The Inaccessible Light
PERHAPS nowhere is that which Huvelin called our " incurable mediocrity " more, constantly apparent than in the domain
of spiritual literature. Books on all aspects of religion, per- severing efforts to explain its mysteries, to prove its usefulness,
to minimize its inconvenient claims, pour from the press. Yet with all their industrious explorations of the Celestial City (or its suburbs) and determination to accommodate God to the requirements of the " modern mind," hardly one conveys the- all-compelling vision of Holiness or can wake in its readers the slumbering transcendental sense. How wonderful, then, that this autumn should bring us two books which perform this great office, and can be added to our tiny collection of modern guides to the spiritual life—books
that with no sense of incongruity we can put on the shelf with De Caussade, Von Hugel, Grou. Superficially dissimilar —for one is the spontaneous outpouring of a fervent spirit, in the other a trained theologian speaks—an identical vision of Reality and the soul's relation to it inspires both. Though it is no compliment to give the vague title of " mystic " either to Father Steuart or to Mrs. Plunket Greene ; they are nevertheless in direct line of descent from the great Christian teachers of the mystical life.
Whilst Mrs. Plunket Greene's writing is above all intuitive, subjective, and (in the best sense) lyrical, that of Father Steuart—equally coloured and quickened by deep personal experience—has a firm intellectual skeleton and requires of the reader considerable mental alertness. It is perhaps this perfect fusion of the fruits of thought and contemplation which gives his book its great impressiveness. It is true, as he says in words that recall Richard of St. Victor, that " the Inward Vision, lighted by faith, travels beyond the range of discursive reason into a dimension of new values and new understanding." Yet, thus " transcending reason," it is not therefore " against reason." He seems to write out of a deep of experience which lies beyond thought, perhaps even beyond feeling in the merely emotional sense, and cannot be conveyed through sensible image ; and this stillness, this quiet attentiveness to the mystery, is his peculiar char- acteristic, as a self-oblivious delight in the beauty and wonder of God is that of Mrs. Plunket Greene. Yet all that he writes has been submitted to the purging discipline of the mind ; and is given to us in a form upon which all who care
for the deep things of the spirit can feed. These will know how to be grateful for the riches here offered to them. No one else is likely to care much for a book which contains so little that is spectacular, which never appeals to sentiment, or minimizes the dread claims of God upon the soul. In a work so closely woven and so quiet in method, it is difficult to find short yet truly characteristic quotations : but the following passage on the Presence of God will perhaps give some idea of Father Steuart's quality :— " Look upon the Presence of God, then, as a force pressing upon us unremittingly, not from outside inwards only, but from inside outwards too : a force which no atom of our being can elude : a force whose pressure is a necessary condition of our existence : a force moreover, and especially, which penetrates to the inmost of our moral and spiritual consciousness, subjecting them to constant and intimate contact with the Ideal for which we were created. . . •
This it is which has given to many, on looking back over their past lives, a strange—almost uneasy—awareness of some hidden Power, which, in spite of all their consciousness of free election, has seemed somehow to have been leading or driving them, without their knowledge, and has in the end made unison and harmony out of so much wilful incoherence and discord—suffering that has somehow come now to be understood as happiness, failure that is seen now to have been fulfilment, evil that has turned to good."
Mrs. Plunket Greene, already known to thousands of grateful readers as the recipient of Baron von Hiigel's Letters to a Niece, puts us still more deeply in her debt by the publication of Mount Zion. For here is that rare thing, a spiritual document which is entirely fresh, spontaneous, personal, and realistic, yet without a trace of self-occupation. As We might expect, the influence of the Baron is felt in every
Page. But here his teaching is seen through another tempera- ment—that of a naturally mystical and Platonic soul, able to fill with joy, melody, and colour the austere outlines of a
transcendental theology . "We cannot explain the mysteries by which we are surrounded, but we see that man can-be made suddenly new ; and that he lives in a new world where the streets are full of running rivers of gladness, when joy is in his heart and love overflows his soul. And he hears all clear brightness, like the wren's song, a necklace of bright beads falling ever round him."
For the huStled, the hungry, the short-sighted, the disillus- ioned, it is a great eat and refreshing experience to be allowed to share the vision of a soul of their own time, clearly aware of their pains and problems, who lives in the teeth of the world's suffering, this exalted and God-centred life of love and joy. The "necklace of bright beads " which Mrs. Greene gives us, is strung—but not too tightly—on the traditional creed of Christendom ; and reflects many lights caught froth the Psalms, St. Augustine, and the mystics. But the point on which all hangs, and to which she again and again_ returns, is the Mysteriutn tremendum el faseinatis : the wonder, beauty, otherness, and attraction of God :—
" God does not become joy. Ho is joy. He is Beatitude, Goodness, Holiness, Love—all these things as their ultimate source and Reality . . . our true selves are only the tiniest seeds of what is in God. How can we say enough of this ineffable difference of God ? "
Within that vision all else falls into place. The experiences of contemplation, when the soul loses herself in the ocean of God's regard " ; the mystery of suffering ; the revelation of holiness in the humble and the poor—the child whose spirit of love lit up a squalid hopeless home, the little work- house servant with her gift of self-oblivious sympathy—the quiet pressure of God on that common life in which we per- petually discover the " touch of His simultaneity and eternal- ness." For many readers the vivid and exact descriptions of contemplative experience will be the chief attraction of this book. But I think it is above all in her teaching upon suffering, where nearly every modern writer so signally fails, that we feel how solid and bracing, how aloof from mere consoling sentimentalisms—yet how deep and tender in its realism, its loving pity for all pain—is the temper of Mrs. Greene's spirituality. With a short extract from this chapter I must end :-
"Sometimes one wonders, thinking of all the actual suffering, known and unknown, that ever continues in the world, whether suffering (innocent suffering) effects some great spiritual trans- formation, adds some wonderful power to love, that we do not see. . . . Does the lonely suffering of some little child add a precious stone to the city of God ? Or does it support the loneliness of weak and sorrowful souls, unknown ? Can we be so linked that truly we never suffer alone and wastefully, but all contribute each to each ? "
EVELYN UNDERNILL•
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