Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c8.141

c8.141

a day and hour it must be possible to determine, in which the unsaved and unenlightened becomes a saved and enlightened man: and if men hope and look for such a sudden, and probably also violent, breaking through of the soul to the light, they realize it in fact. Within the Christian Church we have the Methodists especially, but not they alone, who bear testimony to this. Furthermore, phenomena of this kind are not confined by any means to persons of a vulgar type, living in a dull religious atmosphere. On the contrary, natures which are endowed with the keenest spiritual sensibility, with the most versatile power of imagination, are especially susceptible of such experiences. A flash of thought, a sudden excitement of warm emotion or vivid imagination, or a moment of tranquil breathing-time following on times of internal strife, is metamorphosed for them into that opening of the heart, or that call by divine omnipotence, for which they were consciously or unconsciously waiting, and which is sufficient to give a new turn to their whole life.