Page:Letters of a Javanese princess, by Raden Adjeng Kartini, 1921.djvu/237

LETTERS OF A JAVANESE PRINCESS Book of Books is too holy to be comprehended by our poor intelligence.

We would not fast and do other things which seemed senseless to us. Every one was in despair; we were in despair, no one could explain the things which were incomprehensible to us. Our God was our conscience, our Hell and our Heaven too was our own conscience; if we did wrong our conscience punished us; if we did good, our conscience rewarded us.

The years came and went; we were called Mahommedans because we had inherited that faith, and we were Mahommedans in name^ no more. God—Allah—was for us a nam—a word—a sound without meaning.

Now we have found Him for whom unconsciously our souls had yearned during the long years. We had sought so far and so long, we did not know that it was near, that it was always with us, that it was in us.

It had been working in us unconsciously for a long time; but she who opened the door for which we had sought, was Nellie Van Kol. And who leads us now, and shows us the way toward Him? It is Mamma. We have been so stupid all our lives; we have had a whole mountain of treasure under our hands and we have not known it.

Foolish, headstrong, pedantic persons that we were, we reproach ourselves now for our own conceit and self sufficiency. We say to console ourselves: "It has pleased God to open your hearts at last, be thankful for that."

God alone understands the riddle of the world. It is He that brings together paths that were far asunder for the forming of new roads. —215—