erverse and hideous acts which have sprung from them--
these have set up reactions, have produced deep disorders in the
world of things. Man is free, and holds the keys of hell as well as
the keys of heaven. Within the love-driven universe which you
have learned to see as a whole, you will therefore find egotism,
rebellion, meanness, brutality, squalor: the work of separated
selves whose energies are set athwart the stream. But every
aspect of life, however falsely imagined, can still be "saved,"
turned to the purposes of Reality: for "all-thing hath the being by
the love of God." Its oppositions are no part of its realness;
and therefore they can be overcome. Is there not here, then,
abundance of practical work for you to do; work which is the
direct outcome of your mystical experience? Are there not here,
as the French proverb has it, plenty of cats for you to comb? And
isn't it just here, in the new foothold it gives you, the new clear
vision and certitude--in its noble, serious, and invulnerable faith--
that mysticism is "useful"; even for the most scientific of social
reformers, the most belligerent of politicians, the least
sentimental of philanthropists?

To "bring Eternity into Time," the "invisible into concrete
expression"; to "be to the Eternal Goodness what his own hand is
to a man"--these are the plainly expressed desires of all the great
mystics. One and all, they demand earnest and deliberate action,
the insertion of the purified and ardent will into the world of
things. The mystics are artists; and the stuff in which they work
is most often human life. They want to heal the disharmony
between the actual and the real: and since, in the white-hot
radiance of that faith, hope, and charity which burns in them, they
discern such a reconciliation to be possible, they are able to work
for it with a singleness of purpose and an invincible optimism
denied to other men. This was the instinct which drove St.
Francis of Assist to the practical experience of that poverty which
he recognised as the highest wisdom; St. Catherine of Siena from
contemplation to politics; Joan of Arc to the salvation of France;
St. Teresa to the formation of an ideal religious family; Fox to the
proclaiming of a world-religion in which all men should be
guided by the Inner Light; Florence Nightingale to battle with
officials, vermin, dirt, and disease in the soldiers' hospitals;
Octavia Hill to make in London slums something a little ne