taught me its mystic secret? Would not the vision of the Perfect have arisen through all the dust and dreariness? Would not the Presence that besets us behind and before have found me? I cannot tell, but it seems to me so. Is it only one's "disposition" that opens to him these influences? Have not millions of one's fellows, with dispositions unlike his own, similar experiences? And might not others, who are without them, have them? Often these renewals of spirit come through nature, when it seems as if every grass-blade and shrub and leaf were sensitized with spiritual healing and vitality. Sometimes a human hand serves to convey the chrism; sometimes it comes in solitude, with no apparent medium. All this is common enough. Ten thousand poets have felt and expressed it, or tried; millions have felt something of it and have never tried to express it. The very commonness of the experience makes it not less mystical, or real, or precious, but more so. While not always directly religious, these experiences have always been, to me, at least, associated with a pervading sense of Supreme Love because of which and by means of which they came. Whether they would disappear and fade into the light of common day, if I should come to believe them merely subjective, I do not know; certainly, they would lose the heart of their meaning. I am not saying that these individual experiences are the basis and foundation of my faith. That roots in the soil of a common Christian faith; but this is one of the forms in which it becomes living and expressive. One must have his own "drop o' dew," even though the largess covers the whole great meadow. So far from beclouding the intellect, or unfitting one for careful thinking and earnest work, these experiences clarify the mind and enhearten one for toil. Without the freshness and zest which they give to life, existence might grow ashen and dreary-a meaningless leer or a "tragic shadow-play." It should be added that while these experiences in their indescribable individuality of meaning and significance often come unexpectedly, like perfume wafted, though not by chance, from an invisible garden, still the mystical mood, the sense of the Presence, the calm of spirit which puts one in touch with the larger life, can be induced by prayer, though not always at the moment. Prayer comes to mean, more and more, this mystical opening of the heart to the Divine, including an outreach to the sacred souls in the circle of one's affection, as all embraced within the Eternal Love. VI But is not this intrusting too much to what appears to be a mere feeling? Do not such experiences vary greatly in intensity and reach their maximum of convincing power only at certain rare and fleeting moments? Yes, the mystical experience is intermittent and inconstant.15 But must it not be so, under the conditions of our dual nature and environment? We are physical as well as spiritual beings. Our feet are in the dust, even while our heads are among the stars. We are of the earth earthy, as well as of the heavens heavenly. Therefore the vision fades. But, the memory of it, the sense of its reality, does not fade. "Sometimes," as H. W. Dresser writes, "a person's whole life will be changed by the coming of a quickening presence or through the persuasions of an inner vision." To the same effect are those arresting words of Professor Dühm: "He who has once been seized by the conviction, 'I stand before the Living God,' has experienced in himself the secret of religion, and his whole life is henceforth consecrated (geweiht).”17 William James says of mystical experiences, 15 Hocking, in his The Meaning of God in Human Experience, discusses this necessity with penetration and conclusiveness. 16 The Future Life, p. 29. 17 Das Geheimniss in der Religion, p. 32. "as a rule, they carry with them a curious sense of authority for after-time." As one strives to translate the vision into terms of life and conduct, the conviction of its soundness deepens rather than vanishes. One knows it to be real in the sober and dogged struggle to be true to it, as well as in the high and flaming moments of visitation. He is well aware that he is not deceived, but that in these swift incursions of the invisible he has "come on that which is." For these "vanishings," be they what they may, Are yet the fountain light of all our day, 18 Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 381. |