the average man has seldom understood the mystic. he conceives the mystic life, with its ceaseless spiritual activity, and its restlessness which knows no stay till it reaches its goal, as a life of tranquillity, if not of indolence and ease. he has no conception of what it really is, and for that, perhaps, he should not be blamed. but not content with misinterpreting the mystic’s life, he presently becomes more daring; he asserts that mysticism is essentially ‘unpractical,’ and that one whose aim is to reach the state of union with god must necessarily be as a fool in his relations with the world. here the average man is grossly, inexcusably mistaken. his error has again and again been exposed, confuted, disproved by example after example to the contrary. yet, for all that, it seems to thrive in the average mind.

now, if the story of one man’s career could suffice to destroy the mistaken idea that the mystic is an unpractical dreamer, that man would surely be the majorcan ramón lull, the ‘apostle of africa.’ lull lived far back in the thirteenth century, not long after the days of st. francis of assisi, whose disciple he was. he gives us, as it were, a prevision of the splendours of that golden age of mysticism which dawned for spain three hundred years after his birth. his mystic writings—and especially his book of the lover and the[2] beloved—are full of the purest and noblest spirituality, compounded with the quintessence of love. ‘if ye will have fire,’ he cries, ‘o ye that love, come light your lanterns at my heart.’ his famous phrase, ‘he who loves not lives not,’ sums up his inspiration. yet lull was no cloistered visionary. his life is full of romance and adventure: so crowded with incident is it that many pages will not suffice even to summarise its principal happenings. his capacities showed the rare combination of scholar and man of affairs: he was both these, and he was also the man of god. to the service of his master, for whom alone he lived, and for whom he died, lull was able to bring the full and complete tribute of an efficient and active body, a superb mind, and an ardent, unconquerable spirit.