indwelling creative power, a givenness, an energizing grace, reaches
that completeness to which has been given the name of union with God.

The great man or woman of the Spirit who achieves this perfect
development is, it is true, a special product: a genius, comparable with
great creative personalities in other walks of life. But he neither
invalidates the smaller talent nor the more general tendency in which
his supreme gift takes its rise. Where he appears, that tendency is
vigorously stimulated. Like other artists, he founds a school; the
spiritual life flames up, and spreads to those within his circle of
influence. Through him, ordinary men, whose aptitude for God might have
remained latent, obtain a fresh start; an impetus to growth. There is a
sense in which he might say with the Johannine Christ, "He that
receiveth me receiveth Him that sent me"; for yielding to his magnetism,
men really yield to the drawing of the Spirit itself. And when they do
this, their lives are found to reproduce--though with less
intensity--the life history of their leader. Therefore the main
characters of that life history, that steady undivided process of
sublimation; are normal human characters. We too may heal the discords
of our moral nature, learn to judge existence in the universal light,
bring into consciousness our latent transcendental sense, and keep
ourselves so spiritually supple that alike in times of stress and hours
of prayer and silence we are aware of the mysterious and energizing
contact of God. Psychology suggests to us that the great spiritual
personalities revealed in history are but supreme instances of a
searching self-adjustment and of a way of life, always accessible to
love and courage, which all men may in some sense undertake.

FOOTNOTES: