Moody's Life stirs me up to realise more the worth of the individual, the surpassing value of man's moral and spiritual nature. I long to help men to see what I see, to love Him whom I love, and the failure of my efforts is largely, I feel, due to defects in myself. Still I do not despair of doing something.
To his brother Edward in South Africa.
Brislington, Bristol; April 10, 1901.
I was much interested in … (your letter) and in seeing a little into your life. There is a strange family reserve among us which I sometimes deplore. Perhaps it must always be so, that we can tell most readily to strangers our deepest thoughts and feelings. Yet I feel that we ought, as far as we can in this short life, to understand one another. We have been led by different paths to understand different aspects of Truth. Yet, when we have climbed to the top of the hill, I dare say we shall find that our paths were nearer to one another than we ever realised. At any rate, we shall meet on the top. I often think that your whole method of gaining truth must be unlike mine. I use my reason, but I am more than half affection, and it is that which helps me most. My strange love for some men makes me seek to live their lives, to see the world as they see it; above all, it forces me to pray. Prayer never seems to me irrational; yet I do not pray so much because my reason bids me as because my affection forces me. I sometimes feel that I should go mad if I didn't or couldn't. And then, again, I am incapable of telling them all I feel, and I have to find some one to tell it to, and I feel forced back on One who knows me through and through, and I find comfort in pouring out my soul to Him—in telling Him all, much that I dare say to no one else—in letting Him sift the good and evil—in asking Him to develop and satisfy the good, and to exterminate the evil. I cannot help trusting Him.
I know not where His islands lift
Their fronded palms in air;
I only know I cannot drift
Beyond His love and care.
You will tell me perhaps that I am too much like a woman in matters of faith. Yet so I am made. I must follow the lead of my whole being—not of my mind alone. I often wonder how it is that I love with such a strange, passionate, unutterable affection, and whether many men are like me. I am most pleased to hear of your doings, especially of your whist parties.
To F. S. H., chaplain on board H.M.S. Canopus.
Brislington; April 10, 1901.
I am glad that you like your 'parish.' I feel more and more that I should prefer being among sailors to being among soldiers. I am afraid that I should do little good among either. Still I like, or think that I should like, naval officers even more than army officers. If they do talk a great deal of 'shop,' that is a healthy sign. I only wish our officers in the army were—I will not say more proud of their profession (for they have, I dare say, sufficient pride)—but more anxious to learn and to think out matters connected with it. I dare say the naval officer is obliged to act more independently and to think for himself in an emergency; for the army discipline is carried to such an extreme that the man for some years has seldom any occasion to act on his own initiative—to rise to an occasion. He simply has to ask a superior what to do next. He tends to resemble the Hindu station-master who telegraphed 'Tiger on platform; please wire instructions.' If their talking shop is worrying occasionally, yet be of good comfort, it is on the whole a good sign. It is better than talking golf or polo all day, and better far than loose and unmanly conversation. The more you are interested in the matters yourself, not simply because you want to be all things to all men, if by any means you may gain one or two, but because you are a man and a Christian, and therefore all things human have an interest to you, the more you will enjoy such 'shop.' We want not only to affect an interest in what is of vital concern to our neighbours, but to feel it. I begin to realise more now than I used to that I must not simply watch football matches, or run with the boats, because I want to show interest, but because I am learning—however late in the day and however imperfectly—to feel a real concern for such matters. And, strange to say, I am more interested in them than I used to be. Since the Lord took human flesh and interested Himself in all human life, He has left us an example that we may follow in His steps. We must call nothing, and no man, common or unclean. My own life and my own interests are terribly contracted. Sometimes I have been foolish enough to glory in the fact, and to think that I honour God in caring only for my brother's soul and not for his whole life. But love has taught me that this is a low and incomplete view. God numbers the very hairs of our head, and he who loves and tries to help another must enter into his life and care for all that he cares for. I hope that God will spare me a little longer to work in College, and to learn to become one with others—to see life with their eyes, to let them teach me—that so, if it please Him, I may gain some of them for His service.
The disciple cannot expect to be above the Master. The Master was not popular. He explained His deepest teaching to a few—a very few. If you have one or two to whom you can explain part of your being, thank God. You will find that one man understands one side, another appreciates another side. It is a comfort that there is One who knows us through and through. What a terrible blank life would be if we had no God to whom to pour out our whole soul! There are sides of our being which no one but God seems to be able to apprehend. I am feeling now comfort at nights in simply telling Him all—feelings which I cannot explain to any one else, asking Him to interpret, to sift, to allow the better to live, to annihilate the untrue. I do not cease to expect great things from Him, to expect that He will do for my 'parish' as a whole more than I have dreamed of or wished for. But then I am content if He works slowly, and does what I did not wish or expect to happen. He works slowly in nature, and I am not surprised if human nature is still more stubborn material for Him to work upon. But what a joy it is when one character in which we are interested, for which we have prayed and wrestled in prayer, shows slight but sure signs of healthy development! I feel inclined to shout for joy at the miracle—for it is a miracle—and I thank God and take courage. He does not let us see many results, but He lets us see just enough to help us to go forward. It is a help when what is clear and true to us begins to dawn upon another. 'My belief gains infinitely,' says Novalis, 'when it is shared by any human soul.'