O Jesus Christus, wachs in mir—­

a hymn with which we became acquainted soon after our marriage, and which I do not doubt she repeated to herself many thousands of times. [14]

The surest way, as she thought, of rising above the bondage of “frames” and entering into the glorious liberty of the sons of God, is to become fully conscious of our actual union to Christ and of what is involved in this thrice-sacred union.  It is not enough that we trust in Him as our Saviour and the Lord our Righteousness; He must also dwell in our hearts by faith as our spiritual life.  The union is indeed mystical and indescribable, but none the less real or less joy-inspiring for all that.  We want no metaphor and no mere abstraction in our souls; we want Christ Himself.  We want to be able to say in sublime contradiction, “I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.”  And this, too, is the way of sanctification, as well as of rest of conscience.  For just in proportion as Christ lives in the soul, self goes out and with it sin.  Just in proportion as self goes out, Christ comes in, and with Him righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.

But as, in her view, the doctrine of an indwelling Christ did not supplant the doctrine of an atoning and interceding Christ, so neither did it supplant that of Christ as our Example or annul the great law of self-sacrifice by which, following in His steps, we also are to be made perfect through suffering.

Such is a brief outline of her teaching on this subject in Urbane and His Friends.  And from its publication until her death, her theory of the way of holiness reduced itself more and more to these two simple points:  Christ in the flesh showing and teaching us how to live, and Christ in the Spirit living in us.  And this presence of Christ in the soul she regarded, I repeat, as an actual, as well as actuating, presence; mediated indeed, like His sacrifice upon the cross, by the Holy Ghost.  But, as “through the Eternal Spirit He offered HIMSELF without spot unto God,” even so in and through the same Eternal Spirit, He HIMSELF comes and takes up His abode in the hearts of His faithful disciples.  His indwelling is not a mere metaphor, not a bare moral relation, but the most blessed reality—­a veritable union of life and love.  She thought that much of the meaning and comfort of the doctrine was sometimes lost by not keeping this point in mind.  In a letter written not long before her death, she reiterated very strongly her conviction on this subject, appealing to our Lord’s teaching in the seventeenth chapter of John. [15]

And this brings me to what you say about the chapter entitled The Mystics of To-day; or, “The Higher Christian Life,” and to your inquiry as to her later views on the question.  You are quite right in supposing that while writing this chapter she had a good deal of sympathy with some of the advocates of the “Higher Life” doctrine.  She heartily agreed with them in believing that it is