ng--in however small or brief a degree she is able to attain it in
flesh: and because in the experience of ecstasy _she knows Him to Whom
she belongs._

All other affairs become nothing whatever. Life on earth is now
entirely a means of relearning how to please Him Whom she has
found. Her concern is that she may quickly so prepare herself that
she may behold Him for ever.

It may well be asked of a soul which claims to have found God,
How does she know that she has encountered Him?

We have a Critical Faculty. It is above Reason, because it sifts and
judges the findings of Reason, throwing out or retaining what
Reason has deduced. This is a Higher-Soul faculty: it concerns itself
solely with knowing Perfection. Reason is not occupied with
knowing Perfection, but in analysing and digesting all alike that is
brought to it.

It is to the Critical Faculty that art, poetry, and music appeal, and
make their thought-suggestions. We do not enjoy music because of
the noise, but because of the thoughts suggested by it--we float upon
these emotion-thoughts (we may float low, we may float high, and
do not know to where; but it is somewhere where we cannot get
without the music), so we say we love the music; but it is the
emotion-thoughts we love. The sound and the thoughts suggested by
it appeal to the Critical Faculty of the Soul, and, if it is perfect
enough to be accepted by this faculty, we may pass, for the time
being, into soul-living, but only very delicately, tentatively, and
nothing to be compared to the soul-living, produced by the Touch of
God. When God communicates Himself to the soul, she lives in a
manner never previously conceived of, reaching an experience of
living in which every perfection is present to her as Being there in
such unlimited abundance that the soul is overwhelmed by it and
must fall back to less, because of insupportable excess of Perfections.
This perfection of living is given, and is withdrawn, outside of her
own will. Which is the more sane and reasonable--for the soul to
think, I have invented and originated a new and _perfectly
satisfying_ form of living; or for the soul to conclude that she has
been admitted to the re-encounter of perfect- or Celestial-living? In
this living are happenings which cannot be communicated, or even
indicated to others, because they reach beyond words, beyond all or
any other experience, beyond any possible previous imagination or
expression of mind, beyond al