* W. J. Dq,wson, The Pivine Challenge, 113.
EPHESIANS II. 10 45
^ I think, as I look back over my life, that there is hardly a single thwarting of my wishes, hardly a single instance where things seemed to go against me, in which I cannot even now see, that by God's profound mercy they really went for me all the while ; so that if I could have looked forward only so far as the time now present I should have longed for and welcomed all those things which I have feared and grudgingly accepted. . . . There is nothing that God does not work up into His perfect plan of our lives : all lines converge, all movements tend to do His will, on earth as in Heaven.^
2. God, who does nothing vainly or at random, delights in that which is individual; He prepares ua for the pathway of good works because He has also prepared the pathway for us ; the two have originated together in His mind. It has been chosen for us, as a fitting stage to educe and develop our special powers ; we have been created for it, and therefore endowed with the powers it will call for. Men differ in gifts and aptitudes as infinitely as do the leaves of a tree in form and texture ; and one of the beautiful and inspiring thoughts that lie, like precious jfi^rains of gold, beneath the surface of this text, is the message that God has His own ideal for each one of us, and therefore would have us manifest the Christ-like and Christ-nourished life each in his own way. God keeps no set moulds into which character must run ; rather the mould is broken after the emer- gence of each new life. For each the end of the journey is the same, when we shall all come to the measure of Christ's fullness ; but one may approach the far-shining summit up a gentle slope, soft with grass and deep with flowers, another over morass and torrent, and at last along the flinty way where the tender feet are bruised, and the wind blows keen across the snow. It matters little, if only we tread the ordained pathway of God.
^ Mrs. Josephine Butler, for whose heroism he had a deep veneration, was one of four women of mark whom Signor (Mr. Watts) wished to include in his series of portraits for the National Gallery. Her portrait was painted, and at Limnerslease, where she came to stay with us. Very lovely in her youth, in age her delicate sensitive nature still gave true beauty to a face that bore but too plainly the marks of an heroic crusade. When she saw the portrait for the first time she said but a few words. She left * Francis Paget, Bishop of Oxford, 49.
46 GOD'S WORKMANSHIP
the room and went to take the rest which at intervals was now necessary for her. Before she came downstairs to dinner she had written what she had not been able to say to Signor : —
" When I looked at that portrait which you have just done, I felt inclined to burst into tears. I will tell you why. I felt so sorry for her. Your power has brought up out of the depths of the past, the record of a conflict which no one but God knows of. It is written in the eyes, and whole face. Your picture has brought back to me all that I suffered, and the sorrows through which the Angel of God's presence brought me out alive. I thank you that you have not made that poor woman look severe or bitter, but only sad, and yet purposeful. For with full purpose of heart she has borne and laboured, and she is ready to go down to Hades again, if it were necessary, for the deliverance of her fellow-creatures. But God does not require that descent more than once. I could not say all this aloud. But if the portrait speaks with such truth and power to me, I think it will in some way speak to others also." ^
^ Some time ago, when in Manchester, I saw men at work pulling down whole streets of houses to make room for a new railway station. All appeared ruin and disorder. Here was a party digging out foundations; in another place the bricklayers were building walls ; elsewhere some were laying foundations for other walls; beyond them others were still pulling down. It seemed like chaos, and yet in the architect's office could be seen the elevation and picture of the complete whole. Every man was working to a plan. And so God has His elevation, but He does not show it. " It doth not yet appear." When Joseph was in jail, he was in the path of Providence, and the fetters of iron were as much part of the plan as the chain of gold he wore when brought to the summit of greatness.^
^ To erect a great building, to paint a great picture, to carve a great statue, to compose a great oratorio, to write a great poem, requires a great theme, and to live a great life requires a great purpose. So we, God's poems, to fulfil our mission in the world, must have a great purpose. Gladstone, Wellington, Grant, Lincoln, Washington, Luther, Savonarola, Paul, were all men of purpose and noble ambition. Frances Willard, Florence Nightin- gale, Elizabeth Fry, and Susanna Wesley were women of purpose, as have been all those who have accomplished anything worth the doing.'