ere; one may go where one's will inclines one, and speak as
one's heart tells one to speak. I think you are perhaps too conscious of
waiting for something. Your task lies ahead of you, but the work of love
can begin at once and anywhere."

"Yes," I said, "I feel that now and here. Will you not tell me something
of yourself in return? I cannot read your mind clearly--it is occupied
with something I cannot grasp--what is your work in heaven?"

"Oh," he said lightly, "that is easy enough, and yet you would not
understand it. I have been led through the shadow of fear, and I have
passed out on the other side. And my duty is to release others from
fear, as far as I can. It is the darkest shadow of all, because it
dwells in the unknown. Pain, without it, is no suffering at all; indeed
pain is almost a pleasure, when one knows what it is doing for one. But
fear is the doubt whether pain or suffering are really helping us; and
just as memory never has any touch of fear about it, so hope may
likewise have done with fear."

"But how did you learn this?" I said.

"Only by fearing to the uttermost," he replied. "The power--it is not
courage, because that only defies fear--cannot be given one; it must be
painfully won. You remember the blessing of the pure in heart, that they
shall see God? There would be little hope in that promise for the soul
that knew itself to be impure, if it were not for the other side of
it--that the vision of God, which is the most terrible of all things,
can give purity to the most sin-stained soul. In that vision, all desire
and all fear have an end, because there is nothing left either to desire
or to dread. That vision we may delay or hasten. We may delay it, if we
allow our prudence, or our shame, or our comfort, to get in the way: we
may hasten it, if we cast ourselves at every moment of our pilgrimage
upon the mercy and the love of God. His one desire is that we should be
satisfied; and if He seems to put obstacles in our way, to keep us
waiting, to permit us to be miserable, that is only that we may learn to
cast ourselves into love and service--which is the one way to His heart.
But now I must be going, for I have said all that you can bear. Will you
remember this--not to reserve yourself, not to think others unworthy or
hostile, but to cast your love and trust freely and lavishly, everywhere
and anywhere? We must gather nothing, hold on to nothing, just give
ourselves away at every moment, flow