23. In such* God-silence, the soul's nest, so long
As all is still, no flutter and no song,
Is safe. But if my soul begin to act
Without some waking to the eternal fact
That my dear life is hid with Christ in God--
I think and move a creature of earth's clod,
Stand on the finite, act upon the wrong.
24. My soul this sermon hence for itself prepares:--
"Then is there nothing vile thou mayst not do,
Buffeted in a tumult of low cares,
And treacheries of the old man 'gainst the new."--
Lord, in my spirit let thy spirit move,
Warning, that it may not have to reprove:--
In my dead moments, master, stir the prayers.
25. Lord, let my soul o'erburdened then feel thee
Thrilling through all its brain's stupidity.
If I must slumber, heedless of ill harms,
Let it not be but in my Father's arms;
Outside the shelter of his garment's fold,
All is a waste, a terror-haunted wold.--
Lord, keep me. 'Tis thy child that cries. Behold.
26. Some say that thou their endless love hast won
By deeds for them which I may not believe
Thou ever didst, or ever willedst done:
What matter, so they love thee? They receive
Eternal more than the poor loom and wheel
Of their invention ever wove and spun.--
I love thee for I must, thine all from head to heel.
27. The love of thee will set all notions right.
Right save by love no thought can be or may;
Only love's knowledge is the primal light.
Questions keep camp along love's shining coast--
Challenge my love and would my entrance stay:
Across the buzzing, doubting, challenging host,
I rush to thee, and cling, and cry--Thou know'st.
28. Oh, let me live in thy realities,
Nor substitute my notions for thy facts,
Notion with notion making leagues and pacts;
They are to truth but as dream-deeds to acts,
And questioned, make me doubt of everything.--
"O Lord, my God," my heart gets up and cries,
"Come thy own self, and with thee my faith bring."
29. O master, my desires to work, to know,
To be aware that I do live and grow--
All restless wish for anything not thee,
I yield, and on thy altar offer me.
Let me no more from out thy presence go,
But keep me waiting watchful for thy will--
Even while I do it, waiting watchful still.
*I believe MacDonald is continuing the thought of July 22, which may be read here.
The above is excerpted from George MacDonald's A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul (Public Domain, 1880). For further information see this post. These are the entries for/from July 23 - July 29.
2 comments:
Yesterday I heard the pastor of one of the larget churches in Columbus say C.S.Lewis was his favorite author. I wonder how much he reads MacDonald, who was one of Lewis's.
Probably not much, if any. MacDonald hasn't had a feature film made from his work, and he was never on the cover of Time (Lewis was). I'm sure that MacDonald isn't the only writer who has been largely forgotten, to our loss. No doubt Lewis will be forgotten, too, eventually.
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