To be near unto God - pagina 60

the inner solitariness can never be broken. And Either one of two things is bound to happen: the soul may be left too solitary or its solitariness may not be sufiBciently appreciated. The soul is too solitary when we are bereft of our means of support and of the sweet companionship of life. This is the solitariness of grief and of forsakenness, which as burdens, weigh us down and make us afraid. For the soul is disposed to sympathy, to friendly intercourse with the world, to give and to win confidence, to live as man among men, and to spread its wings in spheres of happiness and peace. When these are withheld, when hatred repels, and slander persecutes, instead of love that attracts and sympathy that refreshes, shy and shivering the soul draws back within itself. It can not unburden itself. It can not tell what it feels. And shut up within itself it pines away in loneliness and grief. Again, when the joys of life take flight, and cares make heavy hearts, when sorrow overtakes sorrow, and the horizon narrows itself and the outlook becomes darker and darker, and the star of hope sets behind ever-thickening clouds then, in distressing lonehness, the soul is thrown back upon itself and the solitary one pants for breath, and then is the time for Satan to come in with the thought

—

of suicide.

As the soul can be troubled and distressed in way by too much solitude, it can also suffer

this

when

as the result of superficiality, thoughtof seriousness, its solitude is not properly estimated. At such times the soul is not known, neither is it honored in its individual, solitary and independent existence. Then the only loss,

lessness

and want

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