And this simplification alone means for him a release from conflicting wishes, and so a tremendous increase of power.
If then we admit this formula, "ever seeking and finding the Eternal"-- which is of course another rendering of Ruysbroeck's "aiming at God"-- as the prime character of a spiritual life, the secret of human transcendence; what are the agents by which it is done?
Here, men and women of all times and all religions, who have achieved this fullness of life, agree in their answer: and by this answer we are at once taken away from dry philosophic conceptions and introduced into the very heart of human experience.

It is done, they say, on man's part by Love and Prayer: and these, properly understood in their inexhaustible richness, joy, pain, dedication and noble simplicity, cover the whole field of the spiritual life.

Without them, that life is impossible; with them, if the self be true to their implications, some measure of it cannot be escaped.

I said, Love and Prayer properly understood: not as two movements of emotional piety, but as fundamental human dispositions, as the typical attitude and action which control man's growth into greater reality.

Since then they are of such primary importance to us, it will be worth while at this stage to look into them a little more closely.
First, Love: that over-worked and ill-used word, often confused on the one hand with passion and on the other with amiability.