well as the sunshine. And we do need
sunshine. I feel more and more grateful and thankful to God for His
goodness. He has been so good to me, and I don't deserve it. And I
think that if you look back and look forward you will feel more and
more His marvellous sympathy and affection. I am glad you have been
reading Robertson's Life. Though he {134} may have been almost morbid
at times, he was a great man and did a great work. . . . You will find
later that your work has been far more effective than you expected.
Don't try to rush it. You can't help men much until you know them very
well; and when you know them you find how utterly different they are
from what you had expected them to be. At least I do. No two men are
alike. Each man that you come really to know is utterly different from
any man you have ever met or will meet.

_To F. J. C._

Christ's College, Cambridge: November 5, 1900.

It is good of you to think of me and above all to pray for me. I need
your prayers--and most of all when I am run down and unable to pray
myself. I can see the mountain top at times: then the mist comes down,
and I cannot see the way; I try to keep where I am, though I may not be
able to advance; and when the mist clears I go on again. Possibly,
sometimes, we may be going forward even in the mist, although we seem
to be making no progress, or going backward.

God judges by a light
Which baffles mortal sight.

I often wish I had more physical strength and was able to do what other
men can do; but I can't. And I have no doubt that all is well--that I
am made to do one particular piece of work, and that I have strength
enough for that--and thank God for that.

{135}

_To a brother in South Africa._

December 1900.

It is a marvellous thought that God can reveal Himself to man--even
primitive man. In those stories Jehovah is very near to man. He walks
in the garden at nightfall. He shuts Noah into the Ark. He comes down
to see the city and the tower 'which the children of men builded.' He
talks with Moses face to face as a man speaketh to his friend--and a
ladder connects heaven and earth, and the angels, instead of using
wings, walk up and down the ladder--and, behold, Jehovah stood above
it. At any moment you might meet Jehovah Himself. Three men come to
see Abraham--and Jehovah has appeared to him. A man wrestles with
Jacob, and he has seen God face to face. They were right when they
thought