“Well, my maid?” he answers of his kindly fashion.
“I cry you mercy, Father, if I speak foolishly; but it seems me that pious folk be not alway satisfied. They make as much fume as other folk when things go as they would not have them.”
“The angels do not so, I reckon,” saith Mynheer, a-looking up.
“We are not angels yet,” quoth Father, a little drily. “Truth, my maid: and we ought to repent thereof, seeing such practices but too oft cause the enemy to blaspheme, and put stumbling-blocks in the way of weak brethren. Ay, and from what we read in God’s Word, it should seem as though all murmuring and repining—not sorrowing, mark thou; but murmuring—went for far heavier sin in His eyes than it doth commonly in ours. We count it a light matter if we grumble when things go awry, and matters do seem as if they were bent on turning forth right as we would not have them. Let us remember, for ourselves, that such displeaseth the Lord. He reckons it unbelief and mistrust. ‘How long,’ saith He unto Moses, ‘will this people provoke Me? and how long will it be ere they believe Me?’ Howbeit, as for our neighbours, we need not judge them. And indeed, such matters depend much on men’s complexions (Note 1), and some find it a deal easier to control them than other. And after all, Edith, there is a sense wherein no man can ever be fully satisfied in this life. We were meant to aspire; and if we were entirely content with present things, then should we grovel. To submit cheerfully is one thing: to be fully gratified, so that no desire is left, is an other. We shall not be that, methinks, till we reach Heaven.”
“Shall we so, even there?” saith Sir Robert. “It hath alway seemed to me that when Diogenes did define his gods as ‘they that had no wants,’ he pointed to a very miserable set of creatures. Is it not human nature that the thing present shall fall short of the thing prospective?”
“The in posse is better than the in esse?” saith Father. “Well, it should seem so, in this dispensation. But how, in the next world, our powers may be extended, and our souls in some degree suffer change, that we can be fully satisfied and yet be alway aspiring—I reckon we cannot now understand. I only gather from Scripture that it shall be thus. You and I know very little, Robin, of what shall be in Heaven.”
“Ah, true,—true!” saith Sir Robert.
“It hath struck me at times,” saith Father, “that while it may seem strange to the young and eager soul, yet it is better understood as one grows older,—how the account of Heaven given us in Scripture is nearly all in negations. God and ourselves are the two matters positive. The rest are nays: there shall be no pain, no crying, no sorrow, no night, no death, no curse. And though youth would oft have it all yea, yet nay suits age the better. An old man and weary feels the thought of active bliss at times too much for him. It wearies him to think of perpetual singing and constant flying. It is rest he needs—it is peace.”
“Well, Father,” saith Milisent, looking up, “I hope it is not wicked of me, but I never did enjoy the prospect of sitting of a cloud and singing Hallelujah for ever and ever.”
“Right what I was wont to think at thy years, Milly,” saith Mother, a-laughing.