Page:Letters of a Javanese princess, by Raden Adjeng Kartini, 1921.djvu/226

LETTERS OF A JAVANESE PRINCESS And now that this stumbling block is cleared from our way, we stand before a second — the financial one. Our parents cannot possibly afford the expense of our education; nor would we ask it of them. Yesterday I received a long and very earnest letter from Mevrouw Van Kol. If I did not need to keep it until it was answered, and if my unaccustomed fingers did not cling to it so, I should like to send it to you, but I shall try to tell you something of its contents. She has given us more than moral support, she has given us part of herself. We feel as though we had received a benediction. We are no longer afraid, we have no anxiety; we are at peace, we trust and we believe. Of what worth are we! We are no more than the dust of the ground. We feel no jubilant, boisterous happiness, but a still, quiet joy. God, we are so thankful that we have found Thee, that we have come through doubt, unbelief and materialism.

We have thought much of late. We sought the Light afar off and all the time it was near; it has always been with us, it is in us.

Our souls have been working and growing, and we did not know it. Mevrouw Van Kol has drawn back the curtain from before our eyes; we are more grateful to her for that than for all the other things which have been done for us.

Before I received her letter. Mamma had said to me, "Who gave you such ideas?" and I answered "God gave them to me." It was only natural that Mother should try to hold us back, but when she saw that we would never change, that we could not change, she said to us with resignation, "Well, children, I shall try to think that you are called to do this; that God has sent you for this service."

Mevrouw Van Kol wrote us: "Often we need human beings and their support, but there are many more times, when it is only God that we need. He has called each one of us to do our special work, and he —204—