^ He always lived with his Uinds up, and you saw all the workings of his mind. Had he not been steeped in the spirit of love he could never have survived the self-exposure which was a habit with him. But his very caprices were always unselfisli, and he could afford to let his friends look him through and through.^
As in some cavern dark and deep,
My soul within me here lies low. Where, veiled, she dreams in wondrous sleep
Of things I may not know.
• Pliillips Biooks, New Starts in Life, 272.
2 Love and Life : The Story of J. Denholm Brash (1913), 1(53.
PSALM XXV. 14 7
And if perchance she wake awhile, I probe her radiant eyes in vain :
She turns from me with misty smile And, sighing, sleeps again.^
3. God may be expected to keep some things hidden. In the most intimate and sacred of our friendships it is not for us to say what secrets shall be made known to us, and what secrets shall be guarded from our cognizance. A government reserves to itself the right of saying what information may be imparted to its friends, and what, for sufficient reasons, shall be kept back. A general on the battle-field, whilst putting safe and suitable selections of news at the service of authorized war correspondents, cannot allow them unlimited access to his plans. It is necessary to respect official reserve. And is not the temper which accepts such conditions binding on a true servant of God ? Let God Himself choose the things He sees fit to make known to us. If we live in reverent and believing fellowship He will treat us as confidants, and our knowledge of His methods and purposes will surpass that of the world ; but at the same time we need to be told once and again that He cannot admit us to equality with Himself by making known the veiled things we petulantly demand. It ought to satisfy us if His heart trusts us, and He comes to us in forms of revelation withheld from the world. He who is thus initiated into His deep counsels and led to know His will makes few mistakes in his prayers, and the faith he cherishes does not suffer the bitterness of disappointment or betrayal.
^ I have heard Sir Clifford AUbutt and Signor agree that the necessity or, perhaps better, the love of the mysterious, was an essential and valua]3le part of the human mind ; far from being all disadvantageous or an impediment to progress, it had been in the main a stimulus towards something transcending man's best efforts. Signor said: " It is in fact the poetic element; and what in the superstitious mind is mere dread, in Browning and Tennyson is aspiration. You cannot take away the mysterious from man, he cannot do without it." ^
^ One of the most beautiful of the Bishop's sonnets
^ Laurence Alma Tadema.
^ M. S. Watts, George Frederic Watts, ii. 177.
8 THE SECRET OF THE LORD
was composed at Trondhjem on August 12, 1888. It runs
thus : —
And was it there — the splendour I behold ? This great fjord with its silver grace outspread And thousand-creeked and thousand-islanded ? Those far-off hills, grape-purple, fold on fold? For yesterday, when all day long there rolled The blinding drift, methinks, had some one said " The scene is fair," I scarce had credited ; Yet fairer 'tis than any tongue hath told. And it was there ! Ah, yes ! And on my way More bravely I will go, though storm-clouds lour And all my sky be only cold and grey; For I have learnt the teaching of this hour: And when God's breath blows all these mists afar, I know that I shall see the things that are.^
4. Knowledge comes by obedience. It would be hopeless to try to tell the secret, even for the sake of inducing others to treasure it for themselves. The fact is that the secret might be told, and told in the best of words, without its ceasing to be a secret to those who heard. Words are necessary in religious as in other matters; but there is no fear of their telling anything which ought not to be told : first, because the secret is designed for all, and revealed to all who will listen to it ; and next, because it lies deeper far than the understanding, and never becomes the possession of any man till he takes it into his heart. For the obedience by which comes knowledge is the obedience of the heart. Obedience to law, and acts of worship arising out of fear of penalty, are merely hiding from God among the trees of the garden. Even obedience from duty can never be a satisfactory or final state ; it is merely educational, to make manifest defect of life. " I was alive without the law once ; but when the command- ment came, sin revived and I died." When the glory of the Lord has filled all the courts of His temple, man's outward nature becomes reconstituted, not after the law of a carnal command- ment, but after the power of an endless or indissoluble life. The tree of knowledge becomes one with the tree of life which is in the midst of the city, and on both sides of the river of life, proceeding from the tlirone of God and of the Lamb. » F. D. How, Bisliop Walsham How, 399.