Part 13 (1/2)
But one or two things that you said to me live in {153} my memory, and make me wish to be more fit to talk to you.
St. Moritz is much as usual. It is a strange little world in itself.
The comic and the tragic are blended weirdly together, and nature is unimaginably beautiful. I wish you could see this snow. It has an attraction for me, and I am sure it would have for you. I think you understand more about the meaning of beauty than I do. When I see a magnificent landscape, I want to share the sight with some one else. I feel quite lonely when I am interpreting it alone. I wonder why that is?
_To F. J. C._
Hotel Belvedere, St. Moritz: December 21, 1901.
Christmas seems to mean more to me, the longer that I live. I gaze with bewilderment on that stupendous mystery of love--the very G.o.d entering into and raising our human nature. My whole conception of the meaning, the possibilities of our common human nature is transformed, as I see that it can become a perfect reflection and manifestation of the Divine nature. 'The Word became flesh, and lodged _in us_.' The manger at Bethlehem reverses all our human conceptions of dignity and greatness. 'The folly of G.o.d is wiser than men.' It is to the humble--to babes--that G.o.d can reveal Himself. In them He can find His home.
O Father, touch the East and light The light that shone when Hope was born.
It is in Christmas that Tennyson found the birth of {154} Hope. It is Christmas that, as life goes on, bids us never despair--of our own or of human nature around us.
_To a friend at Cambridge._
Hotel Belvedere, St. Moritz: December 30, 1901.
I shall never forget this last Christmas Day, for your letter came in the evening. I read it again and again, and wonder at it more each time I read it. I can't tell you what I feel about it. I knew that you more or less liked and respected me, but I didn't know that you loved me. I've got what I wanted. When you merely respected me, I dreaded the day when you would find that I was different to what you thought I was. But now I feel I am safe _phobos ouk estin en te agape_, however imperfect you find me. I know now that I can trust you not to throw me off. And love is not extreme to mark what is amiss, _hoti agape kaluptei plethos amartion_. I can't thank you for your kindness, but I thank G.o.d for giving me the most precious gift in the world, a human soul 'to love and be loved by for ever.' As I look at your letter I feel a mere worm, and my one wonder is how on earth a man like you can call me your friend. I can't thank you; but I'll do my best to live up to the standard you expect of me, and to be a true friend to you. And my idea of friends.h.i.+p is, as you know, prayer. I can't, worse luck, do much for you, but I do pray for you, and 'whatever ye ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.' It has been truly said that the _how_, the _where_, and the _when_ are not told us, but only the {155} _what_. And I am quite certain that every prayer I offer for you is heard and answered, when I believe what I say; but the manner, the place, and the occasion of the answer--of these things I know nothing. I am sure that G.o.d loves to see us happy, and the pure joy of the knowledge that such a man as you loves me is almost more than I can bear. It throws a new light on life here, and on that fuller life to which G.o.d is leading us hereafter; like you, thank G.o.d, I cannot complain of lack of friends, but I have never had one who has written me such a letter, full of an affection for which I crave. The worst is, I can't repay your kindness. You bring me nearer to G.o.d, you make me realise in the strangest way His affection, you make me feel the worth and mystery of a human soul. I wish I could return your help somehow or other. Do show me the way. I wish you did not find it so difficult to pray for me. I am sure you are right in going back to such a man as St. Paul for subjects of prayer. The opening chapters of his letters to the Ephesians and Colossians give the kinds of requests which it is worth making on behalf of any one. There is surely no harm in finding that, as you pray for another, your own faith is growing.
There is nothing selfish in that. It is rather the result of the law _didote kai dothesetai humin_.
[Transcriber's note: The Greek phrases in the above paragraph were transliterated as follows: _phobos_--phi, omicron, beta, omicron, final sigma; _ouk_--omicron, upsilon, kappa; _estin_--epsilon, sigma, tau, iota, nu; _en_--epsilon, nu; _te_--tau, eta; _agape_--alpha, gamma, alpha, pi, eta; _hoti_--(rough breathing mark) omicron, tau, iota; _agape_--alpha, gamma, alpha, pi, eta; _kaluptei_--kappa, alpha, lambda, upsilon, pi, tau, epsilon, iota; _plethos_--pi, lambda, eta, theta, omicron, final sigma; _amartion_--alpha, mu, alpha, rho, tau, iota, omega, nu; _didote_--delta, iota, delta, omicron, tau, epsilon; _kai_--kappa, alpha, iota; _dothesetai_--delta, omicron, theta, eta, sigma, eta, tai, alpha, iota; _humin_--(rough breathing mark) upsilon, mu, iota, nu]
Your faith can only grow with exercise, and you exercise it by praying for others. You would only be selfish if you prayed for some one else _in order that_ your own soul might be benefited.
But don't think too much of selfishness. Bring {156} all your half selfish desires to Him who knows us through and through; and in His presence, almost unconsciously, your motives will gradually be purified. You will learn to walk in the light as He Himself is in the light. As I look back on this letter, a large part of it seems selfish. I expect much is; but, even in the selfish parts, there is something more besides. I can only just say what I feel, and ask G.o.d gradually to eliminate what is wrong. In His light I shall see light.
Life is large, and I am fearful lest, in attempting a rough and ready asceticism, I should exclude as wrong some elements which are in reality G.o.d-given. I feel that in the case of our affections and our longing for beauty. They are implanted in us, and tended and watered by One who is perfect Love and perfect Beauty. They easily lead us into sin, but that fact does not imply that they are wrong in themselves. We have to bring them to their source that He may interpret them, 'Too late have I sought thee,' said Augustine, 'thou Beauty, so ancient and so new, too late have I sought thee.' I cannot understand the mystery of your life, dearest, but I feel that all that craving for beauty is in some kind of way a craving for G.o.d. Only G.o.d demands the first place in your life before He will give you any satisfying interpretation of that aspect of His life. You must love Him for what He is--not simply because He is Beauty.
I slept and dreamed that life was Beauty, I woke and found that life is Duty.
{157}
They are not really contradictory conceptions. Nay, Duty has a spiritual beauty of her own. But sometimes they seem for a moment divergent, and then you must at all costs choose the latter, and you will find that
The topmost crags of Duty scaled, Are close upon that s.h.i.+ning tableland To which G.o.d Himself is s.h.i.+eld and sun.
And, if I am not mistaken, that land will be utterly full of an absolutely satisfying beauty.
But I feel that I scarcely yet understand anything about the meaning of Beauty. All I can do is to relate it immediately to G.o.d. If I see beautiful scenery, I am usually thinking of G.o.d and thanking Him. If I see human beauty, I feel that I am on holy ground, and I always try to pray for a face that attracts me. I feel that I have a duty in return for the revelation that has been given. But, as you see, I can explain but little. These are merely rules of practical life which we very imperfectly carry out. I cannot explain the relation of physical and spiritual beauty in human beings. I feel, of course, that there ought to be, there very often is, some such relation. But sometimes there is something utterly wrong, and apparently no such connective. The connection, I take it, is more perfect in nature; but in man, why, something has occurred, something anomalous, which mars the whole. Sin has come in somewhere, I suppose.
I can't express on paper what I feel, or give you any real conception of what you are to me. You {158} would be startled if you knew. G.o.d bless you, and work out in you, not my miserable ideal of what I think you ought to be, but His own ideal, which exceeds all our thoughts and imagination, of what you are to be.
_To G. J. C._
Christ's College: 1901.