spirits passing through a mortal life. But the explanation of the
blank trance as a temporary transit into the Absolute must be set
down as a pure delusion. It involves a conception of the divine
"Rest" which in his best moments Eckhart himself repudiates. "The
Rest of the Godhead," he says, "is not in that He is the source of
being, but in that He is the consummation of all being." This
profound saying expresses the truth, which he seems often to forget,
that the world-process must have a real value in God's sight--that
it is not a mere polarisation of the white radiance of eternity
broken up by the imperfection of our vision. Whatever theories we
may hold about Absolute Being, or an Absolute that is above Being,
we must make room for the Will, and for Time, which is the "form" of
the will, and for the creatures who inhabit time and space, as
having for us the value of reality. Nor shall we, if we are to
escape scepticism, be willing to admit that these appearances have
no sure relation to ultimate reality. We must not try to uncreate
the world in order to find God. We were created out of nothing, but
we cannot return to nothing, to find our Creator there. The still,
small voice is best listened for amid the discordant harmony of life
and death.

The search for God is no exception to the mysterious law of human
nature, that we cannot get anything worth having--neither holiness
nor happiness nor wisdom--by trying for it directly. It must be
given us through something else. The recluse who lives like
Parnell's "Hermit":

"Prayer all his business, all his pleasure praise,"

is not only a poor sort of saint, but he will offer a poor sort of