will of God of which
Jesus speaks? Here he found himself in difficulty. The theology of
his grandmother rushed in upon him, threatening to overwhelm him with
demands as to feeling and inward action from which his soul turned
with sickness and fainting. That they were repulsive to him, that they
appeared unreal, and contradictory to the nature around him, was no
proof that they were not of God. But on the other hand, that they
demanded what seemed to him unjust,--that these demands were founded on
what seemed to him untruth attributed to God, on ways of thinking and
feeling which are certainly degrading in a man,--these were reasons of
the very highest nature for refusing to act upon them so long as, from
whatever defects it might be in himself, they bore to him this aspect.
He saw that while they appeared to be such, even though it might turn
out that he mistook them, to acknowledge them would be to wrong God. But
this conclusion left him in no better position for practice than before.

When at length he did see what the will of God was, he wondered, so
simple did it appear, that he had failed to discover it at once. Yet
not less than a fortnight had he been brooding and pondering over the
question, as he wandered up and down that burnside, or sat at the foot
of the heather-crowned stone and the silver-barked birch, when the light
began to dawn upon him. It was thus.

In trying to understand the words of Jesus by searching back, as it
were, for such thoughts and feelings in him as would account for the
words he spoke, the perception awoke that at least he could not have
meant by the will of God any such theological utterances as those which
troubled him. Next it grew plain that what he came to do, was just to
lead his life. That he should do the work, such as recorded, and much
besides, that the Father gave him to do--this was the will of God
concerning him. With this perception arose the conviction that unto
every man whom God had sent into the world, he had given a work to do in
that world. He had to lead the life God meant him to lead. The will of
God was to be found and done in the world. In seeking a true relation to
the world, would he find his relation to God?

The time for action was come.

He rose up from the stone of his meditation, took his staff in his hand,
and went down the mountain, not knowing whither he went. And these were
some of his thoughts as he went:

'If it was the will of God who made me an