Thoughts On The Christian Life

Thoughts on the Christian Life; or, Leaves from Letters Hetty Bowman, 1872

INTRODUCTORY NOTE Under the touching circumstances of the early and lamented death of her who wrote this volume, I cannot refuse a request made to me, that I should write a few prefatory lines. The name of "Hetty Bowman" is now, however, so widely known, that it seems well near superfluous. It was a mournful pleasure, in the course of a recent tour in France and Spain, to find her books chosen as traveling companions by those who had never seen her face in the flesh. The rapid progress of her name and fame, and the peculiar feelings of gratitude so often expressed by strangers, gave the prospect of a literary career of brilliant usefulness; checked now this may be, but not altogether disappointed — for by her works she will long "speak" to us, and we cannot doubt that where she sees God's face, and lives for evermore, still higher degrees of service are appointed for her. Just before leaving England I had the pleasure of going over with my beloved friend several of these "leaves," and judging from them, I believe that the volume will fully sustain her reputation for the keen yet chastened observation of life and character, and for the practical lessons of sanctified wisdom which characterize her other writings. She bestowed much pains on this work, more, she told me, than on any other, even in her weak and suffering state — not "offering to the Lord that which cost her nothing." May He graciously continue the wide personal application and blessing so signally granted on every previous occasion.

Mrs. Gordon, May 17, 1872 A REMINISCENCE You want to know how I like S_______?

Well, my dear Mary, as to the place , it must be confessed that asphalt pavements, new houses in red and white brick, forming streets which run with painful regularity at right angles, and never show the slightest sign of a curve — are not suggestive, and slightly apt to become monotonous. True, there is the misty grey line which, to clearer sight than mine, means the sea — and there is the pure breeze which sweeps up the Channel, bringing health. And there are the life-giving odors that some people do not love — tarry, sea-weedy breaths whose salt savor is as welcome, in its way, as the scent of hawthorn or hay.

But still I cannot grow enthusiastic about it. I have not yet recovered the transplanting process — not being of a nature to strike ready roots into new soil. There are times when, to borrow Miss Thackeray's image, all the sunshine of the world seems concentrated on one spot, where we are not . But, after a while, the clouds move. Light breaks through them in little glints here and there, and falls on other places, showing much we had never thought to find again. Unexpected compensations arise too, and tiny odds and ends of happiness , small in themselves — but forming when woven together a tolerably stout strand, begin to form such "ties" as bind us to any scene in which our lot is cast. And, for me, the remembrance of one life, lived in these straight streets — transforms their very ugliness into beauty.

You have heard me speak of dear Mrs. F__________, and you know that very lately, the story of her "suffering, affliction, and patience" ended in her "falling asleep in Jesus." But you do not know — no one can — what was lost to me when her death left one less in the wide, wide world. I remember her first on a visit at her house, when I was about fifteen. She was not married then, and most people would have thought it very unlikely she ever would be. A "regular old maid," one could hardly imagine her anything else, and the whole household was in the same style with its mistress — unexceptionably fresh and pure and neat. Oh, so neat! Anything out of its place looked so terribly wrong that one felt rebuked into tidiness. At least one did generally. Now and then I was conscious of a reverse effect, and felt a wicked impulse to ink table covers, and crumple up napkins. But she would have taken it so sweetly that there would have been no sort of satisfaction in doing it.

Yet she could be made angry. She was by no means one of the imperturbably amiable people who irritate by their placidity. Her still grey eyes could flash fire upon occasion, and I have seen her roses pale into a white heat. Now and then too, perhaps, the gentle lips did "speak unadvisedly" — to my great consolation, who found it so hard to guard my own. I do not think a girl of fifteen is a very companionable creature. I was uncomfortable enough, I know — certainly to myself, and, I suspect, to most of my friends. But she knew how to touch me without irritating. She could sympathize with restless, wayward impulses which others thought it their duty to lecture. She listened to what I said without being shocked at it, and when I oscillated between one heresy and another, she kept her patient faith that I should settle into orthodoxy at last. She did not scold me, but I knew she prayed for me — and her own look of perfect rest and delight, as she bent over her little Bible, did me more good than many sermons. It taught me that most of the dark places I stumbled at were in my own heart — and not in God's Word; and that, to one who leaned on it as she leaned, and on Him, the Word incarnate, with whom she walked as her living Lord, life might be always full of brave endurance, and sometimes of joyous worship. I do not know whether her marriage was in prospect at that time or not. Many a woman keeps her youth, because of a secret hope, unacknowledged, even to herself; coming events sometimes send bright shadows before them, just as the spring breezes bring messages of summer. One day I spent with her in her new home. We did not talk much, I remember. My lips would not shape themselves to say Mrs. , even when I sat between her and her husband at dinner and saw her eyes shining as they rested on his. They were a rare couple. For those who knew them, it was enough to say that they were worthy of one another, set each to each, like "perfect music unto noblest words." One year, one bright brief year of love and rest was given to her, and then she was left a "widow indeed and desolate." The next time I saw her she was again in the old home at S_______, where she returned to wait once more for her bridal. Meekly she waited, through years of suffering and slowly increasing helplessness — of uselessness , she would have said, but not so her Master, for she served Him even then; and of the service hereafter for which He was training her, there may be much in His own words, "I have many things to say unto you — but you cannot bear them now." She was a picture to remember, seated in her low rocking-chair by the fire — her husband's portrait hanging above her, and the dress she wore in his memory suited so well her slight figure and pure chastened face. She had a word of quiet wisdom or of most tender sympathy for all who came — and the burdens left with her were sure of being taken to God and pleaded for as if they had been her own.

How I loved to sit on a stool by her side and feel the soft caressing touch of her hand upon my hair. It seemed to draw the fever out of one's very heart and reach the sore spot there with some cool balm of healing. She never dwelt upon her own grief. If she spoke of the death of her husband — it was only as she looked on to the day which should give her treasures back; and meanwhile she mourned with others whose lives were left empty and bade them take hope and endure, for One remained. Her death was a "going home" indeed. "Clearer and clearer, brighter and brighter, nearer and nearer" was the testimony of one who saw her when she was close to the brink of the river . She is across it now. "After the burden and heat of the day, The starry calm of night; After the rough and toilsome way, A sleep in the robe of white." I would not bring her back. There is blessing and strength for a lifetime in the memory of such a friend, even though the sense of loss can never wholly die. She taught me — I wish I could pass on the lesson — what an older woman may be to a girl. The friendship between such is as holy and helpful as it is rare . I would be content, I think, if years hence I might give to some uncertain troubled heart — what God taught her to give to me. How little they know, who are shut up in silent sick-rooms or "hindered" by the restrictions of weakness, what work they do for Christ by the mere power of their saintly living .

EVERY-DAY LIFE

"How hard it is," you say, "that so much of one's time is taken up with things that must be done — and yet none of them seem worth doing!"

Ah, that is not a new difficulty, dear! The hermits of the East stumbled over it, and the monks of the West; and many a one who has not left, like them, the every-day life of the world — has groaned under it, as if there were guilt in the weight as well as care. One thing, however, we are sure of — that all which God sends to any human soul must have its meaning. There is nothing, however trivial, which He cannot make a means of grace. It is for us to take it as such — or to scorn it. There is blessing wrapped for us in every lowly duty, and if we despise its homely dress, then the loss and the responsibility are our own. "But mine are such common duties," you say, "helping in the house, or sewing for the children. It's all such material work." I think I have been learning, lately, that we may not call anything common which God has cleansed; and has not His consecrating touch fallen on all home-toil and care, material though it may appear, since Jesus lived in the workshop at Nazareth? He counts nothing unclean, nothing unworthy of Him, but sin. His love in the heart will purify everything it touches. It has transmuting power enough to change the dross of the common street, into the fine gold of the sanctuary. And so the "base things of the world, and things which are despised" become, when laid on the altar which sanctifies the gift, things which God has chosen. Well, you admit all this in the abstract, but I can hear your question, over all the miles of distance between us, "What is the use of it all? If I have made a pudding for dinner, or cleaned Lucy's frock, has my time been spent worthily of an immortal being, with powers which are surely fitted for nobler employment?"

I might say much in answer to that, but I will dwell only on one "use of it all," which you can hardly question: Do not each of these things furnish you with an occasion of offering up your will to God? You may turn them all into sacrifices, and they will be truer than many which you bring in sight of other eyes, and with much delight to yourself.

I think too that we are all in danger of dwelling too much on what we do — and too little on what we are . God's work by us we may leave with Him; His work in us, our being and our becoming, is surely our first care. And the truest helps to this are the small self-denials in which we oftenest fail. We yield them indeed, but grudgingly and of necessity, not with the free heart of a cheerful giver. So, when you are tempted to murmur over a wasted day, may you not feel that each bit of "useless drudgery" has had its place in working out for you God's great design — that each of His children should be conformed to the image of His Son? Yes, but still you sigh and wish we might be without all these things — so much care for the body is very humiliating . Is not the time spent upon it a robbing of God? Of course it may be — unless the body is brought into subjection. But we cannot live in this world, constituted as we are, without some care for it. If we try to do so, we shall be requiring of ourselves what we cannot possibly perform; what God, who knows us, has never asked.

We are not all spirit yet, and so long as mind is linked with matter , it cannot accomplish much without some thought of its companion, and we must be content to wear fetters until we are free. God's hand will strike them off when we are ready for liberty — but until He does, there must be some purpose in our bearing them. And, if we struggle too impatiently, we may be rebelling against His appointment. We cannot tell how the discipline is to be wrought out by which He prepares us for His presence, but there are indications that much of it comes through our bearing the yoke of physical humiliation. Of this I feel more and more deeply assured — and the thought would help us much, I think, to bear the "every-dayness" of life — that all the passing occupations with which our time is taken up have an element of the eternal in them and, in their outcomes, stretch far away into the unseen and everlasting. The outside husk of them, so to speak, perishes with the using — but within it is a living soul of impulse and influence which never perishes. For in every moment of our days, when once our hearts are yielded to His service — God is working in us and through us. Hitherto, perhaps, our little world has only been large enough to hold self and the present . But gradually, through tender leadings and unfoldings, and perhaps through pain and suffering, we come to learn life's lesson — that it is God's world, not ours; that our existence is not finished and rounded off here, but forms part of one vast scheme to which mind and heart and spirit expand and grow, while all the horizon round them grows and expands too — until it touches the shore of the illimitable future, and we become conscious that earth and Heaven are not so far separated but that the first is but the vestibule of the second — imperfect, cloudy, full of broken fragments, but still part of the same Temple of God as that to which we shall pass in by and by. And there is one command which, in its fulfillment, consecrates our working days as well as our Sundays: "Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." Do you think He cares whether we are doing this or that, while each thing is "unto Him"? God asks from us simple obedience — not some wonderful piece of consecration, or what to us seems such — but that, hour by hour and day by day, we should follow His will.

Perhaps, for the present, that will for you may be to be "faithful in a very little," but if we will not do a little thing to please Him — we should not do a greater thing. It is easy to make great sacrifices when God does not ask them, but to give up our own will in each detail of life is something far harder. And this is what He does ask! To hold ourselves ever in readiness for His bidding — to count no token of it too slight — such is His call to each. Thus only shall we be ready for further service if He sees fit to lead us on to it. Mrs. S_______ gave me a number of little books for you the other day, but I do not think I shall send them. I would rather send you out on the moor with your Bible — than make you read through a bundle of tracts. You would be more likely to get rid of mental cobwebs. For I feel very strongly, dear, that it is your duty, now and then, to go and get a healthy talk with nature, if only for ten minutes. She will do more for your scruples, if you will let her, than many a book of introspective theology.

I am sure that Christians who will not look at the loveliness which God has spread everywhere — who have no ears for the speech through which He utters, as in a parable, His own teaching — lose more than they know. For the entire visible world is a shadowing forth of the "invisible things of God." Its beauty is a "wayside sacrament," full of a most real Presence. And, when we pass it by with eyes that seeing see not — we lose a part of the heritage which is His children's right.

I wish you could have been with me in my walk this morning. It did not extend beyond the garden, but I wanted no more than I found there — masses of white cloud floating in bluest sky, flowers and wet leaves glistening with fresh rain-drops — the sunlight making a picture out of every shrub — and the soft wind bringing sweetness from the hay-fields it had passed. If you had been with me, I believe many of your difficulties would have solved themselves; and some, perhaps, if you were there every-day, would never arise at all.

FAULT-FINDING

Did you ever consider the amount of good, and certainly of pleasure, of which we are deprived — by our growing habits of criticism? In the highest things, I am sure this is the case.

Criticism of sermons for instance — I think we can hardly estimate the evil of it. I know there is much to be allowed about those of the present day — that too many are "flat, stale, and unprofitable;" either, as someone says, "altitudinarian, latitudinarian — or platitudinarian." But I know, for myself, that the help they might bring is lessened by listening as a judge instead of a learner.

And every sermon, even the poorest, has so much more truth in it than we are living out — that we have greater reason to feel condemned, than to condemn. It is good to remember how little we know , how much less we do , and how far the lowest standard stretches beyond our attainment. And even when the criticism ends in praise, it does not tend any the more to profit. We pick the flower to pieces until we lose its fragrance! Perhaps, too, what we can coolly analyze has not touched us very deeply: or, if it does, the emotion passes off into the analysis, and leaves the life uninfluenced. But to come lower, an immense amount of discomfort, not to say harm, results from — what shall I call it? — domestic criticism. You feel, in some families, as if you were living between the glasses of a microscope. Manner, accent, expression, all that goes to make up your "personality," all that you do or leave undone — is commented upon and found fault with. I have seen sensitive natures harden into positive ugliness under this constant pressure. Some characters have force enough to resist it — but others are crushed, I was going to say, out of shape — certainly out of their own natural shape, into one they would never have assumed if they had been let alone.

From being analyzed by others, they begin to analyze themselves, until they are overgrown by morbid self-consciousness. They become untrue to their own nature; they are criticized into falseness; and they know, painfully enough, that they are "not themselves." They have been instructed how to look and move and speak and think — until they have lost all power to throw off the yoke, although it galls them. But they feel that, under the spell of that dreadful question — What will so-and-so think? — they say what they do not mean, and do exactly what they would not do.

"That is very silly," you are strong-minded enough to reply. Very! But when you live with so-and-so and are compelled to listen to the expression of his or her opinion, delivered probably with harshness, you feel the "continual dropping" and are worn by it, in spite of protests to yourself that it is a trifle and beneath your notice. This habit of criticism, undue interference, needless comment , or whatever else it may be called — is dignified by some of one's friends as "faithfulness." "It is not pleasant," they say, "but they must be faithful ." That is very unselfish, but I nevertheless hold to the belief that their faithfulness is not altogether disagreeable to them. And as to the effect of it, have you not felt many a time the hopelessness which settles down on you like a November fog, when something you have striven to do well with your fingers or your head, is met by, "Yes, my dear, it's very pretty, very. But I don't think your colors are well chosen. It would have been better if you had put mauve instead of white." Or "Yes — that is well written — but why did you choose such a worn-out subject?" Now of course we all need such candor, and may be very thankful for it in certain measure. We can only have it from the inner circle; outsiders do not care enough about us to take the trouble of pointing out even the faults they see. But one may have too much of a good thing, and it is the excess of fault-finding that I am pleading against, especially when it is minute and captious. With some people it becomes a mere habit — they slip into depreciation before they are aware. "Evil is wrought for want of thought More than for want of heart." But this same want of thought is an evil in itself — one to be resisted. This is the influence of unkindly criticism on others — but it is equally hurtful to the person who indulges it. Too keen an eye for small blemishes — must rob one of much true help and pleasure. I never envy people who invariably balance a description of character with a "but," and then make you cognizant of some flaw in temper or manner which spoils the whole. I mean, of course, if they do this gratuitously, when there is no strong reason for their insight.

And turning from criticism of people, how many tiny springs of most pure delight are troubled, if not dried, by the spirit of depreciation — by not taking the good we have and rejoicing in it — not enjoying small pleasures simply and thankfully! You take two visitors, for instance, for a drive. You know your home scenery is nothing remarkable, but it has its own beauty, and you have learned to love it. One "wonders you can live in such a dismal neighborhood — not the sign of a hill to be seen, and no trees worth speaking of." The other delights in the wide expanse of sky or points out to you how the red poppies mingle with the green of growing wheat, while the blue corn-flowers wait until the golden tints are come.

You recognize the true poetic gift of finding beauty everywhere ; the loving, childlike heart which, satisfied to glean among bare fields, finds there a harvest of wonder and gladness. And you are helped to put down your yearning for the hills you remember, and look round your flat horizon line with contentment. "Give true hearts but earth and sky And some flowers to bloom and die — Homely thoughts and simple views Lowly thoughts may best infuse." But your other friend has missed pleasure for himself, and by no means added to yours. Ruskin says, somewhere, that the "temper of which true taste is formed, is characteristically patient. It dwells upon what is submitted to it. It does not trample upon it, lest it should be pearls, even though it looks like husks." And the remark applies, like all truth, to small things as well as great.

There is room and need for this wise and tolerant patience in the narrow round of home — as well as in the wider sphere outside. We women, at any rate, do not greatly need it anywhere else, but it will help us "within bounds." To sympathize with what is imperfect, to catch the idea which struggles through broken expression whether of word or deed, to estimate at its true value the nature which lies deeper than speech; and instead of repressing, to find for it, or help it to find for itself, some outlet for free development — this seems to me one of the noblest parts of woman's ministry.

We have need in it of the "quiet wisdom which comes from the Lord," and no less of the charity which "believes and hopes all things." This, our Lord's own spirit of love, caught as it can only be from Himself, is our true safeguard against a habit of fault-finding . I suppose one is more prone to this fault-finding in early years, than latter. It may proceed partly from what is not in itself wrong. Our standard is high in youth, and we are impatient, both in ourselves and others, of whatever falls short of it. It seems a sort of injury that anyone should give us less than the best.

But through the bitterness of our many failures, we are taught toleration . Our own "best" lies far beyond our grasp. We look toward it very humbly for ourselves, and in others we learn to bear with imperfection which we cannot help observing . We are tender over it, with almost reverent tenderness. Have not our hearts grown sick with yearning after an ideal we have never realized? Why should we add, by even a word, to the hopelessness of that same yearning in another? After all, the art of admiration is much more rare than that of criticism — being always more difficult, especially for little minds and narrow hearts . There are not many whose sight is so much absorbed in all that is high and pure and noble, that, if it is compelled to see defects — it cannot long rest on them.

AGNES You wonder that Agnes Lytton should suit me as a friend — "we are so unlike." But, my dear Mary, what does one need in a friend? Surely not a reflection or repetition of oneself! Do you not get enough of that personage? I do — and I want no more. I am to "make you know her," you say. No, I cannot. You would never know one another, you two, if you lived together for a year. I can paint her for you, in dim outline, with a dash of color here and there, and your remembrance of her home may help you to frame the picture. But I can bring her no nearer to you than that. You know the rectory here — an old house of thoroughly comfortable English type — added to, and embellished at different times and in various ways, until it has reached the perfection of home-like beauty and pleasantness. I wonder, by the way, wherein that pleasantness consists. Not, I think, in any tangible "this " or "that," so much as in the pureness and loveliness which the very walls have drunk in through years of quiet family story — years that have flowed on in the everyday current of a common living — or been broken by spaces in which hearts have beat fast with joy or pain. They settle down again afterwards into peace, wherein comes the growing and ripening of seed sown when they were deeply stirred. For Agnes, the ripening time is now. Years ago, when we first knew one another, no one dreamed that at thirty-five she would still be the rectory child. Ah, it is not death only which lies between lives which touched and blessed one another once, and perhaps in some mysterious fashion are touching and blessing still, though one seems to have wandered into darkness and the other is left waiting in a world whose meaning is all changed, if not confused — waiting only for a hope whose blossoming is not here. But there is no dreariness in the waiting and no restlessness — nothing but the calmness of full contentment, which can "patiently abide always" because it knows that, though the past may have broken its promise, the future will keep it sevenfold. Yes, she is very happy. Look at her, as she sits there by the window, the light falling softly on her calm fair face, and you cannot doubt it, though you may wonder — for there seems little in her outward lot to make her so. She is left alone of the band of brothers and sisters who once made the old house ring. Her mother is a constant invalid — while her father is silent and grave. There is little society in the place, and not much work that need necessarily be done; for the parish is small, and the most scrupulous attention to the schools and the poor leave a wide margin after their claims are satisfied.

Some women, perhaps, would make their lives tell upon a wider circle, but Agnes never dreams of that. The home-sphere, with its narrowness and peace, is all she asks for. Watch her fingers as they move at her work — what is it? Some "tacking" to help the school-mistress — there is something in their steady sustained motion which tells of being satisfied; even if you could not read the same tale in the rested curve of her lips, and the stillness of her dear brown eyes. She is not pretty — but you turn to look at her again and again as on a pleasant picture, full of sweetness and harmony. "But I don't like your picture," I think I hear you say, "it's altogether too still for me. I want more force and fire. I never care for women who sit by the window and sew. Your Agnes is wasting her life — why doesn't she do something with it?" I think there are few in L_______ who would not tell you that "Miss Agnes" does a good deal with her life, and most certainly the blessing of it falls in her own home like refreshing dew and congenial sunshine . Does that seem little to you? I don't think Agnes would be much disturbed by your judgment. She knows that her lot is "appointed," and that what to her or us may seem like limitations — are not really such.

A life like Mrs. M_______'s would be easier by far, which, beside its hard work, is full of change and excitement; the demands on nerve and brain being partly supplied by the stimulus of constant interest. Take Mrs. M_______ away from her "refuges" and put her in a quiet village like L_______ , and she would find its monotony more trying than the weariness of a London winter. Do you remember Mrs. B_______ once pointing out to us that remarkable expression in Luke 12: "So is he who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God," which gives us a glimpse of something we know very little about at present. She said it seemed as if God gathered into His storehouse, from each of our lives, all that is pleasing to Himself — fruit in which He delights. And the daily cross-bearings and self-denials, the bright word spoken when head and heart are weary, the meek endurance of misunderstanding, the steady going on in one unbroken round — with a patient cheerfulness that knows nothing of "moods" — all of these are garnered there, and add to our riches towards Him; riches which shall be manifested in "that day."

And it may be that from the lives which have few outlets except toward God — there will be at last the fullest harvest. A woman's life especially may surely be a ministry of blessing, though she never leaves her home at all, for is it not her first duty to be a "keeper" there? God indeed calls some out as distinctly, as He bids others stay; but we should be very sure of the call and not believe too hastily that we have heard it. No, my Agnes' days are not wasted — and I cannot let you think so. For herself, she is not troubled on the point at all, not being one of the introspective women who are always looking at themselves from the outside. She is content to live her life without analyzing it. She is content, as the catechism says, "to do her duty in that state unto which it has pleased God to call her." There could be no nobler history for any human being. Besides, even granting that, according to your estimate, she is "doing nothing" now — does it follow that her lot is never to change? Alas, when I look at Mr. Lytton's silver hair and note his failing step — I know the day is not far distant when the barriers about her will be broken and she will be left lonely in her freedom. Meanwhile, do you not believe that the intervals in our lives have their meaning? There is no music in a rest — but it has its own place in the melody. And I think a space is often given us between youth, with its pain and hope its eagerness and longing — and what may unfold from these in the riper years that are to follow. Which space, by-the-bye, need be by no means an empty one. The apostle Paul speaks to the Ephesians and Colossians of being "rooted and grounded in love — rooted and built up in Christ." All this implies something which is deep within — a hidden work, not shown to the outward eye. It is the work of days and years in their slow teaching — the work of all those silent influences which are brought by God's Spirit to bear upon the soul, like change of summer heat and winter storm. There are often times when we feel as if the work of God stood still within us — when outward circumstances seem to restrain it, our discipline being apparently one of repression rather than of fostering development. And we murmur and are restless because we see the fair fruit in other lives, and in our own there is only the yearning towards it, hardly even the blossom.

But God is strengthening the roots of faith — its bloom and fruitage will come hereafter. He is teaching our faith to root down to the Rock and take firm hold there, to feel the strength of the love and power which sustains it, to rest in conscious living nearness on Jesus Himself. He is teaching it to penetrate to the "rivers of waters," to drink deep of the only source of true growth. And all these are lessons mostly learned in the "spaces" of life — wherein our own patience often fails, and we feel as if time were lost; lessons whose results are not immediate, but gathered only after waiting; some, it may be, never gathered here at all.

CONFESSION AND RESTORATION "Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God. Your sins have been your downfall! Take words with you — and return to the LORD. Say to him: Forgive all our sins and receive us graciously." Hosea 14:1-2

I have been much struck today with that expression: "Take words with you — and return to the LORD." Israel had fallen by iniquity — it must be confessed and put away before they could be restored. God brings it into the light — and He tells them to bring it into the light too.

"Take words with you — and return to the LORD." I think there is a great deal of help in that command about the way of return to God when we have wandered from Him. We are often conscious that there is something between our soul and Him — but we will not acknowledge it. We do not "take words with us" and acknowledge in His presence; we shelter ourselves in a general idea that, as He knows it — we need not tell Him.

It is easier, much easier, to ask forgiveness — than to say why we need it. There is something very humbling in that — we do not like it — our pride shrinks from it.

You know how frequently, when a child has done wrong, a parent has a contest with its self-will before it will confess the wrong. It is quite ready to ask forgiveness — but to go further and confess the particular wrong-doing is too much. I believe it is to this very point that God will bring us — confession of our particular sins; for then we are thoroughly humbled and broken, and the contrite spirit is ready for the balm of forgiving love.

I suppose we have all known, at one time or other, what it is to have something in our hearts which we dare not look at — something that lies, palpitating and living, under the heap of restless thoughts with which we try to hide and smother it. What cowers beneath, it is more comfortable to screen from sight. And so we go on, for weeks and months, keeping ourselves out of the focus of our own scrutiny — and yet holding down a hidden consciousness which now and then wakes into troublesome activity.

It is possible, I suppose, to feel the dragging of a chain — and yet not to have power to will it broken. It is possible to see it, lowering, degrading, eating out with deadly rust — all vitality of spiritual being — and yet to cling to it. What its links are, we know — and so does God.

Others, even if they knew, might see nothing in them. On our neighbor's conscience, holier far perhaps than we — they might lie with no weight of guilt; but that is no question for us. Enough that they make prayer a form — and the Bible a mere collection of sacred documents.

And yet, all the while, we go about our work and thrust this terrible reality away from us. In naked fact — we are living a lie. But that is an unpleasant admission, not to be made in words — only felt, down in depths where words do not come.

"Can this be," you ask, "for one who is a child of God?"

Yes, I think it may, though one can only bear to acknowledge it with faith's grasp firm upon the assurance, "If any man sins, we have an advocate with the Father." But I am sure that the only help in such a state is to "take with us words" and go to God. Half the evil lies in its being unacknowledged. If we looked — we would see it. But what we turn aside from — it is easy to ignore. But when we tell all to our Father, we must make ourselves hear; and surely He who is "greater than our hearts" has given this command for our sakes. He would bring us face to face with our own vileness and loathsomeness. So, only, will the cry go up to Him, real at last in its soul-agony, "Lord if You will — You can make me whole!"

Still, again and again comes the shrinking and the fear and the failing . "I cannot give up this one thing — I cannot." No, we cannot. But we can pray, "Lord, make me — give me the will to ask You to put it from me. I hardly know whether or not I do wish it gone; I can only throw myself on You to have the wish infused. Only help me; You know how," — and help will come.

The spell will be broken; the faint longing for deliverance will grow stronger. It will rise like a tide, sweeping away all that now keeps it down — will rise until it joins itself to everlasting strength, and liberty is once more proclaimed to the captive, and the opening of the prison to him who is bound. "He restores my soul." It is a true word, enfolding within it many a secret of God's dealing with His children. The "restoring" may not come in the way of comforting — at least not its first stages. It may be rather through sharp discipline, whether by a heavy stroke or a "scourge of small cords."

Suffering is not always, nor necessarily, penal . For others, I think, we should be very careful of viewing it in that aspect; but for ourselves it is hardly well to put down altogether the consciousness which, if we would let it speak, often connects chastening with declension in holiness . We have allowed sin upon our souls — and we know it. We have not been dealing openly with our Lord — there has been something which we have tried to hide from His sight. "Search me, oh Lord, and try me," — this has been our prayer — but we would rather that He should not take us at our word. Yet He has done it, in love too tender to be ever unfaithful. What we have not told Him, He will tell us — in speech which cuts deep. And so He will bring us to acknowledge our transgression, with tears perhaps; but it is good to shed tears. And then He "heals our backslidings." If we confess — He is faithful and just to forgive. So — He restores. The end of the verse gives us the result of the confession and the restoring: "So will we render the calves of our lips." The idea seems taken from the offering of sacrifice . God asks from us now no gift of lamb or bullock — but He does require from each of His people their testimony that they are His.

Here we come to the word "confession" in another sense (Matthew 10:32; Romans 10:9). And this confession can never be what it ought — clear, bold decided — so long as we know that there is sin between us and God. It is only when we are walking in the daylight, not afraid to look up to our Father — that we can speak for Him.

Sin within there always must be, but unless our conscience witnesses that it is sin resisted, not indulged — our lips must be sealed. May not this be one reason why we often find it hard to speak for God? Our very words condemn us; no wonder that they die upon our lips. We know, and we feel God knows, that our hearts are not whole with Him.

TO AN INVALID (No. 1) So you are troubled by the wonderful things you hear of other invalids? I will not tell you that this is one of the many ways in which you may "disquiet yourself in vain," because you know it as well as I; and I remember too vividly how, in physical weakness, some "worrying" thought often fastens itself on the mind, with only greater persistence the more one strives to throw it off. It will speak whether you listen or not, and I believe it is best to let it speak — not to try and smother it; because you can hear it mutter — if it does not cry. Certainly your friend's account of her new acquaintance is very striking. Five years on her back, in a darkened room, so that she can rarely work or read — and passes many wakeful nights — and yet she never feels the time long or lonely, as Jesus is always with her, and "how can she complain with such a Friend?" One loves to thank God for His strength thus made perfect in weakness — for the tenderness which gives "songs in the night," so sweet to hear. And yet while we know that to us also the same strength is open, and while we may and ought to be stimulated by an example so bright — we may, if we allow it to sadden us, come under Paul's condemnation of those who, "measuring themselves by themselves and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise." We are discouraged because of something we know — we forget how it may be modified by something we do not know. For instance, though this case seems to be one of far greater suffering than yours, who are able to be out occasionally and even to bear a short drive — yet there may be one unthought of cause which makes your endurance something this lady has no idea of. A little more, a little less, of nervous susceptibility — a little difference in the kind of pain and its consequent power to depress — you need nothing further to account for her sunshine, or your own too frequent clouds.

She may be able to think during her hours of unemployed quiet; while with you the interest of "something to do" is often all that keeps you, as you say, from "going half wild."

"How can you do so much?" I have now and then been asked in illness, "but then I suppose you don't suffer." I could have replied, only I should not have been understood, that a certain kind of suffering can hardly be borne without "doing." Or yet again, to take a contrasted phase of illness, you reproach yourself, and sometimes hear unmistakable hints from your friends that you might do more if you would. "Look at so and so — her sofa is the center of a whole machinery. How such weak hands can keep it in motion is a marvel, but they do. Look at the letters she writes — look at the sums she collects for different objects of charity. See how her talent for organization enables her to arrange work for others, how her wisdom counsels and her sympathy stimulates those who carry out what she originates.

Or look at the wonders her needle accomplishes, how her skilled fingers charm money from pockets that will open to buy, but not to give; while you" — yes, you know how to fill up the blank. You lean back your head and sigh. How does she manage it all, while she must be carried from room to room; and you, who are able to walk around the garden or across the street to see a friend, have to lie for hours idle after you have written a note of two pages?

Perhaps because she knows nothing of that one tender spot in the spine which answers with a dart of pain to every bend of the neck, every pressure of the fingers. Perhaps — but you need not multiply "perhapses" — they, after all, are not very profitable subjects of speculation.

If you are doing what you can, then whether or not your friends are satisfied — He who knows you best, asks no more. And if you attempt to do what you cannot, under some idea of "making efforts" — then you are perhaps only indulging secret self-will; for you have learned by the past how such efforts end — in reaction which brings on someone the trouble of extra nursing, and unfits you for even the little you can generally do. So that it is not quite clear whether God calls you to them — or only your own unsubmissive desire to struggle into activity, which He for the present forbids. No, dear L_______, we must go back from these "weak reproaches full of self" to the thought of that one Master — our own — to whom we stand or fall; and He — how one loves the remembrance! — "judges righteous judgment." Human friends cannot — to them one invalid is much like another. "She is confined to her bed or sofa, and she does so and so — why cannot you do the same?" And we ourselves misjudge also — how can it be otherwise? One eye alone can see differences which are real, under similarity which is only apparent. But we may look up to that One, and if we meet approval there, why need we care if others fall on us coldly? "Yes, I see all that," perhaps you will answer me, "and I do not care whether I am doing more or less — it is not my business to choose. But I cannot be always bright, as I hear some invalids are, and as I know I ought to be. Feeling surely is under control, if not action." Is it? To a certain extent, no doubt, and perhaps to a greater than we think; but there are limits to all possibilities, and in illness the end of some at least is reached very quickly; for in this warfare you fight at a disadvantage. Physical causes occasion depression, while they weaken your power to combat it. So there is a double difficulty: you "feel" wrong, and you are without certain important aids toward putting yourself right.

For instance, you, I know, like many people with active brain and vivid imagination — are dependent on variety . Does that seem a contradictory statement? It is true, like many another of which the same thing may be said.

There are some who can live on through months and years of unvarying routine and never find it weary. They need no outside "distraction" to break its monotony; they can go on upon themselves without interchanging ideas with a human creature. I do not mean the full -minded people, who have all they want within and can use it; for to them also solitude is no loneliness; nor yet the empty -minded, who cannot bear it at all; but rather the slow -minded, whose mental force never works hard or fast enough to weary itself. It does work so constantly that they do not know what boredom is, but in such quiet, plodding fashion that neither can they understand the exhaustion which sometimes makes you need the stimulus of another mind to keep your own going; nor have they ever felt an idea take hold of them with such overmastering force that it becomes for the time an actual "possession," from whose spell only another voice will bring freedom.

"Very undisciplined," they would say, "very." The river which bears you onward will sometimes overflow — while their sluggish stream was never found in any unexpected channel. And so it is, I think, that you long, though you call the longing weak, for some "change" in your day. A very slight one is enough; great ones, indeed, you could not bear. But some little break in the current of thinking and enduring, you cannot help craving for, and if it does not come the struggle for sunshine is all the harder. A letter, a new book, a new pattern, a ten minutes' visit — you are almost ashamed to confess what any of these have become to you, enough to beguile a long afternoon, which seems else interminable. Is it wrong to feel thus? Surely not, if we strive against unsubmissive restlessness — if we take the cross of our will as a little bit of our Lord's loving discipline. How can we be disciplined, in fact, by what brings no discomfort? One would wonder how some people benefit at all by trials which they never acknowledge to be such. We are to "rejoice in tribulation," but how can we if we never allow that we experience it? We are to be "as sorrowful — yet always rejoicing," but the joy is in the sorrow — so the sorrow must be felt . No, I cannot help feeling that if we confess to nothing in the fiery furnace but the light of it, we are either, without knowing it, a little unreal or else are "striving to wind ourselves too high," etc. We are anxious to magnify God's sustaining grace — but He will always take care of that Himself; and it may well be that, in our exceeding jealousy for His glory, we are not without some remembrance of our own. Perhaps He is glorified in us most, when we think least about it. Therefore, to go back to the question which troubles you — do not be distressed because your invalid days are sometimes sad. In health the mere change of sight and sound which comes as we move from room to room, or, still further, in outdoor exercise, has more of an exhilarating influence than we know — until we are deprived of it. But in illness the same objects are always before you. You grow sick of their familiarity — they are so associated with suffering in the past that they bring up the remembrance of it to intensify that of the present. Hence the difficulty of getting away , so to speak, from yourself — from the inexplicable nervous misery which seems at times too much for sense and strength to bear. I know well that in all this I am touching only on outside difficulties. The sorest trouble of all, is that the one joy which should make you exceeding glad is so often "a fountain sealed." "He who has light within his own clear breast, may sit in the center and enjoy bright day." But if that light is clouded . . . . If it is clouded, dear one, God is calling you to a higher lesson in trusting Him without it.

He knows how the clouds rise — very often from that same nervous shattering which makes itself felt in many mysterious ways, not to be calculated on or accounted for. He knows how dark they seem — and do you think He does not care? Is He not touched with your drooping under them? Is not the "heaviness through manifold temptations" something to Him as well as to you? And yet, even though He is thus "pitiful and of tender mercy," He will not let you miss this training in naked faith, which is to be one day "found" to His praise.

Not joy or brightness or happy resting in great delight under His shadow — not these you are to seek or to be satisfied with; but Himself — trusted through darkness, clung to through silence, when He seems to "answer not a word." He is teaching you to be willing to be stripped of all comfort, to lie bare before Him, with no happy thoughts, no thrills of His conscious nearness. To be content, even when He deals with you thus — is perhaps the highest attainment of self-renunciation.
And for the rest, leave the living of your life to Christ . You are harassed and often cast down — is it not because He does not wholly rule within? You have yet many rulers there — man's opinion, man's estimate, whether your own or others, of what you ought to be and do. No wonder you are in bondage , not to say perplexity ; but put all this aside, or rather ask Him to put it aside for you. Ask Him to take your will as He has taken your guilt — to take you from yourself and make you wholly His .

If you mean the asking — then you will get the answer. His life will fill and satisfy you. You will rest, because He plans for you — and you need have no difficulties about doing this , and not doing that . If you are to work — then His power will give you strength and wisdom and words. If you are to be still — then you will feel that He gives you the stillness. It will be no burden on your conscience — because it is His choice . One thought struck me the other day as full of comfort for the suffering members — that as the whole body is "held together" by that which every joint supplies, and each part is to be a separate manifestation of the varied beauty of the whole — Christ; so some members must be made like to one aspect of the life of Jesus — and some to another. It must be as much an "office" then as any other, to be brought specially into fellowship with His sufferings; for without such joints, the whole body could not be "held together." My letter is too long, or there is yet much I would gladly say. Perhaps some day you shall have another, if you care for it.

TO AN INVALID (No. 2) So my letter requires a supplement — it is "too full of soothing." Then you shall have the other — the danger -side, perhaps a glimpse of the duty -side also. One temptation, do you not feel it, of a life in which the body demands much thought and time — is SELF-INDULGENCE . It is difficult to distinguish between necessary — and undue care; between a rash persistence in efforts — and an indolent refusal to make them. From this latter many invalids suffer, even physically. They have grown so accustomed to the hopeless, "I can't do so and so," that the unused power gradually fails — and the imagined impossibility becomes real. It is better, in spite of fatigue and temporary suffering, to persist steadily in any exertion which medical advice does not forbid. Of course, if it increases illness or retards recovery, thus entailing trouble on friends — it must be given up; but, short of this, it will do good and not harm.

It may often be very difficult. There are times when the announcement of a visitor tempts the immediate, "Oh, I'm too tired to see anyone" — and yet the visit would not injure — it would more probably brace and refresh. We shall be "glad of them afterwards," more glad still, in days to come, when we look back and see how, by God's blessing, the steady struggle not to give in — has saved us from hopeless, helpless weakness. We can do more for ourselves in this matter than any doctor can do for us. The battle is very much in our own hands; and in the strength of our own will, as it leans on power given even for such need to the faint, lies the victory. It is a good rule to try and dispense with any indulgence we do not positively require. "Imaginations" about food or noise or light are better striven against, if possible. They grow and multiply with most curious rapidity, silently gaining ground which they do not readily give back. And the more we withdraw ourselves from the ordinary home-life around us, the harder it becomes to bridge over the space which separates us from it. Wherefore, in so far as we can "make believe" to be well — let us do so. Difficult! I have learned something of the cost of my counsel, but I do not shrink from it notwithstanding. I know how the eager discussion confuses one's brain — how the sound of voices seems often to fall on a raw nerve — how the constant coming and going reduces to the last point of irritated weariness. But if it can be borne without real harm, better all this for some part of every day, than the luxurious quiet of one room, with its shutting in and shutting out. Shaded light is very pleasant — but you may live in it until neither mind nor body will bear free healthy sunshine. There is another point wherein we have need of watchfulness. Do you remember what is said of Dr. Arnold's sister in the brief notices of her which are scattered here and there through his life — a record of "suffering affliction and patience" which contrasts strangely with his stirring activity: that she "made it a rule never to speak of herself"?

I must say, I hope she transgressed the rule occasionally, for it was undoubtedly a little strained; but it is astonishing how one glides into the habit of dwelling on and in one's own little world — instead of leaving it to sympathize heartily with others. It is a strong temptation, often a relief, to pour the chronicle of daily pain and discomfort into the first kindly ears that will listen. Thus the hour of a friend's visit becomes so full of "I" and "me" — that "you " and "yours" cannot get in edgeways.

You do not know how much this is the case, until you are suddenly wakened up to see it. You may grieve over it in others and never dream of it in yourself — so unconsciously are the chains of an evil habit riveted. We have much need of prayer that God may keep us from the wrong we do not suspect — may show us the unguarded place we had not thought of watching. Especially in long illness should we cry mightily that the power of God's grace may keep down the exacting spirit which is so unlovely in many invalids. Constant little requirements of service or companionship — make up a whole which even tenderest love must feel a burden, though it is borne in uncomplaining patience. Better, instead of giving way to the imperative, "I must have so and so" — to train oneself to say, "I can do without it." And it is astonishing of how many things you will learn this to be true — if you steadily put the thought of another's trouble first — and of your own comfort second.
Then again, I feel very strongly the evil of supposing that, because we cannot do this or that — we can therefore do nothing. Many invalids can testify how the weakness they are willing for God to use, is made strong by Him as the hour of need comes round. And, though anything like regular engagements may be impossible — there are always fragments of work which the Master will send as they are watched and prayed for.

The young servant who waits on you at the sea-side lodging, with whom your very helplessness brings you into closer contact — can you not tell her of the Friend who helps you to bear your suffering? She may be even now on the brink of some terrible temptation — can you not speak the warning word to save her?

Or the girls in your own rank — the young things who are some of them linked to you by ties of kindred — have you no message for them? They have perplexities, which the memory of your own girlhood may help you to understand — and the very fact of your being found quiet in one place may prompt them to turn to you for help rather than to busier friends. Could you not gather two or three of them beside your sofa for a Bible reading — or give half an hour for a talk with one alone? And if they float away beyond your reach, a short note may be treasured more than you know, and made, by Him who uses weak things, a link in the chain to draw them to Himself. And then, may not the sufferers specially glorify their Master before those who know Him not? It is not only that He gathers for Himself the fruit of love and joy and peace — but its beauty is to be visible in other eyes. Are not the bright look, the meek endurance, the struggle against the small selfishnesses of invalidism — telling, though silent witnesses, for Christ's sustaining power? Do you think the young creatures, whose merry words and fresh exuberance now and then stir your quiet — do not feel as they leave you, that, in spite of the pain they pity, there is peace they envy? And is it not worth something, even at cost of after-weariness, so to have thrown yourself into their plans and pleasures that the heart, at leisure from its own suffering, has touched theirs with yearnings to share its rest? You must not think you are "only a cumberer," dear friend. If the thought is true — then it is your own fault; but in your case I do not think it is. I would rather bid you remember that you have your own ministry — you have many companions in tribulation who are stronger for your struggles, calmed by your quiet patience. And down where the fields are white and the reapers are weary — your prayers bring many a cup of cold water, which, though you never know how it is welcomed, shall never lose its reward. Most of all, He has need of you whose power can rest on your infirmities and use them for His own glory. It is not, after all, the friend who is constantly trying to do something for us who is nearest and dearest in our love — but the one who comes closest in heart-communion. It is for this, that your Lord calls you apart into the desert which He makes glad. He gives you a place of honor near Him, where few voices are heard but His. Enough for you to lie and listen — until in His own time He brings you out into a "wealthy place," where you may speak in the light what you have learned in the still darkness. And if that may not be here — there is a yet wealthier place in His kingdom of rest, where service may be awaiting you, for which you are training now. "His SERVANTS shall SERVE Him" THERE. One phase of service, I need not remind you, may have its special manifestation in suffering — our glorifying God by meek submission . There is something yet higher — the joy which not only does not murmur, but even triumphs, under chastening; which can sing on its unfaltering song, "Even though the fig trees have no blossoms, and there are no grapes on the vines; even though the olive crop fails, and the fields lie empty and barren; even though the flocks die in the fields, and the cattle barns are empty — yet I will rejoice in the LORD! I will be joyful in the God of my salvation!" Habakkuk 3:17-18

God's grace is sufficient to lift us even to this — why should we doubt it? Why should we not plead for it, and pleading, expect it? But if, looking onward to this glorious goal, we can only feel that we have "not attained" — then let us at least try to keep down all restless questioning and repining. "Shall we indeed accept good from God — and shall we not accept adversity?" Job 2:10

This is not easy. "One cannot always be at concert pitch when one is ill." No, but we may strive for it. We must do so, or trial will not yield the "peaceable fruits" for which it is sent. It brings a message for our self-will, that it grieves and dishonors Him who would reign wholly within us. Shall we work with Him — or, by our resistance, make the struggle longer and harder? To go back once more to the subject of "efforts". I am tempted, as a postscript to my letter to add a passage I have just read on one of our Lord's miracles of healing — the cure of the impotent man at Bethesda: The man knows nothing about Jesus, and He makes no demand upon his faith — except that of obedience. He gives Him so