This assurance of another manner of living, though we see nothing with the eyes, is the opening of another world to us. The invisible becomes real, faith becomes transformed in knowledge. If the hundred wisest men of the world should all prove upon paper that the spiritual life as a separate and other life from the physical life does not exist, it would cause nothing but a smile of compassion to the creature that had experience. God teaches us by these means to become balanced, poised, and a complete human being, combining in one personality or consciousness the Spiritual and the Material.
But we are not given and shown these mysteries without paying a price: we must learn to live in extraordinary lowliness and loneliness of spirit. The interests, enjoyments, pastimes of ordinary life dry up and wither away. It becomes in vain that we seek to satisfy ourselves in any occupation, in anything, in any persons, for God wills to have the whole of us. When He wills to be sensibly with us, all Space itself feels scarcely able to contain our riches and our happiness. When He wills to disconnect us from this nearness, there is nothing in all the universe so poor, so destitute, so sad, so lonely as ourself. And there is no earthly thing can beguile or console us, because, having tasted of God, it is impossible to be satisfied or consoled save inwardly by God Himself. But He opens up Nature to us in a marvellous way, unbelievable until experienced. He offers us Nature as a sop to stay our tears. By means of Nature He even in absence caresses the soul and the creature, speaks to them fondly, encourages and draws them after Him, sending acute and wonderful perceptions to them, so that, quite consoled, they cry aloud to Him with happiness. And often when the creature is alone and secure from being observed by anyone He will open His glamour to the soul and she passes into union with paradise and even more—high heaven itself. These are angels' delights which He lavishes upon the prodigal.
Another heavy price to be paid is found by the soul and heart and mind in the return from the blissful and perfect calm which surrounds even the lowest degree of the contemplation of God to the turmoil of the world. For to have been lifted into this new condition of living, this glamour, this crystal joy, to know such heights, such immensities, and to descend from God's blisses to live the everyday life of this world and accept its pettiness is a great pain, in which pain we are of necessity not understood by fellow-creatures; therefore the more and the more we become pressed into that great loneliness which is the inevitable portion of the true lover, and experience the pain of those prolonged spiritual conflicts in which the soul learns to bend and submit to the petty sordidness of life in a world which has forgotten God. It is the lack of courage and endurance to perpetually weather these dreadful storms which causes us to turn to seclusion—the cloister. To refrain from doing this and to remain in the world though not of it is the sacrifice of the loving soul—she has but the one to make—to leave the delights of God, and for the sake of being a useful servant to Jesus to pick up the daily life in the world; which sacrifice is in direct contrariety to the sacrifice of the creature, which counts its sacrifices as a giving up of the things of the world. So by opposites they may come to one similarity—perfection. How to conduct itself in all these difficult ways so foreign to its own earthly nature is a hard problem for the creature, belonging so intimately to this world which it can touch and see: and yet which it is asked by God bravely to climb out of into the unknown and the unseen. Bewildered by the enormous demands of the soul which can never rest in any happiness without she is contemplating God, adoring Him, conversing with Him, blessing and worshipping Him, the poor creature is often bewildered to know how to conduct the ordinary affairs and duties of life under such pressures. Of its emotions, of the tears that it sheds, of the falls that it takes, a library of books might be written. In the splendour, the grandeur, the great magnitudes and expanses of spirit life as made known to it by the soul, the creature feels like some poor beggar child, ill-mannered, ill-clothed, which by strange fortune finds itself invited to the house of a mighty king, and, dumb with humility and admiration, is at a loss to understand the condescension of this mighty lord. In this sense of very great unworthiness lies a profound pain, an agony. To cure this pain we must turn the heart to give love, to think love, and immediately we think of this great condescension as being for love's sake—as love seeking for love—we are consoled. Then all is well, all is joyful, all is divine. The more simple, childlike, and unpretentious we can be, the more easily we shall win our way through. Pretentiousness or arrogance in Man can never be anything but ridiculous, and a sense of humour should alone be sufficient to save us from such error. For the same reason it is impossible to regard human ceremonies with any respect or seriousness, for they are not childlike but childish. How often the heart and mind cry out to Him, "O mighty God, I am mean and foolish—mean in that which I have created by my vain imaginings, my pride, my covetousness; but in that which Thou hast made me I am wonderful and lovely—a thing that can fly to and fro day or night to Thy hand!"
The difficulties of the creature should not be raised on some self-glorifying pinnacle merely because the fickle variable heart at lasts learns the exercise of Fidelity. Do we not see a very ordinary dog practising this same fidelity as he waits, so eager that he trembles, outside his master's door, having put on one side every desire save his desire to his master whom, not seeing, he continues to await; and this out of the generosity of his heart! And we? Only by great difficulty, long endeavour, bitter schooling, and having at last accomplished it we name each other saints or saintly. Let us think soberly about these things; are we then so much less than a dog that we also cannot accomplish this fidelity—so that though hands and feet go about daily duties the heart and mind are fixed on the Master? Then the Master becomes the Beloved.
Of Blessing God
At first when the creature is being taught to bless God it shrinks back in a fright, crying, "What am I that I should dare to bless Almighty God, I am afraid to do it; I am too unworthy; let me wait till I am more righteous, till I have done more works." Then the divine soul counsels it so: "Think no more about thyself, moaning and groaning over thine unworthiness and trusting to progress in works. Cease thinking of thyself, and rise up and think only of God. Thou wilt never be worthy, and all thy works are nothing and thy learning of no count whatever; and as to thy righteousness, is it not written that it is as filthy rags? All that God will give thee is not for any merits or works of thine, but for Love's sake. He desires both to give thee love and to receive thy love, therefore rise and worship Him, give Him all the love that thou hast; keep none back either for thyself, or anything or any creature, but give all that thou hast to Him with tears and songs and gladness." Timidly the creature obeys, and with all its powers and strength it blesses God, and instantanteously God blesses the creature, sending His sweetness and His glamour about it: and the more the soul and the creature bless God the more does He bless them, and they bless Him from the bed of sickness and pain as fully as they bless Him in health. They bless Him in the night-time and in the noonday, they bless Him as they walk, they bless Him as they work, and because of this little bit of blessing and love that the two of them offer to God He offers them all heaven in Himself.
It is the duty of the soul to constantly lend counsel, courage, help, advice, and strength to the creature, and we are conscious of the voice of the soul, which without any sound yet makes itself inwardly heard, calling to the selfishness, the egoism of the creature, urging the higher part of it to come higher and the animal in it to become pure and to subdue itself, saying to it, "Lie down and be quiet, or thou wilt bring disaster to us both." "I cannot be quiet, for I could groan with my restless distress." "Cease to think of thyself with thy roarings and groanings. Lay hold of love which thinks nothing of itself but always of that which it may give to the Beloved." "I cannot do this; I am no angel nor even a saint, but a most ordinary creature, forsaken of God and miserable." "Thou art never forsaken, but thy door is closed: it opens from thy side, and thou art thyself standing across it and blocking the opening of it—I will show thee how to open it, cry and moan no more for favours and gifts, but do thou thyself do the giving. Since thou dost not know at all how to begin—do it with these set words: 'I love and praise Thee, I love and bless and thank Thee, I love and bless and worship Thee'; and see thou do it with all thy heart and mind and strength and with no thought of thyself and future benefits, but entirely that thou mayest give Him pleasure." Then the creature tries, but fails lamentably, for most of its heart and mind is on itself and a fraction only on God.
"Now try again and again and again," cries the soul, "O thou miserable halfhearted shallow worldling!" And the creature tries again, and, doing better, gets a very slight warmth about the heart; and, doing it again, gets a little comfort, and so, gradually progressing in the way of true love which is all giving, at last one day the creature does it perfectly because it has altogether forgotten itself in the fire of its love and is completely set upon God. Then automatically the door opens, and immediately in through it there rushes the breath and the blisses of God. And the creature, weeping with excess of happiness, cries, "I never asked for such delights, I did not know such happiness was to be had; and if I did not ask, how is it that I have received?" Then the soul answers, "Because thou hast learnt to give to God, and that is the key which unlocks the garden of His joys. Thou hast just three things which He desires to have—thy love and thine obedience, and thy waiting fidelity. When thou dost conform to His desire with all thy tiny unadulterated strength, immediately heaven becomes open to thee and thou dost receive more than thou didst ever dream or think to ask for. This is His lovely Will towards thee. But first always do thy part, and until thou doest thy part I cannot begin mine, for thou couldst receive neither blessings nor blisses did I not receive them first from Him and hand them on to thee; so each are dependent the one on the other, and only together can we enter paradise. Think not I do not suffer as much as thyself and far more. I know thou dost suffer with thy body and with the losses of thine earthly loves, but I suffer far more with the loss of my Heavenly Love. At first I could not understand what had come to me, buried and choked in thy strange house of flesh. I despised thee, I hated thee, thy stupid ways, thy dreadful greeds, thine unspeakable obstinacy and unwillingness; thou didst give me horrible sicknesses with thine unsavoury wants, thine undignified requirements. I thought thee foolish and now know myself to be more foolish than thee, for thou hardly knowest the heavenly love whereas I knew and left Him, seeking other loves. The Fall was not thy fault, poor human thing, but mine. I am the Prodigal, and thou the means of my return, for if I can but raise thee to true adoration of our God, then I shall pay my debt of infidelity to Him and together as one glorious radiant spirit we shall enter heaven again.
"Only listen and I can guide thee, for the Master speaks to me and tells me what to do. I am partly that which thou dost please to call thy conscience, and thou dost treat me shockingly, buffeting and wounding me when I try to whisper to thee: if thou art not careful, thou wilt so disable me that all our chance of happiness will be spoiled. Do thou listen very tenderly for my voice, for I am of gossamer and thou of strangely heavy clay."
Of Evil and Temptation and of Grace