“It sounds as if it were composed for us, and yet it was written two thousand years ago,” said the clergyman, as he closed the book. “In every age man has been forced to acknowledge the guiding hand which leads him. For my part I don't believe that inspiration stopped two thousand years ago. When Tennyson wrote with such fervour and conviction,—
'Oh, yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill.'
he was repeating the message which had been given to him, just as Micah or Ezekiel when the world was younger repeated some cruder and more elementary lesson.”
“That is all very well, Mr. Stuart,” said the Frenchman; “you ask me to praise God for taking me out of danger and pain, but what I want to know is why, since He has arranged all things, He ever put me into that pain and danger. I have in my opinion more occasion to blame than to praise. You would not thank me for pulling you out of that river if it was also I who pushed you in. The most which you can claim for your Providence is that it has healed the wound which its own hand inflicted.”
“I don't deny the difficulty,” said the clergyman, slowly; “no one who is not self-deceived can deny the difficulty. Look how boldly Tennyson faced it in that same poem, the grandest and deepest and most obviously inspired in our language. Remember the effect which it had upon him.
'I falter where I firmly trod,
And falling with my weight of cares
Upon the great world's altar stairs,
Which slope through darkness up to God,
'I stretch lame hands of faith and grope
And gather dust and chaff, and call
To what I feel is Lord of all,
And faintly trust the larger hope.'
It is the central mystery of mysteries—the problem of sin and suffering, the one huge difficulty which the reasoner has to solve in order to vindicate the dealings of God with man. But take our own case as an example. I, for one, am very clear what I have got out of our experience. I say it with all humility, but I have a clearer view of my duties than ever I had before. It has taught me to be less remiss in saying what I think to be true, less indolent in doing what I feel to be rightful.”
“And I,” cried Sadie. “It has taught me more than all my life put together. I have learned so much and unlearned so much. I am a different girl.”
“I never understood my own nature before,” said Stephens. “I can hardly say that I had a nature to understand. I lived for what was unimportant, and I neglected what was vital.”