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diff --git a/76888-h/76888-h.htm b/76888-h/76888-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..afe87f5 --- /dev/null +++ b/76888-h/76888-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5196 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title> + Before the Most Holy | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .51em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} +@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +.tc1 {text-align: right;} +.tc2 {text-align: left;} +.tc3 {text-align: right;} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; + text-indent: 0; +} /* page numbers */ + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.right {text-align: right;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.allsmcap {font-variant: small-caps; text-transform: lowercase;} + +/* Images */ + +/* Footnotes */ +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + +/* Poetry */ +/* uncomment the next line for centered poetry */ +/* .poetry-container {display: flex; justify-content: center;} */ +.poetry-container {text-align: center;} +.poetry {text-align: left; margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%;} +.poetry .stanza {margin: 1em auto;} +.poetry .verse {text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em;} + +/* Transcriber's notes */ +.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + font-size:small; + padding:0.5em; + margin-bottom:5em; + font-family:sans-serif, serif; +} + +/* Poetry indents */ +.poetry .indent0 {text-indent: -3em;} +.poetry .indent2 {text-indent: -2em;} +.poetry .indent4 {text-indent: -1em;} +.poetry .indent6 {text-indent: 0em;} + + + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76888 ***</div> + +<h1>CORAM SANCTISSIMO</h1> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="center"> +BEFORE THE MOST HOLY<br> +<br> +<span lang="la">(CORAM SANCTISSIMO)</span><br> +<br> +<br> +BY<br> +<br> +MOTHER MARY LOYOLA<br> +<br> +OF THE BAR CONVENT, YORK<br> +<br> +<br> +EDITED BY<br> +<br> +FATHER THURSTON, S.J.<br> +<br> +<br> +ST. LOUIS, MO.<br> +<br> +B. HERDER<br> +<br> +17 SOUTH BROADWAY<br> +<br> +LONDON: SANDS & CO.<br> +<br> +1904<br> +</p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + + +<div class="chapter"> +<p> +<span lang="la">Nihil obstat.</span><br> +<br> +<span class="smcap">Herbert Thurston</span>, S.J.,<br> +<i lang="la">Censor Deputatus</i>.<br> +<br> +<br> +<span lang="la">Imprimatur.</span><br> +<br> +<span class="smcap">Herbertus Card. Vaughan</span>,<br> +<i>Archiep. Westmonast.</i><br> +<br> +<i>15th September, 1900.</i><br> +</p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="center"> +TO<br> +<br> +JESUS CHRIST<br> +<br> +YESTERDAY<br> +<br> +TO-DAY<br> +<br> +AND THE SAME<br> +<br> +FOR EVER<br> +</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="PREFACE">PREFACE.</h2> +</div> + + +<p>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 <i>History of the Holy Eucharist in Great +Britain</i> 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 +<i>cultus</i> 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. +<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> +It is remarkable to notice that +even St. Ignatius Loyola, in the book of the +<i>Spiritual Exercises</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>incognito</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Coram +Sanctissimo</i>, “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.</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">She came with her crushing memories,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">She came with her secret fears,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">She brought Him her hidden misery</div> + <div class="verse indent2">And her bitter, burning tears.</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>Or again:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Absorbed in her loving ministries</div> + <div class="verse indent2">She knelt at His feet apart,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The scandal of every eye save one</div> + <div class="verse indent2">That soundeth the secret heart.</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>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 +<i>Confession and Communion</i> and her other +devotional books will be disappointed in +anything which may meet their eye in this +new effort of her pen.</p> + +<p> +HERBERT THURSTON, S.J.<br> +</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p><i>11th September, 1900.</i></p> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> 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 (<span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span> +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.</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS.</h2> +</div> + + +<table> +<tr><th class="tc1">CHAPTER</th><th></th><th class="tc3">PAGE</th></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"><a href="#I">I.</a></td> +<td class="tc2">VISITS</td><td class="tc3">1</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"><a href="#II">II.</a></td> +<td class="tc2">PRAISE</td><td class="tc3">9</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"><a href="#III">III.</a></td> +<td class="tc2">“POSSUMUS”</td><td class="tc3">14</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"><a href="#IV">IV.</a></td> +<td class="tc2">THE SON OF MAN</td><td class="tc3">18</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"><a href="#V">V.</a></td> +<td class="tc2">WHAT THINGS?</td><td class="tc3">21</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"><a href="#VI">VI.</a></td> +<td class="tc2">VENITE AD ME OMNES</td><td class="tc3">30</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"><a href="#VII">VII.</a></td> +<td class="tc2">THE HIDDEN GOD</td><td class="tc3">33</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"><a href="#VIII">VIII.</a></td> +<td class="tc2">LOOKING THROUGH THE LATTICES</td><td class="tc3">37</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"><a href="#IX">IX.</a></td> +<td class="tc2">LORD, COME AND SEE!</td><td class="tc3">41</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"><a href="#X">X.</a></td> +<td class="tc2">NEGLECT</td><td class="tc3">43</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"><a href="#XI">XI.</a></td> +<td class="tc2">FAITH</td><td class="tc3">47</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"><a href="#XII">XII.</a></td> +<td class="tc2">AFTER A DEFEAT</td><td class="tc3">52</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"><a href="#XIII">XIII.</a></td> +<td class="tc2">AFTER A VICTORY</td><td class="tc3">55</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"><a href="#XIV">XIV.</a></td> +<td class="tc2">A DIVINE FRIEND</td><td class="tc3">57</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"><a href="#XV">XV.</a></td> +<td class="tc2">AN EVENING VISIT</td><td class="tc3">59</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"><a href="#XVI">XVI.</a></td> +<td class="tc2">PRIVILEGED</td><td class="tc3">63</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"><a href="#XVII">XVII.</a></td> +<td class="tc2">THE IMPROVIDENCE OF LOVE</td><td class="tc3">67</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"><a href="#XVIII">XVIII.</a></td> +<td class="tc2">CHANGES</td><td class="tc3">70</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"><a href="#XIX">XIX.</a></td> +<td class="tc2">I HAVE SOMEWHAT TO SAY TO THEE</td><td class="tc3">73</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"><a href="#XX">XX.</a></td> +<td class="tc2">A DIVINE PLAINT</td><td class="tc3">77</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"><a href="#XXI">XXI.</a></td> +<td class="tc2">THANKSGIVING</td><td class="tc3">80</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"><a href="#XXII">XXII.</a></td> +<td class="tc2">DARKNESS</td><td class="tc3">85</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"><a href="#XXIII">XXIII.</a></td> +<td class="tc2">“WHAT IS TRUTH?”</td><td class="tc3">91</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"><a href="#XXIV">XXIV.</a></td> +<td class="tc2">HIS SECOND COMING</td><td class="tc3">95</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"><a href="#XXV">XXV.</a></td> +<td class="tc2">OUR EARTH</td><td class="tc3">99</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"><a href="#XXVI">XXVI.</a></td> +<td class="tc2">CHRIST OUR STUDY</td><td class="tc3">104</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"><a href="#XXVII">XXVII.</a></td> +<td class="tc2">OUR FATHER</td><td class="tc3">109</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"><a href="#XXVIII">XXVIII.</a></td> +<td class="tc2">HEREAFTER</td><td class="tc3">111</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"><a href="#XXIX">XXIX.</a></td> +<td class="tc2">MY VINEYARD</td><td class="tc3">115</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"><a href="#XXX">XXX.</a></td> +<td class="tc2">WHERE WE ARE TRUE</td><td class="tc3">118</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"><a href="#XXXI">XXXI.</a></td> +<td class="tc2">IN SILENCE AND IN HOPE</td><td class="tc3">121</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"><a href="#XXXII">XXXII.</a></td> +<td class="tc2">GOD’S WORK</td><td class="tc3">124</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"><a href="#XXXIII">XXXIII.</a></td> +<td class="tc2">A STRONG CRY</td><td class="tc3">129</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"><a href="#XXXIV">XXXIV.</a></td> +<td class="tc2">“BE READY”</td><td class="tc3">133</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"><a href="#XXXV">XXXV.</a></td> +<td class="tc2">“DOMINE, ECCE QUEM AMAS INFIRMATUR”</td><td class="tc3">137</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"><a href="#XXXVI">XXXVI.</a></td> +<td class="tc2">AFTER A DEATH</td><td class="tc3">142</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"><a href="#XXXVII">XXXVII.</a></td> +<td class="tc2">GOD’S WAYS</td><td class="tc3">145</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"><a href="#XXXVIII">XXXVIII.</a></td> +<td class="tc2">TWILIGHT AND NOON</td><td class="tc3">153</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"><a href="#XXXIX">XXXIX.</a></td> +<td class="tc2">RESPONSIBILITY</td><td class="tc3">159</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tc1"><a href="#XL">XL.</a></td> +<td class="tc2">LIFE</td><td class="tc3">166</td></tr> +</table> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="I">I.<br>VISITS.</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Go to Him early in the morning, and let thy foot +wear the steps of His doors.—<i>Ecclus.</i> vi. 36.</p> +</div> + + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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”.</p> + +<p>And our best of friends—do we treat Him +thus?—as affectionately, as familiarly? If +not, why not? Is He not among the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</span> +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?</p> + +<p>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: “<i>All ye that thirst, +come to the waters.... Come, buy wine +and milk without money and without any +price</i>”.<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> “<i>Come to Me and I will refresh +you.</i>”<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> “<i>Him that cometh to Me, I will not +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</span>cast out</i>.”<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> You make use of every motive +to draw me to Yourself; yet have to complain +after all: “<i>You will not come to Me +that you may have life</i>.”<a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p> + +<p>“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.”<a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</span></p> + +<p>O my Lord, why these wretched subterfuges +with You “the God of truth”?<a id="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> 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 <i>the want of love</i>? 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,”<a id="FNanchor_8" href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> +whom nothing can shock, disgust, estrange.</p> + +<p>He wants our intercourse with Him to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span> +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: “<i>You will +not come to Me. My people have forsaken +Me, the Fountain of living water, and have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span> +digged to themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, +that can hold no water.</i>”<a id="FNanchor_9" href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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”?<a id="FNanchor_10" href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> 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?</p> + +<p>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 +<i>was</i> 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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span> +angry with them—I think they will be so +dreadfully sorry all the same.”</p> + +<p>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, “<i>So +long a time have I been with you, and you +have not known Me!</i>”<a id="FNanchor_11" href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> “<i>I was daily with +you in the temple.</i>”<a id="FNanchor_12" href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p><i>Go to Him early in the morning.</i> 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.</p> + +<p><i>And let thy feet wear the steps of His doors.</i> +More especially in the afternoon or evening, +when the church is quiet and He is left all<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span> +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!</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">O blessed, self-sufficing God</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Athirst for me,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Coming a beggar to my door</div> + <div class="verse indent2">All suppliantly,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Craving with meek persistence alms</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Of my poor heart,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A thought, a word of sympathy—how sweet,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">How sweet Thou art!</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">And must Thou knock and ever knock</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Till life is flown,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Seeking vain entrance to a heart</div> + <div class="verse indent2">That is Thine own?</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Or wilt Thou rather work this hour</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Such change in me</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That hither I may come “wearing Thy steps”</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Athirst for Thee!</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> Isa. lv.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a> Matt. xi.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">[4]</a> John vi.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="label">[5]</a> <i>Ibid.</i> v.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="label">[6]</a> Luke xiv.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_7" href="#FNanchor_7" class="label">[7]</a> Psa. xxx.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_8" href="#FNanchor_8" class="label">[8]</a> Prov. xviii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_9" href="#FNanchor_9" class="label">[9]</a> Jer. ii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_10" href="#FNanchor_10" class="label">[10]</a> Matt. v.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_11" href="#FNanchor_11" class="label">[11]</a> John xiv.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_12" href="#FNanchor_12" class="label">[12]</a> Luke xxii.</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="II">II.<br>PRAISE.</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Give praise to our God, all ye His servants, and +you that fear Him, little and great.—<i>Apoc.</i> xix. 5.</p> +</div> + + +<p>When heaven is opened for an instant it +is to let out a burst of praise. “<i>Glory to +God in the highest!</i>”<a id="FNanchor_13" href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> “<i>Thou art worthy, O +Lord our God, to receive glory, and honour, +and power!</i>”<a id="FNanchor_14" href="#Footnote_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> “<i>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.</i>”<a id="FNanchor_15" href="#Footnote_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p> + +<p>We lift up our heads; we are rapt. It is +an unexpected strain from fatherland that +catches the exile’s ear and thrills through<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span> +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. <i>Gementes +et flentes in hac lacrymarum valle</i> 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”<a id="FNanchor_16" href="#Footnote_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> 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”.<a id="FNanchor_17" href="#Footnote_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> 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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span></p> +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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 <i>in hac lacrymarum +valle</i>. Whose hearts have never been allowed +even in exile to forget the tongue of +fatherland. Which have leaped up day by +day in the <i>Gloria in excelsis</i> and the <i>Magnificat</i>, +in the <i>Benedictus</i> and the <i>Te Deum</i>. +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: “<i>Arise, give<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span> +praise in the night</i>”.<a id="FNanchor_18" href="#Footnote_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> And answered: +“<i>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</i>”.<a id="FNanchor_19" href="#Footnote_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> +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: “<i>They +shall praise Me in the land of their captivity, +and shall be mindful of My name</i>”.<a id="FNanchor_20" href="#Footnote_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></p> + +<p>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 +<i>Ecce ancilla</i>, even in its agony, with His +Who having sung a hymn went forth to +Calvary!</p> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a id="Footnote_13" href="#FNanchor_13" class="label">[13]</a> Luke ii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_14" href="#FNanchor_14" class="label">[14]</a> Apoc. iv.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_15" href="#FNanchor_15" class="label">[15]</a> <i>Ibid.</i> v.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_16" href="#FNanchor_16" class="label">[16]</a> Heb. v.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_17" href="#FNanchor_17" class="label">[17]</a> Apoc. xxi.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_18" href="#FNanchor_18" class="label">[18]</a> Lament. ii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_19" href="#FNanchor_19" class="label">[19]</a> Job i.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_20" href="#FNanchor_20" class="label">[20]</a> Baruch ii.</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="III">III.<br>“POSSUMUS.”</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“Can you drink of the chalice that I drink of?”—“We +can.”—<i>Mark</i> x. 38, 39.</p> +</div> + + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p>“Canst Thou for that soul and for its +salvation go down from heaven and be +made man?”</p> + +<p>And the Divine Word answered: “<i>I +can</i>”.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“<i>I can.</i>”</p> + +<p>“Canst Thou perpetuate that Incarnation<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span> +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?”</p> + +<p>“<i>I can.</i>”</p> + +<p>“And when, O Lover of that soul, it shall +meet Thy love, Thy advances, Thy sacrifices +as Thou knowest it <i>will</i> meet them, +canst Thou bear with it still, supporting its +coldness, its waywardness, its indifference, +its ingratitude?”</p> + +<p>And Jesus said, “<i>I can</i>”.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>And now my Redeemer turns to question +me in my turn:—</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>What can I answer but, “O Lord, <i>I can</i>”?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span></p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>What is my answer now?</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“Give me the faith, Lord, to recognise +You in all these, and in the strength of that +faith, <i>I can</i>.”</p> + +<p>“Can you come after Me by taking up +your cross daily, the cross I have laid upon +you to liken you to Myself?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Lord, for beneath will be the everlasting +arms. You will not leave me alone, +and with Your help, <i>I can</i>.”</p> + +<p>“Can you uphold My cause in the face +of ridicule and disgrace, ready, if not glad, +to suffer reproach for My name?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span></p> + +<p>“In Him Who strengtheneth me, Lord, <i>I +can</i>.”</p> + +<p>“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’?”</p> + +<p>“Look on me, Lord, in hours of trial as +You looked on Peter, and sustained by that +glance, <i>I can</i>.”</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“In union, O my Lord, with Your desolate +soul on Calvary, <i>I can</i>.”</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="IV">IV.<br>THE SON OF MAN.</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“I also have a heart as well as you.”—<i>Job</i> +xii. 3.</p> +</div> + + +<p>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.”<a id="FNanchor_21" href="#Footnote_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> “You are they who +have continued with Me in My temptations.”<a id="FNanchor_22" href="#Footnote_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> +“My soul is sorrowful even unto +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span>death: stay you here, and watch with Me.... +Could you not watch one hour with Me?”<a id="FNanchor_23" href="#Footnote_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> +“The hour cometh ... that you shall be +scattered every man to his own, and shall +leave Me alone.”<a id="FNanchor_24" href="#Footnote_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a></p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p><i>Stay with Me</i> because I am going to offer +My morning sacrifice, and men are too busy +to assist at the oblation of Myself for them.</p> + +<p><i>Stay with Me</i> 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.”<a id="FNanchor_25" href="#Footnote_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span></p> +<p><i>Stay with Me</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>for me</i>? +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 +<i>for me</i>. 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 <i>for me</i>.</p> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a id="Footnote_21" href="#FNanchor_21" class="label">[21]</a> John xvii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_22" href="#FNanchor_22" class="label">[22]</a> Luke xxii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_23" href="#FNanchor_23" class="label">[23]</a> Matt. xxvi.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_24" href="#FNanchor_24" class="label">[24]</a> John xvi.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_25" href="#FNanchor_25" class="label">[25]</a> Mark vi.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="V">V.<br>WHAT THINGS?</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“Art Thou a stranger and hast not known the +things that have been done in these days?” To +whom He said: “What things?”—<i>Luke</i> xxiv. 18, 19.</p> +</div> + + +<p>Some of us, <a id="Change1"></a>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, <i>and not before</i>. Self-mastery +such as this demands an effort to +which few of us feel equal. Do what they<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.”<a id="FNanchor_26" href="#Footnote_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span></p> +<p>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?”<a id="FNanchor_27" href="#Footnote_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></p> + +<p>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”.<a id="FNanchor_28" href="#Footnote_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a></p> + +<p>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”?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span></p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span> +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”;<a id="FNanchor_29" href="#Footnote_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> +“Lord, come down before that my son +die”?<a id="FNanchor_30" href="#Footnote_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> 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?</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span></p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>Of course we must do all this with reverence +and a certain amount of watchfulness,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>eminently +natural</i>.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span> +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,”<a id="FNanchor_31" href="#Footnote_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> 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,”<a id="FNanchor_32" href="#Footnote_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> proving by +every word and act His desire to be associated +with us His brethren, His right to +His name of predilection—<i>the Son of Man</i>.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span> +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,”<a id="FNanchor_33" href="#Footnote_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> “Jesus +Christ yesterday, and to-day: and the same +for ever.”<a id="FNanchor_34" href="#Footnote_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a></p> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a id="Footnote_26" href="#FNanchor_26" class="label">[26]</a> 2 Kings v.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_27" href="#FNanchor_27" class="label">[27]</a> 1 Par. xvii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_28" href="#FNanchor_28" class="label">[28]</a> Isa. xxxvii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_29" href="#FNanchor_29" class="label">[29]</a> John xi.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_30" href="#FNanchor_30" class="label">[30]</a> <i>Ibid.</i> iv.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_31" href="#FNanchor_31" class="label">[31]</a> Rom. viii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_32" href="#FNanchor_32" class="label">[32]</a> Acts i.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_33" href="#FNanchor_33" class="label">[33]</a> Apoc. xix.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_34" href="#FNanchor_34" class="label">[34]</a> Heb. xiii.</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span></p><h2 class="nobreak" id="VI">VI.<br>VENITE AD ME OMNES.</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>—<i>Matt.</i> xi. 28.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Come to Me, heavy-laden ones, come all!”</div> + <div class="verse indent0">I hear, I rise, I hasten at His call;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">’Neath burden bent, across the threshold steal,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The curtain lift, and in His Presence kneel:</div> + <div class="verse indent4">There loose my load—and wide,</div> + <div class="verse indent4">With none to check nor chide,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Scattering, a sorry sight, on every side,</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">They fall—pains, troubles, cares—lying, how meet,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">About the weary, way-worn, wounded Feet;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Under the Eye of yore bedimmed with tears,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The Heart Gethsemane oppressed with fears,</div> + <div class="verse indent4">The Heart that sore afraid</div> + <div class="verse indent4">Strong supplication made,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And with a sweat of blood the Father prayed.</div> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span></p> </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Beneath His glance, as snow ’neath sunny ray,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Some of my cares dissolve and melt away,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And some He takes and smoothes a little space</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The less to chafe, and lays again in place.</div> + <div class="verse indent4">’Tis mystery to me</div> + <div class="verse indent4">How some He smiles to see,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And how on some His tears fall tenderly.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">One I hold up to Him, and pleading pray,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">“This, Lord, just this, in pity take away!”</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And ever comes His word with cheering smile:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">“A little longer, trust Me yet awhile;</div> + <div class="verse indent4">Each pang of keen distress,</div> + <div class="verse indent4">Each prayer, I mark and bless,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Each in its hour shall show forth fruitfulness”.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>That</i>, my life’s woe, against a bleeding Side</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Is pressed, and lo! transfigured, glorified,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">It glows as crystal flushed with rosy ray.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">“O gem unprized! Restore it, Lord, I pray;</div> + <div class="verse indent4">As costly gift from Thee</div> + <div class="verse indent4">Dear shall it be to me”;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And in my heart I hide it lovingly.</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">A lightened load He lays on me, all sweet</div> + <div class="verse indent0">With words of love—and thus I leave His Feet,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">With steadier step to plod on day by day,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">With stouter heart to climb the upward way;</div> + <div class="verse indent6">And when anew life’s strain</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Frets me with weary pain,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">I take my load and go to Him again.</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="VII">VII.<br>THE HIDDEN GOD.</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Vere Tu es Deus absconditus!—<i>Isaias</i> xlv. 15.</p> +</div> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Behold He standeth behind our wall.”<a id="FNanchor_35" href="#Footnote_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> +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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span>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.</p> + +<p>“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,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span> +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 <i>are</i> they that +have not seen and have believed.”<a id="FNanchor_36" href="#Footnote_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> 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.”<a id="FNanchor_37" href="#Footnote_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a></p> + +<p>“We see now in a dark manner: but then +face to face.”<a id="FNanchor_38" href="#Footnote_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> “I shall see Him, but not +now.”<a id="FNanchor_39" href="#Footnote_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> How will that face to face vision be +the brighter and the sweeter for the dimness +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span>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!</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">O days and hours, your work is this,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">To hold me from my proper place,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">A little while from His embrace,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For fuller gain of after bliss.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That out of distance might ensue</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Desire of nearness doubly sweet,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">And unto meeting when we meet,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Delight a hundredfold accrue.</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="right"> +—<i>In Memoriam</i><br> +</p> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a id="Footnote_35" href="#FNanchor_35" class="label">[35]</a> Cant. ii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_36" href="#FNanchor_36" class="label">[36]</a> John xx.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_37" href="#FNanchor_37" class="label">[37]</a> 1 Peter i.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_38" href="#FNanchor_38" class="label">[38]</a> 1 Cor. xiii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_39" href="#FNanchor_39" class="label">[39]</a> Numbers xxiv.</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="VIII">VIII.<br>LOOKING THROUGH THE LATTICES.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="right"> +—<i>Cant.</i> ii. 9.<br> +</p> + + +<p>But meanwhile the Beloved <i>is</i> 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.”<a id="FNanchor_40" href="#Footnote_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> 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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span> +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 <i>par excellence</i>; 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?</p> + +<p>Say it, make an effort to say it to Him +Who is in the tabernacle yonder.</p> + +<p>O Jesus, hidden God, more friendly than +a brother,<a id="FNanchor_41" href="#Footnote_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> 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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span>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.<a id="FNanchor_42" href="#Footnote_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a></p> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a id="Footnote_40" href="#FNanchor_40" class="label">[40]</a> John ii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_41" href="#FNanchor_41" class="label">[41]</a> Prov. xviii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_42" href="#FNanchor_42" class="label">[42]</a> John ii.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="IX">IX.<br>LORD, COME AND SEE!</h2> +</div> + +<p class="right"> +—<i>John</i> xi. 34.<br> +</p> + + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Come to my heart as unto Bethl’hem’s grot,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A hovel-home that love despises not:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Can love transform it to a pleasant spot?</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Lord, come and see!</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Come to my heart as once to Bethany:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A brother’s grave is there, and piteously</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Are tears and supplication calling Thee:</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Lord, come and see!</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">How flocked of yore unto Thy blessed feet</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The sick, the sad, Thy mercy to entreat!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">I too have needs Thy pitying eye to meet:</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Lord, come and see!</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Come, lay Thy hand upon each leprous stain;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Come with Thy word of might the fiend to chain;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The open festering sore, the hidden pain,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Lord, come and see!</div> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span></p> </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Come to my heart, this dull cold heart of mine,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">All irresponsive to a love divine;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">What lacks it to become Thy hallowed shrine?</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Lord, come and see!</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Happier by far than in the olden days</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Judea’s glorious Temple—what delays</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Its song and sacrifice, its prayer and praise?</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Lord, come and see!</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Perchance, like Temple Courts, doth sinful stain,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The world’s loud trafficking, the greed of gain</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thy Father’s house, the house of prayer profane:</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Lord, come and see!</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Come, Holy One, I yield myself to Thee;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">E’en scourge in hand, come, Lord and Love, to me.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">What change shall make me Thine, Thine utterly?</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Lord, come and see!</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="X">X.<br>NEGLECT.</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>He came unto His own, and His own received +Him not.—<i>John</i> i. 11.</p> +</div> + + +<p>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 <a id="Change2"></a>heavy-laden +within a stone’s +throw of Your door? Ah, Lord, the outrage<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</span> +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. “<i>Behold ... my familiar +friends also are departed from me.... My +brethren have passed by me.</i>”<a id="FNanchor_43" href="#Footnote_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> “<i>Do you +now believe? Behold ... you shall be +scattered every man to his own, and shall +leave Me alone.</i>”<a id="FNanchor_44" href="#Footnote_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> 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”.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Who would have thought that God could +upbraid so tenderly, or that men could hear +such reproach without being touched and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</span> +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!</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p><i>He came unto His own</i>—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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a id="Footnote_43" href="#FNanchor_43" class="label">[43]</a> Job vi.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_44" href="#FNanchor_44" class="label">[44]</a> John xvi.</p> +</div> + + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XI">XI.<br>FAITH.</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Sola fides sufficit!</p> +</div> + + +<p>What mainly hinders the freedom and +happiness of our intercourse with Christ our +Lord in the Blessed Sacrament is the account +we make <i>of feelings</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Feelings we may dispense with, but faith +never. Faith we must follow, lean upon, +cling to, with all the more tenacity as the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span> +days draw on of which our Lord said: +“The Son of man when He cometh, shall +He find, think you, faith on earth?”<a id="FNanchor_45" href="#Footnote_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> With +the vehemence that will take no refusal +we must constrain her, saying: “Stay +with us, because it is towards evening”.<a id="FNanchor_46" href="#Footnote_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> +Where faith enters and takes full possession, +all good things enter with her. We need +not go about to seek anxiously for anything +else: <i>Sola fides sufficit!</i></p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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. +<i>Sola fides sufficit!</i> 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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span></p> + +<p>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! <i>Sola fides sufficit!</i> Lord, increase +my faith!</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Thou Who of old didst love Thy hand to lay</div> + <div class="verse indent2">On the dull, vacant eyes that craved for light,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Behold, I come to Thee, and crying, pray:</div> + <div class="verse indent2">O Christ, O Son of David, give me sight!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A faith scarce clouded by the mists of earth,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">A faith that pierceth heaven I ask of Thee,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Faith to prize all things by their lasting worth:</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Thou canst, Thou wilt—O Lord, that I may see!</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>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;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span> +great power and majesty, all nature trembling +at Your approach; whilst the elect lift +up their heads because their redemption is +at hand.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Jesu, quem velatum nunc aspicio,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Oro, fiat illud, quod tam sitio,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ut, Te revelata cernens facie,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Visu sim beatus Tuae gloriae.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">O Jesu, Whom by faith I now descry</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Shrouded from mortal eye;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">When wilt Thou slake the thirsting of my heart</div> + <div class="verse indent2">To see Thee as Thou art,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Face unto face in all Thy glad array,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">’Tranced with the glory of that everlasting day.</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="right"> +—G. T.<br> +</p> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a id="Footnote_45" href="#FNanchor_45" class="label">[45]</a> Luke xviii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_46" href="#FNanchor_46" class="label">[46]</a> <i>Ibid.</i> xxiv.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XII">XII.<br>AFTER A DEFEAT.</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Let not this thing discourage thee, for various +is the event of war.—2 <i>Kings</i> xi. 25.</p> +</div> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</span> +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”.<a id="FNanchor_47" href="#Footnote_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> At my first +call for help reinforcements are sent to the +front, not <i>less</i>, by reason of my unfaithfulness, +but <i>more</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>I am sorry, O my Chief, for the dishonour +to Your name and the loss to Your cause +through my <a id="Change3"></a>fault. But +I do not despond. +I may fail in everything else, but in trust I +will never <a id="Change4"></a>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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span> +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: “<i>Well done!</i>”</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Fearful of self, with sore temptation pressing,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">I hasten, God of armies, unto Thee,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">My every power, my every sense confessing</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Its insufficiency.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Taught by the past there is no help in me,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">I cast myself on Thee.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">This is not hard. But false in face of Heaven,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">To turn with trusting heart again to Thee,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Not once, not twice, but seventy times seven,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">In brave humility:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">When smarting self would hide its misery,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">To cast myself on Thee—</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Lord, <i>this is hard</i>. Thine eye alone can measure</div> + <div class="verse indent2">The weary pain of each relapse to me:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Yet fraught with grace, all stored with hidden treasure,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Is my infirmity;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Strongest of pleas, the creature’s frailty,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">That casts it upon Thee.</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a id="Footnote_47" href="#FNanchor_47" class="label">[47]</a> Imit. of Christ, iii. 6.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XIII">XIII.<br>AFTER A VICTORY.</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Thanks be to God, Who hath given us the victory +through our Lord Jesus Christ.—1 <i>Cor.</i> xv. 57.</p> +</div> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p><i>Thanks be to God</i>—It was Your grace, +my God, throughout—before, accompanying, +crowning—my share just the co-operation +that did not reject the help You gave.</p> + +<p><i>Who hath given us</i>—given <i>me</i>, so weak, +so cowardly, so little to be depended on in +moments of trouble and conflict; <i>me</i>, such a +disgrace to the colours often, such a sorry +soldier at best—</p> + +<p><i>The victory</i>—nothing much for anyone<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span> +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.</p> + +<p><i>Through our Lord Jesus Christ</i>, by Whom, +with Whom, in Whom we overcome. We +can do all things in Him Who strengthens +us. <i>Jesu, Tibi sit gloria!</i> Thanks be to +God, Who has given us the victory through +our Lord Jesus Christ.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XIV">XIV.<br>A DIVINE FRIEND.</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>The woman ... came and fell down before +Him, and told Him all the truth.—<i>Mark</i> v. 33.</p> +</div> + + +<p><i>The whole truth.</i> 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?</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span> +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 <i>the +whole truth</i>. 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.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XV">XV.<br>AN EVENING VISIT.</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Stay with us, because it is towards evening.—<i>Luke</i> +xxiv. 29.</p> +</div> + + +<p>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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span> +the dark.<a id="FNanchor_48" href="#Footnote_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> With us not only all days, but +all nights unto the end of time.</p> + +<p><i>Stay with us</i>, 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.</p> + +<p><i>Stay with us</i>, to ward off the anger of +God from our crowded cities with their dens +of vice, their crimes that call to Heaven for +vengeance.</p> + +<p><i>Stay with us</i>, to guard the innocent, to +sustain the tempted, to raise the fallen, to +curb the power of the evil one, to prevent sin.</p> + +<p><i>Stay with us</i>, 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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</span> +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.</p> + +<p><i>Stay with us, Lord, to-night.</i> 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”.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>“Vouchsafe, O Lord, this night to keep +us without sin.”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</span> +we have made the Most High our refuge,<a id="FNanchor_49" href="#Footnote_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> +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.”</p> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a id="Footnote_48" href="#FNanchor_48" class="label">[48]</a> Psa. xc.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_49" href="#FNanchor_49" class="label">[49]</a> Psa. xc.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XVI">XVI.<br>PRIVILEGED.</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>My lots are in Thy hands.—<i>Psa.</i> xxx. 15.</p> +</div> + + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</span> +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 <i>everything</i> 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.</p> + +<p>And suppose once again You were to say +to us: “There are a few, a very few, whose<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</span> +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!”</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</span> +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.”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p><i>Suppose</i>—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”.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XVII">XVII.<br>THE IMPROVIDENCE OF LOVE.</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your +ways My ways, saith the Lord.—<i>Isa.</i> lv. 8.</p> +</div> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>And yet <i>is</i> the Eucharist after all the +greatest of mysteries? Has it not its source +in a deeper mystery still? Is anything<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</span> +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?</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</span> +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?”<a id="FNanchor_50" href="#Footnote_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> +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,<a id="FNanchor_51" href="#Footnote_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> “for My +thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your +ways My ways, saith the Lord”.</p> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a id="Footnote_50" href="#FNanchor_50" class="label">[50]</a> Isa. xl.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_51" href="#FNanchor_51" class="label">[51]</a> Rom. xi.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</span></p><h2 class="nobreak" id="XVIII">XVIII.<br>CHANGES.</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Behold, I make all things new!—<i>Apoc.</i> xxi. 5.</p> +</div> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>So is it in the world of souls. The most +marvellous transformations cost You but a +word. <i>Follow Me!</i> And instantly apostle +after apostle leaves all and follows You—mind, +heart, views, ambitions, the whole +aspect of life changed. <i>Saul, Saul, why +persecutest thou Me?</i> And he who had +“beyond measure persecuted the Church of +God”<a id="FNanchor_52" href="#Footnote_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> rises to his feet ready to carry the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</span>name of Jesus “before the Gentiles, and +kings, and the children of Israel”.<a id="FNanchor_53" href="#Footnote_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a></p> + +<p>With a word You can change <i>me</i>. 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,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</span> +entering my very heart to make it live by +You!</p> + +<p>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 <i>into Yourself</i>. +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.</p> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a id="Footnote_52" href="#FNanchor_52" class="label">[52]</a> Gal. i.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_53" href="#FNanchor_53" class="label">[53]</a> Acts ix.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XIX">XIX.<br>I HAVE SOMEWHAT TO SAY TO THEE.</h2> +</div> + +<p class="right"> +—<i>Luke</i> vii. 40.<br> +</p> + + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">A word to me? a word for me apart</div> + <div class="verse indent0">No other ear to hearken—heart to heart?</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A word Thy hidden pleasure to impart?</div> + <div class="verse indent6">O Master, say it!</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Is it a word of love, entreating mine—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Poor recompense indeed for love divine,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Yet precious to that human Heart of Thine?</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Dear Master, say it!</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">A word of blame? Lord, I deserve it—nay,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">No word of Thine can I deserve—yet may</div> + <div class="verse indent0">I know what chiding love would have Thee say?</div> + <div class="verse indent6">O Master, say it!</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">A word to cast aside my craven fears,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And bravely bear the cross these many years</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Dragged after Thee with protest and with tears?</div> + <div class="verse indent6">O Master, say it!</div> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</span></p> </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Perchance a dreaded word, not once or twice,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">But often suing for a gift of price;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Can I invite that call to sacrifice?</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Yes, Master, say it!</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">A word from Thee the rightful course will trace,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A word from Thee the shrinking spirit brace,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A word from Thee bestow all needful grace,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">O Master, say it!</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">No word of Thine but gives before it takes,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And taking, generous compensation makes,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And effort asking, energy awakes,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">O Master, say it!</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">A warning maybe—frighted love’s disguise,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">How stern soe’er in seeming, kindly wise,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Unveiling danger to unwary eyes?</div> + <div class="verse indent6">O Master, say it!</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Thy voice is ever music to mine ear,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Silence alone o’erwhelms my soul with fear</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Say all, say freely what I crave to hear,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">O Master, say it!</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</span> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">One tender word to Thomas brought belief,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">One pitying word, a kingdom to a thief,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">One only word would bring my soul relief,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">O Master, say it!</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">New shape would aims, desires, affections take,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">New power of sacrifice within me wake,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">New need of toil and suffering for Thy sake,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">O Master, say it!</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">One word, I know, Thou hast for me—a word</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In the still hours of prayer how often heard,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Not long, perchance, its welcome sound deferred,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">O Master, say it!</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Word life’s incessant prayer must wrest from Thee;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Word holding my eternal destiny,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Word I must hear or perish utterly,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">O Master, say it!</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">When past my little day of time and grace,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Lone in another world I seek my place,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And trembling fall before Thy unveiled Face,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Dear Master, say it!</div> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</span></p> </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Come!</i>—blest recall from exile’s weary years,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Rest from the awful strife ’twixt hopes and fears,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sweet word of welcome after toil and tears,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">O Master, say it!</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Though silent now, keep Thou that word in store,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The word to make me Thine for evermore;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">By all Thy loving-kindness, I implore,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Dear Master, say it!</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</span></p> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XX">XX.<br>A DIVINE PLAINT.</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>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.—<i>Jer.</i> ii. 13.</p> +</div> + + +<p>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 <i>to ourselves</i>—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.</p> + +<p>The plaint is echoed by the Incarnate +Son. “<i>You will not come to Me that you +may have life.</i>”<a id="FNanchor_54" href="#Footnote_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> 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. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</span>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.”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>O Loving One, who are we that You +should so earnestly entreat our friendship?<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.”<a id="FNanchor_55" href="#Footnote_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> 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”.<a id="FNanchor_56" href="#Footnote_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a></p> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a id="Footnote_54" href="#FNanchor_54" class="label">[54]</a> John v.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_55" href="#FNanchor_55" class="label">[55]</a> 1 Cor. xiii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_56" href="#FNanchor_56" class="label">[56]</a> Jer. iii.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</span></p><h2 class="nobreak" id="XXI">XXI.<br>THANKSGIVING.</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>And he fell on his face before His feet, giving +thanks.—<i>Luke</i> xvii. 16.</p> +</div> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Thou, O my God, hast made me joyful +with great joy.”<a id="FNanchor_57" href="#Footnote_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a></p> + +<p>“Blessed be the Lord God this day.”<a id="FNanchor_58" href="#Footnote_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a></p> + +<p>“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.”<a id="FNanchor_59" href="#Footnote_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</span></p> +<p>“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.”<a id="FNanchor_60" href="#Footnote_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a></p> + +<p>“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.”<a id="FNanchor_61" href="#Footnote_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</span></p> +<p>“Praise ye the Lord, for the Lord is good; +sing ye to His name, for it is sweet.”<a id="FNanchor_62" href="#Footnote_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a></p> + +<p>“Who healeth the broken of heart, and +bindeth up their bruises.”<a id="FNanchor_63" href="#Footnote_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a></p> + +<p>“The Lord hath granted me my petition +which I asked of Him.”<a id="FNanchor_64" href="#Footnote_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a></p> + +<p>“Blessed be God, Who hath not turned +away my prayer, nor His mercy from me.”<a id="FNanchor_65" href="#Footnote_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a></p> + +<p>“O Lord our God, all this store ... is +from Thy hand.”<a id="FNanchor_66" href="#Footnote_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a></p> + +<p>“O Lord, there is none like Thee.”<a id="FNanchor_67" href="#Footnote_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a></p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p><i>He fell on his face before His feet giving +thanks.</i> 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,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</span> +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 <i>Te Deum</i>! 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</span> +as a full, worthy, adequate return for all His +goodness to us.</p> + +<p>“What shall I render to the Lord for all +He hath rendered unto me?”</p> + +<p>I will come to the altar of God to unite +my thanksgiving and my praise with the +divine gratitude of the God-Man.</p> + +<p>I will offer with Him His sacrifice and +mine, a gift of infinite value from my grateful +heart.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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”.<a id="FNanchor_68" href="#Footnote_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> <i>Per Ipsum, et cum Ipso, et in +Ipso ... omnis honor et gloria. Amen.</i></p> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a id="Footnote_57" href="#FNanchor_57" class="label">[57]</a> <i>Cf.</i> 2 Esdras xii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_58" href="#FNanchor_58" class="label">[58]</a> <a id="Change5"></a>1 Kings v.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_59" href="#FNanchor_59" class="label">[59]</a> Tobias viii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_60" href="#FNanchor_60" class="label">[60]</a> Psa. cii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_61" href="#FNanchor_61" class="label">[61]</a> <i>Ibid.</i> cvi.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_62" href="#FNanchor_62" class="label">[62]</a> Psa. cxxxiv.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_63" href="#FNanchor_63" class="label">[63]</a> <i>Ibid.</i> cxlvi.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_64" href="#FNanchor_64" class="label">[64]</a> 1 Kings i.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_65" href="#FNanchor_65" class="label">[65]</a> Psa. lxv.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_66" href="#FNanchor_66" class="label">[66]</a> 1 Par. xxix.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_67" href="#FNanchor_67" class="label">[67]</a> <i>Ibid.</i> xvii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_68" href="#FNanchor_68" class="label">[68]</a> Psa. lxxxiii.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XXII">XXII.<br>DARKNESS.</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?—<i>Matt.</i> +xxvii. 46.</p> +</div> + + +<p><i>My God!</i> 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!</p> + +<p><i>My God!</i> 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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</span> +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.</p> + +<p><i>My God!</i> 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.</p> + +<p><i>My God!</i> in a sense known to myself and +You alone—father, mother, sister, brother, +lover, friend—all in all to me.</p> + +<p><i>My God!</i> 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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p><i>My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken +me?</i> Why this darkness in which I grope<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</span> +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?</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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? <i>My God, my God, why +hast Thou forsaken me?</i></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</span></p> + +<p><i>My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken +Me!</i> 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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>must</i> I, in the darkness +that is but the faintest shadow of His.</p> + +<p><i>Father, into Thy hands I commend my<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</span> +spirit</i>—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.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“My God, My God!”—into the night went forth</div> + <div class="verse indent4">That lonely cry,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Piteous as never plaint from burdened breast</div> + <div class="verse indent4">Its misery.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Went forth <i>for me</i> into the night, that wail</div> + <div class="verse indent4">Of woe divine;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">His bitter dereliction bared, to draw</div> + <div class="verse indent4">The sting from mine.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">And yet another cry ere shades of death</div> + <div class="verse indent4">Around Him stole,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Revealed the sanctuary dark and lone</div> + <div class="verse indent4">Of Jesu’s soul:</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Father, into Thy hands”—a Son’s bequest,</div> + <div class="verse indent4">That we might know</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The filial, all unshaken trust, beneath</div> + <div class="verse indent4">That depth of woe.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Father, into Thy hands”—that we might learn</div> + <div class="verse indent4">Since Jesus died</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Theirs first the right to claim the Father’s love,</div> + <div class="verse indent4">His crucified.</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XXIII">XXIII.<br>“WHAT IS TRUTH?”</h2> +</div> + +<p class="right"> +—<i>John</i> xviii. 38.<br> +</p> + + +<p>“Pilate saith to Him: What is truth? +And when he said this he went out.”</p> + +<p>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: +“<i>What shall I do to possess everlasting +life?</i>”<a id="FNanchor_69" href="#Footnote_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a> “<i>Make the way known to me, +wherein I should walk.</i>”<a id="FNanchor_70" href="#Footnote_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a> “<i>Teach me to +do Thy will, for Thou art my God.</i>”<a id="FNanchor_71" href="#Footnote_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a> 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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</span>to follow. And so I ask lightly: “What is +truth?” without waiting to hear what the +Lord my God will speak in me.<a id="FNanchor_72" href="#Footnote_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a></p> + +<p>How much more readily I pray for light +than for strength. “<i>Lord, that I may see!</i>” +And when the scales begin to fall from my +eyes, I turn away lest I should find what +I am seeking.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</span> +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.”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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”.<a id="FNanchor_73" href="#Footnote_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a> But I must +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</span>ask, for “strength cometh from Heaven”.<a id="FNanchor_74" href="#Footnote_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a> +“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.”<a id="FNanchor_75" href="#Footnote_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a> +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.”<a id="FNanchor_76" href="#Footnote_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a></p> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a id="Footnote_69" href="#FNanchor_69" class="label">[69]</a> Luke xviii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_70" href="#FNanchor_70" class="label">[70]</a> Psa. cxlii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_71" href="#FNanchor_71" class="label">[71]</a> <i>Ibid.</i></p> +<p><a id="Footnote_72" href="#FNanchor_72" class="label">[72]</a> Psa. lxxxiv.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_73" href="#FNanchor_73" class="label">[73]</a> 1 Kings ii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_74" href="#FNanchor_74" class="label">[74]</a> 1 Mach. iii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_75" href="#FNanchor_75" class="label">[75]</a> 2 Kings xxii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_76" href="#FNanchor_76" class="label">[76]</a> Isa. xlix.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</span></p><h2 class="nobreak" id="XXIV">XXIV.<br>HIS SECOND COMING.</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>They shall see the Son of Man coming in the +clouds of heaven ... and then shall all the tribes +of the earth mourn.—<i>Matt.</i> xxiv. 30.</p> +</div> + + +<p>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—“<i>then shall all the tribes of the +earth mourn</i>”!</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</span></p> + +<p>What an awful testimony to the decay of +truth among the children of men, to the +unchristianising of the world! “<i>All the +tribes of the earth</i>,” 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?</p> + +<p>“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. +“<i>And then shall all the tribes of the earth +mourn.</i>”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</span> +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.”<a id="FNanchor_77" href="#Footnote_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a></p> + +<p>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.”<a id="FNanchor_78" href="#Footnote_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a> 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”.<a id="FNanchor_79" href="#Footnote_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a></p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</span></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Quaerens me sedisti lassus,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Redemisti crucem passus:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Tantus labor non sit cassus.</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a id="Footnote_77" href="#FNanchor_77" class="label">[77]</a> Apoc. i.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_78" href="#FNanchor_78" class="label">[78]</a> Mark xiii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_79" href="#FNanchor_79" class="label">[79]</a> Apoc. vii.</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XXV">XXV.<br>OUR EARTH.</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p><i>Coeli enarrant gloriam Dei.</i>—<i>Psa.</i> xviii. 1.</p> +</div> + + +<p><i>The heavens declare the glory of God.</i> 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!”<a id="FNanchor_80" href="#Footnote_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>And there are hours when we re-echo +David’s other cry: “<i>The earth is the Lord’s.</i>”<a id="FNanchor_81" href="#Footnote_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a> +Studded with millions of stars—its sanctuary +lamps—here in grand constellations, there +in solitary beauty amid the darkness, it +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</span>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.”<a id="FNanchor_82" href="#Footnote_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</span> +Redeemer, that so the love poured out upon +it, the Blood shed for it, may not have been +in vain?</p> + +<p>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”?<a id="FNanchor_83" href="#Footnote_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a> +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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</span>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</span></p> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a id="Footnote_80" href="#FNanchor_80" class="label">[80]</a> St. Ignatius.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_81" href="#FNanchor_81" class="label">[81]</a> <a id="Change6"></a>Psa. xxiv.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_82" href="#FNanchor_82" class="label">[82]</a> 2 Par. vii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_83" href="#FNanchor_83" class="label">[83]</a> Matt. x.</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XXVI">XXVI.<br>CHRIST OUR STUDY.</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>You have not so learned Christ.—<i>Ephes.</i> iv. 20.</p> +</div> + + +<p>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”. <i>Tout sort des idées.</i> 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,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><i>You have not so learned Christ.</i> If Christ<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</span> +our Lord has not as yet drawn <i>me</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</span> +whole affection, my whole self. He alone +can be a living influence radiating from my +own life to the lives of others.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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.”<a id="FNanchor_84" href="#Footnote_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a> 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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</span>the most beautiful, the most tender, the most +compassionate of men.</p> + +<p>Veronica wiped Your sacred suffering Face, +and received as the greatest of rewards, +stamped on her veil, and still more upon her +heart, that <i>vera icon</i>—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.</p> + +<p>Stamp on my heart, dear Lord, <i>the true +likeness</i> 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 <i>for me</i>. Here then +let me come to study You—patient, tender, +obedient still, meek and humble of heart, +Jesus, yesterday, to-day and for ever!</p> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a id="Footnote_84" href="#FNanchor_84" class="label">[84]</a> John xvii.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XXVII">XXVII.<br>OUR FATHER.</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>O clap your hands, all ye nations; shout unto +God with the voice of joy.—<i>Psa.</i> xlvi. 1.</p> +</div> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Blessed be You for ever, my God, my +Mercy,”<a id="FNanchor_85" href="#Footnote_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a> 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—<i>our +Father Who art in heaven</i>.</p> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a id="Footnote_85" href="#FNanchor_85" class="label">[85]</a> <i>Cf.</i> Psa. lviii.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XXVIII">XXVIII.<br>HEREAFTER.</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know +hereafter.—<i>John</i> xiii. 7.</p> +</div> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><i>Thou shalt know hereafter.</i> Why that +persistent prayer remained unanswered; why +evil prospered and good was overcome; why +in spite of every effort those difficulties remained<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</span> +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!</p> + +<p><i>Thou knowest not now, but thou shalt +know hereafter.</i> But I <i>may</i> 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 +<i>lumen cordium</i> which the Holy Spirit gives +to all who ask.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Dawn now—the hours of earth’s expectancy,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">From the grey heaven enough of light to guide</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The wary feet—no more; enough to trace</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Against the sky in outline faint and blurred</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Fair forms, their fairness shrouded for the nonce:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In every line of grace and symmetry</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And tender hue to be revealed, when day</div> + <div class="verse indent0">This hazy scene shall flood with living light,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Bathing all things in beauty. Now we know</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In part, the noontide comes and <i>we shall see</i>.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">O restless heart! resenting mystery,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Angry with night, that by Divine decree</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Divides with day the task of perfecting</div> + <div class="verse indent0">God’s world of souls—fret not against the gloom</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That, baffling, humbles thee. Why this reverse,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">This wrong defeating right, brave effort crowned</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</span></p> + <div class="verse indent0">By failure, good with itself at variance,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thou know’st not now; <i>now</i> the strong trial of faith,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The clinging, blind with tears, unto thy God</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In patient trust—<i>hereafter thou shalt see</i>.</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XXIX">XXIX.<br>MY VINEYARD.</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>Let us see if the vineyard flourish.—<i>Cant.</i> vii. 12.</p> +</div> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</span> +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?</p> + +<p>O God, You have given “to every one of +us commandment concerning our neighbour”.<a id="FNanchor_86" href="#Footnote_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a> +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”.<a id="FNanchor_87" href="#Footnote_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a> 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”!<a id="FNanchor_88" href="#Footnote_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a> Is it of me You say: “I +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</span>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”?<a id="FNanchor_89" href="#Footnote_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a> Must I own in my +shame, “My vineyard I have not kept”?<a id="FNanchor_90" href="#Footnote_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a></p> + +<p>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”.<a id="FNanchor_91" href="#Footnote_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a> +Then shall my vineyard flourish and bring +forth fruit to Your glory in due season.</p> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a id="Footnote_86" href="#FNanchor_86" class="label">[86]</a> Ecclus. xvii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_87" href="#FNanchor_87" class="label">[87]</a> Matt. xx.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_88" href="#FNanchor_88" class="label">[88]</a> Cant. vii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_89" href="#FNanchor_89" class="label">[89]</a> Prov. xxiv.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_90" href="#FNanchor_90" class="label">[90]</a> Cant. i.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_91" href="#FNanchor_91" class="label">[91]</a> Rom. xii.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XXX">XXX.<br>WHERE WE ARE TRUE.</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>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.—<i>Apoc.</i> iii. 17.</p> +</div> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, <i>and true</i>, without disguise, feint, +tricking out of any sort. I do not trim my +speech, or tone down my “Peccavi,” “to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</span> +make excuses in sins”.<a id="FNanchor_92" href="#Footnote_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>How could there be pretence with You or +affectation? I know and feel that “Thy eyes +are upon me,”<a id="FNanchor_93" href="#Footnote_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a> “beholding the good and +the evil”;<a id="FNanchor_94" href="#Footnote_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a> that “God Who seeth all”<a id="FNanchor_95" href="#Footnote_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a> “is +the weigher of spirits”.<a id="FNanchor_96" href="#Footnote_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> Before that all-seeing +Eye self-delusion, conceit, untruthfulness +in every shape must melt away.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Veni, Pater pauperum,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Veni, Dator munerum,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Veni, Lumen cordium.</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a id="Footnote_92" href="#FNanchor_92" class="label">[92]</a> Psa. cxl.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_93" href="#FNanchor_93" class="label">[93]</a> Job vii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_94" href="#FNanchor_94" class="label">[94]</a> Prov. xv.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_95" href="#FNanchor_95" class="label">[95]</a> Ecclus. vii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_96" href="#FNanchor_96" class="label">[96]</a> Prov. xvi.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XXXI">XXXI.<br>IN SILENCE AND IN HOPE.</h2> +</div> + +<p> +—<i>Isa.</i> xxx. 15.<br> +</p> + + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">She came with her crushing memories,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">She came with her secret fears,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">She brought Him her hidden misery</div> + <div class="verse indent2">And her bitter burning tears.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">And all alone at that cheerless board</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Prepared Him her own sweet feast,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Offering her heart with her spikenard</div> + <div class="verse indent2">And the kiss that “never ceased”.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">She marvelled when He upbraided</div> + <div class="verse indent2">The cruel thoughts of men,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And tears fell fast as He lauded her—</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Her, Mary Magdalen.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">As she marked how His Heart no token</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Of her contrite love had missed,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The love that had given of its best,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Anointed, and washed, and kissed;</div> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</span></p> </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">And tendered a heart with penitence</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Filled to the very brim,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And braved the scorn of a carping crowd</div> + <div class="verse indent2">To stake its all on Him.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Absorbed in her loving ministries</div> + <div class="verse indent2">She knelt at His Feet apart,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The scandal of every eye save one</div> + <div class="verse indent2">That soundeth the secret heart.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">She knew that her unforgiven past</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Lay open to His ken,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Yet no word of supplication</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Spake Mary Magdalen.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Love taught a sublimer pleading,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Elected a better part—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Calm trust in Him Who spurneth not</div> + <div class="verse indent2">The humble contrite heart.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">From out the fulness of His own</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Came plenary release:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">“Her many sins are pardoned her:</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Arise and go in peace”.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">O Christ, Who that poor sinner’s love</div> + <div class="verse indent2">So gloriously hast crowned,</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</span> + <div class="verse indent0">That through all time her name with Thine</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Shall through the world resound;</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Who waitest here the penitent,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">All-pitying now as then,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Give me the brave, unfaltering trust</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Of Thy dear Magdalen.</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XXXII">XXXII.<br>GOD’S WORK.</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>To the Lord was His own work known from the +beginning of the world.—<i>Acts</i> xv. 18.</p> +</div> + + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</span></p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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”.<a id="FNanchor_97" href="#Footnote_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a> 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. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</span>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.”<a id="FNanchor_98" href="#Footnote_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a> Or—in spite of human +feeling and repugnance—“The Lord gave, +and the Lord hath taken away: blessed be +the name of the Lord”.<a id="FNanchor_99" href="#Footnote_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a></p> + +<p>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,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</span> +Father; for so hath it seemed good in Thy +sight.”<a id="FNanchor_100" href="#Footnote_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a></p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>O God, let not mine be wanting! Take<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</span> +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.</p> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a id="Footnote_97" href="#FNanchor_97" class="label">[97]</a> Wisd. viii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_98" href="#FNanchor_98" class="label">[98]</a> 1 Cor. xv.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_99" href="#FNanchor_99" class="label">[99]</a> Job i.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_100" href="#FNanchor_100" class="label">[100]</a> Matt. xi.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XXXIII">XXXIII.<br>A STRONG CRY.</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>They rebuked him, that he should hold his peace. +But he cried out much more: “Son of David, have +mercy on me”.—<i>Luke</i> xviii. 39.</p> +</div> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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”.<a id="FNanchor_101" href="#Footnote_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a> +“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, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</span>saturated with Him. “In Him we live and +move and have our being.”<a id="FNanchor_102" href="#Footnote_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a> 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”.<a id="FNanchor_103" href="#Footnote_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a> 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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</span>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:—</p> + +<p>“It is not good to take the children’s +bread and to cast it to the dogs.”<a id="FNanchor_104" href="#Footnote_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a></p> + +<p>“Yea, Lord; for the whelps also eat of +the crumbs that fall from the table of their +masters.”</p> + +<p>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<a id="FNanchor_105" href="#Footnote_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a>: +Abba, Father, all things are possible +to Thee, remove this chalice from me, but +not what I will, but what Thou wilt.”<a id="FNanchor_106" href="#Footnote_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a> +“And being in an agony, He prayed the +longer.”<a id="FNanchor_107" href="#Footnote_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a> “And He prayed the third time, +saying the self same word.”<a id="FNanchor_108" href="#Footnote_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a></p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Our prayer can never be too urgent, too<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</span> +persistent, if only we kneel by Your side +and follow Your lead, O Lord. We may +return again and again upon the same plea: +<i>Abba, Pater, omnia Tibi possibilia sunt.</i> +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—<i>not my will, but Thine be +done</i>. 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.”</p> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a id="Footnote_101" href="#FNanchor_101" class="label">[101]</a> Acts xvii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_102" href="#FNanchor_102" class="label">[102]</a> Acts xvii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_103" href="#FNanchor_103" class="label">[103]</a> Heb. iv.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_104" href="#FNanchor_104" class="label">[104]</a> Mark vii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_105" href="#FNanchor_105" class="label">[105]</a> Heb. v.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_106" href="#FNanchor_106" class="label">[106]</a> Mark xiv.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_107" href="#FNanchor_107" class="label">[107]</a> Luke xxii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_108" href="#FNanchor_108" class="label">[108]</a> Matt. xxvi.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XXXIV">XXXIV.<br>“BE READY!”</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>(<i>A visit for the First Friday of the month.</i>)</p> +</div> + + +<p>“<i>Be ready!</i>” Your word of warning, +Lord, and my one desire. And so I come +to You to get ready.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</span> +Lord. Let me find You, my Lord, in death +equal to Yourself—to all I have found You +in life.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</span> +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.”</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Recordare, Jesu pie,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Quod sum causa Tuae viae</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ne me perdas illa die.</div> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</span></p> </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Quaerens me sedisti lassus,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Redemisti crucem passus:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Tantus labor non sit cassus.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Recollect, O love divine,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">’Twas for this lost sheep of Thine</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thou Thy glory didst resign.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Sattest weary seeking me,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Suff’redst upon the tree:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Let not vain Thy labour be.</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XXXV">XXXV.<br><a lang="la">“DOMINE, ECCE QUEM AMAS INFIRMATUR.”</a></h2> +</div> + +<p class="right"> +—<i>John</i> xi. 3.<br> +</p> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</span></p> + +<p>“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.”<a id="FNanchor_109" href="#Footnote_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a> 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?</p> + +<p>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”.<a id="FNanchor_110" href="#Footnote_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a> +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.”<a id="FNanchor_111" href="#Footnote_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a> “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.”</p> + +<p>“Our Lord Himself was perfected by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</span> +His passion.”<a id="FNanchor_112" href="#Footnote_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</span> +they ought to reveal instead of hiding +Him.</p> + +<p>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, “<i>Let us +go to him</i>”.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>“<i>Lord, behold, he whom Thou lovest is +sick.</i>” 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.”</p> + +<p>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: <i>Domine, ecce<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</span> +quem amas infirmatur!</i> 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. +<i>Ecce quem amas infirmatur!</i></p> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a id="Footnote_109" href="#FNanchor_109" class="label">[109]</a> John xi.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_110" href="#FNanchor_110" class="label">[110]</a> Matt. xvi.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_111" href="#FNanchor_111" class="label">[111]</a> Heb. xii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_112" href="#FNanchor_112" class="label">[112]</a> Heb. ii.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XXXVI">XXXVI.<br>AFTER A DEATH.</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>And his disciples came and took the body, and +buried it, and came and told Jesus.—<i>Matt.</i> xiv. 12.</p> +</div> + + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>They took the body, and buried it, <i>and +came and told Jesus</i>. 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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</span> +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 +<i>they came and told Jesus</i>.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</span> +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”.</p> + +<p>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.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XXXVII">XXXVII.<br>GOD’S WAYS.</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Wherein hast Thou loved us?—<i>Malach.</i> i. 2.</p> +</div> + + +<p>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?”<a id="FNanchor_113" href="#Footnote_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a></p> + +<p>But “the Spirit (of God) searcheth all +things.”<a id="FNanchor_114" href="#Footnote_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a> 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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</span>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, “<i>Wherein hast +Thou loved me?</i>”</p> + +<p>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”;<a id="FNanchor_115" href="#Footnote_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a> to my Father “that hath +possessed me, and made me, and created +me”;<a id="FNanchor_116" href="#Footnote_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a> Who says to me, “I will have mercy +on thee more than a mother”?<a id="FNanchor_117" href="#Footnote_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a> There is no +humbling avowal I may not trust to You, +and trusting it be sure of sympathy. “Why +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</span>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, +<i>Wherein hast Thou loved me?</i></p> + +<p>Your answer might be: “Shall the thing +formed say to Him that formed it, why +hast Thou made me thus?”<a id="FNanchor_118" href="#Footnote_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a> But in place +of rebuke You silence my trouble by an +invitation: “<i>Come up hither</i>”.<a id="FNanchor_119" href="#Footnote_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a> 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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</span>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.</p> + +<p>“<i>He hath begotten us ... that we might +be some beginning of His creature.</i>”<a id="FNanchor_120" href="#Footnote_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a></p> + +<p>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 <i>some beginning +of His creature</i>!</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</span></p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</span> +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!</p> + +<p>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 <i>He</i> would place me, to +satisfy <i>Him</i>, to give Him throughout eternity +the praise and reverence and service +He asks of me—this will be the only ambition<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</span> +possible to my enlightened understanding +and will. “In Thy light we shall see +light.”<a id="FNanchor_121" href="#Footnote_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a></p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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 <i>for me</i>!</p> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a id="Footnote_113" href="#FNanchor_113" class="label">[113]</a> 1 Cor. ii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_114" href="#FNanchor_114" class="label">[114]</a> <i>Ibid.</i></p> +<p><a id="Footnote_115" href="#FNanchor_115" class="label">[115]</a> Psa. cxviii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_116" href="#FNanchor_116" class="label">[116]</a> Deut. xxxii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_117" href="#FNanchor_117" class="label">[117]</a> Ecclus. iv.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_118" href="#FNanchor_118" class="label">[118]</a> Rom. ix.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_119" href="#FNanchor_119" class="label">[119]</a> Apoc. iv.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_120" href="#FNanchor_120" class="label">[120]</a> St. James i.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_121" href="#FNanchor_121" class="label">[121]</a> Psa. xxxv.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XXXVIII">XXXVIII.<br>TWILIGHT AND NOON.</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>My eyes are ever towards the Lord.—<i>Psa.</i> xxiv. 15.</p> +</div> + + +<p>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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</span> +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”.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“<i>My eyes are always towards the Lord</i>,” +said David. God revealed Himself with +special intimacy to the man according to +His own Heart, that spoke in his own person<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</span> +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”.<a id="FNanchor_122" href="#Footnote_122" class="fnanchor">[122]</a> +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,”<a id="FNanchor_123" href="#Footnote_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a> +yet “a worm, and no man, the reproach of +men, and the outcast of the people,”<a id="FNanchor_124" href="#Footnote_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a> of “a +Holy One Who should not see corruption,”<a id="FNanchor_125" href="#Footnote_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a> +but “sit on the right hand of God till all +His enemies be made His footstool”.<a id="FNanchor_126" href="#Footnote_126" class="fnanchor">[126]</a> This +was all. But it was enough to keep the eyes +of David fixed on God: “<i>My eyes are +always towards the Lord</i>.”</p> + +<p>I think of myself. I think of the careful +teaching from my childhood onwards: of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</span> +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?</p> + +<p>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: “<i>O God my<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</span> +God, to Thee do I watch at break of day. +For Thee my soul hath thirsted; for Thee my +flesh, oh, how many ways!</i>”<a id="FNanchor_127" href="#Footnote_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a></p> + +<p>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”.<a id="FNanchor_128" href="#Footnote_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a></p> + +<p>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.”<a id="FNanchor_129" href="#Footnote_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a> +“Seek ye the Lord, and be strengthened, +seek His face evermore.”<a id="FNanchor_130" href="#Footnote_130" class="fnanchor">[130]</a></p> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a id="Footnote_122" href="#FNanchor_122" class="label">[122]</a> Psa. civ.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_123" href="#FNanchor_123" class="label">[123]</a> <i>Ibid.</i> xliv.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_124" href="#FNanchor_124" class="label">[124]</a> <i>Ibid.</i> xxi.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_125" href="#FNanchor_125" class="label">[125]</a> <i>Ibid.</i> xv.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_126" href="#FNanchor_126" class="label">[126]</a> <i>Ibid.</i> cix.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_127" href="#FNanchor_127" class="label">[127]</a> Psa. lxii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_128" href="#FNanchor_128" class="label">[128]</a> <i>Ibid.</i> lxvii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_129" href="#FNanchor_129" class="label">[129]</a> <i>Ibid.</i> lxvii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_130" href="#FNanchor_130" class="label">[130]</a> <i>Ibid.</i> civ.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</span></p><h2 class="nobreak" id="XXXIX">XXXIX.<br>RESPONSIBILITY.</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Behold I and my children, whom God hath given +me.—<i>Heb.</i> ii.</p> +</div> + + +<p>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?”<a id="FNanchor_131" href="#Footnote_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a> +“Who can rejoice with them that rejoice, +and weep with them that weep”<a id="FNanchor_132" href="#Footnote_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a> like one +whose heart has thrilled with the same +gladness, and found relief in the same +tears?</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.”<a id="FNanchor_133" href="#Footnote_133" class="fnanchor">[133]</a> 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”.<a id="FNanchor_134" href="#Footnote_134" class="fnanchor">[134]</a> Nay, +He will even clothe Himself with the appearance +of sin, be “made sin for us”;<a id="FNanchor_135" href="#Footnote_135" class="fnanchor">[135]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>“You call Me Master, and Lord, and you +say well, for so I am.”<a id="FNanchor_136" href="#Footnote_136" class="fnanchor">[136]</a> “Is not He thy +Father that hath possessed thee, and made +thee and created thee?”<a id="FNanchor_137" href="#Footnote_137" class="fnanchor">[137]</a> “As one whom +the mother caresseth, so will I comfort +you.”<a id="FNanchor_138" href="#Footnote_138" class="fnanchor">[138]</a> He is our Elder Brother, “first-born +amongst many brethren;”<a id="FNanchor_139" href="#Footnote_139" class="fnanchor">[139]</a> “the Physician +of Whom we all have need;”<a id="FNanchor_140" href="#Footnote_140" class="fnanchor">[140]</a> “the Shepherd +and Bishop of our souls”.<a id="FNanchor_141" href="#Footnote_141" class="fnanchor">[141]</a> 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”.<a id="FNanchor_142" href="#Footnote_142" class="fnanchor">[142]</a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>And solve for me other problems—how<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</span> +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!</p> + +<p>“Fear not: for the battle is not yours, but +God’s.”<a id="FNanchor_143" href="#Footnote_143" class="fnanchor">[143]</a> “Cast thy care upon the Lord, +and He shall sustain thee.”<a id="FNanchor_144" href="#Footnote_144" class="fnanchor">[144]</a> “Be quiet, fear +not, and let not thy heart be afraid.”<a id="FNanchor_145" href="#Footnote_145" class="fnanchor">[145]</a></p> + +<p>“I shall fear but I will trust in Thee.”<a id="FNanchor_146" href="#Footnote_146" class="fnanchor">[146]</a> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</span>“My God is my helper, and in Him will I +put my trust.”<a id="FNanchor_147" href="#Footnote_147" class="fnanchor">[147]</a> “In my affliction I called +upon the Lord, and I cried to my God.”<a id="FNanchor_148" href="#Footnote_148" class="fnanchor">[148]</a> +“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.”<a id="FNanchor_149" href="#Footnote_149" class="fnanchor">[149]</a></p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>“<i>Behold I and my children, whom God +hath given me!</i>” 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.</p> + +<p>“<i>Behold I and my children, whom God +hath given me.</i>” 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.”<a id="FNanchor_150" href="#Footnote_150" class="fnanchor">[150]</a></p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>“Fear not! stand and see the great wonders<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</span> +of the Lord, which He will do.”<a id="FNanchor_151" href="#Footnote_151" class="fnanchor">[151]</a> “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.”<a id="FNanchor_152" href="#Footnote_152" class="fnanchor">[152]</a> “I will +give them life everlasting; and they shall +not perish for ever, and no man shall pluck +them out of My hand.”<a id="FNanchor_153" href="#Footnote_153" class="fnanchor">[153]</a></p> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a id="Footnote_131" href="#FNanchor_131" class="label">[131]</a> Ecclus. xxxiv.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_132" href="#FNanchor_132" class="label">[132]</a> Rom. xii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_133" href="#FNanchor_133" class="label">[133]</a> Job xii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_134" href="#FNanchor_134" class="label">[134]</a> Heb. iv.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_135" href="#FNanchor_135" class="label">[135]</a> 2 Cor. v.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_136" href="#FNanchor_136" class="label">[136]</a> John xiii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_137" href="#FNanchor_137" class="label">[137]</a> Deut. xxxii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_138" href="#FNanchor_138" class="label">[138]</a> Isa. lxvi.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_139" href="#FNanchor_139" class="label">[139]</a> Rom. viii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_140" href="#FNanchor_140" class="label">[140]</a> Luke v.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_141" href="#FNanchor_141" class="label">[141]</a> 1 Peter ii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_142" href="#FNanchor_142" class="label">[142]</a> Heb. iv.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_143" href="#FNanchor_143" class="label">[143]</a> 2 Par. xx.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_144" href="#FNanchor_144" class="label">[144]</a> Psa. liv.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_145" href="#FNanchor_145" class="label">[145]</a> Isa. vii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_146" href="#FNanchor_146" class="label">[146]</a> Psa. lv.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_147" href="#FNanchor_147" class="label">[147]</a> Psa. xvii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_148" href="#FNanchor_148" class="label">[148]</a> <i>Ibid.</i></p> +<p><a id="Footnote_149" href="#FNanchor_149" class="label">[149]</a> <i>Ibid.</i> xii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_150" href="#FNanchor_150" class="label">[150]</a> John xvii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_151" href="#FNanchor_151" class="label">[151]</a> Exod. xiv.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_152" href="#FNanchor_152" class="label">[152]</a> Ezech. xxxiv.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_153" href="#FNanchor_153" class="label">[153]</a> John x.</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</span></p><h2 class="nobreak" id="XL">XL.<br>LIFE.</h2> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>As long as the heir is a child, he is under tutors +and governors until the time appointed by the +father.—<i>Galat.</i> iv. 1, 2.</p> +</div> + + +<p>Life is a school—neither more nor less. +<i>Not more.</i> 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.</p> + +<p>But surely the eternal Home is worth waiting +for! “It hath not yet appeared what +we shall be.”<a id="FNanchor_154" href="#Footnote_154" class="fnanchor">[154]</a> “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.”<a id="FNanchor_155" href="#Footnote_155" class="fnanchor">[155]</a> Yet we may infer +something of the grandeur and blessedness +of the life to come from the study of our own +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</span>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”.<a id="FNanchor_156" href="#Footnote_156" class="fnanchor">[156]</a> 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—<i>we +are at school</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</span></p> +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Life is a school. <i>Nothing less.</i> 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<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</span> +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.”<a id="FNanchor_157" href="#Footnote_157" class="fnanchor">[157]</a> “Our conversation must be in +heaven.”<a id="FNanchor_158" href="#Footnote_158" class="fnanchor">[158]</a></p> + +<p>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,”<a id="FNanchor_159" href="#Footnote_159" class="fnanchor">[159]</a> “like to us in all things excepting +sin”;<a id="FNanchor_160" href="#Footnote_160" class="fnanchor">[160]</a> 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.”<a id="FNanchor_161" href="#Footnote_161" class="fnanchor">[161]</a></p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</span></p> + +<p>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.”<a id="FNanchor_162" href="#Footnote_162" class="fnanchor">[162]</a> 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”.<a id="FNanchor_163" href="#Footnote_163" class="fnanchor">[163]</a> +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.</p> + +<p>And when my school days are over and +my lessons here are learned—dear Father, +take me Home!</p> + +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a id="Footnote_154" href="#FNanchor_154" class="label">[154]</a> 1 John iii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_155" href="#FNanchor_155" class="label">[155]</a> 1 Cor. ii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_156" href="#FNanchor_156" class="label">[156]</a> Luke vi.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_157" href="#FNanchor_157" class="label">[157]</a> Philip. ii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_158" href="#FNanchor_158" class="label">[158]</a> <i>Cf.</i> <i>Ibid.</i> iii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_159" href="#FNanchor_159" class="label">[159]</a> Heb. ii.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_160" href="#FNanchor_160" class="label">[160]</a> <i>Ibid.</i> iv.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_161" href="#FNanchor_161" class="label">[161]</a> Ecclus. li.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_162" href="#FNanchor_162" class="label">[162]</a> Psa. xli.</p> +<p><a id="Footnote_163" href="#FNanchor_163" class="label">[163]</a> Collect for 3rd Sunday after Pentecost. +</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_ABERDEEN_UNIVERSITY_PRESS_LIMITED">THE ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS LIMITED.</h2> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="transnote"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="TRANSCRIBERS_NOTES">TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES</h2> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Footnotes have been renumbered and moved to the ends of their chapters.</p> +<p>Missing italics markings in chapter subheads have been silently corrected.</p> +<p>Itemized changes from the original text:</p> + <ul> + <li><a href="#Change1">On page 37</a>, changed “may-be” to “maybe”, near “are deterred from visiting”<br> + </li> + <li><a href="#Change2">On page 59</a>, changed “heavy laden” to “heavy-laden”, near “within a stone’s throw”<br> + </li> + <li><a href="#Change3">On page 69</a>, changed “fault ” to “fault.”, in “through my fault”<br> + </li> + <li><a href="#Change4">On page 69</a>, changed “fail ” to “fail.”, in “will never fail”<br> + </li> + <li><a href="#Change5">On page 96</a>, changed “3 Kings” to “1 Kings”, in “Footnote 58”<br> + </li> + <li><a href="#Change6">On page 115</a>, changed “Ps. xxiii.” to “Psa. xxiv”, in “Footnote 81”<br> + </li> + </ul> +</div> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76888 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + |