I foresee the answer that might be given to these—I will not call them reasonings, say meditations. “All this is the mere play of fancy: you personify England, Virtue, Goodness, Hope, Faith, and the like; and such personifications are tolerable in poetry; but you do not surely maintain that such personifications have any real existence: in the same way, you may find a certain conception of the Supreme Being useful for the encouragement of devotion, but you have no right hence to infer that this conception represents an objective reality, much less God Himself.” My reply is that in the region of theological contemplation where demonstration, and proof of the ordinary kind, are both impossible, I conceive I “have a right” to do this on the authority of Christ and St. Paul and the Fourth Gospel, and the general tradition of the Church. I would sooner believe that myself and my spirit have a dual personality; I would sooner recognize the presence of the Angels of England and France and the other great nations of the world about the heavenly throne, like the Angels of the seven churches of Asia or the Angel of the Chosen People; I would sooner acknowledge the actual personality of Hope, Faith, and I know not what other celestial ministers between God and man; I would sooner, in a word, believe that personality depends upon some subtle combination such as only poets have dimly guessed at, than I would give up the belief that there is beside the Eternal Father, and the Eternal Son, an Eternal Spirit, to the description of whom we can best approximate by calling Him personified Love.