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.
