philosophically it was nought. This light within may indeed prove to be the witness of God in my being, but it is not God himself.
It is often said of the mystics, whether within Christendom or in Egypt or in the elder Orient which was and still remains their proper home, that they have the high religious merit of bringing God near to us, — as if they met the saying of St. Paul: Though He be not far from every one of us: for in Him we live, and move, and have our being. But nearness may become too near. When it is made to mean absolute identity, then all the worth of true nearness is gone, — the openness of access, the freedom of converse, the joy of true reciprocity. These precious things all draw their meaning from the distinct reality of ourselves and Him who is really other than we. When mysticism plays in high poesy on the theme of the Divine Nearness, in the mood that “sees God in clouds and hears him in the wind,” it quickens religious emotion, but affords no genuine illumination in theology. When we turn that mood into literal philosophy, and cause our centre of selfhood to vanish into God’s, or God’s to vanish into ours, we lose the tone of religion that is true and wholesome. For true religion is built only on the firm foundations of duty and responsibility; and these, again, rest only on the footing of freedom. Hence the passing remark of Dr. Le Conte on the nature of religion, though indeed beautiful and noble, is yet, I think, neither noble enough nor beautiful enough. It certainly ascends beyond the famous saying by Matthew Arnold, of which as a ladder it makes happy use, —
