Christian fiction; Neighborhoods -- Scotland -- Fiction
"Because then I should have a chance of knowing what it is like to feel
young," she answered rather enigmatically. I did not reply. We were
walking up the brow which hid the sea from us. The smell of the
down-turf was indescribable in its homely delicacy; and by the time we
had reached the top, almost every sense was filled with its own
delight. The top of the hill was the edge of the great shore-cliff; and
the sun was hanging on the face of the mightier sky-cliff opposite, and
the sea stretched for visible miles and miles along the shore on either
hand, its wide blue mantle fringed with lovely white wherever it met
the land, and scalloped into all fantastic curves, according to the
whim of the nether fires which had formed its bed; and the rush of the
waves, as they bore the rising tide up on the shore, was the one music
fit for the whole. Ear and eye, touch and smell, were alike invaded
with blessedness. I ought to have kept this to give my reader in
Connie's room; but he shall share with her presently. The sense of
space--of mighty room for life and growth--filled my soul, and I
thanked God in my heart. The wind seemed to bear that growth into my
soul, even as the wind of God first breathed into man's nostrils the
breath of life, and the sun was the pledge of the fulfilment of every
aspiration. I turned and looked at Wynnie. She stood pleased but
listless amidst that which lifted me into the heaven of the Presence.
"Don't you enjoy all this grandeur, Wynnie?"
"I told you I was very wicked, papa."
"And I told you not to say so, Wynnie."
"You see I cannot enjoy it, papa. I wonder why it is."
"I suspect it is because you haven't room, Wynnie."
"I know you mean something more than I know, papa."
"I mean, my dear, that it is not because you are wicked, but because
you do not know God well enough, and therefore your being, which can
only live in him, is 'cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in.' It is only
in him that the soul has room. In knowing him is life and its gladness.
The secret of your own heart you can never know; but you can know Him
who knows its secret. Look up, my darling; see the heavens and the
earth. You do not feel them, and I do not call upon you to feel them.
It would be both useless and absurd to do so. But just let them look at
you for a moment, and then tell me whether it must not be a blessed
life that creates such a glory as this All."
She stood silent for a moment, looked up at the sky, looked round on
the earth, looked far across the sea to the setting sun, and then
turned her eyes upon me. They were filled with tears, but whether from
feeling, or sorrow that she could not feel, I would not inquire. I made
haste to speak again.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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