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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