^ I have never seen hard mountain summits but soft slopes were there, where hung the raindrop and the snow, where the
^ Canon Scott Holland, Personal Studies, 99. 2 Guide Guiiicelli, trans, by D. G. Rossetti.
PSALM XVIII, 35 303
cbud loved to nestle, and the insect could find a home. The tenderest flowers grow on the hardest, steepest crags ; cliffs that defy the foot of man to scale them, and laugh the thunderbolt to scorn, are garlanded with the daintiest mosses, and tenanted by the most timid creatures. The down on the breast of the eagle is as warm and soft a nestling-place as that on the breast of the dove. God must be gentle, or He would not have formed feeble creatures. God must be gentle, or the world would be hard and stern. God must be gentle, or He would not have made the mother's heart. God must be gentle, or inexperience would not be sulfered to run its little hour, and childhood and youth would suffer swift eclipse, and all the vanities of time would meet a sudden end. Where has man learned gentleness ? Who in- spired the saying, " Blessed are the meek : for they shall inherit the earth " ? Who has put in the hearts of all the thoughtful the certainty that patience shall conquer at the end ? Nay ; were God not gentle, how could man live upon the earth ? For we presume upon His patience ; we venture to be thoughtless ; we delay our penitence; and, when we have made a resolution of amendment, take a long, long time to work it out. We are not afraid to be pitiful to others; we are not ashamed to pity ourselves ; because deep in our heart there is the feeling that " like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame ; he remembereth that we are dust." ^
4. Gentleness does not exclude severity. Doubtless small natures are commonly petulant and irritable. Great souls are constitutionally forbearing and gentle. But the noblest men, when occasion demands, can veil their gentleness and frown in severity, or quench their severity and shed only smiles of gentle- ness. The God of creation hurls the thunderbolt and distils the dews, pours flaming lava over field and vineyard, and fringes with crimson and gold the minutest stems that spring upon the waste, musters the tempests and blackens the sky, and enkindles the tender dyes which span the retreating storm. The Bible is full of the wrath of God, and fuller of the love of God. It declares " law " as well as " grace." It is written of the one Jehovah, " The Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created " ; " Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth." The same attributes were incarnate in Jesus Christ. The most terrible ^ A. Mackennal, The Life of Christian Consecration, 74.
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words that ever fell from human lips, and the most gentle, proceeded from the Lord Jesus. Both of the attributes which the utterances of Christ present are abundantly revealed in Holy- Scripture ; both are consistent, though we may not always be able to harmonize their operations ; and both are essential to the moral perfection of the Deity.
^ Not long since, I saw a range of crags, beetling over the sea — an expressive emblem, it seemed to me, of Divine gentleness and severity. On their fronts the south-western gales poured all their fury. The breakers rushed with headlong violence at their base, and were hurled back again in impotent foam and with huge uproar. Above, from the water's edge up to the sky-line, there were innumerable myriads of yellow primroses, wild hyacinths, and violets — a living heaven with living stars gleaming from the seaward slopes. The careering winds and the long rolling waves were repulsed by strength ; but the fragile blossoms were nourished and sheltered in their retreats with maternal tenderness. The cliff beat back the flood with iron arms, but seemed to enclose a heart of tenderness beneath its rocky bosom.^
5. The Divine gentleness finds its perfect illustration in Jesus Christ. When God Himself appeared on earth in the Person of Jesus Christ, gentleness was so conspicuous that men could not understand it ; they had not depth enough of soul to understand the strength that works by patience and love. They could not understand a God waiting upon men, a God suffering contradiction, a God baffled and thwarted, a God without the thunderbolts and chariots of fire, a God pleading and beseeching, weeping and moaning in the anguish of ineffectual love, a God doing nothing by violence, who neither strove nor cried, whose voice was not heard in the streets. How little have men ever known what is most Divine ! They looked for one shod with blazing brass, trampling under foot all that is unworthy and hostile ; and He came not breaking the bruised reed nor quenching the smoking flax. This lightness of step was unintelligible to them ; this considerateness of all that was weak made them presume instead of worshipping. They did not see that the love which could uphold this infinite patience and prompt to this quiet, compassing gentleness was the proof of Divinity, was a greater thing and more