At the Back of the North Wind.2nd

The text contains a number of subtle references to Scripture.  For the concept of North Wind herself, MacDonald must have had Job 30:22 - 23 in mind:  "You snatch me up and drive me before the wind; you toss me about in the storm.  I know you will bring me down to death, to the place appointed for all living" (NIV).  These images are especially relevant to today's reading.

At the beginning of Chapter 4, North Wind tells Diamond, ". . . I'm afraid you might not be able to keep hold of me, and if I dropped you, I don't know what would happen; so I've made a place for you in my hair."  Like most children, Diamond likes to feel ensconced in a small, cozy place, and he is delighted with the nest she weaves for him.

In Chapter 5, when she next takes him on a nocturnal journey, she startles Diamond into disbelief by announcing to him that tonight she must sink a ship.  Incredulous, because he is confident she cannot be cruel, he wonders what will happen to those passengers who will be drowned.  She assures him that he is right:  she "can do nothing cruel, although I often do what looks cruel to those who don't know what I'm really doing." She only takes them to the back of the north wind, a place into which she cannot go (there will be no adversities whatsoever in heaven), and therefore about which she knows nothing.  She differs in this regard from the great-great grandmother of the Curdie stories by having limited knowledge.  "I get blind and deaf when I try to see my back," she says; "I only pay attention to my work."

Much is being suggested throughout this episode.  MacDonald is indeed undertaking a difficult subject, but if he is to succeed in fully establishing in a child's mind a Biblical attitude towards all adversity, suffering, and death itself, he has little choice.  The artistic deftness with which he accomplishes his task cannot but evoke much admiration.


He is endeavoring to honor the mystery of God's working in his world, a mystery that must remain as such until that time foreshadowed in Rev. 15:3 - 4, when the wrath of God has been complete and angels intone:  "Great and marvelous are your deeds, Lord  God Almighty.  Just and true are your ways, King of the ages.  Who will not fear you, O Lord, and bring glory to your name?  For you alone are holy.  All nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous acts have been revealed."  Until that time one is to rest in the confidence that God can do nothing unjust.  

In Chapter 6, when she is taking him out upon the night she is to arouse the ship-sinking storm, Diamond persists in voicing his dismay that sinking a ship is "not like you."  She reminds him that the North Wind he knows is good, and since there cannot be "two mes," "the other me you don't know must be as kind as the me you do know." Diamond's submissive response is theologically nuanced:  "I love you, and you must love me, or else why would I have started loving you?  How could you know how to put on such a beautiful face if you did not love me and the rest?  No.  You may sink as many ships as you like . . . ."

When, at the beginning of Chapter 7, Diamond asks North Wind how she can stand sinking a ship, she responds that she is "always hearing . . . the sound of a far-off song" that "tells me everything is right, that it is coming to swallow up all cries,"  to the extent of swallowing up all the fear and pain of those to be drowned, so that they will sing it themselves.

For biblical justification for this theological position, MacDonald would not doubt point to such passages as Isaiah 45:6b,7:  "I am the Lord, and there is no other.  I form light and create darkness; I make weal and create woe; I the Lord do all these things;" and Amos 3:6:  "Does disaster befall a city, unless the Lord has done it?"  He is confident that nothing happens that is not motivated by his love and shaped by his justice, and that when the mystery of God's purposes is ultimately revealed, all nations shall worship Him, as stated in  Rev. 15:3, 4 quoted above.
 
One cannot but recall Jeremiah's affirmation in Lamentations 3:19ff:  "The thought of my affliction and my homelessness is wormwood and gall!  My soul continually thinks of it and is bowed down within me.  But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:  The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every  morning; great is you faithfulness. . . . Although he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; for he does not willingly afflict or grieve anyone."  

A person cannot, of course, expect that MacDonald would erect a complete theological treatise in a children's story, but one cannot but admire the artistic deftness with which he does treat the subject.
If the reader wants a more complete examination of this very challenging issue, advancing a carefully thought through and theologically provocative handling of the subject, one is advised to consult David Bentley Hart's, The Doors of the Sea:  Where Was God in the Tsunami?

To avoid Diamond's witnessing the sinking, North Wind deposits him in a cathedral while she executes her mission.  When he finds himself on a narrow ledge high up in the dome and cannot feel North Wind's presence, he panics, then suddenly finds himself in North Wind's arms.  Questioned as to why she left him, she replies "Because I wanted you to walk alone."  She does not want to pamper a coward.  "I wasn't brave by  myself," he muse, "It was the wind that blew in my face that made me brave."  "You had to be taught what courage was.  And you couldn't know what it was without feeling it:  therefore, courage was given you. . . . a beginning is the greatest thing of all. To try to be brave is to be brave."

Again, the truths here are powerful:  Diamond's being made strong by North Wind's blowing in his face suggests the fact that experiencing adversities in a Christian spirit does serve to strengthen a person; and every person who would be virtuous must exercise courage to perform the virtue.  One cannot name a Christian virtue that does not require moral courage to realize.When Diamond, dreaming in the cathedral, overhears two apostles complaining about the church having to perform acts of charity, he is certain they could not be true apostles, but sextons and vergers (gravediggers and janitors).  Throughout his career MacDonald had a lover's quarrel, so to speak, with much that he saw as false in the established church, and  he does not hesitate to instill in a child's mind that, while there is much that is beautiful in the church, there is also that which is inconsistent with a true Christian spirit.