vigour as he draws nearer and nearer the sources of true life, and his goal is only reached when he participates in the creative energies of the Divine Nature. The perfect man, says the Sūfi, must not only die into God in ecstasy (_fana_), but abide in and with Him (_baqa_), manifesting His truth in the world of time. He is called to a life more active, because more contemplative, than that of other men: to fulfil the monastic ideal of a balanced career of work and prayer. “Then only is our life a _whole_,” says Ruysbroeck, “when contemplation and work dwell in us side by side, and we are perfectly in both of them at once.” Plotinus speaks in the same sense under another image in one of his most celebrated passages: “We always move round the One, but we do not always fix our gaze upon It. We are like a choir of singers standing round the conductor, who do not always sing in time, because their attention is diverted to some external object. When they look at the conductor, they sing well and are really with him. So we always move round the One. If we did not, we should dissolve and cease to exist. But we do not always look towards the One. When we do, we attain the end of our existence and our rest; and we no longer sing out of tune, but form in truth a divine choir about the One.” In this conception of man’s privilege and duty we have the indestructible essence of mysticism. THE MYSTIC AND THE CORPORATE LIFE One of the commonest of the criticisms which are brought against the mystics is that they represent an unsocial type of religion; that their spiritual enthusiasms are personal and individual, and that they do not share or value the corporate life and institutions of the church or community to which they belong. Yet, as a matter of fact, the relation that does and should exist between personal religion and the corporate life of the church frequently appears in them in a peculiarly intense, a peculiarly interesting form; and in their lives, perhaps, more easily than elsewhere, we may discern the principles which do or should govern the relation of the individual to the community.