She had not begun to see that God is the one great servant of all, and that the only way to serve him is to be a fellow servant with him—to be, say, a nurse in his nursery, tending this or that lonely person, this or that sickly child of his. It is as absurd to call song and prayer serving God as it would be to say the thief on the cross did something for Christ in consenting to go with him to paradise.

But now some dim perception of this truth began to wake in her. Vaguely she began to feel that perhaps God had given her this voice and this marriage of delight and power in music and song for some reason like that for which he had made the birds the poets of the animal world.

What if her part also should be to drive dull care away? What if she too were intended to be a door-keeper in the house of God, and open or keep open windows in heaven that the air of the high places might reach the low swampy ground? If while she sang, her soul mounted on the wings of her song till it fluttered against the latticed doors of heaven as a bird flutters against the wires of its cage, and if also God had made of one blood all nations of men—then surely her song was capable of more than carrying merely herself up into the regions of delight!

Might there not from her throat go forth a trumpet-cry of truth among such as could hear and respond to the cry? Then, when the humblest servant should receive the reward of his well-doing, she would not be left outside, but enter into the joy of her Lord. How such work might be done by her she did not yet see, but the truth had drawn nigh her that, to serve God in any true sense, we must serve him where he needs service—among his children lying in the heart of lack, in sin and pain and sorrow. And she saw that, if she was to serve at all, it must be with her best, with her special equipment.

I need not follow the gradations, unmarked of herself, by which she at length came to a sort of conclusion. The immediate practical result was, that she gave herself more than ever to the cultivation of her gift, seeing in the distance the possibility of her becoming, in one mode or another, or in all modes perhaps together, a songstress to her generation.

— Four —

The Aquarium

The cry of the human heart in all ages and in every moment is, “Where is God and how shall I find him?” I know multitudes are incapable of knowing that this is their heart’s cry. But if you are one of these, I would ask if you have ever yet made one discovery in your heart. To him who has been making discoveries in it for fifty years, the depths of his heart are yet a mystery. The roots of your heart go down beyond your knowledge—whole eternities beyond it—into the heart of God. I repeat, whether you know it or not, your heart in its depths is ever crying out for God.