issues--reaching away through time and beyond it. I advise you to try
and gain a general idea of the meaning of the first half of St. Paul's
{94} second letter to the Corinthian Church--to try and enter into its
general spirit. Few things will humble you more: you will see something
of the unspeakable dignity of the office of him who represents God to his
fellow-men, and of the tremendous enthusiasm and love which a man must
have if he would be the minister that St. Paul would have him be. I do
not know what St. Paul means when he says that we are ambassadors on
behalf of Christ: but the more I think of what the words seem to mean,
the more I am startled at the awful responsibility that we have laid upon
us. To represent Christ, to treat with men, to attempt to arrange--if
one may so speak--terms, to use all our powers in performing the work of
the embassy--this at least is involved in the words. What strikes me so
much in the letter is the manner in which St. Paul literally loves the
Church; how he longs to communicate his own enthusiasm to it; how he
would die, almost does die, himself to bring life to them. All his hopes
are bound up with theirs--his salvation with their salvation. He seems
to 'fail from out his blood, and grow incorporate' into them. We are
called to the same office as St. Paul, we have the same power working in
us as he had working in him: we too shall have success in so far as we
love--as we identify ourselves with those whom God has given us to take
care of. The more we are disciplined and yet enthusiastic, the more
capable shall we be of love--of getting out of self--of working our way
into others--of representing the Christ to them--of understanding and
making allowances for them--of seeing them in the ideal, the only real,
light in {95} which God sees them--seeing them in the Christ, in whom we
live--mind that, with all your intellectual training, you don't forget
the other. Now is the time to learn, to force yourself to learn, to
pray--to pray not for a few minutes at a time, but to pray for an hour at
a time--to get alone with yourself--to get alone with your Maker. We
shall not have to talk so much to others if we pray more for them. We
talk and we do not influence, or we influence only for a time, because
our lives are not more prayer-full.
_To J. L. D._
Aldeburgh House, Blackheath, S.E.: December 16, 1893.
I cannot help thinking of you both at this time. It means so much to you
both--more than either of you dreams that it means. The issues of your
Ordination day are very far reaching indeed. They stretch away and
beyond this world in which we now are. The rush of school work and of
preparation for examination has probably not left you as much time as you
could have wished for thinking over what it all means. I hope you will
have more time after the service is over. But you may be comforted in
the thought that the last few years have been a definite preparation for
your life-work. Though you must regret, as you never regretted before,
misuse of time and powers in the past, yet you have had an education
which has in some degree prepared you for this time, an education for
which you may thank our common Master. But this {96} thought by itself
would be but a small comfort. For you must feel, if you are the man I
take you for, how unworthy you are to be what you are called to be. Now
there are two ways of dealing with this feeling. You may say, 'I am not
called to be an absolute saint; but I will try to reach a fairly high
standard;' or you may say, 'Yes, I am called to be an absolute saint. I
will not lower my ideal. I will comfort myself with that single word
"called." If He has called me, He will do in me and for me what He
wills.' This second way is the true way of dealing with feelings of
unworthiness and unfitness. You and I are utterly unfit. But we are
both called--called from our mother's womb--called to be saints and to be
ministers. He who called us will help us. With man the call seems
quixotic, impossible; with Him all things are possible. At times when
the call is loudest we can but reply, 'Ah! Lord, I am but a little
child.' We are intensely conscious of feebleness and, what is worse, of
treachery and meanness within; we half love what we are called upon to
denounce; we play with the sin we are to teach men to abhor. Yet the
call is sure, is definite, is perpetual, and again and again you will in
all probability find what a help it is to look back to that day in which
the call took formal shape. You have that as a definite fact to rest
upon, to reprove, to encourage, to urge to renewed effort, to force you
to be true and energetic.
One thing you must learn to do. Whatever you leave undone you must not
leave this undone. Your work will be stunted and half developed unless
you {97} attend to it. You must force yourself to be alone and to pray.
Do make a point of this. You may be eloquent and attractive in your
life, but your real effectiveness depends on your communion with the
eternal world. You will easily find excuses. Work is so pressing, and
work is necessary. Other engagements take time. You are tired. You
want to go to bed. You go to bed late and want to get up late. So
simple prayer and devotion are crowded out. And yet, T----, the
necessity is paramount, is inexorable. If you and I are ever to be of
any good, if we are to be a blessing, not a curse, to those with whom we
are connected, we must enter into ourselves, we must be alone with the
only source of unselfishness. If we are of use to others, it will
chiefly be because we are simple, pure, unselfish. If we are to be
simple, pure, unselfish, it will not be by reading books or talking or
working primarily, it will be by coming in continual contact with the
ground of simplicity, purity, selfishness. Heaven is the possibility of
fresh acts of self-sacrifice, of a fuller life of unselfishness. You are
a man and a minister in so far as you are unselfish. You cannot learn
unselfishness save from the one Source. Definite habits of real
devotion--these we must make and keep to and renew and increase. Then we
shall gradually find that we are less dependent on self--that even in the
busiest scenes we dare not act on our own responsibility--that, be the
act ever so small and trifling, when we are in difficulty we shall
naturally, inevitably, spontaneously turn to that place whence help alone
can come. But it is a wonderful help again and again to feel that we
have been {98} alone with Him, that we are not working on our own
responsibility, that He is the 'Living Will' that rises and flows
'through our deeds and makes them pure.'
_To D. D. R._
8 Alexandra Gardens, Ventnor: Jan. 2, 1894.
While holding as firmly and unreservedly to the belief that a revelation
is a possibility that has actually been realised, I am becoming more
aware of the partial and limited view which any single individual can
have of the significance of such a revelation; and with this conviction
comes a desire not to hinder by any words or prejudices of mine the
education of one to whom I owe more than I at present know. Yet, as I
believe that no individual life is beyond the wise ordering of a Divine
economy, I am sure that he must have lessons to learn from me as well as
I to learn from him. Hence I dare not refrain from suggesting to
him--often in answer to questions that he puts to me--sides of truth
which, as I believe, I have been allowed to apprehend. The knowledge of
truth (in however small a degree) is a trust that we hold for the sake of
others. What I fear for him and for you--for you even more than for
him--is not that you will form wrong opinions on religious or ethical
subjects, but that you will lack that moral earnestness that forces a
man, whether he will or not, to look the facts of life in the face, that
deadly earnestness that refuses to allow us to contemplate creeds as
works of art, but forces us to ask whether these things be so. Life as a
whole must be faced. What has induced men to {99} believe this and that
tenet? Why have men craved for a knowledge of an unseen Being? Why have
systems of priestcraft arisen? How is it that those who most revolt
against such systems are slaves to other systems bearing different names,
but in substance the same? Is there a Deliverer? Is there a unity
beneath all this confusion? Can man know such a unity if there be one?
Can such a unity be revealed? Has it been revealed? Why do men think it
has been revealed if it has not? While I am slow to force upon those
whom I most respect and love lessons which I believe that I have slowly
learnt in a school in which perhaps they have not been, and never will
be, educated, yet I am sure that I cannot be wrong in praying for them
and in urging them to be increasingly earnest in the search for and the
practice of truth. You are a man in so far as you live. You live in so
far as you are self-sacrificing. You are self-sacrificing in so far as
you unswervingly practise the truth you know and follow after that which
you do not yet apprehend. And I am sure, if there be a unity beneath our
lives, if there be One who is educating us when we are most wayward, we
shall eventually be led by, it may be, very different paths to a single
goal. Meanwhile each failure to be earnest, each relapse into
sentimentality, unmanliness, morbidness, despair, unreality, laziness,
passiveness, may itself be a discipline, making us utterly mistrust
ourselves, whether at our worst or at our best, and forcing us to inquire
whether there be any help elsewhere, any power that can sweep through our
lives and force us to be human.
For this reason I would impress on you the {100} necessity of trying to
think out your position, of asking yourself how you may be most human and
best serve God (if, indeed, you believe that this is possible) and your
generation. There are around you social forces making for good. Ought
you to be--nay, can you be--isolated? Does isolation give greater
strength? Does it enable you to do more or to be better? These
questions are not merely suggested by me. They have already suggested
themselves in one form or another to you. I am frightened of their not
receiving the attention they merit.
_To T. H. M._
8 Alexandra Gardens, Ventnor: January 3, 1894.
The fact that you have not all the sympathy and manly help and advice
that you could wish for from those around you will, I trust, force you to
depend with simpler confidence upon the unchanging Ground of all human
sympathy. You will, I hope, take all these experiences without grumbling
as a real and necessary stage in your education; remembering that if you
find yourself repining at the distressful circumstances in which you are
placed, you may be dishonouring Him who has placed you where you are. I
do not, of course, mean that such reflection will make you condone and
excuse the lukewarmness of others, but you will grasp the truth that God
uses even the sin of this world as an instrument in the education of His
people, and that you yourself may have your character formed partly
through the faults of others, for whom you are still bound to pray.
{101} This great Christmas festival that is past must be a power to us in
the year that is coming on. We must enter into and be penetrated by the
Life that has been manifested. For it is life that you and I need. Our
own puny individualistic life of morbid self-consciousness and
sensibility must be transformed by the fuller Life in which all may have
a share; and thus we shall come to think less of ourselves, our
successes, our failures, what others think about us and what others ought
to think about us--we shall forget all this because we shall share in the
Universal Life, which penetrates through all and which makes men forget
themselves and their ills, and be pure, simple, healthy, unselfish. And
this life has been realised and men have seen it, and it is still with us
to-day. In so far as we share in it we shall become natural, unaffected,
human. Nay, more. Because the life there manifested is divine as well
as human, we shall realise also with fuller force what it is to be a
child of a Father who is in heaven. It is life, not a system, that we
need. It is life which is given us when we are adopted as sons; it is
life that we receive when the Source of all life gives us Himself to feed
upon; it is life that Christ bestows upon us when we gradually realise
our position as members of a society in which no man can live for himself
alone. Life is life in so far as it is unselfish. May He who has called
us and given to us all our privileges teach us to live out that which we
know and believe!
{102}
_To F. S. H._
Cambridge: August 4, 1895.
Life will not be the same without having you up here. I am very
dependent upon others, and I soon begin to be downcast if I have not
some one to help or to be helped by. But happily He who takes away is
the same as He who gives, and His great heart of affection understands
our manifold and seemingly contradictory needs. Life would be
intolerable if we had no one who knew us perfectly, not simply the
outside part of our life, but that inside and apparently incommunicable
part. Those who are least able to express themselves in words, or who
(if they did express themselves) fear that they would be misunderstood,
find in Him an unspeakable consolation. But I must not look at things
from the individualistic standpoint. No problem can ever be solved
until we have in some measure realised that the Life which flows
through us is larger than our own individual life. We get morbid, and
our reason becomes warped, when we think of our own future alone.
Every obstacle in our path, every interruption to the course which we
have planned for ourselves, every rough discipline, tells us that our
life and future are not our own, that they are intimately connected
with a larger life, a greater future. I have been thinking of those
words--so like Jesus Christ to have uttered them--_me merimnesete_. We
are always anxious about a set of circumstances which will soon be upon
us--engagements which we tremble to meet. Jesus Christ tells us, _me
merimnesete_. I believe that work in the {103} present world would be
far more free and effective if we would obey the command. We cannot
enter into life as it comes, because we are living in an imaginary
future. The man of God lives in the present; he leaves the future to
God, _me merimnesete_. If God has conducted us so far, He will not
leave us. It is easy to talk, hard to act. I think we gain the power
to act, we gain the calm peace of God, by compelling ourselves to
remain at certain times in His presence. Habits of prayer are slowly
formed, but when formed are hard to break. Talking may be a great
snare when it takes the place of prayer--and how easily it does! It is
easier to talk with a man than to pray for him--in many cases.
[Transcriber's note: The Greek phrases in the above paragraph were
transliterated as follows: _me_--mu, eta; _merimnesete_--mu, epsilon,
rho, iota, mu, nu, eta, sigma, eta, tau, epsilon]
_To F. S. H._
Clovelly: September 11, 1895.
I am reading 'The Newcomes': have you ever read it? I find it hard to
appreciate Thackeray as much as some people do. Occasionally he says
some very true things and shows that he is acquainted with human nature
in its brighter and darker aspects. But, on the whole, the story of
marriage and giving in marriage--selling your daughter for money or a
title--the picture of young men who sow their wild oats and then repent
and marry innocent ladies and live virtuously and die in the odour of
sanctity--on the whole the story does not seem to correspond to the
ideals which haunt me, even though I do not act up to them. Surely
life is something utterly different from all this. Surely somewhere
there is a picture of {104} human life, somewhere in the mind of God
Himself, where the young man grows up without any harvest of wild oats,
with clear and unselfish ideals, with a longing to make the world purer
and diviner than he found it, a picture which is in some measure
realised around us to-day. May God deliver us not only from vicious
but from selfish thoughts! I believe Thackeray saw something of that
picture, but he didn't draw it with the colours I could have wished.
There is a solemn text in Ezekiel, which came in the lesson lately,
'The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him in the day of
his transgression.' Past religious experiences are of little value
without present righteousness.
_To his cousin G. F._
Clovelly, N. Devon: September 12, 1895.
I am in perhaps the quaintest and one of the loveliest villages in
England, just doing nothing, and enjoying the simple life around me.
You would like this village, with its one steep, narrow, picturesque
street, the great sea far down below, the little stone pier jutting out
and helping to form a small harbour. Then on either side of the
village are woods reaching down to the cliffs--beautiful woods, where
oaks, and in places heather, are glad to grow. St. Paul says in the
lesson to-day that the things which are seen are temporal, but the
things which are not seen are eternal. And one feels how true are his
words--how the trees, woods, flowers fade and die; how the old sea
wears slowly away the cliffs; how men and {105} their dwellings pass
away; how all these things which are seen are temporal; and yet the
beauty, the love, the joy, the purity, are more permanent than the
particular manifestations of them are. The beauty which is manifested
in the country around is eternal. The life which is seen in man has a
future beyond this world.
As we enter in behind the veil, as we see that life and love which are
expressing themselves in objects around us, we are already in the
eternal, in that which endures.
It is not, as we are constantly thinking, the things that are _present_
which are temporal, and the things that are _future_ which are eternal.
No; the things which are present have an eternal side to them--the
unseen side.
The man who is a slave to the seen has least of the eternal about him:
the man who despises not the seen, but who through the seen rises to
the unseen, is partaking of eternal life. . . .
_To F. S. H._
Cambridge: October 23, 1895.
Let me congratulate you on the way you ran against Yale.[1] I was
delighted to read of your 'romping' home!! . . . . It seems to me that
every unfulfilled longing is no accidental part of life. The longing,
in so far as it is genuinely human, is derived from Him in whose image
man is made. When it is hard to see why it is not gratified, yet we
{106} may confidently believe that this is part of our training. Is it
not a noble work to enter into and, in some measure, bear the burdens
of other men's lives, even if they have only imperfect sympathy with
ours? May we not sometimes even learn more in this way--or at least
learn different lessons--than if they were so similar to ourselves that
they could at once understand us? I am afraid that you have a hard
struggle before you. You must take care not to act upon first
impressions, or impulse--not even if those impressions are
favourable . . . your best 'pearls' must be used carefully.
[1] In the international athletic sports in U.S.A.
_To F. S. H. on his going to a curacy in Liverpool._
Cambridge: October 18, 1896.
In some respects I am glad to hear of your change of plans. I think
you will be more in your element working in a poor part of a large
town. . . . Our dean has just been preaching on the words 'One soweth,
and another reapeth.' It is a help to realise the continuity of work.
We enter into the work of many a man who has passed away, and who,
while he worked, often despaired and thought that he was achieving
nothing. No work is lost. The obscure and petty--these are relative
terms. We use them, but we are told on the best authority that there
is nothing secret which shall not be made manifest. The consciousness
of the continuity and perpetuity of work quiets and calms us; we need
not hurry over anything. When we have left off sowing, others will
reap. God give us grace to work, for the night {107} cometh when no
man can work. I am so sorry that I have not been able to come up and
see you. But we are working in the same field, though it is too large
across to see one another!
_To C. T. W._
St. Moritz: February 1898.
Two new toboggan runs have been opened: one is a Canadian run on soft
snow without turns, short and sweet; the other is part of the Crista
run, an ice run, which I suppose is quite the finest in the world, with
splendid corners. When it is all made it will be about a mile in
length. . . . In a noisy salon it is difficult to collect my scattered
thoughts. Music and other atrocities are in full swing; and as I
seldom use my brain now, the works are rusty. I wish you could see
this country in winter. . . . A male rival of The Brook has appeared.
He is impressed with the dust and dampness of the atmosphere--takes out
trays to toboggan on into Italy--sprinkles water on his bedroom floor,
because he considers a damp atmosphere conducive to sleep. So far we
have not fallen out altogether with one another; some of us are on
speaking terms. We only confidentially discuss whether so-and-so has
come here for his mind. We have an archdeacon, a canon, a curate, two
captains; one Plymouth-brother-like, who takes most gloomy views about
the future of us, or most of us, including the parsons; the other very
noisy, who attempted the Canadian toboggan run which is supposed to be
safe for ladies and {108} children, and swears that he almost broke his
neck. He had an upset and went head foremost into the snow, and,
according to his own account, had to be dug out. If he had been a
heavier man, I understand that he would have broken his neck. As two
accidents have occurred there, it is not absolutely safe. . . . This
place is a splendid pick-me-up. I am a reformed character--go to bed
between 6 and 10.30 P.M. I was detected last night cheating at cards.
But reformation to be effective requires time. Give up, I say, one bad
habit at a time, and then tackle the next. I have given up early
rising as being the most patent of my evil practices.
_To J. K._
Christ's College, Cambridge: August 19, 1898.
. . . . I am sure that we have need to learn not only in the school of
health but also in the school of sickness. These breaks in life, and
the sense of helplessness and weakness which attend them, are not
simply periods to be 'got over'--to be made the best of till we can
'start again'--but they have a meaning which we can find, if we only
look with the eye of faith. It is strange how, although God sees the
whole way in which we ought to go, He leaves us in comparative
darkness. We need, I am sure, _revelation_. 'Lord, open the young
man's eyes, that he may see.' We shall take the wrong turning if we
trust to our ordinary eyes; we shall find the path if we have the eye
of faith to see what God is revealing. . . . And now at this time I
need your prayers. I have--and {109} this, I need hardly say, is
private--an invitation from the Bishop of ---- to come and lecture to
theological students, whom he hopes to gather round him. Of course the
scheme is rather in the air so far. He has not yet got the men. But
he has an attractive power, and he might on a smaller scale do some
such work as Vaughan used to do for men who did not go to definite
theological colleges. Will you pray for me that I may go if I ought,
and not go if I ought not, please?
Our wills are ours, we know not how,
Our wills are ours, to make them Thine.
_To J. L. D._
Cliff Dale, Cromer: October 3, 1898.
I do not belong and I never have belonged to any of the societies or
guilds which you mention. I am a member of a Church. For that reason
I dare not join any party. In fact, I cannot understand what 'parties'
have to do with a Church. The Church by its very existence is a
witness against parties and divisions. It will take me more than a
lifetime to learn what it is to be a member of a Church; and no one can
learn the lesson while he persists in clinging to a party. He must be
a member not of a _part_ but of a _whole_. I therefore have no time to
waste in joining a party.
I feel strongly that the various societies and guilds, based upon
_party_ life, are eating away the very life of the Church. But I am
slow in condemning my neighbour for conscientiously joining any such
{110} society. He may only be able to see one side of truth, and it is
better--far better--that he should see that side than nothing at all.
_To the mother of his godchild, Margaret Forbes._
April 12, 1899.
It is such a joy to me to be allowed to be her godparent, and I shall
remember her often in my prayers. What a wonderful revelation she must
be to you both--making the Heavenly Home a fuller reality than ever
before! It is through earthly relationships that we realise the
meaning of the unseen world. I like those lines of Faber:
All fathers learn their craft from Thee:
All loves are shadows cast
By the beautiful eternal hills
Of Thine unbeginning past.
_To his mother._
Rouxville, Orange Free State; July 8, 1899.
It is a strange and somewhat terrible study in religion--this Boer
religion. It seems to have little or no connection with morality.
Kruger seems to have amassed great wealth by doubtful means. A man
comes to him and offers him, say, 8,000_l._ on condition that he may
have the right to sell mineral waters. Mrs. Kruger comes in and counts
the money; and if it is right, the concession is granted. Yet he is
religious, very religious. A short time ago they wanted to fire shells
into the low-lying clouds during a time {111} of drought. The clouds
gather, but they will not break. Firing shells was found to have a
good effect in bringing the rain. But Kruger stopped it because it was
wrong to 'fire shells at the Almighty.' You would think that a little
state like this might be an ideal one with its simple scattered
population of farmers. But it is by no means so. Corruption and
injustice are only too prevalent. At the start off they were
unfortunate in their choice of President. The state was at war with
the Basutos at the time when he was elected; and three months after he
was made President he had to be deposed, because he was discovered
selling arms to the Basutos.
The Dutch don't treat the natives as well as we do. Yet in some
respects their laws are wise. A native may not live in the Free State
without doing some definite work, unless he pays a tax of 5_s._ a
month: this is, I think, a wise rule.
We had two very nice services last Sunday at the English church; I
preach twice to-morrow.
_To C. T. W._
Durban; July 1899.
I write to congratulate you most heartily on your First Class. . . . I
believe you will find in a year's time that whatever your work may be,
contact with others--the necessity of influencing and guiding
them--will be a tremendous help to you in your own life. . . .
Good man! I am delighted to think that you may see the Bishop of
Durham. Prophets' eyes are {112} needed out here to catch the glory
which must be slowly--so slowly--gaining on the shade. There is so
much materialism, so little refinement and spirituality.
I had a grand voyage: only three people rescued from drowning before I
got on board, and two stowaways after we left Madeira, and two or three
days of rough weather. I enjoyed it. . . .
I had afternoon tea, or rather coffee, with Uncle Paul. He is a
strong, fine old man. He was sitting puffing away at his large pipe.
It was after a long day's work in the secret Volksraad. He was tired.
'It is hard work,' he said, 'for the head.' The State attorney, a
young Christ's man, explained to him that 'we were both at the same
school in England.' Kruger was eloquent on the subject of the
Petition. He told me that some of the 21,000 had died three years
before they signed it, and some had signed it owing to a bottle of
whisky. 'And I want you to let that be known in England' (I know
anything said to you will circulate--by experience). He said, did the
subtle old man, that he wanted to do what was right and fair
irrespective of nationality.
This Transvaal question is complicated. I thought it easy at first.
But now I can see no moral grounds of any sort for a war with the
Boers, in spite of their iniquities. There is a great deal to be said
on their side, and much iniquity concealed under such specious phrases
as 'Imperialism,' 'Supremacy of Great Britain in South Africa.' I
cannot see that we have a real cause for war, but it is a big question
with many sides. If England goes to war and wins, she {113} will have
her work cut out. 'Can she afford,' said the Attorney of the Transvaal
to me, 'to have a second Ireland at the distance of some 5,000 or 6,000
miles from home? What if she had war in India?
_To W. A. B._
Lucknow Lodge, Berea, Durban: August 22, 1899.
I thank my God in my prayers on your behalf for His goodness in
granting you His best gift--a human soul to love and to inspire.
Together you will be able to know and love Him better than either of
you could alone. You cannot make your love too sacred; as you know God
you will learn to know one another.
We are inclined to think that we know all that love means. The truth
is, we are only beginners. Thank God that we are in the school,
although only in one of the lowest forms. He will teach us, as years
go by, to sanctify ourselves for the sake of another. We have not
learned to love until we are living the highest possible life, in order
that the object of our affection may become a saint. God is giving you
a present, the value of which you see in part now, you will realise
fully hereafter. You must wrestle with God for her and for yourself.
If you are true to the highest, both of you will rise together and see
God. If you are not, she may not be able to mount alone.
I am filled with joy and hope as I think of you both. I believe that
you will live for God more completely now than ever before, and that
you will be a fuller blessing to your people. You have my prayers.
{114} I want you to make your ideals higher and higher. Then, when you
have gained one height, you will find that what you took for the summit
from the plain was not really so: there were further peaks beyond.
It is the beginning of an endless life. If God Himself be the centre
of all, the nearer we are to Him, the nearer we are to one another. I
_am_ glad that your wife is one who shares in your ideals, who lives
for the highest. What a life in store for you here! And there--
Before the judgment seat,
Though changed and glorified each face,
Not unremembered you will meet
For endless ages to embrace.
You will be nearer the centre then, and nearer to one another.
May God Himself bless you, dear old fellow! Forgive this poor attempt
at a letter. I share in your joy, although I am not actually with you.
I never remember any wedding outside my own family which has given me
greater pleasure. It was good of you to ask me to be present--very
good.
B----, I _am_ glad. You must thank God and ask Him to tell you what it
all means, and for her sake live as good a life as you possibly can.
With best love I am your friend,
FORBES.
_To a Friend after hearing of his intended ordination._
Durban: August 1899.
Your ordination will be like my own over again. It is unutterably good
of God . . . to put it into {115} your heart to live the life which I
had prayed might be yours. _Meizoteran touton ouk charin, hina akouo
ta ema tekna en te aletheia peripatounta_ . . .
[Transcriber's note: The Greek phrases in the above paragraph were
transliterated as follows: _Meizoteran_--Mu, epsilon, iota, zeta,
omicron, tau, epsilon, rho, alpha, nu; _touton_--tau, omicron, upsilon,
tau, omega, nu; _ouk_--omicron, upsilon, kappa; _charin_--chi, alpha,
rho, iota, nu; _hina_--(rough breathing mark) iota, nu, alpha;
_akouo_--alpha, kappa, omicron, upsilon, omega; _ta_--tau, alpha;
_ema_--epsilon, mu, alpha; _tekna_--tau, epsilon, kappa, nu, alpha;
_en_--epsilon, nu; _te_--tau, eta; _aletheia_--alpha, lambda, eta,
theta, epsilon, iota, alpha; _peripatounta_--pi, epsilon, rho, iota,
pi, alpha, tau, omicron, upsilon, nu, tau, alpha]
. . . If your temptations are great it is because your nature is rich
and noble; and when it is disciplined you will have tremendous power.
I shall not be content until your every thought is led captive to 'the
obedience of the Christ.' You are born to be a saint, and you will be
wretched until you are one. You are not the kind of man who can do
things by halves.
I think I have told you of my father's words spoken during his last
illness: 'If I had a thousand lives, I would give them all--all to the
ministry.' You will not regret your decision. If angels could envy,
how they would envy us our splendid chance--to be able, in a world
where everything unseen must be taken on sheer faith, in a world where
the contest between the flesh and the spirit is being decided for the
universe, not only to win the battle ourselves but also to win it for
others! To help a brother up the mountain while you yourself are only
just able to keep your foothold, to struggle through the mist
together--that surely is better than to stand at the summit and beckon.
You will have a hard time of it, I know; and I would like to make it
smoother and to 'let you down' easier; but I am sure that God, who
loves you even more than I do, and has absolute wisdom, will not tax
you beyond your strength. . . . I'll pray for you, like the widow in
the parable, and I have immense belief in prayer. . . . You remember
what was said of Maurice, 'He {116} always impressed me as a man who
was naturally weak in his will; but an iron will seemed to work through
him.' That Will can work through you and transform you, but for God's
sake don't trust to your own will. . . .
If you are ordained it will be because there is one who in St. Paul's
words--_ho aphorisas me ek koilias metros mou_--was separating you from
birth and educating you with a view to the Gospel of Christ. . . .
Tasks in hours of insight willed
Can be through hours of gloom fulfilled.[1]
[1] Matthew Arnold, _Morality_.
[Transcriber's note: The Greek phrases in the above paragraph were
transliterated as follows: _ho_--(rough breathing mark) omicron;
_aphorisas_--alpha, phi, omicron, rho, iota, sigma, alpha, final sigma;
_me_--mu, epsilon; _ek_--epsilon, kappa; _koilias_--kappa, omicron,
iota, lambda, iota, alpha, final sigma; _metros_--mu, eta, tau, rho,
omicron, final sigma; _mou_--mu, omicron, upsilon]
To his mother.
Estcourt, Natal; August 18, 1899.
General Gordon came to Kokstad on his way to Basutoland. When he
arrived he went to the Royal Hotel, ordered a room, threw open the
window, and spent two hours in prayer and meditation. The next day was
Sunday. He asked Mr. Adkin what was being done for 1,000 Cape Mounted
Infantry then stationed there, and when he learnt that nothing was
being done for their spiritual food, he burst into tears. On Monday
morning the first telegram which he sent off to the Cape Government was
a request that a chaplain should be appointed. Mr. Adkin was appointed
and remained chaplain until the force was disbanded. General Gordon
went on to Basutoland, and had wonderful power over the natives. He
told them that no force would be brought against {117} them; he himself
was without weapons. He was settling the country, when news came to
him that the Cape Government was, contrary to stipulation, sending an
armed force against them; so he left the country in twenty-four hours.
Cecil Rhodes was once at Kokstad. When he was near the place, he lay
down on the hillside and exclaimed: 'Oh, how I wish they would let me
alone--let me stay here!' However, he had to go down to be fêted. He
was listless, and bored by the banquet, until the present mayor began
to attack him violently in his speech, and to complain about the Cape
Government, and to express a desire that Natal would take them over.
Then Rhodes woke up with a vengeance and gave them a great speech.
Ixopo is where Rhodes started out in South Africa. His name still
figures on the magistrates' books--fined 10_l._, for selling a gun to a
native.
_To his cousin, J. C. H; on the occasion of the death of his brother._
December 7, 1899.
You know, without my saying it, that you have my deep sympathy and
prayers at this time. . . . We dare not and cannot sorrow as do others
who have no certain hope. Our sorrow is of another kind. For I am
quite sure that
In His vast world above,
A world of broader love,
God hath some grand employment for His son.[1]
{118} How real it all makes that other world, to have our own brothers
there! It makes it in a deeper sense our home.
[1] Faber, _The Old Labourer_.
_To the mother of his godchild, Margaret Forbes._
Dore House, St. Leonards: January 10, 1900.
I am so glad to feel that my little godchild will have real training.
I don't know how far I received such a training myself at an early
age . . . I came towards the end of a large family. The only
permanent instruction which I can remember imparted to me by my nursery
maid was a caution not to look behind me when I passed people in the
street, enforced by the biblical precept, 'Remember Lot's wife.' I
know what a fascination I had to look behind, accompanied by a terrible
dread of the consequences.
I have always felt that Faber's 'God of my Childhood' describes the
normal and true development of a child's life. I am sure that,
although the gravity of sin should be early recognised, greater stress
should be laid upon the Fatherhood and kindness of God. I was noticing
to-day, when reading the second lesson, how Westcott and Hort have
placed the clause in the Lord's Prayer which speaks of the Fatherhood
of God in a line by itself as a heading to the whole prayer, putting a
colon after the clause, and beginning the first petition with a capital
letter. The prayer begins with 'Fatherhood' and ends with a reference
to 'Sinfulness.' I think this fact is significant. We may not all be
intended to come to {119} know religious truth in that order. But I
think we are intended, when we do know it, to lay even more stress on
the Fatherhood of God than on our own imperfections. It is a wonderful
and terrible thing to watch the development of a human spirit. We can
understand so little about any life, even when it is near and dear to
us. But I am not sure that we cannot learn more about others than we
can about ourselves. I never think it is profitable to study oneself
too closely! I never could meditate with any profit on my sins. But
there, I dare say, I differ from many others.
Well, I hope that the hair of my godchild is growing, and that she has
now more than her god-father. His is coming to an untimely end.
_To F. S. H; who had recently become a chaplain in the Navy._
St. Leonards: January 11, 1900.
I am thinking of you in your new, difficult, and interesting life, and
wondering how you like it. Or, rather, I am sure that you like it in
its main features. There are in every life drawbacks and
discouragements, for we live by faith and not by sight, and faith must
be perfected in the midst of perplexities and contradictions. The
mists are useful. It would not do to have brilliant sunshine all the
time. For in that case, where would faith come in? Steering towards
our port in the fog means trusting the Pilot. 'Mercifully grant that
we, which know Thee now by faith, may after this life have the fruition
of Thy glorious Godhead.' I suppose that none of us fully {120} knows
what this prayer means. I think that there will be more need of faith
hereafter than we usually think. Can we ever apprehend the Father or
the Son without faith? The deepest truths are grasped by faith not
sight. The man who has learned to exercise faith here will have fuller
scope for his faith hereafter. What a shock to wake up in the next
world and to find that the riddles of life still need faith for their
solution! Yet I imagine that it will be so. Only faith will be able
to go deeper than here. The faith perfected in the mists of life will,
in the sunshine of eternity, see deeper into the meaning of events. I
wish I had more faith. Not sudden flights of faith annihilating time
and space and rising up to the throne of heaven. But I wish I could
ground all my actions on faith, and regularly see the invisible and
live as one who could see always and everywhere the Unseen. We are
schooled in different ways. We cannot attain to perfection in a night.
As we advance in the Christian life progress seems slower. In some
sense it is so. It is easier to cast off a number of definite bad
habits clearly inconsistent with the ideal just at first, than to
perfect self-sacrifice, humility, and self-discipline. But we are
advancing, though we know it not. If the engines are always kept
working, we shall reach our goal!
_To C. N. W; who had recently been ordained._
St. Leonards-on-Sea: January 12, 1900.
You must remember how much your future efficiency is dependent upon a
judicious use of your {121} strength during the next two or three
years. I am sure you are right in looking back upon your life and
tracing in its developments a higher than human guidance. It is a
helpful thing to trace now and anon God's hand in our individual life.
It brings Him nearer to us, and it is an awful thought that He is
actually working within us. It makes us trust Him for time to come
even when the prospect is gloomy. I think that we do well to spend
some time in trying to interpret details of our past life. As years go
on, we should have such a firm faith founded on the rock of experience
that we will not be lightly shaken. Peace should be a characteristic
of our life--the joy and peace which come from a certainty that there
is a Purpose in all events. The sense that God has been with us in the
past is a help in interpreting the history of our nation. Even our
troubles are a proof that He is disciplining us. For the service of
Intercession, which my brother uses in Westminster Abbey at the time of
this war, the opening sentence is 'The Lord our God be with us,' and
the answer is, 'As He was with our fathers.'
The College is getting on well. You must come up and see me this year,
while you still know a number of men. I have now a little evening
service--compline--in my rooms at 10 o'clock; Masterman asked me to
have it. He asked men to come, and they asked others. I purposely
refrained from asking any one. We are sometimes a goodly number. I
think it is helpful to those who come. It is, I know, to me. We have
a hymn when we have sufficient musical talent!
{122}
_To G. J. C._
Christ's College, Cambridge: 1900.
Gwatkin has exploded Anthony, 'who never existed.' But for all that I
think Anthony is much like Adam and Eve. The originals may 'never have
existed.' Yet their story belongs to all time. And there will be
Anthonies and Adams and Eves to the end of time. It comforts me to
feel that that which makes for evil is not my true self, but a
wretched, cunning animal existence independent of me, existing before I
came into being, although capable of appealing to me--a serpent.
I am half glad and half sorry to hear of your harmonium. Public
worship is a terribly difficult thing, and it is well at times that we
should realise its difficulties, and have it stripped bare of many
helpful accessories. Yet worship in a village church impresses me. As
in a college chapel, I realise then the continuity of the race. An old
church tells me of generations of men who lived my life, to whom the
present was everything, and the dead almost nothing, who never could
seriously believe that some day the world would whirl and follow the
sun without them. It tells me more than most things of what St. Paul
means when he said that we were all making one perfect man. And I am
humbled and thankful to know that I in my generation can do something
towards the Christ 'that is to be.'
Read the Old Testament itself. Nothing will {123} atone for lack of
knowledge of the Bible. Robertson Smith's and Adam Smith's books
(especially the latter's) on the Old Testament Prophets ought to prove
useful. . . . When I call a man by his Christian name, I usually make
it a rule to pray for him. I shall do so in your case. I will try to
pray every day. I wonder whether you would sometimes pray for me: I
believe immensely in the power of prayer. It is the greatest favour I
can ask of you, and I know I have no right to prefer the request; but
it would be kind of you if you could occasionally. One needs all the
help one can get in this strange life up here. Now I will end. I have
written you a strange, unreserved letter. Forgive me. How I wish this
dreadful war was at an end! U----'s going was a blow to me; but I am
sure he did the right thing. I admire and love that man. . . .
_To G. J. C._
Castleton, Swanage: 1900.
. . . You will not have misinterpreted my silence. I could not answer
your letter until I had secured a time for quiet thought and for
prayer. When I try to write, I feel the uselessness of words. I am
doing better when I am praying for you than when I am writing to you.
Yet I must write. . . . It is strange that God should have made us
thus. To those whom He honours most He gives largest capacity for
love, and therefore largest capacity for suffering. It is still more
strange that we would not wish to be {124} without the love in spite of
the agony which it brings. It must be because
All loves are shadows cast
By the beautiful eternal hills
Of Thine unbeginning past.
I feel this truth 'in seasons of calm weather.' But at other times I
ask myself, I ask God, angrily, Why should some men have no obstacle to
their love? Why should another suffer more than any one can tell--more
than, it sometimes seems to me, can ever be requited? I cannot answer
the question. But I often think of the great unsatisfied heart of God,
and then I think of this poor unsatisfied heart made in His image, and
I feel that He understands me, and that I understand Him better than I
used to do, before this terrible hunger of love began.
I pray God that He will deal tenderly with you, G----, and I am sure
that He will. It cuts me to the heart to think of your suffering, and
I would stop it this moment if I could. So would God--for He loves you
more than I do--unless it were the best thing for you. It is written
of the Son of man, _emathen aph on epathen_. May the same words be
true of you and of me! God bless you and give you Light and Peace!
Peace is something more than joy,
Even the joys above;
For peace, of all created things,
Is likest Him we love.
[Transcriber's note: The Greek phrase in the above paragraph was
transliterated as follows: _emathen_--epsilon, mu, alpha, theta,
epsilon, nu; _aph_--alpha, phi; _on_--emega, nu; _epathen_--epsilon,
pi, alpha, theta, epsilon, nu]
This letter may appear cold to you. It is not. I feel more deeply
than I write. . . . Some day, if {125} you care to hear, I will tell
you something about my own imperfect life. I can't write it down.
Later the day will dawn. But God sends the darkness that we may learn
to trust Him, I have never yet found Him to fail. We cannot trust Him
too much.
_To the mother of a friend, after having been present at his funeral._
Cambridge: April 22, 1900.
I feel I must write and tell you how grateful I am to you for your
kindness in allowing me to be present on Thursday. Whenever I think of
your son who has passed away, that text comes into my mind: 'Blessed
are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.' He was pure in heart,
and I cannot think of him as lifeless, but as actually seeing
God. . . . I am thankful to have been allowed to be his friend. I
shall never forget him; his life remains a source of strength and
inspiration to me. It comforts me now to know that he is sinking
deeper and deeper into the peace of God, which passeth all
understanding. You were talking to me about W----; I could not say all
that I wished to say. . . . I am very, very slow to suggest ordination
to a man. I realise the responsibility of doing so, but there is no
man whom I desire to see ordained more than W----; he has been to me
more help than I can possibly say. I dare not try to tell you all that
he has done for me, because you would think I was exaggerating. I
cannot help feeling that, if he helps me so much, he might help others
also, and that, if he were ordained, {126} he would have singular
opportunities for rendering such help. But I do not press him in the
matter, because I might do wrong; but I pray again and again that, if
God wishes him to be ordained, He will make His purpose clear, and I am
quite sure that He will not leave us in the dark.
_To C. T. W._
Cambridge: July 1900.
I was delighted to read in the paper yesterday of your election to a
fellowship. . . . The life will be a harder one than that of an
ordinary parish clergyman; it will be easier to lose sight of ideals.
But the importance of the work is in proportion to its difficulty.
Blessed is the man who finds his work, and does it; and you will be
blessed. . . .
You should read St. Patrick's 'Confession,' a genuine work of my
distinguished countryman. It is full of humility and zeal. I give you
a quotation: 'After I had come to Ireland I used daily to feed cattle,
and I often prayed during the day. More and more did the love of God
and the fear of Him increase, and faith became stronger and the spirit
was moved; so that in one day I said as many as a hundred prayers, and
in the night nearly the same. . . . And there was no sluggishness in
me, as I now see there is, for at that time the spirit was fervent
within me.' Pathetic--that last part. He might have been living at
Cambridge! But I hope better things for you.
{127}
_To C. T. W._
Thirlmere: September 1900.
My thoughts are with you now--and my prayers. 'He had seven stars--in
His right hand,' was the thought which comforted me at my own
ordination, when I felt, as seldom before, my own hollowness and
incapacity. We can shed light--we are safe--because we are 'in His
right hand.' 'The eternal God is our refuge, and underneath are the
everlasting arms.' We can never go beyond His love and care. In
moments of perplexity and uncertainty, although we cannot feel His
presence, He is there. 'In His right hand.' 'They that turn many to
righteousness shall shine as the stars for ever and ever.'
May God give you the power to love and the power to pray! Much prayer
and much love are needed for a successful ministry. Good-bye, and God
bless you and make you a true and faithful pastor! Remember St. Paul's
words: _he dunamis en astheneia teleitai. edista oun mallon
kauchesomai en tais astheneiais, hina episkenose ep eme he dunamis tou
Christou; hotan gar artheno, tote dunatos eimi_.
[Transcriber's note: The Greek phrases above were transliterated as
follows: _he_--(rough breathing mark) eta; _dunamis_--delta, upsilon,
nu, alpha, mu, iota, final sigma; _en_--epsilon, nu;
_astheneia_--alpha, sigma, theta, epsilon, nu, epsilon, iota, alpha;
_teleitai_--tau, epsilon, lambda, epsilon, iota, tau, alpha, iota;
_edista_--eta, delta, iota, sigma, tau, alpha; _oun_--omicron, upsilon,
nu; _mallon_--mu, alpha, lambda, lambda, omicron, nu;
_kauchesomai_--kappa, alpha, upsilon, chi, eta, sigma, omicron, mu,
alpha, iota; _en_--epsilon, nu; _tais_--tau, alpha, iota, final sigma;
_astheneiais_--alpha, sigma, theta, epsilon, nu, epsilon, iota, alpha,
iota, final sigma; _hina_--(rough breathing mark) iota, nu, alpha;
_episkenose_--epsilon, pi, iota, sigma, kappa, eta, nu, omega, sigma,
eta; _ep_--epsilon, pi; _eme_--epsilon, mu, epsilon; _he_--(rough
breathing mark) eta; _dunamis_--delta, upsilon, nu, alpha, mu, iota,
final sigma; _tou_--tau, omicron, upsilon; _Christou_--Chi, rho, iota,
sigma, tau, omicron, upsilon; _hotan_--(rough breathing mark) omicron,
tau, alpha, nu; _gar_--gamma, alpha, rho; _artheno_--alpha, rho, theta,
epsilon, nu, omega; _tote_--tau, omicron, tau, epsilon;
_dunatos_--delta, upsilon, nu, alpha, tau, omicron, final sigma;
_eimi_--epsilon, iota, mu, iota]
_To W. D. H._
Dale Head Post Office, Thirlmere, September 20, 1900.
My thoughts and my prayers are with you at this time. I remember how
at my own ordination, when I felt as never before my own utter weakness
and incapacity, the thoughts in the first chapter of the Revelation, of
Christian ministers as 'stars in His {128} right hand' comforted and
supported me. In His right hand--with His power we can do all things.
As the lesson for to-day says, _he dunamis en astheneia teleitai_,
strength is perfected in weakness. _hotan astheno tote dunatos eimi_.
[Transcriber's note: The Greek phrases above were transliterated as
follows: _he_--(rough breathing mark) eta; _dunamis_--delta, upsilon,
nu, alpha, mu, iota, final sigma; _en_--epsilon, nu;
_astheneia_--alpha, sigma, theta, epsilon, nu, epsilon, iota, alpha;
_teleitai_--tau, epsilon, lambda, epsilon, iota, tau, alpha, iota;
_hotan_--(rough breathing mark) omicron, tau, alpha, nu;
_astheno_--alpha, sigma, theta, epsilon, nu, omega; _tote_--tau,
omicron, tau, epsilon; _dunatos_--delta, upsilon, nu, alpha, tau,
omicron, final sigma; _eimi_--epsilon, iota, mu, iota]
You will feel more, as years go on, the greatness of the task which you
are undertaking--the overwhelming responsibility--the dread lest
through any carelessness on your part one of the least of the sheep may
be lost. But you will also feel more and more that you are 'in His
right hand.' And if the eternal God is your refuge and underneath are
the everlasting arms, you need not fear what the devil or man can do
unto you. I pray that God may be with you and give you the spirit of
prayer and the spirit of love. Your ministry will only be effective if
you pray much and love much. And if you make mistakes, yet if you love
much your sins will be forgiven.
_To his brother, a doctor in South Africa._
September 1900.
When I feel what the grace of God has done for my life, what it is
doing, what it will do, I can despair of no one else. I am filled with
wonder and amazement and thanksgivings and hopes. I am sometimes so
thankful that I still live, that in a world of light and dark shadows I
can show my faith in God, before the other world dawns with its full
day and unclouded brightness--and most of all that I can here and now
pray for those whom He has taught me to love. I cannot conceive this
world without prayer. It is {129} worth while making any efforts,
however desperate, to learn to pray. When the Day dawns, how wonderful
it will be to look back and trace the path through which He has led us
in the Twilight!
_To F. J. C._
Christ's College, Cambridge: 1900.
The more He tries you by His silence, the greater to my mind is the
proof that He believes in you. He knows you will come through. He has
great work for you to do, and therefore you need a strong perfected
faith, and He is trying to give you it.
I am so sorry at what you tell me about prayer. But do go on. When
things are at their darkest light comes. After all God knows how much
you can bear, and He will not, if you will only persevere, allow you to
be utterly confounded. Don't be in the least discouraged at your
inability to concentrate your attention. Even a man who had lived in
the presence of God for years has told us that
The world that looks so dull all day
Glows bright on me at prayer,
And plans that ask no thought but these,
Wake up and meet me there.
My very flesh has restless fits;
My changeful limbs conspire
With all these phantoms of the mind
My inner self to tire.
Do you expect to fare better, when you are exercising faculties which
have been for long more or less dormant? The same man goes on to
say--and I {130} think it is a comforting truth--that God sees further
than we do, sees what we mean:
These surface troubles come and go,
Like rufflings of the sea;
The deeper depth is out of reach
To all, my God, but Thee.
Even if your conscience condemns you, remember that God is greater than
your conscience. He sees that you _want_ to pray, and the battle is
half won when there is even the want. I like these old words of the
hymn:
Satan trembles when he sees
The weakest saint upon his knees,
even if he can't collect his thoughts. I find it usually easier to
pray for others than for myself. I believe in beginning by praying for
what is easiest. I don't kneel down. I find it more possible to
concentrate my attention when I am walking about or sitting down. And
I tell God what I know about a man, and how I want him to live a better
life. Sometimes I seem to struggle for him as though for very life. I
go on and on and on--sometimes repeating the same request. I try to
copy the poor widow who wearied out the dishonest judge. I am not
distressed when my thoughts wander, I know that they will always wander
without God's help. The distress occasioned by wandering thoughts, and
the attempt to trace the stages by which they wandered, I regard as
temptations of the devil. . . . I go back as calmly as possible to the
matter in hand.
Excuse my 'egoism.' I put it in the first person, {131} because I
believe my own experience will help you more than rules derived from
the experience of others.
Suppose you spend half an hour in this way, and only really pray for
three or four minutes, your efforts will be more than rewarded. You
will have done more than you know for the person for whom you have
prayed. And the next half-hour you will find that you can concentrate
your attention for a minute or two longer. Don't think too much about
yourself when you pray. You must lose your soul if you would save it.
There is probably some one thing or some one person easier than others
for you to pray for. Begin with that.
I never try, as some people do, to classify and enter into details
about my sins. I bring the whole contradictory, weary, and
unintelligible mass of them to God, and leave them with Him. I am
quite sure I shall never do better without Him. But I know that He
believes in me, and will help me in spite of myself. He believes in
you too, dear old fellow! May God bless you for your kindness to me!
Write me just a short note to tell me that you don't despise me in
spite of what must seem to you rather unintelligible and ridiculous
confessions.
I can't help it. And if you can bring yourself to do it, call me too
by my Christian name.
_To the same._
Christ's College, Cambridge: September 28, 1900.
I feel more and more the necessity of being alone occasionally for some
time--to get time enough to {132} pray. I think my supreme desire is
to be a man of prayer. You must help me to accomplish the desire:
'Gutta cavat lapidem non vi, sed saepe cadendo.'
So it is with prayer. As the stone gets worn away, not by the force of
the drop of water but by its constant trickling, so prayer often
renewed must at length attain its end. It is a wonderful privilege to
be able to state all one's wishes and hopes for others in prayer--to
know that there can be there no possibility of misunderstanding--to
tell to God the incomprehensible depth of one's love, and to feel that
He knows what it means, because He Himself is love. It is glorious to
be made in His image, and to be sure that all one's highest yearnings
are a reflection--however broken, partial, and unsightly--of His own
marvellous life. We have indeed cause to be grateful for our
'creation.' I often look at the poor dumb creatures, and thank God
that He has given me such full powers of love, which they cannot
understand: for I would rather have the pains of love than any other
pleasure.
_To F. S. H., a chaplain in the Navy._
Cambridge: November 4, 1900.
I ought to have written before this. The fact that I did not answer at
once is partly accounted for by my having a good deal of work to do,
and partly by physical weakness. I have not been very well this term.
It is cruel of you to suspect me of having forgotten all about you. I
am not that sort. I owe too much to you in the past ever to forget
you. {133} I don't think that you really suspected me of inconstancy.
I am so sorry that you are sometimes lonely and very miserable. I feel
at times weak, physically weak. I think that at such times one can
lean back, as it were, on the Divine arms. He understands our weakness
and weariness. He knows what loneliness and sadness mean. And He is
not extreme to mark what we do amiss. He knows that we are but flesh.
And He 'dwells not in the light alone, but in the darkness and the
light.' Even when the darkness hides Him and we cannot find where He
is, we can, as it were, reach out our hands to Him, and we are safe.
God has much to teach us while we are teaching others. And life is not
exactly the same as we thought at the beginning. He teaches us by
unexpected experiences. But the comfort is that He never changes; we
may be weary, but He never slumbers nor sleeps. Sometimes we feel very
fit and capable. Then is the time to pray and to rise to the heights.
Later, when we are incapable, although it is hard to rise, we need not
fall. When the mist clears we can go on again, and it may be that we
shall find that even in the mist we had gone further than we thought.
The deep snow and the long dark rainy days are necessary for the
perfecting of the fruit, as well as the sunshine. And we do need
sunshine. I feel more and more grateful and thankful to God for His
goodness. He has been so good to me, and I don't deserve it. And I
think that if you look back and look forward you will feel more and
more His marvellous sympathy and affection. I am glad you have been
reading Robertson's Life. Though he {134} may have been almost morbid
at times, he was a great man and did a great work. . . . You will find
later that your work has been far more effective than you expected.
Don't try to rush it. You can't help men much until you know them very
well; and when you know them you find how utterly different they are
from what you had expected them to be. At least I do. No two men are
alike. Each man that you come really to know is utterly different from
any man you have ever met or will meet.
_To F. J. C._
Christ's College, Cambridge: November 5, 1900.
It is good of you to think of me and above all to pray for me. I need
your prayers--and most of all when I am run down and unable to pray
myself. I can see the mountain top at times: then the mist comes down,
and I cannot see the way; I try to keep where I am, though I may not be
able to advance; and when the mist clears I go on again. Possibly,
sometimes, we may be going forward even in the mist, although we seem
to be making no progress, or going backward.
God judges by a light
Which baffles mortal sight.
I often wish I had more physical strength and was able to do what other
men can do; but I can't. And I have no doubt that all is well--that I
am made to do one particular piece of work, and that I have strength
enough for that--and thank God for that.
{135}
_To a brother in South Africa._
December 1900.
It is a marvellous thought that God can reveal Himself to man--even
primitive man. In those stories Jehovah is very near to man. He walks
in the garden at nightfall. He shuts Noah into the Ark. He comes down
to see the city and the tower 'which the children of men builded.' He
talks with Moses face to face as a man speaketh to his friend--and a
ladder connects heaven and earth, and the angels, instead of using
wings, walk up and down the ladder--and, behold, Jehovah stood above
it. At any moment you might meet Jehovah Himself. Three men come to
see Abraham--and Jehovah has appeared to him. A man wrestles with
Jacob, and he has seen God face to face. They were right when they
thought of God as very near to man, of man as capable of reflecting
God's likeness. Ye too shall see heaven opened and the angels of God
ascending and descending upon--the Son of man. It is good for us as
children to read these stories to realise that heaven is very near to
earth. It is good for us as men to read them again to realise that
heaven is even nearer earth than we thought as children. As I said
before, how marvellous it is that God can reveal Himself to man and
through man, that He has revealed Himself entirely, 'the perfect man,'
as Maurice says, reflecting the perfect God--God and man so near one to
the other that men can look upon the Son of man and see God--see Him in
His perfection! Our years ought to be bound each to {136} each by
natural piety. The child should surely be the father of the man.
With age Thou growest more divine,
More glorious than before;
I fear Thee with a deeper fear
Because--I love Thee more.
I have been reading Moody's Life. It has much the same effect as
Finney's used to have in days gone by--it creates a longing to work and
live for God, to bring men nearer to Him, to come nearer to Him myself.
Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth that I
desire in comparison of Thee.
What a wonderful thing that we, as a family, are so united--that our
Ideal is so much the same--isn't it?
_To F. S. H._
St. Moritz: January 6, 1901.
I have succeeded in unfreezing my ink, so I can write and--although it
is late to do so--wish you a happy new century. It is only once in a
lifetime that one can do that sort of thing! I am out here for my
health. I wasn't up to much last term. However, I am as fit as a lord
now, and return to Cambridge this week. I have been reading out here
two very different kinds of books. One is Wellhausen's 'History of
Israel,' the other Moody's Life by his son. Wellhausen's book gives
you in outline the position of modern advanced criticism of the Old
Testament. I have never before studied the history from the critical
point of view really seriously. The study has proved extraordinarily
interesting, and I {137} must say that in the main I agree thoroughly
with Wellhausen's position. You will see it more or less clearly put
in that 'History of the Hebrew People' in two small volumes by Kent
which I recommended to you before. The history of the gradual progress
of the divine revelation to the human race is a marvellous study: the
way in which that people were educated to become the teachers of the
world is utterly different from anything which we should have devised.
I am struck more and more by the marvellous fact that God can and does
reveal Himself--in His essential moral nature--to man; that we are so
made that we can apprehend the revelation; nay, that we in turn can in
measure reveal Him to men!
Moody's Life stirs me up to realise more the worth of the individual,
the surpassing value of man's moral and spiritual nature. I long to
help men to see what I see, to love Him whom I love, and the failure of
my efforts is largely, I feel, due to defects in myself. Still I do
not despair of doing something.
_To his brother Edward in South Africa._
Brislington, Bristol; April 10, 1901.
I was much interested in . . . (your letter) and in seeing a little
into your life. There is a strange family reserve among us which I
sometimes deplore. Perhaps it must always be so, that we can tell most
readily to strangers our deepest thoughts and feelings. Yet I feel
that we ought, as far as we can in this short life, to understand one
another. We have been led by different paths to understand different
aspects {138} of Truth. Yet, when we have climbed to the top of the
hill, I dare say we shall find that our paths were nearer to one
another than we ever realised. At any rate, we shall meet on the top.
I often think that your whole method of gaining truth must be unlike
mine. I use my reason, but I am more than half affection, and it is
that which helps me most. My strange love for some men makes me seek
to live their lives, to see the world as they see it; above all, it
forces me to pray. Prayer never seems to me irrational; yet I do not
pray so much because my reason bids me as because my affection forces
me. I sometimes feel that I should go mad if I didn't or couldn't.
And then, again, I am incapable of telling them all I feel, and I have
to find some one to tell it to, and I feel forced back on One who knows
me through and through, and I find comfort in pouring out my soul to
Him--in telling Him all, much that I dare say to no one else--in
letting Him sift the good and evil--in asking Him to develop and
satisfy the good, and to exterminate the evil. I cannot help trusting
Him.
I know not where His islands lift
Their fronded palms in air;
I only know I cannot drift
Beyond His love and care.
You will tell me perhaps that I am too much like a woman in matters of
faith. Yet so I am made. I must follow the lead of my whole
being--not of my mind alone. I often wonder how it is that I love with
such a strange, passionate, unutterable affection, and whether many men
are like me. {139} I am most pleased to hear of your doings,
especially of your whist parties.
_To F. S. H., chaplain on board H.M.S. Canopus._
Brislington; April 10, 1901.
I am glad that you like your 'parish.' I feel more and more that I
should prefer being among sailors to being among soldiers. I am afraid
that I should do little good among either. Still I like, or think that
I should like, naval officers even more than army officers. If they do
talk a great deal of 'shop,' that is a healthy sign. I only wish our
officers in the army were--I will not say more proud of their
profession (for they have, I dare say, sufficient pride)--but more
anxious to learn and to think out matters connected with it. I dare
say the naval officer is obliged to act more independently and to think
for himself in an emergency; for the army discipline is carried to such
an extreme that the man for some years has seldom any occasion to act
on his own initiative--to rise to an occasion. He simply has to ask a
superior what to do next. He tends to resemble the Hindu
station-master who telegraphed 'Tiger on platform; please wire
instructions.' If their talking shop is worrying occasionally, yet be
of good comfort, it is on the whole a good sign. It is better than
talking golf or polo all day, and better far than loose and unmanly
conversation. The more you are interested in the matters yourself, not
simply because you want to be all things to all men, if by any means
you may gain one or two, but because you are a man {140} and a
Christian, and therefore all things human have an interest to you, the
more you will enjoy such 'shop.' We want not only to affect an
interest in what is of vital concern to our neighbours, but to feel it.
I begin to realise more now than I used to that I must not simply watch
football matches, or run with the boats, because I want to show
interest, but because I am learning--however late in the day and
however imperfectly--to feel a real concern for such matters. And,
strange to say, I am more interested in them than I used to be. Since
the Lord took human flesh and interested Himself in all human life, He
has left us an example that we may follow in His steps. We must call
nothing, and no man, common or unclean. My own life and my own
interests are terribly contracted. Sometimes I have been foolish
enough to glory in the fact, and to think that I honour God in caring
only for my brother's soul and not for his whole life. But love has
taught me that this is a low and incomplete view. God numbers the very
hairs of our head, and he who loves and tries to help another must
enter into his life and care for all that he cares for. I hope that
God will spare me a little longer to work in College, and to learn to
become one with others--to see life with their eyes, to let them teach
me--that so, if it please Him, I may gain some of them for His service.
The disciple cannot expect to be above the Master. The Master was not
popular. He explained His deepest teaching to a few--a very few. If
you have one or two to whom you can explain part of your being, thank
God. You will find that {141} one man understands one side, another
appreciates another side. It is a comfort that there is One who knows
us through and through. What a terrible blank life would be if we had
no God to whom to pour out our whole soul! There are sides of our
being which no one but God seems to be able to apprehend. I am feeling
now comfort at nights in simply telling Him all--feelings which I
cannot explain to any one else, asking Him to interpret, to sift, to
allow the better to live, to annihilate the untrue. I do not cease to
expect great things from Him, to expect that He will do for my 'parish'
as a whole more than I have dreamed of or wished for. But then I am
content if He works slowly, and does what I did not wish or expect to
happen. He works slowly in nature, and I am not surprised if human
nature is still more stubborn material for Him to work upon. But what
a joy it is when one character in which we are interested, for which we
have prayed and wrestled in prayer, shows slight but sure signs of
healthy development! I feel inclined to shout for joy at the
miracle--for it is a miracle--and I thank God and take courage. He
does not let us see many results, but He lets us see just enough to
help us to go forward. It is a help when what is clear and true to us
begins to dawn upon another. 'My belief gains infinitely,' says
Novalis, 'when it is shared by any human soul.'
Let your 'parish' clearly see that 'it is one thing to be tempted,
another thing to fall.' Vile, foul thoughts which come to us are not
in themselves a sign that we are falling. They are first of all from
{142} outside, and are suggestions entirely alien in origin from
ourselves; they are from the devil. They only become wrong when
entertained, when welcomed in the least degree as guests and allowed to
stay. Our aim is to bring every thought at once into captivity.
I have just come back from the seaside, and as I looked at the sea I
thought more than once of 'the ocean of Thy love.' The waves of the
sea beat against a stubborn rock and seem to make no impression. But
in a few years' time the rock begins to yield. The constant wash of
the waves wears it away. So with our hard, stubborn wills. The ocean
of His love will reduce them slowly but surely, and likewise the
stubborn wills of men around us, thank God! When you are tired and
human strength gives way, remember 'the best of all is--God is with
us.' I often feel worn out, and then I love, as it were, to lean back
upon Him--without speaking--as a child on its mother's arms.
I know not where His islands lift
Their fronded palms in air;
I only know I cannot drift
Beyond His love and care.
O brother! if my faith is vain,
If hopes like these betray,
Pray for me that I too may gain
The sure and safer way.
And Thou, O God, by whom are seen
Thy creatures as they be,
Forgive me if too close I lean
My human heart on Thee.[1]
{143}
I am, I fear, but a poor friend. I wish you had some one who loved you
as well as I did, and who was less weak and selfish. You must not give
me up in spite of my defects. I love you and am proud of you--proud to
think that you are doing work among men whom I should be powerless to
influence. Easter once more brings new life and hope. May the God of
all life, of all peace, of all hope, be with you and all your flock!
May He guide pastor and sheep! Don't despair; go on manfully; you are
doing greater work than you know, and if your eyes were open that you
could see, you would find that the host that was with you was more than
all that were against you. Into His keeping I commit you. Good-bye.
Your friend
FORBES.
[1] Whittier.
_To W. O._
Brislington: April 1901.
I am glad that the lot has fallen to you in fair places. 'It has been
said with true wisdom that God means man not only to work but to be
happy in his work. . . . Without some sunshine we can never ripen into
what we are meant to be.' So writes Dr. Hort. I am reading his Life
with great joy. He drank deep of life, and I want to do so also. I
want to live in the present--in the sunshine of eternity. I feel more
and more inclined to thank God for life and all the good things it
brings, and for the friends He has given me, and the measure of
strength and health to use in the service of man.
I had no idea where that Essay had gone. I {144} suppose it is most
immature and unsatisfactory; yet the central idea, however imperfectly
expressed, must surely be true. He took Manhood--in its weakness and
strength--up into God. He was tempted. That thought helps me
immensely. 'It is one thing to be tempted, another thing to fall.' We
often accuse ourselves wrongly when foul thoughts spring up within us.
They are temptations from without--from the devil. They only become
sins when entertained as welcome guests. I have lately thought that
Christ's life, like ours, was a life of faith, that it needed a real
and constant effort of faith for Him to realise His relationship with
the unseen Father. Here and hereafter human life is based on faith.
If we get this idea into our minds, Christ's temptations become more
real. They are temptations to faithlessness. I like your idea that
Christ has entered into our manhood, into the phases (if there be such)
'of the life to come.'
Rest in the Lord. This thought comes home to me more than it used to
do. I like to bring all the perplexities of life--the thoughts and
feelings which I can explain to no one--of some of which I cannot say
whether they are right or wrong, or where the right shades into
wrong--and to leave them with Him to develop (if right), to sift, to
correct. What a blank life would be without God! . . .
Easter brings fresh hope and life. It is glorious to begin existence
in a world which has been redeemed. I am sure--since He rose and
defeated death--we ought to trust to life, to delight in it. 'I am the
Life.'
{145}
Breathe in the fresh air. It is one of the best gifts that the good
God has bestowed upon us. We want fresh air not only in our lungs but
all through, if I may say so, our being. I long to be more natural and
happy--not that I wish for 'religious happiness,' but something quite
different--the happiness which comes in the right exercise of power and
in conscious dependence upon Him in whom we live.
_In reply to a letter from H. P., a master at Clifton College, who was
in doubt whether he ought to resign his mastership and go down to the
College Mission in Bristol._
Christ's College, Cambridge: May 1, 1901.
I have not had time to think over the matter yet, but my first feeling
is that you ought to be very slow to move. If men in your position,
who feel keenly interested in the highest welfare of their pupils and
long to influence them in spiritual matters, all go away to parish
work, what is to become of our public school boys? Masters are only
too anxious to leave for more 'directly spiritual' work, as they say.
But in doing so they leave a work of exceptional difficulty and
importance behind, and who is to take their place? I understand and
appreciate your feelings, but I am not at all sure that you have any
call to go.
How much directly 'spiritual' work have you with the boys? Could you,
if you desired, get more?
I will pray over the matter. Do be slow before you decide to leave. I
believe you ought to stay, {146} although it may be more difficult to
maintain your own spiritual life and ideals in a school than in a
parish. You may be doing more good than you know. It is easier to
find men to do parish work than to do school work of the highest kind.
There is a sermon of Lightfoot's in which he urges clergymen at the
University not to go away, because it is hard to maintain their
spiritual ideals at Cambridge, and because they seem to have so little
direct spiritual influence. May not this apply to your work also?
_To one about to be ordained._
Cambridge: May 1901.
It seems so clear to us that you have a call, that I find it hard to
realise that you yourself are uncertain. But the very fact that you
have been 'counting the cost,' and that you have no ecstatic joy at the
prospect before you, encourages me. I am glad you realise the
difficulties beforehand. What you don't fully see is the strength upon
which you will be able to draw. I often think of those lines of
Tennyson:--
O living Will that shalt endure
When all that seems shall suffer shock,
Rise in the spiritual rock,
Flow through our deeds and make them pure.[1]
That Will can transform our will, and the very weakness of our natural
will is then a help. The strength {147} is seen and felt to come from
an invisible source: 'Thy will, not my will.'
The terrible need of men to fight against the forces of evil impresses
me. The call is so loud on every side. And if men like you cannot
hear it, I am driven almost to despair. . . . I often think of my
father's words on his deathbed: 'If I had a thousand lives I would give
them all--all to the ministry.'
The thought that gave me comfort at my own ordination was a text
suggested to me by my brother: 'He had in His right hand seven stars.'
In His right hand--we are safe there. I felt such a worm as I had
never felt before. 'But fear not, thou worm Jacob.' . . . Don't look
for happiness or peace at this time, but for the presence and power
(whether felt or unfelt) of that God whom we both love and try to love
better. Do not persuade yourself that you do not love God. You do,
more than you have any idea of. The part of your 'Ego' which you would
least wish to lose is not even your love for men--but for God. If you
had your choice now, and had to decide what part of your being you
would retain for eternity, it would be the latter. Beloved, if our
heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart. . . . 'He who loves
makes his own the grandeur that he loves.'
_He had in His right hand seven stars_. He is the Judge, but He also
is our refuge and strength and hope.
[1] _In Memoriam_, cxxi.
{148}
_To D. B. K._
Cambridge: July 1901.