as she does for that of Gracian, and she never praises him to others as she does the lesser saint. We hardly like Teresa less for this: it is pleasant to see her thus womanly.

the more if she were more also love her less.

We might admire her perfect, but we might

VII

JUAN DE VALDÉS AND MIGUEL DE MOLINOS: A STUDY IN MYSTICISM

AT all times in the Christian Church there have been two classes of believers: they whose ideal of Christian life on earth is that it should be a continual worship of God; they who think that all worship on earth is rather a means than an end, and that its true purport is to influence the actions and conduct of Christian life. Neither of these propositions is wholly false, nor does the one necessarily exclude the other; but they who adopt the former proposition as their end in life, and especially those of this class who deem the secret intimate communion of the individual soul to be the highest form of worship of Almighty Godthese are they who, for want of a better term, we term Mystics.1

1 Metaphysicians dispute whether the idea of infinity is positive, or negative only. May not the answer be, that to the mystic infinity is a positive thing, the only thing real; while to the non-mystic it may be purely negative? To the former the infinite is the necessary complement of the finite ; he cannot conceive the finite existing apart from the infinite. The infinite seldom troubles the mind of the non-mystic at all. Unless when forced upon him by religious teaching, he is not consciously influenced by it, and remains indifferent to it.

The two conditions of mind of the Mystic and of the practical Christian do not absolutely exclude one another. It is only as one or the other predominates in the character that we can class a man on the one side or the other. Perhaps there are few earnest Christians who have not, at least for some moments, felt their soul lying, as it were, passive before God, shut out from the world and from all thoughts of self, seeking only to receive from Him impressions of His greatness, His holiness, or His love-moments when all the interests and ambitions of time seemed utterly absorbed and forgotten in contemplation of eternity, and the relations between God and the individual soul the only things worth engaging man's thought. This, in some form or other, is no rare experience. It is often aimed at by those whose natural temperament hardly admits of such feelings, certainly, at least, not of the adequate expression of them. Hence it is, perhaps, by those striving to be mystics, to whom all power of imagination and poetic expression is denied, that we see books written, especially by American authors, in which the future state is depicted only as a repetition of what the authors loved best on earth. Thus, on the one hand, we have heaven imagined as a glorified NewEngland village by writers of the United States, and, on the other hand, as antitype of the scenes of Pyrenean pilgrimage, as in M. E. Pouvillon's Mystère, Bernadette de Lourdes. On the other hand, true mysticism may be often found among the rude and illiterate, who can hardly express their ideas in speech, still less in writing. "Can you

tell me what particular thing led to your conversion?" asked a clergyman of a humble member of his congregation. "Why, sir, it was hearing Mr.

read one morning in church, 'As the Lord of hosts liveth, before whom I stand.'' "Those are striking words; but I do not see how they led to your conversion." "Don't you see, sir? 'before whom I stand,'-I felt myself standing before God."1 This unlettered man was a far truer mystic than many who have tried to write themselves as such.

The greatest mystics have often been the greatest men in practical life: St. Augustine, St. Bernard, St. François de Sales, St. Teresa, were all great in practical life. Even one of those to whom the De Imitatione Christi has been attributed, Gerson, Chancellor of the Sorbonne, lived a life of extreme practical activity. The very sect among us, one side of whose religious system is most akin to mysticism, though not of the highest kind-the Friends, or Quakers-are distinguished by their successful conduct of practical affairs. In fact, it would seem that the contact with practical life, whether by choice or compulsion, preserves from half of the dangers which beset an exclusive devotion to the mystical side of religion. The

1 "In a case of which the present writer has private knowledge, a young man, Christian by training, and Christian by subsequent conviction, in the first rush of the experience of conversion was conscious of a sudden and instantaneous sense of God's all-encompassing presence, without at first finding anything in his feelings to correspond to what he had been taught about Christ or His atonement." C. C. J. Webb in the Journal of Theological Studies, October 1902, p. 59.

early monastic orders well understood this, with their grand motto, Laborare est orare; and even the hermits of the Thebaid were employed in basket-making.

For mysticism has its dangers, which are perhaps more subtle than those which attend any other habit of religious exercise. And here I must mark off from mysticism all mere speculative psychology or Platonism on the one hand; all merely subjective superstition, and all devotional study or meditation, which aims at directly influencing practical religious life, on the other. Mysticism may exist in almost all religions, or even in the negation of all religion. It is no peculiar product of Christianity; it is found to a still greater degree in Mohammedanism, in Buddhism, and in many another Oriental religion. It is seen too in poets like Shelley and Clough, in men like Amiel, whose religion it would be very difficult to define. But I deal here simply with the mysticism of those who believe in the historical truths of Christianity; who, believing intensely in the Personality of the Triune God, attempt to lay their souls passive before Him, and to learn directly of Him with no human aid intervening. Beautiful as this mysticism is, fascinating beyond all else as are its joys, full of rapture its delights, it is yet, if we may so say, the flower, and not the fruit which the Christian life should bear. A Christian life wholly without mysticism would be as shrubs and plants without flowers, as the earth without an atmosphere to soften into beauty every harsh outline, to blend the too glaring colours into hues of refreshment for