[Footnote 22: Overton: "Life of Wesley." Cap. 2.] [Footnote 23: R.A. Nicholson: "Studies In Islamic Mysticism," Cap. I.] [Footnote 24: "Donne's Sermons," edited by L. Pearsall Smith, p. 236.] [Footnote 25: Ruysbroeck, "The Sparkling Stone," Cap. 14.] [Footnote 26: Bishr-i-Yasin, cf. Nicholson, op. cit., loc. cit.] [Footnote 27: Ennead VI. 9. 4.] [Footnote 28: "Revelations of Divine Love," Cap. II.] [Footnote 29: Pratt: "The Religious Consciousness," Cap. 2.] [Footnote 30: Hoeffding: "Philosophy of Religion," Pt. II, A] [Footnote 31: Op. cit., Bk. 4, Cap. 1.] [Footnote 32: "Summa contra Gentiles," L. III. Cap. 37.] [Footnote 33: Aug: Conf. VII, 10.] [Footnote 34: "The Liberal and Mystical Writings of William Law," p. 154.] [Footnote 35: Cf. Haldane, "The Reign of Relativity," Cap. VI.] [Footnote 36: Von Huegel: "Eternal Life," p. 385.] [Footnote 37: Ennead I. 4. 6.] [Footnote 38: Boehme: "The Way to Christ," Pt. IV.] [Footnote 39: Blake: "Jerusalem": To the Christians.] [Footnote 40: "Some Gospel Treasures Opened," p. 600.] [Footnote 41: William Penn, "No Cross, No Crown."] CHAPTER II HISTORY AND THE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT We have already agreed that, if we wish to grasp the real character of spiritual life, we must avoid the temptation to look at it as merely a historical subject. If it is what it claims to be, it is a form of eternal life, as constant, as accessible to us here and now, as in any so-called age of faith: therefore of actual and present importance, or else nothing at all. This is why I think that the approach to it through philosophy and psychology is so much to be preferred to the approach through pure history. Yet there is a sense in which we must not neglect such history; for here, if we try to enter by sympathy into the past, we can see the life of the Spirit emerging and being lived in all degrees of perfection and under many different forms. Here, through and behind the immense diversity of temperaments which it has transfigured, we can best realise its uniform and enduring character; and therefore our own possibility of attaining to it, and the way that we must tread so to do. History does not exhort us or explain to us, but exhibits living specimens to us; and these specimens witness again and again to the fact that a compelling power does exist in the world--little understood, even by those who are inspired by it--which presses men to transcend their material limitations and mental conflicts, and live a new creative life of harmony, freedom and joy. Directly human character emerges as one of man's prime interests, this possibility emerges too, and is never lost sight of again. Hindu, Buddhist, Egyptian, Greek, Alexandrian, Moslem and Christian all declare with more or less completeness a way of life, a path, a curve of development which shall end in its attainment; and history brings us face to face with the real and human men and women who have followed this way, and found its promise to be true.