Christian fiction; Wingfold, Thomas (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
them to have peace--HIS peace--peace from the same source whence he has
it. For what does he mean by TAKE MY YOKE UPON YOU, AND LEARN OF ME? He
does not mean WEAR THE YOKE I LAY UPON YOU, AND OBEY MY WORDS. I do not
say he might not have said so, or that he does not say what comes to the
same thing at other times, but that is not what he says here--that is
not the truth he would convey in these words. He means TAKE UPON YOU
THE YOKE I WEAR; LEARN TO DO AS I DO, WHO SUBMIT EVERYTHING AND REFER
EVERYTHING TO THE WILL OF MY FATHER, YEA HAVE MY WILL ONLY IN THE
CARRYING OUT OF HIS: BE MEEK AND LOWLY IN HEART, AND YE SHALL FIND REST
UNTO YOUR SOULS. With all the grief of humanity in his heart, in the
face of the death that awaited him, he yet says, FOR MY YOKE, THE YOKE
I WEAR, IS EASY, THE BURDEN I BEAR IS LIGHT. What made that yoke
easy,--that burden light? That it was the will of the Father. If a man
answer: ‘Any good man who believed in a God, might say as much, and I do
not see how it can help me;’ my reply is, that this man says, COME UNTO
ME, AND I WILL GIVE YOU REST--asserting the power to give perfect help
to him that comes.--Does all this look far away, my friends, and very
unlike the things about us? The things about you do not give you peace;
from something different you may hope to gain it. And do not our souls
themselves fall out with their surroundings, and cry for a nobler,
better, more beautiful life?
“But some one will perhaps say: ‘It is well; but were I meek and lowly
in heart as he of whom you speak, it could not touch MY trouble: that
springs not from myself, but from one I love.’ I answer, if the peace be
the peace of the Son of man, it must reach to every cause of unrest.
And if thou hadst it, would it not then be next door to thy friend? How
shall he whom thou lovest receive it the most readily--but through
thee who lovest him? What if thy faith should be the next step to his?
Anyhow, if this peace be not an all-reaching as well as a heart-filling
peace; if it be not a righteous and a lovely peace, and that in despite
of all surrounding and opposing troubles, then it is not the peace
of God, for that passeth all understanding:--so at least say they who
profess to know, and I desire to take them at their word. If thy trouble
be a trouble thy God cannot set right, then either thy God is not the
true God, or there is no true God, and the man who professed to reveal
him led the one perfect life in virtue of his faith in a falsehood. Alas
for poor men and women and their aching hearts!--If it offend any of you
that I speak of Jesus as THE MAN who professed to reveal God, I answer,
that the man I see, and he draws me as with the strength of the adorable
Truth; but if in him I should certainly find the God for the lack of
whose peace I and my brethren and sisters pine, then were heaven itself
too narrow to hold my exultation, for in God himself alone could my joy
find room.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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