l unsoiled by the
feet of the strenuous and only God is abroad; or in the evening, when
the hush has come, out to the blessed stars, and looking up at them
wonder at the meanness of the day just past, at the worthlessness of the
things one has struggled for, at the folly of having been so angry, and
so restless, and so much afraid. Nothing focusses life more exactly than
a little while alone at night with the stars. What are perfunctory
bedroom prayers hurried through in an atmosphere of blankets, to this
deep abasement of the spirit before the majesty of heaven? And as a
consecration of what should be yet one more happy day, of what value are
those hasty morning devotions, disturbed by fears lest the coffee should
be getting cold and that person, present in every household, whose
property is always to reprove, be more than usually provoked, compared
to going out into the freshness of the new day and thanking God
deliberately under His own wide sky for having been so good to us? I
know that when I had done my open-air _Te Deum_ up there in the
sun-flooded space among the shimmering bracken I went on my way with a
lightheartedness never mine after indoor religious exercises. The forest
was so gay that morning, so sparkling, so full of busy, happy creatures,
it would have been a sorry heart that did not feel jolly in such
society. In that all-pervading wholesomeness there was no room for
repentance, no place for conscience-stricken beating of the breast; and
indeed I think we waste a terrible amount of time repenting. The healthy
attitude, the only reasonable one towards a fault made or a sin
committed is surely a vigorous shake of one's moral shoulders, vigorous
enough to shake it off and out of remembrance. The sin itself was a sad
waste of time and happiness, and absolutely no more should be wasted in
lugubriously reflecting on it. Shall we, poor human beings at such a
disadvantage from the first in the fight with Fate through the many
weaknesses and ailments of our bodies, load our souls as well with an
ever-growing burden of regret and penitence? Shall we let a weight of
vivid memories break our hearts? How are we to get on with our living if
we are continually dropping into sloughs of bitter and often unjust
self-reproach? Every morning comes the light, and a fresh chance of
doing better. Is it not the sheerest folly and ingratitude to let
yesterday spoil the God-given to-day?
There had been a heavy dew, and the mo
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