Letters to His Friends Part 12

Rest in the Lord. This thought comes home to me more than it used to do. I like to bring all the perplexities of life--the thoughts and feelings which I can explain to no one--of some of which I cannot say whether they are right or wrong, or where the right shades into wrong--and to leave them with Him to develop (if right), to sift, to correct. What a blank life would be without G.o.d! . . .

Easter brings fresh hope and life. It is glorious to begin existence in a world which has been redeemed. I am sure--since He rose and defeated death--we ought to trust to life, to delight in it. 'I am the Life.'

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Breathe in the fresh air. It is one of the best gifts that the good G.o.d has bestowed upon us. We want fresh air not only in our lungs but all through, if I may say so, our being. I long to be more natural and happy--not that I wish for 'religious happiness,' but something quite different--the happiness which comes in the right exercise of power and in conscious dependence upon Him in whom we live.

_In reply to a letter from H. P., a master at Clifton College, who was in doubt whether he ought to resign his masters.h.i.+p and go down to the College Mission in Bristol._

Christ's College, Cambridge: May 1, 1901.

I have not had time to think over the matter yet, but my first feeling is that you ought to be very slow to move. If men in your position, who feel keenly interested in the highest welfare of their pupils and long to influence them in spiritual matters, all go away to parish work, what is to become of our public school boys? Masters are only too anxious to leave for more 'directly spiritual' work, as they say.

But in doing so they leave a work of exceptional difficulty and importance behind, and who is to take their place? I understand and appreciate your feelings, but I am not at all sure that you have any call to go.

How much directly 'spiritual' work have you with the boys? Could you, if you desired, get more?

I will pray over the matter. Do be slow before you decide to leave. I believe you ought to stay, {146} although it may be more difficult to maintain your own spiritual life and ideals in a school than in a parish. You may be doing more good than you know. It is easier to find men to do parish work than to do school work of the highest kind.

There is a sermon of Lightfoot's in which he urges clergymen at the University not to go away, because it is hard to maintain their spiritual ideals at Cambridge, and because they seem to have so little direct spiritual influence. May not this apply to your work also?

_To one about to be ordained._

Cambridge: May 1901.

It seems so clear to us that you have a call, that I find it hard to realise that you yourself are uncertain. But the very fact that you have been 'counting the cost,' and that you have no ecstatic joy at the prospect before you, encourages me. I am glad you realise the difficulties beforehand. What you don't fully see is the strength upon which you will be able to draw. I often think of those lines of Tennyson:--

O living Will that shalt endure When all that seems shall suffer shock, Rise in the spiritual rock, Flow through our deeds and make them pure.[1]

That Will can transform our will, and the very weakness of our natural will is then a help. The strength {147} is seen and felt to come from an invisible source: 'Thy will, not my will.'

The terrible need of men to fight against the forces of evil impresses me. The call is so loud on every side. And if men like you cannot hear it, I am driven almost to despair. . . . I often think of my father's words on his deathbed: 'If I had a thousand lives I would give them all--all to the ministry.'

The thought that gave me comfort at my own ordination was a text suggested to me by my brother: 'He had in His right hand seven stars.'

In His right hand--we are safe there. I felt such a worm as I had never felt before. 'But fear not, thou worm Jacob.' . . . Don't look for happiness or peace at this time, but for the presence and power (whether felt or unfelt) of that G.o.d whom we both love and try to love better. Do not persuade yourself that you do not love G.o.d. You do, more than you have any idea of. The part of your 'Ego' which you would least wish to lose is not even your love for men--but for G.o.d. If you had your choice now, and had to decide what part of your being you would retain for eternity, it would be the latter. Beloved, if our heart condemn us, G.o.d is greater than our heart. . . . 'He who loves makes his own the grandeur that he loves.'

_He had in His right hand seven stars_. He is the Judge, but He also is our refuge and strength and hope.

[1] _In Memoriam_, cxxi.

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_To D. B. K._

Cambridge: July 1901.

When we set to work to help others we discover something of our own weakness. But along with that discovery comes the realisation of an inexhaustible fund of strength outside ourselves. We are fighting on the winning side. G.o.d must be stronger than all that opposes. It is uphill work, especially at first. But just as in learning a language or learning how to swim, after toiling on with no apparent result, there comes a day when suddenly we realise that we can do it--how we know not: so it is in spiritual matters. There is effort still, sometimes gruesome effort; but it is all different from what it was.

We find the meaning of the paradox, 'Whose service is perfect freedom.'

Love takes the place of law, and, although it is hard at times to serve G.o.d, it is still harder to be the permanent servant of Satan.

Your enthusiasm ought to increase, the more you look life in the face and see its sin and misery. 'G.o.d,' said Moody, 'can do nothing with a man who has ceased to hope.' Our hope in the possibilities of the individual and of society ought to grow brighter and saner as time goes on. . . . Missionary work--I have often wished to do it myself, but have been 'let hitherto.' . . . It is a tremendous help to me to know that we are both serving the same Master and that I can trust you to His love.

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_To an Auckland 'brother' after Bishop Westcott's Death._

Cambridge: August 1901.

My thoughts are with you at this time. I am most thankful that you have been a year with that man of G.o.d, and have gained ideals and inspiration for work which will haunt you all your life long. In moments of weakness, at times 'when your light is low,' the memory of his strenuous, holy life will be a power making for self-discipline and righteousness. And it is more than a memory. For he taught us by word and deed that we are all one man, that those who have realised what it is to belong to the body here will enter more fully into its life there. 'We feebly struggle, they in glory s.h.i.+ne'--yet we are verily and indeed one. That thought is often a comfort to me. When I feel the contradictions and perplexities and weaknesses of my own life, I love to think that I am part of a whole--that I belong to the same body and share in the same spirit as some other man who is immeasurably my superior.

When one whom we have known and venerated on earth pa.s.ses to the eternal home, it seems more like home than it was before. It is peopled not only with countless saints of whom I have heard, but with one whom I have known and seen, and hope to see again. His prayers for us, his influence upon us there are more effective than they could have been here.

The great triumph of Christianity is to produce a few saints. They raise our ideal of humanity. They {150} make us restless and discontented with our own lives, as long as they are lived on a lower plane. They speak to us in language more eloquent than words: 'Come up higher.'

_To F. J. C._

_Belvedere Hotel, St. Moritz: Sunday, December 15, 1901._

I feel more and more thankful that I have not had to wait till the next world to know G.o.d's true nature and character and will. It is pa.s.sing strange that He should love us so much, and wish to unveil Himself to us, 'that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.' But that phrase 'stewards of His mysteries' almost appals me. A steward must be faithful, and must render an account of the way in which he has used his master's goods. G.o.d grant that at the final reckoning we may not be found unprofitable servants.

How those simple words in the twenty-third Psalm satisfy us more and more as life advances, and as we realise that He is not our Shepherd only, but the chief Shepherd of the whole flock, and that He has yet other sheep whom He is looking for, and whom He will teach to hear His voice amid the babel tongues of the world. It is a comfort to me to feel that He has no private blessings for me apart from the rest of the family--that we are one in Him, and that each blessing unites us not only to the Head of the family, but to all the brothers within it.

I suppose at first it is hard to realise the unseen world for long together. But gradually that world {151} dominates our being, and interprets the world we see, and makes all life intelligible and well worth the living.

_To H. J. B._

Hotel Belvedere, St. Moritz: December 16, 1901.

I feel a new man now in this fresh mountain air. If I always lived here I might be good for something. What a parable of life! If we could live in the higher world and breathe in its air, what strong, healthy men we should be! I stayed a night once with Westcott, and it seemed to me that he lived and moved and had his being in a higher region, to which I now and then came as a stranger, and he could see habitually, what I sometimes saw, the way of G.o.d in human life. I am sure we are meant to have our home in that higher world, and that we only see life sanely, steadily, and in its true proportions, when we view it from that vantage ground. I have always been thankful that I spent that night with Westcott, and thereby gained, not simply fresh inspiration, but a radically new revelation of human life and its possibilities. It gave me an insight into the dignity and the destiny of our common human nature.

You have never been long absent from my thoughts, and at last I have had time and strength to begin to pray for you as I could wish. It is the only way in which I can show my grat.i.tude to you. I don't understand much about prayer, but I think of that strange, bold parable of the unrighteous judge and the widow, and I take my stand on that. I shall {152} not be content until your true self is formed; and I think that G.o.d must be very ready to answer the prayer, however imperfect its form may be, of one who loves another more than he can understand. I like St Paul's words: _teknia mou ous odino mechris ou morphothe Christos en humin_. Only I wish I were not such a worm myself.

However, the thought of you compels me to live a better life. If I could only make all my thoughts of you into prayers and actions for you I should be more content.

[Transcriber's note: The Greek phrase in the above paragraph was transliterated as follows: _teknia_--tau, epsilon, kappa, nu, iota, alpha; _mou_--mu, omicron, upsilon; _ous_--omicron, upsilon, final sigma; _odino_--omega, delta, iota, nu, omega; _mechris_--mu, epsilon, chi, rho, iota, final sigma; _ou_--omicron, upsilon; _morphothe_--mu, omicron, rho, phi, omega, theta, eta; _Christos_--Chi, rho, iota, sigma, tau, omicron, final sigma; _en_--epsilon, nu; _humin_--(rough breathing mark) upsilon, mu, iota, nu]

Don't imitate Uriah Heep with 'Yours most humbly.' I won't stand that nonsense! and you give yourself away just a few lines above, when you a.s.sert that you are too proud to confer a favour on me, and read Greek Testament with me. What a funny chap you are! Can't you see, you idiot, what a pleasure you give me? We shall have to compromise, and I'll have to make some concession to your pride. Neither ---- nor I know much about your section, but we could help you in your first part papers. Of course, he could do it miles better than I can; but, all the same, you are going to be my pupil. Promise me that you won't make any arrangement with him until you have talked the matter over with me.

I'll make some compromise for the sake of your miserable pride, you wretched creature.

Write to me soon again, if it isn't a great bore. I can't recall as much as I could wish of your conversations with me. In fact, I have the unpleasant feeling sometimes that I did too much of the talking!