{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_74203/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_74203","id":"gutenberg_74203","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/74203","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Mysticism"],"text":"The Essentials of Mysticism\n\n\n\n\n                      THE ESSENTIALS of MYSTICISM\n\n                            AND OTHER ESSAYS\n\n                                   BY\n                            EVELYN UNDERHILL\n\n                                  1920\n                      NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.\n\n                            LONDON & TORONTO\n                         J. M. DENT & SONS LTD.\n\n\n_All rights reserved_\n\n\n\n\n                                CONTENTS\n\n\nPreface . . . v\n\nThe Essentials of Mysticism . . . 1\n\nThe Mystic and the Corporate Life . . . 25\n\nMysticism and the Doctrine of Atonement . . . 44\n\nThe Mystic as Creative Artist . . . 64\n\nThe Education of the Spirit . . . 86\n\nThe Place of Will, Intellect, and Feeling in Prayer . . . 99\n\nThe Mysticism of Plotinus . . . 116\n\nThree Medi\u00e6val Mystics . . . 141\n\n    I. \u201cTHE MIRROR OF SIMPLE SOULS\u201d . . . 141\n\n    II. THE BLESSED ANGELA OF FOLIGNO . . . 160\n\n    III. JULIAN OF NORWICH . . . 183\n\nMysticism in Modern France . . . 199\n\n    I. S\u0152UR TH\u00c9R\u00c8SE DE L\u2019ENFANT-J\u00c9SUS . . . 199\n\n    II. LUCIE-CHRISTINE . . . 215\n\n    III. CHARLES P\u00c9GUY . . . 228\n\n\n\n\n                                PREFACE\n\n\nThe essays collected in this volume have been written during the past\neight years. They deal with various aspects of the subject of mysticism:\nthe first half-dozen with its general theory and practice, and special\npoints arising within it; the rest with its application as seen in the\nlives and works of the mystics, from the pagan Plotinus to the Christian\ncontemplatives of our own day. Most of them have already appeared\nelsewhere, though all have been revised and several completely\nre-written for the purposes of this book. \u201cThe Essentials of Mysticism\u201d\nand \u201cThe Mystic as Creative Artist\u201d were first printed in _The Quest_;\n\u201cThe Mystic and the Corporate Life,\u201d \u201cMysticism and the Doctrine of\nAtonement,\u201d and \u201cThe Place of Will, Intellect, and Feeling in Prayer\u201d in\n_The Interpreter_; \u201cThe Education of the Spirit\u201d in _The Parents\u2019\nReview_; \u201cThe Mysticism of Plotinus\u201d in _The Quarterly Review_; \u201cThe\nMirror of Simple Souls\u201d and \u201cS\u0153ur Th\u00e9r\u00e8se de l\u2019Enfant-J\u00e9sus\u201d (under the\ntitle of \u201cA Modern Saint\u201d) in _The Fortnightly Review_; \u201cThe Blessed\nAngela of Foligno\u201d in _Franciscan Essays_; \u201cJulian of Norwich\u201d in _The\nSt. Martin\u2019s Review_; and \u201cCharles P\u00e9guy\u201d in _The Contemporary Review_.\nAll these are now republished by kind permission of the editors\nconcerned.\n\nE. U.\n\n_August 1920._\n\n\n\n\n                      THE ESSENTIALS OF MYSTICISM\n\n\nWhat are the true essentials of mysticism? When we have stripped off\nthose features which some mystics accept and some reject\u2014all that is\nmerely due to tradition, temperament or unconscious allegorism\u2014what do\nwe find as the necessary and abiding character of all true mystical\nexperience? This question is really worth asking. For some time much\nattention has been given to the historical side of mysticism, and\nsome\u2014much less\u2014to its practice. But there has been no clear\nunderstanding of the difference between its substance and its accidents:\nbetween traditional forms and methods, and the eternal experience which\nthey have mediated. In mystical literature words are frequently confused\nwith things, and symbols with realities; so that much of this literature\nseems to the reader to refer to some self-consistent and exclusive\ndream-world, and not to the achievement of universal truth. Thus the\nstrong need for re-statement which is being felt by institutional\nreligion, the necessity of re-translating its truths into symbolism\nwhich modern men can understand and accept, applies with at least equal\nforce to mysticism. It has become important to disentangle the facts\nfrom ancient formul\u00e6 used to express them. These formul\u00e6 have value,\nbecause they are genuine attempts to express truth; but they are not\nthemselves that truth, and failure to recognize this distinction has\ncaused a good deal of misunderstanding. Thus, on its philosophic and\ntheological side, the mysticism of western Europe is tightly entwined\nwith the patristic and medi\u00e6val presentation of Christianity; and this\npresentation, though full of noble poetry, is now difficult if not\nimpossible to adjust to our conceptions of the Universe. Again, on its\npersonal side mysticism is a department of psychology. Now psychology is\nchanging under our eyes; already we see our mental life in a new\nperspective, tend to describe it under new forms. Our ways of describing\nand interpreting spiritual experience must change with the rest, if we\nare to keep in touch with reality; though the experience itself be\nunchanged.\n\nSo we are forced to ask ourselves, what is the essential element in\nspiritual experience? Which of the many states and revelations described\nby the mystics are integral parts of it; and what do these states and\ndegrees come to, when we describe them in the current phraseology and\nstrip off the monastic robes in which they are usually dressed? What\nelements are due to the suggestions of tradition, to conscious or\nunconscious symbolism, to the misinterpretation of emotion, to the\ninvasion of cravings from the lower centres, or the disguised fulfilment\nof an unconscious wish? And when all these channels of illusion have\nbeen blocked, what is left? This will be a difficult and often a painful\nenquiry. But it is an enquiry which ought to be faced by all who believe\nin the validity of man\u2019s spiritual experience; in order that their faith\nmay be established on a firm basis, and disentangled from those unreal\nand impermanent elements which are certainly destined to destruction,\nand with which it is at present too often confused. I am sure that at\nthe present moment we serve best the highest interests of the soul by\nsubjecting the whole mass of material which is called \u201cmysticism\u201d to an\ninexorable criticism. Only by inflicting the faithful wounds of a friend\ncan we save the science of the inner life from mutilation at the hands\nof the psychologists.\n\nWe will begin, then, with the central fact of the mystic\u2019s experience.\nThis central fact, it seems to me, is an overwhelming consciousness of\nGod and of his own soul: a consciousness which absorbs or eclipses all\nother centres of interest. It is said that St. Francis of Assisi,\npraying in the house of Bernard of Quintavalle, was heard to say again\nand again: \u201cMy God! my God! what art Thou? and what am I?\u201d Though the\nwords come from St. Augustine, they well represent his mental attitude.\nThis was the only question which he thought worth asking; and it is the\nquestion which every mystic asks at the beginning and sometimes answers\nat the end of his quest. Hence we must put first among our essentials\nthe clear conviction of a living God as the primary interest of\nconsciousness, and of a personal self capable of communion with Him.\nHaving said this, however, we may allow that the widest latitude is\npossible in the mystic\u2019s conception of his Deity. At best this\nconception will be symbolic; his experience, if genuine, will far\ntranscend the symbols he employs. \u201cGod,\u201d says the author of _The Cloud\nof Unknowing_, \u201cmay well be loved but not thought.\u201d Credal forms,\ntherefore, can only be for the mystic a scaffold by which he ascends. We\nare even bound, I think, to confess that the overt recognition of that\nwhich orthodox Christians generally mean by a personal God is not\nessential. On the contrary, where it takes a crudely anthropomorphic\nform, the idea of personality may be a disadvantage; opening the way for\nthe intrusion of disguised emotions and desires. In the highest\nexperiences of the greatest mystics the personal category appears to be\ntranscended. \u201cThe light in the soul which is increate,\u201d says Eckhart,\n\u201cis not satisfied with the three Persons, in so far as each subsists in\nits difference ... but it is determined to know whence this Being comes,\nto penetrate into the Simple Ground, into the Silent Desert within which\nnever any difference has lain.\u201d The all-inclusive One is beyond all\npartial apprehensions, though the true values which those apprehensions\nrepresent are conserved in it. However pantheistic the mystic may be on\nthe one hand, however absolutist on the other, his communion with God is\nalways personal in this sense: that it is communion with a living\nReality, an object of love, capable of response, which demands and\nreceives from him a total self-donation. This sense of a double\nmovement, a self-giving on the divine side answering to the self-giving\non the human side, is found in all great mysticism. It has, of course,\nlent itself to emotional exaggeration, but in its pure form seems an\nintegral part of man\u2019s apprehension of Reality. Even where it conflicts\nwith the mystic\u2019s philosophy\u2014as in Hinduism and Neoplatonism\u2014it is still\npresent. It is curious to note, for instance, how Plotinus, after\nsafeguarding his Absolute One from every qualification, excluding it\nfrom all categories, defining it only by the icy method of negation,\nsuddenly breaks away into the language of ardent feeling when he comes\nto describe that ecstasy in which he touched the truth. Then he speaks\nof \u201cthe veritable love, the sharp desire\u201d which possessed him, appealing\nto the experience of those fellow mystics who have \u201ccaught fire, and\nfound the splendour there.\u201d These, he says, have \u201cfelt burning within\nthemselves the flame of love for what is there to know\u2014the passion of\nthe lover resting on the bosom of his love.\u201d\n\nSo we may say that the particular mental image which the mystic forms of\nhis objective, the traditional theology he accepts, is not essential.\nSince it is never adequate, the degree of its inadequacy is of secondary\nimportance. Though some creeds have proved more helpful to the mystic\nthan others, he is found fully developed in every great religion. We\ncannot honestly say that there is any wide difference between the\nBrahman, S\u016bfi, or Christian mystic at their best. They are far more like\neach other than they are like the average believer in their several\ncreeds. What is essential is the way the mystic feels about his Deity,\nand about his own relation with it; for this adoring and all-possessing\nconsciousness of the rich and complete divine life over against the\nself\u2019s life, and of the possible achievement of a level of being, a\nsublimation of the self, wherein we are perfectly united with it, may\nfairly be written down as a necessary element of all mystical life. This\nis the common factor which unites those apparently incompatible views of\nthe Universe which have been claimed at one time or another as mystical.\nTheir mystical quality abides wholly in the temper of the self who\nadopts them. He may be a transcendentalist; but if so, it is because his\nintuition of the divine is so lofty that it cannot be expressed by means\nof any intellectual concept, and he is bound to say with Ruysbroeck, \u201cHe\nis neither This nor That.\u201d He may be a unanimist; but if he is, it is\nbecause he finds in other men\u2014more, in the whole web of life\u2014that\nmysterious living essence which is a mode of God\u2019s existence, and which\nhe loves, seeks and recognizes everywhere. \u201cHow shall I find words for\nthe beauty of my Beloved? For He is merged in all beauty,\u201d says Kabir,\n\u201cHis colour is in all the pictures of the world, and it bewitches the\nbody and the mind.\u201d He may be\u2014often is\u2014a sacramentalist; but if so, only\nbecause the symbol or the sacrament help him to touch God. So St.\nThomas:\n\n                     \u201cAdoro te devote, latens Deitas,\n                     Qu\u00e6 sub his figuris vere latitas.\u201d\n\nThe moment the mystic suspects that any of these things are obstacles\ninstead of means, he rejects them; to the scandal of those who\nhabitually confuse the image with the reality.\n\nThus we get the temperamental symbolist, quietist, nature-mystic, or\ntranscendentalist. We get Plotinus rapt to the \u201cbare pure One\u201d; St.\nAugustine\u2019s impassioned communion with Perfect Beauty; Eckhart declaring\nhis achievement of the \u201cwilderness of God\u201d; Jacopone da Todi prostrate\nin adoration before the \u201cLove that gives all things form\u201d; Ruysbroeck\ndescribing his achievement of \u201cthat wayless abyss of fathomless\nbeatitude where the Trinity of divine persons possess their nature in\nthe essential Unity;\u201d Jacob Boehme gazing into the fire-world and there\nfinding the living heart of the Universe; Kabir listening to the\nrhythmic music of Reality, and seeing the worlds told like beads within\nthe Being of God. And at the opposite pole we find Mechthild of\nMadgeburg\u2019s amorous conversations with her \u201cheavenly Bridegroom,\u201d the\nmany mystical experiences connected with the Eucharist, the S\u016bfi\u2019s\nenraptured description of God as the \u201cMatchless Chalice and the\nSovereign Wine,\u201d the narrow intensity and emotional raptures of\ncontemplatives of the type of Richard Rolle. We cannot refuse the title\nof mystic to any of these; because in every case their aim is union\nbetween God and the soul. This is the one essential of mysticism, and\nthere are as many ways from one term to the other as there are\nvariations in the spirit of man. But, on the other hand, when anybody\nspeaking of mysticism proposes an object that is less than God\u2014increase\nof knowledge, of health, of happiness, occultism, intercourse with\nspirits, supernormal experience in general\u2014then we may begin to suspect\nthat we are off the track.\n\nNow we come to the next group of essentials: the necessary acts and\ndispositions of the mystic himself, the development which takes place in\nhim\u2014the psychological facts, that is to say, which are represented by\nthe so-called \u201cmystic way.\u201d The mystic way is best understood as a\nprocess of sublimation, which carries the correspondences of the self\nwith the Universe up to higher levels than those on which our normal\nconsciousness works. Just as the normal consciousness stands over\nagainst the unconscious, which, with its buried impulses and its\nprimitive and infantile cravings, represents a cruder reaction of the\norganism to the external world; so does the developed mystical life\nstand over against normal consciousness, with its preoccupations and its\nweb of illusions encouraging the animal will-to-dominate and animal\nwill-to-live. Normal consciousness sorts out some elements from the mass\nof experiences beating at our doors and constructs from them a certain\norder; but this order lacks any deep meaning or true cohesion, because\nnormal consciousness is incapable of apprehending the underlying reality\nfrom which these scattered experiences proceed. The claim of the\nmystical consciousness is to a closer reading of truth; to an\napprehension of the divine unifying principle behind appearance. \u201cThe\nOne,\u201d says Plotinus, \u201cis present everywhere and absent only from those\nunable to perceive it\u201d; and when we _do_ perceive it we \u201chave another\nlife ... attaining the aim of our existence, and our rest.\u201d To know this\nat first hand\u2014not to guess, believe or accept, but to be certain\u2014is the\nhighest achievement of human consciousness, and the ultimate object of\nmysticism. How is it done?\n\nThere are two ways of attacking this problem which may conceivably help\nus. The first consists in a comparison of the declarations of different\nmystics, and a sorting out of those elements which they have in common:\na careful watch being kept, of course, for the results of conscious or\nunconscious imitation, of tradition and of theological preconceptions.\nIn this way we get some first-hand evidence of factors which are at any\nrate usually present, and may possibly be essential. The second line of\nenquiry consists in a re-translation into psychological terms of these\nmystical declarations; when many will reveal the relation in which they\nstand to the psychic life of man.\n\nReviewing the first-hand declarations of the mystics, we inevitably\nnotice one prominent feature: the frequency with which they break up\ntheir experience into three phases. Sometimes they regard these\nobjectively, and speak of three worlds or three aspects of God of which\nthey become successively aware. Sometimes they regard them subjectively,\nand speak of three stages of growth through which they pass, such as\nthose of Beginner, Proficient, and Perfect; or of phases of spiritual\nprogress in which we first meditate upon reality, then contemplate\nreality, and at last are united with reality. But among the most widely\nseparated mystics of the East and West this threefold experience can\nnearly always be traced. There are, of course, obvious dangers in\nattaching absolute value to number-schemes of this kind. Numbers have an\nuncanny power over the human mind; once let a symbolic character be\nattributed to them, and the temptation to make them fit the facts at all\ncosts becomes overwhelming. We all know that the number \u201cthree\u201d has a\nlong religious history, and are therefore inclined to look with\nsuspicion on its claim to interpret the mystic life. At the same time\nthere are other significant numbers\u2014such as \u201cseven\u201d and \u201cten\u201d\u2014which have\nnever gained equal currency as the bases of mystical formul\u00e6. We may\nagree that the medi\u00e6val mystics found the threefold division of\nspiritual experience in Neoplatonism; but we must also agree that a\nformula of this kind is not likely to survive for nearly 2000 years\nunless it agrees with the facts. Those who use it with the greatest\nconviction are not theorists. They are the practical mystics, who are\nintent on making maps of the regions into which they have penetrated.\n\nMoreover, this is no mere question of handing on one single tradition.\nThe mystics describe their movement from appearance to reality in many\ndifferent ways, and use many incompatible religious symbols. The one\nconstant factor is the discrimination of three phases of consciousness,\nno more, no less, in which we can recognize certain common\ncharacteristics. \u201cThere are,\u201d says Philo, \u201cthree kinds of life: life as\nit concerns God, life as it concerns the creature, and a third\nintermediate life, a mixture of the former two.\u201d Consistently with this,\nPlotinus speaks of three descending phases or principles of Divine\nReality: the Godhead, or absolute and unconditioned One; its\nmanifestation as _Nous_, the Divine Mind or Spirit which inspires the\n\u201cintelligible\u201d and eternal world; and _Psyche_, the Life or Soul of the\nphysical Universe. Man, normally in correspondence with this physical\nworld of succession and change, may by spiritual intuition achieve first\nconsciousness of the eternal world of spiritual values, in which indeed\nthe apex of his soul already dwells; and in brief moments of ecstatic\nvision may rise above this to communion with its source, the Absolute\nOne. There you have the mystic\u2019s vision of the Universe, and the\nmystic\u2019s way of purification, enlightenment and ecstasy, bringing new\nand deeper knowledge of reality as the self\u2019s interest, urged by its\nloving desire of the Ultimate, is shifted from sense to soul, from soul\nto spirit. There is here no harsh dualism, no turning from a bad\nmaterial world to a good spiritual world. We are invited to one gradual\nundivided process of sublimation, penetrating ever more deeply into the\nreality of the Universe, to find at last \u201cthat One who is present\neverywhere and absent only from those who do not perceive Him.\u201d What we\nbehold, that we are: citizens, according to our own will and desire, of\nthe surface world of the senses, the deeper world of life, or the\nultimate world of Spiritual reality.\n\nAn almost identical doctrine appears in the Upanishads. At the heart of\nreality is Brahma, \u201cother than the known, and above the unknown.\u201d His\nmanifestation is Ananda, that spiritual world which is the true object\nof \u00e6sthetic passion and religious contemplation. From its life and\nconsciousness are born, in it they have their being, to it they must\nreturn. Finally, there is the world-process as we know it, which\nrepresents Ananda taking form. So too the mystic Kabir, who represents\nan opposition to the Vedantic philosophy, says: \u201cFrom beyond the\nInfinite the Infinite comes, and from the Infinite the finite extends.\u201d\nAnd again: \u201cSome contemplate the formless and others meditate on form,\nbut the wise man knows that Brahma is beyond both.\u201d Here we have the\nfinite world of becoming, the infinite world of being, and Brahma, the\nUnconditioned Absolute, exceeding and including all. Yet, as Kabir\ndistinctly declares again and again, there are no fences between these\naspects of the Universe. When we come to the root of reality we find\nthat \u201cConditioned and Unconditioned are but one word\u201d; the difference is\nin our own degree of awareness.\n\nCompare with this three of the great medi\u00e6val Catholic mystics: that\nacute psychologist Richard of St. Victor, the ardent poet and\ncontemplative Jacopone da Todi, and the profound Ruysbroeck. Richard of\nSt. Victor says that there are three phases in the contemplative\nconsciousness. The first is called dilation of mind, enlarging and\ndeepening our vision of the world. The next is elevation of mind, in\nwhich we behold the realities which are above ourselves. The third is\necstasy, in which the mind is carried up to contact with truth in its\npure simplicity. This is really the universe of Plotinus translated into\nsubjective terms. So, too, Jacopone da Todi says in the symbolism of his\nday that three heavens are open to man. He must climb from one to the\nother; it is hard work, but love and longing press him on. First, when\nthe mind has achieved self-conquest, the \u201cstarry heaven\u201d of multiplicity\nis revealed to it. Its darkness is lit by scattered lights; points of\nreality pierce the sky. Next, it achieves the \u201ccrystalline heaven\u201d of\nlucid contemplation, where the soul is conformed to the rhythm of the\ndivine life, and by its loving intuition apprehends God under veils.\nLastly, in ecstasy it may be lifted to that ineffable state which he\ncalls the \u201chidden heaven,\u201d where it enjoys a vision of imageless reality\nand \u201centers into possession of all that is God.\u201d Ruysbroeck says that he\nhas experienced three orders of reality: the natural world, theatre of\nour moral struggle; the essential world, where God and Eternity are\nindeed known, but by intermediaries; and the super-essential world,\nwhere without intermediary, and beyond all separation, \u201cabove reason and\nwithout reason,\u201d the soul is united to \u201cthe glorious and absolute One.\u201d\n\nTake, again, a totally different mystic, Jacob Boehme. He says that he\nsaw in the Divine Essence three principles or aspects. The first he\ncalls \u201cthe deepest Deity, without and beyond Nature,\u201d and the next its\nmanifestation in the Eternal Light-world. The third is that outer world\nin which we dwell according to the body, which is a manifestation, image\nor similitude of the Eternal. \u201cAnd we are thus,\u201d he says, \u201cto understand\nreality as a threefold being, or three worlds _in one another_.\u201d We\nobserve again the absence of water-tight compartments. The whole of\nreality is present in every part of it; and the power of correspondence\nwith all these aspects of it is latent in man. \u201cIf one sees a right\nman,\u201d says Boehme again, \u201che may say, I see here three worlds standing.\u201d\n\nWe have now to distinguish the essential element in all this. How does\nit correspond with psychological facts? Some mystics, like Richard of\nSt. Victor, have frankly exhibited its subjective side and so helped us\nto translate the statements of their fellows. Thus Dionysius the\nAreopagite says in a celebrated passage: \u201cThreefold is the way to God.\nThe first is the way of purification, in which the mind is inclined to\nlearn true wisdom. The second is the way of illumination, in which the\nmind by contemplation is kindled to the burning of love. The third is\nthe way of union, in which the mind by understanding, reason and spirit\nis led up by God alone.\u201d This formula restates the Plotinian law; for\nthe \u201ccontemplation\u201d of Dionysius is the \u201cspiritual intuition\u201d of\nPlotinus, which inducts man into the intelligible world; his \u201cunion\u201d is\nthe Plotinian ecstatic vision of the One. It profoundly impressed the\nlater Christian mystics, and has long been accepted as the classic\ndescription of spiritual growth, because it has been found again and\nagain to answer to experience. It is therefore worth our while to\nexamine it with some care.\n\nFirst we notice how gentle, gradual and natural is the process of\nsublimation that Dionysius demands of us. According to him, the mystic\nlife is a life centred on reality: the life that first seeks reality\nwithout flinching, then loves and adores the reality perceived, and at\nlast, wholly surrendered to it, is \u201cled by God alone.\u201d First, the self\nis \u201cinclined to learn _true_ wisdom.\u201d It awakes to new needs, is cured\nof its belief in sham values, and distinguishes between real and unreal\nobjects of desire. That craving for more life and more love which lies\nat the very heart of our selfhood, here slips from the charmed circle of\nthe senses into a wider air. When this happens abruptly it is called\n\u201cconversion\u201d; and may then have the character of a psychic convulsion\nand be accompanied by various secondary psychological phenomena. But\noften it comes without observation. Here the essentials are a desire and\na disillusionment sufficiently strong to overcome our natural sloth, our\nprimitive horror of change. \u201cThe first beginning of all things is a\ncraving,\u201d says Boehme; \u201cwe are creatures of will and desire.\u201d The divine\ndiscontent, the hunger for reality, the unwillingness to be satisfied\nwith the purely animal or the purely social level of consciousness, is\nthe first essential stage in the development of the mystical\nconsciousness.\n\nSo the self is either suddenly or gradually inclined to \u201ctrue wisdom\u201d;\nand this change of angle affects the whole character, not only or indeed\nspecially the intellectual outlook, but the ethical outlook too. This is\nthe meaning of \u201cpurgation.\u201d False ways of feeling and thinking,\nestablished complexes which have acquired for us an almost sacred\ncharacter, and governed though we knew it not all our reactions to\nlife\u2014these must be broken up. That mental and moral sloth which keeps us\nso comfortably wrapped in unrealities must go. This phase in the\nmystic\u2019s growth has been specially emphasized and worked out by the\nChristian mystics, who have made considerable additions to the\nphilosophy and natural history of the soul. The Christian sense of sin\nand conception of charity, the Christian notion of humility as a finding\nof our true level, an exchanging of the unreal standards of egoism for\nthe disconcerting realities of life seen from the angle of Eternity; the\nsteadfast refusal to tolerate any claim to spirituality which is not\nsolidly based on moral values, or which is divorced from the spirit of\ntenderness and love\u2014all this has immensely enriched the mysticism of the\nWest, and filled up some of the gaps left by Neoplatonism. It is\ncharacteristic of Christianity that, addressing itself to all men\u2014not,\nas Neoplatonism tended to do, to the superior person\u2014and offering to all\nmen participation in Eternal Life, it takes human nature as it is; and\nworks from the bottom up, instead of beginning at a level which only a\nfew of the race attain. Christianity perceived how deeply normal men are\nenslaved by the unconscious; how great a moral struggle is needed for\ntheir emancipation. Hence it concentrated on the first stage of\npurgation, and gave it new meaning and depth. The monastic rule of\npoverty, chastity and obedience\u2014and we must remember that the original\naim of monasticism was to provide a setting in which the mystical life\ncould be lived\u2014aims at the removal of those self-centred desires and\nattachments which chain consciousness to a personal instead of a\nuniversal life. He who no longer craves for personal possessions,\npleasures or powers, is very near to perfect liberty. His attention is\nfreed from its usual concentration on the self\u2019s immediate interests,\nand at once he sees the Universe in a new, more valid, because\ndisinterested light.\n\n                         \u201cPovertate \u00e8 nulla avere\n                         e nulla cosa poi volere\n                         ed omne cosa possedere\n                         en spirito de libertade.\u201d\n\nYet this positive moral purity which Christians declared necessary to\nthe spiritual life was not centred on a lofty aloofness from human\nfailings, but on a self-giving and disinterested love, the complete\nabolition of egoism. This alone, it declared, could get rid of that\ninward disharmony\u2014one aspect of the universal conflict between the\ninstinctive and the rational life\u2014which Boehme called the \u201cpowerful\ncontrarium\u201d warring with the soul.\n\nNow this \u201cperfect charity in life surrendered,\u201d however attained, is an\nessential character of the true mystic; without it, contemplation is an\nimpossibility or a sham. But when we come to the means by which it is to\nbe attained, we re-enter the region of controversy; for here we are at\nonce confronted by the problem of asceticism, and its connection with\nmysticism\u2014perhaps the largest and most difficult of the questions now\nfacing those who are concerned with the re-statement of the laws of the\nspiritual life. Originally regarded as a gymnastic of the soul, an\neducation in those manly virtues of self-denial and endurance without\nwhich the spiritual life is merely an exquisite form of hedonism,\nasceticism was identified by Christian thought with the idea of\nmortification; the killing out of all those impulses which deflect the\nsoul from the straight path to God. For the true mystic, it is never\nmore than a means to an end; and is often thrown aside when that end is\nattained. Its necessity is therefore a purely practical question.\nFasting and watching may help one to dominate unruly instincts, and so\nattain a sharper and purer concentration on God; but make another so\nhungry and sleepy that he can think of nothing else. Thus Jacopone da\nTodi said of his own early austerities that they resulted chiefly in\nindigestion, insomnia and colds in the head; whilst John Wesley found in\nfasting a positive spiritual good. Some ascetic practices again are\nalmost certainly disguised indulgences of those very cravings which they\nare supposed to kill, but in fact merely repress. Others\u2014such as hair\nshirts, chains, and so forth\u2014depended for their meaning on a medi\u00e6val\nview of the body and of the virtues of physical pain which is\npractically extinct, and now seems to most of us utterly artificial. No\none will deny that austerity is better than luxury for the spiritual\nlife; but perfect detachment of the will and senses can be achieved\nwithout resort to merely physical expedients by those living normally in\nthe world, and this is the essential thing.\n\nThe true asceticism is a gymnastic not of the body, but of the mind. It\ninvolves training in the art of recollection; the concentration of\nthought, will, and love upon the eternal realities which we commonly\nignore. The embryo contemplative, if his spiritual vision is indeed to\nbe enlarged, and his mind kindled, as Dionysius says, to \u201cthe burning of\nlove,\u201d must acquire and keep a special state of inward poise, an\nattitude of attention, which is best described as \u201cthe state of prayer\u201d;\nthat same condition which George Fox called \u201ckeeping in the Universal\nSpirit.\u201d If we do not attend to reality, we are not likely to perceive\nit. The readjustments which shall make this attention natural and\nhabitual are a phase in man\u2019s inward conflict for the redemption of\nconsciousness from its lower and partial attachments. This conflict is\nno dream. It means hard work; mental and moral discipline of the\nsternest kind. The downward drag is incessant, and can be combated only\nby those who are clearly aware of it, and are willing to sacrifice lower\ninterests and joys to the demands of the spiritual life. In this sense\nmortification is an integral part of the \u201cpurgative way.\u201d Unless the\nself\u2019s \u201cinclination to true wisdom\u201d is strong enough to inspire these\ncosting and heroic efforts, its spiritual cravings do not deserve the\nname of mysticism.\n\nThese, then, seem essential factors in the readjustment which the\nmystics call purgation. We go on to their next stage, the so-called \u201cway\nof illumination.\u201d Here, says Dionysius, the mind is kindled by\ncontemplation to the burning of love. There is a mental and an emotional\nenhancement, whereby the self apprehends the reality it has sought;\nwhether under the veils of religion, philosophy, or nature-mysticism.\nMany mystics have made clear statements about this phase in human\ntranscendence. Thus the Upanishads invite us to \u201cknow everything in the\nUniverse as enveloped in God.\u201d \u201cWhen the purified seeker,\u201d says Plato,\n\u201ccomes to the end, he will suddenly perceive a nature of wondrous\nbeauty.... Beauty absolute, separate, simple and everlasting.\u201d His\nfollower Plotinus says that by spiritual intuition man, \u201cwrought into\nharmony with the Supreme,\u201d enters into communion with _Nous_, the\n\u201cintelligible world\u201d of eternal realities\u2014that splendour yonder which is\nhis home: and further that this light, shining upon the soul, enlightens\nit, makes it a member of the spiritual order, and so \u201ctransforms the\nfurnace of this world into a garden of flowers.\u201d Ruysbroeck declares\nthat this eternal world \u201cis not God, but it is the light in which we see\nHim.\u201d Jacopone da Todi says that the self, achieving the crystalline\nheaven, \u201cfeels itself to be a part of all things,\u201d because it has\nannihilated its separate will and is conformed to the movement of the\nDivine Life. Kabir says: \u201cThe middle region of the sky, wherein the\nSpirit dwelleth, is radiant with the music of light.\u201d Boehme calls it\nthe \u201clight-world proceeding from the fire-world\u201d; and says it is the\norigin of that outward world in which we dwell. \u201cThis light,\u201d he says,\n\u201cshines through and through all, but is only apprehended by that which\nunites itself thereto.\u201d It seems to me fairly clear that these, and many\nother descriptions I cannot now quote, refer to an identical state of\nconsciousness, which might be called an experience of Eternity, but not\nof the Eternal One. I say \u201can experience,\u201d not merely a mental\nperception. Contemplation, which is the traditional name for that\nconcentrated attention in which this phase of reality is revealed, is an\nactivity of all our powers: the heart, the will, the mind. Dionysius\nemphasizes the ardent love which this revelation of reality calls forth,\nand which is indeed a condition of our apprehension of it; for the cold\ngaze of the metaphysician cannot attain it, unless he be a lover and a\nmystic too. \u201cBy love He may be gotten and holden, by thought never,\u201d\nsays the author of _The Cloud of Unknowing_. It is only through the mood\nof humble and loving receptivity in which the artist perceives beauty,\nthat the human spirit can apprehend a reality which is greater than\nitself. The many declarations about noughting, poverty and \u201choly\nnothingness\u201d refer to this. The meek and poor of spirit really are the\ninheritors of Eternity.\n\nSo we may place the attitude of selfless adoration, the single-hearted\npassion of the soul, among the essentials of the mystic in the\nilluminated way. A very wide range of mystical experiences must be\nattributed to this second stage in man\u2019s spiritual growth. Some at least\nof its secrets are known to all who are capable of \u00e6sthetic passion;\nwho, in the presence of beauty, know themselves to stand upon the fringe\nof another plane of being, where the elements of common life are given\nnew colour and value, and its apparent disharmonies are resolved. So,\ntoo, that deep sense of a divine companionship which many ardent souls\nachieve in prayer is a true if transitory experience of illumination. We\nshall probably be right in assuming that the enormous majority of\nmystics never get beyond this level of consciousness. Certainly a large\nnumber of religious writers on mysticism attribute to its higher and\nmore personal manifestations the names of \u201cdivine union\u201d and \u201cunitive\nlife\u201d; thereby adding to the difficulty of classifying spiritual states,\nand showing themselves unaware of the great distinction which such\nfull-grown mystics as Plotinus, Jacopone da Todi or Ruysbroeck describe\nas existing between this \u201cmiddle heaven\u201d and the ecstatic vision of the\nOne which alone really satisfies their thirst for truth. Thus Jacopone\nat first uses the strongest unitive language to describe that rapturous\nand emotional intercourse with Divine Love which characterized his\nmiddle period; but when he at last achieves the vision of the Absolute,\nhe confesses that he was in error in supposing that it was indeed the\nTruth Whom he thus saw and worshipped under veils.\n\n                          \u201cOr, parme, fo fallanza,\n                          non se\u2019 quel che credea,\n                          tenendo non avea\n                          vert\u00e1 senza errore.\u201d\n\nThus Ruysbroeck attributes to the contemplative life, \u201cthe inward and\nupward-going ways by which one may pass into the Presence of God,\u201d but\ndistinguishes these from that super-essential life wherein \u201cwe are\nswallowed up, beyond reason and above reason, in the deep quiet of the\nGodhead which is never moved.\u201d\n\nAll the personal raptures of devotional mysticism, all the\nnature-mystic\u2019s joyous consciousness of God in creation, Blake\u2019s \u201cworld\nof imagination and vision,\u201d the \u201ccoloured land\u201d of \u00c6., the S\u016bfi\u2019s\n\u201ctavern on the way,\u201d where he is refreshed by a draught of supersensual\nwine, belong to the way of illumination. For the Christian mystic the\nworld into which it inducts him is, pre-eminently, the sphere of the\ndivine Logos-Christ, fount of creation and source of all beauty; the\nhidden Steersman who guides and upholds the phenomenal world:\n\n                 \u201cSplendor che dona a tutto \u2019l mondo luce,\n                 amor, Ies\u00fa, de li angeli belleza,\n                 cielo e terra per te si conduce\n                 e splende in tutte cose tua fattezza.\u201d\n\nHere the reality behind appearance is still mediated to the mystic under\nsymbols and forms. The variation of these symbols is great; his adoring\ngaze now finds new life and significance in the appearances of nature,\nthe creations of music and of art, the imagery of religion and\nphilosophy, and reality speaks to him through his own credal\nconceptions. But absolute value cannot be attributed to any of these,\neven the most sacred: they change, yet the experience remains. Thus an\nidentical consciousness of close communion with God is obtained by the\nnon-sacramental Quaker in his silence and by the sacramental Catholic in\nthe Eucharist. The Christian contemplative\u2019s sense of personal\nintercourse with the divine as manifest in the incarnate Christ is hard\nto distinguish from that of the Hindu Vaishnavite, when we have allowed\nfor the different constituents of his apperceiving mass:\n\n             \u201cDark, dark the far Unknown and closed the way\n             To thought and speech; silent the Scriptures; yea,\n             No word the Vedas say.\n\n             \u201cNot thus the Manifest. How fair! how near!\n             Gone is our thirst if only He appear\u2014\n             He, to the heart so dear.\u201d\n\nSo, too, the S\u016bfi mystic who has learned to say: \u201cI never saw anything\nwithout seeing God therein;\u201d Kabir exclaiming: \u201cI have stilled my\nrestless mind, and my heart is radiant; for in Thatness I have seen\nbeyond Thatness, in company I have seen the Comrade Himself;\u201d the\nNeoplatonist rapt in contemplation of the intelligible world \u201cyonder\u201d;\nBrother Lawrence doing his cooking in the presence of God, reveal under\nanalysis an identical type of consciousness. This consciousness is the\nessential; the symbols under which the self apprehends it are not.\n\nAmong these symbols we must reckon a large number of the secondary\nphenomena of mysticism: divine visions and voices, and other\ndramatizations of the self\u2019s apprehensions and desires. The best mystics\nhave always recognized the doubtful nature of these so-called divine\nrevelations and favours, and have tried again and again to set up tests\nfor discerning those which really \u201ccome from God\u201d\u2014_i. e._ mediate a\nvalid spiritual experience. Personally, I think very few of these\nphenomena are mystical in the true sense. Just as our normal\nconsciousness is more or less at the mercy of invasions from the\nunconscious region, of impulses which we fail to trace to their true\norigin; so too the mystical consciousness is perpetually open to\ninvasion from the lower centres. These invasions are not always\nunderstood by the mystic. Obvious examples are the erotic raptures of\nthe S\u016bfi poets, and the emotional, even amorous relations in which many\nChristian ascetics believe themselves to stand to Christ or Our Lady.\nThe Holy Ghost saying to Angela of Foligno, \u201cI love you better than any\nother woman in the vale of Spoleto\u201d; the human raptures of Mechthild of\nMagdeburg with her Bridegroom; St. Bernard\u2019s attitude to the Virgin; the\npassionate love-songs of Jacopone da Todi; the mystical marriage of St.\nCatherine of Siena; St. Teresa\u2019s \u201cwound of love\u201d; these, and many\nsimilar episodes, demand no supernatural explanation, and add nothing to\nour knowledge of the work of the Spirit in man\u2019s soul. So, too, the\ninfantile craving for a sheltering and protective love finds expression\nover and over again in mystical literature, and satisfaction in the\nstates of consciousness which it has induced. The innate longing of the\nself for more life, more love, an ever greater and fuller experience,\nattains a complete realization in the lofty mystical state called union\nwith God. But failing this full achievement, the self is capable of\noffering itself many disguised satisfactions; and among these disguised\nsatisfactions we must reckon at least the majority of \u201cdivine favours\u201d\nenjoyed by contemplatives of an emotional type. Whatever the essence of\nmysticism may turn out to be, it is well to recognize these lapses to\nlower levels as among the least fortunate of its accidents.\n\nWe come to the third stage, the true goal of mystic experience; the\nintuitive contact with that ultimate reality which theologians mean by\nthe Godhead and philosophers by the Absolute, a contact in which, as\nRichard of St. Victor says \u201cthe soul gazes upon Truth without any veils\nof creatures\u2014not in a mirror darkly, but in its pure simplicity.\u201d The\nclaim to this is the loftiest claim which can be made by human\nconsciousness. There is little we can say of it, because there is little\nwe know; save that the vision or experience is always the vision or\nexperience of a Unity which reconciles all opposites, and fulfils all\nman\u2019s highest intuitions of reality. \u201cBe lost altogether in Brahma like\nan arrow that has completely penetrated its target,\u201d say the Upanishads.\nThis self-loss, says Dionysius the Areopagite, is the Divine Initiation:\nwherein we \u201cpass beyond the topmost altitudes of the holy ascent, and\nleave behind all divine illumination and voices and heavenly utterances;\nand plunge into the darkness where truly dwells, as Scripture saith,\nthat One Which is beyond all things.\u201d Some recent theologians have tried\nto separate the conceptions of God and of the Absolute: but mystics\nnever do this, though some of the most clear-sighted, such as Meister\nEckhart, have separated that unconditioned Godhead known in ecstasy from\nthe personal God who is the object of devotional religion, and who\nrepresents a humanization of reality. When the great mystic achieves the\n\u201cstill, glorious, and absolute Oneness\u201d which finally satisfies his\nthirst for truth\u2014the \u201cpoint where all lines meet and show their\nmeaning\u201d\u2014he generally confesses how symbolic was the object of his\nearlier devotion, how partial his supposed communion with the Divine.\nThus Jacopone da Todi\u2014exact and orthodox Catholic though he was\u2014when he\nreached \u201cthe hidden heaven,\u201d discovered and boldly declared the\napproximate character of all his previous conceptions of, and communion\nwith God; the great extent to which subjective elements had entered into\nhis experience. In the great ode which celebrates his ecstatic vision of\nTruth, when \u201cineffable love, imageless goodness, measureless light\u201d at\nlast shone in his heart, he says: \u201cI thought I knew Thee, tasted Thee,\nsaw Thee under image: believing I held Thee in Thy completeness I was\nfilled with delight and unmeasured love. But _now_ I see I was\nmistaken\u2014Thou art not as I thought and firmly held.\u201d So Tauler says that\ncompared with the warm colour and multiplicity of devotional experience,\nthe very Godhead is a \u201crich nought,\u201d a \u201cbare pure ground\u201d; and\nRuysbroeck that it is \u201can unwalled world,\u201d \u201cneither this nor that.\u201d\n\u201cThis fruition of God,\u201d he says again, \u201cis a still and glorious and\nessential Oneness beyond the differentiation of the Persons, where there\nis neither an outpouring nor an indrawing of God, but the Persons are\nstill and one in fruitful love, in calm and glorious unity.... There is\nGod our fruition and His own, in an eternal and fathomless bliss.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow, then, am I to love the Godhead?\u201d says Eckhart. \u201cThou shalt love\nHim as He is: not as a God, not as a Spirit, not as a Person, not as an\nimage, but as a sheer pure One. And in this One we are to sink from\nnothing to nothing, so help us God.\u201d \u201cThis consciousness of the One,\u201d\nsays Plotinus, \u201ccomes not by knowledge, but by an actual Presence\nsuperior to any knowing. To have it, the soul must rise above knowledge,\nabove all its wandering from its unity.\u201d He goes on to explain that all\npartial objects of love and contemplation, even Beauty and Goodness\nthemselves, are lower than this, springing from the One as light from\nthe sun. To see the disc, we must put on smoked glasses, shut off the\nrays, and submit to the \u201cradiant darkness\u201d which enters so frequently\ninto mystical descriptions of the Absolute.\n\nIt is an interesting question whether this consummation of the mystic\nway need involve that suppression of the surface-consciousness which is\ncalled ecstasy. The majority of mystics think that it must; and probably\nit is almost inevitable that so great a concentration and so lofty an\nintuition should for the time it lasts drive all other forms of\nawareness from the field. Even simple contemplation cannot be achieved\nwithout some deliberate stilling of the senses, a deliberate focusing of\nour vagrant attention, and abolishes self-consciousness while it lasts.\nThis is the way that our mental machinery works; but this should not\nmake us regard trance-states as any part of the essence of mysticism.\nThe ecstatic condition is no guarantee of mystic vision. It is\nfrequently pathological, and is often found along with other abnormal\nconditions in emotional visionaries whose revelations have no ultimate\ncharacteristics. It is, however, just as uncritical to assume that\necstasy is necessarily a pathological symptom, as it is to assume that\nit is necessarily a mystic state. We have a test which we can apply to\nthe ecstatic; and which separates the results of nervous disorder from\nthose of spiritual transcendence. \u201cWhat fruit dost thou bring back from\nthis thy vision?\u201d is the final question which Jacopone da Todi addresses\nto the mystic\u2019s soul. And the answer is: \u201cAn ordered life in every\nstate.\u201d The true mystic in his ecstasy has seen, however obscurely, the\nkey of the Universe: \u201cla forma universal di questo nodo.\u201d Hence he has a\nclue by which to live. Reality has become real to him; and there are no\nothers of whom we can fully say that. So, ordered correspondence with\neach level of existence, physical and spiritual, successive and\neternal\u2014a practical realization of the proportions of life\u2014is the\nguarantee of the genuine character of that sublimation of consciousness\nwhich is called the mystic way; and this distinguishes it from the\nfantasies of psychic illness or the disguised self-indulgences of the\ndream-world. The real mystic is not a selfish visionary. He grows in\nvigour as he draws nearer and nearer the sources of true life, and his\ngoal is only reached when he participates in the creative energies of\nthe Divine Nature. The perfect man, says the S\u016bfi, must not only die\ninto God in ecstasy (_fana_), but abide in and with Him (_baqa_),\nmanifesting His truth in the world of time. He is called to a life more\nactive, because more contemplative, than that of other men: to fulfil\nthe monastic ideal of a balanced career of work and prayer. \u201cThen only\nis our life a _whole_,\u201d says Ruysbroeck, \u201cwhen contemplation and work\ndwell in us side by side, and we are perfectly in both of them at once.\u201d\n\nPlotinus speaks in the same sense under another image in one of his most\ncelebrated passages: \u201cWe always move round the One, but we do not always\nfix our gaze upon It. We are like a choir of singers standing round the\nconductor, who do not always sing in time, because their attention is\ndiverted to some external object. When they look at the conductor, they\nsing well and are really with him. So we always move round the One. If\nwe did not, we should dissolve and cease to exist. But we do not always\nlook towards the One. When we do, we attain the end of our existence and\nour rest; and we no longer sing out of tune, but form in truth a divine\nchoir about the One.\u201d In this conception of man\u2019s privilege and duty we\nhave the indestructible essence of mysticism.\n\n\n\n\n                   THE MYSTIC AND THE CORPORATE LIFE\n\n\nOne of the commonest of the criticisms which are brought against the\nmystics is that they represent an unsocial type of religion; that their\nspiritual enthusiasms are personal and individual, and that they do not\nshare or value the corporate life and institutions of the church or\ncommunity to which they belong. Yet, as a matter of fact, the relation\nthat does and should exist between personal religion and the corporate\nlife of the church frequently appears in them in a peculiarly intense, a\npeculiarly interesting form; and in their lives, perhaps, more easily\nthan elsewhere, we may discern the principles which do or should govern\nthe relation of the individual to the community.\n\nIn the true mystic, who is so often and so wrongly called a \u201creligious\nindividualist,\u201d we see personal religion raised to its highest power. If\nwe accept his experience as genuine, it involves an intercourse with the\nspiritual world, an awareness of it, which transcends the normal\nexperience, and appears to be independent of the general religious\nconsciousness of the community to which he belongs. The mystic speaks\nwith God as a person with a Person, and not as a member of a group. He\nlives by an immediate knowledge far more than by belief; by a knowledge\nachieved in those hours of direct, unmediated intercourse with the\nTranscendent when, as he says, he was \u201cin union with God.\u201d The certitude\nthen gained\u2014a certitude which he cannot impart, and which is not\ngenerally diffused\u2014governs all his reactions to the Universe. It even\npersists and upholds him in those terrible hours of darkness when all\nhis sense of spiritual reality is taken away.\n\nSuch a personality as this seems at first sight to stand in little need\nof the support which the smaller nature, the more languid religious\nconsciousness, receives from the corporate spirit. By the very term\n\u201cmystic\u201d we indicate a certain aloofness from the crowd, suggest that he\nis in possession of a secret which the community as a whole does not and\ncannot share; that he lives at levels to which they cannot rise. I think\nthat much of the distrust with which he is often regarded comes from\nthis sense of his independence of the herd; his apparent separation from\nthe often clumsy and always symbolic methods of institutional religion,\nand the further fact that his own methods and results cannot be\ncriticized or checked by those who have not shared them. \u201cI spake as I\nsaw,\u201d said David; and those who did not see can only preserve a\nrespectful or an exasperated silence.\n\nYet this common opinion that the mystic is a lonely soul wholly absorbed\nin his vertical relation with God, that his form of religious life\nrepresents an opposition to, and an implicit criticism of, the corporate\nand institutional form of religious life; this is decisively\ncontradicted by history; which shows us, again and again, the great\nmystics as the loyal children of the great religious institutions, and\nforces us to admit that here as in other departments of human activity\nthe corporate and the individual life are intimately plaited together.\nEven those who have broken away from the churches that reared them, have\nquickly drawn to themselves disciples, and become the centres of new\ngroups. Surely, therefore, it is worth while to examine, if we can, the\nnature of the connection between these two factors: to ask, on the one\nhand, what it is that the corporate life and the group-consciousness\nwhich it develops give the mystic; on the other, what is the real value\nof the mystic to the corporate life of his church?\n\nAs to the first question: What is it that the corporate life does for\nthe great spiritual genius?\u2014for I think that we may allow the great\nmystic to be that. First, and most obviously, it gives him a favourable\nenvironment. He must have an environment: he must be affected by it.\nThat is a certainty in the case of any living thing; a certainty so\nobvious that it would hardly be worth stating were it not that those who\ntalk about the mystic craving for solitude\u2014his complete aloofness from\nhuman life\u2014seem often to ignore it. The idea of solitude in any complete\nsense is, of course, an illusion. We are bound, if we live at all, to\naccept the fact of a living world outside ourselves, to have social\nrelations with something; and it only remains to decide what these\nrelations shall be. The _yogi_ or the hermit who retreats to the forest\nin order to concentrate his mind more utterly upon the quest of God,\nonly exchanges the society of human beings for the society of other\nliving things. Did he eliminate all else, the parasites of his own body,\nthe bacterial populations of his alimentary system, would be there to\nremind him that man cannot live alone. He may shift his position in the\nweb of life, but its strands will enmesh him still. So, too, the monk or\nnun \u201cburied alive\u201d in the cloister is still living a family life; only\nit is a family life that is governed by special ideals.\n\nNow it is plainly better for the mystic, whose aim is the establishment\nof special relations with the spiritual order, that the social\nconsciousness in which he is immersed, and from which he is taking\ncolour all the time, should have a spiritual and religious tendency;\nthat the social acts in which he takes part should harmonize rather than\nconflict with his own deep intuition of reality. The difference in\ndegree between that deep intuition and the outward corporate acts\u2014the\ncult\u2014which he thus shares, may be enormous: for the cult is an\nexpression of the crowd consciousness, and manifests its spiritual\ncrudity, its innate conservatism, its primitive demands for safety and\npersonal rewards. The inadequacy or unreality of the forms, the low\nlevel of the adoration which they evoke, may distress and even disgust\nhim. Yet, even so, it is better for him that he should be within a\nchurch than outside it. Compared with this one fact\u2014that he is a member\nof a social group which recognizes spiritual values, and therefore lives\nin an environment permeated by religious concepts\u2014the accuracy in detail\nof the creed which that group professes, the adequacy of its liturgical\nacts, is unimportant.\n\nNext, the demands made and restrictions imposed by the community on the\nindividual are good for the mystic. Man is social right through; in\nspirit as well as in body and mind. His most sublime spiritual\nexperiences are themselves social in type. Intercourse of a person with\na Person, the merging of his narrow consciousness in a larger\nconsciousness, the achievement of a divine sonship, a spiritual\nmarriage: these are the highest things that he can say concerning his\nachievement of Divine Reality. And they all entail, not a narrow\nself-realization, but the breaking-down of barriers; the setting-up of\nwider relationships. It follows that self-mergence in the common life is\nan education for that self-mergence in the absolute life at which the\nmystic aims. Such self-mergence, and the training in humility,\nself-denial, obedience, suppleness, which is involved in it, is held by\nall ascetic teachers to be essential to the education of the human soul.\nUnion with, and to a certain extent submission to, the church, to the\nfamily\u2014to life, in fact\u2014an attitude of self-giving surrender: this is\nthe best of preparations for that total self-naughting of the soul which\nis involved in union with God; that utter doing-away of the I, the Me,\nand the Mine, till it becomes one will and one love with the divine will\nand love.\n\nOn these two counts alone\u2014harmonious environment and salutary\ndiscipline\u2014we shall expect, other things being equal, that the richest\nand most fruitful types of mystical experience will arise within\nreligious institutions rather than outside them; and as a matter of fact\nthis is what we do find. The Hindu ascetic has his recognized place in\nthe Hindu system. He has but reached the summit of a pyramid which is\nfirmly based on earth. The S\u016bfi is a good Moslem, and commonly the\nmember of a religious confraternity which imposes a strict rule of life.\nThe Christian mystic, too, grows up from the Christian society. His\nroots strike deep down into that favouring soil. Though his branches may\nshoot up to the heavens, and seem to draw thence all the light and heat\nby which he lives, yet he is really fed from below as well as from\nabove. When he refuses to acknowledge this principle, when he abjures\nthe discipline, the authority, the support of the corporate life, and\nregards himself as a separate individual, dependent on direct\ninspiration alone; how quickly he becomes unbalanced and eccentric, how\ndifficult it is for him to avoid the disease of spiritual megalomania.\nRefusing the support and discipline of organized religion, he becomes\nlike a poet who refuses to be controlled by the laws of prosody; which\nseem to limit, but really strengthen and beautify, his work.\n\nIt is true that right through the history of Christian mysticism there\nhas been a line of insurgent mystics who have made this refusal; whose\ndirect vision of spiritual perfection has brought with it so\noverwhelming a sense of the imperfection, formalism, unreality, the\ndreadfulness of religious institutions, that it has forced them into a\nposition of more or less acute revolt from the official church. So clear\nhas been their own consciousness of the spiritual world that the soul\u2019s\nlife and growth, its actual and individual rebirth, have shone out for\nthem as the only things that matter. Hence the dramatization of these\nthings in ceremonial religion, the effort to give spiritual values a\nconcrete form, has seemed to them like a blasphemous parody. Unable to\nharmonize the inward and the outward\u2014the all-penetrating reality of\nreligion as they understand it, with its crude outward expression in the\nexternal cult, where formal acts and intellectual assents so often seem\nto take the place of inward changes\u2014in the end they solve the problem by\nrepudiating the external and visible church. This rebel-type, victims of\nexaggerated individualism, which would make the special experiences of a\nfew the standard for the whole race, has persisted side by side with the\nlaw-abiding type; who have preserved, if not always a perfect balance\nbetween liberty and obedience, at any rate a more reasonable proportion\nbetween them. Often the corruption of the times in which he lived has\nseemed to the mystic to make such rebellion inevitable. This is\nparticularly true in the case of George Fox, whose ragings were directed\nfar less against organized religion than against unreal religion; and\nwho might, had he lived in fourteenth-century Germany, have found a\ncongenial career as one of the Friends of God. Yet, even so, the careers\nof these rebels have been on the whole unfruitful, compared with those\nwho remained within the institutional framework and effected their\nreforms from inside. They seldom quite escape the taint of arrogance.\nThere is apt to be a touch of self-consciousness in their sanctity. We\nhave only to compare the influence exerted by the outstanding figures of\nthe two groups, to realize which type of spiritual life has had the best\nand most enduring influence on the spiritual history of the race; which,\nin fact, best stands the pragmatic test.\n\nOn the rebel side we have, of course, the leaders of many dead heresies\nand sects. The Montanists of the second century, with their claim to\ndirect inspiration, their cult of ecstatic phenomena and prophetic\nspeech; the numerous mystical heretics and illuminati of the Middle\nAges, often preaching the most extravagant doctrines and always claiming\nfor them divine authority\u2014for instance, the Brethren of the Free Spirit,\nwho claimed the possession of the Holy Ghost as an excuse not only for\ntheological, but also for moral aberrations. Later, there are the\nQuietists, a particularly poisonous brand of unbalanced contemplatives;\nand, contemporary with their revolt against Catholic forms and\nauthorities, innumerable mystical revolts against Protestant forms and\nauthorities, the very names of whose originators are now almost\nforgotten. Amongst these two mighty figures stand up: Jacob Boehme and\nGeorge Fox. But we must remember as regards Boehme that, although he\ncertainly spoke with great violence against the error of confusing\nexternal acceptance of religion with internal adherence to God,\n\u201chistorical Christians\u201d with \u201cnew men,\u201d he never disowned the Lutheran\nChurch within which he was born. On the contrary, it was that church\nwhich persecuted and finally disowned him. As to that great and strange\ngenius, George Fox, who aimed at nothing less than a world religion of a\nmystical type, the free and conscious contact of every soul with the\nSpirit of God, I believe that any unbiassed student of his Journal must\nallow that, enormous as his achievement was, it might have been far\ngreater had his violent sense of vocation, his remarkable spiritual\ngifts, been disciplined and controlled by the corporate consciousness as\nexpressed in institutional religion. Then some of the energy which he\nexpended in denunciations of steeple-houses might have been employed in\nhealing the disharmony between the visible and invisible church; helping\nthat vision of the Eternal by which he was possessed to find concrete\nexpression within traditional forms. Here, as elsewhere, the Inner Light\nwould have burned with a better and a truer flame had it submitted to\nthe limitations of a lamp.\n\nI do not suggest that these people, even the most extravagant of them,\nwere not truly spiritual or truly mystical. The sort of criticism which\ndivides mystics into two groups\u2014the orthodox, who are inspired by God,\nand the heretical, who are inspired by Satan\u2014of course belongs to the\ndark ages of theology. On the contrary, these rebel-mystics most often\npossessed\u2014sometimes in a highly developed form\u2014the sharp direct\nconsciousness of the Divine Life which is the essential quality of the\nmystic. This was to them the central fact; by comparison with it they\njudged all other things. What they did _not_ possess was the balancing,\nequivalent consciousness of, and reverence for, corporate human life;\nthat group-personality which is the church, and its value and authority.\nThey lacked the sense that the whole organism, the whole herd, with all\nits imperfections, is yet interdependent, and has got to move together,\nurged from within by its more vivid spirits, not stung from without, as\nif by some enthusiastic spiritual mosquito. To a greater or lesser\nextent they failed in effect because they tried to be mystical in a\nnon-human instead of a human way; were \u201cother-worldly\u201d in the bad sense\nof the word. They have not always remembered that Christ Himself, the\nsupreme pattern of all mystics, lived a balanced life of clear personal\nvision, unmediated intercourse with God on the one hand, and gentle and\npatient submission to the corporate consciousness on the other hand.\nThough severely critical of the unrealities and hypocrisy of current\ninstitutionalism, he yet sought to form the group, the \u201clittle flock,\u201d\nin which His ideas should be incorporated within, and not over against,\nthe official Jewish Church; and thus gradually to leaven the whole.\n\nPut now against these vigorous individualists the names of the mystics\nwho have never felt that their passionate correspondences with the\nEternal Order\u2014their clear vision of the adorable Perfection of God and\nthe imperfection, languor, and corruption of man\u2014need involve a break\nwith the corporate religious life. Observe how these have continued for\ncenturies to be fruitful personalities, often not merely within their\nown communion, but outside it too; how they have acted as salt, as\nleaven, permeating and transmuting the general consciousness of the Body\nof Christ. Often these, too, have been reformers\u2014drastic, unrelenting\ndisturbers of the established order of things. St. Bernard, St.\nHildegarde, Mechthild, Jacopone da Todi, St. Catherine of Siena, Tauler,\nwere passionate in their denunciations of slackness, corruption, and\ndisorder. But they made their protests, and brought back the general\nconsciousness to a closer contact with reality, from within, and not\nfrom without, the Christian church. Consider St. Bernard and Richard of\nSt. Victor, whose writings influenced for centuries the whole of the\nreligious literature of Europe; St. Hildegarde, St. Gertrude, Mechthild\nof Magdeburg, great mystics, good churchwomen, but severe denouncers of\nformalism and unreality; St. Francis of Assisi, who removed evangelical\npoverty from the sphere of notion to the sphere of fact; St. Catherine\nof Siena, who changed Italian politics; St. Joan of Arc, who altered\nEuropean history; the soaring transcendentalism of Ruysbroeck, who was\nyet content to be a humble parish priest; the great mystical movement of\nthe Friends of God, ardent Catholics and ardent reformers too. Even our\nown great mystical poets, Donne, Crashaw, Vaughan, Herbert, Traherne,\nCoventry Patmore and Francis Thompson, were one and all convinced\ninstitutionalists. Finally, look at some of the great cloistered\nmystics, of whom St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross are types; and see\nhow, though they seem in the eyes of the world to be \u201cburied alive,\u201d\nthey are and remain the ardent centres of a spreading light, which\nperpetually stimulates and revivifies not only members of their own\norder or communion, but spiritually sensitive souls outside.\n\nPerhaps it is in those contemplatives who lived within and were obedient\nto the rule of the great monastic orders, that we can see most easily\nthe nature of the link between the individual soul and the religious\ngroup within which it does or should develop; the enormous value to it\nof tradition, that huge accumulation of tendencies, ideals, systems,\nwisdom both speculative and practical, which is preserved in the\ncorporate consciousness. Here the influence of the religious family, the\nrule of life, the ideal held out, the severe education in self-control\nadministered to every novice, can always be traced; conditioning, and, I\nbelieve, helping and bracing the character of that communion with the\nTranscendent which the individual mystic enjoys. As the baby at birth\nenters into a civilization prepared for him, and is at once supported,\neducated, even clothed by a tradition prepared by countless generations\nof the past; so the novice, whose spiritual childhood begins within a\ngreat monastic family, receives\u2014supposing, of course, that the order is\ntrue to its ideals\u2014the support and benefits of a tradition evolved\nduring previous generations in response to the needs of other similar\nsouls; and he is by so much the better off than he would be were he a\nsolitary, or a deliberate rebel who refuses to accept the heritage of\nthe past. He finds a life beautifully adjusted to his needs; yet which,\nbeing greater and older than his own, keeps his rampant individualism in\ncheck, nurtures and cultivates his growing spiritual consciousness, and\nopposes\u2014by its perpetual demands on humility, obedience, and\nunselfishness\u2014the vice of pride which the mystical individualist seldom\nescapes. Such a mystical consciousness would not necessarily die without\nthe support of this corporate tradition, any more than the baby would\nnecessarily die did it emerge into the conditions of the paleolithic\ncave instead of into those of the modern nursery. But in both cases the\nenvironment would be unfavourable, and the effort required to attain\nthat position into which the child of tradition enters at birth would be\nan enormous drain upon the powers of the organism.\n\nThe instinct of many mystics for a certain measure of solitude is no\ncontradiction of this. The hermits and the anchorites, even such rare\nand extreme types as St. Anthony of Egypt, who is said to have lived in\nperfect solitude for twenty years, did not withdraw from the Christian\nsociety; nor did they disown the validity of its external and\ninstitutional life. They sought to construct or find within the\nChristian church an environment within which their special tendencies\ncould develop in a normal way; and this not merely for themselves, but\nalso for the sake of other souls. Such a period of withdrawal was felt\nby them to be a necessary condition of their full effectiveness for\nlife. So, too, the poet or the artist must retreat from his fellows if\nhe is to commune with the eternal loveliness and interpret her to other\nmen: for a total concentration upon reality is the condition under which\nit is revealed. The Catholic Church has always recognized, and does\nstill in the continued existence of the cloistered orders, the\nreasonableness of this demand. We do not as a rule say bitter things\nwhen a person of artistic or speculative genius leaves the family group\nand goes to Paris or Oxford in order that his special powers may be\neducated and become effective for life; nor should we feel resentment\nbecause the mystical genius sometimes feels that the life of the home\ncircle, or even the normal life of the community, cannot give the\nspecial training which he requires. In a few cases the mystics have felt\na long period of complete isolation to be necessary to them; but most\noften they have been accessible to those who really needed them, and\nhelped these all the more because of the long periods of silence in\nwhich they listened to the Voice of God, too often inaudible for them,\nas for us, in the general bustle of the world. Their point of view has\nbeen beautifully stated by a young French mystic, Elizabeth de la\nTrinit\u00e9, who died a few years ago. \u201cI want,\u201d she says, \u201cto be all\nsilence, all adoration, that I may penetrate more and more deeply into\nGod; and become so full of Him that I can give Him in my prayers to\nthose poor souls still ignorant of His gift.\u201d She wants to be a channel,\na duct, by which the love and power of God, of which she is so strongly\nconscious, can flow out to other souls. It is not for herself that she\nis working; it is for the world. Do we not find expressed there both the\nindividual longing and the corporate responsibility of the mystic? And\ndo we not touch here the intimate connection which should exist between\nthe separate life of the great mystic and the corporate life of the\nchurch? On the one hand, the highly organized society, making it\npossible for the contemplative to develop his special powers in a\nharmonious environment and preventing the frittering of his energies; on\nthe other, that contemplative, like a special organ developed by the\nBody of Christ, gaining for the whole community contacts and certitudes,\nwhich it could not gain in any other way. News of God can only enter the\ntemporal order through some human consciousness. Is it unreasonable that\nfor so great an office certain individuals should be set apart\u2014within\nthe community, not over against it\u2014and should live in a special way?\n\nAs a matter of fact, the church has gained a thousandfold by her\nacquiescence in the special vocation of the mystics; for the treasures\nthey won were never kept for themselves, but always showered upon her.\nTrue, she has not hesitated to scrutinize and control them; sometimes\nher attitude has seemed to the enthusiasts for liberty to be\ndeliberately obscurantist and tyrannical. Yet, even here\u2014and although in\nmany cases there has clearly been ignorance, injustice, and\npersecution\u2014the mystic gains more than he loses by submission to the\ncollective judgment. Even in their harshest form, discipline and\ntradition are still priceless for him. First, they school him in the\nvirtue of humility, the very foundation of the Christian character;\nwhich is seldom possessed by the spiritual genius who always leads and\nnever submits, and whose triumphant formula, \u201cGod and myself!\u201d too often\nends by becoming \u201cMyself and God!\u201d\n\n              \u201cO caritate, vita, ch\u2019 ogn\u2019 altro amor \u00e8 morto;\n              non vai rompendo legge; nante, l\u2019observe tutto.\u201d\n\nsaid Jacopone da Todi; that natural rebel who deliberately submitted\nhimself to an uncongenial religious authority, and there found perfect\nfreedom.\n\nNext, the solid sense of the community, the mere fact that it always\nlags behind the more vivid spirits, that the forward-moving shepherd who\nsees new pastures has got to take account of the slowest sheep\u2014all this\nis a valuable safeguard against the notorious extravagances of a\nmysticism unfettered by authority. It is significant that the greatest\nmystics in all communions have ever raised up their voices most\nearnestly against spiritual license; have been most eager to submit\ntheir soaring intuitions to the witness of their Scriptures or the\ncorporate feeling of their church. They realize the fact that they owe\nto this church the huge debt which every individual owes to the\ntradition of his art or of his trade. The church represents a complete\nspiritual civilization, a conserver of values; were it not for her,\nevery new spiritual genius who arose would have to begin at the\nbeginning, at the Stone Age of the soul. Instead of that, he finds\nhimself placed within a social order enriched by all the contributions\nof his great predecessors. The bridges are built; the roads are made and\nnamed; his own experiences and discoveries are made more valid, less\nterrifying, more comprehensible to him, because others have been this\nway before. Compare the clarity, the sure-footedness as one may say, of\nRuysbroeck, of St. Catherine of Siena, of St. Teresa, with the\nentanglements, the sense of wandering in beautiful but trackless places,\nwhich one feels when reading even Boehme, Fox, or Blake; and others are\nfar less coherent than they. Man needs a convention, a tradition, a\nlimitation, if he is not to waste his creative powers; and this\nconvention the mystics find best and most easily in the forms of the\nchurch to which they belong.\n\nSo we see that the corporate life of his church gives the mystic a good\ndeal. What does he, on his part, give to it?\n\nThose who see in the mystic chiefly one who rebels against, or has no\nuse for, the corporate religious life, and acknowledges no authority but\nthat of his own spiritual intuitions, usually conceive of his\nexperiences as having value for himself alone. He cannot, they say,\ncommunicate them or teach others to share them. Often, therefore, he is\nspoken of as useless, selfish, other-worldly: a \u201clonely soul.\u201d These\nphrases suggest that those who use them have a very narrow view of\nusefulness, a very materialistic view of the Body of Christ, and a very\nunevangelical view of the relative positions of Mary and Martha. As a\nmatter of fact, the mystic, instead of being useless, selfish, and\nother-worldly, is useful, unselfish, and this-worldly. He is a creative\npersonality, consecrated to the great practical business of actualizing\nthe eternal order within the temporal; and although the pursuit of this\nbusiness brings him hours of exquisite joy, it brings him hours of great\nsuffering too\u2014suffering which is gladly and patiently endured. He does\nit, or tries to do it, not because he seeks the joy, but solely for\nlove\u2014love of God, love of his fellow-men\u2014for he is perpetuating in a\ncertain sense the work of Christ, mediating between his brethren and\nDivine Reality. Hence, where he is fully developed, he will, as\nRuysbroeck tells us, swing like a pendulum between contemplation and\naction, between adoration of God and service of man. In him life has\nevolved her most powerful spiritual engine; and she uses it not for the\nnext world, but for this world, for the eternalization of the here and\nnow, the making of it more real and more divine, more fully charged with\nthe grandeur of God. Often the mystic\u2019s special work is done in a\npositive and obvious fashion which should satisfy the most practical\nmind, and which is yet wholly actuated by his central intention, that of\nraising up\u2014as he sometimes says\u2014new children of the Eternal Goodness,\nbringing back the corporate life to a closer contact with God. \u201cMy\nlittle children, of whom I travail,\u201d says St. Paul to his converts.\nThere is a typical mystic speaking of his life-work. Can we call St.\nFrancis of Assisi, the most devoted and original of missionaries; St.\nJoan of Arc, re-making the consciousness of France by the most active of\nmethods; St. Catherine of Siena, purifying the Italian Church; St.\nTeresa, regenerating the whole Carmelite Order, and leaving upon it a\nstamp it has never lost; \u201clazy contemplatives\u201d? Or St. Catherine of\nGenoa, the devoted superintendent of a great hospital, who never\npermitted her hours of ecstatic communion with God to interfere with her\nduty to the sick?\n\nTaken as a class, the Christian mystics are distinguished by nothing so\nmuch as by their heroic and unselfish activities; by their varied and\ninnumerable services to the corporate life of the church. From their\nranks have come missionaries, preachers, prophets, social reformers,\npoets, founders of institutions, servants of the poor and the sick,\npatient guides and instructors of souls. We sometimes forget that even\nthose known chiefly by the writings they have left behind them have\nsacrificed to the difficult task of reducing their transcendent\nexperience to words, hours in which\u2014were the popular idea of the mystic\na true one\u2014they might have been idly basking in the Divine Light. But\nthese practical activities, though often great, are only a part of the\nmystic\u2019s contribution to the corporate life. If his special claim to\ncommunion with the Transcendent be true at all\u2014and this argument is\nbased on the assumption that there is at least some truth in it\u2014then he\ndoes really tap a source of vitality higher than that with which other\nmen have contact. In the language of theology, he has not merely\n\u201cefficient\u201d but also \u201cextraordinary\u201d grace; a larger dower of life,\ndirectly dependent on his larger, more generous love. This is a claim to\nwhich his strange triumphs over circumstance, his conquests over\nill-fortune, ill-health, oppositions and deprivations of every kind,\ngive weight. Not many strong and normal persons would willingly face, or\nindeed endure, the hardships which St. Paul, St. Francis, St. Joan of\nArc, St. Teresa, gladly and successfully embraced.\n\nThis larger and intenser vitality the mystic does not and cannot keep to\nhimself. He infects with it all with whom he comes in contact, kindles\nthe latent fire in them: for the spiritual consciousness is caught, not\ntaught. Under his influence\u2014sometimes from the mere encounter with his\npersonality\u2014other men begin to live a more real, a more eternal life.\nRuysbroeck says that the Spirit of God, when it is truly received into a\nsoul, becomes a spreading light; and history confirms this. Corporate\nexperience of God always begins in a personal experience of God. The\nrise of Christianity is the classic illustration of this truth; but\nHindu and Moslem religious history also declare it. Round each of the\ngreat unitive mystics little groups of ardent disciples, of spiritual\nchildren, have grown up. This is true both of those who remained within\nand those who seceded from the official Church\u2014for instance, St.\nBernard, Eckhart, St. Francis, Tauler, Ruysbroeck, St. Catherine of\nSiena, St. Catherine of Genoa, St. Teresa, Boehme, Fox. Nor did their\ninfluence cease with death.\n\nFurther, in reckoning up the value of the mystics to the church as a\nwhole, we sometimes forget the extent to which that church is indebted\nto mystic intuition for the actual data upon which her corporate life is\nbased. Christianity, it is true, is fundamentally a historical religion;\nbut it is also a religion of experience, and its very history deals\nquite as much with the events which attend human intercourse with the\nTranscendent and Eternal as with concrete and visible happenings in\nspace and time. The New Testament is thick with reports of mystical\nexperiences. The Fourth Gospel and the Epistles of St. Paul depend for\ntheir whole character on the soaring mystical genius their writers\npossessed. Had St. Paul never been caught up to the third heaven, he\nwould have had a very different outlook on the world, and Christianity\nwould have been a different religion in consequence. Had the Fourth\nEvangelist never known what it was to feel the sap of the Mystic Vine\nflow through him, his words would have lacked their overwhelming\ncertitude. So, too, the liturgies bear the stamp of mystical feeling,\nand most of the great religious concepts which the church has gradually\nadded to her store come from the same source. If we ask ourselves what\nthe history of the church would be without the history of her mystics,\nthen we begin to see how much of her light and colour emanates from\nthem; how much of her doctrine represents their experience translated\ninto dogmatic form. That communion with\u2014that feeding on\u2014the Divine Life\nwhich she offers to every believer in the Eucharist is the central fact\nof their existence. From Clement of Alexandria downwards, again and\nagain they appeal to Eucharistic images in order to express what it is\nthat really happens to the soul immersed in contemplative prayer. \u201cI am\nthe food of the full-grown,\u201d said the voice of God to St. Augustine.\n\u201cEvery time we think with love of the Well-beloved, He is anew our meat\nand drink,\u201d says Ruysbroeck. So, too, the church\u2019s language concerning\nnew birth, divine sonship, regeneration, union with Christ, and the\nwhole concept of grace, regarded as a transcendent life and love\nperpetually pressing in on humanity\u2014all this is of mystical origin, and\nrepresents not the speculations but the concrete experience of the great\nmystics. They are pushed out, as it were, by the visible church like\ntentacles, to explore the unseen world which surrounds her, and drawn\nback again to her bosom that they may impart to the whole body the more\nabundant life which they have found. Were it not for the unfailing\nfamily of the mystics, thus perpetually pushing out beyond the\nprotective edges of the organism, and bringing back official\nChristianity into direct touch with the highest spiritual values, and so\nconstantly reaffirming the fact\u2014by them felt and experienced\u2014of the\nintimate correspondence, the regenerating contact of God with the soul,\nthe church would long ago have fallen victim to that tendency to relapse\ninto the mechanical which dogs all organized groups. Then the resistance\nwhich she has sometimes offered to the freshness and novelty, the\nadventurous quality of the mystical impulse, where it has appeared\nwithout preparation and sought to correct by its own overwhelming\ncertitude the spiritual conventions of the day, would have become that\nhopeless inertia which is the precursor of death.\n\nSo we may best look upon the great Christian mystic as a special organ\ndeveloped within the Christian body for a special use. His peculiar\nsensibilities, like those which condition artistic genius, are the gates\nthrough which messages from the Transcendent come to man. He is finding\nand feeling the Infinite; not for himself, but for us. His achievement,\nbridging the gap which lies between the normal mind and the\nsupersensuous world, makes more valid and more actual to us the\nassumptions upon which external religion is built; vindicating the\nchurch\u2019s highest claim, and hence the soul\u2019s highest claim\u2014the claim\nthat achievement of Eternal Life, communion with ultimate reality, is\npossible to the spirit of man. More, since all human lives\ninterpenetrate, and isolation is impossible save in death, the more we,\nthe social group, are willing to accept the claim of the mystic, and\nreceive what he tells us in a spirit of humility instead of a spirit of\ncriticism; the more completely he will be able to share his treasure\nwith us, the more deeply we shall be able to enter into that\nconsciousness which he represents, which he brings in his own person\ninto the human scheme.\n\nThis, of course, the Christian church has said far more beautifully and\nexactly in her doctrine of the Communion of Saints; and that doctrine,\nrightly understood, is indeed the key to the connection between the\ngreat mystics and the corporate life within which they arise. Were the\nactivities of these more vital spirits wholly hidden from us, wholly\nsilent and supersensual\u2014as they are not\u2014it would be a grossly\nmaterialistic and violently un-Christian judgment which concluded from\nthis that their lives were useless save to themselves. How can a life\nwhich aims at God be useless, if we believe that achievement of Him is\nthe final destiny and only satisfaction of every soul? It would be an\nimplicit denial of the efficacy of prayer, of the \u201cprevailing merits\u201d of\nsanctity, its value to the society which produces it\u2014the power of a\ngreat and loving spirit to help, infect and reinforce more languid\nsouls\u2014did we agree that the life of the most strictly enclosed\ncontemplative was wasted. Christians, who believe that the world was\nredeemed from within the narrow limits of Palestine, should not thus\nconfuse space with power, or character with the manner of its\nself-expression. Without the ardent prayers of the mystics, the vivid\nspiritual life they lead, what would the sum of human spirituality be?\nHow can we tell what we owe to the power which they liberate, the\ncurrents which they set up, the contacts which they make? The land they\nsee, and of which they report to us, is the land towards which humanity\nis going. They are like the look-out men upon the cross-trees, assuring\nus from time to time that we are still upon our course. Tear asunder\ntheir peculiar power and office from the office of the whole, and you\nwill have on one side a society deprived of the guides which God has\nraised up for it; on the other, an organ deprived of its real perfection\nand beauty, because severed from the organism which it was intended to\nserve.\n\n\n\n\n                MYSTICISM AND THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT\n\n\nAmongst the problems which have to be met by those who incline to a\nmystical view of Christianity\u2014that view which lays special emphasis on\nthe growth and experience of the individual soul, its ascent to union\nwith God, as the very aim and object of religion\u2014one of the most\npressing is that which centres on the doctrine of the Atonement. It is\nclear that many people feel that such a mystical and empirical view of\nreligion leaves no room for this doctrine, or for the idea which it\nrepresents; that they are convinced that there is here a real conflict\nbetween two incompatible views of the Christian faith. On the one hand,\nthey see orthodox Christianity still centred on the \u201catoning act\u201d of\nChrist, with its implications of reconciliation and vicarious suffering,\nof the divine life humiliating itself, in order to do within the\ntemporal order something for man which man cannot do for himself; a\ndoctrine which retains its attraction and value, because so full of hope\nand mercy for the sinful and the weak. On the other hand, they see that\ndemand of personal and individual growth, purification,\nlife-enhancement, progressive union with God\u2014helped doubtless by grace,\nbut no less dependent on will\u2014as the condition of attaining Eternal\nLife, which seems to be made by mystical theology. The opposition, in\nfact, is supposed to be between a concept of spiritual life in which\neach man must himself do and be, achieve and actualize in his own\nperson, and not merely as the acceptor of a creed or the member of a\nChurch\u2014must not only accept the gift, but must set himself to be an\nimitator, so far as he may, of the Giver\u2014and one in which a special\nmanifestation in time and space of the divine power and love, for\nChristians the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, does something for the\nman accepting it, which he cannot do for himself. In the one case, we\nare saved one by one, by effort, response, growth; in the other, we are\nsaved as members of a group. Here the individual and the corporate\nideals in their most intense forms face one another.\n\nIt does, then, seem at first as though we had here an irreconcilable\nopposition. Yet before we discard either of these ideas, it is worth\nwhile to enquire whether they need really entail conflict, or can be\nregarded as two sides of a greater whole. It is true that there are\ncertain extreme views of the Atonement which do appear to be hopelessly\nirreconcilable with the mystical view of religion: especially those\nwhich lay peculiar stress, not on the latent powers, but on the\nessential impotence of man; centring the soul\u2019s salvation on \u201cimputed\nrighteousness,\u201d and finding the whole meaning and reason of the\nIncarnation in the one historical \u201cpropitiatory act\u201d of Calvary. There\nis real conflict between such a creed, centred on the idea of something\ndone once for all _to_ the soul\u2014to the world\u2014from outside, and that\nwhich is centred on the idea of a life perpetually welling up _in_ the\nsoul, on growth, movement, organic change. Yet, on the other hand, is\nthere not a curious similarity between these two apparently opposite\nviews of salvation? Is not the drama of the divine life incarnate,\nhumbling and limiting itself to the human life to save it, essentially a\ndramatic representation of that other experience, of the divine life\nlimiting itself and mysteriously emerging within each soul, to\ntransmute, regenerate, infinitize it, which the mystics describe to us?\nIs not what theologians call \u201cgrace\u201d\u2014that essential factor of the mystic\nlife-process\u2014a making good by the addition of a new dower of\ntranscendent vitality, of the shortcomings of the merely human creature\nregarded as an \u201cinheritor of Eternal Life\u201d; just as the historical\nsurrender of Calvary is conceived by orthodox Christianity to make good\nthe shortcomings of the whole race, regarded as heirs of the Kingdom?\nAnd if this be so, then can the opposition between these two ideas of\nsalvation\u2014the vital and the theological\u2014be as real as it sometimes\nappears? Are they not both plans in which atonement plays a part?\n\nAfter all, both these views of the Christian scheme have emerged and\ndiverged from the same source. St. Paul, the greatest of all Christian\nmystics\u2014soaked, too, in the idea of grace and of growth in grace, and\ndeeply impressed with the fact of the soul\u2019s individual\nresponsibility\u2014is also supremely the theologian of the Atonement. Though\nno doubt his teaching on the subject was first called forth by the\npractical need of finding some meaning in the tragedy of the\ncrucifixion, it is yet a development of that profound conception of His\nown death as a filling up to the brim of the cup of sacrifice and\nsurrender, which seems to have inspired Christ Himself. If there were\nindeed a fundamental inconsistency between these two ideas in their pure\nand original form, then St. Paul would be inconsistent; for he certainly\nheld them both. We all know that the usual way of studying St. Paul\u2019s\n\u201cdoctrines\u201d for purposes of edification has been to isolate each of his\nardent and poetic utterances, place it, as it were, in cold storage till\nit is no longer reminiscent of the living mobile body from which it\ncame, and then subject it to analysis. We are also beginning to know\nthat this method is not quite fair to a man who was a poet, an artist, a\nlover, as well as a constructive genius of unequalled power. The Pauline\nutterances are mostly impassioned efforts to express something which\nPaul knows in his own person; descriptions of the way in which the\nChristian revelation has met his own needs, regenerated his own nature.\nThey are closely connected with the interior adventures which have\nattended on his new spiritual existence \u201cin Christ.\u201d To adopt a\nwell-known phrase of St. Bonaventura, they come \u201cof grace, not of\ndoctrine; of desire, not of intellect; of the ardours of prayer, not of\nthe teaching of the schools.\u201d To put it in another way, they are the\nfruits of his mystical consciousness, which he is trying to express in\nartistic or intellectual terms. If we accept this statement then the\nfact of Paul\u2019s mystical experience and all that it means to him must\nnever be absent from our minds when we are trying to understand his\ndeclarations. He lives in that supernal atmosphere which he calls\n\u201cChrist-Spirit\u201d; he speaks to us from that sphere. Nothing outside of it\nis real to him. Whatever its other bearings may be, his doctrine of\nAtonement is solidly real on that plane\u2014the mystic\u2019s plane, the plane of\nunion\u2014or not at all. When he says he is \u201ccrucified _with_ Christ,\u201d \u201chid\nin God _with_ Christ,\u201d he means these things. They are not vaguely pious\nutterances, but desperate attempts towards the communication of a real\nstate, really felt and known. Paul does feel himself welded together\nwith that Transcendent Life, at once so intimate and personal, so\ninfinite and universal, which he identifies with the glorified Jesus.\nBecause of this union\u2014and only because of it\u2014the acts, powers, holiness,\nadventures of that life avail for him, Paul. He is a bit of its Body, in\nhis own bold metaphor. So that the first great factor of salvation, as\nhe sees it, is the essentially mystical factor of the \u201cunion\u201d of the\nsoul with Christ; the \u201cdoing away of the flame of separation.\u201d The\nAtonement follows, as it were almost logically, from this.\n\nThe general content of his letters makes us feel that St. Paul had an\nextremely rich, deep view of life; so great, indeed, that it refuses to\nbe hammered into a consistent system, and we can never manage to embrace\nit all at once. Always bits get left out, and hence there is apt to be a\ncertain distortion in all our views of the Pauline universe. There was a\nwonderful wholeness, a strongly affirmative quality about his sense of\nexistence; subtractions and negations were unnatural to him. Any\nparadoxes and inconsistencies which we find in his statements are the\ninevitable result of an effort to express the enormous sweep, the living\nmultiplicity, and (to borrow a word from William James) the thickness of\nhis vision of Reality. Hence it follows that he was able to see and\ntreat the soul of man, both as intensely individual and responsible, and\nat the same time as a part of the body of all life; that \u201cmystical body\nof many members\u201d of which the head is Christ-Spirit, the Divine Humanity\nwhich appeared in Jesus\u2014a corporation actualized in the Christian\nChurch, but potentially co-extensive with the whole of mankind. These\ntwo\u2014the separate and the corporate\u2014are aspects of one whole. They seem\nto us to conflict, only because the totality to which they contribute is\nbeyond the focus of the mind. Thus Paul could and did demand of the\nindividual, on the one hand the self-mergence of faith, the corporate\nsense, the humble acknowledgment of personal impotence; and on the other\nhand, could demand of that same man the personal industry and\nself-dependence which \u201cworks out its _own_ salvation,\u201d \u201cruns for an\nimperishable garland,\u201d and \u201cpresses on towards the goal.\u201d\n\nAll through those passages in the Epistle to the Romans on which the\ndoctrine of the Atonement was afterwards built, Paul seems to be trying\nto express\u2014often by the use of traditional images, which of course\nrevenge themselves upon his free handling of them, as imagery so often\nrevenges itself upon poets\u2014his vision of something supreme, some\nenormous uplift to eternal levels, some fundamental change, achieved by,\nfor, in the human race. He has this vision just because, and in so far\nas, this supreme thing has been achieved by, for, in him, the mystic\nPaul. Behind the formula, we feel the first-hand experience. What is\nthis crucial change? Surely it is the fundamental mystical achievement,\nthe fundamental religious fact; the human soul\u2019s conscious attainment of\nGod. At bottom, atonement is wanted simply and solely to help man to do\nthat; to enable the spirit of life to reach its goal. If we did not want\nGod, we should be very well satisfied as we are: but we are not\nsatisfied\u2014\u201cThou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts shall find no\nrest save in Thee.\u201d No doubt Paul\u2019s eschatological views, the whole\ntendency of his time, made him connect this achievement, which he knew\nat first hand, with the imminent coming of a Liberator. For him, it was\npart of the preparation, the new vitality already given to those who\nwere destined to live the new life. Achieved in one, it permeated the\nwhole \u201cnew race\u201d of spiritual men; but this is only the interpretation\nwhich a complex of causes made him put upon the transcendent fact. The\nprominence given to Paul\u2019s legal imagery, its isolation from the general\ntrend of his life and thought, has made us inclined to forget all this.\nBut if we try to see Reality from his angle, to catch the wild accents\nof his enthusiasm and his love, the theory that he seriously held\nanything approaching what would be called a \u201ccommercial\u201d theory of\natonement falls to the ground at once. That he should sometimes have\nargued in this sense when cornered by Judaizing opponents, is likely\nenough: and it is characteristic of the mystical temperament to ignore\nthe discrepancy between such intellectual exercises and the fundamental\nintuition by which it lives. Life and love are as much the key-words of\nPaul\u2019s system as they are of the Fourth Gospel itself. He was the\nnoblest of souls; and we cannot imagine a soul with a spark of nobility\nwanting atonement as a buying-off of penalty incurred, as a paying by\nanother of a debt which it owes, a mere saving of it from pain or any\nother retribution. The living, loving soul can only want atonement as a\nroad-making act; a bridge thrown out to the infinite, on which man can\ntravel to his home in God. Now, Paul had made that journey in the\nspirit. He knew already, at first hand, that Divine Reality was\naccessible to him, and that this contact was the greatest thing in life.\nBut he knew and felt, too, that however much he, Paul, had really\nachieved this new state, this fruition of Eternity, by difficult growth\nfrom within; yet first, he could never have done it at all without the\nenormous uplift of enhancing grace, that new dower of energy which was\npoured in on him from beyond the confines of his own nature; and\nsecondly, great though the change had been, yet it was nothing compared\nwith the immeasurable human possibilities achieved in Christ.\n\nFor Paul, these two achievements\u2014the victory of Christ and the victory\nof the Christian soul\u2014are intimately connected. True, one is infinitely\ngreat, the other very little. Except Christ, \u201call have fallen short of\nthe glory\u201d; have failed to grow up to the \u201cfullness of the stature,\u201d to\nactualize the immense spiritual possibilities of man. Still, we are all\nin the same line; partakers of the same kind of life, \u201cgrace\u201d or\nimmanent Spirit, and aiming, consciously or unconsciously, at the same\ngoal\u2014union with God. Now, total dependence on God, the centring of our\nwhole interest and attention on the Spiritual Order, is the very essence\nof union with Him. Everything short of that total dependence, that\nsupreme rightness of relation, is trespass; a backing of the finite\nagainst the infinite. In the death of Jesus, that total dependence, that\nperfect relation, was completely achieved at last: the supreme mystic\nact, the self-donation of love, was done perfectly, and in this sense\n\u201conce for all.\u201d _Aleph, it is enough._ The spirit of man, in this \u201cnew\nman,\u201d had overcome its limitations, the downward drag of instinct, and\nhad leapt to the heights. This was the \u201credemption that is in Christ\nJesus.\u201d In this unique vindication of humanity, this exhibition of\nregnant spirit overcoming the world, Christ-Spirit crowned with\nsplendour all the tentative efforts of man, and, because of the\ncorporate nature of humanity, conferred that splendour on the race.\n\nBut there is far more in it than this. And first, the Christian\u2019s\nachievement of God, such as it is\u2014from that of the least of believers to\nthat of the greatest of the mystical saints\u2014is really and practically\nconditioned by the known fact and known character of the achievement of\nChrist. It is the addition of this fact, this distinct historic\nhappening, to the racial consciousness, which makes possible the\nspecially Christian apprehension of God; differentiates it, say, from\nthat of a Hindu or a Neoplatonic saint. A reference to the phenomena of\napperception will help us to understand this. As in the world of nature\nor art our perception of each new object is governed by the images and\nideas already dominant within the mind, so, too, in the religious\nsphere. If Christians had not got the idea of Calvary in their\nconsciousness\u2014if the image of the surrender of Jesus, His sublime\nexhibition of love and faith, were not there first as a clue, something\nabout which to group and arrange their spiritual intuitions\u2014it would\nmake a vital difference to their interpretation of the relation of the\nsoul to God; and this means that the relation itself would be quite\ndifferent for the conscious self, other elements would be stressed, and\ndifferent results would flow from it. It is only because the sacrifice\nof Jesus is now part of the Christian\u2019s \u201capperceiving mass\u201d\u2014because,\ncoming to the contemplation of the spiritual world, he inevitably brings\nthe Cross with him\u2014that he is able to make the characteristically\nChristian contact with God. That Christian contact is a direct gift to\nhim, from the historic Person and the historic act. We approach the\nTranscendent Order _with_ that, or, as Paul tersely puts it, \u201cin\nChrist\u201d; and our fruition of Reality results, not, as some extreme\nmystics have liked to think, from any \u201cnaked apprehension\u201d\u2014for naked\napprehension has no meaning, no content, for the mind\u2014but from a fusion\nof that which we bring with us and that to which we ascend; tradition\nand experience, the past and the present. Through love of Christ the\nChristian comes to the Cross, and through the Cross he enters a\nspiritual region he could not reach in any other way. So we find that\neven for the most transcendental of Christian contemplatives, still \u201cin\nthe Cross all doth consist.\u201d It has for him a terror and a rapture which\nthe judicious philosopher can never know; and reveals to him strange\nsecrets beyond the province of philosophy.\n\n                   \u201cVocce legendo, en croce legendo\n                     nel libro che c\u2019\u00e8 ensanguinato\n                   Ca essa scrittura me fa en natura\n                     ed en filosofia conventato;\n                   O libro signato che dentro se\u2019 aurato,\n                     e tutto fiorito d\u2019amore!\u201d\n\nThat Cross gives the Infinite a colour which it did not have before. So,\neven from the point of view of the most hardened and thorough-going\npsychologist, Paul\u2019s statement that \u201cthrough one act of righteousness,\nthe free gift came unto all men\u201d is literally accurate. It is true\u2014and\nthat not in any conjuring-trick sense, but in a sense which fulfils on\nhighest levels life\u2019s basic laws\u2014that \u201cby the grace of one man\u201d \u201cthe\ngift has abounded to the many,\u201d entincturing and altering the whole\nuniverse, and hence the whole experience, of every receptive soul;\natoning for the faulty attitude, the imperfect love, of average man.\n\nBut still this is not all. There are other laws of life gathered up in,\nand redistributed from, this great lens. Essentially the idea which the\nChrist of the Gospels seems to have had of His own death is the idea of\na making good of some general falling-short on life\u2019s part: a\n\u201cfilling-up of the cup\u201d of sacrifice and surrender, to balance the other\noverflowing cup of error and sin. It is not only man\u2019s unaccomplished\naim, but God\u2019s unaccomplished aim in life, which He is represented as\nfulfilling; and the fact that this conception owes a good deal to Old\nTestament prophecy need not invalidate its mystical truth. If we accept\nthis idea, then, as well as showing individual man the way to perfect\nunion with God\u2014\u201cbuilding the bridge and reforming the road which leads\nto the Father\u2019s heart,\u201d as St. Catherine of Siena has it\u2014Christ in His\nwilling death is somehow performing the very object of life, in the name\nof the whole race. The true business of an atoner is a constructive one.\nHe is called upon to heal a disharmony; bridge a gap between two things\nwhich, though separate, desire to be one. Even the sacrificed animal of\nprimitive religions seems most often to be a reconciling victim, the\nmedium of union between the worshipper and his deity. In religions of a\nmystical type, then, the Atoner or Redeemer will surely be one who makes\npatent those latent possibilities of man which are at once the earnests\nof his future blessedness and the causes of his present unrest. He will\nachieve the completion and sublimation of our vague instinct for\nsacrifice and love, and thus bridge the space between that which is most\ndivine in humanity and that which is most human in divinity; filling up\nthe measure of that \u201cglory,\u201d that real and divine life, of which we all\nfall short, yet without which we can never be content. Is not this again\nwhat St. Paul feels that Christ did? What he seems, at bottom, to see in\nthe Passion\u2014though the imagery by which he tries to communicate it often\nsounds harsh in our ears\u2014is, the mysterious fulfilment of all cosmic\nmeanings; the perfect surrender to infinite ideals of Man, the compound\ninhabitant of two possible orders of reality, who by this painful\nself-loss achieves perfect identification with the Divine will. This\nfulfilment was, as he distinctly says, the duty and destiny of the human\nsoul. All creation looks for it \u201cwith outstretched neck.\u201d But all have\nfallen short. Christ, the perfect man, does it, does what man was always\nmeant to do; and because of the corporate character of humanity, in His\nutter transcendence of self-hood and of all finite categories He\ninevitably lifts up, to share His union with God, all who are in union\nwith Him. The essence of the Atonement, then, would not lie so much in\nthe sacrificial act as in the lift-up of the human spirit which that act\nguarantees; the new levels of life which it opens for the race. \u201cMuch\nmore, being reconciled, shall we be saved _in his life_,\u201d says Paul.\n\n\u201cIn his life\u201d a new summit has been conquered by humanity. But are we to\nstop there? Is not the attainment of that same summit, the achievement\nof that life-giving surrender to the Universal Spirit\u2014\u201ca life-giving\nlife,\u201d Ruysbroeck calls it\u2014just what the great mystics, following as\nwell as they can the curve of the life of Christ, try to do according to\ntheir measure? Theirs, after all, is the vision which sees that \u201cthere\nis no other way to _life_ but the way of the Cross,\u201d and that the human\nlife of Christ is \u201cthe door by which all must come in.\u201d Thus the\nspiritual victory of the Cross is for them not so much a unique, as a\npioneer act. It is the first heroic cutting of a road on which they are\nto travel as far as they can; not merely the vicarious setting-right of\nthe balance between God and man, upset by man\u2019s wilful sin. In their\nascent towards union with God, are not they road-makers, or at any rate\nroad-menders, too? Are they not forging new links between two orders of\nreality, which are separate for the once-born consciousness? If so, then\nwe may regard each one of them as a bit of the slowly achieved atonement\nof the race; that gradual pressing-on of humanity into the heart of the\nTranscendent Order. For Christians, this movement was initiated by\nChrist. But surely it is continued and helped by every soul in union\nwith Him, even those who knew not His Name; and Julian of Norwich was\nright when she said that she knew she was \u201cin the Cross with Him.\u201d\n\nTwo things are perpetually emphasized in modern presentations of\nreligion. First, the stress tends more and more to be upon experience.\nNothing which authority tells us is done for us truly counts, unless we\nfeel and realize it as done in us. In so far as this is so, the tendency\nis to a mystical concept of religion; and, speaking generally, to just\nthe concept of religion which is supposed to conflict with the idea of\natonement as usually understood. But, secondly, the social and corporate\ncharacter of Christianity is strongly emphasized; and, where this\ncorporate character is admired more than it is understood, mysticism is\nharshly criticized as the religion of the spiritual individualist, a\n\u201cvertical relation,\u201d the \u201cflight of the alone to the Alone.\u201d St. Paul\u2019s\n\u201ccompleting opposites,\u201d in fact, are still in the foreground of our\nreligious life; and so perhaps some re-statement of the solution by\nwhich he found room for both of them, and hence both for personal\nresponsibility and atonement, may be possible and fruitful for us, too.\n\nAnd first we notice that those enthusiasts for the corporate idea who\ncondemn the mystics as religious egoists seem to forget that they are\ncontradicting themselves; that if their vision of the Church of Christ\nas a mystical _body_ be true, then the mystic\u2019s ascent to God cannot be\na flight of the Alone. The poisonous implication of that phrase\u2014true in\nits context but always misunderstood\u2014has stuck like mud to the white\nrobes of the saints. But the mystic is not merely a self going out on a\nsolitary quest of Reality. He can, must, and does go only as a member of\nthe whole body, performing as it were the function of a specialized\norgan. What he does, he does for all. He is, in fact, an atoner pure and\nsimple: something stretched out to bridge a gap, something which makes\ngood in a particular direction the general falling-short. The special\nkind of light or life which he receives, he receives for the race; and,\nconversely, the special growth which he is able to achieve comes from\nthe race. He depends on it for his past; it depends on him for its\nfuture. All are part of life\u2019s great process of becoming; there are no\nbreaks. Although there is perfect individualization, there is\ninterpenetration too. His attainment is the attainment of the whole,\npressing on behind him, supporting him. Thus\u2014to take an obvious\nexample\u2014the achievement of peculiar sanctity by the member of a\nreligious order is the achievement of that order in him; and this not in\na fantastic and metaphorical sense. The support of the Rule, the\nconditions of the life, the weight of tradition, the special characters\nwhich each religious family inherits from its Patriarch, have all\ncontributed something to make the achievement possible; and are factors\ngoverning the type which that achievement assumes. We recognize the\nCistercian stamp upon St. Bernard, the Dominican on Suso and Tauler, the\nCarmelite on St. John of the Cross. Each such case vindicates once more\nthe incarnational principle; it is the true spirit of the community,\nflowering in this representative of theirs, which we see. Thus, as we\nmay regard Christ from one point of view as supremely ideal Man\nincarnate\u2014the \u201cheavenly man\u201d as Paul calls Him\u2014summing up, fulfilling,\nlifting to new heights all that came before, and therefore actualizing\nall that humanity was ever intended to do, and changing for ever more\nthe character of its future achievements; so, in a small way, we may\nregard St. Teresa as Carmel, the ideal Carmel, incarnate. Each is a\nconcrete fact which atones for the falling-short of a whole type, and\nyet is conditioned by that type. The thought of what the Carmelite life\nwas meant to do, the pressure of that idea seeking manifestation, did\ncondition Teresa\u2019s achievement. Are we not also bound to say that the\nthought of the Jewish visions of an ideal humanity, of the Son of Man\nand the Suffering Servant, did condition the external accidents of the\nlife and death of Christ?\n\nSo as to the past. Still more as to the future are the corporate and\nindividual aspects of spiritual life inextricably twined together. As\nthat done by one is an outbirth of the whole, so that done to one may\navail for the whole. Only by staying within the circle of this thought\u2014a\nthought which surely comes very close to the doctrine of Atonement\u2014can\nwe form a sane and broad idea of what the mystic, and the mystic\u2019s\nexperience, mean for the race. Consider again the case of Teresa. As,\neven in a time and place of considerable monastic corruption\u2014for no one\nwho has read her life and letters can regard the Convent of the\nIncarnation as a forcing-house of the spiritual life\u2014still the idea of\nher order conditioned her great and Godward-tending soul, and her\ndedicated life filled up the measure of its glory; yet more has Teresa\u2019s\nown, separate, unique achievement conditioned the spirit of her order\never since. All the saints which it has nourished have been salted with\nher salt. All that she won has flowed out from her in life-giving\nstreams to others. She has been a regenerator of the religious life, has\nachieved the ideal of Richard Rolle, and become a \u201cpipe of life\u201d through\nwhich the living water can pass from God to man. Is not this, too,\nrather near the idea of Atonement, a curiously close and faithful\nimitation of Christ; especially when we consider the amount of unselfish\nsuffering which such a career entails?\n\nThe objective of the Christian life, we say, is union with God: that\nparadoxical victory-in-surrender of love which translates us from finite\nto infinite levels. Most of us in this present life and in our own\npersons fall short of the glory of this. We are not all equally full of\ngrace; we do not all grow up to the full stature of the Sons of God; and\nit is no use pretending that we do. But the mystical saint does achieve\nthis, and by this act of mediation\u2014this \u201cvicarious\u201d achievement, if you\nlike to put it so\u2014performed by a member of our social organism, the gift\ndoes really \u201cabound unto the many.\u201d For what other purpose, indeed, are\nthese apparently elect souls bred up? What other social value can we\nattribute to them than that which we see them actually possessing in\nhistory\u2014the value, that is, of special instruments put forth by the\nrace, to do or suffer something which the average self cannot do, but\nwhich humanity as a whole, in its Godward ascent, must, can, and shall\ndo; ducts, too, whereby fresh spiritual energy flows in to mankind;\neyes, open to visions beyond the span of average sight; parents of new\nlife. Carlyle said that a hero was \u201ca man sent hither to make the divine\nmystery more impressively known to us\u201d\u2014to atone, in fact, for the\ninadequacy of our own perception of Reality, our perpetual relapses to\nlower levels of life; to make a bridge between us and the Transcendent\nOrder. And when the hero as mystic does this, is he not in a special\nsense a close imitator of Christ?\n\nWe seem to have here the highest example of a principle which is\noperative through the whole of the seething complex of life, for there\nis a sense on which every great personality fulfils the function of an\natoner. On the one hand he does something towards the making good of\nhumanity\u2019s \u201cfalling short\u201d in one direction or another; on the other\nhand, he gives to his fellow-men\u2014adds to their universe\u2014something which\nthey did not possess before. Burke, speaking of the social contract, has\nsaid that society is a partnership in all science, all art, every\nvirtue, and all perfection; and, since the ends of such a partnership\ncannot be obtained but in many generations, it is a partnership between\nthe living, the dead, and the unborn. \u201cEach contract of each particular\nstate,\u201d he says, \u201cis but a clause in the great prim\u00e6val contract of\neternal society, _linking the lower with the higher natures_, connecting\nthe visible and the invisible world, according to a fixed compact\nsanctioned by the inviolable oath which holds all physical and all moral\nnatures each in their appointed place.\u201d In such a partnership\u2014linking\nhigher and lower, visible and invisible worlds in one\u2014the creative\nspirits in every department of life may properly be called \u201catoners,\u201d\nfor they have a corporate and racial value which is in exact proportion\nto their individual achievement of reality. Thus the great artist, or\nthe great musician, really redeems his fellows from slavery to a lower\nlevel of colour, form, sound. He atones for their dullness towards that\nwhich has always been there, and endows them with new possibilities of\nvision and hearing; gives them, in fact, more abundant life; is the\nDoor, the Way, to a wider universe. His creative acts open new gates to\nthe whole race. The fact that he has lived and worked has effected a\npermanent change in the stream of life, which can never again be that\nwhich it was before. If we were more accustomed, on the one hand, to\nlook at the achievements of religious genius from the artistic and\ncreative point of view, and on the other hand, to discern the work of\nthe Holy Spirit in the artistic as well as the religious field, I\nbelieve that we should find a close parallel between the work of supreme\npersonality redeeming spirit, and the work of the great artist redeeming\nsense, from servitude to old imperfections and disharmonies.\n\nWe might almost make it the test of true greatness, this wonderful power\nof flinging out the filaments of life in all directions; this way in\nwhich noble and creative personalities of every type seem to be so much\nmore than themselves\u2014to count for so much more than themselves\u2014to be, in\ntheir generous activities, the servants of all life. They appear to be\nthe sum of tendencies which preceded them; and to gather those\ntendencies to a focus and distribute them again, enhanced and\nre-directed, to succeeding generations of souls. Such a personality has\nto the full the divine power of giving and of taking. Whilst he seems\nspecially original, it is always true that the past, the race, nourishes\nhim to an enormous extent. Christ Himself conformed to this law. The\ngreat man is rooted in history, plaited up in the life of his own time:\nabsorbs from the human as well as from the spiritual. His feet are in\nTime, though his head is in Eternity. He is never isolated and\nring-fenced. Where he seems so, that appearance is found on examination\nto be deceptive, as Dr. Rufus Jones has shown in the case of Jacob\nBoehme, and Baron von H\u00fcgel in that of George Fox. So, again, the\nspecial act, vision, or experience of the spiritual genius never ends\nwith him. He is a centre of divine fecundity\u2014it is the mystics\u2019 own\nphrase. The touch of the divine life stimulates him to creation. He is a\nregenerator, a whirlpool of new forces, a parent of new things. It seems\nthat life\u2019s \u201ctendency to lag behind,\u201d its tendency _not_ to do its best,\nreceives its corrective in all such great spirits; and the Christian\natonement becomes the supreme, the divine manifestation of a vital law\nwhich we find operative on every level of existence.\n\nIf we acknowledge the extent to which Grace, Spirit, God, works on man\nthrough personality, through specific men\u2014as a communication of\ntranscendent vitality to certain souls (\u201celect,\u201d if you like) in order\nthat they may bring forth new life, new vision, new goodness, may\nfertilize the race afresh\u2014then shall we not expect to find that\nChristianity, being a vital, dynamic system, has exhibited and\nemphasized these facts throughout the whole of her great career? This\noutward thrust of great personalities from the social organism, these\nfresh unique saving contacts made by the individual in the name of the\nAll, these sudden, incalculable, upward leaps of life, these changes in\nthe national consciousness which the hero, poet, prophet can produce\u2014we\nshall expect to find all this operative in the highest degree in the\nChristian Church. We shall expect to find her claiming for her greatest\nand most God-achieving spirits, not only special honour, but a special\nvalue, a special redeeming power in respect of the corporate body to\nwhich they belong; and this, of course, is exactly what we do find. The\nmystical saints, in fact, seem to provide us with a link between the\ndoctrine of the Atonement\u2014of the special racial value of the utterly\nsurrendered life in God, which was once, and once only, perfectly\nachieved\u2014and the doctrine of the Communion of Saints, or\ninterpenetration and mutual help of all souls \u201cin Christ.\u201d From these\ntwo ideas there follows of necessity that further doctrine of the\n\u201cprevailing merits\u201d of the saints, their special \u201catoning\u201d value for\nother men, the corporate social work done by heroic virtue flowering in\nindividual souls, which the Catholic Church has always deduced from\nthem. At the back of both ideas we find the same fact; that Life and\nLove, when supremely evoked within the temporal order, cannot keep\nthemselves to themselves. Such life and such love have, in spite of\ntheir marked individuality, a profoundly social character; they are\nviolently contagious; they spread, they interpenetrate, they transmute\nall selves that will receive them. They entincture the whole stream of\nduration, make good its shortcomings, make widening circles of splendour\nwithin the flux.\n\nSo, if we want to think of a Celestial Hierarchy, actual to us, founded\nin history, related with us by a thousand links, it is surely of the\nsaints and the mystics that we ought to think; rising as it were in\ngraduated orders, according to the strength and purity of their union\nwith God, the fullness of their possession of Eternal Life, towards the\nCross in which their tendencies are perfected and gathered up. These are\namongst the highest values which life has given to us. The apostolic\ntype; the men of action, dynamic manifestations of the Spirit. The\nprophetic type; men of supreme vision, enlarging the horizons of the\nworld. The martyr-type; men of utter sacrifice and complete interior\nsurrender. These are the three ways in which the mystical passion for\nGod breaks out through humanity. These three types make good\u2014atone\nfor\u2014our corporate spiritual shortcomings; redeem the dead level of that\nrace which has thrust them forth towards the Infinite.\n\nPerhaps it seems to us that their difference from us is too great; that\nthey are cut off, divided by a chasm from the common experience of man\nto form an exclusive, \u201cother-worldly\u201d type. Their life rises up like a\ngreat mountain, full of beauty and strangeness; and ours is like the\nhomely plain. But there is no break between the plain and the mountain.\nIt is pushed out from us, it is part of us; its value is bound up with\nthe value of the whole\u2014with our value, as struggling, growing men. It,\nevery inch of it, atones for our flatness and enhances the average level\nof the race. We have all seen in Catholic countries how a sudden hill\nwith a Calvary on its summit can glorify and atone for the whole\nlandscape\u2014so poor without it, so noble with it\u2014from which it is lifted\nup. Now the Cross is, and remains, the central feature in the Christian\nlandscape too: but is it not the long slope of that hill, going from the\ncommon level to the heights, which makes it so homely to us, so\naccessible to us, so supremely a part of us, and completes its task of\nlinking humanity and divinity?\n\nThese are some of the reasons why the doctrine of Atonement seems to be\nclosely bound up with the mystical vision of life, and hard to\nunderstand\u2014whether we mean by it a spiritual principle or a historic\nevent\u2014without that mystical vision. We have Christianity saying to us,\non the one hand, that the utmost ideal of humanity, the ideal of perfect\nself-donation to the purposes of Spirit, perfect self-surrender to the\ninterests of the All, was completely and transcendently achieved in\nJesus. In Him man leapt to the heights; and this unique attainment\ncounts for the whole race. But, on the other hand, it says that all who\ncan are called to go as far as they are able on the same road; to \u201cfill\nup the measure of the sufferings,\u201d to \u201cgrow to the full stature,\u201d to\n\u201cpress on to the high calling\u201d of the human soul. Through these more\nvital personalities\u2014the mystics, the twice-born, the saints\u2014the radiance\nof the spiritual streams out on the race; God speaks to man through man.\nSuch personalities act as receivers and transmitters; they really and\npractically distribute the flashes of the Uncreated Light. Their\nactivities are vicarious; they do atone for the disabilities of other\nmen. Therefore the social value of the mystics, their place in the\norganism, is intimately connected with the atoning idea. Were it not for\nthe principle which the doctrine of Atonement expresses, the mystics\nwould be spiritual individualists, whose life and experience would be\nmeaningless except for themselves. And were it not for the continuance\nof the mystical life, the perpetual renewal of the mystical\nself-donation in love, its known value for the race, then the historic\nAtonement of Jesus would be an isolated act, unrelated to the great\nprocesses of the Spiritual World, of which it should form the crown.\n\n\n\n\n                     THE MYSTIC AS CREATIVE ARTIST\n\n\nHostile criticism of the mystics almost invariably includes the charge\nthat their great experiences are in the nature of merely personal\nsatisfactions. It is said that they stand apart from the ruck of\nhumanity, claiming a special knowledge of the supersensual, a special\nprivilege of communion with it; yet do not pass on to others, in any\nreal and genuine sense, the illumination, the intuition of Reality,\nwhich they declare that they have received. St. Bernard\u2019s favourite\nmistranslation from Isaiah, \u201cMy secret to myself,\u201d has again and again\nbeen used against them with damaging effect; linked sometimes with the\nnotorious phrase in which Plotinus defined the soul\u2019s fruition of\nEternity as \u201ca flight of the alone to the Alone.\u201d\n\nIt is true that these hints concerning a solitary and ineffable\nencounter do tally with one side of the experience of the mystic; do\ndescribe one aspect of his richly various, many-angled spiritual\nuniverse, one way in which that divine union which is his high objective\nis apprehended by the surface-consciousness. But that which is here\ntold, is only half the truth. There is another side, a \u201ccompleting\nopposite,\u201d to this admittedly indescribable union of hearts; a side\nwhich is often\u2014and most ungraciously\u2014forgotten by those who have\nreceived its benefits. The great mystic\u2019s loneliness is a consecrated\nloneliness. When he ascends to that encounter with Divine Reality which\nis his peculiar privilege, he is not a spiritual individualist. He goes\nas the ambassador of the race. His spirit is not, so to speak, a \u201cspark\nflying upwards\u201d from this world into that world, flung out from the mass\nof humanity, cut off; a little, separate, brilliant thing. It is more\nlike a feeler, a tentacle, which life as a whole stretches out into that\nsupersensual world which envelops her. Life stretches that tentacle out,\nbut she also draws it in again with the food that it has gathered, the\nnews that it has to tell of the regions which its delicate tactile sense\nhas enabled it to explore. This, it seems to me, is the function of the\nmystic consciousness in respect of the human race. For this purpose it\nis specialized. It receives, in order that it may give. As the prophet\nlooks at the landscape of Eternity, the mystic finds and feels it: and\nboth know that there is laid on them the obligation of exhibiting it if\nthey can.\n\nIf this be so, then it becomes clear that the mystic\u2019s personal\nencounter with Infinite Reality represents only one of the two movements\nwhich constitute his completed life. He must turn back to pass on the\nrevelation he has received: must mediate between the transcendent and\nhis fellow-men. He is, in fact, called to be a creative artist of the\nhighest kind; and only when he is such an artist, does he fulfil his\nduty to the race.\n\nIt is coming to be realized more and more clearly that it is the\nbusiness of the artist not only to delight us, but to enlighten us: in\nBlake\u2019s words, to \u201cCleanse the doors of perception, so that everything\nmay appear as it is\u2014infinite.\u201d Artists mediate between the truth and\nbeauty which they know, and those who cannot without their help discern\nit. It is the function of art, says Hegel, to deliver to the domain of\nfeeling and delight of vision all that the mind may possess of essential\nand transcendent Being. In this respect it ranks with religion and\nphilosophy as \u201cone of the three spheres of Absolute Spirit.\u201d Bergson,\nagain, declares that it is the peculiar business of art to brush aside\neverything that veils reality from us, in order to bring us face to face\nwith the real, the true. The artist is the man who sees things in their\nnative purity.\n\n\u201cCould reality,\u201d he observes in a celebrated passage, \u201ccome into direct\ncontact with sense and consciousness, could we enter into immediate\ncommunion with things and with ourselves\u2014then, we should all be\nartists.... Deep in our souls we should hear the uninterrupted melody of\nour inner life: a music often gay, more often sad, always original. All\nthis is around and within us: yet none of it is distinctly perceived by\nus. Between nature and ourselves\u2014more, between ourselves and our own\nconsciousness\u2014hangs a veil: a veil dense and opaque for normal men, but\nthin, almost transparent, for the artist and poet.\u201d He might have added,\nfor the mystic too.\n\nThis veil, he says again, is woven of self-interest: we perceive things,\nnot as they are, but as they affect ourselves. The artist, on the\ncontrary, sees them for their own sakes, with the eyes of disinterested\nlove. So, when the mystics declare to us that the first conditions of\nspiritual illumination are self-simplification, humility and detachment,\nthey are demanding just those qualities which control the artist\u2019s power\nof seeing things in their beauty and truth. The true mystic sees Reality\nin its infinite aspect; and tries, as other artists, to reveal it within\nthe finite world. He not only ascends, but descends the ladder of\ncontemplation; having heard \u201cthe uninterrupted music of the inner life,\u201d\nhe tries to weave it into melodies that other men can understand.\n\nBergson\u2019s contemporary, Eucken, claims\u2014and I think it is one of his most\nstriking doctrines\u2014that man is gradually but actually bringing into\nexistence a spiritual world. This spiritual world springs up from within\nthrough humanity\u2014that is, through man\u2019s own consciousness\u2014yet at the\nsame time humanity is, as it were, growing up into it; finding it as an\nindependent reality, waiting to be apprehended, waiting to be\nincorporated into our universe. In respect of man\u2019s normal universe,\nthis spiritual world is both immanent and transcendent: \u201cAbsent only\nfrom those unable to perceive it,\u201d as Plotinus said of the _Nous_. We\nare reminded of the Voice which said to St. Augustine, \u201cI am the Food of\nthe Full-grown.\u201d\n\nThis paradox of a wholly new order of experience thrusting itself up\nthrough the race which it yet transcends, is a permanent feature in the\nteachings of the higher religions and philosophies, and is closely\nconnected with the phenomena of inspiration and of artistic creation.\nThe artist, the prophet, the metaphysician, each builds up from material\nbeyond the grasp of other souls, a world within which those other souls\ncan live and dream: a world, moreover, which exhibits in new proportions\nand endows with new meanings the common world of daily life. When we ask\nwhat organ of the race\u2014the whole body of humanity\u2014it is, by and through\nwhich this supernal world thus receives expression, it becomes clear\nthat this organ is the corporate spiritual consciousness, emerging in\nthose whom we call, pre-eminently, mystics and seers. It is, actually\nand literally, through them that this new world is emerging and being\nbuilt up; as it is through other forms of enhanced and clarified\nconsciousness, in painters, musicians, philosophers, and the adepts of\nphysical science, that other aspects of the universe are made known to\nmen. In all of these, and in the mystic too, the twin powers of a\nsteadfast, selective attention and of creative imagination are at work.\nBecause of their wide, deep, attention to life they receive more news\nfrom the external world than others do; because of the creative cast of\ntheir minds, they are able to weave up the crude received material into\na living whole, into an idea or image which can be communicated to other\nmen. Ultimately, we owe to the mystics all the symbols, ideas and images\nof which our spiritual world, as it is thought of by the bulk of men, is\nconstructed. We take its topography from them, at second-hand: and often\nforget the sublime adventures immortalized in those phrases which we\ntake so lightly on our lips\u2014the Divine Dark, the Beatific Vision, the\nEternal Beauty, Ecstasy, Union, Spiritual Marriage, and the rest. The\nmystics have actually created, from that language which we have evolved\nto describe and deal with the time-world, another artistic world; a\nself-consistent and spiritually expressive world of imaginative\nconcepts, like the world of music or the world of colour and form. They\nare always trying to give us the key to it, to induct us into its\nmysterious delights. It is by means of this world, and the symbols which\nfurnish it, that human consciousness is enabled to actualize its most\nelusive experiences; and hence it is wholly due to the unselfish labours\nof those mystics who have struggled to body forth the realities by which\nthey were possessed, that we are able, to some extent, to enter into the\nspecial experiences of the mystical saints; and that they are able to\nsnatch us up to a brief sharing of their vision, to make us live for a\nmoment \u201cEternal Life in the midst of Time.\u201d\n\nHow, then, have they done this? What is the general method by which any\nman communicates the result of his personal contacts with the universe\nto other minds? Roughly speaking, he has two ways of doing this, by\ndescription and by suggestion; and his best successes are those in which\nthese two methods are combined. His descriptions are addressed to the\nintellect, his suggestions are appeals to the imagination, of those with\nwhom he is trying to communicate. The necessities which control these\ntwo ways of telling the news\u2014oblique suggestion and symbolic\nimage\u2014practically govern the whole of mystical literature. The span of\nthis literature is wide. It goes from the utterly formless, yet\ninfinitely suggestive, language of certain great contemplatives, to the\ncrisply formal pictorial descriptions of those whose own revelations of\nReality crystallize into visions, voices, or other psycho-sensorial\nexperiences. At one end of the scale is the vivid, prismatic imagery of\nthe Christian apocalypse, at the other the fluid, ecstatic poetry of\nsome of the S\u016bfi saints.\n\nIn his suggestive and allusive language the mystical artist often\napproaches the methods of music. When he does this, his statements do\nnot give information. They operate a kind of enchantment which dilates\nthe consciousness of the hearer to a point at which it is able to\napprehend new aspects of the world. In his descriptive passages, on the\nother hand, he generally proceeds, as do nearly all our descriptive\nefforts, by way of comparison. Yet often these comparisons, like those\nemployed by the great poet, are more valuable for their strange\nsuggestive quality than for any exact parallels which they set up\nbetween the mystic\u2019s universe and our own. Thus, when Clement of\nAlexandria compares the Logos to a \u201cNew Song,\u201d when Suso calls the\nEternal Wisdom a \u201csweet and beautiful wild flower,\u201d when Dionysius the\nAreopagite speaks of the Divine Dark which _is_ the Inaccessible Light,\nor Ruysbroeck of \u201cthe unwalled world,\u201d we recognize a sudden flash of\nthe creative imagination; evoking for us a truth far greater, deeper and\nmore fruitful than the merely external parallel which it suggests. So\ntoo with many common metaphors of the mystics: the Fire of Love, the\nGame of Love, the Desert of God, the Marriage of the Soul. Such phrases\nsucceed because of their interior and imaginative appeal.\n\nWe have numerous examples of this kind of artistic language\u2014the highly\ncharged imaginative phrase\u2014in the Bible; especially in the prophetic\nbooks, and the Apocalypse.\n\n    Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.\n    I will give thee treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret\n       places.\n    The Lord shall be a diadem of beauty.\n    He showed me a pure river of the water of life.\n    I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters.\n    I saw a new heaven and a new earth.\n\nWhereas the original prophetic significance of these phrases is now\nmeaningless for us, their suggestive quality\u2014their appeal to the mystic\nconsciousness\u2014retains its full force. They are artistic creations; and\nhave the enormous evocative power proper to all great art. Later mystics\nuse such passages again and again, reading their own experiences into\nthese traditional forms. The classic example of this close alliance\nbetween poetic readings of life and practical mysticism is of course the\nmystical interpretation of the _Song of Songs_, which appears in\nChristian mysticism at least as early as the fourth century. But there\nare many other instances. Thus St. Macarius finds in Ezekiel\u2019s vision of\nthe Cherubim a profoundly suggestive image of the state of the deified\nsoul, \u201call eyes and all wings,\u201d driven upon its course by the Heavenly\nCharioteer of the Spirit. Thus in _The Mirror of Simple Souls_, another\nof Ezekiel\u2019s visions\u2014that of the \u201cgreat eagle, with great wings, long\nwings, full of feathers, which took the highest branch of the\ncedar\u201d\u2014becomes the vivid symbol of the contemplative mind, \u201cthe eagle\nthat flies high, so right high and yet more high than does any other\nbird, for she is feathered with fine love, and beholds above other the\nbeauty of the sun.\u201d\n\nWhen we pass to the mystical poets, we find that nearly all their best\neffects are due to their extraordinary genius for this kind of indirect,\nsuggestive imagery. This is the method by which they proceed when they\nwish to communicate their vision of reality. Their works are full of\nmagical phrases which baffle analysis, yet, as one of them has said:\n\n                \u201cLighten the wave-washed caverns of the mind\n                With a pale, starry grace.\u201d\n\nMany of these phrases are of course familiar to every one. Vaughan\u2019s\n\n               \u201cI saw Eternity the other night\n               Like a great ring of pure and endless light.\u201d\n\nBlake\u2019s\n\n                  \u201cTo see a world in a grain of sand\n                    And a heaven in a wild flower,\n                  Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,\n                    And eternity in an hour.\u201d\n\nWhitman\u2019s\n\n             \u201cLight rare, untellable, lighting the very light.\u201d\n\nThompson\u2019s\n\n                   \u201cEver and anon a trumpet sounds\n                   From the hid battlements of Eternity.\u201d\n\nThese are artistic, sidelong representations of the mystic\u2019s direct\napprehension of the Infinite on, so to speak, its cosmic and impersonal\nside. Others reflect the personal and intimate contact with the Divine\nLife which forms the opposite side of his complete experience. Thus\nFrancis Thompson:\n\n                           \u201cWith his aureole\n                           The tresses of my soul\n                               Are blent\n                           In wished content.\u201d\n\nSo, too, St. John of the Cross:\n\n                 \u201cAll things I then forgot,\n                   My cheek on him who for my coming came;\n                 All ceased, and I was not,\n                   Leaving my cares and shame\n                   Among the lilies, and forgetting them.\u201d\n\nBest of all, perhaps, Jal\u0101luddin R\u016bmi:\n\n    \u201cIn a place beyond uttermost place, in a tract without shadow of\n       trace,\n    Soul and body transcending I live, in the soul of my loved one\n       anew.\u201d\n\nSometimes the two aspects, personal and impersonal, are woven together\nby the poet: and then it is that we come nearest to an understanding of\nthe full experience he is trying to express. A remarkable example of\nthis occurs in Gerard Hopkins, perhaps the greatest mystical poet of the\nVictorian era:\n\n             \u201cThou mastering me\n           God! giver of breath and bread;\n         World\u2019s strand, sway of the sea;\n           Lord of the living and dead;\n     Thou hast bound bones and veins in me, fastened me flesh,\n     And after it almost unmade, what with dread,\n         Thy doing: and dost thou touch me afresh?\n     Over again I feel thy finger and find thee.\u201d\n\n             \u201cI kiss my hand\n           To the stars, lovely-asunder\n         Starlight, wafting him out of it; and\n           Glow, glory in thunder;\n     Kiss my hand to the dappled-with-damson west:\n     Since, though he is under the world\u2019s splendour and wonder,\n         His mystery must be instressed, stressed;\n     For I greet him the days I meet him, and bless when I understand.\u201d\n\nSo much for the poets. In the prose writings of the mystics we find\nagain the same characters, the same high imaginative qualities, the same\npassionate effort to give the ineffable some kind of artistic form. This\neffort includes in its span a wide range of literary artifices; some\nendeavouring to recapture and represent in concrete symbols the\nobjective reality known; some, like one dominant art movement of the\npresent day, trying to communicate it obliquely, by a representation of\nthe subjective feeling-state induced in the mystic\u2019s own consciousness.\nAt one end of the scale, therefore, we have the so-called negative\nlanguage of mysticism, which describes the supersensuous in paradox by\nrefusing to describe it at all; by declaring that the entry of the soul\nupon spiritual experience is an entry into a Cloud of Unknowing, a\nnothing, a Divine Darkness, a fathomless abyss. The curious thing is,\nthat though here, if anywhere, the mystic seems to keep his secret to\nhimself, as a matter of fact it is just this sort of language which has\nbeen proved to possess the highest evocative power. For many types of\nmind, this really does fling magic casements wide; does give us a\nmomentary glimpse of the perilous seas. I am inclined to think that,\nmany and beautiful as are the symbolic and pictorial creations of\nmystical genius, it is here that this genius works most freely, produces\nits most magnificent results. When Ruysbroeck speaks of the boundless\nabyss of pure simplicity, that \u201cdim silence where all lovers lose\nthemselves\u201d; when he assures us that, \u201cstripped of its very life,\u201d the\nsoul is destined to \u201csail the wild billows of that Sea Divine,\u201d surely\nhe effects a true change in our universe. So, too, the wonderful series\nof formless visions\u2014though \u201cvision\u201d is a poor word for intuitive\nexperience of this sort\u2014experienced by Angela of Foligno, far exceed in\ntheir suggestive power her vividly pictured conversations with Christ,\nwhen she declares that she beheld \u201cthose eyes and that face so gracious\nand so pleasing.\u201d\n\n\u201cI beheld,\u201d she says of her ultimate experience of the Absolute, \u201ca\nThing, as fixed and stable as it was indescribable; and more than this I\ncannot say, save what I have often said already, namely, that it was all\ngood. And though my soul beheld not love, yet when it saw that ineffable\nThing it was itself filled with unutterable joy, and it was taken out of\nthe state it was in, and placed in this great and ineffable state....\nBut if thou seekest to know that which I beheld, I can tell thee\nnothing, save that I beheld a Fullness and a Clearness, and felt them\nwithin me so abundantly that I cannot describe it, nor give any image\nthereof: for what I beheld was not bodily, but as though it were in\nheaven. Thus I beheld a beauty so great that I can say nothing of it\nsave that I saw the Supreme Beauty, which contains in itself all\ngoodness.\u201d\n\nIn the end, all that Angela has said here is, \u201cCome and see!\u201d but in\nsaying this, she tells us far more than many do who go about to measure\nthe City of Contemplation. Here words suggest, they do not tell; entice,\nbut do not describe. Reminding us of the solemn declaration of Thomas \u00e0\nKempis, that \u201cthere is a distance incomparable between those things that\nimperfect men think, and those that men illumined by high revelation\nbehold,\u201d they yet extend to other minds a musical invitation to\nintercourse with new orders of reality.\n\nThis sort of language, this form of paradoxical, suggestive, allusive\nart is a permanent feature in mystical literature. It is usually\nsupposed to be derived through Dionysius the Areopagite from the\nPlatonists, but is really far older than this. As it comes down the\ncenturies, it develops in depth and richness. Each successive mystic\ntakes up the imagery of negation where the last one leaves it\u2014takes it,\nbecause he recognizes that it describes a country where he too has\nbeen\u2014and adds to it the products of his own most secret and august\nexperiences. As in the torch-race of the antique world, the illuminating\nsymbol, once lit, is snatched from hand to hand, and burns ever brighter\nas it is passed on.\n\nI take one example of this out of many. Nearly all the great mystics of\nthe later Middle Ages speak of the Wilderness or Desert of Deity;\nsuggesting thus that sense of great, swept spaces, \u201cbeyond the polar\ncircle of the mind\u201d\u2014of a plane of experience destitute of all the homely\nfurniture of thought\u2014which seems to characterize a certain high type, or\nstage, of contemplation. It represents the emergence of the self into a\nreal universe\u2014a \u201cplace beyond uttermost place\u201d\u2014unrelated to the\ncategories of thought, and is substantially the same experience which\nDionysius the Areopagite and those mystics who follow him call the\nDivine Ignorance or the Dark, and which his English interpreter names\nthe Cloud of Unknowing, where the soul feels itself to be lost. But each\nmystic who uses this traditional image of amazement\u2014really the\ndescription of a psychological situation, not of an objective\nreality\u2014gives to it a characteristic touch; each has passed it through\nthe furnace of his own passionate imagination, and slightly modified its\ntemper and its form. This place, or state, says Eckhart, is \u201ca still\nwilderness where no one is at home.\u201d It is \u201cthe quiet desert of the\nGodhead,\u201d says Tauler; \u201cSo still, so mysterious, so desolate! The great\nwastes to be found in it have neither image, form, nor condition.\u201d Yet,\nsays Richard Rolle\u2014suddenly bringing the positive experience of the\ncontemplative heart to the rescue of the baffled contemplative mind\u2014in\nthis same wilderness consciousness _does_ set up an ineffable\ncorrespondence with Reality.\n\n\u201c[There] speaks the loved to the heart of the lover; as it were a\nbashful lover, that his sweetheart before men entreats not, nor\nfriendly-wise but commonly and as a stranger kisses ... and anon comes\nheavenly joy, marvellously making merry melody.\u201d\n\nHere the mystic, with an astonishing boldness, weaves together spatial,\npersonal and musical imagery, positive and negative experience, in order\nto produce his full effect.\n\nFinally, St. John of the Cross, great thinker, manly and heroic mystic,\nand true poet, effects a perfect synthesis of these positive and\nnegative experiences\u2014that apparent self-loss in empty spaces which is\nalso, mysteriously, an encounter of love.\n\n\u201cThe soul in dim contemplation (he says) is like a man who sees\nsomething for the first time, the like of which he has never seen before\n... hence it feels like one who is placed in a wild and vast solitude\nwhere no human being can come; an immense wilderness without limits. But\nthis wilderness is the more delicious, sweet and lovely, the more it is\nwide, vast and lonely; for where the soul seems most to be lost, there\nit is most raised up above all created things.\u201d\n\nAll this language, as I have said, belongs to the oblique and\nparadoxical side of the mystic\u2019s art; and comes to us from those who are\ntemperamentally inclined to that pure contemplation which \u201chas no\nimage.\u201d Psychologically speaking, these mystics are closer to the\nmusician than to any other type of artist, though they avail themselves\nwhen they wish of material drawn from all the arts. But there is another\nkind of mystic, naturally inclined to visualization, who tends to\ntranslate his supersensual experience into concrete, pictorial images;\ninto terms of colour and of form. He uses, in fact, the methods of the\npainter, the descriptive writer, sometimes of the dramatist, rather than\nthose of the musician or the lyric poet. He is, I think, as a rule much\nless impressive than the artist of the illusive kind, and is seldom so\nsuccessful in putting us into communion with reality. On the other\nhand\u2014and partly because of his more concrete method\u2014he is the more\ngenerally understood. For one person to whom Plotinus or Ruysbroeck\ncommunicates his sublime intuition of reality, a hundred accept at their\nface-value, as true \u201crevelations,\u201d the visions of St. Gertrude or St.\nTeresa.\n\nThe picture-making proceedings of this type of mystical artist are of\ntwo kinds. Sometimes they are involuntary, sometimes deliberate. Often\nwe find both forms in the same individual; for instance, in Mechthild of\nMagdeburg and in Suso, where it is sometimes extremely difficult to find\nthe dividing line between true visionary experience entirely outside the\nself\u2019s control, and the intense meditation, or poetic apprehension of\ntruth, which demands a symbolic and concrete form for its literary\nexpression. In both cases an act of artistic creation has taken place;\nin one below, in the other above, the normal threshold of consciousness.\nIn true visionaries, the translation of the supersensual into sensual\nterms is uncontrolled by the surface intellect; as it is indeed in many\nartists. Without the will or knowledge of the subject, intuitions are\nwoven up into pictures, cadences, words; and, by that which\npsychologists call a psycho-sensorial automatism, the mystic seems to\nhimself to receive the message of Reality in a pictorial, verbal,\ndramatic or sometimes a musical form\u2014\u201ccoming in to his body by the\nwindows of the wits,\u201d as one old writer has it.\n\nThus the rhythmic phrases in which the Eternal Wisdom speaks to Suso, or\nthe Divine Voice to St. Catherine of Siena, verge on poetic composition;\nbut poetic composition of the automatic type, uncontrolled by the\nmystic\u2019s surface-mind. Thus, too, the great fluid visions of the\nprophets, the sharply definite, often lovely, pictures which surge up\nbefore the mind of Suso, the Mechthilds, St. Gertrude, Angela of\nFoligno, of the great St. Teresa herself, are symbolic pictures which\nrepresent an actual interior experience, a real contact with the\nsupersensual; exhibiting the interpretative power inherent in the\nmystical imagination. These pictures are seen by the mystic\u2014sometimes,\nas he says, within the mind, sometimes as projections in space\u2014always in\nsharp definition, lit by that strong light which is peculiar to\nvisionary states. They are not produced by any voluntary process of\ncomposition, but loom up, as do the best creations of other artists,\nfrom his deeper mind, bringing with them an intense conviction of\nreality. Good instances are the visions which so often occur at\nconversion, or mark the transition from one stage of the mystic way to\nanother: for example, the mystic marriage of St. Catherine of Siena, or\nthat vision of the Upper School of True Resignation, which initiated\nSuso into the \u201cdark night of the soul.\u201d I believe that we may look on\nsuch visions as allied to dream-states; but in the case of the great\nmystics they are the richly significant waking-dreams of creative\ngenius, not the confused and meaningless dreaming of normal men. Suso\nhimself makes this comparison, and says that none but the mystic can\ndistinguish vision from dream. In character they vary as widely as do\nthe creations of the painter and the poet. The personal and intimate,\nthe remote and metaphysical, sides of the spiritual life are richly\nrepresented in them. Sometimes the elements from which they are built up\ncome from theology, sometimes from history, legend, nature, or human\nlife. But in every case the \u201cglory of the lighted mind\u201d shines on them.\n\nOften a particularly delicate and gay poetic feeling\u2014a fa\u00ebry touch\u2014shows\nitself in the symbolic pictures by which these mystics try to represent\ntheir encounter with the spiritual world. Coventry Patmore once spoke of\na \u201csphere of rapture and dalliance\u201d to which the great contemplatives\nare raised; and it is from such a sphere that these seem to turn back to\nus, trying, by direct appeals to our sense of joy, the most stunted of\nour spiritual faculties, to communicate their exultant experience of\nthat Kingdom of Reality which is neither \u201chere\u201d nor \u201cthere\u201d but\n\u201ceverywhere.\u201d\n\nMusic and dancing, birds and flowers, the freshness of a living, growing\nworld, all simple joyous things, all airy beauties, are used in the\neffort to tell us of that vision which Clement called the privilege of\nlove. When we read these declarations we feel that it is always\nspring-time in those gardens of the soul of which they tell. St. John of\nthe Cross, who described those spiritual gardens, said that fragrant\nroses brought from strange islands grew there\u2014those strange islands\nwhich are the romantic unexplored possibilities of God\u2014and that\nwater-lilies shine like stars in that roaring torrent of supernal glory\nwhich pours without ceasing through the transfigured soul. This is high\npoetry; but sometimes the mystic imagination shows itself under simpler,\nmore endearing forms, as when St. Mechthild of Hackeborn saw the prayers\nof her sisters flying up like larks into the presence of God; some\nsoaring as high as His countenance and some falling down to rest upon\nHis heart. An angel carried the little, fluttering prayers which were\nnot strong enough to rise of themselves. Imagery less charming than this\nhas gone to the making of many a successful poem.\n\nBetween the sublime intensity of St. John and the crystalline simplicity\nof St. Mechthild, mystical literature provides us with examples of\nalmost every type of romantic and symbolic language; deliberate or\ninvoluntary translation of the heavenly fact into the earthly image.\nTrue, the earthly image is transfused by a new light, radiant with a new\ncolour, has been lifted into a new atmosphere; and thus has often a\nsuggestive quality far in excess of its symbolic appropriateness. In\ntheir search for such images the mystics explore the resources of all\nthe arts. In particular, music and dancing\u2014joyous harmony, unceasing\nmeasured movement\u2014have seemed to them specially significant _media_\nwhereby to express their intuitions of Eternal Life. St. Francis, and\nafter him Richard Rolle, heard celestial melodies; Kabir, the \u201cUnstruck\nMusic of the Infinite.\u201d Dante saw the saints dancing in the sphere of\nthe sun; Suso heard the music of the angels, and was invited to join in\ntheir song and dance. It was not, he says, like the dancing of this\nworld, but was like a celestial ebb and flow within that\nincomprehensible Abyss which is the secret being of the Deity. There is\nno need to dwell upon the remarkable way in which mystics of all\ncountries and periods, from Plotinus to Jacob Boehme, resort to the\ndance as an image of the glad harmonious movements of liberated souls. I\nwill take two characteristic examples, from the East and from the West.\nThe first is a poem by Kabir:\n\n    \u201cDance, my heart! dance to-day with joy.\n    The strains of love fill the days and the nights with music, and the\n       world is listening to its melodies;\n    Mad with joy, life and death dance to the rhythm of this music. The\n       hills and the sea and the earth dance. The world of man dances in\n       laughter and tears....\n    Behold! my heart dances in the delight of a hundred arts, and the\n       Creator is well pleased.\u201d\n\nThe next is the German mystic and poetess, Mechthild of Magdeburg, whose\nwritings are amongst the finest products of mystical genius of the\nromantic and emotional type. This Mechthild\u2019s book, _The Book of the\nFlowing Light of the Godhead_, is a collection of visions, revelations,\nthoughts and letters, written in alternate prose and verse. The variety\nof its contents includes the most practical advice on daily conduct, the\nmost sublime descriptions of high mystical experience. Mechthild was an\nartist, who was evidently familiar with the literary tradition and most\nof the literary expedients of her time. She uses many of them in the\nattempt to impart to others that vision of Life, Light and Love which\nshe knew. I take, as an example of her genius, and a last specimen of\nthe mystic\u2019s creative art, the celebrated letter addressed to a\nfellow-pilgrim on that spiritual \u201cLove-path\u201d which she trod herself with\nso great a fortitude. It represents not only the rich variety of\nMechthild\u2019s literary resources, but also those several forms of artistic\nexpression which the great mystics have employed. Here, concrete\nrepresentation is perpetually reinforced by oblique suggestion; the\nimagery of the poet is double-edged, evoking moods as well as ideas. We\nobserve that it opens with a spiritual love-scene, closely related in\nstyle to the secular and romantic literature of Mechthild\u2019s time; that\nthis develops to a dramatic dialogue between soul and senses\u2014another\ncommon artifice of the medi\u00e6val author\u2014and this again leads by a\nperfectly natural transition to the soul\u2019s great acclamation of its\ndestiny, and the crowning announcement of the union of lover and\nbeloved.\n\nThe movement of this mystical romance, then, like the movement of\nascending consciousness, goes from the concrete image to the mysterious\nand sidelong apprehension of imageless facts. First we have picture,\nthen dialectic, then intuitive certitude. Here, too, we find both those\naspects of experience which dominate mystical literature: the personal\nand intimate encounter of love, and the self-loss of the soul in an\nutterly transcendent Absolute. Surely the union of these \u201ccompleting\nopposites\u201d in one work of art must rank as a great imaginative\nachievement.\n\nMechthild tells her story of the soul\u2019s adventure in snatches of\nfreely-rhymed verse, linked together by prose narrative passages\u2014a form\nwhich is not uncommon in the secular literature of the Middle Ages.[1]\nWe are further reminded of that secular literature by the imagery which\nshe employs. The soul is described as a maiden, the Divine Lover is a\nfair youth whom she desires. The very setting of the story is just such\na fairy landscape as we find in the lays and romances of chivalry; it\nhas something of the spring-like charm that we feel in _Aucassin and\nNicolette_\u2014the dewy morning, the bird-haunted forest, the song and\ndance. It is, in fact, a love story of the period adapted with\nextraordinary boldness to the purposes of mystical experience.\n\nWhen the virgin soul, says Mechthild at the opening of her tale, has\nendured all the trials of mystical purification, she is very weary, and\ncries to her Love, saying, \u201cOh, beautiful youth! I long for thee. Where\nshall I find thee?\u201d Then the Divine Youth answers:\n\n                 \u201cA gentle voice I hear,\n                 Something of love sounds there:\n                 I have wooed her long and long,\n                 Yet not till now have I heard that song.\n                 It moveth me so,\n                 Towards her I must go.\n                 She is the soul who with pain is torn,\n                 And love, that is one with the pain.\n                 In the early dew of the morn,\n                 In the hidden depths, which are far below,\n                 The life of the soul is born.\u201d\n\nThen her vassals, which are the five senses, say to the soul, \u201cLady,\nadorn thyself.\u201d\n\n                  \u201cWe have heard the whisper clear;\n                  The Prince is coming towards thee here,\n                  In the morning dew, in the bird\u2019s song.\n                  Ah, fair Bride, tarry not long!\u201d\n\nSo the soul adorns herself with the virtues, and goes out into the\nforest: and the forest, says Mechthild, is the company of the saints.\nSweet nightingales sing there night and day of true union with God, and\nthere in the thicket are heard the voices of the birds of holy wisdom.\nBut the youth himself comes not to her. He sends messengers to the\nintent that she may dance: one by one he sends her the faith of Abraham,\nthe aspirations of the Prophets, the pure humility of our Lady Saint\nMary, all the virtues of Christ, and all the sanctity of His elect; and\nthus there is prepared a most noble dance. And then comes the youth and\nsays to the soul, \u201cMaiden, as gladly shouldst thou have danced, as mine\nelect have danced.\u201d But she replies:\n\n          \u201cUnless thou lead me, Lord, I cannot dance;\n          Would\u2019st thou have me leap and spring,\n          Thou thyself, dear Lord, must sing,\n          So shall I spring into thy love,\n          From thy love to understanding,\n          From understanding to delight.\n          Then, soaring human thought far, far above,\n          There circling will I dwell, and taste encircling love.\u201d\n\nSo sings the Bride; and so the youth must sing, that she may dance. Then\nsays he:\n\n\u201cMaiden, thy dance of praise was well performed. Now thou shalt have thy\nwill of the Virgin\u2019s Son, for thou art weary. Come at midday to the\nshady fountain, to the resting-place of love: and with him thou shalt\nfind refreshment.\u201d\n\nAnd the maiden replies:\n\n                   \u201cOh Lord, it is too high, too great,\n                   That she should be thy chosen mate,\n                   Within whose heart no love can be\n                   Till she is quickened, Lord, by thee.\u201d\n\nBy this romantic, story-telling method Mechthild has appealed to the\nfancy and emotion of the reader, and has enticed him into the heart of\nthe spiritual situation. Next, she passes to her intellectual appeal;\nthe argument between the soul and the senses. From this she proceeds, by\na transition which seems to be free and natural, yet is the outcome of\nconsummate art, to the supreme declarations of the deified spirit \u201cat\nhome with the Lord,\u201d as St. Paul said.\n\nThe dialogue moves by the process of reduction to a demonstration of God\nas the only satisfaction of the questing soul which has surrendered to\nthe incantations of Reality. One after another, substitutes for the\nFirst and Only Fair are offered and rejected. The soul says to the\nsenses, which are her vassals: \u201cNow I am for a while weary of the dance.\nGive place! for I would go where I may refresh myself.\u201d Then say the\nsenses to the soul: \u201cLady, wilt thou refresh thyself in the tears of\nlove of St. Mary Magdalene? This may well satisfy thee?\u201d But the soul\nsays: \u201cHush, sirs, you know not what I mean! Let me be, for I would\ndrink a little of the unmingled wine.\u201d\n\nThen say the senses:\n\n                  \u201cOh Bride, in virgin chastity,\n                  Is the Love of God made ready for thee.\u201d\n\nAnd the soul says:\n\n                 \u201cEven so; yet though high and pure it be,\n                 That path is not the highest for me.\u201d\n\nAnd the senses:\n\n                 \u201cIn the blood of the martyred saints\n                 May\u2019st thou refresh thy soul that faints.\u201d\n\nAnd the soul:\n\n                    \u201cI have been martyred so many a day,\n                    I cannot now tread in that way.\u201d\n\nAnd the senses:\n\n                     \u201cBy the wise Confessors\u2019 side,\n                     The pure in heart love to abide.\u201d\n\nAnd the soul:\n\n                     \u201cAnd their counsel will I obey,\n                     Both when I go and when I stay;\n                     And yet I cannot walk their way.\u201d\n\nAnd the senses:\n\n                      \u201cIn the Apostles\u2019 wisdom pure,\n                      May\u2019st thou find a refuge sure.\u201d\n\nAnd the soul:\n\n                   \u201cI have their wisdom here in my heart,\n                   And with it I choose the better part.\u201d\n\nAnd the senses:\n\n            \u201cO Bride, the angels are fair and bright,\n            Full of God\u2019s love, full of God\u2019s light;\n            Would\u2019st thou refresh thee, mount to their height.\u201d\n\nAnd the soul:\n\n               \u201cThe angel\u2019s joy is but heartache to me,\n               If their Lord and my Bridegroom I do not see.\u201d\n\nAnd the senses:\n\n                  \u201cIn holy penance refresh thee and save,\n                  That God to St. John Baptist gave.\u201d\n\nAnd the soul:\n\n                \u201cI am ready for pain, ready for grief,\n                Yet the combat of love is first and chief.\u201d\n\nAnd the senses:\n\n                 \u201cO Bride, would\u2019st thou refresh\u00e8d be,\n                 So bend thee to the Virgin\u2019s knee,\n                 To the little Babe, and taste and see\n                 The milk of joy from the Maid\u2019s breast,\n                 That the angels drink, in unearthly rest.\u201d\n\nAnd the soul:\n\n                     \u201cIt is but a childish love indeed,\n                     Babes to cradle, babes to feed;\n                     I am a fair, a full-grown bride,\n                     I must haste to my Lover\u2019s side.\u201d\n\nAnd the senses:\n\n                 \u201cO bride, if thou goest thou shalt find,\n                 That we are utterly dazzled and blind.\n                 Such fiery heat in God doth dwell\u2014\n                 Thou thyself knowest it well\u2014\n                 That all the flame and all the glow\n                 Which in Heaven above and the Saints below\n                 Burneth and shineth\u2014all doth flow\n                 From God Himself. His divine breath\n                 Sighed by the Spirit\u2019s wisdom and power,\n                 Through His human lips, born to death,\n                 \u2014Who may abide it, e\u2019en for an hour?\u201d\n\nAnd the soul says:\n\n         \u201cThe fish in the water cannot drown,\n         The bird in the air cannot sink down,\n         Gold in the fire cannot decay,\n         But shineth fairer and clearer alway.\n         To all creatures God doth give,\n         After their own natures to live.\n         How can I bind my nature\u2019s wings?\n         I must haste to my God before all things;\n         My God, by His nature my Father above,\n           My Brother in His humanity,\n         My Bridegroom in His ardent love,\n           And I His from Eternity.\n         Think ye, that Fire must utterly slay my soul?\n         Nay\u2014fierce He can scorch\u2014then tenderly cool and console.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd so did the utterly loved go in to the utterly lovely; into the\nsecret chamber of the Pure Divinity. And there she found the resting\nplace of love, and the home of love, and the Divine Humanity that\nawaited her.\u201d\n\nAnd the soul said:\n\n               \u201cLord, God, I am now a naked soul\n               And Thou art arrayed all gloriously:\n               We are Two in One, we have reached the goal,\n               Immortal rapture that cannot die.\n               Now, a blessed silence doth o\u2019er us flow,\n               Both wills together would have it so.\n               He is given to her, she is given to Him,\u2014\n               What now shall befall her, the soul doth know\u2014\n               And therefore am I consoled.\u201d\n\nThis is the end of all mysticism. It is the term to which all the\nartistic efforts of the mystics have striven to lead the hearts of other\nmen.\n\nFootnote 1:\n\n  For the verse-translations in the following extracts I am indebted to\n  the great skill and kindness of Mrs. Theodore Beck, who, possessing a\n  special talent for this difficult art, has most generously made for me\n  these versions of Mechthild\u2019s poetry.\n\n\n\n\n                      THE EDUCATION OF THE SPIRIT\n\n\nThe old mystics were fond of saying that \u201cMan is a made trinity, like to\nthe unmade Blessed Trinity.\u201d That particular form of words comes to us\nfrom Julian of Norwich; but it expresses a thought which we often meet\nin the spiritual writers of the Middle Ages. Further, these writers were\ndisposed to find in man\u2019s nature a reflection of the three special\ncharacters which theology attributes to the Christian Godhead. They\nthought that the power of the Father had its image in the physical\nnature of man: the wisdom of the Son in his reason: the creative vigour\nof the Holy Spirit in his soul. Some taught also that each of these\nthree aspects of humanity corresponded with one aspect of the triune\nreality of the universe: the physical world of nature, the mental world\nof idea, the ultimate world of spirit. The sceptic of course would\nexpress this differently, and see in it but one more illustration of the\nfact that man always makes God in his own image. But without scepticism\nI think we may explain it thus: that those who have pondered most deeply\non the Divine Nature have most easily found in its richness, and have\nbest understood, just those attributes which are most clearly marked in\nhuman nature. Man has inevitably been for them a key to God.\n\nThese speculations seem at first sight to have little bearing upon the\nproblems of education. But they are in reality intimately connected with\nit: for their consideration leads us back to the central fact out of\nwhich they have arisen\u2014namely, the abiding truth that man\u2019s deepest\nexploration of his own nature gives again and again this threefold\nresult, that he feels that his real self-hood and real possibilities are\nnot wholly exhausted by the terms \u201cbody\u201d and \u201cmind.\u201d He knows in his\nbest moments another vivid aspect of his being, as strong as these,\nthough often kept below the threshold of his consciousness: the spirit,\nwhich informs, yet is distinct from both his body and his mind.\n\nNow the question which all serious educationalists are called upon to\nask themselves is this: To what extent does that three-fold analysis of\nhuman personality influence our educational schemes? The object of\neducation is to bring out the best and highest powers of the thing\neducated. Do we, in our education, even attempt to bring out the best\nand highest powers of the spirit, as we seek to develop those of the\nbody and the mind?\n\nThe child as he comes to us is a bundle of physical, mental, and\nspiritual possibilities. He is related to three distinct yet\ninterpenetrating worlds; all accessible to him, since he is human, and\nall offering endless opportunities of adventure to him.\n\n                 \u201cHeaven lies about us in our infancy,\n                 Shades of the prison-house begin to close\n                 About the growing boy.\u201d\n\nWhy should they close; whose fault is it that they do? Does not the\nfault lie with the poor and grovelling outlook of those to whom this\nsensitive, plastic thing is confided? Who so badly select and manipulate\nthe bundle of possibilities offered to them, that they often contrive to\nmanufacture a creature ruled by its own physical needs and appetites,\nits mental and emotional limitations; instead of a free, immortal being,\nmaster of its own body and mind. Here is this child, the germ of the\nfuture. To a great extent, we can control the way that germ develops;\nthe special characters of the past which it shall transmit. We can have\na hand in the shaping of the history that is to be when we have gone:\nfor who can doubt that the controlling factor of history is the\nphysical, mental, or spiritual character of those races that dominate\nthe world? It is in the interplay, tension, and strife of these three\nuniverses that history in the last resort consists.\n\nNow, on the eve of a new era, is it not worth while to remind ourselves\nof this terrific fact? To see whether our plans are so laid as to bring\nout all the balanced possibilities of the coming man; all his latent\npowers? We recognize the fact that body and mind must be trained whilst\nstill in a plastic state. We are awake to the results of allowing them\nto atrophy. Where we find individuals with special powers in one of\nthese directions, we aim at their perfect development; at the production\nof the athlete, scholar, man of action. But it cannot be said that we\nare equally on the lookout for special qualities of spirit; that when\nfound, we train them with the same skill and care. Yet if we do not, can\nwe expect to get the very best out of the race? To explore all its\npotentialities; some, perhaps, still unguessed? We know that the child\u2019s\nreactions to life will be determined by the mental furniture with which\nhe is equipped. His perceptions, his choice from among the welter of\npossible impressions surrounding him, will depend on the character of\nhis \u201capperceiving mass.\u201d Surely then it is our first duty so to equip\nhim that he shall be able to lay hold on those intimations of spirit\nwhich are woven into the texture of our sensual universe; to lead him\ninto that mood of receptivity in which the beautiful and the\nsignificant, the good and the true, stand out for him from the scene of\nlife and hold his interest. A meadow which to one boy is merely a\npossible cricket field, to another is a place of romance and adventure,\nfull of friendly life.\n\nThe mischief is that whatever our theoretic beliefs, we do not in\npractice really regard spirit as the chief element of our being; the\nchief object of our educational care. Our notions about it are shadowy,\nand have very little influence on our educational schemes. Were it\npresent to us as a vivid reality, we should surely provide our young\npeople with a reasoned philosophy of life in which it is given its\nplace: something which can provide honest answers to the questions of\nthe awakening intelligence, and withstand the hostile criticism which\nwrecks so much adolescent faith. For ten parents who study the\nMontessori system of sense training, how many think of consulting those\nold specialists who taught how the powers of the spirit may be developed\nand disciplined, and given their true place in human life? How many\neducationalists realize that prayer, as taught to children, may and\nshould be an exercise which gently develops a whole side of human\nconsciousness that might otherwise be dormant; places it in\ncommunication with a real and valid universe awaiting the apprehension\nof man? How many give the subject the same close, skilled attention that\nthey give, say, to Latin grammar on one hand or physical culture on the\nother? Those subjects, and many more, have emerged from vagueness into\nclarity because attention, the cutting point of the human will, has been\nconcentrated upon them. Gradually in these departments an ordered world\nhas been made, and the child or young person put in correspondence with\nthat world. We cannot say that the same has been done for the world of\nspirit. The majority of the \u201cwell-educated\u201d probably pass through life\nwithout any knowledge of the science of prayer, with at best the vaguest\nnotions of the hygiene of the soul. Often our religious teachers are\nthemselves no better instructed, and seem unable to offer the growing\nand hungry spirit any food more heavenly than practical ethics and\ndogmatic beliefs. Thus a complete world of experience is habitually\nignored by us, and one great power of the human trinity allowed to\natrophy.\n\nWe are just beginning as educators to pay ordered attention to that\nfringe-world in which sense, intellect, and spirit all have a part: I\nmean the world of \u00e6sthetic apprehension. It cannot be denied that the\nresult has been, for many of the young people now growing up, an immense\nenlargement and enrichment of life. Look at one of the most striking\nintellectual characteristics of the last few years: the rapid growth of\nthe taste and need for poetry, the amount of it that is written, the way\nin which it seems to supply a necessary outlet for young Englishmen in\nthe present day. Look at the mass of verse which was composed, under\nconditions of utmost horror, on the battlefields; poetry the most\npathetic in the world, in which we see the passionate effort of spirit\nto find adjustment, its assertion of unconquerable power, even in the\nteeth of this overwhelming manifestation of brute force. There is the\npower of the future: the spirit of beauty and truth seeking for\nutterance. There is that quickening spring, bubbling up afresh in every\ngeneration; and ready, if we will help it to find expression, to\ntransfigure our human life.\n\nThere is a common idea that the spiritual life means something pious and\nmawkish: not very desirable in girls, and most objectionable in boys. It\nis strange that this notion, which both the Jewish and Christian\nScriptures so emphatically contradict, should ever have grown up amongst\nus. The spirit, says St. Paul, is not a spirit of fearfulness; it is \u201ca\nspirit of Power and Love and Discipline\u201d\u2014qualities that make for vigour\nand manliness of the best type. It is the very source of our energies,\nboth natural and supernatural. The mystics sometimes called it our\n\u201clife-giving life,\u201d and modern psychologists are beginning to discover\nthat it is, in the most literal sense, our \u201chealth\u2019s eternal spring.\u201d\nPeople say, \u201cCome, Holy Spirit\u201d; as if it were something foreign to us:\nyet it comes perpetually in every baby born into the world, for each new\nhuman life entering the temporal order implies a new influx or, least, a\nnew manifestation of spirit. But, when spirit is thus wedded to mind and\nbody to form human nature, it is submitted to the law governing human\nnature: the law of freedom. It is ours, to develop or stunt as we\nplease. Its mighty powers are not pressed on an unwilling race, but\ngiven us in germ to deal with as we will. Parents are responsible for\ngiving it every opportunity of development, the food, the light, the\nnurture that all growing things require\u2014in fact, for its education: a\ngreat honour, and a great responsibility.\n\nIf we are asked wherein such education should consist, I think we must\nreply that its demands are not satisfied by teaching the child any\nseries of religious doctrines divorced from practical experience. He is\nfull of energies demanding expression. Our object is so to train those\nenergies that they shall attain their full power and right balance; and\nenable him to set up relations with the spiritual world in which he\ntruly lives. The first phase in this education will consist in a\ndefinite moral training, which is like the tilling and preparation of\nthe earth in which the spiritual plant is to grow: and as regarding the\nspecial objects of this training I will take the definition of a great\nspiritual writer, a definition remarkable for its sanity and moderation:\n\u201cIf we would discover and know that Kingdom of God which is hidden in\nus, we must lead a life that is virtuous within, well ordered without,\nand fulfilled with true charity.\u201d What does that imply? It implies the\ncultivation of self-control, order, and disinterestedness. Order is a\nquality which all spiritual writers hold in great esteem; for they are\nfar from being the ecstatic, unbalanced, and mood-ridden creatures of\npopular fancy. Now the untrained child has all the disorderly ways, the\nuncontrolled and self-interested instincts of the primitive man. He is a\nvigorous young animal, reacting promptly and completely to the stimulus\nof fear or of greed. The history of human society, the gradual exchange\nof license for law, self-interest for group-interest, spasmodic activity\nfor orderly diligence must be repeated in him if he is to take his place\nin that human society. But if we would also prepare in him the way of\nspirit, the aim of this training must be something higher than that\nconvenient social morality, that spirit of fair play, truth, justice,\nmutual tolerance, which public school discipline seeks to develop. That\nmorality is relative and utilitarian. The morality in which alone the\nlife of the spirit can flourish is absolute and ideal. It is sought, not\nbecause it makes life secure, or promotes the greatest happiness of the\ngreatest number, but for its own sake. Yet in spite of this, the social\norder, in the form in which the child comes in contact with it, may be\nmade one of the best instruments for producing those characters demanded\nby the spiritual life. For what, after all, is the exchanging of\nself-interest for group-interests but the beginning of love? And what is\nat the root of the spirit of give and take but humility? See how the\napproaches to the spiritual kingdom are found in the midst of the common\nlife: what easy opportunity we have of initiating our children into\nthese central virtues of the soul. The spiritual writers tell us that\nfrom love and humility all other virtues come; that on the moral side\nnothing else is required of us. And we, if we train wisely, may lead the\nyoung into them so gently and yet so deeply that their instinctive\nattitude to existence will be that of humbleness and love; and they will\nbe spared the conflict and difficult reformation of those who wake to\nspiritual realities in later life.\n\nNow humbleness and love, as understood by spiritual persons, are not\npassive virtues: they are energetic, and show themselves in mind, will,\nand heart. In the mind, by a constant desirous tendency to, and seeking\nafter, that which is best; in the will by keenness, or, as the mystics\nwould say, by diligence and zeal; in the heart, by an easy suppleness of\nrelation with our fellow men\u2014patience, good temper, sympathy,\ngenerosity. Plainly the moral character which makes for spirituality is\na moral character which also makes for happiness. Suppose, then, that\nour moral training has been directed towards this eager, supple state of\nhumbleness and love: what special results may we expect as the\npersonality develops? Spiritual writers tell us to expect certain\nqualities, which are traditionally called the \u201cseven gifts of the\nspirit\u201d; and if we study the special nature of these gifts, we see that\nthey are the names of linked characters or powers, which together work\nan enhancement and clarification of the whole personality\u2014a tuning-up of\nhuman nature to fresh levels, a sublimation of its primitive instincts.\nThe first pair of qualities which are to mark our spiritual humanity are\ncalled Godliness and Fear. By these are meant that solemn sense of\ndirect relationship with an eternal order, that gravity and awe, which\nwe ought to feel in the presence of the mysteries of the universe; the\nfear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom. From these grow the\ngifts called Knowledge, that is, the power of discerning true from false\nvalues, of choosing a good path through the tangled world, and Strength,\nthe steady central control of the diverse forces of the self: perhaps\nthe gift most needed by our distracted generation. \u201cThrough the gift of\nspiritual strength,\u201d says Ruysbroeck, \u201ca man transcends all creaturely\nthings and possesses himself, powerful and free.\u201d This is surely a power\nwhich we should desire for the children of the future, and get for them\nif we can.\n\nWe see that the first four gifts of the spirit will govern the\nadjustment of man to his earthly life: that they will immensely increase\nthe value of his personality in the social order, will clarify his mind\nand judgment, confer nobility on his aims. The last three gifts\u2014those\ncalled Counsel, Understanding and Wisdom\u2014will govern his intercourse\nwith the spiritual order. By Counsel, the spiritual writers mean that\ninward voice which, as the soul matures, urges us to leave the\ntransitory and seek the eternal: and this not as an act of duty, but as\nan act of love. When that voice is obeyed, the result is a new spiritual\nUnderstanding; which, says Ruysbroeck again, may be \u201clikened to the\nsunshine, which fills the air with a simple brightness, and lights all\nforms and shows the distinctions of all colours.\u201d Even so does this\nspiritual gift irradiate the whole world with a new splendour, and shows\nus secrets that we never guessed before. Poets know flashes of it, and\nfrom it their power proceeds; for it enables its possessor to behold\nlife truly, that is from the angle of God, not from the angle of man.\n\n\u201cSuch an one,\u201d says Ruysbroeck, \u201cwalks in heaven, and beholds and\napprehends the height, the length, the depth, and the breadth, the\nwisdom and truth, the bounty and unspeakable generosity, which are in\nGod our Lover without number and without limit; for all this is Himself.\nThen that enlightened man looks down, and beholds himself and all other\nmen and all creatures; and this gift, through the knowledge of truth\nwhich is given us in its light, establishes in us a wide-stretching love\ntowards all in common.\u201d\n\n\u201cA wide-stretching love towards all in common.\u201d When we think of this as\nthe ruling character of our future citizens, and so the ruling character\nof our future world, we begin to see that the education of the spirit\nmay represent a political no less than a transcendental ideal. It alone\ncan bring about that regeneration, working from the heart outwards, of\nwhich the prophets of every country have dreamed.\n\nIt seems hard to conceive anything beyond this. But there is something.\nTo behold things as they are is not the end: beyond this is that Wisdom\nwhich comes not with observation, but is the fruit of intimate communion\nwith Reality. Understanding is perception raised to its highest\nexpression: Wisdom is intuition raised to its highest expression, and\ndirected towards an absolute objective. It is, so far as we know here,\nthe crown and goal of human development; the perfect fruition of love.\n\nWe have considered very shortly the chief possibilities of the human\nspirit, as they are described by those who have looked most deeply into\nits secrets. These seers tell us further that this spirit has its\ndefinite course to run, its definite consummation: that it emerges\nwithin the physical order, grows, spreads, and at last enters into\nperfect union or communion with the real and spiritual world. How much\nattention do we pay to this statement, which, if true, is the\ntranscendent fact of human history, the key to the nature of man? How\nmuch real influence does it have on our hopes and plans for our\nchildren? The so-called phenomenon of conversion\u2014the fact that so far\nnearly all the highest and best examples of the spiritual life have been\ntwice-born types, that they have had to pass through a terrible crisis,\nin which their natural lives were thrown into confusion in order that\ntheir spiritual lives might emerge\u2014all this is really a confession of\nfailure on the part of human nature: a proof that the plastic creature\nhas been allowed to harden in the wrong shape. If our growth were\nrightly directed, the spirit would emerge and flower in all its strength\nand loveliness, as the physical and mental powers of normal children\nemerge and flower. What is wrong with education that it fails to achieve\nthis? Partly, I think, that the values at which it aims are too often\nrelative and self-interested; not absolute and disinterested. Its\nintelligent gaze is fixed too steadily on earthly society, earthly\nhappiness. We encourage our young people to do the best things, but not\nalways from the best motives. We forget the essential link between work\nand prayer: yet this alone lifts man from the position of a busy animal\nto that of the friend and helper of God. We forget that our duties ought\nto include the awakening of that clear consciousness of eternity which\nshould be normal in every human being, and without which it is\nimpossible for any man to grasp the true values and true proportion of\nlife.\n\nFrom the very beginning, then, we ought to raise the eyes of the young\nfrom the contemplation of the earth under their feet to that of the\nheavens above their heads: to give them absolute values, not utilitarian\nvalues, to aim at. There is nothing morbid or sickly in this: it is\nrather those who do not possess the broader consciousness who are the\nmorbid, the sickly, and the maimed. The hope of the future is wide. We\nmust train our children to a wide stretch of faith, of aim, of\nimagination, if they are to grasp it, and fully enter into the\ninheritance that awaits them.\n\nHow, then, should we begin this most delicate of all tasks; this\neducation of the most sacred and subtle aspect of human nature? We must\nbe careful; for difficulties and dangers crowd the path, cranks lie in\nwait at every corner. I have spoken of the moral preparation. That is\nalways safe and sure. But there are two other safe ways of approach; the\ndevotional and \u00e6sthetic. These two ways are not alternative, but\ncomplementary. Art, says Hegel, belongs to the highest sphere of spirit,\nand is to be placed in respect of its content on the same footing as\nreligion and philosophy; and many others\u2014seers and philosophers\u2014have\nfound in the revelation of beauty an authentic witness to God. But the\nlove and realization of beauty, without reverence and devotion, soon\ndegenerates into mere pleasure. So, too, devotion, unless informed with\nthe spirit of beauty, becomes thin, hard and sterile. But where these\ntwo exist together, we find on one hand that the developed apprehension\nwhich discovers deep messages in nature, in music, in all the noble\nrhythms of art, makes the senses themselves into channels of Spirit: and\nthis is an apprehension which we can foster and control. And on the\nother hand the devotional life, rightly understood as a vivid, joyful\nthing\u2014with that disciplining of the attention and will which is such an\nimportant part of it\u2014is the most direct way to an attainment of that\nsimple and natural consciousness of our intangible spiritual environment\nwhich all ought to possess, and which the old mystics called by the\nbeautiful name of the \u201cpractice of the Presence of God.\u201d\n\nThis linking up of the devotional life with the instinct for beauty and\nwonder, will check its concentration on the more sentimental and\nanthropomorphic aspects of religion; and so discourage that religious\nemotionalism which wise educationalists rightly condemn. Hence these two\nways of approach, merged as they should be into one, can bring the self\ninto that simple kind of contemplation which is a normal birthright of\nevery soul, but of which our defective education deprives so many men\nand women; who cannot in later life quicken those faculties which have\nbeen left undeveloped in youth. As logic is a supreme exercise of the\nmind, so contemplation is a supreme exercise of the spirit: it\nrepresents the full activity of that intuitional faculty which is our\nmedium of contact with absolute truth. Before the inevitable smile\nappears on the face of the reader, I say at once that I am not\nsuggesting that we should teach young children contemplation; though I\nam sure that many brought up in a favouring atmosphere naturally\npractise it long before they know the meaning of the word. But I do\nsuggest that we should bring them up in such a way that their developed\nspirits might in the end acquire this art, without any more sense of\nbreak with the normal than that which is felt by the developed mind when\nit acquires the art of logic.\n\nWhat is contemplation? It is attention to the things of the spirit:\nsurely no outlandish or alarming practice, foreign to the general drift\nof human life. Were we true to our own beliefs, it should rather be our\ncentral and supremely natural activity; the way in which we turn to the\nspiritual world, and pick up the messages it sends to us. That world is\nalways sending us messages of liberation, of hope, and of peace. Are we\ngoing to deprive our children of this unmeasured heritage, this\nextension of life\u2014perhaps the greatest of the rights of man\u2014or leave\ntheir enjoyment of it to some happy chance? We cannot read the wonderful\nrecords of the spiritually awakened without a sense of the duty that is\nlaid on us, to develop if we can this spiritual consciousness in the\ngeneration that is to be.\n\nAll great spiritual literature is full of invitations to a newness of\nlife, a great change of direction; which shall at last give our human\nfaculties a worthy objective and redeem our consciousness from its\npresent concentration upon unreal interests. It urges us perpetually, as\na practical counsel, as something which is within human power and has\nalready been achieved by the heroes of the race, to \u201cput on the new\nman\u201d; to \u201cbring to birth the Son of God in the soul.\u201d But humanity as a\nwhole has never responded to that invitation, and therefore its greatest\npossibilities are still latent. We, the guardians of the future, by\nfurnishing to each emerging consciousness committed to our care such an\napperceiving mass as shall enable it to discern the messages of reality,\nmay do something to bring those possibilities into manifestation.\n\n\n\n\n           THE PLACE OF WILL, INTELLECT AND FEELING IN PRAYER\n\n\nThe psychology of religious experience, as yet so little understood, has\nfew more important problems proposed to it than that which concerns the\ntrue place and right use of will, intellect, and feeling in prayer. This\nquestion, which to some may appear merely academic, really involves the\nwhole problem of the method and proportion in which the various powers\nand activities of our being may best be used, when they turn from the\nnatural world of concrete things to attend to the so-called\n\u201csupernatural\u201d world of Spirit\u2014in fact, to God, Who is the source and\nsum of the reality of that world. That problem must be of practical\ninterest to every Christian\u2014more, to every one who believes in the\nspiritual possibilities of man\u2014for it concerns itself with all those\nresponses which are made by human personality to the impact of Infinite\nLife. It deals, in Maeterlinck\u2019s words, with \u201cthe harshest and most\nuninhabitable headlands of the Divine \u2018know thyself,\u2019\u201d and includes in\nits span the whole region \u201cwhere the psychology of man mingles with the\npsychology of God.\u201d\n\nIn the first place, what do we mean by prayer? Surely just this: that\npart of our active and conscious life which is deliberately orientated\ntowards, and exclusively responds to, spiritual reality. The Being of\nGod, Who is that spiritual reality, we believe to be immanent in all\nthings: \u201cHe is not far from each one of us: for in Him we live, and\nmove, and have our being.\u201d In fact, as Christians we must believe this.\nTherefore in attending to those visible and concrete things, we are in a\nway attending to that immanent God; and in this sense all honest work is\nindeed, as the old proverb says, a sort of prayer. But when we speak of\nprayer as a separate act or activity of the self, we mean more than\nthis. We mean, in fact, as a rule the other aspect of spiritual\nexperience and communion; in the language of theology, attention to\ntranscendent rather than to immanent Reality. Prayer, says Walter\nHilton, in terms of which the origin goes back to the Neoplatonists, \u201cis\nnothing else but an ascending or getting up of the desire of the heart\ninto God, by withdrawing it from all earthly thoughts\u201d\u2014an ascent, says\nRuysbroeck, of the Ladder of Love. In the same spirit William Law\ndefines it as \u201cthe rising of the soul out of the vanity of time into the\nriches of eternity.\u201d It entails, then, a going up or out from our\nordinary circle of earthly interests; a cutting off, so far as we may,\nof \u201cthe torrent of use and wont,\u201d that we may attend to the changeless\nReality which that flux too often hides. Prayer stretches out the\ntentacles of our consciousness not so much towards that Divine Life\nwhich is felt to be enshrined within the striving, changeful world of\nthings; but rather to that \u201cEternal truth, true Love, and loved\nEternity\u201d wherein the world is felt to be enshrined; and in this act it\nbrings to full circle the activities of the human soul\u2014that\n\n                        \u201cSwinging-wicket set between\n                        The Unseen and the Seen.\u201d\n\nThe whole of man\u2019s life really consists in a series of balanced\nresponses to this Transcendent-Immanent Reality; because man lives under\ntwo orders, is at once a citizen of Eternity and of Time. Like a\npendulum, his consciousness moves perpetually\u2014or should move if it be\nhealthy\u2014between God and his neighbour, between this world and that. The\nwholeness, sanity, and balance of his existence will entirely depend\nupon the perfection of his adjustment to this double situation; on the\nsteady alternating beat of his outward swing of adoration, his\nhomeward-turning swing of charity. Now, it is the outward swing which we\nare to consider: the powers that may be used in it, the best way in\nwhich these powers may be employed.\n\nFirst, we observe that those three capacities or faculties which we have\nunder consideration\u2014the thinking faculty, the feeling faculty, the\nwilling or acting faculty\u2014practically cover all the ways in which the\nself can react to other selves and other things. From their combination\ncome all the possibilities of self-expression which are open to man. In\nhis natural life he needs and uses all of them. Shall he need and use\nall of them in his spiritual life too? Christians, I think, are bound to\nanswer this question in the affirmative. According to Christianity, it\nis the whole self which is called to turn towards Divine Reality\u2014to\nenter the Kingdom\u2014not some supposed \u201cspiritual\u201d part thereof. \u201cThou hast\nmade us for Thyself,\u201d said Augustine; not, as the Orphic initiate would\nhave said, \u201cThou hast made one crumb out of our complex nature for\nThyself, and the rest may go on to the rubbish heap.\u201d It is the _whole\nman_ of intellect, of feeling, and of will, which finds its only true\nobjective in the Christian God.\n\nSurely, the real difference which marks out Christianity from all other\nreligions lies just here; in this robust acceptance of humanity in its\nwholeness, and of life in its completeness, as something which is\nsusceptible of the Divine. It demands, and deals with, the whole man,\nhis Titanic energies and warring instincts; not, as did the antique\nmysteries, separating and cultivating some supposed transcendental\nprinciple in him, to the exclusion of all else. Christians believe in a\nGod immanent and incarnate, Who transfuses the whole of the life which\nHe has created, and calls that life in its wholeness to union with Him.\nIf this be so, then _Lex credendi, lex orandi_; our belief should find\nits fullest expression in our prayer, and that prayer should take up,\nand turn towards the spiritual order all the powers of our mental,\nemotional, and volitional life. Prayer should be the highest exercise of\nthese powers; for here they are directed to the only adequate object of\nthought, of love, and of desire. It should, as it were, lift us to the\ntop of our condition, and represent the fullest flowering of our\nconsciousness; for here we breathe the air of the supernal order, and\nattain according to our measure to that communion with Reality for which\nwe were made.\n\nPrayer so thought of will include, of course, many different kinds of\nspiritual work; and also\u2014what is too often forgotten\u2014the priceless gift\nof spiritual rest. It will include many kinds of intercourse with\nReality\u2014adoration, petition, meditation, contemplation\u2014and all the\nshades and varieties of these which religious writers have named and\nclassified. As in the natural order the living creature must feed _and_\ngrow, must suffer _and_ enjoy, must get energy from the external world\n_and_ give it back again in creative acts, if he would live a whole and\nhealthy life, so, too, in the spiritual order. All these things\u2014the\ngiving and the receiving, the work and the rest\u2014should fall within the\ncircle of prayer.\n\nNow, when we do anything consciously and with purpose, the transition\nfrom inaction to action unfolds itself in a certain order. First we form\na concept of that which we shall do; the idea of it looms up, dimly or\ndistinctly, in the mind. Then, we feel that we want to do it, or must do\nit. Then we determine that we _will_ do it. These phases may follow one\nanother so swiftly that they seem to us to be fused into one; but when\nwe analyze the process which lies behind each conscious act, we find\nthat this is the normal sequence of development. First we think, then we\nfeel, then we will. This little generalization must not be pressed too\nhard; but it is broadly true, and gives us a starting-point from which\nto trace out the way in which the three main powers of the self act in\nprayer. It is practically important, as well as psychologically\ninteresting, to know how they act or should act; as it is practically\nimportant to know, at least in outline, the normal operation of our\nbodily powers. Self-knowledge, said Richard of St. Victor, is the\nbeginning of the spiritual life; and knowledge of ones self\u2014too often\nidentified with knowledge of ones sins\u2014ought to include some slight\nacquaintance with the machinery we all have at our disposal. This\nmachinery, as we see, falls into three divisions; and the perfection of\nthe work which it does will depend upon the observing of an order in\ntheir operation, a due balance between them, without excessive\ndevelopment of one power at the expense of the others.\n\nOn the side of spiritual experience and activity, such an excessive and\none-sided development often takes place. Where this exaggeration is in\nthe direction of intellect, the theological or philosophical mood\ndominates all other aspects of religion. Where the purely emotional and\ninstinctive side of the relation of the soul to God is released from the\ncritical action of the intelligence, it often degenerates into an\nobjectionable sentimentality, and may lead to forms of self-indulgence\nwhich are only superficially religious. Where the volitional element\ntakes command, unchecked by humble love, an arrogant reliance upon our\nown powers, a restless determination to do certain hard things, to\nattain certain results\u2014a sort of super-sensual ambition\u2014mars the harmony\nof the inner life. Any of these exaggerations must mean loss of balance,\nloss of wholeness; and their presence in the active life reflects back\nto their presence in the prayerful life, of which outward religion is\nbut the visible sign. I think, therefore, that we ought to regard it as\na part of our religious education to study the order in which our\nfaculties should be employed when we turn towards our spiritual\ninheritance.\n\nPrayer, as a rule\u2014save with those natural or highly trained\ncontemplatives who live always in the prayerful state, tuned up to a\nperpetual consciousness of spiritual reality\u2014begins, or should begin,\nwith something which we can only call an intellectual act; with thinking\nof what we are going to do. In saying this, I am not expressing a merely\npersonal opinion. All those great specialists of the spiritual life who\nhave written on this subject are here in agreement. \u201cWhen thou goest\nabout to pray,\u201d says Walter Hilton, \u201cfirst make and frame betwixt thee\nand God a full purpose and intention; then begin, and do as well as thou\ncanst.\u201d \u201cPrayer,\u201d says the writer of the _Cloud of Unknowing_, \u201cmay not\ngoodly be gotten in beginners or proficients, without thinking coming\nbefore.\u201d All medi\u00e6val writers on prayer take it as a matter of course\nthat \u201cmeditation\u201d comes before \u201corison\u201d; and meditation is simply the\nart of thinking steadily and methodically about spiritual things. So,\ntoo, the most modern psychologists assure us that instinctive emotion\ndoes its best work when it acts in harmony with our reasoning powers.\n\nSt. Teresa, again, insists passionately on the primal need of thinking\nwhat we are doing when we begin to pray; on \u201crecollecting the mind,\u201d\ncalling in the scattered thoughts, and concentrating the intellect upon\nthe business in hand. It is, in fact, obvious\u2014once we consider the\nmatter in a practical light\u2014that we must form _some_ conception of the\nsupernal intercourse which we are going to attempt, and of the parties\nto it; though if our prayer be real, that conception will soon be\ntranscended. The sword of the spirit is about to turn in a new\ndirection; away from concrete actualities, towards eternal realities.\nThis change\u2014the greatest of which our consciousness is capable\u2014must be\nrealized as fully as possible by the self whose powers of will and love\nit will call into play. It seems necessary to insist on this point,\nbecause so much is said now, and no doubt rightly said, about the\nnon-intellectual and supremely intuitional nature of the spiritual life;\nwith the result that some people begin to think it their duty to\ncultivate a kind of pious imbecility. There is a notion in the air that\nwhen man turns to God he ought to leave his brains behind him. True,\nthey will soon be left behind of necessity if man goes far on the road\ntowards that Reality which is above all reason and all knowledge; for\nspirit in the swiftness of its flight to God quickly overpasses these\nimperfect instruments. But those whose feet are still firmly planted\nupon earth gain nothing by anticipating this moment; they will not\nattain to spiritual intuition by the mere annihilation of their\nintelligence. We cannot hope to imitate the crystalline simplicity of\nthe saints; a simplicity which is the result, not of any deliberate\nneglect of reason, but of clearest vision, of intensest trust, of most\nardent love\u2014that is, of Faith, Hope, and Charity in their most perfect\nexpression, fused together to form a single state of enormous activity.\nBut this is no reason why we should put imbecility, deliberate\nvagueness, or a silly want of logic in the place of their exquisite\nsimpleness; any more than we should dare to put an unctuous familiarity\nin the place of their wonderful intimacy, or a cringing demeanour in the\nplace of their matchless humility.\n\nIn saying this\u2014in insisting that the reason has a well-marked and\nnecessary place in the mechanism of the soul\u2019s approach to God\u2014I am not\nadvocating a religious intellectualism. It is true that our perception\nof all things, even the most divine, is conditioned by the previous\ncontent of our minds: the \u201capperceiving mass.\u201d Hence, the more worthy\nour thoughts about God, the more worthy our apprehensions of Him are\nlikely to be. Yet I know that there is in the most apparently foolish\nprayer of feeling something warmly human, and therefore effective;\nsomething which in its value for life far transcends the consecrated\nsawdust offered up by devout intellectualism. \u201cBy love,\u201d said the old\nmystic, \u201cHe may be gotten and holden; by thought never.\u201d A whole world\nof experience separates the simple little church mouse saying her\nrosary, perhaps without much intelligence, yet with a humble and a\nloving faith, from the bishop who preferred \u201cOh, Great First Cause\u201d to\n\u201cOur Father,\u201d because he thought that it was more in accordance with\nscientific truth; and few of us will feel much doubt as to the side on\nwhich the advantage lies. The advantage must always lie with those \u201cfull\ntrue sisters,\u201d humility and love; for these are the essential elements\nof all successful prayer. But surely it is a mistake to suppose that\nthese qualities cannot exist side by side with an active and disciplined\nintelligence?\n\nPrayer, then, begins by an intellectual adjustment. By thinking of God,\nor of Spiritual Reality, earnestly and humbly, and to the exclusion of\nother objects of thought; by deliberately surrendering the mind to\nspiritual things; by preparing the consciousness for the impact of a new\norder, the inflow of new life. But, having thought of God, the self, if\nit stop there, is no more in touch with Him than it was before. It may\nthink as long as it likes, but nothing happens; thought unhelped by\nfeeling ever remains exterior to its object. We are brought up short\nagainst the fact that the intellect is an essentially static thing: we\ncannot think our way along the royal road which leads to heaven.\n\nYet it is a commonplace of spiritual knowledge that, if the state of\nprayer be established, something does happen; consciousness does somehow\ntravel along that road, the field of perception is shifted, new contacts\nare made. How is this done? A distinguished religious psychologist has\nanswered, that it is done \u201cby the synthesis of love and will\u201d\u2014that is to\nsay, by the craving in action which conditions all our essential\ndeeds\u2014and I know no better answer to suggest.\n\nWhere the office of thought ends, there the office of will and feeling\nbegins: \u201cWhere intellect must stay without,\u201d says Ruysbroeck, \u201cthese may\nenter in.\u201d Desire and intention are the most dynamic of our faculties;\nthey do work. They are the true explorers of the Infinite, the\ninstruments of our ascents to God. Reason comes to the foot of the\nmountain; it is the industrious will urged by the passionate heart which\nclimbs the slope. It is the \u201cblind intent stretching towards Him,\u201d says\nthe _Cloud of Unknowing_, \u201cthe true lovely will of the heart,\u201d which\nsucceeds at last; the tense determination, the effort, the hard work,\nthe definite, eager, humble, outward thrust of the whole personality\ntowards a Reality which is felt rather than known. \u201cWe are nothing else\nbut wills,\u201d said St. Augustine. \u201cThe will,\u201d said William Law, \u201cmaketh\nthe beginning, the middle, and the end of everything. It is the only\nworkman in nature, and everything is its work.\u201d Experience endorses this\nemphasis on will and desire as the central facts of our personality, the\npart of us which is supremely our own. In turning that will and desire\ntowards Spiritual Reality, we are doing all that we can of ourselves;\nare selecting one out of the sheaf-like tendencies of our complex\nnature, and deliberately concentrating upon it our passion and our\npower. Also, we are giving consciously, whole-heartedly, with intention,\nthat with which we are free to deal; and self-donation is, we know, an\nessential part of prayer, as of all true intercourse.\n\nNow, intellect and feeling are not wholly ours to give. A rich mental or\nemotional life is not possessed of all men; some are naturally stupid,\nsome temperamentally cold. Even those who are greatly endowed with the\npowers of understanding or of love have not got these powers entirely\nunder their own control. Both feeling and intellect often insist on\ntaking their own line with us. Moreover, they fluctuate from day to day,\nfrom hour to hour; they are dependent on many delicate adjustments.\nSometimes we are mentally dull, sometimes we are emotionally flat: and\nthis happens more often, perhaps, in regard to spiritual than in regard\nto merely human affairs. On such occasions it is notoriously useless to\ntry to beat ourselves up to a froth: to make ourselves think more deeply\nor make ourselves care more intensely. Did the worth of man\u2019s prayerful\nlife depend on the maintenance of a constant high level of feeling or\nunderstanding, he were in a parlous case. But, though these often seem\nto fail him\u2014and with them all the joy of spiritual intercourse fails him\ntoo\u2014the regnant will remains. Even when his heart is cold and his mind\nis dim, the \u201cblind intent stretching to God\u201d is still possible to him.\n\u201cOur wills are ours, to make them Thine.\u201d\n\nThe Kingdom of Heaven, says the Gospel, is taken by violence\u2014that is, by\neffort, by unfaltering courage\u2014not by cleverness, nor by ecstatic\nspiritual feelings. The freedom of the City of God is never earned by a\nmere limp acquiescence in those great currents of the transcendent order\nwhich bear life towards its home. The determined fixing of the will upon\nSpiritual Reality, and pressing towards that Reality steadily and\nwithout deflection; this is the very centre of the art of prayer. This\nis why those splendid psychologists, the medi\u00e6val writers on prayer,\ntold their pupils to \u201cmean only God,\u201d and not to trouble about anything\nelse; since \u201cHe who has Him has all.\u201d The most theological of thoughts\nsoon becomes inadequate; the most spiritual of emotions is only a\nfair-weather breeze. Let the ship take advantage of it by all means, but\nnot rely on it. She must be prepared to beat to windward if she would\nreach her goal.\n\nIn proportion to the strength and sincerity of the will, in fact, so\nshall be the measure of success in prayer. As the self pushes out\ntowards Reality, so does Reality rush in on it. \u201cGrace and the will,\u201d\nsays one of the greatest of living writers on religion, \u201crise and fall\ntogether.\u201d \u201cGrace\u201d is, of course, the theological term for that inflow\nof spiritual vitality which is the response made by the divine order to\nthe human motions of adoration, supplication, and love; and according to\nthe energy and intensity with which our efforts are made\u2014the degree in\nwhich we concentrate our attention upon this high and difficult business\nof prayer\u2014will be the amount of new life that we receive. The efficacy\nof prayer, therefore, will be conditioned by the will of the praying\nself. \u201cThough it be so, that prayer be not the cause of grace,\u201d says\nHilton, \u201cnevertheless it is a way or means by which grace freely given\ncomes into the soul.\u201d Grace presses in upon life perpetually, and awaits\nour voluntary appropriation of it. It is accessible to sincere and loyal\nendeavour, to \u201cthe true lovely will of the heart,\u201d and to nothing else.\n\nSo much we have said of will. What place have we left for the operation\nof feeling in prayer? It is not easy to disentangle will and feeling;\nfor in all intense will there is a strong element of emotion\u2014every\nvolitional act has somewhere at the back of it a desire\u2014and in all great\nand energizing passions there is a pronounced volitional element. The\n\u201csynthesis of love and will\u201d is no mere fancy of the psychologist. It is\na compound hard to break down in practice. But I think we can say\ngenerally that the business of feeling is to inflame the will, to give\nit intention, gladness, and vividness; to convert it from a dull\ndetermination into an eager, impassioned desire. It links up thought\nwith action; effects, in psychological language, the movement of the\nprayerful self from a mere state of cognition to a state of conation;\nconverts the soul from attention to the Transcendent to first-hand\nadventure within it. \u201cAll thy life now behoveth altogether to stand in\ndesire,\u201d says the author of the _Cloud of Unknowing_ to the disciple who\nhas accepted the principle of prayer; and here he is declaring a\npsychological necessity rather than a religious platitude, for all\nsuccessful action has its origin in emotion of some kind. Though we\nchoose to imagine that \u201cpure reason\u201d directs our conduct, in the last\nresort we always do a thing because of the feeling that we have about\nit. Not necessarily because we like doing it; but because instinctive\nfeeling of some sort\u2014selfish or unselfish, personal, social,\nconventional, sacrificial; the disturbing emotion called the sense of\nduty, or the glorious emotion called the passion of love\u2014is urging us to\nit. Instinctive emotions, more or less sublimated; Love, Hatred,\nAmbition, Fear, Anger, Hunger, Patriotism, Self-interest; these are the\ntrue names of our reasons for doing things.\n\nIf this be true of our reactions to the physical world, it is none the\nless true of our intercourse with the spiritual world. The will is moved\nto seek that intercourse by emotion, by feeling; never by a merely\nintellectual conviction. In the vigour and totality with which the\nheroes of religion give themselves to spiritual interests, and in the\npowers which they develop, we see the marks of instinctive feeling\noperating upon the highest levels. By \u201ca leash of longing,\u201d says the\n_Cloud of Unknowing_ again, man is led to be the servant of God; not by\nthe faultless deductions of dialectic, but by the mysterious logic of\nthe heart. He is moved most often, perhaps, by an innate unformulated\ncraving for perfection, or by the complementary loathing of\nimperfection\u2014a love of God, or a hatred of self\u2014by the longing for\npeace, the miserable sensations of disillusion, of sin, and of unrest,\nthe heart\u2019s deep conviction that it needs a changeless object for its\nlove. Or, if by none of these, then by some other emotional stimulus.\n\nA wide range of feeling states\u2014some, it is true, merely self-seeking,\nbut others high and pure\u2014influence the prayerful consciousness; but\nthose which are normal and healthy fall within two groups, one of\nsubjective, the other of objective emotion. The dominant motive of the\nsubjective group is the self\u2019s feeling of its own imperfection,\nhelplessness, sinfulness, and need, over against the Perfect Reality\ntowards which its prayer is set; a feeling which grows with the growth\nof the soul\u2019s spiritual perceptions, and includes all the shaded\nemotions of penitence and of humility. \u201cFor meekness in itself is naught\nelse but a true knowing and feeling of a man\u2019s self as he is.\u201d The\nobjective group of feelings is complementary to this, and is centred on\nthe goodness, beauty, and perfection of that Infinite Reality towards\nwhich the soul is stretching itself. Its dominant notes are adoration\nand love. Of these two fundamental emotions\u2014humility and love\u2014the first\nlies at the back of all prayer of confession and petition, and is a\nnecessary check upon the arrogant tendencies of the will. The second is\nthe energizing cause of all adoration: adoration, the highest exercise\nof the spirit of man. Prayer, then, on its emotional side should begin\nin humble contrition and flower in loving adoration. Adoring love\u2014not\nmere emotional excitement, religious sentimentality or \u201cspiritual\nfeelings\u201d\u2014but the strong, deep love, industrious, courageous and\nself-giving which fuses all the powers of the self into one single state\nof enormous intensity; this is the immortal element of prayer. Thought\nhas done all that it may when it has set the scene, prepared the ground,\nadjusted the mind in the right direction. Will is wanted only whilst\nthere are oppositions to be transcended, difficult things to be done. It\nrepresents the soul\u2019s effort and struggle to be where it ought to be.\nBut there are levels of attainment in which the will does not seem to\nexist any more as a separate thing. It is caught in the mighty rhythms\nof the Divine will, merged in it and surrendered to it. Instead of its\nsmall personal activity, it forms a part of the great deep action of the\nWhole. In the higher degrees of prayer, in fact, will is transmuted into\nlove. We are reminded of the old story of the ph\u0153nix: the active busy\nwill seems to be burned up and utterly destroyed, but living love,\nstrong and immortal, springs from the ashes and the flame. When the\nreasonable hope and the deliberate wilful faith in which man\u2019s prayer\nbegan are both fulfilled, this heavenly charity goes on to lose itself\nupon the heights.\n\nWithin the normal experience of the ordinary Christian, love should give\ntwo things to prayer; ardour and beauty. In his prayer, as it were, man\nswings a censer before the altar of the Universe. He may put into the\nthurible all his thoughts and dreams, all his will and energy. But\nunless the fire of love is communicated to that incense, nothing will\nhappen; there will be no fragrance and no ascending smoke. These\nqualities\u2014ardour and beauty\u2014represent two distinct types of feeling,\nwhich ought both to find a place in the complete spiritual life,\nbalancing and completing one another. The first is in the highest degree\nintimate and personal; the second is disinterested and \u00e6sthetic.\n\nThe intimate and personal aspect of spiritual love has found supreme\nliterary expression in the works of Richard of St. Victor, of St.\nBernard, of Thomas \u00e0 Kempis, of our own Richard Rolle, Hilton, and\nJulian of Norwich, and many others. We see it in our own day in its\npurest form in the living mystic who wrote _The Golden Fountain_. Those\nwho discredit it as \u201cmere religious emotionalism\u201d do so because they\nutterly mistake its nature; regarding it, apparently, as the spiritual\nequivalent of the poorest and most foolish, rather than the noblest,\nmost heroic, and least self-seeking, types of human love. \u201cI find the\nlark the most wonderful of all birds,\u201d says the author of _The Golden\nFountain_. \u201cI cannot listen to his rhapsodies without being inspired (no\nmatter what I may be in the midst of doing or saying) to throw up my own\nlove to God. In the soaring insistence of his song and passion I find\nthe only thing in Nature which so suggests the high soaring and\nrapturous flights of the soul. But I am glad that we surpass the lark in\nsustaining a far more lengthy and wonderful flight; and that we sing,\nnot downwards to an earthly love, but upwards to a heavenly.\u201d Like real\nhuman love, this spiritual passion is poles asunder from every kind of\nsentimentality. It is profoundly creative, it is self-giving, it does\nnot ask for anything in exchange. Although it is the source of the\nhighest kind of joy\u2014though, as \u00e0 Kempis says, the true lover \u201cflies,\nruns, and rejoices; is free, and cannot be restrained\u201d\u2014it has yet more\nkinship with suffering than with merely agreeable emotions. This is the\nfeeling state, at once generous and desirous, which most of all enflames\nthe will and makes it active; this it is which gives ardour and reality\nto man\u2019s prayers. \u201cFor love is born of God, and cannot rest save in God,\nabove all created things.\u201d\n\nBut there is another form of objective emotion besides this intimate and\npersonal passion of love, which ought to play an important part in the\nlife of prayer. I mean that exalted and essentially disinterested type\nof feeling which expresses itself in pure adoration, and is closely\nconnected with the sense of the Beautiful. Surely this, since it\nrepresents the fullest expression of one power in our nature\u2014and that a\npower which is persistently stretched out in the direction of the\nIdeal\u2014should have a part in our communion with the spiritual, as well as\nwith the natural world. The Beautiful, says Hegel, is the spiritual\nmaking itself known sensuously. It represents, then, a direct message to\nus from the heart of Reality; ministers to us of more abundant life.\nTherefore the widening of our horizon which takes place when we turn in\nprayer to a greater world than that which the senses reveal to us,\nshould bring with it a more poignant vision of loveliness, a more eager\npassion for Beauty as well as for Goodness and Truth. When St. Augustine\nstrove to express the intensity of his regret for wasted years, it was\nto his neglect of the Beauty of God that he went to show the poignancy\nof his feeling, the immensity of his loss. \u201cOh Beauty so old and so new!\ntoo late have I loved thee!\u201d\n\nIt needs a special training, I think\u2014a special and deliberate use of our\nfaculties\u2014if we are to avoid this deprivation; and learn, as an integral\npart of our communion with Reality, to lay hold of the loveliness of the\nFirst and Only Fair. \u201cI was caught up to Thee by Thy beauty, but dragged\nback again by my own weight,\u201d says Augustine in another place; and the\nweight of the soul, he tells us, is its love\u2014the pull of a misplaced\ndesire. All prayer which is primarily the expression of our wants rather\nthan our worship, which places the demand for daily bread before instead\nof after the hallowing of the Ineffable Name, will have this\ndragging-back effect.\n\nNow, as the artist\u2019s passion for sensuous beauty finds expression in his\nwork, and urges him to create beauty as well as he can, so too the\nsoul\u2019s passion for spiritual beauty should find expression in its work;\nthat is to say, in its prayer. A work of art, says Hegel again, is as\nmuch the work of the Spirit of God as is the beauty of Nature; but in\nart the Holy Spirit works through human consciousness. Therefore man\u2019s\nprayer ought to be as beautiful as he can make it; for thus it\napproaches more nearly to the mind of God. It should have dignity as\nwell as intimacy, form as well as colour. More, all those little magic\nthoughts\u2014those delicate winged fancies, which seem like birds rejoicing\nin God\u2019s sight\u2014these, too, should have their place in it. We find many\nspecimens of them, as it were stuffed and preserved under glass shades,\nin books of devotion. It is true that their charm and radiance cannot\nsurvive this process; the colour now seems crude, the sheen of the\nplumage is gone. But once these were the living, personal, spontaneous\nexpressions of the love and faith\u2014the inborn poetry\u2014of those from whom\nthey came. Many a liturgic prayer, which now seems to us impersonal and\nofficial\u2014foreign to us, perhaps, in its language and thought\u2014will show\nus, if we have but a little imaginative sympathy, the ardent mood, the\nexquisite tact, the unforced dignity, of the mind which first composed\nit; and form a standard by which we may measure our own efforts in this\nkind.\n\nBut the beauty which we seek to incorporate into our spiritual\nintercourse should not be the dead ceremonious beauty which comes of\nmere dependence on tradition. It should be the freely upspringing lyric\nbeauty which is rooted in intense personal feeling; the living beauty of\na living thing. Nor need we fear the reproach that here we confuse\nreligion with poetry. Poetry ever goes like the royal banners before\nascending life; therefore man may safely follow its leadership in his\nprayer, which is\u2014or should be\u2014life in its intensest form. Consider the\nlilies: those perfect examples of a measured, harmonious, natural and\ncreative life, under a form of utmost loveliness. I cannot help thinking\nthat it is the duty of all Christians to impart something of that\nflower-like beauty to their prayer; and only feeling of a special kind\nwill do it\u2014that humble yet passionate love of the beautiful, which finds\nthe perfect object of its adoration in God and something of His fairness\nin all created things. St. Francis had it strongly, and certain other of\nthe mystics had it too. In one of his rapturous meditations, Suso, for\nwhom faith and poetry were\u2014as they should be\u2014fused in one, calls the\nEternal Wisdom a \u201csweet and beautiful wild flower.\u201d He recognized that\nflowery charm which makes the Gospels fragrant, and is included in that\npattern which Christians are called to imitate if they can. Now, if this\nquality is to be manifested in human life, it must first be sought and\nactualized, consciously or unconsciously, in prayer; because it is in\nthe pure, sharp air of the spiritual order that it lives. It must spring\nup from within outwards, must be the reflection of the soul\u2019s communion\nwith \u201cthat Supreme Beauty which containeth in itself all goodness\u201d;\nwhich was revealed to Angela of Foligno, but which \u201cshe could in no wise\ndescribe.\u201d The intellect may, and should, conceive of this Absolute\nBeauty as well as it can; the will may\u2014and must\u2014be set on the attaining\nof it. But only by intuitive feeling can man hope to know it, and only\nby love can he make it his own. The springs of the truest prayer and of\nthe deepest poetry\u2014twin expressions of man\u2019s outward-going passion for\nthat Eternity which is his home\u2014rise very near together in the heart.\n\n\n\n\n                       THE MYSTICISM OF PLOTINUS\n\n\nIn spite of his enormous importance for the history of Christian\nphilosophy, Plotinus is still one of the least known and least\nunderstood among the great thinkers of the ancient world. The extreme\ndifficulty of his style, which Porphyry well described as \u201cdense with\nthought, and more lavish of ideas than words,\u201d together with the natural\nlaziness of man, may perhaps account for this neglect. He was by choice\na thinker, contemplative, and teacher, not a writer. Therefore the\nEnneads, which represent merely notes of lectures hastily and\nunwillingly written down during the last fifteen years of his life,\noffer few inducements to hurried readers. The fact that he was a\n\u201cmystic\u201d has been held a further excuse for failure to understand the\nmore cryptic passages of his works; though as a matter of fact these are\nthe precipitations of a singularly clear and logical intellect, and will\nyield all their secrets to a sympathetic and industrious attention. His\nfew translators have often been content to leave difficult phrases\nunelucidated, or surrounded by a haze of suggestive words; and though\nhis splendid and poetic rhapsodies are quoted again and again, even\nthose later mystics who are most indebted to him show few signs of\nfirst-hand study and comprehension of his system as a whole. Thanks to\nthis same obscurity, and the richness, intricacy, and suggestive quality\nof his thought, most of his interpreters have tended to do for him that\nwhich he did for his master Plato: they have re-handled him in the\ninterests of their own religion or philosophy. Of this, the Cambridge\nPlatonists are the most notorious example; but the same inclination is\nseen in modern scholars. Thus Baron von H\u00fcgel seeks to introduce a\ndualism between his mysticism and his metaphysics. Even the brilliant\nexposition of his philosophy in the Dean of St. Paul\u2019s _Gifford\nLectures_ is not wholly exempt from this criticism. A comparison of his\nanalysis with those of Baron von H\u00fcgel in _Eternal Life_, and of Mr.\nWhittaker in _The Neoplatonists_ makes plain the part which temperament\nhas played in each of these works.\n\nPlotinus himself would probably have been astonished by this charge of\nobscurity. His teaching had by declaration two aims. The first was the\ndefinitely religious aim of bringing men to a knowledge of Divine\nreality; for he had the missionary ardour inseparable from the saintly\ntype. The second was the faithful interpretation of Platonic philosophy,\nespecially the doctrines of Plato, and of his own immediate master, the\nunknown Alexandrian Ammonius: for his academic teaching consisted wholly\nof a commentary on, and interpretation of, Plato\u2019s works. His system,\ntherefore, is a synthesis of practical spirituality and formal\nphilosophy, and will only be grasped by those who keep this twofold\ncharacter in mind. There must always seem to be a conflict between any\nclosed and self-consistent metaphysical system and the freedom and\nrichness of the spiritual life: but since few metaphysicians are\nmystics, and few mystics are able to take metaphysics more seriously\nthan the soldier takes the lectures of the armchair strategist, these\ntwo readings of reality are seldom brought into direct opposition. In\nPlotinus we have an almost unique example of the philosopher who is also\na practical mystic; and consequently of a mind that cannot be satisfied\nwith anything less than an intellectual system which finds room for the\nmost profound experiences of the spiritual life. In this peculiarity\nsome scholars have found his principal merit; others a source of\nweakness. The position of his critics has been excellently stated by\nBaron von H\u00fcgel in _Eternal Life_. He finds in the Enneads a \u201cceaseless\nconflict\u201d between \u201cthe formal principles of the philosopher\u201d and \u201cthe\nexperiences of a profoundly religious soul.\u201d The philosophy issues in an\nutterly transcendent Godhead without qualities, activity, or being: the\nmysticism issues in ecstatic union, actual contact, with a God, \u201cthe\natmosphere and home of souls\u201d whose richness is the sum of all\naffirmations. Yet, as a matter of fact, this disharmony is only\napparent; and is resolved when we understand the formal character of the\nPlotinian dialectic as a \u201cway,\u201d a stepping-stone, the reduction to terms\nof reason of some aspects of a reality beyond reason\u2019s grasp. The\ndiscrepancy is like that which exists between map and landscape.\nPlotinus, constantly passing over from argument to vision, speaks\nsometimes the language of geography, sometimes that of adventure: yet\nboth, within their spheres, are true. The Neoplatonic _via negativa_\nalways implies an unexpressed because ineffable affirmation. Therefore\nits Absolute, of which reason can predicate no qualities, may yet be the\n\u201cflower of all beauty\u201d as apprehended by the contemplative soul.\n\nSince the doctrine of Ammonius is unknown to us, we have no means of\ngauging the extent to which Plotinus depends on him: but probably we\nshall not be far wrong if we attribute to his influence the peculiar\nsense of reality, the deep spiritual inwardness, colour and life, with\nwhich his great pupil invests the dogmas of Platonism. The main elements\nof the Plotinian philosophy, however, are undoubtedly Platonic. The\nDivine Triad, the precession of spirit and its return to its origin, the\nunreal world of sense, the universal soul, the \u201creal\u201d or intelligible\nworld of the Ideas\u2014these and other ingredients of his system are a part\nof the common stock of Platonism. His originality and his attraction\nconsist in the use which he makes of them, the colour and atmosphere\nwith which they are endowed. That which is truly his own is the living\nvision which creates from these formul\u00e6 a vivid world both actual and\npoetic, answering with fresh revelations of reality the widening demands\nand apprehensions of the human soul. This spiritual world is not merely\narrived at by a dialectic process. It is the world of his own intense\nexperience from which he speaks to us; using his texts, as Christian\nmystics have often used the Bible, to support doctrines inspired by his\npersonal vision of truth. In spite of his passion for exactitude, the\nsharpness and detail of his universe, he is thrown back, again and\nagain, on the methods of symbol and poetry. We must always be ready to\nlook past his formal words to the felt reality which he is struggling to\nimpart; a reality which is beyond the grasp of reason, and can only be\napprehended by the faculty which he calls spiritual intuition. To this\nwe owe the richness and suppleness of his system, the absence of\nwatertight compartments, the intimate relation with life. Whilst many\nphilosophers have spent their powers on proving the necessary existence\nof an unglimpsed universe which shall satisfy the cravings of the mind,\nPlotinus spent his in making a map, based on his own adventures in \u201cthat\ncountry which is no mere vision, but a home;\u201d and his apparently rigid\ncontours and gradients are attempts to tell at least the characteristics\nof a living land.\n\nThough the Enneads are a storehouse of profound and subtle thought, the\nmain principles on which their philosophy is based are simple, and can\nbe expressed briefly. All things, according to Plotinus, have come forth\nfrom the Absolute Godhead or One, and only fulfil their destiny when\nthey return to their origin. The real life of the universe consists in\nthis flux and reflux: the outflow and self-expression of spirit in\nmatter, the \u201cconversion\u201d or return of spirit to the One. With the rest\nof the Neoplatonists, he conceives of the Universe as an emanation,\neternally poured forth from this One, and diminishing in reality and\nsplendour the further it is removed from its source. The general\nposition is somewhat like that given by Dante in the opening of the\n_Paradiso_:\n\n                    \u201cLa gloria di colui che tutto move\n                    Per l\u2019universo penetra, e resplende\n                    In una parte pi\u00f9, e meno altrove,\u201d\n\nthough Plotinus would have rejected the spatial implications of the last\nline, for to him the One was present everywhere. The Divine nature is a\ntrinity; but not, as in Christian theology, of co-equal persons. Its\nthree descending degrees, or hypostases, are the unconditioned One or\nthe Good\u2014a term which implies perfection but carries no ethical\nimplications\u2014the Divine Mind, Spirit, or _Nous_, and the Soul or Life of\nthe World. Nothing is real which does not participate in one or other of\nthese principles. Though the first two hypostases are roughly parallel\nto the Eternal Father and Logos-Christ of Christian Platonism, and some\nhave found in the Plotinian _Psyche_ a likeness to the immanent Holy\nSpirit, this superficial resemblance must not be pressed. Fatherhood\ncannot be ascribed to the One save in so far as it is the first cause of\nlife, for it transcends all our notions of personality. Its real\nparallel in Christian theology is that conception of the\n\u201cSuper-essential Godhead, beyond and above the Trinity of Persons,\u201d\nwhich Eckhart and a few other daring mystics took through Dionysius the\nAreopagite from the Neoplatonists. The One is, in fact, the Absolute as\napprehended by a religious soul. Nor is the Plotinian _Nous_ a person,\nin any sense in which orthodox Christianity has understood that term,\nthough it is called by Plotinus our Father and Companion. Further, the\ntriadic series does not involve a succession either in time, or order of\ngeneration; but only in value. The worlds of spirit and of soul are\nco-eternal with the Absolute, the inevitable and unceasing expressions\nof its creative activity. The utterly transcendent Perfect manifests as\nMind or Spirit (_Nous_); and this _is_ the world of being. Mind or\nSpirit manifests as Life or Soul (_Psyche_); and this _is_ the reality\nof the world of becoming. The lower orders are contained in the higher,\nwhich are everywhere present, though each \u201cremains in its own place.\u201d\n\u201cOf all things the governance and existence are in these three.\u201d\n\nWhilst every image of the universe is deceptive, since its true nature\nis beyond our apprehension, Plotinus invites us to picture the Triad, as\nDante did, by concentric circles through which radiate the energy and\nsplendour of the \u201cflower of all beauty,\u201d the Transcendent One. \u201cThe\nfirst act is the act of the Good, at rest within itself, and the first\nexistence is the self-contained existence of the Good. But there is also\nan act upon it, that of the _Nous_; which, as it were, lives about it.\nAnd the Soul, outside, circles about the _Nous_, and by gazing upon it,\nseeing into the depths of it, through it sees God\u201d (I. 8. 2). Again,\n\u201cThe One is not a Being, but the Source of being, which is its first\noffspring. The One is perfect, that is, it has nothing, seeks nothing,\nneeds nothing; but as we may say it overflows, and this overflowing is\ncreative\u201d (V. 1. 2). Yet this eternal creative action \u201cbeyond spirit,\nsense, and life,\u201d involves no self-loss. It is the welling forth of an\nunquenchable spring, the eternal fountain of life.\n\nAs Christian Platonists described the Son as the self-expression of the\nFather, so Plotinus describes his second Divine Principle as the eternal\nirradiation of the Absolute\u2014_il ciel che pi\u00f9 della sua luce prende_.\nThis principle he calls _Nous_; a word carrying many shades of meaning,\nwhich the older commentators generally rendered as Divine Mind, or\nIntelligible Principle. Dean Inge has shown good reason for translating\nit as \u201cSpirit,\u201d thus bringing the language of Plotinus into line with\nthe many later mystics who derive from him. As a matter of fact, _Nous_\ncontains both meanings. It is more spiritual than mind, more\nintellectual than spirit, in the sense in which that word is commonly\nemployed. Those medi\u00e6val theologians who made a mystical identification\nbetween the Hebrew conception of the Eternal Wisdom as we find it\ndescribed in Proverbs and Ecclesiasticus, and the Second Person of the\nTrinity, came very near the Plotinian concept of _Nous_, which is at\nonce Intelligence and the intelligible sphere, Spirit and the spiritual\nuniverse; the home of reality, and object of religious and poetic\nintuition. It is, in one aspect, the \u201cFather and Companion\u201d of the soul\n(V. 1. 3), in another \u201cthe Intellectual Universe, that sphere\nconstituted by a Principle wholly unlike what is known as intelligence\nin us\u201d (I. 8. 2). This is the \u201cYonder\u201d to which he so often refers; the\n\u201cmiddle heaven\u201d of Indian philosophy, Ruysbroeck\u2019s \u201cclear-shining world\nbetween ourselves and God.\u201d\n\n                   \u201c... e questo cielo non ha altro dove\n                   Che la mente divina,\u201d\n\nsays Dante; once more condensing the whole Neoplatonic vision in one\nvivid phrase.\n\nThis rich and suggestive conception of the Second Principle, as at once\nKing and Creator of the world of life, and also itself the archetypal\nworld of true values, is the central fact of the Plotinian philosophy.\nIts apprehension, he says, is beyond ordinary human reason, which is\nfitted for correspondence with the world of life or soul. It is the\nfunction of spiritual intuition; \u201ca faculty which all possess, though\nfew use.\u201d Such communion with the world of supernal reality is possible,\nbecause man is potentially an inhabitant of it. \u201cThe Fatherland to us is\nthere, whence we have come: and there is the Father\u201d (I. 6. 8). The\n\u201capex\u201d or celestial aspect of our soul is domiciled there. It \u201cnever\nleaves the Divine Mind; but, while it clings yonder, allows the lower\nsoul, as it were, to hang down\u201d (VI. 7. 5). Man is, in fact,\nintermediary between the two Plotinian worlds of Spirit and Soul, and\nparticipates in both. Eucken, in describing him as the meeting-place of\ntwo orders of reality, is merely restating the doctrine of the\nNeoplatonists.\n\nAs Spirit is the outbirth and manifestation of the One, so Soul, or\nLife\u2014the third member of the Triad\u2014is the manifestation or matter of\nSpirit; and forms the link between the physical and the supersensual\nworlds. Spirit is \u201cat once its Father and ever-present Companion\u201d (V. 1.\n3). Soul is a term covering the whole vital essence (_a_) of the world,\nand (_b_) of the individual. It has two aspects. The celestial soul\naspires toward, and is in communion with, the spiritual order; the\nnatural soul hangs down and inspires the physical order, thereby\nconferring on it a measure of reality. We are not, however, to\nunderstand by Soul merely the aggregate of individuals. _Psyche_ is the\ndivine and eternal life of the created universe, comprehending its\ninfinite variety in a unity which embraces every object in the\nsense-known scheme, and makes it \u201clike one animal\u201d (IV. 4. 32). It is:\n\n              \u201cA motion and a spirit, that impels\n              All thinking things, all objects of all thought,\n              And rolls through all things.\u201d\n\nThe whole creation, says Plotinus, in one of his great poetic passages,\nis \u201cawake and alive at every point.\u201d Each thing has its own peculiar\nlife in the all; though we, because our senses cannot discern the life\nwithin wood and stone, deny that life. \u201cTheir living is in secret, but\nthey live\u201d (IV. 4. 36). Here we are reminded of the Logos-Christ of the\n\u201cSayings\u201d\u2014\u201cRaise the stone and thou shalt find me: cleave the wood, and\nthere am I.\u201d By this conception, which is elaborated from the doctrine\nof the world-soul in the _Tim\u00e6us_, Neoplatonism bridges the gap between\nappearance and reality, and also solves the paradox of multitude in\nunity. \u201cWe do not declare the Soul to be one in the sense of entirely\nexcluding multiplicity. This absolute oneness belongs only to the higher\nnature. We make it both one and manifold; it has part in the nature\nwhich is divided among bodies, but it has part also in the indivisible,\nand so again we find it to be one\u201d (IV. 9. 2).\n\nSoul, which has in its highest manifestations many of the characters of\nSpirit, is the eternal upholder of the world of change. \u201cThings have a\nbeginning, and perish when the soul that leads the chorus-dance of life\ndeparts; but the soul itself is eternal and cannot suffer change ...\nwhat the soul is, and what its power, will be more manifestly, more\nsplendidly evident, if we think how its counsel comprehends and conducts\nthe heavens; how it communicates itself to all this vast bulk and\nensouls it through all its extension, so that every fragment lives by\nthe soul entire, which is present everywhere like the Father which begat\nit\u201d (V. 1. 2). Soul, then, which is in one sense the reality of the\nworld of becoming and immanent therein, is also a denizen of eternity,\nin virtue of its continuity with and direct dependence on _Nous_. An\nunbroken series of ascending values unites the world of living effort\nwith the One. It is this which makes the system of Plotinus a philosophy\nof infinite adventure and infinite hope.\n\nSoul is the lowest of the Divine hypostases. Below it in the scale of\nvalues is the material universe to which its lower activities give form,\nslumbering in the rocks and dreaming in the plants. In plants, says\nPlotinus, \u201cthe more rebellious and self-willed phase of soul is\nexpressed\u201d: a doctrine which will find an echo in many a gardener\u2019s\nheart. The sensible beauty of the world is the signature of soul, and\npoints to something \u201cYonder\u201d; for through loveliness it participates in\nthe world of spiritual values, and we in apprehending beauty turn away\nfrom matter to _Nous_ (I. 8. 4). Matter, as such, has no reality except\nas the stuff from which soul weaves up its outward vesture. Deprived of\nsoul, it is in itself, he says, \u201cnot-being\u201d and \u201cno-thing\u201d: \u201cits very\nnature is one long want\u201d (I. 8. 5). As a picture is the crude and\npartial condensation of an artist\u2019s dream\u2014all that he can force his\nrecalcitrant material to express\u2014so the physical world is but a\nfragmentary manifestation of the great and vivid universe of soul, and\nthe body is the smallest part of the real man. When we grasp this, we\nsee how great is the sum of possibilities opened to us by the Cosmos;\nhow easily the country \u201cYonder\u201d can find room for all the visions and\nintuitions of artists, poets, and saints.\n\nThe Plotinian doctrine of man, which became in due course the classical\ndoctrine of Christian mysticism, is the logical outcome of this\ncosmology. Man, like the rest of Creation, has come forth from God and\nwill only find happiness and full life when his true being is re-united,\nfirst with the Divine Mind, and ultimately with the One. \u201cWhen the\nphantasm has returned to the Original, the journey is achieved\u201d (VI. 9.\n11). Hence \u201cour quest is of an End, and not of Ends. That only can be\nchosen which is ultimate and noblest, that which calls to the tenderest\nlongings of the soul\u201d (I. 4. 6). As the descending stages of reality are\nthree, so the stages of the ascent are three. They are called in the\nEnneads purification, the work of reason, which marks the transference\nof interest from sense to soul; enlightenment\u2014the work of spiritual\nintuition\u2014which lifts life into communion with the eternal world of\nspirit; and ecstasy, that profound transfiguration of consciousness\nwhereby the \u201cspirit in love\u201d achieves union with the One. These stages\nare familiar to all students of Christian asceticism, as the codified\n\u201cmystic way\u201d of purgation, illumination, and union: a formula which\nDionysius the Areopagite took from the Neoplatonists. But it is\nimportant to remember that in Plotinus this \u201cway\u201d is not\u2014as it sometimes\nbecomes in medi\u00e6val writers\u2014a rigid series of mutually exclusive\npsychological states, separated by water-tight bulkheads. It is rather a\ndiagram by which he seeks to describe one undivided movement of life; a\nprolonged effort and adventure, which has for its object a deeper and\ndeeper penetration into Reality, the achievement of a true scale of\nvalues, in order that the real proportions of existence may be grasped.\nIn this movement nothing is left behind; but everything is carried up\ninto a higher synthesis, as the latent possibilities of humanity are\ngradually realized, and man grows up into eternal life.\n\n\u201cSince your soul is so exalted a power, so divine, be confident that in\nvirtue of its possession you are close to God. Begin therefore with the\nhelp of this principle to make your way to Him. You have not far to go:\nthere is not much between. Lay hold of that which is more divine than\nthis god-like thing; lay hold of that apex of the soul which borders on\nthe Supreme (_Nous_), from which the soul immediately derives\u201d (V. 1.\n3).\n\nAll practical mysticism is at bottom a process of transcendence,\n\u201cpassing on the upward way all that is other than God\u201d (I. 6. 7): and\nthis process, in different temperaments, assumes different forms. Since\nPlotinus united in his own person the characteristics of the\nmetaphysician, the poet and the saint, he tends to present it under\nthree aspects; as the logical outcome of a reasoned philosophy, as a\nmoral purification which strips us of all unreality, and as a\nprogressive initiation into beauty. \u201cBeholding this Being, the Conductor\nof all existence, the self-intent that ever gives and never takes,\nresting rapt in the vision and possession of so lofty a loveliness, what\nbeauty can the soul then lack? For this, the beauty supreme, the\nabsolute and the primal, fashions its lovers to beauty and makes them\nalso worthy of love. And for this the sternest and uttermost combat is\nset before these souls; all our labour is for this, lest we be left\nwithout part in this noblest vision, which to attain is to be blessed in\nthe blissful sight, which to fail of is to fail utterly\u201d (I. 6. 7). In\nthe high place which he gives to the category of beauty, which is to him\none of the three final attributes of God, the strongly poetic character\nof his vision of Reality becomes evident. He anticipates Hegel in\nregarding natural beauty as the sensuous manifestation of spirit and\nsignature of the world-soul \u201cfragment as it were of the Primal Beauty,\nmaking beautiful to the fullness of their capacity whatsoever it grasps\nand moulds\u201d (I. 6. 6): and those lovers, artists, and musicians who can\napprehend it have already made the first step towards the inner vision\nof the One. Therefore the harsh other-worldliness which made some\nmedi\u00e6val ascetics turn from visible loveliness as a snare, would have\nseemed blasphemy to Plotinus, who would certainly have argued with St.\nAugustine that \u201cthere is no health in those who find fault with any part\nof Thy creation\u201d (_Conf._ vii. 14). On the contrary, his doctrine gives\na religious sanction and a philosophic explanation to those special\nexperiences and apprehensions of artists, poets, and so-called\n\u201cnature-mystics\u201d\u2014known to many normal persons in moments of\nexaltation\u2014when\n\n             \u201cThe world is so charged with the grandeur of God\n             It must shine out, like shining from shook foil.\u201d\n\nIn such hours, he would say, we perceive through matter the inhabiting\n_Psyche_, and by it reach out to communion with _Nous_, for \u201cthis is how\nthe material becomes beautiful; by participating in the thought which\nflows from the Divine\u201d (I. 6. 2). He would have understood Blake\u2019s claim\nto see the universe as \u201ca world of imagination and vision,\u201d and accepted\nErigena\u2019s great saying, \u201cevery visible and invisible creature is a\ntheophany or appearance of God.\u201d\n\nThus the whole mystic ascent can be conceived as a movement through\nvisible beauty to its invisible source, and thence to \u201cthe inaccessible\nBeauty, dwelling as if in consecrated precincts apart from the common\nways\u201d (I. 6. 8). Yet this progress is not so much a change in our\nconsciousness of the world and of ourselves, as a shifting of the centre\nof our being from sense to soul, from soul to spirit, whereby we come\nactually to live at new levels of existence. \u201cFor all there are two\nstages of the path, according to whether they are ascending or have\nalready gained the upper sphere. The first stage is conversion from the\nlower life: the second\u2014taken by those who have already reached the\nSpiritual sphere, as it were set a footprint there, but must still\nadvance within that realm\u2014lasts till they reach its extreme summit, the\nterm attained When the topmost peak of the Spiritual realm is won\u201d (I.\n3. 1).\n\nThe process is both intellectual and moral, since its goal is the\nabsolute Truth and Beauty no less than the absolute Good. \u201cEach must\nbecome God-like and beautiful who cares to see God and Beauty\u201d (I. 6.\n9). It involves deliberate effort and drastic purification of mind and\nheart, \u201ccutting away all that is excessive, straightening all that is\ncrooked, bringing light to all that is in shadow, labouring to make all\none glow of beauty\u201d (I. 6. 9). As \u201call knowing comes by likeness\u201d (I. 8.\n1), we must ourselves have moral beauty if we would see the \u201cBeauty\nThere.\u201d But whether this way be conceived under \u00e6sthetic or ascetic\nsymbols, Plotinus is at one with all the mystics in declaring that the\ndriving force which urges the soul along the pathway to reality is love.\nThis inspires its labour, supports its stern purifications, \u201cdetaches it\nfrom the body and lifts it to the Intelligible World\u201d (III. 6. 5), and\ngives it at last \u201cthe only eye that sees the mighty Beauty\u201d (I. 6. 9).\nLove means for him active desire; \u201cthe longing for conjunction and\nrest.\u201d All shades of spiritual and poetic passion, the graded meanings\nof admiration, enthusiasm, and worship, are included in it. It is \u201cthe\ntrue magic of the universe\u201d; an attribute of _Nous_, and an earnest of\nreal life. \u201cThe fullest life is the fullest love, and the love comes\nfrom the celestial light which streams forth from the Absolute One\u201d (VI.\n7. 23). It is true that the impersonal nature of the Neo-platonic One\ngives no apparent scope to the intimate feeling which plays so large a\npart in Christian devotion. But the reality and warmth of the true\nmystical passion for the Absolute\u2014its complete independence of\nanthropomorphic conceptions\u2014is strikingly demonstrated by those glowing\npassages in which Plotinus allows his overpowering emotion, \u201cthat\nveritable love, that sharp desire,\u201d to speak; and appeals to the\nexperience of those fellow-mystics who have attained the vision of \u201cthe\nsplendour yonder, and felt the burning of the flame of love for that\nwhich is there to know; the passion of the lover resting on the bosom of\nhis love\u201d (VI. 9. 4). This passion is the instrument of that ecstasy in\nwhich he taught that those men who have \u201cwrought themselves into harmony\nwith the Supreme\u201d may briefly experience the vision of the ineffable\nOne. In it the spirit is burned to a white heat, which fuses in one\nsingle state the highest activities of feeling, thought, and will.\nThough the doctrine of ecstasy appears in Philo, and could reasonably be\ndeduced from Plato himself, its treatment by Plotinus, the intense\nactuality and poetic fervour of its presentation, are the obvious\nresults of such personal experiences as Porphyry describes to us. This\necstasy, according to him\u2014and here he is supported by the majority of\nlater mystics\u2014is not a merely passive state, nor does it result in a\nbarren satisfaction. When, withdrawing from all lesser interests, the\nsoul passes beyond all contingency \u201cthrough virtue to the Divine Mind,\nthrough wisdom to the Supreme,\u201d and poises itself upon God in a simple\nstate of rapt attention, it receives as a reward of its effort not only\nthe beatific vision of the Perfect, but also an accession of vitality.\nAt this moment, says Plotinus, it \u201chas another life\u201d and \u201cknows that the\nSupplier of true life is present.\u201d The mystic, or \u201csage,\u201d is not a\nspiritual freak; but the man who has grown up to the full stature of\nhumanity and united himself with that Source of life which is \u201cpresent\neverywhere, yet absent except only to those prepared to receive it\u201d (VI.\n9. 4). Therefore he alone can be trusted to be fully active; since his\naction is not a mere restless striving after the discordant objects of a\nscattered attention, but an ordered movement based on the contemplation\nof Reality.\n\n\u201cWe always move round the One. If we did not, we should be dissolved and\nno longer exist. But we do not always look at the One. When we do, we\nattain the end of our existence, and our rest; and no longer sing out of\ntune, but form a divine chorus round the One\u201d (VI. 9. 7).\n\nYet in spite of the majesty and purity of his vision, the devil\u2019s\nadvocate is not without material for an attack upon Plotinus. The charge\nbrought by St. Augustine against \u201cthe books of the Platonists\u201d as a\nwhole\u2014and by these he meant chiefly the Enneads\u2014is well known. He found\nin their philosophy no response to the needs of the struggling and the\nimperfect. In its complete escape from the standing religious snare of\nanthropomorphism, Neoplatonism also escaped from the grasp of humanity.\nIt left man everything to do for himself. For the Christian philosophy\nof divine incarnation, dramatized in history, and expressed in the\nphrase \u201cGod so loved the world,\u201d the Neoplatonist substitutes \u201cSo the\nworld loves God.\u201d \u201cNo one there,\u201d says Augustine of their school,\n\u201chearkens to Him who calleth, Come unto Me all ye that labour.\u201d The One\nis the transcendent Source and the Magnet of the Universe, the object\nand satisfaction of spiritual passion; but not the lover, helper, or\nsaviour of the soul. It \u201cneeds nothing, desires nothing.\u201d The quality of\nmercy cannot be ascribed to it. As a term, it is as attractive and\nimpersonal as a mountain peak; and the mystic attaining it has something\nof the aristocratic self-satisfaction of the successful mountaineer. The\nChristian and S\u016bfi mystics, even when most deeply influenced by\nNeoplatonism, have always felt the incompleteness of this conception.\nThey see the soul\u2019s achievement of reality as the result of two\nmovements, one human and one divine: a \u201cmutual attraction.\u201d \u201cGod needs\nme as much as I need Him,\u201d said Meister Eckhart. \u201cOur natural will,\u201d\nsaid Julian of Norwich, \u201cis to have God, and the good-will of God is to\nhave us.\u201d\n\n\u201cI was given,\u201d says Angela of Foligno, \u201ca deep insight into the humility\nof God, towards man and all other things.\u201d \u201cThe love of God,\u201d says\nRuysbroeck, \u201cis an outpouring and an indrawing tide.\u201d These statements\nundoubtedly represent a normal element in spiritual experience; that\nsense of a response, a self-giving on the part of its transcendent\nobject which\u2014whatever explanation we may choose to give of it\u2014is\nintegral to a developed mysticism. Neoplatonism, considered as a\nreligious philosophy, is impoverished by its failure to recognize and\nfind a place for this.\n\nMoreover, the so-called social side of religion, so grossly exaggerated\nby the amateur theologians of the present day, certainly receives less\nthan justice from Plotinus; for whom the \u201cpolitical virtues\u201d are merely\npreparatory to the spiritual life, and that spiritual life an exclusive\nsystem of self-culture, having as its final stage a \u201cflight of the alone\nto the Alone.\u201d Moral goodness is a form of beauty, and therefore \u201creal\u201d;\nbut there is no suggestion that goodness as such is dearer to the\nAbsolute than beauty or truth. The problem of evil is looked at, but\nleft unsolved: a weakness which Plotinus shares with most mystical\nphilosophers. Evil, he says, has no place in the \u201cuntroubled blissful\nlife\u201d of the three Divine Principles. Therefore it is not real, but \u201ca\nform of non-being\u201d (I. 8. 3): a doctrine which makes an unexpected\nreappearance eleven hundred years later in the Revelations of Julian of\nNorwich. Since the aim of the \u201cwise man\u201d is the transcendence of the\nsense world, there is, moreover, no adequate recognition of those sins,\nwrongs, and sufferings with which that \u201chalf-real\u201d world is charged.\nThough effort and self-denial have their part in the Plotinian scheme,\nthat transfiguration of pain which was the greatest achievement of the\nGospel is beyond the scope of his philosophy. Its remedy for failure and\ngrief is not humble consecration, but lofty withdrawal to that spiritual\nsphere where the divine element of the soul is at home, untroubled by\nthe conflicts, evils, and chances of life. Even the selfless sorrow of a\nfather or a patriot is to be transcended. Though in this his practice\nwas doubtless better than his doctrine\u2014for we know that he was a good\ncitizen, a beloved teacher, and a loyal friend\u2014he speaks in a tone of\nicy contempt of those who allow themselves to be disturbed by the\nworld\u2019s woe.\n\n\u201cIf the man that has attained felicity meets some turn of fortune that\nhe would not have chosen, there is not the slightest lessening of his\nhappiness for that. If there were, his felicity would be veering or\nfalling from day to day; _the death of a child would bring him down_, or\nthe loss of some trivial possession.... How can he take any great\naccount of the vacillations of power, or the ruin of his fatherland?\nVerily, if he thought any such event a great disaster, or any disaster\nat all, he must be of a strange way of thinking\u201d (I. 4. 7).\n\nSuch a sentence, however we look at it, goes far to justify the\ndescription of the Neoplatonic saint as \u201ca self-sufficient sage\u201d; and\nexplains the question with which Augustine turned from the Enneads\u2014\u201cWhen\nwould those books have taught me charity?\u201d\n\nIn spite, however, of this fundamental difference in tone, the wider our\nreading the more clearly we must realize the extent to which the\nChristian mystics are conscious or unconscious disciples of Plotinus.\nThat unity of witness which is one of the most impressive facts in the\nhistory of mysticism, may reasonably be regarded as evidence of the\nreality of that world of spiritual values which contemplatives\npersistently describe. But on its literary side, this same unity of\nwitness depends closely upon the fact that these contemplatives, however\nwidely separated by time and formal creed, were able to make plain their\nadventures to other men by means of conceptions drawn from the Plotinian\nscheme; which has proved itself able to rationalize and find room for\nthe deepest spiritual intuitions of man. It could do this because a\ngreat mystic made it. Hence we find it implied, even where unexpressed,\nin many of the masterpieces of later mysticism\u2014both Christian and\nMahomedan\u2014and some knowledge of it is a necessary clue to the full\nunderstanding of these writings. The S\u016bfi \u2019Attar, describing the soul\u2019s\narrival in \u201cthe Valley of Unity where it contemplates the naked\nGodhead,\u201d is equally its debtor with the Protestant mystic William Law,\ndeclaring that \u201ceverything in temporal nature is descended out of that\nwhich is eternal, and stands as a palpable visible outbirth of it; so\nthat when we know how to separate the grossness, death, and darkness of\ntime from it, we find what it is in its eternal state.\u201d Yet few of the\ntheologians and contemplatives who owe most to Plotinus had any\nfirst-hand acquaintance with the Enneads. Their influence reached the\nmedi\u00e6val world by two main channels. The first line of descent is\nthrough the works of Victorinus and St. Augustine; the second through\nthe philosopher Proclus and his mysterious disciple Dionysius the\nAreopagite. These lines meet in the _Divina Commedia_, which may be\nregarded in one aspect as the supreme poetic flower of Neoplatonism.\n\nThe dramatic life-history and exuberant self-revelations of St.\nAugustine have obscured the debt which Christian philosophy owes to that\nless assertive convert and theologian, Victorinus. Yet since Augustinian\nNeoplatonism is derived from his writings and translations, he is the\nreal link between Plotinus and the mystics of the Latin Church. A\ncelebrated man of letters and a professor of rhetoric, he had been\nformed by Neoplatonic philosophy; and is said to have been the author of\nthat Latin translation of the Enneads, which was chief among those\n\u201cbooks of the Platonists\u201d that provided St. Augustine\u2019s stepping-stones\nto faith. The stir, not to say scandal, caused by his conversion\u2014so\nvividly described in the \u201cConfessions\u201d\u2014was justified: for the event was\ncrucial in the history of western Christianity. After his conversion,\nwhich took the form of a re-interpretation, not an abandonment, of his\nold beliefs, he set himself to the creation of a Neoplatonic theology;\nin which the Plotinian triad, and doctrine of the soul\u2019s precession and\nreturn to the One, appear almost undisguised. The One he tries to\nidentify with the transcendent and immutable Father. \u201cSon\u201d and \u201cSpirit\u201d\nare to him two aspects of _Nous_; the fount of all substantial\nexistence, and containing from eternity all things in their archetypal\nreality. The Son or Logos is \u201cthe Logos of all that is,\u201d ever gushing\nforth from the \u201cliving fountain\u201d of the Father. It was from Victorinus\nthat Catholicism obtained the characteristic Plotinian notions of Deity\nas \u201cever active and ever at rest,\u201d and of the life of reality as\nconsisting in immanence, progress, and return, which meet us again and\nagain in the writings of the mystics.\n\nIt is plain that St. Augustine, in his first Christian period, was\ndeeply indebted to Plotinus, whom he knew through Victorinus and\nfrequently quotes by name; calling him \u201cone of those more excellent\nphilosophers\u201d whose doctrine of the soul is in harmony with the Prologue\nof the Fourth Gospel. When he came to write the \u201cConfessions,\u201d the\nglamour of the Platonic vision had begun to fade, and he was able to\ndeal in a critical spirit with his own brief Plotinian experience of\n\u201cthat which Is\u201d (VII. 17). Nevertheless, none can understand that book\nwithout some knowledge of the Enneads, from which all its finest\npassages are derived, and in more than one instance\u2014especially Book VII\nand the celebrated tenth chapter of Book IX\u2014closely imitated. In\nAugustine\u2019s invocation of \u201cthe Beauty so old and so new,\u201d in his\ndescription of the \u201cCountry which is no vision but a Father-land,\u201d or of\n\u201cthe Light which never changes, above the soul, above the intelligence,\u201d\nwe see how closely he had studied them, the extent to which their\nlanguage had permeated his thought. It is, however, in the tracts\ncomposed soon after his conversion\u2014e.g. _De Quantitate Anim\u00e6_, written\nabout A.D. 388\u2014that their influence is most strongly marked; and the\necstatic vision of the One is definitely put forward as the summit of\nChristian experience. From this time onwards, the main outlines of\nmystical theology were more or less fixed: and since St. Augustine was\none of the most widely read and deeply reverenced of the Fathers, with\nan authority hardly inferior to that of Scripture itself, its\nNeoplatonic colour was never lost. Wherever Christian mysticism passes\nfrom the emotional and empirical to the philosophic, this colour is\nclearly seen, and the concepts of Plotinus, more or less disguised,\nreappear: even in those medi\u00e6val writers who had no direct acquaintance\nwith Greek philosophy. The immense popularity of the so-called Dionysian\nwritings, which derive much of their doctrine through Proclus from the\nEnneads, helped to establish yet more firmly the Neoplatonic character\nof Christian and also of S\u016bfi mysticism. Through these writings the\nconceptions of the Super-essential Godhead; of successive spiritual\nspheres or emanations of descending splendour, intervening between the\nAbsolute and the physical world; and of ecstatic union with the\ntranscendent and unconditioned One as the term of religious experience,\npassed over from the ancient to the medi\u00e6val world. Translated from\nGreek into Syriac in the fifth century, they deeply affected S\u016bfi\nphilosophy. They entered Western thought in the ninth century, through\nErigena\u2019s Latin translation. It is said that by A.D. 850 Dionysius was\nknown from the Tigris to the Atlantic: and from this time onwards his\ninfluence, and through him that of Plotinus, can be traced in the\nspiritual literature of Christianity and Islam.\n\nErigena, whose original works are strongly coloured by Neoplatonism, is\nthe first medi\u00e6val writer in whom this influence appears. He follows\nPlotinus and Dionysius closely in teaching that the Absolute Godhead is\n\u201cbeyond being\u201d and therefore transcendent to the trinity of Persons; a\ndoctrine of doubtful orthodoxy, which was of great importance in the\nlater development of mysticism. But a still closer approximation to the\nthought, and especially to the psychology of Plotinus, is found in\nRichard of St. Victor: perhaps the greatest mystical theologian,\ncertainly one of the most influential writers, of the early Middle Ages.\nIn the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries his works, which are now\nhardly read, circulated through western Europe, and shaped the\ndeveloping mysticism of England, Germany, and Flanders. Dante, who calls\nhim one \u201cwho in contemplation was more than man,\u201d places his radiant\nsoul among those of the great teachers in the Heaven of the Sun (_Par._\nX. 131). Abandoning alike the many worlds of Dionysius and the crude\ndualism of popular religion, Richard taught that three spheres are open\nto human contemplation: _sensibilia_, _intelligibilia_, and\n_intellectibilia_\u2014a series closely analogous to the three worlds of\nPlotinus. He said that three kinds of contemplation on man\u2019s part\ncorresponded with these worlds. These are _mentis dilatatio_, a widening\nof the soul\u2019s vision, which yet remains within the natural order:\n_mentis sublevatio_, an uplifting of the illuminated mind to the\napprehension of \u201cthings above itself\u201d (or, as Neoplatonists would say,\nintelligibles); and finally _mentis alienatio_ or ecstasy, in which the\nsoul gazes on Truth in its naked simplicity. Then \u201celevated above itself\nand rapt in ecstasy, it beholds things in the Divine Light at which all\nhuman reason succumbs.\u201d This divine light is the _lumen glori\u00e6_, the\nradiance of the spiritual or intelligible world, which transforms the\nsoul and makes it capable of beholding God; a conception which became a\ncommonplace of medi\u00e6val theology, was adopted by nearly all the mystics,\nand plays an important part in the _Paradiso_.\n\n            \u201cLume \u00e8 lass\u00f9, che visibile face\n              lo Creatore a quella creatura\n              che solo in lui vedere ha la sua pace\u201d (xxx. 100).\n\nRuysbroeck\u2014a student of Dionysius and of Richard\u2014says of it in _The\nTwelve B\u00e9guines_: \u201cFrom the Face of the Father there shines a clear\nlight on those souls whose thought is bare and stripped of images,\nuplifted above the senses and above similitudes, beyond and without\nreason, in high purity of spirit. This Light is not God, but it is the\nmediator between the seeing thought and God.\u201d These passages and many\nlike them can be shown to derive directly through St. Augustine from the\nEnneads. Thus Plotinus says: \u201cLight is visible by Light. The _Nous_ sees\nitself, and this light, shining on the soul, enlightens it and makes it\na member of the spiritual world\u201d (V. 3. 8). Augustine, apparently\nreferring to this passage among others, says: \u201cOften and in many places\ndoes Plotinus declare, expounding the meaning of Plato, that what they\nbelieve to be the Soul of the World has its bliss from the same source\nas ours, namely, a Light which it is not, but by which it was created,\nand from whose spiritual illumination it shines spiritually\u201d (_De Civ.\nDei._ X. 2). And, of his own ecstatic experience, \u201cI entered and beheld\nwith the mysterious eye of my soul the Light that never changes, above\nthe eye of my soul, above my intelligence.... He who knows the truth\nknows that Light, and he who knows that Light knows Eternity\u201d (_Conf._\nVII. 10).\n\nFrom the thirteenth century onwards, the majority of the medi\u00e6val\nmystics show knowledge and appreciation of those Plotinian ideas which\nreached them\u2014though in an attenuated form\u2014through St. Augustine,\nDionysius, and Richard of St. Victor. Even the Franciscan and\nChristo-centric enthusiasm of such contemplatives as Jacopone da Todi\nand Angela of Foligno was affected by these lofty conceptions. Thus\nJacopone takes from the Neoplatonists the three stages of spiritual\nexperience, and describes in unequivocal language his successive\nachievements of that Logos-Christ\u2014so near the Plotinian _Nous_\u2014\u201c_che de\nomne bellezze se\u2019 fattore_,\u201d and of the \u201cImageless Good\u201d who cannot be\nnamed. So too, Angela\u2019s successive visions of the divine fullness and\nbeauty, and of \u201cthe ineffable Thing of which nought may be said\u201d depend\nfor their expression on the same philosophy.\n\nNor was its penetrative influence confined to the mystical schools. St.\nThomas Aquinas, who accepts and expounds in the _Summa_ (I. _q._12.\n_a._5) the doctrine of the _lumen glori\u00e6_, is considerably indebted to\nPlotinus in several other particulars; though he cites him inaccurately,\nand does not seem to have known him at first hand. In a remarkable\npassage, which afterwards influenced one of the finest rhapsodies of\nRuysbroeck, he has actually \u201clifted\u201d the most celebrated phrase in the\nSixth Ennead, and adapted it to the distinctively Christian and\nnon-Platonic view of divine union, as a \u201cmutual act\u201d of God and the\nsoul. \u201cIn a wonderful and unspeakable manner,\u201d says St. Thomas of the\nsoul in this place, \u201cshe both seizes and is seized upon, devours and is\nherself devoured, embraces and is violently embraced; and by the knot of\nlove she unites herself with God, and _is with Him as the Alone with the\nAlone_.\u201d\n\nIt is in a later and less orthodox son of St. Dominic, the formidable\nand adventurous thinker Eckhart, that the influence of Plotinus on the\nmedi\u00e6val mind is best seen: passing through him to Suso, Tauler,\nRuysbroeck, and other mystics of the fourteenth century. Eckhart\u2019s\nphilosophy still provides one of the most suggestive glosses upon the\nEnneads. He made that distinction between the absolute and\nsupra-personal Godhead and the God of devotion, which was almost\ninevitable for a Christian thinker trying to find a place in theology\nfor the Neoplatonic One. The Godhead, he says, is \u201ca non-God, a\nnon-Spirit, a non-person, a non-image: a sheer pure One.\u201d The Son, in\nwhom \u201cthe Father becomes conscious of Himself,\u201d combines the attributes\nof the Logos-Christ with those of the _Nous_. In Him are the archetypes\nof all created things. There is thus an emanation from the Godhead,\nthrough the Son, into creation. The soul\u2019s destiny is exactly that\nconceived by Plotinus: it must ascend to the spiritual world, and\nthrough it to its origin, the One, \u201cflowing back into the bottom of the\nbottomless fountain from which it flowed forth.\u201d In Tauler and Suso, and\nespecially in the great Flemish contemplative Ruysbroeck, these\nideas\u2014though modified by their inferior speculative ability and more\nardent spirit of Christian devotion\u2014are still strongly felt: and since\ntheir works and those of their disciples nourished many succeeding\ngenerations of contemplatives, through them the mystical side of the\nNeoplatonic tradition was handed down. In Ruysbroeck, with his threefold\ndivision of spiritual experience into \u201cthe moral life, the contemplative\nlife, and the super-essential life,\u201d and his astonishing and detailed\ndescriptions of the soul\u2019s achievement of the Essential Unity, the\n\u201cdeath into the One through love,\u201d the vision of Plotinus is fully\nbaptized into the Catholic Church. In Jacob Boehme, who drew through\nSchwenkenfeld and Weigel from Eckhart and his school, the doctrine of\nthe three worlds which forms the basis of his cosmology contains\ndistinct reminiscences of the Plotinian Triad. \u201cThese three,\u201d he says,\n\u201care nought else than the One God in His wonderful works ... and we are\nthus to understand a threefold Being, or three worlds in one another.\u201d\nHis conception of the Light-world, source of all spiritual beauty and\nhome of \u201cthe true human essence,\u201d is very near to the _Nous_. Yet the\nvery closeness with which all these mystics follow those parts of the\nNeoplatonic doctrine which appeal to them, makes it possible for us to\nmeasure the distance which separates their minds, their tone and temper,\nfrom that of Plotinus and his school. The calm, the austerity of\nthought, the emphasis on beauty, the clear cool light of the\nIntelligible World have departed. These men see philosophy through the\nhaze of Christian feeling. Their work is full of passionate effort; is\ncentred on the ideas of sacrifice and of pain. Their religion is\ncoloured by the sharp Christian consciousness of sin, and by the\ndifficulty\u2014never squarely faced\u2014of reconciling devotion to a personal\nredeemer with the mystical passion for the Absolute. That the philosophy\nof the Enneads was able to enter a world so remote from its spirit, and\ncome to terms with an attitude of mind in many respects opposed to that\nof its creator, is an oblique proof of the authenticity of its claim to\ninterpret the spiritual experiences of man.\n\n                         THREE MEDI\u00c6VAL MYSTICS\n\n\n                                   I\n                      \u201cTHE MIRROR OF SIMPLE SOULS\u201d\n\n\n                                   I\n\n\n_The Mirror of Simple Souls_\u2014a rare work on the spiritual life, of which\nmanuscripts exist in the British Museum, the Bodleian, and one or two\nother public libraries\u2014has so far received little or no attention from\nstudents of religious literature. Yet it may turn out to possess great\nimportance, as one of the missing links in the history of English\nmysticism: for it is a middle-English translation, made at the close of\nthe fourteenth century or beginning of the fifteenth, of the lost work\nof a French thirteenth-century mystic. It shows, therefore, that the\ncommon View of French medi\u00e6val religion as unmystical needs\nqualification; and further indicates a path by which the contemplative\ntradition of western Europe reached England and affected the development\nof our native mystical school.\n\n_The Mirror of Simple Souls_, as we now have it, is a work of nearly\n60,000 words in length. So far from being simple, it deals almost\nexclusively with the rarest and most sublime aspects of spiritual\nexperience. Its theme is the theme of all mysticism: the soul\u2019s\nadventures on its way towards union with God. It is not, like the\n_Melum_ of Richard Rolle, or _Revelations_ of Julian of Norwich, a\nsubjective book; the record of personal experiences and actual\n\u201cconversations in heaven.\u201d Rather it is objective and didactic, a work\nof geography, not a history of travel; an advanced text-book of the\ncontemplative life. Only from the ardour and exactitude of its\ndescriptions, its strange air of authority, its defiance of pious\nconvention, can we gather that it is the fruit of first-hand experience,\nnot merely of theological study: though its writer was clearly a trained\ntheologian, familiar with the works of St. Augustine and Dionysius the\nAreopagite, whom no mystic of the Middle Ages wholly escaped, and\napparently with those of St. Bernard, Hugh and Richard of St. Victor,\nand other medi\u00e6val authorities on the inner life.\n\nI have said that the _Mirror_, as we have it, purports to be the\ntranslation of an unknown French treatise. This translation, so far as\nwe can judge from its language, was probably made in the early years of\nthe fifteenth century, perhaps at the end of the fourteenth. Its author,\nthen, lived at the close of the golden age of English mysticism: he was\nthe contemporary of Julian of Norwich, who was still living in 1413, and\nof Walter Hilton, who died in 1395. Himself a mystic, he was no servile\ntranslator; rather the eager interpreter of the book which he wished to\nmake accessible to his countrymen. Our manuscripts begin with his\nprologue: an ingenuous confession of the difficulties of the\nundertaking, his own temerity in daring to touch these \u201chigh divine\nmatters,\u201d his fear lest the book should fall into unsuitable hands and\nits more extreme teachings be misunderstood. It appears from this\nprologue that our version of the _Mirror_ is a second, or revised\nedition; the first having failed to be comprehensible to its readers.\n\nThe character of the translator, as disclosed for us in his prologue, is\nitself interesting. Clearly he was a contemplative; and the \u201chigh\nghostly feelings\u201d of which he treats are to him the strictly practical\nobjects of supreme desire, though he modestly disclaims their\npossession. He appears before us as a gentle, humble, rather timid soul:\noften frankly terrified by the daring flights of his \u201cFrench book,\u201d\nwhich he is at pains to explain in a safe sense. One would judge him,\nfrom the peeps which he gives us into his mind, a disciple of the devout\nand homely school of Walter Hilton, rather than a descendant of the\ngroup of advanced mystics which produced in the mid-fourteenth century\n_The Cloud of Unknowing_, _The Pistle of Private Counsel_, and other\nprofound studies of the inner life. These books were written under the\nstrong influence of Dionysius the Areopagite; whose _Mystical Theology_,\nunder the title of _Dionise Hid Divinite_, was first translated into\nEnglish by some member of the school. But to the translator of the\n_Mirror_ his author\u2019s drastic applications of the Dionysian paradoxes of\nindifference, passivity, and nescience as the path to knowledge teem\nwith \u201chard sayings.\u201d His attitude towards them is that of reverential\nalarm: he fears their probable effect on the mind of the hasty reader.\nThey seem, as he says in one place, \u201cfable or error or hard to\nunderstand\u201d until one has read them several times. He is sure that their\nreal meaning is unexceptionable; but terribly afraid that they will be\nmisunderstood.\n\nHere, then, is the prologue which sets forth his point of view.\n\n\u201cTo the worship and laud of the Trinity be this work begun and ended!\nAmen.\n\n\u201cThis book, the which is called _The Mirror of Simple Souls_, I, most\nunworthy creature and outcast of all other, many years gone wrote it out\nof French into English after my lewd cunning; in hope that by the grace\nof God it should profit the devout souls that shall read it. This was\nforsooth mine intent. But now I am stirred to labour it again new, for\nbecause I am informed that some words thereof have been mistaken.\nTherefore, if God will, I shall declare these words more openly. For\nthough Love declare the points in the same book, it is but shortly\nspoken, and may be taken otherwise than it is meant of them that read it\nsuddenly and take no further heed. Therefore such words to be twice\nopened it would be more of audience [understanding]: and so by grace of\nour Lord good God it shall the more profit to the auditors. But both the\nfirst time and now, I have great dread to do it. For the book is of high\ndivine matters and high ghostly feelings, and cunningly and full\nmystically it is spoken, and I am a creature right wretched and unable\nto do any such work: poor and naked of ghostly fruits, darkened with\nsins and defaults, environed and wrapped therein oft times, the which\ntaketh away my taste and my clear sight; so that little I have of\nghostly understanding and less of the feeling of divine love. Therefore\nI may say the words of the prophet: \u2018My teeth be nought white to bite of\nthis bread.\u2019 But Almighty Jesu, God that feedeth the worm and gives\nsight to the blind and wit to the unwitty; give me grace of wit and\nwisdom in all times wisely to govern myself, following alway His will,\nand send me clear sight and true understanding well to do this work to\nHis worship and pleasaunce: profit also and increase of grace to ghostly\nlovers that be disposed and called to this high election of the freedom\nof soul.\u201d\n\nHe goes on to the difficulty which dogs all writers on mysticism; the\nimpossibility of making mystic truth seem real to those who have no\nexperience of the mystic life. It has been said that only mystics can\nwrite about mysticism. It were truer to say that only mystics can read\nabout it.\n\n\u201cOh ye that shall read this book! do ye as David says in the Psalter,\n_Gustate et videte_: that is to say, \u2018Taste and see.\u2019 But why trow ye he\nsaid, taste first, e\u2019er than he said see? For first a soul must taste,\ne\u2019er it have very understanding and true sight; sight of ghostly\nworkings of divine love. Oh full naked and dark, dry and unsavoury be\nthe speakings and writings of these high ghostly feelings of the love of\nGod to them that have not tasted the sweetness thereof. But when a soul\nis touched with grace, by which she has tasted somewhat of the sweetness\nof this divine fruition, and begins to wade, and draweth the draughts to\nher-ward, then it savours the soul so sweetly that she desires greatly\nto have of it more and more, and pursueth thereafter. And then the soul\nis glad and joyful to hear and to read of all thing that pertains to\nthis high feeling of the workings of divine love, in nourishing and\nincreasing her love and devotion to the will and pleasing of Him that\nshe loves, God Christ Jesu. Thus she enters and walks in the way of\nillumination, that she might be taught into the ghostly influences of\nthe divine work of God, there to be drowned in the high flood, and oned\nto God by ravishing of love, by which she is all one spirit with her\nSpouse. Therefore to these souls that be disposed to these high feelings\nLove has made of him this book in fulfilling of their desire.\u201d\n\nBut even for those who have been initiated into this way of\nillumination, the translator acknowledges that many things in the\n_Mirror_ are difficult and obscure: \u201coften he leaveth the nut and the\nkernel within the shell unbroken, that is to say, that Love in this book\nleaves to souls the touches of his divine works privily hid under dark\nspeech, for they should taste the deeper the draughts of his love and\ndrink; and also to make them have the more clear insight in divine\nunderstandings to divine love, and declare himself.\u201d Therefore he has\nadded his own explanations to the more difficult passages. \u201cWhere\nmeseems most need I will write more words thereto in manner of gloss\nafter my simple cunning as meseems best. And in these few places that I\nput in more than I find written I will begin with the first letter of my\nname M. and end with this letter N. the first of my surname.\u201d\n\nHe ends with a gentle complaint of the badness of the text from which he\nworked, and the confession that he has allowed himself a certain amount\nof editorial liberty. \u201cThe French book that I shall write after is evil\nwritten, and in some places for default of words and syllables the\nreason is away. Also in translating of French some words need to be\nchanged, or it will fare ungoodly, not according to the sentence.\nWherefore I will follow the sentence according to the matter, as near as\nGod will give me grace; obeying me ever to the correction of Holy Kirk,\npraying ghostly livers and clerks that they will vouchsafe to correct\nand amend there that I do amiss.\u201d\n\nSo much for M.N., the English mystic. The prologue of the author, which\ncomes next, tells us all that we know about the anonymous French writer\nof the book. This person was of a very different temper from M.N. As a\nCatholic scholar has observed of St. Teresa, \u201cL\u2019auteur ne se faisait pas\nillusion sur le m\u00e8rite de son \u0153uvre.\u201d Like Teresa, he believed himself\nto have written under immediate divine inspiration; a fact which\nsomewhat excuses his complacency in regard to the result. This is a\ncommon claim with the mystics, in whom subconscious cerebration is\nalways exceptionally active, and whose writings often exhibit an\nautomatic and involuntary character, seeming to them the work of another\nmind. Jacob Boehme, Madame Guyon, and Blake are obvious cases in point.\nThe author of the _Mirror_, however, was anxious that his claim to\ninspiration should be endorsed. He therefore\u2014most fortunately for\nus\u2014sent his work to various \u201clearned clerks,\u201d persons of importance in\nthe theological world, and chronicles their appreciatory remarks in the\nprologue; which becomes in his hands a form of medi\u00e6val\n\u201cadvance-notice.\u201d It will be observed that his critics share the opinion\nof M.N., that though full of \u201cghostly cunning\u201d this is a dangerous work\nto put into the hands of the plain man.\n\nOf these critics \u201cThe first was a Friar Minor of great name, of life of\nperfection. Men called him Friar John of Querayne.... He said soothly\nthat this book is made by the Holy Ghost. And though all the clerks of\nthe world heard it, but if they understand it, that is to say, but if\nthey have high ghostly feelings and this same working, they shall nought\nwit what it means. And he prayed for the love of God that it be wisely\nkept: and that but few should see it. And he said thus, that it was so\nhigh that himself might not understand it. And after him a monk of\nCisetyns [Citeaux] read it, that hight Dan Frank, Chantor of the Abbey\nof Viliers: and he said that it proved well by the Scripture that it is\nall truth that this book says. And after him read it a Master of\nDivinity, that hight Master Godfrey of Fountaynes: and he blamed it\nnought, no more than did the other. But he said thus, that he counselled\nnought [_sic_] that few should see it; and for this cause, for they\nmight leave their own working and follow this calling, to the which they\nshould never come, and so they might deceive themselves, for it is made\nof a spirit so strong and so cutting, that there be but few such or\nnone.... For the peace of auditors was this proved, and for your peace\nwe say it to you. For this seed should bear holy fruit to them that hear\nit and worthy be.\u201d\n\nOf the three persons here mentioned, Friar John and Dan Frank still\nremain unidentified: but Godfrey of Fountaynes is almost certainly the\nMaster of Divinity, called Doctor Venerandus, who was a prominent member\nof the University of Paris at the end of the thirteenth century. He was\nat the height of his fame about 1280-1290, and died about 1306. \u201c_Grande\nlumen studii magister Godefridum de Fontanis_,\u201d he is called in a letter\nof 1301. In the great war between Friars and Seculars which divided the\nUniversity at the end of the thirteenth century, this Godfrey was one of\nthe bitterest opponents of the Mendicant Orders. He wrote against them,\nand attacked them in the Synod of Paris in 1283. We see therefore that\nthe author of the _Mirror_, in placing Godfrey\u2019s testimonial beside that\nof Friar John, secured with a cunning other than ghostly a friend in\neach of the opposing camps.\n\nThere is, however, one obvious and significant omission in this list of\npatrons. There is no name which emanates directly from the great school\nof St. Thomas Aquinas; supreme at that moment in the University, and the\ncustodian of orthodox philosophy. There is, indeed, little trace of\nscholastic influence in the _Mirror_, which is far more in harmony with\nthe mystical theology favoured by St. Bonaventura, and continued during\nthe following century in the Franciscan schools: a fact which explains\nat once the guarded approbation of Friar John, and the absence of\nDominican patronage. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the\nFranciscans were eager students of and commentators on Dionysius the\nAreopagite: and the order which produced and upheld the hardy\nspeculations of Duns Scotus might well look with indulgence on the most\nextravagant statements of _The Mirror of Simple Souls_.\n\nThe original version of this book, then, was probably written in the\nlast quarter of the thirteenth century, and certainly before 1306. Its\nwriter was therefore the contemporary of Eckhart and Jacopone da Todi,\nthe great mystical lights of the Preaching and the Minor Friars. He was\nno provincial recluse, but a person in touch with the intellectual life\nof his time. He had connections with the University of Paris, but the\nnames of his patrons prove him to have been neither a member nor an\nenemy of the Mendicant Orders. It is probable that he was a monk,\npossible that he was a Carthusian; a strictly contemplative order\ncelebrated for its mystical leanings, which produced in the later Middle\nAges many students of the Dionysian writings, and many works upon\ncontemplation. He was widely read, and many parallels could be\nestablished between his doctrines and the classics of Christian\nmysticism. His lost book is so far our only evidence that abstruse prose\ntreatises of this kind were already written in the vernacular; and this\nalone gives it great interest from the literary point of view. He was,\nso far as we know, the first French mystic to write in French; the\nforerunner of St. Francis de Sales, of Madame Guyon, of Malaval. If we\nexcept the semi-mystical writings of Gerson, we must wait till the\nseventeenth century to provide him with a worthy successor.\n\n\n                                   II\n\n\nWe come next to the manner and content of the book. The manner is that\nof a dramatic dialogue: an unusual if not unique form for works of this\nkind. It consists of a debate\u2014often a lively debate\u2014between Love, the\nSoul, Reason, and a few intervening characters, of whom Pure Courtesy\nand Discretion are the chief. The student will at once be reminded of\nthe _Romaunt de la Rose_: but he will have difficulty in matching this\nform within the confines of ascetic literature. Duologues, such as those\nin the Third Book of the _Imitatio_, or Suso\u2019s conversations with\nEternal Wisdom, are not uncommon: but I know of no other instance of an\nelaborate mystical doctrine presented through the mouths of a group of\nsymbolic personages.\n\nThe Soul is naturally that of the author. Lady Love is his instructress,\nand all the most beautiful passages are given to her. Reason\u2019s r\u00f4le is\ninterrogatory. He catechises Love sharply though respectfully, and\nrepresents the invariable attitude of common sense confronted by the\nclaims of mysticism. Sometimes he goes too far; Love or the Soul is\ndriven to put him in his place. \u201cOh, understanding of Reason!\u201d says this\nsoul noughted, \u201cwhat thou hast of rudeness! Thou takest the shell or the\nchaff and leavest the kernel or the grain. Thine understanding is so\nlow, that thou mayst not so highly reach as them behoves that well would\nhave understanding of the Being that we speak of.\u201d In general, however,\nthe figure of Reason is used with great art to elucidate the hard\nsayings of Love. The alert intelligence of the writer notes all possible\nobjections to his doctrine, and states and refutes them out of the\nmouths of his characters. \u201cO Lady Love, what is this that you say?\u201d says\nthe shocked voice of Reason whenever the argument becomes paradoxical or\nabstruse. \u201cReason,\u201d says Love to this, \u201cI will answer for the profit of\nthem for whom thou makest to us this piteous request. Reason,\u201d says\nLove, \u201cwhere be these double words that thou prayest me to discuss ...\nit is well asked, and I will,\u201d says Love, \u201canswer thee to all thy\nasking.\u201d\n\nWhat, then, is the doctrine which these discussions put before us? It is\nthe doctrine of the soul\u2019s possible ascent from illusion to reality,\nfrom separateness to union with the Divine: the primal creed of all\nmysticism, here stated in its most extreme form, and pressed to its\nlogical conclusion. It offers, not a chart of the way to a distant\nheaven of beatitude and recompense, but initiation into that state of\nbeing wherein we find our heaven here and now. \u201cI took Jesus for my\nheaven,\u201d said Julian of Norwich. So the writer of the _Mirror_:\n\u201cParadise is no other thing than God Himself ... why was the thief in\nParadise anon as the soul was departed from his body?... He saw God,\nthat is Paradise; for other thing is not Paradise than to see God. And\nthis doth she [the soul] in sooth at all times that she is uncumbered of\nherself.\u201d The super-essential and unknowable Godhead, whose nature is\nbut partially revealed in the Blessed Trinity, is the only substance of\nreality, and the only satisfaction of the soul\u2019s desire. \u201cThough this\nsoul had all the knowledge, love and learning that ever was given, or\nshall be given, of the Divine Trinity, it should be naught as in regard\nof that that she loves and shall love ... for there is no other God but\nHe that none may know, which may not be known.\u201d The history of human\ntranscendence is the history of the soul\u2019s transmutation to that\ncondition of love in which it is, as the author is not afraid to say,\ndeified; and so merged in the Reality from which it came forth, that it\nis no longer aware of its own separate experience but is \u201call one spirit\nwith its Spouse.\u201d\n\n\u201cI am God,\u201d says Love, \u201cfor Love is God and God is Love. And this soul\nis God by condition of love, and I am God by nature divine. And this is\nhers by right-wiseness of love. So that this Precious, loved of me, is\nlearned and led by me out of herself, for she is turned to me, in me.\u201d\n\nThis process is set forth by the writer of the _Mirror_ under three\nchief heads: those of Liberty as the aim, the Will as the agent, and\nSurrender as the method of the spiritual quest.\n\nIn the conception of Liberty as the supreme aim of the spiritual life we\nhave what is perhaps the most original feature of his work: though it is\na conception which is of course implicit in the New Testament. Where\nmost contemplatives lay emphasis on the glad servitude of love, and use\nthe symbols of wedlock to express the willing subjugation of the soul to\nits Divine Bridegroom, the key of this book is the idea of spiritual\nfreedom; and that freedom as consisting in the liberation of man\u2019s will\nfrom finite desires that it may rejoin and lose itself within the Will\nof the Infinite. We are to learn, it says in the first chapter,\nsomething of \u201cthe pure love, of the noble love, and of the high love of\nthe _free_ soul; and how the Holy Ghost has His sail in his ship.\u201d With\nour \u201cinward subtle understanding\u201d\u2014that spiritual intuition which is the\ninstrument of all real knowledge\u2014we are to follow its progress from the\nbondage of desire to the point at which, purged of self-will, perfected\nin meekness and love, \u201cnoughted and abased,\u201d it reaches the \u201cSeventh\nEstate of Grace,\u201d and participates in the perfect liberty of Pure Being,\nwherein \u201cthe soul has fulhead of perception by divine fruition in life\nof peace.\u201d \u201cNot-willing\u201d is the secret of liberation, and lord of our\ntrue life. \u201cAnd this not-willing sows in souls the Divine Seed,\nfulfilled of the divine will of God. This seed may never fail, but few\nsouls dispose them to receive this seed.\u201d Though this emancipation is\nonly attained by the utter surrender of all personal desire and\nachievement, yet throughout the book the dominant note is of glad\nliberation, of flying, of a rapturous ascent. As we read, we seem to\nhear from every page \u201cthe thunder of new wings.\u201d The free soul is\n\u201csix-winged like the seraphim.\u201d She is \u201cthe eagle that flies high: so\nright high and yet more high than does any other bird; for she is\nfeathered with fine love, and she beholds above other the beauty of the\nsun, and the beams and the brightness of the sun. Dame Nature,\u201d says\nshe, \u201cI take leave of you: Love is me nigh, that holds me free of him\nagainst all without dread. Then,\u201d says Love, \u201cshe afraies her nought for\ntribulation, nor stints for consolation.\u201d\n\nIt is clear to the writer that only certain persons are capable of this\ncomplete freedom in love: and it is to them\u2014the natural mystics, the\npeople with a genius for reality\u2014that his book is addressed. They are\n\u201cof that lineage that be folks royal,\u201d \u201ccalled without fail of the\nDivine goodness,\u201d and it is on their spiritual intuition, their\ntranscendent knowledge, that \u201call Holy Church is founded\u201d; a suspicious\nstatement in the eyes of orthodox theology. They possess, or are able to\npossess, the incommunicable gift of spiritual vision.\n\n\u201cThis gift is given,\u201d says Love, \u201csometimes in a moment of time. Who\nthat has it, keep it: for it is the most perfect gift that God gives to\ncreature.\u201d So removed is the resulting perception of reality from human\nwisdom that no one can teach the illuminated soul anything. \u201cNow for\nGod,\u201d says Reason, \u201cLady Love, say what is this to say? This is to say,\u201d\nsays Love, \u201cthat this soul is of so great knowing that though she had\nall the knowing of all creatures that ever were, be or shall be, she\nwould think it naught in regard of that that she loves.\u201d Yet, true to\nNeoplatonic principles, she is aware that her highest perceptions are\nnothing, and her \u201cright great and high words\u201d but \u201cgabbynge\u201d or idle\ntalk, compared with the ineffable reality. She \u201cwots all and wots\nnaught,\u201d and is content it should be so. \u201cHe only is my God that none\ncan one word of say, nor all they of Paradise one only point attain nor\nunderstand, for all the knowing that they have of Him.\u201d\n\nBut though the Transcendent God is unknowable, the free soul, in\nsingular contradiction to contemporary asceticism, finds Him everywhere\nimmanent in the world. \u201cAnd for this, that He is all in all, this soul,\nsays Love, finds Him over all. So that for this all things are to this\nsoul covetable, for she nor finds anything but she finds God.\u201d So\nMeister Eckhart: \u201cTo it all creatures are pure to enjoy; for it enjoyeth\nall creatures in God and God in all creatures.\u201d\n\nThe preliminary discipline of the mystic, the hard acquirement of that\n\u201cvery charity\u201d which is \u201cthe perfection of virtues\u201d and \u201cdwelleth always\nin God\u2019s sight ... obeying to nothing that is made but to love\u201d is\nlittle dwelt on by the author of the _Mirror_; who did not write for\nbeginners in the contemplative life, but for the mature soul whose love\nhas made him free, and who therefore needs \u201cnor masses nor sermons nor\nfasting nor orisons, and gives to nature all that he asks, without\ngrudging of conscience\u201d\u2014a practical application of St. Augustine\u2019s\ndangerous saying, \u201cLove, and do what you like.\u201d M.N., however,\ninterpolates a prudent reminder that \u201cby this way and by sharp\ncontricion souls must go, or than they come to these divine usages.\u201d\n\nThe author\u2019s own instructions are really reducible to one point: the\ncomplete and loving surrender of the individual will to the Primal\nWill\u2014detachment, or, as he calls it, the \u201cnoughting\u201d of the soul. This\nis that \u201cpeace of charity in life noughted,\u201d which constitutes the\nhigher life of love; in contrast to the active life of virtue,\nstruggling to keep unbroken its attitude of charity to God and man. In\nit the soul dwells, as do the Seraphim, within the divine atmosphere,\nand has direct access to the sources of its life. \u201cThis is the proper\nbeing of Seraphim: there is nought mediate between their love and the\nDivine Love; they have always its tidings without means. So hath this\nsoul, that seeks not the divine science amongst the masters of the\nworld, but the world and herself inwardly despises. Ah, God! what great\ndifference it is between a gift given by means, of the Loved to the\nLover, and the gift given without means of the Loved to the Lover. This\nbook says sooth of this soul. It says she hath six wings as have the\nSeraphim. With two she covers the face of our Lord: that is to say, the\nmore knowledge this soul hath of the Divine Goodness the more she knows\nthat she knows not the amount of a mote as in regard to His Goodness,\nthe which is not comprehended but of Himself. And with two she covers\nHis feet: this is to say, the more that this soul hath knowledge of the\nsufferance that Jesu Christ suffered for us, the more perfectly she\nknows that she knows naught, as in regard of it that He suffered for us,\nthe which is not known but of Him. And with two she flies, and so dwells\nin standing and sitting: this is to say, that all she covets and loves\nand prizes, it is the Divine Goodness. These be the wings that she flies\nwith, and so dwells in standing, for she is alway in the sight of God:\nand sitting, for she dwells alway in the Divine Will. Whereof should\nthis soul have dread, though she be in the world? An the world, the\nflesh, and our Enemy the Fiend, and the four elements, the birds of the\nair and the beasts of the field, tormented her and despised her and\ndevoured her if it might so be, what might she lose if God dwelled with\nher? Oh, is he not Almightiful? Yea, without doubt: He is all might, all\nwisdom and all goodness, our Father and Brother and our true Friend.\u201d\n\n\u201cThis soul,\u201d says Love, \u201ccan no more speak of God; for she is noughted\nto all outward desires, and of all the affections of the spirit. So that\nwhat this soul does, she does it by usage of good custom, and by\ncommandment of Holy Church, without any desire: for will is dead, that\ngave her desire.... Who that asks these free souls, sure and peaceful,\nif they would be in purgatory, they say nay. If they would living be\ncertified of their salvation, they say nay. Eh, what would they? They\nhave nothing of will, this for to will; and if they willed, they should\ndescend from Love: for He it is that hath their will.... Thus departs\nthe soul from her will and the will departs from this soul, so she again\nputs it and gives and yields it in God where it was first.\u201d Such a\ndoctrine easily slides into the complete passivity or \u201choly\nindifference\u201d which was the ideal of the seventeenth century Quietists:\nand the _Mirror_ certainly does contain passages which, if taken alone,\nwould convict their author of a fondness for this heresy. \u201cI certify\nthee that these souls that fine love leads, they have as lief shame as\nworship, and worship as shame; and poverty as riches and riches as\npoverty; and torments of God and of His creatures as comforts of God and\nof His creatures; and to be hated as loved, and loved as hated; and hell\nas paradise and paradise as hell ... the free soul has no will to will\nor unwill, but only to will the will of God and suffer in peace His\ndivine ordinance.\u201d\n\nNevertheless, other passages make it clear that active surrender, not\nmere passivity is the aim, and that the \u201cnoughting\u201d of the self within\nthe All is a loving sacrifice, consistent with its achievement of\ncompletest happiness. \u201cTrue love has but only one intent; and that is,\nthat she might alway love truly, for of the love of her Lover has she no\ndoubt, that He does what best is. And she follows this: that she does\nthat that she ought to do. And she wills nought but one thing; and that\nis, that the Will of God be alway in her done.... This soul,\u201d says Love,\n\u201cswims in the sea of joy, that is, in the sea of delights, streaming of\ndivine influences. She feels no joy, for she herself is joy. She swims\nand drenches in joy, for she lives in joy without feeling any joy. So is\njoy in her, that she herself is joy, by the virtue of joy that has\nmerged her in Him. And so is the will of the Loved and the will of this\nsoul turned into one as fire and flame.\u201d\n\nThe teaching of the writer seems to be, that so long as the will is\nconsciously active and desirous\u2014however good its actions or desires\u2014its\nowner cannot be liberated from the illusions and anxieties of the\npersonal life. What he needs, if he did but know it, is reunion with\nthat fontal life from which he came, to which he is perpetually drawn by\nlove. Here his separate will finds its meaning, and is not annihilated\nbut absorbed. \u201cThe understanding, that gives light, shows to the soul\nthe thing that she loves. And the soul that receives by light of\nunderstanding the nighing and the knitting by accord of union in\nplenteous love, sees the Being, where that she holds to have her seat;\nreceiving gladly the light of knowing that brings her tidings of love.\nAnd then she would become so, that she had but one will and love; and\nthat is, the only will of Him that she loves.\u201d\n\nThe detached soul who is thus \u201cnoughted in God\u201d enjoys a freedom from\nstress, an immunity from disappointment incredible to those who still\nlive the individual life. \u201cNow shall I say to you what they be that sit\nin the mountain above the wind and the rain? These be they that have in\nearth neither shame nor worship, nor dread of anything that befalls.\u201d\nShe has, moreover, passed beyond that moral conflict which arises from\nthe discord between conscience and desire, and is the essential\ncharacter of the active life; for she has within her \u201cthe Master of\nVirtues, that is called Divine Love, that has her merged in them all and\nto Him united.\u201d Thus she is able to say, \u201cVirtues, I take leave of you\nfor evermore. Now shall my heart be more free and more in peace than it\nhas been. Forsooth, I wot well your service is too travaillous. Sometime\nI laid my heart in you without any dissevering: ye wot well this. I was\nin all thing to you obedient. O, I was then your servant: but now I am\ndelivered out of your thralldom.\u201d\n\nM.N. is quick to gloss this dangerous declaration: \u201cI am stirred here to\nsay more to the matter ... when a soul gives her to perfection, she\nlabours busily day and night to get virtues by counsel of reason, and\nstrives with vices at every point, at every word and deed ... thus the\nvirtues be mistresses and every virtue makes her to war with her\ncontrary.... But so long one may bite on the bitter bark of the nut that\nat last he shall come to the sweet kernel. Right so, ghostly to\nunderstand, it fares with these souls that be come to peacefulness. They\nhave so long striven with vices and wrought by virtues that they be come\nto the nut\u2019s kernel, that is to say, to the love of God, which is\nsweetness. And when the soul has deeply tasted this love ... then is she\nmistress and lady over the virtues, for she has them all within herself\n... and then this soul takes leave of virtues, as of thralldom and\npainful travail ... and now she is lady and sovereign and they be\nsubjects.\u201d\n\nIn the technical language of mysticism she has passed from the active to\nthe contemplative life, the crucial phase in the evolution of man\u2019s\ntranscendental consciousness. This evolution is described for us with\ngreat psychological exactness in the _Mirror_, under the traditional\nformula of the \u201cStates\u201d of the soul\u2019s ascent. Since few mystics have\nescaped the mania for significant numbers, one is not surprised to find\nseven steps on this \u201csteep stairway of love.\u201d \u201cI am called,\u201d says this\nsoul, \u201cof the touchings of Love, something to say of the Seven Estates\nthat we call beings: for so it is. And these be the degrees by which man\nclimbs from the valley, to the top of the mountain that is so several\n[apart] that it sees but God.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe First Estate is, That a soul is touched of God by grace and\ndissevered from sin: and, as to her power, in intention to keep the\ncommandments of God.\u201d This is, of course, equivalent to the conversion\nor change of heart which begins the spiritual life.\n\n\u201cThe Second is, that a soul hold what God counsels to His special\nlovers, passing that what he commands. And he is no good lover that\ndemenes him not to fulfill all that the which he wist might best please\nto his Beloved.\n\n\u201cThe Third is, that a soul holds the affection of love of works of\nperfection, by which her spirit is ripened by desires: taking the love\nof these works to multiply in her. And what does the subtlety of her\nthought, but makes it seem to the understanding of her humble affection,\nthat she cannot make offering to her Love that might comfort her, but of\nthing that He loves: for other gift is not prized in love.\n\n\u201cThe Fourth is that a soul is drawn by highness of love into delight of\nthought by meditation, and relinquishes all labours outward, and\nobedience to others, by highness of love in contemplation. Then the soul\nis dangerous, noble and delicious: in which she may not suffer that\nanything her touch but the touchings of pure delight of love, in the\nwhich she is singularly gladsome and jolly. What marvel is it if this\nsoul be upheld and updrawed thus graciously? Love makes her all drunken,\nthat suffers her not to attend but to Him.\u201d These four stages have\nbrought the self to the complete practice of the contemplative life, and\nprepared the way for that second great phase in the achievement of\nreality which consists in the surrender of the separate will.\n\n\u201cThe Fifth is, that a soul beholds what God is, and His Goodness, by\nDivine Light. She sees the Will, by the spreading illumination of Divine\nLight, the which light gives her the will again to put in God this will;\nwhich she may not without this light yield, that may not her profit\nunless she departs from her own will. Thus departs the soul from her\nwill, and the will departs from this soul, so she again puts it and\ngives and yields it in God, where it was first.\n\n\u201cNow is this soul fallen of love into nought, without the which nought,\nshe may not all be. The which falling is so perfectly fallen, if she be\nfallen aright, that the soul may not arise out of this deepness, nor she\nought not to do it. Within she ought to dwell. And then leaves the soul\npride and play, for the spirit has become bitter, that suffers her no\nmore to be playing nor jolly; for the spirit is departed from her that\nmade her oft love in the highness of contemplation, and in the fourth\nestate fierce and dangerous.\u201d Here the spirit of the mystic experiences\nthat terrible and characteristic reaction from the exalted joys of\ncontemplation which is sometimes called the \u201cmystic death\u201d or \u201cdark\nnight of the soul,\u201d and destroys in it the last roots of selfhood. In\nthis stage she completes the abandonment or \u201cself-noughting\u201d which\ninitiate her into that which the German mystics called \u201cthe Upper School\nof the Holy Spirit.\u201d Thence she passes to the Sixth Estate, of union\nwith the Divine life, in so far as it can be achieved by those still in\nthe flesh. The Seventh is that indescribable state of \u201cglory\u201d or\nsuper-essential life, which constitutes the beatific vision of the\nSaints, known only of those that \u201cbe fallen of love into this being.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe Sixth is, that a soul sees neither her nought by deepness of\nmeekness, nor God by highful bounty. But God sees it in her of His\nDivine Majesty that illuminated her of Him. So that she sees that none\nis, but God Himself. And then is a soul in the Sixth Estate of all\nthings made free, pure and illuminated. Not glorified, for gloryfying is\nin the Seventh Estate, that we shall have in glory that none can speak\nof. But, pure and clarified, she sees nor God nor herself: but God sees\nthis of Him, in her, for her, withouten her, that shows her that there\nis none but He. Nay, she knows but Him, nor she loves but Him, nor she\npraises but Him, for there is but He. And the Seventh keeps He within\nHim, for to give us in everlasting glory. If we wit it not now, we shall\nwit it when the body our soul leaves.\u201d\n\n\n                                   II\n                     THE BLESSED ANGELA OF FOLIGNO\n\n\nIt is a curious fact that in the modern revival of interest in the\nFranciscan movement, little attention has been paid to the life and\nworks of Angela of Foligno. Yet, excepting only St. Bonaventura, this\nwoman has probably exerted a more enduring, more far-reaching influence\nthan any other Franciscan of the century which followed the Founder\u2019s\ndeath. In saying this, I do not forget the claims of such great\nFranciscans as John of Parma or Jacopone da Todi, nor yet of St. Clare,\nthe Founder of the Second Order. But the influence of John of Parma was\ncomparatively short-lived; and that of Jacopone\u2019s superb poetry, though\ngreat in Italy, did not go beyond it. His ecstasies could not be\ntranslated into other tongues. As to St. Clare, with whom the feminine\naspect of the Franciscan ideal first showed itself, her vocation was to\nthe foundation of a contemplative order, which should support by its\nheavenly correspondences the active and missionary life of the\nFranciscan friars. The business of the Second Order is the essential\nwoman\u2019s business, of keeping the fire of love alight upon the hearth.\nIts influence, therefore, was and is almost entirely confined within the\nboundaries of the spiritual family. The deepest wells of Franciscan\nmysticism are there hidden, and must always be hidden, from the outer\nworld.\n\nBut the vocation of Angela of Foligno was, in a sense, more thoroughly\nFranciscan than this, more broadly human, more complete. Like that of\nSt. Catherine of Genoa, a mystic whom she resembles in certain respects,\nit was a twofold vocation: to the eternal and to the temporal, to the\ndivine and to the human. She was a great contemplative, but she was also\nan exceedingly successful teacher of the secrets of the spiritual life:\none of the great line of artist-mediators between the infinite and the\nhuman mind.\n\nWe know nothing of St. Clare\u2019s mystical experience. We know of Angela\u2019s\nall that she was able to express; and she tried hard, though for want of\nlanguage she confesses that she often failed. This passionate, faulty,\nvery human woman, who came to the Mystic Way from a disorderly life, and\nwas hampered by a natural egotism which she transmuted, it is true, but\nnever perhaps really killed, has earned the great title of \u201cMistress of\nTheologians.\u201d She penetrated to that world of realities which the\ndiagrams of theology, like the temple built with hands, foreshadow upon\nearth. Her book of visions and revelations, now so little read,\nprofoundly affected the religious life of Europe. During the sixteenth\nand the seventeenth century we often come upon its traces in England and\nin France, as well as in Italy itself; for in this period it was one of\nthe most widely circulated religious works. It exerted great influence\non St. Francis de Sales, and also upon the French Quietists. It is\nquoted as an authority by Madame Guyon, Poiret, and Malaval; and through\nthe great English Benedictine, Augustine Baker, and his pupil, Gertrude\nMore, it has left its mark on the English Catholic mysticism of the\nseventeenth century.\n\nThis book is practically our only trustworthy source for the facts of\nAngela\u2019s inner and outer life. It was written in Latin, at her\ndictation, by her Franciscan confessor Fra Arnaldo; at some date\nsubsequent to 1294, since it dates a past event by the pontificate of\nCelestine V. It was not printed till the sixteenth century, when first\nan Italian translation, and then the Latin text appeared. Both soon\nbecame popular; the translation being one of the first Italian books of\ndevotion to appear in the vulgar tongue. It is divided into three parts,\nwhich must be read in relation with one another. First we have the\nhistory of Angela\u2019s conversion, penitence, and slow, difficult education\nin the mystic way: a detailed psychological document of much interest.\nSecondly we have, grouped together, all the visions and revelations\nwhich she received in that way. Unfortunately Fra Arnaldo has seen fit\nto arrange these according to their subjects, and not according to the\norder in which they were experienced; thereby increasing their edifying\ncharacter at the expense of their scientific worth. Last comes \u201cthe\nevangelical doctrine of the Blessed Angela\u201d; a treatise largely made up\nof letters addressed to her disciples, but, like the writings of St.\nTeresa, full of illuminating autobiographical touches.\n\nHere, then, we have in one volume three aspects of human life as seen\nwithin the limits of one personality: the biographical facts, the\nsupernal vision, and the ordered conclusions drawn from those facts and\nthat vision, for the instruction of other men. All are of value to us in\nour study of her personality; for we shall never understand her as a\nmystic unless we try first to understand her as a human creature.\n\nFirst as to her outward life. Angela was born of a prosperous Umbrian\nfamily in 1248; twenty-two years after the death of St. Francis,\nseventeen years before the birth of Dante. She was one year younger than\nSt. Margaret of Cortona, the other great Franciscan penitent and\ncontemplative. Her life, covering the second half of the thirteenth\ncentury, was roughly contemporary with that of Jacopone da Todi, who was\ntwenty years her senior; and with those \u201cspiritual\u201d friars, such as\nConrad of Offida and John of La Verna, who are commemorated in the\n\u201cLittle Flowers.\u201d The period, in Italy, was one of contrasted worldly\nluxury and spiritual enthusiasm, and Angela\u2019s life-history appears to\nhave included experience of both extremes. She married when very young\nand had children, but lived a thoroughly worldly if not an actually\nimmoral life: posing before society as an excellent Christian, but\nactually denying herself few indulgences. We learn from the list of sins\nof which she afterwards accused herself, that these \u201cinfirmities and\ndiseases\u201d had included the washing of her face, the curling, braiding,\nwashing, combing, and anointing of her hair, wearing of \u201cneedless vain\nand curious clothes,\u201d and laced shoes adorned with cut leather. She had\nalso incurred the risk of hell by \u201cvain running and dancing and walking\nabout for pleasure,\u201d and even by enjoying the scent of flowers: a crime\nwhich St. Francis could hardly have condemned. Remembering the intensely\nascetic tone of Franciscan penitence and the puritan ideals of the\nSpiritual zealots, we need not take these confessions too seriously, or\ninterpret in the worst sense the \u201cembraces, touches, and other evil\ndeeds\u201d which she deplores. Nevertheless, the unregenerate Angela in\nearly womanhood was not the kind of person whom one would pick out as\nlikely to develop into a saint. She makes it quite clear to us that she\nwas a vain, self-important, and hypocritical little egotist, \u201cpainted in\nfalse colours, a dissembler within and without.\u201d Probably, like many\nwomen of the world, a nominal Tertiary, she loved to make a pious\nimpression, but loved comfort even more. \u201cI diligently made an outward\nshow of being poor, but caused many sheets and coverings to be put down\nwhere I slept, and taken up in the morning so that none might see them.\u201d\nThere was an offensive sanctimoniousness about her too. \u201cDuring the\nwhole of my life,\u201d she says frankly, \u201cI have studied how that I might\nobtain the fame of sanctity.\u201d\n\nWe do not know the date of Angela\u2019s conversion, or the circumstances\nwhich brought it about; save that it took place under Franciscan\ninfluence, which was of course paramount in that part of Umbria in her\nday. It seems to have taken the form of a gradual awakening of\nconscience to the sinfulness and hypocrisy of her life. In her mental\ndistress she prayed to St. Francis, and he appeared to her in a dream,\nthe earliest of her visionary experiences; the confessor to whom she\nthen went for advice was a Friar Minor, and after her husband\u2019s death\nshe adopted the plain habit worn by the more fervent Tertiaries, and\nremained faithful to the Order till her death. The fixed dates in her\nlife are few and confusing. Her own book only gives two: the date of her\nfinal purification and the date of her death. We gather from this and\nother sources, however, that after her widowhood she lived at first with\none companion in great retirement; but by about 1290, had formed a small\nsisterhood in Foligno. Its members, who observed Franciscan poverty in\nits full rigour, took the rule of the Third Order and the three vows of\nreligion, but they were not cloistered. They devoted themselves to the\ncare of the sick, and other works of charity.\n\nIn this community Angela spent the rest of her life; gradually becoming\nknown as a teacher of \u201cSeraphic wisdom\u201d amongst those Spiritual\nFranciscans who were struggling to keep the ideals of St. Francis alive.\nShe seems to have been the centre of a group of Franciscan Tertiaries of\nboth sexes, for whom she was at once friend and prophetess, like St.\nCatherine of Siena in the next century. Several of her letters to these\n\u201csons\u201d of hers are embedded in her book of \u201cEvangelical Doctrine.\u201d One\nof them, the turbulent and ardent friar Ubertino da Casale, owed to her\nhis true initiation into the spiritual life: and his account of the\nimpression which she made on him helps us to understand the nature of\nher influence. He came to her from Paris in 1298, when he was\ntwenty-five years old; a successful preacher, but already conscious of\nthe inward call to a life of greater perfection. \u201cShe restored,\u201d he\nsays, \u201ca thousandfold all those spiritual gifts I had lost through my\nown sins; so that from that time I have not been the same man that I was\nbefore. When I had experienced the splendour of her radiant virtue, she\nchanged the whole face of my mind, and so drove out the weakness and\nlanguor from my soul and body and healed my mind that was torn with\ndistraction, that no one who knew me before could doubt that the Spirit\nof Christ was newly begotten in me through her.\u201d This is almost our only\nglimpse of Angela as she was seen by contemporary eyes: but it indicates\nthe position she came to occupy among the more devout Franciscan\n_zelanti_.\n\nShe died, surrounded by her spiritual children, in the octave of the\nFeast of the Holy Innocents, 1309, aged sixty-one; and was buried in the\nChurch of the Franciscans at Foligno, where her body still lies. An\nOffice in her honour was approved by Gregory XIV in 1701, and her Feast\nis kept throughout the Franciscan Order on March 30.\n\nSo much for the scanty outer history. Of greater interest is our\nknowledge of her inner life; the real life of mystics and\ncontemplatives. The history of this inner life assures us that Angela\nwas of the stuff of which great mystics are made; though not at all of\nthe stuff of which many amateurs of mysticism expect them to be made.\nFirst great necessity, she possessed a strongly romantic temperament;\nlike St. Francis, Suso, St. Ignatius, Mechthild, St. Teresa, her\ncompanions on the highway of the soul. Like these, she had also an\ninnate simplicity and ardour, a character at once childlike and heroic;\nthat \u201call-or-none\u201d reaction, the power of total self-giving to the\nmatter in hand, which distinguishes the hero, whether as man of action,\nas artist, or as saint. Indeed, heroism may properly be ascribed to a\ncomfortable and self-indulgent married woman, who leaves all for the\nlonely adventure of Sinai, however many tumbles she may have upon the\nroad. With this courage she combined an extreme sensibility to\nimpressions, great power of endurance, a strong will; all the\npotentialities of a great sinner or a great saint. Further, she\nevidently possessed that peculiar, unstable psychic makeup, which the\nmystic shares with other types of genius; and which is seen in its full\ndevelopment in the two greatest of Italian saints, Francis of Assisi and\nCatherine of Siena. She experienced all the normal episodes of complete\nmystical development: the phases of penitence and self-discipline,\nillumination and dereliction, and at last that ecstatic union with the\nDivine Nature which is the goal of the Way. Her mysticism was deeply\ncoloured by the Franciscan atmosphere in which it was nurtured; it\nexhibited the highly emotional and enthusiastic character, the tendency\nto eccentric penances, the concentration upon the Cross and Passion of\nChrist, which are found in her contemporary Jacopone da Todi, and are\ntypical of the Franciscan mystics at their best. Indeed, the many\nparallels between Angela and Jacopone suggest to us that the favourite\nsubjects of their contemplations were those in vogue in \u201cSpiritual\u201d\ncircles at this time; and that we have in their works the surviving\nexamples of a complete school of mysticism, which taught, as Ubertino da\nCasale says that Cecilia of Florence did, \u201cthe whole art of the higher\ncontemplation.\u201d\n\n\u201cAs I walked,\u201d said the Blessed Angela, \u201cby the way of penitence, I took\neighteen spiritual steps before I came to _know_ the imperfections of my\nlife.\u201d This is the first sentence of the book of _Conversion and\nPenitence_ which analyses in detail the changes through which she passed\non her way to complete self-knowledge and self-adjustment. Those\n\u201ceighteen steps\u201d extended over many years. When they began, Angela was\nliving luxuriously, as a married woman, in her husband\u2019s house. When\nthey ended, she was a poor widow vowed to the religious life; stripped\nof every superfluity, everything that would entangle her in the web of\nappearance, apt in contemplation, companioned by visions, esteemed as a\nteacher and an ecstatic, and the centre of a group of disciples. Her\ninner life, during these years of ascent, of hard and difficult growth,\nseems to have been a life of bitter and almost continuous struggle. Even\nafter the preliminary steps of repentance were over, and her visionary\npowers had developed, the new spiritual ideals demanded of her ever more\ndifficult renunciations. We see her, as we read the wonderful memoirs of\nher years of penitence, perpetually flung to and fro between adoration\nand contrition; as first one element and then the other of her complex\npersonality took the upper hand. In her long and slow ascent towards the\nstars, she alternately experienced the sunshine and the shade.\n\nFrom the turmoil which surrounded the hard re-making of Angela\u2019s\ncharacter, there emerged two great principles round which her subsequent\nlife and teaching were to be grouped. The first was poverty, the second\nwas self-knowledge. Naturally her instinct for poverty would be fostered\nby her Franciscan environment; but it is an instinct implicit in the\nmystical temperament, and not peculiar to the Poor Man of Assisi.\nMystics know that possessions dissipate the energy which they need for\nother and more real things; that they must give up ownership, the verb\n\u201cto have,\u201d if they are to attain the freedom which they seek, and all\nthe fullness of the verb \u201cto be.\u201d Thus Jacopone in his great ode\nexpressed a universal spiritual law:\n\n                           \u201cPovertate \u00e8 nulla avere\n                         e nulla cosa poi volere;\n                         ed omne cosa possedere\n                         en spirito de libertate.\u201d\n\nIt cost Angela many struggles before she fully accepted and acted upon\nthis truth, and attained that which she calls the \u201cliberty of poverty.\u201d\nSelf-knowledge, that hard essential of the soul\u2019s re-education which\nRichard of St. Victor, and afterwards St. Catherine of Siena, made the\nstarting-point of all mysticism, she recognized from the first as the\ntrue objective towards which her hard penances and long meditations must\ntend.\n\nThe eighteen \u201csteps,\u201d then, exhibit with extraordinary honesty her\ngradual progress in these two arts of self-knowledge and renunciation.\nAt the first step, as we have seen, she was by something\u2014we know not\nwhat\u2014startled into attention to the real, and terrified by the vision of\nher own naked reality stripped of its pleasant veils and self-deceits.\nHer first reaction to this vision was avoidance. She was ashamed to look\nher sins in the face, or confess them. But having prayed to St. Francis,\nshe was led by a dream\u2014the form under which her unconscious mind most\nfrequently controlled her\u2014to seek a Franciscan friar and make a general\nconfession of her sins. She performed his penance loyally, and became\nincreasingly contrite for her faults: the sense of Divine Mercy touching\nher, and evoking an ever more humble and repentant grief. By the eighth\nstep this contrition had become love, the passion for perfection\ntriumphing over the hatred of imperfection. By that contemplation of the\nCross which was specially dear to Franciscan devotion, and is the\nsubject of one of Jacopone\u2019s most splendid poems, she was led into an\never deeper understanding of the mystery of redemption by pain. Angela\nwas now definitely committed to the mystic way. \u201cIn this beholding of\nthe Cross,\u201d she says, \u201cI burned with the fire of love and remorse: so\nthat standing before that Cross I divested myself of everything and\noffered myself to Him ... and the aforesaid fire compelled me, and I had\nno power to resist.\u201d The special form which her renunciation took\u2014that\nof a vow of chastity in deed and thought\u2014suggests the direction in which\nher chief temptations lay; and this deduction is made more probable by\nthe emotional quality of her visionary experience, in which the\nrepressed ardours of her temperament found relief.\n\nAt the ninth step, this instinct for renunciation achieved more complete\nexpression. \u201cEnlightened and instructed\u201d\u2014doubtless by some member of the\nspiritual group\u2014she learned that nothing less than a total sacrifice of\nfriends, kindred, possessions, her very self, would serve her if she\nwished to tread the Way of Holy Cross. But in her acceptance of this\nbitter truth we still see something of the vanity, self-importance and\nnarrow egotism of the old Angela. This is the one passage in all her\nwritings which every one knows, and by which she is generally, and most\nunfairly, judged.\n\n\u201cI elected to walk on the thorny path which is the path of tribulation.\nSo I began to put aside the fine clothing and adornments which I had,\nand the most delicate food, and also the covering of my head. But as\nyet, to do all these things was hard, and shamed me, because I did not\nfeel much love for God, and was living with my husband. So that it was a\nbitter thing to me when anything offensive was said or done to me; but I\nbore it as patiently as I could. In that time, and by God\u2019s will, there\ndied my mother, who was a great hindrance to me in following the way of\nGod; my husband died likewise; and in a short time there also died all\nmy children. And because I had begun to follow the aforesaid way, and\nhad prayed God to rid me of them, I had great consolation of their\ndeaths, although I also felt some grief; wherefore, because God had\nshown me this grace, I imagined that my heart was in the heart of God\nand His will and His heart in my heart.\u201d\n\nThis unfortunate paragraph outweighs for many minds the whole of\nAngela\u2019s subsequent life and achievements. I do not deny that, taken\nalone, it appears to be a monument of spiritual egotism. But we must\nremember that it represents, not Angela the peaceful mystic, but Angela\nthe worried and storm-tossed penitent at the most difficult moment of\nher career. The emotional centre of her life had shifted. An inexorable\ninner voice now urged her to a total concentration on God, and she knew\nthat the way of penance and renunciation was her only hope. Yet living\nin a thoroughly discordant, thoroughly unspiritual environment, hemmed\nin on all sides by conventional existence and unsympathetic\nsurroundings, this way seemed impossible to follow in its completeness;\nfor she was not one of those who are able to harmonize the demands of\nboth worlds. Moreover, these words were written by one who had long\noutlived the human sorrow which, as she says here and in another place,\nshe felt at these accumulated bereavements. Now, looking back and seeing\nher past existence spread out before her, she recognized even this awful\nand drastic series of deprivations as a necessary factor in the life to\nwhich she was called.\n\nAfter all, it is fair to acknowledge that family affection is not the\nstrongest point in the character of the mystical saints. In the\ninterests of their vocation, they are always ready to leave father,\nmother, brothers, and sisters; and moreover there is evangelical\nauthority for this attitude. They are specialists, and are therefore\nbound, in the interests of the race, to give up many things which other\nmen must develop and preserve. Artists are under much the same\nnecessity. The vitality which we diffuse amongst many interests and\nloves, these must concentrate on the one object of their quest. Hence\nSt. Francis himself flung his family aside without scruple when it came\nto the parting of the ways. Hence Jacopone da Todi was warned that even\nspiritual friendships must be held lightly by the pilgrim on the way of\nthe Cross. Angela was only following in their footsteps, though she\ndoubtless expressed herself with unnecessary and ill-regulated vigour,\nwhen she recognized human ties and human affections as possible\nimpediments of the spiritual life. An easy capitulation to love and\nfriendship in their most engrossing aspects seems always to have been\nher standing danger. It caused her in later life to say that she \u201cfeared\nlove more than all other things\u201d; even regarding with suspicion the deep\naffection which unites teacher and disciples, or two fellow-initiates of\nthe contemplative life.\n\nIt was after her release from the duties of family life, and her more\ncomplete concentration on the ascetic life, that her visionary powers\nbegan to develop. At first they were little more than waking dreams of a\ncommonplace kind; imaginary pictures of the Passion, the Crucifix, the\nSacred Heart, such as have been experienced by innumerable Catholic\nsaints. These vivid symbolic presentations of Divine love moved Angela\nto greater and more heroic heights of penitential love; and the passion\nfor complete evangelical poverty came on her with renewed force. Her\npossessions enchained her, and she knew it. She made many efforts to\nscrew herself up bit by bit to those heights of renunciation which St.\nFrancis seems to have reached almost without effort.\n\n\u201cFor this cause\u2014namely, to have the liberty of poverty\u2014I journeyed to\nRome, to pray the Blessed Peter that he would obtain for me the grace of\ntrue poverty. It seemed to me at last that I could not sufficiently do\npenance whilst I was possessed of worldly things ... so I determined to\nforsake everything. In my imagination I had a great desire to become\npoor, and such was my zeal, that I often feared to die before I attained\nthis state of poverty. On the other hand, I was assailed by temptations,\nwhich whispered to me that I was still young, that begging for alms\nmight lead me into shame and danger; that if I did this, I should die of\nhunger, cold, and nakedness. Moreover, all my friends dissuaded me from\nit. But at last Divine mercy sent a great illumination into my heart,\nwhich, as I believed then and do now, I shall never lose even in\neternity.... So then I did resolve in good earnest.\u201d\n\nHere is the final, deliberate act of will: the turning once for all from\nthe unreal to the real\u2014under whatever form the charms of unreality\nappear to the growing self\u2014which all mystics have to make. It was\nAngela\u2019s eleventh step. Her mystical powers were now developing rapidly.\nThey showed themselves in visions, dreams, and ecstasies. Not all of\nthese, it is true, can be accepted as marks of spiritual growth: for\nsome clearly represent the re-emergence under religious symbols of old\nemotions and desires. But the deep and vivid intuitions of spiritual\nrealities which came to her more and more frequently, show that a steady\nsublimation of those emotions and desires was in progress, and that they\ntended more and more towards supersensual ends.\n\nAt the fifteenth step, with truly Franciscan thoroughness\u2014though, oddly\nenough, the Friars Minor whom she consulted forbade her to do it\u2014she\ndistributed the whole of her possessions amongst the poor. \u201cBecause\nmethought I could not keep anything for myself without greatly offending\nHim who did thus enlighten me.\u201d With this crucial act she seems to have\nattained at last the true and full state of illumination. \u201cThen,\u201d she\nsays, \u201cI began to feel the sweetness of God in my heart\u201d: that which\nother mystics have called the \u201csense of the Presence.\u201d Also, \u201cI began to\nhave understanding of the visions and the words\u201d; a new spiritual\nlucidity running side by side with the symbolic pictures and imaginary\nvoices that she saw and heard with the inner eye and ear. This, too, is\nnormal and characteristic. From this point, then, we must read the book\nof _Visions and Consolations_ side by side with the book of _Penances_\nif we would understand Angela\u2019s inner life; for these two forms of\nexperience, which she has unfortunately chosen to treat separately,\nalternated with one another.\n\nIn the time of her total acceptance of holy poverty, Angela seems to\nhave been living in a state of almost hermit-like simplicity with one\ncompanion, the Blessed Paschalina of Foligno; whom at first she found a\n\u201cweariness,\u201d but afterwards discovered to be a fellow traveller on the\nMystic Way. Some years had now passed since her conversion; and she was\nalready accepted\u2014perhaps indeed celebrated\u2014as a religious teacher among\nthe members of the Spiritual group. Definitely vowed to the service of\nthe Franciscan Order, she seems soon to have become like St. Catherine\nof Siena, St. Catherine of Genoa, and many other women mystics, the\ncentre of a group of adoring disciples or \u201cspiritual sons.\u201d Yet her\ninner life was still in a state of confusion, the remaking of her\ncharacter was still in progress. She was flung perpetually to the\nextremes of joy and anguish. She would rise to great heights of mystical\npassion \u201cfilled with the fire and fervour of Divine love,\u201d only to fall\nback to her old temptations. The repressed instinctive life began to\ntake its revenge, and tortured her by vicious suggestions which she had\nnever known before. \u201cI would have chosen rather to be roasted than to\nendure such pains.\u201d Also the great strain put upon her nervous system by\nthe growing spiritual faculties resulted in absolute physical illness,\nas has been the case with many of the mystical saints. \u201cThe torments of\nmy body,\u201d she says, \u201cwere veritably numberless. There remained not one\nof my members that was not grievously tormented, nor was I ever free\nfrom pain, infirmity, or weariness.\u201d\n\nWe need not be afraid to recognize in this struggle a reflection of the\nstresses and difficulties\u2014some physical\u2014which attend on the complete\nsublimation of man\u2019s psychic life; especially in persons of a strongly\nemotional temperament. In Angela\u2019s case the visions and dreams that\naccompanied it assure us of the character of the crisis through which\nshe was passing. Many of her symptoms at this time were undoubtedly\nhysterical. She cried aloud when she heard the name of God, and fell\ninto a fever on seeing a picture of the Passion of Christ. Her tears\nwere perpetual, and often she longed to tear herself in pieces.\nUnfortunately Franciscan piety of the more extreme sort encouraged\nemotional extravagances of this kind, as we may see by the account of\nAngela\u2019s contemporaries given in the \u201cLittle Flowers,\u201d and failed to\nappreciate Jacopone\u2019s profound distinction between ordered and\ndisordered love. It also gave unqualified approval to those public and\ngrotesque acts of self-abasement which play so large a part in the\nlegend of his penitence; and here again, Angela was true to type. Still\ngrieved by the memory of her old hypocrisies, made more poignant by the\nreverence she received from her disciples, she went through the city and\nopen places with meat and fishes hanging from her neck, and crying, \u201cI\nam that woman full of evil and dissembling, slave of all vices and\niniquities, who did good deeds that she might obtain honour among men;\nand especially when I caused those bidden to my house to be told that I\nate neither fish nor meat, and\u2014being the while greedy, gluttonous, and\ndrunken\u2014feigned to desire nought but what was needful.\u201d\n\nThose familiar with the lives of the mystics will remember many\nparallels to this state of conflict: the ups and downs of Suso, his\nalternate illumination and despair, his great self-denials balanced by\nfoolish little sins: the thirty years during which Teresa\u2014already, like\nAngela, regarded as a great example\u2014swayed between her mystical vocation\nand the claims of a more normal life. In Angela this inward battle\nculminated, she says, \u201csome little while before the time of the\npontificate of Celestino\u201d\u2014that is to say about 1294, when she was\nforty-six\u2014and endured for more than two years. In it, in addition to\nbodily and mental agony, she was humiliated by recurrent temptations to\nsensual indulgence. Her depression was extreme, and her intellect often\nso clouded that she could not even recall the idea of God to her mind.\nIt was her last lesson in humility and self-knowledge\u2014an excellent\nantidote to the dangers of professional sanctity\u2014and answered to that\nterrible period of final purification which other mystics have called\nthe \u201cDark Night of the Soul.\u201d\n\nFrom this last purgation, in which all the elements of her character\nseemed flung back into the melting-pot, she emerged into that condition\nof spiritual equilibrium, of perfect harmony with transcendent reality,\nwhich is known to mystic writers as the Unitive Way. \u201cA divine change,\u201d\nshe says, \u201ctook place in my soul, which neither saint nor angel could\ndescribe or explain. Wherefore I say again that it seems to me evil\nspeaking or blasphemy if I try and tell of it.\u201d Again, \u201cI came not to\nthis state of my own self, but was led and drawn thereto by God; so that\nthough of my own self I should not have known how to desire or ask for\nit, I am now in that state continually.\u201d Though the capacity for pain\nnever left her, and is implied in many of her greatest revelations\u2014for,\nlike all the great Catholic mystics, she found the Christian paradox of\njoyous suffering at the very centre of truth\u2014yet the last twelve years\nof her life seem to have been years of profound inward peace. \u201cHe hath\nplaced within my soul,\u201d she said, \u201ca state which changes little, and I\npossess God in such fullness that I am no longer in the state in which I\nused to be; but I walk in such perfect peace of heart and mind that I am\ncontent in all things.\u201d\n\nIt was that state of which Jacopone has written:\n\n                            \u201cLa guerra \u00e8 terminata\n                          de le virt\u00fa battaglia,\n                          de la mente travaglia\n                          cosa nulla contende.\n                          La mente \u00e8 renovata\n                          vestita a tal entaglia,\n                          de tal ferro \u00e8 la maglia\n                          feruta no l\u2019offerende.\u201d\n\nAngela has two claims to the title of a great mystic: that of her life,\nwhich we have briefly considered, and that of the revelations and\nexperiences which she reports; our chief evidence of the unique nature\nof her consciousness. What then was the nature of these visions and\nrevelations? There are signs in her book that she ran through the whole\ngamut of mystical experience. She practised, and described, all those\ndegrees of contemplative prayer which are analyzed by St. Teresa and St.\nJohn of the Cross. She heard interior voices. She saw visions. She was\nan ecstatic. Moreover, at least after her achievement of spiritual\nequilibrium\u2014for it would be unfair to take into account the morbid\nstates from which she suffered during the period of readjustment\u2014her\necstasies were of that rare and supernal kind which, far from being\nsigns of mental or nervous disease, actually renew and invigorate the\nphysical life of those who experience them. There is a beautiful passage\nin the life of St. Catherine of Genoa in which she is described as\ncoming joyous and rosy-faced from the ecstatic encounter with God\u2019s\nlove. So Angela says: \u201cBecause of the change in my body, therefore I was\nnot able to conceal my state from my companion, or from other people\nwith whom I consorted; because at times my face was all resplendent and\nrosy, and my eyes shone like candles. When the soul is assured of God\nand refreshed by His presence, the body also receives health,\nsatisfaction, and nobility.\u201d\n\nHer revelations were of two kinds. First we have a long series of\n\u201cimaginary visions\u201d: pictures, no doubt representing deep and imageless\nintuitions, resulting as it were from some communion with reality, but\ntaking their form\u2014as distinct from their content\u2014from the memory and\nimagination of the visionary. Though many of these must be classed as\ndreams, and some indeed were received in sleep, others were definite\nexperiences; seen, as she says, with the eyes of the mind, far more\nclearly than anything can be seen with the eyes of the body.\nNevertheless we are bound to consider them less as objective revelations\nthan as vivid artistic reconstructions; symbols of something that she\nhas felt and known. Angela\u2019s religious beliefs and romantic leanings are\nboth clearly reflected in them. Some deal with the physical accidents of\nthe Passion\u2014always a favourite subject of the medi\u00e6val visionary\u2014and\nthese closely resemble the series of Passion-pictures seen by Julian of\nNorwich. Others are inspired by her devotion to the Eucharist. One or\ntwo seem, like the Visions of St. Gertrude, to anticipate the later cult\nof the Sacred Heart. In virtue of these visions Angela belongs to the\ngreat family of women Catholic mystics; women possessing a rich\nemotional life, and, largely by means of that emotional life,\nactualizing and expressing their communion with the spiritual world.\n\nWe see this emotional character clearly in one of Angela\u2019s most\ncelebrated experiences; the one of all others which seems to have set\nthe seal on her career as a religious teacher, and which is placed at\nthe beginning of her book of visions and revelations, though there was\nno vision involved in it. I mean the beautiful scene in which she talked\nwith the Holy Ghost, walking on \u201cthe narrow road which leads upward to\nAssisi, and is beyond Spello.\u201d That sense of heavenly intimacy, of\ndivine communion, of a destiny pressed upon her from the spiritual\nsphere, which then took possession of her consciousness, was translated\nby the surface-mind of the natural Angela\u2014whose nearest parallels to\nsuch an experience were found amongst the emotional incidents of human\nlove\u2014into the wonderful imaginary conversation in which, as she climbs\nthe path between the vineyards, she is wooed by the Holy Spirit, and\nassured of His peculiar interest and affection. \u201cI will bear thee\ncompany and speak with thee all the way,\u201d He says to her. \u201cI will make\nno end to My speaking, and thou wilt not be able to attend to anything\nsave Me.\u201d \u201cThen did He begin to speak the following words to me, which\npersuaded me to love after this manner, \u2018My daughter, who art sweet to\nMe, My daughter who art My temple, My beloved daughter, do thou love Me,\nfor I love thee greatly, and much more than thou lovest Me.\u2019 And very\noften He said to me, \u2018Bride and daughter! sweet art thou to Me; I love\nthee better than any other in the valley of Spoleto.\u2019 These and other\nsimilar things did He say to me. Then when I heard these words, I\ncounted my sins, and I considered my faults; how that I was unworthy of\nso great a love. And I began to doubt these words; for which cause, my\nsoul said to Him who had spoken to it, \u2018If thou wert indeed the Holy\nSpirit, thou wouldest not speak thus; for it is not right or proper,\nbecause I am weak and frail and might grow vainglorious thereat.\u2019 He\nanswered, \u2018Think and see if thou couldst become vainglorious because of\nthe things for which thou art now made glad....\u2019 Then I tried to grow\nvainglorious, that I might prove if He spoke truth; and I began to look\nat the vineyards, that I might learn the folly of my words. And wherever\nI looked, He said to me, \u2018Behold and see! this is My creation\u2019: and at\nthis I felt ineffable delight.\u201d\n\nThis is the poetry of mysticism, an artistic reduction of supernal\nintuitions, and is to be interpreted in poetic terms. But there is\nanother, and rarer, form of spiritual perception: that imageless\nintuition of pure truth, which St. Teresa and other mystics call\nintellectual, but which would be better named metaphysical vision.\nAngela\u2019s real importance amongst the mystics comes from the fact that\nshe possessed this power in a high degree of development. In virtue of\nher immediate apprehensions of transcendent reality, she belongs to the\nrarest and highest type of mystic seer: a class in which Plotinus holds\nperhaps the first place, and of which Ruysbroeck is the most conspicuous\nmedi\u00e6val example. The poetry of Jacopone da Todi shows us that he too\nknew the secret of those strange astounding regions, \u201cbeyond the polar\ncircle of the mind,\u201d where Angela tasted of unconditioned reality, and\nthe language in which he describes them often reminds us of her. It is\nan interesting question, whether these two great Franciscan\ncontemplatives directly influenced one another, or must be regarded as\nthe twin stars of a school of \u201cSeraphic wisdom\u201d which taught the deepest\nmysteries of the spiritual life.\n\nThere are eight of these great visionary experiences recorded in\nAngela\u2019s book. In them she says that she apprehended God successively\nunder the attributes of Goodness, Beauty, Power, Wisdom, Love, Justice;\nand that after this she beheld the totality of the Godhead \u201cdarkly\u201d\u2014a\nway of describing her perceptions which is of course traceable to the\n\u201cDivine darkness\u201d of Dionysius the Areopagite. Finally she beheld it,\n\u201cas clearly as is possible in this life.\u201d All these visions seem to have\ncome to her when she was in a state of ecstasy or trance. She speaks of\nbeing \u201cexalted in spirit,\u201d \u201crapt to the first elevation\u201d; lifted to\nwholly new levels of consciousness. She describes them as well as she\ncan, yet plainly she is only able to tell us a fraction of her\nexperience. Over and over again she declares the hopeless inadequacy of\nhuman speech, the impossibility of \u201cspeaking as she saw.\u201d Her state is\nlike that of Dante at the end of the _Paradiso_, save that her wings\nwere fitted for these flights.\n\n\u201cI beheld the ineffable fullness of God; but I can relate nothing of it,\nsave that I have _seen_ the fullness of Divine Wisdom, wherein is all\ngoodness.\u201d Again, \u201cinasmuch as this was a supernatural thing, I cannot\nexpress it in words.\u201d \u201cMany other things were clearly set forth to me;\nbut I neither can nor will relate them.\u201d \u201cAll that I say of this, seems\nto me to be nothing. I feel as though I offended in speaking of it, for\nso greatly does the Good exceed all my words that my speech seems to be\nbut blasphemy.\u201d\n\nThose things, however, which she does contrive to relate, have an\nastonishing suggestive quality, a great philosophic sweep, combined with\nan intimate appeal to our own deepest intuitions, which place them, so\nfar as mystical history is concerned, on a level with some of the\ngreatest passages in Jacopone da Todi and in Ruysbroeck; and in my\nopinion far beyond the more celebrated intellectual visions of St.\nTeresa.\n\nThus she says, \u201cthe eyes of my soul were opened and I beheld the\nplenitude of God, by which I understood the whole world both here and\nbeyond the sea, the abyss, and all other things. And in this I beheld\nnothing save the Divine Power, in a way that is utterly indescribable,\nso that through the greatness of its wonder the soul cried with a loud\nvoice, saying, \u2018The whole world is full of God.\u2019 Wherefore I understood\nthat the world is but a little thing; and I saw that the power of God\nwas above all things, and the whole world was filled with it.\u201d\n\nHere we are reminded of Julian of Norwich\u2014\u201cHe showed me a little thing,\nthe quantity of an hazel nut. I looked thereon with the eye of my\nunderstanding and thought; What may this be? and it was answered\ngenerally thus: It is all that is made.\u201d\n\n\u201cAfter I had seen the power of God, His will and His justice,\u201d says\nAngela, again, \u201cI was lifted higher still; and then I no longer beheld\nthe power and will as before. But I beheld a _Thing_, as fixed and\nstable as it was indescribable; and more than this I cannot say, save\nthat I have often said already, namely, that it was all good. And\nalthough my soul beheld not love, yet when it saw that indescribable\n_Thing_, it was itself filled with indescribable joy, so that it was\ntaken out of the state it was in before, and placed in this great and\nineffable state. I know not whether I was then in the body or out of the\nbody. It is enough to say that all the other visions seemed to me less\ngreat than this.\u201d\n\nAgain, \u201cOne time in Lent ... the eyes of my soul were opened, and I saw\nLove advancing gently towards me, and I saw the beginning but not the\nend. There seemed to me only a continuation and an eternity thereof, so\nthat I cannot tell its likeness nor colour; but directly this Love\nreached me I beheld all these things more clearly with the eyes of the\nsoul than I could do with the eyes of the body. This Love came towards\nme after the manner of a sickle. Not that there was any actual and\nmeasurable likeness; but when first it appeared to me it did not give\nitself to me in such abundance as I expected, but a part was withdrawn.\nTherefore I say, after the manner of a sickle. Then I was filled with\nlove and a great satisfaction, but although it satisfied me, it\ngenerated within me so great a hunger that all my members were loosened;\nand my soul fainted with longing to attain to the All.\u201d\n\nI give one more, particularly interesting to English students because of\nits parallels with our own great mystical work, _The Cloud of\nUnknowing_: \u201cThere was a time when my soul was exalted to behold God\nwith so much clearness that never before had I beheld Him so distinctly.\nBut I did not here see Love so fully; rather I lost that which I had\nbefore, and was left without love. Afterwards I saw Him darkly, and this\ndarkness was the greatest blessing that could be imagined, and thought\ncan conceive nothing equal to this.... Here likewise I see all Good....\nThe soul delights unspeakably therein, yet it beholds nothing that can\nbe spoken by the tongue or conceived by the heart. It sees nothing yet\nsees all, because it beholds the Good darkly; and the more darkly and\nsecretly the Good is seen, the more certain it is, and excellent above\nall things. Wherefore all other good that can be seen or imagined is\ndoubtless less than this, and even when the soul sees the Divine wisdom,\npower and will of God (which I have seen marvellously at other times),\nit is all less than this most certain Good. Because this is the whole,\nand those other things are but part of the whole.... But seen thus\ndarkly, the Good brings no smile to the lips, no fervour of love to the\nheart; for the body does not tremble or become moved and distressed as\nat other times; because the soul sees, and not the body, which rests and\nsleeps, and the tongue is dumb and speechless. All the many ineffable\nkindnesses which God has shown me, all the sweet words and divine\nsayings and doings, are so much less than this that I saw in the\ndarkness, that I put no hope in them.... But to this most high power of\nbeholding God ineffably through great darkness, my spirit was uplifted\nthree times only and no more.\u201d\n\n\u201cThis cloud,\u201d says _The Cloud of Unknowing_, of that same Divine Dark,\n\u201cis evermore between thee and thy God ... therefore shape thyself to\nabide in this darkness so long as thou mayest, evermore crying after Him\nwhom thou lovest, for if ever thou shalt feel Him or see Him (in such\nsort as He may be seen or felt in this life) it behoveth always to be in\nthis cloud or darkness.\u201d So Angela: \u201cWhen I behold and am in that Good,\nalthough I seem to see nothing yet I see all things.\u201d In this\nachievement she reaches the goal of the mystic experience, the ecstatic\ncommunion with the Absolute One.\n\nI have called her a Franciscan mystic. If by Franciscan mysticism we\nmean that exquisite sense of the Divine immanence in nature, that poetic\ntemperament, that peculiar and elusive charm, which we associate with\nSt. Francis himself; then, perhaps, there seems little that is\ncharacteristically Franciscan in Angela. But if, looking past the\nspecial character of the Founder, we try to seize the essence of that\nsecret he was seeking to impart, then, allowing for the inevitable\ndevelopment which any idea undergoes when it enters the world of change,\nwe may regard her as a typical Franciscan of the second generation. She\nwas indeed conditioned at all points by the Franciscan environment in\nwhich her religious life developed; that ardent society of \u201cSpirituals,\u201d\nmostly recruited from the devout laity, which sprang up in her time in\nthe Italian cities. This society, with its advanced contemplative\ntradition, its demand for a close imitation of Christ, was a\nforcing-house of the mystical life. Angela shows her close connection\nwith it in the character of her penitence, in her passionate devotion to\nthe Cross and Passion, and also in the metaphysical quality of her\ngreatest mystical apprehensions. These three outstanding\ncharacteristics, corresponding in a general sense to the three great\nphases of the mystical life, are again seen in the poetry in which her\ncontemporary Jacopone discloses to us the stages of anguished contrition\nand of uncontrolled fervour through which he moved to the heights of\nunion with God. These two great converts and initiates of love\nilluminate and explain one another: for in them we see an identical\ntradition of the spiritual life interpreted by different temperaments.\nFor each the Way is an education in love, and Jacopone speaks for both\nof them when he says of it:\n\n                     \u201cDistinguese l\u2019amore en terzo stato:\n                   bono, meglio, sommo, sublimato;\n                   lo sommo s\u00ed vole essere amato\n                   senza compagnia.\u201d\n\n\n                                  III\n                           JULIAN OF NORWICH.\n\n\nAll that we know directly of Julian of Norwich\u2014the most attractive, if\nnot the greatest of the English mystics\u2014comes to us from her book, _The\nRevelations of Divine Love_, in which she has set down her spiritual\nexperiences and meditations. Like her contemporaries, Walter Hilton and\nthe author of _The Cloud of Unknowing_, she lives only in her vision and\nher thought. Her external circumstances are almost unknown to us, but\nsome of these can be recovered, or at least deduced, from the study of\ncontemporary history and art; a source of information too often\nneglected by those who specialize in religious literature, yet without\nwhich that literature can never wholly be understood.\n\nJulian, who was born about 1342, in the reign of Edward III, grew up\namong the surroundings and influences natural to a deeply religious East\nAnglian gentlewoman at the close of the Middle Ages. Though she speaks\nof herself as \u201cunlettered,\u201d which perhaps means unable to write, she\ncertainly received considerable education, including some Latin, before\nher _Revelations_ were composed. Her known connection with the\nBenedictine convent of Carrow, near Norwich, in whose gift was the\nanchorage to which she retired, suggests that she may have been educated\nby the nuns; and perhaps made her first religious profession at this\nhouse, which was in her time the principal \u201cyoung ladies\u2019 school\u201d of the\nNorwich diocese, and a favourite retreat of those adopting the religious\nlife. During her most impressionable years she must have seen in their\nfreshness some of the greatest creations of Gothic art, for in Norfolk\nboth architecture and painting had been carried to the highest pitch of\nexcellence by the beginning of the fourteenth century. The great East\nAnglian school of miniature painting had already produced its\nmasterpieces and was in its decadence. But if we look at these\nmasterpieces\u2014the wonderful manuscripts illuminated at Gorleston near\nYarmouth, and other religious houses of the district\u2014and remember that\nthese are merely the surviving examples of an art which decorated the\nwalls of the churches as richly as the pages of its service-books, we\nbegin to realize the sort of iconography, the view of the Christian\nlandscape, from which Julian\u2019s mental furniture was derived. Some of the\nbest of these manuscripts are in the British Museum; and those who wish\nto understand the atmosphere in which the medi\u00e6val mystics flourished\nwould do well to study Julian\u2019s _Revelations_ in their light. There they\nwill find expressed in design that mixture of gaiety and awe, that\nbalanced understanding of the natural and the divine, which is one of\nher strong characteristics. She, like these artists, can afford to\nwreathe her images of supernatural mysteries in homely details drawn\nfrom the common life. Moreover, the more pictorial her revelations\nbecome, the more closely they approximate to the pictures in the\npsalters and Books of Hours of her time. From this source came her\ndetailed visions of incidents in the Passion\u2014the blood that she saw\nrunning down under the garland of thorns, the dried, discoloured body,\nthe gaping wounds, and \u201crueful and wasted\u201d face of Christ\u2014and those of\nthe Blessed Virgin as a \u201clittle maiden,\u201d as \u201cMater Dolorosa,\u201d and as the\ncrowned Queen of Heaven. All these were common subjects with the\nminiature artists and wall painters of the time, and the form which they\ntook in Julian\u2019s revelations must be attributed to a large extent to\nunconscious memory of those artists\u2019 works.\n\nAnother more inward aspect of contemporary religion has also affected\nher: the cult of the Holy Name of Jesus. This beautiful devotion was\nspecially characteristic of English personal religion in the late Middle\nAges, and is strongly marked in the writings of the mystics; especially\nHilton and Rolle. The great popularity in England of the hymn _Jesu\nDulcis Memoria_, and the many vernacular imitations of it current in\nJulian\u2019s day, helped in the spread of this cult; with which was\nassociated that intense and highly emotional preoccupation with the\nphysical accidents of the Passion so constantly reflected in her\nvisionary experience. \u201cO good Jesu!\u201d cried Rolle, \u201cmy heart thou hast\nbound in love of Thy Name and now I cannot but sing it\u201d; and he spoke\nnot for himself only but for all the best religious lyrists of the early\nfourteenth century, whose characteristic mood was that of personal,\nintimate, and sorrowing love of Jesus.\n\n                      \u201cSweet Jesu, now will I sing\n                      To thee, a song of love longing.\n                      Teach me, Lord, thy love song\n                      With sweet tears ever among.\u201d\n\nThus, one of these Middle English poets could write:\n\n                  \u201cJesu, well owe I to love thee\n                  For that me showed the rood\u00eb tree,\n                  The crown of thorns, the nail\u00ebs three,\n                  The sharp spear that through-stong thee,\n                  Jesu of love is sooth tokening\n                  Thy head down-bowed to love-kissing,\n                  Thine arms spread to love-clipping,\n                  Thy side all open to love-showing.\u201d\n\nOf such poetry as this\u2014with which she was probably familiar\u2014Julian often\nreminds us; and sometimes her parallels with it are close. Thus she says\nin her tenth Revelation: \u201cThen with a glad cheer our Lord looked into\nhis side, and beheld rejoicing. With his sweet looking he led forth the\nunderstanding of his creature by the same wound into his side within.\nAnd then he showed a fair delectable place and large enough for all\nmankind that shall be saved to rest in peace and in love.... And with\nthis our good Lord said full blissfully: Lo! how that I loved thee.\u201d In\nsuch passages as this, in her highly visualized meditations on the Crown\nof Thorns and the Precious Blood, and in such phrases as \u201cI liked none\nother heaven than Jesus, who shall be my bliss when I am there,\u201d and\nother ardent expressions of religious love, she is speaking the common\ndevotional language and using the common devotional imagery of her own\nday. Hence those merely visionary experiences with which her book opens\nand which form by far the least important part of it, can be accounted\nfor as the result of unconscious memory, weaving new vivid pictures from\nthe current religious and artistic conceptions in which she had been\nreared. A correspondence has indeed been detected between the order of\nthese fifteen \u201cshowings,\u201d and the fifteen prayers on the Passion known\nas the \u201cXV Os,\u201d which occur in the _Sarum Hor\u00e6_. They are, in fact,\ndreams of which any devout and imaginative person of that time was\ncapable; and need not be taken too seriously when estimating the\ncharacter of Julian\u2019s mysticism.\n\nThis, then, was the religious, artistic, and emotional environment in\nwhich she grew up; an environment to which new sombre colour and new\nrealization of pain had been given by the Black Death which swept\nthrough Norfolk when she was a child. More important, however, than any\nexternal influence, was the part her own temperament played in her\nspecial apprehension of God. It is plain that she was from the first of\nan intensely religious, meditative disposition. As a girl, she says, she\nasked of God three things. The first was, that she might have a keen\nrealization of Christ\u2019s Passion; because although she had great feeling\nof it, she desired more, and specially a bodily sight of His pains. The\nsecond was bodily sickness, much esteemed in the Middle Ages as a means\nof grace; and this she wished to suffer at thirty years of age. The\nthird was, that as Saint Cecilia was pierced by three wounds, so she\nmight be pierced with the three wounds of contrition, compassion, and\neager longing towards God. The first two desires she forgot for a while;\nbut the three wounds she prayed for continually. When she was thirty\nyears old, the gift of sickness was granted her, and it was exactly such\na sickness, \u201cso hard as unto death,\u201d as she had asked: a fact which\ntells us a good deal about Julian\u2019s mental make-up, revealing her as the\npossessor of an extremely active \u201cpsychic background.\u201d By the law of\nassociation we may be sure that her illness brought back to mind the\nother forgotten prayer, for a deeper insight into, and vision of, the\nPassion. It is supposed that she was at this time already an anchoress,\nshut in that tiny room against the south wall of St. Julian\u2019s church at\nNorwich, of which the foundations can still be traced. But nothing in\nher own account suggests this, and the presence of her mother and \u201cother\npersons\u201d round her sick bed is rather against it. At the same time, a\nsingle woman of strong religious bent is hardly likely in that period to\nhave remained in the world till she was thirty. Julian was perhaps a\nBenedictine nun at Carrow, and after her vision sought a life of greater\nseclusion and austerity at St. Julian\u2019s, which was the property of the\nCarrow convent. The anchoress was often, but not always, a professed\nnun: and though no reminiscences of cloister life can be traced in\nJulian\u2019s writings, such a life would account in part for the theological\nknowledge and familiarity with dogmatic language which those writings\ndisplay.\n\nJulian\u2019s account of what happened in her illness is extremely precise,\nand makes this part of her revelation an interesting psychological\ndocument. She fell ill early in May 1373; and on the fourth night was\nthought to be dying and given the last sacraments. For two days more she\nlingered, quite conscious and expecting death; and early in the morning\nof the third day, lost all feeling in her lower limbs. When the priest\ncame to help her agony she was already speechless; but made her nurses\nprop her upright in bed, so that she could fix her failing eyes on the\ncrucifix he held towards her. This she could see, though everything else\ngrew dim to her sight. Then her head fell on one side, breath failed,\nand she was sure that the end had come.\n\nWith this conviction and acceptance of death, the stress of the\ninvoluntary struggle for life seems suddenly to have ended. She had\npassed into a new state of consciousness, in which her mind was clear\nand her body free of pain, \u201cas whole as ever before or after.\u201d In this\ncondition her old and forgotten desires came back into her mind. The\nfirst, for sickness, had been granted. Now, she was impelled to ask the\nother, for a keener realization of the Passion; and this buried wish,\nsurging back abruptly into consciousness, became the starting-point of\nher mystical experiences. We cannot deny that these experiences had\ntheir pathological side. Her physical and psychic state were abnormal.\nWith the perfect candour and common sense which add so much to our\ndelight in her, she confesses that she at first mistook her revelations\nfor delirium, and said to the monk who afterwards visited her that she\nhad raved. There are, however, in these revelations, as in all visionary\nexperience of any value, two distinct sides. One is the visual or\nauditory hallucination\u2014the vision seen, the voice heard\u2014the materials\nfor which clearly come from the unconscious mind of the visionary, and\ncan generally be traced to their source. The other is the intuitive\nspiritual teaching that accompanies it, and often far exceeds the\nvisionary\u2019s own knowledge or power. Julian, in her account of what\nhappened to her, keeps these two elements perfectly distinct. \u201cAll the\nblessed teaching of our Lord God,\u201d she says, \u201cwas shown to me by three\nparts\u2014that is to say, by the bodily sight, by words formed in mine\nunderstanding, and by ghostly sight.\u201d\n\nThe bodily vision, as she expressly affirms, she did not ask for; and\nhere she agrees with all true mystics, who invariably distrust these\nquasi-physical experiences. Yet it was in such visionary hallucination\nthat her revelations began. With her eyes still fixed on the crucifix,\nand apparently at the point of death, she suddenly saw red blood running\ndown from the Crown of Thorns, as if in answer to her prayer for more\nfeeling of the Passion of Christ. The Cross had become for her, as the\nshining pewter dish did for Jacob Boehme, or the running stream for St.\nIgnatius, a focal point on which to concentrate; and so a door to a\ndeeper state of consciousness. Spiritual insight went side by side with\nthe bodily vision, which was accepted without question by Julian as a\ndirect message from Christ to strengthen her, \u201clest she be tempted of\nfiends before she died\u201d; for in spite of her intuitive philosophic\nsense, we must remember that she lived in imagination in that Gothic\nworld of concrete devils and angels which the cathedral sculptors\nreproduced. The double experience\u2014outward pictures of the Passion, and\ninward teachings of the nature of God\u2014continued for five hours, whilst\nshe lay in a state of trance which her mother mistook for death. \u201cThe\nfirst began early in the morn, about the hour of four; and they lasted,\nshowing by process full fair and steadily, each following other, till it\nwas nine of the day overpassed.\u201d In those five hours Julian received the\nwhole substance of her teaching, afterwards divided by her into sixteen\n\u201crevelations of love.\u201d When they had passed, normal consciousness\nreturned, or, as she says, she \u201cfell to herself,\u201d and knew that she must\nlive. She lay for some time in weakness and depression, tormented by\nevil dreams; but she recovered from her sickness, and lived to a great\nage. Her careful account of that illness, and of the psychic experiences\naccompanying it, helps us to understand those experiences from the\npsychological as well as the mystical point of view. Seen thus, they are\nnot unique; but classic examples of a type which turns up from time to\ntime in medical history. Thus Dr. Edwin Ash, in _Faith and Suggestion_,\nhas described a case which strikingly resembles that of Julian. Here,\ntoo, at the crisis of an apparently hopeless illness, the patient fell\ninto a death-like trance, had visions of a religious type, and emerged\ncured. Her mind was far inferior to that of Julian, hence her experience\nhad less beauty and significance and was of little value for other\nsouls. Nevertheless, its general outline forces us to acknowledge that\nit belongs to the same class, and helps us to interpret the facts which\nlie behind Julian\u2019s words.\n\nJulian\u2019s revelations have come down to us in two distinct versions,\nwhich have both been edited for modern readers. The best known is the\nlong version, reproduced in Miss Warrack\u2019s delightful edition: but our\nearliest manuscript of this only goes back to the sixteenth century, at\nleast a hundred years after Julian\u2019s death. Another, much shorter, is\nfound in one fifteenth-century manuscript in the British Museum, and\nthis has been edited by Mr. Dundas Herford, who claims\u2014I think with good\nreason\u2014that it represents Julian\u2019s first account of her visions, written\nor told while they were still fresh in her mind, and before her memory\nof them had been coloured by long meditation, or by the theological\nlearning which she certainly acquired in later life. It briefly sets\nforth her chain of visions, and the \u201cghostly words\u201d and inward teachings\nthat accompanied them. These, she says, she has set down for the help of\nher fellow-Christians and because she saw it to be God\u2019s will. \u201cBut,\u201d\nshe adds, \u201cGod forbid that ye should say or take it so, that I am a\nteacher: for I mean not so! No! I never meant so! For I am a woman,\nunlearned, feeble and frail; but I know well that this that I say, I\nhave it of the showing of Him that is Sovereign Teacher.\u201d In the long\nversion these deprecatory words are omitted. Julian no longer fears to\nbe regarded as a teacher. On the contrary, she speaks with a gentle\nauthority as one whose position is assured. She is now, without doubt,\nthe established anchoress; the devout woman whose special vocation is\nknown, and to whom people come for spiritual teaching. Moreover, she\ntells us in this book that only twenty years, less three months, after\nher vision was she inwardly taught the importance of all its details,\nhowever \u201cmisty and indifferent\u201d they seemed. She was therefore past\nfifty when she wrote or dictated it; and it contains the fruit, not only\nof her first vivid experience, but of all the ponderings by which the\nlast atom of significance was extracted from it, the \u201cenlightenings and\ntouchings of the same Spirit,\u201d which kept the revelation fresh in after\nlife.\n\nAs she says herself\u2014for her introspective powers were remarkable\u2014the\n\u201cfirst beginnings\u201d and subsequent \u201cghostly teachings\u201d at last became so\nmerged in her understanding that she could not separate them. There is a\nparallel to this in the life of Boehme. He says that in the abnormal\nstate which was induced by gazing at the polished pewter dish he\n\u201cunderstood the Being of all Beings\u201d\u2014even as Julian \u201csaw God in a\nPoint\u201d\u2014but this stupendous revelation only left him dazed and\ninarticulate. Only after twelve years of meditation, during which he\nfelt the seed of truth \u201cunfolding within him like a young plant,\u201d was he\nable to describe it.\n\nWhen we compare the two versions of Julian\u2019s work, we find many\ndifferences which remind us of this confession. Although the whole\ndoctrine of the long book is really implied in the short book\u2014for it is,\nin Boehme\u2019s phrase, an unfolding of the plant from that one seed\u2014we see\nthat the most beautiful and poetical passages are found in the long\nversion only. They are the fruit of meditation upon vision. The workings\nof Julian\u2019s unconscious mind in her trance have only provided the raw\nmaterial, as the inspiration of the poet gives only the crude beginnings\nof the poem. Moreover, with age her character deepened and grew richer.\nShe used her talent to help other souls, and it increased. She studied,\ntoo, and found language of great subtlety and beauty in which to express\nher vision of truth. Though even the first version of her book shows\ntheological knowledge which would put to shame most present-day\nChristians, in the later work this knowledge is much increased. Reading\nwas part of the duty of an anchoress, being regarded as an essential\nelement in the life of prayer; and intelligent reading has clearly\nnourished Julian\u2019s deep meditations on the character of God. In her\nthere was an almost perfect balance between the intellectual and the\nemotional life, and there are few women mystics of Whom we can say this.\n\nThe question of her literary sources is an interesting one. A careful\nexamination of her revelations makes it plain that even when the short\nversion was written, she was already acquainted with many theological\nconceptions; whilst the meditations with which the long version is\nenriched, and its fuller descriptions of her spiritual \u201cShowings,\u201d\nreveal her as possessing at least by middle life a considerable\nknowledge of the language of Augustinian theology and of the root-ideas\nof Christian mysticism. As used by her, many of these ideas have the\nspecial colour which was given to them by Meister Eckhart and his\nschool; and suggest that Julian at one time or another had come into\ncontact with the characteristically Dominican type of mysticism which is\nbest known to us in the works of Suso and Tauler. In her teaching on\nsin\u2014\u201cI saw not sin, for I believe it hath no substance nor any part of\nbeing\u201d\u2014she is following, indeed almost quoting, Eckhart\u2019s saying that\n\u201cevil is nothing but a privation of being; not an effect, but a defect.\u201d\nSo, too, Eckhart\u2019s daring assertion that sin has its place in the\nscheme\u2014\u201cSince God, in a way, also wills that I should have committed\nsins, I do not wish not to have committed them\u201d\u2014appears to be echoed in\ngentler form in Julian\u2019s view of sin as a purifying scourge, and of the\nscars which it leaves on the redeemed soul as being \u201cnot wounds but\nworships.\u201d Her beautiful saying that we are God\u2019s bliss, \u201cfor in us He\nenjoyeth without end,\u201d seems like a deduction from the Eckhartian\nparadox, \u201cGod needs me as much as I need Him.\u201d She has received, perhaps\nfrom the same source, the antique mystical notion of the soul\u2019s\nprecession from and return to God. \u201cThe soul,\u201d said Eckhart, \u201cis created\nthat it may flow back into the bottom of the bottomless fountain whence\nit came forth.\u201d \u201cThus I understood,\u201d says Julian, \u201cthat all His blessed\nchildren which be come out of Him by nature shall be brought again into\nHim by grace\u201d; and again, \u201call kinds that He hath made to flow out of\nHim to work His will shall be restored and brought again into Him.\u201d\nHere, again, the naked Eckhartian monism seems to be transmitted through\na more human and more spiritual temperament. She agrees, too, with the\nGerman mystics in her doctrine of God as the \u201cground of the soul.\u201d \u201cOur\nsoul is so deep-grounded in God and so endlessly treasured that we may\nnot come to the knowing thereof till we have first knowing of God....\nGod is nearer to us than our own soul, for He is the ground in whom our\nsoul standeth, and He is the mean that keepeth the substance and the\nsensuality together so that they shall never depart.\u201d So Tauler says, \u201cA\nman who verily desires to enter in will surely find God here, for God\nnever separates Himself from this ground. God will be present with him\nand he will find and enjoy eternity here.\u201d\n\nJulian\u2019s revelation was received in 1373, and the long text as we have\nit was written at some date after 1393. Eckhart had died in 1329, Tauler\nin 1361; and the great Ruysbroeck, whose mysticism owes much on its\nspeculative side to Eckhart\u2019s philosophy, in 1381. The influence of\ntheir teaching spread rapidly, and few preaching friars of an inward\ndisposition can have escaped it. To these preaching friars was committed\nin the fourteenth century the special duty of giving solid theological\nteaching to nuns. This was commonly done by way of vernacular sermons\nand instructions, of which Tauler\u2019s surviving sermons are types: and it\nwas possibly through such instructions given in the Carrow convent that\nJulian obtained that peculiar knowledge of Dominican mysticism, those\ncontacts with Augustinian and Victorine thought, on which the more\nphilosophic side of her revelation seems to depend. The parallels with\nher great contemporary St. Catherine of Siena, which Professor Edmund\nGardner has noted, are probably due to the fact that both women drew\ntheir ideas from some earlier source. Her likenesses to Ruysbroeck can\nalso be accounted for. His _Seven Cloisters_, _Kingdom of God\u2019s Lovers_,\nand _Ornaments of the Spiritual Marriage_ were all completed before\n1350, and knowledge of them would reach East Anglia quickly, through the\nFlemish colony established at Norwich. Several close correspondences\nwith him can be traced in Julian\u2019s work; especially her conception of\nGod\u2019s eternal thirst and love-longing, so similar to Ruysbroeck\u2019s\n\u201chungry yet generous love of God,\u201d and the opening phrase of her Third\nRevelation, \u201cAfter this I saw God in a Point,\u201d which reminds us of the\ngreat definition in the _Seven Cloisters_, \u201cThat Point in which all our\nlives find their end.\u201d Julian thus represents the first emergence in\nEnglish literature of a stream of tradition which is not represented in\nthe classic school of English mysticism descended from Rolle. By this\nschool she does not appear to have been greatly influenced; there is\nlittle in her that reminds us of it, or of that group of contemplatives\nwho produced the _Cloud of Unknowing_ and its companion works. Her true\naffinities are with the Christian Platonism which St. Augustine\nintroduced into theology, and its developments in the works of Erigena\nand Eckhart. But when we have given full weight to the effects upon her\nwork of oral teaching and of reading, the true originality of that work\nonly becomes more manifest. Reading and teaching fed her speculative\nmind, and helped her to understand and express her own experience; but\nthis experience in its essence was independent of intellectual\nknowledge. It was the fruit of a deeply mystical and poetic nature,\nbrooding on the conception of God common to medi\u00e6val Christianity.\nJulian had in a high degree constructive religious genius; and for such\na nature an evocative phrase is enough to waken the \u201cghostly sight.\u201d\n\nIt is impossible in a short essay to give any full account of her\nteaching. That teaching is centred on her own ardent consciousness of\nGod, as an all-transcending yet all-enclosing reality; a conception at\nonce philosophic and practical. For Julian, as for the Platonists, God\nis the sum of the highest spiritual values\u2014\u201cHe is all-thing that is good\nto my seeming, and all-thing that is good, it is He.\u201d Her perception of\nthe Divine Immanence is peculiarly intense, and expressed in the\nstrongest terms. \u201cGod is kind (nature) in His being: that is to say,\nthat goodness that is in kind, that is God. He is the ground, He is the\nsubstance, He is the same thing that is kind-head,\u201d and again, \u201cI saw\nfull assuredly that our substance is in God, and also I saw that in our\nsensuality God is ... for it is His good pleasure to reign in our\nunderstanding blissfully, and sit in our soul restfully, and to dwell in\nour soul endlessly, us all working into Him.\u201d But this vivid sense of\nDivine reality, as the very ground of being, is closely bound up with\nher devotion to the person of Christ. Her theological path, like her\nmystical experience, lay through the human to the Divine, through\nemotional realization of the Passion to intellectual vision of the\nGodhead. In the first revelation of all we get these two aspects of\ntruth sharply contrasted; for there her vision of the bloodstained Crown\nof Thorns, with its intimate appeal to the heart, is balanced by her\nother interior sight of \u201cthe Godhead seen in mine understanding.\u201d The\nlong version of her book elaborates this simple intuition of the Deity\ninto a very beautiful description of the Holy Trinity\u2014always one of\nJulian\u2019s favourite subjects\u2014but the whole is really implied in the first\nbrief statement, which strikes at once her characteristic chord of\nintimacy and awe, or, as she puts it, \u201cthe dread and the homeliness of\nGod.\u201d In the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity, which was never far from\nher thoughts, she found the link between these personal and impersonal\napprehensions. That half-Platonic notion of Christ the Eternal Wisdom as\n\u201cMother\u201d of the soul, which is one of her most original conceptions,\nhere takes its place side by side with the other, more metaphysical\nintuition of that unconditioned Deity in whom \u201cAll-thing hath the\nBeing.\u201d \u201cFor all our life is in three: in the first we have our being,\nin the second we have our increasing, and in the third we have our\nfulfilling: the first is nature, the second is mercy, and the third is\ngrace. For the first I understood that the high might of the Trinity is\nour Father, and the deep wisdom of the Trinity is our Mother, and the\ngreat love of the Trinity is our Lord: and all this we have in nature\nand in our substantial making.... All the fair working, and all the\nsweet kindly office of dearworthy motherhood is impropriated to the\nSecond Person ... and all is one Love.\u201d\n\nThis blend of personal and metaphysical vision is not unique. We find it\nagain in the Franciscan contemplative, Angela of Foligno. But Julian\u2019s\nnature is richer and more mellow, and the doctrine of love which she\ndeduced from her experience is more profound. Here, in this harmonized\nconsciousness of the most human and most philosophic aspects of\nreligious experience, she is typical of Christian mysticism at its best.\nShe avoids on the one hand the excessive intellectualism of the\nNeoplatonist, and on the other the unpleasant exuberance of the\nreligious emotionalist, yet draws from the apprehensions of both the\nheart and the head all the elements needed to feed a full spiritual\nlife. The human element brought in by Christianity, with all the\nemotional values belonging to it\u2014however symbolic this side of\ncontemplation must necessarily be\u2014redeems philosophic mysticism from the\nclear coldness, the lofty superiority, that St. Augustine condemned in\nthe Platonists. But, equally, it is the philosophic background, the\naustere worship of that trinity of Light, Life, and Love, in whom, as\nJulian says, we are clad more closely than a body in its clothes, which\nsaves mystical fervour from its worst extravagances. Here she is and\nwill ever be one of the safest guides to the contemplative life.\n\nAnother special quality of Julian\u2019s teaching is its healthy, vigorous,\naffirmative character. The only two sins she sternly condemns\u2014and she\ncalls them not sins, but sickness\u2014are sloth or lack of zest, and\ndoubtful dread or lack of hope. Zest and hope she regards as essential\nfactors in the life of the soul. The Light, Life, and Love which form\nher ultimate definition of triune Reality\u2014the Mother, Brother, and\nSaviour, which are her nearest images for Christ\u2019s relation with\nman\u2014these are conceptions which kill the sort of pious moods that R. L.\nStevenson called \u201cdim, dem, and dowie.\u201d God\u2019s attitude to man is\n\u201ccourteous, glad, and merry,\u201d and we do Him less honour by solemnity\nthan by \u201ccheer of mirth and joy.\u201d To her, only the good is the true, and\nevil is a void, a lack of the only reality; a Platonic notion which has\nalways been dear to the mystics. \u201cIn this naked word Sin,\u201d says Julian,\n\u201cour Lord brought to my mind generally all that is not good ... but I\nsaw not sin, for I believe it hath no manner of substance nor no part of\nbeing, nor could it be known but by the pain it is cause of.\u201d It follows\nthat our attention should not be given to the avoidance or consideration\nof sin, but to the understanding and enjoyment of the good and the real.\n\u201cThe beholding of other men\u2019s sins, it maketh as it were a thick mist\nbefore the eyes of the soul,\u201d says Julian. Her strongest condemnation is\ngiven to morbid pondering of past sins and mistakes. \u201cRight as by the\ncourtesy of God He forgets our sins when we repent, right so will He\nthat we forget our sin, and all our heaviness and all our doubtful\ndreads.\u201d This world, after all, is only a nursery for heaven, and its\ninhabitants mostly spiritual babies who need not be taken too seriously.\n\u201cI understood no higher stature in this life than childhood;\u201d and the\nattitude of God to our infant souls is that of \u201cthe kindly loving Mother\nthat witteth and knoweth the need of her child and keepeth it full\ntenderly as the kind and condition of Motherhood will.\u201d\n\nNo modern psychologist could be more emphatic than this\nfourteenth-century recluse on the foolishness of worry, the duty of\nconfidence, gaiety, and hope. \u201cNotwithstanding our simple living and our\nblindness here, yet endlessly our courteous Lord beholdeth us in this\nworking rejoicing; and of all things we may please him best, wisely and\ntruly to believe, and to enjoy with Him and in Him.\u201d She brings back the\nprimitive Christian insistence on joy\u2014confident happiness\u2014as the one\nsure sign of the spiritual life. If we have not got this, it is because\nwe lack the faith and common sense which sees life in a universal and\ndisinterested light. Once, Julian says, she was inclined to worry about\nGod\u2019s work in the soul of a friend whom she loved, and she was answered\nin her reason \u201cas it were by a friendly man,\u201d \u201cTake it generally! and\nbehold the courtesy of thy Lord God as He shows it to thee, for it is\nmore worship to God to behold Him in all than in any special thing.\u201d In\nthose words we have a complete prescription for happiness and inward\npeace. All that is made, as Julian saw in her vision, is but \u201ca little\nthing the quantity of an hazel nut\u201d in comparison with the Divine life\nthat creates, keeps, and loves it, and may be known in those sudden\nglimpses of perfection which we call the Good, the Beautiful, and the\nTrue. These, in her language, are \u201cGod\u2019s courteous showings of Himself,\u201d\nand we are most likely to encounter them when we take the worlds of\nnature and grace \u201cgenerally,\u201d and refrain from partial or egoistic\ncriticisms and demands. Failure in this simple rule, she thinks, is the\ntrue cause of human misery and unrest. \u201cThis is the cause why we be not\nall in ease of heart and soul; that we seek here rest in those things\nthat are so little, wherein is no rest, and know not our God that is\nAll-mighty, All-wise, and All-good.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                       MYSTICISM IN MODERN FRANCE\n\n\n                                   I\n                     S\u0152UR TH\u00c9R\u00c8SE DE L\u2019ENFANT-J\u00c9SUS\n\n\nThat Christian tradition of the spiritual life which has been specially\ndeveloped within the religious orders\u2014with its definite objective, its\nmethodical training in self-conquest and the art of prayer\u2014is often\nregarded as a mere survival of medi\u00e6valism, lingering in odd corners but\nhaving no points of contact with our modern world. Yet this tradition\nlives now, as surely as in the days of St. Gertrude or St. Teresa. It\ncontinues to exercise its mysterious attraction; transmuting those who\ngive themselves to its influence, and producing that special type of\ncharacter and experience which is so clearly marked in the histories of\nthe Catholic saints. In a world of change, this has hardly altered.\nWithin the contemplative convents there obtains that same scale of\nvalues, that same contempt for the body and undivided attention to the\ninterests of the soul, that same avoidance of all comfort or pleasure\nand eager acceptance of pain, which is revealed in the standard writings\nof Christian asceticism. In these houses, mysticism is still a practical\nart: the education there given represents the classic spiritual\ndiscipline of the west, and still retains its transforming power.\nThrough it, souls obtain access to a veritable world of spirit; and\napprehend under symbols eternal values, which are unperceived by their\nfellow men. By it they are supported through the difficult adjustments\nof consciousness and sublimation of instinct, which are needed when the\ncentre of life\u2019s interest is shifted from physical to supernal levels.\nThis is a fact which students of psychology, and especially of religious\nexperience in its intensive form, should not ignore. They need not go to\nthe Middle Ages for their examples of the effect of ascetic training and\ncontemplative practice, or for characteristic specimens of the \u201csaintly\ntype\u201d; for these may be found within our own period, and studied in\ntheir relation to our modern world.\n\nThose who regard this saintly type as a hot-house plant, raised under\nconditions which appear to defend it from the temptations and\ndistractions of ordinary existence, can have little acquaintance either\nwith cloister ideals or with cloistered lives. A thoroughgoing monastic\ndiscipline is the most searching school of virtue ever invented. It\nwithers easy-going piety and \u201cother-worldliness\u201d at the root. It confers\na robust humility which is proof against all mortifications and\ndisappointments. It leaves no room for individual tastes and\npreferences, religious or secular. Its pupils must learn to resent\nnothing, to demand nothing; to thrive on humiliations, to love and serve\nall without distinction, without personal choice; even to renounce the\nspecial consolations of religion. The common idea of the cloister, as\nproviding a career of impressive religious ceremonial varied by plain\nsewing, pious gossip, and \u201cdevotionettes\u201d is far from the truth. On its\nexternal side, a well-ordered convent provides a busy, practical, family\nlife of the most austere kind, with many duties, both religious and\ndomestic, countless demands upon patience, good-temper and\nunselfishness, and few relaxations. On its hidden side, it is a device\nto train and toughen the spirit, develop its highest powers, and help it\nto concentrate its attention more and more completely on eternal\nrealities. That training is still given in its completeness; and the\nclassic, saintly character is still being produced, with its special\ncultivation of love, meekness, and self-sacrifice, balanced by energy,\ncourage, and strength of will.\n\nSanctity is the orientation of the spirit towards supreme Reality. To\nthe believer in any theistic religion, no attitude of the soul could be\nsimpler, more natural than this. There is nothing about it which\ndeserves to be called abnormal, archaic, or fantastic. The complications\nwith which it is surrounded, the unnatural aspect which it wears for\npractical men, all come from its collision with the entangled interests\nand perverse ideals of the world. Thus, retreat from this tangle of sham\ninterests, the building up of a consistent universe within which the\nself can develop its highest powers and purest loves, is felt to be\nimperative for those selves in whom this innate aptitude for God reaches\nthe conscious level. In these spirits, the \u201cvocation\u201d for the special\nlife of correspondence with the supersensual reproduces on a higher\nplane the vocation of the artist or the poet. All the self\u2019s best\nenergies and desires tend in this direction, and it will achieve\nharmonious development only by unifying itself about this centre of\ninterest, and submitting to the nurture and discipline which shall\nassure its dominance. The symbols with which the universe of religion is\nfurnished, the moral law which there obtains, are all contributory to\nthe one end; and find their justification in its achievement.\n\nWithin the Christian Church, and especially in that which is technically\ncalled the \u201creligious life,\u201d these symbols and this law have not varied\nfor many centuries; nor has the type of personality which they develop\nchanged much since it first appeared in monastic history. The sharp\nsense of close communion with, and immediate responsibility to, a\npersonal God possessing human attributes; the complete abandonment of\ndesire, combined with astonishing tenacity of purpose; contempt for the\nmerely comfortable either in spiritual or physical affairs; a glad and\neager acceptance of pain\u2014these are the qualities of the Christian saint,\nand these are still fostered in appropriate subjects by the cloistered\nlife. These facts have been abundantly demonstrated during the last\nthirty years in a group of French Carmelite mystics, of whom the best\nknown is Th\u00e9r\u00e8se Martin, already the object of a widespread _cultus_\nunder the name of S\u0153ur Th\u00e9r\u00e9se de l\u2019Enfant J\u00e9sus. Others who will repay\nstudy are Elizabeth Catez, or S\u0153ur Elizabeth de la Trinit\u00e9 (1880-1906)\nand M\u00e8re Marie-Ange de l\u2019Enfant-J\u00e9sus (1881-1909). It is clear that we\nhave in these young women\u2014for they all died before they were thirty\nyears of age\u2014a genuine renaissance of traditional Catholic mysticism.\nTheir experience exhibits many close correspondences with that of the\ngreat mystics of the past; the same development of the interior life can\nbe traced in them, and they knew at first hand some at least among those\nforms of spiritual consciousness which are described by Ruysbroeck,\nAngela of Foligno, St. Teresa, and St. John of the Cross.\n\nThe first in time and in importance\u2014for the others depended to a greater\nor less degree on her influence and example\u2014was Th\u00e9r\u00e8se Martin, who was\nborn at Alen\u00e7on in 1873 and died in 1897. The last nine years of her\nlife were spent in the Carmelite Convent of Lisieux in Normandy; and she\nthere wrote the spiritual autobiography, _L\u2019histoire d\u2019une \u00e2me_, which\nhas since been translated into every European language. In her\nlife\u2014which shows with exceptional clearness the reality and driving\npower of that instinct which is known as religious vocation\u2014and in the\nincidents connected with her death and _cultus_, we find many suggestive\nparallels with the histories of the historical saints. These parallels\noften help us to determine the true meaning of statements in those\nhistories; indicating the possible origin of much that now appears\nextravagant and abnormal, and restoring to their real position in the\nhuman race men and women who dropped their living characteristics in\nascending to the altars of the Church.\n\nWe notice first in Th\u00e9r\u00e8se the extent to which heredity and environment\ncontributed to the formation in her of an exclusively religious\ntemperament. She inherited from both parents an ascetic tendency. Her\nfather, as a young man, had sought without success to become a novice at\nthe Great St. Bernard; her mother had wished to be a Sister of Charity.\nTheir marriage had the character of a religious dedication; and their\none wish was for children who might be consecrated to the service of\nGod. Nine were born, of whom four died in infancy. The five girls who\nsurvived all entered the cloister, for which indeed their whole life had\nbeen a perfect preparation. The idea of marriage seems never to have\noccurred to any member of the family. Hence Th\u00e9r\u00e8se, the youngest child,\ngrew up in a home which was a veritable forcing-house of the spiritual\nlife, though full of happiness and warm affection; and by it was moulded\nto that puritanism and other-worldliness which is characteristic of real\nCatholic piety. There the conception of earthly existence as a \u201cschool\nfor saints\u201d was taken for granted, and the supremacy of religious\ninterests never questioned: all deeds and words, however trivial, being\njudged by the grief or pleasure they would give to God. Even as a tiny\nchild, she was given a string of beads to count the \u201csacrifices\u201d made\neach day. The Martin family lived, in fact, within a dream-world,\nsubstantially identical with the universe of medi\u00e6val piety. It was\npeopled with angels and demons, whose activities were constantly noted;\nits doors were ever open for the entry of the miraculous, its human\ninhabitants were the objects of the Blessed Virgin\u2019s peculiar care,\nevery chance happening was the result of Divine interference. For them\nthis universe was actual, not symbolic. Their minds instinctively\nrejected every impression that conflicted with it; and its\ninconsistencies with the other\u2014perhaps equally symbolic and less\nlovely\u2014world of our daily life were unperceived. The most bizarre\nlegends of the saints were literal facts; all relics were authentic, and\nmost were full of supernatural power. The Holy House of Loretto, the\nface of St. Catherine of Bologna still marked by the kiss of the Infant\nChrist, found in them willing and awestruck believers. Yet these crude\nsymbols, thus literally understood, became for them the means of a real\ntranscendence. The dominant interests of the home were truly\nsupersensual; a vigorous spiritual life was fostered in it, marked by\nhumility and love, true goodness, complete unselfishness, a courageous\nattitude towards misfortune and pain.\n\nThus from birth Th\u00e9r\u00e8se was protected from all risk of intellectual\nconflict, and surrounded by harmonious contributory suggestions all\ntending to press her emotional life into one mould. Such a nurture could\nhardly fail to create either the disposition of a rebel or that of a\nsaint: but there was in Th\u00e9r\u00e8se no tendency to revolt. Her\ntemperament\u2014ardent, imaginative, abnormally sensitive, and psychically\nunstable\u2014inclined her to the enthusiastic acceptance of religious ideas,\nand even in childhood she showed a fervour and devotion exceeding that\nof her sisters. When she was still a little girl, the two eldest left\nhome one after the other, in order to become nuns in the Carmelite\nconvent of Lisieux. The departure of the first, Pauline, was a crushing\ngrief to Th\u00e9r\u00e8se, at that time about nine years old; and was apparently\nthe beginning of her own desire to be a nun. She told the Superior of\nthe convent that she, too, intended to be a Carmelite, and wished to\ntake the veil at once. The Reverend Mother, a woman of kindness and good\nsense, did not laugh; but advised her to wait until she was sixteen, and\nthen to try her vocation. There is less absurdity than at first appears\nin this childish craving; for the religious type is often strangely\nprecocious. As the tendency to music or painting may appear in earliest\nchildhood, so the sense of vocation may awaken, long before the\nimplications of this mysterious impulse are fully understood. Thus\nElizabeth Catez, afterwards S\u0153ur Elizabeth de la Trinit\u00e9, determined to\nbe a nun when she was seven years old, and began at this age to govern\nher inner life. She and Th\u00e9r\u00e8se help us to understand the stories and\nthe visions and self-dedication of the little St. Catherine of Siena; or\nthose of St. Catherine of Genoa and Madame Guyon, who both wished at\ntwelve years old to enter a religious order. We are faced in all such\ncases by the strange phenomenon of accelerated development: strongly\nmarked in the case of Th\u00e9r\u00e8se, who undoubtedly had, in spite of the\ngreat simplicity of her nature, a real genius for the spiritual life.\n\nShe had, too, and in a marked degree, the peculiarly sensitive psychic\norganization which is observed in many of the historic mystics. A long\nand severe nervous illness had followed her sister\u2019s departure for the\ncloister. It was cured by a form of auto-suggestion for which many\nparallels can be found in the history of adult religious experience;\nthough few in that of children of her age. This incident Th\u00e9r\u00e8se has\ndescribed in her memoirs with great clearness and honesty. At a crisis\nof the sickness, when she was reduced to utter misery and weakness and\ntormented by hallucinations and fears, her three sisters came to her\nroom and knelt before the statue of the Blessed Virgin, praying for her\ncure. The sick child, praying too as well as she could, suddenly saw the\nstatue take life and advance towards her with a smile. Instantly the\nprayer was answered, her pains and delusions left her, and she was\ncured. The \u201cvision\u201d being told\u2014and of course accepted at face-value as a\nsupernatural grace\u2014marked Th\u00e9r\u00e8se from this time as a privileged soul.\nIt certainly indicated in her an abnormal suggestibility, comparable\nwith that which is revealed by the somewhat similar incident in the life\nof Julian of Norwich, and was not without importance for her future\ndevelopment.\n\nThe religious transformation and exaltation so often experienced in\nadolescence is seen in Th\u00e9r\u00e8se in its most intense form. It was\ninitiated when she was thirteen by another nervous illness,\napparently brought on by a morbid brooding on her own supposed\nimperfections\u2014the spiritual ailment well known to religious\ndirectors as \u201cscrupulosity\u201d\u2014and it was from this period that she\nafterwards dated the beginning of her real spiritual life. The\nchildish determination to become a Carmelite had now grown in\nstrength, and when she was fourteen she broke to her father her own\nviolent consciousness of vocation; a certitude which nothing could\nshake. Her inner life was at this time astonishingly mature. She was\nnot a prig, but a sensitive and affectionate little girl; yet her\nautobiography is full of sayings which surprise us by their depth\nand wisdom, when we remember the age of the child who thought and\nsaid them. By the constant practice of small renunciations,\nself-denial was now habitual to her; for it was by that which she\ncalled the \u201clittle pathway\u201d of incessant but inconspicuous\nsacrifices and kind deeds, and not by any abnormal austerities or\ndevotions, that her character was formed. Though perfectly free from\nall spiritual pride, she was, moreover, quite certain of her own\ncommunion with the Divine order, and of the authority of the\nimpressions which she received from it.\n\n\u201cEn ce temps-l\u00e0, je n\u2019osais rien dire de mes sentiments int\u00e9rieurs; la\nvoie par laquelle je marchais \u00e9tait si droite, si lumineuse, que je ne\nsentais pas le besoin d\u2019un autre guide que J\u00e9sus ... je pensais que pour\nmoi, le bon Dieu ne se servait pas d\u2019interm\u00e9diaire, mais agissait\ndirectement.\u201d\n\nThese are bold words for a young girl who had been reared in the most\nrigid provincial piety, and had been taught to distrust private judgment\nand regard her director as the representative of God. In them we see the\naction of that strong will, power of initiative and clear conception of\nher own needs and duties, which redeem her often emotional religious\nfervour from insipidity. It is true that she can and does express that\nfervour in the sentimental language which is the least attractive\nelement in French piety. The sense of a special relationship and special\ndestiny which more and more possessed her, far exceeded her powers\neither of realization or of expression; and unfortunately impelled her\nto describe herself as the \u201cfleurette,\u201d the \u201cpetite fianc\u00e9e,\u201d even the\n\u201cjouet\u201d of Jesus, and to note in too many casual happenings evidence of\n\u201cles delicatesses du bon Dieu pour moi.\u201d Yet we cannot forget that\nsimilar declarations, equally offensive to modern taste, abound in some\nof the greatest historical mystics, and that their full unpleasantness\nis only mitigated to us by the quaint and archaic phrases in which they\nare expressed. Whilst no doubt these declarations represent the invasion\nof human desires and instincts into the field of spiritual experience,\nits natural craving for protection and personal love; they also witness\nto the mystic\u2019s intense personal consciousness of close communion, a\nconsciousness which far transcends the poor vocabulary and commonplace\nsymbols through which it must be told.\n\nTherefore we cannot dismiss Th\u00e9r\u00e8se Martin as a mere victim of religious\nemotionalism, because her mental equipment is inadequate to her\nspiritual experience. When, moreover, we remember the amazing vigour and\ntenacity of purpose with which, when barely fifteen, this gentle and\nhome-loving child, driven by her strong sense of vocation, planned and\ncarried through a lifelong separation from the father she adored and the\nworld of nature she loved, we are bound to acknowledge in her an element\nof greatness, a strong and an adventurous soul. With a certitude of her\nown duty which nothing could shake, Th\u00e9r\u00e8se interviewed on her own\nbehalf the Superior of the order, who snubbed her, and the Bishop of the\ndiocese, who was kind but prevaricated with her; demanding from them\npermission to take the veil at once, instead of waiting till the usual\nage of twenty-one. Further, being taken by her father to Rome with a\nparty of French pilgrims, when they were all received by the Pope she\nhad the courage to address him directly\u2014although the priest in charge of\nthe pilgrimage forbade it\u2014and asked for his support. The end of it was\nthat she at last convinced the authorities of her special vocation, and\nwas allowed to become a postulant in the most austere of all religious\norders at the unheard-of age of fifteen.\n\nHer career as a Carmelite was far from being the succession of mystical\nenjoyments, the basking in divine sunshine, which some imagine the\ncontemplative life to be. She now experienced the common lot of the\n\u201cproficient\u201d in the mystic way; paying for her religious exaltation by\nreactions, long periods of aridity, which were doubtless due in part to\npsychic exhaustion. Then, in addition to the perpetual little\nsacrifices, self-deprivations, and penances which she imposed on\nherself, she seemed, as she says, to be plunged in a \u201cterrible desert,\u201d\na \u201cprofound night\u201d of darkness and solitude; and prayer itself became\ndreary and unreal. \u201cTout a disparu ... ce n\u2019est plus un voile, c\u2019est un\nmur qui s\u2019\u00e9leve jusqu\u2019aux cieux et couvre le firmament \u00e9toil\u00e9.\u201d But an\ninner life which was nourished on the robust doctrine of St. John of the\nCross could bear this deprivation with fortitude, and make of inward\npoverty itself a gain. Outwardly, too, her life was difficult. Her\nsuperiors seem at once to have perceived in her that peculiar quality of\nsoul which is capable of sanctity; and since it is the ambition of every\ncommunity to produce a saint, they addressed themselves with vigour to\nthe stern task of educating Th\u00e9r\u00e8se for her destiny. Still a child,\nsensitive and physically delicate, she was spared no opportunity of\nself-denial and mortification. Her most trifling deficiencies were\nremarked, her most reasonable desires thwarted, her good points ignored.\nWhen her health began to fail under a rule of life far beyond her\nstrength, and the first signs of tuberculosis\u2014that scourge of the\ncloister\u2014appeared in her, the Prioress, in her ferocious zeal for souls,\neven refused to dispense the ailing girl from attendance at the\nnight-office. \u201cUne \u00e2me de cette trempe, disait-elle, ne doit pas \u00eatre\ntrait\u00e9 comme une enfant, les dispenses ne sont pas faites pour elle.\nLaissez-la. Dieu la soutient.\u201d\n\nThis drastic training did its work. Th\u00e9r\u00e8se had a heroic soul, though\nher courage and generosity found expression for the most part in small\nand obscure ways. She has said that she felt in herself the longing to\nbe a soldier, an apostle, a martyr; and within the limits of the\ncloister, she found means of satisfying these desires. \u201cElle\naccomplissait simplement des actes h\u00e9ro\u00efques,\u201d said the Superior after\nher death. Determined, in her own metaphor, to be a \u201cvictime d\u2019amour,\u201d\nher brave spirit never faltered in its willing acceptance of pain. She\nhid her mental and physical sufferings, fought her increasing weakness,\nate without hesitation the rough food which made her ill, refused every\ncomfort and amelioration. By this hard yet humble way she rose in a few\nyears to the heights of perfect self-conquest and moral perfection:\npassing through suffering to a state in which love, and total\nself-giving for love, was realized by her as the central secret of the\nspiritual life. \u201cLa charit\u00e9 me donna la clef de ma vocation.... Enfin,\nje l\u2019ai trouv\u00e9e. Ma vocation, c\u2019est l\u2019amour.\u201d\n\nIn this completed love, stretching from the smallest acts of service to\nthe most secret experiences of the soul, she found\u2014as every mystic has\ndone\u2014that unifying principle of action which alone gives meaning to\nlife. In its light all problems were solved, and the meaning of all\nexperiences was disclosed. So Julian of Norwich, fifteen years after her\nfirst revelation, was answered in ghostly understanding: \u201cWouldest thou\nwit thy Lord\u2019s meaning in this thing? Wit it well, Love was his meaning.\nWho showed it thee? Love. What showed he thee? Love. Wherefore showed it\nhe? For love. Hold thee therein and thou shalt wit and know more in the\nsame; but thou shalt never know nor wit therein other thing without\nend.\u201d To live in this supernatural charity is to introduce into the\nworld of succession the steadfast values of eternity; hence this\nquality, so simple yet so difficult of attainment, is the one essential\ncharacter of the saints. \u201cPour atteindre \u00e0 la vie id\u00e9ale de l\u2019\u00e2me,\u201d said\nElizabeth Catez, who so greatly exceeded her fellow-Carmelite in\nphilosophic grasp, though not in moral beauty, \u201cje crois qu\u2019il faut\nvivre dans le surnaturel, prendre conscience que Dieu est au plus intime\nde nous, et aller \u00e0 tout avec lui: alors on n\u2019est jamais banal, m\u00eame en\nfaisant les actions les plus ordinaires, car on ne vit pas en ces\nchoses, on les d\u00e9passe. Une \u00e2me surnaturelle ne traite pas avec les\ncauses secondes, mais avec Dieu seulement ... pour elle, tout se reduite\n\u00e0 l\u2019unit\u00e9.\u201d\n\nTh\u00e9rese de l\u2019Enfant-J\u00e9sus came to this consummation by way of a total\nand generous self-abandonment in all the daily incidents of life; a love\nwhich consecrated \u201cles actions les plus ordinaires.\u201d She took as her\nfavourite saint the Cur\u00e9 d\u2019Ars, because \u201che loved his family so deeply,\nand only did ordinary things.\u201d This was the \u201clittle pathway\u201d to the\nheart of Reality, on which, she thought, all might travel and none could\nmiss the road. \u201cAux \u00e2mes simples, il ne faut pas des moyens compliqu\u00e9s.\u201d\nThough the unquenchable thirst of her ardent nature for more suffering\nand more love did more than once express itself by way of ecstatic\nexperience, she repudiated all abnormal \u201cgraces\u201d and special\ncontemplative powers. \u201cJe ne suis qu\u2019un pauvre petit oiseau couvert\nseulement d\u2019un l\u00e9ger duvet; je ne suis pas un aigle, j\u2019en ai simplement\nles yeux et le c\u0153ur.\u201d Her spiritual practice became simplified as she\ngrew in understanding. In the last years of her life the Gospels were\nher only book of devotion, and her prayer became \u201cun \u00e9lan du c\u0153ur, un\nsimple regard jet\u00e9 vers le ciel.\u201d Yet the love thus expressed was no\nmere \u201cdivine duet.\u201d She was not a victim of that narrow fervour which\nfinds its satisfaction in a vertical relation with the Divine; her\nreligion was of a distinctly social type. \u201cLe z\u00eale d\u2019une Carmelite doit\nembrasser le monde,\u201d she said; and this zeal showed itself, not only in\nthe passionate love she gave to her family, but in radiant affection\ntowards all living beings\u2014the nuns in the convent, some of whom were\nextremely tiresome and even unkind, her friends and correspondents in\nthe outside world, the animals and the birds. She always had her eye on\nher fellow-creatures; she wanted to help them, to show light to them, to\nsave them. The eager service and voluntary mortifications of her life\nclosed with eighteen months of great physical suffering. She died in\nSeptember 1897, at the age of twenty-four.\n\nTh\u00e9r\u00e8se Martin had lived for nine years within the walls of a small,\nstrictly enclosed convent in a provincial town. This building and its\ndreary little chapel formed the setting of her religious career. There\nwas nothing impressive in her surroundings, nothing to satisfy those\nartistic instincts which she certainly possessed, to hint at the poetry\nand mystery of the spiritual life. Her opportunities of action had been\nlimited on every side; her creative impulse found expression only in the\nwriting of some conventional religious verse, and the record of her\nthoughts and experiences, composed not for publication, but as an act of\nobedience to her Superior. Prayer, the teaching of novices, the family\nlife of the community, and a small amount of correspondence with those\nin the world, were the only channels through which her passionate love\nof humanity could flow. This record may not sound impressive. Its sequel\nis amazing. Students of history have often discussed the stages and the\ncircumstances through which a simple man or woman, distinguished only by\na beautiful and humble life, has been transformed by the reverence,\nlove, and myth-making faculty of his contemporaries into a supernatural\nbeing endowed with magical powers. This transformation has happened\nwithin our own time in the person of Th\u00e9r\u00e8se de l\u2019Enfant-J\u00e9sus. This\nyoung girl, whose life was marked by no bizarre incident, who was\nbrought up in an obscure Norman town, and deliberately shut herself up\nin a convent of strictest enclosure to remain\u2014as the \u201chealthy-minded\u201d\nwould say\u2014buried alive till her death, is now loved and invoked wherever\nthe Roman Catholic church is established. Her short and uneventful life\nhas influenced and comforted countless other lives. Her \u201ccause\u201d has been\nintroduced, and although she is not yet canonized, she is already\nregarded as numbered among the saints. To visit her grave in the\nbeautiful hillside cemetery outside Lisieux, and watch the endless\nstream of pilgrims who come on every day of the year from all parts of\nthe world to ask her help, to deposit letters explaining their needs,\nand lay on her tomb for blessing the clothes of babies or the food of\nthe sick, is to understand what the shrine of a medi\u00e6val saint must have\nbeen like. It is to understand also something of the triumphant power of\ncharacter, and of the fact that the enclosing of a radiant personality\nwithin the cloister is not burying it alive.\n\nAlthough the whole of her short adult life had been passed behind the\nhigh garden walls of the convent, and after she took the veil only the\nmembers of her family had seen her\u2014and this under the most restricted\nconditions\u2014yet at the time of her death Th\u00e9r\u00e8se de l\u2019Enfant-J\u00e9sus was\nalready known and valued by the whole town. That death was an event of\nimportance, evoking an extraordinary demonstration of affection and\nreverence. The events which followed it are of deep interest. Here, in\nour own day, we have the swift rise and diffusion of a _cultus_ exactly\nsimilar to those which followed the deaths of the great popular saints\nof the Middle Ages. Every element is present; the prompt setting up of a\npilgrimage, the veneration of the tomb, the distribution of relics\u2014at\nthe Lisieux convent cards are sold, bearing splinters and bits of straw\nfrom the cell of Th\u00e9r\u00e8se\u2014countless reports of visions, conversions,\n\u201csupernatural perfumes,\u201d and miraculous answers to prayer. The\nliterature of the subject is already considerable, and a journal is\npublished giving details of \u201cgraces\u201d obtained by her help. The causes\nwhich lie behind such religious movements as this are still obscure; but\nwe have in the cult of Th\u00e9r\u00e8se Martin a valuable clue by which to\ninterpret those reported from the past. Her \u201cmiracles,\u201d in which\nstudents of psychic phenomena will find much to interest them, range\nfrom the cure of cancer to the multiplication of bank-notes, and even\ninclude the restoration of dead geranium-cuttings. Many are obviously\nexplained by coincidence or hallucination, some are admirable examples\nof faith-healing. But a few, apparently supported by good evidence, seem\nto defy rationalistic explanation.\n\nThe cult quickly lost its local and ultimately its national character.\nThough French Catholicism rightly claims Th\u00e9r\u00e8se as its peculiar\npossession, and devotion to her is probably more general in France than\nelsewhere, yet she is now venerated in every country in the world, and\ndistributes her favours without regard to nationality. Scotland and\nAmerica in particular have numerous stories of her benevolent\nintervention, at least as evidential as much that is offered to us by\nthe exponents of spiritualism. Her legend is in active formation, and\nmany picturesque incidents were added to it during the war. She is even\nsaid to have appeared at the British Headquarters, and given advice at a\ncritical moment of the campaign. A large proportion of the Catholic\nsoldiers who fought for France probably placed themselves under her\nprotection, and attribute their safety to her care.\n\nA little time before her death, she said to her sister Pauline, \u201cUne\nseule attente fait battre mon c\u0153ur; c\u2019est l\u2019amour que je recevrai et\ncelui que je pourrai donner.... Je veux passer mon ciel \u00e0 faire du bien\nsur la terre,\u201d and again, \u201cJe compte bien ne pas rester inactive au\nciel, mon d\u00e9sir est de travailler encore.\u201d In these sayings, so unlike\nin their vigorous activism the conventional aspirations of the devout,\nwe have probably the germinal point of her _cultus_. It has come to be\nbelieved that this simple and loving spirit, who passed from the body\nwith so many generous longings unfulfilled, is indeed spending her\nheaven in doing good; and the deeds attributed to her are just those\npractical and friendly acts of kindness, through which during life she\nexpressed and perfected her spirit of love.\n\n\n                                   II\n                            LUCIE-CHRISTINE\n\n\nThose students of mysticism who feel that the purely cloistered type of\nspirituality, as seen in Th\u00e9r\u00e8se Martin and Elizabeth Catez, is too\nremote from the common experience to be actual to us, may find something\nwith which they can sympathize and from which they can learn, in the\nself-revelations of the remarkable contemplative who is known under the\npseudonym of Lucie-Christine.\n\nThis lady, whose spiritual journal was published in 1912, was a married\nwoman of the leisured class, leading the ordinary life of a person of\nher type and position. She was born in 1844 and married in 1865. She had\nfive children. At forty-three she became a widow, and in 1908, after\nnineteen years of blindness, she died at the age of sixty-four. Nothing\ncould have been more commonplace than her external circumstances. On the\nreligious side she was an exact and fervent Roman Catholic, accepting\nwithout question the dogmas and discipline of the Church, and diligent\nin all the outward observances of conventional French piety. Her time\nwas spent in family and social duties, sometimes in Paris, sometimes in\nher country home; and she appeared to her neighbours remarkable only for\nher goodness, gentleness, and love of religion. Yet her inward\nlife\u2014unsuspected by any but her parish priest, for whom her journal was\nwritten\u2014had a richness and originality which entitle her to a place\namong the Catholic mystics, and often help us to understand the meaning\nand character of the parallel experiences which those mystics describe.\nThe value for study of a contemplative who is at once so modern and so\nclassic is obvious. This value is increased by the fact that for many\nyears Lucie-Christine knew nothing of mystical literature, and was\nignorant even of the names of the spiritual states which her journal so\nfaithfully describes. Therefore in her case unconscious imitation, which\naccounts for much so-called mystical experience, appears to be excluded.\n\nHer journal\u2014at present our only source of information\u2014covers\nthirty-eight years: from 1870 to 1908. The first twelve years, however,\nare only represented by fragmentary notes, put together in 1882; when\nLucie-Christine, at the suggestion of her confessor, began to keep a\ndetailed record of her religious life. Whatever view we may take of its\ntheological value, this record is certainly a psychological document of\nthe first class. It is the work of a woman of marked intelligence;\ntemperamentally philosophic, and with great intuitional gifts. The short\nmemoir prefixed to the French edition tells us that even as a child she\nshowed unusual qualities; was grave, thoughtful, and to some extent\n\u201cpsychic,\u201d being subject to flashes of clairvoyance, and premonitions of\nimportant and tragic events. This peculiarity, which she disliked and\nnever spoke of, persisted through life; and its presence in her helps us\nto understand how the many stories of abnormal power possessed by the\nmystics first arose.\n\nHer character was by no means of that detached and inhuman type which is\nsupposed to be proper to religious exaltation. She was ardent and\nimpressionable, gave love and craved for it; her qualities and faults\nwere essentially of a lovable kind. She reveals herself in her journal\nas sensitive, idealistic, and affectionate; somewhat unpractical, very\neasily wounded, tempted to irritability, and inclined to worry. \u201cThe\nexcessive wish to be loved, appreciated, admired by those whom I love,\u201d\nwas one of the temptations against which, as a young woman, she felt it\nnecessary to pray: another was the longing for enjoyment, for personal\nhappiness. It was only after eight years of intermittent mystical\nexperience that she learned the secret of inward peace: to \u201close her own\ninterests in those of God, and receive a share in His interests in\nexchange.\u201d Though the \u201cactivity and practical capacity of Martha\u201d never\ncame naturally to her, she was yet a splendid wife and mother. Even in\nthe years when her inner life was passed in almost continuous\ncontemplation, she never neglected human duties for superhuman joys; but\nplanned and shared the amusements of her boys and girls, wrote and\nrehearsed the plays which they acted, and watched with care over every\ndetail of their lives.\n\nHer spiritual life developed gradually and evenly. There is no trace in\nit of any psychic storm or dramatic conversion. She grew up in a\nreligious home, and even in childhood seems to have been attracted to\nsilent devotion or \u201cmental prayer.\u201d As a girl she was a vital, impulsive\ncreature, full of eager enthusiasms. That deep, instinctive longing for\nPerfection which makes one man an artist, another a philosopher, and\nanother a saint, showed itself early in a passionate worship of all\nbeautiful things. \u201cTout ce que je connaissais de beau me passionnait et\nentra\u00eenait toute mon \u00e2me. La premi\u00e8re vue de la mer et des falaises\nm\u2019arracha des larmes.... Je ne pouvais trouver l\u2019expression qui\ntraduis\u00eet assez l\u2019ardeur dont le beau enflammait mon imagination, et je\nne voyais pas d\u2019inconv\u00e9nients \u00e0 ces entra\u00eenements excessifs; au\ncontraire, je m\u2019y livrais de toute la force de ma volont\u00e9. Infortun\u00e9e,\nmon \u00e2me en revenait cependant avec le sentiment du vide et de\nl\u2019insuffisance, et c\u2019est alors qu\u2019elle rejetait son activit\u00e9 d\u00e9vorante\nsur l\u2019id\u00e9al qui lui r\u00e9servait tant de dangers! Moins alt\u00e9r\u00e9e du beau, je\nme fusse peut-\u00eatre content\u00e9e des choses r\u00e9elles, mais comme le coureur,\nlanc\u00e9 dans un fol \u00e9lan, d\u00e9passe le but, ainsi mon \u00e2me s\u2019\u00e9lan\u00e7ait vers le\nbeau \u00e0 peine aper\u00e7u et cherchait encore au del\u00e0.\u201d\n\nIn this important passage we see the true source of Lucie\u2019s mysticism.\nIt was the craving for an absolute and unchanging loveliness on which to\nexpend her large-hearted powers of adoration and self-giving, which led\nher like the Platonists through visible beauty to its invisible source.\nShe had, as she says of herself in a sudden flash of ironic wit, \u201cle\nc\u0153ur assez mal plac\u00e9 pour trouver Dieu plus aimable que le monde, et\nl\u2019esprit assez \u00e9troit pour se contenter de l\u2019Infini\u201d; but it was not\nuntil youth was nearly over, and she had been married for eight years,\nthat she found what she sought. One day, when she was meditating as\nusual on a passage in the _Imitation of Christ_, she saw and heard\nwithin her mind the words \u201cDieu seul!\u201d\u2014summing up and answering in one\nphrase the vague efforts and questions of her growing mystical sense,\nand offering to the hungry psyche the only satisfaction of desire. As\nFox was released from his conflict by the inner voice which cried,\n\u201cThere is one only who can speak to thy condition,\u201d so this inner voice,\nsays Lucie (whom it greatly astonished), \u201cfut \u00e0 la fois une lumi\u00e8re, un\nattrait, et une force. Une lumi\u00e8re qui me fit voir comment je pouvais\n\u00eatre compl\u00e8tement \u00e0 Dieu seul dans le monde, et je vis que jusque-l\u00e0 je\nne l\u2019avais pas bien comprit. Un attrait par lequel mon c\u0153ur fut subjugu\u00e9\net ravi. Une force qui m\u2019inspira une r\u00e9solution g\u00e9n\u00e9reuse et me mit en\nquelque sorte dans les mains les moyens de l\u2019ex\u00e9cuter, car le propre de\nces paroles divines est d\u2019op\u00e9rer ce qu\u2019elles disent.\u201d\n\nWe see at once the complete and practical character of her reaction to\nthe divine; the promptitude with which she makes the vital connection\nbetween intuition and act. St. Teresa said that the object of the\nspiritual marriage was \u201cthe incessant production of work.\u201d So for\nLucie-Christine that sure consciousness of the Presence of God which now\nbecame frequent, \u201cclothing and inundating\u201d her as she sat alone at her\nsewing or took part in some social activity, called her above all to\n\u201cfaire les petites choses du d\u00e9vouement journalier avec amour\u201d;\nconquering her natural irritability and dislike for the boredoms and\nunrealities of a prosperous existence. \u201cN\u2019avoir jamais l\u2019air ennuy\u00e9 des\nautres. Que de fois je manque \u00e0 ceci avec les pauvres enfants. Vous \u00eates\nennuyeux! C\u2019est bien vite dit! Est-ce une amabilit\u00e9 divine?\u201d\n\nMore and more, as her mystical consciousness grew, the life of\ncontemplation became her delight; and it was plainly a real trial to be\ndistracted from it for trivial purposes. In company, or busied with\nhousehold duties, she went for hours with \u201cher soul absorbed, its better\npart rapt in God.\u201d She \u201ctried to appear ordinary,\u201d and made excuses if\nher abstraction was observed; but there are a few entries in her journal\nwhich will give pleasure to those who condemn mysticism as an\n\u201canti-social type of religion.\u201d \u201cNous avons \u00e9t\u00e9 nous promener, quatorze.\nJe remarque que d\u2019aller ainsi avec plusieurs \u2018Marthes\u2019 hommes ou femmes,\ncela ne fait rien. On laisse discourir, on met un mot de temps en temps,\nmais, en d\u00e9finitive, on demeure bien libre et l\u2019oraison va toute seule.\nMais avec une seule Marthe, que c\u2019est terrible! La t\u00eate-\u00e0-t\u00eate oblige \u00e0\ncauser presque tout le temps.\u201d\n\nWhen Lucie wrote this, ten years after her first illuminative\nexperience, she was far advanced in contemplation. She had known that\ndirect and ineffable vision of God \u201cHimself the True, the Good, the\nBeautiful; all things being nothing save by Him\u201d which is\ncharacteristic\u2014though she knew it not\u2014of the unitive way: known too the\ncorresponding experience of dereliction, when the door which had opened\non Eternity seemed tightly closed. It would be tedious to analyze in\ndetail the rich profusion of mystic states which she had already\nexhibited: the degrees of contemplation, ecstasies, visions and voices,\nall the forms taken by her growing intuition of the Transcendent. Many\nof these can be matched in the writings of the great mystics. Again and\nagain as we read her, we are reminded of Angela of Foligno, Ruysbroeck,\nJulian of Norwich, Catherine of Genoa, even of Plotinus: yet\nLucie-Christine was at this time ignorant of mystical literature, and\nonly in later life found with amazement descriptions of her own\nexperiences in the works of the great contemplatives.\n\nThese experiences had a wide range. Some we are justified in regarding\nas invasions from her deeper self; coming to the rescue of the often\ndistracted surface personality, and correcting the impressions of the\nouter world by its own intimations of Eternity. Thus, in 1875, she\nconfesses that being particularly worried by a number of people, the\nDivine voice said to her, \u201cMa fille, il n\u2019y a que toi et moi.\u201d She\nreplied: \u201cSeigneur, et les autres?\u201d The voice said: \u201cPour chaque \u00e2me en\nce monde il n\u2019y a que moi et elle, toutes les autres \u00e2mes et toutes\nchoses ne sont rien pour elle que par moi et pour moi,\u201d and by this\ntimely reminder of the one Reality in whose life she lived, and by and\nin whom alone all other lives are real, she was recalled to her inner\npoise.\n\nIn assessing the value of this, and many other of her revelations, we\nhave to remember that Lucie-Christine was a fervent and exact\nChurchwoman. Her belief was literal. She felt no discord between\ntraditional Christianity of the most concrete kind and the freedom of\nher own communion with God. The fruits of that communion were often\nexpressed by her in theological terms, and the special atmosphere and\ntendencies of French Catholicism certainly affected the form of many of\nher contemplations. Thus at one end of the scale her passionate devotion\nto the Person of Christ, and the fact that her religious practice\ncentred in the Eucharist, sometimes resulted in visions of a distinctly\nanthropomorphic type. In these, her intuition of God\u2019s presence\ntranslated themselves into hallucinatory images of the Face of Christ,\nor of His eyes looking at her; or photisms, which she explained to\nherself as the radiance emanating from His person. As we all know, such\ndramatizations of mystical emotion are comparatively commonplace. The\nelements from which the self constructs them are by no means all of a\nspiritual kind; and experienced mystics agree in regarding them with\nmuch suspicion. A careful study of Lucie-Christine\u2019s journal forces us\nto admit, that the deliberate passivity which she cultivated often\nplaced her at the mercy of her instinctive nature; and that its hidden\nwishes sometimes took a devotional form. To this source, too, we must\nrefer those \u201cobsessions and temptations\u201d\u2014in other words, uprushes from\nthe lower centres\u2014by which she was often attacked during contemplation,\nand also the occasionally sentimental and emotional character of her\nreactions to the Divine.\n\nThese objections, however, do not apply to the remarkable \u201cmetaphysical\nvisions\u201d\u2014sharp onsets of real transcendental consciousness\u2014in which her\ninnate passion for the Absolute found satisfaction. Then, as she says,\nGod seemed to \u201cput aside all intermediaries between Himself and the\nsoul;\u201d and \u201cbathed and irradiated by the Divine substance\u201d she became\n\u201caware of the Divine Abyss,\u201d or perceived, as Julian of Norwich did,\n\u201cthe Universe in a point,\u201d swallowed up in the simple yet overwhelming\nsight of God. Here lie, for us, the real interest and value of\nLucie-Christine\u2019s confessions. She shares with Angela of Foligno and a\nfew other historical mystics the double apprehension of the Divine\nNature under its personal and impersonal forms; and as both utterly\ntranscendent to, yet completely immanent in, the human soul. In her\ndescriptions of these visions, this woman unread in philosophy displays\na grasp of the philosophic basis of religion which would do credit to a\ntrained theologian. Thus she says, \u201cIl n\u2019y a pas, ce me semble, de vue\nint\u00e9rieure qui \u00e9gale celle de l\u2019essence divine. Mon \u00e2me \u00e9tait comme\nenvironn\u00e9e de la substance divine en laquelle elle voyait ce caract\u00e8re\nessentiel qui nous est r\u00e9vel\u00e9 par le myst\u00e8re de la Sainte Trinit\u00e9,\nc\u2019est-\u00e0-dire qu\u2019il y a en Dieu l\u2019unit\u00e9 et la distinction, le tout et le\nparticulier, et je sentais combien c\u2019est folie de chercher quelque chose\nen dehors de lui.\u201d Again, \u201c\u00c9tant profond\u00e9ment unie \u00e0 lui dans la Sainte\nCommunion, je vis Dieu en tant qu\u2019il est le souverain bien, et je\ncompris en m\u00eame temps que le mal n\u2019est que la n\u00e9gation du bien, un pur\n_n\u00e9ant_.... Dans cette vue intellectuelle, je compris aussi combien sera\ngrande la confusion des p\u00e9cheurs quand ils seront jug\u00e9s, et qu\u2019ils\nverront que tout le mal qu\u2019ils ont aim\u00e9, pr\u00e9conis\u00e9, ador\u00e9, se r\u00e9duit au\nn\u00e9ant! Avoir aim\u00e9 le n\u00e9ant, avoir v\u00e9cu pour lui, et perdre pour lui\nl\u2019Etre \u00e9ternel!\u201d Here Lucie\u2019s view of sin is that characteristic of all\nmystics; who can seldom be persuaded, however orthodox they may be in\nother respects, that anything which is not good is real. We remember how\nJulian of Norwich, also a natural contemplative of philosophic\ntemperament, says, \u201cI saw not sin; for I believe it has no manner of\nsubstance nor part of being.\u201d\n\nAs an analyzer of her own psychological states, Lucie-Christine had\nsomething of that genius which St. Teresa possessed in a supreme degree;\nand she has, perhaps, an added value for us because she speaks not from\nthe past nor from the cloister, but out of the Paris of our own day. We\nowe to her one of our most vivid descriptions of that apprehension of\nEternal Life\u2014the immersion of our durational existence in the Absolute\nLife of God\u2014which Von H\u00fcgel regards as the fundamental religious\nexperience. \u201cJ\u2019ai observ\u00e9,\u201d she says, \u201cque pendant l\u2019oraison passive et\nsurtout dans l\u2019\u00e9tat d\u2019union, l\u2019\u00e2me perd le sentiment de la dur\u00e9e. Il n\u2019y\na plus pour elle de succession de moments, mais un moment unique, et\nj\u2019ai cru comprendre qu\u2019\u00e9tant \u00e9lev\u00e9e \u00e0 cet \u00e9tat, l\u2019\u00e2me y vit selon le\nmode de vivre de l\u2019\u00e9ternit\u00e9, o\u00f9 il n\u2019y a point de dur\u00e9e, point de pass\u00e9\nni d\u2019avenir, mais un moment unique, infini.\u201d We have again to remember\nthat the woman who wrote this had then no acquaintance with the classics\nof mysticism. It is her own impression which she is trying to register.\n\nAgain, consider this account of the state of divine union as she had\nknown it: \u201cL\u2019\u00e2me va prier, elle s\u2019\u00e9lance pour franchir la distance qui\nla s\u00e9pare de l\u2019Infini, et cette distance elle ne la trouve plus! Elle\nveut aller \u00e0 vous, mon Dieu, et vous \u00eates en elle!... Perdue en vous,\nelle oublie ellem\u00eame et tout le reste, elle ne sait plus comment elle\nvit, ni comment elle aime; elle ne voit plus que Vous seul. Encore ne\npeut elle pas _penser_ qu\u2019elle vous voit et vous adore; car ce serait se\nvoir elle-m\u00eame, et en de tels moments elle ne se voit pas, elle ne voit\nque Vous. Elle conna\u00eet et aime par un mode nouveau et incompr\u00e9hensible,\nqui est en dehors et infiniment au-dessus de l\u2019exercice ordinaire de ses\nfacult\u00e9s. Elle sent que l\u2019op\u00e9ration de Dieu a pris la place de la sienne\net que c\u2019est Dieu m\u00eame qui op\u00e8re en elle la connaissance et l\u2019amour.\u201d\n\nThis sense of complete surrender to a larger life and greater power, of\nwhich love is the very substance and ground, is characteristic of nearly\nall high mystical experience; and the literature of contemplation would\nfurnish many parallels to all that Lucie tells us of it. In this state,\nas she says in another place, \u201cthe thirst of the spirit is suddenly\nfulfilled by the Infinite,\u201d and \u201cGod takes possession of the ground of\nthe soul, without passage of time or feeling of space.\u201d Then, the\nbewilderment and unrest produced in us by the disharmonies of daily life\nare healed. \u201cL\u00e0 o\u00f9 tout raisonnement \u00e9choue,\u201d she says in one of her\nmost beautiful passages; \u201co\u00f9 l\u2019\u00e2me est tellement troubl\u00e9e qu\u2019elle ne\nsaurait m\u00eame expliquer ce qui la trouble, la divine presence para\u00eet, et\nsoudain le vertige cesse et la paix rena\u00eet avec la lumi\u00e8re.\u201d\nConsciousness, ceasing more or less completely its normal\ncorrespondences with the temporal order, then becomes aware of the\neternal and spiritual universe in which we really live.\n\nSuch an attitude to Eternity was a marked characteristic of\nLucie-Christine\u2019s mysticism. Often, it produced in her the complete\nmono-ideism of ecstasy; and she describes the oncoming, content, and\npassing of these states with a minuteness which makes her journal a\nvaluable document for the psychologist. Constantly, the intense\nawareness of the Divine Presence persisted through the many duties and\nactivities of the day; \u201clike a grave and tender note, dominating all the\nmodulations of the keyboard of my exterior life.\u201d She is not afraid to\nuse the most violent metaphors, the most concrete images, in her efforts\nto express the intensity and reality of this spiritual life that she\nleads, this divine companionship that she enjoys. \u201cI am nourished by\nGod\u2019s substance.\u201d \u201cI breathe the divine essence.\u201d \u201cThe presence of God\nis so clear that faith is not faith\u2014it is sight.\u201d \u201cThe soul plays within\nGod, as within a limitless universe.\u201d \u201cThe Divine action penetrates and\ntransforms my adoration. It is the Divine Being who thinks, loves, and\nlives within me.\u201d None of the mystics have gone further than this in\ntheir claims; but it is significant that nearly all the greatest go as\nfar.\n\nYet in all this, Lucie-Christine is strictly Evangelical. She was a\nChristian first, and a mystic afterwards. Though her expressions may\nseem startling, her mysticism never goes beyond that of St. John and St.\nPaul; and her most Platonic utterances can be justified by the New\nTestament. But the Pauline and Johannine teachings on the soul\u2019s union\nwith Christ are not for her merely doctrinal statements. They are vivid\ndescriptions of states she has personally known, when her consciousness\ntruly penetrated to that \u201cr\u00e9gion d\u2019amour, r\u00e9gion unique, o\u00f9 l\u2019\u00e2me trouve\nun autre jour, une autre vie, un autre air respirable, o\u00f9 du moins tous\nces \u00e9l\u00e9ments latents se trouvent manifest\u00e9s, o\u00f9 Dieu seul appara\u00eet, et\ntout le reste rentre dans l\u2019ombre.\u201d\n\nSuch a personal and overwhelming consciousness of \u201cthe greatness, power,\nand simplicity of God\u201d\u2014an all-inclusive unity which the unity of her\nspirit could comprehend\u2014was the central interest of her life. She\ncertainly tended to that which Baron von H\u00fcgel has called \u201cthe vertical\nrelation\u201d with the Divine. Nevertheless, this theocentric existence did\nnot involve either the limp passivity or the spiritual selfishness with\nwhich it is sometimes charged. On the ethical side it committed her to a\nconstant moral discipline; for her ardent and impulsive temperament\nreacted too easily to every external stimulus. \u201cI must give up\npleasure\u2014never work for my own enjoyment.\u201d \u201cMy one prayer is, that I may\nnot feel joy and grief so vividly: that I may feel only Thee.\u201d This\ndeliberate unselfing and concentration on God so strengthened the fibres\nof character that she was able to bear with quietness her many personal\nsorrows, and the long years of blindness\u2014a bitter cross for that keen\nlover of beauty\u2014which closed her life. Yet it did not muffle her in the\nunattractive folds of \u201choly indifference.\u201d She loved her family\ndevotedly, and felt without mitigation the anxieties and griefs of human\nlife. Her attitude to others was generous and sympathetic. God, she\nsays, gives Himself to us that we may give Him again. His unique light\nmust pass through the soul as through a prism; breaking up into the many\ncolours of word and deed, forgiveness and good counsel, prayer and alms,\nself-forgetfulness and self-giving. Though exceedingly reserved about\nher spiritual experiences, which were only known to her confessor, the\ninfluence of these experiences was felt by those among whom she lived;\nand her house was known by them as \u201cthe house of peace.\u201d\n\nMoreover, her love for the institutional and sacramental side of\nreligion saved her from many of the dangers and extravagances of\nindividualism. It gave her a framework within which her own intuitions\ncould find their place; and a valid symbolism through which she could\ninterpret to herself the most rarefied experiences of her soul. She is\nan example of the way in which the mystic seems able to achieve the\nuniversal without losing or rejecting its particular expression:\nassimilating symbols of an amazing crudity without in any way impairing\nher vision of truth. The conflict between that vision and the concrete\nobjectives of popular devotion was ignored by her; as it is generally\nignored by practical mystics of the institutional type. She, who had\ntouched the Absolute in her contemplations, was yet deeply impressed by\nthe drama of the Church; by its ceremonies, holy places, festivals,\nconsecrations. Her inner life was nourished by its sacraments. She\ndisplayed the power\u2014so characteristic of Christian mysticism at its\nbest\u2014of transcending without rejecting the formul\u00e6 of belief as commonly\nunderstood; of remaining within, and drawing life from, the organism,\nwithout any diminution in the proper liberty of the soul.\n\nThus, seen as a whole, Lucie-Christine\u2019s spiritual life has a richness\nand balance which reflects the richness and balance of her own nature;\nfor an impoverished or one-sided character was never yet found capable\nof a fully developed and fruitful mysticism. We see her from girlhood\nseeking to satisfy her innate longing for reality; urged on the one hand\nby the artist\u2019s craving for perfect loveliness, on the other by the\nphilosopher\u2019s instinct for Eternity. When the veil was lifted, and the\ninner voice said, \u201cGod only!\u201d she found at once the reconciliation and\nthe fulfilment of these two desires. The long and varied experience\nwhich followed was no more than an unfolding of the content of those\nwords. They revealed to her the Substance of all beauty and truth;\nshining in that world of appearance which she loved to the last with an\nartist\u2019s passion, yet ever abiding unchanged in that world of pure being\nwhich she touched in her contemplations \u201cabove all feeling, image, and\nidea.\u201d Because of this double outlook on reality, her mysticism was both\ntranscendental and sacramental. It irradiated the natural world, and\nalso the symbols of religion, with that simple light of Eternity wherein\nshe found \u201call beauties known and unknown, all harmonies natural and\nsupernatural.\u201d Lucie-Christine makes clear to us, as few mystics have\ndone, the immense transfiguration of ordinary life which comes from such\nan extension of consciousness; when \u201cthe veil suddenly drops, God\nreveals Himself, and the soul _knows_ experimentally that which she knew\nnot before.\u201d Her journal is full of passages in which its joy and\nsplendour are described. I take one written in a time of great mental\nand physical suffering, when the cruel deprivations of blindness were\nalready closing in on her, and the two beings she loved best\u2014her husband\nand her youngest daughter\u2014had lately been taken from her by death.\n\u201cFigurez-vous un pauvre prisonnier au fond d\u2019un cachot renferm\u00e9 et\nobscur, voyant tout \u00e0 coup s\u2019entr\u2019ouvrir la vo\u00fbte de ce cachot, et par\nl\u00e0 recevant la lumi\u00e8re du soleil, et aspirant avec force l\u2019air du dehors\nqui lui arrive embaum\u00e9 des senteurs de la vie et de la chaleur de\nl\u2019atmosph\u00e8re resplendissante. Ainsi mon \u00e2me s\u2019ouvrait, et buvait Dieu!\n... mon \u00e2me aspirait et buvait la vie m\u00eame de la Trinit\u00e9 Sainte, et se\nsentait revivre, et n\u2019avait plus aucun mal.\u201d\n\n\n                                  III\n                             CHARLES P\u00c9GUY\n\n\nIn the turmoil and anxieties of the first weeks of the war, few people\nobserved that France had lost upon the battle-field one of the greatest\nof her modern poets; a fearless and original thinker, a constructive\nmystic, who exercised a unique influence over the young writers and\nthinkers of his world. Yet the death in action of Charles P\u00e9guy, who was\nkilled on September 5, 1914, at the age of forty-one, removed a striking\nfigure from contemporary literature, and was among the chief\nintellectual losses sustained by France in the war.\n\nBorn in Orleans in 1873, of peasant stock, P\u00e9guy had many of the\nfundamental qualities of the French peasant; the sturdy independence,\nthe frugal tastes, the untiring industry, the close kinship with the\nsoil. His father was a cabinet-maker; his mother that familiar figure of\nthe cathedrals, the woman who lets the chairs. The great friend of his\nboyhood was an old republican carpenter with whom he used to talk, and\nto whose conversation he owed his first political ideas. This heredity\nand these influences gave to his thought and attitude a character which\nhe never lost. In his mature work we see side by side the result of\nthose two compensating elements in his childish environment; the mingled\nmystery and homeliness of that medi\u00e6val and intensely national\nCatholicism which finds in the French cathedrals its living symbols, the\nkeen sense of social justice, of the need for social salvation, which\ninspired the popular republicanism of the years following the\nFranco-German war. These characteristics, which afterwards, in a\nsublimated form, came to dominate his mysticism and gave to it its\nspecial colour, its mingling of antique tradition with forward-looking\nhope, can be traced back to the blend of Christian and of democratic\nimpressions which he received as a child. Perhaps only the son of French\npeasants could understand and reinterpret as he had done the figure of\nSt. Joan of Arc, the peasant girl who saved France; and whose longing to\nmend and redeem, at once so practical and so transcendental, linked up\nthe objectives of social endeavour and of faith.\n\nBrought up within the atmosphere of provincial piety, P\u00e9guy rose from\nthe elementary school to the lyc\u00e9e; and at nineteen, through his own\nefforts and his mother\u2019s sacrifices, passed from Orleans to the\nUniversity of Paris. There his vigorous mind and positive character soon\nmade him the centre of a group of students, over whom he quickly\nobtained influence. There, too, he made the transition\u2014almost inevitable\nfor an ardent young man of his world\u2014from Catholic orthodoxy to\nhumanitarian socialism: the first stage in his spiritual pilgrimage, and\nthe first attempt to answer that question which underlies all his\nthought and act, his poetry and controversy\u2014\u201cComment faut-il sauver?\u201d\nThese words, which P\u00e9guy puts into the mouth of St. Joan of Arc, and\nshows to us as the mainspring of her actions, define too the secret\nimpulse of his own career. His mysticism was not that of the\ncontemplative, the solitary and God-intoxicated devotee: it was that of\na strong-willed man of action, who sees far off the \u201cmighty beauty\u201d and\nlongs to actualize it within the common life. He saw that common life\nwith the eyes of a poet who was also a child of the people; discerning\nbeneath its surface the dignity and the beauty of its antique and simple\ntypes\u2014the spinner and the tiller, the housewife, the mother and the\nchild.\n\n             \u201cLes armes de J\u00e9sus, c\u2019est la pauvre famille,\n             Les fr\u00e8res et la s\u0153ur, les gar\u00e7ons et la fille,\n             Le fuseau lourd de laine et la savante aiguille.\u201d\n\nBut he found in the French socialism of the \u2019nineties a dry and\nmaterialistic spirit; which could not satisfy his passionate idealism,\nhis instinct for a completed life, a universal redemption, that should\nharmonize soul and body and fulfil their needs. Hence, by a process too\ngradual to be called a conversion, he grew from humanitarianism into a\nsomewhat anti-clerical, original, yet medi\u00e6val and mystical Catholicism;\nin which those ideals and demands which had dominated his humanitarian\nperiod\u2014the sense of the rights and dignity of mankind, the longing to\nsave, \u201cde porter rem\u00e8de au mal universel humain\u201d\u2014reappear in a\nspiritualized form. In Christianity he saw condensed the saving power of\nSpirit; never letting man alone, but redeeming him even in defiance of\nhis own will, contriving its victories by or in spite of the evils and\ndisharmonies of life. The belief which he achieved\u2014doubtless fed by\nchildish memories\u2014was absolute and literal, and most easily expressed\nitself in medi\u00e6val forms. Modernism filled him with horror; he desired\nno attenuation of the supernatural, no reinterpretation of dogma. The\nfaith which fought the crusades and built the Cathedrals was that in\nwhich he felt at home, and which he believed himself destined to bring\nback to the soul of France: \u201cAu fond, c\u2019est une renaissance Catholique\nqui se fait par moi.\u201d\n\nYet his inner life was full of difficulty and unhappiness. There were in\nhim two strains, two warring impulses, to which we must attribute many\nof the griefs and disappointments of his life: for his great\naccomplishment both as poet and as founder of the _Cahiers de la\nQuinzaine_ brought him little personal joy. On one side of his nature he\nwas proud, vehement, combative; full of a destructive energy, an\nobstinate fanaticism, which found vent in his violent political\npamphlets, often expressing with the uncouth vigour of the peasant his\nuncompromising hates and loves. Though so ardent a Christian, he was\nneither meek nor gentle. He could never resist giving blow for blow, and\nby his impatience and intolerance alienated by turns his socialist and\nCatholic friends. About 1910, having thus quarrelled with most of his\nassociates, he withdrew into a voluntary retirement, in which the\nspiritual side of his divided temperament seems at last to have had some\nopportunity of growth. His mystical poems\u2014all composed between 1910 and\n1913\u2014show to us the love and exaltation of which he now became capable;\nthe purity of that vision which had inspired his vigorous guerilla\nwarfare against the shams and sordidness of modern life, and which now\nbecame the chief factor in his consciousness. Writing in 1912 to his old\nfriend Joseph Lotte, he says, \u201cMon vieux, j\u2019ai beaucoup chang\u00e9 depuis\ndeux ans; je suis devenu un homme nouveau. J\u2019ai tant souffert et tant\npri\u00e9. Tu ne peux pas savoir.\u201d The secret of this inner conflict, of the\nterrible months during which, as he afterwards confessed, he was unable\nto say \u201cThy will be done,\u201d he revealed to none; but hints of the way by\nwhich he had passed may be found in his poems. The mystical certitude\nwhich inspires their most beautiful passages seems never to have\nobtained complete control of his psychic being. The life of prayer and\nthe life of personal struggle persisted side by side, not fully\nharmonized; and it is doubtful whether he ever achieved that complete\nsurrender to the divine action \u201cin which alone we do not surrender our\ntrue selves,\u201d which is characteristic of the developed mystic life.\n\u201cCelui qui s\u2019abandonne ne s\u2019abandonne pas, et il est le seul qui ne\ns\u2019abandonne pas.\u201d It was surely to himself that P\u00e9guy addressed this\nobservation, and it represents his own central need. Those profound\nreadjustments of character, that unselfing of the moral nature, which\nmust precede spiritual unification, and so are the only foundations of\ninner peace, had never been accomplished in him. Like his patroness and\nheroine St. Joan, he combined the temperaments of fighter and dreamer,\nbut he never succeeded in fusing them in one.\n\nWe know, too, something of the outward circumstances which added to his\ndifficulties. Married during his agnostic period to a freethinker, his\nintense respect for human freedom forbade him to force on his wife his\nown convictions, or even to bring his adored children to baptism against\ntheir mother\u2019s will. For this refusal he was himself denied access to\nthe sacraments; and hence this impassioned Catholic, for conscience\u2019\nsake, lived and died out of communion with the official Church. No one\nwill really understand P\u00e9guy\u2019s position or the meaning of his poems,\nunless this paradoxical situation, and this constant element of\nfrustration and incompleteness in his experience, be kept in mind. He\nwas in one sense an exile, ever gazing at the beloved country which he\nknew and understood so much better than many of its citizens. Deeply\nreligious, he lived at odds with his religious world. Capable of the\nstrangest inconsistencies and refusals, though sparing himself nothing\nof the anguish they involved, he could make on foot a pilgrimage to\nChartres to pray for the life of his sick child; yet would not face the\nstruggle necessary to make those children members of the Church in which\nhe believed. \u201cJe ne peux pas m\u2019occuper de tout. Je n\u2019ai pas une vie\nordinaire. Nul n\u2019est proph\u00e8te en son pays. Mes petits ne sont pas\nbaptis\u00e9s. A la sainte Vierge de s\u2019en occuper!\u201d\n\nHimself, he felt called upon to devote his powers, without distraction,\nto that missionary propaganda in which the mystical and combative sides\nof his nature found creative expression, and to which his poetry and\nmuch of his prose is consecrated. \u201cIl y a tant de manque. Il y a tant \u00e0\ndemander,\u201d says St. Joan to the patient nun who seeks to teach her\nresignation: and here she expresses P\u00e9guy\u2019s deepest conviction. There is\nso much lacking that men might obtain of joy and peace and love. Action\nno less than prayer is needed; every soul must take its share in meeting\nthe world\u2019s need, for we are the accomplices of ill if we do nothing to\nprevent it. There was never any place in P\u00e9guy\u2019s eager and restless\nheart for that \u201cother-worldly\u201d mysticism which achieves the love of God\nat the expense of love of home and fellow-men; for religion in his view\nwas an affair of flesh and blood, not of pure spirit\u2014not merely\ntranscendental, but concrete, national, fraternal, even revolutionary.\nOn this side his mysticism represents the spiritualization of that\nactivist philosophy which was coming into prominence in the formative\nyears of his life, and could not fail to exert a powerful influence on\nhim.\n\nBoth as mystic and as patriot, he had the reformer\u2019s passion: a measure,\ntoo, of the reformer\u2019s violence and intolerant zeal. He worked for a\nsweeter and a saner world, a restoration to man of his lost inheritance.\nThe modern France, he felt, was wrong. It had lost its hold upon\nrealities; mistaken its professors and scientists for apostles, its\ncodes and systems for truth, its political institutions for liberty, the\n\u201ctriumphs of civilization\u201d for perdurable goods. It had lost freshness,\nna\u00efvet\u00e9, hope: had sacrificed beauty and joy for an imaginary progress\nand comfort. In the place of the ancient types of human worth, the\nprimitive yet august figures of parent and child, craftsman and tiller\nof the soil, it had produced the bemused victim of modern education\n\u201cavec sa t\u00eate de carton et son c\u0153ur de bazar.\u201d In this perversion of\nlife and cultivation of the second-best he saw the \u201cuniversal evil,\u201d\nwhich poisons the sources of human happiness. Yet behind and within it\nP\u00e9guy, visionary and optimist, discerned the possible restoration of\ngood; mankind brought back into contact with the real and eternal world.\nHe saw his beloved France ceasing to be \u201cun peuple qui dit non,\u201d and\nbecoming, by intensity and harmony of action and vision, \u201cune race\naffirmative.\u201d He looked past shams, pretences, and bad workmanship to a\nheaven that should contain not only people but things: \u201cDans le paradis\ntel que je le montrerai, il n\u2019y aura pas seulement des \u00e2mes; il y aura\ndes choses. Tout ce qui existe et qui est r\u00e9ussi. Les cath\u00e9drales, par\nexemple. Notre Dame, Chartres, je les y mettrai.\u201d\n\nIt was such a restoration of humanity to the wholesome and beautiful\nlife for which it was made, that he had at first sought in socialism;\nand the earlier numbers of the _Cahiers de la Quinzaine_, of which he\nwas the founder and editor, reflect this faith. He saw socialism then in\nits ideal aspect, as a triumph of justice and love: a reasonable career\noffered to the whole race. For this triumph, this reordering of the\ncommon life, he never ceased to work; but a deeper experience taught him\nthat it could not be effected by any change imposed on society from\nwithout, or any readjustment between man and man. The readjustment\nneeded was that between man and God; a change of heart, a rearrangement\nof the values of life effected from within, which should make possible\nthe complete spiritualization of existence. Therefore it was that P\u00e9guy\nbecame, in his last and most creative period, a Christian mystic of an\noriginal type; an ardent missionary, who opposed the intellectualism,\nmaterialism, and individualism which France of the early twentieth\ncentury mistook for progress, by a propaganda which was\nanti-intellectual, nationalist, and profoundly Catholic. It is to this\nperiod that his poetry and much of his most vehement prose belongs. All\nis didactic in intention; but is saved by its author\u2019s wit, sincerity,\nand remarkable imaginative genius from the usual fate of those who try\nto turn art to the purposes of edification. The prose is largely\ncontroversial, and inevitably suffers to some extent from this: for\nP\u00e9guy was violent and sometimes unjust when attacking the errors and\nfollies of the time, and had at his disposal an astonishing power of\nmockery, irony, and scorn. Yet even here, his instinct for beauty\nconstantly asserted itself: and in the midst of some biting attack upon\n\u201cprogressive\u201d politics or modernist theology, we get an abrupt invasion\nof loveliness which transports us to the atmosphere of his poems. These\npoems fall into two groups: first, the three _Myst\u00e8res_ which he wrote\nfor the 500th anniversary of the birth of Jeanne d\u2019Arc, \u201cla sainte la\nplus grande apr\u00e8s Sainte Marie,\u201d and which deal with her spiritual\npreparation for the saving of France; _La Charit\u00e9 de Jeanne d\u2019Arc_\n(1910), _Le Porche du Myst\u00e8re de la Deuxi\u00e8me Vertu_ (1911), _Les Saints\nInnocents_ (1912). These are all written in unrhymed irregular verse; a\nverse so indefinite in construction that it is often indistinguishable\nfrom rhythmic prose. They consist chiefly in long meditative discourses,\nalternating between the extremes of homeliness and sublimity, and put\ninto the mouths of Jeanne and of Madame Gervaise, a Franciscan nun to\nwhom she tells her problems and her dreams\u2014an apt device for the\nconveyance of P\u00e9guy\u2019s own religious and patriotic gospel. They were\nfollowed by three volumes in rhymed duodecasyllabic verse, which he\ncalled _Tapisseries: Sainte Genevi\u00e8ve et Jeanne d\u2019Arc_ (1912), _Notre\nDame_ (1913), and _Eve_ (1914), perhaps his finest and most sustained\nsingle work.\n\nWhen we examine these poems in order, we find that we can trace in them\nthe development of a consistent philosophy of life: for, like most of\nthe convinced opponents of intellectualism, P\u00e9guy was a profound\nthinker, relying to a far greater extent than he would ever have\nconfessed on the ungodly processes of a singularly acute mind. The\ndeliberate simplicity of diction, the assumed ingenuousness of attitude\nare deceptive, and conceal a deeply reasoned view of the universe.\n\n                 \u201cJe n\u2019aime pas, dit Dieu, celui qui pense\n                 Et qui se tourmente, et qui se soucie\n                 Et qui roule une migraine perp\u00e9tuelle.\u201d\n\nThis is not the doctrine of the charcoal-burner; it is the doctrine of\nthe experienced philosopher, bitterly conscious of the limitations of\nthe brain.\n\nThe foundation of his creed is the essentially mystical belief, so\nbeautifully expressed in _Eve_, in the solidarity of the Universe. As\nhumanity is one and indivisible, so too the human and the divine cannot\nbe separated. \u201cNous sommes solidaires des damn\u00e9s \u00e9ternels,\u201d he said when\nhe was twenty: and in his posthumous work _Clio_, he reiterates the same\ntruth. \u201cJ\u00e9sus est du m\u00eame monde que le dernier des p\u00e9cheurs; et le\ndernier des p\u00e9cheurs est du m\u00eame monde que J\u00e9sus. C\u2019est une communion.\nC\u2019est m\u00eame proprement cela qui est une communion. Et \u00e0 parler vrai ou\nplut\u00f4t \u00e0 parler r\u00e9el il n\u2019y a point d\u2019autre communion que d\u2019\u00eatre du m\u00eame\nmonde.\u201d The spiritual and eternal world, then, is not something set over\nagainst the natural order; but is closely entwined with it, the\nneglected element of reality, which alone can make human existence\ndignified and sweet.\n\n              \u201cCar le surnaturel est lui-m\u00eame charnel\n              Et l\u2019arbre de la gr\u00e2ce est racin\u00e9 profond\n              Et plonge dans le sol et cherche jusqu\u2019au fond,\n              Et l\u2019arbre de la race est lui-m\u00eame \u00e9ternel.\n\n              Et l\u2019\u00e9ternit\u00e9 m\u00eame est dans le temporel\n              Et l\u2019arbre de la gr\u00e2ce est racin\u00e9 profond\n              Et plonge dans le sol et touche jusqu\u2019au fond\n              Et le temps est lui-m\u00eame un temps intemporel.\u201c\n\nWhat he realizes and points out, therefore, is not some distant\ntranscendental life and reality, divorced from our normal, flowing,\nchanging life and reality. Rather he insists on the beauty and nobility,\nthe deep spiritual quality of this immediate life; the supernatural\ncharacter of nature itself, when seen from the angle of Christian\nidealism. The Blessed Virgin is herself:\n\n                       \u201cInfiniment c\u00e9leste\n               Parce qu\u2019aussi elle est infiniment terrestre.\u201d\n\nIn Christianity, with its incarnational philosophy, its balanced\ncultivation of the active and the mystic life, its sacramental touch\nupon all common things, he sees the only perfect expression of this\nprinciple; the only power capable of embracing and spiritualizing the\nwhole of the rich complex of existence. Determined to bring home to his\nfellow-countrymen, on the one hand, the concrete and objective nature of\nthis Christian life, on the other, the simplicity of soul necessary to\nthose who would understand it, he rejects all attempts at religious\nphilosophizing or symbolic interpretation. His treatment of theology is\ncharacterized by a deliberate homely literalness, a na\u00efve use of\ntradition, which was intensely exasperating to his agnostic and\nModernist critics; and which may be found distasteful by some religious\nminds, unable to realize the intimate connection between gaiety and\nfaith. To others it will seem that, alone amongst modern writers, he has\nrecaptured the medi\u00e6val secret of familiarity combined with adoration:\nof a love, awe, and vision, a profound earnestness, which yet leave room\nfor laughter. His picture of God is shamelessly anthropomorphic. (\u201cJe\nsuis honn\u00eate homme, dit Dieu; droit comme un Fran\u00e7ais.\u201d) Yet it is full\nof grave beauty, of the sense of fatherhood, the mystical consciousness\nof the Divine desire. Revealed religion is God\u2019s Word, and therefore\nmeans what it says. \u201cJ\u00e9sus n\u2019est pas venu pour nous dire des amusettes,\u201d\nsays Madame Gervaise to Joan of Arc.\n\nThe faith which P\u00e9guy wished to restore to France was not the religious\nrationalism of the modernist: still less the morbid, \u00e6sthetic fervour of\nHuysmans. It was the homely everyday faith of the past, the humble yet\nassured relation with the supernatural order, the courage and hope which\nis rooted in tradition and is wholly independent of intellectual\nsubtleties. \u201cLa foi est toute naturelle, toute allante, tout simple,\ntoute venante\u201d\u2014the great and simple affirmation. The perfect type of\nthis faith is not the world-weary convert, but the healthy\nunselfconscious child; and the child, for P\u00e9guy, is the most holy and\nmost significant figure in the human group. \u201cC\u2019est l\u2019enfant qui est\nplein et l\u2019homme qui est vide.\u201d Only in the child and in those\nuntarnished human beings who retain their childlike simplicity of heart\ndo we see unspoilt humanity: only in the child do we see incarnate hope.\n\u201cJ\u2019\u00e9clate tellement dans ma cr\u00e9ation,\u201d says God, \u201cet surtout dans les\nenfants.\u201d\n\n           \u201cOn envoie les enfants \u00e0 l\u2019\u00e9cole, dit Dieu.\n           Je pense que c\u2019est pour oublier le peu qu\u2019ils savent.\n           On ferait mieux d\u2019envoyer les parents \u00e0 l\u2019\u00e9cole.\n           C\u2019est eux qui en ont besoin\n           Mais naturellement il faudrait une \u00e9cole de moi\n           Et non pas une \u00e9cole d\u2019hommes.\u201d\n\nThe tenderness and charm of those passages in which he celebrates the\nimportance and sanctity of childhood, its innocence, its capacity for\ngrowth, its virginal outlook, its freshness and power of response, place\nhim in the front rank of the poets who have treated this most difficult\nsubject, and constantly remind us of Blake:\n\n    \u201cComme leur jeune regard a une promesse, une secr\u00e8te assurance\n       int\u00e9rieure, et leur front, et toute leur personne.\n    Leur petite, leur auguste, leur si r\u00e9v\u00e9rente et r\u00e9v\u00e9rende\n       personne....\n    Heureuse enfance. Tout leur petit corps, toute leur petite personne,\n       tous leurs petits gestes, est pleine, ruisselle, regorge d\u2019une\n       esp\u00e9rance.\n    Resplendit, regorge d\u2019une innocence\n    Qui est l\u2019innocence m\u00eame de l\u2019esp\u00e9rance.\u201d\n\nThis hope, the childhood of the heart, is to P\u00e9guy the most precious of\nhuman qualities, and the one in which man draws nearest to an\nunderstanding of the Divine Idea. Jesus is \u201cthe man who has hoped,\u201d and\nthe Christian assault, which is the assault of hope, can alone make a\nbreach in the defences of eternity. It is \u201cthe faith that God loves\nbest\u201d; the beginning of liberty, the growing point of the eager spirit\nof life. Faith beholds that which is: Charity loves that which is: Hope\nalone beholds and loves that which shall be. Faith is static; hope\ndynamic. Faith is a great tree; hope is the rising sap, the little,\nswelling bud upon the spray.\n\n                     \u201cLa petite esp\u00e9rance\n                     Est celle qui toujours commence\u201d\u2014\n\nthe persistent element in all effort and all change. She deceives us\ntwenty times running; yet she is the only one of our leaders who never\ndeceives us in the end. She gives significance to human toil, beauty and\nmeaning to human suffering, reality to human joy. In one of his most\nbeautiful verses, he describes the crowning of humanity with this\nliving, budding diadem of hope.\n\n    \u201cComme une m\u00e8re fait un diad\u00e8me de ses doigts allong\u00e9s, des doigts\n       conjoints et affront\u00e9s de ses deux mains fra\u00eeches\n    Autour du front br\u00fblant de son enfant\n    Pour apaiser ce front br\u00fblant, cette fi\u00e8vre,\n    Ainsi une couronne \u00e9ternelle a \u00e9t\u00e9 tress\u00e9e pour apaiser le front\n       br\u00fblant.\n    Et c\u2019\u00e9tait une couronne de verdure.\n    Une couronne de feuillage.\u201d\n\nMoreover, \u201ccette curieuse enfant Esp\u00e9rance\u201d is the motive-power of the\nspiritual order too. God Himself hopes for and in man: has placed His\neternal hope in man\u2019s hands, and given to him, along with the gift of\nliberty, the terrible power of frustrating or achieving the purposes of\nDivine Love.\n\n       \u201cLe plus infirme des p\u00e9cheurs peut d\u00e9couronner, peut couronner\n       Une esp\u00e9rance de Dieu.\u201d\n\nSuch a freedom is the very condition of spirituality; for faith, hope,\nand charity are not servile virtues, but heavenward-tending impulses of\nthe free soul, activities of the will. Here lies their value; since only\nin true love, voluntary service, deliberate choice, can the\npossibilities of human nature be fulfilled:\n\n    \u201cToutes les soumissions d\u2019esclaves du monde, ne valent pas un beau\n    regard d\u2019homme libre.\u201d\n\nTherefore, for the author of this gospel of freedom and hope, the course\nof salvation takes an exactly opposite course to that described by\nHuysmans and his school. The typical soul for P\u00e9guy is not the\n\u201ctwice-born\u201d exhausted and fastidious sensualist Durtal, driven at last\nto seek reconciliation by his overwhelming sense of sin. It is the\n\u201conce-born\u201d simple and ardent peasant child, Joan of Arc; brought\nstraight from the sheepfold to serve the heroic purposes of God.\n\n               \u201cTenant tout un royaume en sa t\u00e9nacit\u00e9\n               Vivant en plein myst\u00e8re avec sagacit\u00e9\n               Mourant en plein martyre avec vivacit\u00e9\n               La fille de Lorraine \u00e0 nulle autre pareille.\u201d\n\nThe typical experience is an experience of growth, freshness, novelty;\naction rightly directed, and a vision which perceives beauty and dignity\nin the antique and homely labours of the race. The cultivator of the\nearth and the rearer of children, the faithful priest, the strong and\nloyal soldier\u2014of these is the kingdom of heaven. Of these and by these\nthe old France was built up; and through these ideals and virtues, and\nthe national saints in whom they are expressed, the new France may be\nsaved. With Huysmans in our mystical moments we are usually inside a\nchurch, assisted by incense and plain-chant of the best quality: with\nP\u00e9guy, we are in the open air, in the market garden, or in the nursery.\nThere his poetry, in Francis Thompson\u2019s beautiful image, \u201cplays at the\nfoot of the Cross.\u201d Even the Holy Innocents in heaven are playing at\nbowling hoops with their palms and crowns. \u201cAt least, I think so,\u201d says\nGod, \u201cfor they never asked _My_ permission.\u201d\n\n    \u201cTel est mon paradis.... Mon paradis est tout ce qu\u2019il y a de plus\n       simple.\u201d\n\nSide by side with P\u00e9guy\u2019s spiritual gospel, or rather entwined with it,\ngoes his practical and patriotic gospel. Since for him the whole of life\nwas crammed with spiritual significance, he saw in the patriotic passion\na sacrament of heavenly love, and in earthly cities symbols of the City\nof God. Hence nationalism was to him, as to Dostoevsky, essentially\nreligious, and Joan of Arc\u2014\n\n                \u201cUne humble enfant perdue en deux amours,\n                L\u2019amour de son pays parmi l\u2019amour de Dieu\u201d\u2014\n\nwas the perfect saint, fusing the two halves of human experience in one\nwhole. These two aspects of love he could not separate, for they seemed\nto him equally the flowers of a completed life. Even God, he thought,\nwould find it difficult to decide between them.\n\n             \u201cDans une belle vie, il n\u2019est que de beaux jours,\n             Dans une belle vie il fait toujours beau temps.\n             Dieu la d\u00e9roule toute et regarde longtemps\n             Quel amour est plus cher entre tous les amours.\n\n             Ainsi Dieu ne sait pas, ainsi le divin Ma\u00eetre\n             Ne sait quel retenir et placer hors du lieu\n             Et pour lequel tenir, et s\u2019il faut vraiment mettre\n             L\u2019amour de la patrie apr\u00e8s l\u2019amour de Dieu.\u201c\n\nThis mystical patriotism was his great gift to the mind of France; and\nit was to her regeneration that his work was really consecrated. It was\nthe ideal France, the \u201celdest daughter of God,\u201d which claimed his\ndevotion and inspired his finest verse. She is the creative nation,\nplanter of gardens and sower of seeds, the nation which turns all things\nto the purposes of more abundant life:\n\n    \u201cIci, dit Dieu, dans cette douce France, ma plus noble cr\u00e9ation,\n    Dans cette saine Lorraine,\n    Ici ils sont bons jardiniers....\n    Toutes les sauvageries du monde ne valent pas un beau jardin\n       fran\u00e7ais.\n    Honn\u00eate, modeste, ordonn\u00e9.\n    C\u2019est l\u00e0 que j\u2019ai cueilli mes plus belles \u00e2mes.\u201d\n\nP\u00e9guy saw France in the laborious and heroic past, with her ancient\ntraditions of culture, liberty, and order: patient, scrupulous,\ndiligent, tending her seedbeds and weeding her fields\u2014for good work was\nalways in his eyes the earnest of a healthy soul. He hoped for her in\nthe future: a future to be conditioned, not by the progressive character\nof her political institutions, but by her freshness, her eternal youth;\nabove all, by her spirit of hope.\n\n    \u201cPeuple, les peuples de la terre te dirent l\u00e9ger\n    Parce que tu es un peuple prompt....\n    Mais moi, je t\u2019ai pes\u00e9, dit Dieu, et je ne t\u2019ai point trouv\u00e9 l\u00e9ger.\n    O peuple inventeur de la cath\u00e9drale, je ne t\u2019ai point trouv\u00e9 l\u00e9ger\n       en foi.\n    O peuple inventeur de la croisade, je ne t\u2019ai point trouv\u00e9 l\u00e9ger en\n       charit\u00e9.\n    Quant \u00e0 l\u2019esp\u00e9rance, il vaut mieux ne pas en parler, il n\u2019en a que\n       pour eux.\u201d\n\nOwing everything to the love and industry of his mother and\ngrandmother\u2014for his father died before his birth\u2014it was natural that\nP\u00e9guy should find in faithful and laborious womanhood the ultimate types\nof human truth and goodness. Two such types appear again and again in\nhis poems, as living symbols of the national soul: St. Genevi\u00e8ve,\n\u201cvigilante berg\u00e8re, a\u00efeule et paroissienne,\u201d whose prayer and fortitude\nsaved Paris, and, above all, St. Joan of Arc, \u201cenfant \u00e9chapp\u00e9e \u00e0 de\npauvres familles,\u201d in whom the dual love of God and man, carried into\nvigorous action, availed to change the history of France. In the three\n_Myst\u00e8res_ which he wrote in her honour, he extols the three qualities\nin which he found the secret of St. Joan\u2019s holiness, significance, and\npower; her ardent charity, her unquenchable hope, the childlike\ninnocence of her soul. Charity, the passionate longing to help and save,\nurged her to rescue France from its miseries. \u201cIl y a tant de manque, il\ny a tant \u00e0 demander.\u201d In this profound sense of ill to be mended, her\nmission, and in P\u00e9guy\u2019s view the mission of all Christians, takes its\nrise. Hope, the ever-renewed belief in a possible perfection, \u201cinvisible\net immortelle et impossible \u00e0 \u00e9teindre,\u201d gave her courage to obey her\nVoices and strength to perform apparently impossible acts. Because she\nwas a child at heart, with a child\u2019s unsullied outlook, simplicity and\nzest\u2014its entire aloofness from the unreal complications of adult\nexistence\u2014she had an assurance, a freshness, a power of initiative,\nwhich carried her through and past the superhuman difficulties of her\ntask:\n\n            \u201cCe grand g\u00e9n\u00e9ral qui prenait des bastilles\n            Ainsi qu\u2019on prend le ciel, c\u2019est en sautant dedans,\n            N\u2019\u00e9tait devant la herse et parmi les redans\n            Qu\u2019une enfant \u00e9chapp\u00e9e \u00e0 de pauvres familles....\n\n            \u201cElle est mont\u00e9e au ciel ensemble jeune et sage\n            A peine parvenue au bord de son printemps\n            Au bord de sa tendresse et de son jeune temps\n            A peine au d\u00e9barqu\u00e9 de son premier village.\u201d\n\nSt. Joan thus appears as the supreme example of the practical mystic;\nrooted in the soil, and agent of that saving force which will never rest\nuntil it has resolved the discords of man\u2019s life and inducted him into\nthe kingdom of reality. She is for P\u00e9guy not only the redeemer and\nincarnate soul of France, but also, in her spirit of prayer and her\nmilitant vigour, the leader and patron of all those initiates of hope\nwho \u201cseek to mend the universal ill.\u201d\n\n             \u201cHeureux ceux d\u2019entre nous qui la verront para\u00eetre\n             Le regard plus ouvert que d\u2019une \u00e2me d\u2019enfant,\n             Quand ce grand g\u00e9n\u00e9ral et ce chef triomphant\n             Rassemblera sa troupe aux pieds de notre ma\u00eetre.\u201d\n\nIt is easy enough to exhibit P\u00e9guy\u2019s defects, both literary and\ntemperamental. Among the first we must reckon his tiresome mannerisms\nand apparent absence of form, his digressions and lapses into the\ndidactic, his exaggerated love of repetition: the way in which his\nverse, in such a poem as _Eve_, seems to advance by means of passionate\nreiterations, stanza after stanza, like the waves of one tide,\ndistinguished only by the smallest verbal changes. On the temperamental\nside we must acknowledge his intractable arrogance, a complete want of\nsympathy with his opponents\u2019 point of view, something too of the morose\ndistrustfulness of the peasant: faults which persisted side by side with\nhis real mystical enthusiasm, for his nature never completely unified\nitself. On one side a spiritual poet, on the other side he was and\nremained to the last a violent and often cruel pamphleteer: carrying on\nagainst both private enemies and public movements a guerilla warfare in\nwhich he seemed to himself to be, like his patroness, fighting the cause\nof his Voices and of the right. As with most poets who are also\nmissionaries, apostolic zeal sometimes got the better of artistic\ndiscretion. In the fury of his invective against the folly,\npriggishness, cowardice, and love of comfort of the modern world, he\nseized any image that came to hand; sometimes with disconcerting effect.\nNo other poet, perhaps, would have dared to introduce cachets of\nantipyrine into his indignant catalogue of our weaknesses and crimes.\nYet, as against this, what other poet of our day has achieved so wide a\nsweep of emotion; has revealed to us so great and so earnest a\npersonality? When we consider his range, the tender simplicity of his\npassages on little children, the sublime Hymn to the Virgin and Address\nto Night in _La Deuxi\u00e8me Vertu_, the solemn yet ardent celebration of\n\u201cles armes de J\u00e9sus\u201d\u2014suffering, poverty, failure, death\u2014in _La\nTapisserie de Sainte Genevi\u00e8ve_; and Eve, with its alternate notes of\nirony and exaltation, its exquisite concluding rhapsody on St. Genevi\u00e8ve\nand St. Joan of Arc, the \u201ctwo shepherdesses of France\u201d\u2014then we forget\nthe sermons and the diatribes, and we feel that the world lost in P\u00e9guy\na great Christian poet. He died, as we may be sure that he would have\nwished to do, in defence of the country which he so passionately loved:\nand a strangely poignant interest attaches to those verses in his last\npublished work which he devotes to the \u201cpoor sinners\u201d redeemed by this\nmost sacred of deaths:\n\n         \u201cHeureux ceux qui sont morts pour la terre charnelle,\n         Mais pourvu que ce f\u00fbt dans une juste guerre.\n         Heureux ceux qui sont morts pour quatre coins de terre.\n         Heureux ceux qui sont morts d\u2019une mort solennelle....\n\n         \u201cHeureux les grands vainqueurs. Paix aux hommes de guerre.\n         Qu\u2019ils soient ensevelis dans un dernier silence.\n         Que Dieu mette avec eux dans la juste balance\n         Un peu de ce terrain d\u2019ordure et de poussi\u00e8re.\n\n         \u201cQue Dieu mette avec eux dans le juste plateau\n         Ce qu\u2019ils ont tant aim\u00e9, quelques grammes de terre.\n         Un peu de cette vigne, un peu de ce coteau,\n         Un peu de ce ravin sauvage et solitaire....\n\n         \u201cM\u00e8re, voici vos fils et leur immense arm\u00e9e.\n         Qu\u2019ils ne soient pas jug\u00e9s sur leur seule mis\u00e8re.\n         Que Dieu mette avec eux un peu de cette terre\n         Qui les a tant perdus et qu\u2019ils ont tant aim\u00e9e.\u201d\n\n      PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LTD.,\n      BRUNSWICK STREET, STAMFORD STREET, S.E. 1, AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.\n\n\n\n\n \u25cf Transcriber\u2019s Notes:\n    \u25cb Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).\n    \u25cb Footnotes have been moved to follow the sections in which they are\n      referenced.","title":"The essentials of mysticism, and other essays","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":81086}