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Exclamation XIII

1, O my Lord, very God of mine! "He who knows Thee not, loves Thee not."1 How true this is, but woe, ah, woe! to those who seek not to know Thee! ' The hour of death is an hour of terror; but, alas, alas, my Creator, how terrific wül be that day on which Thy justice shall be executed! Often do I think, my Saviour, how beautiful are Thine eyes to those who love Thee, on whom Thou, my only Good, dost deign to gaze with affection. I think but one such tender glance, bent on those Thou boldest as Thine own, is recompense for many a year's service.

  1. Good God, how hard it is to make this understood234

  2. O brothers, brothers, my brethren, children of this God, courage! courage! for you know that if we repent, His Majesty has promised to remember our sins and wickedness no more.

  3. Oh, what boundless mercy! What more could we desire? Would not anyone be ashamed of asking so much? Now is the time to accept what this compassionate Lord and God of ours gives us. He seeks our friendship: who would deny it Him Who refused not to shed all His blood and to lose His life for our sakes? See, this is nothing He asks from us, a mere nothing, and only what it is best for us to give Him.

  4. Alas, O Lord! what hard-heartedness, what folly, what blindness! We grieve if we lose anything, — an arrow ' — a hawk which amuses but for a moment by its flight through the air — yet we care nothing if we forfeit this imperial eagle of the majesty of God, and a kingdom of endless joys. Why is it? Why is it? I cannot understand it. Put an end, my God, to such folly and blindness!

Footnotes

  1. Ps. xxxiii. 9: Gústate et videte quoniam suavis est Dominus. ^ Castle, M. vi. ch. ix. 4. ↩

  2. I John iii. 6: Omnis qui peccat, non vidit eum, nee cognovit eum. ↩

  3. " If a man loves Thee not, O Lord, he loves Thee not because he knows Thee not, and he knows Thee not because he does not understand Thee " [St. Augustine's Soliloquies. Migne, P.L. t. xl. c. i. col. 865). EXCLAMATIONS. lOI by one who has not " tasted and seen * how sweet the Lord is." O Christians, Christians, reflect on your brotherhood with this great God! Realise it; think not lightly of it; for His gaze is as full of terror for His persecutors as of love for His friends. 3. Oh! we do not understand that sin is a pitched battle of all the senses and powers of the soul against God: the greater the sinner's power, the more does he scheme to betray his King. Thou knowest, my Lord, that the thought of seeing Thy divine gaze turned on me in wrath in that last terrible day of judgment has often terriñed me far more than all I have heard of the tortures and furies of hell, and I besought Thee of Thy mercy to save me from such misery, as I beseech Thee now, Lord! What evil could happen to me in this world approaching this? Give me all earthly ills, my God, but spare me this misery! ® Let me not lose my God, nor the peaceful contemplation of Thy beauty: Thy Father gave Thee to us, Lord; let me not lose so precious a Jewel! 4. I confess, eternal Father, that I have kept it negligently, but that may still be remedied. Lord, it may be remedied while I still dwell in this land of exile. ↩

  4. " Burn me, wound me, spare me not here, that Thou mayest spare me in eternity " (St. Augustine). ↩

Chapter 13 of 16