Letter 57. To One of the Bishop’s Spiritual Children

CHILDREN.

When will our mere natural ties, common courtesies, and civilities, all our sympathies and graces, be purified and reduced into perfect subjection to the pure love of God’s Good Pleasure? When will self cease to crave for visible, external tokens of earthly love, and when shall we be fully satisfied to rest in the unchanging promise of God’s Presence? What can a visible presence add to the love which God has created and sustained?

When shall we all overflow with gentleness and i(*4 kindness to our neighbour? When shall we see our neighbour wholly in the Sacred Heart of the Saviour? Alas, those who do not behold Him in this light run the risk of failing to love Him purely, faithfully, or evenly. But if we see Christ in our fellow man, who would not love and bear with him? Who would not tolerate his failings with patience? Who would be peevish or weary of his neighbour? But it is so, and we ought never to forget that Christ so loved that neighbour as to die for him of very love.

i:353-3 lx.