CHRISTIAN MTSTICISM. 



85 



capital initials. What I am anxious to discover is (to take one of the 

 terms referred to), who or what is this Absolute ? (spelt ^nth a capital 

 initial on page 67). Does this Absolute possess the attributes of 

 personality 1 Does He or It think, design, plan 1 If there be such 

 an Absolute, what is His relation to the God of the Bible — " the 

 Eternal, Invisible, the only wise God " 1 According to some ^vTiters, 

 the two cannot be identical, for their attributes are not identical. 

 Are we then to conclude, as Professor William James suggests, that 

 the God of the Bible may be a Personality subordinate to the 

 Absolute ? If so, Mysticism is unscriptural ; I for one must reject 

 it and regard Christian Mysticism as impossible. 



The Dean's answer to the question " What is reality 1 " (page 69), 

 I am afraid is not very satisfactory. He says it is the contents of the 

 mind of God manifested chiefly as perfect goodness, wisdom, and 

 beauty. In expanding this definition he tells us that these 

 contents " are not the "material universe," but the "sum total of 

 created things," which presumably must include what we know as 

 the " material universe." But how can "created things " — not the 

 purpose, design, or foreknowledge of them, be it observed, but 

 " created things " — be conceived of by us as included in the contents 

 of the mind of God 1 Such difficult phraseology and definition of 

 terms makes the whole subject of Mysticism suspect to those of us 

 who believe that truth is always clear. If the experience of the 

 Mystic is a Divine reality, I for one desire above all things to possess 

 it, but am held back from the pursuit of it by its apparent irrecon- 

 cilability with the truths revealed in Holy Scripture. 



Again, the ^[ystic, whether Buddhist, Mohammedan, and Christian, 

 claims to have had a certain experience, and we have no right to 

 deny it, and I am glad that the Dean admits that it must be subject 

 to an intellectual interpretation. But if Mysticism be " religion at 

 first hand" (page 70), what are we to do with the claims of Christ ? 

 The Buddhist and Mohammedan reject Christ as Mediator and 

 Saviour. A modern writer on Mysticism says it would make no 

 difi'erence to him if it were proved that no such person as Christ ever 

 existed, for he is in direct contact with the Absolute. Mysticism, 

 when it professes to see all things in universal harmony, must needs 

 make light of the Scripture doctrines concerning sin and atonement, 

 for sin is only a dissonant chord in the universal Oratorio. The 

 Dean kindly tells us that those of us who have not the Mystic gift 



