the Divine plan which can be realised under these conditions.  Our hearts tell us of a higher form of existence, in which the doom of death is not merely deferred but abolished.  This eternal world we here see through a glass darkly:  at best we can apprehend but the outskirts of God’s ways, and hear a small whisper of His voice; but our conviction is that, though our earthly house be dissolved (as dissolved it must be), we have a home not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.  In this hope we may include all creation; and trust that in some way neither more nor less incomprehensible than the deliverance which we expect for ourselves, all God’s creatures, according to their several capacities, may be set free from the bondage of corruption and participate in the final triumph over death and sin.  Most firmly do I believe that this faith in immortality, though formless and inpalpable as the air we breathe, and incapable of definite presentation except under inadequate and self-contradictory symbols, is nevertheless enthroned in the centre of our being, and that those who have steadily set their affections on things above, and lived the risen life even on earth, receive in themselves an assurance which robs death of its sting, and is an earnest of a final victory over the grave.

It is not claimed that Mysticism, even in its widest sense, is, or can ever be, the whole of Christianity.  Every religion must have an institutional as well as a mystical element.  Just as, if the feeling of immediate communion with God has faded, we shall have a dead Church worshipping “a dead Christ,” as Fox the Quaker said of the Anglican Church in his day; so, if the seer and prophet expel the priest, there will be no discipline and no cohesion.  Still, at the present time, the greatest need seems to be that we should return to the fundamentals of spiritual religion.  We cannot shut our eyes to the fact that both the old seats of authority, the infallible Church and the infallible book, are fiercely assailed, and that our faith needs reinforcements.  These can only come from the depths of the religious consciousness itself; and if summoned from thence, they will not be found wanting.  The “impregnable rock” is neither an institution nor a book, but a life or experience.  Faith, which is an affirmation of the basal personality, is its own evidence and justification.  Under normal conditions, it will always be strongest in the healthiest minds.  There is and can be no appeal from it.  If, then, our hearts, duly prepared for the reception of the Divine Guest, at length say to us, “This I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see,” we may, in St. John’s words, “have confidence towards God.”