nature
of the "practical Mystic"; the ever present sense of a divine Power
behind himself gives such a man a power that ordinary men cannot
successfully oppose; but this sense affords no moral basis, as, witness
the massacre of Drogheda. Such a Mystic, belonging to a particular
religion, as he always does, takes the revelation of his religion as his
moral code, and Cromwell felt himself as the avenging sword of his God,
as did the Hebrews fighting with the Amalekites. No man who accepts a
revelation as his guide can be regarded as more than partially a Mystic.
He has the Mystic temperament only, and that undoubtedly gives him
a strength far beyond the strength of those who have it not.

The true Mystic, realising God, has no need of any Scriptures, for he
has touched the source whence all Scriptures flow. An "enlightened"
Br[=a]hma[n.]a, says Shr[=i] K[r.][s.]h[n.]a, has no more need of the
Ve[d.]as, than a man needs a tank in a place which is overflowing with
water. The value of cisterns, of reservoirs, is past, when a man is
seated beside an ever-flowing spring. As Dean Inge has pointed out,
Mysticism is the most scientific form of religion, for it bases itself,
as does all science, on experience and experiment--experiment being only
a specialised form of experience, devised either to discover or to
verify.

We have seen the Mystic who realises God outside himself and seeks
Union with Him. There remains the most interesting, the most effective
form of Mysticism, the realisation by a man of God within himself. Here
meditation is also a necessity, and the man who is born with a high
capacity for concentration is merely a man who has practised it in
previous lives. A life or lives of study and seclusion often precede
a life of tremendous and sustained activity in the physical world. The
realisation is preceded by control of the body, control of the emotions
and control of the mind, for the power to hold these in complete
stillness is necessary, if a man is to penetrate into those depths of
his own nature in which alone is to be found the shrine of the inner
God. The subtle music of that sphere is drowned by the clatter of the
lower bodies as the most exquisite notes of the V[=i][n.][=a] are lost
in the crude harsh sound of the harmonium. The Voice of the Silence can
only be heard in the silence, and all the desires of the heart must be
paralysed ere can arise in the tranquillity of senses and mind, the
glorious majesty