Part 14 (1/2)

_To one about to be ordained._

Eastbourne: September 1901.

I shall indeed remember you on Sunday next. The words of the lesson come home to me to-day--_kai eireken moi Arkei soi he chariu mou; he gar dunamis en astheneia teleitai_.

We are poor creatures, but there is Grace--and we can come into contact with it--and that is all we need. We may have failed in the past, but Christ offers a new childlike life and endless hope.

I am glad to think that you will be returning to your difficult post at Cambridge. I am sure that you will return to it with fresh humility and courage--_en pleromati eulogias Christou_.

[Transcriber's note: The Greek phrases in the above paragraphs were transliterated as follows: _kai_--kappa, alpha, iota; _eireken_--epsilon, iota, rho, eta, kappa, epsilon, nu; _moi_--mu, omicron, iota; _Arkei_--Alpha, rho, kappa, epsilon, iota; _soi_--sigma, omicron, iota; _he_--(rough breating mark) eta; _chariu_--chi, alpha, rho, iota, final sigma; _mou_--mu, omicron, upsilon; _he_--(rough breathing mark) eta; _gar_--gamma, alpha, rho; _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; _en_--_en_--epsilon, nu; _pleromati_--pi, lambda, eta, rho, omega, mu, alpha, tau, iota; _eulogias_--epsilon, upsilon, lambda, omicron, gamma, iota alpha, final sigma; _Christou_--Chi, rho, iota, sigma, tau, omicron, upsilon]

_To W. D. H._

St. Moritz: January 4, 1902.

I hope that you are now less overworked than you were in October. You must at all costs make quiet time. Give up work, if need be. Your influence finally depends upon your own first-hand knowledge of the unseen world, and on your experience of prayer. Love and sympathy and tact and insight are born of prayer. I am glad you have a Junior Clergy S. P. G. a.s.sociation. Try to take an intelligent interest in it, and mind you read a paper before long.

_To his brother Edward in South Africa._

Hotel Belvedere, St. Moritz: January 7, 1902.

I am glad to think that we are now in many respects agreed about the general question of the {163} war. I suppose in any great historical upheaval there are at the time a number of people who are attempting to make capital for themselves out of the misfortunes of others; there are many who are working for their own hand; and yet, when we look back on the crisis and judge it as a whole in the calm light of history, we see that a large and rational purpose has been worked out. At the time of the English Reformation--as some one was saying to me lately, pointing the parallel which I am working out--there must have been a number of honest and pure souls who held aloof from the whole of what appeared to be political jobbery and fortune-making at the expense of religious sentiment. Yet now most of us feel that the movement could not have had the effects that it had, unless down below all there was a strong upheaval of the national conscience. You will no doubt see many defects in this historical parallel; but the thought is at any rate suggestive, and full of what we require in these latter days--hope. Of course I feel that injustice, dishonesty, cruelty, selfishness are in no way palliated because they take cover and occasion in a real movement of national feeling.

I feel for you much in your work for examinations. It must come very hard with ill health and in a hot climate, with the freshness of youth to some extent pa.s.sed. But

O well for him whose will is strong, He suffers, but he shall not suffer long; He suffers, but he cannot suffer wrong

{164} It needs more courage than you were required to show on the field of battle. But the reward is sure. I feel strongly that this life is but the prelude to a larger life, when each faculty will have its full exercise.

Ah yet, when all is thought and said, The heart still overrules the head; Still what we hope we must believe, And what is given us receive; Must still believe, for still we hope, That in a world of larger scope, What here is faithfully begun Will be completed, not undone.

These words come from dough--the soul of honesty.

_To H. J. B._

Derwent Hill, Ebchester, Durham: April 14, 1902.

It seems to me a truism to say that we ought to look at life in the light of eternity. Only then does the true significance of the meanest action in life appear. Life is redeemed from triviality and vulgarity. So far from worldly possessions losing their value, and ordinary occupations appearing insignificant, their importance is realised as never before.

If man does not live for ever, his character and actions seem of comparative unimportance. If he does live for ever, it is rational for him to look at each action in the light of that larger life which he inherits. If something like cla.s.s distinctions are eternal, it is an inducement so to use your distinctive privileges here in a worthy manner, that hereafter you may use them for n.o.bler ends.

{165}

I have expressed myself badly, but you will see what I want to say. My relations to you surely become not less, but more important, when I realise that I am only beginning to know and love you here. The eternal element in them--the knowledge that there is throughout an implicit reference to a Third and Unseen Person in all that I say to you or think of you--fills me with a sense of awe, and makes the relations more real because more spiritual.

_To the mother of his G.o.dchild, Margaret Forbes._

July 6, 1902.