and in value is to find self-fulfillment and happiness in love. The unitive life, the highest summit of the mystic ascent, is a life of love. On this height, in this atmosphere, the goal is reached, the soul is at home, the self is fulfilled. This is the Christian Nirvana, attainable in this life, yet not attained, reached only in swift ecstatic experiences by all who follow the Christ in the mystic way. Faith in love, "the love of Love"-how it floods the mystic mind with joy, driving sorrow, defeat, doubt, dismay, afar! Love is the inner secret, the whole secret, the open secret, of mysticism. God is love, and truth is love, and life is love, was the message that came to men through the Christ. It awoke a response in many hearts. Men fled to the desert with the priceless secret. They sold all other pearls and bought this of great price; and yet they did not keep it. They gave it away, and the more they gave of it, the more they had of it. They lost it in the darkness of the world and of self, and found it again and rejoiced. To the mystic love is able to transform even the most humdrum service and make it beautiful. That joyous saint of the pots and kettles, Brother Lawrence, gives this account of his experience, as related in the Conversations: When outward business diverted him a little from the thought of God, a fresh remembrance coming from God invested his soul, and so inflamed and transported him, that it was difficult for him to restrain himself. Therefore he said: That he was more united to God in his ordinary occupations than when he left them for devotion in retirement. That the most excellent method which he had found of going to God, was that of doing our common business without any view of pleasing men, and (as far as we are capable) purely for the love of God.14 "Love is the fulfilling of the law," exclaimed the enfranchised mystic of Tarsus. "God is love," breathed the mystic seer of Ephesus. "Love is stronger than death," sang sang the mystic martyrs, and faced the lions and the flames undaunted. "Love can win all," caroled the mystic missionaries, and dared forest and frost and savage sword. "Love is more precious than the world and all its ambitions and pleasures," whispered the mystic monks and nuns, and withdrew into the monastery, the hermitage, the hospital. "Love is the final wisdom, the only freedom, the only bond of union," joyfully taught the Friends of God in Germany. "He that loveth, flieth, runneth, 14 The Practice of the Presence of God, Third and Fourth Conversations. and rejoiceth," wrote the tender-hearted author of the Imitation. "Divine Love is the mystic wound that heals the soul," confessed the Quietists. "Love is the highest excellency," echoed the voice of the mystic Edwards from the wilderness of the New World. “Love is the warmth diffused by the Inner Light," asseverated the Quakers. "Love is immortal," chanted the mystic threnodists of "Adonais” and "In Memoriam." "Love is the heart of melody," sang the mystic musicians, and wove its sacred sweetness through all their chords and symphonies. "Love is the root of righteousness, of holiness, of fidelity," proclaimed the mystic prophets and preachers, aflame with the love that never faileth. "Love is the only talisman that will insure social justice and human brotherhood and bring in the golden age of man," cried the mystic humanitarians, and, bathed in its puissance, have gone bravely to their regenerating toil. All these have lived and wrought in the light of a great assurance. Knowing that love is the triumphant secret of the universe, they have "smiled to think God's greatness flows around our incompleteness-round our restlessness, His rest." CHAPTER IX THE TREASURY OF CHRISTIAN THE mystics have greatly enriched life. They have also greatly enriched literature. It is a saying of Maeterlinck that "a work can never grow old except in proportion to its anti-mysticism." Whatever qualification such a statement may need, certain it is that the books of deep and genuine mystical spirit, full of "old essential candors," possess a vitality greater than that of oaks and sequoias. If we commence with the New Testament and pass in swift review some of the most precious volumes in the treasury of Christian mystical literature, it may seem a heterogeneous company of books that we bring together, from different ages and races and mental environments, yet it will serve to show the remarkable range and wealth of Christian mystical literature. No attempt at completeness will be made, and many a gem will doubtless be missed, as worthy of a place as some of those that are included. I The light of a new and surpassing era of the Spirit pervades the New Testament. The mystic note finds anticipatory utterance in the Magnificat and the Benedictus, with their sense of imminent and immeasurable good. The Sermon on the Mount, though a setting forth of the ethics of the Kingdom, is pervaded and vitalized by mystical teaching, without which it would be quite robbed of its warmth and motive power. The Beatitudes (Matt. 5. 3-12), the Appeal to Perfection (5. 48), the True Nature of Prayer and Fasting (6. 5-15), the Inner Light (6. 22, 23), the beautiful nature lesson of Freedom from Anxiety and Inner Calm (6. 25–34), the Way of Access to Infinite Bounty (7.7-11) are all clad in mystic radiance. The parables too, especially the Kingdom parables-the Pearl of Great Price, the Mustard Seed, the Hid Treasure, the Net-are full of a suggestive wisdom and subtle beauty that reveal Jesus's deeply mystical spirit. Much as there is of the mystic in Paul, none of his writings is a singly woven and consistent piece of mysticism. Yet there are passages in his letters which ensue upon the dash and fervor of argument, exhortation, and admonition, breathing a harmony, a depth, a universality, which make them masterpieces in the literature |