ON THE DEVELOPED CONCEPTION OF GOD. 359 



direct cognition of God as a separate Being and Per- 

 sonality; and that this sense presents them with a special 

 class of intuitions, which are specially and particularly 

 related to the Divine Personality as no other intuitions 

 are. It has been asserted, and it is still asserted, not 

 only that God can be known under the metaphysical 

 attributes of personality and consciousness, as cognized 

 and proved by the human intellect, but also that a direct 

 cognition of Him, and a divine communion with Him, 

 is possible by means of the religious sense or faculty, 

 which is intermediary between God and the human soul. 

 There is, say those who thus believe, a part, or side, or 

 faculty of the soul call it Keason, Imagination, Illumi- 

 nation, Eeligious Sense, or by whatever name that 

 reveals God directly, as a mighty and mysterious Power, 

 it is true, but also in certain specially human or other 

 important relations, as the compassionate God-Father, 

 the author of good and of grace, the Whisperer of Truth, 

 the Inspirer of vision beatific of Himself. This religious 

 sense the old saints and mystics had Plotinus, St. 

 Augustine, St. Bernard, as also the old prophets and holy 

 men, and their modern representatives, though in less 

 degree, still have it. It still gives them inspiration of 

 the true and aspiration to the good, intuitions issuing 

 from the infinite fountain of goodness and truth, and. 

 yearnings again to it. And it is not to be denied as a 

 fact, that throughout the history of theology and philo- 

 sophy, we find a long line of saints and martyrs and 

 mystics, who were fully convinced that they had imme- 

 diate cognition of God, the felt knowledge of His 

 presence or absence, and the privilege of occasional 

 communion with Him. St. Augustine, St. Bernard, 

 A Kempis, Pascal, all saintly and devotional minds, so 

 believed ; as did also others of a somewhat different 



