impatient
of forms. It has its border-lands, shadowy regions which lie between the
acceptance of what Sabatier calls "the religions of authority" on the
one hand and the conventional types of piety or practical goodness on
the other. Those who find their religion in such regions--one might
perhaps call them the border-land people--discover the authority for
their faith in philosophies which, for the most part, have not the
sanction of the schools and the demonstration of the reality of their
faith in personal experience for which there is very little proof except
their own testimony--and their testimony itself is often confused
enough.

But James made no attempt to relate his governing conceptions to
particular organizations and movements save in the most general way.
His fundamentals, the distinction he draws between the "once-born" and
the "twice-born," between the religion of healthy-mindedness and the
need of the sick soul, the psychological bases which he supplies for
conversation and the rarer religious experiences are immensely
illuminating, but all this is only the nebulae out of which religions are
organized into systems; the systems still remain to be considered.

There has been of late a new interest in Mysticism, itself a border-land
word, strangely difficult of definition yet meaning generally the
persuasion that through certain spiritual disciplines--commonly called
the mystic way--we may come into a first-hand knowledge of God and the
spiritual order, in no sense dependent upon reason or sense testimony.
Some modern movements are akin to mysticism but they cannot all be
fairly included in any history of mysticism. Neither can they be
included in any history of Christianity; some of them completely ignore
the Christian religion; some of them press less central aspects of it
out of all proportion; one of them undertakes to recast Christianity in
its own moulds but certainly gives it a quality in so dealing with it
which cannot be supported by any critical examination of the Gospels or
considered as the logical development of Christian dogma. Here are
really new adventures in religion with new gospels, new prophets and new
creeds. They need to be twice approached, once through an examination of
those things which are fundamental in religion itself, for they have
behind them the power of what one may call the religious urge, and they
will ultimately stand as they meet, with a measure of finality, those
nee