'Fainting by the Way'

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 34, 24 August 1905, Page 2

'Fainting by the Way '

A gifted mother, whose chief "wealth is a crown of sorrow bravely borne, writes to us': ' If I were a> great person, I wouM above all things try lo help the mothers. I would give them 'all the kindness and sympathy I ,coul<d possibly spare. It is quite wonderful how miuch a little kindness and sympathy can do for those who are heavily burdened. The " fainting by the way " is terrible. If one could do it once only, die right off, and be done with it » But (as some one has remarked) the slow struggling back to life is awful, and then i the hanging in mid-)asr — like Mahomet's coffin ! . , . Those who have reached the summit by their sale, mossy path, straight and sure, little know what it is for those who get glimpses of the Great Light in the immeasurable distance, which they never can reach. One evening I set out to walk along the sea-shore, to be 'alone with God. After I had gone a long way I found the strand barred by tumbled rocks. The tide was coming in. I tried to climb the bank to the road above. The rocks were steep and smooth and sliippery, bu|t by dint of 'great exertion I managed to get half-

way up. Then I had to stop, almost exhausted. There was no use in trying to get any higher ; so I had to go back by the shore. .Fortunately, the tide was not quite in. But the other attempts to climb are so sadly like that ! How hard it seems at times that we have not the little human helps which would so effectually prevent us from wishing to climb ! How easily and smoothly and comfortably some people travel along the shore ! They happen on the right time, when the tide is out and the beach washed smooth and clean But for us who are caught between the waters and the rocks, it sometimes seems to our frail sense that it. would be better never to see the Light that shines abovo the banks, when we cannot reach it.'

Thusi far our correspondent. But — ' no cross, no crown ' is the common lot. For many it is true that

'By the thorn road, and none other, is the Mount oJ Vision won.'

To those who fiati the road to the delectable mountains hard and rugged, and are ready to ' faint by tlie way,* we commend the thought that runs through the following majestic stanza from a recently published book by that jgrtfted Catholic mother of a gifted Catholic son, Madame Rayner Belloc :—

' Oh, looked we clearly on the sharp ascent So many eldex pilgrim-feet have trod, Seeing the end, we should not dare to faint, Nor speajk of loneliness— -alone with God ! Help of the Faithful ! my full heart to-day Was sad an,d weajk. I said : " Before some altar I will pray, And He will spoak." And Thou hast spoken ! All Thy words are true And surety give. I will more bravely all henceforth endure, More humbly live.'

Three women once stood under the Cross on Calvary,, bearing the pitiless pelting of a storm of affliction—

' Undaunted by the threatening death, Or harder circumstance of living /doom.'

But, ' seeing the end, they did not dare to faint ' by the way. No querulous fretfulness with Providence was; there. Thay learned the swiftest cure of every ill— to thank God for the mercies and blessings that still remained.