S44 THE PRA6MATICAL TEST

triumph in life, the Music of Ascenl, the song of the liberated sotU,

(2) Ddiverance, which, in its essence, is the passing from a narrawer into a wider life, and is nctably experienced in respect of Fear and Gare and Evil.

(3) Rest, which is defined in terms of withdrawal of Personal energy from dissipation and wastage in centrifugal adivities, finding the inward centre, and establishing the life there in self-possession and equipoise,

ATREE is known by its fruits. The pragmatical may not be the ultimate test ; but it is valuable, whether as critical or confinnatory of a truth primarily asserted on other grounds. No wise man, Carpenter least of ail, is concerned to ofïer and parade the allurement of rewards ; he " opens a door " ; but it is not possible for him to do justice to his expérience, the Truth that is in him, without disdosing its immédiate practical issues. The inquirer is justified in seeking to know whether the tendency of a certain teaching or practice is lifeward, does actually make for the " more Ufe and fuUer that we want" ; and although Carpenter is at times tantahzingly indiffèrent about giving satisfaction to anybody, his self-disclosure is so direct, naïve, complète, that no one need be in any doubt as to the Ufe-gifts which he himself actually received and realized in that expérience which is the core and substance of his message to the world.

ONE THING NEEDFUL 245

Of three of thèse gifts — ^Joy, DeKverance, Rest — ^we hâve now to write ; they are chosen as typical of the rest, the enumeration of which would require a long list. A descriptive examination of them wiil reveal the important fact that they are not separate gifts so much as différent forms under which the same qnality of consciousness manifests amid the mortal life-circumstance. In a world in which men are " busy about many things/' and are engaged in manifold quests which can scarcely fail to become wearisome since they are (even in moments of temporary success) profoundly unsatisfying and really endless, it needs to be reiterated that ' ' one thing is needf ul ' ' ; that ' ' one thing ' ' may be variously defined in terms of theology, or religion, or mystidsm — as, for example, the free grâce of God, or union with Christ, or the loveconsciousness ; at bottom thèse are one and the same ; nor is it another thing when Carpenter speaks of

This mighty Life — past, présent, and to corne — Enfolds thee. This thou art. This thou npgatherest ; And this Thou, tiny créature, pourest forth — Where now thou standest — Lord of the world, from cavems dark within thee.^

This inward expérience of conscious union with the All-Life, the sensé of the Whole welling up as the reality and significance of the Part,