There is a higher unity in which they are blended--in God Himself. It
must be right to follow the dictates of conscience when it bids us lose
our soul if we would gain it. We cannot trust God too much. If we
forget our self, He will see that our truest self is ultimately realised.

I can't express myself well, for I have just finished a spell of hard
work. I have sent away my tripos papers to-night. I am going up to
Edinburgh on Friday or Saturday. I fear I shall not see you until April
21. Will you tell Armitage that I will, if convenient to him, sleep at
Westminster that night instead of going straight to Cambridge? The
hopelessness of ever showing my gratitude to you or of ever making you
realise how much I love you oppresses me. I don't know what I should do
if I had not One Higher than I am to confide in--if I could not leave you
in His hands--if I could not gain strength and life for you by appealing
to Him.

O brother, if my faith is vain,
If hopes like these betray,
Pray for me, that I too may gain
The sure and safer way.

And Thou, O God, by whom are seen
Thy creatures as they be,
Forgive me if too close I lean
My human heart on Thee!

{184} I lean closer and closer as life goes on. I feel that our hope
lies in despair--despair of self. The vessels which contain the treasure
are, as to-night's lesson says, earthen, 'that the excess of the power
may be God's and not from us.' And there is a power, there is a life
working in us. It is the quiet, sane, constant work of the Spirit in and
upon our spirit, that never hastes and never tires: which gives me
comfort for you, for myself, for all of us. The same life that is at
work in the hedge across the road is in us, only in us it attains full
self-consciousness and freedom. We can deliberately use it or refuse it.
Forgive the length of the letter. But I felt so tired that I thought it
would do me good to write to you, selfish brute that I am.

I expect you enjoyed your time in Italy immensely. I should have liked
to be with you. I wonder if ever we shall be there together? Some day
we shall be in a world where the barriers of space are broken down:
'There shall be no more sea.' Yet it seems to me that we have not
altogether to wait for that other world. They are half broken down
already; and if we had faith as a grain of mustard seed, we should
realise the meaning of a unity deeper than any special or temporal bond.