“Mysticism,” says Professor J. E. Latimer, “has ever been a reaction from formalism and dogmatism in religion. When Christian men have been relying upon the letter, the Mystic has always exalted the spirit. When the Church has been content with mere dogmatic statement and intellectual orthodoxy, a Mystic revival has come to rehabilitate its spiritual life, and sends new streams of power along its arid channel.” Do we not greatly need this revival now? We do not believe there is any special danger to-day from one-sided subjectivity and morbid introspection. The peril is altogether the other way. Our great want is a profounder apprehension of the basal truths of the spiritual life, and their practical translation into individual experience. The knowledge of God is widespread, but it is superficial. Piety is very bustling, but it is not deep. The utterances of the Savior and His apostles are taken at a large discount, and the mass of believers are easily content with a low condition of spirituality. Hence the Church is feeble, and fails to impress itself strongly upon the world. It would be immensely benefited by a large infusion of the spirit of the true Mystic, who wages the most deadly war with all carnality; who has a terrible moral intensity; who renounces absolutely all that dims the radiance or shadows the image of the Perfect One in the mirror of the soul; who is determined, so far as in him lies, to bridge the gulf that separates him from his Maker and make the closest possible approach to God. Of Rabbi Gamaliel, a genuine Mystic, it is reported that he prayed, “O Lord, grant that I may do Thy will as if it were my will, and that Thou mayest do my will as if it were Thy will.” Charles Wesley, another Mystic, is very bold and says, “Let all I am in Thee be lost, Let all I am be God.” Why should it be thought a thing incredible with any that man may become a partaker of the Divine nature? If to a small extent, why not, when all the conditions are favorable, to a very large extent? Why should not the Church in general, and the Methodist Church in particular, get a new grip on this much neglected but every way fruitful truth of the Divine indwelling and the Divine immanence, God in all and all in God, the universe but the will of God expressed in forms of time and space, humanity reaching its highest point of development when it most completely entemples Deity, nature a symbol of God, God revealed in His works? Just so far as this shall be accomplished will the Church swing out into a wealthy place, and march forward to large conquest. Complete surrender will be the prelude to complete possession, and complete possession will straightway be turned into complete victory over every foe. CHAPTER V. THE GREAT CONFLICT.