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VERY REV. W. R. INGE, M.A., D.D., ON 



Mysticism was communion with God, and in that definition the idea of 

 communion was not expressed. Christian Mysticism found its very 

 life in communion with infinite Love. We love God because He 

 first loved us, was at once the plea and the power of Christian 

 Mysticism. " God has shone forth from the recesses of the infinite, 

 and I have seen His glory in the face of Jesus Christ. That glory 

 has attracted me, and I live for it. I want it in order to satisfy the 

 deepest needs and longings of my being." That was the essential 

 thought in Christian Mysticism — communion with God. God was 

 the infinite Spirit ; God was the infinite Light ; God was the 

 infinite Love, Who had come forth to seek and to save him who was 

 lost. That was Christian Mysticism as he understood it — spiritual 

 harmony, harmony with God, based upon communion springing out 

 of obedience, in response to Divine Revelation. 



He wished to thank the author for his able and deeply thoughtful 

 Paper. 



The Secretary read the following note from the Rev. Canon 

 R. B. GiRDLESTONE, M.A. :— " We ought to thank the Dean for 

 his helpful and suggestive Paper. The Greek word ' mystery,' 

 to which he refers on p. 60, is rare in the O.T., and is used 

 in the sense of ' secret.' St. Paul uses the verb once (Philip- 

 pians iv, 12) as marking his initiation into the secret of con- 

 tentment. I suppose that Mysticism is a reaction from Positivism, 

 and marks a mode of attaining knowledge of spiritual things 

 in which the senses and the reasoning powers are in the back- 

 ground. It marks a short cut to spiritual things, and is almost 

 the same as intuition, being something like Coleridge's 'reason.' 

 The Dean deals with it as the product of intellect ; but this 

 and other words are used in slightly different senses by different 

 witers. The Mystic mainly has to do with the spirit-world, and 

 the mental process which he goes through is akin to inspiration, 

 and may be illustrated by the experiences of Ezekiel and St. Paul. 

 It implies, or ought to imply, a certain sympathy with divine 

 holiness ; for the pure in heart shall see God — mystically, but really. 



I once saw in Tours a striking statue of Descartes. There is a 

 book in his right hand, and his left hand is pressed against his heart ; 

 beneath him is engraved the time-honoured sentence, ' Cogito, ergo 

 sum.^ The ego is at the root of all human sensation, thought and 

 feeling. It is the soul or self, and gets into touch with God 



