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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 Romance of the Soul + +Author: Lilian Staveley + +Release Date: July 18, 2009 [EBook #29451] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROMANCE OF THE SOUL *** + + + + +Produced by Ruth Hart + + + + + +</pre> + +<center> +<h1>THE ROMANCE OF THE SOUL</h1> + +<h3>By</h3> + +<h3>Lilian Staveley</h3><br> +<p>The Author of "The Golden Fountain"</p> + +<br><br> + +<p>London<br> +John M. Watkins<br> +21 Cecil Court, Charing Cross Road, W.C. 2<br> +1920</p> +</center><br> +<br> + +<p>What am I? In my flesh I am but equal to the beasts of the field. In my heart +and mind I am corrupt Humanity. In my soul I know not what I am or may be, and +therein lies my hope.</p> + +<p>O wonderful and mysterious soul, more fragile than gossamer and yet so strong +that she may stand in the Presence of God and not perish!</p> + +<p>"Though ye have lien among the pots, yet shall ye be as the wings of a +<i>dove."—Psalm lxviii. 13.</i></p> + +<p>By what means shall the ordinary man and woman, living the usual everyday +life, whether of work or of leisure, find God? And this without withdrawing +themselves into a life apart—a "religious" life, and without outward and +conspicuous piety always running to public worship (though often very cross and +impatient at home); without leaving undone any of the duties necessary to the +welfare of those dependent on them; without making themselves in any way +peculiar;—how shall these same people go up into the secret places of God, how +shall they find the marvellous peace of God, how satisfy those vague persistent +longings for a happiness more complete than any they have so far known, yet a +happiness which is whispered of between the heart and the soul as something +which is to be possessed if we but knew how to get it? How shall ordinary +mortals whilst still in the flesh re-enter Eden even for an hour? for Eden is +not dead and gone, but we are dead to Eden—Eden, the secret garden of +enchantment where the soul and the mind and the heart live in the presence of +God and hear once more "the voice of God walking in the garden in the cool of +the day" (Gen. iii.).</p> + +<p>It is possible for these things to come to us or we to them, and in quite a +few years if we set our hearts on them. First we must desire; and after the +desire, steady and persistent, God will give. And we say, "But I have desired +and I do desire, and God does not give. Why is this?" There are two reasons for +it. For one—are these marvellous things to be given because of one cry; for one +petulant demand; for a few tears, mostly of self-pity, shed in an hour when the +world fails to satisfy us, when a friend has disappointed us, when our plans are +spoiled, when we are sick or lonely? These are the occasions on which we mostly +find time to think of what we call a better world, and of the consolations of +God.</p> + +<p>But let anyone have all that he can fancy, be carried high upon the +flood-tide of prosperity, ambition, and success, and how much time will he or +she give to Almighty God?—not two moments during the day. Yet the Maker of all +things is to bestow His unspeakable riches upon us in return for two moments of +our thought or love! Does a man acquire great worldly wealth, or fame, in return +for two moments of endeavour?</p> + +<p>"Ah," some of us may cry, "but it is more than two moments that I give Him; I +give Him hours, and yet I cannot find Him." If that is really so, then the +second reason is the one which would explain why He has not been found. A great +wall divides us from the consciousness of the Presence of God. In this wall +there is one Door, and one only, Jesus Christ. We have not found God because we +have not found Him first as Jesus Christ in our own heart. Now whether we take +our heart to church, whether we take it to our daily work, or whether we take it +to our amusements, we shall not find Jesus in any one place more than another if +He is not already in our hearts to begin with. How shall I commence to love a +Being whom I have never seen? By thinking about Him; by thinking about Him very +persistently; by comparing the world and its friendships and its loves and its +deceits and its secret enviousnesses with all that we know of the lovely ways of +gentle Jesus. If we do this consistently, it is impossible not to find Him more +lovable than any other person that we know. The more lovable we find Him the +more we think about Him, by so much the more we find ourselves beginning to love +Him, and once we have learnt to hold Him very warmly and tenderly in our heart, +then we are well in the way to find the Christ and afterwards that divine garden +of the soul in which God seems to slip His hand under our restless anxious heart +and lift it high into a place of safety and repose.</p> + +<p>When for some time we have learnt to go in and out of this garden, with God's +tender help we make ourself a dear place—a nest under God's wing, and yet +mysteriously even nearer than this, it is so near to God. To this place we learn +to fly to and fro in a second of time: so that, sitting weary and harassed in +the counting-house, in an instant a man can be away in his soul's nest; and so +very great is the refreshment of it and the strength of it that he comes back to +his work a new man, and so silently and quickly done that no one else in the +room would ever know he had been there: it is a secret between his Lord and +himself.</p> + +<p>But the person who learns to do this does not remain the same raw uncivilised +creature that once he or she was: but slowly must become quite changed; all +tastes must alter, (all capacities will increase in an extraordinary manner), +and all thoughts of heart and mind must become acceptable and pleasant to God.</p> + +<p>The man who has not yet begun to seek God—that is to say, has not even +commenced to try and learn how to live spiritually, but lives absorbed entirely +in the things of the flesh—is a spiritual savage. To watch such a man and his +ways and his tastes is to the spiritual man the same thing as when a European +watches an African in his native haunts, notes his beads, his frightful tastes +in decorations, foods, amusements, habits, and habitations, and, comparing them +with his own ways, says instantly that man is a savage. This proud European does +not pause to consider that he himself may be inwardly what the savage is—quite +dark; that to God's eyes his own ways and tastes are as frightful as those of +the African are to himself. What raises a man above a savage is not the size of +his dining-room, the cut of his coat, the luxuries of his house, the learned +books that adorn his bookshelves, but that he should have begun to learn how to +live spiritually: this is the only true civilising of the human animal. Until it +is commenced, his manners and his ways are nothing but a veneer covering the raw +instincts of the natural man—instincts satisfied more carefully, more hiddenly, +than those of the African, but always the same. There is little variety in the +lusts of the flesh; they are all after one pattern, each of its kind, follow one +another in a circle, and are very limited.</p> + +<p>It is not the clay of our bodies fashioned by God which makes some common and +some not. It is the independent and un-Godlike thoughts of our hearts and minds +which can make of us common, and even savage, persons. The changing of these +thoughts, the harmonising of them, and, finally, the total alteration of them, +is the work in us of the Holy Spirit. By taking Christ into our hearts and +making for Him there a living nest, we set that mighty force in motion which +shall eventually make for us a nest in the Living God. For Jesus Christ is able +(but only with our own entire <i>willingness)</i> to make us not only acceptable +to God, but delightful to Him, so much so that even while we remain in the flesh +He would seem not to be willing to endure having us always away from Him, but +visits us and dwells with us after His own marvellous fashion and catches us up +to Himself.</p> + +<p>To begin with, we must have a set purpose and <i>will</i> towards God. In the +whole spiritual advance it is first we who must make the effort, which God will +then stabilise, and finally on our continuing to maintain this effort He will +bring it to complete fruition. Thus step by step the spirit rises—first the +effort, then the gift. First the will to do—and then the grace to do it with. +Without the willing will God gives no grace: without God's grace no will of Man +can reach attainment. God's will and Man's will, God's love and Man's love—these +working and joining harmoniously together raise Man up into Eternal Life.</p> + +<center> +* * * +</center> + +<p>God is desirous of communicating Himself to us in a Personal manner. In the +Scriptures we have the foundation, the basis, the cause and reason of our Faith +laid out before us; but He wills that we go beyond this basis, this reasoning of +Faith into experience of Himself. For this end, then, He fills us with the +aching desire to find and know Him, to be filled with Him, to be comforted and +consoled by Him, to discover His joys. He fills us with these desires in order +that He may gratify us.</p> + +<p>By being willing to receive and understand as only through the medium of the +<i>written</i> word we limit God in His communications with us. For by the Holy +Ghost He will communicate not by written word but by personal touching of love +brought about for us by the taking and enclosing of Jesus Christ within the +heart not only as the Written Word, the Promise and Hope of Scripture, but as +the Living God.</p> + +<p>For this end inward meditation and pondering are a necessity.</p> + +<center> +* * * +</center> + +<p>How is it that we so often find great virtue, remarkable charity and patience +amongst persons who are yet not conscious of any direct contact with God? They +have never known the pains of repentance, neither have they known the sublime +joys of God. Are these the ninety-and-nine just persons needing no repentance? +Instinctively, and almost unconsciously, they hold to, and draw upon, the +Universal Christ—or Spirit of Righteousness; but they have not laid hold of nor +taken into themselves that Spirit of the Personal Christ, whom Christians +receive and know through Jesus. He is the Door into the unspeakable joys of God. +What are these joys of God? They are varying degrees of the manifestation and +experience of <i>reciprocal</i> Divine Love.</p> + +<p>What is the true aim of spiritual endeavour—an attempt at personal and +individual salvation? Yes, to commence with, but beyond that, and more fully, it +is the attempt to comply with the exquisite Will of God; and the general and +universal improving and raising of the consciousness of the whole world. Yet +this universal improvement must take place in each individual spirit in an +individual manner. There are those who would deny to individuality its rights, +claiming that the highest spirituality is the total cessation of all +individuality; yet this would not appear to be God's view of the matter, for in +the most supreme contacts of the soul with Himself He does not wipe out the +consciousness of the soul's individual joy, but, on the contrary, to an +untenable extent He <i>increases</i> it. And Jesus teaches us that life here is +both the means and the process of the gradual conformation of the will of Man to +the will of God, and our true "work" is the individual learning of this process. +But this cultivation of our individuality must not be subverted to the purpose +of the mere gain of personal advantage, but because of the heartfelt wish to +conform to the glorious will of God. The failure of the human will to run in +conjunction with the Divine will is the cause, as we know, of all sin. In the +friction of these opposing wills, forces baneful to Man are generated.</p> + +<p>From its very earliest commencement in childhood our system of education is +based upon wrong ideas. With little or no regard to God's plans Man lays out his +own puny laws and ambitions and teaches them to his young. We are not taught +that what we are here for is above all and before all to arrive at a sense of +personal connection with God, to identify ourselves with the spiritual while +still in the flesh. On the contrary, we are taught to grow shy, even ashamed, of +the spiritual! and to regard the world as a place principally or even solely in +which to enjoy ourselves or make a "successful career."</p> + +<p>Children are taught to look eagerly and mainly for holidays and "parties"; +grown men and women the same upon a larger and more foolish scale, and always +under the terribly mistaken belief that in spiritual things no great happiness +is to be found, but only in materialism: yet very often we find the greatest +unhappiness amongst the wealthiest people.</p> + +<p>Happiness! happiness! We see the great pursuit of it on every side, and no +truer or more needful instinct has been given to Man, but he fails to use it in +the way intended. This world is a Touchstone, a Finding-place for God. Whoever +will obey the law of finding God from this world instead of waiting to try and +do it from the next, he, and he only, will ever grasp and take into himself that +fugitive mysterious unseen Something which—not knowing what it is, yet feeling +that it exists—we have named Happiness.</p> + +<p>But how commence this formidable, this seemingly impossible task of finding +God in a world in which He is totally invisible? To the "natural" or animal Man +God is as totally hidden and inaccessible as He is to the beasts of the field; +yet encased within his bosom lies the soul which can be the means of drawing Man +and God together in a glorious union. "I have known all this from my childhood," +we cry, "and the knowledge of it has not helped me one step upon my way."</p> + +<p>Then try again, and reverse your method, for hitherto you have been +beseeching gifts from God, asking for gifts from Jesus, and have <i>forgotten to +give.</i> Give your love to Jesus, give <i>Him</i> a home, instead of asking Him +to give you one. Give your heart to God, <i>set it upon Him.</i></p> + +<p>What is keeping you back? You are afraid of what it will entail; you are +afraid of what God will demand of you; those words "Forsake all, and follow Me" +fill you with something like terror. I cannot leave my business, my children, my +home, my luxuries, my games, my dresses, my friends! Neither need you but, +knowing this initial agony of mind, Christ said it is easier for a camel to go +through the eye of a needle (the name of an exceedingly narrow gate into +Jerusalem) than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.</p> + +<p>What does it mean to "set the heart" upon something? We say, "I have set my +heart on going to see my son," "I have set my heart on doing so-and-so," but +this does not mean that in order to accomplish it we must wander homeless and +lonely until the day of achievement. No; but we set our heart and mind upon +eventually accomplishing this wish, we shape all our plans towards it, we give +it the first place. This is what God asks us to do; to give Him the first place. +We need not go to Him in rags: David and Solomon were immensely wealthy, Job was +a rich man; but we must eventually think more of Him than we do of our dress, +more of Him than we do of our business, more of Him than we do of lover, friend, +or child. Many well-minded people are under the impression that such love for an +Invisible Being is a total impossibility. Yet the great commandment stands +written all across the face of the heavens—"Thou shalt love Me with all thy +heart and mind and soul and strength." Are we then to suppose that God asks the +impossible of His own creatures, that He mocks us? No; for when we desire He +sends the capacity, and day by day sends us the power to reach this love through +Jesus Christ. There is included in the words "Give us this day our daily bread," +the bread of the soul, which is Love.</p> + +<p>Divine Love commences in us in a very small way, as a very feeble flicker, +for we are very feeble and small creatures. But God takes the will for the deed, +and the day comes when suddenly we are filled with true love, as a gift. This is +indeed the second baptism, the baptism of fire, the baptism of the Holy Ghost; +then at last the great wall which has hitherto divided our consciousness from +God goes down in its entirety, never again to rise up and divide us. This is the +mighty work of Jesus Christ.</p> + +<p>Though this is not our work, still we have had the earnest will, the longing +desire; we have made continually, perseveringly, our tiny, often futile, efforts +to please and place Him first, and though perhaps almost all were failures, He +has counted every one to us for righteousness.</p> + +<p>We may at all times be asking ourselves, "But how shall I know the will of +God, how shall I please Him, how shall I know what Christ would wish me to do or +to think?" There is one test more sure than any other, which is to ask oneself, +"Would Jesus have done just this?" and the answer will come from the inward of +us instantaneously. But before we can use this test we must have made a careful +study of Scripture and also have begun the habit of inward personal intimacy +with Jesus Himself. So immense is the bounty of God to the creature that truly +and persistently wills and endeavours to please Him, so great are the rewards of +that creature for its tiny work that it is as though a child should scratch bare +ground with its little spade and reap a harvest of sweet flowers as magic gifts. +In this way it is that we find actually fulfilled in ourselves the lovely words +of the prophet, "the desert shall blossom like the rose."</p> + +<p>The great initial difficulty that surely most of us feel is how to come into +personal contact with this Jesus Christ, and to know which are the first steps +that we should take to bring about this contact. They are just those same steps +that we use to come to a nearer understanding of and greater intimacy with any +persons we are desirous of making friends with. We commence by thinking about +them, by arranging to spend time in their companionship; and the more we think +about them and the more time we spend with them if they are very attractive +people, the more we feel in sympathy with them. Form, then, the habit of making +for brief instants a mental picture of the Saviour. Note the exquisite +tenderness of His hands, so instantly ready to save and heal; note the calm +strength and the great love in His countenance, walk beside Him down the street, +join His daily life, learn to become familiar with Him as Jesus—what would He +do, how would He look, what would His thoughts be? To feel sympathetically +towards a person is to take one of the most important steps towards friendship. +How many of us stop in the rush of our daily amusements, interests, and work to +sympathise with Christ? Most probably, if we think of Christ at all, it is to +feel that He ought to sympathise with us! Now Christ not only sympathises with +but ardently loves us, and our failure to receive the comfort and help of this +love is due to our failure in returning to Him these same feelings of sympathy +and love and friendship. We are not reciprocal, but perpetually ask and never +give.</p> + +<p>It is only by returning love to Christ that we are able to receive the +benefits of His love for us. His mighty power and help flows around but not +through us until we place ourselves in individual and direct contact with Him, +until we make that mysterious inward and spiritual connection with Him which can +be achieved only through a personal love for Him.</p> + +<p>Again and again we may cry out, "But how love the invisible?" Christ is +invisible, but for all that, he is not unknown. We all of us know Him. But we do +not give ourselves time or opportunity to know Him sufficiently well. What +hours, months, years, we devote to making and knowing our friends; yet a few +moments a day are more than enough for most of us to spend in becoming more +intimate with the only Friend whom it is worth our while to make.</p> + +<p>"But life is so busy I have no time," you say. What of those hours spent in +the train, those moments spent waiting for an appointment, that half-hour taken +for a rest, but which is not a rest because of the rushing inharmonious turmoil +of your thoughts? No one is so restful to think of as Jesus. Every single +quality that we most admire, trust, and love is to be found in Jesus Christ. The +only reason of our failure to love Him more ardently than any human being we +know is that we do not think enough about Him.</p> + +<p>How much offended we should be if anyone dared to say to us, "You are not a +Christian." We all consider ourselves Christians as a matter of course; but why +this certainty, what reason can we give? Many would say, "I keep the +Commandments, and I am baptised in Christ's name." But Christianity is not an +act done by hands, it is a life, and the Jews keep the Commandments even more +strictly than we and are not Christians. The mere fact of believing that Christ +once lived and was crucified is not enough. The Jews and also the Mahommedans +believe that He lived and was crucified.</p> + +<p>What is then necessary? That we believe that He is indeed the Son of God, the +Messiah, the Saviour; for if He was no more than a holy man, by what means has +He power to save us more than Moses has power to save us?</p> + +<p>The true inward knowledge that Christ is God comes not by nature to any man, +but by gift of God—which gift must be earnestly sought, striven, prayed for, and +desired: this faith is the very coming to God by which we are saved. If we are +not yet in this faith that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, then we are neither Jew, +Mahommedan, nor Christian, but wanderers without a fold, and without a Shepherd; +longing, and not yet comforted.</p> + +<p>How do we come by this joy of the personal loving of God, this Romance of the +Soul brought to sensible fruition whilst still in the flesh?</p> + +<p>Is it a gift? Yes. Is it a gift because of some merit of goodness on our part +beyond the goodness of other persons who are without it, though striving? No. Is +it because of some work for God that we do in this world, charitable or social? +No. Is it, then, nothing but an arbitrary favouritism on His part? No. Is it a +sagacity or cleverness, a height of learning, a result of close study? No.</p> + +<p>It is simply and solely a certain and particular obedient attitude of heart +and mind towards God of the nature of a longing—giving, a grateful outgoing +thinking towards Him, continually maintained, and a heart invitation to, and a +receiving of Jesus Christ into ourselves.</p> + +<p>Our part is to maintain this obedient tender-waiting, giving and receiving +attitude under all the circumstances of daily life, and Christ with the Holy +Ghost will then work the miracle in us.</p> + +<p>But so difficult is this attitude to maintain that we are totally unable to +do it without another gift upon His part—Grace. The whole process from first to +last is gift upon gift, and that because first of our belief and desire, and +then of our continually remembering that to receive these gifts we have a part +to play which God will not dispense with. For an illustration let us turn to the +artist and his sitter. The sitter does not produce the work of art, but must +maintain his attitude: if he refuses to do this, the work of the artist is +marred and even altogether foiled. So with Christ and His Divine Art in bringing +us to our Father—by not endeavouring to maintain our right attitude we foil His +work. God would seem to give us that which we seek and ask for, and no more. +Great ecclesiastics, theologians, philosophers who sought and desired Him with +the intelligence, seeking for knowledge, for pre-eminence of spiritual wisdom, +were not given as an addition to their learning this exquisite fire and balm of +love. Those who desired of Christ the healing of the body received that, and we +are not told they received anything further. So also with the woman at the well: +"If thou hadst asked," Christ said to her, "I would have given thee of the water +of Life." Without we ask for and receive this gift of Love we hang to God by +Faith only.</p> + +<p>What is true religion, what is that religion by which we shall feel <i>wholly +satisfied?</i> It is to have Christ recognised, known, adored, and living in the +soul. This is the New Life within us, this is the New Birth. The first proofs of +the power of this New Life in us is the victory over all the lower passions, +victory over the animal "that once was ourself"! A victory so complete that not +only do we cease to desire those former things or be troubled by them but we no +longer "respond" to that which is base, even though we be brought into visual +contact with such things as would formerly have inevitably excited at least a +passing response in us. Can any man free himself in such a manner from his own +nature? Common sense forbids us imagine it. It is then a Living Power within us, +slowly transforming us to higher levels, from the fleshly to the spiritual, and +shaping us to meet the purity of God. And such is the tender consideration of +this Power for our weakness that while we are learning to give up these baser +pleasures He teaches us the higher pleasures of the soul—we are not left +comfortless. So in our earlier stages we may have many very wonderful ecstasies +which later are altogether dispensed with, and indeed are eventually not desired +by the soul, or even the more greedy heart and mind, which all now ask and +desire one favour only—to be on earth in continual fellowship with Christ Jesus +and ever able to enter into the love of God. To be without this glorious power +of entering Responsive Love of God, to be cut off from this, is the great and +only fear of the soul. This fear it is which holds the soul and the creature +towards God both day and night lest by the least forgetfulness or wrongful +attitude they should lose Him or displease Him.</p> + +<p>All these changes no man can bring about for himself—they are accomplished +for him by the Holy Spirit; but this he can and <i>must</i> do for himself, +invite Sweet Jesus into his heart and enthrone Him there as Ruler. This once +accomplished, that mysterious monitor within us commonly known as "Conscience" +grows until it attains an excessive sensitiveness which penetrates the minutest +acts of life and the deepest recesses of heart and mind. It becomes inexorable, +it demands instant and complete obedience. Because of it relations with other +persons undergo a drastic change. Complete, instant, entire forgiveness for +every offence is demanded, and at last even a momentary annoyance must be +effaced; no matter how great the cause of annoyance, it must be effaced in the +same instant as that in which it crosses the mind, for a single adverse thought +eventually proves as injurious to the Spirit as a grain of sand is to the eyes.</p> + +<p>The petty human aims, the smallness of all our former standards, the instinct +for "retaliation" must all be overcome, laid upon one side—a slow task of much +humiliation to the creature, revealing to it its own smallness and vanity and +its own extraordinary ineffectiveness of self-control, its puny powers over +itself: nothing short of an absolute self-conquest is aimed at and demanded by +this inward monitor—the Soul. With what profound veneration for and recognition +of the power of God does the regenerated creature think of those alterations in +its own nature which, after long strivings, are eventually given it by God, and +of those alterations not yet stabilised because not yet gifts, but only on the +way to perhaps becoming gifts—that is to say, still only where the power of the +creature itself has been able to raise them: for of these last it may invariably +be said that to-day we may feel serene security and to-morrow fall and fail—and +this in the very meanest way!</p> + +<p>We see on every side men and women who try to fill an emptiness, a wanting +that they feel within themselves, by every sort of means except the only one +which can ever be a permanent success. Women devote themselves to lovers, +husbands, children, dress, society, and dogs; men to business, ambition, the +racecourse, folly, drink, games, and arts. Are any of these persons truly happy, +truly satisfied in all their being? No, and they descend to old age surrounded +by the dust of disillusionment. Lonely and soon forgotten by the hungry +pleasure-seeking crowd, such persons pass from this world, and the most their +friends have to say is that they have gone to a better one. But have they? For +the mere fact of shedding the flesh does not bring us any nearer to God. On the +contrary, the shedding of the flesh increases appallingly the difficulty of the +soul in finding God. This world is the very place in which we can most easily +and quickly get into communication with God. To think that the mere act of dying +improves our character and takes us to heaven is a delusion of the Enemy—it is +living here which can fit us and carry us to heaven; and we have no great +distance to travel either, for heaven is a state of consciousness, and by +entering that state of consciousness we become united and connected with such +degrees of heaven as the flesh is able to bear, though these degrees fall +infinitely short of those required by the soul: hence the fearful hungering and +longing of the soul to depart from the flesh. If we do not find Christ whilst we +are here, when we cast off the flesh we enter a bewildering vortex of a life of +terrible intensity and great solitude. We are aware of nothing but Self, are +tormented by Self with its forever unsatisfied longings, and by the <i> +impossibility of achieving any other Self.</i> In this intensity of +self-tormenting loneliness the soul feels to gyrate, and all that she knows of +that which is outside of this Self is the sound of the rushing of invisible +things, for she is blind. Without the light of this world and without the light +of Christ. The joys of space are not open to her, only the dark and lonely +horrors of it: she is in an incalculably greater state of isolation from God +than here in this world! The remedy for all this lies here; let no one think he +can afford to wait to find this remedy until after he leaves this world, for +then his chance is gone, and who is able to foretell when it will return? What +can be more beautiful, more happy, than to find this remedy, to find the only +Being who loves us as much as we love ourselves! the gentle, tender, gracious, +all-sufficing Christ; that all-mighty ever-giving Christ who yearns over and +longs for us—what madness is it that prevents us seeking Him?</p> + +<p>All of us would seem to have two personalities: we are the repentant and the +unrepentant Magdalene and daily change from one to the other. But true +repentance cannot come before love: if we think we repent before we love, then +it is no more than a repentance of the mind, which says to itself, "I must stand +well with God because of my future well-being." Where love comes first we get +the repentance of the heart, which works this way in us—we love Jesus a little, +we love Him more and more, and because of this love increasing to real warmth we +suddenly perceive the frightful offences we have committed against this sweet +love, and instantly the heart melts and breaks and we are shaken to our depths +that we have ever grieved our Holy Lover. This is true repentance—no anxious +fears for our own future, but love grieving and agonised for its offences. Such +repentance as this pierces to the deepest recesses of the heart and mind, and +leaves upon them a deep indelible mark, changing all the aims of our life, and +is the beginning of all joys in Christ Jesus. Let us aim therefore not first at +repentance, but first at love. A little love to Jesus given many times a day as +we walk or wait or work, if only at first said by the lips with desire for more +warmth, after a while we shall find ourselves giving it from the heart; then the +Divine Seed has begun to grow because we have watered it.</p> + +<p>If the natural man were asked, "What is life? what is it to live?" he would +reply, "It is to eat, drink, laugh, love, and have pleasure or pain: to hear, +see, touch, taste and smell, and to be conscious that I do all these things." +Yet this consciousness is but a tiny speck of consciousness, and some mysterious +voice within the deeply-thinking man tells him that this is so. But how uncover +a further consciousness? This is the secret of the soul.</p> + +<p>To pass from one form of consciousness to another—this is to increase life +fifty, a hundred, a thousand times according to the degrees of consciousness we +can attain. These degrees would seem to be irrevocably limited because of the +mechanical actions of heart and breathing, which automatic actions become +suspended or seriously interfered with in very high states of consciousness. +When first these very great expansions of consciousness take place, the creature +is under strong conviction that the soul has left the body—that it has gone upon +some mysterious journey—this because of several reasons. The first is because of +a certain persistent sound of rushing; the second is because of the sense of +living at tremendous speed, in a manner previously altogether unknown and +totally undreamed of, in which the senses of the body have no concern whatever +and are completely closed down; thirdly, on returning from this "journey" we are +not immediately able to exact obedience from the body, which remains inert and +stiffly cold and suffers distress with too slow breathing. But reason demands, +"How is it possible that the soul should leave the body and the body not die? +and also we perceive this, that, though the consciousness is projected to an +infinite distance, or includes that infinite distance within itself, it yet +remains aware of the existence of the body, though very dimly."</p> + +<p>The method employed, then, for administering these experiences to the soul +and the creature is not by means of drawing the soul out of the body, but by a +withdrawal of the condition of insulation from Divine Life or great magnetic +emanation, in which insulation all creatures have their normal existence, living +in a condition which may be termed a state of total Unawareness. By Will of God +this condition of insulation is removed, the soul enters Connection and becomes +instantly and vividly aware of Spiritual Life and of that which Is, at an +infinite distance from herself, so that the soul is at one and the same time in +paradise or heaven, and upon the earth: space is eaten up. Without seeing or +hearing, the soul partakes in a tremendous and unspeakable manner of the joys of +God, which, all unfelt by us as "natural" man, pass unceasingly throughout the +universe.</p> + +<p>These experiences give an immense and unshakable knowledge to the soul and +the creature of the immense reality of the Unseen Life, and are doubtless sent +us to effect this knowledge. Why, then, is not every man given this knowledge? +Because the creature must qualify before being allowed to receive it, and too +many hold back from the tests. By these experiences we learn some little portion +of the mystery which lies between the pettiness of that which we now are and the +great glories that we shall come to; and in this awful heavenly mystery in which +are fires that have no flame, and melody which has no sound, the soul is drawn +to Everlasting Love. But we cannot endure the bliss of it, and the soul prays to +be covered on account of the creature.</p> + +<p>But because of the limitations of the flesh we are not to despise it but +regard it not as an aim or end (as that if we satisfy its lusts that shall be +our paradise), but regard it as a means. Christ willed the flesh and the world +to be a rapid means of our return to God. Subdue the flesh without despising it, +in humility and thankfulness. Suffer its trials and penalties not in dejection, +rebellion, or hopelessness, but as a means to an end. "For everyone shall be +salted with fire," says Scripture; and can anything whatever be well forged or +made without it be first melted and cleaned? So, then, for each his Gethsemane. +As for Christ, so for Judas, who, not being able to endure, went out and hanged +himself. Let our care, then, be to choose that Gethsemane which shall open to us +the gates of heaven and not hell.</p> + +<p>In our raw state we fear the Will of God, thinking it a path of thorns; but +as Christ moulds and teaches us we grow to know the Will of God as a great Balm: +to long to conform to it, joyfully to join it, to sink into it as into an +immense security where we are safe from all ills; and at last, no matter what +temporary trials we endure, so great does our love and confidence grow by <i> +Grace</i> of God upholding our tiny efforts that, like Job, we cry to Him with +absolute sincerity and confidence, "Though Thou slay me, yet will I trust Thee"; +having learnt it is not His Will to slay but to restore and purify and make +glad. Incessant work is the lot of the awakened and returning soul, and justly +so, for because of what folly and ingratitude did she ever leave God? A +multiplicity of choices lie before her, and her great concern is which amongst +all these possible decisions will prove the shortest path to God. These choices +and decisions must be brought down to the meanest details of everyday life. At +first on awakening the soul would like nothing better than to forsake and cast +away material things altogether, and is inclined to despise the body. But Jesus +teaches her that this is not pleasing: it is His Will that she should +continually lend assistance to the creature in its weaknesses and uncertainties, +not disdaining it but helping it. It is the soul which maintains contact with +the Divine Guide, and then in turn should guide the creature. As the Divine +Guide condescends to the soul, never despising her, so must the soul condescend +to the creature: acknowledging and understanding that nothing is too small or +humble for the soul to attend to and lead the creature to do in a beautiful and +gentle manner.</p> + +<p>By these means the permeation of the natural world by the Divine is carried +out, and no act or fact of life can be considered too insignificant for the soul +to attend to for the development of this aim.</p> + +<p>The more we become familiar with spiritual life the more we observe the +regularity of certain laws in it, and the more we find analogies between these +new and unmapped laws and the laws and forces already known to us in the visible +world. Rightly expounded by some scientific mind, these could bring the world of +human thought and aspirations straight into the arms of God.</p> + +<p>Science is the friend and not the enemy of religion. Science will light up +and illuminate the dark gaps. This world is a house fully wired for lighting: +the wiring is perfect, the bulbs alone are incomplete; they give no light: it is +the task of the soul to perfect these human bulbs.</p> + +<p>The life of conscious connection with God is true living as far as we may +know it in the flesh, an enormous increase over the petty normal life of the +world or, more rightly, the petty and <i>lacking</i> life of the world. For in +this life of God-consciousness is an immense sanity and poise, a balance between +soul and body and heart and mind never achieved in the "normal" or "natural" +life. Therefore the God-conscious life is not to be named an abnormal but the +complete, full, and only truly normal life: a life in which both soul and +creature have found their centre, and the whole being in all its parts is +brought to evenness, to harmony, to peace and a greatly magnified intelligence. +If all men and women attained this state, this world would automatically become +Paradise. In this true life living and feeling alter their characteristics and +surpass anything that can be imagined by the uninitiated mind. Now, though to +convey some idea of this condition of consciousness would seem to be impossible, +still there are some types of persons to whom a little something of the +commencement of the larger life of the awakened soul might be conveyed before +they themselves experience it. The lovers of nature, of music, of the beautiful +and romantic, and of poetry: in the highest moments reached by such they are +aware of an indefinable Something—an expansion, a going out towards, a +longing—yearning, subtly composed of both joy and pain, which goes beyond the +earth, beyond the music, beyond the poetry, beyond the beautiful into a Nameless +Bourne. At these moments they live with the soul: this is the commencement of +spirit-life. When the Nameless Bourne has become to the soul that which It +really is—God—and +<i>He sends His responses to her,</i> then the soul knows the fullness of +spiritual life as we may know it in the flesh.</p> + +<p>But she can neither know the Nameless Bourne as God nor receive His responses +till the heart and the mind have come to repentance of their ways and have been +changed at least in part. Without this mode of living no one can be said to live +in a full or whole manner, because nothing is whole which does not include the +consciousness of God, and this in a lively and acute degree.</p> + +<p>One of our great difficulties is that when, as the merely half-repentant +creature, we turn to God and, beginning to ask favours of Him, get no response, +then all our warm feelings and longings towards Him fall back, we go into a +state either of profounder unbelief (which is further separation) or into total +apathy. Apathy is a deadly thing. The more God loves us the more He will do His +part to keep us from it. All the circumstances of life will be used to this end. +We may lose our nearest and dearest. If it is material prosperity that causes a +too complete content to live without Him, then some or all of that prosperity +will be removed. In whatever spot we are most tender—there He will touch us. +"Oh, if it had been anyone else or anything less that we had lost, then it would +not have been so hard to bear," we say. Exactly. For nothing less would have +been of any use, and alas! even this may be of no use, for Christ is ever +willing and trying to save us, and we will not be saved.</p> + +<p>If we do not get out of this apathy, we shall miss the whole reason of our +life here. By these living thrusts He brings us to our knees, humbled, +humiliated, anguished, in order that, having awakened and purified us, He may +lift us into His Divine consolations.</p> + +<p>We cannot in one step mount up out of our faithless indifferent wrongful +condition into the glories of the knowledge of God. First we must learn to know +Jesus, intimately, devotedly. Then Jesus the Christ: then the Father. Finally +God the Holy Trinity, once found and known by us, becomes our All, and by some +unspeakable condescension He becomes to us all things in all ways. The soul is +filled with romantic and divine love, and instantly God is her Holy Lover: she +is sad, weary, or afraid, and immediately she turns to Him He comforts and +mothers her: she is filled with adoring filial love, and at once He is her +Father. Oh, the wonders of the fullness of the finding and knowing of God!</p> + +<p>Let the man who would know happiness here study the works of God, and not +think he will gain virtue by putting everything that he sees here upon one side, +saying it is not real or it is not good. It is very real of its own kind, and +good also if he learns how to use it, and very marvellous. Let him study how +things are made—God's things, not trivial man-made things—let him observe how +all are made with equal care, the humblest and the proudest, "the tiny violet +perfect as the oak." Let him learn the manner of the ways of light and the +colours of all that he sees,[*] and then stop to consider how, having made all +these marvels, God then fashioned his own delicate eyes that he might see and +know and enjoy them all. To consider all these things, accepting them from God +with love, makes the heart and the mind and the soul dance and sing together not +with noise but like sunshine upon water.</p> + +<p>[*] <i>Scientific Ideas of To-day,</i> by C. Gibson.</p> + +<p>What is Nature but the demonstration in visible objects of an invisible Will? +This Will we need to trace to its Source; having done this, we are able to +praise and bless God for every single thing of beauty He has fashioned here: and +this praising and blessing of God becomes nothing less than a continual ecstasy +for both soul and creature, and, indeed, because of this and by means of this +burning appreciation of God's works, both soul and creature find their sweetest +consolations as they wait to be taken to a holier world.</p> + +<p>When they both bless God with the fire of their love for every tender thing +that He has made, then their days become to them one long delight.</p> + +<p>This blessing of God and His works is not just a blessing with lips, but +feels this way. The words being said by the heart, a burning spark of enthusiasm +is immediately kindled there, which spark sets light to a spark in the soul; and +this invisible fire joining another Invisible Fire, instantly in immense +exaltation we enter the joys of God. But because of our flesh we cannot stay but +only enter and come back.</p> + +<p>We are made to love and adore God, but the mode of entry into this is not by +beseeching God to come down and love us, but by constant endeavour to enter up +into +<i>His</i> estate, to offer <i>Him</i> love: this enthusiasm for God brings +about a mysterious accomplishment of all needs, desires, joys.</p> + +<p>We are made to love and adore God, and because of this without Him we are an +Emptiness, a Great Want. Such is the lovely and perfect reciprocity of love that +as this Great Want we are the pleasure and the joy of the All-Giving God. And He +is the All-Giving that He may rejoice and fill our extremity of Want. So we are +each to each that which each most desires. This is Divine Love.</p> + +<p>Do not let us imagine that by making very much of earthly loves we shall by +that obtain the heavenly: on the contrary, love of creatures, and too much +turning to and thinking of and depending upon creatures, is a sure manner of +hindering us <i>till</i> we have learnt to unite with Divine Love. This love for +creatures is often for the heart and soul what treacle is to the wings of a fly! +Do not be content with creatures, but seek beyond the creaturely for the +heavenly.</p> + +<p>This is not to say that we are not to love our fellow-creatures, attend to +them, wait upon them, bear with them, and work for them; but whilst doing all +these we are not to make them the object of our life: we are not to think that +by merely running about amongst creatures frenzied with plans for their social +improvement and comfort the nearer we are necessarily getting to God, or even +truly pleasing Him. All these multiplicities of frenzied interests are best +centred upon the finding and knowing and loving of Jesus Christ within our own +hearts. When this finding, knowing, loving and believing has been accomplished, +then we shall have accomplished the only work God asks us to accomplish, and all +other works will automatically, peacefully, and smoothly come to their proper +fruition in us through Him.</p> + +<p>Neither imagine we shall do this finding of Jesus in, or because of, another +person. We shall not find Him in another person or anywhere till we have first +found Him in ourselves: and this by inward pondering, delicate tender thinkings, +loving comparisons, sweet enthusiasms, persistent endeavours to imitate His +gentle ways and manners as being some proof of our desire to love and find Him. +The need which is the most pressing of all our needs is to find that Light which +will light us when we have to go out from the light of this world into the awful +solitudes of that which we often so lightly and confidently speak of as "the +other world."</p> + +<p>Without Christ we go out into a fearful loneliness: with Christ we walk the +rainbow paths of Paradise.</p> + +<center> +* * * +</center> + +<p>Having tasted the blissful wonders of God, nothing less than God Himself can +satisfy, comfort, or fill either the soul, heart, or mind; and yet we are still +in a too small and imperfect condition to endure the power and strength of God's +bliss for more than brief spells, so that after coming to these high things our +portion here is to learn to be a useful willing servant, carrying with as +cheerful a face as we are able the burden of life in the flesh, and endure this +waiting to be with Christ free of the flesh.</p> + +<p>What are these blisses of God? They are contact with an immeasurable Ardour, +they are our ardour meeting the Fountain of all Ardours: and God is communicated +to us by a magnetism which in its higher degrees becomes luminous and +unbearable.</p> + +<p>Are these divine joys and comforts of God towards us because we are more +loved by God, because our salvation is more sure than that of those who are +without these comforts? Most emphatically no. It is because we obey a particular +and subtle law of giving to God, and do not (as is more natural to us) content +ourselves with merely believing, expecting, and hoping to receive <i>from</i> +God.</p> + +<p>Let us pray more frequently than we do: "My Lord, increase my faith, increase +my love, and increase my understanding of how to use this faith and this love +when they have been begotten in me."</p> + +<center> +* * * +</center> + +<p>On every side we hear complaints against the Church. It is suggested that we +are falling away from God because of some lack in the Church. But this fault of +the Church is exactly the same fault which is to be found in the members of the +congregation which compose it—a tepid love for a dimly known Lord. When the +priest and every member of the congregation in his own heart worships the +beloved Christ, then the Church will be found to have gained just that which is +now lacking, and which we attribute to some priestly failure and not our own +also.</p> + +<p>Of Church ceremonials it is hard to speak, for the lover of God can have no +eyes for them: he is all heart, but sees it this way—that set rules, +regulations, and ceremonials in prayers and worship are most right and proper +for the creature publicly worshipping its Creator. That the assembling together +in church is the outward and visible acknowledgment of the creature's worship of +God and also a looking for the fulfilling of the promise "where two or three are +gathered together in My name." The redeemed creature worships very ardently with +all its little heart and mind and all its tiny strength, learning in its own +self the words of David: "I was glad when they said unto me, We will go into the +house of the Lord." But the soul cannot worship in set words, neither can she +have need or use for the ceremonials invented by and for the creature, but +worships God in another manner altogether, as she is taught by the Holy Spirit, +and in the greatness of her worship mounts to God, and closes with God. For holy +love cannot long be divided.</p> + +<p>Often when the creature is alone, and eating, its Lord will visit it, causing +the soul and the mind and the heart of it to cry out: "But of what use to me is +this meat and drink which is before me? I have no need of it, I can do nothing +other than sip of the holy beauty of my Lord." And immediately we are so pressed +the earthly cup must be set down, and in very great ecstasy we sup in spirit +with the Lord. The unnameable Elixir of God is the Wine, and Love is the Bread.</p> + +<p>When holy love grows great in us we wonder that we ever thought that human +love was love at all, for no matter how great it may once have seemed it now +seems so small it is no greater than the humming of a bee around a flower in +summer time. But holy love—who can commence to describe it? It rides upon great +wings, it burns like a devouring fire, it makes nothing of Space and comes +before Him like the lightnings, saying, "Here am I," and, gathering all things, +all loves into itself, pours them out at the feet of God.</p> + +<p>By baptism we are named and called for election by the Church. Through +personal and individual repentance and connection by faith and love with Christ +we <i>enter</i> +election by baptism of the Holy Spirit. By the mere following of rituals, +doctrines, dogmas, ceremonies, we are in great danger of introducing the mind of +the Pharisee with his reliance as means of salvation upon the washing of hands +and cups, and except we exceed this righteousness we do not enter the Kingdom. +Or the mind of the lawyer, which type of mind seeks obstinately, forcefully, to +mould the secrets of the soul's communion with God and fix them upon cold +documents where they quickly cease to have life.</p> + +<center> +* * * +</center> + +<p>Above the fretful and contentious human reason is the intelligence of the +soul, and this soul has in itself a higher part for we become acutely aware of +it—that part of it with which we come in contact with God, with which we respond +to God, receive His manifestations, are laid bare to His blisses. Separated from +worldly things by an impalpable veil, it rests above all such things in serene +calm, and, strangest of all, has no comprehension whatever of sin: when we enter +this part of the soul and live with it sin and evil become not only non-existent +but unthinkable, unimaginable: we are totally removed from any such order of +existence. It communicates its knowledge to the lower part of the soul, the soul +to the Reason, the Reason to the rest of the creature.</p> + +<p>We say we are fearfully and wonderfully made, and in saying this we think of +the body, but far more wonderful is the making of the spiritual of us. O man, +climb out of the gross materialism of thy fleshly self, for thou canst do it! As +out of the heavy earth come the delicate flowers of spring, so out of the heavy +body, because of <i>that divine</i> which is within it, come the marvellous +flowers of the soul.</p> + +<p>To think that we can come to God and know Him by means of our intelligence or +reason is as unwise as to suppose we can eat our dinner with our feet; it is as +necessary to use our teeth to eat our food as it is to use our heart to find +God, and it is nothing but the natural vanity of the human mind which blinds us +to this fact. The human reason is too small to stand the greatness of God, and +could it ever reach to Him would be withered in the awfulness of His magnetic +light. Even the soul in her contacts with God whilst still in the flesh is of +necessity totally blind, and yet, blind as she is, is pierced by this terrible +intensity of light and energy. How then shall the reason stand naked before God +without madness or frenzy? To reason out upon paper where God is, why He is, +what He is, and how precisely He is to be discovered, will take us no further up +into the mysteries of the actual knowing of the wonders of His love than the ink +and paper we employ might do. To know this love in our own heart is the +necessity, for the soul and the heart live hand in hand as it were and together +can find and know God. God once found by the heart, we can dwell upon Him with +our reason, and feed our reason with the knowledge we have acquired of Him +through the heart and soul.</p> + +<p>The Holy Ghost aids us in this deep search, quickens us, gives us impulses. +At first in our natural state we are able only in a very dim way to perceive +these impulses, but we can become so sensitive to God that He pierces us, brings +us to the ground with a breath, and we bend and yield before His lightest wish +as a reed bends and quivers to the wind.</p> + +<p>When the heart and soul are greatly set upon God and we have become true +lovers of God, there comes a danger of falling into so deep a pining for God +that the health both of the mind and of the body is weakened by it. We should +aim at cheerful and willing waiting: anything else is a falling short; if we +examine into it, we shall see that pining savours of unwillingness and +discontent—there is in it something of the spirit of the servant who designs to +give notice of leaving. The lover of God is the most blest of all creatures and +should show himself serenely glad, waiting with patience, knowing as he does +from his own experiences that who has God for a Lover has no need of any other.</p> + +<p><i>Of how to receive from God, and of the Blessed Sacrament</i></p> + +<p>Nothing is of a deeper mystery or difficulty or disappointment to the soul +and the heart well advanced in the experience and in the love of God than to +find that in the ceremony of the Blessed Sacrament it is possible for them to be +less sensible of receiving from God than at any time. How and why can this be? +is it the Ceremonial causing the mind to be too much alert to guide the body now +to rise, now to kneel, now to move in some direction? Is it this distraction +which prevents perception—for in all communion with God the mind is closed down, +the heart and soul only being in operation? On the other hand, it is easily +possible to be in closest communion with God in all the noises and distractions +of a great railway station amongst a crowd of shifting persons. No, it is some +imperfection in the attitude adopted by the heart and mind in approaching this +Sacrament. In what way have we perhaps been approaching it? In an attitude of +awe accompanied by a humble expectancy or hope of receiving. We hope and believe +we shall receive God's grace. Now, the experienced soul and heart know so well +what it is and how it feels to receive God's grace that they are all the more +disappointed at not receiving it upon this holy occasion. What were our Lord's +words? He said, "Do this in remembrance of Me," or more correctly translated, +"Do or offer this as a memorial of Me before God." This implies an act of giving +upon our part, whereas we have come to regard this ceremony as an act of +receiving.</p> + +<p>Now though the attitude of humble expectancy to receive is of itself a worthy +one it does not fulfil the exact command, which is to commemorate, offer, and +hold up before God the Perfect Love and Sacrifice of our Saviour, as a living +memorial of Him before God. It should be accompanied by an offering of great +love and thanks upon our part without regard to anything we may receive. But +because first we give we then receive.</p> + +<p>About nothing are we in such a state of ignorance as about the laws which +govern the give and take between God and Man. On the one hand is God the +All-Giving, longing to bestow, and upon the other is Man the all-needing, aching +to receive, and between them an impasse. Failure to fulfil God's laws is the +cause of this impasse. There is both a law of like to like, and a law of like to +opposite. We cannot know God without in some small degree first being like God, +and to be like God we must not only be pure in heart but also conform to the +God-like condition of giving. First we obey this law that the second may come +into effect—that of like to opposite, or positive to negative, the All-Giving +immediately meeting and filling the all-needing. We have nothing to give to God +but our love, thanks, and obedience; but of these it is possible to give +endlessly, and the more we give the more God-like do we become, and the more +God-like the higher and further do we enter into the great riches and blisses of +God. Therefore the more we give to God the more we receive.</p> + +<p>On going to partake of the Blessed Sacrament we do well to banish from the +heart and mind all thought of what it may please God to still further give us +and to make an offering <i>to</i> God. The only way we can make an offering to +God is upon the wings of love, and upon this love we hold up before Him the +bread and wine as the Body and Blood of our Redeemer, repeating and repeating in +our heart, "I eat and drink This as a memorial before Thee of the Perfect Love +and Sacrifice of Jesus Christ." When we so do with <i>great</i> love in our +heart we find that we are able sensibly to receive great grace.</p> + +<p><i>Of Prayer</i></p> + +<p>Of the many kinds and degrees of prayer first perhaps we learn the prayer of +the lips, then that of the mind, then the prayer of the heart, and finally the +prayer of the soul—prayer of a totally different mode and order, prayer of a +strange incalculably great magnetic power, prayer which enables us to count on +help from God as upon an absolute and immediate certainty.</p> + +<p>We find this about perfect prayer that it is not done as from a creature +beseeching a Creator at an immense distance, but is done as a love-flash which, +eating up all distance, is immediately before and with the Creator and is +accompanied by vivid certainty at the heart; this latter is active faith; we +have too much perhaps of that kind of faith which may be named waiting or +passive faith.</p> + +<p>This combination of love with active faith instantly opens to us God's help. +We may or may not receive this in the form anticipated by the creature, but +later perceive that we have received it in exactly that form which would most +lastingly benefit us.</p> + +<p>After a while we cease almost altogether from petitioning anything for +ourselves, having this one desire only: that by opening ourselves to God by +means of offering Him great love, we receive Himself.</p> + +<p><i>Of Contemplation</i></p> + +<p>To enter the contemplation of God is not absence of will, nor laziness of +will, but great energy of will because of, and for, love: in which +love-condition the energy of the soul will be laid bare to the energy of God, +the two energies for the time being becoming closely united or oned, in which +state the soul-will or energy is wholly lifted into the glorious God-Energy, and +a state of unspeakable bliss and an <i>immensity</i> of +<i>living</i> is immediately entered and shared by the soul. Bliss, ecstasy, +rapture, all are energy, and according as the soul is exposed to lesser or +greater degrees of this energy, so she enters lesser or greater degrees of +raptures.</p> + +<p>It is misleading in these states of ecstasy to say that the soul has vision, +if by vision is to be understood anything that has to do with concrete forms or +any kind of sight; for the soul is totally blind. But she makes no account of +this blindness and has her fill of all bliss and of the knowledge of another +manner of living without any need whatever of sight. Has the wind eyes or feet? +yet it possesses the earth and is not prevented. So the soul, without eyes and +without hands, possesses God.</p> + +<p>Contact with God is then of the nature of the Infusion of Energy. The +infusions of this energy may take the form of causing us to have an acute +intense perception and consciousness (but not such form of perception as would +permit us to say "I saw," but a magnetic inward cognisance, a fire of knowledge +which scintillates about the soul and pierces her) of His perfections; of His +tenderness, His sweetness, His holiness, His beauty. When either of these last +two are made known to her, the soul passes into what can only be named as an +agony of bliss, insupportable even to the soul for more than a very brief time, +and because of the fearful stress of it the soul draws away and prays to be +covered from the unbearable happiness of it, this being granted her whether +automatically (that is to say, because of spiritual law) or whether by direct +and merciful will of God—who is able to tell?</p> + +<p>Such experiences are not for the timid, but require steady courage and +perfect loving trust in God.</p> + +<p>Contemplation even in its highest forms is not to be confused with spiritual +"experiences," which are totally apart from anything else that we may know in +life—they are entirely outside of our volition, they are not to be prayed for, +they are not to be even secretly desired, but to be accepted how and when and if +God so chooses.</p> + +<p>In contemplation the will is used, and we are not able to come to it without +the will is penetratingly used towards the joining and meeting with the will and +love of God. In the purely spiritual "experience" from first to last there is no +will but an absence of will, a total submission and yielding to God, without +questioning, without fear, without curiosity, and the only will used is to keep +ourselves in willingness to submit to whatever He shall choose to expose us to. +God does not open to us such experiences in order to gratify curiosity—but +expecting that we shall learn and profit by them. First we find them an immense +and unforgettable assurance of another form of living, of great intensity, at +white heat, natural to a part of us with which we have hitherto been unfamiliar +(the soul) but inimical to the body, which suffers grievously whilst the soul +glows with marvellous vitality and joy.</p> + +<p>This assurance of another manner of living, though we see nothing with the +eyes, is the opening of another world to us. The invisible becomes real, faith +becomes transformed in knowledge. If the hundred wisest men of the world should +all prove upon paper that the spiritual life as a separate and other life from +the physical life does not exist, it would cause nothing but a smile of +compassion to the creature that had experience. God teaches us by these means to +become balanced, poised, and a complete human being, combining in one +personality or consciousness the Spiritual and the Material.</p> + +<p>But we are not given and shown these mysteries without paying a price: we +must learn to live in extraordinary lowliness and loneliness of spirit. The +interests, enjoyments, pastimes of ordinary life dry up and wither away. It +becomes in vain that we seek to satisfy ourselves in any occupation, in +anything, in any persons, for God wills to have the whole of us. When He wills +to be sensibly with us, all Space itself feels scarcely able to contain our +riches and our happiness. When He wills to disconnect us from this nearness, +there is nothing in all the universe so poor, so destitute, so sad, so lonely as +ourself. And there is no earthly thing can beguile or console us, because, +having tasted of God, it is impossible to be satisfied or consoled save inwardly +by God Himself. But He opens up Nature to us in a marvellous way, unbelievable +until experienced. He offers us Nature as a sop to stay our tears. By means of +Nature He even in absence caresses the soul and the creature, speaks to them +fondly, encourages and draws them after Him, sending acute and wonderful +perceptions to them, so that, quite consoled, they cry aloud to Him with +happiness. And often when the creature is alone and secure from being observed +by anyone He will open His glamour to the soul and she passes into union with +paradise and even more—high heaven itself. These are angels' delights which He +lavishes upon the prodigal.</p> + +<p>Another heavy price to be paid is found by the soul and heart and mind in the +return from the blissful and perfect calm which surrounds even the lowest degree +of the contemplation of God to the turmoil of the world. For to have been lifted +into this new condition of living, this glamour, this crystal joy, to know such +heights, such immensities, and to descend from God's blisses to live the +everyday life of this world and accept its pettiness is a great pain, in which +pain we are of necessity not understood by fellow-creatures; therefore the more +and the more we become pressed into that great loneliness which is the +inevitable portion of the true lover, and experience the pain of those prolonged +spiritual conflicts in which the soul learns to bend and submit to the petty +sordidness of life in a world which has forgotten God. It is the lack of courage +and endurance to perpetually weather these dreadful storms which causes us to +turn to seclusion—the cloister. To refrain from doing this and to remain in the +world though not of it is the sacrifice of the loving soul—she has but the one +to make—to leave the delights of God, and for the sake of being a useful servant +to Jesus to pick up the daily life in the world; which sacrifice is in direct +contrariety to the sacrifice of the creature, which counts its sacrifices as a +giving up of the things of the world. So by opposites they may come to one +similarity—perfection. How to conduct itself in all these difficult ways so +foreign to its own earthly nature is a hard problem for the creature, belonging +so intimately to this world which it can touch and see: and yet which it is +asked by God bravely to climb out of into the unknown and the unseen. Bewildered +by the enormous demands of the soul which can never rest in any happiness +without she is contemplating God, adoring Him, conversing with Him, blessing and +worshipping Him, the poor creature is often bewildered to know how to conduct +the ordinary affairs and duties of life under such pressures. Of its emotions, +of the tears that it sheds, of the falls that it takes, a library of books might +be written. In the splendour, the grandeur, the great magnitudes and expanses of +spirit life as made known to it by the soul, the creature feels like some poor +beggar child, ill-mannered, ill-clothed, which by strange fortune finds itself +invited to the house of a mighty king, and, dumb with humility and admiration, +is at a loss to understand the condescension of this mighty lord. In this sense +of very great unworthiness lies a profound pain, an agony. To cure this pain we +must turn the heart to give love, to think love, and immediately we think of +this great condescension as being for love's sake—as love seeking for love—we +are consoled. Then all is well, all is joyful, all is divine. The more simple, +childlike, and unpretentious we can be, the more easily we shall win our way +through. Pretentiousness or arrogance in Man can never be anything but +ridiculous, and a sense of humour should alone be sufficient to save us from +such error. For the same reason it is impossible to regard human ceremonies with +any respect or seriousness, for they are not childlike but childish. How often +the heart and mind cry out to Him, "O mighty God, I am mean and foolish—mean in +that which I have created by my vain imaginings, my pride, my covetousness; but +in that which Thou hast made me I am wonderful and lovely—a thing that can fly +to and fro day or night to Thy hand!"</p> + +<p>The difficulties of the creature should not be raised on some self-glorifying +pinnacle merely because the fickle variable heart at lasts learns the exercise +of Fidelity. Do we not see a very ordinary dog practising this same fidelity as +he waits, so eager that he trembles, outside his master's door, having put on +one side every desire save his desire to his master whom, not seeing, he +continues to await; and this out of the generosity of his heart! And we? Only by +great difficulty, long endeavour, bitter schooling, and having at last +accomplished it we name each other saints or saintly. Let us think soberly about +these things; are we then so much less than a dog that we also cannot accomplish +this fidelity—so that though hands and feet go about daily duties the heart and +mind are fixed on the Master? Then the Master becomes the Beloved.</p> + +<p><i>Of Blessing God</i></p> + +<p>At first when the creature is being taught to bless God it shrinks back in a +fright, crying, "What am I that I should dare to bless Almighty God, I am afraid +to do it; I am too unworthy; let me wait till I am more righteous, till I have +done more works." Then the divine soul counsels it so: "Think no more about +thyself, moaning and groaning over thine unworthiness and trusting to progress +in works. Cease thinking of thyself, and rise up and think only of God. Thou +wilt never be worthy, and all thy works are nothing and thy learning of no count +whatever; and as to thy righteousness, is it not written that it is as filthy +rags? All that God will give thee is not for any merits or works of thine, but +for Love's sake. He desires both to give thee love and to receive thy love, +therefore rise and worship Him, give Him all the love that thou hast; keep none +back either for thyself, or anything or any creature, but give all that thou +hast to Him with tears and songs and gladness." Timidly the creature obeys, and +with all its powers and strength it blesses God, and instantanteously God +blesses the creature, sending His sweetness and His glamour about it: and the +more the soul and the creature bless God the more does He bless them, and they +bless Him from the bed of sickness and pain as fully as they bless Him in +health. They bless Him in the night-time and in the noonday, they bless Him as +they walk, they bless Him as they work, and because of this little bit of +blessing and love that the two of them offer to God He offers them all heaven in +Himself.</p> + +<p>It is the duty of the soul to constantly lend counsel, courage, help, advice, +and strength to the creature, and we are conscious of the voice of the soul, +which without any sound yet makes itself inwardly heard, calling to the +selfishness, the egoism of the creature, urging the higher part of it to come +higher and the animal in it to become pure and to subdue itself, saying to it, +"Lie down and be quiet, or thou wilt bring disaster to us both." "I cannot be +quiet, for I could groan with my restless distress." "Cease to think of thyself +with thy roarings and groanings. Lay hold of love which thinks nothing of itself +but always of that which it may give to the Beloved." "I cannot do this; I am no +angel nor even a saint, but a most ordinary creature, forsaken of God and +miserable." "Thou art never forsaken, but thy door is closed: it opens from thy +side, and thou art thyself standing across it and blocking the opening of it—I +will show thee how to open it, cry and moan no more for favours and gifts, but +do thou thyself do the giving. Since thou dost not know at all how to begin—do +it with these set words: 'I love and praise Thee, I love and bless and thank +Thee, I love and bless and worship Thee'; and see thou do it with all thy heart +and mind and strength and with no thought of thyself and future benefits, but +entirely that thou mayest give Him pleasure." Then the creature tries, but fails +lamentably, for most of its heart and mind is on itself and a fraction only on +God.</p> + +<p>"Now try again and again and again," cries the soul, "O thou miserable +halfhearted shallow worldling!" And the creature tries again, and, doing better, +gets a very slight warmth about the heart; and, doing it again, gets a little +comfort, and so, gradually progressing in the way of true love which is all +giving, at last one day the creature does it perfectly because it has altogether +forgotten itself in the fire of its love and is completely set upon God. Then +automatically the door opens, and immediately in through it there rushes the +breath and the blisses of God. And the creature, weeping with excess of +happiness, cries, "I never asked for such delights, I did not know such +happiness was to be had; and if I did not ask, how is it that I have received?" +Then the soul answers, "Because thou hast learnt to give to God, and that is the +key which unlocks the garden of His joys. Thou hast just three things which He +desires to have—thy love and thine obedience, and thy waiting fidelity. When +thou dost conform to His desire with all thy tiny unadulterated strength, +immediately heaven becomes open to thee and thou dost receive more than thou +didst ever dream or think to ask for. This is His lovely Will towards thee. But +first always do thy part, and until thou doest thy part I cannot begin mine, for +thou couldst receive neither blessings nor blisses did I not receive them first +from Him and hand them on to thee; so each are dependent the one on the other, +and only together can we enter paradise. Think not I do not suffer as much as +thyself and far more. I know thou dost suffer with thy body and with the losses +of thine earthly loves, but I suffer far more with the loss of my Heavenly Love. +At first I could not understand what had come to me, buried and choked in thy +strange house of flesh. I despised thee, I hated thee, thy stupid ways, thy +dreadful greeds, thine unspeakable obstinacy and unwillingness; thou didst give +me horrible sicknesses with thine unsavoury wants, thine undignified +requirements. I thought thee foolish and now know myself to be more foolish than +thee, for thou hardly knowest the heavenly love whereas I knew and left Him, +seeking other loves. The Fall was not thy fault, poor human thing, but mine. I +am the Prodigal, and thou the means of my return, for if I can but raise thee to +true adoration of our God, then I shall pay my debt of infidelity to Him and +together as one glorious radiant spirit we shall enter heaven again.</p> + +<p>"Only listen and I can guide thee, for the Master speaks to me and tells me +what to do. I am partly that which thou dost please to call thy conscience, and +thou dost treat me shockingly, buffeting and wounding me when I try to whisper +to thee: if thou art not careful, thou wilt so disable me that all our chance of +happiness will be spoiled. Do thou listen very tenderly for my voice, for I am +of gossamer and thou of strangely heavy clay."</p> + +<p><i>Of Evil and Temptation and of Grace</i></p> + +<p>The heart and soul are subject to four principal glamours: the glamour of +youth, the glamour of romance, the glamour of evil, and the glamour of God.</p> + +<p>When once the Spirit of Love, which is God, descends into our soul then a new +light becomes created in us by which we see the glamour of evil in its true form +and complexion. We see it as disease, misery, imprisonment, and death; and who +finds it difficult to turn away from such?</p> + +<p>The natural man sees evil as an intense attraction, the spiritual man as a +horror of ugliness. See then how the Spirit of Love is at once and easily our +Salvation.</p> + +<p>Amongst all mysteries none seems greater to us than the mystery of Evil. +God—Goodness—Love: these we understand. But evil—whence and why, since God is +Love, Omnipotence, and Holiness?</p> + +<p>We cannot but observe that all things have their opposites: summer and +winter, heat and cold, light and dark, silence and sound, pleasure and pain, +life and death, action and repose, joy and sadness, illness and health; and how +shall we know or have true pleasure in the one without we have also knowledge of +the opposite? The man who has never known sickness has neither true gratitude, +understanding, nor pleasure in his heart over his good health: he does not know +that which he possesses. Neither can we know the great glory that is Holiness +till we have known evil and can contrast the two.</p> + +<p>"But what a price to pay for knowledge; what fearful risk and danger to His +creatures for God so to teach them!" we may cry, forgetting that with God all +things are possible, "Who is able and strong to save." And does He dare set +Himself no difficult thing that He may overcome it? The strong man's knowledge +of his own courage forbids us think it. God wills to save us. We have but to +join our will with His, and we are saved. How shall we mount to God other than +by mounting upon that which offers a foundation of tangible resistance, +overcoming and mounting upon evil. Evil then becomes our stairway—the servant of +Good. By using the evil that we meet with day by day, we mount daily the nearer +to God by that exact degree of evil which we have overcome by good—that is to +say, by practice of forgiveness, compassion, patience, humility, endurance, held +out over against the invitation of evil to do the exact opposite. A negligent, +thieving, lying servant that we have to deal with calls forth forgiveness, and +humility also, for are we a perfect servant to our Lord? The evil of a drunken +husband may be used by the wife as a sure ladder to God, for because of this +evil she may learn to practise all the virtues of the saints. Truly if we have +the will to use it, Evil is friendly. If we misuse Evil—that is to say, if we do +not use it by mounting on it but, intoxicated with its glamour, consent to +it,—this is Sin, and immediately the stairway is not that of ascent but of +descent and death.</p> + +<p>The Master says "Resist not evil." How are we to understand this but by +assuming that if we try our strength against Evil, Evil is likely to overcome +us? but on being confronted with Evil we should instantly hold on to and join +with the forces of Good and so have strength quietly to continue side by side +with Evil without being seduced by it. When Evil cannot seduce—that is to say, +make us consent to it,—then for us it is conquered. When we give in or conform +to this seduction we generate Sin. Let us say that we are in temptation, that +Evil of some sort confronts and invites us; if we battle with this presentment, +this picture, this insinuating invitation held out before us by Evil, the act of +contending with the invitation will fix it all the more firmly in our minds. We +need to substitute another picture, another invitation, another presentment, of +that which pertains to the good and the beautiful. He who has learnt so to +substitute and present before his own heart and mind Jesus and the pure and +beautiful invitations of this Divine Jesus can solve the difficulty. This is not +contending, this is substituting; this is transferring allegiance from the +glamour of Evil which is present with us, to the glamour of God, which, because +we are in temptation, is not present, but is yet hoped and waited for.</p> + +<p>To return again to the lying, dishonest, and negligent servant. If we argue, +contend, and battle morally with this evil servant we do not alter him, but by +this contention generate antagonism. Then what is our own position? Bad temper, +a disturbed heart, an inharmonious angry mind; but if without contending we bear +with and act gently with this evil, making careful comparisons with our own +service to our own Lord, we learn patience, forgiveness, and humility also, for +have we never lied, have we never been dishonest, have we never been negligent +to this sweet Lord? Then immediately His patience, His forgiveness, His love are +brought more intimately to our consciousness, and our heart nearer to His and +His to ours. Is this loss or gain? Is Evil then an enemy? No, a handmaid. So is +Satan made a servant to his Overlord, and his power crossed.</p> + +<p>Of all false things nothing is more false than the glamour of Evil, for when +on being drawn into it we sin, instead of the hoped-for delight we soon find +satiety; instead of exhilaration, fatigue; instead of contentment, disillusion; +instead of satisfaction, dust; instead of romance, the greedy claws of the +harpy; and the further we go in response to this glamour the more pitiable our +outlook; for the sweets and possibilities of Evil are extraordinarily limited. +Can any man devise a new sin? No, but ever pursues the same old round, the same +pitiful circle.</p> + +<p>If we pursue the glamour of God, we find the exact opposite of all these +things. Spiritual delights know no satiety because of infinite variety: they +know no disease, no disillusionment, and who can set a boundary or limit to the +beautiful, to love, and light, and God?</p> + +<p>It is characteristic of temptation that while we are exposed to it Christ is +absent from perception; for to perceive Christ would instantly free us from all +temptation (and often it is by temptation faithfully borne that we mount).</p> + +<p>When we are in a condition of contact with Christ which is His grace, we are +raised above the stem of faith into the flowers of knowledge; but for the true +strengthening of the will it is necessary that we live also on the harder and +more difficult meat of faith. So we return again and again to that insulation +from things heavenly in which we lived before we had been made Aware. When we +emerge from these dark periods we find ourselves to have advanced. With regard +to Grace we can neither truly receive nor benefit by it without our heart, mind, +and soul are previously adjusted to Response to it.</p> + +<p>The regenerated creature is not exempt from further temptations, but +contrariwise the poignancy of these temptations is greatly increased (though of +a quite different order of temptation to that known to us in an unregenerated +state); it is increased in proportion to the degrees of Grace vouchsafed to us. +That is to say, temptation keeps level with our utmost capacity of resistance +yet never is allowed to exceed the bounds, for when it would exceed them a way +out is found by the return of Grace; and we are freed. The cause is the great +root called Self, a hydra-headed growth of selfishness, both material and +spiritual, sprouting in all directions. We would seem to be here for ever +enclosed as in a glass bottle with this most horrid growth. Through the glass we +see all life, but always and ever in company with this voracious Self. No sooner +do we lop off one shoot of it than another grows—never was such strenuous +gardening as is required to keep this growth in check, and every time we lop a +shoot we learn another pain. This is the long road to perfection, for the Cross +is "I" with a stroke through it.</p> + +<p>Who can describe the marvels, the variations, the mystery of Grace? It is a +dew and an elixir, a balm and a fire, a destroyer of all fear and sorrow, a +delight and an anguish, for we are martyred, pierced with long arrows by the +longing of the love that it calls forth. It is a sweetness and a might, a glory +and a power in which we are sensibly aware we could walk through a furnace +unscathed if He bade us to do it. And by it we are lifted in a crystal vase and +enclosed in the Presence of God.</p> + +<center> +* * * +</center> + +<p>As a man's desire is so is he. If our desire is entirely towards fleshly +things and joys and comforts, we are sensualists. If our desire is all towards +sport and horses, we are not above horses but rather below them, for the human +animal is full of guile and the horse of obedience and generosity. Nevertheless +he is no goal for the human to aim at. If we desire the beautiful, we become +beautified and refined. If we desire God, we become godly.</p> + +<center> +* * * +</center> + +<p>It is characteristic of spiritual progress that each step is gained through +suffering, through penetrating faithful endeavours, through grievous +incomprehensible turmoils and discords of the spirit, worked frequently by means +of the everyday commonplace happenings and responsibilities of our daily life; +and finally as each new step is gained we are by Grace carried to it in a flood +of divine happiness to crown our woes. Grace is God's magnetic power acting +directly and immediately upon us and is altogether independent of place, time, +services, sacraments, or ceremonies. We limit God's communication with us in +this way—that He is communicable to us only in so far as we ourselves respond +and are able, apt, and willing to receive Him.</p> + +<p>Is the condition of blessed nearness to God permanent? No, not as a condition +but as a capacity only. We have need to perpetually renew this condition by a +positive active enthusiasm toward God. We can in laziness no more retain and use +this condition as a permanency than we can sleep one night and eat one meal and +have these suffice for our lifetime. But slowly, with work and with pain, we +learn perpetually to regain this condition by that form of prayer which is the +spiritual breathing-in of the Spirit of Christ.</p> + +<p>All God's help, all God's comfortings are to be had by us by Grace. This +Grace will constantly be withdrawn so that we may learn that we arrive at +nothing by our own power but by gift of God, who is ever willing to give to us +provided we whole-heartedly respond. This Response to God is surely amongst the +most difficult of our achievements; unaided by Grace it is an impossibility, but +we know that every man born into the world is invited by Christ to ask for and +to receive this Grace. The effect of Response to God is a unity of our tiny +force to the Might-Presence and company of God as much as we are able to bear +it, producing in us while with us such wealth of living; and such happiness as +passes all description. As we have capacity to respond to God so we shall know +that of God which is not known by those as yet unlearned in response. For God, +we know, is neither This nor That, but so infinitely more than any +particularisation that we are able to know Him only and solely according to our +own capacity to receive Him. To one He is a Personal Power that ravishes with +might, whose awful magnetism draws the very heart and soul in longing anguish +from the body. To another He is the dimly known silent Manipulator of the +Universe, the secret Ruler to whose mighty Will creation bows—because needs +must. To another He is yet even more remote, being the unresponsive, impersonal, +incomprehensible, immovable Instigator of all law.</p> + +<p>What is it in our religion that we need for a full happiness? Not the God of +our mere faith, nor the God of the theologian veiled behind great mysteries of +book-learning. It is the Responsive God that we long for, and how shall we reach +Him? There is one way only—through the taking of Jesus Christ firmly and +faithfully into our own heart and life.</p> + +<p>It is not what we now are, or where we now stand that matters, but what He +has the power to bring us to.</p> + +<p>How is God-consciousness to be achieved—shall we do it by study, by reading? +No—for the study or reading of it will do no more than whet the appetite for +spiritual things—this is its work,—but can do no more in giving us the actual +possession of this joy than the study of a menu can satisfy hunger.</p> + +<p>Individual, personal and inward possession is in all things our necessity. If +our friend has slept well it is no rest to us if we have slept ill. Up to a +given point in all things each for himself. It is the law. Of where this law +ends or is superseded by the law of all for all only the Holy Spirit can +instruct us, and that inwardly and again each to himself. This state of +God-consciousness is a gift, and our work is to qualify for this gift by +persistent ardent desire towards God continued through every adversity, through +every lack of sensible response on His part—a naked will and heart insisting +upon God. This state of God-consciousness once received and in full vigour of +life, there is without doubt about this condition a principle of active +contagion, very noticeable, very remarkable.</p> + +<p>That "something" which would appear frequently to be needed by persons +anxious to come to God and unable to discover the manner of achieving it, would +seem to be supplied by this contagion, as though a human spark were often wanted +to ignite the spark in another, which done, the Divine Fire springs up and +rapidly grows without further human assistance.</p> + +<p>We see this contagion as used in its full perfection by Jesus, for with all +His selected followers He had but to come in momentary contact with them, using +a word or a look, and, instantly forsaking everything, they followed Him. Was +this selection of His favouritism? No, they were prepared to receive this +contagion, and not one of them but had been secretly seeking for God; and this +perhaps for long years.</p> + +<p>To find this new life we need then not the reading of profound books of +learning, not the wisdom of the scholar, but an inward persistence of the heart +and will God-wards. This time of insistent waiting is to be endured with all the +more courage in that we do not know at what blessed moment we may pierce the +veil and the gift come in all its glorious immensity. Ten years, twenty, +thirty—what are such in comparison with the blisses that shall afterwards be +ours for all eternity?</p> + +<p>To look up by day or night into the vastness of the sky with its endless +depths, and as we do it burn with the consciousness of God, this is to truly +live. No distance is too great, no space too wide. All is our home. Without this +burning consciousness of God, Space is a thing of fear and Eternity not to be +thought of.</p> + +<p>Of the many experiences and conditions of the soul returning to God there is +a condition all too easily entered—that of an enervating, pulseless, seductive +inertia. In this condition of inert but marvellous contentment the soul would +love to stay. This is spiritual sensuality, a spiritual back-water. The true +life and energy of the soul are lulled to idleness: basking in happiness, the +soul ceases to give and becomes merely receptive.</p> + +<p>This condition is entered from many levels: we can rise to it (for it is very +high) from ordinary levels, branch sideways to it from high contemplation; drop +to it from the greatest contacts with God. This condition seems strangely +familiar to the soul. So much so that she questions herself. Was it from this I +started on my wanderings from God? The true health of the soul when in the +blisses of God is to be in a state of intense living or activity. She is then in +perfect connection with the Divine Energy. She is then in a state of an immense +and boundless radiantly joyful Life.</p> + +<p>To find God is to have the scope of all our senses increased, but it is +easily to be understood that our power of suffering increases also, because we +are, as it were, flayed and laid bare to everything alike. But it increases our +joys to so great a degree that for the first time in life joy is greater than +pain, happiness is greater than sorrow, knowledge is greater than fear, and Good +suddenly becomes to us so much greater than Evil that Evil becomes negligible. +This increase, this wonderful addition to our former condition, might be partly +conveyed by comparison to a man who from birth has never been able to appreciate +music: for him it has been meaningless, a noise without suggestion, without +delight, without wings, and suddenly by no powers of his own the immense charms +and pleasures and capacities of it are laid open to him! These increases of +every sense and faculty God will give to His lovers, so that without effort and +by what has now become to us our own nature we are continually able to <i>enter +the Sublime.</i></p> + +<p><i>Of the Two Wills</i></p> + +<p>We have in us two wills. The Will to live, and the Will to love God and to +find Him. The first will we see being used continually and without ceasing, not +only by every man, woman, and child, but by every beast of the field and the +whole of creation.</p> + +<p>The Will to live is the will by which all alike seek the best for themselves, +here gaining for themselves all that they can of comfort and well-being out of +the circumstances and opportunities of life. This is our natural Will. But it is +not the will which gains for us Eternal Life, nor does it even gain for us peace +and happiness during this life. It is this Will to live which in Christ's +Process we are taught to break and bruise till it finally dies, and the Will to +love, and gladly and joyously to please God is the only Will by which we live.</p> + +<p>Our great difficulty is that we try at one and the same time to hang to God +with the soul and to the world with our heart. What is required is not that we +go and live in rags in a desert place, but that in the exact circumstances of +life in which we find ourselves we learn in <i>everything to place God first.</i> +He requires of us a certain subtle and inward fidelity—a fidelity of the heart, +the will, the mind. The natural state of heart and mind in which we all normally +find ourselves is to have temporary vague longings for something which, though +indefinable, we yet know to be better and more satisfying than anything we can +find in the world. This is the soul, trying to overrule the frivolity of the +heart and mind and to re-find God. Our difficulties are not made of great +things, but of the infinitely small our own caprices. Though we can often do +great things, acts of surprising heroism, we are held in chains—at once elastic +and iron—of small capricious vanities, so that in one and the same hour we may +have wonderful, far-reaching aspirations towards the Sublime, and God; and yet +there comes a pretty frock, a pleasant companion, and behold God is forgotten! +The mighty and marvellous Maker of the Universe, Lord of everything, is placed +upon one side for a piece of chiffon, a flattering word from a passing lover.</p> + +<p>So be it. He uses no force. We are still in the Garden of Free-Will. And when +the Garden closes down for us, what then? Will chiffon help us? Will the smiles +of a long-since faithless lover be our strength? Now is the time to decide; but +our decision is made in the world, and by means of the world and not apart from +it, and in the exact circumstances in which we find ourselves.</p> + +<p>Another difficulty we have, and which forms an insuperable barrier to finding +God, is the ever-recurring—we may almost say the continual—secret undercurrent +of criticism and hardness towards God over what we imagine to be His Will. We +need to seek God with that which is most like Him, with a will which most nearly +resembles His own. To be in a state of hardness or criticism, not only for God +but for any creature, in even the smallest degree is to be giving allegiance to, +and unifying ourselves with, that Will which is opposite to, furthest away from, +and opposed to God. He Himself is Ineffable Tenderness.</p> + +<p>Having once re-found God, the soul frequently cries to Him in an anguish of +pained wonder, "How could I ever have left Thee? How could I ever have been +faithless to Thine Unutterable Perfections?" This to the soul remains the +mystery of mysteries. Was it because of some imperfection left in her of design +by God in order that He might enjoy His power to bring her back to Him? If this +were so, then every single soul must be redeemed—and not for love's sake, but +for His Honour, His own Holy Name, His Perfection. If the soul left Him because +of a deliberate choice, a preference for imperfection, a poisonous curiosity of +foreign loves, then love alone is the cause and necessity of our redemption, and +so it feels to be, for in experience we find that love is the beginning and the +middle and the end of all His dealings with us.</p> + +<center> +* * * +</center> + +<p>What is our part and what is our righteousness in all this Process of the +Saviour? This—that we obey, and that we renounce our own will, accepting and +abiding by the Will of God: and this self-lending, self-surrender, this +sacrifice of self-will is counted to us for sufficient righteousness to merit +heavenly life. But from first to last we remain conscious that we have no +righteousness of our own, that we are very small and full of weaknesses, and +remain unable to think or say, "This is my righteousness, I am righteous," any +more than a man standing bathed in, or receiving the sunlight can say or think, +"I am the sun." Is all this, then, as much as to say that we can sit down and do +nothing; but, leaving all to Christ, we merely believe, and because of this +believing our redemption is accomplished? No, for we have an active part to +play, a part that God never dispenses with—the active keeping of the will in an +active state of practical obedience, submission, humble uncomplaining endurance +through every kind of test. What will these perhaps too much dreaded tests be +that He will put us through? He will make use of the difficulties, +opportunities, temptations, and events of everyday life in the world (which +difficulties we should have to pass through whether we become regenerated or +not) down to the smallest act, the most secret thought, the most hidden +intention and desire. But through it all it is the Great Physician Himself who +cures, and we are no more able to perform these changes of regeneration in heart +and mind than we are able to perform a critical operation on our own body. So He +takes our vanities and, one by one, strews them among the winds, and we raise no +protest; takes our prides and breaks them in pieces, and we submit; takes our +self-gratifications and reduces them to dust, and we stand stripped but patient; +takes the natural lusts of the creature and transfigures them to Holy Love. And +in all this pain of transition, what is the Divine Anaesthetic that He gives us? +His Grace.</p> + +<p>Having submitted to all that Christ esteems necessary for our regeneration, +what does He set us to? Service. Glad, happy service to all who may need it. He +has wonderful ways of making us acquainted with His especial friends, and it +pleases Him to make us the means of answering the prayers of His poor for help, +to their great wonder and joy and to the increase of their faith in Him. Also He +uses us as a human spark, to ignite the fires of another man's heart: when He +uses us in this way, it will seem to one like the opening of a window—to another +a magnetism. One will see it as a light flashed on dark places, another receives +it as the finding of a track where before was no track. But however many times +we may be used in this way, the working remains a mystery to us.</p> + +<p>What is our reward whilst still in this world for our patient obediences and +renunciations? This—that all becomes well with us the moment the process is +brought to the stage where the aim of our life ceases to be the enjoyment of +worldly life and becomes fixed upon the Invisible and upon God: and all this by +and because of love, for it is love alone which can make us genuinely glad to +give up our own will and which can keep us from sinning.</p> + +<p>We commence by qualifying through our human love, meagre and fluctuating as +it is, for God's gift of holy love—of divine reciprocity, and with the +presentation of this divine gift immediately we find ourselves in possession of <i> +a new set of desires,</i> +which for the first time in our experience of living prove themselves completely +satisfying in fruition. God does not leave us in an arid waste, because He would +have us to be holy, and nowhere are there such ardent desires as in heaven; but +He transposes and transfigures the carnal desires into the spiritual by means of +this gift of divine reciprocity which is at once access to and union with +Himself. Now, and only now do we find the sting pulled out of every adverse +happening and every woe of life, and out of death also.</p> + +<p>And the whole process is to be gone through just where and how and as we find +ourselves—in our own home or in the home of another, married or single, rich or +poor,—with these three watchwords, Obedience, Patience and Simplicity.</p> + +<p>But it is not sufficient to have once achieved this union with God: to rest +in happiness the soul must continually achieve it. It follows then that our need +is not an isolated event but a <i>life,</i> a life lived with God, and in +experience we find that this alone can satisfy us. A life in which we receive +hourly the breath of His tenderness and pity, His infinite solace to a pardoned +soul.</p> + +<p><i>Of the Interchange of Thought without Sound</i></p> + +<p>Many persons know what it is to have the experience with another person of a +simultaneous exactitude of thought—speaking aloud the same words in the same +instant. Others experience in themselves the power to exchange thought and to +know the mind of another without the medium of sound, though not without the +medium of word-forms, this last being a capacity possessed only by the soul in +communion with the Divine. We name these experiences thought-waves, +mind-reading, mental telepathy, and understand very little about them; but +beyond this mind-telepathy there is a telepathy of the soul about which we +understand nothing whatever. This is the divine telepathy, with words or +<i>without word-forms,</i> by which Christ instructs His followers. The +telepathy of the mind is the indicator to the existence of a telepathy of the +soul; for the mind indicates to us that which should be sought and known by the +soul, and without we come to divine things first in a creaturely way (being +creatures) we shall never come to them at all. The mind desires and indicates, +the soul achieves.</p> + +<p>This telepathy with Christ is the means by which the soul learns in a direct +manner the will and the teaching and the mind of Christ, and it is by this means +she gains such wisdom as it is God's will she shall have. The soul seeks this +telepathy during the second stage, vaguely, not knowing or understanding the +mode of it, receiving it rarely and with great difficulty.</p> + +<p>In the third stage she obtains it in abundance, at times briefly, at others +at great length.</p> + +<center> +* * * +</center> + +<p>That God has his dwelling-place at an incalculably great distance from +ourselves is a true knowledge of the soul: but a further knowledge reveals to us +that this calamity is mitigated, and for short periods even annulled, by +provision of His within the soul to annihilate this distance, and be the means +of bringing the soul into such immediate contact with Himself as she is able to +endure. But the Joy-Energy of God being insupportable to the very nature of +flesh, in His tender love and pity He provides us, through the Person of His +Son, with degrees of union of such sweet gentleness that we may continually +enjoy them through every hour of life; and through His Son He comes out to meet +the prodigal "while yet afar off."</p> + +<p>This is strongly observable, that as the process of Christ proceeds and grows +in us, though our joys in God are individual, yet they become also clothed in a +garment of the universal, so that the soul, when she enters the fires of worship +and of blessing and of conversing with God—without any forethought, but by a +cause or need now become a part of herself,—enters these states and gives to Him +no longer as I, but as We—which is to say, as All Souls.</p> + +<center> +* * * +</center> + +<p>Many of us look to death to work a miracle for us, thinking the mere +cessation of physical living will give entry to paradise or even heaven, so long +as we are baptised and call ourselves Christians. This is a great delusion. In +character, personality, cleanliness, goodwill we are, after death, exactly as +far advanced as we were before death, and no further. What then is needed, since +death will not help us? The Seed of Divine love and life planted and consciously <i> +growing</i> in us whilst we are still in this world. And what is this Seed?—the +Redeemer.</p> + +<center> +* * * +</center> + +<p>What is paradise, what is heaven? The progressive gradations of conditions of +a perfect reciprocity of love, and the greater the perfection of this +reciprocity the greater the altitudes attained of heaven. Thus we see in +Scripture that the angels who stand nearest to God or highest in heaven are the +cherubim—that is to say, they are those who have attained a greater reciprocity +than all other angels. Now this Divine love is incomprehensible to us until we +are initiated into its mystery as a gift, and cannot be understood nor guessed +at by comparisons with any human loves however great, noble, or pure; but this +burning fiery essence of joy, this radiant glory of delight, this holy and +ineffable fulfilment of the uttermost needs, longings, and requirements of the +soul must be personally experienced by us to be comprehended.</p> + +<p>What madness in us is it that can count as an added cross or burden any means +by which we reach such perfection of bliss for ever? The Cross is for us the +misery of our own blinding sins and selfishnesses. The burden is the weight of +our own distance from God. "Take up thy cross (which is our daily life of +ignorance and sin), take up thy cross, and follow Me," says the voice of the +Saviour; and as we do it and follow Him the distance between God and ourselves +diminishes, and finally the burden and the cross +<i>disappear,</i> and behold God! awaiting us with His consolations.</p> + +<p>It is the stopping half-way that causes would-be followers of Christ such +distress. It is necessary that we follow Him all the way and not merely a part +of it—that He may complete His process in us. When we are living altogether in a +creaturely, natural, or unregenerated way, absorbed in the ambitions and +interests of a worldly life, we are perhaps content. When we live regenerated +and in the spirit, we are in great joy; but when we try to live between the two +and would serve God and worldly interests at the same time we are in gloomy +wretchedness, vacillation, depression.</p> + +<p>The Master said, "The kingdom of heaven is within you," which signified that +within us was the potentiality to have entrance to, and to know, the mystery of +the Divine Secret, and to participate whilst still living here, in the early +degrees or manifestations of Divine Love—that Power which glorifies the angels, +and is Heaven.</p> + +<p><i>Of the three Stages of God-Consciousness</i></p> + +<p><i>(Which more properly expressed is the gift of immediate access of the soul +of God)</i></p> + +<p>There are three principal stages on the way of progress—three separate +degrees of God-Consciousness. The first is the Consciousness of the Presence of +Jesus, the Perfect Man. We take Him into the heart, accept and know Him, love +and obey Him. In the second stage we receive Jesus as the Christ and recognise +Him as the Messiah (of which the mind was not sure in the first stage). We +rejoice in Him, giving Him a more perfect obedience. In the third the soul is +given the Consciousness of the Father, and, being filled with a very great love +and joy, worships Him as the Known God. Now life immediately becomes totally +changed, fear and sin are swept away, and love rules the Universe.</p> + +<p>It is now that God makes us know His glamour; that He casts over the soul His +golden net of spiritual delights, and by them seems to challenge her, saying to +the soul, "Now that I reveal Myself to thee, canst thou ever return to the joys +of the world, canst thou find its pleasures sweet, canst thou be satisfied with +any human love; canst thou by any means resist Me now that I show Myself?" And +the soul answers Him, "Nay Lord, in truth I cannot."</p> + +<p>The remembrance of these powers and these spells of God make for the soul a +sure foundation of repose and certainty in the days of the testing of fidelity +that still lie before her: they also further reveal to her His consummate care +of her exact requirements, for she cannot pass beyond a certain stage without a +direct personal assurance is given her. First He demands of us that we have, and +actively maintain, a clean will to turn and cleave to Him, without any assurance +beyond written assurance (Scripture); and having given Him a thorough proof of +fidelity, He then grants us the personal assurance. Having been given these +rapturous concessions, what would perfection demand of us—a total withdrawal +from the world—a hiding away in secret with our soul's treasure of delights? +Maybe for some; but a higher perfection calls us back to service in the wretched +turmoil of the world, to work and to stand in the House of Rimmon and never bow +the knee, to carry with us everywhere the Divine Consciousness and preserve its +light undimmed in every sordid petty circumstance of daily life, to endure with +perfect patience the follies and the prides of the unenlightened. Whoever can +achieve those things may find himself at last a saint.</p> + +<p>Very early in this third stage a miracle is performed in us: without knowing +how it came about or what day it was done, we suddenly know that the heart and +the mind <i>have become virgin</i>—and this without any variation. Every kind of +lust, whether of eye, body, heart, or mind, has been removed from us, and never +again has any power over us, for the will has become superior to lust, and there +is a finish to all such contending: this moral healing is more impressive than +any physical healing. Before this miracle is performed for us, we have suffered +many things, as much as we can bear: subtle and astonishing temptations of mind +and body and spirit "call to remembrance the former days in which after ye were +illuminated ye endured a great fight of afflictions" (Heb. x. 32).</p> + +<p>This person that writes formerly supposed that no creature was admitted to +the blessedness of being in any way with God in Spirit without they were already +become a saint; but this is not so, and He accepts the sinner long before he is +a saint (if ever we become one in this world, which is doubtful), provided the +will is always held good towards God.</p> + +<p>This is the mighty Process of Christ which he desires to perform for all. Of +the tears we shed over it the less mention the better; they are precious tears, +necessary tears, cleansing tears, and if we will not lend ourselves to this +Process of Christ we may have as many tears for our portion and no benefit from +them in the way of advancement. Let us weep the tears that God Himself will wipe +away.</p> + +<p>So then in the first stage the Soul tastes of the sweet companionship of +Jesus. In the second, of the might and graciousness of Christ; in the third, of +the fullness of God and His unspeakable delights. "Thou shalt give them to drink +of Thy pleasures, as out of the river" (Psalm xxxvi.).</p> + +<p>In the third stage of God-Consciousness a great change takes place in our +relationship to God. Besides the magnitude of the alterations of the inner +life—the sweeping spiritual changes—the body also shares in a change, for, +whilst we formerly prayed to God with a bowed head and a hidden face, we now +become unable to pray or approach Him except with a raised head and an uncovered +face. This change is not from any thought or intention of our own, but we are +forced to it by a sweet necessity. In a company of persons praying, all those in +the third stage could be immediately known by this necessity of the raised and +bared face if we were not taught by the Holy Spirit never to reveal to others +that we are in the third stage except in special instances. For this reason it +is not possible to enter true communion with God in a public place of worship +unless we can conceal ourselves from others. For the face undergoes a change in +communion with God, and it is not pleasing to Him that this should be seen by +any eye but His own.</p> + +<p>If anyone finds great difficulty (and the most of us do) in coming to the +first stage—that of taking Jesus into the heart—he must pray every day in a few +short words <i>from the heart</i> that God will give him to Jesus, and in due +time he will be heard.</p> + +<p>In the third stage of progress we have the home-coming of the soul as far as +we are able to know it in the flesh: "We taste of the powers of God" (Hebrews).</p> + +<p>But the fullness of home-coming is reserved for that day in which the +greatest of all the mysteries will be revealed to us—the mystery of the Relation +of the Soul to God.</p> + +<p>In that great day we shall know God by His Own Name.</p> + +<center> +* * * +</center> + +<p>We do not find God by denying the existence of things not pleasing to Him. We +do not find the Eternal Goodness by saying that Evil does not exist. We do not +find true health of spirit because we deny all sickness, pain, and disease. Such +a mode of Christianity may give a sense of comfort, lend a false security to the +heart and mind at once weary of God-searching, and disenchanted with the world; +but it is not the Christianity which regenerates. It is a narcotic, not a +Redemption. It is the way of a mind unwilling to face truths because they pain. +If there was anything made plain by Christ it is that the way of Redemption lies +through heroism and not cowardice. Let those of us who too much fear a passing +pain of sacrifice of will remember that the deepest of all pains, the last word +in the tragedy of life, is to come to old age and descend to the grave without +having found the Saviour. For our calamity is that we are lost souls. Our +opportunity is that in this world we find the track of Christ which leads us +home.</p> + +<center> +* * * +</center> + +<p>God does not create a new world on purpose for His lovers immediately to live +in, yet though we remain our full time in this same world it is not the same +world. We see a person in a severe illness and again in full health. It is the +same person, and not the same person. We see a garden filled with flowers in the +rain under grey clouds, and again the same garden filled with mellow sunlight +under blue skies; it is the same garden, and not the same garden.</p> + +<p>These changes could never be described or conveyed to the man blind from +birth; neither can spiritual changes be described or conveyed till we ourselves +gain similarity of experience. God transposes our pleasures, taking the glamour +from the guilty and transferring it to the blameless; by this transforming our +lives. He increases the pleasure of unworldly enjoyments so we are independent +of the worldly ones. But we cannot remain in this transformed world of His +unless we are at peace both with ourself and all persons around us.</p> + +<p>Though from earliest childhood we may have found in the beauties of Nature a +great delight, when we become the lover of God He passes His fingers over our +hearts and our eyes and opens them to marvellous new powers for joy. Oh, the +ecstasy that may be known in one short walk alone with God! The overflowing +heart cries out to Him, What other lover is there can give such bliss as this, +and what is all Nature but a lovely language between Thee and me! Then the soul +spreads wings into the blue and sings to Him like soaring lark.</p> + +<p>But do not let us seek Him only because of His Delights, for so we might miss +Him altogether. But let it be because it is His wish: because Perfection calls, +and mystery calls to mystery, and love to love, and Light calls to the darkness +and the Dawn is born.</p> + +<p> The glamour of God is come down about my soul,<br> + +And He who made all loveliness has decked my heart in spring,<br> + +And garlanded me round about with tender buds<br> + +Of flowers and scented things, and love and light.<br> + +I see no rain, no sad grey skies,<br> + +For the glamour of God has come down about mine eyes,<br> + +And the Voice of the Maker of all loveliness<br> + +Calling to my soul, leads me enchanted<br> + +Up the glittering mysteries of Infinity.</p> + +<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. Also I +have made two spelling changes: </p> +<p>"subsitute another picture" to "substitute +another picture"</p> +<p>"accepts the sinner long long before he is a saint" to +"accepts the sinner long before he is a saint".]</p><br> +<br> +<br> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Romance of the Soul, by Lilian Staveley + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROMANCE OF THE SOUL *** + +***** This file should be named 29451-h.htm or 29451-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/4/5/29451/ + +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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