December 7, 1899.
You know, without my saying it, that you have my deep sympathy and prayers at this time.… We dare not and cannot sorrow as do others who have no certain hope. Our sorrow is of another kind. For I am quite sure that
In His vast world above,
A world of broader love,
God hath some grand employment for His son.[1]
How real it all makes that other world, to have our own brothers there! It makes it in a deeper sense our home.
[1] Faber, The Old Labourer.
To the mother of his godchild, Margaret Forbes.
Dore House, St. Leonards: January 10, 1900.
I am so glad to feel that my little godchild will have real training. I don't know how far I received such a training myself at an early age … I came towards the end of a large family. The only permanent instruction which I can remember imparted to me by my nursery maid was a caution not to look behind me when I passed people in the street, enforced by the biblical precept, 'Remember Lot's wife.' I know what a fascination I had to look behind, accompanied by a terrible dread of the consequences.
I have always felt that Faber's 'God of my Childhood' describes the normal and true development of a child's life. I am sure that, although the gravity of sin should be early recognised, greater stress should be laid upon the Fatherhood and kindness of God. I was noticing to-day, when reading the second lesson, how Westcott and Hort have placed the clause in the Lord's Prayer which speaks of the Fatherhood of God in a line by itself as a heading to the whole prayer, putting a colon after the clause, and beginning the first petition with a capital letter. The prayer begins with 'Fatherhood' and ends with a reference to 'Sinfulness.' I think this fact is significant. We may not all be intended to come to know religious truth in that order. But I think we are intended, when we do know it, to lay even more stress on the Fatherhood of God than on our own imperfections. It is a wonderful and terrible thing to watch the development of a human spirit. We can understand so little about any life, even when it is near and dear to us. But I am not sure that we cannot learn more about others than we can about ourselves. I never think it is profitable to study oneself too closely! I never could meditate with any profit on my sins. But there, I dare say, I differ from many others.
Well, I hope that the hair of my godchild is growing, and that she has now more than her god-father. His is coming to an untimely end.