December 13
I Would Exchange My Lead for Gold
In the Hour of Silence"For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
I AM chargeable, the Master says, with a threefold disloyalty.
For my purposes are low. I lay up for myself treasure on earth. I am worldly in spirit, and I measure everything from the worldly point of view. "Didst thou ever see," asks Alan Fairford in Redgauntlet, "what artists call a Claude Lorraine glass, which spreads its own particular hue over the whole landscape?" My Claude Lorraine glass is an earthly disposition, which gives its tinge and tone to all my universe.
And my heart is divided. I seek to serve two masters—God and my own selfish interests. And that, of course, means that I am alienated from God, for He will not be content with a spasmodic and conventional allegiance. I must be His altogether, His without these miserable reservations, His so that Diabolus shall not have a corner in all the city of Mansoul.
And my trust is imperfect. I forget my Father's wisdom, my Father's power, my Father's love. I do not learn the lesson of repose which wayside flowers and happy birds should teach my spirit. I do not cast all my care on Him who careth for me. I am fretful, distracted, anxious, worried. I have need that the Master should touch my hot hands, with healing from His own, that the fever may leave me and I may rest.
Ah, my Lord, so mighty and so merciful, rescue me from my besetting sins. May the low purposes be sublimed and etherealised. May the divided heart be united to fear Thy name. May the imperfect trust become full and perpetual.