many theological
puzzles; whilst its existence enables us to lay hold of supersensual
experiences we should otherwise miss, because it gives to us the means
of interpreting them. Pure immediacy, as such, is almost ungraspable by
us. As man, not as pure spirit, the High Priest entered the Holy of
Holies: that is to say, he took to the encounter of the Infinite the
finite machinery of sense. This limitation is ignored by us at our
peril. The great mystics, who have sought to strip off all image and
reach--as they say--the Bare Pure Truth, have merely become inarticulate
in their effort to tell us what it was that they knew. "A light I cannot
measure, goodness without form!" exclaims Jacopone da Todi.[83] "The
Light of the _World_--the Good _Shepherd_," says St. John, bringing a
richly furnished poetic consciousness to the vision of God; and at once
gives us something on which to lay hold.

Generally speaking, it is only in so far as we bring with us a plan of
the universe that we can make anything of it; and only in so far as we
bring with us some idea of God, some feeling of desire for Him, can we
apprehend Him--so true is it that we do, indeed, behold that which we
are, find that which we seek, receive that for which we ask. Feeling,
thought, and tradition must all contribute to the full working out of
religious experience. The empty soul facing an unconditioned Reality may
achieve freedom but assuredly achieves nothing else: for though the
self-giving of Spirit is abundant, we control our own powers of
reception. This lays on each self the duty of filling the mind with the
noblest possible thoughts about God, refusing unworthy and narrow
conceptions, and keeping alight the fire of His love. We shall find that
which we seek: hence a richly stored religious consciousness, the lofty
conceptions of the truth seeker, the vision of the artist, the boundless
charity and joy in life of the lover of his kind, really contribute to
the fulness of the spiritual life; both on its active and on its
contemplative side. As the self reaches the first degrees of the
prayerful or recollected state, memory-elements, released from the
competition of realistic experience, enter the foreconscious field.
Among these will be the stored remembrances of past meditations,
reading, and experiences, all giving an affective tone conducive to new
and deeper apprehensions. The pure in heart see God, because they bring
with them that radiant and undem