dy of the Divine. In View
No. 1 we saw that the first step towards opening our Window, was to
grasp the fact that it is not we who are _looking out_ upon Nature,
but that it is the Reality which is ever trying to enter and to _come
into_ touch with us, through our senses, and is persistently trying to
wake within us a knowledge of the sublimest truths: but this has not
yet been appreciated by the Theologian; he is looking _outwards_
instead of _inwards_, and asks the question, based on _intellectual_
conception, in the form "Can I find out the Absolute so that I may
possess Him?" and the answer ever comes back, "_No_, because I am
trying to storm the _Sanctuary_ of the Unthinkable, the Infinite, by
means of a Ladder which cannot reach beyond our finite conceptions,
and can deal therefore only with the shadows, cast by the outlying
ramparts, upon our physical plane." An example of this is surely seen
in the lecture lately delivered by the Bishop of Oxford (Dr. Gore) to
the University of Oxford (13th February 1912, reported in the
_Guardian_ of 16th February), when he made the statement that the
greatest difficulty we have is to recognise that the Absolute is a God
of Love. His exact words were: "I believe that there are a great many
of us who know, perhaps from bitter experience, that whatever
difficulties there are about religious belief are difficulties about
believing in a God of Love; whatever is our experience, and however
sunny is our disposition, any steady thinking will make it apparent
that thought, apart from the Christian revelation, presumed and
accepted, or reflected unconsciously, has never got at it, and even
after it has been in the world, thought is continually finding it hard
to retain the idea of God the Creator, or the truth that God is Love,
partly owing to the limitations of human thinking, partly, and even
more, owing to the experience of man and of nature."

On the other hand the Mystic, with _introspection_, asks the question
in the form "Can the Absolute find me out and possess me and thus
make me feel that that which is within me is akin to, is, in fact, a
part of Him and that I am possessed thereby?" and the answer ever
comes back from those who are on the true Quest:--"_Yes_; because the
Unthinkable, the Hidden which desires to be found, is ever trying to
come into our Consciousness to waken the knowledge that His
_Sanctuary_, or what is called the Kingdom of Heaven, is within us,
that we ar