empts towards free
action, clear apprehension, true union, which we dignify by the
names of will, thought, and love are now seen matched by an
Absolute Will, Thought, and Love; instantly recognised by the
contemplating spirit as the highest reality it yet has known, and
evoking in it a passionate and a humble joy.

This unmistakable experience has been achieved by the mystics
of every religion; and when we read their statements, we know
that all are speaking of the same thing. None who have had it
have ever been able to doubt its validity. It has always become
for them the central fact, by which all other realities must
be tested and graduated. It has brought to them the deep
consciousness of sources of abundant life now made accessible to
man; of the impact of a mighty energy, gentle, passionate,
self-giving, creative, which they can only call Absolute Love.
Sometimes they feel this strange life moving and stirring within
them. Sometimes it seems to pursue, entice, and besiege them. In
every case, they are the passive objects upon which it works. It is
now another Power which seeks the separated spirit and demands
it; which knocks at the closed door of the narrow personality;
which penetrates the contemplative consciousness through and
through, speaking, stirring, compelling it; which sometimes, by
its secret irresistible pressure, wins even the most recalcitrant
in spite of themselves. Sometimes this Power is felt as an
impersonal force, the unifying cosmic energy, the indrawing love
which gathers all things into One; sometimes as a sudden access
of vitality, a light and heat, enfolding and penetrating the self and
making its languid life more vivid and more real; sometimes as a
personal and friendly Presence which counsels and entreats the
soul.

In each case, the mystics insist again that this is God; that here
under these diverse manners the soul has immediate intercourse
with Him. But we must remember that when they make this
declaration, they are speaking from a plane of consciousness far
above the ideas and images of popular religion; and from a place
which is beyond the judiciously adjusted horizon of philosophy.
They mean by this word, not a notion, however august; but an
experienced Fact so vivid, that against it the so-called facts of
daily life look shadowy and insecure. They say that this Fact is
"immanent"; dwelling in, transfusing, and discoverable through
every aspect of the universe, every movemen