of the very greatest importance to the spiritual life, and we must try to understand it rightly.

As a rule we accept it as a fact; sum it up in the aphorism, "Man never is, but always to be blest," and then regard it as a deplorable incident of human destiny, which, if dwelt on too much, can only lead to a melancholy temperament and a pessimistic philosophy.

But in matter of fact the law of disillusionment with the world is the introduction to all spiritual life, and is a fact to be joyfully accepted, meditated upon, and made a matter of thanksgiving to Almighty God.

But first let us consider what are the grounds on which this disillusionment is based. Briefly, we may say that our nature, being what it is, can only consent to be satisfied under certain conditions. We necessarily make certain demands or postulates which any prospective satisfaction must fulfil, or else be condemned as inadequate. What are these demands? The first is permanence. Having a permanent nature, we cannot rest contented with what is essentially transitory. This postulate is enshrined in some of our Collects, e.g., when we pray that we "may so pass through things temporal that we finally lose not the things eternal," or, "that among the sundry and manifold changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found." The sundry and manifold changes of the world-there we have the first reason why the world can never satisfy us; 4th after Trinity. • 4th after Easter.

it lacks permanence and stability. This was the complaint made in the dawn of Greek Philosophy by Heraclitus and his school : πάντα χωρεῖ καὶ οὐδὲν μéva—“All things pass and nothing abides." All things pass: the physical world—including our own bodies-pleasures, friendships, interests, institutions, traditions, energies, laws. There is nothing, however apparently substantial, which can resist the subtle solvent of change and decay. It is so in our own personal experience. One after another, the things of the world which we have pursued and prized pass away from us, and we see that if we set our affections on them we shall be left naked and destitute at last. We need not labour this point. The transitoriness of the world, and the unsatisfactoriness of the transient, have been the constant theme of poets and philosophers, as well as theologians. If we were transient with the world and its objects, there would be no difficulty to be raised, and indeed no possibility of raising difficulties or forming themes of life at all; we should then be like leaves floating down a stream, part of the flux of things, unconscious of any contradiction to be solved. But because we have a permanent nature, able to look before and after, we are aware of a crucial difference between ourselves and the world of becoming, and refuse to be satisfied with it or anything that belongs to it. If there is nothing to be had except a world of that sort, we shall be driven to pessimism, more or less complete in proportion to the sincerity and depth of our reflection. If religion has something different to offer, then our

disillusionment with the world will be our introduction to the spiritual life.

The second postulate with which we confront the world is the demand for unity. Our nature is a complex unity compounded of rational and emotional elements. That which is to satisfy us must-(1) be one; and (2) it must be concrete, i.e., a rich and comprehensive unity, capable of doing justice to the diversity of our nature; and (3) it must be an unifying principle, drawing these diverse interests together, bringing out their connectedness, and gathering them up into itself; accomplishing in this microcosm of man the same sort of "summing up" and "reconciliation" which St. Paul tells us is accomplished by Christ for the universe as a whole.

Now that which the world (including our own bodies) supplies us with is a multiplicity of heterogeneous impulses, devoid of any principle of order or cohesion.

Animal appetites, æsthetic perceptions, emotions of sympathy, in the elementary stage; with maturer developments in the shape of acquisitiveness, patriotism, family affection, cultivation of the mind, and religious aspirations, present a strange medley of desires, in which the unity of the self retires into a dim and distant background. The natural man may resolve to extend an impartial welcome to them all, gratifying each as it comes, surrendering himself to the dominion of each in turn without preference or distinction. But he soon finds that—(a) they are in conflict with each other, so that to attain 'Eph. i. 10; Col. i. 20.

one is to forego another; (b) that distinctions of higher and lower emerge in spite of his earnest effort to avoid partiality; (c) that nothing but disgust and weariness ensues from an attempt to sacrifice the unity of his nature to a mob of warring impulses.

Some selection must be made from amongst the competitive claimants; for instance, he must decide whether the satisfaction of the body or the satisfaction of the mind is to be regarded as his good, since sin has destroyed the primal unity of the spirit and substituted for it the antagonism of soul and body. But however he may decide between these and other alternatives, his choice remains an arbitrary one-determinatio est negatio; in selecting one competitive satisfaction, he has entirely disenfranchised a dozen more, and has proportionately narrowed his conception of the nature which was to be satisfied. If he chooses the life of mental culture, he thereby rules out many other sorts of life which have their own claims upon him, and does his best to reduce the complex unity of his nature to the single element of intellect. There is here no unification of the various aspects of his self in a satisfaction which shall comprehend and reconcile them all. All but one are sacrificed, and the satisfaction of the one which remains is an one-sided and fragmentary affair. The scientific impulse has won its way, but only by the atrophy of other desires, the amputation of other capacities, the mutilation of a nature which was intended to love and feel as well as think. If, then, we seek from the world something which shall satisfy our demand for

unity for an unifying principle which shall gather up all the elements in our nature, dignifying the body without degrading the soul, placing before us a clear object to be subserved and advanced in every trivial word and unnoticed act-we shall seek in vain.

Our third postulate is that there must be completeness in the object which is adequately to satisfy man made in God's image. "God made man to be an image of his own eternity" or "of his own proper being" (R.V.). Having thus an element of infinity in himself, he projects his own infinity into those ideals which he pursues. Nothing short of the eternal, coherent, self-explanatory, will satisfy him either in the sphere of truth or in that of goodness or in that of beauty. The image of God in him manifests itself as faith in an ideal of perfection to be pursued in science, philanthropy, and art; without such a faith, progress in any of these spheres would be impossible, and this faith is rooted in the infinity of man's nature. In the domain of science he insists that there must be law, order, and connection everywhere, in spite of apparently overwhelming evidence to the contrary ; in the domains of philanthropy or social reform he hopes against hope in the perfectibility of human nature, in the complete triumph of goodness and unselfishness, in the possibilities of saintliness for the most hardened sinner. Again, perfection is the inspiration of every true artist.

"All partial beauty is a pledge

Of beauty in its plenitude.".

■ Wisdom, ii. 23. • Browning, "Easter Day," 24, cf. 26.