The more He tries you by His silence, the greater to my mind is the proof that He believes in you. He knows you will come through. He has great work for you to do, and therefore you need a strong perfected faith, and He is trying to give you it.
I am so sorry at what you tell me about prayer. But do go on. When things are at their darkest light comes. After all God knows how much you can bear, and He will not, if you will only persevere, allow you to be utterly confounded. Don't be in the least discouraged at your inability to concentrate your attention. Even a man who had lived in the presence of God for years has told us that
The world that looks so dull all day Glows bright on me at prayer, And plans that ask no thought but these, Wake up and meet me there. My very flesh has restless fits; My changeful limbs conspire With all these phantoms of the mind My inner self to tire.
Do you expect to fare better, when you are exercising faculties which have been for long more or less dormant? The same man goes on to say--and I { 130} think it is a comforting truth--that God sees further than we do, sees what we mean:
These surface troubles come and go, Like rufflings of the sea; The deeper depth is out of reach To all, my God, but Thee.
Even if your conscience condemns you, remember that God is greater than your conscience. He sees that you _want_ to pray, and the battle is half won when there is even the want. I like these old words of the hymn:
Satan trembles when he sees The weakest saint upon his knees,
even if he can't collect his thoughts. I find it usually easier to pray for others than for myself. I believe in beginning by praying for what is easiest. I don't kneel down. I find it more possible to concentrate my attention when I am walking about or sitting down. And I tell God what I know about a man, and how I want him to live a better life. Sometimes I seem to struggle for him as though for very life. I go on and on and on--sometimes repeating the same request. I try to copy the poor widow who wearied out the dishonest judge. I am not distressed when my thoughts wander, I know that they will always wander without God's help. The distress occasioned by wandering thoughts, and the attempt to trace the stages by which they wandered, I regard as temptations of the devil. . . . I go back as calmly as possible to the matter in hand.