353
comes out of indifference to others’ concerns. No, no, it is the cheerfulness that comes out of the confidence that
- “God’s in his heaven—
- All’s right with the world.”
Madame Guyonhas said,
- "Sorrow and love go side by side;
- Nor height nor depth can e’er divide
- Their heaven-appointed bands.”
And the man of God is a composite character, a reconciliation of contraries, just as God Himself is a reconciliation of contradictions, with a tear in the eye and a kiss on the lip—the tear to baptise, the kiss to bless; the tear which says that God is a, compassionate God, the kiss which says that God is a loving God. Thus this cheerful man was also a sorrowing man, grieving that God’s process has been arrested but hoping that God’s providence shall prevail. He shed tears, not with the bitterness of disappointment, but with the trembling responsiveness of fellow-feeling. Such was Sastri Mahashai; and such were several others in the Brahma Samaj.
