Do not misunderstand
me. I am no optimist. I know well that things happen in this world
which must, which ought to make us sad--so sad that at moments we envy
the dead, who are gone home to their rest; real tragedies, real griefs,
divine and Christlike griefs, which only loving hearts know--the
suffering of those we love, the loss of those we love, and, last and
worst, the sin of those we love. Ah! if any of those swords have pierced
the heart of any soul here, shall I blame that man, that woman, if they
cry at times, "Father, take me home, this earth is no place for me."
Shall I bid them do aught but cling to the feet of Christ and cry, "If it
be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but
as Thou wilt." Oh, not of such do I speak; not of such sharers of
Christ's unselfish suffering here, that they may be sharers of His
unselfish joy hereafter. Not of them do I speak; but of those who only
wish to make up for selfish discomforts and disappointments in this life
by selfish comforts and satisfaction in the next; and who therefore take
up (let me use the honest English word) some maundering form of religion,
which, to judge from their own conduct, they usually only half believe;
those who seem, on six days of the week, as fond of finery and frivolity
as any other gay worldlings, and on the seventh join eagerly in hymns in
which (in one case at least) they inform the Almighty God of truth, who
will not be mocked, that they lie awake at night, weeping because they
cannot die and see "Jerusalem the golden," and so forth.
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