‘My poor child, I do indeed feel for you in your loneliness, but remember him whose eyes were opened spiritually and he was _therefore_ cast out of the synagogue,—but Jesus found him. Do not fear that because the disciples call down fire that the Lord will [send it]. “Come unto Me all that are heavy-laden,” He says to us now as then. To those who are “without guile,” _i.e._ sincerely seeking truth, He still promises that they shall see greater things than they have ever done.... No; we cannot and we would not believe that He who is infinitely wiser than man can be less good. He is not a Pharaoh to bid us make bricks without straw. He does not tell us to do what we cannot and then punish us for not doing it. “She hath done what she could” was the sentence of the Lord when others found fault. God is love, and if _we_ pity and long to draw to our hands any suffering child of earth, must not He? If we pity those who suffer in a _less_ degree, must not He those who are suffering the sorrow greatest of all, the loss in any degree of His presence, of that faith which makes all things possible? Go on, my poor child, looking up to Him, and trusting in His utter love who will not leave us, not when we cry, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” It is hard sometimes to believe we are not wrong, when we see the disciples, those who really want to do right, acting so differently from the way in which He acted. But we know that in all ages some of the most unchristian things have been done by those who thought they were doing God’s will. ‘I do not think from what you tell me that you can go on at the Meeting. If your father wishes it you might for a while abstain from going to church; but if so, let the time you would have spent in public worship be passed in private prayer and studying; just looking up with childlike spirit to the Father, feeling His presence, His love. ‘I do not think you should, however, absent yourself long from communion with some body of believers. All Scripture and our spiritual experience is against this. If you decide for St. Peter’s, I think I can tell you of a friend’s house where you would be welcome most Sundays; and we must have you among us for the Quiet Days at Christmas. ‘You know I do not want to proselytise; if with the Brethren you had found spiritual nourishment, I would have had you rest there; but now you are starving it is different, like that poor dove who found no rest for the sole of her feet, you need to be taken into an ark.