George Macdonald: (1823 -1905)

"Diary of an Old Soul"

C. S. Lewis often referred to George MacDonald as his "spiritual master/teacher."

George MacDonald published over fifty volumes of fiction, verse, children's stories, and sermons. His verse is delicate, graceful, and tender in feeling, with a pervading spiritual quality. The Diary of an Old Soul strikes a deeper note of thoughtfulness. His stories for children rank among the classics of juvenile literature.

"Nothing is inexorable but love. For Love loves unto purity. Love has ever in view the absolute loveliness of that which it beholds. Therefore all that is not beautiful in the beloved, all that comes between and is not of love's kind must be destroyed. And 'our God is a consuming fire.' It is the nature of God so terribly pure that it destroys all that is not pure as fire. He will have purity. It is not that the fire will burn us until we worship thus, if we do not worship God, but that the fire will burn us until we worship thus, but as the highest consciousness of life, the presence of God. In the outer darkness, where the worst sinners dwell, God hath withdrawn himself, but not lost his hold. His face is turned away, but his hand is laid upon him still. His heart has ceased to beat into the man's heart, but he keeps him alive by his fire. And that fire will go searching and burning on in him, as in the highest saint who is not yet pure as he is pure. But at length, O God, wilt thou not cast death and hell into the lake of fire even into thine own consuming self? Death shall then die everlastingly, and hell itself will pass away, and leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day. Then indeed will thou be all in all. For then our poor brothers and sisters, every one,-O God, we trust in thee, the consuming fire, shall have been burnt clean and brought home."