Christian fiction; Neighborhoods -- Scotland -- Fiction
“As this world of delight surrounds and enters your bodily frame, so
does God surround your soul and live in it. To be at home with the awful
source of your being, through the child-like faith which he not only
permits, but requires, and is ever teaching you, or rather seeking
to rouse up in you, is the only cure for such feelings as those that
trouble you. Do not say it is too high for you. God made you in his own
image, therefore capable of understanding him. For this final end he
sent his Son, that the Father might with him come into you, and dwell
with you. Till he does so, the temple of your soul is vacant; there is
no light behind the veil, no cloudy pillar over it; and the priests,
your thoughts, feelings, loves, and desires, moan, and are troubled--for
where is the work of the priest when the God is not there? When He comes
to you, no mystery, no unknown feeling, will any longer distress you.
You will say, ‘He knows, though I do not.’ And you will be at the secret
of the things he has made. You will feel what they are, and that which
his will created in gladness you will receive in joy. One glimmer of the
present God in this glory would send you home singing. But do not think
I blame you, Wynnie, for feeling sad. I take it rather as the sign of a
large life in you, that will not be satisfied with little things. I do
not know when or how it may please God to give you the quiet of mind
that you need; but I tell you that I believe it is to be had; and in
the mean time, you must go on doing your work, trusting in God even for
this. Tell him to look at your sorrow, ask him to come and set it right,
making the joy go up in your heart by his presence. I do not know when
this may be, I say, but you must have patience, and till he lays his
hand on your head, you must be content to wash his feet with your tears.
Only he will be better pleased if your faith keep you from weeping and
from going about your duties mournful. Try to be brave and cheerful for
the sake of Christ, and for the sake of your confidence in the beautiful
teaching of God, whose course and scope you cannot yet understand.
Trust, my daughter, and let that give you courage and strength.”
Now the sky and the sea and the earth must have made me able to say
these things to her; but I knew that, whatever the immediate occasion of
her sadness, such was its only real cure. Other things might, in virtue
of the will of God that was in them, give her occupation and interest
enough for a time, but nothing would do finally, but God himself. Here
I was sure I was safe; here I knew lay the hunger of humanity. Humanity
may, like other vital forms, diseased systems, fix on this or that as
the object not merely of its desire but of its need: it can never
be stilled by less than the bread of life--the very presence in the
innermost nature of the Father and the Son.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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