I do not know
when this may be, I say, but you must have patience, and till he lays his
hand on your head, you must be content to wash his feet with your tears.
Only he will be better pleased if your faith keep you from weeping and from
going about your duties mournful. Try to be brave and cheerful for the sake
of Christ, and for the sake of your confidence in the beautiful teaching of
God, whose course and scope you cannot yet understand. Trust, my daughter,
and let that give you courage and strength."
Now the sky and the sea and the earth must have made me able to say these
things to her; but I knew that, whatever the immediate occasion of her
sadness, such was its only real cure. Other things might, in virtue of the
will of God that was in them, give her occupation and interest enough for a
time, but nothing would do finally, but God himself. Here I was sure I was
safe; here I knew lay the hunger of humanity. Humanity may, like other
vital forms, diseased systems, fix on this or that as the object not merely
of its desire but of its need: it can never be stilled by less than the
bread of life--the very presence in the innermost nature of the Father and
the Son.
Pages:
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183