ACCUMULATION FROM EXPERIENCE

himself reflected in the piire " mirror of God " and be satisfied Or, more dsmamically, like the rain which percolates through soil and rocks into the subterranean resorvoir until it overflows, expérience may be regarded as constantly " swelling the man's amonnt " until, like the breaking f orth of a f ountain, a new quality of lif e manif ests from within. Or, from still another point of view, expérience may be r^arded as working by a process of attrition which gradually wears down the barrier, or rubs the mortal envelope, the surface membrane of self-consciousness, the film of separated individuality, thinner and thinner, and so brings us on to the " ecstatic deliverance, the bursting of the sac." *

Under whichever of thèse figures we view its opération, it would seem that in one, whose hfe has been rich in expérience and who has reacted to it with wisdom, the Holy Thing should be ready to be born ; the kingdom should be close at hand. Almost anything may deliver the soûl ; at any moment the Lord may come along the way thus prepared for him. It is like the " thief in the night " ; or it is like Pippa's song ; or it is like the light-beam which f ails upon the explosive machine. The cause has been long at work and accumulating ; the occasion may be trivial.

The main thing is that the messenger is perhaps even now at your door — A httle child, a breath of air, an old man hobbling on