at there will be more need of faith
hereafter than we usually think. Can we ever apprehend the Father or
the Son without faith? The deepest truths are grasped by faith not
sight. The man who has learned to exercise faith here will have fuller
scope for his faith hereafter. What a shock to wake up in the next
world and to find that the riddles of life still need faith for their
solution! Yet I imagine that it will be so. Only faith will be able
to go deeper than here. The faith perfected in the mists of life will,
in the sunshine of eternity, see deeper into the meaning of events. I
wish I had more faith. Not sudden flights of faith annihilating time
and space and rising up to the throne of heaven. But I wish I could
ground all my actions on faith, and regularly see the invisible and
live as one who could see always and everywhere the Unseen. We are
schooled in different ways. We cannot attain to perfection in a night.
As we advance in the Christian life progress seems slower. In some
sense it is so. It is easier to cast off a number of definite bad
habits clearly inconsistent with the ideal just at first, than to
perfect self-sacrifice, humility, and self-discipline. But we are
advancing, though we know it not. If the engines are always kept
working, we shall reach our goal!

_To C. N. W; who had recently been ordained._

St. Leonards-on-Sea: January 12, 1900.

You must remember how much your future efficiency is dependent upon a
judicious use of your {121} strength during the next two or three
years. I am sure you are right in looking back upon your life and
tracing in its developments a higher than human guidance. It is a
helpful thing to trace now and anon God's hand in our individual life.
It brings Him nearer to us, and it is an awful thought that He is
actually working within us. It makes us trust Him for time to come
even when the prospect is gloomy. I think that we do well to spend
some time in trying to interpret details of our past life. As years go
on, we should have such a firm faith founded on the rock of experience
that we will not be lightly shaken. Peace should be a characteristic
of our life--the joy and peace which come from a certainty that there
is a Purpose in all events. The sense that God has been with us in the
past is a help in interpreting the history of our nation. Even our
troubles are a proof that He is disciplining us. For the service of
Intercession, which m