turning back upon these roads of life; and once and again in such unique
moments as these I have felt the impulse of a mighty power, conscious,
sovereign and loving. And then, before the feet of the wayfarer, opens
out the way of the Lord."[9]

Compare with this Upton the Unitarian: "If," he says, "this Absolute
Presence, which meets us face to face in the most momentous of our
life's experiences, which pours into our fainting the elixir of new
life-mud strength, and into our wounded hearts the balm of a quite
infinite sympathy, cannot fitly be called a personal presence, it is
only because this word personal is too poor and carries with it
associations too human and too limited adequately to express this
profound God-consciousness."[10]

Such a personal God-consciousness is the one impelling cause of those
moral struggles, sacrifices and purifications, those costing and heroic
activities, to which all greatly spiritual souls find themselves drawn.
We note that these souls experience it even when it conflicts with their
philosophy: for a real religious intuition is always accepted by the
self that has it as taking priority of thought, and carrying with it so
to speak its own guarantees. Thus Blake, for whom the Holy Ghost was an
"intellectual fountain," hears the Divine Voice crying:

"I am not a God afar off, I am a brother and friend;
Within your bosoms I reside, and you reside in me."[11]

Thus in the last resort the Sufi poet can only say:

"O soul, seek the Beloved; O friend, seek the Friend!"[12]