what
then takes place is so obscure. All I am able to say is, that the
soul is represented as being close to God; and that there abide a
conviction thereof so certain and strong, that it cannot possibly
help believing so."

This sense, this conviction, which may be translated by the
imagination into many different forms, is the substance of the
greatest experiences and highest joys of the mystical saints. The
intensity with which it is realised will depend upon the ardour,
purity, and humility of the experiencing soul: but even those who
feel it faintly are convinced by it for evermore. In some great and
generous spirits, able to endure the terrific onslaught of Reality,
it may even reach a vividness by which all other things are
obliterated; and the self, utterly helpless under the inundations of
this transcendent life-force, passes into that simple state of
consciousness which is called Ecstasy.

But you are not to be frightened by these special manifestations;
or to suppose that here the road is barred against you. Though
these great spirits have as it were a genius for Reality, a
susceptibility to supernal impressions, so far beyond your own
small talent that there seems no link between you: yet you have,
since you are human, a capacity for the Infinite too. With less
intensity, less splendour, but with a certitude which no arguments
will ever shake, this sense of the Living Fact, and of its
mysterious contacts with and invasions of the human spirit, may
assuredly be realised by you. This realisation--sometimes felt
under the symbols of personality, sometimes under those of an
impersonal but life-giving Force, Light, Energy, or Heat--is the
ruling character of the third phase of contemplation; and the
reward of that meek passivity, that "busy idleness" as the mystics
sometimes call it, which you have been striving to attain. Sooner
or later, if you are patient, it will come to you through the
darkness: a mysterious contact, a clear certitude of intercourse
and of possession--perhaps so gradual in its approach that the
break, the change from the ever-deepening stillness and peace of
the second phase, is hardly felt by you; perhaps, if your nature be
ardent and unstable, with a sudden shattering violence, in a
"storm of love."

In either case, the advent of this experience is incalculable, and
completely outside your own control. So far, to use St. Teresa's
well-known image, you have been watering the garden of