us
about as the sun laves the flower--so because of this it was only for
short and set times that I worshipped Him as the creature in prayers
upon its knees; but those few moments of prayer would always be
intense, the heart and the mind with great power bent wholly and
singly upon God.

So now, this evening as I knelt and dwelt in great singleness on God,
He drew me so powerfully, He encompassed me so with His
glamour, that this singleness and concentration of thought continued
much longer than usual on account of the greatness of the love that I
felt for Him, and the concentration became an intensity of
penetration because of this magnetism, He turned on to me, and my
mind became faint, and died, and I could no longer think of or on
God, _for I was one with Him._ And I was still I; though I was
become Ineffable Joy.

When it was over I rose from my knees, and I said to myself, for
five wonderful moments I have been in contact with God in an
unutterable bliss and repose: and He gave me the bliss tenderly and
not as on that Night of Terror; but when I looked at my watch I saw
that it had been for between two and three hours.

Then I wondered that I was not stiff, that I was not cold, for the
night was chilly and I had nothing about me but a little velvet
dressing-wrapper; and my neck was not stiff, though my head had
been thrown back, as is a necessity in Communion with God; and I
thought to myself, it is as if my body also had shared in the blessing.

And this most blessed happening happened to me every day for a
short while, usually only for a few moments. In this way God
Himself caused and enabled me to contemplate and _know_ Him;
and I saw that it was in some ways at one with my beautiful pastime,
but with this tremendous difference in it--that whereas my mind had
formerly concentrated itself upon the Beautiful, and remaining Mind
had soared away above all forms into its nebulous essence in a
strange seductive anguish, it now was drawn and magnetised beyond
the Beautiful directly to the Maker of it: and the soaring was like a
death or swooning of the mind, and immediately I was living with
that which is above the mind: in this living there was no note of pain,
but a marvellous joy.

Slowly I learnt to differentiate degrees of Contemplation, but to my
own finding there are two principal forms--Passive and Active (or
High) Contemplation.

In meditation is little or no activity, but a sweet quiet thinking and