ntroduction into
a universe of new relations, which we are not competent to
criticize.[35] This is a truth which should make us humble in our
efforts to understand the difficult and too often paradoxical utterances
of religious genius. It suggests the puzzlings of philosophers and
theologians--and, I may add, of psychologists too--over experiences
which they have not shared, are not of great authority for those whose
object is to find the secret of the Spirit, and make it useful for life.
Here, the only witnesses we can receive are, on the one part, the
first-hand witnesses of experience, and on the other part, our own
profound instinct that these are telling us news of our native land.

Baron von Huegel has finely said, that the facts of this spiritual life
are themselves the earnests of its objective. These facts cannot be
explained merely as man's share in the cosmic movement towards a yet
unrealized perfection; such as the unachieved and self-evolving Divinity
of some realist philosophers. "For we have no other instance of an
unrealized perfection producing such pain and joy, such volitions, such
endlessly varied and real results; and all by means of just this vivid
and persistent impression that this Becoming is an already realized
Perfection."[36] Therefore though the irresistible urge and the effort
forward, experienced on highest levels of love and service, are plainly
one-half of the life of the Spirit--which can never be consistent with a
pious indolence, an acceptance of things as they are, either in the
social or the individual life--yet, the other half, and the very
inspiration of that striving, is this certitude of an untarnishable
Perfection, a great goal really there; a living God Who draws all
spirits to Himself. "Our quest," said Plotinus, "is of an End, not of
ends: for that only can be chosen by us which is ultimate and noblest,
that which calls forth the tenderest longings of our soul."[37]

There is of course a sense in which such a life of the Spirit is the
same yesterday, to-day and for ever. Even if we consider it in relation
to historical time, the span within which it has appeared is so short,
compared with the ages of human evolution, that we may as well regard it
as still in the stage of undifferentiated infancy. Yet even babies
change, and change quickly, in their relations with the external world.
And though the universe with which man's childish spirit is in contact
be a world of endurin