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diff --git a/76888-0.txt b/76888-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5d09c98 --- /dev/null +++ b/76888-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3579 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76888 *** + + + + + + CORAM SANCTISSIMO + + + + + BEFORE THE MOST HOLY + + (CORAM SANCTISSIMO) + + + BY + + MOTHER MARY LOYOLA + + OF THE BAR CONVENT, YORK + + + EDITED BY + + FATHER THURSTON, S.J. + + + ST. LOUIS, MO. + + B. HERDER + + 17 SOUTH BROADWAY + + LONDON: SANDS & CO. + + 1904 + + + + + Nihil obstat. + + HERBERT THURSTON, S.J., + _Censor Deputatus_. + + + Imprimatur. + + HERBERTUS CARD. VAUGHAN, + _Archiep. Westmonast._ + + _15th September, 1900._ + + + + + TO + + JESUS CHRIST + + YESTERDAY + + TO-DAY + + AND THE SAME + + FOR EVER + + + + +PREFACE. + + +The custom of honouring the Eucharistic presence of Christ our Lord by +paying “Visits” to the Blessed Sacrament may be quoted as one of the +most conspicuous examples of development in the devotional practice +of the Catholic Church. Down to the latter part of the Middle Ages +such an usage seems to have been entirely unknown. As far as regards +England, the late Father Bridgett, if I mistake not, says that in +all the researches made by him while compiling his _History of the +Holy Eucharist in Great Britain_ he had not come across one clear +example of a visit to the Blessed Sacrament in pre-Reformation times. +Even on the Continent the idea of any extra-liturgical _cultus_ +of the Blessed Eucharist seems to have grown up very tardily. There +were many saints as late as the fifteenth century, say, for example, +St. Frances of Rome, whose lives show no trace of such a conception, +though nothing could be more strongly emphasised than their devotion +to the Blessed Sacrament in Holy Communion.[1] It is remarkable to +notice that even St. Ignatius Loyola, in the book of the _Spiritual +Exercises_, when directing attention to the abiding presence of God +with His creatures as a motive for awakening love, says not a word of +the Blessed Sacrament. One must not, of course, press the negative +argument too far. No prudent man would infer in this latter case that +the practice of visiting churches to commune with our Lord in the +Tabernacle was unknown in the sixteenth century, but it is reasonable +to conclude that the uninterrupted Eucharistic presence of God with His +people did not then play the same conspicuous part in the devotional +life of the faithful that it does in our day. + +This late and gradual development of a devotion, which seems to us +now so natural and so unmistakably involved in premises that all men +accepted, is certainly a remarkable fact. Even to the present day +the Greek Church, though its belief in transubstantiation is no less +explicit than our own, has never drawn the inference that our Lord has +come in the Blessed Sacrament to be our companion and refuge as well +as our food. It seems to have been part of the Divine dispensation, +in this as in some other matters, to hold men’s eyes that they should +not know Him. Throughout the long centuries our forefathers seem to +have regarded the Eucharistic presence as if Christ had wished to +preserve His _incognito_ while He dwelt amongst them, or as if +He were sleeping as of old in the bark of Peter and would rebuke the +want of faith of those who too importunately disturbed His repose. +But surely we are right in thinking that if they so apprehended God’s +purpose in remaining on our altars, their appreciation of His boon +was but inchoative and imperfect. To us now it seems so obvious that +the work of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament was not meant to be +intermittent, limited to the time of Mass and Holy Communion, that it +is hard to believe that Christians who truly recognised this presence +in their midst can ever have conceived otherwise. Perhaps we may draw +the lesson that if the fulness of understanding were long delayed in so +plain a matter, it is not surprising that in other dogmas and practices +which justify themselves less obviously there may be developments +in the Church’s teaching not suspected or at least not clearly +apprehended by our forefathers in the faith. + +As things are, no devout Catholic would wish to be deprived of the +privilege of drawing near to our Saviour in the Tabernacle and making +Him the daily confidant of hopes and fears, of joys and troubles. But +what distresses many pious souls is that having Him ready and willing +to listen they should so often find themselves tongue-tied in His +presence. The set forms of prayer which they know by heart are worn +threadbare by routine, and books too often prove stiff and artificial. +The heart has many wants and longings, but hardly knows how to put them +into words. In such a case real help, I think, is likely to be found +in this very miscellaneous collection of musings, self-arraignments, +out-pourings of spirit, to which the authoress has given the apt name +of _Coram Sanctissimo_, “in the presence of the Most Holy”. They +are not intended to be taken in rotation, or to be used every day, but +there are times when a troubled worshipper, turning over the leaves, +may light upon something here which will chime in with his mood and +will make the task of prayer more easy to him. And if for one or +another the thoughts of this little book may serve to break the ice and +to render the soul for the nonce more at home in that holy presence, I +feel sure that the authoress will consider the labour spent in writing +it to have been abundantly repaid. + +It will be noticed that in the pages which follow verse finds a place +as well as prose. It would not be fair to let this go forth to the +world without stating that it has been written, so to speak, under +protest, and that without strong encouragement Mother Mary Loyola would +hardly have suffered it to see the light. Although the verses are +perhaps unequal, I do not in any way repent the share I have had in +urging the writer to let them stand. It would have been worth a greater +risk of failure and a longer expenditure of time to have secured even a +few such happy lines as may be read for instance in the chapter headed +“In Silence and in Hope,” describing St. Mary Magdalen:-- + + She came with her crushing memories, + She came with her secret fears, + She brought Him her hidden misery + And her bitter, burning tears. + +Or again:-- + + Absorbed in her loving ministries + She knelt at His feet apart, + The scandal of every eye save one + That soundeth the secret heart. + +The verses at best are only an experiment. They were written in each +case for the sake of the thought, not of the metrical form, and if the +authoress could have found, as she long endeavoured to do, any suitable +religious poetry which expressed kindred ideas, and which would have +afforded that variety which is meant to be characteristic of this +little booklet, she would have been glad, I know, to escape the seeming +presumption of appearing as a writer of verse. But I do not think that +the many friends who use and appreciate Mother Loyola’s _Confession +and Communion_ and her other devotional books will be disappointed +in anything which may meet their eye in this new effort of her pen. + + HERBERT THURSTON, S.J. + + _11th September, 1900._ + +[1] The earliest satisfactory example of visits to the Blessed +Sacrament which I have so far come across occurs in the life of Blessed +Maria de Malliaco (A.D. 1331-1414), who, it is stated, “in +festis solemnibus vigilabat in ecclesia coram corpore Christi”. The +story of St. Louis of France, who in a grievous storm placed himself on +his knees before the Blessed Sacrament on ship-board, does not appear +to me to belong to quite the same category. I should be grateful to +any readers of this note who may be able to supply me with earlier +instances. + + + + + CONTENTS. + + + CHAPTER PAGE + I. VISITS 1 + II. PRAISE 9 + III. “POSSUMUS” 14 + IV. THE SON OF MAN 18 + V. WHAT THINGS? 21 + VI. VENITE AD ME OMNES 30 + VII. THE HIDDEN GOD 33 + VIII. LOOKING THROUGH THE LATTICES 37 + IX. LORD, COME AND SEE! 41 + X. NEGLECT 43 + XI. FAITH 47 + XII. AFTER A DEFEAT 52 + XIII. AFTER A VICTORY 55 + XIV. A DIVINE FRIEND 57 + XV. AN EVENING VISIT 59 + XVI. PRIVILEGED 63 + XVII. THE IMPROVIDENCE OF LOVE 67 + XVIII. CHANGES 70 + XIX. I HAVE SOMEWHAT TO SAY TO THEE 73 + XX. A DIVINE PLAINT 77 + XXI. THANKSGIVING 80 + XXII. DARKNESS 85 + XXIII. “WHAT IS TRUTH?” 91 + XXIV. HIS SECOND COMING 95 + XXV. OUR EARTH 99 + XXVI. CHRIST OUR STUDY 104 + XXVII. OUR FATHER 109 + XXVIII. HEREAFTER 111 + XXIX. MY VINEYARD 115 + XXX. WHERE WE ARE TRUE 118 + XXXI. IN SILENCE AND IN HOPE 121 + XXXII. GOD’S WORK 124 + XXXIII. A STRONG CRY 129 + XXXIV. “BE READY” 133 + XXXV. “DOMINE, ECCE QUEM AMAS INFIRMATUR” 137 + XXXVI. AFTER A DEATH 142 + XXXVII. GOD’S WAYS 145 + XXXVIII. TWILIGHT AND NOON 153 + XXXIX. RESPONSIBILITY 159 + XL. LIFE 166 + + + + +I. + +VISITS. + + Go to Him early in the morning, and let thy foot wear the steps of His + doors.--_Ecclus._ vi. 36. + + +How careful we are to observe the courtesies of life! How uneasy till +such social duties are discharged! In the making and returning of +calls, how fidgety if hindered, how sensible that delay demands apology! + +And this where mere acquaintances are concerned. But what when there +is question of a friend, a benefactor, one devoted to us and to our +interests? If formal visits are here uncalled for, it is only because +our heart needs no prompting. Uninvited, inconsiderately often, we come +and go, “wearing the steps of his doors”. + +And our best of friends--do we treat Him thus?--as affectionately, as +familiarly? If not, why not? Is He not among the benefactors whose +gifts deserve thanks, the friends whose feelings have to be considered, +the acquaintances, at least, whose attentions must be acknowledged? +Is it because He puts Himself so completely at our disposal that He +is to be neglected? Or because He is King of kings that He is to be +considered outside the circle where courtesy is exacted? + +Ah, Lord, how unmindful we are of what is due to You! How unmindful I +am of Your unfailing devotedness to me! Sent into this world as into +a strange neighbourhood, I found You waiting to receive me, to make +me welcome, to offer Your services, to show me all manner of graceful +kindness. You have thrown open Your house to me. You invite me to Your +table. You press upon me Your gifts: “_All ye that thirst, come to +the waters.... Come, buy wine and milk without money and without any +price_”.[2] “_Come to Me and I will refresh you._”[3] “_Him +that cometh to Me, I will not cast out_.”[4] You make use of every +motive to draw me to Yourself; yet have to complain after all: “_You +will not come to Me that you may have life_.”[5] + +“They began all at once to make excuse. I have bought a farm ... I pray +thee, hold me excused. I have bought five yoke of oxen ... I pray thee, +hold me excused. I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.”[6] + +Thus it was long ago; thus it is now. We have time for other +duties--for our correspondence, our shopping, our afternoon calls on +other more favoured friends. But no time for a visit to Him. Is it so +far then to the nearest church? So far that He may well accept the +distance as sufficient reason for our absence, except at times when +attendance is of obligation? Can I urge home duties and necessary +occupations, when I see who those are that can and do find time to +visit Him? + +O my Lord, why these wretched subterfuges with You “the God of +truth”?[7] Why not fall at Your feet and own that it is not distance, +nor lack of leisure, nor any reasonable plea that keeps me from You, +but simply and solely _the want of love_? It is a reason I +could not give to any other friend. I should have to find some other +pretext with which to colour my neglect. But with You there need be +no dissembling. Your friendship stands alone in the perfect frankness +and confidence permissible on both sides. We may own to being cold +and half-unwilling visitors, yet we are not for that unwelcome. The +petulance, the selfishness, the waywardness of our moods that in the +very interest of other friendships call for self-restraint, may show +themselves in all their ugliness before the All-pitying, the Friend +“more friendly than a brother,”[8] whom nothing can shock, disgust, +estrange. + +He wants our intercourse with Him to be perfectly free; nothing +studied, nothing strained. He desires to have us as we are, no less +than as we would be. He wants to be taken into our confidence, to be +let into the secret chambers of our souls, into which we only peep +ourselves at stated times and with half-averted glance. He would +share in the interests and troubles of the moment; be called upon for +sympathy in every event great or small that interrupts the even flow +of our home life or of our inner life; take part in every experience +whether of sorrow or of joy. The soldier off to the front, the baby +with its broken toy, the girl with her first secret, no less than the +wife, the mother, the priest, with their burdened hearts--He wants +them all. He sees us going off here and there for help, and comfort, +and counsel. He hears our feet as they hurry past His door to wear the +doorsteps of other friends, and He calls to us in those tones divine in +their tenderness of reproach: “_You will not come to Me. My people +have forsaken Me, the Fountain of living water, and have digged to +themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water._”[9] + + * * * * * + +How long, O Lord, how long? When shall we wake up to the reality of +Your Presence in our midst, and to the purpose of that Presence? We +would die for it if need be, and yet we heed it not. Shall I wait +till it is brought home to me by the remorse of my last hour, or by +the long, long hours of purgatory? Oh, why did I not make use of my +Emmanuel, my God with me, whilst I had time, “whilst He was in the way +with me”?[10] Why during my dream-life down there did I not realise the +need of Him that is the one need in this real life of eternity? + +A child at catechism said: “Won’t it be dreadful for those who don’t +believe in the Real Presence to find at Judgment that it _was_ +real, that our Lord was there after all! Even if they didn’t know any +better, and so it was not their fault, and our Lord is not angry with +them--I think they will be so dreadfully sorry all the same.” + +But if these will be sorry, what will be the case of those who did know +and neglected Him? Those to whom He will say, “_So long a time have I +been with you, and you have not known Me!_”[11] “_I was daily with +you in the temple._”[12] + +Lord Jesus, let not that be my bitterest thought in purgatory, that +land of bitter thoughts. It is time that Your love should be returned, +that I should make amends for the past, that I should hasten to You +with my sorrow and my love. + + * * * * * + +_Go to Him early in the morning._ Is daily Mass an impossibility +in my case? He waits for me there, to offer, for me and with me, His +sacrifice and mine for the interests we share together. + +_And let thy feet wear the steps of His doors._ More especially +in the afternoon or evening, when the church is quiet and He is left +all alone. With a little goodwill and ingenuity could I not include a +visit to Him in my weekly, if not in my daily programme? Could I not +so arrange my calls to other friends as to leave a few moments for my +dearest and my best? How blessed a remembrance when He is brought to my +doors at the last, to be my viaticum, that in life I was faithful to +the duties of friendship and wore the steps of His doors! + + O blessed, self-sufficing God + Athirst for me, + Coming a beggar to my door + All suppliantly, + Craving with meek persistence alms + Of my poor heart, + A thought, a word of sympathy--how sweet, + How sweet Thou art! + + And must Thou knock and ever knock + Till life is flown, + Seeking vain entrance to a heart + That is Thine own? + Or wilt Thou rather work this hour + Such change in me + That hither I may come “wearing Thy steps” + Athirst for Thee! + +[2] Isa. lv. + +[3] Matt. xi. + +[4] John vi. + +[5] _Ibid._ v. + +[6] Luke xiv. + +[7] Psa. xxx. + +[8] Prov. xviii. + +[9] Jer. ii. + +[10] Matt. v. + +[11] John xiv. + +[12] Luke xxii. + + + + +II. + +PRAISE. + + Give praise to our God, all ye His servants, and you that fear Him, + little and great.--_Apoc._ xix. 5. + + +When heaven is opened for an instant it is to let out a burst of +praise. “_Glory to God in the highest!_”[13] “_Thou art worthy, +O Lord our God, to receive glory, and honour, and power!_”[14] +“_The Lamb that was slain, is worthy to receive power, and divinity, +and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and benediction.... To +Him that sitteth on the throne, and to the Lamb, benediction and honour +and glory and power for ever and ever._”[15] + +We lift up our heads; we are rapt. It is an unexpected strain from +fatherland that catches the exile’s ear and thrills through every +fibre of his being. It finds an affinity, that burst of praise, in +every human soul on which the sense of exile weighs. For it is the +strain to which every soul is attuned by the very fact of its creation. +The language of praise is our mother-tongue. _Gementes et flentes +in hac lacrymarum valle_ was no part of God’s original design for +us. We took the golden harps out of His hand and strained and broke +the strings, and now the notes are plaintive when not discordant. But +Christ has restored all things. He has brought back our joy by taking +our sorrow on Himself. Because here on earth He prayed “with a strong +cry and tears”[16] the song of praise is to be put again upon our lips. +Yet a little while and “God shall wipe away all tears ... and death +shall be no more, nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow shall be any +more”.[17] He is here upon the altar, waiting to catch up the faint +accents of my praise, and bear them with His own before the throne of +God. + +Do this for me, O dearest Lord. Praise does not come easily to these +lips of mine. The cares of life, and its failures, and its pains; +heaviness of soul, and the weight of the corruptible body, with all +the engrossingness of self, wring my heart dry of praise. A sudden +revelation of Your goodness in the removal of a trial, or the advent +of an unlooked-for joy, will lighten it for a moment and lift it up to +You in benediction. Yet even this impulse of thankful love is weak and +cannot long sustain itself, and I fall again humbled at Your feet, to +feel how little I can do and say even at my best. As to the pure praise +of heaven--free of all thought of self, where self is drowned in the +glad, triumphant, all-absorbing sense of Your greatness, and grandeur, +and all-sufficingness--of this I know nothing. Yet it is the language +of my country, the tongue I shall speak for ever--should I not be +learning it here in time? A language may be learned in a foreign land +though the accent we only catch on its own soil. + +Often and often, dear Master, I say to You with the Twelve, “Teach +me to pray”. I say to You now, “Teach me to praise”. Teach me that +highest, purest prayer which will be the incense rising for ever from +my heart when other prayer has ceased. + + * * * * * + +Fuller and richer every hour grows the heavenly harmony, as part after +part is taken up by the blessed choristers arriving from earth and +purgatory. But for whom are reserved the richest notes in the anthem +entoned with human voice by Christ Himself? Surely for those who have +practised that praise even here _in hac lacrymarum valle_. Whose +hearts have never been allowed even in exile to forget the tongue +of fatherland. Which have leaped up day by day in the _Gloria in +excelsis_ and the _Magnificat_, in the _Benedictus_ and +the _Te Deum_. Which have persisted in praise when the heart was +weighted heaviest, when doubt, repining, rebellion even, sought to +stifle its voice. They heard the call: “_Arise, give praise in the +night_”.[18] And answered: “_The Lord gave, and the Lord hath +taken away, as it hath pleased the Lord, so is it done: blessed be the +name of the Lord_”.[19] It is this praise in the night that sounds +sweetest in the ear of God. It is of these His faithful servants that +He says: “_They shall praise Me in the land of their captivity, and +shall be mindful of My name_”.[20] + +What wonder that their song shall be sweetest in the City of Peace; +that their voices shall mingle more intimately than the rest with hers +whose heart was singing _Ecce ancilla_, even in its agony, with +His Who having sung a hymn went forth to Calvary! + +[13] Luke ii. + +[14] Apoc. iv. + +[15] _Ibid._ v. + +[16] Heb. v. + +[17] Apoc. xxi. + +[18] Lament. ii. + +[19] Job i. + +[20] Baruch ii. + + + + +III. + +“POSSUMUS.” + + “Can you drink of the chalice that I drink of?”--“We + can.”--_Mark_ x. 38, 39. + + +Far back in the ages before the world was, “in the beginning,” I hear +the Eternal Father treating with His co-equal Son about my redemption:-- + +“Canst Thou for that soul and for its salvation go down from heaven and +be made man?” + +And the Divine Word answered: “_I can_”. + +“Canst Thou live a life of thirty-three years, toiling and teaching +and instituting Divine means for its salvation, and end that life of +hardship and suffering by a death of pain and shame?” + +“_I can._” + +“Canst Thou perpetuate that Incarnation and annihilation even to the +end of time; hiding Thyself under the form of bread in order to meet it +on its entrance into life, to be its companion, its refuge, its food +all the days of its pilgrimage?” + +“_I can._” + +“And when, O Lover of that soul, it shall meet Thy love, Thy advances, +Thy sacrifices as Thou knowest it _will_ meet them, canst Thou +bear with it still, supporting its coldness, its waywardness, its +indifference, its ingratitude?” + +And Jesus said, “_I can_”. + + * * * * * + +And now my Redeemer turns to question me in my turn:-- + +“Can you for the sake of your salvation co-operate with Me and turn +to your own profit all I have done and am ready to do for you, +resolving to avoid everything that would imperil the great work we have +undertaken--all grievous sin and all venial sin that leads to mortal?” + +What can I answer but, “O Lord, _I can_”? + +“Can you, as some return for My love, find it in your heart to avoid +not only sin, but the infidelities which impede My work in your soul, +obstruct My grace and hinder union between us?” + +What is my answer now? + +“Can you with the eye of faith see Me in My suffering members, the +poor, the sick, the outcast, the unprotected, the little helpless +children, and for My sake sacrifice leisure, or ease, or worldly means +to succour and serve them?” + +“Give me the faith, Lord, to recognise You in all these, and in the +strength of that faith, _I can_.” + +“Can you come after Me by taking up your cross daily, the cross I have +laid upon you to liken you to Myself?” + +“Yes, Lord, for beneath will be the everlasting arms. You will not +leave me alone, and with Your help, _I can_.” + +“Can you uphold My cause in the face of ridicule and disgrace, ready, +if not glad, to suffer reproach for My name?” + +“In Him Who strengtheneth me, Lord, _I can_.” + +“Can you bear to be overlooked, set at naught, despised by the world as +one at variance with its principles, as following another leader? Can +you bear the taunt: ‘And thou also wast with Jesus of Nazareth’?” + +“Look on me, Lord, in hours of trial as You looked on Peter, and +sustained by that glance, _I can_.” + +“Can you drink still deeper of My chalice--the chalice I drained for +you--bearing with constancy desolation of spirit and the hiding of the +Father’s Face, content to serve Him for Himself rather than for His +gifts?” + +“In union, O my Lord, with Your desolate soul on Calvary, _I +can_.” + + + + +IV. + +THE SON OF MAN. + + “I also have a heart as well as you.”--_Job_ xii. 3. + + +Our Lord does quite simply what some of us are too proud to do. He owns +to the yearning felt by every human heart for the sympathy of its kind. +He speaks plainly of His desire to share His joy and sorrows with His +friends, and is at no pains to conceal His need of their support, His +gratitude for their devotedness, His distress at their unfaithfulness +and desertion. “Father, I will that where I am, they also whom Thou +hast given Me may be with Me: that they may see My glory.”[21] “You are +they who have continued with Me in My temptations.”[22] “My soul is +sorrowful even unto death: stay you here, and watch with Me.... Could +you not watch one hour with Me?”[23] “The hour cometh ... that you +shall be scattered every man to his own, and shall leave Me alone.”[24] + +He comes to a weak woman for her compassion and her help. He asks her +to spread abroad among His friends the words in which He unburdened His +heart to her, and beg them to come and bear Him company in His life of +solitude and neglect. To each one of us He says from the tabernacle: +“Stay you here, and watch with Me.... Could you not watch one hour with +Me?” Or if not one hour, one quarter? + +_Stay with Me_ because I am going to offer My morning sacrifice, +and men are too busy to assist at the oblation of Myself for them. + +_Stay with Me_ for a few moments at midday, when the glare of +the world and its rush and its din are fiercest. Turn off the crowded +pavement into the quiet church. “Come apart ... and rest a little.”[25] + +_Stay with Me_ because it is towards evening and the day is now +far spent. There will be no more visitors for Me to-day, none through +the long hours of the night. Stay with Me because it is towards evening. + +O Lover of men, so lonely, so forsaken, if Your object in staying with +us day and night was to win our love, have You not failed? Has it +been worth Your while to work miracle after miracle to produce Your +Real Presence upon the altar? Have I made it worth Your while to be +there _for me_? Jesus, dear Jesus, I bury my face in my hands; +I know of no heart more ungrateful, more callous than my own. I have +been miserably unmindful of Your Presence here _for me_. I have +let self, pleasure, troubles even--anything and everything furnish an +excuse for keeping away from You and neglecting You in that sacramental +life which is lived here _for me_. + +[21] John xvii. + +[22] Luke xxii. + +[23] Matt. xxvi. + +[24] John xvi. + +[25] Mark vi. + + + + +V. + +WHAT THINGS? + + “Art Thou a stranger and hast not known the things that have been done + in these days?” To whom He said: “What things?”--_Luke_ xxiv. 18, + 19. + + +Some of us, maybe, are deterred from visiting our Lord in the Blessed +Sacrament by a false conception of what a visit should be. We suppose +that the occupations which fill our heads and our hands from morning +till night must all be laid aside at the church door and sternly +forbidden entrance, much in the same way as we bid our dog lie down in +the porch and wait for us. We read that St. Bernard thus dismissed all +secular thoughts, and we conclude--though his biographer does not say +so--that they returned at the end of his prayer, _and not before_. +Self-mastery such as this demands an effort to which few of us feel +equal. Do what they will, the mind of the doctor and the lawyer will +run more or less upon their anxious cases, the student’s head will be +full of his examination, the mother’s of her household cares. These +thoughts if indeliberate will be at least persistent, and if quite +deliberate will become sinful. In either case they render prayer an +impossibility--hence we stay away. + +Now do we find this view of prayer borne out by the practice of +God’s servants? Of David in perplexity and trouble we read: “And the +Philistines coming spread themselves in the valley of Raphaim. And +David consulted the Lord, saying: Shall I go up to the Philistines? and +wilt Thou deliver them into my hand? And the Lord said to David: Go up, +for I will surely deliver the Philistines into thy hand.... And the +Philistines came up again.... And David consulted the Lord: Shall I go +up against the Philistines?... He answered: Go not up against them.”[26] + +Of David in a mood of joy and thankfulness we are told: “And King David +came and sat before the Lord, and said: Who am I, O Lord God, that Thou +shouldst give such things to me?”[27] + +See, too, the simplicity and confidence of Ezechias on receiving the +threatening message of Sennacherib: “And Ezechias took the letter from +the hand of the messengers, and read it, and went up to the house of +the Lord, and spread it before the Lord”.[28] + +A common complaint is that daily worries and anxieties so invade our +minds that our prayer has no chance. But is this our feeling about a +talk with a trusty friend--a man of sound judgment, wide experience and +influence, on whose interest in all that concerns us we can count with +certainty? Should we say: “I had half an hour with him this morning, +but my mind was so full of that affair I could find nothing to say”; +or: “I had it all out with him this morning, and am ever so much better +already”? + +Why not deal thus familiarly with our best Friend? If Ezechias could +spread out his letter before the Lord in that old Temple, which was but +a shadow of the better things to come, why may not we carry our good +news and our bad before the pitying human Heart of Christ, with us all +days on purpose to hear every day, and, if we will, every hour of the +day, all we have to tell Him, and hearing all, to help in all? + +Had our Lord said to us: “I will prosper any spiritual concerns that +you commend to Me, but really you must look after your own temporal +affairs, and I shall count it an irreverence if you bring such things +into My presence”--had He said this, there might be some excuse for the +pains we take to shut Him out of the cares and business of everyday +life. + +But has He said this, or does all we know of Him go to prove the exact +contrary? Did He count it an irreverence when the sick were thrust upon +Him at every step; when a paralytic let down from the roof and laid at +His feet stopped His teaching; when messengers came one upon another +to draw Him here and there for some temporal need: “Lord, he whom Thou +lovest is sick”;[29] “Lord, come down before that my son die”?[30] +Did He refuse the invitation at Cana? And if for a brief space He +delayed the miracle designed from all eternity to manifest His tender +interest in the joys as well as in the sorrows of home life, was it +not obviously to show how Mary’s heart beat in unison with His, and to +honour His Mother’s prayer? + +“Lord, come and see,” said the weeping sisters as they led the way to +the grave. Look at Him between them, listening now to one, now to the +other, as they tell the history of the past three days--how they had +watched and waited for Him, and counted on His coming, and He came not. +See their tearful eyes. See the eager Heart, longing for the moment +when He may reward their trust and turn their mourning into gladness. + +What should we have felt and said that day at Bethany if, after raising +Lazarus, He had turned to us and made Himself our listener, placing +Himself, as was His wont, at the complete disposal of the one who +wanted Him? Should we have felt shy of trying to interest Him in the +details of our life, in our little joys and troubles? Or would our +hearts have opened out to Him, and simply emptied themselves in His +presence? + +Do we want an ideal visit to Christ? Let us seek it in Nicodemus’ +talks by night; in the centurion’s urgent pleading for his servant; in +the unburdening of soul that we see in Zaccheus and in the sisters at +Bethany. And let us frame our own visits on such models. If a big worry +threatens to invade prayer, why not take it straight away into prayer, +giving it the place and time it wants, making it the subject-matter of +our intercourse with God, and so turning a hindrance into a help! + +Of course we must do all this with reverence and a certain amount of +watchfulness, or our prayer will be no prayer at all, but distraction +pure and simple. But if we put our case before our Lord and talk +it over with Him, representing our difficulty, asking His advice, +listening to His whispered word in answer, our time of prayer will be +what He wants it to be--a time of rest, and light, and strength. + +Some may say that this so-called prayer is very unsupernatural, and +that the results of such a compromise between prayer and distraction +will not be very satisfactory. It may be so; we can only reply that +there are times without number when this is the only method of getting +results at all, and that our Lord’s method of dealing with His own and +theirs with Him was _eminently natural_. + +No, surely, our difficulty is not due to want of sympathy on the part +of Christ our Lord. It can only come from our failing to recognise the +full purpose of the Incarnation and its bearing on every detail of +human life. Had His act of Redemption been His one motive in coming +amongst us, He might have come straight from His throne at the right +hand of the Father to the cross on Calvary. But the proof of love +greater than which no man can give did not satisfy Him. He wanted as +“First-born amongst many brethren,”[31] as Head of the human family, +to place Himself in intimate communication with it on every side, to +touch as far as might be every point, every experience of human life, +entering personally into its mysteries of joy, and fear, and love, and +sorrow. And so we have the years of infancy and childhood and youth, +and--precious above all--the blessed years of the public life, when +“the Lord Jesus came in and went out among us,”[32] proving by every +word and act His desire to be associated with us His brethren, His +right to His name of predilection--_the Son of Man_. + +He it is Whom we find waiting for us when our turn comes to pass across +the short stage of life on earth. He calls us to Him, calls us by our +name, one by one. He bids us take Him to our hearts as the nearest and +dearest of our friends, Who alone can stand by us when all others fail. +He bids us cultivate His friendship, and try it and prove it. And He +promises that we shall find Him what all have found Him who have put +their trust in Him--what Martha and Mary, and Paul and Bernard, and +Teresa and Margaret Mary have found Him--the “Faithful and True,”[33] +“Jesus Christ yesterday, and to-day: and the same for ever.”[34] + +[26] 2 Kings v. + +[27] 1 Par. xvii. + +[28] Isa. xxxvii. + +[29] John xi. + +[30] _Ibid._ iv. + +[31] Rom. viii. + +[32] Acts i. + +[33] Apoc. xix. + +[34] Heb. xiii. + + + + +VI. + +VENITE AD ME OMNES. + + --_Matt._ xi. 28. + + + “Come to Me, heavy-laden ones, come all!” + I hear, I rise, I hasten at His call; + ’Neath burden bent, across the threshold steal, + The curtain lift, and in His Presence kneel: + There loose my load--and wide, + With none to check nor chide, + Scattering, a sorry sight, on every side, + + They fall--pains, troubles, cares--lying, how meet, + About the weary, way-worn, wounded Feet; + Under the Eye of yore bedimmed with tears, + The Heart Gethsemane oppressed with fears, + The Heart that sore afraid + Strong supplication made, + And with a sweat of blood the Father prayed. + + Beneath His glance, as snow ’neath sunny ray, + Some of my cares dissolve and melt away, + And some He takes and smoothes a little space + The less to chafe, and lays again in place. + ’Tis mystery to me + How some He smiles to see, + And how on some His tears fall tenderly. + + One I hold up to Him, and pleading pray, + “This, Lord, just this, in pity take away!” + And ever comes His word with cheering smile: + “A little longer, trust Me yet awhile; + Each pang of keen distress, + Each prayer, I mark and bless, + Each in its hour shall show forth fruitfulness”. + + _That_, my life’s woe, against a bleeding Side + Is pressed, and lo! transfigured, glorified, + It glows as crystal flushed with rosy ray. + “O gem unprized! Restore it, Lord, I pray; + As costly gift from Thee + Dear shall it be to me”; + And in my heart I hide it lovingly. + + A lightened load He lays on me, all sweet + With words of love--and thus I leave His Feet, + With steadier step to plod on day by day, + With stouter heart to climb the upward way; + And when anew life’s strain + Frets me with weary pain, + I take my load and go to Him again. + + + + +VII. + +THE HIDDEN GOD. + + Vere Tu es Deus absconditus!--_Isaias_ xlv. 15. + + +There is no use denying that with the exception of rare intervals, +our intercourse with God in this life is more or less laborious and +difficult. This is only saying that Heaven is not yet come. Faith was +meant to be a trial, and a trial it certainly is. The evidence of sense +is against us; the levity of imagination is against us; the inconstancy +of our desires and of our will is against us when we kneel down to pray. + +“Behold He standeth behind our wall.”[35] We know He is there, close +as the priest in the confessional, with attention to every word we +say. Yet, for all that, the words and the confidences come slowly. It +is hard to prolong a conversation that is all on one side, and this, +so it seems to us, is the case in prayer. Useless to tell us that our +faith is at fault. That in the presence of the Pope, or the King, we +should be all attention. Where the conditions are so different, there +can be no parallel. The voice, the look, the question and answer, the +surroundings--all these are wanting. Such admonitions irritate us by +their injustice, and we look away wearily for help elsewhere. But +where to look? We cannot alter the present state of things or fix our +wandering thoughts and unstable heart. No, but we can accept all things +as they are in truth, and in the truth find a remedy. + +“Behold He standeth behind our wall.” But the barrier between us is +not a drawback, an obstacle to union with Him--inseparable indeed +from the present condition of things--yet an obstacle for all that. +It is distinctly willed by Him as a necessary part of our trial, a +wholesome discipline, a purification of love. It has in it all the +privileges, advantages, blessings, that in this life belong to pain, +and can be won by pain alone. It is a present blessing as well as a +pledge of blessing to come. “Blessed _are_ they that have not +seen and have believed.”[36] It is a pledge of that full clear vision, +“reserved in heaven for you, who, by the power of God, are kept by +faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. Wherein +you shall greatly rejoice, if now for a little time you must be made +sorrowful.... That the trial of your faith (much more precious than +gold tried by the fire) may be found unto praise and glory and honour +at the appearing of Jesus Christ: Whom having not seen you love; in +Whom also now, though you see Him not, you believe, and believing shall +rejoice with joy unspeakable.”[37] + +“We see now in a dark manner: but then face to face.”[38] “I shall +see Him, but not now.”[39] How will that face to face vision be the +brighter and the sweeter for the dimness now! How will the joy of that +moment when we part for ever with faith be intensified by what faith +has cost us in the past! + + O days and hours, your work is this, + To hold me from my proper place, + A little while from His embrace, + For fuller gain of after bliss. + That out of distance might ensue + Desire of nearness doubly sweet, + And unto meeting when we meet, + Delight a hundredfold accrue. + + --_In Memoriam_ + +[35] Cant. ii. + +[36] John xx. + +[37] 1 Peter i. + +[38] 1 Cor. xiii. + +[39] Numbers xxiv. + + + + +VIII. + +LOOKING THROUGH THE LATTICES. + + --_Cant._ ii. 9. + + +But meanwhile the Beloved _is_ behind the wall. And He is there +with all the sympathy for our difficulty which His perfect knowledge +of it enables Him to have. “Jesus ... needed not that any man should +tell Him ... for He knew what was in man.”[40] He knows the weariness +of praying on against apparently unanswered prayer; against the pain +of physical restlessness, the labour of thought, the irksomeness of +concentration, the perpetual gathering together of the forces that are +playing truant in a thousand fields, recalled for a brief space only +to be off again more wayward for their capture. All this He knows. +And our remedy is to remember that He knows it. He Who has appointed +prayer to be the channel of grace, means such prayer as we can bring +Him. He does not ask impossibilities. He does not place us amid +distracting work all day long and expect us to shut it out by an effort +of will the moment we kneel down to pray. Nor even to shut it out by +repeated efforts. He would have us turn our distractions and weariness +not so much into matter for self-reproach, or humiliation even, as into +a loving, trustful plea for His pity and His help. This is prayer. Lay +the tired brain, the strained muscles, the aching head--lay them all +down at His feet without a word, just for His eye to rest on and His +Heart to help and heal. + +There are times when physical lassitude, cold or heat, an importunate +thought, a trial with its sting still fresh, baffles every effort to +fix the mind on the subject of prayer, and concentrates the whole +attention on what for the moment is all-absorbing. Times harder still +to manage, when mind and heart are so absolutely vacant and callous +that there is no rousing them to action. This reflection will sometimes +be helpful then--What should I have to say were I in the presence of +the one I love best in the world; with whom I am quite at my ease; +my friend _par excellence_; to whom my trials, difficulties, +character, the secrets of my soul are known; that one in whose concerns +and welfare I take the deepest interest; whose plans and views are +mine, discussed again and again together; in whose company time flies +and the hour for parting comes too soon--what should I find to say? + +Say it, make an effort to say it to Him Who is in the tabernacle yonder. + +O Jesus, hidden God, more friendly than a brother,[41] I believe most +firmly that You are present, a few feet only from where I kneel. You +are behind that little wall, listening for every word of confidence, +and love, and thanksgiving, and praise. Listening when my heart is +free to pour itself out to You as the brook to the river in the days +of spring. Listening more tenderly when the stream is ice-bound; when +I kneel before You troubled, wearied, anxious about many things, about +many souls perhaps, yet dry and hard, without a word to say. Make my +heart so perfectly at ease with You, O Lord, that it may be able to +turn to You even in its coldness and inertness; to confide to You +naturally all that most intimately concerns it; to be content with +this, when discontented with all else, with self most of all--that You +know all men and need not that any should give testimony of man, for +You know what is in man.[42] + +[40] John ii. + +[41] Prov. xviii. + +[42] John ii. + + + + +IX. + +LORD, COME AND SEE! + + --_John_ xi. 34. + + + Come to my heart as unto Bethl’hem’s grot, + A hovel-home that love despises not: + Can love transform it to a pleasant spot? + Lord, come and see! + + Come to my heart as once to Bethany: + A brother’s grave is there, and piteously + Are tears and supplication calling Thee: + Lord, come and see! + + How flocked of yore unto Thy blessed feet + The sick, the sad, Thy mercy to entreat! + I too have needs Thy pitying eye to meet: + Lord, come and see! + + Come, lay Thy hand upon each leprous stain; + Come with Thy word of might the fiend to chain; + The open festering sore, the hidden pain, + Lord, come and see! + + Come to my heart, this dull cold heart of mine, + All irresponsive to a love divine; + What lacks it to become Thy hallowed shrine? + Lord, come and see! + + Happier by far than in the olden days + Judea’s glorious Temple--what delays + Its song and sacrifice, its prayer and praise? + Lord, come and see! + + Perchance, like Temple Courts, doth sinful stain, + The world’s loud trafficking, the greed of gain + Thy Father’s house, the house of prayer profane: + Lord, come and see! + + Come, Holy One, I yield myself to Thee; + E’en scourge in hand, come, Lord and Love, to me. + What change shall make me Thine, Thine utterly? + Lord, come and see! + + + + +X. + +NEGLECT. + + He came unto His own, and His own received Him not.--_John_ i. 11. + + +How strange it seems, O Lord! For You had been promised so long. You +had been so ardently desired by the best and noblest of our race; so +gloriously prefigured, so set forth in prophecy, as to awaken the +keenest expectation and enkindle the most glowing love. How was it, +then, that Your own received You not? How is it that even now You come +unto Your own and are not welcomed, are not wanted, are left alone, not +through the night only--that perhaps were to be expected--but through +the long day hours, with Your so-called friends, and the weary and the +heavy-laden within a stone’s throw of Your door? Ah, Lord, the outrage +and the sacrilege that mark the hatred of Your enemies are less to be +wondered at, less to be deplored, than the coldness of those You call +Your own. You are not given to complain. But when along the ages a meek +remonstrance does break upon the silence, it is always the same--the +protest wrung from You by the desertion of those You love. “_Behold +... my familiar friends also are departed from me.... My brethren have +passed by me._”[43] “_Do you now believe? Behold ... you shall +be scattered every man to his own, and shall leave Me alone._”[44] +How Your Heart felt the desolation of abandonment; how, to speak human +language, You feel it still, You made known in that cry of unrequited +love, “Behold this Heart which has so loved men and is so little loved +by them”. + + * * * * * + +Who would have thought that God could upbraid so tenderly, or that men +could hear such reproach without being touched and won! If not to make +great sacrifices for Him, if not to give up all, at least to go a few +steps in order to keep Him company in His loneliness, and sympathise +with Him in His sorrows--surely He might have looked for this! + +Dearest Lord, one would have expected You to be in such request upon +the altar, expected that there would be crowding and crushing in Your +presence as in the days of Your earthly life; that we should be seen +flocking to You early and late, to show our appreciation of Your love, +and to pour out our troubles into Your willing ear. Where is our faith +to leave You thus deserted? “Do you believe? Behold you shall be +scattered every one to his own, and shall leave Me alone.” + + * * * * * + +_He came unto His own_--that is, He comes as far as He can--from +heaven to the Host, and down to the altar rails. Further He cannot +come. The rest of the way must be ours. We must meet Him there in +Holy Communion, or His loving journey to us will have been in vain. +He will not force our free will. But He does so want to come. Shall we +disappoint Him? Oh, if our own love will not draw us to Him, at least +let us have compassion on His! If we think ourselves at liberty to +deprive ourselves of our communions, surely we are not free to deprive +Him of His. + +You long, O Lover of my soul, to come to me. Your delights are to be +with me, cold, inhospitable as I am. Come, then; come, Lord Jesus, and +in satisfying Your own desire, enkindle mine. + +[43] Job vi. + +[44] John xvi. + + + + +XI. + +FAITH. + + Sola fides sufficit! + + +What mainly hinders the freedom and happiness of our intercourse with +Christ our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament is the account we make _of +feelings_. In spite of all that can be said to us, we persist in +applying this untrustworthy test to our relations with God, the result +being discouragement and all its evil consequences. + +Feelings are wayward children, all the more refractory often for +blandishments and coaxing. Our wisest plan is not to notice them +overmuch; to be glad certainly when they show themselves friendly, and +when they are unpropitious to let them alone. + +Feelings we may dispense with, but faith never. Faith we must follow, +lean upon, cling to, with all the more tenacity as the days draw on +of which our Lord said: “The Son of man when He cometh, shall He find, +think you, faith on earth?”[45] With the vehemence that will take no +refusal we must constrain her, saying: “Stay with us, because it is +towards evening”.[46] Where faith enters and takes full possession, all +good things enter with her. We need not go about to seek anxiously for +anything else: _Sola fides sufficit!_ + + * * * * * + +Give me, my God, a deep and lively faith in all Your Holy Spirit has +revealed and Your Church teaches. Give me this one thing necessary, and +it is enough for me. _Sola fides sufficit!_ The faith I ask is a +living faith that must needs prove its vitality by good works. Give +me the faith that lit up the lives of Your saints. Strengthen my hold +on all revealed truth. But give me above all an intense, ever-growing +realisation of the mystery of the altar, the central Mystery of our +faith. + +Realised by me as it was by Your saints, what a change that Presence +would make in my life! Mind, heart, imagination, will, views, aims, +desires directed to it, absorbed by it--O Jesus, what a transformation +this would be! _Sola fides sufficit!_ Lord, increase my faith! + + Thou Who of old didst love Thy hand to lay + On the dull, vacant eyes that craved for light, + Behold, I come to Thee, and crying, pray: + O Christ, O Son of David, give me sight! + A faith scarce clouded by the mists of earth, + A faith that pierceth heaven I ask of Thee, + Faith to prize all things by their lasting worth: + Thou canst, Thou wilt--O Lord, that I may see! + +If we would think more about arousing our faith than exciting our +feelings, would not our visits and our communions be the gainers? And +would not the affections of the heart often follow the lead of faith? A +few minutes spent in trying to bring home to ourselves that He Who is +really present a few yards from where we sit or kneel is the world’s +long-promised Messiah, Whose advent kings and prophets desired to see; +Whom in His own time all men desired to see and hear; He at Whose feet +Mary sat at Bethany, unmindful of all but that Face and that Voice; He +Whose words--“Peace be still,” “Thy brother shall rise again,” “Go, +and now sin no more”--brought hope and joy to the troubled heart; He +Who fell on His Face under the olive trees, crushed to the earth by my +sins; Who died with the thought and the love of me in His Heart that +Good Friday long ago; Who is to come again in the eastern sky where +every eye shall see Him--a few minutes of earnest dwelling on thoughts +such as these will rouse in our souls faith and hope and charity, will +kindle humility, sorrow, gratitude, desire--for fuel is furnished for +the fire. + +“Lord, I believe, help Thou my unbelief.” I believe that beneath Your +humble veils You are here truly present, O hidden God! I believe the +day draws near when You will be the hidden God no more; when I shall +see You coming in the clouds of heaven with great power and majesty, +all nature trembling at Your approach; whilst the elect lift up their +heads because their redemption is at hand. + +O Judge of the living and the dead, in that awful day remember me! +Remember me when You come to gather Your own into Your kingdom! +Remember, I beseech You, in that second coming, how often I have +welcomed You at Your hidden coming, and let my heart welcome and leap +up to meet You then. + + Jesu, quem velatum nunc aspicio, + Oro, fiat illud, quod tam sitio, + Ut, Te revelata cernens facie, + Visu sim beatus Tuae gloriae. + + O Jesu, Whom by faith I now descry + Shrouded from mortal eye; + When wilt Thou slake the thirsting of my heart + To see Thee as Thou art, + Face unto face in all Thy glad array, + ’Tranced with the glory of that everlasting day. + + --G. T. + +[45] Luke xviii. + +[46] _Ibid._ xxiv. + + + + +XII. + +AFTER A DEFEAT. + + Let not this thing discourage thee, for various is the event of + war.--2 _Kings_ xi. 25. + + +The cheery words You have for me, O Lord and Leader, when downcast and +troubled I come to tell You of another reverse to our arms! Truly Your +ways are not our ways. With us results are everything. A general may do +his best, take every precaution, be skilful in preparation, and brave +in action. Yet repeated mishaps will beget mistrust, and he will find +himself superseded in command. It must be so. But it is not Your way +with us. + +I have not done my best. I have been careless in preparation, and weak +and cowardly in action. Yet You have nothing but encouragement for +me after a rout. No reproach, no withdrawal of confidence: “Fight +like a good soldier; and if sometimes thou fall through frailty, rise +up again with greater strength than before, confiding in My more +abundant grace”.[47] At my first call for help reinforcements are sent +to the front, not _less_, by reason of my unfaithfulness, but +_more_, because of my need. And if I am superseded in command, it +is only by Your coming Yourself on to the field, and so strengthening +my hands, that all must give way before us. + +I am sorry, O my Chief, for the dishonour to Your name and the loss +to Your cause through my fault. But I do not despond. I may fail in +everything else, but in trust I will never fail. If I am overthrown +seventy-seven times in the day, I will return to the charge as often, +my resolution the same, my confidence the same as at first. These +perpetual beginnings are painful, weary work, but Your patience, Lord, +will never fail: neither shall my goodwill. I know that the struggle +itself brings You glory. I know that if I keep up the struggle to the +end, You will meet me when the time of trial is over with the welcome +word: “_Well done!_” + + Fearful of self, with sore temptation pressing, + I hasten, God of armies, unto Thee, + My every power, my every sense confessing + Its insufficiency. + Taught by the past there is no help in me, + I cast myself on Thee. + + This is not hard. But false in face of Heaven, + To turn with trusting heart again to Thee, + Not once, not twice, but seventy times seven, + In brave humility: + When smarting self would hide its misery, + To cast myself on Thee-- + + Lord, _this is hard_. Thine eye alone can measure + The weary pain of each relapse to me: + Yet fraught with grace, all stored with hidden treasure, + Is my infirmity; + Strongest of pleas, the creature’s frailty, + That casts it upon Thee. + +[47] Imit. of Christ, iii. 6. + + + + +XIII. + +AFTER A VICTORY. + + Thanks be to God, Who hath given us the victory through our Lord Jesus + Christ.--1 _Cor._ xv. 57. + + +So often, dear Lord, so very often I come to You with my defeats, that +it is a refreshment to have something more cheering to offer to Your +Sacred Heart. + + * * * * * + +_Thanks be to God_--It was Your grace, my God, throughout--before, +accompanying, crowning--my share just the co-operation that did not +reject the help You gave. + +_Who hath given us_--given _me_, so weak, so cowardly, so +little to be depended on in moments of trouble and conflict; _me_, +such a disgrace to the colours often, such a sorry soldier at best-- + +_The victory_--nothing much for anyone else, but something of a +triumph, dear Lord, for me. Our small successes are not accounted small +by You, O generous Leader. You welcome all, are proud of all, lay up +reward and praise for all against the day of reward. + +_Through our Lord Jesus Christ_, by Whom, with Whom, in Whom we +overcome. We can do all things in Him Who strengthens us. _Jesu, Tibi +sit gloria!_ Thanks be to God, Who has given us the victory through +our Lord Jesus Christ. + + + + +XIV. + +A DIVINE FRIEND. + + The woman ... came and fell down before Him, and told Him all the + truth.--_Mark_ v. 33. + + +_The whole truth._ Only to one Friend can we tell that. Only +one friendship could bear the strain of that revelation. The very +exigencies of other friendships call for restraint. Can we own to want +of confidence, to utter coldness and callousness, to a want of sympathy +in joys and sorrows that move to its depths the heart of our friend? +Could the most self-forgetting of human friendships bear up against +avowals such as these? + +No; we must draw the line here unless we want the free flowing waters +gradually to freeze into a glacier. Owning to mistrust will hardly be +accepted as a mark of trust, nor will the acknowledgment of coldness +beget love. Poor affection of these human hearts of ours!--jealous +and suspicious at the least show of reticence, yet unable to bear the +disclosures of unreserve. We cannot be hard upon a weakness common +to us all, but we long for a heart human like our own, yet strong +enough to support the weight of all we would put upon it. Nor are +we disappointed. Here in the tabernacle is what we seek. Here is a +Heart waiting for all, ready for all. Here we may unbosom ourselves +completely. Here we may tell _the whole truth_. Narrowness and +fickleness, heartlessness, mistrust, selfishness--ingratitude even, we +may tell. We may trust all to this Beloved without fear. For He knows +what is in man. No revelation will surprise Him, no misery disgust +Him. He will welcome each painful avowal with the tenderest sympathy, +and take all we tell Him as tokens of trust for which He is infinitely +obliged to us. + + + + +XV. + +AN EVENING VISIT. + + Stay with us, because it is towards evening.--_Luke_ xxiv. 29. + + +It is at night especially that the shepherd looks well to his sheep. +Good Shepherd, I gather round You to-night the sheep of Your world-wide +flock and commit them to Your keeping. Wherever they are to be found, +there are You in the midst of them. In crowded cities--the guardian +of the multitudes sleeping around You on every side. In the one spot +of the quiet village where a light will burn to-night--the Keeper +of the simple souls around You there. In many a hut the wide world +over--content among savage tribes to share the poor shelter of Your +priest. Everywhere warding off the prowling wolf and the evil that +walketh in the dark.[48] With us not only all days, but all nights +unto the end of time. + +_Stay with us_, Lord, to-night. Stay to adore, and praise, and +give thanks for us whilst we sleep; to draw down mercy and grace upon +the world; to succour from earth’s tabernacles the holy suffering souls +in purgatory in their long night of weary pain. + +_Stay with us_, to ward off the anger of God from our crowded +cities with their dens of vice, their crimes that call to Heaven for +vengeance. + +_Stay with us_, to guard the innocent, to sustain the tempted, to +raise the fallen, to curb the power of the evil one, to prevent sin. + +_Stay with us_, to comfort the sorrowing, to bless the death-beds, +to grant contrition to the dying, to receive into the arms of Your +mercy the thousands that this night must come before You for judgment. +O Good Shepherd, stay with Your sheep! Secure them against the perils +that beset them. Stay, above all, with the suffering and the dying. +“Grant us a quiet night and a perfect end.” Be our merciful Shepherd to +the last, that without fear we may appear before You as our Judge. + +_Stay with us, Lord, to-night._ More favoured than the camp of +Israel slumbering under the guardianship of the pillar of fire, we +sleep with the Presence of God Incarnate shielding us on every side. +Well may we say: “In peace, in the self same, I will sleep and I will +rest”. + + * * * * * + +“Vouchsafe, O Lord, this night to keep us without sin.” + +I map out the whole world into districts, and place each under the +jurisdiction of the nearest tabernacle. From that centre let the +radiance of the Divine protection go forth to every soul within its +circuit, enlightening, guarding--above all, strengthening against sin. +O Lord, from every tabernacle send forth to-night a strong efficacious +grace, to stop not one but a thousand sins. Because we have made the +Most High our refuge,[49] let no evil come near to hurt us. “Save us, O +Lord, waking, and keep us while we sleep, that we may watch with Christ +and rest in peace.” + +[48] Psa. xc. + +[49] Psa. xc. + + + + +XVI. + +PRIVILEGED. + + My lots are in Thy hands.--_Psa._ xxx. 15. + + +Suppose, my God, You had told us that as we know the worth of our soul, +You were going to trust us with the choice of the means by which its +salvation is to be worked out; You were going to put before us riches +and poverty, sickness and health, success and failure, a long life and +a short one, and we might take which seemed best for us. Should we be +content? Should we not say, if we were wise: “My God, do not trust this +to me. I shall choose, I know I shall, what I like, not what is best +for me.” + +And suppose You were to tell us there were souls to whom You would +not entrust such a decision. Either they were too weak, or You were +so anxious to save them that You had left the choice of means, not +to themselves, but to those who love them better than they love +themselves, and who would choose for them more wisely--to their +guardian angel, to their patron saint, even to the Seat of Wisdom +herself--and if we wished You would let us be one of those favoured +souls. Should we be content then? Or should we say: “My God, forgive +me for being mistrustful still. I know my guardian angel and my holy +patrons, and most of all my Mother Mary, love me dearly and would +do their best for me.” But their wisdom after all is not infinite. +They might make a mistake, and that mistake might mean the loss of +_everything_ to me. I cannot afford any risk here. My soul is my +only one; I must save it whatever happens. I dare not keep it in my +own hands, and I dare not trust it even to the highest and holiest and +wisest of those around Your throne. + +And suppose once again You were to say to us: “There are a few, a +very few, whose salvation is so dear to Me that I will trust the +choice of means to no one. I will plan and arrange all Myself. Nothing +shall happen to them but what has been foreseen and prepared from all +eternity by My Infinite Wisdom and Goodness. No one shall touch them; +no joy nor sorrow shall come in their way--no, nor a hair of their head +fall to the ground without My knowledge and permission.” Should we not +cry out: “My God--I hardly dare to ask it; but, oh, that I might be one +of that happy chosen few, for surely they are safe!” + +You check me by a warning: “These souls will not have all their own way +in life. Their road will sometimes be hard and rugged. They will see +things prosper in the hands of others and fail in theirs. They will +be hardly used by those around them--misjudged, set aside, unjustly +treated; life to many of them will be uphill work.” Do I draw back now, +or do I cry out again: “No matter that, oh, no matter that at all! +What will they care when they know Your arm is round them as they go +uphill; Your hand sends the cross and the failure and the pain! No, my +God, that does not frighten me. Let me only be one of those whose lot +is altogether in Your hands, and I will fear nothing; I will complain +of nothing; nay, I will be grateful for all that comes to me. I will +kiss Your hand even when You strike me. I shall feel peaceful and happy +always in the thought that it is the wisdom of my God that orders all +for me, and the love of my heavenly Father that provides everything to +help me. Let me be one of those chosen ones, and You will see how I +value my privilege, how I prize whatever You send.” + + * * * * * + +_Suppose_--I have been saying. But this is no supposition. I am +that privileged one whose life in its minutest details is Your ordering +and Your care. How can I complain, my God! How can I be mistrustful or +even anxious--“My lots are in Thy hands”. + + + + +XVII. + +THE IMPROVIDENCE OF LOVE. + + My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways My ways, saith the + Lord.--_Isa._ lv. 8. + + +How often I kneel here before the tabernacle and make my genuflection +and my act of faith without realising in the very least what I believe, +what I adore. How little I heed that where I stand is holy ground. That +a few paces from me lies the most mysterious of all mysteries, “the +mystery of faith,” the mystery of love--love that with infinite wisdom +and infinite power at its service has here reached its limits, has +found bounds which God Himself cannot overpass. + +And yet _is_ the Eucharist after all the greatest of mysteries? +Has it not its source in a deeper mystery still? Is anything wonderful +after the Incarnation? Does not the marvel of God made Man outstrip all +other marvels? If the Creator out of love for man must needs annihilate +Himself so far as to assume a created nature, where will such love +stop? Into what further extravagances of love will it not be betrayed? + +But how was it, my God, that Your infinite wisdom did not fear the +consequences of such prodigality; did not remember who those are with +whom You have to deal; did not consider that too great lavishness +blunts the edge of our appreciation and our gratitude? Had You taken +counsel of us, O loving Lord, we should have bid You in the very +interests of love not to overdo its manifestation, not to make Yourself +too easy of access, lest familiarity should endanger reverence. Daily +Communion; the easy, easy conditions on which You come to us; the +tarrying day and night in every church throughout the world--this we +should have said would bring about a contempt of these sacred mysteries +and deprive You of the love which is the end of their institution. +You would have had to own to the justice of our remonstrance, to +acknowledge that such fears were well grounded. It was not safe to ask +counsel--except of Your own Heart. “Who hath known the mind of the +Lord? and who hath been His counsellor?”[50] Only His Heart. O Sacred +Heart, how sadly You have laid Him open to every sort of indignity--to +indifference, coldness, outrage, sacrilege. Yet, in spite of all, this +Gift of God is without repentance,[51] “for My thoughts are not your +thoughts, nor your ways My ways, saith the Lord”. + +[50] Isa. xl. + +[51] Rom. xi. + + + + +XVIII. + +CHANGES. + + Behold, I make all things new!--_Apoc._ xxi. 5. + + +How easily changes come about under Your hand, O Lord! Noiselessly, +almost unnoticed, every hour of the day and night, all the world over, +the most stupendous change is taking place--the change of the lowly +substance of bread into Your Sacred Body, of wine into Your Precious +Blood. + +So is it in the world of souls. The most marvellous transformations +cost You but a word. _Follow Me!_ And instantly apostle after +apostle leaves all and follows You--mind, heart, views, ambitions, +the whole aspect of life changed. _Saul, Saul, why persecutest +thou Me?_ And he who had “beyond measure persecuted the Church of +God”[52] rises to his feet ready to carry the name of Jesus “before +the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel”.[53] + +With a word You can change _me_. The apathy for spiritual things +would go--the dulness of sight, the slowness of heart, the low aims, +the weak desires, the feebleness in the conflict with self, the +niggardliness in Your service--all these would go. You could draw +me within Your attraction; You could make me follow You, not simply +through duty or interest, but with the quick step of one to whom Your +service is the absorbing interest of life. You could make Yourself so +much the need of my soul that it would turn to You as the flowers to +the sun for warmth and colour, for growth, for beauty, for its very +life. With a word You could work a change such as this. And what is +there to hinder it? You are there in the tabernacle, O Sun of Justice, +near enough to warm me through and through with Your heat; and oh, how +often, did I only desire it, You would come still nearer, entering my +very heart to make it live by You! + +Say the word that You desire to say more than I to hear. Speak, Lord, +for Thy servant heareth. Say the transforming word each morning over my +heart when You stand at the altar and say it over the bread and wine. +Say the word that will change the lowliest, the vilest thing of earth +_into Yourself_. See my heart, see the hearts of all I love upon +the paten, awaiting there Your creative word. Change them from what +they are to what You would have them be. + +[52] Gal. i. + +[53] Acts ix. + + + + +XIX. + +I HAVE SOMEWHAT TO SAY TO THEE. + + --_Luke_ vii. 40. + + + A word to me? a word for me apart + No other ear to hearken--heart to heart? + A word Thy hidden pleasure to impart? + O Master, say it! + + Is it a word of love, entreating mine-- + Poor recompense indeed for love divine, + Yet precious to that human Heart of Thine? + Dear Master, say it! + + A word of blame? Lord, I deserve it--nay, + No word of Thine can I deserve--yet may + I know what chiding love would have Thee say? + O Master, say it! + + A word to cast aside my craven fears, + And bravely bear the cross these many years + Dragged after Thee with protest and with tears? + O Master, say it! + + Perchance a dreaded word, not once or twice, + But often suing for a gift of price; + Can I invite that call to sacrifice? + Yes, Master, say it! + + A word from Thee the rightful course will trace, + A word from Thee the shrinking spirit brace, + A word from Thee bestow all needful grace, + O Master, say it! + + No word of Thine but gives before it takes, + And taking, generous compensation makes, + And effort asking, energy awakes, + O Master, say it! + + A warning maybe--frighted love’s disguise, + How stern soe’er in seeming, kindly wise, + Unveiling danger to unwary eyes? + O Master, say it! + + Thy voice is ever music to mine ear, + Silence alone o’erwhelms my soul with fear + Say all, say freely what I crave to hear, + O Master, say it! + + One tender word to Thomas brought belief, + One pitying word, a kingdom to a thief, + One only word would bring my soul relief, + O Master, say it! + + New shape would aims, desires, affections take, + New power of sacrifice within me wake, + New need of toil and suffering for Thy sake, + O Master, say it! + + One word, I know, Thou hast for me--a word + In the still hours of prayer how often heard, + Not long, perchance, its welcome sound deferred, + O Master, say it! + + Word life’s incessant prayer must wrest from Thee; + Word holding my eternal destiny, + Word I must hear or perish utterly, + O Master, say it! + + When past my little day of time and grace, + Lone in another world I seek my place, + And trembling fall before Thy unveiled Face, + Dear Master, say it! + + _Come!_--blest recall from exile’s weary years, + Rest from the awful strife ’twixt hopes and fears, + Sweet word of welcome after toil and tears, + O Master, say it! + + Though silent now, keep Thou that word in store, + The word to make me Thine for evermore; + By all Thy loving-kindness, I implore, + Dear Master, say it! + + + + +XX. + +A DIVINE PLAINT. + + My people have done two evils. They have forsaken Me, the fountain of + living water, and have digged to themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, + that can hold no water.--_Jer._ ii. 13. + + +What heart so hard but could find a motive for contrition in this +tender reproach! No question here of the Divine majesty outraged, the +Divine rights infringed. The harm _to ourselves_--this is the evil +we have done by forsaking God. And He stands sadly by, watching our +futile efforts to fill with earth’s sorry pleasures the hearts created +for Himself. + +The plaint is echoed by the Incarnate Son. “_You will not come to +Me that you may have life._”[54] And echoed not once, nor from +Jerusalem only, but through all time and from the countless tabernacles +where the Eucharistic Life is being lived for us. How is it that +that cry does not arrest us as we go heedlessly on our way? What a +difference it would make to our round of daily toil and worries and +anxieties if we carried away oftener from the altar the Life Who is +waiting there to give Himself to us. He would not encroach upon our +time. He is the most considerate of guests, and knows we are no more +able to lay aside our domestic cares than was His own blessed Mother +in her little cave-home at Nazareth. He would not interfere with our +projects, our occupations, our amusements even. But He would act the +part of a helpmate throughout, guiding our plans, sanctifying our work, +ennobling our pleasures--above all, sharing and soothing our sorrows. +Is an ally such as this so easily found that we can afford to turn a +deaf ear to the invitation from the tabernacle: “Whom seekest thou--a +friend? I am He.” + + * * * * * + +O Loving One, who are we that You should so earnestly entreat our +friendship? Have You not thronging about You legions upon legions of +angels? What need can You have of us? Yet You not only tolerate our +society but beg for it. The little troublesome children whom strangers +find a nuisance are a solace to the father, who feels something to +be missing unless he has them pressing and chattering all about him. +So is it with You. To satisfy Your Heart You must have us, needy and +clamorous, all about You, besetting You on every side. + +Lord, had we always treated You as You deserve, could You be more in +love with our company? Surely Your eagerness should drive away fear +that our uncouthness and coldness will disgust You. Love “is patient, +is kind, ... beareth all things, ... hopeth all things, endureth all +things.”[55] O Lord and Lover, we will not disappoint You. Since You +are content to have us as we are, we will draw near to You without +fear: “Behold we come to Thee; for Thou art the Lord our God”.[56] + +[54] John v. + +[55] 1 Cor. xiii. + +[56] Jer. iii. + + + + +XXI. + +THANKSGIVING. + + And he fell on his face before His feet, giving thanks.--_Luke_ + xvii. 16. + + +Just as I do to-day, dear Lord, in the fulness of my heart, in the +first transport of joy and praise and gratitude that comes with the +sense of answered prayer. My happiness is all from You. In all that has +happened I trace the workings of Your hand, and see how it has moved +all secondary causes, and ordered all things sweetly. + +“Thou, O my God, hast made me joyful with great joy.”[57] + +“Blessed be the Lord God this day.”[58] + +“We bless Thee, O Lord God, because it hath not happened as we +suspected. For Thou hast shewn Thy mercy to us, and Thou hast taken +pity.”[59] + +“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and let all that is within me bless His +holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and never forget all He hath done +for thee.... Who satisfieth thy desire with good things.... The Lord is +compassionate and merciful.... He hath not dealt with us according to +our sins.... The mercy of the Lord is from eternity and unto eternity +upon them that fear Him.”[60] + +“Give glory to the Lord, for He is good: for His mercy endureth for +ever. Let them say so that have been redeemed by the Lord, whom He hath +redeemed from the hand of the enemy.... They cried to the Lord in their +tribulation, and He delivered them out of their distresses.... Let the +mercies of the Lord give glory to Him and His wonderful works to the +children of men. For He hath satisfied the empty soul, and hath filled +the hungry soul with good things.”[61] + +“Praise ye the Lord, for the Lord is good; sing ye to His name, for it +is sweet.”[62] + +“Who healeth the broken of heart, and bindeth up their bruises.”[63] + +“The Lord hath granted me my petition which I asked of Him.”[64] + +“Blessed be God, Who hath not turned away my prayer, nor His mercy from +me.”[65] + +“O Lord our God, all this store ... is from Thy hand.”[66] + +“O Lord, there is none like Thee.”[67] + + * * * * * + +_He fell on his face before His feet giving thanks._ The right +place, the right posture for thanksgiving. My whole self, body and +soul, seeks to pour itself out in praise. And yet, my God, when do we +feel ourselves more helpless, more bound in by our narrowness than +when we come to thanksgiving! Our heart is freer on the path of sorrow +than on that of joy. It knows its way better. It can go further. There +are novenas of Ten Fridays, Masses and Communions, year after year of +persistent prayer. But when the answer comes at last; when suddenly +the burden is lifted; when the thrill of gladness and the stillness of +peace succeed one another in sweet alternations within the soul--how +poor, how soon ended is our _Te Deum_! A rush to Your feet--a few +tears perhaps--a few broken words of gratitude, and--our heart fails +us. In vain do we lift it up in David’s heart, that censor of glorious +praise. There weighs upon it still the stifling sense of oppression. We +can but sink back in our helplessness and long for the full freedom of +all our powers that is to come. + +Oh yes, the soul never feels so powerless, so imprisoned as when the +call upon it is for thanksgiving. It is a caged bird always, but it +never beats more hopelessly against the bars than when it would soar +upward in the free flight of praise. + +It is then we turn to our God with us on the altar, to the Victim of +infinite worth placed at our disposal to be offered to God as a full, +worthy, adequate return for all His goodness to us. + +“What shall I render to the Lord for all He hath rendered unto me?” + +I will come to the altar of God to unite my thanksgiving and my praise +with the divine gratitude of the God-Man. + +I will offer with Him His sacrifice and mine, a gift of infinite value +from my grateful heart. + +I will receive into my poor heart, whose powers, stretched to their +utmost, fall infinitely short of what is due to Him, the Heart of the +Man-God. + + * * * * * + +My God, I rejoice beyond measure that in Mass and Holy Communion I +can offer You a thanksgiving that is adequate because infinite, a +thanksgiving worthy of Your acceptance. Look not on the poverty of my +praise, but “look upon the Face of Thy Christ”.[68] _Per Ipsum, et +cum Ipso, et in Ipso ... omnis honor et gloria. Amen._ + +[57] _Cf._ 2 Esdras xii. + +[58] 1 Kings v. + +[59] Tobias viii. + +[60] Psa. cii. + +[61] _Ibid._ cvi. + +[62] Psa. cxxxiv. + +[63] _Ibid._ cxlvi. + +[64] 1 Kings i. + +[65] Psa. lxv. + +[66] 1 Par. xxix. + +[67] _Ibid._ xvii. + +[68] Psa. lxxxiii. + + + + +XXII. + +DARKNESS. + + My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?--_Matt._ xxvii. 46. + + +_My God!_ as if You belonged to no one else in the wide world. +As if You and I were alone in creation. As if neither in heaven above +nor in the earth beneath, nor in the waters under the earth, You had a +single other creature! + +_My God!_ as if for me alone you had done all in the orders of +nature, grace, and glory; working for me from the beginning, through +all causes, by all creatures, in all events. As if for me alone were +the earth and the sea and all within them. For me all the ordering +of Your Providence in the affairs of time. For me the heaven of +heavens and all the concourse there. For me the Saints and Mary; the +Incarnation, the Life, and death, and teaching of Christ; the Church +and Sacraments; the Eucharist, and Mass, and Communion. For me life +everlasting and the Blessed Vision of Yourself. + +_My God!_ for Whom I am made. Without Whom happiness for me were +the wildest of impossibilities. The Supreme Good able to satisfy to the +full every want of my complex nature. Infinite Goodness providing for +all and for each with an exquisite discrimination of my need. + +_My God!_ in a sense known to myself and You alone--father, +mother, sister, brother, lover, friend--all in all to me. + +_My God!_ as if You belonged to me rather than to Yourself; +belonged to me rather than I to You. As if You were for my sake rather +than I for Yours. Or at least as if we so belonged to one another as of +necessity to imply and supplement each other--as hill and valley, light +and shade, the ocean and the void it fills. + + * * * * * + +_My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?_ Why this darkness in +which I grope for You in vain, in which I seek in vain to find Your +Face? Why these nameless fears, this dread of You, this shrinking from +You? + +Or, harder still to bear, this heaviness of soul, this hardness of +heart, this weariness of You, my God, this restlessness in Your +presence, this impatience of Your ways--why all this inconsistency and +perversity? + +Why, O Supreme Good, do You show Yourself to me as infinitely +desirable, only to elude my grasp when I stretch out my hands to +feel for You and draw You to myself? Why do You brush past me in the +darkness to leave me all the more desolate and disconsolate because +You were so near? Why are You deaf when I cry? Why, here in this +tabernacle, are You so near and yet so far away? Why do You make it +more and more impossible for me to find rest out of You, and then deny +Yourself to my soul? Why have You sought for me so persistently when I +fled from You, to hide from me now that I seek You? _My God, my God, +why hast Thou forsaken me?_ + +Is Your answer to me this--that I have forsaken You first? Is the +hiding of Your Face the just punishment of wilful deafness to Your +voice and resistance to Your leading? Are You waiting for some act +of mine as the price of Your turning to me? Is it pride or any other +passion that interposes as a cloud between us? What is it, my God? Take +it away at any cost. I am sorry for my insincerity; for all meanness in +my dealings with You; for all wilful blindness and deafness; for the +cowardice that fears to see what will call for effort and for sacrifice. + +If conscience does not reproach me, I am not hereby justified, because +Your all-seeing eye may note, does note what escapes mine. I own to +whatever You see that is amiss. I am perfectly conscious that there is +more--oh, a thousand times more than enough to make You turn away Your +Face and forsake me utterly. Show me what You will have me see, that I +may amend it, and bear with what You dare not show me, lest I should be +utterly cast down and despair. + +_My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me!_ You have taught me +by Your own meek complaint that I too may complain lovingly. I look up +through the darkness of Calvary. I hear above me that cry from Your own +lips, and I am instructed and comforted. If the well-beloved Son for +bearing the appearance of sin was thus shut out from the Father’s Face, +how shall a sinner complain? If this was done in the green wood, what +shall be done in the dry? + +And if all through the blackness of that desolation He remained still +the well-beloved Son, so may the weakest of His brethren, so may I +remain--dear to the Father’s Heart through all the discipline of +chastisement, through all the needful purification of my imperfect love. + +In the very midnight of His dereliction He called on the Father, clung +to the Father, threw Himself on the Father with absolute trust. So may +I, so _must_ I, in the darkness that is but the faintest shadow of +His. + +_Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit_--for this trial, for +every trial, for the last trial, when the shadow of death will close +round me, and it will be hard to find Your Face. Into the hands that +created me, that redeemed me, into which I shall pass at the moment of +death, Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit. + + “My God, My God!”--into the night went forth + That lonely cry, + Piteous as never plaint from burdened breast + Its misery. + + Went forth _for me_ into the night, that wail + Of woe divine; + His bitter dereliction bared, to draw + The sting from mine. + + And yet another cry ere shades of death + Around Him stole, + Revealed the sanctuary dark and lone + Of Jesu’s soul: + + “Father, into Thy hands”--a Son’s bequest, + That we might know + The filial, all unshaken trust, beneath + That depth of woe. + + “Father, into Thy hands”--that we might learn + Since Jesus died + Theirs first the right to claim the Father’s love, + His crucified. + + + + +XXIII. + +“WHAT IS TRUTH?” + + --_John_ xviii. 38. + + +“Pilate saith to Him: What is truth? And when he said this he went out.” + +Too often, O Lord, in my dealings with You I am like Pilate. Moved by +Your grace to desire the things that are for my peace, I come to You to +know my way: “_What shall I do to possess everlasting life?_”[69] +“_Make the way known to me, wherein I should walk._”[70] “_Teach +me to do Thy will, for Thou art my God._”[71] And when I have said +this I go out. I do not wait to hear an answer which may exact more of +me than I am prepared to give. I am afraid to remain in Your Presence, +lest You should beckon whither I am not willing to follow. And so I +ask lightly: “What is truth?” without waiting to hear what the Lord my +God will speak in me.[72] + +How much more readily I pray for light than for strength. “_Lord, +that I may see!_” And when the scales begin to fall from my eyes, I +turn away lest I should find what I am seeking. + +It is not Your way, O Lord, to constrain our free will. You meet us +half-way, more than half-way by a great deal. But You have decreed +that further and more abundant grace, the grace that is efficacious, +shall be the reward of correspondence. If we withhold this, we enter +upon a terrible contest between Your invitation on the one hand and the +shrinking of nature on the other. + +“Pilate saith to Him: What is truth? And when he had said this he went +out again to the Jews and said to them: I find no cause in Him.... Then +Pilate took Jesus and scourged Him.... And went forth again and saith +to the Jews: Behold I bring Him forth unto you that you may know that +I find no cause in Him.... Take Him you and crucify Him for I find no +cause in Him.... The Jews answered: He ought to die because He made +Himself the Son of God. When Pilate therefore had heard this saying +he feared the more. And he entered into the hall again and said to +Jesus: Whence art Thou? But Jesus gave him no answer. From thenceforth +Pilate sought to release Him.... And he saith to the Jews: Behold your +King.... Then he delivered Him to them to be crucified.” + + * * * * * + +Oh, the agony of mind, the risk, the misery we bring upon ourselves by +our vacillations and trifling with grace! Surely the remedy is to gain +by prayer strength proportioned to the light God gives. It is as easy +for Him to give the one as the other, for “there is none strong like +our God”.[73] But I must ask, for “strength cometh from Heaven”.[74] +“Ask and it shall be given to you.” “God is my strong One, in Him will +I trust ... my rock, and my strength, and my Saviour.”[75] He will +not leave me in my weakness. If He shows me His ways, He will give me +strength to walk in them. “My God is made my strength.”[76] + +[69] Luke xviii. + +[70] Psa. cxlii. + +[71] _Ibid._ + +[72] Psa. lxxxiv. + +[73] 1 Kings ii. + +[74] 1 Mach. iii. + +[75] 2 Kings xxii. + +[76] Isa. xlix. + + + + +XXIV. + +HIS SECOND COMING. + + They shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven ... and + then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn.--_Matt._ xxiv. 30. + + +Dearest Lord, is there a sadder word than this in the whole of the +written Word? Did a sadder ever fall from Your sacred lips? That when +You come again to finish the work of redemption by the destruction of +the last enemy, death; to gather to Yourself those for whose salvation +You came down from heaven, and were incarnate, and suffered, and died, +and founded Your Church, and gave Your sacraments; those whom You bade +to watch and wait for You and lift up their heads at Your coming; that +when at last You come, this shall be Your reception--“_then shall all +the tribes of the earth mourn_”! + +What an awful testimony to the decay of truth among the children of +men, to the unchristianising of the world! “_All the tribes of the +earth_,” as if the elect would be but as the ears of corn left +on the field after the harvesting. O Messiah, so long promised, so +earnestly expected--is this the return of those to whom You were sent, +among whom You have lived as one of themselves, for whom You have +sacrificed everything You took from our nature? + +“They shall see the Son of Man coming”--not now in the midnight silence +as once to Mary, not hidden under lowly accidents as through long +centuries upon the altar, but “in great power and majesty,” “the King +in His beauty,” revealed to every eye. “_And then shall all the +tribes of the earth mourn._” + + * * * * * + +The awfulness of these words must have struck the Twelve as they sat +about Your feet that day on Olivet looking down upon Josaphat, for John +re-echoed them from Patmos half a century later: “Behold, He cometh +with the clouds, and every eye shall see Him.... And all the tribes of +the earth shall bewail themselves because of Him.”[77] + +How our hearts would sink within us were it not for those other words +equally with these the words of truth: “He shall send His angels to +gather together His elect from the four winds, from the uttermost +part of the earth, to the uttermost part of heaven.”[78] From every +corner of the earth will those blessed ones come trooping in--“a great +multitude, which no man can number, of all nations, and tribes, and +peoples, and tongues”.[79] + +Lord Jesus! Who would not desire with desire to be one of that great +multitude, were it only to console Your Heart for the losses of that +day! Let this happiness be mine, and that of as many as can be reached +by the utmost stretching of Your mercy, the fullest and farthest +flowing of Your precious Blood! + + Quaerens me sedisti lassus, + Redemisti crucem passus: + Tantus labor non sit cassus. + +Have mercy, O Lord, on all the tribes of earth, that they may not +perish, nor bewail themselves because of You when You come to judgment. +Have mercy, that when the day of the Lord, that dreadful day shall +come, the number of the elect may be multiplied, and the thirst of Your +Heart appeased. + +[77] Apoc. i. + +[78] Mark xiii. + +[79] Apoc. vii. + + + + +XXV. + +OUR EARTH. + + _Coeli enarrant gloriam Dei._--_Psa._ xviii. 1. + + +_The heavens declare the glory of God._ There are hours when the +grandeur of the midnight skies draws from our hearts: “Coeli enarrant,” +and conversely: “Quam sordet tellus!” “How vile earth appears when +I look up to heaven!”[80] When we would wish to be so far away from +earth, so near to God, that we could cover it with our two hands and +shut it out with all its sinfulness from His sight. + +And there are hours when we re-echo David’s other cry: “_The earth +is the Lord’s._”[81] Studded with millions of stars--its sanctuary +lamps--here in grand constellations, there in solitary beauty amid the +darkness, it lies outstretched before its Creator, a very heaven. Yes, +speck as it is in creation, our world has a beauty all its own in the +eyes of Him Who made it. “There is not found the like to it in glory.” +Marred and sin-stained, it is still the dear world of the Incarnation, +the world God so loved as to give to it His Son. Its highways, its +fields, its waters have felt the tread of His feet; to the end of +time He has made it His home. “I have chosen and have sanctified this +place, and My eyes and My heart shall be there always.”[82] Always. +His interest in it is as keen, as human, as when, a wayfarer here, He +shared its joys and sorrows. Its every man, woman, and child to-day has +a distinct place in His heart. + +His sacramental Presence sanctifies it from pole to pole. On each of +its altars a divine sacrifice is offered day by day. In each of its +tabernacles is gathered up the worship of all creation. From each an +unceasing praise goes up to the Throne of God, infinitely transcending +the paltry outrages of man. From each radiates a divine life, +communicating itself to all the members of the Body of Christ. From +each as from a well-spring go forth all graces of light and strength; +all holy impulses and high resolves; all courage, steadfastness, +perseverance in well-doing; all works of love to the members, born +of love to the Head. All spiritual energy, from the robust virtue of +the saint to the weakest supernatural act of the repentant sinner, is +flowing this hour from earth’s countless tabernacles, giving to God a +glory before which the material glory of the starry heavens pales into +insignificance. + +O hidden God, I adore You as the source of all this glorious life. Who +would not love the world, which You have so loved as to make it Your +home all days even to the end of time? Who would not strive with You +and for Your sake to light up its dark places, to cleanse its foul +places, to spread far and near the saving knowledge of its Redeemer, +that so the love poured out upon it, the Blood shed for it, may not +have been in vain? + +What can I do, O Lord, within my narrow sphere to help on the coming of +Your Kingdom in the world? What have You given me to give away again in +Your service? As to what do You say to me: “Freely have you received, +freely give”?[83] Is it health, wealth, talent, influence, leisure for +good works in any of the various fields calling for my aid and open +to me? Is it devotedness and self-sacrifice in the apostolate of home +life? Or is it the noblest and most far-reaching of works for God, the +training of young souls in His love and service? Am I doing good work +for You in my allotted sphere? What account am I preparing to give You +of the talents entrusted to me? How could I bear it, O my Lord, should +You ever have to reproach me, as “an evil and slothful servant,” with +hiding the talent given me for Your service? What am I doing with my +life, with its energies, its opportunities, its responsibilities, its +graces? Where are the souls I am helping to save? Where is the lot I +am brightening, the cross I am lightening for Your dear sake? In what +direction am I furthering Your interests and sacrificing self to Your +glory? Unless I can lay my hands in Yours, and look up trustfully into +Your Face with “Lord, Thou knowest” my daily prayer, “Thy Kingdom come” +is a mockery, a self-delusion, a sham. + +[80] St. Ignatius. + +[81] Psa. xxiv. + +[82] 2 Par. vii. + +[83] Matt. x. + + + + +XXVI. + +CHRIST OUR STUDY. + + You have not so learned Christ.--_Ephes._ iv. 20. + + +It behoves us to have right conceptions of the great spiritual +realities which affect our life here and our destiny hereafter. Above +all must we learn aright Him Who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. +Gradually, from our earliest childhood, the idea of Christ has been +forming, developing, taking definite shape in our minds. May-be it +is stereotyped by this time. It is all-imperative for us that the +Christ we have so conceived should be the true Christ--“the Christ, +the Son of the Living God”. _Tout sort des idées._ Our idea of +Him will not affect Himself or alter our fundamental relations with +Him, but it will affect the whole moulding of our spiritual life, our +whole character, our every thought, word and deed here, and our whole +eternity hereafter. Surely, then, we must examine our impression of +Christ, and should we find that the influence of early education, of +a false creed, of unwholesome reading or association, or the trend of +our character has distorted in our minds the true Christ as reflected +in the Gospels, we must at all costs correct that impression. If it has +become stereotyped we must break up our mould and start our work afresh. + +Meditation upon the Gospels; the quiet, steady gaze of the inward eye +on Christ; the study of Him day after day under all circumstances and +amid ever shifting scenes, and not of His outward bearing, His words +and actions only, but of the Heart from which these spring--thus it was +that the saints built up His image in their souls, a true living image +which transformed them into the likeness of itself, and became a power +within them, drawing all things to Him Who was to them all in all. + +_You have not so learned Christ._ If Christ our Lord has not as +yet drawn _me_ wholly to Himself, it is because my conception +of Him is faulty. Whether this is the result of simple carelessness +which has allowed His image in my mind to take shape anyhow, or of +Jansenistic habits of thought that have fashioned for me a Lord +stern, exacting, repellent, a very caricature of the Christ of the +Gospels, Christ our Lord; or whether it is my own character, timorous, +suspicious, selfish, unsympathising, that has inspired my present idea +of Him--from whatever source the misconception has come, it must be +set right, or its results will be simply fatal--fatal to the growth of +anything like personal love and familiar friendship with Him; fatal to +His influence on my life, my actions, my work for Him in the souls of +others. + +Not any Christ, the creature of my own distorted fancy, but Him Whom +the Father has sent, I am to fall down and worship. He alone has power +as He alone has right to occupy and absorb my whole interest, my whole +affection, my whole self. He alone can be a living influence radiating +from my own life to the lives of others. + + * * * * * + +O Christ my Lord, give me so to know You that my knowledge may be +glory to You, and life to my own soul and the souls of others. “This +is eternal life: that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus +Christ, Whom Thou hast sent.”[84] Be Yourself my Master in this one +thing necessary. And let me go to the source to draw--learning You +from the scenes of Your life. Let me stand by the well of Samaria, and +the pool of Bethsaida, and the bier at Nain--and watch and listen. Let +the charm of Your divine Person subdue and win me, and the sound of +Your voice be familiar to me. Let the knowledge of Your ways with the +sinner, the sufferer, the little children, grave such a picture of You +in my heart that not even its perversity can bring before me when I +say “Jesus” any other form than that of the most beautiful, the most +tender, the most compassionate of men. + +Veronica wiped Your sacred suffering Face, and received as the greatest +of rewards, stamped on her veil, and still more upon her heart, that +_vera icon_--that true image of Christ which was thenceforth to be +inseparable from her memory, the very name by which all ages were to +know her. + +Stamp on my heart, dear Lord, _the true likeness_ of Yourself. And +as this likeness must be ever growing, let me come often to the altar +rails to learn You more and more. The tabernacle is the Gospel history +continued. Time has not dimmed Your fairness, O beautiful One, nor +dulled the sympathy of Your human Heart. All that You were to Your own +in this world, all that You are to them this hour in heaven, is here +within the tabernacle, is here _for me_. Here then let me come to +study You--patient, tender, obedient still, meek and humble of heart, +Jesus, yesterday, to-day and for ever! + +[84] John xvii. + + + + +XXVII. + +OUR FATHER. + + O clap your hands, all ye nations; shout unto God with the voice of + joy.--_Psa._ xlvi. 1. + + +My God, what would have become of us had You shown Yourself to us as +the All-just instead of the All-loving One You are? Had You been more +mindful of Your Majesty than of our need? We know so little how to +comport ourselves in Your presence, that it might have seemed more +fitting You should remain in the recesses of Your Godhead, manifest +Yourself but dimly and rarely, and restrict our worship of You to +the most distant homage. It would have been but the manifestation of +another attribute in place of that sweet mercy which has shaped the +whole course, not of redemption’s plan only, but of the inner life of +each one of us. + +My God, it might have been so--and what then would have become of us? +Where would praise have been, and trust, and loving return to Your arms +after a fall? Blessed be Your name that You willed to show Yourself our +Father, willed that with the younger race, Your human family, mercy +should ever be in the ascendant. + +“Blessed be You for ever, my God, my Mercy,”[85] for having shown +Yourself to our weak sight in this softened light, the light that +begets love--as One easily appeased, as One constraining trust, as +One with arms widespread to Your timid children--the All-forgiving, +All-tender, All-compassionate--_our Father Who art in heaven_. + +[85] _Cf._ Psa. lviii. + + + + +XXVIII. + +HEREAFTER. + + Thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter.--_John_ + xiii. 7. + + +I look forward into the eternal years and see myself at last in my +rest on the bosom of God. All over! Life, and uncertainty, and death, +and judgment, and purgatory. And with my head on the Heart of Him Who +has loved me to the end, I look back. How clear everything is from +this height, in this unclouded light and this untroubled peace! All +mists swept away; all doubts dispelled; all questions set at rest; all +cravings satisfied. + +_Thou shalt know hereafter._ Why that persistent prayer remained +unanswered; why evil prospered and good was overcome; why in spite +of every effort those difficulties remained difficulties to the +last--how plain it all is now! I see now the everlasting results of +the thoughts, and words, and acts that sped so quickly by. I see the +distinct work of each in shaping my eternity. I see the relation of +grace to glory; why I enjoy the blessed vision of God thus far and no +farther. Where I guided my steps by the light of faith, clung to God in +the darkness, “joined myself to Him and endured”--what fruit of joy for +eternity! Where there was cowardice, self-seeking, above all, mistrust +of God--what loss that can never, never be repaired! Oh, why did I +not realise that I was meant to live by faith during my little life +down there, in order to enjoy the fruits of faith in this real life of +eternity! + +_Thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter._ But I +_may_ know now if I pray for light and strength. I may know now +the things that are for my peace. I may have now the spiritual insight, +the _lumen cordium_ which the Holy Spirit gives to all who ask. + +Lord Jesus, here really present, make me see now by the light of faith +what I shall see almost directly in the light of eternity; when I look +back on life, and grace, and sacraments, and opportunities, on worldly +aims and worldly honours--from my place in heaven. By the tears You +shed over Jerusalem that knew not the day of her visitation, grant that +I, that all I love, that all men may know in this our day the things +that are for our peace. + + Dawn now--the hours of earth’s expectancy, + From the grey heaven enough of light to guide + The wary feet--no more; enough to trace + Against the sky in outline faint and blurred + Fair forms, their fairness shrouded for the nonce: + In every line of grace and symmetry + And tender hue to be revealed, when day + This hazy scene shall flood with living light, + Bathing all things in beauty. Now we know + In part, the noontide comes and _we shall see_. + + O restless heart! resenting mystery, + Angry with night, that by Divine decree + Divides with day the task of perfecting + God’s world of souls--fret not against the gloom + That, baffling, humbles thee. Why this reverse, + This wrong defeating right, brave effort crowned + By failure, good with itself at variance, + Thou know’st not now; _now_ the strong trial of faith, + The clinging, blind with tears, unto thy God + In patient trust--_hereafter thou shalt see_. + + + + +XXIX. + +MY VINEYARD. + + Let us see if the vineyard flourish.--_Cant._ vii. 12. + + +The vivid lightnings of the East that reveal in all the brightness of +day what lay hidden in darkness, have their parallel in the flood of +light flashed at times upon the soul. Without warning, without apparent +cause, it comes--a momentary brightness, but lasting in its effects. +Imagination, mind, heart, all have been steeped in it; henceforth the +truth it has lit up becomes a force to influence our life here and our +eternity hereafter. + +Has our responsibility to others been ever thrust upon us in one of +these bursts of light? Have we realised, as it were for the first time, +the influence which in God’s inscrutable designs we have over the +destiny of others; the dread power which wittingly or unwittingly, +for good or for evil, we are ever exercising over those around us; the +account which will be demanded of such a trust? + +O God, You have given “to every one of us commandment concerning our +neighbour”.[86] What kind of influence has mine been thus far? At the +sixth, the ninth, the eleventh hour it was said to me: “Go you into +My vineyard”.[87] What has been the result of that call and of that +mission? There has been a corner of that vineyard marked out for me +to tend. Am I labouring in it with earnestness, with self-sacrifice, +with the purity of intention that overcomes difficulties, and survives +disappointment, and is undisturbed by failure, because it looks to You +alone, works not for self but for Your glory? Or am I slumbering at my +post? With what feelings do I hear You say to me: “Let us see if the +vineyard flourish, if the flowers be ready to bring forth fruits”![88] +Is it of me You say: “I passed by the field of the slothful man, and +by the vineyard of the foolish man. And behold it was all filled with +nettles, and thorns had covered the face thereof, and the stone-wall +was broken down”?[89] Must I own in my shame, “My vineyard I have not +kept”?[90] + +O Lord of the vineyard, Whose love and trust are shown in this, that +You have called me to labour for what is dearer to You than Your very +life--how have I justified Your trust? Do not punish my slothfulness +by making over to another’s more earnest toil what has been given into +my care. But rather stand by and help me to work according to Your +will, that nothing may perish or suffer loss through fault of mine. +Help me to watch vigilantly the little plot committed to me; to cast +out carefully all noxious weeds; to dig, to prune, to bind up and +strengthen what is weak; “in solicitude not slothful, in spirit fervent +serving the Lord”.[91] Then shall my vineyard flourish and bring forth +fruit to Your glory in due season. + +[86] Ecclus. xvii. + +[87] Matt. xx. + +[88] Cant. vii. + +[89] Prov. xxiv. + +[90] Cant. i. + +[91] Rom. xii. + + + + +XXX. + +WHERE WE ARE TRUE. + + Thou sayest, I am rich, and made wealthy, and have need of nothing: + and knowest not, that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and + blind, and naked.--_Apoc._ iii. 17. + + +It seems to me, dear Lord, that You can hardly reproach me with this. I +know but too well how deficient I am in humility; how I fire up at even +a hint implying blame, suspicion, mistrust; how reluctantly I own to +those about me that I am in the wrong. + +But alone with You, my inward witness, it is otherwise. There is no +difficulty, no reluctance here. Once in the Presence Chamber, the +curtain dropped behind me, the gaze of creatures turned aside, I am +myself, _and true_, without disguise, feint, tricking out of any +sort. I do not trim my speech, or tone down my “Peccavi,” “to make +excuses in sins”.[92] I conceal neither my failings nor my needs. With +the privilege of the creature in presence of the Creator, I lie on my +face before You just as I am, for Your eye to see, Your ear to hearken +to, Your Heart to pity and to bless. + +How could there be pretence with You or affectation? I know and feel +that “Thy eyes are upon me,”[93] “beholding the good and the evil”;[94] +that “God Who seeth all”[95] “is the weigher of spirits”.[96] Before +that all-seeing Eye self-delusion, conceit, untruthfulness in every +shape must melt away. + +I cannot indeed know my nothingness and sinfulness as they are known +to You. I do not fathom one of the thousand motives I have for +self-abasement in Your sight. But I think my self-knowledge as far +as it goes is true. I am ready to see with You that I am wretched +and miserable and poor and blind and naked. I know and feel with the +most intimate conviction that in my soul are the seeds of every evil +passion; that they will choke the good seed and ruin me unless Your +power represses them; that unless Your Almighty hand checks the weight +of temptation, my enemy must prevail over me; that it is owing to Your +goodness I have not been tempted as others; that of myself I am nothing +but weakness and misery and sin. + +How it comes to pass that my self-knowledge does not bear better +fruit; that when occasion requires I am not more ready to own to what +I am thus conscious of, am not more indulgent and compassionate in +my judgment of others--I know not. But I thank You for what You have +given; and ask earnestly for more and stronger light to bring about +conformity between my interior conviction and my exterior words and +actions. + + Veni, Pater pauperum, + Veni, Dator munerum, + Veni, Lumen cordium. + +[92] Psa. cxl. + +[93] Job vii. + +[94] Prov. xv. + +[95] Ecclus. vii. + +[96] Prov. xvi. + + + + +XXXI. + +IN SILENCE AND IN HOPE. + + --_Isa._ xxx. 15. + + + She came with her crushing memories, + She came with her secret fears, + She brought Him her hidden misery + And her bitter burning tears. + + And all alone at that cheerless board + Prepared Him her own sweet feast, + Offering her heart with her spikenard + And the kiss that “never ceased”. + + She marvelled when He upbraided + The cruel thoughts of men, + And tears fell fast as He lauded her-- + Her, Mary Magdalen. + + As she marked how His Heart no token + Of her contrite love had missed, + The love that had given of its best, + Anointed, and washed, and kissed; + + And tendered a heart with penitence + Filled to the very brim, + And braved the scorn of a carping crowd + To stake its all on Him. + + Absorbed in her loving ministries + She knelt at His Feet apart, + The scandal of every eye save one + That soundeth the secret heart. + + She knew that her unforgiven past + Lay open to His ken, + Yet no word of supplication + Spake Mary Magdalen. + + Love taught a sublimer pleading, + Elected a better part-- + Calm trust in Him Who spurneth not + The humble contrite heart. + + From out the fulness of His own + Came plenary release: + “Her many sins are pardoned her: + Arise and go in peace”. + + O Christ, Who that poor sinner’s love + So gloriously hast crowned, + That through all time her name with Thine + Shall through the world resound; + + Who waitest here the penitent, + All-pitying now as then, + Give me the brave, unfaltering trust + Of Thy dear Magdalen. + + + + +XXXII. + +GOD’S WORK. + + To the Lord was His own work known from the beginning of the + world.--_Acts_ xv. 18. + + +Were Your work known to us, my God, as it is to You, how well ordered +our minds and hearts, our views, affections, lives would be! How all +things would fall into their proper places--events public and private, +every detail of Your Providence affecting ourselves and others! Our +desires especially, how tranquil, how subordinated they would be! Or, +rather, would there be any desire save for the furtherance of Your work +by the fulfilment of Your will? + +But may not this be our disposition now by means of faith? May we not +see in all that happens the action or the permission of God, to Whom +His own work is known? + +A child in the midst of a crowd is conscious of nothing but its +immediate surroundings. Crushed and stifled, it can see and feel only +the objects actually touching it. But let the father take it up in his +arms and hold it aloft--what a difference the elevation will make! + +I am in a crowd; in the dark, with the narrowest views and interests; +knowing but dimly for what we are come together; finding no meaning +often in what is stirring around me. But should God deign to raise me +to His point of view, what a change would come over me! How differently +I should look on all things! In all that happens I should see the good +pleasure or the permission of His Providence: “reaching from end to end +mightily, and ordering all things sweetly”.[97] This would not dull my +susceptibilities, nor cramp my desires. Far from it! With the widened +prospect interests would multiply on every side. But all things would +be seen in their true light. In all I should recognise the Divine +will unfolding itself in the course of events, and guiding all things, +undeterred by the action of man’s free will, to its own predetermined +ends. In a deadly contest involving my country’s honour and welfare, +my patriotism would run high. But too violent regrets at the reverses +of our arms, too vehement anxiety as to the issue, would be held in +check by my ignorance of God’s designs. Once known by the issue, His +will would be accepted loyally, simply because it was His will. “Thanks +be to God, Who hath given us the victory.”[98] Or--in spite of human +feeling and repugnance--“The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: +blessed be the name of the Lord”.[99] + +So in family trials, the hidden sorrows of the heart, the vicissitudes +of the spiritual life--there would be the habit of looking up into my +Father’s Face to see His meaning in it all; and where I could not see, +learning to bow my head and kiss His hand. “Yea, Father; for so hath +it seemed good in Thy sight.”[100] + +Does the Creator ask too much of His little creature when He bids +it submit itself thus to Him? Or is it not rather a marvellous +condescension on His part to invite the fusion of our will with the +Divine, thus associating us with Himself in the work known to Him from +the beginning? + + * * * * * + +What You want, my God, You shall have, and as cheerfully as I can +give it. To give without cost or pain is not always in my power. You +do not ask this: nay, You accept the cost and pain as proving greater +love. You value above all things the faith that gives in the dark, not +seeing Your open hand, nor the smile which would be its instant reward; +not understanding as yet the joy our fidelity is to Him Who deigns to +realise His eternal designs through the instrumentality of our free +will. + +O God, let not mine be wanting! Take all I have, take it at any cost. +I make You welcome to all. My reward shall be to kneel at Your feet one +day, and follow Your finger, showing how, here in brightness, here in +shade, Your work was entrusted to me, and--my God, what joy! I have not +disappointed You. + +[97] Wisd. viii. + +[98] 1 Cor. xv. + +[99] Job i. + +[100] Matt. xi. + + + + +XXXIII. + +A STRONG CRY. + + They rebuked him, that he should hold his peace. But he cried out much + more: “Son of David, have mercy on me”.--_Luke_ xviii. 39. + + +There are moments when we fling ourselves before the Tabernacle with a +desire too vehement for words. These translate our thoughts and needs +up to a certain point. Beyond that, we must betake ourselves to the cry +of the heart. + +What a relief to know that that cry passes instantly into the presence +of Him Who made us, and is welcomed there. Nay, it has not even a +presence-chamber to seek, for “He is not far from any one of us”.[101] +“His ear lies ever on our lips.” And this is yet too far. As the sponge +in mid-ocean so are we borne up, environed, penetrated, saturated with +Him. “In Him we live and move and have our being.”[102] This is He to +Whom we cry. Nor need we even cry. For “all things are naked and open +to the eyes of Him to Whom our speech is”.[103] Our God is nigh unto +us; He is within us; more present to us than we are to ourselves. He +knows the need that casts us on our face before Him. He saw our trouble +before it took shape in our soul. He knows each thrill of pain, and the +agony of helplessness, and the fear that holds us as in a vice. All +this He knows. And He is not displeased with the passionate earnestness +of our cry for help. Job was blameless before God when his misery +forced from him bold words of expostulation. Jacob was blessed for +being strong against God. Our Almighty Father loves to be overcome by +His children. He is willing to have His gifts wrested from Him by the +intensity of prayer. Nor will He have such prayer to be disconcerted or +turned aside by the evidence of its untimeliness. No, not even when He +ignores or denies it. He loves the trust that catches up the rebuff and +flings it back, a passionate plea for mercy:-- + +“It is not good to take the children’s bread and to cast it to the +dogs.”[104] + +“Yea, Lord; for the whelps also eat of the crumbs that fall from the +table of their masters.” + +Oh, that I had this strength of purpose, this trust that sweeps all +before it! Here on the altar I have my model in prayer--Him “Who +in the days of His flesh with a strong cry offered up prayers and +supplications[105]: Abba, Father, all things are possible to Thee, +remove this chalice from me, but not what I will, but what Thou +wilt.”[106] “And being in an agony, He prayed the longer.”[107] “And He +prayed the third time, saying the self same word.”[108] + + * * * * * + +Our prayer can never be too urgent, too persistent, if only we +kneel by Your side and follow Your lead, O Lord. We may return again +and again upon the same plea: _Abba, Pater, omnia Tibi possibilia +sunt._ All things, all things are possible to Thee; take this +chalice from me. Yet--for Thou knowest best, and I am shortsighted and +self-seeking, and know not the things that are for my peace--_not my +will, but Thine be done_. Let that will be done which in a little +while, when I look down upon this trial from the unclouded brightness +of my place in heaven, I shall joyfully own to have been for the best, +better a thousand times than anything I could have devised. “Father, +if Thou wilt, remove this chalice from me. But if this chalice may not +pass away, but I must drink it, Thy will be done.” + +[101] Acts xvii. + +[102] Acts xvii. + +[103] Heb. iv. + +[104] Mark vii. + +[105] Heb. v. + +[106] Mark xiv. + +[107] Luke xxii. + +[108] Matt. xxvi. + + + + +XXXIV. + +“BE READY!” + + (_A visit for the First Friday of the month._) + + +“_Be ready!_” Your word of warning, Lord, and my one desire. And +so I come to You to get ready. + +I shall be too weak and suffering on my bed of death, too appalled by +the sight of my past life to be able to do much by way of preparation +for the Last Sacraments. Yet I shall need all their grace, and I must +bring to them at least the necessary dispositions. Take the care of +all upon Yourself. See Yourself to my dispositions. Look upon all as a +trust committed to You long ago, committed to You again and again with +the more self-abandonment as the time and circumstances of my last hour +are absolutely unknown to me. Let me find out in that hour how well it +is to have hoped in the Lord. Let me find You, my Lord, in death equal +to Yourself--to all I have found You in life. + +And when the hour for Sacraments has passed; when the Church has +stretched her hand to the utmost to hold me to the last, up to the very +confines of that world where her jurisdiction stops; when my soul is +passing beyond the reach of that hand which has stayed me up till then, +and been help and healing all my life through--then, O my Saviour, do +for me immediately, by Yourself, what You have done for me through +Your Church. Hear Yourself my last confession made straight to Your +Heart. Hear my last avowal “of my so many sins”; of those for which I +have sorrowed most bitterly, which have been brought oftenest under +the absolving hand of Your priest. When my last words in this world +are said; when my eyes are closed to the crucifix, and my hands can +grasp the rosary no longer; when my ears are shut to all the sounds +of earth, and all things are sinking round me--then let me feel You +near. Inspire Yourself my last cry for mercy. Sweep away the clouds +that will gather thick and fast before the eyes of my soul, seeking to +hide that mercy from me. Let Your hand hold me. Let Your arm be round +me when all else is falling away. You have passed, O Lord, through +the agony of death: be with me in my agony. All the nameless terrors +of that hour are known to You. All the dangers that await me then are +clear to You here in the tabernacle--the weakness, the weariness, the +pains of spirit, and of sense, the temptations kept for the last, the +loneliness, the unsuspected snares, the lack of human help. O human +Heart, be my secure refuge in that awful hour. I call upon You now to +fulfil in my favour then the promise to those devoted to Your sacred +Heart: “I will be their assured refuge in life and more especially at +death.” + + Recordare, Jesu pie, + Quod sum causa Tuae viae + Ne me perdas illa die. + + Quaerens me sedisti lassus, + Redemisti crucem passus: + Tantus labor non sit cassus. + + Recollect, O love divine, + ’Twas for this lost sheep of Thine + Thou Thy glory didst resign. + + Sattest weary seeking me, + Suff’redst upon the tree: + Let not vain Thy labour be. + + + + +XXXV. + +“DOMINE, ECCE QUEM AMAS INFIRMATUR.” + + --_John_ xi. 3. + + +How many Bethanies, Lord Jesus, have there been in the world since the +day You stood with Martha and Mary by the grave of Lazarus! How many +there are at this hour! And each with all its pain is known to Your +pitying Heart. Every detail known--the fear, the anxiety, the weary yet +unwearied prayer, the long, long waiting for Your coming; the hope that +rises and falls and clings the faster for its less foothold to Your +promises, Your mercy, Your dear human Heart. You know it all. You have +seen all, heard all for years. And still You wait, just as You waited +beyond the Jordan whilst the sisters wept beside their brother’s bed, +beside his grave. + +“Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister Mary, and Lazarus. When He had +heard therefore that he was sick, He still remained in the same place +two days.”[109] Why, Lord, why--with Your heart so tender and Your +arm so strong, and danger near, and time short, and those You love so +fearful and so sad? Why did you still remain, O Lord? + +Truly Your thoughts are not as our thoughts, nor Your ways as ours. Our +love stands sentry round its dear ones, to ward off pain or sorrow: +“Far be it from Thee, Lord, this shall not be unto Thee”.[110] Your +love, seeking rather to sanctify than to spare, assigns to sorrow a +definite work in behalf of Your beloved. “Whom the Lord loveth, He +chastiseth, and He scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.”[111] “Now +Jesus loved Martha, and Mary, and Lazarus. When He had heard therefore +that he was sick, He still remained in the same place two days.” + +“Our Lord Himself was perfected by His passion.”[112] And in that +passion it was not the nails which tore the flesh, but the anguish +which rent the spirit, that drew forth His bitter cry. It was the +passion of His Heart that was the hardest. It is by the crucifixion of +the heart that Christ is perfected in us. Therefore He stays away and +leaves us to suffering harder far to bear than physical pain. We cry +out. We send our messages to Him. And He does not come. “My God, My +God, why hast Thou forsaken me!” He hears and does not come. The echo +of His own cry of desolation moves His Heart. And still He does not +come. It is because Jesus loves that He does violence to His heart and +lets the cross do for His friends what it alone can do. This is His way +of showing love. He expects us to understand it. + +In the cross, as in the sacred mystery of the altar, His love puts on +strange disguises. But puts them on so regularly, so frankly, that +losing by this time their power of disguise, they ought to reveal +instead of hiding Him. + +We must be patient and wait. The time of His coming, with its ways and +means, we can leave to His wisdom and His love. Our work is to send +urgently and perseveringly the message whose trust vanquished His Heart +at last and made Him say, “_Let us go to him_”. + + * * * * * + +“_Lord, behold, he whom Thou lovest is sick._” Before a thousand +tabernacles that cry is rising. No prayer, but pleading more potent +than any prayer. Its perseverance is its power. Can it but hold out, +ignore neglect, support delay, it is sure to hear in God’s own time: +“Thy brother shall rise again.... Lazarus, come forth.” + +Listen, Lord Jesus, to that cry. By the pity it woke in Your sacred +Heart--listen! By the tears You shed with the weeping sisters--listen! +Not for one Lazarus only, but for each and every one throughout the +world, do we entreat You: _Domine, ecce quem amas infirmatur!_ +If a miracle is needed, we ask it with confidence. Is there one +You would work more gladly? O Lord, make haste to help us. To-day, +to-day--to-morrow, perhaps, it will be too late. _Ecce quem amas +infirmatur!_ + +[109] John xi. + +[110] Matt. xvi. + +[111] Heb. xii. + +[112] Heb. ii. + + + + +XXXVI. + +AFTER A DEATH. + + And his disciples came and took the body, and buried it, and came and + told Jesus.--_Matt._ xiv. 12. + + +Poor disciples! They had lost their master. Life lay a blank before +them; all its meaning gone, all its purpose changed. The support on +which they had leaned was taken away--what was to become of them? + +Poor disciples indeed--yet happy too. For the hand that dealt the blow +held the remedy. It led them to Jesus. What does that mean but that all +they had lost was made up to them a thousandfold? + +They took the body, and buried it, _and came and told Jesus_. We +can see Him receiving the forlorn little band. We can hear His words +of tender pity and comfort as He drew them out and got from them +all their troubled tale. We can feel the relief it was to tell Him +all; feel the peace that stole into their hearts as He spoke to them +of their master, and gently won them from their grief, and drew them +to Himself. They yielded to the divine attraction of that Eye and +that Voice, to the irresistible sympathy of that Heart, to the grace +that spoke to their own hearts. And thus that bitter loss proved the +crowning grace of their lives, the cause of their eternal joy--because +they let it lead them to the feet of Christ--because _they came and +told Jesus_. + +O Master! I too come to Your feet to tell You all. I have buried my +dead. I have lost what can never be restored to me in this world. I +have come from the grave with half myself buried there. I have come +back to a life with all its meaning gone from it--a life without joy, +interest, anything to which my soul responds--a dreary waste stretching +before me that I must cross alone. Where shall I turn for courage and +for strength? Where but to You to Whom the disciples of John turned in +their desolation? Open to me Your arms and Your Heart. Listen tenderly +to me whilst I tell You all my trouble. Speak to my soul and calm it +and strengthen it. Make up to me for what You have taken away. And if +You ask what compensation I desire, I answer: “None other than Thyself, +O Lord”. + +Let us both be gainers by this bitter loss--You by the fuller surrender +into Your hands of all that I have and am; I by the fuller gift of +Yourself to my soul--a fulness satisfying its every craving with the +love of Him, from Whom neither life nor death, nor things present nor +things to come, have power to part me. + + + + +XXXVII. + +GOD’S WAYS. + + Wherein hast Thou loved us?--_Malach._ i. 2. + + +My God, I may tell You anything and everything. All I have to tell +interests You, more especially the difficulties and troubles which +do not easily come out to others, and are not for the most part very +helpfully met when they do come out. “For what man knoweth the things +of a man, but the spirit of a man that is in him?”[113] + +But “the Spirit (of God) searcheth all things.”[114] You know me +through and through, and I am only owning to what You see and +understand perfectly when I tell You of repinings aroused by gifts +and opportunities bestowed on others, but denied to me. I find myself +questioning, if not Your wisdom, at least Your love, in that I am less +richly dowered than others with the happy temperament, the talents, the +moral and social qualities that we reckon among the better gifts of +life, that render life not a duty merely, nor a source of merit, but +a continual joy. I do not see that “the lines are fallen unto me in +goodly places”; rather I ask petulantly, “_Wherein hast Thou loved +me?_” + +The source of such disquiet is selfishness. This is the dismal +consolation I should get were I to confide my trouble to the most +indulgent of friends. But have You no better comfort for me, my +Creator and my Father? To whom shall I go in my pains if not to Him +Whose “hands have made me and formed me”;[115] to my Father “that hath +possessed me, and made me, and created me”;[116] Who says to me, “I +will have mercy on thee more than a mother”?[117] There is no humbling +avowal I may not trust to You, and trusting it be sure of sympathy. +“Why hast Thou done so to us?” was the meek remonstrance of the most +submissive of handmaids. “Wherein hast Thou loved us?” was said by the +most cross-grained and thankless of peoples. And to both questioners +You vouchsafed a reply. I too, then, may ask: Why, Father, hast Thou +done so to me? In withholding what is good in itself, what would have +made me happier, _Wherein hast Thou loved me?_ + +Your answer might be: “Shall the thing formed say to Him that formed +it, why hast Thou made me thus?”[118] But in place of rebuke You +silence my trouble by an invitation: “_Come up hither_”.[119] I +am to take my stand by Your side, and from that height look around on +the design framed from eternity. Parts of a plan can be viewed aright +only in connection with the whole. To consider them independently is to +miss not only the meaning and grandeur of the scheme in its entirety, +but particular excellence also. This I know. Yet the tendency of +selfishness is to contract the vision, and let the tiny portion +assigned to itself in the universal design absorb the interest and +warp the judgment. I am too near to earth, too involved in its passing +interests to preserve the relative proportion necessary for viewing +things aright. I must move further off--look forward a few years--plant +my feet, not on this transitory world, but on the eternal shore, and +from that standpoint look out upon creation. + +“_He hath begotten us ... that we might be some beginning of His +creature._”[120] + +What an unsealing of eyes awaits me the moment after death! What a +vista all but infinite will open out before me as the divine plan +unfolds! All this human race, which because it encloses my lot is +apt to engross my whole interest--if indeed my interest extends to +the race and is not absorbed by the little miserable me--all this +vast assemblage of human souls to be--but _some beginning of His +creature_! + +In eternity I shall see the part assigned to this beginning in the +universal scheme. I shall see the part assigned to each unit. I +shall grasp without effort, without reasoning, the self-evident fact +that the dignity of every human being lies in its having a place in +God’s eternal design; that independent or solitary greatness is an +impossibility; that our happiness no less than our grandeur consists +in filling that place in the vast mosaic which divine wisdom and love +has appointed us; that the significance of the creature, its beauty and +well-being are to be found only in its conformity with the ideal in +the Creator’s mind. Those who on earth have worked out that ideal and +thereby reached their appointed place are happy. Those who, absorbed +by selfish aims, have failed to fit themselves for the place assigned +them, are necessarily cast aside as failures--and this whatever the +gifts, station, influence that distinguished them in the momentary +interval between two eternities that we call Time. Nothing indeed will +astound me more than the reversal of lots in the world beyond the +grave. I shall see how in innumerable instances paths of glory have +led to everlasting confusion and oblivion. How, on the other hand, the +unnoticed, the meagrely gifted, have made their way up to the highest +honour, and are placed “with the princes of His people”. The beggar of +the Roman streets, shunned by every passerby, the shepherdess of an +obscure village, the simple, illiterate Curé d’Ars, as “the friends of +God are made exceedingly honourable”. Whilst high above all, King of +Kings and Lord of Lords, is a village Carpenter of heretofore. + +Truly God’s ways are not our ways! When I see as He sees, there will +be no heartburnings, no pining for anything however good in itself +that has not found place in His designs for me. Narrow views will melt +away so completely as to be deemed wholly inexplicable in the past; +egotism disappear in the burst of admiration at the design revealed +in creation. What will be my delight to have a place, my particular +place, in that glorious scheme! What my regret, as I turn away to +purgatory, that I have failed to co-operate in the perfecting of the +whole in the measure determined for me! + +And this I shall see soon! Soon I shall be viewing all things from +God’s standpoint, the only one possible in the land of Truth. +Recognising at last in my outfit a marvellous adaptation of means +to the end, I shall see wherein He has loved me. I shall bless His +will that has ordered all things sweetly. I shall trace His love in +withholding as well as in giving, in ordaining my limitations and +deficiencies no less than my aptitudes as means for attaining to my +place in His kingdom. The greater or less glory and happiness of that +place will be a matter of indifference to me. To reach the degree +in which _He_ would place me, to satisfy _Him_, to give +Him throughout eternity the praise and reverence and service He asks +of me--this will be the only ambition possible to my enlightened +understanding and will. “In Thy light we shall see light.”[121] + + * * * * * + +O Father, that it might be thus even now! That now, whilst my place +in heaven is to be sought and reached, I might have the light and +strength to accept, not with resignation only--this were too poor +a gratitude--but with deepest, tenderest thankfulness, the means +fashioned to my hand, designed by Your wisdom _for me_! + +[113] 1 Cor. ii. + +[114] _Ibid._ + +[115] Psa. cxviii. + +[116] Deut. xxxii. + +[117] Ecclus. iv. + +[118] Rom. ix. + +[119] Apoc. iv. + +[120] St. James i. + +[121] Psa. xxxv. + + + + +XXXVIII. + +TWILIGHT AND NOON. + + My eyes are ever towards the Lord.--_Psa._ xxiv. 15. + + +How marvellous is the vehemence of David’s utterances when we consider +the dimness with which God revealed Himself in the time of twilight +before the coming of Christ! He was not altogether the hidden God. +Throughout His dealings with His people we are struck by the mingling +of light and darkness, distance and nearness, terrific chastisement and +the tenderest blandishments of love. There was wonderful condescension +and approach in the tabernacle of the wilderness, in the revelations +to the prophets, in the interventions of mercy that times without +number succoured the stiff-necked people. There are words of love in +the Old Testament unsurpassed perhaps in tenderness by any in the +New. Yet when His presence is nearest, when His reproaches are most +touching, His words most endearing, we are conscious of the measureless +difference between God’s manifestation in the past and the intimacy and +familiarity brought into our relations with Him by the Incarnation. We +who live in the full illumination of that day which kings and prophets +desired to see, cannot but feel how little earth’s most enlightened men +knew the God Who made them, before “the Word was made flesh and dwelt +amongst us”. + +Yet so powerfully were they drawn to Him, that their words are the +fittest exponents of every human heart when by desire, praise, +affection, thanksgiving, it leaps up to God. They give expression +to our every need. But, alas! they give too much matter also for +self-reproach. + +“_My eyes are always towards the Lord_,” said David. God revealed +Himself with special intimacy to the man according to His own Heart, +that spoke in his own person of the sufferings and the glories of Him +Who was to delight in the name of the Son of David. Yet after all what +did David know of the Lord compared with the knowledge vouchsafed to +the least enlightened of the Church’s children! He had the memory of +past mercies to the “seed of Abraham His servant, the sons of Jacob +His chosen”.[122] He had the shadowy presence of God in the Ark of the +Covenant. And he had the dim foreknowledge of One to come, of the root +of Jesse, “beautiful above the sons of men,”[123] yet “a worm, and no +man, the reproach of men, and the outcast of the people,”[124] of “a +Holy One Who should not see corruption,”[125] but “sit on the right +hand of God till all His enemies be made His footstool”.[126] This was +all. But it was enough to keep the eyes of David fixed on God: “_My +eyes are always towards the Lord_.” + +I think of myself. I think of the careful teaching from my childhood +onwards: of the Gospel stories so familiar to me that I may follow +the life of the God-man from His crib to His cross; living in His +company; listening to His teaching; noting His look and gesture and +act; studying His ways and dealings with men, His likes and dislikes, +the human character which individualised Him and endeared Him to His +friends. I may watch Him at His work, I may mark the effect upon Him +of kindness and appreciation, and, on the other hand, of ingratitude, +scorn, cruelty and hate. I may see him thirsty, wayworn, footsore, and +feast the eyes of my soul on the absolute perfection with which all the +eventualities of life were met by Him Who, very God of very God, was +yet the Son of Man and one of us. + +Again, I may contemplate Him abiding ever with His Church, the source +of every supernatural act throughout its length and breadth. I may see +the Divine sap flowing through the vine to its furthest extremities, +the principle of life and growth, of beauty and of fruitfulness in +every soul His grace has sanctified. I know that all His merits are +placed at my disposal; that He desires to make the meanest actions of +my life meritorious of an eternal reward by uniting them with His. I +have his invitation in the early morning to offer with Him His daily +sacrifice that is offered for me. I hear Him asking of me, if not a +daily, at least a frequent invitation to my heart. I hear him calling +“Come aside and rest a little” when in afternoon hours the day’s tasks +are lightening; calling me to Him for an evening blessing when the +day’s work is done. Through the long hours of day and night His eye is +following me--how often are my eyes towards the Lord? + +O eager heart of David, that has met, if not with adequate response, +at least with all your strength, the advances of our God, become to +ours the stimulus they so sadly need! In our noontide splendour, +in the fulness of fruition, we turn back to catch the glowing heat +of your desires: “_O God my God, to Thee do I watch at break of +day. For Thee my soul hath thirsted; for Thee my flesh, oh, how many +ways!_”[127] + +Your envying of our happier days and higher privileges shall make us +appreciate them better: “They have seen Thy goings, O God, the goings +of my God, of my King Who is in His sanctuary”.[128] + +We will prize His sanctuary in our midst; the sanctuary nearest to us, +where most of all our homage and our love are due. Morning, afternoon, +and evening we will seek Him there to bless Him and be blessed. “In +the churches bless ye God the Lord.”[129] “Seek ye the Lord, and be +strengthened, seek His face evermore.”[130] + +[122] Psa. civ. + +[123] _Ibid._ xliv. + +[124] _Ibid._ xxi. + +[125] _Ibid._ xv. + +[126] _Ibid._ cix. + +[127] Psa. lxii. + +[128] _Ibid._ lxvii. + +[129] _Ibid._ lxvii. + +[130] _Ibid._ civ. + + + + +XXXIX. + +RESPONSIBILITY. + + Behold I and my children, whom God hath given me.--_Heb._ ii. + + +No sympathy is so genuine and so ready, none so acceptable and helpful +as that created by similarity of experience. “What doth he know that +hath not been tried?”[131] “Who can rejoice with them that rejoice, and +weep with them that weep”[132] like one whose heart has thrilled with +the same gladness, and found relief in the same tears? + +Nothing more endears our Lord to us than the proofs of fellow-feeling +that come out in every act of His human life. The Incarnation was the +supreme gift of His sympathy. Every weary journey to and fro, every +cure of soul or body, every word of warning and of comfort spoke of His +sympathy. The Eucharist is His sympathy incarnate to the end of time. + +No burden of ours is unshared by the Son of man. He has devised +expedients that bewilder us by their condescension, in order to bring +home to us the truth: “I also have a heart as well as you.”[133] He +will weep with his friends beside a grave. He will cower before pain +and ignominy. He will be “tempted in all things like as we are”.[134] +Nay, He will even clothe Himself with the appearance of sin, be “made +sin for us”;[135] feel its burden and its shame; bear the penalty +of its guilt, to prove His devotedness to us in His most winning of +ways--the sharing of our miseries out of love. + +All the heavy-laden He invites to Him, but none, perhaps, are more +tenderly welcomed than those who come bowed beneath the weight +of responsibility. Whether this devolves upon them through their +relations with others as superiors, or is the consequence of kinship +or friendship, it surely wins for them the sympathy of Him Who knows +by His own experience the nature of all such responsibilities and the +solicitude they entail. + +“You call Me Master, and Lord, and you say well, for so I am.”[136] +“Is not He thy Father that hath possessed thee, and made thee and +created thee?”[137] “As one whom the mother caresseth, so will I +comfort you.”[138] He is our Elder Brother, “first-born amongst +many brethren;”[139] “the Physician of Whom we all have need;”[140] +“the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls”.[141] He knows, therefore, +experimentally the peculiar trials of the charge with which we are +laden, and we may pour out our hearts to Him with the freedom that +comes of perfect trust in One “sorrowful,” “heavy,” “troubled”--“in all +things like as we are”.[142] + +My cares, dear Lord, are known to You, and not known only, but laid +upon me by Your own hand. They weigh heavily at times. The interests at +stake are so tremendous, and my ignorance and helplessness so great. +Often enough I do not see what to do for the best; oftener still I +cannot take the course that seems to me best. I am afraid of a false +step; I am afraid of missing opportunities. Where to make a stand, and +where to yield; when to command, and when to entreat; when to offer +a word of remonstrance or of counsel, and when to say nothing and +trust to prayer--all these are perplexities in which I need and pray +for the guidance of Your holy Spirit. There is a time to speak and a +time to keep silence, but this is Your secret, O Lord! Give me the +opportunities won by long prayer. Put upon my lips the well-timed word. +Send me the success that comes of casting out the nets at Your word, +under Your eye, with Your blessing. + +And solve for me other problems--how to teach my children to take +their place befittingly in the world without being of the world; +how to train them for the battle of life; to provide them with an +equipment for mind and heart that will suffice for the needs of these +perilous times; to strengthen them by self-knowledge, self-reverence, +self-control against the intellectual and moral dangers they will +have to face, and prepare them for the burning questions of the day +before they are flung into their midst. I tremble at the sight of these +dangers beginning so early now when life is lived so fast. And the +mother’s words, the mother’s arms do not reach as far as heretofore. +She can only pray and trust. How earnestly You bid us trust, O Lord! + +“Fear not: for the battle is not yours, but God’s.”[143] “Cast thy care +upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee.”[144] “Be quiet, fear not, +and let not thy heart be afraid.”[145] + +“I shall fear but I will trust in Thee.”[146] “My God is my helper, +and in Him will I put my trust.”[147] “In my affliction I called upon +the Lord, and I cried to my God.”[148] “How long, O Lord, wilt Thou +forget me, how long dost Thou turn away Thy face from me? Consider, and +hear me, O Lord my God.”[149] + + * * * * * + +“_Behold I and my children, whom God hath given me!_” I gather +them round me here at Your feet. I trust them to Your care. Keep them +in Your faith and in Your love, and bring them safely through the dark +perils of this life to the haven of salvation. + +“_Behold I and my children, whom God hath given me._” Let me say +this one day as we stand in the brightness of Your Presence. Let me say +in the fulness of my joy: “Of them whom Thou hast given me, I have not +lost one.”[150] + + * * * * * + +“Fear not! stand and see the great wonders of the Lord, which He will +do.”[151] “I will seek that which was lost, and that which was driven +away, I will bring again; and I will bind up that which was broken, and +I will strengthen that which was weak.”[152] “I will give them life +everlasting; and they shall not perish for ever, and no man shall pluck +them out of My hand.”[153] + +[131] Ecclus. xxxiv. + +[132] Rom. xii. + +[133] Job xii. + +[134] Heb. iv. + +[135] 2 Cor. v. + +[136] John xiii. + +[137] Deut. xxxii. + +[138] Isa. lxvi. + +[139] Rom. viii. + +[140] Luke v. + +[141] 1 Peter ii. + +[142] Heb. iv. + +[143] 2 Par. xx. + +[144] Psa. liv. + +[145] Isa. vii. + +[146] Psa. lv. + +[147] Psa. xvii. + +[148] _Ibid._ + +[149] _Ibid._ xii. + +[150] John xvii. + +[151] Exod. xiv. + +[152] Ezech. xxxiv. + +[153] John x. + + + + +XL. + +LIFE. + + As long as the heir is a child, he is under tutors and governors until + the time appointed by the father.--_Galat._ iv. 1, 2. + + +Life is a school--neither more nor less. _Not more._ Therefore we +must not expect to find it satisfying. We must not look here for the +freedom, the gladness, the warmth, the indefinable happiness of home. + +But surely the eternal Home is worth waiting for! “It hath not yet +appeared what we shall be.”[154] “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, +neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath +prepared for them that love Him.”[155] Yet we may infer something of +the grandeur and blessedness of the life to come from the study of +our own souls, from the vastness of their capacity, their insatiable +thirst for knowledge, the depth and tenderness of their affections. +Capacity supposes complement. The aspirations God has given He will +surely satisfy. And therefore all that the noblest, the most highly +gifted, the most loving of our race have desired for their perfect +happiness, will be given to them in a fulness of which they can form +no conception--“good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running +over”.[156] The most far-reaching penetration of the secrets of nature +and of grace; the perfect realisation and more a thousand times than +realisation of home; the satisfaction of all the cravings of kindred +and of friendship, to say nothing of the essential joy of which these +are but the redundance--this is what awaits us hereafter. Not here, nor +yet. We must not look now for anything but the faintest anticipation of +what is in store for us--_we are at school_. + +How is it that this elementary truth has so little hold upon us? Life +would be much less of a disappointment if we remembered its true +character and purport, if we had more of the wisdom of the schoolboy +who lives with his heart in the future, and for the rough discipline of +the present is for ever promising himself the compensations of home. + +Life is a school. _Nothing less._ Therefore we must beware of +squandering the time given us to prepare for our final state. We are +here for our training, not for our enjoyment, and must go in for the +experiences and the work our education demands. We have to drill +ourselves in regard to our pleasures and our pains. Pleasure must not +be suffered to monopolize our interest. It is but the half holiday +thrown into school life to make its pressure bearable. Pain must not +cast us down utterly, but detach us from our surroundings here, and +foster in us the homesickness of the saints. And we have to work, work +seriously at the formation of mind and heart--the task allotted us in +this world. Both have to be conformed to the likeness of Him Who is the +pattern of all the elect. Both have to be brought into harmony with the +surroundings in which they will find themselves directly. “Let this +mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.”[157] “Our conversation +must be in heaven.”[158] + +Meantime we have with us, not only as Master, but as Father and Elder +Brother, Him Who has passed through the experience of human life; Who, +“because the children are partakers of flesh and blood, hath also +Himself in like manner been partaker of the same,”[159] “like to us in +all things excepting sin”;[160] Whose word of comfort as we take to Him +our weary tasks is a reminder at once of their necessity and of their +recompense: “Work your work before the time, and He will give you your +reward in His time.”[161] + +My God, I thank You for the immortal spirit You have given me. I +thank You for its vast capacity, which I recognise in a craving that +nothing here can sate. Its very neediness appeals to Your beneficence, +“abyss calleth upon abyss.”[162] Keep up the keenness of its desire, +the hunger and thirst which You have declared blessed, till the time +comes for satisfying it fully. Let me not seek to assuage it by +anything transitory. Let me “so pass through the things of time as not +to forfeit those of eternity”.[163] Let me be schooled by the tasks +and trials, the little joys and sorrows and passing brightnesses of +this life for the great future, the true life that lies beyond. May my +happiness no less than my duty be found in preparing now for what I am +to do and to be hereafter. + +And when my school days are over and my lessons here are learned--dear +Father, take me Home! + +[154] 1 John iii. + +[155] 1 Cor. ii. + +[156] Luke vi. + +[157] Philip. ii. + +[158] _Cf._ _Ibid._ iii. + +[159] Heb. ii. + +[160] _Ibid._ iv. + +[161] Ecclus. li. + +[162] Psa. xli. + +[163] Collect for 3rd Sunday after Pentecost. + + + + +THE ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS LIMITED. + + + + +TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES + + This file uses _underscores_ to indicate italic text. + + In the footnotes, 1 Par. and 2 Par. refer to the first and second Books + of Paralipomenon, which are also known as the Books of Chronicles. + + Footnotes have been renumbered and moved to the ends of their chapters. + + Missing italics markings in chapter subheads have been + silently corrected. + + Itemized changes from the original text: + + On page 37, changed “may-be” to “maybe”, + near “are deterred from visiting” + On page 59, changed “heavy laden” to “heavy-laden”, + near “within a stone’s throw” + On page 69, changed “fault ” to “fault.”, + in “through my fault” + On page 69, changed “fail ” to “fail.”, + in “will never fail” + On page 96, changed “3 Kings” to “1 Kings”, + in “Footnote 58” + On page 115, changed “Ps. xxiii.” to “Psa. xxiv”, + in “Footnote 81” + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76888 *** |