CHKISTIAN MYSTICISM. 



75 



I am satisfied that the soul is a separate entity, and, whilst 

 dependent upon outer help, is self-existent. 



I would have liked the Dean to have differentiated more the 

 Mysticism Christian from the other mysticisms. Ancient Hinduism 

 and Modern Spiritualism, Oriental Theosophy and Christian Science, 

 in their mystical teachings, are surely at discord with the mystery 

 of Godliness as given in the Divine Word. 



The richest mysteries to me are the simplest. By the regenera- 

 tion of the soul there enters, by the Holy Spirit, the best of mystical 

 experiences. All else, I fear, is merely the romance of religion. 



Dean Inge might make his message more clear by seeking to 

 distinguish the absolute from the relative. Although the unknow- 

 able is as fathomless as infinity itself, yet the glimpses of the far- 

 off glory, given to us by seers like him, call forth our highest 

 gratitude. 



Mr. E. Walter Maunder, F.R.A.S., said he felt that the Vic- 

 toria Institute had been very highly honoured in being addressed 

 by so eminent a thinker as Dean Inge upon a subject of so much 

 interest and difficulty. For himself he must express himself deeply 

 grateful, because he must admit that of the literature of Mysticism 

 he knew little or nothing. His studies had lain in a very different 

 direction. He hoped Dean Inge would forgive him if, as a scientific 

 man, he confessed he was compelled to disagree with the sentence at 

 the foot of page 64. He felt that the Lecturer's treatment of matter 

 might be likened to the efforts made by one man to turn another 

 out of a room. The first man would give a little push in one direc- 

 tion and then a little push in another direction, continually shifting 

 his own standpoint the while, and so little by little he would elbow 

 his opponent off the premises. He did not think matter could be 

 treated in that way. He did not think it was possible for us to 

 consider matter as empty of reality ; to regard it as "a mere 

 abstraction " was, he thought, forbidden to us by the very fact that 

 our own nature was in part material. So with regard to the 

 particular illustration used in the paper : 



" Matter is always on the point of vanishing away — science has 

 " subdivided the molecule till there is little left of it except 

 " something of the nature of electricity." 



The statement, so far as the last words went, was correct enough. 



