The Seaboard Parish, Complete. George MacDonald

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СКАЧАТЬ before their eyes. Therefore he was taken away, that his Spirit, which was more himself than his bodily presence, might come into them—that they might receive the gift of God into their innermost being. After he had gone out of their sight, and they might look all around and down in the grave and up in the air, and not see him anywhere—when they thought they had lost him, he began to come to them again from the other side—from the inside. They found that the image of him which his presence with them had printed in light upon their souls, began to revive in the dark of his absence; and not that only, but that in looking at it without the overwhelming of his bodily presence, lines and forms and meanings began to dawn out of it which they had never seen before. And his words came back to them, no longer as they had received them, but as he meant them. The spirit of Christ filling their hearts and giving them new power, made them remember, by making them able to understand, all that he had said to them. They were then always saying to each other, ‘You remember how;’ whereas before, they had been always staring at each other with astonishment and something very near incredulity, while he spoke to them. So that after he had gone away, he was really nearer to them than he had been before. The meaning of anything is more than its visible presence. There is a soul in everything, and that soul is the meaning of it. The soul of the world and all its beauty has come nearer to you, my dear, just because you are separated from it for a time.”

      “Thank you, dear papa. I do like to get a little sermon all to myself now and then. That is another good of being ill.”

      “You don’t mean me to have a share in it, then, Connie, do you?” said my wife, smiling at her daughter’s pleasure.

      “O, mamma! I should have thought you knew all papa had got to say by this time. I daresay he has given you a thousand sermons all to yourself.”

      “Then you suppose, Connie, that I came into the world with just a boxful of sermons, and after I had taken them all out there were no more. I should be sorry to think I should not have a good many new things to say by this time next year.”

      “Well, papa, I wish I could be sure of knowing more next year.”

      “Most people do learn, whether they will or not. But the kind of learning is very different in the two cases.”

      “But I want to ask you one question, papa: do you think that we should not know Jesus better now if he were to come and let us see him—as he came to the disciples so long, long ago? I wish it were not so long ago.”

      “As to the time, it makes no difference whether it was last year or two thousand years ago. The whole question is how much we understand, and understanding, obey him. And I do not think we should be any nearer that if he came amongst us bodily again. If we should, he would come. I believe we should be further off it.”

      “Do you think, then,” said Connie, in an almost despairing tone, as if I were the prophet of great evil, “that we shall never, never, never see him?”

      “That is quite another thing, my Connie. That is the heart of my hopes by day and my dreams by night. To behold the face of Jesus seems to me the one thing to be desired. I do not know that it is to be prayed for; but I think it will be given us as the great bounty of God, so soon as ever we are capable of it. That sight of the face of Jesus is, I think, what is meant by his glorious appearing, but it will come as a consequence of his spirit in us, not as a cause of that spirit in us. The pure in heart shall see God. The seeing of him will be the sign that we are like him, for only by being like him can we see him as he is. All the time that he was with them, the disciples never saw him as he was. You must understand a man before you can see and read his face aright; and as the disciples did not understand our Lord’s heart, they could neither see nor read his face aright. But when we shall be fit to look that man in the face, God only knows.”

      “Then do you think, papa, that we, who have never seen him, could know him better than the disciples? I don’t mean, of course, better than they knew him after he was taken away from them, but better than they knew him while he was still with them?”

      “Certainly I do, my dear.”

      “O, papa! Is it possible? Why don’t we all, then?”

      “Because we won’t take the trouble; that is the reason.”

      “O, what a grand thing to think! That would be worth living—worth being ill for. But how? how? Can’t you help me? Mayn’t one human being help another?”

      “It is the highest duty one human being owes to another. But whoever wants to learn must pray, and think, and, above all, obey—that is simply, do what Jesus says.”

      There followed a little silence, and I could hear my child sobbing. And the tears stood in; my wife’s eyes—tears of gladness to hear her daughter’s sobs.

      “I will try, papa,” Constance said at last. “But you will help me?”

      “That I will, my love. I will help you in the best way I know; by trying to tell you what I have heard and learned about him—heard and learned of the Father, I hope and trust. It is coming near to the time when he was born;—but I have spoken quite as long as you are able to bear to-night.”

      “No, no, papa. Do go on.”

      “No, my dear; no more to-night. That would be to offend against the very truth I have been trying to set forth to you. But next Sunday—you have plenty to think about till then—I will talk to you about the baby Jesus; and perhaps I may find something more to help you by that time, besides what I have got to say now.”

      “But,” said my wife, “don’t you think, Connie, this is too good to keep all to ourselves? Don’t you think we ought to have Wynnie and Dora in?”

      “Yes, yes, mamma. Do let us have them in. And Harry and Charlie too.”

      “I fear they are rather young yet,” I said. “Perhaps it might do them harm.”

      “It would be all the better for us to have them anyhow,” said Ethelwyn, smiling.

      “How do you mean, my dear?”

      “Because you will say things more simply if you have them by you. Besides, you always say such things to children as delight grown people, though they could never get them out of you.”

      It was a wife’s speech, reader. Forgive me for writing it.

      “Well,” I said, “I don’t mind them coming in, but I don’t promise to say anything directly to them. And you must let them go away the moment they wish it.”

      “Certainly,” answered my wife; and so the matter was arranged.

CHAPTER IV. A SUNDAY EVENING.

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      When I went in to see Constance the next Sunday morning before going to church, I knew by her face that she was expecting the evening. I took care to get into no conversation with her during the day, that she might be quite fresh. In the evening, when I went into her room again with my Bible in my hand, I found all our little company assembled. There was a glorious fire, for it was very cold, and the little ones were seated on the rug before it, one on each side of their mother; Wynnie sat by the further side of the СКАЧАТЬ