With a nature such as mine, there is only one path of safety: I must
renounce all. You know me to be no hypocrite, and to you, in this
moment, I need not fear to speak my whole thought, The sacrifice has
cost me much To break my faith to you, and to put aside for ever all
the world's joys--the strength for this has only come after hours
of bitterest striving. Try to be glad that I have won; it is all
behind me, and I stand upon the threshold of peace.
"You know how from a child I have suffered. What to others was pure
and lawful joy became to me a temptation. But God was not unjust; if
He so framed me, He gave me at the same time the power to understand
and to choose. All those warnings which I have, in my blindness,
spoken of so lightly to you, I now recall with humbler and truer
mind. If the shadow of sin darkened my path, it was that I might
look well to my steps, and, alas, I have failed so, have gone so
grievously astray! God, in His righteous anger, has terribly visited
me. The most fearful form of death has risen before me; I have been
cast into abysses of horror, and only saved from frenzy by the mercy
which brought all this upon me for my good. A few months ago I had
also a warning.
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