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It is hard to conquer in small things, petty irritations, worries, cares of this world, likes and dislikes—all of these being subtle temptations, and all selfish. For instance, very often I find the human voice the most horrible thing that I know! I will be in a beautiful state of mind, and people around me will drag me from it with their maddening inanities of conversation. This one will speak of the weather, and that one of food; another of scandal, another of amusements. They will talk of their love for a dog, for a horse, for golf, for men or women; but never do I hear at any time, or anywhere, anyone speak of their love for God. I must listen to all their loves, but if I should venture to speak of mine they would look at me amazed; indeed, I never should dare to do it. And this is perhaps the greatest weakness that I have to fight against now, and one that spoils the harmony of the mind more than any other—that I cannot always control myself from secret though unspoken irritation, impatience, and criticisms; and to criticise is to judge, and in this there is wrong, and the smallest breeze of wrong is enough to blow to—even to close—the door into that other lovely world. And not only this, but every such failure is a disappointment to the Beloved. Many times I say to Him, "What canst Thou do with us all, Beloved—such a mass of selfish, foolish, blundering, sinful creatures, all hanging and pulling on to Thee at the same moment?" And I will be filled with a passionate desire to so progress that I may stand a little alone and not be a perpetual drag upon Him, and, feeling strong, perhaps I will say: "I will give up my share of Thee to someone else, and not draw upon Thee for a little while, my Beloved Lord." But oh, in less than an hour, if He should take me at my word! I could cry and moan like a small child, in my horrible emptiness and longing for Him. And where now is my strength?—I have not an ounce of it without Him! By this I learn in my own person how He is life itself to us, in all ways. He is the air, the bread, and the blood of the soul, and no one can live without at every moment drawing upon Him, though they do it insensibly. What a weight to carry, what a burden, this whole hungry clamouring mass of disobedient men and women! Oh, my Beloved, how frequently I weep for all Thy bitter disappointment—never ending!
But this we may be sure of—that all the marvels of His grace are not poured out on some poor scrappit for no other reason than to give him pleasure. There is a vast purpose behind it all, and by keenest attention we must pick up this purpose, understand it,and do it.This is the true work of man, to love God with all the heart and mind and soul and strength, and not those material works with which we all so easily satisfy ourselves and our consciences, and ourbodilyneeds.
He has marvellous ways (and very difficult to the beginner) of conveying His wishes. To my finding, the inward life of us is like a perpetual interchange of conversation between the heart and its many desires and the mind (which for myself I put into three parts—the intelligence, the will, the reason). Now, all these parts of my heart and of my mind formerly occupied themselves entirely with worldly things, passing from one thing to another in most disorderly fashion; but now they occupy themselves (save for bodily necessities)solelywith Him. There is a perpetual smooth and beautiful conversation between themtoHim andofHim; and suddenly He will seem to enter into this conversation, suggesting thoughts which are not mine.
Often He will stab the soul, but not with words, also the heart; and I have known such communications lie for weeks before they could be taken up by the mind, turned into words, and finally aswordsbe digested by the reason. And another way to the soul only—rare, untransferable to words, and therefore not transmittable to others or to the reason. This way causes the creature a great amazement, and is like a flooding or moving of whiteness, or an inwardly-felt phosphorescence; it is a vitalising ministration greatly enjoyed by the soul. This is not any ecstasy, and is exceedingly swift; the soul must be athigh attentionto receive this, yet neither anticipates nor asks for it, but is in the act of giving great and joyful adoration.
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I do not remember when I first became fully conscious that the centre or seat of my emotions was changed, and that I now responded to all the experiences of life only with the higher parts of me.
This change I found inexplicable and remarkable, for it was fundamental, and yet neither intended nor thought of by me. With this alteration in the physical correspondences to life came a corresponding alteration in the spiritual of me.
Formerly I supposed that the soul dwelt in, or was even a part of, the mind. Now, though the mind must be filled wholly with God, and all other things whatsoever put out of it if we would contemplate Him or respond to Him, yet neither the brain nor the intelligence of the creature can come into any contact with Him; and this I soon learnt.
Correspondence with the Divine is accomplished for the creature through the heart and by the uppermost part of the breast, this latter place (above the heart and below the mind) is the dwelling-place of the celestial spark of the soul, which lies, as it were, between two fires—that of the heart and that of the mind, responding directly to neither of these, but to God only.
Before I was touched upon the hill I was not aware of the locality of any part of my soul, neither was there anything which could convince me that I even possessed a soul. I did no more than believe and suppose that I did possess one. But the soul, once revived, becomes the most powerful and vivid part of our being; we are not able any longer to mistake its possession or position in the body. She is indeed the wonderful and lovely mistress of us, with which alone we can unlock the mysteries of God's love.
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How poor and cold a thing is mere belief! No longer do Ibelievein Jesus Christ: I dopossess Him.So complete is the change that He brings about in us that I now only count my life and my time from the first day of this new God-consciousness that I received upon the hill, for that was the first day of my real life; just as formerly I would count my time from the first day of my physical birth, and from that on to my falling in love and to my marriage, which once seemed to me to be the most important dates.
Whilst these changes were taking place in me I would often be filled with uneasiness and some alarm; asking myself what all this could mean, and if it could be the way of martyrs or saints, for I had no courage or liking to be one or the other and was very frightened of suffering. And I think my cunning heart would have liked to take all the sweets and leave the bitter. How well He knew this, and how exquisitely He handled me, never forcing, only looking at me,invitingme with those marvellous perfections of His! How could I possibly resist Him? All the while, all my waking hours, I felt that strange, new, incomprehensible, steady, insistentdrawingand urgency of the Spirit in me. Little by little I went—and still go—towardsperfection, whilst my cowardly heart endured many fears, but these are now past. It was not any desire for my own salvation; to this I have never given so much as two thoughts. It was theirresistible attractionof our marvellous and beautiful God. He lured, He drew me with His loveliness, His holy perfections, His unutterable purity.I longed to please Him.The whole earth was filled with the glamour of Him, and I filled with horror to see how utterly unlike—apart from the glorious Beloved—I was. How frightful my blemishes, which must stink in His nostrils! Think of it! To stink in the nostrils of the Beloved! What lover could endure to do such a thing? No effort could be too great or painful to beautify oneself for Him. In this there is no virtue; it is the driving necessity of love, a necessity known by every lover worthy of the name on earth. To please and obey this ineffable and exquisite Being!—the privilege intoxicated me more and more.
All these changes in my heart and mind continually filled me with surprise, for I was never pious, though inwardly and secretly I had so ardently sought Him. I was attentive, humble, and reverent, nothing more.
But though I had perhaps little or no piety, and never read a single religious book, I had had a deep thirst for the perfect and the holy and the pure, as I seemed unable to find them here on the earth. In the quiet solemnity of church, or under the blue skies, I could detach myself from my surroundings and reach up and out with wistful dimness towards the ineffable holiness and purity of God—God who, for me at least, remained persistently so unattainable.
And yet one blessed day I was to find Him suddenly, all in one glorious hour, no longer unattainable but immanently, marvellously near, and willing to remain for me so strangely permanently near that I must sing silently to Him from my heart all the day long—sing to Him silently, because even the faintest whisper would feel too gross and loud between my soul and Him. And in hours when I fall from this wonderful estate I think I come very near hell, so awful is my loss.
Our greatest need is to relearn the will of God. For we are so separated from Him that we now look upon His Will as on a cross, as an incomprehensible sacrifice, as but self-abnegation, pain, and gloom. We repudiate it in terror.
If we have the will to relearn His Will, we stand still and think of it, we walk to seek it, we try to accept it, trembling we bow down to it with obedience and many tears; and behold! it changes to an Invitation, a sigh of beauty, a breath of spring, the song of birds, the faces of flowers, the ever-ascending spiral of the mating of all loves, the sunshine of the Universe; and at last, intoxicated with happiness, we say: "My God, my Love, I sip and drink Thy Will as an ambrosial Wine!"
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To the lover of God all affections go up and become enclosed, as it were, into one affection, which is Himself; so that we have no love for anyone or anythingapartfrom Him. In this is included, in a most deep and mysterious fashion, marriage-love in all its aspects. In every way it can become a sacrament: there is nothing in it which is not holy, in no way does the marriage bond of the body separate the spirit from acceptableness to God.
But I was some time before I could arrive at this, and could see marriage as the physical prototype in this physical world of the spiritual union with Himself in the spiritual world. And this was arrived at, not by prudish questionings and criticisms, but by remembering that this relationship between men and women is His thought, His plan, not ours. We are responsible for our part in it only in so far as to keep the bond of it pure and clean and sweet, and submit ourselves in all thingsas completely and orderly as possible to His plans, whatever they may be.In this attitude of unquestioning, unresisting submission, the Holy Spirit finds a swift and easy channel through us. It is our opposition to the passage of the Holy Will which causes all the distress and uneasiness of life. He has no wish to impose distress and suffering upon us. His Will towards us is pure joy, pure love, pure peace, pure sweetness. This bond of earthly marriage is of the flesh and can be kept by the body, and yet the heart, mind, and soul remain in lovely perfect chastity; and I found that this exquisite freedom—after prolonged endeavours on the part of the soul and the creature—was at length given them as a gift by act of grace, and remained in permanence without variation.
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We know that these things are deep mysteries and largely hidden; but this I know: as the heart feels love in itself for God, in that same instant comes God into the soul of the lover. Now, where God is we know that there is neither evil, nor sadness, nor unhappiness, nor any recollection of such things; therefore, to be a great and constant lover to Him is to be automatically lifted from all unhappinesses.
This is our wisest and our best desire, to be a splendid lover to our Most Glorious God.
The more I see of and talk with other people, the more I see how greatly changed I am. I amfreed.They are bound. I find them bound by fears, by anxieties, by worries, by apprehensions of evil things, by sadness, by fears of death for their loved ones or for themselves. Now, we are freed of all these thingsif we keep to the Way,which is the Road of Love. This change we do not bring about for ourselves, and do not perhaps even realise that it can be effected. For myself, I seemed to be lifted into it, or into acapacityfor it, on that day and in that moment in which I first loved God. This is not to say that since that moment I have not had to struggle, suffer, and endure, to keep myself in, and progress in this condition; but my sufferings, struggles, and endurances, being for love and in love and because of love, were and are in themselves beautiful, and leave in the recollection nothing inharmonious. They are the difficult prelude to a glorious melody.
Another thing—we become by this love for Him so large that we seem to embrace within our own self the Universe! In some mysterious manner we become in sympathy with all things in the bond of His making.
Are these things worth nothing whatever, that the majority of people should be content to spend their lives looking for five-pound notes and even shillings—and this not only the poor, but the rich more so? I am far more at a loss to understand my fellow-men than I am to understand God. We have need of the shillings, but of other and more lovely things besides, which cost no money and may be had by the poorest. It is rapidly becoming the only sorrow of my life that people do not all come to share this Life in which I live. How that parable knocks at the heart, "Go out into the highways and the hedges and compel them to come in!" To know all thisfullnessof life and not to be able to bring even my nearest and dearest into it: what a terrible mystery is this!—it is an agony. Now, in this agony I share the Agony of Jesus. This is a part of the Cross, and only the Father can make it straight. I see Heaven held out, andrefused;love held out, andrefused;perfection shown, and killed upon a cross. What is the crucifix but that most awful of all things—the Grief of God made Visible? Perfect Love submitting itself to the vile freewill of man and dying of wounds! My God! my God! and didIever have a hand in such a thing? I did.
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What is it that seems more than any other thing whatever to throw us at last into the arms of God? Suffering. And this not because it is His will (for how much rather would He have us turn to Him in our joy and prosperity), but rather that it isourwill, that in our earthly joys and prosperities we turn away from Him, and only seek His consolations when we see the failure of our health or happiness. And having by His mercy and forgiveness found Him, we too often and too easily think to glorify ourselves and name each other saints! Did Jesus call us saints? These glorifications mankind would appear to bestow upon itself. He spoke of His flock, and of those who through Him should have life eternal, and of those who, because of the road they take, have their joys in this world only.
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When I was being taught to pray for national things and for other persons, and found these prayers answered, I was inclined to be afraid; thinking, What am I that I should dare to petition the Most High? But He showed it me so, which, as in everything, is for all of us: "It is but a cloud which reflects the glories of the promise of My rainbow; so can the dust, such as thyself, reflect yet other fashions of My will and glory. There is no presumption in the cloud that it should glow with My power; neither is there presumption in thy dust that it should be My vehicle. Both the cloud and thy dust are Mine."
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As we progress in this new way of living we find an increasing difficulty in maintaining petition; for on commencing to petition we will almost invariably be instantly lifted up to such a state of adoration that the whole soul is nothing but a burning song, a thing of living worship. At first I was inclined to blame myself, but now I know that it is acceptable for us to pass from petitioning (no matter who or what for) to high adoration, even though it is a great personal indulgence (and the petitioning is ahard task)—an indulgence so extreme that I cannot call to my mind anything in any experience or time of my life, excepting actual raptures, which could, or can, in any way compare or be named in the same breath with this most marvellous joy; for out of this joy of adoration flows the Song of the Soul.
And all these previous years of my life I have lived with the greater part of me dead, and most persons the same! The more I think of it, the more amazed I am at our folly—working and fretting, and striving and looking for every kind of thing except the one thing, beautiful, needful, and living, which is the finding of the personal connection between ourselves and God and the Waters of Life.
Looking to my own experiences, I see clearly how I never could have found without the most powerful and incessant assistance. We are, then, never alone. But first we must havethe will to seek these waters.This is the secret of the whole matter. He can turn the vilest into a pure lover—if the vilest be willing to have the miracle performed on him! This is the grace of God, and what does it cost Him to pour out this mighty power through us? For everything has its price. My Lord! my Lord! we are not worthy of it all.
This I notice, that when He removes this grace, very shortly the mind goes back to a false, uneven, inharmonious state; so we become like an instrument all out of tune, and are caused indescribable sufferings, like a musician whose ears and nerves are tortured by false notes, whilst his unmusical neighbours feel no pain! The musician pays a price for the privilege of his great gift; so the lover of Christ.
Again, there is a price to pay for the immeasurablejoyof prayer, for prayers are not always sweet nor life-giving. The prayers to Christ are always a refreshment, but prayers to the Father may suddenly be turned without any previous thought or private intention into a most awful grief for the abominations of the whole world of us, a terrible wordless burnt-sacrifice of the soul, of unspeakable anguish. And high petitioning is a fearful and profound strain upon the soul and the whole creature.
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We say that we have need of the purification and conversion of the soul; but rather it is first the conversion of the heart, mind, and will that we have need of. For this would feel to be the drama of our life—the human heart, intelligence, and will are the ego of the creature. Our soul is the visitor within this creature, containing within herself a pure, holy, and incorruptible sparkle of the Divine, and lies choked and atrophied in her human house until revived and awakened by her holy lover; and this awakening is not given to her till the heart and mind of her human house (or the will and spirit of the creature) is in a state of regeneration, or condition to go forward towards God. Which is to say, the creature has been touched by repentance and a desire for the pure and the holy. For if the soul should be awakened to an unrepentant creature, this Will and imperishable worm of the creature (which is of greater coarseness and lustiness than the delicate and fragile soul) will overcome the soul; and this is not the goal, neither is the death of the creature the goal, but the lifting up of the creature into the Divine—this is the goal.
After being awakened, then, in her human house, the soul finds herself locked in with two most treacherous and soiled companions—the human heart and mind; and so great is her loathing and her distress, that for shame's sake these two are constrained to improve themselves. But their progress is slow, and now comes a long and painful time of alternation between two states. At one time the soul will conquer the creature, imposing upon it a sovereign beauty of holiness; and at another the creature will conquer the soul, imposing upon her its hideous designs and desires, and causing her many sicknesses. Hence we have the warring which we feel within ourselves, for the soul now desires her home and the creature its appetites.
Until this awakening of the soul takes place, we mistake in thinking that we either live with our soul, or know our soul, or feel with our soul. She does but stir within us from time to time, awaking strange echoes that we do not comprehend; and we live with the mind and the heart and the body only—which is to say, we live as the creature; and this is why on the complete awakening of the soul we feel in the creature an immense and altogether indescribable enhancement of life and of all our faculties, so that in great amazement we say, "I have neverliveduntil this day." When first the will of the creature is wholly submitted to the lovely guidance of the divine part of the soul, then first we know the ineffable joys of the world of free spirit. For to live with the mind and the body is to be in a state of existence in nature. But to live with the soul is to live above nature, in the immeasurable freedom and intensity of the spirit. And this is the tremendous task of the soul—that she help to redeem the heart and mind from their vileness of the creature and so lift the human upwards with herself to the Divine from whence she came. This, then, is the transmutation or evolution by divine means of the human into the divine; and for this we need to seek repentance or change of heart and mind, which is the will of the creature turning itself towards the beauties of the spirit, that Christ may awaken in us the glories of that sleeping soul which is His bride.
When the soul is fully revived we can know it by this, that we are not able any longer to content ourselves with anything nor anyone save God. Neither are we able to love any save God, for all human desires and loves mysteriously ascend and are merged into the Divine. So, though we love our friend, we love him in God, and in every man perceive but another lover for the Beloved.
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To love God might commence to be expressed as being a great quiet, an intense activity, a prodigious joy, and the poignant knowledge ofthe immensity of an amazing new life shared.
The contemplation of God might be expressed as the folding up or complete forgetfulness of all earthly and bodily things, desires, and attractions, and the raising of the heart and mind and the centring of them in great and joyful intensity upon God, by means of love. Of this contemplation of God I find two principal forms: the passive and the active. In the first we are in a state of steady, quiet, and loving perception and reception, and at some farness; in this we are able to remain for hours, entering this state when waking at dawn and remaining in it till rising.
In active contemplation we are in rapturous and passionate adoration with great nearness, and are not able to remain in it long because of bodily weakness. The soul feels to be never tired by the longest flight, but must return because of the exhaustion of the forlorn and wretched creature, which creature is complete in itself, having its body, of which, being able to touch it, we say, "It is my body," and its heart and mind with intelligence, of which we are wont to think, "This is myself"; yet it is but a part, for the intelligence of our creature is by no means the intelligence of the divine soul, but a far lesser light: for with the intelligence of the divine soul we reach out to God and attain Him, but with the intelligence of the creature we reach towards Him but do not attain, for with it we are unable to penetrate the veil. Therefore, who would know the joys of contemplation must come to them by love, for love is the only means by which the creature can attain. The soul attains God as her birthright, but the creature by adoption and redemption, and this through love. By love the creature dies and is reborn into the spirit.
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The word "poverty," as used to express a necessary condition of our coming to God, is a most misleading term. For how can any condition be rightly named poverty which brings us into the riches of God? Rather let us use the words "singleness of heart," or "simplicity": which is to say, weput outall other interests save those pleasing to God (to commence with), and afterwards we reach the condition in which wehave nointerests but in God Himself—the heart and mind and will of the creature becoming wholly God's, and God filling them. How can we say, then, that it is poverty to be filled with God! Rather is it rightly expressed as being a heart fixed in singleness upon God, through drastic simplification of interests: the which is no poverty, but the wealth of all the Universe.
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Some of us seem open to suggestion, others to the steadier effects of personal influence. I never came under the personal influence of another except once, when I came under the influence of the being I loved most—my brother. At ten he saved my life from drowning, and at eighteen his influence and total lack of faith in God, coupled with the searchings and probings of my own intelligence, took me away from God, in whom I had previously had a comfortable faith. At seventeen I began to lap up the hardest scientific books as a cat laps milk. I said to myself, "I must find truth, I must find out what everything really is"; but I could not reconcile science with Church teaching. I was not able to adjust the truths of science—which were demonstrable to both senses and intelligence—with the unprovable dogmas set forth by the Church as necessary to salvation. I slowly and surely lost what faith I had, and hung a withered heart upon the pitiless and nameless bosom of the Cosmos. Inward life became for me a horrible emptiness without hope. Surrounded with gaieties and the innumerable social successes of youth, I found that neither science nor society could satisfy my soul, or that something living within me which knew a terrible necessity for God. For two long and dreadful years I fought secretly and desperately to regain this lost belief, and when at last I succeeded there remained a monstrous and impenetrable wall between myself and God. But by comparison with the horrors of past loneliness it was heaven to me to feel Him there, even behind that wall. (Now that I have found Him by love, I am able to return to science as to a most exquisite unrolling of the majesty of His truths and powers and laws, and am brought nearer and nearer to Him the more I learn of science.) Outside the wall I remained for more than twenty years, seeking and searching for an opening in that mighty barrier.
And after more than twenty years I found the Door—and it was Jesus Christ.
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Lately I have seen the word "contemplation" used as expressing the heights of attainment in God-consciousness of men, and I find it inadequate. From the age of seventeen I fell into the habit of contemplation, not of God, but of Nature: which is to say, I would first place myself, sitting, in such a position that my body would not fall and I might completely forget it, and then would look about me and drink in the beauty of the scene, my eyes coming finally to rest upon the spot most beautiful to me. There they remained fixed. All thoughts were now folded up so that my mind, flowing singly in one direction, concentrated itself upon the beauty on which I gazed. This soon vanished, and I saw nothing whatever, but, bearing away into a place of complete silence and emptiness, I there assimilated and enjoyed inwardly the soaring essence of the beauty which I had previously drawn into my mind through my eyes, being now no longer conscious of seeing outwardly, but living entirely from the inward. This I did almost every day, but to do it I was obliged to seek solitude, and absolute solitude is a hard thing to find; but I sought it, no matter where, even in a churchyard! I saw no graves. I saw the sky, or a marvellous cloud pink with the kisses of the sun, and away I went. I judge this now to have been contemplation, though I never thought of it by so fine-sounding a name; it was only my delightful pastime, yet there was a strange inexpressible sadness in it. Nature and beauty were not enough. The more beauty I saw, the more I longed for something to which I could not put a name. At times the ache of this pain became terrible, almost agonising, but I could not forgo my pastime. Now, at last, I know what this pain was: my soul looked for God, but my creature did not know it. For just in this same way we contemplate God, savouring Him without seeing Him, and being filled to the brim with marvellous delights with no sadness.
But this condition of contemplation is very far from being the mountain-top; it is but a high plateau from which we make the final ascent. The summit is an indescribable contact, and this summit is not one summit but many summits. Which is to say, we have contact of several separate forms—that of giving, that of receiving, and that of immersion or absorption, whichat its highestis altogether unendurable as fire.
Of this last I am able only to say this: that not only is it inexpressible by any words, but that that which is a state of extreme beatitude to the soul is death to the creature by excess of joy. Therefore both heart and mind fear to recall any details of the memory of this highest attainment. I knew it but once. To know it again would be the death of my body. For more than two hours (as well as I am able to judge) before coming to this highest experience, my soul travelled through what felt to be an ocean, for she rose and fell upon billows in a state of infinite bliss.
Of other forms of contact we have a swift, unexpected, even unsought-for attainment, which is entirely of His volition; that sudden condescension to the soul, in which in unspeakable rapture she is caught up to her holy lover.
These are the topmost heights which the creature dare recall, though to the soul they remain in memory as life itself. The variations of these forms of contact are infinite, for God would seem to will to be both eternal changelessness and variation in infinitude.
Because of this, and the marvellous depths and heights and breadths of life revealed to her, the soul is able to conceive of an eternity of bliss, for monotony ceases to be joy. In Nature we see that no two trees in a forest are alike, and two fruits gathered from one bough have not the same flavour.
But to my feeling all degrees of attainment are only to be distinguished as varying degrees of union, the joy of which is of a form and a degree of intensity and purity which can enter neither the heart nor the mind to imagine, but must be experienced to be understood, and when experienced remains in part incomprehensible. It is not to be obtained by force of the will, neither can it be obtained without the will. It is, then, a mystery of two wills in unison, in which our will is temporarily fused into and consumed by the will of God and is in transports of felicity over its own annihilation! This is outside reason and therefore incomprehensible to the creature, but comprehensible to the soul, and becomes the aim and object of our life to attain in permanence, and is the uttermost limit of all conceivable rapture.
When I first knew union and contact upon the hill I had the impression of a very great light outside of me. I never again had an outward impression of it.
But when any sense of inwardlightis felt I consider it to be a high ecstasy and hard for the body. It is the sweet and gentle touchings of Christ which are the great and unspeakable comfort of both soul and body. Inward heat I never felt till many months after my third conversion and more than four years from my first conversion. This extraordinary sensation, which to my mind is like a magnetic seething with heat and ravishment of joy, I felt inwardly only after I had learnt to know a sudden, secret, joyous delight of love in the soul, which is easiest described as sweetness of love, is from the Christ, andvery frequentlygiven by Him. And some six months after the heat, fire, electric seething, or however best it may be named, I first knew the song of the soul. Now, although it is better not to dwell upon the memory of past spiritual joys, lest we become greedy, and equally wise not to dwell upon the memory of anguishes, lest we fall into self-pity, which of all emotions is the most sickly and useless (and our wisest is to live only from hour to hour with all the sweetness that we can, leaving to Him the choosing of our daily bread, whether it be high joy or pain), still I confess that I have thought over and compared these joys sufficiently to know very well which I love the best. Heat of love is very wonderful, and sweetness is very lovely, and raptures and ecstasies are outside words; but most beautiful of all is the song of the soul, and this is when—in highest adoration—passing beyond heat, and further than sweetness, the soul goes up alone upon the highest summit of love, and there like a bird pours out the rapturous and golden passion of her love. And His Spirit, biding very near, never touches her; for if He touch, it is at once an ecstasy, and because of the stress of this she would have neither words nor song with which to rejoice Him.
Oh, the pure happiness of the soul in this wonderful song!
Truly I think it is greater than in the rapture or the ecstasy, because in these the soul receives, but in the song, mounting right up to Him, she gives. And now at last we know the fuller meaning of Christ's words where He says: "It is more blessed to give than to receive."
Beloved, Thou takest the creature and liftest it up; Thou takest the creature and liftest it high, so that nevermore can it offend Thee, and the soul is free to sing of her love. Then is it Thy will that the creature should love Thee? Or is it Thy will that the soul should adore? Beloved, I know not whether with my heart and mind I most adore Thee, or whether with my soul I love Thee more. And where is that secret trysting-place of love? I do not know; for whilst I go there and whilst I return I am blind, and whilst I am there I am blinded by Love Himself.
O wondrous trysting-place I which is indeed the only trysting-place of all the world worthy to be named.
For every other love on earth is but a poor, pale counterfeit of love—a wan Ophelia, wandering with a garland of sad perished flowers to crown the dust.
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As the loving creature progresses he will find himself ceasing to live in things, or thoughts of things or of persons, but his whole mind and heart will be concentrated upon the thought of God alone. Now Jesus, now the High Christ, now the Father, but never away from one of the aspects or personalities of God, though his conditions of nearness will vary. For at times he will be in a condition of great nearness, at times in a condition of some farness, or, more properly speaking, of obscurity. He will be in a condition of waiting (this exceedingly frequent, the most frequent of all); a condition of amazing happiness; a condition of pain, of desolation at being still upon the earth instead of with God. He will be in a condition of giving love to God, or a condition of receiving love, of remembrance and attention. He will be in a condition of immeasurable glamour, an extraordinary illumination of every faculty, not by any act of his own, but poured through him until he is filled with the elixir of some new form of life, and feels himself before these experiences never to have lived—he but existed as a part of Nature. But now, although he is become more united to Nature than ever before, he also is mysteriously drawn apart from her, without being in any way presumptuous, he feels to be above her, not by any merits but by intention of Another. He is become lifted up into the spirit and essence of Nature, and the heavy and more obvious parts of her bind him no more. He is in a condition of freedom, he is frequently in a condition of great splendour, and is wrapped perpetually round about with that most glorious mantle—God-consciousness.
These are man's right and proper conditions. These are the lovely will of God for us. And too many of us have the will to gocontrary to Him. Oh, the tragedy of it! If the whole world of men and women could be gathered and lifted into this garden of love! Persuaded to rise from lesser loves into the bosom of His mighty Love!
For the truly loving soul here on earth there are no longer heavens, nor conditions of heavens, nor grades, nor crowns, nor angels, nor archangels, nor saints, nor holy spirits; but, going out and up and on, we reach at last THE ONE, and for marvellous unspeakably glorious moments KNOW HIM.
This is life: to be in Him and He in us,and know it.
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These beautiful flights of the soul cannot be taken through idleness, though they are taken in what would outwardly appear to be a great stillness. This stillness is but the necessary abstraction from physical activity, even from physical consciousness; but inwardly the spirit is in a great activity, a very ferment of secret work. This, to the writer, is frequently produced by the beautiful in Nature, the spirit involuntarily passing at sight of beauty into a passionate admiration for the Maker of it. This high, pure emotion, which is also anintense activityof the spirit, would seem so to etherealise the creature that instantly the delicate soul is able to escape her loosened bonds and flies towards her home, filled with ineffable, incomparable delight, praising, singing, and joying in her Lord and God until the body can endure no more, and swiftly she must return to bondage in it. But the most wonderful flights of the soul are made during a high adoring contemplation of God. We are in high contemplation when the heart, mind, and soul, having dropped consciousness of all earthly matters, have been brought to a full concentration upon God—God totally invisible, totally unimaged,and yet focussed to a centre-point by the great power of love.The soul, whilst she is able to maintain this most difficult height of contemplation, may be visited by an intensely vivid perception, inward vision, and knowledge of God's attributes or perfections, very brief; and thisas a gift,for she is not able to will such a felicity to herself, but being given such she is instantly consumed with adoration, andenters ecstasy.
Having achieved these degrees of progress, the heart and mind will say: "Now I may surely repose, for I have attained!" And so we may repose, but not in idleness, which is to say, not without abundance of prayer. For only by prayer is our condition maintained and renewed; but without prayer, by which I mean an incessant inward communion, quickly our condition changes and wears away. No matter to what degree of love we have attained, we need to pray for more; without persistent but short prayer for faith and love we might fall back into strange woeful periods of cold obscurity.
To the accomplished lover great and wonderful is prayer; the more completely the mind and heart are lifted up in it, the slower the wording. The greater the prayer, the shorter in words, though the longer the saying of it, for each syllable will needs be held up upon the soul before God, slowly and, as it were, in a casket of fire, and with marvellous joy. And there are prayers without words, and others without even thoughts, in which the soul in a great stillness passes up like an incense to the Most High. This is very pure, great love; wonderful, high bliss.
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In the earlier stages of progress, when the heart and mind suffer from frequent inconstancy, loss of warmth, even total losses of love, set the heart and mind to recall to themselves by reading or thinking some favourite aspect of their Lord Jesus Christ. It may be His gentleness, or His marvellous forgiveness, as to Peter when "He turned and looked at him" after the denial; for so He turns and looks upon ourselves. Or it may be His sweetness that most draws us. But let us fasten the heart and mind upon whichever it may be, and in the warmth of admirationlove will return to us.
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The mode of entrance into active contemplation I would try to convey in this way. The body must be placed either sitting or kneeling, and supported, or flat on the back as though dead. Now the mind must commence to fold itself, closing forwards as an open rose might close her petals to a bud again, for every thought and image must be laid away and nothing left but a great forward-moving love intention. Out glides the mind all smooth and swift, and plunges deep, then takes an upward curve and up and on till willingly it faints, the creature dies, and consciousness is taken over by the soul, which, quickly coming to the trysting-place,spreads herselfand there awaits the revelations of her God. To my feeling this final complete passing over of consciousness from the mind to the soul is by act and will of God only, and cannot be performed by will of the creature, and is the fundamental difference between the contemplation of Nature and the contemplation of God. The creature worships, but the soul alone knows contact. And yet the mode of contemplation is a far simpler thing than all these words—it is the very essence of simplicity itself; and in this sublime adventure we are really conscious of no mode nor plan nor flight, nought but the mighty need of spirit to Spirit and love to Love.
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The picking out and choosing of certain persons, and the naming of them "elect" and "chosen" souls, when I first read of it, filled me with such a sinking that I tried, when coming upon the words, not to admit the meaning of them into myself; for that some should be chosen and some not I felt to be favouritism, and could not understand or see the justice of it. I never ask questions. He left me in this condition for eighteen months. Then He led me to an explanation sufficient for me. The way He showed it me was not by comparisons with great things—angels and saints and holy persons; but by that humble creature, man's friend, the dog, He showed me the elect creature. It was this way.
One evening as I passed through the city I had one of those sudden strong impulses (by which He guides us) to go to a certain and particular cinematograph exhibition. I was very tired, and tried to put away the thought, but it pressed in the way that I know, and I knew it better to go. I sat for an hour seeing things that had no interest for me, and wondering why I should have had to come, when at last a film was shown of war-dogs in training—dogs trained especially to assist men and to carry their messages.
These dogs were especially selected, not for their charm of outward appearance, but for their inward capacities;not for an especial love of the dog(or favouritism), but for that which they were willing to learn how to do. The qualifications for (s)election were willingness, obedience, fidelity, endurance. Once chosen they were set apart. Then commenced the training, and we were shown how man put his will through the dog: he was able to do thisonly because of the willingness of the dog.The purport of the training was to carry a message for his master wherever his master willed. He must go instantly and at full speed; he must leap any obstacle; he must turn away from his own kind if they should entice him to linger on the way; he must subdue all his natural desires and instincts entirely to his master's desires; he must be indifferent to danger. And to secure this he was fired over by numbers of men, difficulties were set for him, and he was distracted from his straight course by a number of tests. Yet we saw the brave and faithful creatures running on their way at their fullest speed until, exhausted and breathless but filled with joy oflove and willingness,they reached the journey's end, to be caressed and cared for beyond other dogs until the next occasion should arise. Then we were shown the dog in his fully-trained condition. His master could now always rely upon him. A dog always ready, always faithful and self-forgetful, was then set apart into a still smaller and more (s)elect group and surrounded with most especial care and love. Never would it want for anything. In this there was justice. Forsaking all their natural ways, these dogs had submitted themselves wholly, in loving willingness, to their master's will, and he in return would lavish all his best on them. It was but just. Oh, how my heart leaped over it! At last I understood—for as the dog, so the human creature. We become chosen souls, not for our own sakes (which had always seemed to me such favouritism), but for our willingness to learn our Master's Will. And what is His will and what is His work? Of many, many kinds, and this is shown to the soul in her training. But the hardest to learn is not that of the worker, but of the messenger and lover. As the messenger, to take His messages, in whatever direction, instantly and correctly, and to take back the answer from man to Himself—which is to say, to hold before Him the needs of man on the fire of the soul, known to most persons under the name of prayer. And as the lover, to sing to Him with never-failing joyful love and thanks.
But the learning and work of the soul is not so simple as that of the dog, who carries the message in writing upon his collar. The soul can have no written paper to assist her, and long and painful is her training; and exquisitely sweet it is when, having swiftly and accurately taken the message, she waits before Him for the rapture of those caresses that she knows so well.
How I was spurred! For I said, "Shall dogs outdo us in love and devotion?" Only in a condition of total submission, self-forgetfulness, self-abnegation, can the soul either receive or deliver her message. In this way she is justified of the joys of her election. The dog, faithful in all ways to his master, receives in return all praise and all meats, whatever he desires. The faithful soul also receives all praise and all meats, both spiritual and carnal, for nothing of earthly needs will lack herif she asks; and without asking, her needs are mysteriously and completely given her. Her spiritual meats are, in this world, peace, joy, ecstasy, rapture; and of the world to come it is written that eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things that God has prepared for them that love Him.
It might be supposed that only persons filled with public charities and social improvements, ardent and painstaking church workers, might most surely and easily learn to be messengers. But all these persons pursue and follow their own line of thought, the promptings of their own minds and hearts. They are admirable workers, but not messengers. For the hound of God must have in his heart no plan of his own. It is hard for the heart to say, "I have no wishes of my own; I have no interests, no plans, no ambitions, no schemes, no desires, no loves, no will. Thy will is my will. Thy desire is my desire. Thy love is my all. I am empty of all things, that I may be a channel for the stream of Thy will."
With what patience, what tenderness, what inexpressible endearments He helps the soul, training her by love!—which is not to say that she is trained without much suffering of the creature. So we are trained by two opposite ways—by suffering and by joys; and the whole under an attitude of passionate and devoted attention on our part. The sufferings of the soul baffle all description with their strange intensities.
Our encouragements are great and extraordinary sweetnesses, urgings, and joyful uplifting of the spirit. So that when we would stop, we are pressed forward; when we are exhausted, we are filled with the wine of sweetness; when we are in tears, we are embraced into the Holy Spirit.