"Is it easy to love God?" asks an old author. "It is easy," he replies, "to
those who do it" I have included two Graces under the word Charity. But
God can give a third. He can awake in man, towards
Himself, a super-
natural Appreciative Love. This is of all gifts the
most to be desired. Here,
not in our natural loves, nor even in ethics, lies
the true centre of all human
and angelic life. With this all things are possible
.
And with this, where a better book would begin, mine must end. I dare
not proceed. God knows, not I, whether I have ever
tasted this love. Perhaps
I have only imagined the tasting. Those like myself
whose imagination far
exceeds their obedience are subject to a just penalty; we easily imagine
conditions far higher than any we have really reached. If we describe what
we have imagined we may make others, and make ourselves, believe that
we have really been there. And if I have only imagined it, is it a further
delusion that even the imagining has at some moments made all other
objects of desire - yes, even peace, even to have no more fears - look like
broken toys and faded flowers? Perhaps. Perhaps, for many of us, all
experience merely defines, so to speak, the shape o
f that gap where our love
of God ought to be. It is not enough. It is something. If we cannot "practise
the presence of God", it is something to practise the absence of God, to
become increasingly aware of our unawareness till we feel like men who
should stand beside a great cataract and hear no noise, or like a man in a
story who looks in a mirror and finds no face there
; or a man in a dream
who stretches out his hand to visible objects and gets no sensation of touch.
To know that one is dreaming is to be no longer perfectly asleep. But for
news of the fully waking world you must go to my betters.