chable, untouchable only so long as he remains upon the
summit, the eyes of a thousand enemies watch for his smallest
descent: they watch day and night. What alone can enable the Soul
to maintain such a position? Hourly, often momently, Communion
with Jesus Christ. What makes such perseverance likely or even
possible on the soul's part? Only love can make it so.

If we say Communion with Christ is for the Christian vital to a full
redemption, and therefore the Apprehension of Him is essential, to
what degree should we experience this Apprehension of Him? The
degree at which, perceiving in Him and His ways our Ideal, we
become willing to modify and change _our manner of thinking and
doing_ in order to meet the requirements of this Ideal. Having gone
so far, the soul is likely to become enamoured of Him Personally:
then all is indeed well for her.

So then we find that we can apprehend God by an ever-ascending
scale of degrees. We can apprehend Him with the Reason and the
heart at all hours of the day. We can seek and approach Him with
the holy white passion of the Mind. Yet this is not the Apprehension
of Him which alone can be termed Contact, and which alone
satisfies the soul or gives us the full feeling that we Know God. We
cannot "Know" God as fully as He can be known by flesh without
we enter ecstasy; but it is not ecstasy which produces the meeting
with God, but the meeting with God which produces the ecstasy.
Though we are able to enjoy a continual apprehension of Him with
heart and Reason, no man could endure an unremitting ecstasy.

Can ecstasy be prepared for? Yes, if we have courage to aspire to it,
it can be prepared for by a contemplation of Him in which, to
commence with, the Will, Mind, and heart, in great activity of love,
send forth all their powers towards God: then for love's sake being
glad and willing to become nothing, and becoming, as it were, dead
to themselves and all interests and desires usual to them, by Act of
God their normal living is then taken over into a greater living. Then
He comes.

And when He comes the Reason does not receive Him, but that
certain small part, little more than a point in the soul receives Him.

Apart from the joy of it, what is the true value of ecstasy to him to
whom it is granted? It raises him above Faith into Certitude. The
peace and strength given by Certitude are such that Joy is neither
here nor there, the soul can wait for it, because, no matter what ma