Samuel Butler: The Way of All Flesh

68. CHAPTER LXVIII (continued)

As he thought further he remembered that all things work together for good to them that love God; was it possible, he asked himself, that he too, however imperfectly, had been trying to love him? He dared not answer Yes, but he would try hard that it should be so. Then there came into his mind that noble air of Handel's: "Great God, who yet but darkly known," and he felt it as he had never felt it before. He had lost his faith in Christianity, but his faith in something--he knew not what, but that there was a something as yet but darkly known which made right right and wrong wrong--his faith in this grew stronger and stronger daily.

Again there crossed his mind thoughts of the power which he felt to be in him, and of how and where it was to find its vent. The same instinct which had led him to live among the poor because it was the nearest thing to him which he could lay hold of with any clearness came to his assistance here too. He thought of the Australian gold and how those who lived among it had never seen it though it abounded all around them: "There is gold everywhere," he exclaimed inwardly, "to those who look for it." Might not his opportunity be close upon him if he looked carefully enough at his immediate surroundings? What was his position? He had lost all. Could he not turn his having lost all into an opportunity? Might he not, if he too sought the strength of the Lord, find, like St Paul, that it was perfected in weakness?

He had nothing more to lose; money, friends, character, all were gone for a very long time if not for ever; but there was something else also that had taken its flight along with these. I mean the fear of that which man could do unto him. Cantabil vacuus. Who could hurt him more than he had been hurt already? Let him but be able to earn his bread, and he knew of nothing which he dared not venture if it would make the world a happier place for those who were young and loveable. Herein he found so much comfort that he almost wished he had lost his reputation even more completely--for he saw that it was like a man's life which may be found of them that lose it and lost of them that would find it. He should not have had the courage to give up all for Christ's sake, but now Christ had mercifully taken all, and lo! it seemed as though all were found.