raught, but the
most powerful of stimulants. Stayed upon eternal realities, that
spirit will be far better able to endure and profit by the stern
discipline which the race is now called to undergo, than those
who are wholly at the mercy of events; better able to discern the
real from the illusory issues, and to pronounce judgment on the
new problems, new difficulties, new fields of activity now
disclosed. Perhaps it is worth while to remind ourselves that the
two women who have left the deepest mark upon the military
history of France and England--Joan of Arc and Florence
Nightingale--both acted under mystical compulsion. So, too, did
one of the noblest of modern soldiers, General Gordon. Their
national value was directly connected with their deep spiritual
consciousness: their intensely practical energies were the flowers
of a contemplative life.

We are often told, that in the critical periods of history it is the
national soul which counts: that "where there is no vision, the
people perish." No nation is truly defeated which retains its
spiritual self-possession. No nation is truly victorious which does
not emerge with soul unstained. If this be so, it becomes a part of
true patriotism to keep the spiritual life, both of the individual
citizen and of the social group, active and vigorous; its vision of
realities unsullied by the entangled interests and passions of the
time. This is a task in which all may do their part. The spiritual
life is not a special career, involving abstraction from the world
of things. It is a part of every man's life; and until he has realised
it he is not a complete human being, has not entered into
possession of all his powers. It is therefore the function of a
practical mysticism to increase, not diminish, the total efficiency,
the wisdom and steadfastness, of those who try to practise it. It
will help them to enter, more completely than ever before, into
the life of the group to which they belong. It will teach them to
see the world in a truer proportion, discerning eternal beauty
beyond and beneath apparent ruthlessness. It will educate them in
a charity free from all taint of sentimentalism; it will confer on
them an unconquerable hope; and assure them that still, even in
the hour of greatest desolation, "There lives the dearest freshness
deep down things." As a contribution, then, to these purposes,
this little book is now published. It is addressed neither to the
learned nor to th