To W. A. B.
Christ's College, Cambridge: November 20, 1902.
… I am glad that you like your school, that you like your boys.… Think of the weak chaps, those who are 'out of the way,' those who are not naturallyattractive, those who positively repel you. They often most need your sympathy, your prayers.
And now about your ordination. Do you know I am doubtful whether it would be a good thing for you to be ordained to a school chaplaincy. I am almost more than doubtful. You would, I suppose, have no parish work, nor anything to do with poor folk. Your work would be reading prayers, and preaching about three times a year, I suppose. You would scarcely care to be a curate in a country or poor town parish later on, would you, if you began thus? But, after all, I must not, I dare not, advise you. I can only point you to the Being who alone can advise us. The great thing is to renounce all plans, all thoughts of self, to give up all we are and expect to be, to come into His presence, and then to ask His advice. Or rather we must come to Him like little helpless children and ask Him tohelpus to renounce planning and arranging withselfas goal—to beg Him to give us strength to give up all.
The great thing is to get the life where we shall develop best all our powers—viz. the life in which we shall have most opportunities of sacrifice. Can you get, can youuse, opportunities of self-sacrifice in your school life? Can you get fuller and better elsewhere?… Of course, if you find that you have more influence over boys than you would be likely to have over other folk, that might alter the case. Have you found that you can influence them more for good than you would be likely to influence others?
Our one work in life must be to advance God's glory, God's kingdom. The time is short. The nightsoon comes. The great problem is how to do most in that short time; how we ourselves can best lose ourselves in the little time that we have for losing ourselves. 'He that loseth himself, findeth himself.'
To D. D. R.
14 St. Margaret's Road, St. Leonards; January 10, 1893.
I have been thinking to-day of that strange statement 'I no longer call you slaves … but I have called you friends.' To understand any one you must be their friend: you are able then to judge their life from the inside, to see why and how they do what they do; all their actions which seemed disconnected and purposeless before are seen to be part of a plan, to have an end, a goal. We cannot understand the riddle of life, the necessity of all the details in the great scheme of redemption, the reason for certain means of grace, the real significance of the hope of glory, while we are slaves. The whole appears so purposeless, such waste of energy, such unintelligible and irrational self-sacrifice. Why must the Christ suffer? Why could not sin be overcome in a less costly way? Why is the victory of the Christ so incomplete? Why do some, who are better than we, take so little interest in the eternal? We cannot answer these and a thousand other questions while we are slaves. All is a hopeless enigma, a play without a plot, a novel with no plan. But become a friend of a man and all is changed. Each act in his life, each thought in his life, each word from his lips—they have not ceased to be a problem,they are ten thousandfold more wonderful than they ever were before: they are still a problem; but there is, there must be, we feel, a purpose running through the whole. We have but one object—to understand him more, to see what divine ideal he is trying to work out in all the details of his common life. Each detail is important; each thought, however wayward, must be recognised and understood. All are seen in the clear, dry light of eternity; each is seen in something like its right proportion. We feel that his life is our life—nay, more interesting than our own miserable life—that if we are ever to know ourselves we must know him first. So, too, become a friend of Him who alone is, and all is changed. Gradually, perhaps painfully, yet surely, as we become like very little children, the meaning of the whole dawns upon us. We see it all: we see that it could not be otherwise: we cannot say why, but we are quite sure that we see it—at least, we see a little way, and where the light ends and it begins to get dark, we feel that it is all right beyond—that He who is with us in the light will be with us in the darkness. We are no longer slaves, doing His will because we must. We are friends, and we cannot help taking deep interest in all that He does. His acts, His thoughts, His words, they are still a problem—we cannot make them all out. But they are the same kind of problem as a friend is—a strange exquisite torture. We do not know what the whole of his life means; he can do things which we cannot, and which we rejoice to know that we can never do. We only see one side of him ever, and the rest is only known to God.And yet wedoknow part of his life, and we are content to know no more; what we know is good, and what we do not know or understand must also be good. We judge from what we see what that must be which we cannot see. We do not wish it otherwise. We feel that it would be impious to try and understand him fully, for is he not connected with God Himself? So we see one side of the life of the Eternal; but we are friends; we do not wish it otherwise. We cannot understand Him—we never can. And yet 'I have called you friends.' His main purposes we see: the plan by which He realises them we see in part. And as we know Him better, we shall be able to track His footsteps even where we did not expect to find Him. We shall learn that His methods are simpler and better than ours, that His thoughts are surer, deeper, higher than all our schemes and plans. I am constantly finding that ordinances, customs, beliefs, which I used to despise as strange, antiquated, or useless, are yet the very ones which I need, that my fathers knew better than I my needs, that above all God Himself had provided institutions and customs, and had waited until I was old enough to learn their use and to bless Him as I used them. So, as we know a man better, we feel that we must pray for him and his the more. As we become the friends of the Word, we feel we must pray that His will may be done ever more and more—His purposes realised by us and ours. Let us then not begin by criticising the world and God; let us first be the friends of God, and then in the light of undying friendship and prayer begin to criticise.We must be the friend of a man before we understand his life; we must be the friends of Jesus Christ before we understand His life now upon earth.
I used to skate: I don't now. I obey herein one of the great maxims of my life: 'If you want to get a thing well done,don'tdo it yourself.' I consider that K——, in this as in other similar pursuits, performs the ancient and 'sacred duty of delegation.' I have no doubt that he does it admirably. Why must people try what they can't do well? Why not leave it to those who like it and can do it well? The wretched public-school-boy conception of dull uniformity is an abomination to me! If K—— does the walking, you do the thinking; G—— does the dandy, M—— the grumbling, S—— the jack-in-the-box, G—— the running, M—— the philosopher, and D—— the little vulgar boy—allow me to do what after all is the hardest of all tasks, 'to do nothing gracefully.' (I am afraid that I begin by trying 'to do nothing—gracefully,' but end by 'doing nothing gracefully.' You see the difference!) I believe in division of labour—let each man do what he is made to do best—and those who feel their vocation to be nothing but receiving the results of the labour of others—why, let them try to do it with the best grace they can! Forgive me if such be my case.
To J. L. D.
Christ's College, Cambridge: May 15, 1893.
I think you are right in believing in the intense worth of sympathy. But 'sympathy' is the Greekas 'compassion' is the Latin form of 'suffering together with.' He who has suffered most has perhaps the most power to sympathise; not simply to pity or console, but to go right out of self and to get right into another, to see life with his eyes, to feel as he feels. If, then, you find many of those among whom your lot is cast almost incapable of sympathy, may it not be that they have not yet learned the meaning of suffering? They may not have had so many opportunities of suffering as you, or, if they have had as many, they may not have found any one to interpret to them what it all meant. Thank Him from whom all sympathy comes if you have known anything of the sufferings of life, anything of the worries and disappointments and delays and unsatisfied ambitions which so many have; if you have known these—known their inner meaning, and have been led out and beyond your own into that wider life of suffering, and have learned what it is to fill up in your turnta husteremata ton thlipseon tou Christou.
[Transcriber's note: The above Greek phrase was transliterated as follows:ta—tau, alpha;husteremata—(rough breathing mark) upsilon, sigma, tau, epsilon, rho, eta, mu, alpha, tau, alpha;ton—tau, omega, nu;thlipseon—theta, lambda, iota, psi, epsilon, omega, nu;tou—tau, omicron, upsilon;Christou—Chi, rho, iota, sigma, tau, omicron, upsilon]
One hates to see others whose centre is self. Their whole life looks so mean and low. Life over, the Ego alone left; and what a poor, wretched, snivelling creature after all—this what we pampered, this what we thrust forward for others to admire and flatter! If we were not in much the same case, we might be able to view it in others with somewhat different eyes. And yet do you know that, as a matter of fact, our Ego is dead—self is not—and the devil's greatest lie is to make us believe in this self? For do not you and I belong to One stronger thanself—One whose own self may live in us—does live in us—whether we recognise the fact or not? We died years ago to self when He claimed us for Himself, and we rose again to a selfless life in Him:zo de ouketi ego, ze de en emoi Christos.
[Transcriber's note: The above Greek phrase was transliterated as follows:zo—zeta, omega;de—delta, epsilon;ouketi—omicron, upsilon, kappa, epsilon, tau, iota;ego—epsilon, gamma, omega;ze—zeta, eta;de—delta, epsilon;en—epsilon, nu;emoi—epsilon, mu, omicron, iota;Christos—Chi, rho, iota, sigma, tau, omicron, final sigma]
We act a lie whenever we make our Ego instead of His Ego the centre. If He is our centre and our goal, then be sure our Ego will begin to live, because it is 'grounded' and rooted in His. Any trouble and anxiety that leads you out of self to the Infinite Ego, that makes you feel helpless and lonely and in need of a Human Helper and a Human Comforter, thank God for it. He is teaching you to cast yourself upon One who is perfectly human because perfectly divine. He is teaching you that you are not your own; that long, long ago yourself died:ei oun sunegerthete to Christo, ta ano zeteite.
[Transcriber's note: The above Greek phrase was transliterated as follows:ei—epsilon, iota;oun—omicron, upsilon, nu;sunegerthete—sigma, upsilon, nu, eta, gamma, epsilon, rho, theta, eta, tau, epsilon;to—tau, omega;Christo—chi, rho, iota, sigma, tau, omega;ta—tau, alpha;ano—alpha, nu, omega;zeteite—zeta, eta, tau, epsilon, iota, tau, epsilon]
Thus we are led to understand something of the meaning of our Christian names—to see that they are living pledges to us, whatever we do, wherever we go—that Christ's name is called upon us—that when tiny little children we were brought home to the Great Ego in whom alone our Ego can ever find satisfaction—to feel that we are His and He is ours.
To J. L. D.
Christ's College, Cambridge: October 9, 1893.
The step which you contemplate taking is one with far-reaching issues—reaching away through time and beyond it. I advise you to try and gain a general idea of the meaning of the first half of St. Paul'ssecond letter to the Corinthian Church—to try and enter into its general spirit. Few things will humble you more: you will see something of the unspeakable dignity of the office of him who represents God to his fellow-men, and of the tremendous enthusiasm and love which a man must have if he would be the minister that St. Paul would have him be. I do not know what St. Paul means when he says that we are ambassadors on behalf of Christ: but the more I think of what the words seem to mean, the more I am startled at the awful responsibility that we have laid upon us. To represent Christ, to treat with men, to attempt to arrange—if one may so speak—terms, to use all our powers in performing the work of the embassy—this at least is involved in the words. What strikes me so much in the letter is the manner in which St. Paul literally loves the Church; how he longs to communicate his own enthusiasm to it; how he would die, almost does die, himself to bring life to them. All his hopes are bound up with theirs—his salvation with their salvation. He seems to 'fail from out his blood, and grow incorporate' into them. We are called to the same office as St. Paul, we have the same power working in us as he had working in him: we too shall have success in so far as we love—as we identify ourselves with those whom God has given us to take care of. The more we are disciplined and yet enthusiastic, the more capable shall we be of love—of getting out of self—of working our way into others—of representing the Christ to them—of understanding and making allowances for them—of seeing them in the ideal, the only real, light inwhich God sees them—seeing them in the Christ, in whom we live—mind that, with all your intellectual training, you don't forget the other. Now is the time to learn, to force yourself to learn, to pray—to pray not for a few minutes at a time, but to pray for an hour at a time—to get alone with yourself—to get alone with your Maker. We shall not have to talk so much to others if we pray more for them. We talk and we do not influence, or we influence only for a time, because our lives are not more prayer-full.
To J. L. D.
Aldeburgh House, Blackheath, S.E.: December 16, 1893.
I cannot help thinking of you both at this time. It means so much to you both—more than either of you dreams that it means. The issues of your Ordination day are very far reaching indeed. They stretch away and beyond this world in which we now are. The rush of school work and of preparation for examination has probably not left you as much time as you could have wished for thinking over what it all means. I hope you will have more time after the service is over. But you may be comforted in the thought that the last few years have been a definite preparation for your life-work. Though you must regret, as you never regretted before, misuse of time and powers in the past, yet you have had an education which has in some degree prepared you for this time, an education for which you may thank our common Master. But thisthought by itself would be but a small comfort. For you must feel, if you are the man I take you for, how unworthy you are to be what you are called to be. Now there are two ways of dealing with this feeling. You may say, 'I am not called to be an absolute saint; but I will try to reach a fairly high standard;' or you may say, 'Yes, I am called to be an absolute saint. I will not lower my ideal. I will comfort myself with that single word "called." If He has called me, He will do in me and for me what He wills.' This second way is the true way of dealing with feelings of unworthiness and unfitness. You and I are utterly unfit. But we are both called—called from our mother's womb—called to be saints and to be ministers. He who called us will help us. With man the call seems quixotic, impossible; with Him all things are possible. At times when the call is loudest we can but reply, 'Ah! Lord, I am but a little child.' We are intensely conscious of feebleness and, what is worse, of treachery and meanness within; we half love what we are called upon to denounce; we play with the sin we are to teach men to abhor. Yet the call is sure, is definite, is perpetual, and again and again you will in all probability find what a help it is to look back to that day in which the call took formal shape. You have that as a definite fact to rest upon, to reprove, to encourage, to urge to renewed effort, to force you to be true and energetic.
One thing you must learn to do. Whatever you leave undone you must not leave this undone. Your work will be stunted and half developed unless youattend to it. You must force yourself to be alone and to pray. Do make a point of this. You may be eloquent and attractive in your life, but your real effectiveness depends on your communion with the eternal world. You will easily find excuses. Work is so pressing, and work is necessary. Other engagements take time. You are tired. You want to go to bed. You go to bed late and want to get up late. So simple prayer and devotion are crowded out. And yet, T——, the necessity is paramount, is inexorable. If you and I are ever to be of any good, if we are to be a blessing, not a curse, to those with whom we are connected, we must enter into ourselves, we must be alone with the only source of unselfishness. If we are of use to others, it will chiefly be because we are simple, pure, unselfish. If we are to be simple, pure, unselfish, it will not be by reading books or talking or working primarily, it will be by coming in continual contact with the ground of simplicity, purity, selfishness. Heaven is the possibility of fresh acts of self-sacrifice, of a fuller life of unselfishness. You are a man and a minister in so far as you are unselfish. You cannot learn unselfishness save from the one Source. Definite habits of real devotion—these we must make and keep to and renew and increase. Then we shall gradually find that we are less dependent on self—that even in the busiest scenes we dare not act on our own responsibility—that, be the act ever so small and trifling, when we are in difficulty we shall naturally, inevitably, spontaneously turn to that place whence help alone can come. But it is a wonderful help again and again to feel that we have beenalone with Him, that we are not working on our own responsibility, that He is the 'Living Will' that rises and flows 'through our deeds and makes them pure.'
To D. D. R.
8 Alexandra Gardens, Ventnor: Jan. 2, 1894.
While holding as firmly and unreservedly to the belief that a revelation is a possibility that has actually been realised, I am becoming more aware of the partial and limited view which any single individual can have of the significance of such a revelation; and with this conviction comes a desire not to hinder by any words or prejudices of mine the education of one to whom I owe more than I at present know. Yet, as I believe that no individual life is beyond the wise ordering of a Divine economy, I am sure that he must have lessons to learn from me as well as I to learn from him. Hence I dare not refrain from suggesting to him—often in answer to questions that he puts to me—sides of truth which, as I believe, I have been allowed to apprehend. The knowledge of truth (in however small a degree) is a trust that we hold for the sake of others. What I fear for him and for you—for you even more than for him—is not that you will form wrong opinions on religious or ethical subjects, but that you will lack that moral earnestness that forces a man, whether he will or not, to look the facts of life in the face, that deadly earnestness that refuses to allow us to contemplate creeds as works of art, but forces us to ask whether these things be so. Life as a whole must be faced. What has induced men tobelieve this and that tenet? Why have men craved for a knowledge of an unseen Being? Why have systems of priestcraft arisen? How is it that those who most revolt against such systems are slaves to other systems bearing different names, but in substance the same? Is there a Deliverer? Is there a unity beneath all this confusion? Can man know such a unity if there be one? Can such a unity be revealed? Has it been revealed? Why do men think it has been revealed if it has not? While I am slow to force upon those whom I most respect and love lessons which I believe that I have slowly learnt in a school in which perhaps they have not been, and never will be, educated, yet I am sure that I cannot be wrong in praying for them and in urging them to be increasingly earnest in the search for and the practice of truth. You are a man in so far as you live. You live in so far as you are self-sacrificing. You are self-sacrificing in so far as you unswervingly practise the truth you know and follow after that which you do not yet apprehend. And I am sure, if there be a unity beneath our lives, if there be One who is educating us when we are most wayward, we shall eventually be led by, it may be, very different paths to a single goal. Meanwhile each failure to be earnest, each relapse into sentimentality, unmanliness, morbidness, despair, unreality, laziness, passiveness, may itself be a discipline, making us utterly mistrust ourselves, whether at our worst or at our best, and forcing us to inquire whether there be any help elsewhere, any power that can sweep through our lives and force us to be human.
For this reason I would impress on you thenecessity of trying to think out your position, of asking yourself how you may be most human and best serve God (if, indeed, you believe that this is possible) and your generation. There are around you social forces making for good. Ought you to be—nay, can you be—isolated? Does isolation give greater strength? Does it enable you to do more or to be better? These questions are not merely suggested by me. They have already suggested themselves in one form or another to you. I am frightened of their not receiving the attention they merit.
To T. H. M.
8 Alexandra Gardens, Ventnor: January 3, 1894.
The fact that you have not all the sympathy and manly help and advice that you could wish for from those around you will, I trust, force you to depend with simpler confidence upon the unchanging Ground of all human sympathy. You will, I hope, take all these experiences without grumbling as a real and necessary stage in your education; remembering that if you find yourself repining at the distressful circumstances in which you are placed, you may be dishonouring Him who has placed you where you are. I do not, of course, mean that such reflection will make you condone and excuse the lukewarmness of others, but you will grasp the truth that God uses even the sin of this world as an instrument in the education of His people, and that you yourself may have your character formed partly through the faults of others, for whom you are still bound to pray.This great Christmas festival that is past must be a power to us in the year that is coming on. We must enter into and be penetrated by the Life that has been manifested. For it is life that you and I need. Our own puny individualistic life of morbid self-consciousness and sensibility must be transformed by the fuller Life in which all may have a share; and thus we shall come to think less of ourselves, our successes, our failures, what others think about us and what others ought to think about us—we shall forget all this because we shall share in the Universal Life, which penetrates through all and which makes men forget themselves and their ills, and be pure, simple, healthy, unselfish. And this life has been realised and men have seen it, and it is still with us to-day. In so far as we share in it we shall become natural, unaffected, human. Nay, more. Because the life there manifested is divine as well as human, we shall realise also with fuller force what it is to be a child of a Father who is in heaven. It is life, not a system, that we need. It is life which is given us when we are adopted as sons; it is life that we receive when the Source of all life gives us Himself to feed upon; it is life that Christ bestows upon us when we gradually realise our position as members of a society in which no man can live for himself alone. Life is life in so far as it is unselfish. May He who has called us and given to us all our privileges teach us to live out that which we
To F. S. H.
Cambridge: August 4, 1895.
Life will not be the same without having you up here. I am very dependent upon others, and I soon begin to be downcast if I have not some one to help or to be helped by. But happily He who takes away is the same as He who gives, and His great heart of affection understands our manifold and seemingly contradictory needs. Life would be intolerable if we had no one who knew us perfectly, not simply the outside part of our life, but that inside and apparently incommunicable part. Those who are least able to express themselves in words, or who (if they did express themselves) fear that they would be misunderstood, find in Him an unspeakable consolation. But I must not look at things from the individualistic standpoint. No problem can ever be solved until we have in some measure realised that the Life which flows through us is larger than our own individual life. We get morbid, and our reason becomes warped, when we think of our own future alone. Every obstacle in our path, every interruption to the course which we have planned for ourselves, every rough discipline, tells us that our life and future are not our own, that they are intimately connected with a larger life, a greater future. I have been thinking of those words—so like Jesus Christ to have uttered them—me merimnesete. We are always anxious about a set of circumstances which will soon be upon us—engagements which we tremble to meet. Jesus Christ tells us,me merimnesete. I believe that work in thepresent world would be far more free and effective if we would obey the command. We cannot enter into life as it comes, because we are living in an imaginary future. The man of God lives in the present; he leaves the future to God,me merimnesete. If God has conducted us so far, He will not leave us. It is easy to talk, hard to act. I think we gain the power to act, we gain the calm peace of God, by compelling ourselves to remain at certain times in His presence. Habits of prayer are slowly formed, but when formed are hard to break. Talking may be a great snare when it takes the place of prayer—and how easily it does! It is easier to talk with a man than to pray for him—in many cases.
[Transcriber's note: The Greek phrases in the above paragraph were transliterated as follows:me—mu, eta;merimnesete—mu, epsilon, rho, iota, mu, nu, eta, sigma, eta, tau, epsilon]
To F. S. H.
Clovelly: September 11, 1895.
I am reading 'The Newcomes': have you ever read it? I find it hard to appreciate Thackeray as much as some people do. Occasionally he says some very true things and shows that he is acquainted with human nature in its brighter and darker aspects. But, on the whole, the story of marriage and giving in marriage—selling your daughter for money or a title—the picture of young men who sow their wild oats and then repent and marry innocent ladies and live virtuously and die in the odour of sanctity—on the whole the story does not seem to correspond to the ideals which haunt me, even though I do not act up to them. Surely life is something utterly different from all this. Surely somewhere there is a picture ofhuman life, somewhere in the mind of God Himself, where the young man grows up without any harvest of wild oats, with clear and unselfish ideals, with a longing to make the world purer and diviner than he found it, a picture which is in some measure realised around us to-day. May God deliver us not only from vicious but from selfish thoughts! I believe Thackeray saw something of that picture, but he didn't draw it with the colours I could have wished. There is a solemn text in Ezekiel, which came in the lesson lately, 'The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him in the day of his transgression.' Past religious experiences are of little value without present righteousness.
To his cousin G. F.
Clovelly, N. Devon: September 12, 1895.
I am in perhaps the quaintest and one of the loveliest villages in England, just doing nothing, and enjoying the simple life around me. You would like this village, with its one steep, narrow, picturesque street, the great sea far down below, the little stone pier jutting out and helping to form a small harbour. Then on either side of the village are woods reaching down to the cliffs—beautiful woods, where oaks, and in places heather, are glad to grow. St. Paul says in the lesson to-day that the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. And one feels how true are his words—how the trees, woods, flowers fade and die; how the old sea wears slowly away the cliffs; how men andtheir dwellings pass away; how all these things which are seen are temporal; and yet the beauty, the love, the joy, the purity, are more permanent than the particular manifestations of them are. The beauty which is manifested in the country around is eternal. The life which is seen in man has a future beyond this world.
As we enter in behind the veil, as we see that life and love which are expressing themselves in objects around us, we are already in the eternal, in that which endures.
It is not, as we are constantly thinking, the things that arepresentwhich are temporal, and the things that arefuturewhich are eternal. No; the things which are present have an eternal side to them—the unseen side.
The man who is a slave to the seen has least of the eternal about him: the man who despises not the seen, but who through the seen rises to the unseen, is partaking of eternal life.…
To F. S. H.
Cambridge: October 23, 1895.
Let me congratulate you on the way you ran against Yale.[1] I was delighted to read of your 'romping' home!! … It seems to me that every unfulfilled longing is no accidental part of life. The longing, in so far as it is genuinely human, is derived from Him in whose image man is made. When it is hard to see why it is not gratified, yet wemay confidently believe that this is part of our training. Is it not a noble work to enter into and, in some measure, bear the burdens of other men's lives, even if they have only imperfect sympathy with ours? May we not sometimes even learn more in this way—or at least learn different lessons—than if they were so similar to ourselves that they could at once understand us? I am afraid that you have a hard struggle before you. You must take care not to act upon first impressions, or impulse—not even if those impressions are favourable … your best 'pearls' must be used carefully.
[1] In the international athletic sports in U.S.A.
To F. S. H. on his going to a curacy in Liverpool.
Cambridge: October 18, 1896.
In some respects I am glad to hear of your change of plans. I think you will be more in your element working in a poor part of a large town.… Our dean has just been preaching on the words 'One soweth, and another reapeth.' It is a help to realise the continuity of work. We enter into the work of many a man who has passed away, and who, while he worked, often despaired and thought that he was achieving nothing. No work is lost. The obscure and petty—these are relative terms. We use them, but we are told on the best authority that there is nothing secret which shall not be made manifest. The consciousness of the continuity and perpetuity of work quiets and calms us; we need not hurry over anything. When we have left off sowing, others will reap. God give us grace to work, for the nightcometh when no man can work. I am so sorry that I have not been able to come up and see you. But we are working in the same field, though it is too large across to see one another!
To C. T. W.
St. Moritz: February 1898.
Two new toboggan runs have been opened: one is a Canadian run on soft snow without turns, short and sweet; the other is part of the Crista run, an ice run, which I suppose is quite the finest in the world, with splendid corners. When it is all made it will be about a mile in length.… In a noisy salon it is difficult to collect my scattered thoughts. Music and other atrocities are in full swing; and as I seldom use my brain now, the works are rusty. I wish you could see this country in winter.… A male rival of The Brook has appeared. He is impressed with the dust and dampness of the atmosphere—takes out trays to toboggan on into Italy—sprinkles water on his bedroom floor, because he considers a damp atmosphere conducive to sleep. So far we have not fallen out altogether with one another; some of us are on speaking terms. We only confidentially discuss whether so-and-so has come here for his mind. We have an archdeacon, a canon, a curate, two captains; one Plymouth-brother-like, who takes most gloomy views about the future of us, or most of us, including the parsons; the other very noisy, who attempted the Canadian toboggan run which is supposed to be safe for ladies andchildren, and swears that he almost broke his neck. He had an upset and went head foremost into the snow, and, according to his own account, had to be dug out. If he had been a heavier man, I understand that he would have broken his neck. As two accidents have occurred there, it is not absolutely safe.… This place is a splendid pick-me-up. I am a reformed character—go to bed between 6 and 10.30 P.M. I was detected last night cheating at cards. But reformation to be effective requires time. Give up, I say, one bad habit at a time, and then tackle the next. I have given up early rising as being the most patent of my evil practices.
To J. K.
Christ's College, Cambridge: August 19, 1898.
.… I am sure that we have need to learn not only in the school of health but also in the school of sickness. These breaks in life, and the sense of helplessness and weakness which attend them, are not simply periods to be 'got over'—to be made the best of till we can 'start again'—but they have a meaning which we can find, if we only look with the eye of faith. It is strange how, although God sees the whole way in which we ought to go, He leaves us in comparative darkness. We need, I am sure,revelation. 'Lord, open the young man's eyes, that he may see.' We shall take the wrong turning if we trust to our ordinary eyes; we shall find the path if we have the eye of faith to see what God is revealing.… And now at this time I need your prayers. I have—andthis, I need hardly say, is private—an invitation from the Bishop of —— to come and lecture to theological students, whom he hopes to gather round him. Of course the scheme is rather in the air so far. He has not yet got the men. But he has an attractive power, and he might on a smaller scale do some such work as Vaughan used to do for men who did not go to definite theological colleges. Will you pray for me that I may go if I ought, and not go if I ought not, please?
Our wills are ours, we know not how,Our wills are ours, to make them Thine.
To J. L. D.
Cliff Dale, Cromer: October 3, 1898.
I do not belong and I never have belonged to any of the societies or guilds which you mention. I am a member of a Church. For that reason I dare not join any party. In fact, I cannot understand what 'parties' have to do with a Church. The Church by its very existence is a witness against parties and divisions. It will take me more than a lifetime to learn what it is to be a member of a Church; and no one can learn the lesson while he persists in clinging to a party. He must be a member not of apartbut of awhole. I therefore have no time to waste in joining a party.
I feel strongly that the various societies and guilds, based uponpartylife, are eating away the very life of the Church. But I am slow in condemning my neighbour for conscientiously joining any suchsociety. He may only be able to see one side of truth, and it is better—far better—that he should see that side than nothing at all.
To the mother of his godchild, Margaret Forbes.
April 12, 1899.
It is such a joy to me to be allowed to be her godparent, and I shall remember her often in my prayers. What a wonderful revelation she must be to you both—making the Heavenly Home a fuller reality than ever before! It is through earthly relationships that we realise the meaning of the unseen world. I like those lines of Faber:
All fathers learn their craft from Thee:All loves are shadows castBy the beautiful eternal hillsOf Thine unbeginning past.
To his mother.
Rouxville, Orange Free State; July 8, 1899.
It is a strange and somewhat terrible study in religion—this Boer religion. It seems to have little or no connection with morality. Kruger seems to have amassed great wealth by doubtful means. A man comes to him and offers him, say, 8,000l.on condition that he may have the right to sell mineral waters. Mrs. Kruger comes in and counts the money; and if it is right, the concession is granted. Yet he is religious, very religious. A short time ago they wanted to fire shells into the low-lying clouds during a timeof drought. The clouds gather, but they will not break. Firing shells was found to have a good effect in bringing the rain. But Kruger stopped it because it was wrong to 'fire shells at the Almighty.' You would think that a little state like this might be an ideal one with its simple scattered population of farmers. But it is by no means so. Corruption and injustice are only too prevalent. At the start off they were unfortunate in their choice of President. The state was at war with the Basutos at the time when he was elected; and three months after he was made President he had to be deposed, because he was discovered selling arms to the Basutos.
The Dutch don't treat the natives as well as we do. Yet in some respects their laws are wise. A native may not live in the Free State without doing some definite work, unless he pays a tax of 5s.a month: this is, I think, a wise rule.
We had two very nice services last Sunday at the English church; I preach twice to-morrow.
To C. T. W.
Durban; July 1899.
I write to congratulate you most heartily on your First Class.… I believe you will find in a year's time that whatever your work may be, contact with others—the necessity of influencing and guiding them—will be a tremendous help to you in your own life.…
Good man! I am delighted to think that you may see the Bishop of Durham. Prophets' eyes areneeded out here to catch the glory which must be slowly—so slowly—gaining on the shade. There is so much materialism, so little refinement and spirituality.
I had a grand voyage: only three people rescued from drowning before I got on board, and two stowaways after we left Madeira, and two or three days of rough weather. I enjoyed it.…
I had afternoon tea, or rather coffee, with Uncle Paul. He is a strong, fine old man. He was sitting puffing away at his large pipe. It was after a long day's work in the secret Volksraad. He was tired. 'It is hard work,' he said, 'for the head.' The State attorney, a young Christ's man, explained to him that 'we were both at the same school in England.' Kruger was eloquent on the subject of the Petition. He told me that some of the 21,000 had died three years before they signed it, and some had signed it owing to a bottle of whisky. 'And I want you to let that be known in England' (I know anything said to you will circulate—by experience). He said, did the subtle old man, that he wanted to do what was right and fair irrespective of nationality.
This Transvaal question is complicated. I thought it easy at first. But now I can see no moral grounds of any sort for a war with the Boers, in spite of their iniquities. There is a great deal to be said on their side, and much iniquity concealed under such specious phrases as 'Imperialism,' 'Supremacy of Great Britain in South Africa.' I cannot see that we have a real cause for war, but it is a big question with many sides. If England goes to war and wins, shewill have her work cut out. 'Can she afford,' said the Attorney of the Transvaal to me, 'to have a second Ireland at the distance of some 5,000 or 6,000 miles from home? What if she had war in India?