The Varieties of Religious Experience — William James

/, p. 274c. Purity. — The shifting of the emotional centre brings with it, first, increase of purity. The sensitiveness to spiritual discords is enhanced, and the cleansing of existence from brutal and sensual elements becomes imperative. Occasions of contact with such elements are avoided : the saintly life must deepen its spiritual consistency and keep unspotted from the world. In some temperaments this need of purity of spirit takes an ascetic turn, and weaknesses of the flesh are treated with relentless severity. d. Charity. — The shifting of the emotional centre brings, secondly, increase of charity, tenderness for fellow-creatures. The ordinary motives to antipathy, which iisually~set such close bounds to tenderness among human beings, are inhibited. The saint loves his enemies, and treats loathsome beggars as his brothers. I now have to give some concrete illustrations of these fruits of the spiritual tree. The only difficulty is to choose, for they are so abundant. Since the sense of Presence of a higher and friendly Power seems to be the fundamental feature in the spiritual life, I will begin with that. In our narratives of conversion we saw how the world might look shining and transfigured to the convert,^ and, apart from anything acutely religious, we all have moments when the universal life seems to wrap us round with friendliness. In youth and health, in summer, in the woods or on the mountains, there come days when the weather seems all whispering with peace, hours when the goodness and beauty of existence enfold us like a dry warm climate, or chime through us as if our inner ears were subtly ringing with the world's security. Thoreau writes : — 1 Above, pp. 248 ff.

p. 275" Once, a few weeks after I came to the woods, for an hour I doubted whether the near neighborhood of man was not essential to a serene and healthy life. To be alone was somewhat unpleasant.

But, in the midst of a gentle rain, while these - thoughts prevailed, I was suddenly sensible of such sweet and beneficent society in Nature, in the very pattering of the drops, and in every sight and sound around my house, an infinite and unaccountable friendliness all at once, like an atmosphere, sustaining me, as made the fancied advantages of human neighborhood insignificant, and I have never thought of them since.

Every little pine-needle expanded and swelled with sympathy and befriended me. I was so distinctly made aware of the presence of something kindred to me, that I thought no place could ever be strange to me again." ^ In the Christian conscionsness this sense of the enveloping friendliness becomes most personal and definite.

" The compensation," writes a German author, " for the loss of that sense of personal independence which man jij^ oJZ^ so unwillingly gives up, is the disappearance of _all^ar j from one's life, the quite indescribable and inexplicable feeling of an inner security, which one can only experience, but which, once it has been experienced, one can" never forget." ^ I find an excellent description of this state of mind in a sermon by Mr. Voysey : — " It is the experience of myriads of trustful souls, that this sense of God's unfailing presence with them in their going out and in their coming in, and by night and day, is a source of absolute repose and confident calmness.

It drives away all fear of what may befall them. That nearness of God is a constant security against terror and anxiety. It is not that they are at all assured of physical safety, or deem themselves protected by a love which is denied to others, but that they are in a state of mind equally ready to be safe or to meet with injury. If injury ^ H. Thoreau : Walden, Riverside edition, p. 206, abridged. 2 C. H. HiLTY : Gluck, vol. i. p. 85.

p. 276befall them, tbey will be content to bear it because the Lord is their keeper, and nothing can befall them without his will. If it be his will, then injury is for them a blessing and no calamity at all. Thus and thus only is the trustful man protected and shielded from harm.

And I for one — by no means a thickskinned or hard-nerved man — am absolutely satisfied with this arrangement, and do not wish for any other kind of immunity from danger and catastrophe.

Quite as sensitive to pain as the most highly strung organism, I yet feel that the worst of it is conquered, and the sting taken out of it altogether, by the thought that God^ is our loving and sleepless keeper, and that nothing can hurt us without his will." ^ More excited expressions of this condition are abundant in religious literature. I could easily weary you with their monotony.

Here is an account from Mrs. Jonathan Edwards : — " Last night," Mrs. Edwards writes, " was the sweetest night I ever had in my life. I never before, for so long a time together, enjoyed so much of the light and rest and sweetness of heaven in my soul, but without the least agitation of body during the whole time. Part of the night I lay awake, sometimes asleep, and sometimes between sleeping and waking.

But all night I continued in a constant, clear, and lively sense of the heavenly sweetness of Christ's excellent love, of his nearness to me, and of my dearness to him ; with an inexpressibly sweet calmness of soul in an entire rest in him. I seemed to myself to perceive a glow of divine love come down from the heart of Christ in heaven into my heart in a constant sti-eam, like a stream or pencil of sweet light.

At the same time my heart and soul all flowed out in love to Christ, so that there seemed to be a constant flowing and reflowing of heavenly love, and I appeared to myself to float or swim, in these bright, sweet beams, like the motes swimming in the beams of the sun, or the streams of his light which come in at the window.

I think that what I felt each minute was worth more than all the outward comfort and pleasure which I had enjoyed in my whole life put 1 The Mystery of Pain and Death, London, 1892, p. 258.