Page:Life of Octavia Hill as told in her letters.djvu/175

 Your letter has shown me a much deeper meaning in Sunday than I had ever perceived in it; and I see the difficulty about the excursions very clearly, as not speaking to people as spiritual beings, called to full rest in trust in God: I am not sure that I do not think that, after the Church service has done this, the rest of the day would not be better passed among God's works in the country, and in friendly intercourse; but I am less sure of having entered into the teaching of the Bible on the subject, than of setting a sufficient value on mere cessation from toil and recreation; and so I shall decidedly give up these excursions, till I have thought more about them. And even then I hope I am not wrong in feeling that I do not think, especially as College people are concerned, I could feel it right to go to them, when you feel as you do about it.

I am afraid this letter will give you the impression that I am trusting far too much to you, far too little in God; tho' I have stated very frankly (it reads to me almost unkindly), how fears that you may be wrong about some things mingle with my sure knowledge how wonderfully you have been proved right about others. I accept both reproaches. I am often tempted to trust too much to you; not, I think, to believe your wisdom, and gentleness, and patience, and faith to be greater than they are, but to think too much that I was to trust to them in you, instead of in God, because I have not felt Him to be an ever-present guide, not only into the mysteries of His own Love, not only into the meaning of past wants, but into the grounds of all right and all wise action. This and this only has confused me; all has been ordered to teach me, all to strengthen me; and I alone am wrong. Only with these thoughts others mingle; I must not, in order to recover faith in a