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1very least we should wait for some theory that would include and not contradict our experience; and we should hold our own doctrine as even theoretically truer in so far as evidently truer in life and practice. As the blind man who feels his way to the fire tests his conjectures according as they bring him an increase or decrease of warmth and comfort, so in his gropings after God man brings religious doctrines and systems to the test of life and love; nor does he heed the rudeness of the earthen vessel so long as it is sound enough to hold the treasure of religious truth. For purposes of navigation the astronomy of Ptolemy is as true as that of Copernicus; and many a belief less accurately representative of the realm of the outer senses and the understanding is far truer to the facts of the spiritual order—far truer to the ultimate realities—than one more consonant with current fashions of thought. Nor need this surprise us when we remember that "the outward and apparent world can never be repre- —— sentative, but at most symbolic, of the inward and real; that it yields us at best a rude algebra, giving results of practical sufficiency and possessing the correspondence of a chart to the locality through which it guides the traveller's wandering steps. Only through the visible effects of their action in the world of appearances are personalities revealed to | X | | | | PREFACE
2one another, and made aware of their mutual agreements and disagreements in thought, aim, and affection. Itis just in relation to the affairs of that outward common world, subjected to our free control, that our wills find occasion of harmonising with one another in an infinite variety of ways and degrees. Besides its effect in the realm of appearances, our every choice and action causes a modification in the will-world, loosening and strengthening innumerable bonds of sympathy or antipathy: bringing access or decrease of joy in heaven before the angels of God. Hence it is that religion, whether viewed as a doctrine or as a life—whether as a perception of the nature and relations of that spiritual world which flows from and centres round God and is seized by faith, or as a vital reaction of love evoked by that perception—embodies and expresses itself, more or less sacramentally, in terms of that outward world which is seized by the senses and the understanding. It identifies itself with a certain body of statements— philosophical, ethical, historical ——not directly in the interests of the mind, but in those of the heart; not because they are coherent with current conceptions of the order of phenomena, but because they are practically true to the facts of the real order, and guide us into closer will-union with God and man. X1
3PREFACE But though the religious and the mental values of such statements are distinct, even as the spiritual and the natural effects of sacramental bread or water are distinct, yet, like these, they are tied together within certain definable hmits; nor can religion suffer the denial of any natural truth that enshrines a supernatural value, unless when the earthen vessel is destroyed only to be replaced by one more worthy of her heavenly treasure. Still, she cares nothing for the affairs of the mind, nor even for ethical propriety of conduct, save as an expression and instrument of the life of the spirit, as furthering union with the Divine Will. Love, Charity, Eternal Life : this is her meaning in all that she says, this, the inspiration under whose influence she chooses her words and weaves her own garment from the materials she finds to hand; and it is for the sake of such inward meaning that Faith clings to the otherwise indifferent beliefs of the natural order in which that meaning is embodied—clings with a certainty that is truly not of this world, but supernatural. These reflections are well illustrated by Mother Juliana’s * Revelations of Divine Love," where we see Love in its double capacity as the revealed and the revealer: “ Love was His meaning. Who shewed it thee? Love.” Nurtured in the rich xi L| j| E] PREFACE
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
1very least we should wait for some theory that would include and not contradict our experience; and we should hold our own doctrine as even theoretically truer in so far as evidently truer in life and practice. As the blind man who feels his way to the fire tests his conjectures according as they bring him an increase or decrease of warmth and comfort, so in his gropings after God man brings religious doctrines and systems to the test of life and love; nor does he heed the rudeness of the earthen vessel so long as it is sound enough to hold the treasure of religious truth. For purposes of navigation the astronomy of Ptolemy is as true as that of Copernicus; and many a belief less accurately representative of the realm of the outer senses and the understanding is far truer to the facts of the spiritual order—far truer to the ultimate realities—than one more consonant with current fashions of thought. Nor need this surprise us when we remember that "the outward and apparent world can never be repre- —— sentative, but at most symbolic, of the inward and real; that it yields us at best a rude algebra, giving results of practical sufficiency and possessing the correspondence of a chart to the locality through which it guides the traveller's wandering steps. Only through the visible effects of their action in the world of appearances are personalities revealed to | X | | | | PREFACE
2one another, and made aware of their mutual agreements and disagreements in thought, aim, and affection. Itis just in relation to the affairs of that outward common world, subjected to our free control, that our wills find occasion of harmonising with one another in an infinite variety of ways and degrees. Besides its effect in the realm of appearances, our every choice and action causes a modification in the will-world, loosening and strengthening innumerable bonds of sympathy or antipathy: bringing access or decrease of joy in heaven before the angels of God. Hence it is that religion, whether viewed as a doctrine or as a life—whether as a perception of the nature and relations of that spiritual world which flows from and centres round God and is seized by faith, or as a vital reaction of love evoked by that perception—embodies and expresses itself, more or less sacramentally, in terms of that outward world which is seized by the senses and the understanding. It identifies itself with a certain body of statements— philosophical, ethical, historical ——not directly in the interests of the mind, but in those of the heart; not because they are coherent with current conceptions of the order of phenomena, but because they are practically true to the facts of the real order, and guide us into closer will-union with God and man. X1
3PREFACE But though the religious and the mental values of such statements are distinct, even as the spiritual and the natural effects of sacramental bread or water are distinct, yet, like these, they are tied together within certain definable hmits; nor can religion suffer the denial of any natural truth that enshrines a supernatural value, unless when the earthen vessel is destroyed only to be replaced by one more worthy of her heavenly treasure. Still, she cares nothing for the affairs of the mind, nor even for ethical propriety of conduct, save as an expression and instrument of the life of the spirit, as furthering union with the Divine Will. Love, Charity, Eternal Life : this is her meaning in all that she says, this, the inspiration under whose influence she chooses her words and weaves her own garment from the materials she finds to hand; and it is for the sake of such inward meaning that Faith clings to the otherwise indifferent beliefs of the natural order in which that meaning is embodied—clings with a certainty that is truly not of this world, but supernatural. These reflections are well illustrated by Mother Juliana’s * Revelations of Divine Love," where we see Love in its double capacity as the revealed and the revealer: “ Love was His meaning. Who shewed it thee? Love.” Nurtured in the rich xi L| j| E] PREFACE
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
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