rotestant
Reformers this spiritual ideal presented "a Church" so shorn and
emasculated as to be {li} absolutely worthless. It seemed to them a
propaganda which threatened and endangered the mighty work of
reformation to which they felt themselves called, and they used all the
forces available to suppress and annihilate those of this other "way."

Nearly four hundred wonderful years have passed since the issue was
first drawn, since the first of these spiritual prophets uttered his
modest challenge. There can be no question that the current of
Christian thought has been strongly setting in the direction which
these brave and sincere innovators took. I feel confident that many
persons to-day will be interested in these lonely men and will follow
with sympathy their valiant struggles to discover the road to a genuine
spiritual religion, and their efforts to live by the eternal Word of
God as it was freely revealed as the Day Star to their souls.

[1] 1 Cor. xv. 50.

[2] 2 Cor. v. 1-4.

[3] John iii. 6.

[4] 1 John iv. 13; John xiii. 34 and xvi. 13; 1 John iv. 4.

[5] They found their authority for this outer sheath of body in the
text which says: "The Lord God made for Adam and for his wife coats of
skins, and clothed them."--Gen. iii. 21.

[6] Many of these historical reappearances are considered in my
_Studies in Mystical Religion_.

[7] Isaac Penington, "A True and Faithful Relation of my Spiritual
Travails," _Works_ (edition of 1761), i. pp. xxxvii.-xxxviii.

[8] Isaac Penington's _Works_, i. pp. xxxvii.-xxxviii.

[9] The exact and sharply-defined "ladders" of mystic ascent which form
a large part of the descriptive material in books on Mystical Religion
are far from being universal ladders. Like creeds, or like religious
institutions, they powerfully assist certain minds to find the way
home, but they seem unreal and artificial to many other persons, and
they must be considered only as symbolisms which speak to the condition
of a limited number of spiritual pilgrims.

[10] Wordsworth's "Prelude," Bk. ii.

[11] _Theologia Germanica_, chaps. xxii. and xliii.

[12] _Ibid._ chap. liii.

[13] _Meister Eckhart_, Pfeiffer, p. 320. 20.

[14] Tauler's Sermons. See especially Sermons IV. and XXIII. in
Hutton's _Inner Way_.

[15] _The Divine Names_ of Dionysius the Areopagite, chap. i. sec. i.

[16] _Meister Eckhart_, Pfeiffer, p. 320. 25-30.

[17] Quoted in W. H. J. Gairdner's _The Reproach of Is