“I don’t know, Madam, I’m sure!” was poor Sister Sigred’s rather hopeless answer.
I have found out at last what the world is. I am so glad! I asked Father Mortimer, and I told him how puzzled I was about it.
“My daughter,” said he, “thou didst renounce three things at thy baptism—the world, the flesh, and the Devil. The works of the flesh thou wilt find enumerated in Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians (Galatians 5, verses 19-21): and they are not ‘love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.’ These are the fruits of the Spirit. What the Devil is, thou knowest. Let us then see what is the world. It lies, saith Saint John, in three things: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. What are these? The lust of the flesh is not love, for that is a fruit of the Spirit. It is self-love: worshipping thyself, comforting thyself, advantaging thyself, and regarding all others as either toys or slaves for that great idol, thyself. The lust of the eye is not innocent enjoyment of the gifts of God: doth a father give gifts to his child in order that she may not use and delight in them? It lies in valuing His gifts above His will; taking the gift and forgetting the Giver; robbing the altar of God in order to deck thine idol, and that idol thyself. Covetousness, love of gain, pursuit of profit to thyself—these are idolatry, and the lust of the eye. The pride of life—what is this? Once more, decking thyself with the property of God. Show and grandeur, pomp and vanity, revelling and folly—all to show thee, to aggrandise thee, to delight thee. The danger of abiding in the world is lest the world get into thee, and abide in thee. Beware of the thought that there is no such danger in the cloister. The world may be in thee, howsoever thou art out of the world. A queen may wear her velvet robes with a single eye to the glory of God, and a nun may wear her habit with a single eye to the glory of self. Fill thine heart with Christ, and there will be no room left for the world. Fill thine heart with the world, and no room will be left for Christ. They cannot abide together; they are contrary the one to the other. Thou canst not saunter along the path of life, arm-in-arm with the world, in pleasant intercourse. Her face is not toward the City of God: if thine be, ye must go contrary ways. ‘How can two walk together, except they be agreed’ what direction to pursue? And remember, thou art one, and the world is many. She is strong enough to pull thee round; thou art not at all likely to change her course. And the peril of such intercourse is that the pulling round is so gradually effected that thou wilt never see it.”
“But how am I to help it, Father?”
“By keeping thine eye fixed on God. Set the Lord alway before thee. So long as He is at thy right hand, thou shalt not be moved.”
Father Mortimer was silent for a moment; and when he spoke again, it was rather to himself, or to God, than to me.
“Alas for the Church of God!” he said. “The time was when her baptismal robes were white and spotless; when she came out, and was separate, and touched not the unclean thing. Hath God repealed His command thus to do? In no wise. Hath the world become holy, harmless, undefiled—no longer selfish, frivolous, carnal, earth-bound? Nay, for it waxeth worse and worse as the end draws nearer. Woe is me! has the Church stepped down from her high position as the elect and select company of the sons of God, because these daughters of men are so fair and bewitching? Is she slipping back, sliding down, dipping low her once high standard of holiness to the Lord, bringing down her aim to the level of her practice, because it suits not with her easy selfishness to gird up her loins and elevate her practice to what her standard was and ought to be? And she gilds her unfaithfulness, forsooth, with the name of divine charity! saying, Peace, peace! when there is no peace. ‘What peace, so long as the whoredoms of thy mother Jezebel and her witchcrafts are so many?’ They cry, ‘Speak unto us smooth things’—and the Lord hath put none such in our lips. The word that He giveth us, that must we speak. And it is, ‘Come out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.’ Ye cannot remain and not partake the sins; and if ye partake the sins, then shall ye receive the plagues. ‘What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.’” (Note 7.)
Thank God for this light upon my path! for coming from His Word, it must be light from Heaven. O my Lord, Thou art Love incarnate, and Thou hast bidden us to love each other. Thou hast set us in families, and chosen our relatives, our neighbours, our surroundings. From Thine hand we take them all, and use them, and love them, in Thee, for Thee, to Thee. “We are taught of God to love each other.” We only love too much when we love ourselves, or when we love others above Thee. And “the command we have of Thee is that he who loveth Thee, love his brother also”—the last word we hear from Thee is a promise that Thou wilt come again, and take us—together, all—not to separate stars, but to be with Thee for ever. Amen, Lord Jesu Christ, so let it be!
It is several weeks since I have seen Margaret, otherwise than in community. But to-night I heard the timid little rap on my door, and the equally timid “Annora?” which came after. When Margaret says that word, in that tone, she wants a chat with me, and she means to inquire deprecatingly if she may have it.
“Come in, darling,” I said.