interpretation are, then, inevitably conditioned by this apperceiving
mass. And here I think the intellect should show mercy, and not probe
without remorse into those tender places where the heart and the spirit
are at one. Let us then be content to note, that when we consult the
works of those who have best and most fully interpreted their religion
in a universal sense, we find how careful they are to provide a category
for this experience of a personally known and loved indwelling
Divinity--man's Father, Lover, Saviour, ever-present Companion--which
shall avoid its identification with the mere spirit of Nature, whilst
safeguarding its immanence no less than its transcendent quality. Thus,
Julian of Norwich heard in her meditations the voice of God saying to
her, "See! I am in all things! See! I lift never mine hand from off my
works, nor ever shall!"[28] Is it possible to state more plainly the
indivisible identity of the Spirit of Life? "See! I am in _all_ things!"
In the terrific energies of the stellar universe, and the smallest song
of the birds. In the seething struggle of modern industrialism, as much
a part of nature, of those works on which His hands are laid, as the
more easily comprehended economy of the ant-heap and the hive. This
sense of the personal presence of an abiding Reality, fulfilling and
transcending all our highest values, here in our space-time world of
effort, may well be regarded as the differential mark of real spiritual
experience, wherever found. It chimes well with the definition of
Professor Pratt, who observes that the truly spiritual man, though he
may not be any better morally than his non-religious neighbour, "has a
confidence in the universe and an inner joy which the other does not
know--is more at-home in the universe as a whole, than other men."[29]

If, in their attempt to describe their experience of this companioning
Reality, spiritual men of all types have exhausted all the resources and
symbols of poetry, even earthly lovers are obliged to do that, in order