72 



DISCOVKRY 



beloved, my beloved ! O dearest of all liiciul>, U my 

 one love ! O spouse of my soul, flower of love ! 

 Spouse of my soul, sweeter than honey in the honey- 

 comb ! Ah, sweetness, sweetness, sweetness of my 

 heart, life of my soul ! O calm light of my inmost 

 soul ! O Lord, my God ! O most holy Trinity, one 

 God, brighter than light, giving all delight, feed me, 

 feed me; feed my soul with Thy inflowing grace." ' 

 Similarly Suso prayed: "Ah, my beloved! Thou 

 art indeed an Easter Day of joy to me. Thou art the 

 bliss of summer to mv heart, and the hour of m\' dc- 



PROl'ESSOK \VII,I.I.\M J.^MICS. 

 Rrproducedlrom " The l.clltrs ol William James," b\ permission 

 o/ Messrs, Longmans, Green & Co. 



light. Thou art the loved One, whom alone my young 

 heart loves and thinks upon, and for whom it has 

 scorned all earthly love. Let this avail me now, my 

 heart's beloved, and let me obtain a garland from Thee 

 to-day. Ah, gentle heart ! do this for Thy di\inc 

 virtue's sake, and for Thy innate goodness, and let me 

 not depart from Thee with empty hands this Now 

 Year's Day." ' 



Some of the visions of the saints have forms which 

 are the same as those of the day-dreams of normal 

 persons. Thus the Lady Julian records a vision 



' Cited in The Graces of Interior Prayer, by .V. I'oulain. S J., 

 chap. XXV. 



» The Life of Blessed Henry Siiso, translated by T. I" Knox. 

 chap. X. 



which follows the outlines of the birth phantasy, but 

 which has for her a religious significance : "And in 

 this time I saw a body lying on the earth, which body 

 showed heavy and horrible, without shape and form, 

 as it were a swollen quag of stinking mire. And 

 suddenly out of this bodj' sprang a full fair creature, 

 a little Child, fully shapen and formed, nimble and 

 lively, whiter than lily ; which swiftly glided up into 

 heaven. And the swollenness of the body betokeneth 

 great wretchedness of our deadly flesh, and the little- 

 ness of the Child betokeneth the cleanness of purity 

 in the soul. And methought : With this body ahiddh 

 no fairness of this Child, and on this Child dwdleth no 

 foulness of this body." - 



Lastly, we may notice the very high valuation 

 placed b}' religion on chastity. In mysticism, where 

 tlie whole of the psychic energy is directed towards 

 God, none can be spared for a human object of love. 

 By a psychological necessity, absolute chastity is 

 required for the mj'Stic, and in religions in which the 

 contemplative life is considered to be the highest, 

 chastity is recognised as a desirable thing although it 

 is not obligatory. It is an important, because it is a 

 particularly difficult, part of the cutting one's self free 

 from creatures which the mystics speak of as a neces- 

 sar}' preliminary to entire devotion to God. An 

 extreme example of this high valuation of chastity is 

 found in the life of St. Louis of Gonzaga, who at the 

 age of twelve, if by chance his mother sent one of her 

 maids of honour to him with a message, " never 

 allowed her to come in, but listened to her through the 

 barely opened door, and dismissed her immediately. 

 He did not like to be alone with his own mother, 

 whether at table or in conversation . . . and he made 

 a sort of treaty with his father, engaging promptly and 

 readily to accede to all his wishes, if he might only be 

 excused from all visits to ladies." - 



A second point of importance in this connection is 

 the common occurrence of conversion of a particularly 

 emotional kind at adolescence. A very large pro- 

 portion of conversions take place at adolescence, and 

 these adolescent conversions have certain well-marked 

 peculiar features of their own. They seem to be most 

 satisfactorily explained by supposing that the growing 

 energy of sex, which has been repressed by its failure 

 to find satisfaction in a human love object, becomes 

 directed towards God, but this redirection is less deep 

 seated than in the case of the mystic. The emotional 

 intensity of the adolescent conversion passes away, 

 though it may leave behind it a religious sentiment 

 which is permanent. 



These facts do not compel us to the acceptance of 



' Revelations of Divine Love, by JuHan of Norwich, chap. Ixiv. 



- Life of St, Louis of Gon:aga. by Meschler ; cited \'arieties 

 ol Religious Experience, by W. James, p. 351. 



