PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul
MacDonald, George, 1824-1905 · 21,976 words · 36 reading sections
January.
Produced by John Bechard by George MacDonald Published in 1880. [The dedication refers to the fact that the book was originally published using only the right-hand side pages of the book, leaving the left-hand side blank to allow for and acknowledge any thoughtful reader responses.] Sweet friends, receive my of…
687 wordsSECTION 2January.
11. I thought that I had lost thee; but, behold! Thou comest to me from the horizon low, Across the fields outspread of green and gold-- Fair carpet for thy feet to come and go. Whence I know not, or how to me thou art come!-- Not less my spirit with calm bliss doth glow, Meeting thee only thus, in nature vague …
663 wordsSECTION 3January.
22. Do thou, my God, my spirit's weather control; And as I do not gloom though the day be dun, Let me not gloom when earth-born vapours roll Across the infinite zenith of my soul. Should sudden brain-frost through the heart's summer run, Cold, weary, joyless, waste of air and sun, Thou art my south, my summer-wi…
603 wordsSECTION 4February.
1. I TO myself have neither power nor worth, Patience nor love, nor anything right good; My soul is a poor land, plenteous in dearth-- Here blades of grass, there a small herb for food-- A nothing that would be something if it could; But if obedience, Lord, in me do grow, I shall one day be better than I know. …
683 wordsSECTION 5February.
12. Be thou the well by which I lie and rest; Be thou my tree of life, my garden ground; Be thou my home, my fire, my chamber blest, My book of wisdom, loved of all the best; Oh, be my friend, each day still newer found, As the eternal days and nights go round! Nay, nay--thou art my God, in whom all loves are bo…
705 wordsSECTION 6February.
24. 'Tis something thus to think, and half to trust-- But, ah! my very heart, God-born, should lie Spread to the light, clean, clear of mire and rust, And like a sponge drink the divine sunbeams. What resolution then, strong, swift, and high! What pure devotion, or to live or die! And in my sleep, what true, wha…
347 wordsSECTION 7March.
1. THE song birds that come to me night and morn, Fly oft away and vanish if I sleep, Nor to my fowling-net will one return: Is the thing ever ours we cannot keep?-- But their souls go not out into the deep. What matter if with changed song they come back? Old strength nor yet fresh beauty shall they lack. 2. …
691 wordsSECTION 8March.
13. I love thee, Lord, for very greed of love-- Not of the precious streams that towards me move, But of the indwelling, outgoing, fountain store. Than mine, oh, many an ignorant heart loves more! Therefore the more, with Mary at thy feet, I must sit worshipping--that, in my core, Thy words may fan to a flame th…
680 wordsSECTION 9March.
24. O Christ, have pity on all men when they come Unto the border haunted of dismay; When that they know not draweth very near-- The other thing, the opposite of day, Formless and ghastly, sick, and gaping-dumb, Before which even love doth lose his cheer: O radiant Christ, remember then thy fear. 25. Be by me,…
466 wordsSECTION 10April.
1. LORD, I do choose the higher than my will. I would be handled by thy nursing arms After thy will, not my infant alarms. Hurt me thou wilt--but then more loving still, If more can be and less, in love's perfect zone! My fancy shrinks from least of all thy harms, But do thy will with me--I am thine own. 2. So…
653 wordsSECTION 11April.
12. I do not fear the greatness of thy command-- To keep heart-open-house to brother men; But till in thy God's love perfect I stand, My door not wide enough will open. Then Each man will be love-awful in my sight; And, open to the eternal morning's might, Each human face will shine my window for thy light. 13.…
707 wordsSECTION 12April.
24. So common are thy paths, thy coming seems Only another phase oft of my me; But nearer is my I, O Lord, to thee, Than is my I to what itself it deems; How better then couldst thou, O master, come, Than from thy home across into my home, Straight o'er the marches that I cannot see! 25. Marches?--'Twixt thee …
436 wordsSECTION 13May.
1. WHAT though my words glance sideways from the thing Which I would utter in thine ear, my sire! Truth in the inward parts thou dost desire-- Wise hunger, not a fitness fine of speech: The little child that clamouring fails to reach With upstretched hand the fringe of her attire, Yet meets the mother's hand dow…
653 wordsSECTION 14May.
12. Fair freshness of the God-breathed spirit air, Pass through my soul, and make it strong to love; Wither with gracious cold what demons dare Shoot from my hell into my world above; Let them drop down, like leaves the sun doth sear, And flutter far into the inane and bare, Leaving my middle-earth calm, wise, a…
654 wordsSECTION 15May.
23. Ever above my coldness and my doubt Rises up something, reaching forth a hand: This thing I know, but cannot understand. Is it the God in me that rises out Beyond my self, trailing it up with him, Towards the spirit-home, the freedom-land, Beyond my conscious ken, my near horizon's brim? 24. O God of man, …
519 wordsSECTION 16June.
1. FROM thine, as then, the healing virtue goes Into our hearts--that is the Father's plan. From heart to heart it sinks, it steals, it flows, From these that know thee still infecting those. Here is my heart--from thine, Lord, fill it up, That I may offer it as the holy cup Of thy communion to my every man. 2.…
703 wordsSECTION 17June.
13. Faster no step moves God because the fool Shouts to the universe God there is none; The blindest man will not preach out the sun, Though on his darkness he should found a school. It may be, when he finds he is not dead, Though world and body, sight and sound are fled, Some eyes may open in his foolish head. …
687 wordsSECTION 18June.
25. Oh, make my anger pure--let no worst wrong Rouse in me the old niggard selfishness. Give me thine indignation--which is love Turned on the evil that would part love's throng; Thy anger scathes because it needs must bless, Gathering into union calm and strong All things on earth, and under, and above. 26. M…
326 wordsSECTION 19July.
1. ALAS, my tent! see through it a whirlwind sweep! Moaning, poor Fancy's doves are swept away. I sit alone, a sorrow half asleep, My consciousness the blackness all astir. No pilgrim I, a homeless wanderer-- For how canst Thou be in the darkness deep, Who dwellest only in the living day? 2. It must be, somewh…
678 wordsSECTION 20July.
13. Amazed at sightless whirring of their wheels, Confounded with the recklessness and strife, Distract with fears of what may next ensue, Some break rude exit from the house of life, And plunge into a silence out of view-- Whence not a cry, no wafture once reveals What door they have broke open with the knife. …
693 wordsSECTION 21July.
25. Lord, let my soul o'erburdened then feel thee Thrilling through all its brain's stupidity. If I must slumber, heedless of ill harms, Let it not be but in my Father's arms; Outside the shelter of his garment's fold, All is a waste, a terror-haunted wold.-- Lord, keep me. 'Tis thy child that cries. Behold. 26…
413 wordsSECTION 22August.
1. SO shall abundant entrance me be given Into the truth, my life's inheritance. Lo! as the sun shoots straight from out his tomb, God-floated, casting round a lordly glance Into the corners of his endless room, So, through the rent which thou, O Christ, hast riven, I enter liberty's divine expanse. 2. It will…
706 wordsSECTION 23August.
13. Thou art the truth, the life. Thou, Lord, wilt see To every question that perplexes me. I am thy being; and my dignity Is written with my name down in thy book; Thou wilt care for it. Never shall I think Of anything that thou mightst overlook:-- In faith-born triumph at thy feet I sink. 14. Thou carest mor…
658 wordsSECTION 24August.
24. What if, when I at last, at the long last, Shall see thy face, my Lord, my life's delight, It should not be the face that hath been glassed In poor imagination's mirror slight! Will my soul sink, and shall I stand aghast, Beggared of hope, my heart a conscious blight, Amazed and lost--death's bitterness come…
441 wordsSECTION 25September.
1. WE are a shadow and a shining, we! One moment nothing seems but what we see, Nor aught to rule but common circumstance-- Nought is to seek but praise, to shun but chance; A moment more, and God is all in all, And not a sparrow from its nest can fall But from the ground its chirp goes up into his hall. 2. I …
650 wordsSECTION 26September.
12. Can anything go wrong with me? I ask-- And the same moment, at a sudden pain, Stand trembling. Up from the great river's brim Comes a cold breath; the farther bank is dim; The heaven is black with clouds and coming rain; High soaring faith is grown a heavy task, And all is wrong with weary heart and brain. …
657 wordsSECTION 27September.
23. God, thou from death dost lift me. As I rise, Its Lethe from my garment drips and flows. Ere long I shall be safe in upper air, With thee, my life--with thee, my answered prayer Where thou art God in every wind that blows, And self alone, and ever, softly dies, There shall my being blossom, and I know it fai…
488 wordsSECTION 28October.
1. REMEMBER, Lord, thou hast not made me good. Or if thou didst, it was so long ago I have forgotten--and never understood, I humbly think. At best it was a crude, A rough-hewn goodness, that did need this woe, This sin, these harms of all kinds fierce and rude, To shape it out, making it live and grow. 2. But…
709 wordsSECTION 29October.
13. Only, my God, see thou that I content thee-- Oh, take thy own content upon me, God! Ah, never, never, sure, wilt thou repent thee, That thou hast called thy Adam from the clod! Yet must I mourn that thou shouldst ever find me One moment sluggish, needing more of the rod Than thou didst think when thy desire …
668 wordsSECTION 30October.
24. Give me, take from me, as thou wilt. I learn-- Slowly and stubbornly I learn to yield With a strange hopefulness. As from the field Of hard-fought battle won, the victor chief Turns thankfully, although his heart do yearn, So from my old things to thy new I turn, With sad, thee-trusting heart, and not in gri…
477 wordsSECTION 31November
1. THOU art of this world, Christ. Thou know'st it all; Thou know'st our evens, our morns, our red and gray; How moons, and hearts, and seasons rise and fall; How we grow weary plodding on the way; Of future joy how present pain bereaves, Rounding us with a dark of mere decay, Tossed with a drift Of summer-falle…
680 wordsSECTION 32November
12. Why should I still hang back, like one in a dream, Who vainly strives to clothe himself aright, That in great presence he may seemly seem? Why call up feeling?--dress me in the faint, Worn, faded, cast-off nimbus of some saint? Why of old mood bring back a ghostly gleam-- While there He waits, love's heart a…
695 wordsSECTION 33November
23. How oft I say the same things in these lines! Even as a man, buried in during dark, Turns ever where the edge of twilight shines, Prays ever towards the vague eternal mark; Or as the sleeper, having dreamed he drinks, Back straightway into thirstful dreaming sinks, So turns my will to thee, for thee still lo…
469 wordsSECTION 34December.
1. I AM a little weary of my life-- Not thy life, blessed Father! Or the blood Too slowly laves the coral shores of thought, Or I am weary of weariness and strife. Open my soul-gates to thy living flood; I ask not larger heart-throbs, vigour-fraught, I pray thy presence, with strong patience rife. 2. I will wh…
651 wordsSECTION 35December.
12. Give me a world, to part for praise and sunder. The brooks be bells; the winds, in caverns dumb, Wake fife and flute and flageolet and voice; The fire-shook earth itself be the great drum; And let the air the region's bass out thunder; The firs be violins; the reeds hautboys; Rivers, seas, icebergs fill the …
656 wordsSECTION 36December.
23. I do remember how one time I thought, "God must be lonely--oh, so lonely lone! I will be very good to him--ah, nought Can reach the heart of his great loneliness! My whole heart I will bring him, with a moan That I may not come nearer; I will lie prone Before the awful loveliness in loneliness' excess." 24.…
687 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.