Nothing but the beholding of the
face of the Son of Man could set him at rest as to its reality;
nothing less than the assurance from his own mouth could satisfy him
that all was true, all well: life was a thing so essentially divine,
that he could not know it in itself till his own essence was pure!
But alas, how dream-like was the old story! Was God indeed to be
reached by the prayers, affected by the needs of men? How was he to
feel sure of it? Once more, as often heretofore, he found himself
crying into the great world to know whether there was an ear to
hear. What if there should come to him no answer? How frightful
then would be his loneliness! But to seem not to be heard might be
part of the discipline of his darkness! It might be for the
perfecting of his faith that he must not yet know how near God was
to him!
"Lord," he cried, "eternal life is to know thee and thy Father; I do
not know thee and thy Father; I have not eternal life; I have but
life enough to hunger for more: show me plainly of the Father whom
thou alone knowest."
And as he prayed, something like a touch of God seemed to begin and
grow in him till it was more than his heart could hold, and the
universe about him was not large enough to hold in its hollow the
heart that swelled with it.
"God is enough," he said, and sat in peace.
CHAPTER XIII.
A SOUND.
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