“Contemplation is a knowing that is in no wise, For ever dwelling above the Reason. Never can it sink down into the Reason, And above it can the Reason never climb. The shining forth of That which is in no wise is as a fair mirror. Wherein shines the Eternal Light of God. It has no attributes, And here all the works of Reason fail. It is not God, But it is the Light whereby we see Him. Those who walk in the Divine Light of it Discover in themselves the Unwalled. That which is in no wise, is above the Reason, not without it: It beholds all things without amazement. Amazement is far beneath it: The contemplative life is without amazement. That which is in no wise sees, it knows not what; For it is above all, and is neither This nor That.”[25] CHAPTER V THE ACTIVE LIFE If we would discover and know that Kingdom of God which is hidden in us, we must lead a life that is virtuous within, well-ordered without, and fulfilled with true charity. Thus imitating Christ in every way, we can, through grace, love and virtue, raise ourselves up to that apex of the soul where God lives and reigns. The Mirror of Eternal Salvation. The beginning of man’s Active Life, says Ruysbroeck—that uplifting of the diurnal existence into the Divine Atmosphere, which confers on it meaning and reality—is a movement of response. Grace, the synthesis of God’s love, energy and will, pours like a great river through the universe, and perpetually beats in upon the soul. When man consents to receive it, opens the sluices of the heart to that living water, surrenders to it; then he opens his heart and will to the impact of Reality, his eyes to the Divine Light, and in this energetic movement of acceptance begins for the first time to live indeed. Hence it is that, in the varied ethical systems which we find in his books, and which describe the active crescent life of Christian virtue, the laborious adjustment of character to the Vision of God, Ruysbroeck always puts first the virtue, or rather the attitude, which he calls _good-will_: the voluntary orientation of the self in the right direction, the eager acceptance of grace. As all growth depends upon food, so all spiritual development depends upon the self’s appropriation of its own share of the transcendent life-force, its own ‘rill of grace’; and good-will breaks down the barrier which prevents that stream from pouring into the soul.