Christianity, through its concepts of the Divine Fatherhood and of the Eternal Christ, has given to this sense of personal communion its fullest and most beautiful expression: 

“Amore, chi t’ama non sta ozioso, tanto li par dolce de te gustare, ma tutta ora vive desideroso como te possa stretto piu amare; che tanto sta per te lo cor gioioso, chi nol sentisse, nol porria parlare quanto e dolce a gustare lo tuo sapore."[15]

On the immense question of what it is that lies behind this sense of direct intercourse, this passionate friendship with the Invisible, I cannot enter.  But it has been one of the strongest and most fruitful influences in religious history, and gives in particular its special colour to the most perfect developments of Christian mysticism.

Last—­and here is the aspect of religious experience which is specially to concern us—­Spirit is felt as an inflowing power, a veritable accession of vitality; energizing the self, or the religious group, impelling it to the fullest and most zealous living-out of its existence, giving it fresh joy and vigour, and lifting it to fresh levels of life.  This sense of enhanced life is a mark of all religions of the Spirit.  “He giveth power to the faint,” says the Second Isaiah, “and to them that hath no might he increaseth strength ... they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."[16] “I live—­yet not I,” “I can do all things,” says St. Paul, seeking to express his dependence on this Divine strength invading and controlling him:  and assures his neophytes that they too have received “the Spirit of power.”  “My life,” says St. Augustine, “shall be a real life, being wholly full of Thee."[17] “Having found God,” says a modern Indian saint, “the current of my life flowed on swiftly, I gained fresh strength."[18] All other men and women of the Spirit speak in the same sense, when they try to describe the source of their activity and endurance.

So, the rich experiences of the religious consciousness seem to be resumed in these three outstanding types of spiritual awareness.  The cosmic, ontological, or transcendent; finding God as the infinite Reality outside and beyond us.  The personal, finding Him as the living and responsive object of our love, in immediate touch with us.  The dynamic, finding Him as the power that dwells within or energizes us.  These are not exclusive but complementary apprehensions, giving objectives to intellect feeling and will.  They must all be taken into account in any attempt to estimate the full character of the spiritual life, and this life can hardly achieve perfection unless all three be present in some measure.  Thus the French contemplative Lucie-Christine says, that when the voice of God called her it was at one and the same time a Light, a Drawing, and a Power,[19] and her Indian