Here is the beautiful Divine secret of our troubled dissatisfac- tion with things ; that we bear within us a commandment greater than ourselves, and are more than we are or can be. Our ever- lasting sense of limitation means that our illimitableness, our unappeasable hunger is due to our self-transcending capacity; nothing contents us because we are more than everything, because we are not a mere part of the visible system, but include, so to speak, something supernatural; capabilities, susceptibilities, not adjusted like the powers of other creatures to the scope and conditions of this mortal life, but overshooting them. And here, in the grander than ourselves, or the world — for the world is always insufficient for it, and we are always inferior to it — here in the grander than ourselves or the world which, possessing us, keeps us ever insatiable, ever unable to find perfection, let the world yield us what it will, or let us grow to what we may — here is the God of whom we dream and never hear or see, and whom men seek in vain to prove.
PSALM cxix. 96 455
We feel, do we not ? that we are capable of developments in knowledge and virtue which are never reached, that we are always imperfect at our best and greatest, and yet that there is no goodness or greatness to which we may not aspire ; that there are no limits to our possible progress. We are burdened with an ideal which, strive and attain as we may, is always reproaching, depreciating, condemning us, always looking down on us with eyes of disdain. There is that in us which declares continually that we might be and ought to be what we cannot be, what with all our wistfulness and effort we are perpetually hindered from being. And what does it signify but that we are invaded by the Infinite — that God is in us ? Our weary unrest, our successive disen- chantments and disappointments, our scorn of what we have gained or wrought, our sighs, as we " look before and after, and pine for what is not " — these are the hints and tokens of God.
^ Inward distaste — emptiness — discontent. Is it trouble of conscience, or sorrow of heart ? or the soul preying upon itself ? or merely a sense of strength decaying and time running to waste ? Is sadness — or regret — or fear — at the root of it ? I do not know : but this dull sense of misery has danger in it ; it leads to rash efforts and mad decisions. 0 for escape from self, for something to stifle the importunate voice of want and yearning ! Discontent is the father of temptation. How can we gorge the invisible serpent hidden at the bottom of our well, — gorge it so that it may sleep ? At the heart of all this rage and vain rebellion there lies — what ? Aspiration, yearning ! We are athirst for the infinite — for love — for I know not what. It is the instinct of happiness, which like some wild animal is restless for its prey. It is God calling — God avenging Himself.^
2. It would not answer even for the Christian who has meant to surrender his will, and really wants to be perfected in the will of God, to be made safe in his plans and kept in continual train of successes. He wants a reminder every hour — some defeat, surprise, adversity, peril ; to be agitated, mortified, beaten out of his courses, so that all that remains of self-will in him may be sifted out of him, and the very scent of his old perversity cleared. If we could be excused from all these changes and somersets, and go on securely in our projects, it would ruin the best of us. Life ^ Amiel's Journal (trans, by Mrs. Humphry Ward), 271.
456 LIBERTY IN GOD'S LAW
needs to have an element of danger and agitation, — perilous, changeful, eventful ; we need to have our evil will met by the stronger will of God, in order to be kept advised, by our experience, of the impossibility of that which our sin has under- taken. It would not do for us to be uniformly successful even in our best meant and holiest works, our prayers, our acts of sacrifice, our sacred enjoyments; for we should very soon fall back into the subtle power of our self-will, and begin to imagine, in our vanity, that we are doing something ourselves. Even here we need to be defeated and baffled now and then, that we may be shaken out of our self-reliance and sufficiency, else the taste of our evil habits remains in us, and our scent is not changed.
"We trust and fear, we question and believe, From life's dark threads a trembling faith to weave, Frail as the web that misty night has spun, Whose dew-gemmed awnings glitter in the sun.
While the calm centuries spell their lessons out, Each truth we conquer spreads the realm of doubt; When Sinai's summit was Jehovah's throne, The chosen Prophet knew His voice alone; When Pilate's hall that awful question heard, The heavenly Captive answered not a word.
Eternal Truth ! beyond our hopes and fears Sweep the vast orbits of thy myriad spheres! From age to age, while history carves sublime On her waste rock the flaming curves of time, How the wild swayings of our planet show That worlds unseen surround the world we know.* * Oliver Wendell Holmes.