He gives most of us the feeling of a very able man of business, an ideal
family solicitor; but there is a quite different side to this character.
He is by no means a mystic, as that word is usually understood, but he
is a man who deeply believes in the chief instrument of the mystic's
spiritual life, that is to say, in prayer. He is not a saint, in the
general acceptance of that term, but his whole life is devoted with an
undeviating singleness of aim to effecting the chief ambition of the
saint--a knowledge of God in the hearts and minds of men. Because he
believes that the best method of achieving that consummation, having
regard to the present level of human intelligence, is by moderate
courses, one must not think that he is lukewarm in the cause of
religion. With all the force of his clear and able mind, he believes in
moderation. Anything that in the least degree savours of extravagance
seems to him impolitic. He does not believe in sudden bursts of
emotional energy; he believes in constant pressure.
In my intercourse with him I have found him eminently sane and judicial,
cold towards excessive fervour, but not cold at all towards ardent
faith, inclined perhaps to miss the cause of spiritual impatience,
constitutionally averse from any understanding sympathy with religious
ecstasy, but never self-satisfied, intolerant, or in the remotest
fashion cynical.
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