now Him, love and obey Him. In the
second stage we receive Jesus as the Christ and recognise Him as
the Messiah (of which the mind was not sure in the first stage). We
rejoice in Him, giving Him a more perfect obedience. In the third
the soul is given the Consciousness of the Father, and, being filled
with a very great love and joy, worships Him as the Known God.
Now life immediately becomes totally changed, fear and sin are
swept away, and love rules the Universe.

It is now that God makes us know His glamour; that He casts over
the soul His golden net of spiritual delights, and by them seems to
challenge her, saying to the soul, "Now that I reveal Myself to thee,
canst thou ever return to the joys of the world, canst thou find its
pleasures sweet, canst thou be satisfied with any human love; canst
thou by any means resist Me now that I show Myself?" And the soul
answers Him, "Nay Lord, in truth I cannot."

The remembrance of these powers and these spells of God make for
the soul a sure foundation of repose and certainty in the days of the
testing of fidelity that still lie before her: they also further reveal to
her His consummate care of her exact requirements, for she cannot
pass beyond a certain stage without a direct personal assurance is
given her. First He demands of us that we have, and actively
maintain, a clean will to turn and cleave to Him, without any
assurance beyond written assurance (Scripture); and having given
Him a thorough proof of fidelity, He then grants us the personal
assurance. Having been given these rapturous concessions, what
would perfection demand of us--a total withdrawal from the world--a
hiding away in secret with our soul's treasure of delights? Maybe
for some; but a higher perfection calls us back to service in the
wretched turmoil of the world, to work and to stand in the House of
Rimmon and never bow the knee, to carry with us everywhere the
Divine Consciousness and preserve its light undimmed in every
sordid petty circumstance of daily life, to endure with perfect
patience the follies and the prides of the unenlightened. Whoever
can achieve those things may find himself at last a saint.

Very early in this third stage a miracle is performed in us: without
knowing how it came about or what day it was done, we suddenly
know that the heart and the mind _have become virgin_--and this
without any variation. Every kind of lust, whether of eye, body,
heart, or mind, has been removed f