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diff --git a/29450-h/29450-h.htm b/29450-h/29450-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..08b53d9 --- /dev/null +++ b/29450-h/29450-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3780 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Prodigal Returns, by Lilian Staveley</title> +<style type="text/css"> + body {margin-top:100px; + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align:justify} + hr { width: 100%; + height: 5px; } + a:link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:hover {color:red} + pre {font-size: 75%;} +</style> + +</head> + +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Prodigal Returns, by Lilian Staveley + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Prodigal Returns + +Author: Lilian Staveley + +Release Date: July 18, 2009 [EBook #29450] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRODIGAL RETURNS *** + + + + +Produced by Ruth Hart + + + + + +</pre> + +<center> +<h1>THE PRODIGAL RETURNS</h1> + +<h3>By</h3> + +<h3>Lilian Staveley</h3> +<br> +The Author of "The Golden Fountain" and "The Romance of the Soul" +<br> +<br> +<br> + +<p>London<br> +John M. Watkins<br> +21 Cecil Court, Charing Cross Road, W.C. 2<br> +1921</p><br> + +<p>CONTENTS</p><br> + +<table> +<tr> +<td align="right"></td> + +<td><a href="#1">Part I.</a></td> + +<td align="right">7</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right"></td> + +<td><a href="#2">Part II.</a></td> + +<td align="right">63</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right"></td> + +<td><a href="#3">Part III.</a></td> + +<td align="right">81</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right"></td> + +<td><a href="#4">Part IV.</a></td> + +<td align="right">102</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td align="right"></td> + +<td><a href="#5">Part V.</a></td> + +<td align="right">151</td> +</tr> +</table> +</center><br> +<a name="1"></a><br> +<br> + +<p>PART I</p> + +<p>Sunshine and a garden path . . . flowers . . . the face and neck and bosom of +the nurse upon whose heart I lay, and her voice telling me that she must leave +me, that we must part, and immediately after anguish—blotting out the sunshine, +the flowers, the face, the voice. This is my first recollection of Life—the pain +of love. I was two years old.</p> + +<p>Nothing more for two years—and then the picture of a pond and my baby brother +floating on it, whilst with agonised hands I seized his small white coat and +held him fast.</p> + +<p>And then a meadow full of long, deep grass and summer flowers, and +I—industriously picking buttercups into a tiny petticoat to take to cook, "to +make the butter with," I said.</p> + +<p>And then a table spread for tea. Our nurses, my two brothers, and myself. +Angry words and screaming baby voices, a knife thrown by my little brother. Rage +and hate.</p> + +<p>And then a wedding, and I a bridesmaid, aged five years—the church, the +altar, and great awe, and afterwards a long white table, white flowers, and a +white Bride. Grown men on either side of me—smilingly delightful, tempting me +with sweets and cakes and wine, and a new strange interest rising in me like a +little flood of exultation—the joy of the world, and the first faint breath of +the mystery of sex.</p> + +<p>Then came winters of travel. Sunshine and mimosa, olive trees against an +azure sky. Climbing winding, stony paths between green terraces, tulips and +anemones and vines; white sunny walls and lizards; green frogs and deep wells +fringed around with maidenhair. Mountains and a sea of lapis blue, and early in +the mornings from this lapis lake a great red sun would rise upon a sky of +molten gold. In the rooms so near me were my darling brothers, from whom I often +had to part. Beauty and Joy, and Love and Pain—these made up life.</p> + +<p>At ten I twice narrowly escaped death. From Paris we were to take the second +or later half of the train to Marseilles. Late the night before my father +suddenly said, "I have changed my mind; I feel we must go by the first train." +This was with some difficulty arranged.</p> + +<p>On reaching an immense bridge across a deep ravine I suddenly became acutely +aware that the bridge was about to give way. In a terrible state of alarm I +called out this fearful fact to my family. I burst into tears. I suffered +agonies. My mother scolded me, and when we safely reached the other side of the +bridge I was severely taken to task for my behaviour. The bridge broke with the +next train over it—the train in which we should have been. Some four hundred +people perished. It was the most terrible railway disaster that had ever +occurred in France.</p> + +<p>A few weeks later, death came nearer still. Having escaped from our tutor, +with a party of other children we ran to two great reservoirs to fish for frogs. +Laughing and talking and full of childish joy, we fished there for an hour, when +all at once I was impelled, under an extraordinary sense of pressure, to call +out, "If anyone falls into the water, no one must jump in to save them, but must +immediately run to those long sticks" (I had never noticed them until I spoke) +"and draw one out and hold it to whoever has fallen in." I spoke automatically, +and felt as much surprised as my companions that I should speak of such a thing.</p> + +<p>Within five minutes I had fallen in myself. My brother remembered my words, +but before he could reach me with the stick I was under the water for the third +and last time. It was all that they could do to drag my weight up to the ledge, +for the water was a yard below it. Had my brother jumped in, as he said he most +surely would have done had I not forewarned him, we must both have been drowned, +for they would have had neither the strength nor the time to pull us both out +alive. I was not at all frightened or upset till I heard someone say that I was +dead; then I wept—it was so sad to be dead! The pressure put upon me to speak as +I did had been so great that I have never forgotten the strange impression of it +to this day. On both these occasions I consider that I was under immediate +Divine protection.</p> + +<p>I believed earnestly in God with the complete and peaceful faith of +childhood. I thought of Him, and was afraid: but more afraid of a great Angel +who stood with pen and book in hand and wrote down all my sins. This terrible +Angel was a great reality to me. I prayed diligently for those I loved. +Sometimes I forgot a name: then I would have to get out of bed and add it to my +prayer. As I grew older, if the weather were cold I did not pray upon the floor +but from my bed, because it was more comfortable. I was not always sure if this +were quite right, but I could not concentrate my mind on God if my body was +cold, because then I could not forget my body.</p> + +<p>I saw God very plainly when I shut my eyes! He was a White Figure in white +robes on a white throne, amongst the clouds. He heard my prayers as easily as I +saw His robes. He was by no means very far away, though sometimes He was further +than at others. He took the trouble to make everything very beautiful: and He +could not bear sinful children. The Angel with the Book read out to Him my +faults in the evenings.</p> + +<p>When I was twelve years old my grandmother died, and for three months I was +in real grief. All day I mourned for her, and at night I looked out at the +stars, and the terrible mystery of death and space and loneliness struck at my +childish heart.</p> + +<p>After thirteen I could no longer be taken abroad to hotels, for my parents +considered that I received too much attention, too many presents, too many +chocolates from men. I was educated by a governess, and was often very lonely. +My brothers would come back from school; then I overflowed with happiness and +sang all day long in my heart with joy. The last night of the holidays was a +time of anguish. Upstairs the clothes were packed. Downstairs I helped them pack +the "play-boxes," square deal boxes at sight of which tears sprang to my eyes +and a dreadful pain gripped my heart. Oh, the pain of love at parting! there +never was a pain so terrible as suffering love. The last meal: the last hour: +the last look. There are natures which feel this anguish more than others. We +are not all alike.</p> + +<p>I had been passionately fond of dolls. Now I was too old for such companions, +and when my brothers went away I was completely alone with my governess and my +lessons. I fell into the habit of dreaming. In these dreams I evolved a +companion who was at the same time myself—and yet not an ordinary little girl +like myself, but a marvellous creature of unlimited possibilities and virtues. +She even had wings and flew with such ease from the tops of the highest +buildings, and floated so delightfully over my favourite fields and brooks that +I found it hard to believe that I myself did not actually fly. What glorious +things we did together, what courage we had, nothing daunted us! I cared very +little to read books of adventure, for our own adventures were more wonderful +than anything I ever read.</p> + +<p>Not only had I wings, but when I was my other self I was extremely good, and +the Angel with the Book was then never able to make a single adverse record of +me. And then how easy it was to be good: how delightful, no difficulties +whatever! As we both grew older the actual wings were folded up and put away. +The virtues remained, but we led an intensely interesting life, and a certain +high standard of life was evolved which was afterwards useful to me.</p> + +<p>When, later on, I grew up and my parents allowed me to have as many friends +as I wanted, and when I became exceedingly gay, I still retained the habit of +this double existence; it remained with me even after my marriage and kept me +out of mischief. If I found myself temporarily dull or in some place I did not +care for, clothed in the body of my double, like the wind, I went where I +listed. I would go to balls and parties, or with equal ease visit the mountains +and watch the sunset or the incomparable beauties of dawn, making delicate +excursions into the strange, the wonderful, and the sublime. I gathered crystal +flowers in invisible worlds, and the scent of those flowers was Romance.</p> + +<p>All this vivid imagination sometimes made my mind over-active: I could not +sleep. "Count sheep jumping over a hurdle," I was advised. But it did not +answer. I found the most effective way was to think seriously of my worst +sins—my mind immediately slowed down, became a discreet blank—I slept!</p> + +<p>I grew tall and healthy. At sixteen I received my first offer of marriage and +with it my first vision of the love and passion of men. I recoiled from it with +great shyness and aversion. Yet I became deeply interested in men, and remained +so for very many years. From that time on I never was without a lover till my +marriage.</p> + +<p>II</p> + +<p>At seventeen my "lessons" came to an end. I had not learnt much, but I could +speak four languages with great fluency. I learnt perhaps more from listening to +the conversation of my father and his friends. He had always been a man of +leisure and was acquainted with many of the interesting and celebrated people of +the day, both in England and on the Continent. I was devoted to him, and +whenever he guided my character he did so with the greatest judgment. He taught +me above all things the need of self-control, and never to make a remark of a +fellow-creature unless I had something pleasant or kind to say. There was no +subject upon which he was unread; and when my brothers, who were both +exceedingly clever, returned from college and the University, wonderful and +brilliant were the discussions that went on. Both my parents were of Huguenot +descent, belonging to the old French noblesse. I think the Latin blood had +sharpened their brains, and certainly gave an extra zest to life.</p> + +<p>My father was a great believer in heredity, and the following personal +experience may show him somewhat justified in his belief. In quite early +childhood I commenced to feel a preference for the <i>left</i> side of my body: +I washed, dried, and dressed the left side first; I preserved it carefully from +all harm; I kept it warm. I was, comparatively speaking, totally indifferent to +my right side.</p> + +<p>As I grew older I observed that the place of honour was upon the right-hand +side: I understood that God had made the world and ruled it with His right hand! +I was wrong, then, in preferring my left hand. I determined to change over. It +was very difficult to do: so deep was the instinct that it took me some years to +eradicate the love for my left side and transfer it to my right, and when I had +at last accomplished it I was still liable to go back to my first preference. No +one ever detected my peculiarity.</p> + +<p>I was already eighteen or nineteen years old when one day I entered my +father's room, ready dressed to go out. I had on both my gloves. Suddenly I +remembered that I had put on my left glove first. Immediately I took off both my +gloves—then I replaced the right one, and then the left. My father was watching +me and asked me for an explanation. I gave it him, and he looked very grave, +almost alarmed. After a moment of silence he said, "I want you to give that +habit up—I want you to break yourself of it immediately. I had it myself as a +youth: it took me years to conquer. No one should permit himself to be the slave +of <i>any</i> habit."</p> + +<p>I asked him which side he had loved. "The <i>left</i> side," he said. At +five-and-twenty he had conquered the habit, and I was not born till he was +almost sixty-one! yet I had inherited it. We never referred to it again, and in +two years I, also, had conquered it.</p> + +<p>We spent the winter of the year in which I was seventeen in Italy, to which +country a near relative was Ambassador, and there I went to my first ball. That +night—and how often afterwards!—I knew the surging exultation, the intoxication +of the joy of life. How often in social life, in brilliant scenes of light and +laughter, music and love, I seemed to ride on the crest of a wave, in the +marvellous glamour of youth!</p> + +<p>This love of the world and of social life was a very strong feeling for many +years: at the same time and running, as it were, in double harness with it was a +necessity for solitude. My mind imperatively demanded this, and indeed my heart +too.</p> + +<p>It was during this year that I first commenced a new form of mental pleasure +through looking at the beautiful in Nature. Not only solitude, but total silence +was necessary for this pastime, and, if possible, beauty and a distant view: +failing a view I could accomplish it by means of the beauties of the sky. This +form of mental pleasure was the exact opposite of my previous dreamings, for all +imagination absolutely ceased, all forms, all pictures, all activities +disappeared—the very scene at which I looked had to vanish before I could know +the pleasure of this occupation in which, in some mysterious manner, I inhaled +the very essence of the Beautiful.</p> + +<p>At first I was only able to remain in this condition for a few moments at a +time, but that satisfied me—or, rather, did not satisfy me, for through it all +ran a strange unaccountable anguish—a pain of longing—which, like a high, fine, +tremulous nerve, ran through the joy. What induced me to pursue this habit, I +never asked myself. That it was a form of the spirit's struggle towards the +Eternal—of the soul's great quest of God—never occurred to me. I was worshipping +the Beautiful without giving sufficient thought to Him from Whom all beauty +proceeds. Half a lifetime was to go by before I realised to what this habit was +leading me—that it was the first step towards the acquirement of that most +exquisite of all blessings—the gift of the Contemplation of God. Ah, if anyone +knows in his heart the call of the Beautiful, let him use it towards this +glorious end! Love, and the Beautiful—these are the twin golden paths that lead +us all to God.</p> + +<p>III</p> + +<p>Certainly we were not a religious family. One attendance at church upon +Sunday—if it did not rain!—and occasionally the Communion, this was the extent +of any outward religious feeling. But my father's daily life and acts were full +of Christianity. A man of a naturally somewhat violent temper, he had so brought +himself under control that towards everyone, high and low, he had become all +that was sweet and patient, sympathetic and gentle.</p> + +<p>About this time a devouring curiosity for knowledge commenced to possess me. +What was the truth—what was the truth about every single thing I saw? Astronomy, +Biology, Geology—in these things I discovered a new and marvellous interest: +here at last I found my natural bent. History had small attraction for me: it +spoke of the doings of people mostly vain or cruel, and untruthful. I wanted +truth—irrefutable facts! No scientific work seemed too difficult for me; but I +never, then or later, read anything upon the subject of religion, philosophy, or +psychology. I had a healthy, wholesome young intelligence with a voracious +appetite: it would carry me a long way, I thought. It did—it landed me in +Atheism.</p> + +<p>To a woman Atheism is intolerable pain: her very nature, loving, tender, +sensitive, clinging, demands belief in God. The high moral standard demanded of +her is impossible of fulfilment for mere reasons of race-welfare. The personal +reason, the Personal God—these are essential to high virtue. Young as I was, I +realised this. Outwardly I was frivolous; inwardly I was no butterfly, the deep +things of my nature were by no means unknown to me. I not only became profoundly +unrestful at heart but I was fearful for myself, and of where strong forces of +which I felt the pull might lead me. I had great power over the emotions of men: +moreover, interests and instincts within me corresponded to this dangerous +capacity. I felt that the world held many strange fires: some holy and +beautiful; some far otherwise.</p> + +<p>Without God I knew myself incapable of overcoming the evil of the world, or +even of my own petty nature and entanglements. I despaired, for I perceived that +God does not reveal Himself because of an imperious demand of the human mind, +and I had yet to learn that those mysteries which are under lock and key to the +intelligence are open to the heart and soul. But indeed there was no God to +reveal Himself. All was a fantastic make-believe! a pitiful childish invention +and illusion!</p> + +<p>My intelligence said, "Resign yourself to what is, after all, the truth: +console yourself with the world and material achievements." The heart said, +"Resignation is impossible, for there is no consolation to the heart without +God." I listened to my heart rather than my intelligence, and for two terrible +years I fought for faith. I was always reserved, and never admitted anyone into +the deep things of my life—but when I was twenty my father perceived that I was +going through some inward crisis. He knew the books that I read, and probably +guessed what had happened to me. At any rate he called me into his room one day +and asked me, out of love and obedience to himself, to give up reading all +science. This was an overwhelming blow to me: yet I loved him dearly, and had +never disobeyed him in my life. Again I let my heart speak; and I sacrificed my +mind and my books.</p> + +<p>I threw myself now more than ever into social amusements, and in my solitary +hours sought consolation in my "dream-life." I was afraid to turn to the love of +Nature—to my beautiful pastime,—for the pain in it was unbearable.</p> + +<p>Towards the end of two years my struggles for faith commenced to find a +reward. Little by little a faint hope crept into my mind—fragile, often +imperceptible. A questioning remark made by my younger brother helped me: "If +human life is entirely material and a part of Nature only, then what becomes of +human thoughts and aspirations?" Science had proved to me that nothing is +lost—but has a destiny—in that it evolves into another form or condition of +activity. Evolution! with its many seeming contradictions to Religion—might it +not be merely a strong light, too strong as yet for my weak mind, blinding me +into temporary darkness? What raised Man above the beasts but his thoughts and +aspirations; and if even a grain of dust were imperishable, were these thoughts +and aspirations of Man alone to end in nothing—to be lost! It was but a +reasonable inference to say No. These invisible thoughts and aspirations have +also a future—a destiny in a, to us, still invisible world—in the Life of the +Spirit. To this my mind was able to agree. It was a step. In the realm of Ideal +Thought I might find again my Faith. I had indeed been foolish to suppose that a +system which provided for the continuation of a grain of sand should overlook +the Spirit of Man. This was presupposing the existence of a spirit in Man; but +who could be found to truly and reasonably hold that the mysterious high and +soaring thoughts of Man were one and the same thing as mere animalism? they were +too obviously of another nature to the merely bovine, to the solids of the +flesh: for one thing, they were free of the law of gravity which so entirely +overrules the rest of Nature—they must therefore come to their destiny in +another world, another condition of consciousness.</p> + +<p>IV</p> + +<p>That winter we again spent in Italy, in continuous gaiety amongst a brilliant +cosmopolitan world of men and women who for the most part lived in palaces, +surrounded with art and luxury. Here in Rome on every side was to be found the +Cult of the Beautiful. Wonderful temples, gems of classical sculpture, +masterpieces of colour in oil and fresco—the genius and the aspirations of men +rendered permanent for us by Art; but the Temples, those silent emblems of man's +worship of an Unknown God, with their surroundings of lovely nature, affected me +far the most deeply: indeed, I do not pretend that sculptures and pictures +affected me at all. I was interested, I greatly admired—they were a part of +education, but that was all. But in the vicinity of those Temples what strange +echoes awoke in me, what mysterious sadness and longing, what a mystery of pain! +Something within me sighed and moaned for God. If I could but find Him—if I +could even truly Believe and be at peace! But already I had commenced to +Believe.</p> + +<p>During the late winter we went to one of the great ceremonies at the Vatican: +we had seats in the Sistine Chapel. It was an especial occasion, and the number +of persons present was beyond all seating accommodation. To make way for someone +of importance I was asked to give up my seat and go outside into the body of the +great Cathedral; here I was hurriedly pushed into the second row of a huge +concourse of waiting and standing people. Already in the distance the Pope was +approaching. Lifted high in his chair on the shoulders of his bearers, he came +slowly along in his white robes, his hand raised in a general blessing upon all +this multitude. As he came nearer I saw the delicate ivory face—the great dark +eyes shining with a fire I had never seen before. For the first time in my life +I saw holiness. I was moved to the depths of my being. Something in my gaze +arrested his attention; he had his chair stopped immediately above me, and, +leaning over me, he blessed me individually—a very great concession during a +large public ceremony. I ought to have gone down on my knees—but I had no knees! +I no longer had a body! There was no longer anything anywhere in the world but +Holiness—and my enraptured soul.</p> + +<p>Holiness, then, was far beyond the Beautiful. I had not known this till I saw +it before me.</p> + +<p>Life hurried me on: glowing hours and months succeeded each other. In the +autumn I fell in love. I came to the consciousness of this, not gradually, but +all in one instant. I had no chance of drawing back, for it was already fully +completed before I realised it. I came to the realisation of it through a dream +(sleep-dreams were always exceedingly rare with me): on this occasion I dreamed +a friend showed me the picture of a girl to whom she said this lover (he had +been my lover for a year) was engaged. I awoke, sobbing with anguish. I could +not disguise from myself the fact that I must be in love. When the time came to +speak of it to my parents, my mother would not hear of the marriage—there was no +money: I must make another choice. Two brilliant opportunities offered +themselves—money—position; but I could not bring myself to think of either. Love +was everything: a prolonged secret engagement followed. I went into Society just +as before. At this time an aptitude for "fortune-telling" showed itself: it +amused my friends—I told fortunes both by palmistry, which I studied quite +seriously, and by cards. With both I went largely by inspiration. I found this +"inspiration" varied with the individual. There were many persons to whom I +could give the most extraordinarily accurate details of past, present, and +future; others moderately so; others were a total blank, in which case I either +had to remain silent or "try to make up." I got such a reputation for this—I was +so sought after for it by even total strangers—that in a couple of years I +pushed it all far away from me as an intolerable nuisance.</p> + +<p>V</p> + +<p>The Faith that had been growing up in me was of a very different form from +that which I had had before: wider, purer, infinitely more powerful, and, though +I did not like to remember the pain of them, I felt that those struggling years +of doubt and negation had been worth while—without those struggles I felt I +never could have had so powerful a faith as I now had. God was at an indefinite +and infinite distance, but His Existence was a thing of complete certainty for +me.</p> + +<p>Of the mode and means of Connection with Him I had no smallest knowledge or +even conception. I addressed Him with words from the brain and the lips. An +insuperable wall perpetually separated me from Him.</p> + +<p>Now my father became ill with heart trouble. Doctors, nurses, all the dreaded +paraphernalia of sickness pervaded the house. During two terrible years he +lingered on. Heart-broken at the sight of his sufferings, I hardly left his +bedside. Finally death released him. But my health, which had always been good, +was now completely broken down; I became a semi-invalid, always suffering, too +delicate to marry. Under pressure of this continued wretchedness I sank into a +nerveless condition of mere dumb endurance—a passive acceptance of the miseries +of life "as willed by God," I assured myself.</p> + +<p>I entered a stagnant state of <i>mere</i> resignation, whereas accompanying +the resignation there should have been a forward-piercing endeavour to reach out +and attain a higher spiritual level through Jesus Christ: a persistent effort to +light my lamp at the Spiritual Flame to which each must <i>bring his own lamp,</i> +for it is not lit for him by the mere outward ceremony of Baptism—that ceremony +is but the Invitation to come to the Light: for each one individually, <i>in +full consciousness of desire,</i> that lighting must be obtained from the +Saviour. I had not obtained this light. I did not comprehend that it was +necessary. I understood nothing; I was a spiritual savage. Vague, miserable +thoughts, gloomy self-introspections, merely fatigue the vitality without +assisting the soul. What is required is a persistent endeavour to establish an +inwardly felt relationship first to the Man Jesus. His Personality, His +Characteristics are to be drawn into the secret places of the heart by means of +the natural sympathy which plays between two hearts that both know love and +suffering, and hope and dejection. Sympathy established—love will soon follow. +Later, an iron energy to overcome will be required. The supreme necessity of the +soul before being filled with love is to maintain the will of the whole +spiritual being in conformity with the Will of God. In the achievement of this +she is under incessant assistance: in fact everything in the spiritual life is a +gift—as in the physical: for who can produce his own sight or his own growth? In +the physical these are automatic—in the spiritual they are accomplished only, as +it were, "by request," and this request a deep all-pervading desire.</p> + +<p>We cannot of our own will climb the spiritual heights, neither can we climb +them without using our will. It is Will flowing towards Will which carries us by +the power of Jesus Christ to the Goal.</p> + +<p>VI</p> + +<p>With recovered health, I married, and knew great happiness; but as a bride of +four months I had to part from my husband, who went to the South African War. +Always, always this terrible pain of love that must part. Always it was love +that seemed to me the most beautiful thing in life, and always it was love that +hurt me most. He was away for fifteen months. I made no spiritual advance +whatever. Mystified by so much pain, I now began to regard God if not as the +actual Author of all pain, at any rate as the Permitter of all pain. More and +more I fell back in alarm at the discovery of the depths of my own capacities +for suffering. A tremendous fear of God now commenced to grow up in me, which so +increased that after a few years I listened with astonishment when I heard +people say they were afraid of <i>any</i> person, even a burglar! I could no +longer understand feeling fear for anyone or anything save God. All my actions +were now governed solely by this sense of weighty, immediate fear of Him. This +continued for some ten years.</p> + +<p>When my husband at last returned from the War we took up again our happy +married life, and we lived together without a cross word, in a wonderful world +of our own, as lovers do. It was remarkable that we were so happy, for we had no +interests in common. My husband loved all sports and all games, whereas interest +in those things was frankly incomprehensible to me. In the winter, when he was +out in the hunting-field, I spent much time by myself; but I was never dull, for +I could walk out amongst Nature and indulge in my pastime, if the weather were +fine: and if not, I could observe and admire everything that grew and lived +close at hand in the hedgerows and fields, and I would work for hours with my +needle, for then I could think; I worked hard in the garden.</p> + +<p>A dreadful question now often presented itself to me: Had I really a soul at +all, or was I merely a passing shadow, here momentarily for God's amusement? If +I had an eternal soul, where did it live—in my head with my brain as a higher +part of my mind?</p> + +<p>Men had souls, I was sure of that; and they asserted the possession of them +very positively—but women? I understood Mahomed grudgingly granted them a +half-soul, and that only conditionally. Scriptures spoke harshly of women; Paul +was bitter against them; all the sins and troubles of the world were laid upon +their delicate and beautiful shoulders. In Revelation I found no mention +whatever of Woman in the life of the Resurrection.</p> + +<p>All this hurt me. What profound injustice—to suffer so much and to receive no +recognition whatever whilst men walked off with all the joys after leading very +questionable lives! Why continue to struggle to please God when His interest in +me would so soon be over? I went through very real and great spiritual +sufferings, and temptations to throw myself again solely into world-interests, +to console myself with the here and now, for I had the means: it was all to my +hand. I swayed to and fro: at one time I felt very hard towards God, terribly +hurt by this love-betrayal. But when I looked at the beauties of Nature and the +glories of that endless sky, ah, my heart melted with tenderness and admiration +for the marvellous Maker of it all. Truly, He was worthy of any sacrifice upon +my part. If my poor, tiny, suffering life afforded Him amusement, I was willing +to have it so. After all—for what wretched, ugly, and miserable men women +frequently sacrificed themselves without getting any other reward for it than +neglect and indifference. How much better to sacrifice oneself to the +All-Perfect, All-Beautiful God!</p> + +<p>I finally resigned myself entirely and completely to this point of view, and, +having done so, I thus addressed, in all reverence and earnestness, the Deity:—</p> + +<p>"Almighty God, if it is Thy Will to blot out Woman from Paradise I most +humbly assure Thee of this—Man will miss her sorely; and Thou Thyself, Almighty +God, when Thou dost visit Paradise, wilt miss her also!"</p> + +<p>After this I seldom said any private prayers, for I was not of the Acceptable +Sex. But I paid a public respect to God in the church, where I worshipped Him +with profound reverence and great sadness. But I thought of Him in my heart +constantly, with all those tender, loving, longing thoughts which are the +heart's bouquet held out to God.</p> + +<p>Happiness for me, then, must be found entirely in this world, and I found it +in my love for my husband. Happiness was that which the whole world was looking +for; but I could not fail to notice more and more the ridiculous picture +presented by Society in its pretences of being the means of finding this +happiness. None of its ardent devotees were "happy" people; they were excited, +egotistical, intensely vain and selfish, often bitter and disappointed, filled +with a demon of competition, jealous, and full of empty, insincere smiles. I +perceived the chagrins from which they secretly suffered—the tears behind the +laughter. I was not in the least deceived or impressed by any of them, but +wondered how they managed to hang together and deceive each other. More and more +I looked for purely mental pleasures. Mind was everything. I now began to +despise my body—I almost hated it as an incubus! Social successes or failures +grew to be a matter of complete indifference to me, and social life resolved +itself into being solely the means of bringing mind into contact with mind. The +question of fashionable environment ceased to exist for me, but the question of +how and where to meet with thinking minds was what concerned me: it was not an +easy one to solve in the usual conditions of country life, with its sports and +its human-animal interests.</p> + +<p>Finally, total mental solitude closed around me. In spite of my doubt as to +the existence of a woman-soul, I still felt the same piercing desire and need +for God—the acquisition of knowledge in no way lessened this pain. What, after +all, is knowledge by itself? The light of the highest human intelligence seems +hardly greater than the wan lamp of a diminutive glow-worm, surrounded by the +vastness of the night. In sorrow, in trouble, in pain, could knowledge or the +mind do so much more for me than the despised body? No, something more than the +intelligence was needed to give life any sense of adequacy: even human love was +insufficient. God Himself was needed, and the ever-recurring necessity would +force itself upon me of the need for a personal direct connection with God.</p> + +<p>I continued to find it utterly impossible to achieve this. Mere faith by no +means fulfilled my requirements. God, then, remained inaccessible—the mind fell +back from every attempt to reach Him. He was unknowable, yet not +unthinkable—that is to say, He was not unthinkable as Being, but only in +particularisation and in realisation. I could know Him to Be; but in that alone +where was any consolation?—I found it totally inadequate. It was some form of +personal Contact that was needed; but if my mind failed to reach this, with what +else should I reach it? Ah, I was infinitely too small for this terrible +mystery; but, small as I was, how I could suffer! Why this suffering? Why would +He not show Himself? Harsh, rebellious, criticising thoughts frequently invaded +me: the whole scheme of Nature and of life at times appeared cruel, unreasonably +so. All the old ever-to-be-repeated cycle of bitter human thoughts had to be +gone all through again in my own individual atom. Here and there the bitterness +might vary: as, for instance, the collapse and corruption of the body with its +hideous finale never caused me distress. I had become too indifferent to the +body; but I found that most persons clung to it with extraordinary tenacity, +indeed appeared to regard it as their most valuable possession! What I did +resent, and was deeply mystified by, was the capacity for suffering and pain +which had no balance in any corresponding joy. It was idle to say that the joy +of festivities, even of human love, equalled the anguish of grief over others, +or the sufferings of physical ill-health. They did not counterbalance it; sorrow +was more weighty than joy, and far more durable. Later I became convinced that +there did exist a full equivalent of joy, as against pain, and that I merely had +no knowledge of how to find it.</p> + +<p>Years succeeded each other in this way, bringing greater loosening of +earth-ties, more abstraction, certainly no improvement of character.</p> + +<p>My husband's duties as a soldier took us to many parts of the world. During a +visit to Africa I was struck by lightning, and for ten days my sufferings were +almost unendurable; every nerve seemed electrocuted. It was long before I quite +recovered. Whilst this illness lasted, though it caused him no inconvenience and +he led his life exactly as usual, I yet noticed a change in my husband's love. I +was deeply pained, almost horrified, by this revelation of the natural +imperfection of human love: profoundly saddened, I asked myself was it nothing +but lust which had inspired and dictated all the poems of the world? I thought +more and more of Jesus' love; I began to know that nothing less than His perfect +love could satisfy me. In this illness I was tremendously alone.</p> + +<p>VII</p> + +<p>I commenced to meditate upon the life and the character and the love of Jesus +Christ. I was now about thirty-six. Gradually He became for me a secret +Mind-Companion. I began to rely upon this companionship—though it appeared +intensely one-sided, for at first it seemed always to be I who gave! +Nevertheless I found a growing calm arising from this apparently so one-sided +friendship. A subtle assistance and comfort came to me, it was impossible to say +how, yet it came from this companionship as it came from nothing else.</p> + +<p>That Jesus Christ was God I knew to be the faith of the Church, but that He +actually was so I felt no conviction of whatever: indeed, it was +incomprehensible to me. I thought of Him as a Perfect Man, with divine powers. +He was my Jesus. I denied nothing, for I was far too small and ignorant to +venture to do so: I kept a perfectly open mind and loved Him for Himself, as the +Man Jesus.</p> + +<p>This went on for some years. In all my spiritual advancement I was incredibly +slow!</p> + +<p>What had delayed me in progress was lack of using the right Procedure and the +right Prayer. I sought for God with persistence and great longing; but I sought +Him as the Father, and the Godhead is inaccessible to the creature. On becoming +truly desirous of finding God it is necessary that with great persistence we +pray the Father in the name of Jesus Christ that He will give us to Jesus Christ +and nil the heart and mind with love for Christ. Only through Jesus Christ can +we find the Godhead, and we cannot be satisfied with less than the Godhead. With +the creature we cannot come into contact with the Godhead—but with the soul +only. The soul is awakened, revived, reglorified by Grace of Jesus Christ; and +the Holy Spirit effects the repentance and conversion of the heart and mind, for +without this conversion towards a spiritual life the soul remains in bondage to +the unconverted creature.</p> + +<p>VIII</p> + +<p>One day I returned from a walk, and hardly had I entered my room when I +commenced thinking with great nearness and intimacy of Jesus; and suddenly, with +the most intense vividness, He presented Himself before my consciousness so that +I inwardly perceived Him, and at once I was overcome by a great agony of remorse +for my unworthiness: it was as though my heart and mind broke in pieces and +melted in the stress of this fearful pain, which continued—increased—became +unendurable, and lasted altogether an hour. Too ignorant to know that this was +the pain of Repentance, I did not understand what had happened to me; but now +indeed at least I knew beyond a doubt that I had a soul! My wonderful Lord had +come to pay me a visit, and I was not fit to receive Him—hence my agony. I would +try with all my strength to improve myself for Him.</p> + +<p>I was at first at a standstill to know even where to commence in this +improvement, for words fail to describe what I now saw in myself! Up till now I +had publicly confessed myself a sinner, and privately calmly thought of myself +as a sinner, but without being disturbed by it or perceiving how I was one! I +kept the commandments in the usual degree and way, and was conscientious in my +dealings with others. Now all at once—by this Presentment of Himself before my +soul—which had lasted for no more than one moment of time—I suddenly, and with +terrible clearness, saw the whole insufferable offensiveness of myself.</p> + +<p>For some time, even for some weeks, I remained like a person half-stunned +with astonishment. Then I determined to try to become less selfish, less +irritable and impatient, to show far more consideration for everyone else, to be +rigidly truthful: in fact, try to commence an alteration.</p> + +<p>For one thing—about telling lies—I had always been quite truthful in large +things, but often told some social lies for my own convenience, and sometimes +told them for no reason at all! This spontaneous Evil filled me with more +astonishment than shame; whence did this Evil come? I could never account for +this strange Intruder which seemed to have a separate life and will of its own, +and which, with no conscious invitation upon my part, would suddenly visit me! +and <i>in all manner of shapes and ways!</i> But whatever my difficulties, I had +always this immense incentive—to please my Jesus, tender and wonderful, my +Perfect Friend.</p> + +<p>Two years went by, and on Easter morning, at the close of the service as I +knelt in prayer in the church, He suddenly presented Himself again before my +soul, and again I saw myself, and again I went down and down into those terrible +abysses of spiritual pain; and I suffered more than I suffered the first time: +indeed, I have never had the courage to quite fully recall the full depths of +this anguish to mind.</p> + +<p>After this my soul knew Jesus as Christ the Son of God, and my heart and mind +accepted this without any further wonder or question, and entirely without +knowing how this knowledge had been given, for it came as a gift.</p> + +<p>A great repose now commenced to fill me, and the world and all its interests +and ways seemed softly and gently blown out of my heart by the wings of a great +new love, my love for the Risen Christ.</p> + +<p>Though outwardly my friends might see no change, yet inwardly I was secretly +changing month by month. Even the great love I had for my husband began to fade: +this caused me distress; I thought I was growing heartless, and yet it was +rather that my heart had grown so large that no man could fill it! I felt within +me an immense, incomprehensible capacity for love, and the whole world with all +its contents seemed totally, even absurdly, inadequate to satisfy this great +capacity. I suffered over it without understanding it.</p> + +<p>IX</p> + +<p>I had a garden full of old-fashioned flowers, surrounded by high walls with +thatch. As I grew in my heart more and more away from the world, I worked more +in the garden, and whilst I worked I thought mostly about God—God so far away +and hidden, and yet so near my heart.</p> + +<p>There were many different song-birds in the garden, and one robin. I loved +the robin best of all. His song was not so beautiful as the blackbird's or so +mellow as the thrush's; but they hid and ran away from me, whilst the robin +sought me out and stayed with me and sang me, all to myself, a little, tiny, +gentle song of which I never grew tired. If I stayed quite still, he came so +close he almost touched me; but if I moved towards him, he flew away in a great +fright.</p> + +<p>It seemed to me I was like that robin, and I wanted to come close, close to +the feet of God. But He would not let me find Him. He would not make me any +sign. He would not let me feel I knew Him. Did He in His wisdom know that if He +showed Himself too openly I should go mad with fear or joy? I could not tell. +But every day as the robin sang to me in the garden I sang to God a little +gentle song out of my heart—a song to the hidden God Who called me, and when I +answered Him would not be found, and, still remaining hidden, called and called +till I was dumb with the pain and wonder of this mystery.</p> + +<p>Then suddenly came the Great War. My husband was amongst the first to have to +go. All my love for him which I had thought to be fading now rose up again to +its full strength: it was no mere weakly sentiment, but a powerful type of human +love which had been able to carry me through fifteen years of married life +without one hour of quarrelling; its roots were deep into my heart and mind: the +very strength and perfection of it but made of it a greater instrument for +torture. Why should this most beautiful of all human emotions carry with it so +heavy a penalty, for which no remedy appeared to exist? It had not then been +made clear to me that all human loves must first be offered up and ascend into +the love of God: then only are they freed from this Pain-Tax. God must first be +All in All to us before we can enter amongst the number who are all in all to +Him—constantly consoled by Him. This condition of being all in all is demanded +as a right by all men and women in mutual love, yet we deny this right to God: +we are not even willing to attempt it! this failure to be willing is the grave +error we make. Our attitude to God is not one of love, but of an expectancy of +favours. An identical sacrifice is demanded of us in marriage—father, mother, +brothers, sisters, friends: all these loves must become subservient to the new +love, and with what willingness and smiles this sacrifice is usually made! Not +so with our sacrifices to God—we make them with bitter tears, hard hearts, long +faces. Is He never hurt by this perpetual grudingness of love?</p> + +<p>But I had not yet learnt any of this, and I could not accept, I could not +swallow this terrible cup. I thought of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. He +understood and knew all pain; I had His companionship, but He offered me no +cessation of this pain. It must be borne; had He not borne His own up to the +bitter end? I shrank, appalled, from the suffering I was already in and the +suffering that lay before me. Relief from this agony, relief, relief! But there +was no relief. In utter darkness all must be gone through. At least I was not so +foolish as to attribute all this horror that was closing in upon the world to +the direct Will of God: I could perceive that, on the contrary, it was the +spirit of Anti-Christ, it was the will of Man with his greeds, his cruelty, his +self-sufficient pride, together with a host of other evils, which had brought +all this to pass. But could not—would not—God deliver the innocent; must all +alike descend into the pit?</p> + +<p>I tried to obtain relief by casting this burden on to Christ, and was not +able to accomplish it. I tried to draw the succour of God down into my heart, +and I tried to throw myself out and up to Him—I could do neither: the vast +barrier remained; Faith could not take me through it.</p> + +<p>A horrible kind of second sight now possessed me, so that, although I never +heard one word from my husband, I became aware of much that was happening to +him—knew him pressed perpetually backwards, fighting for his life, knew him at +times lying exhausted out in the open fields at night. At last I began to fear +for my reason; I became afraid of the torture of the nights and sat up reading, +forcing my mind to concentrate itself upon the book—the near-to-hand help of the +book was more effective than the spiritual help in which something altogether +vital was still missing. Relief only came when after a month a letter reached me +from my husband, saying that the terrible retreat was over and he safe.</p> + +<p>Months and years dragged by. Sometimes the pain of it all was eased; +sometimes it increased.</p> + +<p>As grass mown down and withered in the fields gives out the pleasant scent of +hay, so in her laceration and her anguish did the soul, I wondered, give off +some Pain-Song pleasing to Almighty God.</p> + +<p>At first I recoiled with terror from this thought; finally love overcame the +terror—I was willing to have it so, if it pleased Him. My soul reached down into +great and fearful depths. I envied the soldiers dying upon the battlefields; +life was become far more terrible to me than death. Looking back upon my +struggles, I see with profound astonishment how unaware I was of my impudence to +God in attributing to Him qualities of cruelty and callousness, such as are to +be found only amongst the lowest men!</p> + +<p>Yet good was permitted to come out of this evil; for where I attributed to +God a callousness and even an enjoyment of my sufferings, I learnt +self-sacrifice, the effacement of all personal gain, and total submission for +love's sake to His Will, cruel though I might imagine it to be. With what tears +does the heart afterwards address itself in awed repentance to its Beloved and +Gentle God!</p> + +<p>A painful illness came and lasted for months. Having no home, I was obliged +to endure the misery of it as best I could among strangers. At this time I +touched perhaps the very lowest depths. How often I longed that I might never +wake in the morning! I loathed my life.</p> + +<p>During this illness I came exceedingly near to Christ, so much so that I am +not able to describe the vividness of it. What I learnt out of this time of +suffering I do not know—save complete submission. I became like wax—wax which +was asked to take only one impression, and that pain. I was too dumb; I should +have remembered those words, that "men ought not to faint, but to pray."</p> + +<p>Bewildered, and mystified by my own unhappiness and that of so many others +all around me, I sank in my submission too much into a state of lethargic +resignation, whereas an onward-driving resolution to win through, a powerful +determination to seek and obtain the immediate protection and assistance of God, +a standing before God, and a claiming of His help—these things are required of +the soul: in fact that importunity is necessary of which Jesus spoke (Luke xi. +7-9): "And he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not . . . I cannot +rise and give thee. I say unto you he will not rise and give him because he is +his friend, yet <i>because of his importunity</i> he will rise and give him as +many as he needeth. And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, +and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you."</p> + +<p>Such times of distress are storms, fearful battles of the soul in which she +must not faint but rise up and walk towards God and clamour for help; and she +will receive it. In His own good time He will give her all that she asks and +more even than she dreamed of. She must claim from God a continual +restrengthening, and search with glowing aspiration for a more joyous love.</p> + +<p>X</p> + +<p>It was summer-time: a great battle was raging in France. A friend wrote me +that my husband was up in the very foremost part of it. I heard no word from my +husband; weeks passed, and still the same ominous silence. At last the day came +when the shadow of these two fearful years rose up and overwhelmed me +altogether. I went up on to the wild lonely hill where I so often walked, and +there I contended with God for His help. For the first time in my life there was +nothing between God and myself—this had +<i>continually</i> happened with Jesus Christ, but not with God the Father, Who +remained totally inaccessible to me. Now, like a man standing in a very dark +place and seeing nothing but knowing himself immediately near to another—so I +knew myself in very great nearness to God. I had no need for eyes to see +outwardly, because of the immense magnetism of this inward Awareness. At one +moment my heart and mind ran like water before Him—praying Him, beseeching Him +for His help; at another my soul stood straight up before Him, contending and +claiming because she could bear no more: and it felt as though the Spirit of God +stood over against my spirit, and my spirit wrestled with God's Spirit for more +than an hour. But He gave me no answer, no sign, no help. He gave me nothing but +that awful silence which seems to hang for ever between God and Man. And I +became exhausted, and turned away in despair from God, and from supplication, +and from striving, and from contending, and, very quiet and profoundly sad, I +stood looking out across the hills to the distant view—how gentle and lovely +this peace of the evening sky, whilst on earth all the nations of the world were +fighting together in blood and fury and pain!</p> + +<p>I had stood there for perhaps ten minutes, mutely and sadly wondering at the +meaning of it all, and was commencing to walk away when suddenly I was +surrounded by a great whiteness which blotted out from me all my surroundings. +It was like a great light or white cloud which hid all my surroundings from me, +though I stood there with my eyes wide open: and the cloud pricked, so that I +said to myself, "It is an electric cloud," and it pricked me from my head down +to my elbows, but no further. I felt no fear whatever, but a very great wonder, +and stood there all quite simple and placid, feeling very quiet. Then there +began to be poured into me an indescribably great vitality, so that I said to +myself, "I am being filled with some marvellous Elixir." And it filled me from +the feet up, gently and slowly, so that I could notice every advance of it. As +it rose higher in me, so I grew to feel freed: that is to say, I had within me +the astounding sensation of having the capacity to pass where or how I +would—which is to say I felt freed of the law of gravity. I was like a free +spirit—I felt and knew within myself this glorious freedom! I tasted for some +moments a new form of living! Words are unable to convey the splendour of it, +the boundless joy, the liberty, the glory of it.</p> + +<p>And the incomprehensible Power rose and rose in me until it reached the very +crown of my head, and immediately it had quite filled me a marvellous thing +happened—the Wall, the dreadful Barrier between God and me, came down entirely, +and immediately I loved Him. I was so filled with love that I had to cry aloud +my love, so great was the force and the wonder and the delight and the might of +it.</p> + +<p>And now, slowly, the vivid whiteness melted away so that I saw everything +around me once more just as before; but for a little while I continued to stand +there very still and thoughtful, because I was filled with wonder and great +peace.</p> + +<p>Then I turned to walk home, but I walked as a New Creature in a New World—my +heart felt like the heart of an angel, glowing white-hot with the love for God, +and all my sorrows fled away in a vast joy! This was His answer, this was His +help. After years and years of wrestling and struggling, in one moment of time +He had let me find Him, He had poured His Paradise into my soul! Never was such +inconceivable joy—never was such gladness! My griefs and pains and woes were +wiped away—totally effaced as though they had never existed!</p> + +<p>Oh, the magnificence of such splendid joy! The whole of space could scarcely +now be large enough to hold me! I needed all of it—I welcomed its immensity as +once I was oppressed by it. God and my Soul, and Love, and Light, and Space!</p><a name= +"2"></a><br> +<br> + +<p>PART II</p> + +<p>At last my little suffering life is sheltered in the known, the felt, +protection of the Ineffable and Invisible Being. The Being Who, without +revealing Himself to me by sight or sound, yet communicates Himself to me in +some divine manner at once all-sufficing and inexpressible. I ask no questions: +I am in no haste of anxious learning. My heart and my mind and my soul stand +still and drink in the glory of this happiness. All day, often half the night, I +worship Him. I love Him with this new love, so different from anything known +before. The greatest earthly love, by comparison to it, has become feeble, +impure, almost grotesque in its inefficiency—a tinsel counterfeit of this +glistening mystery which must still be spoken of as love because I know no other +name.</p> + +<p>I find it difficult, almost impossible, to speak to my fellow-creatures, +because I have only two words, two thoughts in my entire being: my God, and my +love for Him.</p> + +<p>I am like a thing that is magnetised, held: I am not able, day or night, to +detach my mind from God.</p> + +<p>I wake with His name upon my lips, with His glory in my soul. In all this +there is no virtue on my part; there is no effort; the capacity for this +boundless devotion is a free gift. Coming immediately after my anguished prayer +on the hill, it appears to me to have come solely on account of that one +prayer—the previous prayers, struggles, endeavours of five-and-twenty years are +entirely forgotten. I comprehend nothing of the mystery, neither as yet do I +feel any desire to comprehend it; but in a world where only love, beauty, +happiness, and repose exist, I walk and talk and live alone with God.</p> + +<p>Yet the war was continuing as usual, my husband was in the same danger, I +became ill with influenza, my friends continued to die of wounds, my relations +to be killed one by one; but in all this there was no pain: the sting, the +anguish, had gone out of every single thing in life.</p> + +<p>My consciousness feels to be composed of two extremes: I am a child of a few +years of age, to whom sin, suffering, pain, evil, and temptation are not known, +and yet, though knowing so little, I know the unutterably great—I know God. This +cannot be expressed—merely, it can be said that two extremes have met.</p> + +<p>This new consciousness, this new worship, this new love is for the Godhead. +Christ is gone up into the Godhead, and I worship Him in, and as One with, the +Godhead. For three months this continues uninterruptedly. Then Jesus Christ +presents Himself to my consciousness. Jesus, Who led me to this happiness, now +calls and calls to my soul. Immediately I commence to respond to Him. He is +drawing me away; He is teaching me something—at first I do not know what, but +soon I know that He is leading me out of this Eden, this paradise of my +childhood: I know it, because I begin to feel pain again, and to recognise evil. +O my Jesus, my Jesus, must I really follow Thee out of Paradise back into pain? +Yes, in less than two weeks I am fully back in the world again—but not the same +world, <i>because I know how to escape from it.</i> The Door that I knocked at, +and that all in one moment was opened to me, is <i>never closed.</i> I can go in +and out. God never closes to me the right of way; never severs those secret +wires of Divine Communication.</p> + +<p>But my soul is not nursed, as it were, in His Hands day and night—she must +learn to grow up. Woeful education, deadly days of learning, stony paths that +hurt, that hurt all the more because of the felicity that only so recently was +mine.</p> + +<p>For three months I am walking further and further out of Eden and back into +the horrors of the world—following Jesus.</p> + +<p>One night I compose myself as usual for sleep, but I do not sleep, neither +can I say that I am quite awake. It is neither sleep, nor is my wakefulness the +usual wakefulness. I do not dream, I cannot move. My consciousness is alight +with a new fiery energy of life; it feels to extend to an infinite distance +beyond my body, and yet remains connected with my body. I live in a manner +totally new and totally incomprehensible, a life in which none of my senses are +used and which is yet a thousand, and more than a thousand, times as vivid. It +is living at white heat—without forms, without sound, without sight, without +anything which I have ever been aware of in this world, and at a terrible speed. +What is the meaning of all this? I do not know: my body is quite helpless and is +distressed, but I am not afraid. God is teaching me something in His own way. +For six weeks every night I enter this condition, and the duration and power or +intensity of it increase by degrees. It feels that my soul is projected or +travels for incalculable distances beyond my body—(long afterwards I understand +through experience that this is not the mode of it, but that the soul <i> +remaining in the body</i> is by some de-insulation exposed to the knowledge of +spirit-life as and when free of the flesh)—and I learn to comprehend and to know +a new manner of living, as a swimmer learns a new mode of progression by means +of his swimming, which is not his natural way.</p> + +<p>By the end of three weeks I can remain nightly for many hours in this +condition, which is always accompanied by an intense and vivid consciousness of +God.</p> + +<p>As this consciousness of God becomes more and more vivid so my body suffers +more and more. By day I can only eat the smallest morsels of food, which almost +choke me, but I drink a great quantity of water. I am perfectly healthy, though +I have hardly any sleep and very little, indeed almost no, food—the suffering is +only at night with the breathing and the heart when in this strange condition. +But I have no anxiety whatever; I am glad that He shall do as He pleases with +me. Nothing but love can give us this supreme confidence.</p> + +<p>During the whole of these experiences I live in a state of very considerable +abstraction. But this now suddenly increases, increases to such an extent that I +hardly know whether to call it abstraction or the extremity of poverty. I now +become divested of all interests outside and inside, divested of the greater +part of my intelligence, divested of my will. I am of no value whatever, less +than the dust on the road.</p> + +<p>In this awful nothingness I am still I. My consciousness continues and is not +confounded with or lost in any other consciousness, but is reduced to stark +nakedness and worth nothing: and this worthless nothing is hung up and, as it +were, suspended nowhere in particular as far from earth as from heaven, totally +unknown and unwanted by both God and Man. I am naked patience—waiting. I have a +few thoughts, but very few: I think one thought where in normal times I should +think ten thousand. I feel and know that I am nothing, and I feel that this has +been done to me; just as before, all that I had was also done to me and was a +gift. So I acknowledge that I once had and was perhaps something and that now I +possess and certainly am nothing—I acknowledge it, I accept it, without +hesitation, without protest. One of my few thoughts is that I shall remain for +the rest of my natural life in this pitiful state where, however, I shall hope +to be preserved from further sinning simply because I have not a sufficiency of +will, intelligence, or thought with which to sin! I am too completely nothing to +be able to sin. I have another thought, which is that as I no longer have any +intelligence with which to deal with the ordinary difficulties of life, such as +street life and traffic, I shall shortly be run over and killed; and so I put a +card with my address on it into my little handbag, for the convenience of those +who shall be obliged to deal with my body afterwards.</p> + +<p>I have just sufficient capacity left me to automatically, mechanically, go +through with the necessities of life. I have not become idiotic. I live in a +tremendous and profound solitude, such a solitude as would frighten many people +greatly. But my beautiful pastime had accustomed me to solitude and also to +something of this nothingness—a brief nothingness was a necessary part of the +beautiful pastime: so I have no fears now of any kind; but I wonder. Perhaps I +am just four things—wonder, patience, resignation, and nothing.</p> + +<p>Yet through this dreadful solitude penetrates the inspiration of some unseen +guide. As regards this particular time I am convinced that this guide is an +outside presence. I depend in all my goings and comings upon the guidance of +this guide who proves incredibly accurate in every detail, in details of even +the smallest necessities. If this guide is a part of myself, it is that of me +with which I have not previously come in contact; and it is not the Reason, but +far beyond the Reason, for it <i>divines.</i> It is then either a spiritual +guide, companion, or guardian angel, or it is a power possessed by the soul +herself—a foretasting cognisance, a mysterious intuition of which we as yet +comprehend little or nothing, and which we have not yet learnt to command: it +presents itself; it absents itself; but it condescends to every need; it is +always helpful, always beneficent; it sees that which it sees before the event; +it hears that which it hears before the words are spoken. It guides by what +would seem to be two very different modes: the greater things come by a mode +altogether indescribable; but for the small things of every day I will take +simple examples here and there. I am abroad. Someone in the family at home is +taken dangerously ill. I am urgently needed; but the trains are overcrowded, I +am unable to get my seat transferred to an earlier date, I cannot let them know +at home when I shall return: all is uncertain, all is chaos. I am painfully +anxious, I am ashamed to say I am greatly worried: I turn as always to my Lord, +asking Him to forgive these selfish fears and to help me. A little while later a +scene presents itself to me—I see my own room, I hear the voice of a page-boy +standing in the door and saying, "You are wanted on the telephone"; then I am at +the telephone, and a voice is saying to me, "<i>Your train accommodation is +transferred to Friday the 19th.</i>" That is all, because I am rung off.</p> + +<p>Five days pass. I am in my room, and the page is really standing at the door, +and he says, "You are wanted on the telephone." I go to the telephone, and a +voice says, "<i>Your train accommodation is transferred to Friday the 19th.</i>" +That is all, because I am rung off.</p> + +<p>Again, there is a young lay-reader, closely in contact with Christ; he has a +wife and young child. The weather is bitterly cold. A picture suddenly comes +before me of this family, and there is a voice saying, "<i>He was gathering +together the last little pieces of fuel when your present came.</i>" Immediately +I understand that I am required to send coal to these people, and to do it at +once without delay. The following day the wife comes with tears to thank me, and +she tells me, "We were in despair; my husband's heart is so weak he cannot bear +the cold, he becomes seriously ill. <i>He was gathering together the last little +pieces of fuel when your present came.</i>"</p> + +<p>Or, again, I very badly need a pair of walking shoes, but for weeks I have +been so absorbed in contemplation that the pain of bringing myself from this +holy joy to do shopping is too great, and I delay and delay; I cannot bring +myself to it; but shoes are a necessity of earthly life. Having exceedingly +narrow feet, I am obliged always to get my shoes from a certain maker, and now, +during the war, he makes so few shoes. To-day a picture of the shop comes before +me, and the words "Go to-day, go to-day," urge themselves upon my consciousness. +Then a picture comes of the assistant; I show her my foot, and she says, "<i>There +is only one pair left; how fortunate you came to-day!</i>" So I understand I +must go to my shopping and, greatly against my will, I go that afternoon. The +assistant comes forward, and I show her my foot, and she says, "<i>There is only +one pair left; how fortunate you came to-day!</i>"</p> + +<p>Always in this mode of the guiding are the little picture and the <i>exact</i> +words: all of it of the easiest to describe; but of the other and the greater +guiding I do not know how to tell. It is sheer pure knowledge, received not in +parts, pictures, or words, but as a whole and in a mode so exquisitely +mysterious as to be at once too intricate for description, and yet simplicity +itself!</p> + +<p>Sure, perfect, and serene mode of knowledge! Royal knowledge which knows no +toil, no sweat of work, no common drudgery, art thou of the soul herself, or art +thou altogether from outside the soul? This I know, that though the first mode +would seem to be very small and to deal with littleness, and the last mode seems +to be entirely apart from it because of the greatnesses with which it deals that +they are linked and that the power is one power soaring to the highest, +condescending to the smallest.</p> + +<p>So now, in the time of this strange abstraction and poverty, when the +cinematograph of my mind is closed down, and with it the delicate mechanism +which takes up, uses, and connects all that we take in by the senses, and which +makes the world so real and so comprehensible, is become unhitched and +disconnected, so that nothing in the world seems any longer real or possesses +either value or meaning, and I stand before it all defenceless, seemingly unable +to deal with it, utterly indifferent to it; then and now Reason may very well +say to me, "You are in very great danger"; but I am not in any danger, because I +am guided whenever necessary by some condescending sagacity far more sagacious +than my poor Reason, infinitely more penetrative and effectual than any sense of +eye or ear. I remain fully convinced that at this time, at any rate, it was an +outside sagacity which guided me—truly a guardian angel.</p> + +<p>This period of intense abstraction, this strange valley of humiliation, +poverty, solitude, seemed a necessary prelude to the great, the supreme, +experience of my life. As I came slowly out of this poverty and solitude, the +joyousness of my spiritual experience increased: the nights were no longer at +all a time of sleep or repose, but of rapturous living.</p> + +<p>The sixth week came, and I commenced to fear the nights and this tremendous +living, because the happiness and the light and the poignancy and the rapture of +it were becoming more than I could bear. I began to wonder secretly if God +intended to draw my soul so near to Him that I should die of the splendour of +this living, My raptures were not only caused by the sense of the immediate +Presence of God—this is a distinctive rapture running through and above all +raptures, but there are lesser ecstasies caused by the meeting of the soul with +Thoughts or Ideas, with melodies which bear the soul in almost unendurable +delight upon a thousand summits of perfection; and with an all-pervading +rapturous Beauty in a great light. There is this peculiarity about the manner of +these thoughts and melodies and beauties—they are not spoken, heard, or seen, +but +<i>lived.</i> I could not pass these things to my reason and translate the Ideas +into words or the melodies into sounds, or the beauty into objects, for +spirit-living is not translatable to earth-living, and I found in it no words, +no sounds, no objects, and I comprehended and I lived with that in me which is +above Reason and of which I had, previously to these experiences, had no +cognisance.</p> + +<p>There came a night when I passed beyond Ideas, beyond melody, beyond beauty, +into vast lost spaces, depths of untellable bliss, into a Light. And the Light +is an ecstasy of delight, and the Light is an ocean of bliss, and the Light is +Life and Love, and the Light is the too deep contact with God, and the Light is +unbearable Joy; and in unendurable bliss my soul beseeches God that He will +cover her from this most terrible rapture, this felicity which exceeds all +measure. And she is not covered from it. And she beseeches Him again; and she is +not covered; and being in the last extremity from this most terrible joy, she +beseeches Him again: and immediately is covered from it.</p> + +<center> +* * * +</center> + +<p>My soul, my whole being, is terrified of God, and of joy. I dare not think of +Him, I dare not pray; but, like some pitiful and wounded child, I creep to the +feet of Jesus.</p> + +<p>When on the following evening once more the day closes and I compose myself +for the night, I wonder tremblingly to what He will again expose me; but for the +first time in six weeks I fall into a natural sleep and know no more until the +morning.</p> + +<p>Then I understand that the lesson is over. Mighty and Terrible God, it was +enough!</p> + +<p>In the light of these measureless joys what is any earthly joy? What is the +very greatest experience of earthly happiness but so much waste paper?</p> + +<p>What are the joys of those vices for which men sell their souls, but +soap-bubbles!</p> + +<p>The whole meaning of life, together with all the graduated and accepted +values of it, becomes for ever changed in the light of the knowledge of +Celestial Happiness.</p><a name="3"></a><br> +<br> + +<p>PART III</p> + +<p>I</p> + +<p>Wonderful, beautiful weeks went by, filled with divine, indescribable peace. +The Presence of God was with me day and night, and the world was not the world +as I had once known it—a place where men and women fought and sinned and toiled +and anguished and wondered horribly the meaning of this mystery of pain and joy, +of life and death. The world was become Paradise, and in my heart I cried to all +my fellow-souls, "Why fret and toil, why sweat and anguish for the things of +earth when our own God has in His hand such peace and bliss and happiness to +give to Every man? O come and receive it, Every man his share."</p> + +<p>And the glamour of life in Unity with God became past all comprehension and +all words.</p> + +<p>Is life, then, a poem? is it a melody? I cannot say; but it is one long +essence of delight—a harmony of flowing out and back again to God. O blessed +life! O blessed Man! O blessed God!</p> + +<p>II</p> + +<p>One morning in my room I began thinking and reasoning about a wonderful +change that I knew had crept all through me. If God should now come at any +moment of the day or night and turn over every secret page of heart and mind, He +would not find one thought or glimmer of any sort or kind of lust, whether of +the eye, of the heart, of the mind, or of the body; and all in one moment I +realised the miracle that Christ had worked in me, and the words came over my +mind, "Though thy sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow." And I stood +there, gazing before me, speechless, and the tears of a joy that was an agony of +gratitude poured and poured down my face like a rain. I did not sob, I could not +speak, and very quietly I took my heart and my mind and my soul and laid them +for ever at the feet of Christ.</p> + +<p>III</p> + +<p>One evening as I knelt to say my prayers, which were never long, because +since the Visitation on the hill my natural habit—whether walking, sitting, +working, travelling, or on my bed—had come to be a continual sending up from my +heart and mind the tenderest and most adoring, the most worshipping and thanking +little stream of thoughts to God (very much as a flower, if we could but see it, +sends its scent to the sun).</p> + +<p>And because this mode of prayer is so smooth and joyous, so easy, so +unutterably sweet, in that during it the Presence of God laves us about as the +sun laves the flower—so because of this it was only for short and set times that +I worshipped Him as the creature in prayers upon its knees; but those few +moments of prayer would always be intense, the heart and the mind with great +power bent wholly and singly upon God.</p> + +<p>So now, this evening as I knelt and dwelt in great singleness on God, He drew +me so powerfully, He encompassed me so with His glamour, that this singleness +and concentration of thought continued much longer than usual on account of the +greatness of the love that I felt for Him, and the concentration became an +intensity of penetration because of this magnetism, He turned on to me, and my +mind became faint, and died, and I could no longer think of or on God, <i>for I +was one with Him.</i> And I was still I; though I was become Ineffable Joy.</p> + +<p>When it was over I rose from my knees, and I said to myself, for five +wonderful moments I have been in contact with God in an unutterable bliss and +repose: and He gave me the bliss tenderly and not as on that Night of Terror; +but when I looked at my watch I saw that it had been for between two and three +hours.</p> + +<p>Then I wondered that I was not stiff, that I was not cold, for the night was +chilly and I had nothing about me but a little velvet dressing-wrapper; and my +neck was not stiff, though my head had been thrown back, as is a necessity in +Communion with God; and I thought to myself, it is as if my body also had shared +in the blessing.</p> + +<p>And this most blessed happening happened to me every day for a short while, +usually only for a few moments. In this way God Himself caused and enabled me to +contemplate and +<i>know</i> Him; and I saw that it was in some ways at one with my beautiful +pastime, but with this tremendous difference in it—that whereas my mind had +formerly concentrated itself upon the Beautiful, and remaining Mind had soared +away above all forms into its nebulous essence in a strange seductive anguish, +it now was drawn and magnetised beyond the Beautiful directly to the Maker of +it: and the soaring was like a death or swooning of the mind, and immediately I +was living with that which is above the mind: in this living there was no note +of pain, but a marvellous joy.</p> + +<p>Slowly I learnt to differentiate degrees of Contemplation, but to my own +finding there are two principal forms—Passive and Active (or High) +Contemplation.</p> + +<p>In meditation is little or no activity, but a sweet quiet thinking and +talking with Jesus Christ. In Passive Contemplation is the beginning of real +activity; mind and soul without effort (though in a secret state of great +love-activity) raise themselves, focussing themselves upon the all-unseen +Godhead: now is no longer any possible picture in the mind, of anyone nor +anything, not even of the gracious figure or of the ways of Christ: here, +because of love, must begin the sheer straight drive of will and heart, mind and +soul, to the Godhead, and here we may be said first to commence to breathe the +air of heaven.</p> + +<p>There is no prayer, no beseeching, and no asking—there are no words and no +thoughts save those that intrude and flash unwanted over the mind, but a great +undivided attention and waiting upon God: God near, yet never touching. This +state is no ecstasy, but smooth, silent, high living in which we learn heavenly +manners. This is Passive or Quiet Contemplation.</p> + +<p>High Contemplation ends in Contact with God, in ecstasy and rapture. In it +the activity of the soul (though entirely without effort on her part) is +immensely increased. It is not to be sought for, and we cannot reach it for +ourselves; but it is to be enjoyed when God calls, when He assists the soul, +when He energises her.</p> + +<p>And then our cry is no more, Oh, that I had wings! but, Oh, that I might fold +my wings and stay!</p> + +<p>IV</p> + +<p>Having come so far as this on the Soul's Great Adventure all alone as far as +human guidance and companionship was concerned, and having for more than a year +known the wonders of the joy of Union with God—which I did not know or +understand to call Union, but called it to myself Finding God and coming into +Contact with Him, because this is how it <i>feels,</i> and the unscholarly +creature understands and knows it in that way—well, having come so far, I had a +great longing to share this knowledge, this exquisite balm, with my fellows, and +I desired immensely to speak about it, to know how they fell about it, if they +had yet come to it, or how far on the way they were to it, because I was all +filled with the beauty of it, as lovers are filled with the beauty of their +love. But I was frightened to speak to them, something held me back: also they +felt to me to be so exceedingly full of the merest trifles—clothes and +tea-parties and fashionable friends; and each time I tried to speak, in some +mysterious way I found myself stopped. So I thought that I would speak to a +friend that I had in the Church. Several times I had heard him preach very +beautiful sermons, and I felt I very greatly needed the guidance of <i>someone +who knew.</i> I wanted, I longed for, a human intermediary. I knew that I was in +the hands of the God Whom for so many years I had so passionately sought; but He +was so immeasurably great, and I so pitifully small, and I needed a human +being—someone to whom I might speak about God.</p> + +<p>Yet something warned me not to commence as though speaking of myself, but of +another person. I said only a few words, of the joy of this person in finding +and loving God, and immediately my friend spoke very severely of persons who +imagined they had found, and loved, God. God was not to be found by our puny, +shifting and uncertain love: He was to be found by duty, by obedience to Church +rules, by pious attendance <i>At Church.</i> He explained to me various dogmas +which helped me no more than the moaning of the wind; he explained the absolute +necessity (for salvation) of certain beliefs and written sentences, and +ceremonials in the Church. Love was not the way. Love was emotion, emotion was +deceptive: the mind, and severe firm attention to the dictates of The Church was +what was required; in fact, he unfolded before me the Ecclesiastical Mind. I +shrank back from it, dismayed, frightened. Were all the deep needs and +requirements of the soul to be satisfied in the singing of hymns and Te Deum, in +the close and reverent attention to the Ceremonies before the altar, and of the +actions of Priests! Did, or could, any reasoning creature truly think to Find +God by merely repeating, however reverently, the same prayers and ceremonies +Sunday after Sunday! Could the great mountain up which my soul had sweated, and +which each soul must climb—could it be climbed by kneeling in a pew in church? +No; a total change of <i>character</i> was needed, and Christ Himself was +necessary for this change—Jesus Christ gliding into the heart and mind and soul, +and <i>biding</i> there because of that heart's, that mind's, invitation to, and +love for, Him. Secretly—in one's own chamber, every hour of the day, in the +streets, in the fields—in this way it might be accomplished.</p> + +<p>With Christ biding in the heart all the Church service would <i>become</i> a +thing of beauty as between the Soul and God; but without this Jesus Christ +dwelling in the heart, the connection was not yet made between the Soul—the +service—and the Godhead.</p> + +<p>Perhaps amongst Romans I should find the understanding that I looked for. I +had a friend, a Dominican: I approached him, and I could see that for (as he +thought) my own good he longed to convert me to the Roman Church: it did not +seem that he wanted, or by any means knew how, to bring me into contact with +God, but his thought was to bring me to +<i>The Church.</i> "Does anyone," I asked him, "love God with all their heart, +and mind, and soul, and strength?" "No," said he, "that is hardly possible—what +is required is—"; and here he gave me once more the contents of the +Ecclesiastical Mind: more authoritatively, more positively; but he spoke as I +now commenced to realise all Churchmen would speak—that is to say, as persons +having learnt by study, by careful rule and rote, by paper-knowledge, that which +can only be learnt in the spirit direct from God. How immense is the difference +to the Soul between this knowledge that comes of the spirit and the knowledge +that comes of study—the knowledge which too easily becomes mechanical religion!</p> + +<p>I thought of the beautiful and gracious simplicity of the knowledge that +Christ gives to the soul: I saw the nature of the sore disease that afflicts the +soul of Christ's Church, I saw also a terrible pain for Christ in all this of +which I had previously been unaware.</p> + +<p>I was thrown back and into myself by it all, and into a great loneliness as +far as my fellow-beings were concerned. Yet I continued to need to share Christ +with humanity, piercingly, pressingly. I would go to a library and find a +book—but, on the other hand, I did not know the name of a single religious book +or writer. So I wrote my need to a friend, and she sent me the life of one, +Angela of Foligno. This book was a great delight to me, because, though written +in tiresome mediaeval language, it yet expressed and shared exactly what I also +knew and loved, and folded in strange wrappings of the fashion of the thought of +long ago lay the same exquisite jewel that I also knew—the pearl for which men +gladly sell all that they have in order to keep it—the knowledge of the Secret +of the Kingdom of Heaven, of the Union of the Soul with God.</p> + +<p>A few months went by, and I wrote asking for another book, and this time came +Richard Rolle to my acquaintance—a little dried-up hermit, a holy man too, +though I noticed how very discourteous he was to women; severe, critical, and +suspicious, merely because they were women. How often I noticed this +peculiarity, both in the monks of to-day with their averted eyes, as if the +shadow of a woman falling on them were pollution, and long ago, Paul, and Peter +also, and Moses, and many others, showed surprising weakness of intolerance and +harsh judgment against Woman!</p> + +<p>Where was Wisdom in all this? Surely it was Folly flaunting and laughing and +dressing herself cunningly to deceive, for did none of these men, from Adam +downwards—did they never come to know themselves well enough to see that their +danger lay not in the Woman, but in <i>their own inclination to sin!</i></p> + +<p>Oh, the righteousness of the greatest saint was, and is, but as dust and +ashes before the righteousness of Jesus! and I came to wonder if there ever was +or could be a saint, save one—Jesus.</p> + +<p>But this Richard Rolle, this person so discourteous to some fellow-beings, +could all the same be very tender and loving towards God: he, too, held in his +heart the Pearl without Price. He, too, knew that marvellous incense of the +heart to God—that song of the soul, and called it by the same name as I; but how +could it be called by any other name? for every soul that knows it, it must ever +be the same. Oh, how intimately I knew those two people of centuries ago, and +how intimately they knew me! A strange trio we made—he, the little wizened +English hermit; she, the Italian woman in her nun's habit; and I in my modern +Bond Street clothes: outwardly we were indeed incongruous, we had no links, but +inwardly we were bound together by bonds of the purest gold.</p> + +<p>Of whether my friend sent me another book or not I cannot be sure; but my +interest was becoming altogether removed from the past, because Christ was +pressing me more and more to the present and the living.</p> + +<p>V</p> + +<p>God says to the aspiring soul: Come, taste of paradise and taste of heaven, +and then return thou to the earth and wait, but not in idleness, and suffer many +things till thou become perfect.</p> + +<p>So I found that in the earlier stages, in order to show me the heights to +which I might by perseverance attain, He turned His Power and Glamour on to me, +and I became a creature transfixed and held by love. I had one desire—God; I had +one thought—God; I had one consciousness—God. There was no effort needed on my +part: it was Pure Grace and the result of <i>past</i> efforts. Having climbed +and endured and endeavoured up to a certain degree, it was necessary for further +advance that there should be more knowledge, and a more complete ineffaceable +assurance. He therefore exposed the soul to as much as she could enjoy of +heavenly pleasures and consciousness, without death to the flesh. In these +experiences the soul found and knew God to be the fulfilment of all desires and +all needs. The soul stood steadied before God in an unutterable Happiness which +she perceived had no limit but God's Will, and her own capacity to endure the +rapture of Him.</p> + +<p>What is it that would seem to determine this immeasurable privilege of Access +to Him? It would seem to be a healthy willing will towards Him under all +circumstances (to begin with).</p> + +<p>In due time He converts this mere will into a sweet love, the natural love of +the heart and mind—by Gift of the Father we love Jesus Christ. This is +salvation.</p> + +<p>But beyond salvation it would feel to be this way—after a further great +endeavour and endurance on our part, a further great striving towards Him, He +will awaken and prick to new life the soul and fill us with Holy Love. This is +the second baptism, the baptism of the Spirit of Love. This is the entry to the +Kingdom, and immediately we taste of the Godhead. What this is, what this +ravishment of happiness is, cannot be known or guessed till we ourself have +experienced it.</p> + +<p>In all this we progress by the communicated Power of Christ. How is this +Power to be recognised, how is it communicated? Can we stand still and receive +it like the dew, without work? At first, no—but later it would almost seem to be +yes; or else it is that the exact attitude of heart and mind necessary for the +reception of Grace becomes so habitual, so natural, that eventually we come to +live in a state in which the communication of this Power becomes nearly +continuous—though at any time by negligence or by a wrong attitude of Spirit <i> +we fall away from it and lose it completely,</i> and in all times of temptation +or of testing we are cut off from +<i>sensible</i> contact with it.</p> + +<p>We learn then that Grace awaits every creature that attunes himself to the +Will of Christ: it awaits good and bad, saint and sinner, it transforms the +sinner into the saint, and but for its deliberate withdrawals we might suppose +its action to be automatic, we might suppose it a fixed power like the sun, +shining upon worthy and unworthy alike in degree. But Grace is far more subtle +and mysterious than this. Grace is the most sublime, the most exquisite secret +of all the mysteries which exist between the Soul and her Maker.</p> + +<center> +* * * +</center> + +<p>I find that He works upon my soul by two opposite ways: He draws her up to +contact and sublime content; He sets her down to solitude and hides Himself: He +is there, and will not speak.</p> + +<p>And she suffers horribly: and why not? Where is the injustice of this pain?</p> + +<p>Countless ages ago—who can count them?—the soul, born in a palace, has +deliberately willed and chosen to become the Wanderer, the Street Walker; +therefore fold up self-pity and lay it aside, because it does not live in the +same house with Truth.</p> + +<p>Cast off self-consciousness and pride, because they are ridiculous, and a man +can only be great or noble in just so far as he has abandoned them.</p> + +<center> +* * * +</center> + +<p>What is it that often makes it so much harder for the soul to refind God when +she is enclosed in the male body? Perhaps the greater strength of the natural +lusts of the male: perhaps the pride of "Being"—as lord of creation; or the +pride of Intelligence which says, I rely easily upon myself, I need no religion +of hymn tunes, I leave hymn tunes to women, for the ardour and capacity of my +manhood rush to far different aims.</p> + +<p>But can any sane man think that the Essential Being who has created the +universe, with all its infinite wonders, and this earth with its beauty and its +wonderful flesh, and so much more that is not flesh but the still more wonderful +spirit—can any sane man really think that this Essential Being is stuck fast at +hymn tunes (which are Man's own invention!) and knows not how to satisfy the +needs and longings of that which He has Himself created!</p> + +<p>Ardent and greatly mistaken Sinner, know and remember that to Find God is to +Live Tremendously.</p> + +<center> +* * * +</center> + +<p>O belov<font face="Times New Roman">è</font>d Man with thy strangely vain and +small pursuits and pleasures—thy pipe, thy wine, thy women, thy "busy" city +life, thine immense sagacity which once in twenty times outwits a fool or +knave—thy vaunted living is a bubble in a hand-basin!</p> + +<p>Find God and Live!</p><a name="4"></a><br> +<br> + +<p>PART IV</p> + +<p>I</p> + +<p>It would seem that lazily, reposefully, comfortably, easily, we can make no +entry into the kingdom of heaven, but must enter by contest, by great endeavour. +The occasions of these contests will be according to the everyday circumstances +of each individual; the stress or distress of everyday life; for this is +Christ's Process—to take the everyday woes and happenings of life in the flesh +and use them for spiritual ends. What does the Saviour Himself tell us of the +means of entry into the Kingdom? He uses two parables—that of the loaves of +bread, and that of the Widow, and both speak of persistent importunity. If we +would find God, we must besiege Him.</p> + +<p>Of entry to Christ's Process first it is necessary that we try in everything +to please Him: subjecting our plans, desires, thoughts, intentions, to His +secret approval, asking ourselves, Will this please Him best, or that?</p> + +<p>Then the soul commences to truly know, and to respond to, Christ.</p> + +<p>But she is not satisfied: she requires more. Woes may assail the whole +creature: Christ offers no alleviation. He leads her straight into the woes: +will she follow, will she hold back? The point to remember here is this, that +whether we follow Christ or no we shall have woes: if we forsake Him, we are not +rid of woes; if we follow Him, we are not rid of woes—not yet, but later we +become eased, and even rid, by means of Consolations, for God is able by His +Consolations to entirely overbalance the woe and make it happy peace, though the +cause of the woe remains. Remember this in the days of visitation, and follow +Christ, no matter where He leads. Christ leads <i>through</i> the woe, because +it is the shortest way. The unguided soul wanders <i>beside</i> the woe, hating +and fearing it, unable to rid herself of it, gaining nothing by it, suffering in +vain, and no Companion comes to ease the burden with His company.</p> + +<p>The progress of our spiritual advance would feel to be that because we become +more and more aware of the failure of earthly consolations and amusements, and +more and more aware of the suffering, the sin, and the evil that there is about +us, so more and more our desires go out towards the good, and more and more we +turn to Christ. Then Christ may deliberately make Himself non-sufficient for the +soul, and if He so does she must reach out after the Godhead; then by means of +more woes the soul and the creature clamour more and more after the Godhead and +will not be satisfied with less than the Godhead, and, continuing to clamour, +are brought by Christ to the new birth, the Baptism of the Holy Ghost.</p> + +<p>Immediately the soul and creature become rid of Woe; and, living a life +altogether apart from the world, in a marvellous crystal joy they taste of the +Godhead and of Eternal Pleasures.</p> + +<p>This for a short time only: we have entered the Kingdom, but are still the +smallest of spiritual children: tenderly, wonderfully God cares for us, but we +must grow, we must learn heavenly manners. So Jesus Christ calls us again, and +where does He lead us? Straight back into the world, the daily life from which +we thought we had escaped! Here truly is a Woe, a Woe worse than any Woe we ever +had before. Now we enter the Course of spiritual temptations, woes, and +endurances, and in the midst of the pots and pans of daily life Christ teaches +us heavenly manners.</p> + +<p>II</p> + +<p>Since Contemplation is so necessary for Union with God and for the soul's +<i>enjoyment</i> of God—is it a capacity common to all persons? Yes, though, +like all other capacities, in varying degrees; but few will give themselves up +to the difficulties of developing the capacity; and it is easy to know why, for +our "natural" state is that we work for that which brings the easiest, most +immediate, and most substantially visible reward.</p> + +<p>Those who could most easily develop their powers of contemplation are those +to whom Beauty speaks, or those who are delicately sensitive to some ideal, +nameless, elusive, that draws and then retreats, but in retreating still draws. +The poet, the artist, the dreamer <i>that harnesses his mind</i>—all can +contemplate.</p> + +<p>The Thinker, <i>thinking straight through,</i> the proficient business man +with his powers of concentration, the first-rate organiser, the scientist, the +inventor—all these men are contemplatives who do not drive to God, but to the +world or to ambition. Taking God as their goal, they could ascend to great +heights of happiness; though first they must give up ("sacrifice") all that is +unsavoury in thought and in living: yet such is the vast, the boundless +Attraction of God that having once (if only for a few moments) retouched this +lost Attraction of His, we afterwards are possessed with no other desire so +powerful as the desire to retouch Him again, and "sacrifice" becomes no +sacrifice.</p> + +<p>Truly, having once known God, we find life without Him to be meaningless and +as unbeautiful as a broken stem without its flower: pitiful, naked, and helpless +as the body of a butterfly without the wings.</p> + +<p>III</p> + +<p>At this time I read Bergson's <i>Creative Evolution</i>—a masterpiece of +thinking by a man who, like most others, is seeking for God. But I am unable to +read the book through because of the pain it causes. The pain is partly the same +pain which I knew (and which I re-enter again in sympathy with the writer) when +I tried in my youth to climb to God by the intelligence and will of my mind; but +there is also a new pain, wide as an ocean, the pain of Compassion—for it is so +long this way to God that Bergson pursues, so long, so long; and the particular +way of this book is to me not like climbing, but descending: it resembles the +frenzied action of a man searching for lilies downwards, digging with painful +persistence in the dark earth amongst roots. How much more joyous to find the +lily where she blooms, above in the light! There is another way of the +Intelligence: a way of climbing to icy heights, bare, unwarmed by any ray of +love, but less painful than this descent amongst dark roots. Cold, hard +Intelligence, once to slip upon thy frozen way is to be broken on thy pitiless +bosom! O God, in thy tender pity incline our hearts to seek Thee by the way of +Love! For the road of Love comes easily to knowledge, but the road of knowledge +comes not easily to Love.</p> + +<p>And we know that love is above learning and wisdom. Did not Solomon choose +wisdom? and we think him so wise to have made this choice, but he had been far +wiser to have chosen holy love. For wisdom lost herself and him in the arms of +unworthy love: so we see the highest degree of the Wisdom of Man held in bondage +to, and undone by, even the lowest degree of love.</p> + +<center> +* * * +</center> + +<p>Dig deeply, and what do we find is at bottom our great, our persistent need? +What is it that instinctively we look for and desire? Happiness, and the +Ever-new.</p> + +<p>In and out of every day persistently, desperately, endlessly we seek. And +because we seek amongst the near-to-hand, the visible, the small, we seek in +vain: we discover there is nothing in this world which can wholly and +permanently satisfy either of these desires.</p> + +<p>God Himself is Happiness. God Himself is the Ever-new.</p> + +<p>In Divine Love there is no monotony: the soul finds that each encounter with +God is ever new, the Ever-new tremulous with the beauty of rapture: new and +wonderful as the first dawn.</p> + +<p>IV</p> + +<p>Not only is God a Mystery of Holiness, of Truth, of Love and Beauty: He is +also Generosity, a mystery of Eternal Giving, and His giving is and must for +ever be, the supreme necessity of the Universe: for without He gave how should +we receive life, truth, beauty, love, or Himself?</p> + +<p>And it cannot be too deeply impressed upon the soul that would come to His +Presence that because of His law of like to like she must conform to this law in +order to come to His Presence. By thinking it over we shall see that it is more +difficult for us to be perfect holiness, perfect truth, perfect love, perfect +beauty, than it is for us to be perfectly generous: it is easier for us to give +God all that we have, to empty heart, mind and soul, and worldly goods at His +feet, than it is to reach to any other perfection; for generosity appears to be +more universal, more within our capacities, more "natural" to us than any other +virtue—do we not see it continually used, exercised, spent, thrown away on the +merest trifles? Let us take, for instance, the tennis player: to win the game he +must give every ounce of himself to it—mind, eye, heart, and body,—sweating +there in the glare of the sun to win the game. Would he give himself so, would +he sweat so, in order to find God, or to please God? Oh no! Yet in the hour of +death and afterwards, will he be helped by this victory of flying balls? If by +chance we could lift a corner of the veil, we might catch a glimpse of the face +of Folly, mockingly, cunningly peering at us, as all too easily she persuades us +to give of our royal coins of generosity to wantons, to phantom enterprises, to +balls filled with air, to dust and vanity.</p> + +<p>Generosity is our easiest means of coming to God, because it is also the way +of love: if the tennis player did not love the game, he would not give himself +so to it. But we cry, "I have nothing whatever to give to God; it is to God I +turn in order that He may give everything to me." Quite so: there is too much of +that. We have obedience to give: obedience is a great gift to God, or, more +truthfully speaking, in His magnanimity He accepts it as such; we have also love +to give, and again we may cry, "But my love is puny, shifting; it is nothing at +all, a mere trifle." That is true of "natural" love, of the love that we +commence of our own human nature to love Him with; but it is not true of the +love which we receive of the Holy Ghost when He baptizes us.</p> + +<p>When we offer this Peculiar Love, offer it as only it can be offered—for +love's sake,—immediately we are in the Presence of God, secretly, marvellously +united to Him; we are in the Consolations of God, and we have no need to ask for +anything whatever; indeed, we find ourselves unable to ask, because we are +filled to the brim, overflowing, inexpressibly satisfied, utterly blessed.</p> + +<p>But supposing that we do not <i>give</i> to God, but, earnestly seeking Him, +we merely ask some favour, and sit and wait for Him to give? Then probably we +shall not be sensible of receiving anything from Him whatever; we shall feel at +an immense distance from Him; then we shall become uneasy, depressed, fancy +ourselves neglected, imagine we have lost Him—and so we have till we gloriously +recover Him by means of giving.</p> + +<p>And if at times in the stress of this giving, when He makes no response, we +feel it is too much, we can give no more, we are too discouraged to continue, +let us remember the strain and stress and endeavour that we and all our friends +give to trifles, and quietly use our common sense to judge whether in the +winning of a game of ball, or in the pleasing and finding of God, we shall be +the more blessed. For God is to be found: He waits.</p> + +<center> +* * * +</center> + +<p>The truth about our endeavours is that we have one pre-eminent, pressing need +above all other needs, which is to Find God. When we have accomplished this we +discover without any further teaching that we no longer care to pass our time +with air-balls, because they appear so paltry, so inadequate. We are grown up +and are no longer puerile in our desires: at the same time we are not without +desires, but, on the contrary, we glow with a new, more ardent, and larger set +of desires.</p> + +<p>V</p> + +<p>What I know of the soul's actual Finding and Contact with God I keep very +closely to myself. Here and there to a few, a very few souls, I may speak: to +all others I am forbidden to speak. I am stopped; and I understand perfectly why +this is: it is that I should do more harm than good. Anyone looking at me would +say (and all the more so because I am dressed in the fashion of the day, and not +in some peculiar way, or in a nun's habit, for such trifling things affect many +minds), "That person is demented to think that she knows what it is to have +Contact with God," and it would seem a scandal to them. But the explanation of +the mystery is not so simple as this. I am not demented. I never was so sane, so +capable in my life as now. I never was so perfectly poised as now. But if you +say to me, "Explain what it is that you know, in order that I too may know," +then I can say to you nothing more than, "Come and know for yourself, for God +awaits you."</p> + +<p>To illustrate a mere fraction of the difficulty of passing such a knowledge +from one self to another self, let us take such a case as that of a man born +blind. He sits beneath a tree, on the grass. You put a blade of grass in his +fingers, and also a leaf from the tree, and you say to him, "This is grass, and +this is the leaf of the tree which shelters you, and both are green." "And +what," he asks, "is green?" And to save your life you cannot make him know what +it is, or make him know the tree, or know the grass, though he touches them both +with his hands. How, then, shall God, Who can be neither seen, nor heard, nor +touched, how shall He be made known from one to another? He must be experienced +to be known. And if you should say to me, "What does it feel like to have found +God?" then I should say, "It feels that the roof is lifted off the world, and +wherever we may be or stand it is a straight line from us to God and nothing +between, nothing between, day or night."</p> + +<p>VI</p> + +<p>To come to the contemplation of God it is not necessary to go through any +lengthy toil, some process of throwing out this or that, painfully, slowly, +denying the existence of everything in order to arrive at God. The way is not +denying, but concentrating; and in the act of concentration, because of love, +all other things whatsoever in creation fall away into nothing and are no more, +because God in all His graciousness reveals Himself, and then He alone exists +for the enraptured soul.</p> + +<p>VII</p> + +<p>Supposing that we have found Jesus Christ, supposing that we know Him so well +and have come to love Him so much that our love for Him is become stronger than +any other love, very much stronger than any other love, and still, in spite of +hopes and endeavours, we know that we have not found the Godhead, we have not +found Union with the First and Third Person of the Holy Trinity—the heavens have +not, as it were, been opened to us to let our souls slip through to God. Are we +to be discouraged because of this? Are we to think ourselves less favoured, less +loved? A thousand times no. We are, perhaps, in neither heart, mind, or soul +quite sufficiently prepared for the great ordeals that must be gone through <i> +after Union with God,</i> To find God is Victory. But Victory has dangers. We +have perhaps not yet sufficiently developed just those exact qualities which it +is essential we must have in order to <i>maintain</i> the connection with God in +the face of all obstacles when once He is found. When God reveals Himself to a +soul she is in great danger, and she knows it, because to fail Him now, to turn +away now, to be unfaithful now—this is a terrible disaster to the soul. God in +His mercy exposes no soul to such dangers until she is as ready as may be, but +He bides and He works in her till she is ready. So it may very well be that it +is not in this life that we come to Union, but later; and the fact that we have +not come to Union is a sign to increase our nearness to Christ by as much as we +can: the very smallest advance that we make in this life is of the utmost value +to us later.</p> + +<p>VIII</p> + +<p>The soul that is seeking Union with God must not, upon any pretext whatever, +engage itself in spiritualism. Spiritualism may have its great uses for the +heart and mind which are without, or are struggling for, belief—the heart and +mind of Thomas seeking to touch, to have a proof; but remember the words of the +Saviour to Thomas: "Blessed are they," He says, "who have not seen, and yet have +believed." And we do not need to wait for death to receive this blessing, but we +receive it here. The soul that would find God must go to Him by means of His +Holy Spirit, and no other spirit but the Spirit of God can take us to Him; and +to try to hold communications with the spirits of men <i>is not the way.</i> The +soul that has come to Union with God is perfectly aware of the existence of +spirits—is intensely aware,—but refuses to pay any attention if she wise. Some +of these spirits are very subtle, very knowing; some are full of flattery, and +very persistent; others present themselves as still in human form, and seek to +terrify with their terrible faces, some diabolical, some appearing to be in a +great agony and undergoing changes more astonishing and horrible than can be +even imagined before experienced—and melting only to be re-formed into that +which is yet more fearful. Have nothing whatever to do with spirits. Do not +resist them when they come, but drop them behind by fixing heart, mind, and soul +on Christ. The Spirit of Christ easily overcomes every spirit, every evil, every +fear, and in order to ourselves overcome all such things, we need to unite with +the Spirit of Jesus Christ by concentrating upon Him with love, and ignoring +obstructions. Those who have lent themselves to spiritualism, hoping to find +comfort, a lost friend, or even God Himself, when they give it up (as they must +do) they may find themselves greatly plagued by the fires with which they have +been playing; but these can soon be overcome by diligently uniting the heart and +mind to Jesus Christ.</p> + +<p>IX</p> + +<p>After coming to full Union with God, the mind becomes permanently attached to +Him, +<i>and this without effort;</i> but in order that it shall be without effort, +the will must be kept in a state of loving attention to Him, and this again can +only be done without effort if the heart is so full of love that it desires +nothing else than God; and this is dependent again upon the grace which the soul +receives from Him because of her love and response—so now we see, living and +working in our own being, the reason and meaning of His commandment to love Him +with all the heart, mind, soul, and strength. It is doing this <i>after He has +Himself given us the power to do it</i> which makes us able to live in the +closest, most delicious and precious nearness to God during all our waking +hours. But it takes time, and it takes much pain to learn how to live this, as +it were, double life—this inward life of companionship, of wonderful and blessed +inward intercourse with God, and the outward intercourse of the senses with the +world, our everyday duties, and our fellow-beings. In our early stages we have +profound innumerable difficulties in understanding either our own capacities or +God's wishes: we are terrified of losing Him, and yet are often bewildered, and +pained also, by some of the higher degrees in which He communicates Himself. We +do not understand how to leave God and return to earthly duties. Supposing that +we are altogether wrapped up in the company of God, and some fellow-being +suddenly recalls us to the world (the human voice can recall the soul as nothing +else can), the pain is so great as to be nothing less than anguish; and if done +often would seriously affect the health of the body.</p> + +<p>But in a few years we learn to accomplish it without any shock.</p> + +<p>One pain, however, remains, and it grows. I find myself unable to carry on a +conversation with anyone unless it is about God, or about some work which is for +God and has to do with His pleasure (and this is rare, because people are so +glued to worldly affairs), for more than an hour, and even less, without the +most horrible, the most deathly, exhaustion, which is not only spiritual but +bodily—the face and lips losing all colour, the eyes their vitality: so dreadful +is the distress of the whole being that one is obliged, upon any kind of +pretext, to withdraw from all companions, and, if it is only for five minutes, +be alone with God and, where no eye but His can see, unite completely with Him +once more, and immediately the whole being becomes revivified. There is nothing +else in life so wonderful, so rapturous as this swift reunion of the soul with +God; and the joy is not only the joy of the soul, because the heart and mind +have their fill of it too, for they too have ached and thirsted and hungered and +longed, and now are satisfied.</p> + +<p>If this measureless happiness could only be imagined by us before we +experience it, how many of us would be spurred to greater efforts instead of +falling back amongst the dust and cobwebs of Vanity!—but it cannot be imagined, +and the only way to come to it is by faith and obedience; and it is easy to see +why this arrangement is necessary, for if we could imagine it thoroughly, then +we should probably try to get to God only on account of greed, and should find +ourselves drifting away instead of towards Him; it cannot be done by greed, +greed being one of those things which beguiled the soul away from Him to begin +with; and He does not send the soul His favours till she is free of, and has +risen above, the dangers of greed and seeks Him for Himself and not for His +favours. As soon as it is safe for her He will give the soul continual favours, +because Perfect Love is ever desirous to give, and is only restrained on our +account to withhold favours. The soul which knows how to make all necessary +preparations to receive Him becomes a source of joy to God, for now He can give +and give and no harm be done to that soul; but He does not acquaint the soul too +suddenly with all the joy that she is to Him, because she would not (at least +certainly my soul would not) be able to bear the knowledge of the privilege that +she enjoys, without some danger to herself,—and so, all unaware of the +singularity of the privilege that she enjoys without any analysis of her +happiness, she concerns herself with sweetly obeying Him, with singing to Him, +and with giving Him all that she has all the day long, and so hovers before Him +as delightful simplicity and love.</p> + +<p>This Union with God varies so much in degree that it makes an effect of +endless variety. Yet it is all one same joy, it is the joy of angels reduced to +such degree as makes it bearable to flesh: the soul knows that it is the joy of +angels that she is receiving the first time that she has it given to her: +immediately on receipt of this joy she comprehends the <i>mode</i> of heavenly +living; she knows it is but the outer edge that she touches, but what means so +much to her is that she has <i>recaptured the knowledge of this mode of living:</i> +henceforth it is a question of progress, she bends all her attention to progress +so that she may get nearer and nearer to God, so that she may do everything to +please this suddenly refound, unspeakably beloved God.</p> + +<p>She desires to get nearer and nearer to God in spite of the pain that she +often experiences. Perhaps the first pains we experience are when we are in +contemplation of God and are caught by God into High Contemplation. He will at +times expose the soul to so much of the Divine Power that she cannot sever +herself from the too great fulness of Union with God, though the body is crying +to her to do it and the sufferings of the body are all felt by the soul, which +is pulled two ways: all this is very painful and makes us almost in a <i>fear</i> +of God again. Why should Perfect Love inflict this pain on us? It may be to +remind us that He is not only Love, but Power, Might, Majesty, and Dominion +also. Yet could this ever be forgotten? It seems incredible. But it does not do +to trust to one's soul, or to count on what she will do or not do: we know that +the soul has forgotten almost everything about God, so much so that we are now +thankful to arrive even so far as being quite certain that He exists! What +infinite kindness that He should consent and condescend to Himself be her +Teacher! But He does so condescend, and the more the soul relearns of God, the +more she also learns that He is never weary of working for us all: this keeps +the soul in a state of intense gratitude.</p> + +<center> +* * * +</center> + +<p>When the soul arrives at Union with God, does she remain always in Union? +Yes, but not at the degree of Union which is Contact. What is the difference? It +can perhaps be most easily explained (though extremely imperfectly) by referring +to the union of married life. In this union, though we live in one house, we are +not always both in that house at the same time; but this does not dissolve our +union, and we both know our way to return there, and the right to meet is always +ours. When we are both in the house, although not in the same room, there is a +much nearer feeling about it, and we are apt to give a momentary call one to the +other, just to have the pleasure of response: yet, though we are aware the other +one is in the house and that there is no part of the house where we are +forbidden to meet—it is not enough; love requires more: it will be necessary for +one to go and seek the actual presence of the other (the soul does this by a +quiet prayer with perhaps a few words, but more probably no words). The one +finds the other one; but the other one is occupied, so the one waits patiently +(this is passive contemplation), and suddenly the occupied one is so constrained +by love for the waiting one that he must turn to her, open wide his arms, and +embrace her—they meet, they touch, they are content. In spiritual life this is +contact or ecstasy or rapture. Here comes in the immensity of the difference +between joys physical and joys spiritual—physical joys being limited to five +senses: spiritual joys being above senses and open to limitless variations; but +in order that these may be known in their fulness, we must eventually (after +leaving the flesh) rise to immense heights of perfection: the joys enjoyed by +the Archangel would <i>destroy</i> a lesser angel: the degree of joy that +invigorates the saint, that sends him into rhapsodies of happiness, would <i> +destroy</i> the sinner—(becoming insupportable agony to the sinner). This +celestial joy is, fundamentally, a question of the enduring of some un-nameable +energy. How can energy be a means of this immeasurable Divine joy? After years +of experience I find I cannot go back upon the knowledge that I acquired on the +very first occasion of experience—that energy <i>is a fundamental principle of +the mystery.</i></p> + +<p>But how, it may very well be asked, do sins interfere with the reception of +this activity? Sins are all imperfections, thickenings of the soul from +self-will: pure soul is necessary for the <i>happy</i> reception of this +celestial activity, and because impurities are automatically dissipated by this +activity, and the dissipation or dispersion of them <i>is the most awful agony +conceivable</i> when too suddenly done, what is bliss to the saint is the +extremity of torture to the sinner. Now we come very fearfully and dreadfully to +understand something more of the meanings, the happenings, of the Judgment Day. +Christ will inflict no direct wilful punishment on any soul; but when He +presents Himself before all souls and they behold His Face, immediately they +will receive the terrible might of the activity of celestial joy. The +regenerated will endure and rejoice; the unrepentant sinner will agonise, and he +must flee from before the Face of Christ, because the agony that he feels is the +dispersal of his imperfect soul; and where shall the sinner flee, where shall he +go to find happiness? for saint and sinner alike desire happiness, and there is +in Spirit-life only one happiness—the Bliss of God. So then let us be careful to +prepare ourselves to be able to receive and endure this happiness, even if it +can at first be only in a small degree, so that we shall not be condemned <i>by +our own pain</i> to leave the Presence of God altogether and consequently lose +Celestial Pleasures; let us at least prepare ourselves to remain near enough to +know something of this tremendous living.</p> + +<p>It was this Divine Activity which on the night of the Too Great Happiness so +anguished my imperfect soul. But that night, and that anguish, taught my soul +what she could never have learnt by any other means, and what it was I learnt I +find myself unable to pass on to anyone; but that night was for my soul the +turning-point of her destiny, that night altered my soul for evermore; that +night I knew God as deeply as He can be known whilst the soul is in flesh.</p> + +<center> +* * * +</center> + +<p>God uses also a peculiar drawing power. All souls feeling desire towards God +are to a greater or lesser degree conscious of this, and, as we know, frequently +remain conscious of it as a desire and nothing further to the end of life in +flesh. By means of it He draws a soul towards Himself until, because of it, the +whole being is willing to make efforts at self-improvement, and this is the +essential: it is this cleaning up of the character, this purification, which +alone can bring us to the point where we can receive God's communications of +Himself (in other words, ecstasies and periods of reunion with +Celestial-living). Ecstasies inspire and awaken the soul: they convince the mind +absolutely of the existence of another form of living <i>and of God Himself.</i></p> + +<p>After ecstasy the efforts of the entire being are bent on trying to perfect +itself, and extraordinary Graces may be freely and almost continually given to +us in order to make improvement more rapid for us. The feeling for God which +before ecstasy was a deep (and often very painful) longing for God now increases +to a burning, never-ceasing desire for Him: only three thoughts can be said to +truly occupy a person from this stage onwards—how to please God, how to get +nearer to Him, how to show practical gratitude. He may increase the flow of His +Power to a soul till she is in great distress, longing to leap out of the body +owing to the immensity of God's attraction. This attraction at times has a very +real and sensible effect upon the body: it feels to counteract gravity, it makes +the body feel so light it is about to leave the ground; it affects walking, and +unaccountably changes it to staggering. To receive this attraction can be an +ecstatic condition, but is by no means ecstasy. So long as we have power to move +the body by will we are not in true ecstasy. In ecstasy the body feels to be +disconnected in some unaccountable manner from the will; it lies inert, though +it knows itself and knows that it stills lives—which fundamentally +differentiates it from sleep, because in sleep we do not know our body, we do +not know if we are alive or dead, we know nothing. In ecstasy is no such +blankness: merely the body is perforce inert, it would be entirely forgotten but +for its periods of distress.</p> + +<p>Neither can ecstasy be confused with dreaming, by even the most simple +person. In dreaming, objects and events of a familiar type still surround us; +the total inconsequence with which they present themselves alone makes +dream-living unlike actual living, for it remains fundamentally of the same +type—physical and full of persons, forms, objects, and word-thoughts. We can +procure sleep by willing it, but we cannot will to procure ecstasy: we find it +totally independent of will.</p> + +<p>The Attraction of God can be a penetrating pain, because the soul, terribly +drawn to God, exceedingly near Him, yet remains unsatisfied even in this close +proximity. Why? Because she is being subjected to one Force only—she longs, she +remains near, and receives nothing. God is not bestowing His Activity upon her, +which is the way that she "knows" Him—she is not living the celestial life.</p> + +<p>It is the combination of the two Forces working together simultaneously on +and in the soul which differentiates ecstasy and rapture from all other degrees +of God-Consciousness. When these two Powers work together, we experience +celestial living, full Union, the bliss of Contact. It cannot possibly be said +that in ecstasy we see God: it is a question of "knowing" Him through the higher +part of the soul, in lesser or in deeper degrees.</p> + +<p>X</p> + +<p>If the Divine Lover gives such joys to the soul, how does the soul give joy +to the Divine Lover? Is she beautiful? She becomes so. Also the soul is a poet +of the first water, though she uses no words; and the soul is a weaver of +melodies, though she makes no sound; but above all, and before all, the soul is +a great lover. Now we know in this earthly life that a lover desires above +everything else the love of her whom he loves. Only when she whom he loves +returns his love, can he truly enjoy her.</p> + +<p>So also the Divine Lover. O incomparable Love! Love gives all when it gives +itself, love receives all when it receives Love.</p> + +<p>By love, then, the soul is the Delight of God.</p> + +<p>XI</p> + +<p>The soul feels to be formless; though we become aware of a <i>spreading</i> +which causes her to feel of the form of a cup or a disc when she receives God, +and in contemplation she feels to extend—flame-like until she meets God. She can +wait for God—spread, but cannot maintain this form for long without God rejoices +her by His touch. How can so formless a thing, still waiting for its Spiritual +Body, be beautiful? She is beautiful because of the colours she is able to +assume: she can glow with such colour as no flower on earth can even faintly +imitate. Celestial colours are beyond all imagination. As the soul grows in +purity and is able to endure an increase of the Divine Radiations and +Penetration, so she changes her colours; by her colours she delights the eye of +her Maker, He touches her, she becomes yet more beautiful.</p> + +<center> +* * * +</center> + +<p>Very early in the morning God walks in His Garden of Souls, and in the +evening also, and in the noonday, and in the night.</p> + +<p>The soul that knows Him knows His approach, and, preparing and adorning +herself for Him—waits.</p> + +<p>XII</p> + +<p>Does God come and go? The soul feels Him there, and not there. Is she +mistaken in this, and God always to be possessed, but she not dressed to receive +Him? If this is so, then how grievously frequent is our failure!</p> + +<p>It is more encouraging to our own state to suppose that God lends Himself and +withdraws; that He will be possessed; and He will not be. But this involves +caprice. Can Perfect Love have caprice?</p> + +<p>We find that grace can be received without intermission for weeks, even +months, together. Without coming and departing (although in lesser and greater +intensity) the Presence of God, Love and Comfort, envelop the soul. So then we +learn by our own experience that God is willing to be present amongst us +continually in His Second and Third Persons.</p> + +<p>Yet, although He is present in His Two Persons, the soul is not filled: she +is unspeakably blest and happy, but not wholly satisfied till He is present to +her in His First Person also. She knows immediately when He so comes, and then +the Three become One, and when They become One to her, in that moment the soul +enters Bliss. It is true that if He so came to her very frequently, the soul +could not endure Him; but certainly she could endure Him more frequently than +she receives Him. It is not because she is worthy that she possesses Him: the +soul never, under any circumstances, feels worthy: it is love alone which +enables her to possess Him, and this love that she knows how to shed to Him is +His own gift to her.</p> + +<p>So the soul cries to Him, O mystery of love, was ever such sweet graciousness +as lives in thee: such exquisite felicity of giving and receiving, in which the +giver and receiver in mysterious rapture of generosity are oned! And this +mystery of love is not in paucity of ways, but in marvellous variety of ways and +of degrees—the ways of friendship, the brother and the sister, the mother and +the child, the youth and the maiden, and Thyself and we.</p> + +<p>Love makes the soul ponder on His tastes, His will, His nature. Does He +prefer even in heaven to possess Himself to Himself in His First Person? or are +there parts of heaven where He is ever willing to be possessed in His fulness: +where He is eternally beheld in His Three Persons by such as can endure Him? The +soul believes it, and this is the goal she strives for both now and hereafter.</p> + +<p>Yet there is That of Him which is for ever Alone, which will never be known +or shared by the greatest of the Angels. The soul comprehends that He will have +it so because of that Solitary which sits within herself, she who is made after +His likeness.</p> + +<p>XIII</p> + +<p>For many years before coming to Union with God, I found that it had become +impossible to say more than a little prayer of some five or six words, and these +were said very slowly: at times I was astonished at my inability, and ashamed +that these pitiful shreds were all that I could offer, and always the same thing +too; I tried to vary it—I could not. When I tried to say some fine sentence, +when I tried even to ask for something, I could not; it all disappeared in a +feeling of such sweet love for God, and I merely said again the same old words +of every day. I loved. I could do nothing more than say so, and then stay there +on my knees for a little while, very near Him, fascinated, adoring. But God is +not vexed with a soul when she cannot say much. Is an earthly father vexed when +his child, standing there before him, forgets the words upon its lips, forgets +to ask, because it loves him so? Far from it.</p> + +<p>This prayer is the commencement, the foretaste, of Contemplation. A +distinguishing mark between this prayer and Contemplation is that in even the +lowest degree of Contemplation God (if one may so express the inexpressible) is +Localised. Hitherto His Presence has been near—but we cannot say how near, or +where, and <i>we cannot be sure of finding it.</i> After Union we are certain of +finding God's Presence everywhere, and at any time. He may at times be far away, +or pay no attention to us; but we know whereabouts He is, and we can go and wait +outside that place where He has hidden Himself and which is no place (but a +figure of speech): He merely disappears from our consciousness, but not so +entirely but that we can partly find Him. All this cannot be explained, but +after Union God is as present to the soul in Contemplation (and far more so +because of the great poignancy of it) as is a fellow-creature whom we actually +see and touch, much more so because between ourself and a fellow-creature, +however dear, is always a barrier: try as we may there is always a dividing line +between two persons. We are two: we remain two. But when we meet God there is +nothing between us and God, nothing whatever divides us, and yet we are not lost +in God—that is to say, we do not disappear as a living individual consciousness, +but our consciousness is increased to a prodigious degree, and we are One with +God.</p> + +<p>XIV</p> + +<p>This Oneness, in a tiny degree, can be experienced by two persons who are in +close spiritual sympathy when both are simultaneously and powerfully animated by +very loving thoughts of Christ, or are working together, and <i>giving</i> on +account of Christ: then a fluid interchange of sympathies and interests takes +place in which the barriers of individuality go down.</p> + +<p>This same fluid interchange in a still lesser degree takes place in ordinary +friendship between two friends of similar tastes; but this interchange must +always be with the mental and the higher part of us, it can never take place +because of the merely physical, for in the physical, dependent as it is upon +senses, barriers always exist: we see this in the union of lovers—their union is +merely a transitory +<i>self</i>-gratification, although it may include another self in that it is +mutual; but more frequently it is not even mutual, and what is a pleasure to one +is at the moment distasteful to the other, though the one can easily conceal +from the other that it is so, proving how complete the duality of consciousness +and of feeling remains between two individuals who depend upon contiguity of <i> +substance</i> (or the sense of touch) for their union, and not upon spiritual <i> +similarity</i>: in spiritual similarity alone is +<i>identity</i> of feeling and personality and perfect union to be found, and in +this identity <i>deceit is impossible.</i></p> + +<p>XV</p> + +<p>The more we investigate the question of satisfactions the more we find that +these, in order to be permanent, must take place upon a very high level, upon a +plane above materialism. However much we may with our sense of taste enjoy a +dinner to-day, it will be no joy whatever even a week hence. The natural +everyday facts should (and are intended to) prove to us the futility of giving +so much time and thought to the pleasures of the flesh: these pleasures lead +nowhere, they end abruptly, they are very limited, being confined to five +senses, and consequently, owing to a necessity of continual repetition, satiety +supervenes, and there remains nothing else to turn to. Yet when this happens we +are really very fortunate, because it may be a cause of our searching amongst +our higher faculties for our gratifications.</p> + +<p>XVI</p> + +<p>The soul finds it bitterly hard to rid herself of selfishness and self-will: +she gets rid of one form, only to find herself falling to another. When first my +soul reknew the Joy of God I said to myself, "I will hide it in my own bosom, I +will keep it all to myself. I am become independent of all creatures, I want +none of them, I cannot bear the sight or the sound of them, how joyfully I leave +them all behind!—I want only my God—I want—But what is all this?—I want, I will, +I, I, I, I!" Later the days come when God hides Himself from me: I can go and +wait at His threshold (because when she knows the way He never denies the soul +the threshold, though He denies her Himself). I may pour out all the sweetness +of my love, but he makes no response; I may sing to Him all day: He will not +hear; I may give Him all that I am or have, and He will not communicate Himself +to me. Then I remember all the years of my striving, I remember the stress, the +sweat of all that climb to His footstool—the sweat that at times was like drops +of blood wrung out of the soul, out of the heart, out of the mind; and yet all +forgotten in the instant of the rapture of Finding. Did He then beckon and draw +and delight the soul only to madden with the anguish of more hiding and more +striving: was He to be found only that He might again be lost? My soul sickened +with fear, and I said, Love is a calamity; who can release me from the anguish +of it? O God, since I may no more possess Thee, grant that I may shortly pass +into the dust and for ever be no more, so that I may escape this pain of knowing +Thy Perfections and my own necessity for Thee; and I mourned for Him till my +health went.</p> + +<p>Weeks passed, and three words came constantly to me: "Visit my sick." But I +did not listen: I was sick myself with a deadly wound. Almost every day the same +three words came; but I turned away resentfully from them, saying to myself, +"What have the sick to do with me? I am weary of sick people: I have been so +much with them. Must I accept the sick in place of the ecstasy of God? I mourn +for the loss of God. I can cheer no sick."</p> + +<p>The words came again, with excessive gentleness, and the gentleness was like +the gentleness of Christ, and it pierced. So that day I go to the village and +visit the sick again, and I look at them tenderly and lovingly, and tenderly and +lovingly they look at me, and some say, "It is as if God came into the house +with you"; and tears come to my eyes, and I say, "It may be so, because He sent +me," and they gaze at me lovingly, and lovingly I gaze at them; and it seems to +me that I can no longer tell where "they" cease and where "I" begin, and the +sweetness, the peculiar sweetness, of Christ pierces me through from my head to +my feet—that sweetness that I have not known for weeks. And so I comprehend that +Holy Love is not alone just Thee and me, but it is also Thee and me and the +others, and Thee and the others and me.</p> + +<center> +* * * +</center> + +<p>I wanted my own way. The way I wanted was to be free in order to worship and +bless God in a beautiful place, in some place that <i>I</i> should choose. I +wanted to worship Him, and to sing Him the Song of the Soul from some quiet hill +among the olive trees by the Mediterranean Sea. I wanted this marvellous, this +almost terrible, joy of meeting God in a beautiful place that <i>I</i> should +choose: I wanted it so that it became spiritual greed—spiritual self-indulgence.</p> + +<p>Duty, heavy-winged duty, prevented my taking the journey; duty to an +always-contrary relation, now unwell. It was only a little thing—just a journey +prevented, but it crossed my self-will; and in an impatient, detestable way that +I have, I wanted to push all duty, even all human relationships, anywhere upon +one side, or over the edge of the world, so they might all fall together out of +my sight and I be free!</p> + +<p>Because I thought these thoughts, I came to the Place of Tribulation. And the +Messenger came, and he said, "Escape, and the way is consenting." But I said, +"No, I will not have that way, I will escape by some other way." So I tried +every other way, but found it guarded by something which seemed to be armed with +a hammer; but I persisted: then for days and nights my soul stood up to the +hammers and received terrible blows, and still I persisted—I would find a way to +escape that should please my will. But I could not eat, I could not sleep, the +flesh visibly lessened on my bones, and at last I loathed myself and my own will +and my own soul, and I cried to God, "Shall I never be through with this +terrible struggle with self-will?" and groaned aloud in my despair.</p> + +<p>Then the words that were sent long ago to a saint, and that he was inspired +to write down to help us all, now came and did their work for me through him: +"My grace is sufficient for thee." And so I found it, and more than +sufficient—when I consented.</p> + +<p>Who is it, what is it, that so punishes the soul? Is it God? No. Patiently, +lovingly He waits. Our pain is the difficulty of consenting to perfection: every +virtue has a hammer, every perfection a long two-edged sword; and the punishment +we feel is the breaking and wounding of self-will under the hammers of the +virtues and the sword-thrusts of the vision of perfection.</p> + +<p>Put aside these wretched, these sometimes awful and terrible, battles and +punishments, shrink from them when they come, and we may put aside salvation. +Accept them—stand up to the hammer and take the blows and learn: consent to the +sword that pierces up to the hilt, and what do we come to?—The Blisses of God.</p><a name="5"></a><br> +<br> + +<p>PART V</p> + +<p>I</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>II</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>dispersing flesh.</i> 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?</p> + +<p>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 <i>to completion by +Beholding God.</i></p> + +<p>III</p> + +<p>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 +<i>extraordinary disappointment.</i></p> + +<p>IV</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>V</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<center> +* * * +</center> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>VI</p> + +<p>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 <i>and +waiting upon God</i>—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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>VII</p> + +<p>After coming to Union with God I <i>never lacked anything,</i> 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: <i>but I continually asked +Christ to help me.</i></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<center> +* * * +</center> + +<p>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 <i>be abandoned by God</i> +(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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>VIII</p> + +<p>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 +<i>enjoyment</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>tries ardently to overcome them:</i> +it is in the effort to overcome that virtue is learnt, progress made.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>IX</p> + +<p>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 <i>material being;</i> thinks no earth-thoughts, judges by +no man-made standards, sins no earth-sins. Has this part of the soul, then, +never sinned? <i>It feels</i> that it has sinned, though it cannot say how or +when, but it <i>feels</i> 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 +<i>an infidelity.</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>there</i>; although He may deny +it all consolation and leave it languishing, it yet retains the consolation of +its one supreme necessity—that of knowing <i>it has not lost Him.</i> It waits.</p> + +<p>X</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>XI</p> + +<p>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 <i>fixed +objects,</i> 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 <i>results,</i> and the soul "sees" and "knows" only <i>that which she +herself is like to.</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>in its full meaning,</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>in flesh</i> 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 <i>time</i> to repent and choose a better before, in a horrible +rapidity, we are inevitably <i>become that which we had thought.</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>spends Himself</i> +for every wandering soul.</p> + +<p>XII</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>XIII</p> + +<p>Love is not the mere pleasant sentiment of the heart we are apt to consider +it: it is +<i>the animating principle of the soul,</i> 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 <i>living</i> soul: +when she becomes insensitive, she has become what flesh is when it is "callous."</p> + +<p>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 <i>in this life.</i> The soul which takes Christ into herself, loves Him, +obeys Him, tries to copy Him, qualifies fully for this Retouching.</p> + +<p>XIV</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>Over this part of the road is no peace; but continue, and, little by little, +peace comes.</p> + +<center> +* * * +</center> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<center> +* * * +</center> + +<p>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 <i>she knows Him to Whom she +belongs.</i></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>It may well be asked of a soul which claims to have found God, How does she +know that she has encountered Him?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i> +perfectly satisfying</i> 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 <i>Repose</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>XV</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>If we say Communion with Christ is for the Christian vital to a full +redemption, and therefore the Apprehension of Him is essential, to what degree +should we experience this Apprehension of Him? The degree at which, perceiving +in Him and His ways our Ideal, we become willing to modify and change <i>our +manner of thinking and doing</i> in order to meet the requirements of this +Ideal. Having gone so far, the soul is likely to become enamoured of Him +Personally: then all is indeed well for her.</p> + +<p>So then we find that we can apprehend God by an ever-ascending scale of +degrees. We can apprehend Him with the Reason and the heart at all hours of the +day. We can seek and approach Him with the holy white passion of the Mind. Yet +this is not the Apprehension of Him which alone can be termed Contact, and which +alone satisfies the soul or gives us the full feeling that we Know God. We +cannot "Know" God as fully as He can be known by flesh without we enter ecstasy; +but it is not ecstasy which produces the meeting with God, but the meeting with +God which produces the ecstasy. Though we are able to enjoy a continual +apprehension of Him with heart and Reason, no man could endure an unremitting +ecstasy.</p> + +<p>Can ecstasy be prepared for? Yes, if we have courage to aspire to it, it can +be prepared for by a contemplation of Him in which, to commence with, the Will, +Mind, and heart, in great activity of love, send forth all their powers towards +God: then for love's sake being glad and willing to become nothing, and +becoming, as it were, dead to themselves and all interests and desires usual to +them, by Act of God their normal living is then taken over into a greater +living. Then He comes.</p> + +<p>And when He comes the Reason does not receive Him, but that certain small +part, little more than a point in the soul receives Him.</p> + +<p>Apart from the joy of it, what is the true value of ecstasy to him to whom it +is granted? It raises him above Faith into Certitude. The peace and strength +given by Certitude are such that Joy is neither here nor there, the soul can +wait for it, because, no matter what may afterwards happen to such a one, he +remembers, and remains once and for all aware, that God Is, <i>and that He can +be Known</i>: he learns also a new knowledge, but cares nothing for this because +it is knowledge or because it is power, but because it brings him nearer to his +God.</p> + +<p>Having once learnt the knowledge that comes by ecstasy alone, truth to tell, +the soul would be content to receive no further ecstasy in flesh; but, +intoxicated with love and worship, she best enjoys herself doing all the giving, +for when He comes and gives He bursts down all her doors and, under the awful +stress of Him, the soul hardly knows how to endure either Himself or herself.</p> + +<p>Life in this world is a life for spiritual weaklings. Our eternal Self is an +Intelligence, a Desire, and a Will, and the life we live with it is no idle, +torpid, confined living such as we have here, but is a living <i>in Liberty,</i> +without limit, restriction, fatigue, or satiety; in it word thoughts and +thinking are superseded; by comparison to it even the highest +thought-achievements of men, their noblest aspirations, appear like the +sand-castles of children. Ravished at such further revelations of the Genius of +God, the soul at last knows satisfaction. It requires perfection in order to be +permanently operative, because only in perfection is Freedom found, and because +for the living of it nothing can remain but such Essentials of the soul as <i> +cannot be dispersed.</i> It is a measureless Generosity and an ecstasy of +Receiving and Giving. To say that purity and perfection are required for this +living is no mere arbitrary dictum, but a scientific fact: the impure, imperfect +soul finds herself unable in perfect liberty and freedom <i>to expand to +interaction</i> with the Divine Activity. When the process of Return is +sufficiently completed and, being still in flesh, we enter for a brief time this +living, Reason, Pain and Evil, Yesterday and To-morrow disappear. Reason is +gathered up into, and superseded by, the spiritual and wordless Intelligence: +Pain and Evil, their part and work accomplished, are dispersed and banished into +the mists of darkness.</p> + +<p>So the soul may learn even from this world something of the mystery of the +Depths of God. She may enter into the happiness of Union with the Three in One: +the One Whom in a state of glory yet to come she may Behold. But beyond This of +Him which He will allow her to Behold, beyond This of Him in which she may +repose in bliss, and beyond this Repose which He wills her to know of Him, He +shows her that yet more of Him Is which He will share—heights of Felicity beyond +all measure, holding the soul till she must pray Him to release her, or she will +perish—reeling depths of rapture in a mystery of light; bliss beyond bliss for +that lover who shall venture—all Eternity unfolding in fulfilment.</p> + +<p>And yet remains That of Him which wills no reciprocity, but shares Himself +with Himself. So peace Is. And so, even in not giving, He yet does give that +which is most precious, for without He Himself in His forever hidden depths were +Peace, His creatures could neither know nor have peace.</p> + +<p>Looking into herself, what does the soul perceive? Apart from sins and +virtues she perceives two things—caprice and free-will. Neither are of her own +creation, but are essentials of her being. It may be that in caprice and +free-will she may find an answer to those two questions which stir her to her +depths: What is she that God should so love her? and how comes she to be away +from Him? Clothed in the body of either man or woman, the soul is predominantly +feminine—the Feminine Principle beloved of, and returning to, the Eternal +Masculine of God. Caprice is feminine; Caprice and Mystery are two enchanting +sisters, and in Woman we see them as being irresistible to Man. Angels, though +they are a glory of God's heaven, cannot alone satisfy all the needs of their +Creator: they have neither sex nor caprice, nor the mystery which joins hands +with it. So He creates the soul, and He gives her an heredity of Himself in the +flash-point of the soul, and He gives her sex and caprice and free-will to deny +herself to Him if she choose; and in her caprice she goes out and away from Him, +and when she would return she cannot, because in infidelity she has dropped from +perfection. Disillusioned by her unfaithful wanderings and horribly pained, the +soul longs for Him, and He longs for her. He Himself must make her the way of +return, which is the way of redemption, and at a terrible cost to Himself He +shows her His Righteousness and the mode of her Return in the Face and the Ways +of Jesus Christ; and in the Crucifixion He shows her the measure of His love, +and in the Cross the necessary abandonment of all self-will—total surrender. And +all this suffering to Himself He bears in order to make good the wilful sinning +and the misery of the wayward soul. So He brings home the soul, not by force but +by love—that love by which He is at once the Life of everything and everything +is the life of Him.</p> + +<p>Absence from God is Pain, and everlastingly will be Pain in varying degrees. +Are there souls who have never left Him? Undoubtedly, but they know nothing of +this world. Are we perhaps distressed at this multiplicity of worlds and souls? +We need not be, for they are a necessity both of God and of ourselves; for God +to Be Himself He must give Himself, and who can receive Him? Not even the +greatest of all the Angels can alone bear to endure Him? Only into a vast +multiplicity of individuals can God pour and expend Himself to the fullness of +His desire, the One to the many. Each individually receives from Him, and each +individually and collectively—the many to the One—returns Him those burning +favours which are in Celestial-living.</p> + +<p>Is it all joy to find God? How can it be? Can faults and sins be eradicated +without pain? Life here for the lover of God is one long eradication of +offences. How can even the daily requirements of flesh be fulfilled without +pain? How without profound humiliation and patience can we descend from +Contemplation to duties in the household? How without pain consider with that +same mind which has so recently been rapt in God—the various merits of breads, +pastries, and portions of dead animals, in order that flesh shall eat and live! +What a fall is this!—a fall that must be taken daily and patiently. Is it all +joy to love God? How can it be? For Love carries in itself a terrible wound of +longing which can never be healed till we come before Him in possession Face to +Face.</p> + +<p>And many times a day in an unpremeditated natural anguish Love remembers the +sufferings of that meek and holy Saviour; how can it be a joy to the soul that +passionately loves Him to stand before a tortured Lord, tortured for her? There +never was a pain as hard and sharp as this. There are no tears like the tears we +shed to Christ.</p> + +<p>XVI</p> + +<p>We say of God that He is Love and Light, Wisdom and Truth. He is also a +Gracious Consenting. So we see the Divine Light Consenting to darkness that it +may return to Light, and Divine Love Consenting to infidelity that it may return +to Perfect Love.</p> + +<p>But this Gracious Consenting is not because of or since Adam, but Adam "is" +because of this Consenting.</p> + +<p>In the flesh of Adam the fallen soul is brought to a stay-point. Any that +have experienced spirit-living even for one hour know that in immortal living is +no stay-point but infinity of movement, in which movement the wandering soul +becomes lost and finally insensitive. By means of the flesh the soul is brought +to that stay-point where she more easily receives and understands the +impregnation of Consenting Light, which is the Divine Begetting; and she +receives the drawing power of Consenting Love: she is directly operated upon by +the Divine Pity Who Himself came to show her the Way of Return: first, by the +negation or sacrifice of flesh lusts; secondly, by the sacrifice of spiritual +lusts (by which the soul originally fell); until finally, by death to all lusts +and infidelities she is reunited to the blisses of Immortal Life. This is the +kindly purpose of our life in this world. Christ being Eternal Light and Love +and Life, we also are eternal <i>who contain Christ.</i></p> + +<p>So, then, we consent to abandon all lusts of the flesh whilst also consenting +to endure any consequences of these lusts in ourselves and others, not in +unwillingness to endure, which is resistance, but in submission. From consenting +to abandon the delights of the flesh we advance to consenting to the withdrawal +of all spiritual delights from us: enduring instead spiritual difficulties, +standing firm in the strength of Christ whilst the assaults of self-will and +infidelity batter the soul.</p> + +<p>We consent to abandon self-absorption in the delights of God, and, returning +to the world, endeavour to perform all acts of life in the world in a manner +consonant with perfection; but this is impossible: this effort is insupportable +without Grace. We cannot do it alone. We learn to know it and to know that we +are never alone. Even if we fall into the deepest sin, we are not abandoned by +the Divine Graciousness: by consenting to abandon this wickedness we are +immediately reunited with the Divine Consenting, and so onwards and upwards in +an ever-ascending improvement to perfection: and by consenting the soul daily +sinks into the balm of Christ and loses her burden.</p> + +<p>We see the Perfection of this divine consenting and abandonment of Self-Will +in the final picture of the Cross. We see unmurmuring consent to the death of +flesh, consent to the attacks of evil, consent to injustice, consent to +infidelity (and straightway they all forsook Him and fled), and, finally, +consent to the death of Divine Union: this not without groanings, as being the +one supreme and only insupportable Agony.</p> + +<p>XVII</p> + +<p>How is it that Perfect Love can consent to the wandering of the soul with its +consequent sorrow and sin? Divine Light, being also Perfect Freedom, consents to +the wandering of the soul; but Divine Love, being also Reciprocity, may not +consent to such wandering as shall for ever preclude Reciprocity. The wandering +soul must be, will be, Redeemed.</p> + +<center> +* * * +</center> + +<p>If Divine Light, being also Perfect Freedom, consents to the wandering of the +soul, but Divine Love, being also Reciprocity, may not consent to a perpetual +wandering, how set limits in a life in which perfect freedom must continue? A +limit can be fixed by Evil, Evil the outermost circle from God, the shore on +which, continually breaking and being broken, the soul turns herself in longing +to a long-forgotten Lord. Evil is the hedge about the vineyard of the Parable. +The soul is free to touch it, free to pass through it if she will, but touching +it she knows Pain. Pain causes the soul to pause and consider: now is her +opportunity; now she is likely to turn about and seek the Good.</p> + +<p>Then the purpose of Evil is fulfilled; then Evil becomes the handmaid of +Good; then we can feel and say with sincerity, Evil has smitten me friendly, for +it has caused me to turn about and seek Good. Good, once found, is found to be +stronger than Evil. In a few years Good has so drawn us that Evil has become +negligible; it lies forgotten on a now distant misty shore. The soul is Homeward +bound.</p> + +<p>XVIII</p> + +<p>"If the wicked turn from his sins that he hath committed and keep my statutes +. . . all his transgressions that he hath committed, they shall not be mentioned +unto him."—Ezekiel xviii. 21, 22.</p> + +<p>XIX</p> + +<p>Who is so blessed as the Redeemed Sinner? Who can taste the sweetness of God +as can the repentant sinner? Who can know His graciousness, His infinity of +tenderness and courtesy, as can the sinner? Who knows the heights and depths and +lengths and breadths of God's forgiving love as does the sinner? Who can share +with God hereafter such close experiences as will the sinner?</p> + +<p>Can Angels share the memories of His human days with Christ? And who but the +sorely tempted sinner can be bonded to Him by the mutual knowledge of those +bitter, burning, desert days? Not the Righteous, nor even Angels can know quite +the full beauty of all the bonds that bind the sinner to his Saviour. O +marvellous love of God! O blessed soul, O blessed Adam, blessed even in thy +sins!</p> + +<p>He desired lovers and had none: Created Angels, and, desiring to prove them +as lovers, He made Him a Lure.</p> + +<p>A third of them turned to the Lure and fell to It. They serve the Lure and +take their bread from It, and the offspring of the serving is Evil.</p> + +<p>Desiring more lovers, He fashioned souls; yet, when He proved them, they also +fell to the Lure.</p> + +<p>Being lesser than Angels, they served not the Lure, but the offspring of +it—Evil—and became subject to Evil. They were made for Love, and in Evil found +no Love, and it was an anguish and it tormented them.</p> + +<p>And He put them in flesh, that He might limit their suffering and show them +His Light again; covered them about with Limits like a merciful Cloak; hedged +them in with Evil as a boundary, so they should have no will to fall away +further from Him than Evil because of the pain of it.</p> + +<p>But in flesh they continued to serve Evil, and the offspring of the serving +was Sin: and they were miserable in their service, because of the pain of it; +yet no soul could break the bondage of service, because no soul could be found +that, being subject, did not serve, and in serving lose freedom by its own +offspring.</p> + +<p>Then He sent His Spirit to walk with them in flesh, and being proven as a +Lover, was not found wanting, and being subject to Evil did not serve, and +remaining Sinless had no offspring to destroy His freedom, and He broke the +bondage and showed them a light.</p> + +<p>He sent, because He repented Him of the Proving and of the Evil that came of +it, and His fallen lovers repented and repent of their fall.</p> + +<p>His travail and their travail—the travail of severed Love towards Reunion—is +the anguish of the Ages: but the anguish will have an end, because Love is +Omnipotence.</p> + +<p>———</p>[Transcriber's notes: The name of the author, Lilian Staveley, is not mentioned +on the title page of this text, but I have added it here. I have also made the +following editorial changes: +<p>"I am of no value value whatever" to "I am of no value whatever"</p> +<p>"called it it by the same name as I" to "called it by the same name as I"</p> +<p>"God shall +see us to to be prepared" to "God shall see us to be prepared"</p> +<p>"the full beauty +of all the the bonds" to "the full beauty of all the bonds"</p> +<p>"(though entirely without effort on her part) is immensely increased)" to +"(though entirely without effort on her part) is immensely increased"]</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Prodigal Returns, by Lilian Staveley + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRODIGAL RETURNS *** + +***** This file should be named 29450-h.htm or 29450-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/4/5/29450/ + +Produced by Ruth Hart + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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