Thus we are led to understand something of the meaning of our Christian names—to see that they are living pledges to us, whatever we do, wherever we go—that Christ's name is called upon us—that when tiny little children we were brought home to the Great Ego in whom alone our Ego can ever find satisfaction—to feel that we are His and He is ours.
To J. L. D.
Christ's College, Cambridge: October 9, 1893.
The step which you contemplate taking is one with far-reaching issues—reaching away through time and beyond it. I advise you to try and gain a general idea of the meaning of the first half of St. Paul's second letter to the Corinthian Church—to try and enter into its general spirit. Few things will humble you more: you will see something of the unspeakable dignity of the office of him who represents God to his fellow-men, and of the tremendous enthusiasm and love which a man must have if he would be the minister that St. Paul would have him be. I do not know what St. Paul means when he says that we are ambassadors on behalf of Christ: but the more I think of what the words seem to mean, the more I am startled at the awful responsibility that we have laid upon us. To represent Christ, to treat with men, to attempt to arrange—if one may so speak—terms, to use all our powers in performing the work of the embassy—this at least is involved in the words. What strikes me so much in the letter is the manner in which St. Paul literally loves the Church; how he longs to communicate his own enthusiasm to it; how he would die, almost does die, himself to bring life to them. All his hopes are bound up with theirs—his salvation with their salvation. He seems to 'fail from out his blood, and grow incorporate' into them. We are called to the same office as St. Paul, we have the same power working in us as he had working in him: we too shall have success in so far as we love—as we identify ourselves with those whom God has given us to take care of. The more we are disciplined and yet enthusiastic, the more capable shall we be of love—of getting out of self—of working our way into others—of representing the Christ to them—of understanding and making allowances for them—of seeing them in the ideal, the only real, light in which God sees them—seeing them in the Christ, in whom we live—mind that, with all your intellectual training, you don't forget the other. Now is the time to learn, to force yourself to learn, to pray—to pray not for a few minutes at a time, but to pray for an hour at a time—to get alone with yourself—to get alone with your Maker. We shall not have to talk so much to others if we pray more for them. We talk and we do not influence, or we influence only for a time, because our lives are not more prayer-full.
To J. L. D.
Aldeburgh House, Blackheath, S.E.: December 16, 1893.
I cannot help thinking of you both at this time. It means so much to you both—more than either of you dreams that it means. The issues of your Ordination day are very far reaching indeed. They stretch away and beyond this world in which we now are. The rush of school work and of preparation for examination has probably not left you as much time as you could have wished for thinking over what it all means. I hope you will have more time after the service is over. But you may be comforted in the thought that the last few years have been a definite preparation for your life-work. Though you must regret, as you never regretted before, misuse of time and powers in the past, yet you have had an education which has in some degree prepared you for this time, an education for which you may thank our common Master. But this thought by itself would be but a small comfort. For you must feel, if you are the man I take you for, how unworthy you are to be what you are called to be. Now there are two ways of dealing with this feeling. You may say, 'I am not called to be an absolute saint; but I will try to reach a fairly high standard;' or you may say, 'Yes, I am called to be an absolute saint. I will not lower my ideal. I will comfort myself with that single word "called." If He has called me, He will do in me and for me what He wills.' This second way is the true way of dealing with feelings of unworthiness and unfitness. You and I are utterly unfit. But we are both called—called from our mother's womb—called to be saints and to be ministers. He who called us will help us. With man the call seems quixotic, impossible; with Him all things are possible. At times when the call is loudest we can but reply, 'Ah! Lord, I am but a little child.' We are intensely conscious of feebleness and, what is worse, of treachery and meanness within; we half love what we are called upon to denounce; we play with the sin we are to teach men to abhor. Yet the call is sure, is definite, is perpetual, and again and again you will in all probability find what a help it is to look back to that day in which the call took formal shape. You have that as a definite fact to rest upon, to reprove, to encourage, to urge to renewed effort, to force you to be true and energetic.
One thing you must learn to do. Whatever you leave undone you must not leave this undone. Your work will be stunted and half developed unless you attend to it. You must force yourself to be alone and to pray. Do make a point of this. You may be eloquent and attractive in your life, but your real effectiveness depends on your communion with the eternal world. You will easily find excuses. Work is so pressing, and work is necessary. Other engagements take time. You are tired. You want to go to bed. You go to bed late and want to get up late. So simple prayer and devotion are crowded out. And yet, T——, the necessity is paramount, is inexorable. If you and I are ever to be of any good, if we are to be a blessing, not a curse, to those with whom we are connected, we must enter into ourselves, we must be alone with the only source of unselfishness. If we are of use to others, it will chiefly be because we are simple, pure, unselfish. If we are to be simple, pure, unselfish, it will not be by reading books or talking or working primarily, it will be by coming in continual contact with the ground of simplicity, purity, selfishness. Heaven is the possibility of fresh acts of self-sacrifice, of a fuller life of unselfishness. You are a man and a minister in so far as you are unselfish. You cannot learn unselfishness save from the one Source. Definite habits of real devotion—these we must make and keep to and renew and increase. Then we shall gradually find that we are less dependent on self—that even in the busiest scenes we dare not act on our own responsibility—that, be the act ever so small and trifling, when we are in difficulty we shall naturally, inevitably, spontaneously turn to that place whence help alone can come. But it is a wonderful help again and again to feel that we have been alone with Him, that we are not working on our own responsibility, that He is the 'Living Will' that rises and flows 'through our deeds and makes them pure.'
To D. D. R.
8 Alexandra Gardens, Ventnor: Jan. 2, 1894.