The Interior Life
New Studies in Mystical Religion. By Rufus M. Jones, D.Litt., D.D. (Macmillan. 7s. 6d.)
Tau Master of Balliol, in one of the most valuable and attractive of his College sermons, refers to that unfortunately popular line of argument, which seeks to recommend religion on account of its agreeable effects upon human life ; and teaches virtually, if not actually, that " God's chief end is to glorify Man and make him enjoy himself for ever." This anthropocentric point of view is still, I am sure, far more common among us than Dr. Lindsay seems to suppose. It is implied in much of the " healthy-minded Christianity," industriously propagated by the apostles of pious humani- tarianism, which looks so solid and yet wears so thin. At bottom it means, as he well says, " loving what is spiritual for what we hope to get out of it of things material " : and involved in it is the dangerous inclination to test spiritual facts by concrete residts. The long paper on The Nature of Religious Truth which gives its name to his new volume deals excellently with this fallacy, ever at work to prove or disprove one thing by the existence of another thing :— " There is tho back drawing _room still on the first floor and still at the back of the house to confirm my words,' said Flora in Little Dorrit ; and we all of us sometimes think like that One great benefit attached to the revived study of mysticism and the importance now attributed to religious experience for, its own sake, is the control which it exercises over this persistent tendency to utilitarian apologetic. Where this study is undertaken by spiritually sensitive minds, its results have far more than a merely intellectual significance. The mystical revival owes much on this count to the writings of Dr. Rufus Jones ; a scholar whose philosophic and psycho- logical equipments and spiritual insight specially fit him for work in this field. His recent Ely Lectures, now reprinted as New Studies in Mystical Religion, greatly increase the indebtedness under which he has placed all students of religious experience. They discuss the relation of mysticism to the Abnormal, to Asceticism, to Religious Education, and to Organization and Institutions ; and end with a
particularly beautiful address based on Tertullian's Testimony of the Soul. The opening lecture deals with the many factors
in human experience which point beyond themselves, and imply an ultimate spiritual reality in close communion with men. Of these factors perhaps the most significant is the way in which history refuses to be explicable in terms of PrOcess ; but seems to be conditioned by the action of free Spirit, which, from time to time breaks through and " shifts the line of march of the whole race." Mysticism testifies to a certain kinship and correspondence between this Eternal Spirit and the tiny human soul ; and a study of its documents
suggests that direct mystical intuition is a genuine factor in many human lives. Of this, Dr.. Jones gives a specially moving and impressive example, too long for quotation here, from his own experience. The chapters on the relation between Mystical and Organized religion follow the lines to which his previous books have accustomed us. Writing
as a devoted member of the Society of Friends, it is natural that he should emphasize the now familiar antithesis between religious institutions and the " free " fellowship of the Spirit ;
and incline to see in every mystical movement a revolt against ecclesiastical formalism. He puts this case strongly ; and sometimes, one feels, without fully considering the weight of historic evidence. Surely, for instance, his account of the approved Catholic mystic, as always an individualist who was content to prosecute his interior quest without disturbing anyone by prophetic denunciations of the current institutional life, hardly covers such cases as St. Hildegarde, St. Catherine of Siena, and other vigorous spiritual reformers, whose courageous activities have raised them to the altars of the Church ?
Again, as regards asceticism, for which Dr. Jones shares the modern dislike ; is it really true that the ascetic instinct in man is sufficiently accounted for by " the age-long inferiority complex at the heart of the race " ? In spite of the excesses which this instinct has inspired, von Hugel is surely right when he insists that " the Spirit and even some mild amount of the practice " of bodily austerity, is " an integral constituent of all virile religion."
Dr. Rufus Jones appropriately dedicates his book to the " beautiful memory " of Baron von Hugel, whose penetrating influence is more and more felt in all the best spiritual and theological writing of our day. By a fortunate coincidence, those hitherto debarred_ by lack of means or leisure from contact with the Baron's larger works, are now given the opportunity of acquaintance with the very soul of his message. The two addresses on The Life of Prayer which were included in the second series of his Essays and Addresses already take high rank among English devotional classics. Their appearance in a separate form and at a low price should bring to thousands of readers the deep and gentle teachings of this great philosopher-saint. Especially valuable, in view of the rather facile optimism and unconscious anthropocen- tricism which disfigures much current Christian apologetic, is the Baron's steady insistence on the costliness of all religion worthy of the name ; and on adoration, as the central activity of man's spiritual life :-
" God is the Absolute Cause, the Ultimate Reason, tho Sole True End and Determiner of our existence, of our persistence, of our nature, of our essential calls and requirements . . hence the most fundamental need, duty, honour and happiness of man, is not petition, nor even contrition, nor again oven thanksgiving ; those three kinds of prayer which, indeed, must never disappeat out of spiritual lives ; but adoration."
EVELYN UNDERHILL.
Previous page
