CHAPTER IV.
The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the night for the morrow,
The devotion to something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow.
Shelley.
Willoughby. Here’s another definition for you:—Mysticism is the romance of religion. What do you say?
Gower. True to the spirit—not scientific, I fear.
Willoughby. Science be banished! Is not the history of mysticism bright with stories of dazzling spiritual enterprise, sombre with tragedies of the soul, stored with records of the achievements and the woes of martyrdom and saintship? Has it not reconciled, as by enchantment, the most opposite extremes of theory and practice? See it, in theory, verging repeatedly on pantheism, ego-theism, nihilism. See it, in practice, producing some of the most glorious examples of humility, benevolence, and untiring self-devotion. Has it not commanded, with its indescribable fascination, the most powerful natures and the most feeble—minds lofty with a noble disdain of life, or low with a weak disgust of it? If the self-torture it enacts seems hideous to our sobriety, what an attraction in its reward! It lays waste the soul with purgatorial pains—but it is to leave nothing there on which any fire may kindle after death. What a promise!—a perfect sanctification, a divine calm, fruition of heaven while yet upon the earth!
Atherton. Go on, Willoughby, I like your enthusiasm. Think of its adventures, too.