c. 2.]

Mysticism has its Lessons.

13

ness; which is, at the same time, the 'intense inane.' The profoundest obscurity is his highest glory; he culminates in darkness; for is not the deathlike midnight slumber of the sense, he will ask us, the wakeful noonday of the spirit? So, as I looked on the picture, I seemed to lose sight of him where the summit of the stair was lost among the shadows crouched under the roof of that strange structure.

GOWER. I perceive the analogy. I owe you thanks for enabling me to attach at least some definite idea to the word mysticism. I confess I have generally used the term mystical to designate anything fantastically unintelligible, without giving to it any distinct significance.

WILLOUGHBY. I have always been partial to the mystics, I must say. They appear to me to have been the conservators of the poetry and heart of religion, especially in opposition to the dry prose and formalism of the schoolmen.

ATHERTON. So they really were in great measure. They did good service, many of them, in their day-their very errors often such as were possible only to great souls. Still their notions concerning special revelation and immediate intuition of God were grievous mistakes.

WILLOUGHBY. Yet without the ardour imparted by such doctrines, they might have lacked the strength requisite to withstand misconceptions far more mischievous.

ATHERTON. Very likely. We should have more mercy on the one-sidedness of men, if we reflected oftener that the evil we condeinn may be in fact keeping out some much greater evil on the other side.

WILLOUGHBY. I think one may learn a great deal from such erratic or morbid kinds of religion. Almost all we are in a position to say, concerning spiritual influence, consists of negatives -and what that influence is not we can best gather from these abnormal phases of the mind. Certainly an impartial estimate

of the good and of the evil wrought by eminent mystics, would prove a very instructive occupation; it would be a trying of the spirits by their fruits.

GOWER. And all the more useful as the mistakes of mysticism, whatever they may be, are mistakes concerning questions which we all feel it so important to have rightly answered; committed, too, by men of like passions with ourselves, so that what was danger to them may be danger also to some of us, in an altered form.

ATHERTON. Unquestionably. Rationalism overrates reason, formalism action, and mysticism feeling-hence the common attributes of the last, heat and obscurity. But a tendency to excess in each of these three directions must exist in every age among the cognate varieties of mind. You remember how Pindar frequently introduces into an ode two opposite mythical personages, such as a Pelops or a Tantalus, an Ixion or a Perseus, one of whom shall resemble the great man addressed by the poet in his worse, the other in his better characteristics; that thus he may be at once encouraged and deterred. Deeper lessons than were drawn for Hiero from the characters of the heroic age may be learnt by us from the religious struggles of the past. It would be impossible to study the position of the old mystics without being warned and stimulated by a weakness and a strength to which our nature corresponds;—unless, in. deed, the enquiry were conducted unsympathizingly; with cold hearts, as far from the faith of the mystics as from their follies.

GOWER. If we are likely to learn in this way from such an investigation, suppose we agree to set about it, and at once. ATHERTON. With all my heart. I have gone a little way in this direction alone; I should be

upon the road.

very glad to have company

WILLOUGHBY. An arduous task, when you come to look it

c. 2.1

The Testimony of History.

15

in the face, to determine that narrow line between the genuine ardour of the Christian and the overwrought fervours of the mystical devotee,—to enter into the philosophy of such a question; and that with a terminology so misleading and so defective as the best at our service. It will be like shaping the second hand of a watch with a pair of shears, I promise you. We shall find continually tracts of ground belonging to one of the rival territories of True and False inlaid upon the regions of the other, like those patches from a distant shire that lie in the middle of some of our counties. Many of the words we must employ to designate a certain cast of mind or opinion are taken from some accidental feature or transitory circumstance,- -express no real characteristic of the idea in question. They indicate our ignorance, like the castles with large flags, blazoned with the arms of sovereigns, which the old monkish geographers set down in their maps of Europe to stand instead of the rivers, towns, and mountains of an unknown interior.

ATHERTON. True enough; but we must do the best we can. We should never enter on any investigation a little beneath the surface of things if we consider all the difficulties so gravely. Besides, we are not going to be so ponderously philosophical about the matter. The facts themselves will be our best teachers, as they arise, and as we arrange them when they

accumulate.

History fairly questioned is no Sphinx. She tells us what kind of teaching has been fruitful in blessing to humanity, and why; and what has been a mere boastful promise or powerless formula. She is the true test of every system, and the safeguard of her disciples from theoretical or practical extravagance. Were her large lessons learned, from how many foolish hopes and fears would they save men! We should not then see a fanatical confidence placed in pet theories for the summary

expulsion of all superstition, wrongfulness, and ill-will,—theories whose prototypes failed ages back: neither would good Christian folk be so frightened as some of them are at the seemingly novel exhibitions of unbelief in our time.

WILLOUGHBY. A great gain-to be above both panic and presumption. I have never heartily given myself to a historic study without realizing some such twofold advantage. It animated and it humbled me. How minute my power; but how momentous to me its conscientious exercise! I will hunt this mystical game with you, or any other, right willingly; all the more so, if we can keep true to a historic rather than theoretical treatment of the subject.

GOWER. As to practical details, then :-I propose that we have no rules.

WILLOUGHBY. Certainly not; away with formalities; let us be Thelemites, and do as we like. We can take up this topic as a bye-work, to furnish us with some consecutive pursuit in those intervals of time we are so apt to waste. We can meetnever mind at what intervals, from a week to three months— and throw into the common stock of conversation our several reading on the questions in hand.

ATHERTON. Or one of us may take up some individual or period; write down his thoughts and we will assemble then to hear and talk the matter over.

GOWER. Very good. And if Mrs. Atherton and Miss Merivale will sometimes deign to honour our evenings with their society, our happiness will be complete.

This mention of the ladies reminds our friends of the time, and they are breaking up to join them.

The essays and dialogues which follow have their origin in the conversation to which we have just listened.

CHAPTER III.

If we entertain the inward man in the purgative and illuminative way, that is, in actions of repentance, virtue, and precise duty, that is the surest way of uniting us to God, whilst it is done by faith and obedience; and that also is love; and in these peace and safety dwell. And after we have done our work, it is not discretion in a servant to hasten to his meal, and snatch at the refreshment of visions, unions, and abstractions; but first we must gird ourselves, and wait upon the master, and not sit down ourselves, till we all be called at the great supper of the Lamb.-JEREMY TAYLOR.

So, we are to be etymological to-night,' exclaimed Gower,

as he stepped forward to join Willoughby in his inspection of a great folio which Atherton had laid open on a reading desk, ready to entertain his friends.

'What says Suidas about our word mysticism?'

WILLOUGHBY. I see the old lexicographer derives the original word from the root mu, to close the secret rites and lessons of the Greek mysteries were things about which the mouth was to be closed.'

GOWER. We have the very same syllable in our language for the same thing-only improved in expressiveness by the addition of another letter,-we say, 'to be mum.'

ATHERTON. Well, this settles one whole class of significations at once. The term mystical may be applied in this sense to any secret language or ritual which is understood only by the initiated. In this way the philosophers borrowed the word figuratively from the priests, and applied it to their inner esoteric

1 On the word uunois Suidas says, Εἴρηται δὲ παρὰ τὸ τὰ μυστήρια καὶ ἀπό ῥητα τελεῖσθαι· ἢ διὰ τὸ μυόντας τὰς αἰσθή σεις καὶ ἐπέκεινα σωματικής φαντασίας νενομένους, τὰς θείας εἰσδέχεσθαι ἐλλάμψεις.

VOL. I.

Suicer also cites Hesychius: Etym. Μας.-Μύστης, παρὰ τὸ μύω, τὸ καμμύω. μύοντες γὰρ τὰς αἰσθήσεις καὶ ἔξω τῶν σαρκικών φροντίδων γινόμενοι, οὕτω τὰς θείας αναλάμψεις εδέχοντο.

C