Part 17 (1/2)

We had a fairly good 'Long' in spite of the miserable weather.

Congratulate me. I won my first athletic distinction last 'Long'--a ten-s.h.i.+lling prize. I am thinking of chucking work and becoming a professional. It was a second prize in a tennis tournament. I had (I must own) the best player in College as my partner. I want to get a very conspicuous object as prize. What do you suggest?

_To C. T. W._

St. Thomas's Hospital: September 1903.

I am getting on first-rate, and I hope to be up early next week. I believe you are right. We should do well if we had more regularity and self-discipline in our life at Cambridge, and we should have more power over others. Pray for me. . . .

You needn't pity me. I am having a very good time. It is jolly to do nothing, and not even to have to dress and undress--both exhausting and monotonous occupations. It has been a glorious day, and although it is almost 7 P.M., I am still out on the balcony enjoying the cool breezes.

{188}

_To W. O._

Ala.s.sio; December 1903.

Death has come near to my family lately. I told you that my sister--the Deaconess--had pa.s.sed away from us.[1] It is not all sorrow, when we know that the life has been spent in walking with G.o.d, when we know that this corruptible puts on incorruption, and that what is sown in intense bodily weakness is raised in strength--eternal strength.

I am so glad that G.o.d has given to you His highest blessing. I long to meet your future wife. It makes me very happy to think of the happiness in store for you--to know that you are in the best of all schools. I thank G.o.d. Love will bring you both nearer to the source of Love. . . .

This new blessing, as you say, is 'the gathering up of the best that G.o.d gives.' I can't express my thoughts as I would, but I am very, very glad. . . .

Illness teaches one many lessons. I trust I have learned some. I have been amazed at the goodness of my friends!

[1] His sister, Deaconess Cecilia, 'pa.s.sed away' at the Deanery, Westminster, on September 8.

_To W. P., an officer in the Army._

Hotel Salisbury, Ala.s.sio, Italy: December 21, 1903.

I don't think things happen by chance. Indeed I am sure they do not. I have never felt so humbled to the earth. One sees one's life as a whole, when one is helpless and can do nothing, and the whole looks very poor and mean. It is like the {189} judgment-day--only with this grand exception, that life is not yet over, that the night has not yet come in which 'no man can work,' that you have still a chance to make the future better, more honest, more n.o.ble than the past. Then, again, I learnt the utter and wonderful kindness of my friends. I felt so selfish and so surprised at the goodness they showed me. Again, I saw something of the mystery of pain. My own was so trivial compared with that which some others had to bear. Yet I had enough to startle me that such a fact should be permitted on earth at all. I don't suppose we can understand its meaning; but my consolation was that it is not necessarily a sign of G.o.d's displeasure--that the highest life was a life of suffering, that the Son of Man was a 'Man of Sorrows.' Everything seems to me to depend upon the way in which one takes the pain--if one voluntarily says, 'Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done,' then one is entering into the highest life, and the pain becomes a new method of serving and knowing G.o.d. But physical pain, if prolonged, is a terrible thing; and there is no time on a bed of sickness for praying or thinking much of G.o.d unless one is accustomed to do so in health. The needs of the poor body press in upon one. Death-bed repentances are realities, but I am inclined to think that they are very rare. It is terribly dangerous to defer being good until we are ill. Illness does not necessarily make us good.

I am afraid I was but a poor coward, and yet my faith did not utterly fail. G.o.d is the one hope for a man who is ill, and He is true to His word. He {190} hides His face behind the clouds; but even when I couldn't see Him at all, I felt that He was there. Pray for me; at present I feel too weak to pray much for myself. I want--I do want--to be a better man, to help others nearer the kingdom. I want, when life is over, to have a better record to look back upon than I had in hospital.

_To F. S. H._

Ala.s.sio, Italy; January 2, 1904.

Your letter came to me at a time when I was rather low. I had to have a second operation. However, after fifteen weeks of Nursing Homes I escaped, and, as soon as I could, made my way to St. Moritz. For once the place didn't seem to suit me very well. So, after little more than a week, I came down into Italy. I am so far recovered now that I quite hope to be able to go back to college at the beginning of this term.

Illness and pain have taught me some lessons--at least I hope so. I feel solemnised, startled, when I think of how life looked when I could do nothing for the time. Pray for me that I may be more real. I learnt, too, how futile it is to put off repentance till sickness. It is hard at such a time to think of aught save self and physical pain. And my own pain was so trivial compared with that of others. O G.o.d! it is a terrible thing. Some day shall we be able to understand, if not with the head, with the heart, part of its meaning? Meanwhile the individual can say, however feebly, 'Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done.'