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.
* * *
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, which _at its highest_ is 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 inward _light_ is 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, and _very frequently_ given 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.
* * *
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 go contrary
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._
* * *
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 an
_intense activity_ of 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 this _as a gift,_ for she is not able to will such a
felicity to herself, but being given such she is instantly consumed
with adoration, and _enters 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.
* * *
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 admiration _love will return to us._
* * *
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 herself_ and
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.
* * *
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 this _only 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 of _love 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 her _if 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.
* * *
Sin and ill are the false notes struck by man across the harmony of
God's will, and to strike upon or even remember such notes is instant
banishment from the music of His presence. Where all is joy, there
joy is all_;_ and he who has not reached this joy does not know
God--he is still a follower, and not a possessor, and he should refuse
in his heart to remain satisfied with his condition, but climb on. Why
stay behind? Climb on, climb on!
How often I have been mystified and disturbed by the attitude of
many religious and pious people, that to follow Christ is a way of
gloom, of sadness, of heaviness! How often have I gathered from
sermons that we are to give up all bright and enticing things if we
would follow Him, and the preacher _goes no further!_ Has the
Lord, then, no enticements, no sweetnesses, no brightness to offer us,
that we should be asked to forsake all pleasantnesses, all brightness,
all attractions if we follow Him? This to me always seemed terrible,
and my heart would sink. Indeed, to my poor mind and heart it
seemed nothing more hopeful than a going from bad to worse!
All the pictures I have seen, either of the Crucifixion or the Way of
the Cross (and especially those of more recent times and painting),
portray His Blessed Face all worn with gloom; and I know now that
this is far from the truth. For perfect love knows agony, but no
gloom. He went through all His agony, lifted high above gloom, in a
great ecstasy of love for us.
To speak of _sacrifice_ in connection with following Him is, to my
mind, the work of a very foolish person and one in danger of being
blasphemous. For how dare we say that it is a sacrifice when, by the
putting away of foolish desires, we find God! And to find God,
through the following of Jesus Christ, is to _gain so much_ (even in
this world, and without waiting for the next) that those who gain it
never cease to be amazed at the vastness of it.