CHAPTER IV

BETROTHAL
in the Spring of 1848 George MacDonald
The follow
relinquished happily his tutorship.
letter
was
after
his
written
ing
resignation was
determined upon :

EE

G.M.D.

to

Miss Louisa Powell.

FULHAM,
[undated].

The difficulties with which I told you I was surrounded are

not the results of my situation. However ill I may bear them at
times, I regard my trials here as helps, not hindrances.
But my
difficulties are those which a heart far from God must feel, even when
the hand of the Heavenly Father is leading it back to himself. It
seems a wonder that he can bear with me.
What is it that is the principal cause of everyone's unhappiness
who is not a Christian ? It is the want of enough to love.
We are
made for love and in vain we strive to pour forth the streams of
our affection by the narrow channels which the world can give 1
and well is it
stagnated in our hearts, they turn not to bitterness.
The religion of Jesus Christ
intended to bring us back to our real
for all the world
in an unnatural state.
natural condition
This
will give us that to love which alone can satisfy our loving which
alone, as we climb each successive height, can show us another yet

love thee, Lord, for very greed of love

Not of the precious streams that towards me move,
But of the indwelling, outgoing, fountain store
:

"

is

These words call to mind some of later years

Than mine, oh, many an ignorant heart loves more

Therefore the more, with Mary at thy feet,
must sit worshipping that, in my core,
Thy words may fan to a flame the low primeval heat."
an Old Soul, March 18th.)
(The Diary
no

of

is

if,

. . .

BETROTHAL

111

higher and farther off so that, as our powers of loving expand the
object of loving grows in all those glories which excite our love and
yet make it long for more.

He had been for the last year supported in his

difficulties by the hope of visiting his home that summer.
And now the step became imperative because of the
need to talk to his father of these two things : he must

ask advice and help for the proposed theological studies

in London ; he must get approval for his hope of
securing a certain adorable young lady for his wife. My
father once told me that he had never asked his father
for anything, as boy or man, but it was given. The fact
revealed to me the perfection of their unity. Hence it
was now quite imperative that George MacDonald
should go North and ask these things of his father.
Moreover, he was pining for his home, the winds
of its hills, the rush of its rivers, the touch of its
many dear belongings ; but, far more than these, for
his mother and the baby-sister he had not yet seen.
So he spent the summer of 1848 at home.
Consequently
we have no letters between him and his father concerning
his outlook and duties, and no words as to how the
fresh expenses for classes and sustenance were to be
met expenses that, modest as they were, must have
looked he^ivy in comparison with Aberdeen. Certain
it is that this holiday was one of extraordinary joy
not only to himself but to those he loved. For that
faculty of subconscious personal appeal, to which
I have referred, and which inevitably met always with
its corresponding response, made the family life a close
bondage of interplaying joy, worship and service. Even
when the sons had reached independence, they would
ask their father's sanction for their doings.
With simple gladness met him on the road
His gray-haired father elder brother now.
Few words were spoken, little welcome said,
But, as they walked, the more was understood.
If with a less delight he brought him home
Than he who met the prodigal returned,