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15—THE WALL WITH A WINDOW
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THEREFORE, child of the Father, let not your heart be troubled. The words have still their ancient power to calm the soul of man. And after we have listened a while we go about our common business with a new courage, and as we give our whole mind to the duty of the hour He comes sometimes privily, when we are least aware of Him. “But thou shalt full well know Him ere He go; for wonderfully He stirreth and mightily turneth thine heart into beholding of His goodness, and doth melt thine heart delectably, as wax against the fire, into softness of His love. But then He goeth ere thou wit it. For He withdraweth Himself somewhat, not in all, but from excess into sobriety; the highness passeth, but the substance and the effect of grace dwelleth still.”
But then He goeth ere thou wit it. Not that He has left us, for that can never be, but that for love-reasons He has withdrawn something that was ours before, and which we miss. And though the substance and effect still remain, we feel as one might who, after large freedom, was pent between walls. It is a familiar trial. It is the dryness that we touched upon before. But there is a window in the wall (there is no wall without a window); through patience and through comfort of the Scriptures we have hope, and that hope maketh not ashamed. It is the virtue of our Lord’s word relied upon, apart from any feeling, that opens a way of deliverance.
And it is the loving witness to Him that recovers our departed happiness. “What is thy Beloved more than another Beloved?” the daughters of Jerusalem ask the bride, who, just then, does not know where her Beloved is. But she tells them what she can of His beauty. And when they asked her, “Whither is thy Beloved gone that we may seek Him with thee?” she can tell them where He is, for now at last she knows: “My Beloved is gone down into His garden.”