Part 26 (1/2)
These purifying ress, have no limits
”Leave all ties and follow _Me_,” said Christ to those who asked Him what they should do
For th by other pohich will urge him on upwards towards the infinite; before hiels who call him heavenwards, that is, towards the supernatural life Yes, to be _more_ than man
This is a _dreaoal, the aim of life, to him who has faith
To Friedrich Nietzsche, the supere and erroneous even when tested by the very theories of evolution which inspired hi the ills of hu man to earth, there to seek means to create of hi hiotism, cruelty and folly
But innumerable saints have felt and acted in accordance with their profession of faith: ”I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me”
If, as our poet says, elic butterfly,” there is no doubt as to the road he must take: spiritually, he must either _ascend_ or _die_
Hence it is not the whole of life to obey the laws of hygiene, physical and psychical; but it is only life which can draw from its environment the means of its own purification and salvation; that life, however, which is supernatural, asks of love and divine light the strength necessary for its transformation
Of a truth, it is not _ecstasy_ which characterizes the saints; it is the real and victorious struggle of the higher against the lower nature
=Morality and religion=--It is well known that in strong religious impressions, such as the crises of what is called conversion, the phenoht,” an ”order” which suddenly establishes itself, and by means of which that which was before unseen becoood and evil, and hence the revelation of oneself Indeed, the converted, at the moment when the revelation takes place, seeiven over to a violent coetful of all their physical and intellectual life, and who are absorbed in contemplation of themselves in relation to a central point of their consciousness, which seeious radiance The cry of the convert in the majority of cases is: ”I am a sinner!” It seeether with all the evil which was corroding, weakening, and suffocating hith he sahen it was separated froers It is this which agitates hies him to seek some one who can understand, comfort, and help him The converted want help, as do the newly born; they weep and struggle like men who are born to a new life, and who are restrained by no human respect, by no restriction It is their own life they feel; and the value of their own life seereater than the riches and convenience of the whole world They feel an ecstasy of relief at having escaped froreat peril; their chief anxiety is that they may be liberated from the evil that oppresses theed to reconsider the terrible ti of it
”And as a , 'scaped from sea to shore, Turns to the perilous aste, and stands At gaze; e'en sowith terror, turn'd to view the straits That none hath past and lived”
(Carey's translation of Dante's _Inferno_, Canto I)
This evil had held captive all the treasures of the spirit, which, set free at last, seem to refresh and reanimate the whole world before their eyes:
”And what I saw see all the universe”
(Dante's _Paradiso_, Canto XXVII)
One of the ular cases of conversion I ever heard described was the following: Ain a crowded church to a congregation which was listening to him with devout admiration Suddenly he was interrupted by a loud sob, and aout his hands towards the pulpit: ”I areat sinner!” The monk, as is usual in such cases, cas of that soul, as it stripped itself of the evil which had been corroding it Then, curious to knohat argument had touched the heart of this man, he asked hiy ”Ah!” answered the convert, ”I never heard a single word of what you were saying; I entered the church without knohy; at that er at me emphatically Yes, it is true, I cried, I am a sinner, and I felt as if a heavy cloak of lead which had been oppressing me had fallen from my shoulders; then an uncontrollable flood of tears rose from my heart” Thus no intellectual element played any part in this conversion; it was not a ”conviction,” nor even new ”knowledge,” which had acted; what had happened was purely a spontaneous phenomenon of the conscience, which, perhaps after an unconscious preparation, divided the light from the darkness and initiated the creation of the new man
The convert feels more clearly than any other that evil is an ”obstacle” to a forher than the loftiest enjoyments man can taste He has not only been purified, but his purification has transformed him He is like a diamond embedded in dross andsubstances, and brought to the surface, clear and brilliant; it is not only a purified and nificent stone; what really transforms it is the sun, which can now be reflected in it and make it sparkle This is the unsuspected splendor which is added to it naturally, and has nothing to do either with the dross that has been reem The dross not only defiled it, but prevented it froive it its characteristic beauty