I was in real grief. All day I mourned for her, and at night I\nlooked out at the stars, and the terrible mystery of death and space\nand loneliness struck at my childish heart.\n\nAfter thirteen I could no longer be taken abroad to hotels, for my\nparents considered that I received too much attention, too many\npresents, too many chocolates from men. I was educated by a\ngoverness, and was often very lonely. My brothers would come back\nfrom school; then I overflowed with happiness and sang all day long\nin my heart with joy. The last night of the holidays was a time of\nanguish. Upstairs the clothes were packed. Downstairs I helped them\npack the \"play-boxes,\" square deal boxes at sight of which tears\nsprang to my eyes and a dreadful pain gripped my heart. Oh, the\npain of love at parting! there never was a pain so terrible as suffering\nlove. The last meal: the last hour: the last look. There are natures\nwhich feel this anguish more than others. We are not all alike.\n\nI had been passionately fond of dolls. Now I was too old for such\ncompanions, and when my brothers went away I was completely\nalone with my governess and my lessons. I fell into the habit of\ndreaming. In these dreams I evolved a companion who was at the\nsame time myself--and yet not an ordinary little girl like myself, but\na marvellous creature of unlimited possibilities and virtues. She\neven had wings and flew with such ease from the tops of the highest\nbuildings, and floated so delightfully over my favourite fields and\nbrooks that I found it hard to believe that I myself did not actually\nfly. What glorious things we did together, what courage we had,\nnothing daunted us! I cared very little to read books of adventure,\nfor our own adventures were more wonderful than anything I ever\nread.\n\nNot only had I wings, but when I was my other self I was extremely\ngood, and the Angel with the Book was then never able to make a\nsingle adverse record of me. And then how easy it was to be good:\nhow delightful, no difficulties whatever! As we both grew older the\nactual wings were folded up and put away. The virtues remained,\nbut we led an intensely interesting life, and a certain high standard\nof life was evolved which was afterwards useful to me.\n\nWhen, later on, I grew up and my parents allowed me to have as\nmany friends as I wanted, and when I became exceedingly gay, I\nstill retained the habit of this double existence; it remained with me\neven after my marriage and kept me out of mischief. If I found\nmyself temporarily dull or in some place I did not care for, clothed\nin the body of my double, like the wind, I went where I listed. I\nwould go to balls and parties, or with equal ease visit the mountains\nand watch the sunset or the incomparable beauties of dawn, making\ndelicate excursions into the strange, the wonderful, and the sublime.\nI gathered crystal flowers in invisible worlds, and the scent of those\nflowers was Romance.\n\nAll this vivid imagination sometimes made my mind over-active: I\ncould not sleep. \"Count sheep jumping over a hurdle,\" I was advised.\nBut it did not answer. I found the most effective way was to think\nseriously of my worst sins--my mind immediately slowed down,\nbecame a discreet blank--I slept!\n\nI grew tall and healthy. At sixteen I received my first offer of\nmarriage and with it my first vision of the love and passion of men. I\nrecoiled from it with great shyness and aversion. Yet I became\ndeeply interested in men, and remained so for very many years.\nFrom that time on I never was without a lover till my marriage.\n\nII\n\nAt seventeen my \"lessons\" came to an end. I had not learnt much,\nbut I could speak four languages with great fluency. I learnt perhaps\nmore from listening to the conversation of my father and his friends.\nHe had always been a man of leisure and was acquainted with many\nof the interesting and celebrated people of the day, both in England\nand on the Continent. I was devoted to him, and whenever he guided\nmy character he did so with the greatest judgment. He taught me\nabove all things the need of self-control, and never to make a remark\nof a fellow-creature unless I had something pleasant or kind to say.\nThere was no subject upon which he was unread; and when my\nbrothers, who were both exceedingly clever, returned from college\nand the University, wonderful and brilliant were the discussions that\nwent on. Both my parents were of Huguenot descent, belonging to\nthe old French noblesse. I think the Latin blood had sharpened their\nbrains, and certainly gave an extra zest to life.\n\nMy father was a great believer in heredity, and the following\npersonal experience may show him somewhat justified in his belief.\nIn quite early childhood I commenced to feel a preference for the\n_left_ side of my body: I washed, dried, and dressed the left side\nfirst; I preserved it carefully from all harm; I kept it warm. I was,\ncomparatively speaking, totally indifferent to my right side.\n\nAs I grew older I observed that the place of honour was upon the\nright-hand side: I understood that God had made the world and ruled\nit with His right hand! I was wrong, then, in preferring my left hand.\nI determined to change over. It was very difficult to do: so deep was\nthe instinct that it took me some years to eradicate the love for my\nleft side and transfer it to my right, and when I had at last\naccomplished it I was still liable to go back to my first preference.\nNo one ever detected my peculiarity.\n\n\nI was already eighteen or nineteen years old when one day I entered\nmy father's room, ready dressed to go out. I had on both my gloves.\nSuddenly I remembered that I had put on my left glove first.\nImmediately I took off both my gloves--then I replaced the right one,\nand then the left. My father was watching me and asked me for an\nexplanation. I gave it him, and he looked very grave, almost alarmed.\nAfter a moment of silence he said, \"I want you to give that habit up--I\nwant you to break yourself of it immediately. I had it myself as a\nyouth: it took me years to conquer. No one should permit himself to\nbe the slave of _any_ habit.\"\n\nI asked him which side he had loved. \"The _left_ side,\" he said. At\nfive-and-twenty he had conquered the habit, and I was not born till\nhe was almost sixty-one! yet I had inherited it. We never referred to\nit again, and in two years I, also, had conquered it.\n\nWe spent the winter of the year in which I was seventeen in Italy, to\nwhich country a near relative was Ambassador, and there I went to\nmy first ball. That night--and how often afterwards!--I knew the\nsurging exultation, the intoxication of the joy of life. How often in\nsocial life, in brilliant scenes of light and laughter, music and love, I\nseemed to ride on the crest of a wave, in the marvellous glamour of\nyouth!\n\nThis love of the world and of social life was a very strong feeling for\nmany years: at the same time and running, as it were, in double\nharness with it was a necessity for solitude. My mind imperatively\ndemanded this, and indeed my heart too.\n\nIt was during this year that I first commenced a new form of mental\npleasure through looking at the beautiful in Nature. Not only\nsolitude, but total silence was necessary for this pastime, and, if\npossible, beauty and a distant view: failing a view I could\naccomplish it by means of the beauties of the sky. This form of\nmental pleasure was the exact opposite of my previous dreamings,\nfor all imagination absolutely ceased, all forms, all pictures, all\nactivities disappeared--the very scene at which I looked had to\nvanish before I could know the pleasure of this occupation in which,\nin some mysterious manner, I inhaled the very essence of the\nBeautiful.\n\nAt first I was only able to remain in this condition for a few\nmoments at a time, but that satisfied me--or, rather, did not satisfy\nme, for through it all ran a strange unaccountable anguish--a pain of\nlonging--which, like a high, fine, tremulous nerve, ran through the\njoy. What induced me to pursue this habit, I never asked myself.\nThat it was a form of the spirit's struggle towards the Eternal--of the\nsoul's great quest of God--never occurred to me. I was worshipping\nthe Beautiful without giving sufficient thought to Him from Whom\nall beauty proceeds. Half a lifetime was to go by before I realised to\nwhat this habit was leading me--that it was the first step towards the\nacquirement of that most exquisite of all blessings--the gift of the\nContemplation of God. Ah, if anyone knows in his heart the call of\nthe Beautiful, let him use it towards this glorious end! Love, and the\nBeautiful--these are the twin golden paths that lead us all to God.\n\nIII\n\nCertainly we were not a religious family. One attendance at church\nupon Sunday--if it did not rain!--and occasionally the Communion,\nthis was the extent of any outward religious feeling. But my father's\ndaily life and acts were full of Christianity. A man of a naturally\nsomewhat violent temper, he had so brought himself under control\nthat towards everyone, high and low, he had become all that was\nsweet and patient, sympathetic and gentle.\n\nAbout this time a devouring curiosity for knowledge commenced to\npossess me. What was the truth--what was the truth about every\nsingle thing I saw? Astronomy, Biology, Geology--in these things I\ndiscovered a new and marvellous interest: here at last I found my\nnatural bent. History had small attraction for me: it spoke of the\ndoings of people mostly vain or cruel, and untruthful. I wanted\ntruth--irrefutable facts! No scientific work seemed too difficult for me;\nbut I never, then or later, read anything upon the subject of religion,\nphilosophy, or psychology. I had a healthy, wholesome young\nintelligence with a voracious appetite: it would carry me a long way,\nI thought. It did--it landed me in Atheism.\n\nTo a woman Atheism is intolerable pain: her very nature, loving,\ntender, sensitive, clinging, demands belief in God. The high moral\nstandard demanded of her is impossible of fulfilment for mere\nreasons of race-welfare. The personal reason, the Personal\nGod--these are essential to high virtue. Young as I was, I realised this.\nOutwardly I was frivolous; inwardly I was no butterfly, the deep\nthings of my nature were by no means unknown to me. I not only\nbecame profoundly unrestful at heart but I was fearful for myself,\nand of where strong forces of which I felt the pull might lead me. I\nhad great power over the emotions of men: moreover, interests and\ninstincts within me corresponded to this dangerous capacity. I felt\nthat the world held many strange fires: some holy and beautiful;\nsome far otherwise.\n\nWithout God I knew myself incapable of overcoming the evil of the\nworld, or even of my own petty nature and entanglements. I\ndespaired, for I perceived that God does not reveal Himself because\nof an imperious demand of the human mind, and I had yet to learn\nthat those mysteries which are under lock and key to the intelligence\nare open to the heart and soul. But indeed there was no God to\nreveal Himself. All was a fantastic make-believe! a pitiful childish\ninvention and illusion!\n\nMy intelligence said, \"Resign yourself to what is, after all, the truth:\nconsole yourself with the world and material achievements.\" The\nheart said, \"Resignation is impossible, for there is no consolation to\nthe heart without God.\" I listened to my heart rather than my\nintelligence, and for two terrible years I fought for faith. I was\nalways reserved, and never admitted anyone into the deep things of\nmy life--but when I was twenty my father perceived that I was going\nthrough some inward crisis. He knew the books that I read, and\nprobably guessed what had happened to me. At any rate he called\nme into his room one day and asked me, out of love and obedience\nto himself, to give up reading all science. This was an overwhelming\nblow to me: yet I loved him dearly, and had never disobeyed him in\nmy life. Again I let my heart speak; and I sacrificed my mind and\nmy books.\n\nI threw myself now more than ever into social amusements, and in\nmy solitary hours sought consolation in my \"dream-life.\" I was\nafraid to turn to the love of Nature--to my beautiful pastime,--for the\npain in it was unbearable.\n\nTowards the end of two years my struggles for faith commenced to\nfind a reward. Little by little a faint hope crept into my mind--fragile,\noften imperceptible. A questioning remark made by my younger\nbrother helped me: \"If human life is entirely material and a\npart of Nature only, then what becomes of human thoughts and\naspirations?\" Science had proved to me that nothing is lost--but has\na destiny--in that it evolves into another form or condition of activity.\nEvolution! with its many seeming contradictions to Religion--might\nit not be merely a strong light, too strong as yet for my weak mind,\nblinding me into temporary darkness? What raised Man above the\nbeasts but his thoughts and aspirations; and if even a grain of dust\nwere imperishable, were these thoughts and aspirations of Man\nalone to end in nothing--to be lost! It was but a reasonable inference\nto say No. These invisible thoughts and aspirations have also a\nfuture--a destiny in a, to us, still invisible world--in the Life of the\nSpirit. To this my mind was able to agree. It was a step. In the realm\nof Ideal Thought I might find again my Faith. I had indeed been\nfoolish to suppose that a system which provided for the continuation\nof a grain of sand should overlook the Spirit of Man. This was\npresupposing the existence of a spirit in Man; but who could be\nfound to truly and reasonably hold that the mysterious high and\nsoaring thoughts of Man were one and the same thing as mere\nanimalism? they were too obviously of another nature to the merely\nbovine, to the solids of the flesh: for one thing, they were free of the\nlaw of gravity which so entirely overrules the rest of Nature--they\nmust therefore come to their destiny in another world, another\ncondition of consciousness.\n\nIV\n\nThat winter we again spent in Italy, in continuous gaiety amongst a\nbrilliant cosmopolitan world of men and women who for the most\npart lived in palaces, surrounded with art and luxury. Here in Rome\non every side was to be found the Cult of the Beautiful. Wonderful\ntemples, gems of classical sculpture, masterpieces of colour in oil\nand fresco--the genius and the aspirations of men rendered\npermanent for us by Art; but the Temples, those silent emblems of\nman's worship of an Unknown God, with their surroundings of\nlovely nature, affected me far the most deeply: indeed, I do not\npretend that sculptures and pictures affected me at all. I was\ninterested, I greatly admired--they were a part of education, but that\nwas all. But in the vicinity of those Temples what strange echoes\nawoke in me, what mysterious sadness and longing, what a mystery\nof pain! Something within me sighed and moaned for God. If I could\nbut find Him--if I could even truly Believe and be at peace! But\nalready I had commenced to Believe.\n\nDuring the late winter we went to one of the great ceremonies at the\nVatican: we had seats in the Sistine Chapel. It was an especial\noccasion, and the number of persons present was beyond all seating\naccommodation. To make way for someone of importance I was\nasked to give up my seat and go outside into the body of the great\nCathedral; here I was hurriedly pushed into the second row of a\nhuge concourse of waiting and standing people. Already in the\ndistance the Pope was approaching. Lifted high in his chair on the\nshoulders of his bearers, he came slowly along in his white robes,\nhis hand raised in a general blessing upon all this multitude. As he\ncame nearer I saw the delicate ivory face--the great dark eyes\nshining with a fire I had never seen before. For the first time in my\nlife I saw holiness. I was moved to the depths of my being.\nSomething in my gaze arrested his attention; he had his chair\nstopped immediately above me, and, leaning over me, he blessed me\nindividually--a very great concession during a large public\nceremony. I ought to have gone down on my knees--but I had no\nknees! I no longer had a body! There was no longer anything\nanywhere in the world but Holiness--and my enraptured soul.\n\nHoliness, then, was far beyond the Beautiful. I had not known this\ntill I saw it before me.\n\nLife hurried me on: glowing hours and months succeeded each other.\nIn the autumn I fell in love. I came to the consciousness of this, not\ngradually, but all in one instant. I had no chance of drawing back,\nfor it was already fully completed before I realised it. I came to the\nrealisation of it through a dream (sleep-dreams were always\nexceedingly rare with me): on this occasion I dreamed a friend\nshowed me the picture of a girl to whom she said this lover (he had\nbeen my lover for a year) was engaged. I awoke, sobbing with\nanguish. I could not disguise from myself the fact that I must be in\nlove. When the time came to speak of it to my parents, my mother\nwould not hear of the marriage--there was no money: I must make\nanother choice. Two brilliant opportunities offered\nthemselves--money--position; but I could not bring myself to think of\neither. Love was everything: a prolonged secret engagement followed. I\nwent into Society just as before. At this time an aptitude for\n\"fortune-telling\" showed itself: it amused my friends--I told fortunes\nboth by palmistry, which I studied quite seriously, and by cards.\nWith both I went largely by inspiration. I found this \"inspiration\"\nvaried with the individual. There were many persons to whom I\ncould give the most extraordinarily accurate details of past, present,\nand future; others moderately so; others were a total blank, in which\ncase I either had to remain silent or \"try to make up.\" I got such a\nreputation for this--I was so sought after for it by even total\nstrangers--that in a couple of years I pushed it all far away from me\nas an intolerable nuisance.\n\nV\n\nThe Faith that had been growing up in me was of a very different\nform from that which I had had before: wider, purer, infinitely more\npowerful, and, though I did not like to remember the pain of them, I\nfelt that those struggling years of doubt and negation had been worth\nwhile--without those struggles I felt I never could have had so\npowerful a faith as I now had. God was at an indefinite and infinite\ndistance, but His Existence was a thing of complete certainty for me.\n\nOf the mode and means of Connection with Him I had no smallest\nknowledge or even conception. I addressed Him with words from\nthe brain and the lips. An insuperable wall perpetually separated me\nfrom Him.\n\nNow my father became ill with heart trouble. Doctors, nurses, all the\ndreaded paraphernalia of sickness pervaded the house. During two\nterrible years he lingered on. Heart-broken at the sight of his\nsufferings, I hardly left his bedside. Finally death released him. But\nmy health, which had always been good, was now completely\nbroken down; I became a semi-invalid, always suffering, too\ndelicate to marry. Under pressure of this continued wretchedness I\nsank into a nerveless condition of mere dumb endurance--a passive\nacceptance of the miseries of life \"as willed by God,\" I assured\nmyself.\n\nI entered a stagnant state of _mere_ resignation, whereas\naccompanying the resignation there should have been a forward-piercing\nendeavour to reach out and attain a higher spiritual level through\nJesus Christ: a persistent effort to light my lamp at the\nSpiritual Flame to which each must _bring his own lamp,_ for it is\nnot lit for him by the mere outward ceremony of Baptism--that\nceremony is but the Invitation to come to the Light: for each one\nindividually, _in full consciousness of desire,_ that lighting must be\nobtained from the Saviour. I had not obtained this light. I did not\ncomprehend that it was necessary. I understood nothing; I\nwas a spiritual savage. Vague, miserable thoughts, gloomy\nself-introspections, merely fatigue the vitality without assisting the\nsoul. What is required is a persistent endeavour to establish an inwardly\nfelt relationship first to the Man Jesus. His Personality, His\nCharacteristics are to be drawn into the secret places of the heart by\nmeans of the natural sympathy which plays between two hearts that\nboth know love and suffering, and hope and dejection. Sympathy\nestablished--love will soon follow. Later, an iron energy to\novercome will be required. The supreme necessity of the soul before\nbeing filled with love is to maintain the will of the whole spiritual\nbeing in conformity with the Will of God. In the achievement of this\nshe is under incessant assistance: in fact everything in the spiritual\nlife is a gift--as in the physical: for who can produce his own sight\nor his own growth? In the physical these are automatic--in the\nspiritual they are accomplished only, as it were, \"by request,\" and\nthis request a deep all-pervading desire.\n\nWe cannot of our own will climb the spiritual heights, neither can\nwe climb them without using our will. It is Will flowing towards\nWill which carries us by the power of Jesus Christ to the Goal.\n\nVI\n\nWith recovered health, I married, and knew great happiness; but as a\nbride of four months I had to part from my husband, who went to the\nSouth African War. Always, always this terrible pain of love that\nmust part. Always it was love that seemed to me the most beautiful\nthing in life, and always it was love that hurt me most. He was away\nfor fifteen months. I made no spiritual advance whatever. Mystified\nby so much pain, I now began to regard God if not as the actual\nAuthor of all pain, at any rate as the Permitter of all pain. More and\nmore I fell back in alarm at the discovery of the depths of my own\ncapacities for suffering. A tremendous fear of God now commenced\nto grow up in me, which so increased that after a few years I listened\nwith astonishment when I heard people say they were afraid of\n_any_ person, even a burglar! I could no longer understand feeling\nfear for anyone or anything save God. All my actions were now\ngoverned solely by this sense of weighty, immediate fear of Him.\nThis continued for some ten years.\n\nWhen my husband at last returned from the War we took up again\nour happy married life, and we lived together without a cross word,\nin a wonderful world of our own, as lovers do. It was remarkable\nthat we were so happy, for we had no interests in common. My\nhusband loved all sports and all games, whereas interest in those\nthings was frankly incomprehensible to me. In the winter, when he\nwas out in the hunting-field, I spent much time by myself; but I was\nnever dull, for I could walk out amongst Nature and indulge in my\npastime, if the weather were fine: and if not, I could observe and\nadmire everything that grew and lived close at hand in the\nhedgerows and fields, and I would work for hours with my needle,\nfor then I could think; I worked hard in the garden.\n\n\nA dreadful question now often presented itself to me: Had I really a\nsoul at all, or was I merely a passing shadow, here momentarily for\nGod's amusement? If I had an eternal soul, where did it live--in my\nhead with my brain as a higher part of my mind?\n\nMen had souls, I was sure of that; and they asserted the possession\nof them very positively--but women? I understood Mahomed\ngrudgingly granted them a half-soul, and that only conditionally.\nScriptures spoke harshly of women; Paul was bitter against them; all\nthe sins and troubles of the world were laid upon their delicate and\nbeautiful shoulders. In Revelation I found no mention whatever of\nWoman in the life of the Resurrection.\n\nAll this hurt me. What profound injustice--to suffer so much and to\nreceive no recognition whatever whilst men walked off with all the\njoys after leading very questionable lives! Why continue to struggle\nto please God when His interest in me would so soon be over? I\nwent through very real and great spiritual sufferings, and\ntemptations to throw myself again solely into world-interests, to\nconsole myself with the here and now, for I had the means: it was all\nto my hand. I swayed to and fro: at one time I felt very hard towards\nGod, terribly hurt by this love-betrayal. But when I looked at the\nbeauties of Nature and the glories of that endless sky, ah, my heart\nmelted with tenderness and admiration for the marvellous Maker of\nit all. Truly, He was worthy of any sacrifice upon my part. If my\npoor, tiny, suffering life afforded Him amusement, I was willing to\nhave it so. After all--for what wretched, ugly, and miserable men\nwomen frequently sacrificed themselves without getting any other\nreward for it than neglect and indifference. How much better to\nsacrifice oneself to the All-Perfect, All-Beautiful God!\n\nI finally resigned myself entirely and completely to this point of\nview, and, having done so, I thus addressed, in all reverence and\nearnestness, the Deity:--\n\n\"Almighty God, if it is Thy Will to blot out Woman from Paradise I\nmost humbly assure Thee of this--Man will miss her sorely; and\nThou Thyself, Almighty God, when Thou dost visit Paradise, wilt\nmiss her also!\"\n\nAfter this I seldom said any private prayers, for I was not of the\nAcceptable Sex. But I paid a public respect to God in the church,\nwhere I worshipped Him with profound reverence and great sadness.\nBut I thought of Him in my heart constantly, with all those tender,\nloving, longing thoughts which are the heart's bouquet held out to\nGod.\n\nHappiness for me, then, must be found entirely in this world, and I\nfound it in my love for my husband. Happiness was that which the\nwhole world was looking for; but I could not fail to notice more and\nmore the ridiculous picture presented by Society in its pretences of\nbeing the means of finding this happiness. None of its ardent\ndevotees were \"happy\" people; they were excited, egotistical,\nintensely vain and selfish, often bitter and disappointed, filled with a\ndemon of competition, jealous, and full of empty, insincere smiles. I\nperceived the chagrins from which they secretly suffered--the tears\nbehind the laughter. I was not in the least deceived or impressed by\nany of them, but wondered how they managed to hang together and\ndeceive each other. More and more I looked for purely mental\npleasures. Mind was everything. I now began to despise my body--I\nalmost hated it as an incubus! Social successes or failures grew to be\na matter of complete indifference to me, and social life resolved\nitself into being solely the means of bringing mind into contact with\nmind. The question of fashionable environment ceased to exist for\nme, but the question of how and where to meet with thinking minds\nwas what concerned me: it was not an easy one to solve in the usual\nconditions of country life, with its sports and its human-animal\ninterests.\n\nFinally, total mental solitude closed around me. In spite of my doubt\nas to the existence of a woman-soul, I still felt the same piercing\ndesire and need for God--the acquisition of knowledge in no way\nlessened this pain. What, after all, is knowledge by itself? The light\nof the highest human intelligence seems hardly greater than the wan\nlamp of a diminutive glow-worm, surrounded by the vastness of the\nnight. In sorrow, in trouble, in pain, could knowledge or the mind do\nso much more for me than the despised body? No, something more\nthan the intelligence was needed to give life any sense of adequacy:\neven human love was insufficient. God Himself was needed, and the\never-recurring necessity would force itself upon me of the need for a\npersonal direct connection with God.\n\nI continued to find it utterly impossible to achieve this. Mere faith\nby no means fulfilled my requirements. God, then, remained\ninaccessible--the mind fell back from every attempt to reach Him.\nHe was unknowable, yet not unthinkable--that is to say, He was not\nunthinkable as Being, but only in particularisation and in realisation.\nI could know Him to Be; but in that alone where was any\nconsolation?--I found it totally inadequate. It was some form of\npersonal Contact that was needed; but if my mind failed to reach this,\nwith what else should I reach it? Ah, I was infinitely too small for\nthis terrible mystery; but, small as I was, how I could suffer! Why\nthis suffering? Why would He not show Himself? Harsh, rebellious,\ncriticising thoughts frequently invaded me: the whole scheme of\nNature and of life at times appeared cruel, unreasonably so. All the\nold ever-to-be-repeated cycle of bitter human thoughts had to be\ngone all through again in my own individual atom. Here and there\nthe bitterness might vary: as, for instance, the collapse and\ncorruption of the body with its hideous finale never caused me\ndistress. I had become too indifferent to the body; but I found that\nmost persons clung to it with extraordinary tenacity, indeed\nappeared to regard it as their most valuable possession! What I did\nresent, and was deeply mystified by, was the capacity for suffering\nand pain which had no balance in any corresponding joy. It was idle\nto say that the joy of festivities, even of human love, equalled the\nanguish of grief over others, or the sufferings of physical ill-health.\nThey did not counterbalance it; sorrow was more weighty than joy,\nand far more durable. Later I became convinced that there did exist a\nfull equivalent of joy, as against pain, and that I merely had no\nknowledge of how to find it.\n\nYears succeeded each other in this way, bringing greater loosening\nof earth-ties, more abstraction, certainly no improvement of\ncharacter.\n\nMy husband's duties as a soldier took us to many parts of the world.\nDuring a visit to Africa I was struck by lightning, and for ten days\nmy sufferings were almost unendurable; every nerve seemed\nelectrocuted. It was long before I quite recovered. Whilst this illness\nlasted, though it caused him no inconvenience and he led his life\nexactly as usual, I yet noticed a change in my husband's love. I was\ndeeply pained, almost horrified, by this revelation of the natural\nimperfection of human love: profoundly saddened, I asked myself\nwas it nothing but lust which had inspired and dictated all the poems\nof the world? I thought more and more of Jesus' love; I began to\nknow that nothing less than His perfect love could satisfy me. In this\nillness I was tremendously alone.\n\nVII\n\nI commenced to meditate upon the life and the character and the\nlove of Jesus Christ. I was now about thirty-six. Gradually He\nbecame for me a secret Mind-Companion. I began to rely upon this\ncompanionship--though it appeared intensely one-sided, for at first it\nseemed always to be I who gave! Nevertheless I found a growing\ncalm arising from this apparently so one-sided friendship. A subtle\nassistance and comfort came to me, it was impossible to say how,\nyet it came from this companionship as it came from nothing else.\n\nThat Jesus Christ was God I knew to be the faith of the Church, but\nthat He actually was so I felt no conviction of whatever: indeed, it\nwas incomprehensible to me. I thought of Him as a Perfect Man,\nwith divine powers. He was my Jesus. I denied nothing, for I was far\ntoo small and ignorant to venture to do so: I kept a perfectly open\nmind and loved Him for Himself, as the Man Jesus.\n\nThis went on for some years. In all my spiritual advancement I was\nincredibly slow!\n\nWhat had delayed me in progress was lack of using the right\nProcedure and the right Prayer. I sought for God with persistence\nand great longing; but I sought Him as the Father, and the Godhead\nis inaccessible to the creature. On becoming truly desirous of finding\nGod it is necessary that with great persistence we pray the Father in\nthe name of Jesus Christ that He will give us to Jesus Christ and nil\nthe heart and mind with love for Christ. Only through Jesus Christ\ncan we find the Godhead, and we cannot be satisfied with less than\nthe Godhead. With the creature we cannot come into contact with\nthe Godhead--but with the soul only. The soul is awakened, revived,\nreglorified by Grace of Jesus Christ; and the Holy Spirit effects the\nrepentance and conversion of the heart and mind, for without this\nconversion towards a spiritual life the soul remains in bondage to the\nunconverted creature.\n\nVIII\n\nOne day I returned from a walk, and hardly had I entered my room\nwhen I commenced thinking with great nearness and intimacy of\nJesus; and suddenly, with the most intense vividness, He presented\nHimself before my consciousness so that I inwardly perceived Him,\nand at once I was overcome by a great agony of remorse for my\nunworthiness: it was as though my heart and mind broke in pieces\nand melted in the stress of this fearful pain, which\ncontinued--increased--became unendurable, and lasted altogether an\nhour. Too ignorant to know that this was the pain of Repentance, I\ndid not understand what had happened to me; but now indeed at least I\nknew beyond a doubt that I had a soul! My wonderful Lord had\ncome to pay me a visit, and I was not fit to receive Him--hence my\nagony. I would try with all my strength to improve myself for Him.\n\nI was at first at a standstill to know even where to commence in this\nimprovement, for words fail to describe what I now saw in myself!\nUp till now I had publicly confessed myself a sinner, and privately\ncalmly thought of myself as a sinner, but without being disturbed by\nit or perceiving how I was one! I kept the commandments in the\nusual degree and way, and was conscientious in my dealings with\nothers. Now all at once--by this Presentment of Himself before my\nsoul--which had lasted for no more than one moment of time--I\nsuddenly, and with terrible clearness, saw the whole insufferable\noffensiveness of myself.\n\nFor some time, even for some weeks, I remained like a person\nhalf-stunned with astonishment. Then I determined to try to become less\nselfish, less irritable and impatient, to show far more consideration\nfor everyone else, to be rigidly truthful: in fact, try to commence an\nalteration.\n\nFor one thing--about telling lies--I had always been quite truthful in\nlarge things, but often told some social lies for my own convenience,\nand sometimes told them for no reason at all! This spontaneous Evil\nfilled me with more astonishment than shame; whence did this Evil\ncome? I could never account for this strange Intruder which seemed\nto have a separate life and will of its own, and which, with no\nconscious invitation upon my part, would suddenly visit me! and _in\nall manner of shapes and ways!_ But whatever my difficulties, I had\nalways this immense incentive--to please my Jesus, tender and\nwonderful, my Perfect Friend.\n\nTwo years went by, and on Easter morning, at the close of the\nservice as I knelt in prayer in the church, He suddenly presented\nHimself again before my soul, and again I saw myself, and again I\nwent down and down into those terrible abysses of spiritual pain;\nand I suffered more than I suffered the first time: indeed, I have\nnever had the courage to quite fully recall the full depths of this\nanguish to mind.\n\nAfter this my soul knew Jesus as Christ the Son of God, and my\nheart and mind accepted this without any further wonder or question,\nand entirely without knowing how this knowledge had been given,\nfor it came as a gift.\n\nA great repose now commenced to fill me, and the world and all its\ninterests and ways seemed softly and gently blown out of my heart\nby the wings of a great new love, my love for the Risen Christ.\n\nThough outwardly my friends might see no change, yet inwardly I\nwas secretly changing month by month. Even the great love I had\nfor my husband began to fade: this caused me distress; I thought I\nwas growing heartless, and yet it was rather that my heart had grown\nso large that no man could fill it! I felt within me an immense,\nincomprehensible capacity for love, and the whole world with all its\ncontents seemed totally, even absurdly, inadequate to satisfy this\ngreat capacity. I suffered over it without understanding it.\n\nIX\n\nI had a garden full of old-fashioned flowers, surrounded by high\nwalls with thatch. As I grew in my heart more and more away from\nthe world, I worked more in the garden, and whilst I worked I\nthought mostly about God--God so far away and hidden, and yet so\nnear my heart.\n\nThere were many different song-birds in the garden, and one robin. I\nloved the robin best of all. His song was not so beautiful as the\nblackbird's or so mellow as the thrush's; but they hid and ran away\nfrom me, whilst the robin sought me out and stayed with me and\nsang me, all to myself, a little, tiny, gentle song of which I never\ngrew tired. If I stayed quite still, he came so close he almost touched\nme; but if I moved towards him, he flew away in a great fright.\n\nIt seemed to me I was like that robin, and I wanted to come close,\nclose to the feet of God. But He would not let me find Him. He\nwould not make me any sign. He would not let me feel I knew Him.\nDid He in His wisdom know that if He showed Himself too openly I\nshould go mad with fear or joy? I could not tell. But every day as the\nrobin sang to me in the garden I sang to God a little gentle song out\nof my heart--a song to the hidden God Who called me, and when I\nanswered Him would not be found, and, still remaining hidden,\ncalled and called till I was dumb with the pain and wonder of this\nmystery.\n\nThen suddenly came the Great War. My husband was amongst the\nfirst to have to go. All my love for him which I had thought to be\nfading now rose up again to its full strength: it was no mere weakly\nsentiment, but a powerful type of human love which had been able\nto carry me through fifteen years of married life without one hour of\nquarrelling; its roots were deep into my heart and mind: the very\nstrength and perfection of it but made of it a greater instrument for\ntorture. Why should this most beautiful of all human emotions carry\nwith it so heavy a penalty, for which no remedy appeared to exist? It\nhad not then been made clear to me that all human loves must first\nbe offered up and ascend into the love of God: then only are they\nfreed from this Pain-Tax. God must first be All in All to us before\nwe can enter amongst the number who are all in all to Him--constantly\nconsoled by Him. This condition of being all in all is demanded as\na right by all men and women in mutual love, yet we deny this right\nto God: we are not even willing to attempt it! this failure to be\nwilling is the grave error we make. Our attitude to God is not one\nof love, but of an expectancy of favours. An identical sacrifice\nis demanded of us in marriage--father, mother, brothers, sisters,\nfriends: all these loves must become subservient to the new love,\nand with what willingness and smiles this sacrifice is usually\nmade! Not so with our sacrifices to God--we make them with bitter\ntears, hard hearts, long faces. Is He never hurt by this perpetual\ngrudgingness of love?\n\nBut I had not yet learnt any of this, and I could not accept, I could\nnot swallow this terrible cup. I thought of Christ in the Garden\nof Gethsemane. He understood and knew all pain; I had His\ncompanionship, but He offered me no cessation of this pain. It must\nbe borne; had He not borne His own up to the bitter end? I shrank,\nappalled, from the suffering I was already in and the suffering that\nlay before me. Relief from this agony, relief, relief! But there was no\nrelief. In utter darkness all must be gone through. At least I was not\nso foolish as to attribute all this horror that was closing in upon the\nworld to the direct Will of God: I could perceive that, on the\ncontrary, it was the spirit of Anti-Christ, it was the will of Man with\nhis greeds, his cruelty, his self-sufficient pride, together with a host\nof other evils, which had brought all this to pass. But could\nnot--would not--God deliver the innocent; must all alike descend into\nthe pit?\n\nI tried to obtain relief by casting this burden on to Christ, and was\nnot able to accomplish it. I tried to draw the succour of God down\ninto my heart, and I tried to throw myself out and up to Him--I could\ndo neither: the vast barrier remained; Faith could not take me\nthrough it.\n\nA horrible kind of second sight now possessed me, so that, although\nI never heard one word from my husband, I became aware of much\nthat was happening to him--knew him pressed perpetually\nbackwards, fighting for his life, knew him at times lying exhausted\nout in the open fields at night. At last I began to fear for my reason; I\nbecame afraid of the torture of the nights and sat up reading, forcing\nmy mind to concentrate itself upon the book--the near-to-hand help\nof the book was more effective than the spiritual help in which\nsomething altogether vital was still missing. Relief only came when\nafter a month a letter reached me from my husband, saying that the\nterrible retreat was over and he safe.\n\nMonths and years dragged by. Sometimes the pain of it all was\neased; sometimes it increased.\n\nAs grass mown down and withered in the fields gives out the\npleasant scent of hay, so in her laceration and her anguish did the\nsoul, I wondered, give off some Pain-Song pleasing to Almighty\nGod.\n\nAt first I recoiled with terror from this thought; finally love\novercame the terror--I was willing to have it so, if it pleased Him.\nMy soul reached down into great and fearful depths. I envied the\nsoldiers dying upon the battlefields; life was become far more\nterrible to me than death. Looking back upon my struggles, I see\nwith profound astonishment how unaware I was of my impudence to\nGod in attributing to Him qualities of cruelty and callousness, such\nas are to be found only amongst the lowest men!\n\nYet good was permitted to come out of this evil; for where I\nattributed to God a callousness and even an enjoyment of my\nsufferings, I learnt self-sacrifice, the effacement of all personal gain,\nand total submission for love's sake to His Will, cruel though I might\nimagine it to be. With what tears does the heart afterwards address\nitself in awed repentance to its Beloved and Gentle God!\n\nA painful illness came and lasted for months. Having no home, I\nwas obliged to endure the misery of it as best I could among\nstrangers. At this time I touched perhaps the very lowest depths.\nHow often I longed that I might never wake in the morning! I\nloathed my life.\n\nDuring this illness I came exceedingly near to Christ, so much so\nthat I am not able to describe the vividness of it. What I learnt out of\nthis time of suffering I do not know--save complete submission. I\nbecame like wax--wax which was asked to take only one impression,\nand that pain. I was too dumb; I should have remembered those\nwords, that \"men ought not to faint, but to pray.\"\n\nBewildered, and mystified by my own unhappiness and that of so\nmany others all around me, I sank in my submission too much into a\nstate of lethargic resignation, whereas an onward-driving resolution\nto win through, a powerful determination to seek and obtain the\nimmediate protection and assistance of God, a standing before God,\nand a claiming of His help--these things are required of the soul: in\nfact that importunity is necessary of which Jesus spoke (Luke xi. 7-9):\n\"And he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not . . . I\ncannot rise and give thee. I say unto you he will not rise and give\nhim because he is his friend, yet _because of his importunity_ he\nwill rise and give him as many as he needeth. And I say unto you,\nAsk, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it\nshall be opened unto you.\"\n\nSuch times of distress are storms, fearful battles of the soul in which\nshe must not faint but rise up and walk towards God and clamour for\nhelp; and she will receive it. In His own good time He will give her\nall that she asks and more even than she dreamed of. She must claim\nfrom God a continual restrengthening, and search with glowing\naspiration for a more joyous love.\n\nX\n\nIt was summer-time: a great battle was raging in France. A friend\nwrote me that my husband was up in the very foremost part of it. I\nheard no word from my husband; weeks passed, and still the same\nominous silence. At last the day came when the shadow of these two\nfearful years rose up and overwhelmed me altogether. I went up on\nto the wild lonely hill where I so often walked, and there I\ncontended with God for His help. For the first time in my life there\nwas nothing between God and myself--this had _continually_\nhappened with Jesus Christ, but not with God the Father, Who\nremained totally inaccessible to me. Now, like a man standing\nin a very dark place and seeing nothing but knowing himself\nimmediately near to another--so I knew myself in very great\nnearness to God. I had no need for eyes to see outwardly, because of\nthe immense magnetism of this inward Awareness. At one moment\nmy heart and mind ran like water before Him--praying Him,\nbeseeching Him for His help; at another my soul stood straight up\nbefore Him, contending and claiming because she could bear no\nmore: and it felt as though the Spirit of God stood over against my\nspirit, and my spirit wrestled with God's Spirit for more than an hour.\nBut He gave me no answer, no sign, no help. He gave me nothing\nbut that awful silence which seems to hang for ever between God\nand Man. And I became exhausted, and turned away in despair from\nGod, and from supplication, and from striving, and from contending,\nand, very quiet and profoundly sad, I stood looking out across the\nhills to the distant view--how gentle and lovely this peace of the\nevening sky, whilst on earth all the nations of the world were\nfighting together in blood and fury and pain!\n\nI had stood there for perhaps ten minutes, mutely and sadly\nwondering at the meaning of it all, and was commencing to walk\naway when suddenly I was surrounded by a great whiteness which\nblotted out from me all my surroundings. It was like a great light or\nwhite cloud which hid all my surroundings from me, though I stood\nthere with my eyes wide open: and the cloud pricked, so that I said\nto myself, \"It is an electric cloud,\" and it pricked me from my head\ndown to my elbows, but no further. I felt no fear whatever, but a\nvery great wonder, and stood there all quite simple and placid,\nfeeling very quiet. Then there began to be poured into me an\nindescribably great vitality, so that I said to myself, \"I am being\nfilled with some marvellous Elixir.\" And it filled me from the feet\nup, gently and slowly, so that I could notice every advance of it. As\nit rose higher in me, so I grew to feel freed: that is to say, I had\nwithin me the astounding sensation of having the capacity to pass\nwhere or how I would--which is to say I felt freed of the law of\ngravity. I was like a free spirit--I felt and knew within myself this\nglorious freedom! I tasted for some moments a new form of living!\nWords are unable to convey the splendour of it, the boundless joy,\nthe liberty, the glory of it.\n\nAnd the incomprehensible Power rose and rose in me until it\nreached the very crown of my head, and immediately it had quite\nfilled me a marvellous thing happened--the Wall, the dreadful\nBarrier between God and me, came down entirely, and immediately\nI loved Him. I was so filled with love that I had to cry aloud my love,\nso great was the force and the wonder and the delight and the might\nof it.\n\nAnd now, slowly, the vivid whiteness melted away so that I saw\neverything around me once more just as before; but for a little while\nI continued to stand there very still and thoughtful, because I was\nfilled with wonder and great peace.\n\nThen I turned to walk home, but I walked as a New Creature in a\nNew World--my heart felt like the heart of an angel, glowing white-hot\nwith the love for God, and all my sorrows fled away in a vast joy!\nThis was His answer, this was His help. After years and years of\nwrestling and struggling, in one moment of time He had let me find\nHim, He had poured His Paradise into my soul! Never was such\ninconceivable joy--never was such gladness! My griefs and pains\nand woes were wiped away--totally effaced as though they had\nnever existed!\n\nOh, the magnificence of such splendid joy! The whole of space\ncould scarcely now be large enough to hold me! I needed all of it--I\nwelcomed its immensity as once I was oppressed by it. God and my\nSoul, and Love, and Light, and Space!\n\n\n\nPART II\n\nAt last my little suffering life is sheltered in the known, the felt,\nprotection of the Ineffable and Invisible Being. The Being\nWho, without revealing Himself to me by sight or sound, yet\ncommunicates Himself to me in some divine manner at once\nall-sufficing and inexpressible. I ask no questions: I am in no haste of\nanxious learning. My heart and my mind and my soul stand still and\ndrink in the glory of this happiness. All day, often half the night, I\nworship Him. I love Him with this new love, so different from\nanything known before. The greatest earthly love, by comparison to\nit, has become feeble, impure, almost grotesque in its inefficiency--a\ntinsel counterfeit of this glistening mystery which must still be\nspoken of as love because I know no other name.\n\nI find it difficult, almost impossible, to speak to my fellow-creatures,\nbecause I have only two words, two thoughts in my entire being: my\nGod, and my love for Him.\n\nI am like a thing that is magnetised, held: I am not able, day or night,\nto detach my mind from God.\n\nI wake with His name upon my lips, with His glory in my soul. In all\nthis there is no virtue on my part; there is no effort; the capacity for\nthis boundless devotion is a free gift. Coming immediately after my\nanguished prayer on the hill, it appears to me to have come solely on\naccount of that one prayer--the previous prayers, struggles,\nendeavours of five-and-twenty years are entirely forgotten. I\ncomprehend nothing of the mystery, neither as yet do I feel any\ndesire to comprehend it; but in a world where only love, beauty,\nhappiness, and repose exist, I walk and talk and live alone with God.\n\nYet the war was continuing as usual, my husband was in the same\ndanger, I became ill with influenza, my friends continued to die of\nwounds, my relations to be killed one by one; but in all this there\nwas no pain: the sting, the anguish, had gone out of every single\nthing in life.\n\nMy consciousness feels to be composed of two extremes: I am a\nchild of a few years of age, to whom sin, suffering, pain, evil, and\ntemptation are not known, and yet, though knowing so little, I know\nthe unutterably great--I know God. This cannot be expressed--merely,\nit can be said that two extremes have met.\n\nThis new consciousness, this new worship, this new love is for the\nGodhead. Christ is gone up into the Godhead, and I worship Him in,\nand as One with, the Godhead. For three months this continues\nuninterruptedly. Then Jesus Christ presents Himself to my\nconsciousness. Jesus, Who led me to this happiness, now calls and\ncalls to my soul. Immediately I commence to respond to Him. He is\ndrawing me away; He is teaching me something--at first I do not\nknow what, but soon I know that He is leading me out of this Eden,\nthis paradise of my childhood: I know it, because I begin to feel pain\nagain, and to recognise evil. O my Jesus, my Jesus, must I really\nfollow Thee out of Paradise back into pain? Yes, in less than two\nweeks I am fully back in the world again--but not the same world,\n_because I know how to escape from it._ The Door that I knocked at,\nand that all in one moment was opened to me, is _never closed._ I\ncan go in and out. God never closes to me the right of way; never\nsevers those secret wires of Divine Communication.\n\nBut my soul is not nursed, as it were, in His Hands day and night--she\nmust learn to grow up. Woeful education, deadly days of learning,\nstony paths that hurt, that hurt all the more because of the felicity\nthat only so recently was mine.\n\nFor three months I am walking further and further out of Eden and\nback into the horrors of the world--following Jesus.\n\nOne night I compose myself as usual for sleep, but I do not sleep,\nneither can I say that I am quite awake. It is neither sleep, nor is my\nwakefulness the usual wakefulness. I do not dream, I cannot move.\nMy consciousness is alight with a new fiery energy of life; it feels to\nextend to an infinite distance beyond my body, and yet remains\nconnected with my body. I live in a manner totally new and totally\nincomprehensible, a life in which none of my senses are used and\nwhich is yet a thousand, and more than a thousand, times as vivid. It\nis living at white heat--without forms, without sound, without sight,\nwithout anything which I have ever been aware of in this world, and\nat a terrible speed. What is the meaning of all this? I do not know:\nmy body is quite helpless and is distressed, but I am not afraid. God\nis teaching me something in His own way. For six weeks every night\nI enter this condition, and the duration and power or intensity of it\nincrease by degrees. It feels that my soul is projected or travels for\nincalculable distances beyond my body--(long afterwards I\nunderstand through experience that this is not the mode of it, but that\nthe soul _remaining in the body_ is by some de-insulation exposed\nto the knowledge of spirit-life as and when free of the flesh)--and I\nlearn to comprehend and to know a new manner of living, as a\nswimmer learns a new mode of progression by means of his\nswimming, which is not his natural way.\n\nBy the end of three weeks I can remain nightly for many hours in\nthis condition, which is always accompanied by an intense and vivid\nconsciousness of God.\n\nAs this consciousness of God becomes more and more vivid so my\nbody suffers more and more. By day I can only eat the smallest\nmorsels of food, which almost choke me, but I drink a great quantity\nof water. I am perfectly healthy, though I have hardly any sleep and\nvery little, indeed almost no, food--the suffering is only at night with\nthe breathing and the heart when in this strange condition. But I\nhave no anxiety whatever; I am glad that He shall do as He pleases\nwith me. Nothing but love can give us this supreme confidence.\n\nDuring the whole of these experiences I live in a state of very\nconsiderable abstraction. But this now suddenly increases, increases\nto such an extent that I hardly know whether to call it abstraction or\nthe extremity of poverty. I now become divested of all interests\noutside and inside, divested of the greater part of my intelligence,\ndivested of my will. I am of no value whatever, less than the dust on\nthe road.\n\nIn this awful nothingness I am still I. My consciousness continues\nand is not confounded with or lost in any other consciousness, but is\nreduced to stark nakedness and worth nothing: and this worthless\nnothing is hung up and, as it were, suspended nowhere in particular\nas far from earth as from heaven, totally unknown and unwanted by\nboth God and Man. I am naked patience--waiting. I have a few\nthoughts, but very few: I think one thought where in normal times I\nshould think ten thousand. I feel and know that I am nothing, and I\nfeel that this has been done to me; just as before, all that I had was\nalso done to me and was a gift. So I acknowledge that I once had\nand was perhaps something and that now I possess and certainly am\nnothing--I acknowledge it, I accept it, without hesitation, without\nprotest. One of my few thoughts is that I shall remain for the rest of\nmy natural life in this pitiful state where, however, I shall hope to be\npreserved from further sinning simply because I have not a\nsufficiency of will, intelligence, or thought with which to sin! I am\ntoo completely nothing to be able to sin. I have another thought,\nwhich is that as I no longer have any intelligence with which to deal\nwith the ordinary difficulties of life, such as street life and traffic, I\nshall shortly be run over and killed; and so I put a card with my\naddress on it into my little handbag, for the convenience of those\nwho shall be obliged to deal with my body afterwards.\n\nI have just sufficient capacity left me to automatically, mechanically,\ngo through with the necessities of life. I have not become idiotic. I\nlive in a tremendous and profound solitude, such a solitude as would\nfrighten many people greatly. But my beautiful pastime had\naccustomed me to solitude and also to something of this\nnothingness--a brief nothingness was a necessary part of the\nbeautiful pastime: so I have no fears now of any kind; but I wonder.\nPerhaps I am just four things--wonder, patience, resignation, and\nnothing.\n\nYet through this dreadful solitude penetrates the inspiration of some\nunseen guide. As regards this particular time I am convinced that\nthis guide is an outside presence. I depend in all my goings and\ncomings upon the guidance of this guide who proves incredibly\naccurate in every detail, in details of even the smallest necessities. If\nthis guide is a part of myself, it is that of me with which I have not\npreviously come in contact; and it is not the Reason, but far beyond\nthe Reason, for it _divines._ It is then either a spiritual guide,\ncompanion, or guardian angel, or it is a power possessed by the soul\nherself--a foretasting cognisance, a mysterious intuition of which we\nas yet comprehend little or nothing, and which we have not yet\nlearnt to command: it presents itself; it absents itself; but it\ncondescends to every need; it is always helpful, always beneficent; it\nsees that which it sees before the event; it hears that which it hears\nbefore the words are spoken. It guides by what would seem to be\ntwo very different modes: the greater things come by a mode\naltogether indescribable; but for the small things of every day I will\ntake simple examples here and there. I am abroad. Someone in the\nfamily at home is taken dangerously ill. I am urgently needed; but\nthe trains are overcrowded, I am unable to get my seat transferred to\nan earlier date, I cannot let them know at home when I shall return:\nall is uncertain, all is chaos. I am painfully anxious, I am ashamed to\nsay I am greatly worried: I turn as always to my Lord, asking Him to\nforgive these selfish fears and to help me. A little while later a scene\npresents itself to me--I see my own room, I hear the voice of a page-boy\nstanding in the door and saying, \"You are wanted on the\ntelephone\"; then I am at the telephone, and a voice is saying to me,\n\"_Your train accommodation is transferred to Friday the 19th._\"\nThat is all, because I am rung off.\n\nFive days pass. I am in my room, and the page is really standing at\nthe door, and he says, \"You are wanted on the telephone.\" I go to the\ntelephone, and a voice says, \"_Your train accommodation is\ntransferred to Friday the 19th._\" That is all, because I am rung off.\n\nAgain, there is a young lay-reader, closely in contact with Christ; he\nhas a wife and young child. The weather is bitterly cold. A picture\nsuddenly comes before me of this family, and there is a voice saying,\n\"_He was gathering together the last little pieces of fuel when your\npresent came._\" Immediately I understand that I am required to send\ncoal to these people, and to do it at once without delay. The\nfollowing day the wife comes with tears to thank me, and she tells\nme, \"We were in despair; my husband's heart is so weak he cannot\nbear the cold, he becomes seriously ill. _He was gathering together\nthe last little pieces of fuel when your present came._\"\n\nOr, again, I very badly need a pair of walking shoes, but for weeks I\nhave been so absorbed in contemplation that the pain of bringing\nmyself from this holy joy to do shopping is too great, and I delay\nand delay; I cannot bring myself to it; but shoes are a necessity of\nearthly life. Having exceedingly narrow feet, I am obliged always to\nget my shoes from a certain maker, and now, during the war, he\nmakes so few shoes. To-day a picture of the shop comes before me,\nand the words \"Go to-day, go to-day,\" urge themselves upon my\nconsciousness. Then a picture comes of the assistant; I show her my\nfoot, and she says, \"_There is only one pair left; how fortunate you\ncame to-day!_\" So I understand I must go to my shopping and,\ngreatly against my will, I go that afternoon. The assistant comes\nforward, and I show her my foot, and she says, \"_There is only one\npair left; how fortunate you came to-day!_\"\n\nAlways in this mode of the guiding are the little picture and the\n_exact_ words: all of it of the easiest to describe; but of the other\nand the greater guiding I do not know how to tell. It is sheer pure\nknowledge, received not in parts, pictures, or words, but as a whole\nand in a mode so exquisitely mysterious as to be at once too intricate\nfor description, and yet simplicity itself!\n\nSure, perfect, and serene mode of knowledge! Royal knowledge\nwhich knows no toil, no sweat of work, no common drudgery, art\nthou of the soul herself, or art thou altogether from outside the soul?\nThis I know, that though the first mode would seem to be very small\nand to deal with littleness, and the last mode seems to be entirely\napart from it because of the greatnesses with which it deals that they\nare linked and that the power is one power soaring to the highest,\ncondescending to the smallest.\n\nSo now, in the time of this strange abstraction and poverty, when the\ncinematograph of my mind is closed down, and with it the delicate\nmechanism which takes up, uses, and connects all that we take\nin by the senses, and which makes the world so real and so\ncomprehensible, is become unhitched and disconnected, so that\nnothing in the world seems any longer real or possesses either value\nor meaning, and I stand before it all defenceless, seemingly unable\nto deal with it, utterly indifferent to it; then and now Reason may\nvery well say to me, \"You are in very great danger\"; but I am not in\nany danger, because I am guided whenever necessary by some\ncondescending sagacity far more sagacious than my poor Reason,\ninfinitely more penetrative and effectual than any sense of eye or ear.\nI remain fully convinced that at this time, at any rate, it was an\noutside sagacity which guided me--truly a guardian angel.\n\nThis period of intense abstraction, this strange valley of humiliation,\npoverty, solitude, seemed a necessary prelude to the great, the\nsupreme, experience of my life. As I came slowly out of this poverty\nand solitude, the joyousness of my spiritual experience increased:\nthe nights were no longer at all a time of sleep or repose, but of\nrapturous living.\n\nThe sixth week came, and I commenced to fear the nights and this\ntremendous living, because the happiness and the light and the\npoignancy and the rapture of it were becoming more than I could\nbear. I began to wonder secretly if God intended to draw my soul so\nnear to Him that I should die of the splendour of this living, My\nraptures were not only caused by the sense of the immediate\nPresence of God--this is a distinctive rapture running through and\nabove all raptures, but there are lesser ecstasies caused by the\nmeeting of the soul with Thoughts or Ideas, with melodies which\nbear the soul in almost unendurable delight upon a thousand\nsummits of perfection; and with an all-pervading rapturous Beauty\nin a great light. There is this peculiarity about the manner of these\nthoughts and melodies and beauties--they are not spoken, heard, or\nseen, but _lived._ I could not pass these things to my reason and\ntranslate the Ideas into words or the melodies into sounds, or the\nbeauty into objects, for spirit-living is not translatable to earth-living,\nand I found in it no words, no sounds, no objects, and I\ncomprehended and I lived with that in me which is above Reason\nand of which I had, previously to these experiences, had no\ncognisance.\n\nThere came a night when I passed beyond Ideas, beyond melody,\nbeyond beauty, into vast lost spaces, depths of untellable bliss, into a\nLight. And the Light is an ecstasy of delight, and the Light is an\nocean of bliss, and the Light is Life and Love, and the Light is the\ntoo deep contact with God, and the Light is unbearable Joy; and in\nunendurable bliss my soul beseeches God that He will cover her\nfrom this most terrible rapture, this felicity which exceeds all\nmeasure. And she is not covered from it. And she beseeches Him\nagain; and she is not covered; and being in the last extremity from\nthis most terrible joy, she beseeches Him again: and immediately is\ncovered from it.\n\n* * *\n\nMy soul, my whole being, is terrified of God, and of joy. I dare not\nthink of Him, I dare not pray; but, like some pitiful and wounded\nchild, I creep to the feet of Jesus.\n\nWhen on the following evening once more the day closes and I\ncompose myself for the night, I wonder tremblingly to what He will\nagain expose me; but for the first time in six weeks I fall into a\nnatural sleep and know no more until the morning.\n\nThen I understand that the lesson is over. Mighty and Terrible God,\nit was enough!\n\nIn the light of these measureless joys what is any earthly joy? What\nis the very greatest experience of earthly happiness but so much\nwaste paper?\n\nWhat are the joys of those vices for which men sell their souls, but\nsoap-bubbles!\n\nThe whole meaning of life, together with all the graduated and\naccepted values of it, becomes for ever changed in the light of the\nknowledge of Celestial Happiness.\n\n\n\nPART III\n\nI\n\nWonderful, beautiful weeks went by, filled with divine,\nindescribable peace. The Presence of God was with me day and\nnight, and the world was not the world as I had once known it--a\nplace where men and women fought and sinned and toiled and\nanguished and wondered horribly the meaning of this mystery of\npain and joy, of life and death. The world was become Paradise, and\nin my heart I cried to all my fellow-souls, \"Why fret and toil, why\nsweat and anguish for the things of earth when our own God has in\nHis hand such peace and bliss and happiness to give to Every man?\nO come and receive it, Every man his share.\"\n\nAnd the glamour of life in Unity with God became past all\ncomprehension and all words.\n\nIs life, then, a poem? is it a melody? I cannot say; but it is one long\nessence of delight--a harmony of flowing out and back again to God.\nO blessed life! O blessed Man! O blessed God!\n\nII\n\nOne morning in my room I began thinking and reasoning about a\nwonderful change that I knew had crept all through me. If God\nshould now come at any moment of the day or night and turn over\nevery secret page of heart and mind, He would not find one thought\nor glimmer of any sort or kind of lust, whether of the eye, of the\nheart, of the mind, or of the body; and all in one moment I realised\nthe miracle that Christ had worked in me, and the words came over\nmy mind, \"Though thy sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as\nsnow.\" And I stood there, gazing before me, speechless, and the\ntears of a joy that was an agony of gratitude poured and poured\ndown my face like a rain. I did not sob, I could not speak, and very\nquietly I took my heart and my mind and my soul and laid them for\never at the feet of Christ.\n\nIII\n\nOne evening as I knelt to say my prayers, which were never long,\nbecause since the Visitation on the hill my natural habit--whether\nwalking, sitting, working, travelling, or on my bed--had come to be\na continual sending up from my heart and mind the tenderest and\nmost adoring, the most worshipping and thanking little stream of\nthoughts to God (very much as a flower, if we could but see it, sends\nits scent to the sun).\n\nAnd because this mode of prayer is so smooth and joyous, so easy,\nso unutterably sweet, in that during it the Presence of God laves us\nabout as the sun laves the flower--so because of this it was only for\nshort and set times that I worshipped Him as the creature in prayers\nupon its knees; but those few moments of prayer would always be\nintense, the heart and the mind with great power bent wholly and\nsingly upon God.\n\nSo now, this evening as I knelt and dwelt in great singleness on God,\nHe drew me so powerfully, He encompassed me so with His\nglamour, that this singleness and concentration of thought continued\nmuch longer than usual on account of the greatness of the love that I\nfelt for Him, and the concentration became an intensity of\npenetration because of this magnetism, He turned on to me, and my\nmind became faint, and died, and I could no longer think of or on\nGod, _for I was one with Him._ And I was still I; though I was\nbecome Ineffable Joy.\n\nWhen it was over I rose from my knees, and I said to myself, for\nfive wonderful moments I have been in contact with God in an\nunutterable bliss and repose: and He gave me the bliss tenderly and\nnot as on that Night of Terror; but when I looked at my watch I saw\nthat it had been for between two and three hours.\n\nThen I wondered that I was not stiff, that I was not cold, for the\nnight was chilly and I had nothing about me but a little velvet\ndressing-wrapper; and my neck was not stiff, though my head had\nbeen thrown back, as is a necessity in Communion with God; and I\nthought to myself, it is as if my body also had shared in the blessing.\n\nAnd this most blessed happening happened to me every day for a\nshort while, usually only for a few moments. In this way God\nHimself caused and enabled me to contemplate and _know_ Him;\nand I saw that it was in some ways at one with my beautiful pastime,\nbut with this tremendous difference in it--that whereas my mind had\nformerly concentrated itself upon the Beautiful, and remaining Mind\nhad soared away above all forms into its nebulous essence in a\nstrange seductive anguish, it now was drawn and magnetised beyond\nthe Beautiful directly to the Maker of it: and the soaring was like a\ndeath or swooning of the mind, and immediately I was living with\nthat which is above the mind: in this living there was no note of pain,\nbut a marvellous joy.\n\nSlowly I learnt to differentiate degrees of Contemplation, but to my\nown finding there are two principal forms--Passive and Active (or\nHigh) Contemplation.\n\nIn meditation is little or no activity, but a sweet quiet thinking and\ntalking with Jesus Christ. In Passive Contemplation is the beginning\nof real activity; mind and soul without effort (though in a secret state\nof great love-activity) raise themselves, focussing themselves upon\nthe all-unseen Godhead: now is no longer any possible picture in the\nmind, of anyone nor anything, not even of the gracious figure or of\nthe ways of Christ: here, because of love, must begin the sheer\nstraight drive of will and heart, mind and soul, to the Godhead, and\nhere we may be said first to commence to breathe the air of heaven.\n\nThere is no prayer, no beseeching, and no asking--there are no\nwords and no thoughts save those that intrude and flash unwanted\nover the mind, but a great undivided attention and waiting upon God:\nGod near, yet never touching. This state is no ecstasy, but smooth,\nsilent, high living in which we learn heavenly manners. This is\nPassive or Quiet Contemplation.\n\nHigh Contemplation ends in Contact with God, in ecstasy and\nrapture. In it the activity of the soul (though entirely without effort\non her part) is immensely increased. It is not to be sought for, and\nwe cannot reach it for ourselves; but it is to be enjoyed when God\ncalls, when He assists the soul, when He energises her.\n\nAnd then our cry is no more, Oh, that I had wings! but, Oh, that I\nmight fold my wings and stay!\n\nIV\n\nHaving come so far as this on the Soul's Great Adventure all alone\nas far as human guidance and companionship was concerned, and\nhaving for more than a year known the wonders of the joy of Union\nwith God--which I did not know or understand to call Union, but\ncalled it to myself Finding God and coming into Contact with Him,\nbecause this is how it _feels,_ and the unscholarly creature\nunderstands and knows it in that way--well, having come so far, I\nhad a great longing to share this knowledge, this exquisite balm,\nwith my fellows, and I desired immensely to speak about it, to know\nhow they fell about it, if they had yet come to it, or how far on the\nway they were to it, because I was all filled with the beauty of it, as\nlovers are filled with the beauty of their love. But I was frightened to\nspeak to them, something held me back: also they felt to me to be so\nexceedingly full of the merest trifles--clothes and tea-parties and\nfashionable friends; and each time I tried to speak, in some\nmysterious way I found myself stopped. So I thought that I would\nspeak to a friend that I had in the Church. Several times I had heard\nhim preach very beautiful sermons, and I felt I very greatly needed\nthe guidance of _someone who knew._ I wanted, I longed for, a\nhuman intermediary. I knew that I was in the hands of the God\nWhom for so many years I had so passionately sought; but He was\nso immeasurably great, and I so pitifully small, and I needed a\nhuman being--someone to whom I might speak about God.\n\nYet something warned me not to commence as though speaking of\nmyself, but of another person. I said only a few words, of the joy of\nthis person in finding and loving God, and immediately my friend\nspoke very severely of persons who imagined they had found, and\nloved, God. God was not to be found by our puny, shifting and\nuncertain love: He was to be found by duty, by obedience to Church\nrules, by pious attendance _At Church._ He explained to me various\ndogmas which helped me no more than the moaning of the wind; he\nexplained the absolute necessity (for salvation) of certain beliefs and\nwritten sentences, and ceremonials in the Church. Love was not the\nway. Love was emotion, emotion was deceptive: the mind, and\nsevere firm attention to the dictates of The Church was what was\nrequired; in fact, he unfolded before me the Ecclesiastical Mind. I\nshrank back from it, dismayed, frightened. Were all the deep needs\nand requirements of the soul to be satisfied in the singing of hymns\nand Te Deum, in the close and reverent attention to the Ceremonies\nbefore the altar, and of the actions of Priests! Did, or could, any\nreasoning creature truly think to Find God by merely repeating,\nhowever reverently, the same prayers and ceremonies Sunday after\nSunday! Could the great mountain up which my soul had sweated,\nand which each soul must climb--could it be climbed by kneeling in\na pew in church? No; a total change of _character_ was needed, and\nChrist Himself was necessary for this change--Jesus Christ gliding\ninto the heart and mind and soul, and _biding_ there because of that\nheart's, that mind's, invitation to, and love for, Him. Secretly--in\none's own chamber, every hour of the day, in the streets, in the\nfields--in this way it might be accomplished.\n\nWith Christ biding in the heart all the Church service would\n_become_ a thing of beauty as between the Soul and God; but\nwithout this Jesus Christ dwelling in the heart, the connection was\nnot yet made between the Soul--the service--and the Godhead.\n\nPerhaps amongst Romans I should find the understanding that I\nlooked for. I had a friend, a Dominican: I approached him, and I\ncould see that for (as he thought) my own good he longed to convert\nme to the Roman Church: it did not seem that he wanted, or by any\nmeans knew how, to bring me into contact with God, but his thought\nwas to bring me to _The Church._ \"Does anyone,\" I asked him,\n\"love God with all their heart, and mind, and soul, and strength?\"\n\"No,\" said he, \"that is hardly possible--what is required is--\"; and\nhere he gave me once more the contents of the Ecclesiastical Mind:\nmore authoritatively, more positively; but he spoke as I now\ncommenced to realise all Churchmen would speak--that is to say, as\npersons having learnt by study, by careful rule and rote, by\npaper-knowledge, that which can only be learnt in the spirit direct from\nGod. How immense is the difference to the Soul between this\nknowledge that comes of the spirit and the knowledge that comes of\nstudy--the knowledge which too easily becomes mechanical religion!\n\nI thought of the beautiful and gracious simplicity of the knowledge\nthat Christ gives to the soul: I saw the nature of the sore disease that\nafflicts the soul of Christ's Church, I saw also a terrible pain for\nChrist in all this of which I had previously been unaware.\n\nI was thrown back and into myself by it all, and into a great\nloneliness as far as my fellow-beings were concerned. Yet I\ncontinued to need to share Christ with humanity, piercingly,\npressingly. I would go to a library and find a book--but, on the other\nhand, I did not know the name of a single religious book or writer.\nSo I wrote my need to a friend, and she sent me the life of one,\nAngela of Foligno. This book was a great delight to me, because,\nthough written in tiresome mediaeval language, it yet expressed and\nshared exactly what I also knew and loved, and folded in strange\nwrappings of the fashion of the thought of long ago lay the same\nexquisite jewel that I also knew--the pearl for which men gladly sell\nall that they have in order to keep it--the knowledge of the Secret of\nthe Kingdom of Heaven, of the Union of the Soul with God.\n\nA few months went by, and I wrote asking for another book, and this\ntime came Richard Rolle to my acquaintance--a little dried-up\nhermit, a holy man too, though I noticed how very discourteous he\nwas to women; severe, critical, and suspicious, merely because they\nwere women. How often I noticed this peculiarity, both in the monks\nof to-day with their averted eyes, as if the shadow of a woman\nfalling on them were pollution, and long ago, Paul, and Peter also,\nand Moses, and many others, showed surprising weakness of\nintolerance and harsh judgment against Woman!\n\nWhere was Wisdom in all this? Surely it was Folly flaunting and\nlaughing and dressing herself cunningly to deceive, for did none of\nthese men, from Adam downwards--did they never come to know\nthemselves well enough to see that their danger lay not in the\nWoman, but in _their own inclination to sin!_\n\nOh, the righteousness of the greatest saint was, and is, but as dust\nand ashes before the righteousness of Jesus! and I came to wonder if\nthere ever was or could be a saint, save one--Jesus.\n\nBut this Richard Rolle, this person so discourteous to some\nfellow-beings, could all the same be very tender and loving towards God:\nhe, too, held in his heart the Pearl without Price. He, too, knew that\nmarvellous incense of the heart to God--that song of the soul, and\ncalled it by the same name as I; but how could it be called by any\nother name? for every soul that knows it, it must ever be the same.\nOh, how intimately I knew those two people of centuries ago, and\nhow intimately they knew me! A strange trio we made--he, the little\nwizened English hermit; she, the Italian woman in her nun's habit;\nand I in my modern Bond Street clothes: outwardly we were indeed\nincongruous, we had no links, but inwardly we were bound together\nby bonds of the purest gold.\n\nOf whether my friend sent me another book or not I cannot be sure;\nbut my interest was becoming altogether removed from the past,\nbecause Christ was pressing me more and more to the present and\nthe living.\n\nV\n\nGod says to the aspiring soul: Come, taste of paradise and taste of\nheaven, and then return thou to the earth and wait, but not in\nidleness, and suffer many things till thou become perfect.\n\nSo I found that in the earlier stages, in order to show me the heights\nto which I might by perseverance attain, He turned His Power and\nGlamour on to me, and I became a creature transfixed and held by\nlove. I had one desire--God; I had one thought--God; I had one\nconsciousness--God. There was no effort needed on my part: it was\nPure Grace and the result of _past_ efforts. Having climbed and\nendured and endeavoured up to a certain degree, it was necessary for\nfurther advance that there should be more knowledge, and a more\ncomplete ineffaceable assurance. He therefore exposed the soul to as\nmuch as she could enjoy of heavenly pleasures and consciousness,\nwithout death to the flesh. In these experiences the soul found and\nknew God to be the fulfilment of all desires and all needs. The soul\nstood steadied before God in an unutterable Happiness which she\nperceived had no limit but God's Will, and her own capacity to\nendure the rapture of Him.\n\nWhat is it that would seem to determine this immeasurable privilege\nof Access to Him? It would seem to be a healthy willing will\ntowards Him under all circumstances (to begin with).\n\nIn due time He converts this mere will into a sweet love, the natural\nlove of the heart and mind--by Gift of the Father we love Jesus\nChrist. This is salvation.\n\nBut beyond salvation it would feel to be this way--after a further\ngreat endeavour and endurance on our part, a further great striving\ntowards Him, He will awaken and prick to new life the soul and fill\nus with Holy Love. This is the second baptism, the baptism of the\nSpirit of Love. This is the entry to the Kingdom, and immediately\nwe taste of the Godhead. What this is, what this ravishment of\nhappiness is, cannot be known or guessed till we ourself have\nexperienced it.\n\nIn all this we progress by the communicated Power of Christ. How\nis this Power to be recognised, how is it communicated? Can we\nstand still and receive it like the dew, without work? At first, no--but\nlater it would almost seem to be yes; or else it is that the exact\nattitude of heart and mind necessary for the reception of Grace\nbecomes so habitual, so natural, that eventually we come to live in a\nstate in which the communication of this Power becomes nearly\ncontinuous--though at any time by negligence or by a wrong attitude\nof Spirit _we fall away from it and lose it completely,_ and in all\ntimes of temptation or of testing we are cut off from _sensible_\ncontact with it.\n\nWe learn then that Grace awaits every creature that attunes himself\nto the Will of Christ: it awaits good and bad, saint and sinner, it\ntransforms the sinner into the saint, and but for its deliberate\nwithdrawals we might suppose its action to be automatic, we might\nsuppose it a fixed power like the sun, shining upon worthy and\nunworthy alike in degree. But Grace is far more subtle and\nmysterious than this. Grace is the most sublime, the most exquisite\nsecret of all the mysteries which exist between the Soul and her\nMaker.\n\n* * *\n\nI find that He works upon my soul by two opposite ways: He draws\nher up to contact and sublime content; He sets her down to solitude\nand hides Himself: He is there, and will not speak.\n\nAnd she suffers horribly: and why not? Where is the injustice of this\npain?\n\nCountless ages ago--who can count them?--the soul, born in a palace,\nhas deliberately willed and chosen to become the Wanderer, the\nStreet Walker; therefore fold up self-pity and lay it aside, because it\ndoes not live in the same house with Truth.\n\nCast off self-consciousness and pride, because they are ridiculous,\nand a man can only be great or noble in just so far as he has\nabandoned them.\n\n* * *\n\nWhat is it that often makes it so much harder for the soul to refind\nGod when she is enclosed in the male body? Perhaps the greater\nstrength of the natural lusts of the male: perhaps the pride of\n\"Being\"--as lord of creation; or the pride of Intelligence which says,\nI rely easily upon myself, I need no religion of hymn tunes, I leave\nhymn tunes to women, for the ardour and capacity of my manhood\nrush to far different aims.\n\nBut can any sane man think that the Essential Being who has created\nthe universe, with all its infinite wonders, and this earth with its\nbeauty and its wonderful flesh, and so much more that is not flesh\nbut the still more wonderful spirit--can any sane man really think\nthat this Essential Being is stuck fast at hymn tunes (which are\nMan's own invention!) and knows not how to satisfy the needs and\nlongings of that which He has Himself created!\n\nArdent and greatly mistaken Sinner, know and remember that to\nFind God is to Live Tremendously.\n\n* * *\n\nO beloved Man with thy strangely vain and small pursuits and\npleasures--thy pipe, thy wine, thy women, thy \"busy\" city life, thine\nimmense sagacity which once in twenty times outwits a fool or\nknave--thy vaunted living is a bubble in a hand-basin!\n\nFind God and Live!\n\n\n\nPART IV\n\nI\n\nIt would seem that lazily, reposefully, comfortably, easily, we can\nmake no entry into the kingdom of heaven, but must enter by contest,\nby great endeavour. The occasions of these contests will be\naccording to the everyday circumstances of each individual; the\nstress or distress of everyday life; for this is Christ's Process--to take\nthe everyday woes and happenings of life in the flesh and use them\nfor spiritual ends. What does the Saviour Himself tell us of the\nmeans of entry into the Kingdom? He uses two parables--that of the\nloaves of bread, and that of the Widow, and both speak of persistent\nimportunity. If we would find God, we must besiege Him.\n\nOf entry to Christ's Process first it is necessary that we try in\neverything to please Him: subjecting our plans, desires, thoughts,\nintentions, to His secret approval, asking ourselves, Will this please\nHim best, or that?\n\nThen the soul commences to truly know, and to respond to, Christ.\n\nBut she is not satisfied: she requires more. Woes may assail the\nwhole creature: Christ offers no alleviation. He leads her straight\ninto the woes: will she follow, will she hold back? The point to\nremember here is this, that whether we follow Christ or no we shall\nhave woes: if we forsake Him, we are not rid of woes; if we follow\nHim, we are not rid of woes--not yet, but later we become eased,\nand even rid, by means of Consolations, for God is able by His\nConsolations to entirely overbalance the woe and make it happy\npeace, though the cause of the woe remains. Remember this in the\ndays of visitation, and follow Christ, no matter where He leads.\nChrist leads _through_ the woe, because it is the shortest way. The\nunguided soul wanders _beside_ the woe, hating and fearing it,\nunable to rid herself of it, gaining nothing by it, suffering in vain,\nand no Companion comes to ease the burden with His company.\n\nThe progress of our spiritual advance would feel to be that because\nwe become more and more aware of the failure of earthly\nconsolations and amusements, and more and more aware of the\nsuffering, the sin, and the evil that there is about us, so more and\nmore our desires go out towards the good, and more and more we\nturn to Christ. Then Christ may deliberately make Himself\nnon-sufficient for the soul, and if He so does she must reach out after the\nGodhead; then by means of more woes the soul and the creature\nclamour more and more after the Godhead and will not be satisfied\nwith less than the Godhead, and, continuing to clamour, are brought\nby Christ to the new birth, the Baptism of the Holy Ghost.\n\nImmediately the soul and creature become rid of Woe; and, living a\nlife altogether apart from the world, in a marvellous crystal joy they\ntaste of the Godhead and of Eternal Pleasures.\n\nThis for a short time only: we have entered the Kingdom, but are\nstill the smallest of spiritual children: tenderly, wonderfully God\ncares for us, but we must grow, we must learn heavenly manners. So\nJesus Christ calls us again, and where does He lead us? Straight\nback into the world, the daily life from which we thought we had\nescaped! Here truly is a Woe, a Woe worse than any Woe we ever\nhad before. Now we enter the Course of spiritual temptations, woes,\nand endurances, and in the midst of the pots and pans of daily life\nChrist teaches us heavenly manners.\n\nII\n\nSince Contemplation is so necessary for Union with God and for the\nsoul's _enjoyment_ of God--is it a capacity common to all persons?\nYes, though, like all other capacities, in varying degrees; but few\nwill give themselves up to the difficulties of developing the capacity;\nand it is easy to know why, for our \"natural\" state is that we work\nfor that which brings the easiest, most immediate, and most\nsubstantially visible reward.\n\nThose who could most easily develop their powers of contemplation\nare those to whom Beauty speaks, or those who are delicately\nsensitive to some ideal, nameless, elusive, that draws and then\nretreats, but in retreating still draws. The poet, the artist, the dreamer\n_that harnesses his mind_--all can contemplate.\n\nThe Thinker, _thinking straight through,_ the proficient business\nman with his powers of concentration, the first-rate organiser, the\nscientist, the inventor--all these men are contemplatives who do not\ndrive to God, but to the world or to ambition. Taking God as their\ngoal, they could ascend to great heights of happiness; though first\nthey must give up (\"sacrifice\") all that is unsavoury in thought and\nin living: yet such is the vast, the boundless Attraction of God that\nhaving once (if only for a few moments) retouched this lost\nAttraction of His, we afterwards are possessed with no other desire\nso powerful as the desire to retouch Him again, and \"sacrifice\"\nbecomes no sacrifice.\n\nTruly, having once known God, we find life without Him to be\nmeaningless and as unbeautiful as a broken stem without its flower:\npitiful, naked, and helpless as the body of a butterfly without the\nwings.\n\nIII\n\nAt this time I read Bergson's _Creative Evolution_--a masterpiece of\nthinking by a man who, like most others, is seeking for God. But I\nam unable to read the book through because of the pain it causes.\nThe pain is partly the same pain which I knew (and which I re-enter\nagain in sympathy with the writer) when I tried in my youth to climb\nto God by the intelligence and will of my mind; but there is also a\nnew pain, wide as an ocean, the pain of Compassion--for it is so\nlong this way to God that Bergson pursues, so long, so long; and the\nparticular way of this book is to me not like climbing, but\ndescending: it resembles the frenzied action of a man searching for\nlilies downwards, digging with painful persistence in the dark earth\namongst roots. How much more joyous to find the lily where she\nblooms, above in the light! There is another way of the Intelligence:\na way of climbing to icy heights, bare, unwarmed by any ray of love,\nbut less painful than this descent amongst dark roots. Cold, hard\nIntelligence, once to slip upon thy frozen way is to be broken on thy\npitiless bosom! O God, in thy tender pity incline our hearts to seek\nThee by the way of Love! For the road of Love comes easily to\nknowledge, but the road of knowledge comes not easily to Love.\n\nAnd we know that love is above learning and wisdom. Did not\nSolomon choose wisdom? and we think him so wise to have made\nthis choice, but he had been far wiser to have chosen holy love. For\nwisdom lost herself and him in the arms of unworthy love: so we see\nthe highest degree of the Wisdom of Man held in bondage to, and\nundone by, even the lowest degree of love.\n\n* * *\n\nDig deeply, and what do we find is at bottom our great, our\npersistent need? What is it that instinctively we look for and desire?\nHappiness, and the Ever-new.\n\nIn and out of every day persistently, desperately, endlessly we seek.\nAnd because we seek amongst the near-to-hand, the visible, the\nsmall, we seek in vain: we discover there is nothing in this world\nwhich can wholly and permanently satisfy either of these desires.\n\nGod Himself is Happiness. God Himself is the Ever-new.\n\nIn Divine Love there is no monotony: the soul finds that each\nencounter with God is ever new, the Ever-new tremulous with the\nbeauty of rapture: new and wonderful as the first dawn.\n\nIV\n\nNot only is God a Mystery of Holiness, of Truth, of Love and\nBeauty: He is also Generosity, a mystery of Eternal Giving, and His\ngiving is and must for ever be, the supreme necessity of the\nUniverse: for without He gave how should we receive life, truth,\nbeauty, love, or Himself?\n\nAnd it cannot be too deeply impressed upon the soul that would\ncome to His Presence that because of His law of like to like she\nmust conform to this law in order to come to His Presence. By\nthinking it over we shall see that it is more difficult for us to be\nperfect holiness, perfect truth, perfect love, perfect beauty, than it is\nfor us to be perfectly generous: it is easier for us to give God all that\nwe have, to empty heart, mind and soul, and worldly goods at His\nfeet, than it is to reach to any other perfection; for generosity\nappears to be more universal, more within our capacities, more\n\"natural\" to us than any other virtue--do we not see it continually\nused, exercised, spent, thrown away on the merest trifles? Let us\ntake, for instance, the tennis player: to win the game he must give\nevery ounce of himself to it--mind, eye, heart, and body,--sweating\nthere in the glare of the sun to win the game. Would he give himself\nso, would he sweat so, in order to find God, or to please God? Oh no!\nYet in the hour of death and afterwards, will he be helped by this\nvictory of flying balls? If by chance we could lift a corner of the veil,\nwe might catch a glimpse of the face of Folly, mockingly, cunningly\npeering at us, as all too easily she persuades us to give of our royal\ncoins of generosity to wantons, to phantom enterprises, to balls\nfilled with air, to dust and vanity.\n\nGenerosity is our easiest means of coming to God, because it is also\nthe way of love: if the tennis player did not love the game, he would\nnot give himself so to it. But we cry, \"I have nothing whatever to\ngive to God; it is to God I turn in order that He may give everything\nto me.\" Quite so: there is too much of that. We have obedience to\ngive: obedience is a great gift to God, or, more truthfully speaking,\nin His magnanimity He accepts it as such; we have also love to give,\nand again we may cry, \"But my love is puny, shifting; it is nothing\nat all, a mere trifle.\" That is true of \"natural\" love, of the love that\nwe commence of our own human nature to love Him with; but it is\nnot true of the love which we receive of the Holy Ghost when He\nbaptizes us.\n\nWhen we offer this Peculiar Love, offer it as only it can be offered--for\nlove's sake,--immediately we are in the Presence of God, secretly,\nmarvellously united to Him; we are in the Consolations of God, and\nwe have no need to ask for anything whatever; indeed, we find\nourselves unable to ask, because we are filled to the brim,\noverflowing, inexpressibly satisfied, utterly blessed.\n\nBut supposing that we do not _give_ to God, but, earnestly seeking\nHim, we merely ask some favour, and sit and wait for Him to give?\nThen probably we shall not be sensible of receiving anything from\nHim whatever; we shall feel at an immense distance from Him; then\nwe shall become uneasy, depressed, fancy ourselves neglected,\nimagine we have lost Him--and so we have till we gloriously\nrecover Him by means of giving.\n\nAnd if at times in the stress of this giving, when He makes no\nresponse, we feel it is too much, we can give no more, we are too\ndiscouraged to continue, let us remember the strain and stress and\nendeavour that we and all our friends give to trifles, and quietly use\nour common sense to judge whether in the winning of a game of ball,\nor in the pleasing and finding of God, we shall be the more blessed.\nFor God is to be found: He waits.\n\n* * *\n\nThe truth about our endeavours is that we have one pre-eminent,\npressing need above all other needs, which is to Find God. When we\nhave accomplished this we discover without any further teaching\nthat we no longer care to pass our time with air-balls, because they\nappear so paltry, so inadequate. We are grown up and are no longer\npuerile in our desires: at the same time we are not without desires,\nbut, on the contrary, we glow with a new, more ardent, and larger set\nof desires.\n\nV\n\nWhat I know of the soul's actual Finding and Contact with God I\nkeep very closely to myself. Here and there to a few, a very few\nsouls, I may speak: to all others I am forbidden to speak. I am\nstopped; and I understand perfectly why this is: it is that I should do\nmore harm than good. Anyone looking at me would say (and all the\nmore so because I am dressed in the fashion of the day, and not in\nsome peculiar way, or in a nun's habit, for such trifling things affect\nmany minds), \"That person is demented to think that she knows\nwhat it is to have Contact with God,\" and it would seem a scandal to\nthem. But the explanation of the mystery is not so simple as this. I\nam not demented. I never was so sane, so capable in my life as now.\nI never was so perfectly poised as now. But if you say to me,\n\"Explain what it is that you know, in order that I too may know,\"\nthen I can say to you nothing more than, \"Come and know for\nyourself, for God awaits you.\"\n\nTo illustrate a mere fraction of the difficulty of passing such a\nknowledge from one self to another self, let us take such a case as\nthat of a man born blind. He sits beneath a tree, on the grass. You\nput a blade of grass in his fingers, and also a leaf from the tree, and\nyou say to him, \"This is grass, and this is the leaf of the tree which\nshelters you, and both are green.\" \"And what,\" he asks, \"is green?\"\nAnd to save your life you cannot make him know what it is, or make\nhim know the tree, or know the grass, though he touches them both\nwith his hands. How, then, shall God, Who can be neither seen, nor\nheard, nor touched, how shall He be made known from one to\nanother? He must be experienced to be known. And if you should\nsay to me, \"What does it feel like to have found God?\" then I should\nsay, \"It feels that the roof is lifted off the world, and wherever we\nmay be or stand it is a straight line from us to God and nothing\nbetween, nothing between, day or night.\"\n\nVI\n\nTo come to the contemplation of God it is not necessary to go\nthrough any lengthy toil, some process of throwing out this or that,\npainfully, slowly, denying the existence of everything in order to\narrive at God. The way is not denying, but concentrating; and in the\nact of concentration, because of love, all other things whatsoever in\ncreation fall away into nothing and are no more, because God in all\nHis graciousness reveals Himself, and then He alone exists for the\nenraptured soul.\n\nVII\n\nSupposing that we have found Jesus Christ, supposing that we know\nHim so well and have come to love Him so much that our love for\nHim is become stronger than any other love, very much stronger\nthan any other love, and still, in spite of hopes and endeavours, we\nknow that we have not found the Godhead, we have not found\nUnion with the First and Third Person of the Holy Trinity--the\nheavens have not, as it were, been opened to us to let our souls slip\nthrough to God. Are we to be discouraged because of this? Are we\nto think ourselves less favoured, less loved? A thousand times no.\nWe are, perhaps, in neither heart, mind, or soul quite sufficiently\nprepared for the great ordeals that must be gone through _after\nUnion with God,_ To find God is Victory. But Victory has dangers.\nWe have perhaps not yet sufficiently developed just those exact\nqualities which it is essential we must have in order to _maintain_\nthe connection with God in the face of all obstacles when once He is\nfound. When God reveals Himself to a soul she is in great danger,\nand she knows it, because to fail Him now, to turn away now, to be\nunfaithful now--this is a terrible disaster to the soul. God in His\nmercy exposes no soul to such dangers until she is as ready as may\nbe, but He bides and He works in her till she is ready. So it may very\nwell be that it is not in this life that we come to Union, but later; and\nthe fact that we have not come to Union is a sign to increase our\nnearness to Christ by as much as we can: the very smallest advance\nthat we make in this life is of the utmost value to us later.\n\nVIII\n\nThe soul that is seeking Union with God must not, upon any pretext\nwhatever, engage itself in spiritualism. Spiritualism may have its\ngreat uses for the heart and mind which are without, or are\nstruggling for, belief--the heart and mind of Thomas seeking to\ntouch, to have a proof; but remember the words of the Saviour to\nThomas: \"Blessed are they,\" He says, \"who have not seen, and yet\nhave believed.\" And we do not need to wait for death to receive this\nblessing, but we receive it here. The soul that would find God must\ngo to Him by means of His Holy Spirit, and no other spirit but the\nSpirit of God can take us to Him; and to try to hold communications\nwith the spirits of men _is not the way._ The soul that has come to\nUnion with God is perfectly aware of the existence of spirits--is\nintensely aware,--but refuses to pay any attention if she wise. Some\nof these spirits are very subtle, very knowing; some are full of\nflattery, and very persistent; others present themselves as still in\nhuman form, and seek to terrify with their terrible faces, some\ndiabolical, some appearing to be in a great agony and undergoing\nchanges more astonishing and horrible than can be even imagined\nbefore experienced--and melting only to be re-formed into that\nwhich is yet more fearful. Have nothing whatever to do with spirits.\nDo not resist them when they come, but drop them behind by fixing\nheart, mind, and soul on Christ. The Spirit of Christ easily\novercomes every spirit, every evil, every fear, and in order to\nourselves overcome all such things, we need to unite with the Spirit\nof Jesus Christ by concentrating upon Him with love, and ignoring\nobstructions. Those who have lent themselves to spiritualism,\nhoping to find comfort, a lost friend, or even God Himself, when\nthey give it up (as they must do) they may find themselves greatly\nplagued by the fires with which they have been playing; but these\ncan soon be overcome by diligently uniting the heart and mind to\nJesus Christ.\n\nIX\n\nAfter coming to full Union with God, the mind becomes\npermanently attached to Him, _and this without effort;_ but in order\nthat it shall be without effort, the will must be kept in a state of\nloving attention to Him, and this again can only be done without\neffort if the heart is so full of love that it desires nothing else than\nGod; and this is dependent again upon the grace which the soul\nreceives from Him because of her love and response--so now we see,\nliving and working in our own being, the reason and meaning of His\ncommandment to love Him with all the heart, mind, soul, and\nstrength. It is doing this _after He has Himself given us the power to\ndo it_ which makes us able to live in the closest, most delicious and\nprecious nearness to God during all our waking hours. But it takes\ntime, and it takes much pain to learn how to live this, as it were,\ndouble life--this inward life of companionship, of wonderful and\nblessed inward intercourse with God, and the outward intercourse of\nthe senses with the world, our everyday duties, and our\nfellow-beings. In our early stages we have profound innumerable\ndifficulties in understanding either our own capacities or God's\nwishes: we are terrified of losing Him, and yet are often bewildered,\nand pained also, by some of the higher degrees in which He\ncommunicates Himself. We do not understand how to leave God and\nreturn to earthly duties. Supposing that we are altogether wrapped\nup in the company of God, and some fellow-being suddenly recalls\nus to the world (the human voice can recall the soul as nothing else\ncan), the pain is so great as to be nothing less than anguish; and if\ndone often would seriously affect the health of the body.\n\nBut in a few years we learn to accomplish it without any shock.\n\nOne pain, however, remains, and it grows. I find myself unable to\ncarry on a conversation with anyone unless it is about God, or about\nsome work which is for God and has to do with His pleasure (and\nthis is rare, because people are so glued to worldly affairs), for more\nthan an hour, and even less, without the most horrible, the most\ndeathly, exhaustion, which is not only spiritual but bodily--the face\nand lips losing all colour, the eyes their vitality: so dreadful is the\ndistress of the whole being that one is obliged, upon any kind of\npretext, to withdraw from all companions, and, if it is only for five\nminutes, be alone with God and, where no eye but His can see, unite\ncompletely with Him once more, and immediately the whole being\nbecomes revivified. There is nothing else in life so wonderful, so\nrapturous as this swift reunion of the soul with God; and the joy is\nnot only the joy of the soul, because the heart and mind have their\nfill of it too, for they too have ached and thirsted and hungered and\nlonged, and now are satisfied.\n\nIf this measureless happiness could only be imagined by us before\nwe experience it, how many of us would be spurred to greater efforts\ninstead of falling back amongst the dust and cobwebs of Vanity!--but\nit cannot be imagined, and the only way to come to it is by faith\nand obedience; and it is easy to see why this arrangement is\nnecessary, for if we could imagine it thoroughly, then we should\nprobably try to get to God only on account of greed, and should find\nourselves drifting away instead of towards Him; it cannot be done\nby greed, greed being one of those things which beguiled the soul\naway from Him to begin with; and He does not send the soul His\nfavours till she is free of, and has risen above, the dangers of greed\nand seeks Him for Himself and not for His favours. As soon as it is\nsafe for her He will give the soul continual favours, because Perfect\nLove is ever desirous to give, and is only restrained on our account\nto withhold favours. The soul which knows how to make all\nnecessary preparations to receive Him becomes a source of joy to\nGod, for now He can give and give and no harm be done to that soul;\nbut He does not acquaint the soul too suddenly with all the joy that\nshe is to Him, because she would not (at least certainly my soul\nwould not) be able to bear the knowledge of the privilege that she\nenjoys, without some danger to herself,--and so, all unaware of the\nsingularity of the privilege that she enjoys without any analysis of\nher happiness, she concerns herself with sweetly obeying Him, with\nsinging to Him, and with giving Him all that she has all the day long,\nand so hovers before Him as delightful simplicity and love.\n\nThis Union with God varies so much in degree that it makes an\neffect of endless variety. Yet it is all one same joy, it is the joy of\nangels reduced to such degree as makes it bearable to flesh: the soul\nknows that it is the joy of angels that she is receiving the first time\nthat she has it given to her: immediately on receipt of this joy she\ncomprehends the _mode_ of heavenly living; she knows it is but the\nouter edge that she touches, but what means so much to her is that\nshe has _recaptured the knowledge of this mode of living:_\nhenceforth it is a question of progress, she bends all her attention to\nprogress so that she may get nearer and nearer to God, so that she\nmay do everything to please this suddenly refound, unspeakably\nbeloved God.\n\nShe desires to get nearer and nearer to God in spite of the pain that\nshe often experiences. Perhaps the first pains we experience are\nwhen we are in contemplation of God and are caught by God into\nHigh Contemplation. He will at times expose the soul to so much of\nthe Divine Power that she cannot sever herself from the too great\nfulness of Union with God, though the body is crying to her to do it\nand the sufferings of the body are all felt by the soul, which is pulled\ntwo ways: all this is very painful and makes us almost in a _fear_ of\nGod again. Why should Perfect Love inflict this pain on us? It may\nbe to remind us that He is not only Love, but Power, Might, Majesty,\nand Dominion also. Yet could this ever be forgotten? It seems\nincredible. But it does not do to trust to one's soul, or to count on\nwhat she will do or not do: we know that the soul has forgotten\nalmost everything about God, so much so that we are now thankful\nto arrive even so far as being quite certain that He exists! What\ninfinite kindness that He should consent and condescend to Himself\nbe her Teacher! But He does so condescend, and the more the soul\nrelearns of God, the more she also learns that He is never weary of\nworking for us all: this keeps the soul in a state of intense gratitude.\n\n* * *\n\nWhen the soul arrives at Union with God, does she remain always in\nUnion? Yes, but not at the degree of Union which is Contact. What\nis the difference? It can perhaps be most easily explained (though\nextremely imperfectly) by referring to the union of married life. In\nthis union, though we live in one house, we are not always both in\nthat house at the same time; but this does not dissolve our union, and\nwe both know our way to return there, and the right to meet is\nalways ours. When we are both in the house, although not in the\nsame room, there is a much nearer feeling about it, and we are apt to\ngive a momentary call one to the other, just to have the pleasure of\nresponse: yet, though we are aware the other one is in the house and\nthat there is no part of the house where we are forbidden to meet--it\nis not enough; love requires more: it will be necessary for one to go\nand seek the actual presence of the other (the soul does this by a\nquiet prayer with perhaps a few words, but more probably no words).\nThe one finds the other one; but the other one is occupied, so the one\nwaits patiently (this is passive contemplation), and suddenly the\noccupied one is so constrained by love for the waiting one that he\nmust turn to her, open wide his arms, and embrace her--they meet,\nthey touch, they are content. In spiritual life this is contact or ecstasy\nor rapture. Here comes in the immensity of the difference between\njoys physical and joys spiritual--physical joys being limited to five\nsenses: spiritual joys being above senses and open to limitless\nvariations; but in order that these may be known in their fulness, we\nmust eventually (after leaving the flesh) rise to immense heights of\nperfection: the joys enjoyed by the Archangel would _destroy_ a\nlesser angel: the degree of joy that invigorates the saint, that sends\nhim into rhapsodies of happiness, would _destroy_ the sinner--(becoming\ninsupportable agony to the sinner). This celestial joy is,\nfundamentally, a question of the enduring of some un-nameable\nenergy. How can energy be a means of this immeasurable Divine\njoy? After years of experience I find I cannot go back upon the\nknowledge that I acquired on the very first occasion of\nexperience--that energy _is a fundamental principle of the mystery._\n\nBut how, it may very well be asked, do sins interfere with the\nreception of this activity? Sins are all imperfections, thickenings of\nthe soul from self-will: pure soul is necessary for the _happy_\nreception of this celestial activity, and because impurities are\nautomatically dissipated by this activity, and the dissipation or\ndispersion of them _is the most awful agony conceivable_ when too\nsuddenly done, what is bliss to the saint is the extremity of torture to\nthe sinner. Now we come very fearfully and dreadfully to\nunderstand something more of the meanings, the happenings, of the\nJudgment Day. Christ will inflict no direct wilful punishment on any\nsoul; but when He presents Himself before all souls and they behold\nHis Face, immediately they will receive the terrible might of the\nactivity of celestial joy. The regenerated will endure and rejoice; the\nunrepentant sinner will agonise, and he must flee from before the\nFace of Christ, because the agony that he feels is the dispersal of his\nimperfect soul; and where shall the sinner flee, where shall he go to\nfind happiness? for saint and sinner alike desire happiness, and there\nis in Spirit-life only one happiness--the Bliss of God. So then let us\nbe careful to prepare ourselves to be able to receive and endure this\nhappiness, even if it can at first be only in a small degree, so that we\nshall not be condemned _by our own pain_ to leave the Presence of\nGod altogether and consequently lose Celestial Pleasures; let us at\nleast prepare ourselves to remain near enough to know something of\nthis tremendous living.\n\nIt was this Divine Activity which on the night of the Too Great\nHappiness so anguished my imperfect soul. But that night, and that\nanguish, taught my soul what she could never have learnt by any\nother means, and what it was I learnt I find myself unable to pass on\nto anyone; but that night was for my soul the turning-point of her\ndestiny, that night altered my soul for evermore; that night I knew\nGod as deeply as He can be known whilst the soul is in flesh.\n\n* * *\n\nGod uses also a peculiar drawing power. All souls feeling desire\ntowards God are to a greater or lesser degree conscious of this, and,\nas we know, frequently remain conscious of it as a desire and\nnothing further to the end of life in flesh. By means of it He draws a\nsoul towards Himself until, because of it, the whole being is willing\nto make efforts at self-improvement, and this is the essential: it is\nthis cleaning up of the character, this purification, which alone can\nbring us to the point where we can receive God's communications of\nHimself (in other words, ecstasies and periods of reunion with\nCelestial-living). Ecstasies inspire and awaken the soul: they\nconvince the mind absolutely of the existence of another form of\nliving _and of God Himself._\n\nAfter ecstasy the efforts of the entire being are bent on trying to\nperfect itself, and extraordinary Graces may be freely and almost\ncontinually given to us in order to make improvement more rapid for\nus. The feeling for God which before ecstasy was a deep (and often\nvery painful) longing for God now increases to a burning,\nnever-ceasing desire for Him: only three thoughts can be said to truly\noccupy a person from this stage onwards--how to please God, how\nto get nearer to Him, how to show practical gratitude. He may\nincrease the flow of His Power to a soul till she is in great distress,\nlonging to leap out of the body owing to the immensity of God's\nattraction. This attraction at times has a very real and sensible effect\nupon the body: it feels to counteract gravity, it makes the body feel\nso light it is about to leave the ground; it affects walking, and\nunaccountably changes it to staggering. To receive this attraction\ncan be an ecstatic condition, but is by no means ecstasy. So long as\nwe have power to move the body by will we are not in true ecstasy.\nIn ecstasy the body feels to be disconnected in some unaccountable\nmanner from the will; it lies inert, though it knows itself and knows\nthat it stills lives--which fundamentally differentiates it from sleep,\nbecause in sleep we do not know our body, we do not know if we\nare alive or dead, we know nothing. In ecstasy is no such blankness:\nmerely the body is perforce inert, it would be entirely forgotten but\nfor its periods of distress.\n\nNeither can ecstasy be confused with dreaming, by even the most\nsimple person. In dreaming, objects and events of a familiar type\nstill surround us; the total inconsequence with which they present\nthemselves alone makes dream-living unlike actual living, for it\nremains fundamentally of the same type--physical and full of\npersons, forms, objects, and word-thoughts. We can procure sleep\nby willing it, but we cannot will to procure ecstasy: we find it totally\nindependent of will.\n\nThe Attraction of God can be a penetrating pain, because the soul,\nterribly drawn to God, exceedingly near Him, yet remains\nunsatisfied even in this close proximity. Why? Because she is being\nsubjected to one Force only--she longs, she remains near, and\nreceives nothing. God is not bestowing His Activity upon her, which\nis the way that she \"knows\" Him--she is not living the celestial life.\n\nIt is the combination of the two Forces working together\nsimultaneously on and in the soul which differentiates ecstasy and\nrapture from all other degrees of God-Consciousness. When these\ntwo Powers work together, we experience celestial living, full Union,\nthe bliss of Contact. It cannot possibly be said that in ecstasy we see\nGod: it is a question of \"knowing\" Him through the higher part of\nthe soul, in lesser or in deeper degrees.\n\nX\n\nIf the Divine Lover gives such joys to the soul, how does the soul\ngive joy to the Divine Lover? Is she beautiful? She becomes so.\nAlso the soul is a poet of the first water, though she uses no words;\nand the soul is a weaver of melodies, though she makes no sound;\nbut above all, and before all, the soul is a great lover. Now we know\nin this earthly life that a lover desires above everything else the love\nof her whom he loves. Only when she whom he loves returns his\nlove, can he truly enjoy her.\n\nSo also the Divine Lover. O incomparable Love! Love gives all\nwhen it gives itself, love receives all when it receives Love.\n\nBy love, then, the soul is the Delight of God.\n\nXI\n\nThe soul feels to be formless; though we become aware of a\n_spreading_ which causes her to feel of the form of a cup or a disc\nwhen she receives God, and in contemplation she feels to\nextend--flame-like until she meets God. She can wait for God--spread,\nbut cannot maintain this form for long without God rejoices her by His\ntouch. How can so formless a thing, still waiting for its Spiritual\nBody, be beautiful? She is beautiful because of the colours she is\nable to assume: she can glow with such colour as no flower on earth\ncan even faintly imitate. Celestial colours are beyond all imagination.\nAs the soul grows in purity and is able to endure an increase of the\nDivine Radiations and Penetration, so she changes her colours; by\nher colours she delights the eye of her Maker, He touches her, she\nbecomes yet more beautiful.\n\n* * *\n\nVery early in the morning God walks in His Garden of Souls, and in\nthe evening also, and in the noonday, and in the night.\n\nThe soul that knows Him knows His approach, and, preparing and\nadorning herself for Him--waits.\n\nXII\n\nDoes God come and go? The soul feels Him there, and not there. Is\nshe mistaken in this, and God always to be possessed, but she not\ndressed to receive Him? If this is so, then how grievously frequent is\nour failure!\n\nIt is more encouraging to our own state to suppose that God lends\nHimself and withdraws; that He will be possessed; and He will not\nbe. But this involves caprice. Can Perfect Love have caprice?\n\nWe find that grace can be received without intermission for weeks,\neven months, together. Without coming and departing (although in\nlesser and greater intensity) the Presence of God, Love and Comfort,\nenvelop the soul. So then we learn by our own experience that God\nis willing to be present amongst us continually in His Second and\nThird Persons.\n\nYet, although He is present in His Two Persons, the soul is not filled:\nshe is unspeakably blest and happy, but not wholly satisfied till He\nis present to her in His First Person also. She knows immediately\nwhen He so comes, and then the Three become One, and when They\nbecome One to her, in that moment the soul enters Bliss. It is true\nthat if He so came to her very frequently, the soul could not endure\nHim; but certainly she could endure Him more frequently than she\nreceives Him. It is not because she is worthy that she possesses Him:\nthe soul never, under any circumstances, feels worthy: it is love\nalone which enables her to possess Him, and this love that she\nknows how to shed to Him is His own gift to her.\n\nSo the soul cries to Him, O mystery of love, was ever such sweet\ngraciousness as lives in thee: such exquisite felicity of giving and\nreceiving, in which the giver and receiver in mysterious rapture of\ngenerosity are oned! And this mystery of love is not in paucity of\nways, but in marvellous variety of ways and of degrees--the ways of\nfriendship, the brother and the sister, the mother and the child, the\nyouth and the maiden, and Thyself and we.\n\nLove makes the soul ponder on His tastes, His will, His nature. Does\nHe prefer even in heaven to possess Himself to Himself in His First\nPerson? or are there parts of heaven where He is ever willing to be\npossessed in His fulness: where He is eternally beheld in His Three\nPersons by such as can endure Him? The soul believes it, and this is\nthe goal she strives for both now and hereafter.\n\nYet there is That of Him which is for ever Alone, which will never\nbe known or shared by the greatest of the Angels. The soul\ncomprehends that He will have it so because of that Solitary which\nsits within herself, she who is made after His likeness.\n\nXIII\n\nFor many years before coming to Union with God, I found that it\nhad become impossible to say more than a little prayer of some five\nor six words, and these were said very slowly: at times I was\nastonished at my inability, and ashamed that these pitiful shreds\nwere all that I could offer, and always the same thing too; I tried to\nvary it--I could not. When I tried to say some fine sentence, when I\ntried even to ask for something, I could not; it all disappeared in a\nfeeling of such sweet love for God, and I merely said again the same\nold words of every day. I loved. I could do nothing more than say so,\nand then stay there on my knees for a little while, very near Him,\nfascinated, adoring. But God is not vexed with a soul when she\ncannot say much. Is an earthly father vexed when his child, standing\nthere before him, forgets the words upon its lips, forgets to ask,\nbecause it loves him so? Far from it.\n\nThis prayer is the commencement, the foretaste, of Contemplation.\nA distinguishing mark between this prayer and Contemplation is that\nin even the lowest degree of Contemplation God (if one may so\nexpress the inexpressible) is Localised. Hitherto His Presence has\nbeen near--but we cannot say how near, or where, and _we cannot\nbe sure of finding it._ After Union we are certain of finding God's\nPresence everywhere, and at any time. He may at times be far away,\nor pay no attention to us; but we know whereabouts He is, and we\ncan go and wait outside that place where He has hidden Himself and\nwhich is no place (but a figure of speech): He merely disappears\nfrom our consciousness, but not so entirely but that we can partly\nfind Him. All this cannot be explained, but after Union God is as\npresent to the soul in Contemplation (and far more so because of the\ngreat poignancy of it) as is a fellow-creature whom we actually see\nand touch, much more so because between ourself and a fellow-creature,\nhowever dear, is always a barrier: try as we may there is always\na dividing line between two persons. We are two: we remain\ntwo. But when we meet God there is nothing between us and God,\nnothing whatever divides us, and yet we are not lost in God--that is\nto say, we do not disappear as a living individual consciousness, but\nour consciousness is increased to a prodigious degree, and we are\nOne with God.\n\nXIV\n\nThis Oneness, in a tiny degree, can be experienced by two persons\nwho are in close spiritual sympathy when both are simultaneously\nand powerfully animated by very loving thoughts of Christ, or are\nworking together, and _giving_ on account of Christ: then a fluid\ninterchange of sympathies and interests takes place in which the\nbarriers of individuality go down.\n\nThis same fluid interchange in a still lesser degree takes place in\nordinary friendship between two friends of similar tastes; but this\ninterchange must always be with the mental and the higher part of us,\nit can never take place because of the merely physical, for in the\nphysical, dependent as it is upon senses, barriers always exist: we\nsee this in the union of lovers--their union is merely a transitory\n_self_-gratification, although it may include another self in that it is\nmutual; but more frequently it is not even mutual, and what is a\npleasure to one is at the moment distasteful to the other, though the\none can easily conceal from the other that it is so, proving\nhow complete the duality of consciousness and of feeling\nremains between two individuals who depend upon contiguity of\n_substance_ (or the sense of touch) for their union, and not upon\nspiritual _similarity_: in spiritual similarity alone is _identity_ of\nfeeling and personality and perfect union to be found, and in this\nidentity _deceit is impossible._\n\nXV\n\nThe more we investigate the question of satisfactions the more we\nfind that these, in order to be permanent, must take place upon a\nvery high level, upon a plane above materialism. However much we\nmay with our sense of taste enjoy a dinner to-day, it will be no joy\nwhatever even a week hence. The natural everyday facts should (and\nare intended to) prove to us the futility of giving so much time and\nthought to the pleasures of the flesh: these pleasures lead nowhere,\nthey end abruptly, they are very limited, being confined to five\nsenses, and consequently, owing to a necessity of continual\nrepetition, satiety supervenes, and there remains nothing else to turn\nto. Yet when this happens we are really very fortunate, because it\nmay be a cause of our searching amongst our higher faculties for our\ngratifications.\n\nXVI\n\nThe soul finds it bitterly hard to rid herself of selfishness and\nself-will: she gets rid of one form, only to find herself falling to\nanother. When first my soul reknew the Joy of God I said to myself, \"I\nwill hide it in my own bosom, I will keep it all to myself. I am become\nindependent of all creatures, I want none of them, I cannot bear the\nsight or the sound of them, how joyfully I leave them all behind!--I\nwant only my God--I want--But what is all this?--I want, I will, I, I,\nI, I!\" Later the days come when God hides Himself from me: I can\ngo and wait at His threshold (because when she knows the way He\nnever denies the soul the threshold, though He denies her Himself). I\nmay pour out all the sweetness of my love, but he makes no\nresponse; I may sing to Him all day: He will not hear; I may give\nHim all that I am or have, and He will not communicate Himself to\nme. Then I remember all the years of my striving, I remember the\nstress, the sweat of all that climb to His footstool--the sweat that at\ntimes was like drops of blood wrung out of the soul, out of the heart,\nout of the mind; and yet all forgotten in the instant of the rapture of\nFinding. Did He then beckon and draw and delight the soul only to\nmadden with the anguish of more hiding and more striving: was He\nto be found only that He might again be lost? My soul sickened with\nfear, and I said, Love is a calamity; who can release me from the\nanguish of it? O God, since I may no more possess Thee, grant that I\nmay shortly pass into the dust and for ever be no more, so that I may\nescape this pain of knowing Thy Perfections and my own necessity\nfor Thee; and I mourned for Him till my health went.\n\nWeeks passed, and three words came constantly to me: \"Visit my\nsick.\" But I did not listen: I was sick myself with a deadly wound.\nAlmost every day the same three words came; but I turned away\nresentfully from them, saying to myself, \"What have the sick to do\nwith me? I am weary of sick people: I have been so much with them.\nMust I accept the sick in place of the ecstasy of God? I mourn for\nthe loss of God. I can cheer no sick.\"\n\nThe words came again, with excessive gentleness, and the\ngentleness was like the gentleness of Christ, and it pierced. So that\nday I go to the village and visit the sick again, and I look at them\ntenderly and lovingly, and tenderly and lovingly they look at me,\nand some say, \"It is as if God came into the house with you\"; and\ntears come to my eyes, and I say, \"It may be so, because He sent\nme,\" and they gaze at me lovingly, and lovingly I gaze at them; and\nit seems to me that I can no longer tell where \"they\" cease and where\n\"I\" begin, and the sweetness, the peculiar sweetness, of Christ\npierces me through from my head to my feet--that sweetness that I\nhave not known for weeks. And so I comprehend that Holy Love is\nnot alone just Thee and me, but it is also Thee and me and the others,\nand Thee and the others and me.\n\n* * *\n\nI wanted my own way. The way I wanted was to be free in order to\nworship and bless God in a beautiful place, in some place that _I_\nshould choose. I wanted to worship Him, and to sing Him the Song\nof the Soul from some quiet hill among the olive trees by the\nMediterranean Sea. I wanted this marvellous, this almost terrible,\njoy of meeting God in a beautiful place that _I_ should choose: I\nwanted it so that it became spiritual greed--spiritual self-indulgence.\n\nDuty, heavy-winged duty, prevented my taking the journey; duty to\nan always-contrary relation, now unwell. It was only a little\nthing--just a journey prevented, but it crossed my self-will; and in an\nimpatient, detestable way that I have, I wanted to push all duty, even\nall human relationships, anywhere upon one side, or over the edge of\nthe world, so they might all fall together out of my sight and I be\nfree!\n\nBecause I thought these thoughts, I came to the Place of Tribulation.\nAnd the Messenger came, and he said, \"Escape, and the way is\nconsenting.\" But I said, \"No, I will not have that way, I will escape\nby some other way.\" So I tried every other way, but found it guarded\nby something which seemed to be armed with a hammer; but I\npersisted: then for days and nights my soul stood up to the hammers\nand received terrible blows, and still I persisted--I would find a way\nto escape that should please my will. But I could not eat, I could not\nsleep, the flesh visibly lessened on my bones, and at last I loathed\nmyself and my own will and my own soul, and I cried to God, \"Shall\nI never be through with this terrible struggle with self-will?\" and\ngroaned aloud in my despair.\n\nThen the words that were sent long ago to a saint, and that he was\ninspired to write down to help us all, now came and did their work\nfor me through him: \"My grace is sufficient for thee.\" And so I\nfound it, and more than sufficient--when I consented.\n\nWho is it, what is it, that so punishes the soul? Is it God? No.\nPatiently, lovingly He waits. Our pain is the difficulty of consenting\nto perfection: every virtue has a hammer, every perfection a long\ntwo-edged sword; and the punishment we feel is the breaking and\nwounding of self-will under the hammers of the virtues and the\nsword-thrusts of the vision of perfection.\n\nPut aside these wretched, these sometimes awful and terrible, battles\nand punishments, shrink from them when they come, and we may\nput aside salvation. Accept them--stand up to the hammer and take\nthe blows and learn: consent to the sword that pierces up to the hilt,\nand what do we come to?--The Blisses of God.\n\n\n\nPART V\n\nI\n\nAfter coming to Union with God, our prayers become entirely\nchanged, not only in the manner of presenting them, but changed\nalso in what is presented. Petitioning is a hard thing. I had found it\neasy to pray for others whether I loved them or not, with the lips and\nwith some of the heart; but I found that I could not do it in the new\nway, with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength, so that everything\nelse fled away into nothing and was no more, except that for which I\npetitioned God. A perfect concentration for the welfare of a stranger\nor of some cause was a very hard thing; yet I was made aware that I\nmust learn to do it.\n\nFor two or three years I suffered pain and exhaustion over this\npetitioning; I would be so fatigued by it, found it so great a strain,\nthat I said to myself, \"I shall lose my health over this petitioning, for\nas I do it, it is as though I gave my life-energy for the cause or\nperson for whom I pray.\" But my Good Angel whispered me not to\ngive in, but continue to be willing, continue to be generous, no\nmatter the cost. I am not generous, but I went on with it, and secretly\nhad the greatest dread of it; my whole nature shrank from the effort,\nfrom the strange loss of vitality this petitioning brought.\n\nThen at last, after more than two years, because of remaining willing,\nbecause of trying to remain generous about this, to me, most\ngrievously hard prayer, one happy day God lifted away all the strain\nand difficulty, all the pain and fatigue, and turned it into the sweetest\nof prayers: into a new song, a new honey, new music, a new delight,\nin which the soul has, as it were, but to sip at the nectar of His Love\nand Beneficence, to bring it to a fellow-soul.\n\nI found that God causes the soul to pray this joyous, this exquisite,\nprayer for total strangers, passers-by in the street, fellow-travellers\nby road and rail, here and there, this one and that, she knows which\none it is: how surprised these persons would be if they knew that a\ntotal stranger, who never saw them before and never will see them\nagain, was joyously, lovingly, holding them up before God for His\nhelp and His blessing! and they receive His blessing. God does not\nprompt such prayers for nothing. Is this favoritism? No; they are\nsecretly seeking Him.\n\nII\n\nWhen the soul is united to God a great change comes over the mind,\nwhich now thinks continually, lovingly, of God. God not merely\nhoped for, looked for, as in the past, but God found and known, God\nclose and near; interruptions come and go, but the mind, like a\npendulum, swings back to God, nothing stops it; the soul streams to\nHim: she discovers Him everywhere: she knows her way to Him,\nand she has not far to go. Her own door is also His door. There are\nmany degrees of intensity about this condition, which can increase\nto such an extent as to entirely interfere with our everyday duties.\nWhen it is increased to this degree it would appear (certainly at\ntimes) to be on purpose to teach the soul a self-abnegation which she\ncould not otherwise learn, because, together with an intense, almost\nterrible, attraction and desire to be alone with God, will come the\npressure of a duty which it is obvious God would wish us to attend\nto: this is a severe and a very continual lesson to the soul--the lesson\nof learning patiently to continue some sordid work in this world,\nafter finding the joys of the spiritual life.\n\nWhat are amongst the most noticeable changes in the mind? first, we\nnotice it has become very simple in its requirements, and very\nrestful; it no longer darts here and there gathering in this and that of\nfancied treasures, as a bird darts at flies; it has dropped outside\nobjects, in order to hover around thoughts of God, which at the same\ntime are not particularised, but, as it were, quietly, contentedly, float\nin a general and peaceful fragrance of beauty.\n\nOrdinarily the mind would find it difficult to hover in this way with\nsuch a singleness of intent, but in certain other cases we see the\nsame contentment--in the mother beside her babe: though she may\nnot talk to it, or touch it, she is happy; she knows it near; she is\nsecretly giving to it. We see it in the babe also: it gazes at its mother\nand is quiet; if the mother removes herself, the child may cry; no\none has hurt it--merely, it has ceased to be happy because the object\nof its desire has gone too far from it, has disappeared. We see it also\nin two lovers; they sit near together, and the more they love the\nfewer words they require to speak: they are happy: they require very\nfew words, very few thoughts. Separate them, and they spend their\ntime uneasily in sending messages, in thinking numberless yearning\nthoughts which become painful, and, if continued for long, can\naffect the health. Put them together again, and they barely say two\nwords: their joy at meeting occupies the whole of their attention. It\nis the same when we love God. The heart, and the mind, and the soul\nare blissfully content, they are in a love-state, they bask in His\nPresence; but that we should be aware of His Presence--this is His\ngift, this is the vast difference between our former and our present\nstate.\n\nWhen we have become experienced in this Presence of God, the\nReason tries very earnestly to comprehend the manner of it. Christ\nsays that when love is established between God and a man, \"My\nFather and I will come to him and make our abode with him.\" How\ncan such a tremendous thing as this be carried out without, as it were,\nburning the man up with the greatness of it? Does God, then, when\nexperienced feel to be a Fire? Yes, and no, for we feel that we shall\nbe consumed, and yet it is not burning but a blissful energy of the\nmost inexpressible and unbearable intensity, which has the feeling\nof disintegrating or _dispersing flesh._ The experience is blissful to\nheart and mind only so long as it is given within certain limits:\nbeyond this it is bliss-agony, beyond this it would soon be death to\nthe body; and the soul feels that in her imperfect state it can soon\neasily be the dispersion of herself also: this is a very terrible feeling:\nthis does not bear remembering or thinking about. How, then, can it\nbe possible that God can take up His abode with us and we still live?\n\nIn all contacts with God we notice one fact pre-eminently--they do\nnot take place with the mind, but with that which was previously\nunknown to us, and which communicates the joy and the realities of\nmeeting God to the mind. What is this? It does not live in the heart:\nit lives, or feels to live, in the upper cavity of the chest, above the\nheart, and below the throat-base. It can endure God. It is spirit, it\nfeels to be a higher part of the soul: we might call it the Intelligence\nand Will of the soul, because it acts for the soul as the mind acts for\nthe body, it is above the soul as the mind is above (more important\nthan) and rules an arm or leg. The more we experience God, the\nmore we are forced to comprehend that we have in us an especial\norgan in this spirit with which we can communicate with God and\nby which we can receive Him without the mind or body being\ndestroyed. For when God takes up His abode with a man He will\ncommunicate Himself to this loving Spirit-Will or Intelligence in\necstasies. And through His Son He will communicate Himself in\nanother manner, to the heart and mind, so graciously, with such a\ntender care, that without the stress of ecstasy we are kept in a\ndelicate and most blessed Awareness of God. In these ways we can\nknow, even in flesh, the beginnings of the true love-state, the\nbeginnings of the angelic state, which is this same love-state brought\n_to completion by Beholding God._\n\nIII\n\nAlthough this blessed condition of Awareness of God is a gift, and\nat first the mind and soul are maintained in it without effort on their\npart, it being accomplished for them solely by the power of the\nGrace of God, yet later--and somewhat to their dismay after\nreceiving such favours--they discover that it must be worked for in\norder to be maintained. The heart must give, the mind must give, the\nsoul must give: when they neither work nor give they may find\nthemselves receiving nothing: God ceases to be present to them.\nGenerosity on our part is required. It works out in experience to be\nalways the same thing that is needed for our perfect health and\nhappiness--reciprocity. Without we maintain this reciprocity we\nshall experience _extraordinary disappointment._\n\nIV\n\nThe soul is now blind: we know this by experience; but do we know\nthat she ever had sight? If she did not, but was created imperfect,\nand was so created in order that only by work and merit she should\narrive at completion and perfection and Behold God (instead of\nmerely, as now in this world, being able only to apprehend Him by\nthe retrospect of His effect upon her), then she was always below\nangels. If through work and obedience she becomes so raised that\nshe merits sight and the actual Beholding of God, then she becomes\nequal to angels because of this Beholding; and so Christ tells us that\nshe does as the Child of the Resurrection.\n\nIt is the inability of the soul to comprehend, after experiencing the\nbliss of Union with God, how she came to embark upon this\nwandering and separation, which so presses the Reason for an\nexplanation of the fall of the soul.\n\nIt may be that not all souls are fallen, but that some are merely in\nprocess of progressing to sight. These are Righteous Souls. But there\nare more souls also created sightless, who are fallen by curiosity, by\ninfidelity or plain self-will and forgetfulness--these it is who need\nthe Redeemer: \"I come not to call the Righteous, but sinners to\nrepentance.\" From this it would seem that there are souls who,\nthough they are in this world, are yet fundamentally righteous: not\nfallen, but working to receive sight. It is inconceivable to the soul\nthat, had she ever Beheld God, she could have left Him, but not\ninconceivable to her that, having never Beheld Him, she may have\nbeen unfaithful on her road to Sight. She understands this awful\npossibility after coming to Union with Him from this earth, because\nthen she learns the immense difficulties of maintaining this sightless\nUnion.\n\nShe knows the terrible solitude and testing it entails, and the\ninnumerable temptations when low-spirited and lonely to turn to\ninterests and consolations apart from God; for God will frequently,\nin the later stages of progress, withhold every consolation and\ncomfort from the soul, leaving her solitary. Will she stay? Will she\ngo?\n\nV\n\nWe hope for much from \"education\"; but what education is it that\nwill be of enduring value to us? Is it the education which teaches us\nthe grammars of foreign languages, scientific facts, the dates when\nwars were won, when kings ascended their thrones, princes died,\nartists painted their masterpieces, that will bring us to our finest\nopportunities of success? To the soul there is little greater or less\nchance of success offered by the degree of \"polish\" in the education\nwe have the money to procure: the peasant who cannot read or write\nmay achieve the purpose of life before the savant: we know it\nwithout caring to acknowledge it to ourselves: the education that we\nreally require is the education of daily conduct, the education of\ncharacter, the education by which we say to Self-will, to Pride, and\nto Lusts, \"Lie down!\"--and they do it!\n\n* * *\n\nWhen a soul knows herself, has repented and become redeemed, she\nknows all other souls, good or bad: there are no longer any secrets\nfor her, no one can hide himself from her: she sees all these open\nand living books, reads them, and avoids judging and bitterness in\nspite of the selfishness, stupidity, and frailty revealed on every page:\nshe finds the same faults in herself; selfishness, stupidity, and\nweakness are engraven upon herself; the redeemed and enlightened\nsoul with tears perpetually corrects these faults: the unenlightened\nsoul does not--this is the difference between them.\n\nVI\n\nFor some time after coming to Union with God we remain\nconvinced that all now being so well with the soul all will be well\nwith the body also, and the health does improve and become more\nstable; but the day comes when we learn that God is not concerned\nwith saving flesh, and that the body must share the usual fate--we\nshall continue to suffer through it. But we also discover that there\ncan be a marvellous amelioration to this suffering. By raising the\nconsciousness to its highest--that is to say, by living with the highest\npart of the soul _and waiting upon God_--we can experience such\nvery great Grace that the poignancy, the distress, of pain disappears.\nFor instance, the following is from my experience. Trouble has\ncome, trouble of several kinds: the death of one very dear; severe\nillness to another; for my brother a serious operation; for myself a\nslight one, but a very painful one--in fine, a variety of trials all\ncoming together as they have a way of doing. I feel terribly nervous\nand fearful of the pain of my own operation and my brother's also:\nhe is the brother who once saved my life, he is the being who more\nthan anyone on earth I have most loved since early childhood. So I\nhang on to God. I hang to Him, not by beseeching Him to relieve or\nrelease me from any of these inevitable happenings, but by the way I\nhave so slowly been learning, in which a creature, by means and\nbecause of love, passes out of itself and is able to hand over to God\neverything which it is or has or thinks or does, and in exchange\nreceives His Peace. So I hand over my brother and my dead and my\nanxieties for self into His hands, and I go to my operation with the\nsame serenity that I should go to meet a friend. I notice that I am\nmore calm, less nervous, than anyone else.\n\nThe anaesthetic fails before the operation is completed:\nconsciousness returns and becomes aware of atrocious pain and\nblood-soaked busy instruments. Yet by Grace of God the mind and\nsoul are able immediately to raise and maintain themselves in high\nconsciousness of God, and the operation can be finished without a\ncry or movement of the body: no automatic shrinking takes place.\nAnd this Grace is continued for days afterwards, so that in recalling\nthe torturing incidents, and though the pain of wounds continues\nsevere enough to interfere with sleep, yet my mind remains quite\ncalm, like a quiet lake over which, without ruffling its waters, hangs\na mist--a tranquil shroud of pain that has no sting, no fear, no fret.\n\nVII\n\nAfter coming to Union with God I _never lacked anything,_ and this\nduring the most difficult times of the war, and under every and all\ncircumstances. Being careful to try and observe how this was\nworked, I saw it was very naturally and simply done by everyone\nbeing given an impulse to help me, always without any request to\nthem on my part: the porter, besieged by twenty persons, would be\nblind to all and, coming straight to me, would offer his service; the\ntaxi-driver, hailed by a waiting mob, had eyes and ears for no one\nbut myself, yet I had made him no sign except by looking at him.\nThe same with the coal merchant and his coal, the same with all\ntradesmen, the same with servants. I never lacked anything for one\nhour: _but I continually asked Christ to help me._\n\nSince coming to Union with God, I have had innumerable trials,\nsome of them tortures, but have been brought safely out of every one.\nI afterwards found that each trial was exactly what was needed for\nthe alteration of some objectionable characteristic in myself. No trial\nthat came was unnecessary. When its work was accomplished, the\ntrial disappeared.\n\n* * *\n\nCan it be said that Union with God in this world entails upon us\nincreased sufferings here? Yes. But these sufferings are not owing to\nabnormal occurrences: nothing will happen which is not the\ncommon lot of humanity; merely we are caused to feel that which\nwe do experience, very acutely; and after Union with God all earthly\nconsolations must be abandoned: until we abandon these we do not\nknow how we have depended on them, how they have protected us\nfrom depression, loneliness, boredom, and discontent. Abandon all\nthese earthly consolations and interests, and at the same time _be\nabandoned by God_ (sensible Grace is withdrawn), and immediately\nour sufferings become very severe, though our outward circumstances\nmay appear, and may actually remain, of the very best. If\nour house is a fine one, we must live in it completely detached\nfrom its attractions: the same with regard to our friends, our\namusements, our wealth, and all our possessions. It is obvious that\nin learning to do this we shall often suffer. The soul has painfully to\nlearn that without God's Grace there is no virtue, no righteousness,\nand no sanctity: she learns by going forward upon Grace--perhaps to\nsome great height: then Grace is withdrawn, the soul falls back, and\nfeels to fall lower than she ever was before, and usually she falls\nover a trifle. Amazed, unspeakably surprised and humiliated, and\nashamed, the soul learns to know herself--to know herself with God,\nto know herself without God. When she is with God, there seems no\nheight to which she cannot rise: this gives great courage: more and\nmore she abandons everything distasteful to God in order to unite\nherself more securely to Him.\n\nWe have no sufferings that are not useful to us. Looking back on my\nlife, I see how many troubles I suffered: how often my health\nsuffered (malaria and sun fevers, and lightning and its\nconsequences): how I was and still am kept in a somewhat fragile\nstate of health, though quite free of all actual disease. I see in this\nfrailness, especially during the earlier years of my life, an immense\nprotection: given full and vigorous health, combined with my selfish\nand passionate temperament, and I know very well I should have\nfallen in any and all kinds of dangers at all times. I was not to be\ntrusted with robust health, and even after all the mercies and\nblessings God has showered upon me I do not trust myself. I still\nremain the sinner, fundamentally and potentially at every step the\nsinner. But Love and Grace surround the sinner. Love and Grace\nsave the sinner from himself: Love and Grace can beautify and make\nthe sinner shine.\n\nMy physical sufferings are not to be compared with the sufferings I\nsee others endure, and endure cheerfully: this is a great shame and\nhumiliation to me, because I have not learnt to suffer cheerfully: I\nam too easily undone by suffering and by the sight of suffering in\nany living thing; but although one may be a coward--that is to say,\none may inwardly shrink from every kind of suffering,--one can be,\nand it is necessary to be, quite submissive; and to refrain from the\nslightest rebellion or selfishness--this is what God takes note of.\nWhat a difference there is between the selfish and the unselfish\nsufferer: how the one makes everyone around him miserable, wears\nthem out body and soul; and how the other calls out all that is best in\nothers and strengthens all that is best in himself! It is not so\nimportant whether we are secretly cowards or heroes; what matters\nis how we deal with sufferings when they come, what reaction we\npermit or encourage on their account in heart and mind and soul.\nThere is nothing but suffering that can cleanse us, nothing but pain\nand misfortune which can so thoroughly convince us of our own\nnothingness, and break self-pride: joy will not do it; joy can do\nnothing more than refresh us after our sufferings, and in almost all\nlives we see how joy is made to alternate with sorrow: it encourages,\nit stimulates to further endeavours (this is the reason that God, at a\ncertain stage of progress, gives extraordinary blisses, ecstasies, and\nso on), but it does not disperse our blemishes: the dispersal of\nspiritual blemishes is, as we know, the main reason of life in the\nflesh; it must be done, and the sooner the better: then we can finish,\nonce and for all, with flesh existence. Righteous and very virtuous\npeople may be able to dispense with Divine joys and consolations: it\nis doubtful if many sinners can--they require the confidence, the\ncertainty, the enthusiasm which is naturally kindled by such\nexperiences. So then we find that the vicissitudes of life, the endless\ndaily trials, do not go because we find God. But His Grace comes,\nand when His Grace is with us wet or shine is all one, love and\nbeauty gently sparkle everywhere; and then the heart cries out to\nhim, Every day is like a jewel, every day I see the whole world\ndecked and garlanded with all the beauty of Thy mind: each tree,\neach flower, each bee or bird tremulous with the life and wonder of\nThy creative ingenuity! Each day is a new jewel set upon the\nnecklace of my thoughts of Thee.\n\nVIII\n\nOne of the trials that we have to endure as beginners is a joyless, flat,\nungracious condition; a kind of paralysis of the soul, a dreary torpor.\nWhen we would approach God--pray to Him--He is nowhere to be\nfound: He has disappeared, and everything to do with finding Him is\nbecome hard work, such hard work that it suddenly seems to us\nquite unprofitable: we suddenly remember a number of outside\nthings which we would far sooner do: we try to pray, but the prayer\ngoes nowhere-in-particular; it has no enthusiasm, no force behind it:\nhas prayer then suddenly re-become a duty? This is terrible; what\nshall we do--shall we ask God to help us? When we do, we do it in\nso halfhearted a manner that our prayer feels to merely float around\nour own head like some miserable mist. We feel certain that this\njoyless, withered state will endure to the end of life on earth (the\nconviction that our unhappy condition is permanent is characteristic\nof all severe trials, because if we supposed the condition or\ndifficulty only momentary it would not produce a sufficient trial,\nand consequent effort to overcome it on our part). This trial (though\nit may not always be a trial, but an actual blemish of the soul, a\nserious lack of unselfish love which must at once be strenuously\ncorrected) is given for several reasons--we have become, perhaps,\ntoo greedy of _enjoyment_ of prayer: or we have come to take this\njoyousness of prayer for granted: or we have come to think we are\nuncommonly clever at knowing how to love and to pray; that we\nknow so well how to do it that we can do it of our own power and\ncapacity without God's assistance.\n\nOr the trial may be sent not for any of these reasons, but solely in\norder to increase the strength and perseverance of our love to God,\nand of our Generosity.\n\nThis is one trial, and another is that God allows us to become\nconvinced that He has nothing more to give us, He withdraws His\ngraciousness from our apprehension; He leaves us as a tiny,\nunwanted, meaningless speck, alone in a vast universe. It would be\nidle to say that the soul does not suffer from this change; but these\nsufferings are just what she requires in order to develop courage,\nhumility, endurance, love, and generosity. These two trials--the one\nwhen love is all dried up on our part, and the other when we think\nlove must be all dried up on God's part--are the finest possible\ntraining and exercise for the soul, but they are only such if the soul\n_tries ardently to overcome them:_ it is in the effort to overcome\nthat virtue is learnt, progress made.\n\n\nThere is one most splendid remedy. Is it asking of God? No, it is\ngiving to God. We give Him thanks and we bless Him, and we tell\nHim that we love Him, and we do it with all our heart, mind, soul,\nand strength, and this becomes possible even though a moment ago\nwe were so far from Him, so tepid, seemingly so estranged: it\nbecomes possible because we remember all the wonderful things\nthat God has done for us and given us, and made for us, and suffered\nfor us; and in remembering these it is impossible but that love and\ngratitude, like a torch of enthusiasm, will presently flare up in us.\n\nIf God never gives us another thing, we will adore Him for His\nkindness in the past, we will adore Him for Himself, for what He is.\nDesolation and tepidity vanish. Joy returns, the trial is over; but it\nwill come again perhaps a few hours hence, or to-morrow, or every\nday for weeks: the remedy is ever to be reapplied, and the remedy\nwhen thoroughly applied never fails in immediate efficacy; but it\nhas to be constantly repeated: never let the heart and mind forget\nthis.\n\nIX\n\nThe heart, mind, soul, and will work together and lead together the\nreasonable earthly existence; but there is another part of the soul, a\nhigher part, which has its own intelligence, which leads no earthly\nexistence, has no direct recognition of _material being;_ thinks no\nearth-thoughts, judges by no man-made standards, sins no earth-sins.\nHas this part of the soul, then, never sinned? _It feels_ that it has\nsinned, though it cannot say how or when, but it _feels_ that this sin\nwas direct as between itself and God, and is the cause of its\nseparation from God; and it feels this sin to have been _an\ninfidelity._ It is with this part of the soul that we sin the\nunforgivable sin against the Holy Ghost, which cannot be sinned by\nmere natural man: (here we touch the mystery of the two orders of\nsinning which, to the initiated, are seen both to be covered by the\nsame commandments). This higher part of the soul mourns and\nlongs for God with a terrible longing, and can be consoled, satisfied,\nby God only; He communicates Himself to this part of the soul. Sins\nof heart and mind do not injure it, but retard it: it cannot be\ncorrupted by material living, because it does not connect itself\ndirectly with earth-living, it \"responds\" to God alone; but earthly\nsins delay it, paralyse its powers, postpone indefinitely its return to\nGod. Is it this part of the soul which we ordinarily speak of as the\nWill? It cannot be, since it is with our Will that we consent to\nearth-sins. Have we, then, two Wills? It is reasonable and it conforms with\nexperience to say that we have two Wills--a Spirit-Will conducting\nSpirit-living, and a Reasoning or Mind Will, conducting the affairs\nof earth-living: the lower part of the soul is the meeting-place and\nthe intermediary between these two (often opposing) Wills, it is the\nground upon which they work and have their fruitions.\n\nThe Spirit-Will is the Will by which we finally become united to\nGod. Before regeneration we are unaware in any keen degree of its\nexistence; but it may exist for us in a vague and confused manner as\nan incomprehensible, undefined yearning: we cannot satisfy this\nyearning, because we do not know what it requires for its\nsatisfaction. It is above conscience: conscience has its seat in the\nlower soul, there it deals with the affairs of earthly life. This\nSpirit-Will is so far above conscience (which can be used, cultivated,\nimproved, or destroyed, according to our own desire) that it is not\ngiven into the keeping or cognisance of the \"natural\" man, but\nremains unknown, inoperative until reawakened and impregnated\nwith renewed vigour by direct Act of God in the regenerated man.\nThis awakening, this reinvigoration, would seem to be synonymous\nwith the Baptism of the Holy Ghost.\n\nIf it is awakened only by Act of God, in what way can we be held\nresponsible about it? Our responsibility, our part, our opportunity is\nto so order the lower or earth-will that God shall see us to be\nprepared for the awakening of the Spirit-Will.\n\nThis Spirit-Will, once awakened, is never again shut out from direct\ncommunication with God. Even when Grace is withdrawn, this\nWill-Spirit can come before God and, no barrier between, know Him\n_there_; although He may deny it all consolation and leave it\nlanguishing, it yet retains the consolation of its one supreme\nnecessity--that of knowing _it has not lost Him._ It waits.\n\nX\n\nLike knows like: it does not \"know\" its opposite, but is drawn\ntowards its opposite before and without \"knowing\" it: here we have\nthe cause of the condescension of the Good towards the imperfect,\nand of the aspiration of the imperfect to the perfect long before it\ncan \"know\" the perfect. Without this attraction of like to opposite\nthe imperfect could not become the perfect (we desire, are drawn to\nGod, long before we are able to know Him). The imperfect is able to\nbecome the perfect by continually aspiring to it: it gradually\nbecomes \"like.\" There are no barriers in spirit-living, therefore there\nis nothing to prevent the soul becoming perfect, save its own\nwill-failure. The barrier existing between material- or physical-living and\nspirit-living can only be overcome in and by a man's own soul: in\nthe soul these two forms of living can meet and become known by\nthe one individual, who can live alternately in the two modes, but it\nis necessary that the will and preference shall be continually given\nand bent towards spiritual-living, physical-living being accepted\npatiently and as a cross. Then flesh ceases to be a barrier to\nspiritual-living. This is the work of Christ and of the Holy Ghost. Because\nthe soul has recaptured the knowledge of this rapturous living we are\nnot to suppose that it is possible to continually enjoy it here or\nintroduce its glories into social and worldly living: it is between the\nsoul and God only; but earth-life can and should by this knowledge\nbe entirely readjusted.\n\nXI\n\nAre we correct in saying or supposing that this world with all that\nwe see in it (because perishable) is not real, and that the Invisible is\nthe only Real? We are using the wrong word: all that we see here is\nreal after its own manner: it is intentional, it is designed, it is\nmagnificent, it is the evidence in fixed form of the Supreme\nIntelligence; how can we venture to call it unreal, nothing,\nnegligible? It is a question not of Reality or Unreality, but of greater\nand of lesser Activity. In this world we see the Divine Energy\nslowed down to its least degree: we see it so much slowed down that\nthe Divine Ideas can become crystallised into a form and for their\ndecreed period remain fixed. It is exactly this which the soul\nrequires in order to recover her lost bearings. She needs the\nBeautiful, the Good, and the Bad made sensible to her in _fixed\nobjects,_ and Time in which to consider them and make her choice\nbetween them. When Spirit-living is experienced, we become aware\nthat in spirit-life Activity is of such an order as to preclude the mode\nof it being in fixed forms and objects: so there is no fixed visible\nBeauty, no fixed visible Good or Bad, no fixed _results,_ and the\nsoul \"sees\" and \"knows\" only _that which she herself is like to._ If\nshe is bad, she cannot become better by the privilege of looking at\nthat which is good. If she thinks or desires wrong, she remains\nwrong: she must think Right in order to produce or \"know\" Right.\nShe loses God because she can no longer think godly, and nothing is\nfixed by which she can trace Him: it is like to like, and this\ninstantaneously without pause (or time). Here in this world Like\nmay behold its Opposite: Bad may behold Good and, because of\nbeing able to behold it, may go over and join its will to Good: it is\nable to do this, because the evidence of Good remains fixed whether\nthe beholder or thinker is good or bad.\n\nWhat is our quest in this world? It is to refind the lost knowledge of\nCelestial-living. Our Goal is God Himself. Our salvation does not\ndepend upon our finding Celestial-living, but our finding this living\ndepends upon whether we have found the way of Salvation. This\nCelestial-living is here, at our door, but we cannot retouch it without\nAct of God. What is essential to obtaining this Act of God? Is it\nnecessary to belong to this or that Denomination, to perform this or\nthat ceremony, to stand up, kneel down, or prostrate ourselves a\nhundred and one times, visit shrines, handle relics, endlessly repeat\nfixed words and sentences? No, these will not do it. Christianity _in\nits full meaning,_ a repentant and clean heart and mind--these will\ndo it. It is a direct affair between the soul and God. It is Thee and me.\nThis is immense condescension on the part of God. Love alone\nmakes such a condescension possible.\n\nAs in free spirit we think a thought and become it, have a desire\nflash to it and are it, it is easy to see how in thinking thoughts that\nare not godly, desiring that which is ungodly and imperfect, we pass\nfar from God by \"becoming\" imperfection; and, having \"become,\"\nfind no satisfaction, satisfaction resting with God only. Having\nceased to think godly, the soul loses God, becomes insensitive, and\nfalls into darkness, thinks of her own wretchedness and, thinking of\nit, is held fast to it. Being miserable, she thinks to Self; thinking of\nSelf, she is bound to the solitude of Self--blank solitude without\nfixed objects to amuse, without fixed Beauty to lead higher, to\nrestore, to calm. Is all this tantamount to saying that when separated\nfrom God Spirit-life is less desirable than earth-life? It is: for then\nwe are \"dead\" to celestial-living, and in Spirit-life all other living is\nmiserable living. Hence we see the dire necessity of the soul for a\nSaviour: the necessity of fixed forms, of time, of flesh (which is a\nfixed stay-point for the soul), of the Incarnation of the Saviour _in\nflesh_ in order that He may guide the soul amongst these fixed\nforms, Himself showing her which to choose and which to cast aside:\nwe see the necessity of time in order that, though we have an\nungodly thought, we have _time_ to repent and choose a better\nbefore, in a horrible rapidity, we are inevitably _become that which\nwe had thought._ In this world, this stay-point for the soul, the most\nlost is enabled to enjoy and perceive Beauty and Goodness. How\nmuch more easy, then, to return to godly thoughts, to the Good, to\nGod Himself! But though her Saviour is in this world so near to the\nsoul, she does not always seek Him. He belongs to the Invisible.\nIntoxicated at finding herself amused amongst fixed objects which\nshe enjoys lazily through fixed mediums of the five senses, she\ndevotes herself to these objects, surrounds herself with them, forgets\neverything else. \"It is harder for the rich man to enter the kingdom\nof heaven.\" But she must abandon object-worship: this is not to say\nshe is to deny the existence of objects, calling them unreal; she must\ndespise no created object, for each is there to form for her an\nobject-lesson. She has two choices: she can see the objects, remain\nsatisfied with them, and seek no further. Or, she can see the objects,\nadmire them, but seek beyond them for their Instigator and Creator. Now\nshe is on the track of God. All is well.\n\nBut all this is not that Adam may recover his perfection, for when,\nand for how long, was Adam \"Perfect\"? We behold him sinning at\nthe very first opportunity. In the Fall of Adam we see merely the\ncontinuation in the stay-point of time and of flesh, of the history of\nthe fallen soul--sinning the same old sin, Self-will.\n\nThe way of return to God is the same way by which we came out\nfrom Him--reversed. We came away by means of greeds and\ncuriosities imagined by Self-will. The return is by casting away\nthese greeds, casting away all prides, all selfishness; and what\nself-loving soul is there that could or would, left alone to herself,\nconceive of following such a way of cruel necessities, of such hard\nendurance without an Example before her? For the way is a hard\nway, a toiling way, at times an awful way, and as we pursue it the\nburden grows heavier, the pain sharper: then it grows lighter as the\nsoul becomes renewed; and the pain is no longer the pain of\nloneliness, of sin and sorrow, but becomes the pain of Love, waiting\nin certainty for an ultimate Reunion: it becomes pain which is being\nforgotten in the returning happiness of God.\n\nBut first must come the abandonment of Self-will, bit by bit, to the\ndeath. So we see upon the Cross Christ stripped of everything, and\nat the last stripped even of Union with the Father: consenting to bear\nthe pains of even Spiritual Death: \"My God, my God, why hast\nThou forsaken Me?\" If there could be any greater depth of pain, He\nwould have shared that also with the wandering soul. So we are\nindeed one with Him in everything: and He with us.\n\nIn Spirit-life we meet the Ideas of God uncrystallised into any form.\nThey penetrate the soul--she flashes to them, she becomes them, she\nreaches unimaginable heights of bliss by \"becoming.\" This form of\njoy is incomprehensible until experienced: it is stupendous living, if\nit may be so expressed it is happiness at lightning velocity; but it is a\nlightning happiness which must flash to God. When it ceases to do\nthis in a full manner, it ceases to be full happiness. When it becomes\nfurther perverted, diverted, and, finally, inverted, it ceases to be any\nhappiness whatever. It is independent of surroundings: what it\ndepends on is a perfect reciprocity with its own Source. That the\nlaws which govern this Divine living will not be altered to suit\nwandering souls is not to be wondered at; but a new system may be\ncalled into being, and we may be able to perceive it in this world,\nevolved from first to last with its substance, forms, creatures, flesh,\nand time, in order to assist such wanderers. God _spends Himself_\nfor every wandering soul.\n\nXII\n\nDirectly this world ceases to afford us pleasure, we wonder why we\nwere born. The soul longs for happiness; feels certain she was\ncreated for it. So she is. Looking at the masses of drab, ugly, and\nunsuccessful lives around us, we may well ask what purpose and\nwhat progress is there in the lives of all these hopeless-looking\npeople. But there is not one life that does not have brought before it,\nand into it, the opportunity of, and the invitation to, self-sacrifice,\nand in a greater or lesser degree this is accepted and responded to by\nall. There is far more soul-progress made by these grey-looking lives\nthan would appear on the surface: they accept self-sacrifice--they\naccept Duty--all is well. Very much progress may not be made\nduring the one earth-period of life, but some is made: we drifted\naway slowly from God; our return is slow.\n\nXIII\n\nLove is not the mere pleasant sentiment of the heart we are apt to\nconsider it: it is _the animating principle of the soul,_ it is the reason\nand cause of her existence: it is a God-Force. When a soul does not\nlove God she has ceased to respond to this Force; she is no longer a\n\"sensitive\" or _living_ soul: when she becomes insensitive, she has\nbecome what flesh is when it is \"callous.\"\n\nThis insensitiveness is the one great predominating disease of the\nsoul: it is the cause of the darkness in which the soul finds herself in\nthis world: it is this which causes our unawareness of God and of\nCelestial-living. How can we commence to remedy this disastrous\nstate? We can act nobly, we can be generous, doing what we do as\nthough it were for love, although it is merely Duty which animates\nus. This will be more or less joyless, because love alone can make\nacts joyful; but though it may be joyless it will advance the soul\nimmensely: it will advance her to the highest degrees required by\nGod in order that He shall Retouch her. When He Retouches her she\nbecomes reanimated, she once again commences to live for and\nbecause of love: she becomes \"sensitive\" to God. This Retouching\nmay occur only after the soul is free of the body--but the body is the\nhouse in which our examination must be passed, in which we must\nprepare and qualify for this Retouching. Hence the importance of\ncontinuing to make every effort _in this life._ The soul which takes\nChrist into herself, loves Him, obeys Him, tries to copy Him,\nqualifies fully for this Retouching.\n\nXIV\n\nIn early youth life may be, and often is, a joyous adventure: little by\nlittle we grow aghast at the amount of suffering which life really\nstands for--our own sufferings and those of others, of which, owing\nto our own pains, we gradually take more and more note. Why all\nthis suffering? It appals, it frightens, it makes upon many hearts and\nminds a sinister impression: how is this suffering of innocents to be\nreconciled with the Benign Will of a God Who is Perfect Love? Let\nus cease thinking that indiscriminate suffering to creatures is the\nWill of God. What is it, then? It is the inevitable--the long\ndrawn-out sequence to the soul's departure from God--the Source of\nHappiness.\n\nTo inhabit flesh is no paradise, but it is a means of regaining heaven.\nThere is no misfortune, suffering, sorrow, disappointment, or pain,\nwhich is not consequent upon this departure of the soul from God.\nAre there here any truly \"innocent\" persons? To be here at all points\nto a fault of the soul, to infidelity to God--the \"Original sin\" in\nwhich we are born.\n\nThe beginning of Salvation is to think. Nothing causes us to think so\nmuch as sorrow, suffering, and pain; and they melt the heart also,\nand they humble pride. The man who has never suffered, and never\nloved, is more to be pitied than the paralytic: his chance of Life is\nremote.\n\nHow can we reasonably expect that the road back to our long-since\nforsaken God is to be smooth, pleasant, velvet-covered. What\ndivides us from God? Is it happiness, beauty, and light?\nNo--self-indulgence, rocks of evil, ugly greeds, places of sin and\nselfishness. Can we climb back through all this, most of it in\ndarkness, without tears, without pain, without every kind of anguish?\n\nOver this part of the road is no peace; but continue, and, little by\nlittle, peace comes.\n\n* * *\n\nWe say that we must find Christ; but where, and how, shall we find\nthis Mighty Lord, Who comes out from the Father to meet the\nProdigal? Must we study in ecclesiastical colleges, travel to distant\nlands, visit holy places, kneel on celebrated sacred ground, kiss\nstones, attend ceremonies, look at bones?\n\nNo! Stand still! Just where we are is the place where we can meet\nHim. Just where we stand to-day can be as sacred, as blessed, as the\nHoly Land. Some little wood sprinkled with flowers, our own quiet\nroom, an unknown, nameless hillside--these can be as holy as Mount\nCarmel, because He meets us there.\n\n* * *\n\nIn all these experiences of the soul which has refound God, what is\nit that truly rejoices her? Is it the learning and knowledge that the\npursuit of Truth may bring her to? She values Truth and knowledge\nbecause they lift her towards Him Whom she seeks and loves. Does\nthe soul rejoice in ecstasies because they are ecstasies? No: what she\nvalues is the recaptured knowledge and certainty of heavenly\nliving--in however small or brief a degree she is able to attain it in\nflesh: and because in the experience of ecstasy _she knows Him to Whom\nshe belongs._\n\nAll other affairs become nothing whatever. Life on earth is now\nentirely a means of relearning how to please Him Whom she has\nfound. Her concern is that she may quickly so prepare herself that\nshe may behold Him for ever.\n\nIt may well be asked of a soul which claims to have found God,\nHow does she know that she has encountered Him?\n\nWe have a Critical Faculty. It is above Reason, because it sifts and\njudges the findings of Reason, throwing out or retaining what\nReason has deduced. This is a Higher-Soul faculty: it concerns itself\nsolely with knowing Perfection. Reason is not occupied with\nknowing Perfection, but in analysing and digesting all alike that is\nbrought to it.\n\nIt is to the Critical Faculty that art, poetry, and music appeal, and\nmake their thought-suggestions. We do not enjoy music because of\nthe noise, but because of the thoughts suggested by it--we float upon\nthese emotion-thoughts (we may float low, we may float high, and\ndo not know to where; but it is somewhere where we cannot get\nwithout the music), so we say we love the music; but it is the\nemotion-thoughts we love. The sound and the thoughts suggested by\nit appeal to the Critical Faculty of the Soul, and, if it is perfect\nenough to be accepted by this faculty, we may pass, for the time\nbeing, into soul-living, but only very delicately, tentatively, and\nnothing to be compared to the soul-living, produced by the Touch of\nGod. When God communicates Himself to the soul, she lives in a\nmanner never previously conceived of, reaching an experience of\nliving in which every perfection is present to her as Being there in\nsuch unlimited abundance that the soul is overwhelmed by it and\nmust fall back to less, because of insupportable excess of Perfections.\nThis perfection of living is given, and is withdrawn, outside of her\nown will. Which is the more sane and reasonable--for the soul to\nthink, I have invented and originated a new and _perfectly\nsatisfying_ form of living; or for the soul to conclude that she has\nbeen admitted to the re-encounter of perfect- or Celestial-living? In\nthis living are happenings which cannot be communicated, or even\nindicated to others, because they reach beyond words, beyond all or\nany other experience, beyond any possible previous imagination or\nexpression of mind, beyond all particularisation; it is these occasions\nof experience which the Critical Faculty regards as being encounters\nwith the Supreme Spirit, because they are complete; nothing is\nwanting; they afford life at its perfection point--a stupendous\nFelicity, and that _Repose_ in bliss for which all souls secretly long.\nIt is the meeting of the Wisher with the Wished, of Desire with the\nDesired: and yet, being that which it is--unthinkable Fulfilment--it is\nabove all, or any, Wishes, and beyond Desire; it can be known, but\nnot named.\n\nBy these experiences the knowledge of the soul becomes\nenlightened two ways: she knows what bliss is; she knows the full\ncalamity of life away from God--in flesh, in this world: not that flesh\nis not a wonderful Idea, not that the world is not greatly to be\nadmired for its beauties, but the reawakened spirit desires\nspirit-living, cannot be pleased with earth-living, cannot be satisfied\nwith less than God Himself. So, then, the logical consequence is that this\nworld becomes a place we desire to take leave of as soon as may be.\nLife here becomes a punishment: not that Perfect Love desires to\npunish, but that the soul now knows that any form of life in which\nshe is restricted from continual access to Him is a disaster, a\nprofound grief.\n\nXV\n\nIf the soul looks to God to comfort her, asks for His help, and gets\nit--and since communication with God is dependent upon some\ndegree of like to like,--it follows that the soul must maintain a\nreadiness to \"give\" to fellow-souls: to fail in this is to fail in any sort\nof resemblance to God. Hence we see how carefully Christ enjoined\nupon us to \"Give to them that ask\": and in no niggardly way either,\nbut wholeheartedly, for \"God loveth the cheerful giver.\"\n\nIf we say that we apprehend God by that which is not Mind, what\nreason have we for saying that it is not Reason which receives Him?\nBecause for this living which God's touch causes us to share with\nHimself we find that Space, Infinity, and Eternity are required and\nReason stands, and remains, uncomprehending and dumbfounded\nbefore all three. It is Spirit, the flash-point of the soul, which\nreceives and transmits and which lives this living. As we have an\nheredity of flesh so we have also an heredity of Spirit which of its\nown nature comprehends the ways of God and the mode of God's\nliving. In High Contemplation we find that if Reason attempts\nactivity, nothing is consummated: she must submerge herself and\nwait: soon Reason discovers the wherefore of this--her activity is not\nthe activity of That Other. Only by that which is like in activity can\nThat Other be received: this \"like\" is not herself: finally she comes\nto know this \"like\" as a higher part of the soul--Spirit. When Spirit\nhas received and given it to the soul, then it is afterwards the part of\nReason to attack from every side that which has been received, to\ndigest it, absorb it, and share it, in fact though not in act. According\nto the health and strength of Reason so we shall successfully deal\nwith and use that with which the Spirit presents us. By comparison\nwith the magnificent Spirit-Activity or Spirit-Intelligence the\nReason is limited and frail as a new-born babe: this is no humiliation\nto Reason, since she should not be expected to accomplish that\nwhich is not her part.\n\nWhy do not all men apprehend God? It is very questionable if all\nmen desire to do so, because in the recesses of each man's soul lies\nthe consciousness that there will be some great price to pay.\n\nBut beyond this there arises the question, Is it desirable, price or no\nprice, that all souls should come while still in flesh to immediate\nknowledge of, and contact with, God; and after long and close\nthinking the experienced soul will answer No, and Yes. No, in so far\nas the apprehension of the Godhead is concerned; Yes, and most\nvitally Yes, for Christians, in so far as Communion and Contact with\nChrist is concerned. Why this distinction? Because the apprehension\nof the Godhead is beyond the requirements of salvation and\nredemption, and the world and flesh were created for those purposes.\nThough there is no limit to the heights to which the soul may aspire,\nand all souls are invited eventually to behold the Face of God, if so\nbe they shall be able to prepare themselves to endure Him, there are\nto a soul still in flesh the most terrible dangers in knowing the\nFullness of God even so far as His Fullness may be Known to Flesh:\nnever perhaps in all her history is the soul in such danger as she is\nafter coming (in flesh) to the apprehension of the Godhead: and this\ndanger may extend in an acute degree over a period of many years\nand can never be said to cease altogether. The Soul Knows and feels,\nwhen in its acute stage, this horrible danger without comprehending\nits exact cause and nature, but it has about it the feeling that\na man might have standing balanced on a narrow pinnacle.\nUnapproachable, untouchable only so long as he remains upon the\nsummit, the eyes of a thousand enemies watch for his smallest\ndescent: they watch day and night. What alone can enable the Soul\nto maintain such a position? Hourly, often momently, Communion\nwith Jesus Christ. What makes such perseverance likely or even\npossible on the soul's part? Only love can make it so.\n\nIf we say Communion with Christ is for the Christian vital to a full\nredemption, and therefore the Apprehension of Him is essential, to\nwhat degree should we experience this Apprehension of Him? The\ndegree at which, perceiving in Him and His ways our Ideal, we\nbecome willing to modify and change _our manner of thinking and\ndoing_ in order to meet the requirements of this Ideal. Having gone\nso far, the soul is likely to become enamoured of Him Personally:\nthen all is indeed well for her.\n\nSo then we find that we can apprehend God by an ever-ascending\nscale of degrees. We can apprehend Him with the Reason and the\nheart at all hours of the day. We can seek and approach Him with\nthe holy white passion of the Mind. Yet this is not the Apprehension\nof Him which alone can be termed Contact, and which alone\nsatisfies the soul or gives us the full feeling that we Know God. We\ncannot \"Know\" God as fully as He can be known by flesh without\nwe enter ecstasy; but it is not ecstasy which produces the meeting\nwith God, but the meeting with God which produces the ecstasy.\nThough we are able to enjoy a continual apprehension of Him with\nheart and Reason, no man could endure an unremitting ecstasy.\n\nCan ecstasy be prepared for? Yes, if we have courage to aspire to it,\nit can be prepared for by a contemplation of Him in which, to\ncommence with, the Will, Mind, and heart, in great activity of love,\nsend forth all their powers towards God: then for love's sake being\nglad and willing to become nothing, and becoming, as it were, dead\nto themselves and all interests and desires usual to them, by Act of\nGod their normal living is then taken over into a greater living. Then\nHe comes.\n\nAnd when He comes the Reason does not receive Him, but that\ncertain small part, little more than a point in the soul receives Him.\n\nApart from the joy of it, what is the true value of ecstasy to him to\nwhom it is granted? It raises him above Faith into Certitude. The\npeace and strength given by Certitude are such that Joy is neither\nhere nor there, the soul can wait for it, because, no matter what may\nafterwards happen to such a one, he remembers, and remains once\nand for all aware, that God Is, _and that He can be Known_: he\nlearns also a new knowledge, but cares nothing for this because it is\nknowledge or because it is power, but because it brings him nearer\nto his God.\n\nHaving once learnt the knowledge that comes by ecstasy alone, truth\nto tell, the soul would be content to receive no further ecstasy in\nflesh; but, intoxicated with love and worship, she best enjoys herself\ndoing all the giving, for when He comes and gives He bursts down\nall her doors and, under the awful stress of Him, the soul hardly\nknows how to endure either Himself or herself.\n\nLife in this world is a life for spiritual weaklings. Our eternal Self is\nan Intelligence, a Desire, and a Will, and the life we live with it is no\nidle, torpid, confined living such as we have here, but is a living _in\nLiberty,_ without limit, restriction, fatigue, or satiety; in it word\nthoughts and thinking are superseded; by comparison to it even the\nhighest thought-achievements of men, their noblest aspirations,\nappear like the sand-castles of children. Ravished at such further\nrevelations of the Genius of God, the soul at last knows satisfaction.\nIt requires perfection in order to be permanently operative, because\nonly in perfection is Freedom found, and because for the living of it\nnothing can remain but such Essentials of the soul as _cannot be\ndispersed._ It is a measureless Generosity and an ecstasy of\nReceiving and Giving. To say that purity and perfection are required\nfor this living is no mere arbitrary dictum, but a scientific fact: the\nimpure, imperfect soul finds herself unable in perfect liberty and\nfreedom _to expand to interaction_ with the Divine Activity. When\nthe process of Return is sufficiently completed and, being still in\nflesh, we enter for a brief time this living, Reason, Pain and Evil,\nYesterday and To-morrow disappear. Reason is gathered up into,\nand superseded by, the spiritual and wordless Intelligence: Pain and\nEvil, their part and work accomplished, are dispersed and banished\ninto the mists of darkness.\n\nSo the soul may learn even from this world something of the\nmystery of the Depths of God. She may enter into the happiness of\nUnion with the Three in One: the One Whom in a state of glory yet\nto come she may Behold. But beyond This of Him which He will\nallow her to Behold, beyond This of Him in which she may repose\nin bliss, and beyond this Repose which He wills her to know of Him,\nHe shows her that yet more of Him Is which He will share--heights\nof Felicity beyond all measure, holding the soul till she must pray\nHim to release her, or she will perish--reeling depths of rapture in a\nmystery of light; bliss beyond bliss for that lover who shall\nventure--all Eternity unfolding in fulfilment.\n\nAnd yet remains That of Him which wills no reciprocity, but shares\nHimself with Himself. So peace Is. And so, even in not giving, He\nyet does give that which is most precious, for without He Himself in\nHis forever hidden depths were Peace, His creatures could neither\nknow nor have peace.\n\nLooking into herself, what does the soul perceive? Apart from sins\nand virtues she perceives two things--caprice and free-will. Neither\nare of her own creation, but are essentials of her being. It may be\nthat in caprice and free-will she may find an answer to those two\nquestions which stir her to her depths: What is she that God should\nso love her? and how comes she to be away from Him? Clothed in\nthe body of either man or woman, the soul is predominantly\nfeminine--the Feminine Principle beloved of, and returning to, the\nEternal Masculine of God. Caprice is feminine; Caprice and\nMystery are two enchanting sisters, and in Woman we see them as\nbeing irresistible to Man. Angels, though they are a glory of God's\nheaven, cannot alone satisfy all the needs of their Creator: they have\nneither sex nor caprice, nor the mystery which joins hands with it.\nSo He creates the soul, and He gives her an heredity of Himself in\nthe flash-point of the soul, and He gives her sex and caprice and\nfree-will to deny herself to Him if she choose; and in her caprice she\ngoes out and away from Him, and when she would return she cannot,\nbecause in infidelity she has dropped from perfection. Disillusioned\nby her unfaithful wanderings and horribly pained, the soul longs for\nHim, and He longs for her. He Himself must make her the way of\nreturn, which is the way of redemption, and at a terrible cost to\nHimself He shows her His Righteousness and the mode of her\nReturn in the Face and the Ways of Jesus Christ; and in the\nCrucifixion He shows her the measure of His love, and in the Cross\nthe necessary abandonment of all self-will--total surrender. And all\nthis suffering to Himself He bears in order to make good the wilful\nsinning and the misery of the wayward soul. So He brings home the\nsoul, not by force but by love--that love by which He is at once the\nLife of everything and everything is the life of Him.\n\nAbsence from God is Pain, and everlastingly will be Pain in varying\ndegrees. Are there souls who have never left Him? Undoubtedly, but\nthey know nothing of this world. Are we perhaps distressed at this\nmultiplicity of worlds and souls? We need not be, for they are a\nnecessity both of God and of ourselves; for God to Be Himself He\nmust give Himself, and who can receive Him? Not even the greatest\nof all the Angels can alone bear to endure Him? Only into a vast\nmultiplicity of individuals can God pour and expend Himself to the\nfullness of His desire, the One to the many. Each individually\nreceives from Him, and each individually and collectively--the many\nto the One--returns Him those burning favours which are in\nCelestial-living.\n\nIs it all joy to find God? How can it be? Can faults and sins be\neradicated without pain? Life here for the lover of God is one long\neradication of offences. How can even the daily requirements of\nflesh be fulfilled without pain? How without profound humiliation\nand patience can we descend from Contemplation to duties in the\nhousehold? How without pain consider with that same mind which\nhas so recently been rapt in God--the various merits of breads,\npastries, and portions of dead animals, in order that flesh shall eat\nand live! What a fall is this!--a fall that must be taken daily and\npatiently. Is it all joy to love God? How can it be? For Love carries\nin itself a terrible wound of longing which can never be healed till\nwe come before Him in possession Face to Face.\n\nAnd many times a day in an unpremeditated natural anguish Love\nremembers the sufferings of that meek and holy Saviour; how can it\nbe a joy to the soul that passionately loves Him to stand before a\ntortured Lord, tortured for her? There never was a pain as hard and\nsharp as this. There are no tears like the tears we shed to Christ.\n\nXVI\n\nWe say of God that He is Love and Light, Wisdom and Truth. He is\nalso a Gracious Consenting. So we see the Divine Light Consenting\nto darkness that it may return to Light, and Divine Love Consenting\nto infidelity that it may return to Perfect Love.\n\nBut this Gracious Consenting is not because of or since Adam, but\nAdam \"is\" because of this Consenting.\n\nIn the flesh of Adam the fallen soul is brought to a stay-point. Any\nthat have experienced spirit-living even for one hour know that in\nimmortal living is no stay-point but infinity of movement, in which\nmovement the wandering soul becomes lost and finally insensitive.\nBy means of the flesh the soul is brought to that stay-point where\nshe more easily receives and understands the impregnation of\nConsenting Light, which is the Divine Begetting; and she receives\nthe drawing power of Consenting Love: she is directly operated\nupon by the Divine Pity Who Himself came to show her the Way of\nReturn: first, by the negation or sacrifice of flesh lusts; secondly, by\nthe sacrifice of spiritual lusts (by which the soul originally fell);\nuntil finally, by death to all lusts and infidelities she is reunited to\nthe blisses of Immortal Life. This is the kindly purpose of our life in\nthis world. Christ being Eternal Light and Love and Life, we also\nare eternal _who contain Christ._\n\nSo, then, we consent to abandon all lusts of the flesh whilst also\nconsenting to endure any consequences of these lusts in ourselves\nand others, not in unwillingness to endure, which is resistance, but\nin submission. From consenting to abandon the delights of the flesh\nwe advance to consenting to the withdrawal of all spiritual delights\nfrom us: enduring instead spiritual difficulties, standing firm in the\nstrength of Christ whilst the assaults of self-will and infidelity batter\nthe soul.\n\nWe consent to abandon self-absorption in the delights of God, and,\nreturning to the world, endeavour to perform all acts of life in the\nworld in a manner consonant with perfection; but this is impossible:\nthis effort is insupportable without Grace. We cannot do it alone.\nWe learn to know it and to know that we are never alone. Even if we\nfall into the deepest sin, we are not abandoned by the Divine\nGraciousness: by consenting to abandon this wickedness we are\nimmediately reunited with the Divine Consenting, and so onwards\nand upwards in an ever-ascending improvement to perfection: and\nby consenting the soul daily sinks into the balm of Christ and loses\nher burden.\n\nWe see the Perfection of this divine consenting and abandonment of\nSelf-Will in the final picture of the Cross. We see unmurmuring\nconsent to the death of flesh, consent to the attacks of evil, consent\nto injustice, consent to infidelity (and straightway they all forsook\nHim and fled), and, finally, consent to the death of Divine Union:\nthis not without groanings, as being the one supreme and only\ninsupportable Agony.\n\nXVII\n\nHow is it that Perfect Love can consent to the wandering of the soul\nwith its consequent sorrow and sin? Divine Light, being also Perfect\nFreedom, consents to the wandering of the soul; but Divine Love,\nbeing also Reciprocity, may not consent to such wandering as shall\nfor ever preclude Reciprocity. The wandering soul must be, will be,\nRedeemed.\n\n* * *\n\nIf Divine Light, being also Perfect Freedom, consents to the\nwandering of the soul, but Divine Love, being also Reciprocity, may\nnot consent to a perpetual wandering, how set limits in a life in\nwhich perfect freedom must continue? A limit can be fixed by Evil,\nEvil the outermost circle from God, the shore on which, continually\nbreaking and being broken, the soul turns herself in longing to a\nlong-forgotten Lord. Evil is the hedge about the vineyard of the\nParable. The soul is free to touch it, free to pass through it if she will,\nbut touching it she knows Pain. Pain causes the soul to pause and\nconsider: now is her opportunity; now she is likely to turn about and\nseek the Good.\n\nThen the purpose of Evil is fulfilled; then Evil becomes the\nhandmaid of Good; then we can feel and say with sincerity, Evil has\nsmitten me friendly, for it has caused me to turn about and seek\nGood. Good, once found, is found to be stronger than Evil. In a few\nyears Good has so drawn us that Evil has become negligible; it lies\nforgotten on a now distant misty shore. The soul is Homeward\nbound.\n\nXVIII\n\n\"If the wicked turn from his sins that he hath committed and keep\nmy statutes . . . all his transgressions that he hath committed, they\nshall not be mentioned unto him.\"--Ezekiel xviii. 21, 22.\n\nXIX\n\nWho is so blessed as the Redeemed Sinner? Who can taste the\nsweetness of God as can the repentant sinner? Who can know His\ngraciousness, His infinity of tenderness and courtesy, as can the\nsinner? Who knows the heights and depths and lengths and breadths\nof God's forgiving love as does the sinner? Who can share with God\nhereafter such close experiences as will the sinner?\n\nCan Angels share the memories of His human days with Christ?\nAnd who but the sorely tempted sinner can be bonded to Him by the\nmutual knowledge of those bitter, burning, desert days? Not the\nRighteous, nor even Angels can know quite the full beauty of all the\nbonds that bind the sinner to his Saviour. O marvellous love of God!\nO blessed soul, O blessed Adam, blessed even in thy sins!\n\nHe desired lovers and had none: Created Angels, and, desiring to\nprove them as lovers, He made Him a Lure.\n\nA third of them turned to the Lure and fell to It. They serve the Lure\nand take their bread from It, and the offspring of the serving is Evil.\n\nDesiring more lovers, He fashioned souls; yet, when He proved\nthem, they also fell to the Lure.\n\nBeing lesser than Angels, they served not the Lure, but the offspring\nof it--Evil--and became subject to Evil. They were made for Love,\nand in Evil found no Love, and it was an anguish and it tormented\nthem.\n\nAnd He put them in flesh, that He might limit their suffering and\nshow them His Light again; covered them about with Limits like a\nmerciful Cloak; hedged them in with Evil as a boundary, so they\nshould have no will to fall away further from Him than Evil because\nof the pain of it.\n\nBut in flesh they continued to serve Evil, and the offspring of the\nserving was Sin: and they were miserable in their service, because of\nthe pain of it; yet no soul could break the bondage of service,\nbecause no soul could be found that, being subject, did not serve,\nand in serving lose freedom by its own offspring.\n\nThen He sent His Spirit to walk with them in flesh, and being\nproven as a Lover, was not found wanting, and being subject to Evil\ndid not serve, and remaining Sinless had no offspring to destroy His\nfreedom, and He broke the bondage and showed them a light.\n\nHe sent, because He repented Him of the Proving and of the Evil\nthat came of it, and His fallen lovers repented and repent of their fall.\n\nHis travail and their travail--the travail of severed Love towards\nReunion--is the anguish of the Ages: but the anguish will have an\nend, because Love is Omnipotence.\n\n------\n\n[Transcriber's notes:  The name of the author, Lilian Staveley, is not\nmentioned on the title page of this text, but I have added it here.\nI have also made the following editorial changes:\n\n\"I am of no value value whatever\" to \"I am of no value whatever\"\n\n\"called it it by the same name as I\" to \"called it by the same name as I\"\n\n\"God shall see us to to be prepared\" to \"God shall see us to be prepared\"\n\n\"the full beauty of all the the bonds\" to \"the full beauty of all the\nbonds\"]\n\n\"(though entirely without effort on her part) is immensely increased)\" to\n\"(though entirely without effort on her part) is immensely increased\"]","title":"The Prodigal Returns","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":36925}