Chapter V: Part V: I (1)

After coming to Union with God, our prayers become entirely changed, not only in the manner of presenting them, but changed also in what is presented. Petitioning is a hard thing. I had found it easy to pray for others whether I loved them or not, with the lips and with some of the heart; but I found that I could not do it in the new way, with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength, so that everything else fled away into nothing and was no more, except that for which I petitioned God. A perfect concentration for the welfare of a stranger or of some cause was a very hard thing; yet I was made aware that I must learn to do it.

For two or three years I suffered pain and exhaustion over this petitioning; I would be so fatigued by it, found it so great a strain, that I said to myself, "I shall lose my health over this petitioning, for as I do it, it is as though I gave my life-energy for the cause or person for whom I pray." But my Good Angel whispered me not to give in, but continue to be willing, continue to be generous, no matter the cost. I am not generous, but I went on with it, and secretly had the greatest dread of it; my whole nature shrank from the effort, from the strange loss of vitality this petitioning brought.

Then at last, after more than two years, because of remaining willing, because of trying to remain generous about this, to me, most grievously hard prayer, one happy day God lifted away all the strain and difficulty, all the pain and fatigue, and turned it into the sweetest of prayers: into a new song, a new honey, new music, a new delight, in which the soul has, as it were, but to sip at the nectar of His Love and Beneficence, to bring it to a fellow-soul.

I found that God causes the soul to pray this joyous, this exquisite, prayer for total strangers, passers-by in the street, fellow-travellers by road and rail, here and there, this one and that, she knows which one it is: how surprised these persons would be if they knew that a total stranger, who never saw them before and never will see them again, was joyously, lovingly, holding them up before God for His help and His blessing! and they receive His blessing. God does not prompt such prayers for nothing. Is this favoritism? No; they are secretly seeking Him.

II

When the soul is united to God a great change comes over the mind, which now thinks continually, lovingly, of God. God not merely hoped for, looked for, as in the past, but God found and known, God close and near; interruptions come and go, but the mind, like a pendulum, swings back to God, nothing stops it; the soul streams to Him: she discovers Him everywhere: she knows her way to Him, and she has not far to go. Her own door is also His door. There are many degrees of intensity about this condition, which can increase to such an extent as to entirely interfere with our everyday duties. When it is increased to this degree it would appear (certainly at times) to be on purpose to teach the soul a self-abnegation which she could not otherwise learn, because, together with an intense, almost terrible, attraction and desire to be alone with God, will come the pressure of a duty which it is obvious God would wish us to attend to: this is a severe and a very continual lesson to the soul--the lesson of learning patiently to continue some sordid work in this world, after finding the joys of the spiritual life.

What are amongst the most noticeable changes in the mind? first, we notice it has become very simple in its requirements, and very restful; it no longer darts here and there gathering in this and that of fancied treasures, as a bird darts at flies; it has dropped outside objects, in order to hover around thoughts of God, which at the same time are not particularised, but, as it were, quietly, contentedly, float in a general and peaceful fragrance of beauty.

Ordinarily the mind would find it difficult to hover in this way with such a singleness of intent, but in certain other cases we see the same contentment--in the mother beside her babe: though she may not talk to it, or touch it, she is happy; she knows it near; she is secretly giving to it. We see it in the babe also: it gazes at its mother and is quiet; if the mother removes herself, the child may cry; no one has hurt it--merely, it has ceased to be happy because the object of its desire has gone too far from it, has disappeared. We see it also in two lovers; they sit near together, and the more they love the fewer words they require to speak: they are happy: they require very few words, very few thoughts. Separate them, and they spend their time uneasily in sending messages, in thinking numberless yearning thoughts which become painful, and, if continued for long, can affect the health. Put them together again, and they barely say two words: their joy at meeting occupies the whole of their attention. It is the same when we love God. The heart, and the mind, and the soul are blissfully content, they are in a love-state, they bask in His Presence; but that we should be aware of His Presence--this is His gift, this is the vast difference between our former and our present state.

When we have become experienced in this Presence of God, the Reason tries very earnestly to comprehend the manner of it. Christ says that when love is established between God and a man, "My Father and I will come to him and make our abode with him." How can such a tremendous thing as this be carried out without, as it were, burning the man up with the greatness of it? Does God, then, when experienced feel to be a Fire? Yes, and no, for we feel that we shall be consumed, and yet it is not burning but a blissful energy of the most inexpressible and unbearable intensity, which has the feeling of disintegrating or _dispersing flesh._ The experience is blissful to heart and mind only so long as it is given within certain limits: beyond this it is bliss-agony, beyond this it would soon be death to the body; and the soul feels that in her imperfect state it can soon easily be the dispersion of herself also: this is a very terrible feeling: this does not bear remembering or thinking about. How, then, can it be possible that God can take up His abode with us and we still live?

In all contacts with God we notice one fact pre-eminently--they do not take place with the mind, but with that which was previously unknown to us, and which communicates the joy and the realities of meeting God to the mind. What is this? It does not live in the heart: it lives, or feels to live, in the upper cavity of the chest, above the heart, and below the throat-base. It can endure God. It is spirit, it feels to be a higher part of the soul: we might call it the Intelligence and Will of the soul, because it acts for the soul as the mind acts for the body, it is above the soul as the mind is above (more important than) and rules an arm or leg. The more we experience God, the more we are forced to comprehend that we have in us an especial organ in this spirit with which we can communicate with God and by which we can receive Him without the mind or body being destroyed. For when God takes up His abode with a man He will communicate Himself to this loving Spirit-Will or Intelligence in ecstasies. And through His Son He will communicate Himself in another manner, to the heart and mind, so graciously, with such a tender care, that without the stress of ecstasy we are kept in a delicate and most blessed Awareness of God. In these ways we can know, even in flesh, the beginnings of the true love-state, the beginnings of the angelic state, which is this same love-state brought _to completion by Beholding God._

III

Although this blessed condition of Awareness of God is a gift, and at first the mind and soul are maintained in it without effort on their part, it being accomplished for them solely by the power of the Grace of God, yet later--and somewhat to their dismay after receiving such favours--they discover that it must be worked for in order to be maintained. The heart must give, the mind must give, the soul must give: when they neither work nor give they may find themselves receiving nothing: God ceases to be present to them. Generosity on our part is required. It works out in experience to be always the same thing that is needed for our perfect health and happiness--reciprocity. Without we maintain this reciprocity we shall experience _extraordinary disappointment._

IV

The soul is now blind: we know this by experience; but do we know that she ever had sight? If she did not, but was created imperfect, and was so created in order that only by work and merit she should arrive at completion and perfection and Behold God (instead of merely, as now in this world, being able only to apprehend Him by the retrospect of His effect upon her), then she was always below angels. If through work and obedience she becomes so raised that she merits sight and the actual Beholding of God, then she becomes equal to angels because of this Beholding; and so Christ tells us that she does as the Child of the Resurrection.

It is the inability of the soul to comprehend, after experiencing the bliss of Union with God, how she came to embark upon this wandering and separation, which so presses the Reason for an explanation of the fall of the soul.

It may be that not all souls are fallen, but that some are merely in process of progressing to sight. These are Righteous Souls. But there are more souls also created sightless, who are fallen by curiosity, by infidelity or plain self-will and forgetfulness--these it is who need the Redeemer: "I come not to call the Righteous, but sinners to repentance." From this it would seem that there are souls who, though they are in this world, are yet fundamentally righteous: not fallen, but working to receive sight. It is inconceivable to the soul that, had she ever Beheld God, she could have left Him, but not inconceivable to her that, having never Beheld Him, she may have been unfaithful on her road to Sight. She understands this awful possibility after coming to Union with Him from this earth, because then she learns the immense difficulties of maintaining this sightless Union.

She knows the terrible solitude and testing it entails, and the innumerable temptations when low-spirited and lonely to turn to interests and consolations apart from God; for God will frequently, in the later stages of progress, withhold every consolation and comfort from the soul, leaving her solitary. Will she stay? Will she go?

V

We hope for much from "education"; but what education is it that will be of enduring value to us? Is it the education which teaches us the grammars of foreign languages, scientific facts, the dates when wars were won, when kings ascended their thrones, princes died, artists painted their masterpieces, that will bring us to our finest opportunities of success? To the soul there is little greater or less chance of success offered by the degree of "polish" in the education we have the money to procure: the peasant who cannot read or write may achieve the purpose of life before the savant: we know it without caring to acknowledge it to ourselves: the education that we really require is the education of daily conduct, the education of character, the education by which we say to Self-will, to Pride, and to Lusts, "Lie down!"--and they do it!

* * *

When a soul knows herself, has repented and become redeemed, she knows all other souls, good or bad: there are no longer any secrets for her, no one can hide himself from her: she sees all these open and living books, reads them, and avoids judging and bitterness in spite of the selfishness, stupidity, and frailty revealed on every page: she finds the same faults in herself; selfishness, stupidity, and weakness are engraven upon herself; the redeemed and enlightened soul with tears perpetually corrects these faults: the unenlightened soul does not--this is the difference between them.

VI

For some time after coming to Union with God we remain convinced that all now being so well with the soul all will be well with the body also, and the health does improve and become more stable; but the day comes when we learn that God is not concerned with saving flesh, and that the body must share the usual fate--we shall continue to suffer through it. But we also discover that there can be a marvellous amelioration to this suffering. By raising the consciousness to its highest--that is to say, by living with the highest part of the soul _and waiting upon God_--we can experience such very great Grace that the poignancy, the distress, of pain disappears. For instance, the following is from my experience. Trouble has come, trouble of several kinds: the death of one very dear; severe illness to another; for my brother a serious operation; for myself a slight one, but a very painful one--in fine, a variety of trials all coming together as they have a way of doing. I feel terribly nervous and fearful of the pain of my own operation and my brother's also: he is the brother who once saved my life, he is the being who more than anyone on earth I have most loved since early childhood. So I hang on to God. I hang to Him, not by beseeching Him to relieve or release me from any of these inevitable happenings, but by the way I have so slowly been learning, in which a creature, by means and because of love, passes out of itself and is able to hand over to God everything which it is or has or thinks or does, and in exchange receives His Peace. So I hand over my brother and my dead and my anxieties for self into His hands, and I go to my operation with the same serenity that I should go to meet a friend. I notice that I am more calm, less nervous, than anyone else.

The anaesthetic fails before the operation is completed: consciousness returns and becomes aware of atrocious pain and blood-soaked busy instruments. Yet by Grace of God the mind and soul are able immediately to raise and maintain themselves in high consciousness of God, and the operation can be finished without a cry or movement of the body: no automatic shrinking takes place. And this Grace is continued for days afterwards, so that in recalling the torturing incidents, and though the pain of wounds continues severe enough to interfere with sleep, yet my mind remains quite calm, like a quiet lake over which, without ruffling its waters, hangs a mist--a tranquil shroud of pain that has no sting, no fear, no fret.

VII

After coming to Union with God I _never lacked anything,_ and this during the most difficult times of the war, and under every and all circumstances. Being careful to try and observe how this was worked, I saw it was very naturally and simply done by everyone being given an impulse to help me, always without any request to them on my part: the porter, besieged by twenty persons, would be blind to all and, coming straight to me, would offer his service; the taxi-driver, hailed by a waiting mob, had eyes and ears for no one but myself, yet I had made him no sign except by looking at him. The same with the coal merchant and his coal, the same with all tradesmen, the same with servants. I never lacked anything for one hour: _but I continually asked Christ to help me._

Since coming to Union with God, I have had innumerable trials, some of them tortures, but have been brought safely out of every one. I afterwards found that each trial was exactly what was needed for the alteration of some objectionable characteristic in myself. No trial that came was unnecessary. When its work was accomplished, the trial disappeared.

* * *

Can it be said that Union with God in this world entails upon us increased sufferings here? Yes. But these sufferings are not owing to abnormal occurrences: nothing will happen which is not the common lot of humanity; merely we are caused to feel that which we do experience, very acutely; and after Union with God all earthly consolations must be abandoned: until we abandon these we do not know how we have depended on them, how they have protected us from depression, loneliness, boredom, and discontent. Abandon all these earthly consolations and interests, and at the same time _be abandoned by God_ (sensible Grace is withdrawn), and immediately our sufferings become very severe, though our outward circumstances may appear, and may actually remain, of the very best. If our house is a fine one, we must live in it completely detached from its attractions: the same with regard to our friends, our amusements, our wealth, and all our possessions. It is obvious that in learning to do this we shall often suffer. The soul has painfully to learn that without God's Grace there is no virtue, no righteousness, and no sanctity: she learns by going forward upon Grace--perhaps to some great height: then Grace is withdrawn, the soul falls back, and feels to fall lower than she ever was before, and usually she falls over a trifle. Amazed, unspeakably surprised and humiliated, and ashamed, the soul learns to know herself--to know herself with God, to know herself without God. When she is with God, there seems no height to which she cannot rise: this gives great courage: more and more she abandons everything distasteful to God in order to unite herself more securely to Him.

We have no sufferings that are not useful to us. Looking back on my life, I see how many troubles I suffered: how often my health suffered (malaria and sun fevers, and lightning and its consequences): how I was and still am kept in a somewhat fragile state of health, though quite free of all actual disease. I see in this frailness, especially during the earlier years of my life, an immense protection: given full and vigorous health, combined with my selfish and passionate temperament, and I know very well I should have fallen in any and all kinds of dangers at all times. I was not to be trusted with robust health, and even after all the mercies and blessings God has showered upon me I do not trust myself. I still remain the sinner, fundamentally and potentially at every step the sinner. But Love and Grace surround the sinner. Love and Grace save the sinner from himself: Love and Grace can beautify and make the sinner shine.

My physical sufferings are not to be compared with the sufferings I see others endure, and endure cheerfully: this is a great shame and humiliation to me, because I have not learnt to suffer cheerfully: I am too easily undone by suffering and by the sight of suffering in any living thing; but although one may be a coward--that is to say, one may inwardly shrink from every kind of suffering,--one can be, and it is necessary to be, quite submissive; and to refrain from the slightest rebellion or selfishness--this is what God takes note of. What a difference there is between the selfish and the unselfish sufferer: how the one makes everyone around him miserable, wears them out body and soul; and how the other calls out all that is best in others and strengthens all that is best in himself! It is not so important whether we are secretly cowards or heroes; what matters is how we deal with sufferings when they come, what reaction we permit or encourage on their account in heart and mind and soul. There is nothing but suffering that can cleanse us, nothing but pain and misfortune which can so thoroughly convince us of our own nothingness, and break self-pride: joy will not do it; joy can do nothing more than refresh us after our sufferings, and in almost all lives we see how joy is made to alternate with sorrow: it encourages, it stimulates to further endeavours (this is the reason that God, at a certain stage of progress, gives extraordinary blisses, ecstasies, and so on), but it does not disperse our blemishes: the dispersal of spiritual blemishes is, as we know, the main reason of life in the flesh; it must be done, and the sooner the better: then we can finish, once and for all, with flesh existence. Righteous and very virtuous people may be able to dispense with Divine joys and consolations: it is doubtful if many sinners can--they require the confidence, the certainty, the enthusiasm which is naturally kindled by such experiences. So then we find that the vicissitudes of life, the endless daily trials, do not go because we find God. But His Grace comes, and when His Grace is with us wet or shine is all one, love and beauty gently sparkle everywhere; and then the heart cries out to him, Every day is like a jewel, every day I see the whole world decked and garlanded with all the beauty of Thy mind: each tree, each flower, each bee or bird tremulous with the life and wonder of Thy creative ingenuity! Each day is a new jewel set upon the necklace of my thoughts of Thee.

VIII

One of the trials that we have to endure as beginners is a joyless, flat, ungracious condition; a kind of paralysis of the soul, a dreary torpor. When we would approach God--pray to Him--He is nowhere to be found: He has disappeared, and everything to do with finding Him is become hard work, such hard work that it suddenly seems to us quite unprofitable: we suddenly remember a number of outside things which we would far sooner do: we try to pray, but the prayer goes nowhere-in-particular; it has no enthusiasm, no force behind it: has prayer then suddenly re-become a duty? This is terrible; what shall we do--shall we ask God to help us? When we do, we do it in so halfhearted a manner that our prayer feels to merely float around our own head like some miserable mist. We feel certain that this joyless, withered state will endure to the end of life on earth (the conviction that our unhappy condition is permanent is characteristic of all severe trials, because if we supposed the condition or difficulty only momentary it would not produce a sufficient trial, and consequent effort to overcome it on our part). This trial (though it may not always be a trial, but an actual blemish of the soul, a serious lack of unselfish love which must at once be strenuously corrected) is given for several reasons--we have become, perhaps, too greedy of _enjoyment_ of prayer: or we have come to take this joyousness of prayer for granted: or we have come to think we are uncommonly clever at knowing how to love and to pray; that we know so well how to do it that we can do it of our own power and capacity without God's assistance.

Or the trial may be sent not for any of these reasons, but solely in order to increase the strength and perseverance of our love to God, and of our Generosity.

This is one trial, and another is that God allows us to become convinced that He has nothing more to give us, He withdraws His graciousness from our apprehension; He leaves us as a tiny, unwanted, meaningless speck, alone in a vast universe. It would be idle to say that the soul does not suffer from this change; but these sufferings are just what she requires in order to develop courage, humility, endurance, love, and generosity. These two trials--the one when love is all dried up on our part, and the other when we think love must be all dried up on God's part--are the finest possible training and exercise for the soul, but they are only such if the soul _tries ardently to overcome them:_ it is in the effort to overcome that virtue is learnt, progress made.

There is one most splendid remedy. Is it asking of God? No, it is giving to God. We give Him thanks and we bless Him, and we tell Him that we love Him, and we do it with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and this becomes possible even though a moment ago we were so far from Him, so tepid, seemingly so estranged: it becomes possible because we remember all the wonderful things that God has done for us and given us, and made for us, and suffered for us; and in remembering these it is impossible but that love and gratitude, like a torch of enthusiasm, will presently flare up in us.

If God never gives us another thing, we will adore Him for His kindness in the past, we will adore Him for Himself, for what He is. Desolation and tepidity vanish. Joy returns, the trial is over; but it will come again perhaps a few hours hence, or to-morrow, or every day for weeks: the remedy is ever to be reapplied, and the remedy when thoroughly applied never fails in immediate efficacy; but it has to be constantly repeated: never let the heart and mind forget this.

IX

The heart, mind, soul, and will work together and lead together the reasonable earthly existence; but there is another part of the soul, a higher part, which has its own intelligence, which leads no earthly existence, has no direct recognition of _material being;_ thinks no earth-thoughts, judges by no man-made standards, sins no earth-sins. Has this part of the soul, then, never sinned? _It feels_ that it has sinned, though it cannot say how or when, but it _feels_ that this sin was direct as between itself and God, and is the cause of its separation from God; and it feels this sin to have been _an infidelity._ It is with this part of the soul that we sin the unforgivable sin against the Holy Ghost, which cannot be sinned by mere natural man: (here we touch the mystery of the two orders of sinning which, to the initiated, are seen both to be covered by the same commandments). This higher part of the soul mourns and longs for God with a terrible longing, and can be consoled, satisfied, by God only; He communicates Himself to this part of the soul. Sins of heart and mind do not injure it, but retard it: it cannot be corrupted by material living, because it does not connect itself directly with earth-living, it "responds" to God alone; but earthly sins delay it, paralyse its powers, postpone indefinitely its return to God. Is it this part of the soul which we ordinarily speak of as the Will? It cannot be, since it is with our Will that we consent to earth-sins. Have we, then, two Wills? It is reasonable and it conforms with experience to say that we have two Wills--a Spirit-Will conducting Spirit-living, and a Reasoning or Mind Will, conducting the affairs of earth-living: the lower part of the soul is the meeting-place and the intermediary between these two (often opposing) Wills, it is the ground upon which they work and have their fruitions.

The Spirit-Will is the Will by which we finally become united to God. Before regeneration we are unaware in any keen degree of its existence; but it may exist for us in a vague and confused manner as an incomprehensible, undefined yearning: we cannot satisfy this yearning, because we do not know what it requires for its satisfaction. It is above conscience: conscience has its seat in the lower soul, there it deals with the affairs of earthly life. This Spirit-Will is so far above conscience (which can be used, cultivated, improved, or destroyed, according to our own desire) that it is not given into the keeping or cognisance of the "natural" man, but remains unknown, inoperative until reawakened and impregnated with renewed vigour by direct Act of God in the regenerated man. This awakening, this reinvigoration, would seem to be synonymous with the Baptism of the Holy Ghost.

If it is awakened only by Act of God, in what way can we be held responsible about it? Our responsibility, our part, our opportunity is to so order the lower or earth-will that God shall see us to be prepared for the awakening of the Spirit-Will.

This Spirit-Will, once awakened, is never again shut out from direct communication with God. Even when Grace is withdrawn, this Will-Spirit can come before God and, no barrier between, know Him _there_; although He may deny it all consolation and leave it languishing, it yet retains the consolation of its one supreme necessity--that of knowing _it has not lost Him._ It waits.

X

Like knows like: it does not "know" its opposite, but is drawn towards its opposite before and without "knowing" it: here we have the cause of the condescension of the Good towards the imperfect, and of the aspiration of the imperfect to the perfect long before it can "know" the perfect. Without this attraction of like to opposite the imperfect could not become the perfect (we desire, are drawn to God, long before we are able to know Him). The imperfect is able to become the perfect by continually aspiring to it: it gradually becomes "like." There are no barriers in spirit-living, therefore there is nothing to prevent the soul becoming perfect, save its own will-failure. The barrier existing between material- or physical-living and spirit-living can only be overcome in and by a man's own soul: in the soul these two forms of living can meet and become known by the one individual, who can live alternately in the two modes, but it is necessary that the will and preference shall be continually given and bent towards spiritual-living, physical-living being accepted patiently and as a cross. Then flesh ceases to be a barrier to spiritual-living. This is the work of Christ and of the Holy Ghost. Because the soul has recaptured the knowledge of this rapturous living we are not to suppose that it is possible to continually enjoy it here or introduce its glories into social and worldly living: it is between the soul and God only; but earth-life can and should by this knowledge be entirely readjusted.

XI

Are we correct in saying or supposing that this world with all that we see in it (because perishable) is not real, and that the Invisible is the only Real? We are using the wrong word: all that we see here is real after its own manner: it is intentional, it is designed, it is magnificent, it is the evidence in fixed form of the Supreme Intelligence; how can we venture to call it unreal, nothing, negligible? It is a question not of Reality or Unreality, but of greater and of lesser Activity. In this world we see the Divine Energy slowed down to its least degree: we see it so much slowed down that the Divine Ideas can become crystallised into a form and for their decreed period remain fixed. It is exactly this which the soul requires in order to recover her lost bearings. She needs the Beautiful, the Good, and the Bad made sensible to her in _fixed objects,_ and Time in which to consider them and make her choice between them. When Spirit-living is experienced, we become aware that in spirit-life Activity is of such an order as to preclude the mode of it being in fixed forms and objects: so there is no fixed visible Beauty, no fixed visible Good or Bad, no fixed _results,_ and the soul "sees" and "knows" only _that which she herself is like to._ If she is bad, she cannot become better by the privilege of looking at that which is good. If she thinks or desires wrong, she remains wrong: she must think Right in order to produce or "know" Right. She loses God because she can no longer think godly, and nothing is fixed by which she can trace Him: it is like to like, and this instantaneously without pause (or time). Here in this world Like may behold its Opposite: Bad may behold Good and, because of being able to behold it, may go over and join its will to Good: it is able to do this, because the evidence of Good remains fixed whether the beholder or thinker is good or bad.

What is our quest in this world? It is to refind the lost knowledge of Celestial-living. Our Goal is God Himself. Our salvation does not depend upon our finding Celestial-living, but our finding this living depends upon whether we have found the way of Salvation. This Celestial-living is here, at our door, but we cannot retouch it without Act of God. What is essential to obtaining this Act of God? Is it necessary to belong to this or that Denomination, to perform this or that ceremony, to stand up, kneel down, or prostrate ourselves a hundred and one times, visit shrines, handle relics, endlessly repeat fixed words and sentences? No, these will not do it. Christianity _in its full meaning,_ a repentant and clean heart and mind--these will do it. It is a direct affair between the soul and God. It is Thee and me. This is immense condescension on the part of God. Love alone makes such a condescension possible.

As in free spirit we think a thought and become it, have a desire flash to it and are it, it is easy to see how in thinking thoughts that are not godly, desiring that which is ungodly and imperfect, we pass far from God by "becoming" imperfection; and, having "become," find no satisfaction, satisfaction resting with God only. Having ceased to think godly, the soul loses God, becomes insensitive, and falls into darkness, thinks of her own wretchedness and, thinking of it, is held fast to it. Being miserable, she thinks to Self; thinking of Self, she is bound to the solitude of Self--blank solitude without fixed objects to amuse, without fixed Beauty to lead higher, to restore, to calm. Is all this tantamount to saying that when separated from God Spirit-life is less desirable than earth-life? It is: for then we are "dead" to celestial-living, and in Spirit-life all other living is miserable living. Hence we see the dire necessity of the soul for a Saviour: the necessity of fixed forms, of time, of flesh (which is a fixed stay-point for the soul), of the Incarnation of the Saviour _in flesh_ in order that He may guide the soul amongst these fixed forms, Himself showing her which to choose and which to cast aside: we see the necessity of time in order that, though we have an ungodly thought, we have _time_ to repent and choose a better before, in a horrible rapidity, we are inevitably _become that which we had thought._ In this world, this stay-point for the soul, the most lost is enabled to enjoy and perceive Beauty and Goodness. How much more easy, then, to return to godly thoughts, to the Good, to God Himself! But though her Saviour is in this world so near to the soul, she does not always seek Him. He belongs to the Invisible. Intoxicated at finding herself amused amongst fixed objects which she enjoys lazily through fixed mediums of the five senses, she devotes herself to these objects, surrounds herself with them, forgets everything else. "It is harder for the rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." But she must abandon object-worship: this is not to say she is to deny the existence of objects, calling them unreal; she must despise no created object, for each is there to form for her an object-lesson. She has two choices: she can see the objects, remain satisfied with them, and seek no further. Or, she can see the objects, admire them, but seek beyond them for their Instigator and Creator. Now she is on the track of God. All is well.

But all this is not that Adam may recover his perfection, for when, and for how long, was Adam "Perfect"? We behold him sinning at the very first opportunity. In the Fall of Adam we see merely the continuation in the stay-point of time and of flesh, of the history of the fallen soul--sinning the same old sin, Self-will.

The way of return to God is the same way by which we came out from Him--reversed. We came away by means of greeds and curiosities imagined by Self-will. The return is by casting away these greeds, casting away all prides, all selfishness; and what self-loving soul is there that could or would, left alone to herself, conceive of following such a way of cruel necessities, of such hard endurance without an Example before her? For the way is a hard way, a toiling way, at times an awful way, and as we pursue it the burden grows heavier, the pain sharper: then it grows lighter as the soul becomes renewed; and the pain is no longer the pain of loneliness, of sin and sorrow, but becomes the pain of Love, waiting in certainty for an ultimate Reunion: it becomes pain which is being forgotten in the returning happiness of God.

But first must come the abandonment of Self-will, bit by bit, to the death. So we see upon the Cross Christ stripped of everything, and at the last stripped even of Union with the Father: consenting to bear the pains of even Spiritual Death: "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" If there could be any greater depth of pain, He would have shared that also with the wandering soul. So we are indeed one with Him in everything: and He with us.

In Spirit-life we meet the Ideas of God uncrystallised into any form. They penetrate the soul--she flashes to them, she becomes them, she reaches unimaginable heights of bliss by "becoming." This form of joy is incomprehensible until experienced: it is stupendous living, if it may be so expressed it is happiness at lightning velocity; but it is a lightning happiness which must flash to God. When it ceases to do this in a full manner, it ceases to be full happiness. When it becomes further perverted, diverted, and, finally, inverted, it ceases to be any happiness whatever. It is independent of surroundings: what it depends on is a perfect reciprocity with its own Source. That the laws which govern this Divine living will not be altered to suit wandering souls is not to be wondered at; but a new system may be called into being, and we may be able to perceive it in this world, evolved from first to last with its substance, forms, creatures, flesh, and time, in order to assist such wanderers. God _spends Himself_ for every wandering soul.

XII

Directly this world ceases to afford us pleasure, we wonder why we were born. The soul longs for happiness; feels certain she was created for it. So she is. Looking at the masses of drab, ugly, and unsuccessful lives around us, we may well ask what purpose and what progress is there in the lives of all these hopeless-looking people. But there is not one life that does not have brought before it, and into it, the opportunity of, and the invitation to, self-sacrifice, and in a greater or lesser degree this is accepted and responded to by all. There is far more soul-progress made by these grey-looking lives than would appear on the surface: they accept self-sacrifice--they accept Duty--all is well. Very much progress may not be made during the one earth-period of life, but some is made: we drifted away slowly from God; our return is slow.

XIII

Love is not the mere pleasant sentiment of the heart we are apt to consider it: it is _the animating principle of the soul,_ it is the reason and cause of her existence: it is a God-Force. When a soul does not love God she has ceased to respond to this Force; she is no longer a "sensitive" or _living_ soul: when she becomes insensitive, she has become what flesh is when it is "callous."

This insensitiveness is the one great predominating disease of the soul: it is the cause of the darkness in which the soul finds herself in this world: it is this which causes our unawareness of God and of Celestial-living. How can we commence to remedy this disastrous state? We can act nobly, we can be generous, doing what we do as though it were for love, although it is merely Duty which animates us. This will be more or less joyless, because love alone can make acts joyful; but though it may be joyless it will advance the soul immensely: it will advance her to the highest degrees required by God in order that He shall Retouch her. When He Retouches her she becomes reanimated, she once again commences to live for and because of love: she becomes "sensitive" to God. This Retouching may occur only after the soul is free of the body--but the body is the house in which our examination must be passed, in which we must prepare and qualify for this Retouching. Hence the importance of continuing to make every effort _in this life._ The soul which takes Christ into herself, loves Him, obeys Him, tries to copy Him, qualifies fully for this Retouching.

XIV

In early youth life may be, and often is, a joyous adventure: little by little we grow aghast at the amount of suffering which life really stands for--our own sufferings and those of others, of which, owing to our own pains, we gradually take more and more note. Why all this suffering? It appals, it frightens, it makes upon many hearts and minds a sinister impression: how is this suffering of innocents to be reconciled with the Benign Will of a God Who is Perfect Love? Let us cease thinking that indiscriminate suffering to creatures is the Will of God. What is it, then? It is the inevitable--the long drawn-out sequence to the soul's departure from God--the Source of Happiness.

To inhabit flesh is no paradise, but it is a means of regaining heaven. There is no misfortune, suffering, sorrow, disappointment, or pain, which is not consequent upon this departure of the soul from God. Are there here any truly "innocent" persons? To be here at all points to a fault of the soul, to infidelity to God--the "Original sin" in which we are born.

The beginning of Salvation is to think. Nothing causes us to think so much as sorrow, suffering, and pain; and they melt the heart also, and they humble pride. The man who has never suffered, and never loved, is more to be pitied than the paralytic: his chance of Life is remote.

How can we reasonably expect that the road back to our long-since forsaken God is to be smooth, pleasant, velvet-covered. What divides us from God? Is it happiness, beauty, and light? No--self-indulgence, rocks of evil, ugly greeds, places of sin and selfishness. Can we climb back through all this, most of it in darkness, without tears, without pain, without every kind of anguish?

Over this part of the road is no peace; but continue, and, little by little, peace comes.

* * *

We say that we must find Christ; but where, and how, shall we find this Mighty Lord, Who comes out from the Father to meet the Prodigal? Must we study in ecclesiastical colleges, travel to distant lands, visit holy places, kneel on celebrated sacred ground, kiss stones, attend ceremonies, look at bones?

No! Stand still! Just where we are is the place where we can meet Him. Just where we stand to-day can be as sacred, as blessed, as the Holy Land. Some little wood sprinkled with flowers, our own quiet room, an unknown, nameless hillside--these can be as holy as Mount Carmel, because He meets us there.

* * *

In all these experiences of the soul which has refound God, what is it that truly rejoices her? Is it the learning and knowledge that the pursuit of Truth may bring her to? She values Truth and knowledge because they lift her towards Him Whom she seeks and loves. Does the soul rejoice in ecstasies because they are ecstasies? No: what she values is the recaptured knowledge and certainty of heavenly living--in however small or brief a degree she is able to attain it in flesh: and because in the experience of ecstasy _she knows Him to Whom she belongs._

All other affairs become nothing whatever. Life on earth is now entirely a means of relearning how to please Him Whom she has found. Her concern is that she may quickly so prepare herself that she may behold Him for ever.

It may well be asked of a soul which claims to have found God, How does she know that she has encountered Him?

We have a Critical Faculty. It is above Reason, because it sifts and judges the findings of Reason, throwing out or retaining what Reason has deduced. This is a Higher-Soul faculty: it concerns itself solely with knowing Perfection. Reason is not occupied with knowing Perfection, but in analysing and digesting all alike that is brought to it.

It is to the Critical Faculty that art, poetry, and music appeal, and make their thought-suggestions. We do not enjoy music because of the noise, but because of the thoughts suggested by it--we float upon these emotion-thoughts (we may float low, we may float high, and do not know to where; but it is somewhere where we cannot get without the music), so we say we love the music; but it is the emotion-thoughts we love. The sound and the thoughts suggested by it appeal to the Critical Faculty of the Soul, and, if it is perfect enough to be accepted by this faculty, we may pass, for the time being, into soul-living, but only very delicately, tentatively, and nothing to be compared to the soul-living, produced by the Touch of God. When God communicates Himself to the soul, she lives in a manner never previously conceived of, reaching an experience of living in which every perfection is present to her as Being there in such unlimited abundance that the soul is overwhelmed by it and must fall back to less, because of insupportable excess of Perfections. This perfection of living is given, and is withdrawn, outside of her own will. Which is the more sane and reasonable--for the soul to think, I have invented and originated a new and _perfectly satisfying_ form of living; or for the soul to conclude that she has been admitted to the re-encounter of perfect- or Celestial-living? In this living are happenings which cannot be communicated, or even indicated to others, because they reach beyond words, beyond all or any other experience, beyond any possible previous imagination or expression of mind, beyond all particularisation; it is these occasions of experience which the Critical Faculty regards as being encounters with the Supreme Spirit, because they are complete; nothing is wanting; they afford life at its perfection point--a stupendous Felicity, and that _Repose_ in bliss for which all souls secretly long. It is the meeting of the Wisher with the Wished, of Desire with the Desired: and yet, being that which it is--unthinkable Fulfilment--it is above all, or any, Wishes, and beyond Desire; it can be known, but not named.

By these experiences the knowledge of the soul becomes enlightened two ways: she knows what bliss is; she knows the full calamity of life away from God--in flesh, in this world: not that flesh is not a wonderful Idea, not that the world is not greatly to be admired for its beauties, but the reawakened spirit desires spirit-living, cannot be pleased with earth-living, cannot be satisfied with less than God Himself. So, then, the logical consequence is that this world becomes a place we desire to take leave of as soon as may be. Life here becomes a punishment: not that Perfect Love desires to punish, but that the soul now knows that any form of life in which she is restricted from continual access to Him is a disaster, a profound grief.

XV

If the soul looks to God to comfort her, asks for His help, and gets it--and since communication with God is dependent upon some degree of like to like,--it follows that the soul must maintain a readiness to "give" to fellow-souls: to fail in this is to fail in any sort of resemblance to God. Hence we see how carefully Christ enjoined upon us to "Give to them that ask": and in no niggardly way either, but wholeheartedly, for "God loveth the cheerful giver."

If we say that we apprehend God by that which is not Mind, what reason have we for saying that it is not Reason which receives Him? Because for this living which God's touch causes us to share with Himself we find that Space, Infinity, and Eternity are required and Reason stands, and remains, uncomprehending and dumbfounded before all three. It is Spirit, the flash-point of the soul, which receives and transmits and which lives this living. As we have an heredity of flesh so we have also an heredity of Spirit which of its own nature comprehends the ways of God and the mode of God's living. In High Contemplation we find that if Reason attempts activity, nothing is consummated: she must submerge herself and wait: soon Reason discovers the wherefore of this--her activity is not the activity of That Other. Only by that which is like in activity can That Other be received: this "like" is not herself: finally she comes to know this "like" as a higher part of the soul--Spirit. When Spirit has received and given it to the soul, then it is afterwards the part of Reason to attack from every side that which has been received, to digest it, absorb it, and share it, in fact though not in act. According to the health and strength of Reason so we shall successfully deal with and use that with which the Spirit presents us. By comparison with the magnificent Spirit-Activity or Spirit-Intelligence the Reason is limited and frail as a new-born babe: this is no humiliation to Reason, since she should not be expected to accomplish that which is not her part.

Why do not all men apprehend God? It is very questionable if all men desire to do so, because in the recesses of each man's soul lies the consciousness that there will be some great price to pay.

But beyond this there arises the question, Is it desirable, price or no price, that all souls should come while still in flesh to immediate knowledge of, and contact with, God; and after long and close thinking the experienced soul will answer No, and Yes. No, in so far as the apprehension of the Godhead is concerned; Yes, and most vitally Yes, for Christians, in so far as Communion and Contact with Christ is concerned. Why this distinction? Because the apprehension of the Godhead is beyond the requirements of salvation and redemption, and the world and flesh were created for those purposes. Though there is no limit to the heights to which the soul may aspire, and all souls are invited eventually to behold the Face of God, if so be they shall be able to prepare themselves to endure Him, there are to a soul still in flesh the most terrible dangers in knowing the Fullness of God even so far as His Fullness may be Known to Flesh: never perhaps in all her history is the soul in such danger as she is after coming (in flesh) to the apprehension of the Godhead: and this danger may extend in an acute degree over a period of many years and can never be said to cease altogether. The Soul Knows and feels, when in its acute stage, this horrible danger without comprehending its exact cause and nature, but it has about it the feeling that a man might have standing balanced on a narrow pinnacle. Unapproachable, untouchable only so long as he remains upon the summit, the eyes of a thousand enemies watch for his smallest descent: they watch day and night. What alone can enable the Soul to maintain such a position? Hourly, often momently, Communion with Jesus Christ. What makes such perseverance likely or even possible on the soul's part? Only love can make it so.