[Faith-talk] A reading from a book that I'm in

[Poppa Bear]

Here is a small reading from a book that I am very fawned of and read every
couple of years, I don't know how to introduce it so I will just let it be
and let it work where it can. 
"he found himself at the

door of the cottage, where lay one of the heirs of all things,

waiting to receive his inheritance.

 

the news he heard was that the master was better; and the old

woman showed him at once to his room, saying she knew he would be

glad to see him. When he entered the study, in which, because of

his long illness and need of air where Mr. Simon lay, the room seemed to

grow radiant, filled with the smile that greeted Cosmo from the

pillow. The sufferer held out his hand almost eagerly to young Cosmo.

"Come, come!" he said; "I want to tell you something--a little

experience I have just had--an event of my illness. Outwardly it is

nothing, but to you it will not be nothing. --It was blowing a great

wind last night."

"So my father tells me," answered Cosmo, "but for my part I slept

too sound to hear it."

"It grew calm with the morning. As the light came the wind fell.

Indeed I think it lasted only about three hours altogether.

"I have of late been suffering a good deal with my breathing, and

it has always been worst when the wind was high. Last night I lay

awake in the middle of the night, very weary, and longing for the

sleep which seemed as if it would never come. I thought of Sir

Philip Sidney, how, as he lay dying, he was troubled, because, for

all his praying, God would not let him sleep: it was not the want

of the sleep that troubled him, but that God would not give it him;

and I was trying hard to make myself strong to trust in God

whatever came to me, sleep or waking weariness or slow death, when

all at once up got the wind with a great roar, as if the prince of

the power of the air were mocking at my prayers. And I thought with

myself, 'It is then the will of God that I shall neither sleep nor

lie at peace this night!' and I said, 'Thy will be done!' and laid

myself out to be quiet, expecting, as on former occasions when my

breathing would begin to grow thick and hard, and by and by I

should have to struggle for every breath of air. So I lay waiting. But

still as I waited, I kept breathing softly. No iron band ringed

itself about my chest; no sand filled up the passages of my lungs!

"The cottage is not very tight, and I felt the wind blowing all

about me as I lay. But instead of beginning to cough and wheeze, I

began to breathe better than before. Soon I fell fast asleep, and

when I woke I seemed a new man almost, so much better did I feel.

It was a wind of God, and had been blowing all about me as I slept,

renewing me! It was so strange, and so delightful! Where I dreaded

evil, there had come good! So, perchance, it will be when the time

which the flesh dreads is drawing nigh: we shall see the pale damps

of the grave approaching, but they will never reach us; we shall

hear ghastly winds issuing from the mouth of the tomb, but when

they blow upon us they shall be sweet like --the waving of the wings of

the angels that sit in the antechamber of the hall of life, once

the sepulcher of our Lord. And when we die, instead of finding we

are dead, we shall have waked better!"

It was an experience that would have been nothing to most men

beyond its relief, but to Peter Simon it was a word from the

eternal heart, which, in every true and quiet mood, speaks into the

hearts of men. When we cease listening to the cries of self-seeking

and self-care, then the voice that was there all the time enters

into our ears. It is the voice of the Father speaking to his child,

never known for what it is until the child begins to obey it. To

him who has not ears to hear God will not reveal himself: it would

be to slay him with terror."

George McDonald , Warlock o' Glenwarlock,