On the Dry and Fruitless Soul

Reverence, then, suggests that there is needed in us somehow a feeling of tenderness towards God, a softening of the hardened edges of the soul, and, at the same time, a subjection, an avowal of our dependence on Him. The Holy Ghost is, then, to be considered as perfecting by means of these gifts even that borderland of man that lies between the purely reasonable and the purely sensual. The vague stretches of man’s consciousness are by the indwelling of the Spirit of God made at once responsive to the slightest communication from it.

Psychology in our own time has made its greatest progress by exploring all the unknown lands that are in each of us. The phenomena that are produced by hypnotism and spiritualism are evidence of many other things, which are at as closed to us as the regions of Tibet. However, in this connection, they explain to us how whatever is beyond the influence or direction of our reason and our will must still be brought into subjection to the standard of Christ. We have, therefore, nothing to fear from the research of professors, for they are giving us opportunities to extend in our own souls the territory that must be handed back to Him who made it.

This communication and susceptibility to the movement of God is His work, not ours. The virtue must be added to the gift, must follow it as man’s contribution (not of course, to the exclusion of God) to the work of his salvation. It is not sufficient for me to feel this presence or to be conscious of the reverence due. I must further add to it the love and fear of my heart embodied in action—namely, in thought, word, and deed.

Confirmation