{"collection":"ritual-magic","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_29451/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_29451","id":"gutenberg_29451","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29451","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Religion/Spirituality","Mysticism"],"text":"Produced by Ruth Hart\n\n\n\n\nTHE ROMANCE OF THE SOUL\n\nBy\n\nLilian Staveley\nThe Author of \"The Golden Fountain\"\n\n\n\nLondon\nJohn M. Watkins\n21 Cecil Court, Charing Cross Road, W.C. 2\n1920\n\n\n\nWhat am I? In my flesh I am but equal to the beasts of the field. In\nmy heart and mind I am corrupt Humanity. In my soul I know not\nwhat I am or may be, and therein lies my hope.\n\nO wonderful and mysterious soul, more fragile than gossamer and\nyet so strong that she may stand in the Presence of God and not\nperish!\n\n\"Though ye have lien among the pots, yet shall ye be as the wings of\na _dove.\"--Psalm lxviii. 13._\n\nBy what means shall the ordinary man and woman, living the usual\neveryday life, whether of work or of leisure, find God? And this\nwithout withdrawing themselves into a life apart--a \"religious\" life,\nand without outward and conspicuous piety always running to public\nworship (though often very cross and impatient at home); without\nleaving undone any of the duties necessary to the welfare of those\ndependent on them; without making themselves in any way\npeculiar;--how shall these same people go up into the secret places\nof God, how shall they find the marvellous peace of God, how\nsatisfy those vague persistent longings for a happiness more\ncomplete than any they have so far known, yet a happiness which is\nwhispered of between the heart and the soul as something which is\nto be possessed if we but knew how to get it? How shall ordinary\nmortals whilst still in the flesh re-enter Eden even for an hour? for\nEden is not dead and gone, but we are dead to Eden--Eden, the\nsecret garden of enchantment where the soul and the mind and the\nheart live in the presence of God and hear once more \"the voice of\nGod walking in the garden in the cool of the day\" (Gen. iii.).\n\nIt is possible for these things to come to us or we to them, and in\nquite a few years if we set our hearts on them. First we must desire;\nand after the desire, steady and persistent, God will give. And we\nsay, \"But I have desired and I do desire, and God does not give.\nWhy is this?\" There are two reasons for it. For one--are these\nmarvellous things to be given because of one cry; for one petulant\ndemand; for a few tears, mostly of self-pity, shed in an hour when\nthe world fails to satisfy us, when a friend has disappointed us, when\nour plans are spoiled, when we are sick or lonely? These are the\noccasions on which we mostly find time to think of what we call a\nbetter world, and of the consolations of God.\n\nBut let anyone have all that he can fancy, be carried high upon the\nflood-tide of prosperity, ambition, and success, and how much time\nwill he or she give to Almighty God?--not two moments during the\nday. Yet the Maker of all things is to bestow His unspeakable riches\nupon us in return for two moments of our thought or love! Does a\nman acquire great worldly wealth, or fame, in return for two\nmoments of endeavour?\n\n\"Ah,\" some of us may cry, \"but it is more than two moments that I\ngive Him; I give Him hours, and yet I cannot find Him.\" If that is\nreally so, then the second reason is the one which would explain\nwhy He has not been found. A great wall divides us from the\nconsciousness of the Presence of God. In this wall there is one Door,\nand one only, Jesus Christ. We have not found God because we have\nnot found Him first as Jesus Christ in our own heart. Now whether\nwe take our heart to church, whether we take it to our daily work, or\nwhether we take it to our amusements, we shall not find Jesus in any\none place more than another if He is not already in our hearts to\nbegin with. How shall I commence to love a Being whom I have\nnever seen? By thinking about Him; by thinking about Him very\npersistently; by comparing the world and its friendships and its loves\nand its deceits and its secret enviousnesses with all that we know of\nthe lovely ways of gentle Jesus. If we do this consistently, it is\nimpossible not to find Him more lovable than any other person that\nwe know. The more lovable we find Him the more we think about\nHim, by so much the more we find ourselves beginning to love Him,\nand once we have learnt to hold Him very warmly and tenderly in\nour heart, then we are well in the way to find the Christ and\nafterwards that divine garden of the soul in which God seems to slip\nHis hand under our restless anxious heart and lift it high into a place\nof safety and repose.\n\nWhen for some time we have learnt to go in and out of this garden,\nwith God's tender help we make ourself a dear place--a nest under\nGod's wing, and yet mysteriously even nearer than this, it is so near\nto God. To this place we learn to fly to and fro in a second of time:\nso that, sitting weary and harassed in the counting-house, in an\ninstant a man can be away in his soul's nest; and so very great is the\nrefreshment of it and the strength of it that he comes back to his\nwork a new man, and so silently and quickly done that no one else in\nthe room would ever know he had been there: it is a secret between\nhis Lord and himself.\n\nBut the person who learns to do this does not remain the same raw\nuncivilised creature that once he or she was: but slowly must\nbecome quite changed; all tastes must alter, (all capacities will\nincrease in an extraordinary manner), and all thoughts of heart and\nmind must become acceptable and pleasant to God.\n\nThe man who has not yet begun to seek God--that is to say, has not\neven commenced to try and learn how to live spiritually, but lives\nabsorbed entirely in the things of the flesh--is a spiritual savage. To\nwatch such a man and his ways and his tastes is to the spiritual man\nthe same thing as when a European watches an African in his native\nhaunts, notes his beads, his frightful tastes in decorations, foods,\namusements, habits, and habitations, and, comparing them with his\nown ways, says instantly that man is a savage. This proud European\ndoes not pause to consider that he himself may be inwardly what the\nsavage is--quite dark; that to God's eyes his own ways and tastes are\nas frightful as those of the African are to himself. What raises a man\nabove a savage is not the size of his dining-room, the cut of his coat,\nthe luxuries of his house, the learned books that adorn his\nbookshelves, but that he should have begun to learn how to live\nspiritually: this is the only true civilising of the human animal. Until\nit is commenced, his manners and his ways are nothing but a veneer\ncovering the raw instincts of the natural man--instincts satisfied\nmore carefully, more hiddenly, than those of the African, but always\nthe same. There is little variety in the lusts of the flesh; they are all\nafter one pattern, each of its kind, follow one another in a circle, and\nare very limited.\n\nIt is not the clay of our bodies fashioned by God which makes some\ncommon and some not. It is the independent and un-Godlike\nthoughts of our hearts and minds which can make of us common,\nand even savage, persons. The changing of these thoughts, the\nharmonising of them, and, finally, the total alteration of them, is the\nwork in us of the Holy Spirit. By taking Christ into our hearts and\nmaking for Him there a living nest, we set that mighty force in\nmotion which shall eventually make for us a nest in the Living God.\nFor Jesus Christ is able (but only with our own entire _willingness)_\nto make us not only acceptable to God, but delightful to Him, so\nmuch so that even while we remain in the flesh He would seem not\nto be willing to endure having us always away from Him, but visits\nus and dwells with us after His own marvellous fashion and catches\nus up to Himself.\n\nTo begin with, we must have a set purpose and _will_ towards God.\nIn the whole spiritual advance it is first we who must make the effort,\nwhich God will then stabilise, and finally on our continuing to\nmaintain this effort He will bring it to complete fruition. Thus step\nby step the spirit rises--first the effort, then the gift. First the will\nto do--and then the grace to do it with. Without the willing will God\ngives no grace: without God's grace no will of Man can reach\nattainment. God's will and Man's will, God's love and Man's love--these\nworking and joining harmoniously together raise Man up into Eternal\nLife.\n\n* * *\n\nGod is desirous of communicating Himself to us in a Personal\nmanner. In the Scriptures we have the foundation, the basis, the\ncause and reason of our Faith laid out before us; but He wills that we\ngo beyond this basis, this reasoning of Faith into experience of\nHimself. For this end, then, He fills us with the aching desire to find\nand know Him, to be filled with Him, to be comforted and consoled\nby Him, to discover His joys. He fills us with these desires in order\nthat He may gratify us.\n\nBy being willing to receive and understand as only through the\nmedium of the _written_ word we limit God in His communications\nwith us. For by the Holy Ghost He will communicate not by written\nword but by personal touching of love brought about for us by the\ntaking and enclosing of Jesus Christ within the heart not only as the\nWritten Word, the Promise and Hope of Scripture, but as the Living\nGod.\n\nFor this end inward meditation and pondering are a necessity.\n\n* * *\n\nHow is it that we so often find great virtue, remarkable charity and\npatience amongst persons who are yet not conscious of any direct\ncontact with God? They have never known the pains of repentance,\nneither have they known the sublime joys of God. Are these the\nninety-and-nine just persons needing no repentance? Instinctively,\nand almost unconsciously, they hold to, and draw upon, the\nUniversal Christ--or Spirit of Righteousness; but they have not laid\nhold of nor taken into themselves that Spirit of the Personal Christ,\nwhom Christians receive and know through Jesus. He is the Door\ninto the unspeakable joys of God. What are these joys of God? They\nare varying degrees of the manifestation and experience of\n_reciprocal_ Divine Love.\n\nWhat is the true aim of spiritual endeavour--an attempt at personal\nand individual salvation? Yes, to commence with, but beyond that,\nand more fully, it is the attempt to comply with the exquisite Will of\nGod; and the general and universal improving and raising of the\nconsciousness of the whole world. Yet this universal improvement\nmust take place in each individual spirit in an individual manner.\nThere are those who would deny to individuality its rights, claiming\nthat the highest spirituality is the total cessation of all individuality;\nyet this would not appear to be God's view of the matter, for in the\nmost supreme contacts of the soul with Himself He does not wipe\nout the consciousness of the soul's individual joy, but, on the\ncontrary, to an untenable extent He _increases_ it. And Jesus teaches\nus that life here is both the means and the process of the gradual\nconformation of the will of Man to the will of God, and our true\n\"work\" is the individual learning of this process. But this cultivation\nof our individuality must not be subverted to the purpose of the mere\ngain of personal advantage, but because of the heartfelt wish to\nconform to the glorious will of God. The failure of the human will to\nrun in conjunction with the Divine will is the cause, as we know, of\nall sin. In the friction of these opposing wills, forces baneful to Man\nare generated.\n\nFrom its very earliest commencement in childhood our system of\neducation is based upon wrong ideas. With little or no regard to\nGod's plans Man lays out his own puny laws and ambitions and\nteaches them to his young. We are not taught that what we are here\nfor is above all and before all to arrive at a sense of personal\nconnection with God, to identify ourselves with the spiritual while\nstill in the flesh. On the contrary, we are taught to grow shy, even\nashamed, of the spiritual! and to regard the world as a place\nprincipally or even solely in which to enjoy ourselves or make a\n\"successful career.\"\n\nChildren are taught to look eagerly and mainly for holidays and\n\"parties\"; grown men and women the same upon a larger and more\nfoolish scale, and always under the terribly mistaken belief that in\nspiritual things no great happiness is to be found, but only in\nmaterialism: yet very often we find the greatest unhappiness\namongst the wealthiest people.\n\nHappiness! happiness! We see the great pursuit of it on every side,\nand no truer or more needful instinct has been given to Man, but he\nfails to use it in the way intended. This world is a Touchstone, a\nFinding-place for God. Whoever will obey the law of finding God\nfrom this world instead of waiting to try and do it from the next, he,\nand he only, will ever grasp and take into himself that fugitive\nmysterious unseen Something which--not knowing what it is, yet\nfeeling that it exists--we have named Happiness.\n\nBut how commence this formidable, this seemingly impossible task\nof finding God in a world in which He is totally invisible? To the\n\"natural\" or animal Man God is as totally hidden and inaccessible as\nHe is to the beasts of the field; yet encased within his bosom lies the\nsoul which can be the means of drawing Man and God together in a\nglorious union. \"I have known all this from my childhood,\" we cry,\n\"and the knowledge of it has not helped me one step upon my way.\"\n\nThen try again, and reverse your method, for hitherto you have been\nbeseeching gifts from God, asking for gifts from Jesus, and have\n_forgotten to give._ Give your love to Jesus, give _Him_ a home,\ninstead of asking Him to give you one. Give your heart to God, _set\nit upon Him._\n\nWhat is keeping you back? You are afraid of what it will entail; you\nare afraid of what God will demand of you; those words \"Forsake all,\nand follow Me\" fill you with something like terror. I cannot leave\nmy business, my children, my home, my luxuries, my games, my\ndresses, my friends! Neither need you but, knowing this initial\nagony of mind, Christ said it is easier for a camel to go through the\neye of a needle (the name of an exceedingly narrow gate into\nJerusalem) than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.\n\nWhat does it mean to \"set the heart\" upon something? We say, \"I\nhave set my heart on going to see my son,\" \"I have set my heart on\ndoing so-and-so,\" but this does not mean that in order to accomplish\nit we must wander homeless and lonely until the day of achievement.\nNo; but we set our heart and mind upon eventually accomplishing\nthis wish, we shape all our plans towards it, we give it the first place.\nThis is what God asks us to do; to give Him the first place. We need\nnot go to Him in rags: David and Solomon were immensely wealthy,\nJob was a rich man; but we must eventually think more of Him than\nwe do of our dress, more of Him than we do of our business, more\nof Him than we do of lover, friend, or child. Many well-minded\npeople are under the impression that such love for an Invisible Being\nis a total impossibility. Yet the great commandment stands written\nall across the face of the heavens--\"Thou shalt love Me with all thy\nheart and mind and soul and strength.\" Are we then to suppose that\nGod asks the impossible of His own creatures, that He mocks us?\nNo; for when we desire He sends the capacity, and day by day sends\nus the power to reach this love through Jesus Christ. There is\nincluded in the words \"Give us this day our daily bread,\" the bread\nof the soul, which is Love.\n\nDivine Love commences in us in a very small way, as a very feeble\nflicker, for we are very feeble and small creatures. But God takes the\nwill for the deed, and the day comes when suddenly we are filled\nwith true love, as a gift. This is indeed the second baptism, the\nbaptism of fire, the baptism of the Holy Ghost; then at last the great\nwall which has hitherto divided our consciousness from God goes\ndown in its entirety, never again to rise up and divide us. This is the\nmighty work of Jesus Christ.\n\nThough this is not our work, still we have had the earnest will, the\nlonging desire; we have made continually, perseveringly, our tiny,\noften futile, efforts to please and place Him first, and though perhaps\nalmost all were failures, He has counted every one to us for\nrighteousness.\n\nWe may at all times be asking ourselves, \"But how shall I know the\nwill of God, how shall I please Him, how shall I know what Christ\nwould wish me to do or to think?\" There is one test more sure than\nany other, which is to ask oneself, \"Would Jesus have done\njust this?\" and the answer will come from the inward of us\ninstantaneously. But before we can use this test we must have made\na careful study of Scripture and also have begun the habit of inward\npersonal intimacy with Jesus Himself. So immense is the bounty of\nGod to the creature that truly and persistently wills and endeavours\nto please Him, so great are the rewards of that creature for its tiny\nwork that it is as though a child should scratch bare ground with its\nlittle spade and reap a harvest of sweet flowers as magic gifts. In this\nway it is that we find actually fulfilled in ourselves the lovely words\nof the prophet, \"the desert shall blossom like the rose.\"\n\nThe great initial difficulty that surely most of us feel is how to come\ninto personal contact with this Jesus Christ, and to know which are\nthe first steps that we should take to bring about this contact. They\nare just those same steps that we use to come to a nearer\nunderstanding of and greater intimacy with any persons we are\ndesirous of making friends with. We commence by thinking about\nthem, by arranging to spend time in their companionship; and the\nmore we think about them and the more time we spend with them if\nthey are very attractive people, the more we feel in sympathy with\nthem. Form, then, the habit of making for brief instants a mental\npicture of the Saviour. Note the exquisite tenderness of His hands,\nso instantly ready to save and heal; note the calm strength and the\ngreat love in His countenance, walk beside Him down the street, join\nHis daily life, learn to become familiar with Him as Jesus--what\nwould He do, how would He look, what would His thoughts be? To\nfeel sympathetically towards a person is to take one of the most\nimportant steps towards friendship. How many of us stop in the rush\nof our daily amusements, interests, and work to sympathise with\nChrist? Most probably, if we think of Christ at all, it is to feel that\nHe ought to sympathise with us! Now Christ not only sympathises\nwith but ardently loves us, and our failure to receive the comfort and\nhelp of this love is due to our failure in returning to Him these same\nfeelings of sympathy and love and friendship. We are not reciprocal,\nbut perpetually ask and never give.\n\nIt is only by returning love to Christ that we are able to receive the\nbenefits of His love for us. His mighty power and help flows around\nbut not through us until we place ourselves in individual and direct\ncontact with Him, until we make that mysterious inward and\nspiritual connection with Him which can be achieved only through a\npersonal love for Him.\n\nAgain and again we may cry out, \"But how love the invisible?\"\nChrist is invisible, but for all that, he is not unknown. We all of us\nknow Him. But we do not give ourselves time or opportunity to\nknow Him sufficiently well. What hours, months, years, we devote\nto making and knowing our friends; yet a few moments a day are\nmore than enough for most of us to spend in becoming more\nintimate with the only Friend whom it is worth our while to make.\n\n\"But life is so busy I have no time,\" you say. What of those hours\nspent in the train, those moments spent waiting for an appointment,\nthat half-hour taken for a rest, but which is not a rest because of the\nrushing inharmonious turmoil of your thoughts? No one is so restful\nto think of as Jesus. Every single quality that we most admire, trust,\nand love is to be found in Jesus Christ. The only reason of our\nfailure to love Him more ardently than any human being we know is\nthat we do not think enough about Him.\n\nHow much offended we should be if anyone dared to say to us,\n\"You are not a Christian.\" We all consider ourselves Christians as a\nmatter of course; but why this certainty, what reason can we give?\nMany would say, \"I keep the Commandments, and I am baptised in\nChrist's name.\" But Christianity is not an act done by hands, it is a\nlife, and the Jews keep the Commandments even more strictly than\nwe and are not Christians. The mere fact of believing that Christ\nonce lived and was crucified is not enough. The Jews and also the\nMahommedans believe that He lived and was crucified.\n\nWhat is then necessary? That we believe that He is indeed the Son\nof God, the Messiah, the Saviour; for if He was no more than a holy\nman, by what means has He power to save us more than Moses has\npower to save us?\n\nThe true inward knowledge that Christ is God comes not by nature\nto any man, but by gift of God--which gift must be earnestly sought,\nstriven, prayed for, and desired: this faith is the very coming to God\nby which we are saved. If we are not yet in this faith that Jesus\nChrist is the Messiah, then we are neither Jew, Mahommedan, nor\nChristian, but wanderers without a fold, and without a Shepherd;\nlonging, and not yet comforted.\n\nHow do we come by this joy of the personal loving of God, this\nRomance of the Soul brought to sensible fruition whilst still in the\nflesh?\n\nIs it a gift? Yes. Is it a gift because of some merit of goodness on our\npart beyond the goodness of other persons who are without it,\nthough striving? No. Is it because of some work for God that we do\nin this world, charitable or social? No. Is it, then, nothing but an\narbitrary favouritism on His part? No. Is it a sagacity or cleverness,\na height of learning, a result of close study? No.\n\nIt is simply and solely a certain and particular obedient attitude of\nheart and mind towards God of the nature of a longing--giving, a\ngrateful outgoing thinking towards Him, continually maintained, and\na heart invitation to, and a receiving of Jesus Christ into ourselves.\n\nOur part is to maintain this obedient tender-waiting, giving and\nreceiving attitude under all the circumstances of daily life, and\nChrist with the Holy Ghost will then work the miracle in us.\n\nBut so difficult is this attitude to maintain that we are totally unable\nto do it without another gift upon His part--Grace. The whole\nprocess from first to last is gift upon gift, and that because first of\nour belief and desire, and then of our continually remembering that\nto receive these gifts we have a part to play which God will not dispense\nwith. For an illustration let us turn to the artist and his sitter.\nThe sitter does not produce the work of art, but must maintain his\nattitude: if he refuses to do this, the work of the artist is marred and\neven altogether foiled. So with Christ and His Divine Art in bringing\nus to our Father--by not endeavouring to maintain our right attitude\nwe foil His work. God would seem to give us that which we seek\nand ask for, and no more. Great ecclesiastics, theologians,\nphilosophers who sought and desired Him with the intelligence,\nseeking for knowledge, for pre-eminence of spiritual wisdom, were\nnot given as an addition to their learning this exquisite fire and balm\nof love. Those who desired of Christ the healing of the body\nreceived that, and we are not told they received anything further. So\nalso with the woman at the well: \"If thou hadst asked,\" Christ said to\nher, \"I would have given thee of the water of Life.\" Without we ask\nfor and receive this gift of Love we hang to God by Faith only.\n\nWhat is true religion, what is that religion by which we shall feel\n_wholly satisfied?_ It is to have Christ recognised, known, adored,\nand living in the soul. This is the New Life within us, this is the New\nBirth. The first proofs of the power of this New Life in us is the\nvictory over all the lower passions, victory over the animal \"that\nonce was ourself\"! A victory so complete that not only do we cease\nto desire those former things or be troubled by them but we no\nlonger \"respond\" to that which is base, even though we be brought\ninto visual contact with such things as would formerly have\ninevitably excited at least a passing response in us. Can any man\nfree himself in such a manner from his own nature? Common sense\nforbids us imagine it. It is then a Living Power within us, slowly\ntransforming us to higher levels, from the fleshly to the spiritual, and\nshaping us to meet the purity of God. And such is the tender\nconsideration of this Power for our weakness that while we are\nlearning to give up these baser pleasures He teaches us the higher\npleasures of the soul--we are not left comfortless. So in our earlier\nstages we may have many very wonderful ecstasies which later are\naltogether dispensed with, and indeed are eventually not desired by\nthe soul, or even the more greedy heart and mind, which all now ask\nand desire one favour only--to be on earth in continual fellowship\nwith Christ Jesus and ever able to enter into the love of God. To be\nwithout this glorious power of entering Responsive Love of God, to\nbe cut off from this, is the great and only fear of the soul. This fear it\nis which holds the soul and the creature towards God both day and\nnight lest by the least forgetfulness or wrongful attitude they should\nlose Him or displease Him.\n\nAll these changes no man can bring about for himself--they are\naccomplished for him by the Holy Spirit; but this he can and _must_\ndo for himself, invite Sweet Jesus into his heart and enthrone Him\nthere as Ruler. This once accomplished, that mysterious monitor\nwithin us commonly known as \"Conscience\" grows until it attains an\nexcessive sensitiveness which penetrates the minutest acts of life\nand the deepest recesses of heart and mind. It becomes inexorable, it\ndemands instant and complete obedience. Because of it relations\nwith other persons undergo a drastic change. Complete, instant,\nentire forgiveness for every offence is demanded, and at last even a\nmomentary annoyance must be effaced; no matter how great the\ncause of annoyance, it must be effaced in the same instant as that in\nwhich it crosses the mind, for a single adverse thought eventually\nproves as injurious to the Spirit as a grain of sand is to the eyes.\n\nThe petty human aims, the smallness of all our former standards, the\ninstinct for \"retaliation\" must all be overcome, laid upon one side--a\nslow task of much humiliation to the creature, revealing to it its own\nsmallness and vanity and its own extraordinary ineffectiveness of\nself-control, its puny powers over itself: nothing short of an absolute\nself-conquest is aimed at and demanded by this inward monitor--the\nSoul. With what profound veneration for and recognition of the\npower of God does the regenerated creature think of those\nalterations in its own nature which, after long strivings, are\neventually given it by God, and of those alterations not yet stabilised\nbecause not yet gifts, but only on the way to perhaps becoming\ngifts--that is to say, still only where the power of the creature itself\nhas been able to raise them: for of these last it may invariably be said\nthat to-day we may feel serene security and to-morrow fall and fail--and\nthis in the very meanest way!\n\nWe see on every side men and women who try to fill an emptiness, a\nwanting that they feel within themselves, by every sort of means\nexcept the only one which can ever be a permanent success. Women\ndevote themselves to lovers, husbands, children, dress, society, and\ndogs; men to business, ambition, the racecourse, folly, drink, games,\nand arts. Are any of these persons truly happy, truly satisfied in all\ntheir being? No, and they descend to old age surrounded by the dust\nof disillusionment. Lonely and soon forgotten by the hungry\npleasure-seeking crowd, such persons pass from this world, and the\nmost their friends have to say is that they have gone to a better one.\nBut have they? For the mere fact of shedding the flesh does not\nbring us any nearer to God. On the contrary, the shedding of the\nflesh increases appallingly the difficulty of the soul in finding God.\nThis world is the very place in which we can most easily and\nquickly get into communication with God. To think that the mere act\nof dying improves our character and takes us to heaven is a delusion\nof the Enemy--it is living here which can fit us and carry us to\nheaven; and we have no great distance to travel either, for heaven is\na state of consciousness, and by entering that state of consciousness\nwe become united and connected with such degrees of heaven as the\nflesh is able to bear, though these degrees fall infinitely short of\nthose required by the soul: hence the fearful hungering and longing\nof the soul to depart from the flesh. If we do not find Christ whilst\nwe are here, when we cast off the flesh we enter a bewildering\nvortex of a life of terrible intensity and great solitude. We are aware\nof nothing but Self, are tormented by Self with its forever\nunsatisfied longings, and by the _impossibility of achieving any\nother Self._ In this intensity of self-tormenting loneliness the soul\nfeels to gyrate, and all that she knows of that which is outside of this\nSelf is the sound of the rushing of invisible things, for she is blind.\nWithout the light of this world and without the light of Christ. The\njoys of space are not open to her, only the dark and lonely horrors of\nit: she is in an incalculably greater state of isolation from God than\nhere in this world! The remedy for all this lies here; let no one think\nhe can afford to wait to find this remedy until after he leaves this\nworld, for then his chance is gone, and who is able to foretell when\nit will return? What can be more beautiful, more happy, than to find\nthis remedy, to find the only Being who loves us as much as we love\nourselves! the gentle, tender, gracious, all-sufficing Christ; that\nall-mighty ever-giving Christ who yearns over and longs for us--what\nmadness is it that prevents us seeking Him?\n\nAll of us would seem to have two personalities: we are the repentant\nand the unrepentant Magdalene and daily change from one to the\nother. But true repentance cannot come before love: if we think we\nrepent before we love, then it is no more than a repentance of the\nmind, which says to itself, \"I must stand well with God because of\nmy future well-being.\" Where love comes first we get the repentance\nof the heart, which works this way in us--we love Jesus a little, we\nlove Him more and more, and because of this love increasing to real\nwarmth we suddenly perceive the frightful offences we have\ncommitted against this sweet love, and instantly the heart melts and\nbreaks and we are shaken to our depths that we have ever grieved\nour Holy Lover. This is true repentance--no anxious fears for our\nown future, but love grieving and agonised for its offences. Such\nrepentance as this pierces to the deepest recesses of the heart and\nmind, and leaves upon them a deep indelible mark, changing all the\naims of our life, and is the beginning of all joys in Christ Jesus. Let\nus aim therefore not first at repentance, but first at love. A little love\nto Jesus given many times a day as we walk or wait or work, if only\nat first said by the lips with desire for more warmth, after a while we\nshall find ourselves giving it from the heart; then the Divine Seed\nhas begun to grow because we have watered it.\n\nIf the natural man were asked, \"What is life? what is it to live?\" he\nwould reply, \"It is to eat, drink, laugh, love, and have pleasure or\npain: to hear, see, touch, taste and smell, and to be conscious that I\ndo all these things.\" Yet this consciousness is but a tiny speck of\nconsciousness, and some mysterious voice within the deeply-thinking\nman tells him that this is so. But how uncover a further\nconsciousness? This is the secret of the soul.\n\nTo pass from one form of consciousness to another--this is to\nincrease life fifty, a hundred, a thousand times according to the\ndegrees of consciousness we can attain. These degrees would seem\nto be irrevocably limited because of the mechanical actions of heart\nand breathing, which automatic actions become suspended or\nseriously interfered with in very high states of consciousness. When\nfirst these very great expansions of consciousness take place, the\ncreature is under strong conviction that the soul has left the\nbody--that it has gone upon some mysterious journey--this because of\nseveral reasons. The first is because of a certain persistent sound of\nrushing; the second is because of the sense of living at tremendous\nspeed, in a manner previously altogether unknown and totally\nundreamed of, in which the senses of the body have no concern\nwhatever and are completely closed down; thirdly, on returning\nfrom this \"journey\" we are not immediately able to exact obedience\nfrom the body, which remains inert and stiffly cold and suffers\ndistress with too slow breathing. But reason demands, \"How is it\npossible that the soul should leave the body and the body not die?\nand also we perceive this, that, though the consciousness is\nprojected to an infinite distance, or includes that infinite distance\nwithin itself, it yet remains aware of the existence of the body,\nthough very dimly.\"\n\nThe method employed, then, for administering these experiences to\nthe soul and the creature is not by means of drawing the soul out of\nthe body, but by a withdrawal of the condition of insulation from\nDivine Life or great magnetic emanation, in which insulation all\ncreatures have their normal existence, living in a condition which\nmay be termed a state of total Unawareness. By Will of God this\ncondition of insulation is removed, the soul enters Connection and\nbecomes instantly and vividly aware of Spiritual Life and of that\nwhich Is, at an infinite distance from herself, so that the soul is at\none and the same time in paradise or heaven, and upon the earth:\nspace is eaten up. Without seeing or hearing, the soul partakes in a\ntremendous and unspeakable manner of the joys of God, which, all\nunfelt by us as \"natural\" man, pass unceasingly throughout the\nuniverse.\n\nThese experiences give an immense and unshakable knowledge to\nthe soul and the creature of the immense reality of the Unseen Life,\nand are doubtless sent us to effect this knowledge. Why, then, is not\nevery man given this knowledge? Because the creature must qualify\nbefore being allowed to receive it, and too many hold back from the\ntests. By these experiences we learn some little portion of the\nmystery which lies between the pettiness of that which we now are\nand the great glories that we shall come to; and in this awful\nheavenly mystery in which are fires that have no flame, and melody\nwhich has no sound, the soul is drawn to Everlasting Love. But we\ncannot endure the bliss of it, and the soul prays to be covered on\naccount of the creature.\n\nBut because of the limitations of the flesh we are not to despise it\nbut regard it not as an aim or end (as that if we satisfy its lusts that\nshall be our paradise), but regard it as a means. Christ willed the\nflesh and the world to be a rapid means of our return to God. Subdue\nthe flesh without despising it, in humility and thankfulness. Suffer\nits trials and penalties not in dejection, rebellion, or hopelessness,\nbut as a means to an end. \"For everyone shall be salted with fire,\"\nsays Scripture; and can anything whatever be well forged or made\nwithout it be first melted and cleaned? So, then, for each his\nGethsemane. As for Christ, so for Judas, who, not being able to\nendure, went out and hanged himself. Let our care, then, be to\nchoose that Gethsemane which shall open to us the gates of heaven\nand not hell.\n\nIn our raw state we fear the Will of God, thinking it a path of thorns;\nbut as Christ moulds and teaches us we grow to know the Will of\nGod as a great Balm: to long to conform to it, joyfully to join it, to\nsink into it as into an immense security where we are safe from all\nills; and at last, no matter what temporary trials we endure, so great\ndoes our love and confidence grow by _Grace_ of God upholding\nour tiny efforts that, like Job, we cry to Him with absolute sincerity\nand confidence, \"Though Thou slay me, yet will I trust Thee\";\nhaving learnt it is not His Will to slay but to restore and purify and\nmake glad. Incessant work is the lot of the awakened and returning\nsoul, and justly so, for because of what folly and ingratitude did she\never leave God? A multiplicity of choices lie before her, and her\ngreat concern is which amongst all these possible decisions will\nprove the shortest path to God. These choices and decisions must be\nbrought down to the meanest details of everyday life. At first on\nawakening the soul would like nothing better than to forsake and\ncast away material things altogether, and is inclined to despise the\nbody. But Jesus teaches her that this is not pleasing: it is His Will\nthat she should continually lend assistance to the creature in its\nweaknesses and uncertainties, not disdaining it but helping it. It is\nthe soul which maintains contact with the Divine Guide, and then in\nturn should guide the creature. As the Divine Guide condescends to\nthe soul, never despising her, so must the soul condescend to the\ncreature: acknowledging and understanding that nothing is too small\nor humble for the soul to attend to and lead the creature to do in a\nbeautiful and gentle manner.\n\nBy these means the permeation of the natural world by the Divine is\ncarried out, and no act or fact of life can be considered too\ninsignificant for the soul to attend to for the development of this aim.\n\nThe more we become familiar with spiritual life the more we\nobserve the regularity of certain laws in it, and the more we find\nanalogies between these new and unmapped laws and the laws and\nforces already known to us in the visible world. Rightly expounded\nby some scientific mind, these could bring the world of human\nthought and aspirations straight into the arms of God.\n\nScience is the friend and not the enemy of religion. Science will\nlight up and illuminate the dark gaps. This world is a house fully\nwired for lighting: the wiring is perfect, the bulbs alone are\nincomplete; they give no light: it is the task of the soul to perfect\nthese human bulbs.\n\nThe life of conscious connection with God is true living as far as we\nmay know it in the flesh, an enormous increase over the petty\nnormal life of the world or, more rightly, the petty and _lacking_ life\nof the world. For in this life of God-consciousness is an immense\nsanity and poise, a balance between soul and body and heart and\nmind never achieved in the \"normal\" or \"natural\" life. Therefore the\nGod-conscious life is not to be named an abnormal but the complete,\nfull, and only truly normal life: a life in which both soul and creature\nhave found their centre, and the whole being in all its parts is\nbrought to evenness, to harmony, to peace and a greatly magnified\nintelligence. If all men and women attained this state, this world\nwould automatically become Paradise. In this true life living and\nfeeling alter their characteristics and surpass anything that can be\nimagined by the uninitiated mind. Now, though to convey some idea\nof this condition of consciousness would seem to be impossible, still\nthere are some types of persons to whom a little something of the\ncommencement of the larger life of the awakened soul might be\nconveyed before they themselves experience it. The lovers of nature,\nof music, of the beautiful and romantic, and of poetry: in the highest\nmoments reached by such they are aware of an indefinable\nSomething--an expansion, a going out towards, a longing--yearning,\nsubtly composed of both joy and pain, which goes beyond the earth,\nbeyond the music, beyond the poetry, beyond the beautiful into a\nNameless Bourne. At these moments they live with the soul: this is\nthe commencement of spirit-life. When the Nameless Bourne has\nbecome to the soul that which It really is--God--and _He sends His\nresponses to her,_ then the soul knows the fullness of spiritual life as\nwe may know it in the flesh.\n\nBut she can neither know the Nameless Bourne as God nor receive\nHis responses till the heart and the mind have come to repentance of\ntheir ways and have been changed at least in part. Without this mode\nof living no one can be said to live in a full or whole manner,\nbecause nothing is whole which does not include the consciousness\nof God, and this in a lively and acute degree.\n\nOne of our great difficulties is that when, as the merely\nhalf-repentant creature, we turn to God and, beginning to ask favours of\nHim, get no response, then all our warm feelings and longings\ntowards Him fall back, we go into a state either of profounder\nunbelief (which is further separation) or into total apathy. Apathy is\na deadly thing. The more God loves us the more He will do His part\nto keep us from it. All the circumstances of life will be used to this\nend. We may lose our nearest and dearest. If it is material prosperity\nthat causes a too complete content to live without Him, then some or\nall of that prosperity will be removed. In whatever spot we are most\ntender--there He will touch us. \"Oh, if it had been anyone else or\nanything less that we had lost, then it would not have been so hard to\nbear,\" we say. Exactly. For nothing less would have been of any use,\nand alas! even this may be of no use, for Christ is ever willing and\ntrying to save us, and we will not be saved.\n\nIf we do not get out of this apathy, we shall miss the whole reason of\nour life here. By these living thrusts He brings us to our knees,\nhumbled, humiliated, anguished, in order that, having awakened and\npurified us, He may lift us into His Divine consolations.\n\nWe cannot in one step mount up out of our faithless indifferent\nwrongful condition into the glories of the knowledge of God. First\nwe must learn to know Jesus, intimately, devotedly. Then Jesus the\nChrist: then the Father. Finally God the Holy Trinity, once found\nand known by us, becomes our All, and by some unspeakable\ncondescension He becomes to us all things in all ways. The soul is\nfilled with romantic and divine love, and instantly God is her Holy\nLover: she is sad, weary, or afraid, and immediately she turns to\nHim He comforts and mothers her: she is filled with adoring filial\nlove, and at once He is her Father. Oh, the wonders of the fullness of\nthe finding and knowing of God!\n\nLet the man who would know happiness here study the works of\nGod, and not think he will gain virtue by putting everything that he\nsees here upon one side, saying it is not real or it is not good. It is\nvery real of its own kind, and good also if he learns how to use it,\nand very marvellous. Let him study how things are made--God's\nthings, not trivial man-made things--let him observe how all are\nmade with equal care, the humblest and the proudest, \"the tiny violet\nperfect as the oak.\" Let him learn the manner of the ways of light\nand the colours of all that he sees,[*] and then stop to consider how,\nhaving made all these marvels, God then fashioned his own delicate\neyes that he might see and know and enjoy them all. To consider all\nthese things, accepting them from God with love, makes the heart\nand the mind and the soul dance and sing together not with noise but\nlike sunshine upon water.\n\n[*] _Scientific Ideas of To-day,_ by C. Gibson.\n\nWhat is Nature but the demonstration in visible objects of an\ninvisible Will? This Will we need to trace to its Source; having done\nthis, we are able to praise and bless God for every single thing of\nbeauty He has fashioned here: and this praising and blessing of God\nbecomes nothing less than a continual ecstasy for both soul and\ncreature, and, indeed, because of this and by means of this burning\nappreciation of God's works, both soul and creature find their\nsweetest consolations as they wait to be taken to a holier world.\n\nWhen they both bless God with the fire of their love for every tender\nthing that He has made, then their days become to them one long\ndelight.\n\nThis blessing of God and His works is not just a blessing with lips,\nbut feels this way. The words being said by the heart, a burning\nspark of enthusiasm is immediately kindled there, which spark sets\nlight to a spark in the soul; and this invisible fire joining another\nInvisible Fire, instantly in immense exaltation we enter the joys of\nGod. But because of our flesh we cannot stay but only enter and\ncome back.\n\nWe are made to love and adore God, but the mode of entry into this\nis not by beseeching God to come down and love us, but by constant\nendeavour to enter up into _His_ estate, to offer _Him_ love: this\nenthusiasm for God brings about a mysterious accomplishment of all\nneeds, desires, joys.\n\nWe are made to love and adore God, and because of this without\nHim we are an Emptiness, a Great Want. Such is the lovely and\nperfect reciprocity of love that as this Great Want we are the\npleasure and the joy of the All-Giving God. And He is the\nAll-Giving that He may rejoice and fill our extremity of Want. So we\nare each to each that which each most desires. This is Divine Love.\n\nDo not let us imagine that by making very much of earthly loves we\nshall by that obtain the heavenly: on the contrary, love of creatures,\nand too much turning to and thinking of and depending upon\ncreatures, is a sure manner of hindering us _till_ we have learnt to\nunite with Divine Love. This love for creatures is often for the heart\nand soul what treacle is to the wings of a fly! Do not be content with\ncreatures, but seek beyond the creaturely for the heavenly.\n\nThis is not to say that we are not to love our fellow-creatures, attend\nto them, wait upon them, bear with them, and work for them; but\nwhilst doing all these we are not to make them the object of our life:\nwe are not to think that by merely running about amongst creatures\nfrenzied with plans for their social improvement and comfort the\nnearer we are necessarily getting to God, or even truly pleasing Him.\nAll these multiplicities of frenzied interests are best centred upon the\nfinding and knowing and loving of Jesus Christ within our own\nhearts. When this finding, knowing, loving and believing has been\naccomplished, then we shall have accomplished the only work God\nasks us to accomplish, and all other works will automatically,\npeacefully, and smoothly come to their proper fruition in us through\nHim.\n\nNeither imagine we shall do this finding of Jesus in, or because of,\nanother person. We shall not find Him in another person or\nanywhere till we have first found Him in ourselves: and this by\ninward pondering, delicate tender thinkings, loving comparisons,\nsweet enthusiasms, persistent endeavours to imitate His gentle ways\nand manners as being some proof of our desire to love and find Him.\nThe need which is the most pressing of all our needs is to find that\nLight which will light us when we have to go out from the light of\nthis world into the awful solitudes of that which we often so lightly\nand confidently speak of as \"the other world.\"\n\nWithout Christ we go out into a fearful loneliness: with Christ we\nwalk the rainbow paths of Paradise.\n\n* * *\n\nHaving tasted the blissful wonders of God, nothing less than God\nHimself can satisfy, comfort, or fill either the soul, heart, or mind;\nand yet we are still in a too small and imperfect condition to endure\nthe power and strength of God's bliss for more than brief spells, so\nthat after coming to these high things our portion here is to learn to\nbe a useful willing servant, carrying with as cheerful a face as we are\nable the burden of life in the flesh, and endure this waiting to be\nwith Christ free of the flesh.\n\nWhat are these blisses of God? They are contact with an\nimmeasurable Ardour, they are our ardour meeting the Fountain of\nall Ardours: and God is communicated to us by a magnetism which\nin its higher degrees becomes luminous and unbearable.\n\nAre these divine joys and comforts of God towards us because we\nare more loved by God, because our salvation is more sure than that\nof those who are without these comforts? Most emphatically no. It is\nbecause we obey a particular and subtle law of giving to God, and\ndo not (as is more natural to us) content ourselves with merely\nbelieving, expecting, and hoping to receive _from_ God.\n\nLet us pray more frequently than we do: \"My Lord, increase my\nfaith, increase my love, and increase my understanding of how to\nuse this faith and this love when they have been begotten in me.\"\n\n* * *\n\nOn every side we hear complaints against the Church. It is suggested\nthat we are falling away from God because of some lack in the\nChurch. But this fault of the Church is exactly the same fault which\nis to be found in the members of the congregation which compose it--a\ntepid love for a dimly known Lord. When the priest and every\nmember of the congregation in his own heart worships the beloved\nChrist, then the Church will be found to have gained just that which\nis now lacking, and which we attribute to some priestly failure and\nnot our own also.\n\nOf Church ceremonials it is hard to speak, for the lover of God can\nhave no eyes for them: he is all heart, but sees it this way--that set\nrules, regulations, and ceremonials in prayers and worship are most\nright and proper for the creature publicly worshipping its Creator.\nThat the assembling together in church is the outward and visible\nacknowledgment of the creature's worship of God and also a looking\nfor the fulfilling of the promise \"where two or three are gathered\ntogether in My name.\" The redeemed creature worships very\nardently with all its little heart and mind and all its tiny strength,\nlearning in its own self the words of David: \"I was glad when they\nsaid unto me, We will go into the house of the Lord.\" But the soul\ncannot worship in set words, neither can she have need or use for the\nceremonials invented by and for the creature, but worships God in\nanother manner altogether, as she is taught by the Holy Spirit, and in\nthe greatness of her worship mounts to God, and closes with God.\nFor holy love cannot long be divided.\n\nOften when the creature is alone, and eating, its Lord will visit it,\ncausing the soul and the mind and the heart of it to cry out: \"But of\nwhat use to me is this meat and drink which is before me? I have no\nneed of it, I can do nothing other than sip of the holy beauty of my\nLord.\" And immediately we are so pressed the earthly cup must be\nset down, and in very great ecstasy we sup in spirit with the Lord.\nThe unnameable Elixir of God is the Wine, and Love is the Bread.\n\nWhen holy love grows great in us we wonder that we ever thought\nthat human love was love at all, for no matter how great it may once\nhave seemed it now seems so small it is no greater than the\nhumming of a bee around a flower in summer time. But holy\nlove--who can commence to describe it? It rides upon great wings, it\nburns like a devouring fire, it makes nothing of Space and comes before\nHim like the lightnings, saying, \"Here am I,\" and, gathering all\nthings, all loves into itself, pours them out at the feet of God.\n\nBy baptism we are named and called for election by the Church.\nThrough personal and individual repentance and connection by faith\nand love with Christ we _enter_ election by baptism of the Holy\nSpirit. By the mere following of rituals, doctrines, dogmas,\nceremonies, we are in great danger of introducing the mind of the\nPharisee with his reliance as means of salvation upon the washing of\nhands and cups, and except we exceed this righteousness we do not\nenter the Kingdom. Or the mind of the lawyer, which type of mind\nseeks obstinately, forcefully, to mould the secrets of the soul's\ncommunion with God and fix them upon cold documents where they\nquickly cease to have life.\n\n* * *\n\nAbove the fretful and contentious human reason is the intelligence\nof the soul, and this soul has in itself a higher part for we become\nacutely aware of it--that part of it with which we come in\ncontact with God, with which we respond to God, receive His\nmanifestations, are laid bare to His blisses. Separated from worldly\nthings by an impalpable veil, it rests above all such things in serene\ncalm, and, strangest of all, has no comprehension whatever of sin:\nwhen we enter this part of the soul and live with it sin and evil\nbecome not only non-existent but unthinkable, unimaginable: we are\ntotally removed from any such order of existence. It communicates\nits knowledge to the lower part of the soul, the soul to the Reason,\nthe Reason to the rest of the creature.\n\nWe say we are fearfully and wonderfully made, and in saying this\nwe think of the body, but far more wonderful is the making of the\nspiritual of us. O man, climb out of the gross materialism of thy\nfleshly self, for thou canst do it! As out of the heavy earth come the\ndelicate flowers of spring, so out of the heavy body, because of _that\ndivine_ which is within it, come the marvellous flowers of the soul.\n\nTo think that we can come to God and know Him by means of our\nintelligence or reason is as unwise as to suppose we can eat our\ndinner with our feet; it is as necessary to use our teeth to eat our\nfood as it is to use our heart to find God, and it is nothing but the\nnatural vanity of the human mind which blinds us to this fact. The\nhuman reason is too small to stand the greatness of God, and could it\never reach to Him would be withered in the awfulness of His\nmagnetic light. Even the soul in her contacts with God whilst still in\nthe flesh is of necessity totally blind, and yet, blind as she is, is\npierced by this terrible intensity of light and energy. How then shall\nthe reason stand naked before God without madness or frenzy? To\nreason out upon paper where God is, why He is, what He is, and\nhow precisely He is to be discovered, will take us no further up into\nthe mysteries of the actual knowing of the wonders of His love than\nthe ink and paper we employ might do. To know this love in our\nown heart is the necessity, for the soul and the heart live hand in\nhand as it were and together can find and know God. God once\nfound by the heart, we can dwell upon Him with our reason, and\nfeed our reason with the knowledge we have acquired of Him\nthrough the heart and soul.\n\nThe Holy Ghost aids us in this deep search, quickens us, gives us\nimpulses. At first in our natural state we are able only in a very dim\nway to perceive these impulses, but we can become so sensitive to\nGod that He pierces us, brings us to the ground with a breath, and\nwe bend and yield before His lightest wish as a reed bends and\nquivers to the wind.\n\nWhen the heart and soul are greatly set upon God and we have\nbecome true lovers of God, there comes a danger of falling into so\ndeep a pining for God that the health both of the mind and of the\nbody is weakened by it. We should aim at cheerful and willing\nwaiting: anything else is a falling short; if we examine into it, we\nshall see that pining savours of unwillingness and discontent--there\nis in it something of the spirit of the servant who designs to give\nnotice of leaving. The lover of God is the most blest of all creatures\nand should show himself serenely glad, waiting with patience,\nknowing as he does from his own experiences that who has God for\na Lover has no need of any other.\n\n_Of how to receive from God, and of the Blessed Sacrament_\n\nNothing is of a deeper mystery or difficulty or disappointment to the\nsoul and the heart well advanced in the experience and in the love of\nGod than to find that in the ceremony of the Blessed Sacrament it is\npossible for them to be less sensible of receiving from God than at\nany time. How and why can this be? is it the Ceremonial causing the\nmind to be too much alert to guide the body now to rise, now to\nkneel, now to move in some direction? Is it this distraction which\nprevents perception--for in all communion with God the mind is\nclosed down, the heart and soul only being in operation? On the\nother hand, it is easily possible to be in closest communion with God\nin all the noises and distractions of a great railway station amongst a\ncrowd of shifting persons. No, it is some imperfection in the attitude\nadopted by the heart and mind in approaching this Sacrament. In\nwhat way have we perhaps been approaching it? In an attitude of\nawe accompanied by a humble expectancy or hope of receiving. We\nhope and believe we shall receive God's grace. Now, the\nexperienced soul and heart know so well what it is and how it feels\nto receive God's grace that they are all the more disappointed at not\nreceiving it upon this holy occasion. What were our Lord's words?\nHe said, \"Do this in remembrance of Me,\" or more correctly\ntranslated, \"Do or offer this as a memorial of Me before God.\" This\nimplies an act of giving upon our part, whereas we have come to\nregard this ceremony as an act of receiving.\n\nNow though the attitude of humble expectancy to receive is of itself\na worthy one it does not fulfil the exact command, which is to\ncommemorate, offer, and hold up before God the Perfect Love and\nSacrifice of our Saviour, as a living memorial of Him before God. It\nshould be accompanied by an offering of great love and thanks upon\nour part without regard to anything we may receive. But because\nfirst we give we then receive.\n\nAbout nothing are we in such a state of ignorance as about the laws\nwhich govern the give and take between God and Man. On the one\nhand is God the All-Giving, longing to bestow, and upon the other is\nMan the all-needing, aching to receive, and between them an\nimpasse. Failure to fulfil God's laws is the cause of this impasse.\nThere is both a law of like to like, and a law of like to opposite. We\ncannot know God without in some small degree first being like God,\nand to be like God we must not only be pure in heart but also\nconform to the God-like condition of giving. First we obey this law\nthat the second may come into effect--that of like to opposite, or\npositive to negative, the All-Giving immediately meeting and filling\nthe all-needing. We have nothing to give to God but our love, thanks,\nand obedience; but of these it is possible to give endlessly, and the\nmore we give the more God-like do we become, and the more\nGod-like the higher and further do we enter into the great riches and\nblisses of God. Therefore the more we give to God the more we\nreceive.\n\nOn going to partake of the Blessed Sacrament we do well to banish\nfrom the heart and mind all thought of what it may please God to\nstill further give us and to make an offering _to_ God. The only way\nwe can make an offering to God is upon the wings of love, and upon\nthis love we hold up before Him the bread and wine as the Body and\nBlood of our Redeemer, repeating and repeating in our heart, \"I eat\nand drink This as a memorial before Thee of the Perfect Love and\nSacrifice of Jesus Christ.\" When we so do with _great_ love in our\nheart we find that we are able sensibly to receive great grace.\n\n_Of Prayer_\n\nOf the many kinds and degrees of prayer first perhaps we learn the\nprayer of the lips, then that of the mind, then the prayer of the heart,\nand finally the prayer of the soul--prayer of a totally different mode\nand order, prayer of a strange incalculably great magnetic power,\nprayer which enables us to count on help from God as upon an\nabsolute and immediate certainty.\n\nWe find this about perfect prayer that it is not done as from a\ncreature beseeching a Creator at an immense distance, but is done as\na love-flash which, eating up all distance, is immediately before and\nwith the Creator and is accompanied by vivid certainty at the heart;\nthis latter is active faith; we have too much perhaps of that kind of\nfaith which may be named waiting or passive faith.\n\nThis combination of love with active faith instantly opens to us\nGod's help. We may or may not receive this in the form anticipated\nby the creature, but later perceive that we have received it in exactly\nthat form which would most lastingly benefit us.\n\nAfter a while we cease almost altogether from petitioning anything\nfor ourselves, having this one desire only: that by opening ourselves\nto God by means of offering Him great love, we receive Himself.\n\n_Of Contemplation_\n\nTo enter the contemplation of God is not absence of will, nor\nlaziness of will, but great energy of will because of, and for, love: in\nwhich love-condition the energy of the soul will be laid bare to the\nenergy of God, the two energies for the time being becoming closely\nunited or oned, in which state the soul-will or energy is wholly lifted\ninto the glorious God-Energy, and a state of unspeakable bliss and\nan _immensity_ of _living_ is immediately entered and shared by\nthe soul. Bliss, ecstasy, rapture, all are energy, and according as the\nsoul is exposed to lesser or greater degrees of this energy, so she\nenters lesser or greater degrees of raptures.\n\nIt is misleading in these states of ecstasy to say that the soul has\nvision, if by vision is to be understood anything that has to do with\nconcrete forms or any kind of sight; for the soul is totally blind. But\nshe makes no account of this blindness and has her fill of all bliss\nand of the knowledge of another manner of living without any need\nwhatever of sight. Has the wind eyes or feet? yet it possesses the\nearth and is not prevented. So the soul, without eyes and without\nhands, possesses God.\n\nContact with God is then of the nature of the Infusion of Energy.\nThe infusions of this energy may take the form of causing us to have\nan acute intense perception and consciousness (but not such form of\nperception as would permit us to say \"I saw,\" but a magnetic inward\ncognisance, a fire of knowledge which scintillates about the soul and\npierces her) of His perfections; of His tenderness, His sweetness,\nHis holiness, His beauty. When either of these last two are made\nknown to her, the soul passes into what can only be named as an\nagony of bliss, insupportable even to the soul for more than a very\nbrief time, and because of the fearful stress of it the soul draws away\nand prays to be covered from the unbearable happiness of it, this\nbeing granted her whether automatically (that is to say, because of\nspiritual law) or whether by direct and merciful will of God--who is\nable to tell?\n\nSuch experiences are not for the timid, but require steady courage\nand perfect loving trust in God.\n\nContemplation even in its highest forms is not to be confused with\nspiritual \"experiences,\" which are totally apart from anything else\nthat we may know in life--they are entirely outside of our volition,\nthey are not to be prayed for, they are not to be even secretly desired,\nbut to be accepted how and when and if God so chooses.\n\nIn contemplation the will is used, and we are not able to come to it\nwithout the will is penetratingly used towards the joining and\nmeeting with the will and love of God. In the purely spiritual\n\"experience\" from first to last there is no will but an absence of will,\na total submission and yielding to God, without questioning, without\nfear, without curiosity, and the only will used is to keep ourselves in\nwillingness to submit to whatever He shall choose to expose us to.\nGod does not open to us such experiences in order to gratify\ncuriosity--but expecting that we shall learn and profit by them. First\nwe find them an immense and unforgettable assurance of another\nform of living, of great intensity, at white heat, natural to a part of us\nwith which we have hitherto been unfamiliar (the soul) but inimical\nto the body, which suffers grievously whilst the soul glows with\nmarvellous vitality and joy.\n\nThis assurance of another manner of living, though we see nothing\nwith the eyes, is the opening of another world to us. The invisible\nbecomes real, faith becomes transformed in knowledge. If the\nhundred wisest men of the world should all prove upon paper that\nthe spiritual life as a separate and other life from the physical life\ndoes not exist, it would cause nothing but a smile of compassion to\nthe creature that had experience. God teaches us by these means to\nbecome balanced, poised, and a complete human being, combining\nin one personality or consciousness the Spiritual and the Material.\n\nBut we are not given and shown these mysteries without paying a\nprice: we must learn to live in extraordinary lowliness and loneliness\nof spirit. The interests, enjoyments, pastimes of ordinary life dry up\nand wither away. It becomes in vain that we seek to satisfy ourselves\nin any occupation, in anything, in any persons, for God wills to have\nthe whole of us. When He wills to be sensibly with us, all Space\nitself feels scarcely able to contain our riches and our happiness.\nWhen He wills to disconnect us from this nearness, there is nothing\nin all the universe so poor, so destitute, so sad, so lonely as ourself.\nAnd there is no earthly thing can beguile or console us, because,\nhaving tasted of God, it is impossible to be satisfied or consoled\nsave inwardly by God Himself. But He opens up Nature to us in a\nmarvellous way, unbelievable until experienced. He offers us Nature\nas a sop to stay our tears. By means of Nature He even in absence\ncaresses the soul and the creature, speaks to them fondly,\nencourages and draws them after Him, sending acute and wonderful\nperceptions to them, so that, quite consoled, they cry aloud to Him\nwith happiness. And often when the creature is alone and secure\nfrom being observed by anyone He will open His glamour to the\nsoul and she passes into union with paradise and even more--high\nheaven itself. These are angels' delights which He lavishes upon the\nprodigal.\n\nAnother heavy price to be paid is found by the soul and heart and\nmind in the return from the blissful and perfect calm which\nsurrounds even the lowest degree of the contemplation of God to the\nturmoil of the world. For to have been lifted into this new condition\nof living, this glamour, this crystal joy, to know such heights, such\nimmensities, and to descend from God's blisses to live the everyday\nlife of this world and accept its pettiness is a great pain, in which\npain we are of necessity not understood by fellow-creatures;\ntherefore the more and the more we become pressed into that great\nloneliness which is the inevitable portion of the true lover, and\nexperience the pain of those prolonged spiritual conflicts in which\nthe soul learns to bend and submit to the petty sordidness of life in a\nworld which has forgotten God. It is the lack of courage and\nendurance to perpetually weather these dreadful storms which\ncauses us to turn to seclusion--the cloister. To refrain from doing\nthis and to remain in the world though not of it is the sacrifice of the\nloving soul--she has but the one to make--to leave the delights of\nGod, and for the sake of being a useful servant to Jesus to pick up\nthe daily life in the world; which sacrifice is in direct contrariety to\nthe sacrifice of the creature, which counts its sacrifices as a giving\nup of the things of the world. So by opposites they may come to one\nsimilarity--perfection. How to conduct itself in all these difficult\nways so foreign to its own earthly nature is a hard problem for the\ncreature, belonging so intimately to this world which it can touch\nand see: and yet which it is asked by God bravely to climb out of\ninto the unknown and the unseen. Bewildered by the enormous\ndemands of the soul which can never rest in any happiness without\nshe is contemplating God, adoring Him, conversing with Him,\nblessing and worshipping Him, the poor creature is often bewildered\nto know how to conduct the ordinary affairs and duties of life under\nsuch pressures. Of its emotions, of the tears that it sheds, of the falls\nthat it takes, a library of books might be written. In the splendour,\nthe grandeur, the great magnitudes and expanses of spirit life as\nmade known to it by the soul, the creature feels like some poor\nbeggar child, ill-mannered, ill-clothed, which by strange fortune\nfinds itself invited to the house of a mighty king, and, dumb with\nhumility and admiration, is at a loss to understand the condescension\nof this mighty lord. In this sense of very great unworthiness lies a\nprofound pain, an agony. To cure this pain we must turn the heart to\ngive love, to think love, and immediately we think of this great\ncondescension as being for love's sake--as love seeking for love--we\nare consoled. Then all is well, all is joyful, all is divine. The more\nsimple, childlike, and unpretentious we can be, the more easily we\nshall win our way through. Pretentiousness or arrogance in Man can\nnever be anything but ridiculous, and a sense of humour should\nalone be sufficient to save us from such error. For the same reason it\nis impossible to regard human ceremonies with any respect or\nseriousness, for they are not childlike but childish. How often the\nheart and mind cry out to Him, \"O mighty God, I am mean and\nfoolish--mean in that which I have created by my vain imaginings,\nmy pride, my covetousness; but in that which Thou hast made me I\nam wonderful and lovely--a thing that can fly to and fro day or night\nto Thy hand!\"\n\nThe difficulties of the creature should not be raised on some\nself-glorifying pinnacle merely because the fickle variable heart at lasts\nlearns the exercise of Fidelity. Do we not see a very ordinary dog\npractising this same fidelity as he waits, so eager that he trembles,\noutside his master's door, having put on one side every desire save\nhis desire to his master whom, not seeing, he continues to await; and\nthis out of the generosity of his heart! And we? Only by great\ndifficulty, long endeavour, bitter schooling, and having at last\naccomplished it we name each other saints or saintly. Let us think\nsoberly about these things; are we then so much less than a dog that\nwe also cannot accomplish this fidelity--so that though hands and\nfeet go about daily duties the heart and mind are fixed on the Master?\nThen the Master becomes the Beloved.\n\n_Of Blessing God_\n\nAt first when the creature is being taught to bless God it shrinks\nback in a fright, crying, \"What am I that I should dare to bless\nAlmighty God, I am afraid to do it; I am too unworthy; let me wait\ntill I am more righteous, till I have done more works.\" Then the\ndivine soul counsels it so: \"Think no more about thyself, moaning\nand groaning over thine unworthiness and trusting to progress in\nworks. Cease thinking of thyself, and rise up and think only of God.\nThou wilt never be worthy, and all thy works are nothing and thy\nlearning of no count whatever; and as to thy righteousness, is it not\nwritten that it is as filthy rags? All that God will give thee is not for\nany merits or works of thine, but for Love's sake. He desires both to\ngive thee love and to receive thy love, therefore rise and worship\nHim, give Him all the love that thou hast; keep none back either for\nthyself, or anything or any creature, but give all that thou hast to\nHim with tears and songs and gladness.\" Timidly the creature obeys,\nand with all its powers and strength it blesses God, and\ninstantanteously God blesses the creature, sending His sweetness\nand His glamour about it: and the more the soul and the creature\nbless God the more does He bless them, and they bless Him from\nthe bed of sickness and pain as fully as they bless Him in health.\nThey bless Him in the night-time and in the noonday, they bless\nHim as they walk, they bless Him as they work, and because of this\nlittle bit of blessing and love that the two of them offer to God He\noffers them all heaven in Himself.\n\nIt is the duty of the soul to constantly lend counsel, courage, help,\nadvice, and strength to the creature, and we are conscious of the\nvoice of the soul, which without any sound yet makes itself inwardly\nheard, calling to the selfishness, the egoism of the creature, urging\nthe higher part of it to come higher and the animal in it to become\npure and to subdue itself, saying to it, \"Lie down and be quiet, or\nthou wilt bring disaster to us both.\" \"I cannot be quiet, for I could\ngroan with my restless distress.\" \"Cease to think of thyself with thy\nroarings and groanings. Lay hold of love which thinks nothing of\nitself but always of that which it may give to the Beloved.\" \"I cannot\ndo this; I am no angel nor even a saint, but a most ordinary creature,\nforsaken of God and miserable.\" \"Thou art never forsaken, but thy\ndoor is closed: it opens from thy side, and thou art thyself standing\nacross it and blocking the opening of it--I will show thee how to\nopen it, cry and moan no more for favours and gifts, but do thou\nthyself do the giving. Since thou dost not know at all how to begin--do\nit with these set words: 'I love and praise Thee, I love and bless\nand thank Thee, I love and bless and worship Thee'; and see thou do\nit with all thy heart and mind and strength and with no thought of\nthyself and future benefits, but entirely that thou mayest give Him\npleasure.\" Then the creature tries, but fails lamentably, for most of\nits heart and mind is on itself and a fraction only on God.\n\n\"Now try again and again and again,\" cries the soul, \"O thou\nmiserable halfhearted shallow worldling!\" And the creature tries\nagain, and, doing better, gets a very slight warmth about the heart;\nand, doing it again, gets a little comfort, and so, gradually\nprogressing in the way of true love which is all giving, at last one\nday the creature does it perfectly because it has altogether forgotten\nitself in the fire of its love and is completely set upon God. Then\nautomatically the door opens, and immediately in through it there\nrushes the breath and the blisses of God. And the creature, weeping\nwith excess of happiness, cries, \"I never asked for such delights, I\ndid not know such happiness was to be had; and if I did not ask, how\nis it that I have received?\" Then the soul answers, \"Because thou\nhast learnt to give to God, and that is the key which unlocks the\ngarden of His joys. Thou hast just three things which He desires to\nhave--thy love and thine obedience, and thy waiting fidelity. When\nthou dost conform to His desire with all thy tiny unadulterated\nstrength, immediately heaven becomes open to thee and thou dost\nreceive more than thou didst ever dream or think to ask for. This is\nHis lovely Will towards thee. But first always do thy part, and until\nthou doest thy part I cannot begin mine, for thou couldst receive\nneither blessings nor blisses did I not receive them first from Him\nand hand them on to thee; so each are dependent the one on the\nother, and only together can we enter paradise. Think not I do not\nsuffer as much as thyself and far more. I know thou dost suffer with\nthy body and with the losses of thine earthly loves, but I suffer far\nmore with the loss of my Heavenly Love. At first I could not\nunderstand what had come to me, buried and choked in thy strange\nhouse of flesh. I despised thee, I hated thee, thy stupid ways, thy\ndreadful greeds, thine unspeakable obstinacy and unwillingness;\nthou didst give me horrible sicknesses with thine unsavoury wants,\nthine undignified requirements. I thought thee foolish and now know\nmyself to be more foolish than thee, for thou hardly knowest the\nheavenly love whereas I knew and left Him, seeking other loves.\nThe Fall was not thy fault, poor human thing, but mine. I am the\nProdigal, and thou the means of my return, for if I can but raise thee\nto true adoration of our God, then I shall pay my debt of infidelity to\nHim and together as one glorious radiant spirit we shall enter heaven\nagain.\n\n\"Only listen and I can guide thee, for the Master speaks to me and\ntells me what to do. I am partly that which thou dost please to call\nthy conscience, and thou dost treat me shockingly, buffeting and\nwounding me when I try to whisper to thee: if thou art not careful,\nthou wilt so disable me that all our chance of happiness will be\nspoiled. Do thou listen very tenderly for my voice, for I am of\ngossamer and thou of strangely heavy clay.\"\n\n_Of Evil and Temptation and of Grace_\n\nThe heart and soul are subject to four principal glamours: the\nglamour of youth, the glamour of romance, the glamour of evil, and\nthe glamour of God.\n\nWhen once the Spirit of Love, which is God, descends into our soul\nthen a new light becomes created in us by which we see the glamour\nof evil in its true form and complexion. We see it as disease, misery,\nimprisonment, and death; and who finds it difficult to turn away\nfrom such?\n\nThe natural man sees evil as an intense attraction, the spiritual man\nas a horror of ugliness. See then how the Spirit of Love is at once\nand easily our Salvation.\n\nAmongst all mysteries none seems greater to us than the mystery of\nEvil. God--Goodness--Love: these we understand. But evil--whence\nand why, since God is Love, Omnipotence, and Holiness?\n\nWe cannot but observe that all things have their opposites: summer\nand winter, heat and cold, light and dark, silence and sound, pleasure\nand pain, life and death, action and repose, joy and sadness, illness\nand health; and how shall we know or have true pleasure in the one\nwithout we have also knowledge of the opposite? The man who has\nnever known sickness has neither true gratitude, understanding, nor\npleasure in his heart over his good health: he does not know that\nwhich he possesses. Neither can we know the great glory that is\nHoliness till we have known evil and can contrast the two.\n\n\"But what a price to pay for knowledge; what fearful risk and danger\nto His creatures for God so to teach them!\" we may cry, forgetting\nthat with God all things are possible, \"Who is able and strong to\nsave.\" And does He dare set Himself no difficult thing that He may\novercome it? The strong man's knowledge of his own courage\nforbids us think it. God wills to save us. We have but to join our will\nwith His, and we are saved. How shall we mount to God other than\nby mounting upon that which offers a foundation of tangible\nresistance, overcoming and mounting upon evil. Evil then becomes\nour stairway--the servant of Good. By using the evil that we meet\nwith day by day, we mount daily the nearer to God by that exact\ndegree of evil which we have overcome by good--that is to say, by\npractice of forgiveness, compassion, patience, humility, endurance,\nheld out over against the invitation of evil to do the exact opposite.\nA negligent, thieving, lying servant that we have to deal with calls\nforth forgiveness, and humility also, for are we a perfect servant to\nour Lord? The evil of a drunken husband may be used by the wife as\na sure ladder to God, for because of this evil she may learn to\npractise all the virtues of the saints. Truly if we have the will to use\nit, Evil is friendly. If we misuse Evil--that is to say, if we do not use\nit by mounting on it but, intoxicated with its glamour, consent to\nit,--this is Sin, and immediately the stairway is not that of ascent\nbut of descent and death.\n\nThe Master says \"Resist not evil.\" How are we to understand this but\nby assuming that if we try our strength against Evil, Evil is likely to\novercome us? but on being confronted with Evil we should instantly\nhold on to and join with the forces of Good and so have strength\nquietly to continue side by side with Evil without being seduced by\nit. When Evil cannot seduce--that is to say, make us consent to\nit,--then for us it is conquered. When we give in or conform to this\nseduction we generate Sin. Let us say that we are in temptation, that\nEvil of some sort confronts and invites us; if we battle with this\npresentment, this picture, this insinuating invitation held out before\nus by Evil, the act of contending with the invitation will fix it all the\nmore firmly in our minds. We need to substitute another picture,\nanother invitation, another presentment, of that which pertains to the\ngood and the beautiful. He who has learnt so to substitute and\npresent before his own heart and mind Jesus and the pure and\nbeautiful invitations of this Divine Jesus can solve the difficulty.\nThis is not contending, this is substituting; this is transferring\nallegiance from the glamour of Evil which is present with us, to the\nglamour of God, which, because we are in temptation, is not present,\nbut is yet hoped and waited for.\n\nTo return again to the lying, dishonest, and negligent servant. If we\nargue, contend, and battle morally with this evil servant we do not\nalter him, but by this contention generate antagonism. Then what is\nour own position? Bad temper, a disturbed heart, an inharmonious\nangry mind; but if without contending we bear with and act gently\nwith this evil, making careful comparisons with our own service to\nour own Lord, we learn patience, forgiveness, and humility also, for\nhave we never lied, have we never been dishonest, have we never\nbeen negligent to this sweet Lord? Then immediately His patience,\nHis forgiveness, His love are brought more intimately to our\nconsciousness, and our heart nearer to His and His to ours. Is this\nloss or gain? Is Evil then an enemy? No, a handmaid. So is Satan\nmade a servant to his Overlord, and his power crossed.\n\nOf all false things nothing is more false than the glamour of Evil, for\nwhen on being drawn into it we sin, instead of the hoped-for delight\nwe soon find satiety; instead of exhilaration, fatigue; instead of\ncontentment, disillusion; instead of satisfaction, dust; instead of\nromance, the greedy claws of the harpy; and the further we go in\nresponse to this glamour the more pitiable our outlook; for the\nsweets and possibilities of Evil are extraordinarily limited. Can any\nman devise a new sin? No, but ever pursues the same old round, the\nsame pitiful circle.\n\nIf we pursue the glamour of God, we find the exact opposite of all\nthese things. Spiritual delights know no satiety because of infinite\nvariety: they know no disease, no disillusionment, and who can set a\nboundary or limit to the beautiful, to love, and light, and God?\n\nIt is characteristic of temptation that while we are exposed to it\nChrist is absent from perception; for to perceive Christ would\ninstantly free us from all temptation (and often it is by temptation\nfaithfully borne that we mount).\n\nWhen we are in a condition of contact with Christ which is His\ngrace, we are raised above the stem of faith into the flowers of\nknowledge; but for the true strengthening of the will it is necessary\nthat we live also on the harder and more difficult meat of faith. So\nwe return again and again to that insulation from things heavenly in\nwhich we lived before we had been made Aware. When we emerge\nfrom these dark periods we find ourselves to have advanced. With\nregard to Grace we can neither truly receive nor benefit by it without\nour heart, mind, and soul are previously adjusted to Response to it.\n\nThe regenerated creature is not exempt from further temptations, but\ncontrariwise the poignancy of these temptations is greatly increased\n(though of a quite different order of temptation to that known to us\nin an unregenerated state); it is increased in proportion to the\ndegrees of Grace vouchsafed to us. That is to say, temptation keeps\nlevel with our utmost capacity of resistance yet never is allowed to\nexceed the bounds, for when it would exceed them a way out is\nfound by the return of Grace; and we are freed. The cause is the\ngreat root called Self, a hydra-headed growth of selfishness, both\nmaterial and spiritual, sprouting in all directions. We would seem to\nbe here for ever enclosed as in a glass bottle with this most horrid\ngrowth. Through the glass we see all life, but always and ever in\ncompany with this voracious Self. No sooner do we lop off one\nshoot of it than another grows--never was such strenuous gardening\nas is required to keep this growth in check, and every time we lop a\nshoot we learn another pain. This is the long road to perfection, for\nthe Cross is \"I\" with a stroke through it.\n\nWho can describe the marvels, the variations, the mystery of Grace?\nIt is a dew and an elixir, a balm and a fire, a destroyer of all fear and\nsorrow, a delight and an anguish, for we are martyred, pierced with\nlong arrows by the longing of the love that it calls forth. It is a\nsweetness and a might, a glory and a power in which we are sensibly\naware we could walk through a furnace unscathed if He bade us to\ndo it. And by it we are lifted in a crystal vase and enclosed in the\nPresence of God.\n\n* * *\n\nAs a man's desire is so is he. If our desire is entirely towards fleshly\nthings and joys and comforts, we are sensualists. If our desire is all\ntowards sport and horses, we are not above horses but rather below\nthem, for the human animal is full of guile and the horse of\nobedience and generosity. Nevertheless he is no goal for the human\nto aim at. If we desire the beautiful, we become beautified and\nrefined. If we desire God, we become godly.\n\n* * *\n\nIt is characteristic of spiritual progress that each step is gained\nthrough suffering, through penetrating faithful endeavours, through\ngrievous incomprehensible turmoils and discords of the spirit,\nworked frequently by means of the everyday commonplace happenings\nand responsibilities of our daily life; and finally as each\nnew step is gained we are by Grace carried to it in a flood of divine\nhappiness to crown our woes. Grace is God's magnetic power acting\ndirectly and immediately upon us and is altogether independent of\nplace, time, services, sacraments, or ceremonies. We limit God's\ncommunication with us in this way--that He is communicable to us\nonly in so far as we ourselves respond and are able, apt, and willing\nto receive Him.\n\nIs the condition of blessed nearness to God permanent? No, not as a\ncondition but as a capacity only. We have need to perpetually renew\nthis condition by a positive active enthusiasm toward God. We can\nin laziness no more retain and use this condition as a permanency\nthan we can sleep one night and eat one meal and have these suffice\nfor our lifetime. But slowly, with work and with pain, we learn\nperpetually to regain this condition by that form of prayer which is\nthe spiritual breathing-in of the Spirit of Christ.\n\nAll God's help, all God's comfortings are to be had by us by Grace.\nThis Grace will constantly be withdrawn so that we may learn that\nwe arrive at nothing by our own power but by gift of God, who is\never willing to give to us provided we whole-heartedly respond.\nThis Response to God is surely amongst the most difficult of our\nachievements; unaided by Grace it is an impossibility, but we know\nthat every man born into the world is invited by Christ to ask for and\nto receive this Grace. The effect of Response to God is a unity of our\ntiny force to the Might-Presence and company of God as much as\nwe are able to bear it, producing in us while with us such wealth of\nliving; and such happiness as passes all description. As we have\ncapacity to respond to God so we shall know that of God which is\nnot known by those as yet unlearned in response. For God, we know,\nis neither This nor That, but so infinitely more than any\nparticularisation that we are able to know Him only and solely\naccording to our own capacity to receive Him. To one He is a\nPersonal Power that ravishes with might, whose awful magnetism\ndraws the very heart and soul in longing anguish from the body. To\nanother He is the dimly known silent Manipulator of the Universe,\nthe secret Ruler to whose mighty Will creation bows--because\nneeds must. To another He is yet even more remote, being the\nunresponsive, impersonal, incomprehensible, immovable Instigator\nof all law.\n\nWhat is it in our religion that we need for a full happiness? Not the\nGod of our mere faith, nor the God of the theologian veiled behind\ngreat mysteries of book-learning. It is the Responsive God that we\nlong for, and how shall we reach Him? There is one way only--through\nthe taking of Jesus Christ firmly and faithfully into our own\nheart and life.\n\nIt is not what we now are, or where we now stand that matters, but\nwhat He has the power to bring us to.\n\nHow is God-consciousness to be achieved--shall we do it by study,\nby reading? No--for the study or reading of it will do no more than\nwhet the appetite for spiritual things--this is its work,--but can do no\nmore in giving us the actual possession of this joy than the study of\na menu can satisfy hunger.\n\nIndividual, personal and inward possession is in all things our\nnecessity. If our friend has slept well it is no rest to us if we have\nslept ill. Up to a given point in all things each for himself. It is the\nlaw. Of where this law ends or is superseded by the law of all for all\nonly the Holy Spirit can instruct us, and that inwardly and again\neach to himself. This state of God-consciousness is a gift, and our\nwork is to qualify for this gift by persistent ardent desire towards\nGod continued through every adversity, through every lack of\nsensible response on His part--a naked will and heart insisting upon\nGod. This state of God-consciousness once received and in full\nvigour of life, there is without doubt about this condition a principle\nof active contagion, very noticeable, very remarkable.\n\nThat \"something\" which would appear frequently to be needed by\npersons anxious to come to God and unable to discover the manner\nof achieving it, would seem to be supplied by this contagion, as\nthough a human spark were often wanted to ignite the spark in\nanother, which done, the Divine Fire springs up and rapidly grows\nwithout further human assistance.\n\nWe see this contagion as used in its full perfection by Jesus, for with\nall His selected followers He had but to come in momentary contact\nwith them, using a word or a look, and, instantly forsaking\neverything, they followed Him. Was this selection of His\nfavouritism? No, they were prepared to receive this contagion, and\nnot one of them but had been secretly seeking for God; and this\nperhaps for long years.\n\nTo find this new life we need then not the reading of profound books\nof learning, not the wisdom of the scholar, but an inward persistence\nof the heart and will God-wards. This time of insistent waiting is to\nbe endured with all the more courage in that we do not know at what\nblessed moment we may pierce the veil and the gift come in all its\nglorious immensity. Ten years, twenty, thirty--what are such in\ncomparison with the blisses that shall afterwards be ours for all\neternity?\n\nTo look up by day or night into the vastness of the sky with its\nendless depths, and as we do it burn with the consciousness of God,\nthis is to truly live. No distance is too great, no space too wide. All\nis our home. Without this burning consciousness of God, Space is a\nthing of fear and Eternity not to be thought of.\n\nOf the many experiences and conditions of the soul returning to God\nthere is a condition all too easily entered--that of an enervating,\npulseless, seductive inertia. In this condition of inert but marvellous\ncontentment the soul would love to stay. This is spiritual sensuality,\na spiritual back-water. The true life and energy of the soul are lulled\nto idleness: basking in happiness, the soul ceases to give and\nbecomes merely receptive.\n\nThis condition is entered from many levels: we can rise to it (for it is\nvery high) from ordinary levels, branch sideways to it from high\ncontemplation; drop to it from the greatest contacts with God. This\ncondition seems strangely familiar to the soul. So much so that she\nquestions herself. Was it from this I started on my wanderings from\nGod? The true health of the soul when in the blisses of God is to be\nin a state of intense living or activity. She is then in perfect\nconnection with the Divine Energy. She is then in a state of an\nimmense and boundless radiantly joyful Life.\n\nTo find God is to have the scope of all our senses increased, but it is\neasily to be understood that our power of suffering increases also,\nbecause we are, as it were, flayed and laid bare to everything alike.\nBut it increases our joys to so great a degree that for the first time in\nlife joy is greater than pain, happiness is greater than sorrow,\nknowledge is greater than fear, and Good suddenly becomes to us so\nmuch greater than Evil that Evil becomes negligible. This increase,\nthis wonderful addition to our former condition, might be partly\nconveyed by comparison to a man who from birth has never been\nable to appreciate music: for him it has been meaningless, a noise\nwithout suggestion, without delight, without wings, and suddenly by\nno powers of his own the immense charms and pleasures and\ncapacities of it are laid open to him! These increases of every sense\nand faculty God will give to His lovers, so that without effort and by\nwhat has now become to us our own nature we are continually able\nto _enter the Sublime._\n\n_Of the Two Wills_\n\nWe have in us two wills. The Will to live, and the Will to love God\nand to find Him. The first will we see being used continually and\nwithout ceasing, not only by every man, woman, and child, but by\nevery beast of the field and the whole of creation.\n\nThe Will to live is the will by which all alike seek the best for\nthemselves, here gaining for themselves all that they can of comfort\nand well-being out of the circumstances and opportunities of life.\nThis is our natural Will. But it is not the will which gains for us\nEternal Life, nor does it even gain for us peace and happiness during\nthis life. It is this Will to live which in Christ's Process we are taught\nto break and bruise till it finally dies, and the Will to love, and\ngladly and joyously to please God is the only Will by which we live.\n\nOur great difficulty is that we try at one and the same time to hang\nto God with the soul and to the world with our heart. What is\nrequired is not that we go and live in rags in a desert place, but that\nin the exact circumstances of life in which we find ourselves we\nlearn in _everything to place God first._ He requires of us a certain\nsubtle and inward fidelity--a fidelity of the heart, the will, the mind.\nThe natural state of heart and mind in which we all normally find\nourselves is to have temporary vague longings for something which,\nthough indefinable, we yet know to be better and more satisfying\nthan anything we can find in the world. This is the soul, trying to\noverrule the frivolity of the heart and mind and to re-find God. Our\ndifficulties are not made of great things, but of the infinitely small\nour own caprices. Though we can often do great things, acts of\nsurprising heroism, we are held in chains--at once elastic and iron--of\nsmall capricious vanities, so that in one and the same hour we\nmay have wonderful, far-reaching aspirations towards the Sublime,\nand God; and yet there comes a pretty frock, a pleasant companion,\nand behold God is forgotten! The mighty and marvellous Maker of\nthe Universe, Lord of everything, is placed upon one side for a piece\nof chiffon, a flattering word from a passing lover.\n\nSo be it. He uses no force. We are still in the Garden of Free-Will.\nAnd when the Garden closes down for us, what then? Will chiffon\nhelp us? Will the smiles of a long-since faithless lover be our\nstrength? Now is the time to decide; but our decision is made in the\nworld, and by means of the world and not apart from it, and in the\nexact circumstances in which we find ourselves.\n\nAnother difficulty we have, and which forms an insuperable barrier\nto finding God, is the ever-recurring--we may almost say the\ncontinual--secret undercurrent of criticism and hardness towards\nGod over what we imagine to be His Will. We need to seek God\nwith that which is most like Him, with a will which most nearly\nresembles His own. To be in a state of hardness or criticism, not\nonly for God but for any creature, in even the smallest degree is to\nbe giving allegiance to, and unifying ourselves with, that Will which\nis opposite to, furthest away from, and opposed to God. He Himself\nis Ineffable Tenderness.\n\nHaving once re-found God, the soul frequently cries to Him in an\nanguish of pained wonder, \"How could I ever have left Thee? How\ncould I ever have been faithless to Thine Unutterable Perfections?\"\nThis to the soul remains the mystery of mysteries. Was it because\nof some imperfection left in her of design by God in order that He\nmight enjoy His power to bring her back to Him? If this were so,\nthen every single soul must be redeemed--and not for love's sake,\nbut for His Honour, His own Holy Name, His Perfection. If the soul\nleft Him because of a deliberate choice, a preference for\nimperfection, a poisonous curiosity of foreign loves, then love alone\nis the cause and necessity of our redemption, and so it feels to be,\nfor in experience we find that love is the beginning and the middle\nand the end of all His dealings with us.\n\n* * *\n\nWhat is our part and what is our righteousness in all this Process of\nthe Saviour? This--that we obey, and that we renounce our own will,\naccepting and abiding by the Will of God: and this self-lending,\nself-surrender, this sacrifice of self-will is counted to us for sufficient\nrighteousness to merit heavenly life. But from first to last we remain\nconscious that we have no righteousness of our own, that we are\nvery small and full of weaknesses, and remain unable to think or say,\n\"This is my righteousness, I am righteous,\" any more than a man\nstanding bathed in, or receiving the sunlight can say or think, \"I am\nthe sun.\" Is all this, then, as much as to say that we can sit down and\ndo nothing; but, leaving all to Christ, we merely believe, and\nbecause of this believing our redemption is accomplished? No, for\nwe have an active part to play, a part that God never dispenses\nwith--the active keeping of the will in an active state of practical\nobedience, submission, humble uncomplaining endurance through\nevery kind of test. What will these perhaps too much dreaded tests\nbe that He will put us through? He will make use of the difficulties,\nopportunities, temptations, and events of everyday life in the world\n(which difficulties we should have to pass through whether we\nbecome regenerated or not) down to the smallest act, the most secret\nthought, the most hidden intention and desire. But through it all it is\nthe Great Physician Himself who cures, and we are no more able to\nperform these changes of regeneration in heart and mind than we are\nable to perform a critical operation on our own body. So He takes\nour vanities and, one by one, strews them among the winds, and we\nraise no protest; takes our prides and breaks them in pieces, and we\nsubmit; takes our self-gratifications and reduces them to dust, and\nwe stand stripped but patient; takes the natural lusts of the creature\nand transfigures them to Holy Love. And in all this pain of transition,\nwhat is the Divine Anaesthetic that He gives us? His Grace.\n\nHaving submitted to all that Christ esteems necessary for our\nregeneration, what does He set us to? Service. Glad, happy service\nto all who may need it. He has wonderful ways of making us\nacquainted with His especial friends, and it pleases Him to make us\nthe means of answering the prayers of His poor for help, to their\ngreat wonder and joy and to the increase of their faith in Him. Also\nHe uses us as a human spark, to ignite the fires of another man's\nheart: when He uses us in this way, it will seem to one like the\nopening of a window--to another a magnetism. One will see it as a\nlight flashed on dark places, another receives it as the finding of a\ntrack where before was no track. But however many times we may\nbe used in this way, the working remains a mystery to us.\n\nWhat is our reward whilst still in this world for our patient\nobediences and renunciations? This--that all becomes well with us\nthe moment the process is brought to the stage where the aim of our\nlife ceases to be the enjoyment of worldly life and becomes fixed\nupon the Invisible and upon God: and all this by and because of love,\nfor it is love alone which can make us genuinely glad to give up our\nown will and which can keep us from sinning.\n\nWe commence by qualifying through our human love, meagre and\nfluctuating as it is, for God's gift of holy love--of divine reciprocity,\nand with the presentation of this divine gift immediately we find\nourselves in possession of _a new set of desires,_ which for the first\ntime in our experience of living prove themselves completely\nsatisfying in fruition. God does not leave us in an arid waste,\nbecause He would have us to be holy, and nowhere are there such\nardent desires as in heaven; but He transposes and transfigures the\ncarnal desires into the spiritual by means of this gift of divine\nreciprocity which is at once access to and union with Himself. Now,\nand only now do we find the sting pulled out of every adverse\nhappening and every woe of life, and out of death also.\n\nAnd the whole process is to be gone through just where and how and\nas we find ourselves--in our own home or in the home of another,\nmarried or single, rich or poor,--with these three watchwords,\nObedience, Patience and Simplicity.\n\nBut it is not sufficient to have once achieved this union with God: to\nrest in happiness the soul must continually achieve it. It follows then\nthat our need is not an isolated event but a _life,_ a life lived with\nGod, and in experience we find that this alone can satisfy us. A life\nin which we receive hourly the breath of His tenderness and pity,\nHis infinite solace to a pardoned soul.\n\n_Of the Interchange of Thought without Sound_\n\nMany persons know what it is to have the experience with another\nperson of a simultaneous exactitude of thought--speaking aloud the\nsame words in the same instant. Others experience in themselves the\npower to exchange thought and to know the mind of another\nwithout the medium of sound, though not without the medium of\nword-forms, this last being a capacity possessed only by the soul in\ncommunion with the Divine. We name these experiences thought-waves,\nmind-reading, mental telepathy, and understand very little about them;\nbut beyond this mind-telepathy there is a telepathy of the\nsoul about which we understand nothing whatever. This is the\ndivine telepathy, with words or _without word-forms,_ by which\nChrist instructs His followers. The telepathy of the mind is the\nindicator to the existence of a telepathy of the soul; for the mind\nindicates to us that which should be sought and known by the soul,\nand without we come to divine things first in a creaturely way\n(being creatures) we shall never come to them at all. The mind\ndesires and indicates, the soul achieves.\n\nThis telepathy with Christ is the means by which the soul learns in a\ndirect manner the will and the teaching and the mind of Christ, and\nit is by this means she gains such wisdom as it is God's will she shall\nhave. The soul seeks this telepathy during the second stage, vaguely,\nnot knowing or understanding the mode of it, receiving it rarely and\nwith great difficulty.\n\nIn the third stage she obtains it in abundance, at times briefly, at\nothers at great length.\n\n* * *\n\nThat God has his dwelling-place at an incalculably great distance\nfrom ourselves is a true knowledge of the soul: but a further\nknowledge reveals to us that this calamity is mitigated, and for short\nperiods even annulled, by provision of His within the soul to\nannihilate this distance, and be the means of bringing the soul into\nsuch immediate contact with Himself as she is able to endure. But\nthe Joy-Energy of God being insupportable to the very nature of\nflesh, in His tender love and pity He provides us, through the Person\nof His Son, with degrees of union of such sweet gentleness that we\nmay continually enjoy them through every hour of life; and through\nHis Son He comes out to meet the prodigal \"while yet afar off.\"\n\nThis is strongly observable, that as the process of Christ proceeds\nand grows in us, though our joys in God are individual, yet they\nbecome also clothed in a garment of the universal, so that the soul,\nwhen she enters the fires of worship and of blessing and of\nconversing with God--without any forethought, but by a cause or\nneed now become a part of herself,--enters these states and gives to\nHim no longer as I, but as We--which is to say, as All Souls.\n\n* * *\n\nMany of us look to death to work a miracle for us, thinking the mere\ncessation of physical living will give entry to paradise or even\nheaven, so long as we are baptised and call ourselves Christians.\nThis is a great delusion. In character, personality, cleanliness,\ngoodwill we are, after death, exactly as far advanced as we were\nbefore death, and no further. What then is needed, since death will\nnot help us? The Seed of Divine love and life planted and\nconsciously _growing_ in us whilst we are still in this world. And\nwhat is this Seed?--the Redeemer.\n\n* * *\n\nWhat is paradise, what is heaven? The progressive gradations of\nconditions of a perfect reciprocity of love, and the greater the\nperfection of this reciprocity the greater the altitudes attained of\nheaven. Thus we see in Scripture that the angels who stand nearest\nto God or highest in heaven are the cherubim--that is to say, they are\nthose who have attained a greater reciprocity than all other angels.\nNow this Divine love is incomprehensible to us until we are initiated\ninto its mystery as a gift, and cannot be understood nor guessed at\nby comparisons with any human loves however great, noble, or pure;\nbut this burning fiery essence of joy, this radiant glory of delight,\nthis holy and ineffable fulfilment of the uttermost needs, longings,\nand requirements of the soul must be personally experienced by us\nto be comprehended.\n\nWhat madness in us is it that can count as an added cross or burden\nany means by which we reach such perfection of bliss for ever? The\nCross is for us the misery of our own blinding sins and selfishnesses.\nThe burden is the weight of our own distance from God. \"Take up\nthy cross (which is our daily life of ignorance and sin), take up thy\ncross, and follow Me,\" says the voice of the Saviour; and as we do it\nand follow Him the distance between God and ourselves diminishes,\nand finally the burden and the cross _disappear,_ and behold God!\nawaiting us with His consolations.\n\nIt is the stopping half-way that causes would-be followers of Christ\nsuch distress. It is necessary that we follow Him all the way and not\nmerely a part of it--that He may complete His process in us. When\nwe are living altogether in a creaturely, natural, or unregenerated\nway, absorbed in the ambitions and interests of a worldly life, we\nare perhaps content. When we live regenerated and in the spirit, we\nare in great joy; but when we try to live between the two and would\nserve God and worldly interests at the same time we are in gloomy\nwretchedness, vacillation, depression.\n\nThe Master said, \"The kingdom of heaven is within you,\" which\nsignified that within us was the potentiality to have entrance to, and\nto know, the mystery of the Divine Secret, and to participate whilst\nstill living here, in the early degrees or manifestations of Divine\nLove--that Power which glorifies the angels, and is Heaven.\n\n_Of the three Stages of God-Consciousness_\n\n_(Which more properly expressed is the gift of immediate access of\nthe soul of God)_\n\nThere are three principal stages on the way of progress--three\nseparate degrees of God-Consciousness. The first is the\nConsciousness of the Presence of Jesus, the Perfect Man. We take\nHim into the heart, accept and know Him, love and obey Him. In the\nsecond stage we receive Jesus as the Christ and recognise Him as\nthe Messiah (of which the mind was not sure in the first stage). We\nrejoice in Him, giving Him a more perfect obedience. In the third\nthe soul is given the Consciousness of the Father, and, being filled\nwith a very great love and joy, worships Him as the Known God.\nNow life immediately becomes totally changed, fear and sin are\nswept away, and love rules the Universe.\n\nIt is now that God makes us know His glamour; that He casts over\nthe soul His golden net of spiritual delights, and by them seems to\nchallenge her, saying to the soul, \"Now that I reveal Myself to thee,\ncanst thou ever return to the joys of the world, canst thou find its\npleasures sweet, canst thou be satisfied with any human love; canst\nthou by any means resist Me now that I show Myself?\" And the soul\nanswers Him, \"Nay Lord, in truth I cannot.\"\n\nThe remembrance of these powers and these spells of God make for\nthe soul a sure foundation of repose and certainty in the days of the\ntesting of fidelity that still lie before her: they also further reveal to\nher His consummate care of her exact requirements, for she cannot\npass beyond a certain stage without a direct personal assurance is\ngiven her. First He demands of us that we have, and actively\nmaintain, a clean will to turn and cleave to Him, without any\nassurance beyond written assurance (Scripture); and having given\nHim a thorough proof of fidelity, He then grants us the personal\nassurance. Having been given these rapturous concessions, what\nwould perfection demand of us--a total withdrawal from the world--a\nhiding away in secret with our soul's treasure of delights? Maybe\nfor some; but a higher perfection calls us back to service in the\nwretched turmoil of the world, to work and to stand in the House of\nRimmon and never bow the knee, to carry with us everywhere the\nDivine Consciousness and preserve its light undimmed in every\nsordid petty circumstance of daily life, to endure with perfect\npatience the follies and the prides of the unenlightened. Whoever\ncan achieve those things may find himself at last a saint.\n\nVery early in this third stage a miracle is performed in us: without\nknowing how it came about or what day it was done, we suddenly\nknow that the heart and the mind _have become virgin_--and this\nwithout any variation. Every kind of lust, whether of eye, body,\nheart, or mind, has been removed from us, and never again has any\npower over us, for the will has become superior to lust, and there is\na finish to all such contending: this moral healing is more impressive\nthan any physical healing. Before this miracle is performed for us,\nwe have suffered many things, as much as we can bear: subtle and\nastonishing temptations of mind and body and spirit \"call to\nremembrance the former days in which after ye were illuminated ye\nendured a great fight of afflictions\" (Heb. x. 32).\n\nThis person that writes formerly supposed that no creature was\nadmitted to the blessedness of being in any way with God in Spirit\nwithout they were already become a saint; but this is not so, and He\naccepts the sinner long before he is a saint (if ever we become one in\nthis world, which is doubtful), provided the will is always held good\ntowards God.\n\nThis is the mighty Process of Christ which he desires to perform for\nall. Of the tears we shed over it the less mention the better; they are\nprecious tears, necessary tears, cleansing tears, and if we will not\nlend ourselves to this Process of Christ we may have as many tears\nfor our portion and no benefit from them in the way of advancement.\nLet us weep the tears that God Himself will wipe away.\n\nSo then in the first stage the Soul tastes of the sweet companionship\nof Jesus. In the second, of the might and graciousness of Christ; in\nthe third, of the fullness of God and His unspeakable delights. \"Thou\nshalt give them to drink of Thy pleasures, as out of the river\" (Psalm\nxxxvi.).\n\nIn the third stage of God-Consciousness a great change takes place\nin our relationship to God. Besides the magnitude of the alterations\nof the inner life--the sweeping spiritual changes--the body also\nshares in a change, for, whilst we formerly prayed to God with a\nbowed head and a hidden face, we now become unable to pray or\napproach Him except with a raised head and an uncovered face. This\nchange is not from any thought or intention of our own, but we are\nforced to it by a sweet necessity. In a company of persons praying,\nall those in the third stage could be immediately known by this\nnecessity of the raised and bared face if we were not taught by the\nHoly Spirit never to reveal to others that we are in the third stage\nexcept in special instances. For this reason it is not possible to enter\ntrue communion with God in a public place of worship unless we\ncan conceal ourselves from others. For the face undergoes a change\nin communion with God, and it is not pleasing to Him that this\nshould be seen by any eye but His own.\n\nIf anyone finds great difficulty (and the most of us do) in coming to\nthe first stage--that of taking Jesus into the heart--he must pray every\nday in a few short words _from the heart_ that God will give him to\nJesus, and in due time he will be heard.\n\nIn the third stage of progress we have the home-coming of the soul\nas far as we are able to know it in the flesh: \"We taste of the powers\nof God\" (Hebrews).\n\nBut the fullness of home-coming is reserved for that day in which\nthe greatest of all the mysteries will be revealed to us--the mystery\nof the Relation of the Soul to God.\n\nIn that great day we shall know God by His Own Name.\n\n* * *\n\nWe do not find God by denying the existence of things not pleasing\nto Him. We do not find the Eternal Goodness by saying that Evil\ndoes not exist. We do not find true health of spirit because we deny\nall sickness, pain, and disease. Such a mode of Christianity may give\na sense of comfort, lend a false security to the heart and mind at\nonce weary of God-searching, and disenchanted with the world; but\nit is not the Christianity which regenerates. It is a narcotic, not a\nRedemption. It is the way of a mind unwilling to face truths because\nthey pain. If there was anything made plain by Christ it is that the\nway of Redemption lies through heroism and not cowardice. Let\nthose of us who too much fear a passing pain of sacrifice of will\nremember that the deepest of all pains, the last word in the tragedy\nof life, is to come to old age and descend to the grave without\nhaving found the Saviour. For our calamity is that we are lost souls.\nOur opportunity is that in this world we find the track of Christ\nwhich leads us home.\n\n* * *\n\nGod does not create a new world on purpose for His lovers\nimmediately to live in, yet though we remain our full time in this\nsame world it is not the same world. We see a person in a severe\nillness and again in full health. It is the same person, and not the\nsame person. We see a garden filled with flowers in the rain under\ngrey clouds, and again the same garden filled with mellow sunlight\nunder blue skies; it is the same garden, and not the same garden.\n\nThese changes could never be described or conveyed to the man\nblind from birth; neither can spiritual changes be described or\nconveyed till we ourselves gain similarity of experience. God\ntransposes our pleasures, taking the glamour from the guilty and\ntransferring it to the blameless; by this transforming our lives. He\nincreases the pleasure of unworldly enjoyments so we are\nindependent of the worldly ones. But we cannot remain in this\ntransformed world of His unless we are at peace both with ourself\nand all persons around us.\n\nThough from earliest childhood we may have found in the beauties\nof Nature a great delight, when we become the lover of God He\npasses His fingers over our hearts and our eyes and opens them to\nmarvellous new powers for joy. Oh, the ecstasy that may be known\nin one short walk alone with God! The overflowing heart cries out to\nHim, What other lover is there can give such bliss as this, and what\nis all Nature but a lovely language between Thee and me! Then the\nsoul spreads wings into the blue and sings to Him like soaring lark.\n\nBut do not let us seek Him only because of His Delights, for so we\nmight miss Him altogether. But let it be because it is His wish:\nbecause Perfection calls, and mystery calls to mystery, and love to\nlove, and Light calls to the darkness and the Dawn is born.\n\n     The glamour of God is come down about my soul,\n     And He who made all loveliness has decked my heart in spring,\n     And garlanded me round about with tender buds\n     Of flowers and scented things, and love and light.\n     I see no rain, no sad grey skies,\n     For the glamour of God has come down about mine eyes,\n     And the Voice of the Maker of all loveliness\n     Calling to my soul, leads me enchanted\n     Up the glittering mysteries of Infinity.\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.\nAlso I have made two spelling changes:\n\n\"subsitute another picture\" to \"substitute another picture\"\n\n\"accepts the sinner long long before he is a saint\" to\n\"accepts the sinner long before he is a saint\".]","title":"The Romance of the Soul","tradition":"ritual-magic","translated_text":null,"word_count":21398}