JANUARY 1, 1853.-It is not always so easy to practice, as it is to preach.I can see in my wisdom forty reasons for having four children and no more.The comfort of sleeping in peace, of having a little time to read, and to keep on with my music; strength with which to look after Ernest's poor people when they are sick; and, to tell the truth, strength to be bright and fresh and lovable to him--all these little joys have been growing very precious to me, and now-I must give them up.I want to do it cheerfully and without a frown.But Ifind I love to have my own way, and that at the very moment I was asking God to appoint my work for me, I was secretly marking it out for myself.It is mortifying to find my will less in harmony with His than I thought it was; and that I want to prescribe to Him how Ishall spend the time and the health and the strength which are His, not mine.But I will not rest until till this struggle is over; till I can say with a smile, "Not my will! Not my will! But Thine!"We have been, this winter, one of the happiest families on earth.Our love to each other, Ernest's and mine, though not perfect-nothing on earth is-has grown less selfish, more Christlike; it has been sanctified by prayer and by the sorrows we have borne together.Then the children have been well and happy, and the source of almost unmitigated joy and comfort.And Helen's presence in this home, her sisterly affection, her patience with the children and her influence over them, is a benediction for which I cannot be thankful enough.
How delightful it is to have a sister! I think it is not often the case that own sisters have such perfect Christian sympathy with each other as we have.Ever since the day she ceased to torment herself with the fear that she was not a child of God, and laid aside the sombre garments she had worn so long, she has had a peace that has hardly known a cloud.She says, in a note written me about the time:
I want you to know, my darling sister, that the despondency that made my affliction so hard to bear fled before those words of yours which, as I have already told you, God taught you to speak.I do not know whether I was really His child, at the time, or not.I had certainly had an experience very different from yours; prayer had never been much more to me than a duty; and I had never felt the sweetness of that harmony between God and I the human soul that I now know can take away all the bitterness from the cup of sorrow.I knew-who can help knowing it that reads God's word?-that he required submission from His children and that His children gave it, no matter what it cost.The Bible is full of beautiful expressions of it; so are our hymns; so are the written lives of all good men and good women; and Ihave seen it in you, my dear Katy, at the very moment you were accusing yourself of the want of it.Entire oneness of the will with the Divine Will seem to me to be the law and the gospel of the Christian life; and this evidence of a renewed nature, I found wanting in myself.At any moment during the three years following James' death I would have snatched away from God, if I could; I was miserably lonely and desolate without him, not merely because he had been so much, to me, but because his loss revealed to me the distance between Christ and my soul.All I could do was to go on praying, year after year, in a dreary, hopeless way, that I might learn to say, as David did, 'I opened not my mouth because Thou didst it.' When you suggested that instead of trying to figure out whether I had loved God, I should begin to love Him now, light broke in upon my soul; Igave myself to Him that instant and as soon as I could get away by myself I fell upon my knees and gave myself up to the sense of His sovereignty for the first time in my life.Then, too, I looked at my 'light affliction,' and at the 'weight of glory ' side by side, and thanked Him that through the one He had revealed to me the other.
Katy, I know the human heart is deceitful above all things, but Ithink it would be a dishonor to God to doubt that He then revealed Himself to me as He doth not to the world, and that the sweet peace Ithen found in yielding to Him will be more or less mine so long as Ilive.Oh, if all sufferers could learn what I have learned! that every broken heart could be healed as mine has been healed! My precious sister, cannot we make this one part of our mission on earth, to pray for every sorrow-stricken soul, and whenever we have influence over such, to lead it to honor God by instant obedience to His will, whatever that may be? I have dishonored Him by years of rebellious, carefully-nursed sorrow; I want to honor Him now by years of resignation and grateful joy."Reading this letter over in my present mood has done me good.More beautiful faith in God than Helen's I have never seen; let me have it, too.May this prayer, which, under the inspiration of the moment, I can offer without a misgiving, become the habitual, deep-seated desire of my soul:
"Bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.Take what I cannot give--my heart, body, thoughts, time, abilities, money, health, strength, nights, days, youth, age, and spend them in Thy service, O my crucified Master, Redeemer, God.Oh, let these not be mere words! Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison of Thee.My heart is athirst for God, for the living God.When shall I come and appear before God?"
