This mention of the ladies reminds our friends of the time, and they are breaking up to join them.
The essays and dialogues which follow have their origin in the conversation to which we have just listened.
CHAPTER III.
If we entertain the inward man in the purgative and illuminative way, that is, in actions of repentance, virtue, and precise duty, that is the surest way of uniting us to God, whilst it is done by faith and obedience; and that also is love; and in these peace and safety dwell. And after we have done our work, it is not discretion in a servant to hasten to his meal, and snatch at the refreshment of visions, unions, and abstractions; but first we must gird ourselves, and wait upon the master, and not sit down ourselves, till we all be called at the great supper of the Lamb.—Jeremy Taylor.
‘So, we are to be etymological to-night,’ exclaimed Gower, as he stepped forward to join Willoughby in his inspection of a great folio which Atherton had laid open on a reading desk, ready to entertain his friends.
‘What says Suidas about our word mysticism?’
Willoughby. I see the old lexicographer derives the original word from the root mu, to close: the secret rites and lessons of the Greek mysteries were things about which the mouth was to be closed.[[4]]
Gower. We have the very same syllable in our language for the same thing—only improved in expressiveness by the addition of another letter,—we say, ‘to be mum.’
Atherton. Well, this settles one whole class of significations at once. The term mystical may be applied in this sense to any secret language or ritual which is understood only by the initiated. In this way the philosophers borrowed the word figuratively from the priests, and applied it to their inner esoteric doctrines. The disciple admitted to these was a philosophical ‘myst,’ or mystic.
Willoughby. The next step is very obvious. The family of words relating to mystery, initiation, &c., are adopted into the ecclesiastical phraseology of the early Christian world,—not in the modified use of them occasionally observable in St. Paul, but with their old Pagan significance.