"Beauty there is in the book; exquisite glimpses into the loveliness of
nature here and there shine out from its lines,--a charm wanting which
meditative writing always seems to have a defect; beautiful gleams, too,
there are of the choicest things of art, and frequent allusions by the
way to legend or picture of the religious past; so that, while you read,
you wander by a clear brook of thought, coining far from the beautiful
hills, and winding away from beneath the sunshine of gladness and beauty
into the dense, mysterious forest of human existence, that loves to sing,
amid the shadow of human darkness and anguish, its music of heavenborn
consolation; bringing, too, its pure waters of cleansing and healing, yet
evermore making its praise of holy affection and gladness; while it is
still haunted by the spirits of prophet, saint, and poet, repeating
snatches of their strains, and is led on, as by a spirit from above, to
join the great river of God's truth. . . .
"This is a book for Christian men, for the quiet hour of holy solitude,
when the heart longs and waits for access to the presence of the Master.
The weary heart that thirsts amidst its conflicts and its toils for
refreshing water will drink eagerly of these sweet and refreshing words.
To thoughtful men and women, especially such as have learnt any of the
patience of hope in the experiences of sorrow and trial, we commend this
little volume most heartily and earnestly."
_The Patience of Hope_ fell into my hands soon after its publication in
Edinburgh, some two years ago. I was at once impressed by its
extraordinary richness of language and imagery,--its deep and solemn tone
of meditation in rare combination with an eminently practical tendency,--
philosophy warm and glowing with love. It will, perhaps, be less the
fault of the writer than of her readers, if they are not always able to
eliminate from her highly poetical and imaginative language the subtle
metaphysical verity or phase of religious experience which she seeks to
express, or that they are compelled to pass over, without appropriation,
many things which are nevertheless profoundly suggestive as vague
possibilities of the highest life. All may not be able to find in some
of her Scriptural citations the exact weight and significance so apparent
to her own mind. She startles us, at times, by her novel applications of
familiar texts, by meanings reflected upon them from her own spiritual
intuitions, making the barren Baca of the letter a well. If the
rendering be questionable, the beauty and quaint felicity of illustration
and comparison are unmistakable; and we call to mind Augustine's saying,
that two or more widely varying interpretations of Scripture may be alike
true in themselves considered. "When one saith, Moses meant as I do,'
and another saith, 'Nay, but as I do,' I ask, more reverently, 'Why not
rather as both, if both be true?"
Some minds, for instance, will hesitate to assent to the use of certain
Scriptural passages as evidence that He who is the Light of men, the Way
and the Truth, in the mystery of His economy, designedly "delays,
withdraws, and even hides Himself from those who love and follow Him."
They will prefer to impute spiritual dearth and darkness to human
weakness, to the selfishness which seeks a sign for itself, to evil
imaginations indulged, to the taint and burden of some secret sin, or to
some disease and exaggeration of the conscience, growing out of bodily
infirmity, rather than to any purpose on the part of our Heavenly Father
to perplex and mislead His children. The sun does not shine the less
because one side of our planet is in darkness. To borrow the words of
Augustine "Thou, Lord, forsakest nothing thou hast made. Thou alone art
near to those even who remove far from thee. Let them turn and seek
thee, for not as they have forsaken their Creator hast thou forsaken thy
creation." It is only by holding fast the thought of Infinite Goodness,
and interpreting doubtful Scripture and inward spiritual experience by
the light of that central idea, that we can altogether escape the
dreadful conclusion of Pascal, that revelation has been given us in
dubious cipher, contradictory and mystical, in order that some, through
miraculous aid, may understand it to their salvation, and others be
mystified by it to their eternal loss.
I might mention other points of probable divergence between reader and
writer, and indicate more particularly my own doubtful parse and
hesitancy over some of these pages. But it is impossible for me to make
one to whom I am so deeply indebted an offender for a word or a
Scriptural rendering. On the grave and awful themes which she discusses,
I have little to say in the way of controversy. I would listen, rather
than criticise. The utterances of pious souls, in all ages, are to me
often like fountains in a thirsty land, strengthening and refreshing, yet
not without an after-taste of human frailty and inadequateness, a slight
bitterness of disappointment and unsatisfied quest. Who has not felt at
times that the letter killeth, that prophecies fail, and tongues cease to
edify, and been ready to say, with the author of the Imitation of Christ:
"Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth. Let not Moses nor the prophets
speak to me, but speak thou rather, who art the Inspirer and Enlightener
of all. I am weary with reading and hearing many things; let all
teachers hold their peace; let all creatures keep silence: speak thou
alone to me."
The writer of The Patience of Hope had, previous to its publication,
announced herself to a fit, if small, audience of earnest and thoughtful
Christians, in a little volume entitled, A Present Heaven. She has
recently published a collection of poems, of which so competent a judge
as Dr. Brown, the author of _Horae Subsecivae_ and _Rab and his Friends_,
thus speaks, in the _North British Review_:--
"Such of our readers--a fast increasing number--as have read and enjoyed
_The Patience of Hope_, listening to the gifted nature which, through
such deep and subtile thought, and through affection and godliness still
deeper and more quick, has charmed and soothed them, will not be
surprised to learn that she is not only poetical, but, what is more, a
poet, and one as true as George Herbert and Henry Vaughan, or our own
Cowper; for, with all our admiration of the searching, fearless
speculation, the wonderful power of speaking clearly upon dark and all
but unspeakable subjects, the rich outcome of 'thoughts that wander
through eternity,' which increases every time we take up that wonderful
little book, we confess we were surprised at the kind and the amount of
true poetic _vis_ in these poems, from the same fine and strong hand.
There is a personality and immediateness, a sort of sacredness and
privacy, as if they were overheard rather than read, which gives to these
remarkable productions a charm and a flavor all their own. With no
effort, no consciousness of any end but that of uttering the inmost
thoughts and desires of the heart, they flow out as clear, as living, as
gladdening as the wayside well, coming from out the darkness of the
central depths, filtered into purity by time and travel. The waters are
copious, sometimes to overflowing; but they are always limpid and
unforced, singing their own quiet tune, not saddening, though sometimes
sad, and their darkness not that of obscurity, but of depth, like that of
the deep sea.
"This is not a book to criticise or speak about, and we give no extracts
from the longer, and in this case, we think, the better poems. In
reading this Cardiphonia set to music, we have been often reminded, not
only of Herbert and Vaughan, but of Keble,--a likeness of the spirit, not
of the letter; for if there is any one poet who has given a bent to her
mind, it is Wordsworth,--the greatest of all our century's poets, both in
himself and in his power of making poets."
In the belief that whoever peruses the following pages will be
sufficiently interested in their author to be induced to turn back and
read over again, with renewed pleasure, extracts from her metrical
writings, I copy from the volume so warmly commended a few brief pieces
and extracts from the longer poems.