he one essential thing is that we should desire to draw near to God,
that we should faithfully determine by what way and in what manner we
can approach him best, and that we should pursue that path as
faithfully and as quietly as we can.

IX

It is Good Friday to-day. This morning I wandered through a clean,
rain-washed world; among budding hedges, making for the great Cathedral
towers that loom across the flat. It was noon when I passed through the
little streets. Entering the great western portals, I found the huge
Cathedral all lit by shafts of golden sunshine. There was a little
company of worshippers under the central lantern; and a grave and
dignified priest, with a tender sympathy of mien, solemnly vested, was
leading the little throng through the scenes of the Passion. I sate for
a long time among the congregation; and what can I say of the message
there delivered? It was subtle and serious enough, full of refinement
and sweetness, but it seemed to me to have little or nothing to do with
life. I will not here go into the whole of the teaching that I
heard--but it was for me all vitiated by one thought. The preacher
seemed to desire us to feel that the sad and wasted form of the
Redeemer, hanging in his last agony on the cross among the mocking
crowd, was conscious at once of his humanity and his Divinity. But the
thought is meaningless and inconceivable to me. If he was conscious
then of his august origin and destiny, if he knew that, to use a
material metaphor enough, he would shortly pass through lines of
kneeling angels amid triumphant pealing music to the very Throne and
Heart of God, the sufferings of his Passion can have been as nothing.
There is no touch of example or help for me in the scene. Even the
despairing cry, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" becomes a
piece of unworthy drama; and yet if one presses the words of Jesus, and
remembers that he had said but a few short hours before that he had but
to speak the word, and legions of angels were at hand to succour him,
it is impossible to resist the feeling that he knew who he was and
whither he was bound. I do not say that the thesis is untrue; I only
say that if he knew the truth, then there is no medicine in his
sufferings for human despair.

The preacher seemed to feel the difficulty dimly, for he fell back upon
the thought that the agony was caused by Christ's bearing the load of
the world's sin. But here again I felt that, af