Part 16 (1/2)
I think you are right, that education must now include instruction in imperial ideas--in our relations with that larger social life which is dawning upon us--a step towards a still larger social life to be realised in the brotherhood of nations.
_To F. J. C._
Christ's College, Cambridge: February 1, 1903.
I am slow to suggest to another man that what seems bad luck is in reality the voice of G.o.d making itself felt in his busy life, calling him to fuller sacrifice. But I am sure that we are right when we interpret it {180} thus for ourselves. I share your wish for 'some really strong man' to come as a prophet and read the writing on the wall, and tell us 'what it all means.' Yet the absence of human help is not accidental.
It must be designed, in order that we may learn to fall back on the everlasting arms--to find by experience that the unseen is more real than the seen.
There is an arm that never tires When human strength gives way.
I like that phrase, 'worthy to suffer.' It is to those whom G.o.d loves best and most that He gives--as He gave to His Son--the chance of suffering. Sympathy, strength, reality--these are some of its fruits for those who allow them to grow. 'He cannot be My disciple.' I can't help sometimes thinking of these words. Unless the man is prepared to make sacrifice the basis of his life, he _cannot_ be Christ's disciple. I don't think we always realise the 'trans-valuation of values' found in Christ's teaching. 'Blessed are the poor--the hungry. He that would save his life shall lose it. He that loseth, saveth. He that would be greatest shall be least. It is more blessed to give than to receive.'
As I think over such statements as these, I find that I have again and again to revise, as it were, my moral arithmetic--to change my standards, to revise my ideas of great and little, happiness and misery, importance and insignificance.
I am sure that nothing but the highest will satisfy you. G.o.d has given you singular powers of influence and of attracting others. He will demand an account {181} of those powers. You know Matthew Arnold's lines on his father. I believe the day will come when men will say like words of you.
But thou would'st not _alone_ Be saved, my father! alone Conquer and come to thy goal, Leaving the rest in the wild. . . .
Therefore to thee it was given Many to save with thyself.
That is what I want you to be--a tower of strength--strength perfected, it may be, in weakness--weakness forcing you to despair of self, and find the Rock of Ages. You have been so much to me, and helped me so often, that I feel you must be born to help others as well. And this quiet time, it may be that G.o.d is using it to call you closer to Himself, to teach you to revise your 'values,' to show you a new fund of strength.
Our wills are ours, we know not how, Our wills are ours, to make them Thine.
You must--literally must--let His will overpower your will. Nothing but complete sacrifice will satisfy you or Him, and I believe in you profoundly. I am sure that, whatever be the ghastly struggle, you will go through with it, and find your strength in Him. I pray for you.
_To his mother._
Cambridge; March 15, 1903.
The term is almost over . . . I am enjoying a quiet Sunday. What a blessing these Sundays are {182} to us--a foretaste of a fuller life of service and wors.h.i.+p hereafter! I have been thinking lately with comfort of the quiet perpetual work of the Holy Spirit, silently but surely leading us on to higher things--comforting, correcting, guiding. It gives ground for hope in dealing with men, this knowledge that there is One who perfects what we feebly struggle to begin, who watches over men with a love that will not let them go. We are not alone in our work; we have omnipotence and illimitable wisdom on our side, forwarding our efforts. When I consider what the Spirit has accomplished in my own life, I have large hope for others. The argument from personal experience is singularly convincing. 'The fellows.h.i.+p of the Holy Ghost'--it is He who unites men and interprets them one to the other. It is He who gives spirit and life to our words.
_To H. J. B._
Bexley House, Cromer: March 31, 1903.
It was good of you to send me that card from Florence. You don't know how glad it made me. To know that you were thinking of me was a strength to me. Your love for me comes as a perpetual surprise and inspiration.
I feel a brute compared with you, but the knowledge that you care for me more than you do for most men makes me feel that I must try to be good.
'In Italy of the fifteenth century renaissance we see in strange confusion all that we love in art, and all that we loathe in man!' Greek history was short compared {183} with the Hebrew: I suppose because intellectual and artistic ideals are more easily realised than ethical and religious. It takes time to make a saint. It is part of the discipline of life to find the two sets of ideas apparently antagonistic.
There is a higher unity in which they are blended--in G.o.d Himself. It must be right to follow the dictates of conscience when it bids us lose our soul if we would gain it. We cannot trust G.o.d too much. If we forget our self, He will see that our truest self is ultimately realised.
I can't express myself well, for I have just finished a spell of hard work. I have sent away my tripos papers to-night. I am going up to Edinburgh on Friday or Sat.u.r.day. I fear I shall not see you until April 21. Will you tell Armitage that I will, if convenient to him, sleep at Westminster that night instead of going straight to Cambridge? The hopelessness of ever showing my grat.i.tude to you or of ever making you realise how much I love you oppresses me. I don't know what I should do if I had not One Higher than I am to confide in--if I could not leave you in His hands--if I could not gain strength and life for you by appealing to Him.
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 G.o.d, by whom are seen Thy creatures as they be, Forgive me if too close I lean My human heart on Thee!