Of
its nature it struggles with us. And we, we, when our youth is full on
us, invariably reject it and set out in the sunlight content with
natural things. Then for a long time we are like men who follow down
the cleft of a mountain and the peaks are hidden from us and
forgotten. It takes years to reach the dry plain, and then we look
back and see our home.
What is it, do you think, that causes the return? I think it is the
problem of living; for every day, every experience of evil, demands a
solution. That solution is provided by the memory of the great scheme
which at last we remember. Our childhood pierces through again ... But
I will not attempt to explain it, for I have not the power; only I
know that we who return suffer hard things; for there grows a gulf
between us and many companions. We are perpetually thrust into
minorities, and the world almost begins to talk a strange language; we
are troubled by the human machinery of a perfect and superhuman
revelation; we are over-anxious for its safety, alarmed, and in danger
of violent decisions.
And this is hard: that the Faith begins to make one abandon the old
way of judging. Averages and movements and the rest grow uncertain. We
see things from within and consider one mind or a little group as a
salt or leaven.
