I consent that thou depart,

Though thine absence break my heart;

Go then, and for ever too ;

All is right that thou wilt do.

XII.

This was just what Love intended,
He was now no more offended;
Soon as I became a child,

Love return'd to me and smil'd:
Never strife shall more betide

'Twixt the bridegroom and his bride.

VII. Mysticism is now rather practical than speculative, still influencing the sentiments of devotion where such works as those of à Kempis are read and imitated, but no longer moulding the speculations of philosophy,—with the single exception of Germany. In that country Pantheism has had a great revival amongst those who reject the inspiration of the Bible, and who attempt, from their preconceived opinions, and by pretended demonstrations, to give a theory of the universe. And it is necessary that it should be so, for whoever grounds his reasonings upon the abstract notion of existence, will fall into the same error with the ancients, seeing that Pantheism is implied in the very principle from which they set out; for whatever is absolutely demonstrable, must, of course, be absolutely necessary. The error consists in mistaking the hypothetical fancy of their imagination for the

reality of things; the pantheistic deity of the transcendental writers is the veriest chimera that ever occupied an Utopia of its own, compared with which the "dream of a shadow" appears a substantial existence. But true philosophy has expelled these errors from a considerable portion of the world, and is daily, though slowly, gaining ground. Opposite errors may for a time support each other, as one extreme always leads to another; and the material atheism of the French has been the great supporter of the ideal pantheism of the Germans. But errors are in their nature mortal; and when they are continued, it is by variety and succession, and not by perpetuity. There are some favourable symptoms, both in the literature of France and of Germany, and saner views of nature, we trust, will gradually prevail. Above all, the religion of the Bible, as it gains ground amongst men, will reveal the true character of the Deity; and the belief in Jehovah will finally destroy every idolatry under heaven,-whether it consists in the worship of idols of wood and stone, or of the more specious, but as worthless idols of the imagination.

VIII. Mysticism is natural to the mind, because Pantheism is so. Wherever revelation is disregarded, we see men, who trust to their own understanding, in all countries and ages, relapsing into the emanative system. Those who trust to their own heart slide into a mystical devotion, dreaming that

they are emanations from the Deity, and seek to reunite themselves to the divine essence. Their imagination of the Deity recedes more and more from the character of the God of the Scriptures. The holiness of Jehovah, which will not suffer his law to be violated with impunity, is less and less attended to, and an infinite and indiscriminate love is supposed to be recalling all creatures, not so much from sin as from selfishness, and as rather ingulfing them into the divine Being, than conforming them to the divine character. When we say that this system is natural to the mind, we should restrict it to a particular stage of its progress; to the twilight which intervenes between the darkness of ignorance and the light of truth, and to a condition of society, where the mind is contemplative rather than active, and where contemplation, having but few useful truths to meditate upon, is fruitful only in chimeras. The same turn of mind which leads to false systems of philosophy leads also to false systems of devotion. Theories of the universe are excogitated, as wild and groundless as the Arabian Tales, but without their brilliant fancy and vivid interest; and works of piety are.produced, which lead the reader from the Bible, instead of bringing him to it, and which fill their votaries with dreams as airy and evanescent as if they were busied in the chase of vanity, and intent upon acquiring the unsubstantial possessions of this world.

IX. Mysticism nearly resembles the truth, and yet is essentially distinct from it. We must, therefore, be careful, on the one hand, not to mistake the shadow for the substance; and, on the other, not to reject truth because it may have a certain likeness to error. The deified universe of the pantheists has, of course, some points of agreement with the Scriptural notion of the true Jehovah. Being the universe, it is universally present, and out of its infinite fulness it is supposed to fill all things. The pantheists are continually quoting St. Paul; "In Him we live, and move, and have our being." But how different is the sense of these words in the mouth of St. Paul and in theirs. In the true Jehovah we live both our natural and our spiritual life, but without partaking of his incommunicable essence. He is infinitely near to us by his universal presence and energy, and infinitely distant from us by his absolute perfection. The phantom of the pantheists, on the contrary, which exists but in their deluded imagination, is one and indivisible with his votaries. His substance is the stuff of which they are made, and the gulf into which they must return. Pantheism and mysticism, while they pretend to spirituality, are, in fact, but disguised materialism; the object of their worship is the sensible universe, beheld dim, and magnified, through the mists of a beclouded imagination :

"Jupiter est quodcunque vides, quocunque moveres.”