that it was humility in you--that you would not own your saintliness; or they would think you in a very bad state; and almost needing a complete change of heart. Be not out of heart, "God is Judge Himself;" and "He knoweth your downsitting and your uprising, and understandeth your thoughts afar off, and is acquainted with all your ways. You will ask Him once and again, if it please Him, to give you the spirit of "prayer and of supplication." If still He sees it necessary for your humiliation to deny it to you, then ask Him to bless the trial: at least to hear your breathing, your groaning, and to let you have a sense that He does hear it; and a sense of His presence, and His nearness. "4 But if for a season even this blessing should be denied to you, if you cannot feel that He is near, at least try to believe that it is so; if you must say, "Behold, I go forward, but He is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive Him: on the left hand, where He doth work, but I cannot behold Him;" still, try to say also, "But He knoweth the way that I take: and when He hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold." Yes, though you are in this hot furnace, the Refiner is sitting by, watching you closely. He notices each portion. of dross as it falls away. You may not see Him, but He is sitting by, watching you most tenderly and patiently. He "puts your tears into His bottle," although they be but the tears of the 3 Ps. 1. 6. 4 Ps. cxxxix. 2, 3. 5 Phil. iv. 6. 7 Ps. lvi. 8. H He sees heart, and never expressed by the eyes. them all, "not one of them is forgotten before Him."8 And even if you seem to yourself quite forsaken by God, it cannot be worse with you, than with Him, who said, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" At least He is with you in the deepest sympathy, and most tender pity. You say, "O my God, I cry in the day time, but Thou hearest not; and in the night season also I take no rest. "Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit: in a place of darkness, and in the deep. Thine indignation lieth hard upon me, and Thou hast vexed me with all Thy storms. Lord, why abhorrest Thou my soul and hidest Thou Thy face from me? I am in misery, and like unto him that is at the point to die. But you can never say these words alone; you cannot feel, never was sorrow like unto my sorrow, or grief like unto my grief; for there is One who "bare your griefs, and carried your sorrows, "4 and who bears them now. 112 : 113 66 You would not dare to utter your temptations, lest you should be suggesting thoughts to some other sufferer, in whose mind they have as yet found no place. Do not fear to tell them all to Him. No temptations that can assault you can be strange to Him. "He suffered being tempted, that He might be able to succour them who are tempted." In those forty days in the wilderness 8 Luke xii. 6. 9 Matt. xxvii. 46. 1 Ps. xxii. 2. 3 Lam. i. 12. 5 Heb. ii. 18. 2 Ps. lxxxviii. 5, 6. 14, 15. every form of temptation came before Him. Do not fear to lay open all before Him, whom the devil tempted to cast himself from a pinnacle of the Temple; for He overcame the tempter then, that they who trust in Him might never be overcome by his temptations. Very much in your case is owing to physical suffering, to extreme exhaustion, to having lost the power of judging justly, and seeing how things. truly are. This, perhaps, seems poor consolation. Far better is it to say, you cannot understand yourself; do not try; you will but get into endless perplexities; do not reason; do not question yourself about your state before God; but lay it open, or rather lay open your heart, yourself, your will, before Him. Words are not necessary; He only wants you to offer yourself, and to let Him do with you as He sees best. Sometimes it is a great help to use the prayers of the Church: the Collects, or the Service for the Visitation of the Sick. Do not think it must be formal to read it; and that it is a very formal thing to have a Service on purpose to read to the sick when they are visited. Would the Church have provided for all her members if she had furnished no Service for the Sick? Surely she could not, if she were a true mother, do otherwise. The more you study that Service, the more you will find it adapted to your wants. It teaches in a wonderful manner what are the trials, and temptations, and duties, and responsibilities, and blessings belonging to sickness. The whole meaning and purpose of sickness is shown by it. And as the Collects are short, and the words exactly express the wants of the sick, they are the greatest help to prayer to all those who will use them. XVI Absence of Work, and overtasked Strength SICK ICK people are generally either so placed that their work is very distinct, but as it seems to them, far beyond their strength; or else they are laid aside from all work, and constantly distressed because they are useless, as they suppose. Perhaps you may be able to trace a connection between some part of your trial and times that are past, and find them closely linked together. Have you never discovered how wonderfully this or that is like chastisement for past transgressions? If you are now called to work in the midst of great weakness, and weariness, and suffering, were there no vehement desires for work in times past, when it was God's will that you should seem to be idle, and quite laid aside? Did you then recognise that state as the will of God? as one to be desired and to give thanks for, because it was His will? Were you not restless under that discipline? did you never cry out, "O if I might but have work! I was never formed for idleness; my deep and earnest desires to work, and to glorify God thereby, are all crossed; all my 'pleasant pictures' broken; I have not less will to do it; I could work so much more purely now than I could do formerly: I know, indeed, that I have prayed to be 'sanctified wholly,' but I never expected that He would answer my prayers thus?" Was there never a time when these, or such like thoughts, escaped you? Did you never beat against the cage in which the Lord had shut you up, and try to break your way out? Did you never so occupy yourself with murmuring that you missed many precious lessons, and did not hear His "small still voice ?"7 and did not know that this was His own “visitation,” His own coming home to you to talk with you in your chamber, where He would have found you "still ?" If instead of being still, and "communing with your own heart," you were murmuring, can you wonder if He said at last, that He would grant your request? Perhaps He has answered it even as you have asked, and given you work. It seems to you to be beyond your strength. Do not complain now. He has but heard your vehement cries, and shown at once His fatherly correction and forgiveness, by sending you work, and with it, suffering. He saw that you could not bear the work alone, it would have made you proud, high-minded, independent, you would never have known yourself, or how much you sought the work for self-glorification; for the sake of doing; for the very love of activity. He saw it all-He said, "You 8 8 Ps. iv. 4. |