Part 16 (2/2)

{184} I lean closer and closer as life goes on. I feel that our hope lies in despair--despair of self. The vessels which contain the treasure are, as to-night's lesson says, earthen, 'that the excess of the power may be G.o.d's and not from us.' And there is a power, there is a life working in us. It is the quiet, sane, constant work of the Spirit in and upon our spirit, that never hastes and never tires: which gives me comfort for you, for myself, for all of us. The same life that is at work in the hedge across the road is in us, only in us it attains full self-consciousness and freedom. We can deliberately use it or refuse it.

Forgive the length of the letter. But I felt so tired that I thought it would do me good to write to you, selfish brute that I am.

I expect you enjoyed your time in Italy immensely. I should have liked to be with you. I wonder if ever we shall be there together? Some day we shall be in a world where the barriers of s.p.a.ce are broken down: 'There shall be no more sea.' Yet it seems to me that we have not altogether to wait for that other world. They are half broken down already; and if we had faith as a grain of mustard seed, we should realise the meaning of a unity deeper than any special or temporal bond.

If we fail to realise its meaning now, shall we realise it then? Is not life here a training for life hereafter? If we learn nothing in this school, we shall not be able to take our places in that school of 'broader love.' The best part in me does not complain. I thank G.o.d for His thoughtful goodness in bringing you near to me. I thank Him for the mystery of life, which enables me to realise that {185} Power 'which lives not in the light alone, But in the darkness and the light.' I become more and more inclined to thank Him as I see Him more clearly.

_To F. S. H. on his accepting the post of chaplain at the Royal Naval College, Osborne._

Cambridge: April 30, 1903.

I am satisfied with your decision. I thought over the matter, but I could not see my way quite clearly to say anything more definite, so I did not write again. Don't think that my silence was due to slackness.

I did what I thought was better than writing. I spent an hour in praying over the matter. Now that the matter is settled I can tell you what a keen pleasure it is to me to have my dear old ---- near me in England,[1]

and doing a piece of work which is full of hope and joy. I would not say this before, because I did not wish to influence your decision by private considerations. Get some quiet time for prayer before September 1, that when you go to Osborne you may go _en pleromati eulogias Christou_ ('filled full with the blessing of Christ'). I feel increasingly the need of such times to learn to walk by faith without stumbling, and to accustom myself to the atmosphere of faith, to see things as they appear to a man who has faith 'as a grain of mustard seed.'

[Transcriber's note: The Greek phrases in the above paragraph were transliterated as follows: _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]

Westcott records a visit (see 'Life,' i. 249) to his old schoolmaster, Bishop Prince Lee. '”People quote various words of the Lord,” said the Bishop, ”as containing the sum of the Gospel--the Lord's Prayer, {186} the Sermon on the Mount, and the like; to me the essence of the Gospel is in simpler and shorter terms: _me phobou, monon pisteue_.[2] Ah!

Westcott, mark that _monon_,” and his eyes were filled with tears as he spoke.' Ah! S----, mark that _monon_! . . . G.o.d bless you in your new work and make you a blessing to others as you have been to me.

[1] He had been offered work in South Africa.

[2] 'Be not afraid, only believe.'

[Transcriber's note: The Greek phrases in the above paragraph were transliterated as follows: _me_--mu, eta; _phobou_--phi, omicron, beta, omicron, upsilon; _monon_--mu, omicron, nu, omicron, nu; _pisteue_--pi, iota, sigma, tau, epsilon, upsilon, epsilon]

_To J. K._

_St. Thomas's Home, St. Thomas's Hospital: August 28, 1903._

. . . I am most grateful for your kind words, though I know full well how little it is that I have done for you. We clergymen so often seem to be working in the dark. There are no clear results to show, as _e.g._ a doctor can comfort himself with, when he has visibly cured a patient.

And I for one am too easily inclined to despair, and to wonder whether the work is not in vain. But 'trust is truer than our fears.' Yet it does me good when I feel I have done anything, however tiny, for a man.

After all, results are best left in G.o.d's hand. He gives us enough to help us the next step onward, but not enough to exalt us, and to make us think we can do anything without His a.s.sistance. Work 'in the Lord'

cannot be in vain.

I am glad you have been reading Bishop Westcott's life. He was a man of G.o.d, and his life is an inspiration, and a prophecy of what our life may--nay, some day--will be. . . . I like that pa.s.sage {187} when he goes to see his old schoolmaster, Bishop Prince Lee, who tells him with tears in his eyes that to his mind the whole Gospel message is summed up in the words '_me phobou, monon pisteue_.'

[Transcriber's note: see the previous letter for transliteration notes on the above Greek phrase.]

_To a friend who had been an international athlete._

St. Thomas's Home: September 5, 1903.

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