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"GOD KNOWS," said Ian at length, and again the broken silence closed
around them.
It was between God and his mother now! Unwise counsellors will
persuade the half crazy doubter in his own faith, to believe that he
does believe!--how much better to convince him that his faith is a
poor thing, that he must rise and go and do the thing that Jesus
tells him, and so believe indeed! When will men understand that it
is neither thought nor talk, neither sorrow for sin nor love of
holiness that is required of them, but obedience! To BE and to OBEY
are one.
A cold hand grasping her heart, the mother rose, and went from the
room. The gulf seemed now at last utterly, hopelessly impassable!
She had only feared it before; she knew it now! She did not see
that, while she believed evil things of God, and none the less that
she called them good, oneness was impossible between her and any
being in God's creation.
The poor mother thought herself broken-hearted, and lay down too
sick to know that she was trembling from head to foot. Such was the
hold, such the authority of traditional human dogma on her soul--a
soul that scorned the notion of priestly interposition between God
and his creature--that, instead of glorifying God that she had
given birth to such a man, she wept bitterly because he was on the
broad road to eternal condemnation.
But as she lay, now weeping, now still and cold with despair, she
found that for some time she had not been thinking. But she had not
been asleep! Whence then was this quiet that was upon her? Something
had happened, though she knew of nothing! There was in her as it
were a moonlight of peace!
"Can it be God?" she said to herself.
No more than Ian could she tell whether it was God or not; but from
that night she had an idea in her soul by which to reach after "the
peace of God." She lifted up her heart in such prayer as she had
never prayed before; and slowly, imperceptibly awoke in her the
feeling that, if she was not believing aright, God would not
therefore cast her off, but would help her to believe as she ought
to believe: was she not willing? Therewith she began to feel as if
the gulf betwixt her and Ian were not so wide as she had supposed;
and that if it were, she would yet hope in the Son of Man. Doubtless
he was in rebellion against God, seeing he would question his ways,
and refuse to believe the word he had spoken, but surely something
might be done for him! The possibility had not yet dawned upon her
that there could be anything in the New Testament but those
doctrines against which the best in him revolted. She little
suspected the glory of sky and earth and sea eternal that would one
day burst upon her! that she would one day see God not only good but
infinitely good--infinitely better than she had dared to think him,
fearing to image him better than he was! Mortal, she dreaded being
more just than God, more pure than her maker!
"I will go away to-morrow!" said Ian to himself. "I am only a pain
to her. She will come to see things better without me! I cannot
live in her sight any longer now! I will go, and come again."
His heart broke forth in prayer.
"O God, let my mother see that thou art indeed true-hearted; that
thou dost not give us life by parings and subterfuges, but
abundantly; that thou dost not make men in order to assert thy
dominion over them, but that they may partake of thy life. O God,
have pity when I cannot understand, and teach me as thou wouldst the
little one whom, if thou wert an earthly father amongst us as thy
son was an earthly son, thou wouldst carry about in thy arms. When
pride rises in me, and I feel as if I ought to be free and walk
without thy hand; when it looks as if a man should be great in
himself, nor need help from God; then think thou of me, and I shall
know that I cannot live or think without the self-willing life; that
thou art because thou art, I am because thou art; that I am deeper
in thee than my life, thou more to my being than that being to
itself. Was not that Satan's temptation, Father? Did he not take
self for the root of self in him, when God only is the root of all
self? And he has not repented yet! Is it his thought coming up in
me, flung from the hollow darkness of his soul into mine? Thou
knowest, when it comes I am wretched. I love it not. I would have
thee lord and love over all. But I cannot understand: how comes it
to look sometimes as if indeinpendence must be the greater? A lie
cannot be greater than the truth! I do not understand, but thou
dost. I cannot see my foundations; I cannot dig up the roots of my
being: that would be to understand creation! Will the Adversary ever
come to see that thou only art grand and beautiful? How came he to
think to be greater by setting up for himself? How was it that it
looked so to him? How is it that, not being true, it should ever
look so? There must be an independence that thou lovest, of which
this temptation is the shadow! That must be how 'Satan fell!--for
the sake of not being a slave!--that he might be a free being! Ah,
Lord, I see how it all comes! It is because we are not near enough
to thee to partake of thy liberty that we want a liberty of our own
different from thine! We do not see that we are one with thee, that
thy glory is our glory, that we can have none but in thee! that we
are of thy family, thy home, thy heart, and what is great for thee
is great for us! that man's meanness is to want to be great out of
his Father! Without thy eternity in us we are so small that we think
ourselves great, and are thus miserably abject and contemptible.
Thou only art true! thou only art noble! thou wantest no glory for
selfishness! thou doest, thou art, what thou requirest of thy
children! I know it, for I see it in Jesus, who casts the contempt
of obedience upon the baseness of pride, who cares only for thee and
for us, never thinking of himself save as a gift to give us! O
lovely, perfect Christ! with my very life I worship thee! Oh, pray,
Christ! make me and my brother strong to be the very thing thou
wouldst have us, as thy brothers, the children of thy Father. Thou
art our perfect brother--perfect in love, in courage, in
tenderness! Amen, Lord! Good-night! I am thine."
He was silent for a few moments, then resumed:
"Lord, thou knowest whither my thoughts turn the moment I cease
praying to thee. I dared not think of her, but that I know thee. But
for thee, my heart would be as water within me! Oh, take care of
her, come near to her! Thou didst send her where she could not learn
fast--but she did learn. And now, God, I do not know where she is!
Thou only of all in this world knowest, for to thee she lives though
gone from my sight and knowledge--in the dark to me. Pray, Father,
let her know that thou art near her, and that I love her. Thou hast
made me love her by taking her from me: thou wilt give her to me
again! In this hope I will live all my days, until thou takest me
also; for to hope mightily is to believe well in thee. I will hope
in thee infinitely. Amen, Father!"
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