AFTER LONG AGES

Paradise is *' where the Master is/' * and, as Augustine, working with a différent formula, knew, " my heart is pained, nor can it be at rest till it find rest in Thee." The ante-chambers of the body, of the intellect, of art and morality, are important ; the f ootsteps of the Master may be heard there, his f ootprints seen ; but ail thèse must be passed through if He is to be met face to face.

I do not tum you back from self-seeking ; on the oon* trary, I know tiiat you shaU never rest tiU you hâve found your Self;

If you seek it in money, feune, and the idle gratification of inordinate organs and bumps — ^that is aU very weU for a time ; bat you vnil bave to do better tfaan tfaat.

If you seek it in Duty, Goodness, Renonciation, they also are very weU for a time ; but you wiU do better.*

Man's birth is a descent and an infolding ; he awakes to mortality and moves to and fro over the world among appearances —

Forgetful of his true self, he becomes a self-seeker among shadows * ;

nothing results but war and conflict, disgust and disappointment ; so he begins the retum joumey, and is alike lu-ged and sustained therein by something which Plato would perhaps hâve called Réminiscence, but which is the witness of that imprisoned Splendeur which is his true Self. What are the dreams of theBetter Land, the quests

i r. D*, p. 233. « JWrf., p. loi. » Ihid., p. 234.

I2à TO RETURN TÔ Î>AÏIAJD1SE

for the Earthly Paradise, Utopia, Eldorado, the fabled Islands, the Sangreal, the Elixir of Life ; what signify the mystic scroU of the Zodiac, the Ark, the Host, the* Holy of Holies, the Gospels of ail lands, the proclamations of the résurrection of Christ, of Osiris, of the rest ; but the human reading of the vast and vague hieroglyph which the Great Self within the soûl casts by its own light upon the curtain of self-consdousness ? ^

Thèse and ail such things are not mère inventions of the pious visionary, nor delusive mirages which tonnent the overwrought mind of the traveller; they are the projection on to the clouds of the future of that which is alone Real and Substantial, and is secreted within the heart of the individual and of the race ; our apparent horizontal approach to them, ail that we may rightly speak of as human progress, is the outward showing of what is taking place deep in the heart — the becoming of That which is, the advance of the Lover, the arrivai of the Master.

Where the Master is, there is Paradise ; Ând this world is Paradise.*

This is^he core of the " ancient indestructible Gospel" ; we hâve far to go, there must still (with few breathing-spaces) be stress, passion, the dashing against the barriers of self, the^ndless contest, the melancholy haughty Titanic and lonely struggle of the soûl,' the problems, the

» r. A, p. 237. « Ihid., p. 236. « lUà., p. 252,

ANCffiNT INDESTRUCTIBLE GOSPEL 12»

retracîng of steps, the continuai dealing with expérience of ail kinds ; we are out on this road ; and

There is no bar. The paths are ail open, tfae aignposts few — each most find the due for himself, the ezit from the labyrinthe;

but the deliverance is sure ; ** in some time, His good time, I shall arrive " ; for we are not finding something, so much as Something is finding us ; the " beginning and the end of ail things shall be with us."*

O corne with me, my soûl — follow the inévitable call, follow the call of the great sky overarching you.

Disentanghng the cobwebs of ail custom and supposed necessity — the ancient cocoon in which hnmanity has lain so long concealed —

Pass forth. Thon, into the serene light; along the hills, by the dumps of overhanging trees, throngh the doorways of ail mortal life, pass thou redeemed, enfranchised.*

Ail expérience counts. Nothing can corne wrong to the soûl that reacts rightly. So far we hâve spoken of expérience as that which elicits the soûl, the circumstant résistance against which latencies of power and beauty are developed until the soûl attains its true Identity. Changing the figiu-e somewhat, expérience may be regarded as adding perpetually to that inward pool wherein, when it shall be full-grown, the man will see

1 r. D., p. 256. » Ibid., p. 96. » Ibid,, p. 257,