George MacDonald. An Antology (edited by C.S.Lewis) -
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to be regarded as the Word, the Way, the Truth. The Bible
leads us to Jesus,
the inexhaustible, the ever unfolding Revelation of God. It is Christ "in
whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge," not the Bible, save
as leading to Him.
[ 11 ] I Knew a Child
I knew a child who believed she had committed the sin against the Holy
Ghost, because she had, in her toilette, made an improper use of a pin. Dare
not to rebuke me for adducing the diseased fancy of a child in a weighty
matter of theology. "Despise not one of these little ones." Would the
theologians were as near the truth in such matters as the children. Diseased
fancy! The child knew, and was conscious that she knew, that she
was doing
wrong because she had been forbidden. There was rational ground for her
fear. . . . He would not have told her she was silly, and "never to
mind."
Child as she was, might He not have said to her, "I do not condemn thee: and
go and sin no more"?
[12] Spiritual Murder
It may be an infinitely less evil to murder a man than to refuse to
forgive him. The former may be the act of a moment of passion: the latter is
the heart's choice. It is spiritual murder, the worst, to hate, to brood
over the feeling that excludes, that, in our microcosm, kills the image, the
idea of the hated.
[ 13 ] Impossibilities
No man who will not forgive his neighbor, can believe that God is
willing, yea wanting, to forgive him.... If God said, "I forgive you"
to a
man who hated his brother, and if (as impossible) that voice of forgiveness
should reach the man, what would it mean to him? How much would the man
interpret it? Would it not mean to him "You may go on hating. I do not mind