“It will be found,” says Dr. W. R. Inge (in his lectures on Christian Mysticism, London, 1899, p. 326), “that men of preeminent saintliness agree very closely in what they tell us. They tell us that they have arrived at an unshakable conviction, not based on inference but on immediate experience, that God is a spirit with whom the human spirit can hold intercourse; that in him meet all that they can imagine of goodness, truth, and beauty; that they can see his footprints everywhere in nature, and feel his presence within them as the very life of their life, so that in proportion as they come to themselves they come to him. They tell us what separates us from him and from happiness is, first, self-seeking in all its forms; and, secondly, sensuality in all its forms; that these are the ways of darkness and death, which hide from us the face of God; while the path of the just is like a shining light, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day.”
The “enthusiasm of humanity” may lead to a life which coalesces in many respects with that of Christian saintliness. Take the following rules proposed to members of the Union pour l’Action morale, in the Bulletin de l’Union, April 1–15, 1894. See, also, Revue Bleue, August 13, 1892.
“We would make known in our own persons the usefulness of rule, of discipline, of resignation and renunciation; we would teach the necessary perpetuity of suffering, and explain the creative part which it plays. We would wage war upon false optimism; on the base hope of happiness coming to us ready made; on the notion of a salvation by knowledge alone, or by material civilization alone, vain symbol as this is of civilization, precarious external arrangement, ill-fitted to replace the intimate union and consent of souls. We would wage war also on bad morals, whether in public or in private life; on luxury, fastidiousness, and overrefinement; on all that tends to increase the painful, immoral, and antisocial multiplication of our wants; on all that excites envy and dislike in the soul of the common people, and confirms the notion that the chief end of life is freedom to enjoy. We would preach by our example the respect of superiors and equals, the respect of all men; affectionate simplicity in our relations with inferiors and insignificant persons; indulgence where our own claims only are concerned, but firmness in our demands where they relate to duties towards others or towards the public.
“For the common people are what we help them to become; their vices are our vices, gazed upon, envied, and imitated; and if they come back with all their weight upon us, it is but just.”
H. Thoreau: Walden, Riverside edition, p. 206, abridged. ↩
C. H. Hilty: Glück, vol. I p. 85. ↩
C. F. Voysey: The Mystery of Pain and Death, London, 1892, p. 258. ↩
Compare Madame Guyon:
“It was my practice to arise at midnight for purposes of devotion. … It seemed to me that God came at the precise time and woke me from sleep in order that I might enjoy him. When I was out of health or greatly fatigued, he did not awake me, but at such times I felt, even in my sleep, a singular possession of God. He loved me so much that he seemed to pervade my being, at a time when I could be only imperfectly conscious of his presence. My sleep is sometimes broken—a sort of half sleep; but my soul seems to be awake enough to know God, when it is hardly capable of knowing anything else.”
T. C. Upham: The Life and Religious Experiences of Madame de la Mothe Guyon, New York, 1877, vol. I p. 260
I have considerably abridged the words of the original, which is given in Edwards’s Narrative of the Revival in New England. ↩
Bougaud: Hist. de la Bienheureuse Marguerite Marie, 1894, p. 125. ↩
G. Dumas: la Tristesse et la Joie, Paris, 1900. ↩
G. Dumas: la Tristesse et la Joie, Paris, 1900, p. 130. ↩
G. Dumas: la Tristesse et la Joie, Paris, 1900, p. 167. ↩
G. Dumas: la Tristesse et la Joie, Paris, 1900, p. 127. ↩
The barrier between men and animals also. We read of Towianski, an eminent Polish patriot and mystic, that:
“One day one of his friends met him in the rain, caressing a big dog which was jumping upon him and covering him horribly with mud. On being asked why he permitted the animal thus to dirty his clothes, Towianski replied: ‘This dog, whom I am now meeting for the first time, has shown a great fellow-feeling for me, and a great joy in my recognition and acceptance of his greetings. Were I to drive him off, I should wound his feelings and do him a moral injury. It would be an offense not only to him, but to all the spirits of the other world who are on the same level with him. The damage which he does to my coat is as nothing in comparison with the wrong which I should inflict upon him, in case I were to remain indifferent to the manifestations of his friendship. We ought,’ he added, ‘both to lighten the condition
