CONTENTS. THE BELOVED DISCIPLE. CHAPTER I. PROLOGUE. IT has long been in my heart to write a little book about "the Disciple whom Jesus loved." His raiment is very shining and exceedingly white; his crown and all his coronets are very resplendent; and his love for Jesus and Mary has raised him to a most burning throne in that kingdom of our Father, where "one star differs from another star in glory," and where "the sun and moon stand still in their habitation," as the great deep of the hearts of the Redeemed utters its voice and lifts up its hands on high. Yet I speak the simple truth when I say that I feel deeply how weak any words of mine must be to set forth his glory. Still, though A I feel this, I feel also that I must say what I can about him. And he will accept the will for the deed. He knows how much I love him, and how much I desire that others should love him too. I am certain also that no one can help loving him, who meditates on what he was to our Lord. At any rate, my words may bring before us some faint shadow of his beautytwo or three little gleams from the splendour of his throne. He is loved and worshipped wherever the names of Jesus and Mary are known, wherever Christ is preached, wherever the Gospel is read. He is not only inexpressibly dear to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, but he is also inexpressibly dear to the Immaculate Heart of Mary; and what is true about him with regard to our Lord, is true about him with regard to our Lady he is the Disciple whom Mary loved. Some time ago I wrote in "Sursum" a few words about him; but I want now to do something more than that, and to try to make him more worshipped, more loved, more trusted. Every one who thinks of him must feel that there is about him a strange attractiveness. As to myself, he is, and ever has been to me, a cloud by day and the brightness of a flaming fire by night. I never can remember a time when my heart was not bowed down before his sweetness and his grandeur. In the dim twilight of memory there rise up before me my love for him and my wondering joy at the place kept for him in the kingdom of our Lord. The more that I look back and try to remember, the less I can find any beginning of my devotion to him. When I first wondered about the flowers, and the birds, and the stars, and the Angels, St John's light overshadowed me, and seemed to interpret to me things that without him I never could have understood. I remember when I first saw the sea, and how I stood entranced above the white-crested waves. I remember how my heart leaped up when I saw the great breakers crashing against the rocks, and driving the tangle along the sand. I could not have been much more than seven years old then; but I could go to the place now. I remember, too, when first the fear of the judgment fell upon my soul; and how I cried, as I was reading about the place where "the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched," lest I should be condemned to that place of torment, and be cast out from God. |