Saturday Morning.—I was interrupted there, had visitors, had to go to a fair, company again, so that I had not time to eat the food I needed, went to see a poor sick girl, had more visitors, and at last, at eleven P.M., scrambled into bed. Now I am finishing this, and if nobody hinders, am going to mail it, and then go after a block of ice-cream for that sick girl (isn't it nice, we can get it now done up in little boxes, just about as much as an invalid can eat at one time). Then I am going to see a poor afflicted soul that can't get any light on her sorrow. Here comes my dear old man to read his sermon, so good-bye.
To a young Friend, Dec. 20, 1870.
I have been led, during the last month or two, to a new love of the Holy Spirit, or perhaps to more consciousness of the silent, blessed work He is doing in and for us? and for those whose souls lie as a heavy and yet a sweet burden upon our own. And joining with you in your prayers, seeking also for myself what I sought for you, I found myself almost startled by such a response as I can not describe. It was not joy, but a deep solemnity which enfolded me as with a garment, and if I ever pass out of it, which I never want to do, I hope it will be with a heart more than ever consecrated and set apart for Christ's service. The more I reflect and the more I pray, the more life narrows down to one point—What am I being for Christ, what am I doing for Him? Why do I tell you this? Because the voice of a fellow-traveller always stimulates his brother-pilgrim; what one finds and speaks of and rejoices over, sets the other upon determining to find too. God has been very good to you, as well as to me, but we ought to whisper to each other now and then, "Go on, step faster, step surer, lay hold on the Rock of Ages with both hands." You never need be afraid to speak such words to me. I want to be pushed on, and pulled on, and coaxed on.
The allusion to her "beloved Fenelon," in several of the preceding letters, renders this a suitable place to say a word about him and his influence upon her religious character. "Fenelon I lean on," she wrote. Her delight in his writings dated back more than a quarter of a century, and continued, unabated, to the end of her days. She regarded him with a sort of personal affection and reverence. Her copy of "Spiritual Progress," composed largely of selections from his works, is crowded with pencil-marks expressive of her sympathy and approval; not even her Imitation of Christ, Sacra Privata, Pilgrim's Progress, Saints' Everlasting Rest, or Leighton on the First Epistle of Peter, contain so many. These pencil-marks are sometimes very emphatic, underscoring or inclosing now a single word, now a phrase, anon a whole sentence or paragraph; and it requires but little skill to decipher, in these rude hieroglyphics, the secret history of her soul for a third of a century— one side, at least, of this history. What she sought with the greatest eagerness, what she most loved and most hated, her spiritual aims, struggles, trials, joys and hopes, may here be read between the lines. And a beautiful testimony they give to the moral depth, purity and nobleness of her piety!
The story is not, indeed, complete; her religious life had other elements, not found, or only partially found, in Fenelon; elements centering directly in Christ and His gospel, and which had their inspiration in her Daily Food and her New Testament. What attracted her to Fenelon was not the doctrine of salvation as taught by him—she found it better taught in Bunyan and Leighton—it was his marvellous knowledge of the human heart, his keen insight into the proper workings of nature and grace, his deep spiritual wisdom, and the sweet mystic tone of his piety. And then the two great principles pervading his writings—that of pure love to God and that of self-crucifixion as the way to perfect love—fell in with some of her own favorite views of the Christian life. In the study of Fenelon, as of Madame Guyon, her aim was a purely practical one; it was not to establish, or verify, a theory, but to get aid and comfort in her daily course heavenward. What Fenelon was to her in this respect she has herself recorded in the following lines, found, after her death, written on a blank page of her "Spiritual Progress":
Oh wise and thoughtful words! oh counsel sweet,
Guide in my wanderings, spurs unto my feet,
How often you have met me on the way,
And turned me from the path that led astray;
Teaching that fault and folly, sin and fall,
Need not the weary pilgrim's heart appall;
Yea more, instructing how to snatch the sting
From timid conscience, how to stretch the wing
From the low plane, the level dead of sin,
And mount immortal, mystic joys to win.
One hour with Jesus! How its peace outweighs
The ravishment of earthly love and praise;
How dearer far, emptied of self to lie
Low at His feet, and catch, perchance, His eye,
Alike content when He may give or take,
The sweet, the bitter, welcome for His sake!
[1] John Wesley, after having pointed out what he considered the grand source of all her mistakes; namely, the being guided by inward impressions and the light of her own spirit rather than by the written Word, and also her error in teaching that God never purifies a soul but by inward and outward suffering—then adds: "And yet with all this dross how much pure gold is mixed! So did God wink at involuntary ignorance. What a depth of religion did she enjoy! How much of the mind that was in Christ Jesus! What heights of righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost! How few such instances do we find of exalted love to God, and our neighbor; of genuine humility; of invincible meekness and unbounded resignation! So that, upon the whole, I know not whether we may not search many centuries to find another woman who was such a pattern of true holiness."
[2] See the lines MY CUP RUNNETH OVER, Golden Hours, p. 43.
[3] "I know of no book, the Bible excepted as above all comparison, which I, according to my judgment and experience, could so safely recommend as teaching and enforcing the whole saving truth according to the mind that was in Christ Jesus, as the Pilgrim's Progress. It is, in my conviction, incomparably the best summa theologiæ evangelicæ ever produced by a writer not miraculously inspired. I read it once as a theologian—and let me assure you, there is great theological acumen in the work—once with devotional feelings, and once as a poet. I could not have believed beforehand that Calvinism could be painted in such exquisitely delightful colors."—COLERIDGE.
[4] The allusion is to Thekla's song in Part I., Act iii., sc. 7 of Schiller's Wallenstein.