No Other Stream - C. S. Lewis

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Ed Walsh

Puritan Board Senior
Greetings,

I posted this back in May along with some quotes from a commentary on Isaiah. Nobody responded or even liked it. :)
I know it's a pretty familiar excerpt, but recently I posted it on Facebook and some did respond. So here it is one more time.
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THERE IS NO OTHER STREAM

In the fictional work, The Silver Chair, by C.S. Lewis, a young girl, Jill Pole, has entered a strange wood in the land of Narnia with her friend, Eustace Scrubb. Due to poor judgment, she finds herself alone and separated from Eustace. She is very thirsty and is walking in search of water. She finds a stream but stops dead in her tracks. Lewis writes,
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But although the sight of water made her feel ten times thirstier than before, she didn’t rush forward and drink. She stood as still as if she had been turned into stone, with her mouth wide open. And she had a very good reason: just on this side of the stream lay the lion.

…“If I run away, it’ll be after me in a moment,” thought Jill. “And if I go on, I shall run straight into its mouth.” Anyway, she couldn’t have moved if she had tried, and she couldn’t take her eyes off it. How long this lasted, she could not be sure; it seemed like hours. And the thirst became so bad that she almost felt she would not mind being eaten by the lion if only she could be sure of getting a mouthful of water first.
“If you’re thirsty, you may drink.”

…For a second she stared here and there, wondering who had spoken. Then the voice said again, “If you are thirsty, come and drink.”…It was deeper, wilder, and stronger; a sort of heavy, golden voice. It did not make her any less frightened than she had been before, but it made her frightened in rather a different way.

“Are you not thirsty?” said the Lion.
“I’m dying of thirst,” said Jill.
“Then drink,” said the Lion.
“May I — could I — would you mind going away while I do?” said Jill.

The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl.

…The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic.
“Will you promise not to – do anything to me, if I do come?” said Jill.
“I make no promise,” said the Lion.

…“I daren’t come and drink,” said Jill.

“Then you will die of thirst,” said the Lion.

“Oh dear!” said Jill, coming another step nearer. “I suppose I must go and look for another stream then.”

There is no other stream,” said the Lion.

It never occurred to Jill to disbelieve the Lion – no one who had seen his stern face could do that – and her mind suddenly made itself up. It was the worst thing she had ever had to do, but she went forward to the stream, knelt down, and began scooping up water in her hand. It was the coldest, most refreshing water she had ever tasted. You didn’t need to drink much of it, for it quenched your thirst at once.
In Narnia, there is no stream other than Aslan’s that can keep one from dying of thirst. In this world, Christ alone offers us eternal life through His gift of living water.

“Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink,” you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water…but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’”​
JOHN 4:10,14 (ESV)​
 
There seems to be nothing to discuss--perhaps that's why no one answered. However, I'm happy to have been reminded of that bit. I think The Silver Chair was always one of my favorites, since it plumbs the depths of the long, weary struggle with despair and the need to follow the Signs regardless of how things look.
We have ten signs in this world to keep us on the path of obedience--twice what Jill had, but still not too many to repeat them to ourselves morning and night and in between to ensure that we keep them.
 
I find I like some types of CS Lewis' writing but not others as a matter of personal taste. Letters to Malcolm is proving quite beneficial to me right now and I was quite challenged to map out his argumentation in Abolition of Man this spring. But a quote out of a strongly allegorical work will pass me by without interest. It just ain't my cup of tea.
 
Did you ever read The Great Divorce? I did recently. It was just plain weird.
Interesting. Despite it being weird I found it very beautiful and moving when I last read it.

I'm re-reading Narnia now for the first time in many years and am loving it. So far my favorite line like this has been when Lucy sees Aslan again in Prince Caspian and the scene goes something like her saying to Aslan, "You've grown!" and him responding, "No, child, but you have."
 
Did you ever read The Great Divorce? I did recently. It was just plain weird.
I read it again about a year ago and was very moved. It’s more a character study, I guess you’d say, than an attempt on Lewis’s part to describe what heaven and hell are really like.
 
Did you ever read The Great Divorce? I did recently. It was just plain weird.
Actually, the volume I had initially chased me off from Abolition of Man because it started with Great Divorce. That's one of the reasons it's important to revisit an author because other writings might actually catch your interest. Someone who starts reading Jonathan Edward's at The End for Which God Created the World might otherwise never read his writings.
 
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