rapture of the soul.

And yet there are others who, for exactly a contrary reason, will find
scant satisfaction here. Their complaint is not that a religion
expressed in terms of Friendship is too homely, but that it is still
too mystical. To "abide" in Christ, to "make Christ our most constant
companion," is to them the purest mysticism. They want something
absolutely tangible and absolutely direct. These are not the poetical
souls who seek a sign, a mysticism in excess, but the prosaic natures
whose want is mathematical definition in details. Yet it is perhaps
not possible to reduce this problem to much more rigid elements. The
beauty of Friendship is its infinity. One can never evacuate life of
mysticism. Home is full of it, love is full of it, religion is full of
it. Why stumble at that in the relation of man to Christ which is
natural in the relation of man to man?

If any one cannot conceive or realize a mystical relation with Christ,
perhaps all that can be done is to help him to step on to it by still
plainer analogies from common life. How do I know Shakspere or Dante?
By communing with their words and thoughts. Many men know Dante better
than their own fathers. He influences them more. As a spiritual
presence he is more near to them, as a spiritual force more real. Is
there any reason why a greater than Shakspere or Dante, who also
walked this earth, who left great words behind Him, who has greater
works everywhere in the world now, should not also instruct, inspire
and mould the characters of men? I do not limit Christ's influence to
this: it is this, and it is more. But Christ, so far from resenting
or discouraging this relation of Friendship, Himself proposed it.
"Abide in me" was almost His last word to the world. And He partly met
the difficulty of those who feel its intangibleness by adding the