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Updated: June 22, 2025
Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?
Like myth everywhere, these notions express judgments which they do not originate, although they may strengthen or distort them in giving them expression. The same myths, in cruel hands, become goads to fanaticism. That natural sensitiveness in which charity consists has many degrees and many inequalities; the spirit bloweth where it listeth.
We are led, in reflecting upon the far more probable success of the meteorologist, to similar forebodings upon the dulness and sameness to which social intercourse will be reduced when the weather philosophers shall succeed in subjecting the changes of the atmosphere to rules and predictions, when the rain shall fall where it is expected, the wind blow no longer "where it listeth," and wayward man no longer find his counterpart in nature.
Where before were only resistance and indifference, there come, in answer to prayer, strange telentings, mysterious longings, receptivity, and sometimes, in a way that is astonishing, full acceptance of the truth. "The wind bloweth where it listeth," were the words of the all-powerful One, of the beautiful emblem of His own mysterious and transforming presence.
The spinster, like the wind, may go where she listeth, and there is no one to say her nay. A modern essayist has pointed out that "if a mortal knows his mate cannot get away, he is apt to be severe and unreasonable." The thought of being compelled to ask for money, and perhaps to meet with refusal, frequently acts as a deterrent upon incipient love.
For if he slumbers that Force rushes into him and whirls him headlong ... into what dread abysses? or the torrent which bears him along sinks and leaves him on its dry bed. To fight the fight it is not enough to will. A man must humiliate himself before the unknown God, who fiat ubi vult, who blows where and when He listeth, love, death, or life. Human will can do nothing without God's.
But I have known brides to sit it out, for lack of a partner. The bridegroom chooseth as he listeth; when American women are present, the fathers of the bride and groom usually request the honor of leading them out. After this first dance supper is served. If an important native official be present, it is a point of etiquette that he take the bride.
His special and highest action upon the human soul is not uniform. His Spirit, He expressly teaches us, does not always strive with man. It is a wind that bloweth when and where it listeth. For this reason, it is dangerous to the religious interests of the soul, in the highest degree, to go counter to any impulses of the Spirit, however slight, or to neglect any of His admonitions, however gentle.
These two, in all their degrees, I honor: all else is chaff and dust, which let the wind blow whither it listeth. Foolish men imagine that because judgment for an evil thing is delayed, there is no justice, but an accidental one, here below. Judgment for an evil thing is many times delayed some day or two, some century or two, but it is sure as life, it is sure as death!
I walked home as one in a dream, wondering if this interview were real or ideal; wondering if the juice of the milk-white flower, "made purple by love's wand," had been squeezed by fairy fingers into the eyes of my preceptor, in his slumbering hours, to cause this strange passion; wondering why the spirit of love, like the summer wind, stealing softly through the whispering boughs, breathes where it listeth, and we cannot tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth; and wondering most of all if but I cannot describe the thoughts that drifted through my mind, vague and changing as the clouds that went hurrying after each other over the deep blue ether.
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