of hardship and pain. And if we ask how this can be, what it is that
makes possible such enhancement of human will and of human courage, the
only answer seems to be that of the Johannine Christ: that it does
consist in a more abundant life.

In the second chapter of this book, we looked at the gradual unfolding
of that life in its great historical representatives; and we found its
general line of development to lead through disillusion with the merely
physical to conversion to the spiritual, and thence by way of hard moral
conflicts and their resolution to a unification of character, a full
integration of the active and contemplative sides of life; resulting in
fresh power, and a complete dedication, to work within the new order and
for the new ideals. There was something of the penitent, something of
the contemplative, and something of the apostle in every man or woman
who thus grew to their full stature and realized all their latent
possibilities. But above all there was a fortitude, an all-round power
of tackling existence, which comes from complete indifference to
personal suffering or personal success. And further, psychology showed
us, that those workings and readjustments which we saw preparing this
life of the Spirit, were in line with those which prepare us for
fullness of life on other levels: that is to say the harnessing of the
impulsive nature to the purposes chosen by consciousness, the resolving
of conflicts, the unification of the whole personality about one's
dominant interest. These readjustments were helped by the deliberate
acceptance of the useful suggestions of religion, the education of the
foreconscious, the formation of habits of charity and prayer.

The greatest and most real of living writers on this subject, Baron von
Hügel, has given us another definition of the personal spiritual life
which may fruitfully be compared with this. It must and shall, he says,