n will climb the spiritual heights, neither can
we climb them without using our will. It is Will flowing towards
Will which carries us by the power of Jesus Christ to the Goal.

VI

With recovered health, I married, and knew great happiness; but as a
bride of four months I had to part from my husband, who went to the
South African War. Always, always this terrible pain of love that
must part. Always it was love that seemed to me the most beautiful
thing in life, and always it was love that hurt me most. He was away
for fifteen months. I made no spiritual advance whatever. Mystified
by so much pain, I now began to regard God if not as the actual
Author of all pain, at any rate as the Permitter of all pain. More and
more I fell back in alarm at the discovery of the depths of my own
capacities for suffering. A tremendous fear of God now commenced
to grow up in me, which so increased that after a few years I listened
with astonishment when I heard people say they were afraid of
_any_ person, even a burglar! I could no longer understand feeling
fear for anyone or anything save God. All my actions were now
governed solely by this sense of weighty, immediate fear of Him.
This continued for some ten years.

When my husband at last returned from the War we took up again
our happy married life, and we lived together without a cross word,
in a wonderful world of our own, as lovers do. It was remarkable
that we were so happy, for we had no interests in common. My
husband loved all sports and all games, whereas interest in those
things was frankly incomprehensible to me. In the winter, when he
was out in the hunting-field, I spent much time by myself; but I was
never dull, for I could walk out amongst Nature and indulge in my
pastime, if the weather were fine: and if not, I could observe and
admire everything that grew and lived close at hand in the
hedgerows and fields, and I would work for hours with my needle,
for then I could think; I worked hard in the garden.

A dreadful question now often presented itself to me: Had I really a
soul at all, or was I merely a passing shadow, here momentarily for
God's amusement? If I had an eternal soul, where did it live--in my
head with my brain as a higher part of my mind?

Men had souls, I was sure of that; and they asserted the possession
of them very positively--but women? I understood Mahomed
grudgingly granted them a half-soul, and that only conditionally.
Scriptures spoke hars