3. Trust gradually deepens into love. The three letters GOD mean nothing, and there is no power in them to stir a man's heart. It must be the knowledge of the acts of God that brings men to love Him. And there is no way of getting that knowledge but through the faith which must precede love. For faith realizes the fact that God loves. "We have known and believed the love that God hath to us." The first step is to grasp the great truth of the loving God, and through that truth to grasp the God that loves. And then, and not till then, does there spring up in a man's heart love towards Him. But it is only the faith that is set on Him who hath declared the Father unto us that gives us for our very own the grasp of the facts, which facts are the only possible fuel that can kindle love in a human heart. "We love him because he first loved us," and we shall never know that He loves us unless we come to the knowledge through the road of faith. So John himself tells us when he says, " We have known and believed." He puts the foundation last, "We have known," because " we have believed " " the love that God hath to us."
^ Students of acoustics tell us that if you have two stringed instruments in adjacent apartments, tuned to the same pitch, a ^ C. Simoon, Works, v. 34.
PSALM IX. lo 255
note sounded on one of them will be feebly vibrated upon the other as soon as the waves of sound have reached the sensitive string. In like manner a man's heart gives off a faint, but musical, little tinkle of answering love to God when the deep note of God's love to him, struck on the chords of heaven up yonder, reaches his poor heart.^
^ There is a Man whose tomb is guarded by love ; there is a Man whose sepulchre is not only glorious, as a prophet declared, but whose sepulchre is loved. There is a Man whose ashes, after eighteen centuries, have not grown cold ; who daily lives again in the thoughts of an innumerable multitude of men ; who is visited in His cradle by shepherds and by kings who vie with each other in bringing to Him gold and frankincense and myrrh. There is a Man whose steps are unweariedly retrodden by a large portion of mankind, and who, although no longer present, is followed by that throng in all the scenes of His bygone pilgrimage, upon the knees of His Mother, by the borders of the lakes, to the tops of the mountains, in the byways of the valleys, under the shade of the olive trees, in the still solitude of the deserts. There is a Man, dead and buried, whose sleep and whose awaking have ever eager watchers, whose every word still vibrates and produces more than love, produces virtues fructifying in love. There is a Man who, eighteen centuries ago, was nailed to a gibbet, and whom millions of adorers daily detach from this throne of His suffering, and kneeling before Him, prostrating themselves as low as they can without shame ; there, upon the earth, they kiss His bleeding feet with unspeakable ardour. There is a Man who was scourged, killed, crucified, whom an ineffable passion raises from death and infamy, and exalts to the glory of love unfailing, which finds in Him peace, honour, joy, and even ecstasy. There is a Man pursued in His sufferings and in His tomb by undying hatred, who, demanding apostles and martyrs from all posterity, finds apostles and martyrs in all generations. There is a Man, in fine, and One only, who has founded His love upon earth, and that Man is Thyself, 0 Jesus, who hast been pleased to baptize me, to anoint me, to consecrate me in Thy love, and whose Name alone now opens my very heart, and draws from it those accents which overpower me and raise me above myself.
But among great men, who are loved? Among warriors? Is it Alexander ? Ctesar ? Charlemagne ? Among sages ? Aristotle or Plato ? Who is loved among great men ? Who ? Name me even one ; name me a single man who has died and left love upon his tomb. Mahomet is venerated by Muslims; he is not loved.
^ A. Maclaren.
256 KNOWING AND TRUSTING
No feeling of love has ever touched the heart of a Muslim re- peating his maxim : " God is God, and Mahomet is His prophet." One Man alone has gathered from all ages a love which never fails. Jesus Christ is the sovereign Lord of hearts as He is of minds.^
0 Power of Love, 0 wondrous mystery !
How is my dark illumined by the light.
That maketh morning of my gloomy night,
Setting my soul from Sorrow's bondage free
With swift-sent revelation ! yea, I see
Beyond the limitation of my sight
And senses, comprehending now, aright
To-day's proportion to Eternity.
Through thee my faith in God is made more sure,
My searching eyes have pierced the misty veil;
The pain and anguish which stern Sorrow brings
Through thee become more easy to endure.
Love-strong I mount, and Heaven's high summit scale;