nce from herself, so that the soul is at
one and the same time in paradise or heaven, and upon the earth:
space is eaten up. Without seeing or hearing, the soul partakes in a
tremendous and unspeakable manner of the joys of God, which, all
unfelt by us as "natural" man, pass unceasingly throughout the
universe.

These experiences give an immense and unshakable knowledge to
the soul and the creature of the immense reality of the Unseen Life,
and are doubtless sent us to effect this knowledge. Why, then, is not
every man given this knowledge? Because the creature must qualify
before being allowed to receive it, and too many hold back from the
tests. By these experiences we learn some little portion of the
mystery which lies between the pettiness of that which we now are
and the great glories that we shall come to; and in this awful
heavenly mystery in which are fires that have no flame, and melody
which has no sound, the soul is drawn to Everlasting Love. But we
cannot endure the bliss of it, and the soul prays to be covered on
account of the creature.

But because of the limitations of the flesh we are not to despise it
but regard it not as an aim or end (as that if we satisfy its lusts that
shall be our paradise), but regard it as a means. Christ willed the
flesh and the world to be a rapid means of our return to God. Subdue
the flesh without despising it, in humility and thankfulness. Suffer
its trials and penalties not in dejection, rebellion, or hopelessness,
but as a means to an end. "For everyone shall be salted with fire,"
says Scripture; and can anything whatever be well forged or made
without it be first melted and cleaned? So, then, for each his
Gethsemane. As for Christ, so for Judas, who, not being able to
endure, went out and hanged himself. Let our care, then, be to
choose that Gethsemane which shall open to us the gates of heaven
and not hell.

In our raw state we fear the Will of God, thinking it a path of thorns;
but as Christ moulds and teaches us we grow to know the Will of
God as a great Balm: to long to conform to it, joyfully to join it, to
sink into it as into an immense security where we are safe from all
ills; and at last, no matter what temporary trials we endure, so great
does our love and confidence grow by _Grace_ of God upholding
our tiny efforts that, like Job, we cry to Him with absolute sincerity
and confidence, "Though Thou slay me, yet will I trust Thee";
having learnt it is not Hi