DORA GREEN WELL.
First published as an introduction to an American edition of that author's The Patience of Hope.
THERE are men who, irrespective of the names by which they are called in the Babel confusion of sects, are endeared to the common heart of Christendom. Our doors open of their own accord to receive them. For in them we feel that in some faint degree, and with many limitations, the Divine is again manifested: something of the Infinite Love shines out of them; their very garments have healing and fragrance borrowed from the bloom of Paradise. So of books. There are volumes which perhaps contain many things, in the matter of doctrine and illustration, to which our reason does not assent, but which nevertheless seem permeated with a certain sweetness and savor of life. They have the Divine seal and imprimatur; they are fragrant with heart's-ease and asphodel; tonic with the leaves which are for the healing of the nations. The meditations of the devout monk of Kempen are the common heritage of Catholic and Protestant; our hearts burn within us as we walk with Augustine under Numidian fig-trees in the gardens of Verecundus; Feuelon from his bishop's palace and John Woolman from his tailor's shop speak to us in the same language. The unknown author of that book which Luther loved next to his Bible, the Theologia Germanica, is just as truly at home in this present age, and in the ultra Protestantism of New England, as in the heart of Catholic Europe, and in the fourteenth century. For such books know no limitations of time or place; they have the perpetual freshness and fitness of truth; they speak out of profound experience heart answers to heart as we read them; the spirit that is in man, and the inspiration that giveth understanding, bear witness to them. The bent and stress of their testimony are the same, whether written in this or a past century, by Catholic or Quaker: self-renunciation,— reconcilement to the Divine will through simple faith in the Divine goodness, and the love of it which must needs follow its recognition, the life of Christ made our own by self-denial and sacrifice, and the fellowship of His suffering for the good of others, the indwelling Spirit, leading into all truth, the Divine Word nigh us, even in our hearts. They have little to do with creeds, or schemes of doctrine, or the partial and inadequate plans of salvation invented by human speculation and ascribed to Him who, it is sufficient to know, is able to save unto the uttermost all who trust in Him. They insist upon simple faith and holiness of life, rather than rituals or modes of worship; they leave the merely formal, ceremonial, and temporal part of religion to take care of itself, and earnestly seek for the substantial, the necessary, and the permanent.
With these legacies of devout souls, it seems to me, the little volume herewith presented is not wholly unworthy of a place. It assumes the life and power of the gospel as a matter of actual experience; it bears unmistakable evidence of a realization, on the part of its author, of the truth, that Christianity is not simply historical and traditional, but present and permanent, with its roots in the infinite past and its branches in the infinite future, the eternal spring and growth of Divine love; not the dying echo of words uttered centuries ago, never to be repeated, but God's good tidings spoken afresh in every soul,—the perennial fountain and unstinted outflow of wisdom and goodness, forever old and forever new. It is a lofty plea for patience, trust, hope, and holy confidence, under the shadow, as well as in the light, of Christian experience, whether the cloud seems to rest on the tabernacle, or moves guidingly forward. It is perhaps too exclusively addressed to those who minister in the inner sanctuary, to be entirely intelligible to the vaster number who wait in the outer courts; it overlooks, perhaps, too much the solidarity and oneness of humanity;' but all who read it will feel its earnestness, and confess to the singular beauty of its style, the strong, steady march of its argument, and the wide and varied learning which illustrates it.
["The good are not so good as I once thought, nor the bad so evil, and in all there is more for grace to make advantage of, and more to testify for God and holiness, than I once believed."—Baxter.]
To use the language of one of its reviewers in the Scottish press:—
"Beauty there is in the book; exquisite glimpses into the loveliness of nature here and there shine out from its lines,—a charm wanting which meditative writing always seems to have a defect; beautiful gleams, too, there are of the choicest things of art, and frequent allusions by the way to legend or picture of the religious past; so that, while you read, you wander by a clear brook of thought, coining far from the beautiful hills, and winding away from beneath the sunshine of gladness and beauty into the dense, mysterious forest of human existence, that loves to sing, amid the shadow of human darkness and anguish, its music of heavenborn consolation; bringing, too, its pure waters of cleansing and healing, yet evermore making its praise of holy affection and gladness; while it is still haunted by the spirits of prophet, saint, and poet, repeating snatches of their strains, and is led on, as by a spirit from above, to join the great river of God's truth. . . .
"This is a book for Christian men, for the quiet hour of holy solitude, when the heart longs and waits for access to the presence of the Master. The weary heart that thirsts amidst its conflicts and its toils for refreshing water will drink eagerly of these sweet and refreshing words. To thoughtful men and women, especially such as have learnt any of the patience of hope in the experiences of sorrow and trial, we commend this little volume most heartily and earnestly."
The Patience of Hope fell into my hands soon after its publication in Edinburgh, some two years ago. I was at once impressed by its extraordinary richness of language and imagery,—its deep and solemn tone of meditation in rare combination with an eminently practical tendency,— philosophy warm and glowing with love. It will, perhaps, be less the fault of the writer than of her readers, if they are not always able to eliminate from her highly poetical and imaginative language the subtle metaphysical verity or phase of religious experience which she seeks to express, or that they are compelled to pass over, without appropriation, many things which are nevertheless profoundly suggestive as vague possibilities of the highest life. All may not be able to find in some of her Scriptural citations the exact weight and significance so apparent to her own mind. She startles us, at times, by her novel applications of familiar texts, by meanings reflected upon them from her own spiritual intuitions, making the barren Baca of the letter a well. If the rendering be questionable, the beauty and quaint felicity of illustration and comparison are unmistakable; and we call to mind Augustine's saying, that two or more widely varying interpretations of Scripture may be alike true in themselves considered. "When one saith, Moses meant as I do,' and another saith, 'Nay, but as I do,' I ask, more reverently, 'Why not rather as both, if both be true?"
Some minds, for instance, will hesitate to assent to the use of certain Scriptural passages as evidence that He who is the Light of men, the Way and the Truth, in the mystery of His economy, designedly "delays, withdraws, and even hides Himself from those who love and follow Him." They will prefer to impute spiritual dearth and darkness to human weakness, to the selfishness which seeks a sign for itself, to evil imaginations indulged, to the taint and burden of some secret sin, or to some disease and exaggeration of the conscience, growing out of bodily infirmity, rather than to any purpose on the part of our Heavenly Father to perplex and mislead His children. The sun does not shine the less because one side of our planet is in darkness. To borrow the words of Augustine "Thou, Lord, forsakest nothing thou hast made. Thou alone art near to those even who remove far from thee. Let them turn and seek thee, for not as they have forsaken their Creator hast thou forsaken thy creation." It is only by holding fast the thought of Infinite Goodness, and interpreting doubtful Scripture and inward spiritual experience by the light of that central idea, that we can altogether escape the dreadful conclusion of Pascal, that revelation has been given us in dubious cipher, contradictory and mystical, in order that some, through miraculous aid, may understand it to their salvation, and others be mystified by it to their eternal loss.
I might mention other points of probable divergence between reader and writer, and indicate more particularly my own doubtful parse and hesitancy over some of these pages. But it is impossible for me to make one to whom I am so deeply indebted an offender for a word or a Scriptural rendering. On the grave and awful themes which she discusses, I have little to say in the way of controversy. I would listen, rather than criticise. The utterances of pious souls, in all ages, are to me often like fountains in a thirsty land, strengthening and refreshing, yet not without an after-taste of human frailty and inadequateness, a slight bitterness of disappointment and unsatisfied quest. Who has not felt at times that the letter killeth, that prophecies fail, and tongues cease to edify, and been ready to say, with the author of the Imitation of Christ: "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth. Let not Moses nor the prophets speak to me, but speak thou rather, who art the Inspirer and Enlightener of all. I am weary with reading and hearing many things; let all teachers hold their peace; let all creatures keep silence: speak thou alone to me."
The writer of The Patience of Hope had, previous to its publication, announced herself to a fit, if small, audience of earnest and thoughtful Christians, in a little volume entitled, A Present Heaven. She has recently published a collection of poems, of which so competent a judge as Dr. Brown, the author of Horae Subsecivae and Rab and his Friends, thus speaks, in the North British Review:—
"Such of our readers—a fast increasing number—as have read and enjoyed The Patience of Hope, listening to the gifted nature which, through such deep and subtile thought, and through affection and godliness still deeper and more quick, has charmed and soothed them, will not be surprised to learn that she is not only poetical, but, what is more, a poet, and one as true as George Herbert and Henry Vaughan, or our own Cowper; for, with all our admiration of the searching, fearless speculation, the wonderful power of speaking clearly upon dark and all but unspeakable subjects, the rich outcome of 'thoughts that wander through eternity,' which increases every time we take up that wonderful little book, we confess we were surprised at the kind and the amount of true poetic vis in these poems, from the same fine and strong hand. There is a personality and immediateness, a sort of sacredness and privacy, as if they were overheard rather than read, which gives to these remarkable productions a charm and a flavor all their own. With no effort, no consciousness of any end but that of uttering the inmost thoughts and desires of the heart, they flow out as clear, as living, as gladdening as the wayside well, coming from out the darkness of the central depths, filtered into purity by time and travel. The waters are copious, sometimes to overflowing; but they are always limpid and unforced, singing their own quiet tune, not saddening, though sometimes sad, and their darkness not that of obscurity, but of depth, like that of the deep sea.
"This is not a book to criticise or speak about, and we give no extracts from the longer, and in this case, we think, the better poems. In reading this Cardiphonia set to music, we have been often reminded, not only of Herbert and Vaughan, but of Keble,—a likeness of the spirit, not of the letter; for if there is any one poet who has given a bent to her mind, it is Wordsworth,—the greatest of all our century's poets, both in himself and in his power of making poets."
In the belief that whoever peruses the following pages will be sufficiently interested in their author to be induced to turn back and read over again, with renewed pleasure, extracts from her metrical writings, I copy from the volume so warmly commended a few brief pieces and extracts from the longer poems.
Here are three sonnets, each a sermon in itself:—