THE FIELD OF BOAZ.* THERE is a universal quality in
genuine religious experience which recalls the saying that " Mortals have many tongueS ; Immortals one." These extracts from the diary of a devout Nonconformist, a sempatress in a Midland town, have the true ring of the mystic. The writer " made no attempt to analyse her states, or to correlate them. or to trace the course of her progress. She recorded things as' they were at the time, when they occurred. It is for the reader,: if he can, to discover the secret of the psychology of her Christian life. One thing is clear : her progress was sinuous rather than direct. The state of doubt and dread which marked her earlier years was never entirely outgrown. But at the end the shadows all vanished : the final note of her life contained no minor chord."
Her religion, as is generally the case with those who stand on the high levels, was not of an ecclesiastical type : she regarded the ordinances of public worship as being " of barely secondary importance." But she did not exempt herself from them : " they were the customs of the Lord's people " ; and, as such, to be observed. Her asceticism, though it moved on other than conventional lines, was as great as that of any Catholic saint. Suffering for some years from a painful cancer, which called for. skilful attention, she dressed it herself, and kept the matter secret ; " I have no liberty," she wrote in her diary, " to speak , of it excepting to my dear Lord." Shortly before her death she writes, in anticipation of it :—
" I have for years felt the dread solemnity of the eternal world, and of entering the unseen state of spirits. I have a sort of shyness and shrinking from an unknown state of being : something like the thought of appearing at a splendid court without having been initiated into its etiquette, although provided with, a court dress."
"The storms of the wilderness are drawing to a close. This body must go to sleep for a season. I look back, and marvel at the tender mercies of my God all my life long."
Her last night was spent in perfect consonance with this preparation for its coming, the editor tells us. " The end was known to be near ; she refused the presence of a companion, desiring to be alone with her Lord. In the morning she was found unconscious." There must be something wrong with us if we
cannot worship with men and women of this type—" prophets and friends of God." This is why the second title of this book" Our Dealings with Nonconformists ; Exchange of Piety, not of Pulpits "—jars.
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