re green." "And what," he asks, "is green?"
And to save your life you cannot make him know what it is, or make
him know the tree, or know the grass, though he touches them both
with his hands. How, then, shall God, Who can be neither seen, nor
heard, nor touched, how shall He be made known from one to
another? He must be experienced to be known. And if you should
say to me, "What does it feel like to have found God?" then I should
say, "It feels that the roof is lifted off the world, and wherever we
may be or stand it is a straight line from us to God and nothing
between, nothing between, day or night."

VI

To come to the contemplation of God it is not necessary to go
through any lengthy toil, some process of throwing out this or that,
painfully, slowly, denying the existence of everything in order to
arrive at God. The way is not denying, but concentrating; and in the
act of concentration, because of love, all other things whatsoever in
creation fall away into nothing and are no more, because God in all
His graciousness reveals Himself, and then He alone exists for the
enraptured soul.

VII

Supposing that we have found Jesus Christ, supposing that we know
Him so well and have come to love Him so much that our love for
Him is become stronger than any other love, very much stronger
than any other love, and still, in spite of hopes and endeavours, we
know that we have not found the Godhead, we have not found
Union with the First and Third Person of the Holy Trinity--the
heavens have not, as it were, been opened to us to let our souls slip
through to God. Are we to be discouraged because of this? Are we
to think ourselves less favoured, less loved? A thousand times no.
We are, perhaps, in neither heart, mind, or soul quite sufficiently
prepared for the great ordeals that must be gone through _after
Union with God,_ To find God is Victory. But Victory has dangers.
We have perhaps not yet sufficiently developed just those exact
qualities which it is essential we must have in order to _maintain_
the connection with God in the face of all obstacles when once He is
found. When God reveals Himself to a soul she is in great danger,
and she knows it, because to fail Him now, to turn away now, to be
unfaithful now--this is a terrible disaster to the soul. God in His
mercy exposes no soul to such dangers until she is as ready as may
be, but He bides and He works in her till she is ready. So it may very
well be that it is no