Converse with Christ.
“No other voice than Thine has ever spoken,
O Lord, to me―
No other words but Thine the stillness broken
Of life’s lone sea.
There openeth the spirit’s silent chamber
No other hand―
No other lips can speak the language tender
Speech of the Fatherland.
For others speak to one the eye beholdeth,
Who veils the soul within;
Some know not all the joy, and all the sorrow,
And none know all the sin.
They speak to one they love, it may be blindly
Or hate as it may be―
Full well I know they speak to the illusion,
Thou speakest, Lord, to me.
It is unto the sheep the Shepherd calleth,
His voice they know―
No voice beside can lead them to the pastures
Where fountains flow.
None other tells unto my soul the secret,
The mystery Divine―
The love that maketh glad the inner chambers,
His Home and mine.
Eye hath not seen the things whereof He telleth,
Ear hath not heard―
Man hath no thought that thereunto upreacheth,
His speech no word.
And therefore well I know Thy voice, Lord Jesus,
Thy speech divine —
I know the marvel and the mystery
That I am Thine.”
―T. S. M.
AND after this illness, as time went on, did the Lord manifest Himself often and tenderly to the soul He loved; and He spake with her, and she with Him, continually.
“To my heart He spake, and said to me, Art thou satisfied that I have suffered all for thee?’ I answered, ‘Yea, beloved Lord, I thank Thee that Thou hast suffered all, and I bless Thee for it.’
“And the Lord said to me, If Thou art satisfied, I am satisfied. It is a joy to Me, a delight and gladness unspeakable and eternal, that I have borne the judgment in thy place. Could I have suffered yet more, I would have suffered it for love to thee.’
“The work of the Father moreover is this, that He gives a great reward to His Son Christ Jesus. This gift and guerdon is to Jesus so precious, that naught could be given to Him by His Father which He would hold so dear. The Father delighted in every act which the Lord Jesus performed for our redemption; therefore we are not only His because He redeemed us, but because we are given to Him by the love of His Father. Therefore are we His delight, His great reward, His glory, and His crown.
“This is the miracle of the love of God, that we are the joy and crown of Christ. So great a joy and delight are we to Him, that therefore did He count as nothing the cross and shame, the pain and sorrow of His Passion. All did He count as nothing, because of His deep love to us.
“For though He could suffer and die but once, the love which brought Him to the cross is an eternal, ever-flowing love. Each day is His love to us the same love as on the day of His Passion.
“Of this spake He to my heart, saying that were He to create for me new heavens and a new earth, this would be small in comparison with His suffering and His death. For He could, if He willed it, create every day new heavens and a new earth, with no cost to Himself; He had but to speak and they would be created. But the love that spake by His one sacrifice, is the love which speaks day by day unceasingly-unchangeable and eternal; the endless love, which was from the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.
“Thus spake He to me in blessed heavenly speech, saying, ‘Behold how I love thee!’ As if He had ‘My sister, my love, behold thy Lord, thy God, thy Creator, and thine eternal joy; behold thy Salvation, O my child; behold what joy and delight and blessedness I have in redeeming thee for Myself; and in love to Me rejoice with Me that I have found the sheep that I had lost.’
“And again, that I might drink more deeply into the meaning of those blessed words, did He repeat them to my heart, ‘Behold how I love thee!’ as if He had ‘Behold and see how deep is this My love, in that I died for thee, and loved to die for thee. And now that I have died for thee, and suffered so willingly for thee, all My bitter sorrow, and all the travail of My soul, is turned into everlasting joy and blessedness for Me, O My beloved, and for thee.
“How then could it be possible that thou shouldst ask of Me aught that is pleasing in My sight, and that I should not gladly give it thee? For My good pleasure is that thou shouldst be sanctified wholly, and share with Me the immeasurable joy and blessedness.’
“This is the simple meaning, so far as words can express it, of the heavenly speech of the Lord when speaking to my soul: ‘If more I could have suffered, willingly would I have suffered more.’ He could die no more, but He could never cease to love.
“The mother lays her child tenderly on her breast; but Jesus through His open side draws us in sweetest love within His Breast, and shows us the secrets of God, the joys of Heaven, the safety and the blessedness that are eternal. Thus again and again He saith, ‘Behold how I love thee!’
“The mother knows and considers the needs of her child, and tenderly cares for every want; and when it is older and is growing up, she alters her treatment of it, but not her love to it. And as years go by, she leaves it at times to be chastised, that thus it may be kept from evil.
“And in our years of spiritual growth there is yet no comparison between the mother’s love and the tender love and care of the Lord, inasmuch as the soul is far dearer to Him than the child is to the mother. When we fall, He lifts us up in the tender embrace of His arms, though at times He permits us to fall so heavily, that we think that all was a deceiving of ourselves, and that we had never begun to walk in His ways. But as a mother may allow her willful child to fall in the way it has chosen, but yet would watch to see that it came to no harm the while, so Both Jesus watch, that none of His children may be lost; for He is All-might, All-wisdom, and All-love. None like Jesus our Lord!
“Sometimes when we have fallen, and are thereby shown our sinfulness, we are so cast down, and so ashamed of ourselves, that we know not which way to turn. But He who loves us as a tender mother, desires not that we should fly from His Presence—nothing would be less according to His desire—but He would that we should do as little children do, who, when they are hurt, or are grieved, run straight to their mother, and when they can do naught else, they cry to their loving mother for comfort and for help.
“Thus would the Lord have us do; He would have us cry to Him, and look for His pitying love, telling film we have fallen and bemired ourselves, and made ourselves unlike to Him, and that we can do nothing to help ourselves―we depend only on His love and grace.”
“And after this,” writes Julian, “the Lord manifested Himself yet further to my soul. I saw Him as the Lord in glory; in a glory beyond all thoughts that had entered my mind before.
“I saw Him as the fullness of joy; loving, gracious, full of blessing, the Life Eternal.
“And oft times did He speak to me, and say, I am. I am. I am. I am He the altogether lovely. I am He, the Most High God. I am He whom thou lovest. I am He in whom thou delightest. I am He whom thou servest. I am He for whom thou longest. I am He whom thou desirest. I am He to whom thine heart is drawn. I am He who is All, and in all. So spake He in words which I cannot write or utter, words passing all my understanding, and all my thoughts, for therein is comprehended I cannot tell what; and it was truly this, that my Lord showed Himself to me more glorified than ever I saw Him before, and I saw that our soul shall never have rest till it come unto Him, knowing that He is full of joy, and tender, and blissful, and very life. And the joy which was given me was beyond all that the heart can conceive, or the soul desire, or the tongue can tell. Therefore these words be not declared here. The soul had entered into the Holiest, where all keepeth silence before Him.”
But at other times the silence was broken by prayer and adoration, For Julian was much in prayer; and in days when the repetition of Paternosters, and the counting of prayers upon a rosary, satisfied, or rather did not satisfy, the multitudes around her, she wrote as the Lord taught her, that which may lead many now to deeper thoughts of prayer and worship.
“Prayer is a true, a longing, a persistent will of the soul, clinging and cleaving to the will of God, by the sweet and marvelous power of the Holy Ghost. It is the Lord Himself, without any intermediary, who receives our prayers, and gives thanks for them, and rejoices over them with unspeakable joy.
“And He carries them within, into the house of His treasures, and lays them up where they shall never be lost.
“‘Pray continually,’ He saith to us; ‘pray if thou seem to thyself too unworthy to pray. Pray when thy heart is dry, and poor, and weary. Pray in sickness and in weakness, and when even prayer seems to thee a burden and a dreary task. It is not what thy prayer is to thee, but what it is to Me, that I would have thee consider and rejoice in.’
“Therefore let us trust the Lord’s love rather than the feelings of our own hearts. For as far as we trust, are our prayers to the honor of God. For our difficulty in prayer, it seems to me, arises from this, that we have not realized that it is from God Himself that our prayer flows forth. He is the moving spring which leads us to pray. It is His will to answer us, and it is He who leads us to desire the blessing we ask for. And He delights in our prayer, and rewards the prayer with everlasting recompenses, though He it is who has moved us to pray, and put the words into our lips, “It is as if He said, ‘How canst thou delight Me more than in praying mightily, wisely, and gladly, that I would do that which it is My will to do?’
“But when our loving Lord in His unutterable grace shows Himself, even Himself, to our souls, then is all prayer answered, and all desire fulfilled. Then is a moment when we can pray no more, for there is no more left to desire, and all our intent with all our might is set whole unto the beholding of Him. Yet this too is a prayer-the highest, deepest prayer-an unutterable prayer. Our souls are filled with this joy of reverence, the sweetest joy, the fathomless joy of His Presence.
“Yet well do I know that the more we behold in Him, the more do we long after Him. It is when our eyes are turned away from Him that our souls become disturbed and confused, and restless. And then is the time to pray afresh, and the joy of His countenance again is ours.
“Then do we see His mighty and ceaseless working in all things and circumstances around us; we see a power so glorious and so divine ordering all things, that we have nothing to do but simply to behold it, and take heed to it, and rejoice in His love, and delight our souls in His tenderness.
“And thus walking humbly and joyfully with Him, we shall pass through this earthly life, noting many a sweet touch of His loving Hand, Himself revealed everywhere to us, as far as our earthly condition can bear the blessedness of His companionship.
“This is the constant unceasing work of the Holy Ghost, till our mortal bodies can endure no more of such overwhelming love, and we die of the longing desire for Himself, passing through death into the light of His Presence, and into the boundless ocean of His blessedness, to lose ourselves in Him, knowing Him as we are known, possessing Him forever and forever.
“And meanwhile it is His desire for us, that we should live rejoicing in His love. It is to this that we are blind, more blind than to aught besides. For some of us believe that God is Almighty, and can do all things, and that He is All-wise and that lie knows all things, but that He is All-love, and will do all for us; therein we fail, and it is the want of perception of His love that hinders His children the most.
“For when we begin to hate sin, and to desire to amend ourselves, a fear takes possession of us, which clouds our sight with the mists that arise from looking at ourselves and our sins.
“It is true that we are daily sinning, and at times fall so low that it is a shame to speak of the sin into which we have fallen. And if we fasten our eyes upon the sin, it becomes to us so weary a burden that we find no comfort anywhere, only misery and fear and shame.
“And this fear we take for humility; but it is a foul blindness, and a wickedness that we do not shrink from as from a known sin, because we fail in a right judgment of ourselves through our ignorance and unbelief.
“Never can it please our Lord that His servants should doubt His love. In His tender grace He forgets our sins, when sorrowful and repentant we turn to Him; and He would have us also to forget the things behind, the sin, and the weary burden, and the unbelieving fear.
“The fear of reverence and of awe is pleasing to God. It is a tender fear, and the more we have of it the less is it fear, because of the sweetness of the love that causes it. This fear and love are brothers. And therefore sure am I that he who loves fears, yet is not afraid. All other fear, though it may wear the garment of holiness, is a dangerous fear.
“Thus may we discern the good fear and the evil fear. The good fear makes us fly from all that is evil in the eyes of God, to cast ourselves into His arms, as a child will fly to his mother. With all our soul and all our desire shall we fly to Him, knowing our weakness and our great need, and knowing also His eternal tenderness, and His blessed love, in Him alone seeking deliverance, cleaving to Him alone.
“Our greatest wisdom is to do according to the will and counsel of our best friend. And this blessed Friend is Jesus, and His will and counsel is that we should take refuge in Him, and abide in Him; coming to Him clean or bemired, His love is the same in every case.
“Neither in weal or woe would He have us look to any besides Himself. Therefore when we hear a voice saying to us, Thou seest what a worthless sinner thou art, unfaithful to thy Saviour, breaking troth with Him, falling back into the very sin thou hast confessed, unfit and unworthy to go again and again to Him; ‘let us be aware that it is the voice of the enemy, armed with the false fear, who would seek by means of grief and shame to drive us back from the blessed Presence of our eternal Friend.
“All that wars against love and peace is from the enemy. Through our weakness and foolishness we fall, but through the love and compassion of the Holy Ghost do we rise again to higher joy. Therefore if the enemy gains somewhat by our fall, he loses far more by our lifting up, and by the love and humility which is thus wrought into the being of our souls.
“It is this restoring love and the blessed joy of forgiveness which He dreads, and from which He would forever hold us back.”