He finds no more pleasure in sin. He is sick and tired of it. He
has had enough of it and too much. He is miserable, and he hardly
knows why. But miserable he is. There is a longing, and craving,
and hunger at his heart after something better; at least after
something different. Then he begins to remember his heavenly
Father's house. Old words which he learnt at his mother's knee, good
old words out of his Catechism and his Bible, start up strangely in
his mind. He had forgotten them, laughed at them, perhaps, in his
wild days. But now they come up, he does not know where from, like
beautiful ghosts gliding in. And he is ashamed of them; they
reproach him, the dear old lessons; and yet they seem pleasant to
him, though they make him blush. And at last he says to himself:
"Would God that I were a little child again; once more an innocent
little child at my mother's knee! I thought myself clever and
cunning. I thought I could go my own way and enjoy myself. But I
cannot. Perhaps I have been a fool; and the old Sunday books were
right after all. At least I am miserable. I thought I was my own
master. But perhaps He about whom I used to read in the Sunday books
is my Master after all. At least I am not my own master; I am a
slave.
Pages:
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582