's life is conscious. Law is more completely seen {67} in family
and national than individual life, because in God Himself are seen the
archetypes of human relations.

This letter is disjointed, but contains a few thoughts which may prove
helpful--thoughts I have been learning from others of late.

We are having lovely weather.

The buds 'feeling' after each other--new life and resurrection life--a
type, a pledge of fuller resurrection, of Easter life--nay, the same
Life--'I am the Resurrection and the Life'--working in trees and
flowers and man. What a glorious thing to live in a world which has
been united with its Maker--a world of perfect law and order--a world
where every infraction of law must and will be punished--a world where
Love is Law and Law is Love--a world where a great thought is being
realised, and will be realised in and for us! You use 'Theology'
loosely--'Theology' is _the_ thing and 'Religion' is not, I think,
nearly such a fine word. Theology is the Learning, Knowing, Studying
God. I am sorry I have said nothing about Jewish sacrificial law. I
meant to. That expresses a great fact. It dimly hints (as sacrificial
law in other nations does) at the fact that the ground of the universe
is self-sacrifice--that the ground of all human, whether family or
national, life is a filial sacrifice. I think other nations besides
Jews regarded _all_ law as coming from God; nay, I think all nations
did in part at least.

{68}

_To E. N. L., on the occasion of the death of his brother, who was
killed by lightning at Cambridge._[1]

June 18, 1892.

. . . I do feel for you, and could do a great deal to help you. I can
only tell you what I have felt to be the only thing which makes life
endurable at a time of real sorrow--God Himself. He comes unutterably
near in trouble. In fact, one scarcely knows He exists until one loves
or sorrows. There is no 'getting over' sorrow. I hate the idea. But
there is a 'getting into' sorrow, and finding right in the heart of it
the dearest of all human beings--the Man of Sorrows, a God. This may
sound as commonplace, but it is awfully real to me. I cling to God. I
believe He exists. If He does not, I can explain nothing. If He does,
all whom we love are safer with Him than with us. If we can only get
nearer ourselves to God, we shall get nearer to those whom we love, for
they too are in God.

We shall be one, ever more and more really one, the nearer