The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day — John Shaqi
The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-dayUnderhill, Evelyn
Religion
The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day
Underhill, Evelyn
Spiritual life
compass the career of St. Paul: he was also an exact scholar and a
practical educationist. Mary Slessor showed the quality of a ruler as
well as that of a winner of souls. In the intellectual region, Richard
of St. Victor was supreme in contemplation, and also a psychologist far
in advance of his time. We are apt to forget the mystical side of
Aquinas; who was poet and contemplative as well as scholastic
philosopher.
And the third feature we notice about these men and women is, that this
new power by which they lived was, as Ruysbroeck calls it, "a spreading
light."[52] It poured out of them, invading and illuminating other men:
so that, through them, whole groups or societies were re-born, if only
for a time, on to fresh levels of reality, goodness and power. Their own
intense personal experience was valid not only for themselves. They
belonged to that class of natural, leaders who are capable,--of
infecting the herd with their own ideals; leading it to new feeding
grounds, improving the common level It is indeed the main social
function of the man or woman of the Spirit to be such a crowd-compeller
In the highest sense; and, as the artist reveals new beauty to his
fellow-men, to stimulate in their neighbours the latent human capacity
for God. In every great surge forward to new life, we can trace back the
radiance to such a single point of light; the transfiguration of an
individual soul. Thus Christ's communion with His Father was the
life-centre, the point of contact with Eternity, whence radiated the joy
and power of the primitive Christian flock: the classic example of a
corporate spiritual life. When the young man with great possessions
asked Jesus, "What shall I do to be saved?" Jesus replied in effect,
"Put aside all lesser interests, strip off unrealities, and come, give
yourself the chance of catching the Infection of holiness from Me."
Whatever be our view of Christian dogma, whatever meaning we attach to
the words "redemption" and "atonement," we shall hardly deny that in the
life and character of the historic Christ something new was thus evoked
from, and added to, humanity. No one can read with attention the Gospel
and the story of the primitive Church, without being struck by the
consciousness of renovation, of enhancement, experienced by all who
received the Christian secret in its charismatic stage. This new factor
is sometimes called re-birth, sometimes grace, sometimes the power of
the Spirit, sometimes being "in Christ." We misread history if we regard
it either as a mere gust of emotional fervour, or a theological idea, or
discount the "miracles of healing" and other proofs of enhanced power by
which it was expressed. Everything goes to prove that the "more abundant
life" offered by the Johannine Christ to His followers, was literally
experienced by them; and was the source of their joy, their enthusiasm,
their mutual love and power of endurance.
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