2. It is certain that God does not always interfere to keep us from sin, for that would frustrate His purpose in wishing us to grow good by experience, to grow good by first hating evil and then loving the good so that we may follow and do the good from a free choice. He will help us if we earnestly desire it, but not otherwise; for that would be forcing instead of drawing and
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winning our wills to His. By the discipline of experience God often lets us have our own way, permits us to gain what we desire, sometimes honourably, at other times dishonourably, through the mazes of meanness and even of crime. Some desires are in themselves perfectly innocent and lawful, others vicious and unlawful. But under the discipline of God the gratification of desires quite lawful in themselves sometimes leads to our moral and spiritual injury.
^ God recognizes and respects, at all times, His gift to man of freewill. God does not, for example, force grace upon the soul. He does not even, in some cases, reveal Himself except to those who seek Him. He points out to us indeed the right way. " Walk in this way," He says, " and it shall be your glory and your joy." But He does not say, "Walk in it, you shall and must." And, in like manner, if God sees that our hearts are set upon something which we have said we must have, at all costs, He says, " You shall have it — but the consequences of your choice be upon your own head ! " There is much insight and teaching in the old fable of Midas, King of Phrygia, who prayed that every- thing he touched might turn to gold. But his wish, when it was granted, proved a fatal one, for his very food turned into gold also, and soon he was starving.^
^ It is well to pray that God should put into our minds good desires, and that we should use our wills to keep ourselves from dwelling too much upon small and pitiful desires, for the fear is that they will be abundantly gratified. And thus when the time comes for recollection, it is a very wonderful thing to look back over Hfe, and see how eagerly gracious God has been to us. He knows very well that we cannot learn the paltry value of the things we desire, if they are withheld from us, but only if they are granted to us; and thus we have no reason to doubt His fatherly intention, because He does so much dispose life to please us. And we need not take it for granted that He will lead us by harsh and provocative discipline, though when He grants our desire, He sometimes sends leanness withal into our sovl.^
3. It does not follow that all pleasure or attainment of desire is highly dangerous, if not pernicious, and that the welfare of the soul is incompatible with physical enjoyment. All these con- clusions are false. The mischief arising from gratification is
' J. B. C. Murphy, The Service of the Master, 165. * A. C. Benson, Joyous Gard (1913). 91.
342 LEANNESS OF SOUL
caused only by the undue importance which is attached to it, and not by the gratification itself, so long as it is lawful. The righteous and loving God, we may be sure, does not grudge us any one of our pleasures, is not moved with malignity or envy, that He should seek to revenge Himself for our pleasure by smiting our souls with the curse of leanness. But He knows the infinite value of the soul and the necessity for its being properly nourished and in full vigour, and He must teach us by experience how immensely more valuable the soul is and how far more needful it is for us to have our souls in health than to have any earthly desires satisfied. He did so teach those poets of old who said " The law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver." " I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food." " Thou art my God, my bliss. My welfare is nothing without thee." It is to bring us into this state that, whenever we set our hearts too much upon our own gratification, our souls are made to suffer for it.'
^ A man may have before him only the attainment of a perfectly honourable and legitimate ambition. Let such an one, in the Name of God, go on, and prosper. But if it so be that God is banished from that man's life because of his ambition — if he begin to say that he has " no time " for prayer, for the reading of God's Word, for meditation upon holy tilings, no time for prepara- tion for Holy Communion — then let him tremble also. He will get his desire, it may be, but what will that avail him if, when he has won the prize, it suddenly lose all its value in his eyes and bruig him no real satisfaction ; if there shall spring up within him the consciousness of a never-dying, ever-increasing hunger — a hunger of the soul — a gnawing, a restlessness, a craving, which God, and God alone, can satisfy and soothe ? And what is all this but fulness of body and leanness of soul ? ^