And now how do we come to this place of triumph? By what means is it granted us to enter so fully into the songs which shall one day resound through the universe? "Through Him that loved us." It is alliance with God that is the secret. The three steps of the mystics are Purification, Illumination, and Union; and simple as the statement is, it is a better theology than many another of much larger dimensions. Many people do not understand this alliance in which we are led into union with God, through the Holy Spirit. They think it is more like the old story of the dwarf and the giant, who went a warfare together, in which expedition the dwarf lost his arms and legs, and was only saved from imminent death in each conflict by the happy arrival of the giant. One can scarcely blame the dwarf for breaking up the partnership. We must understand that in Christianity the dwarf is the giant, that the despised deformed puny child of faith is, when he recognises his own weakness and leans upon his own God, big with the force that rolls the stars along. The might of God is in him: and though he may have no armour nor sword to match the Philistine, he will come home carrying his head for all that; for
Man's weakness leaning upon God,
Its end can never miss.
THE END
The Devotional Library
1. THE KEY OF THE GRAVE. A Book for the Bereaved.
By W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D.
2. MEMORANDA SACRA.
By Professor J. RENDEL HARRIS, M.A.,
Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge.
STUDIES IN MYSTICISM
AND CERTAIN ASPECTS OF THE SECRET TRADITION.
By ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE.