“And yet,” said the Earl, resting his head upon one hand, “one gets very, very tired sometimes of living.”
“Cannot we trust our Father to call us to rest when we really need it?” asked the Prior. “Nor is it well that in looking onward to the future glory we should miss the present rest to be had by coming to Him, and casting all our cares and burdens at His feet.”
“Does He always take them?”
“Always—if we give them. But there is such a thing as asking Him to take them, and holding them out to Him, and yet keeping fast hold of the other end ourselves. He will hardly take what we do not give.”
The Earl looked earnestly into his friend’s eyes.
“Father, I will confess that these seven years—nay! what am I saying? these eight-and-twenty—I have not been willing that God should do His will. I wanted my will done. For five-and-forty years, ever since I could lisp the words, I have been saying to Him with my lips, Fiat voluntas tua. But only within the last few days have I really said to Him in my heart, Lord, have Thy way. It seemed to me—will you think it very dreadful if I confess it?—that I wanted but one thing, and that it was very hard of God not to let me have it. I did not say such a thing in words; I could talk fluently of being resigned to His will, but down at the core of my heart I was resigned to everything but one, and I was not resigned to that at all. And I think I only became resigned when I gave over trying and working at resignation, and sank down, like a tired child, at my Father’s feet. But now I am very tired, and I would fain that my Father would take me up in His arms.”
The Prior did not speak. He could not. He only looked very sorrowfully into the worn face of the heart-wearied man, with a conviction which he was unable to repress, that the time of the call to come up higher was not far away. He would have been thankful to disprove his conclusion, but to stifle it he dared not.
“I hope,” said the Earl in the same low tone, “that there are quiet corners in Heaven where weary men and women may lie down and rest a while at our Lord’s feet. I feel unfit to take a place all at once in the angelic choir. Not unready to praise—I mean not that—only too weary, just at first, to care for anything but rest.”
There were tears burning under the Prior’s eyelids; but he was silent still. That was not his idea of Heaven; but then he was less weary of earth. He felt almost vexed that the only passage of Scripture which would come to him was one utterly unsuited to the occasion—“They rest not day nor night.” Usually fluent and fervent, he was tongue-tied just then.
“Did Christ our Lord need the rest of His three days and nights in the grave?” suggested the Earl, thoughtfully. “He must have been very weary after the agony of His cross. I think He must have been very tired of His life altogether. For was it not one passion from Bethlehem to Calvary? And He could hardly have been one of those strong men who never seem to feel tired. Twice we are told that He was weary—when He sat on the well, and when He slept in the boat. Father, I ought to ask your pardon for speaking when I should listen, and seeming to teach where I ought to be taught.”