Defiling with the world my virgin heart — My lov'd companion dropt a tear, and fled, And hid in deepest shades her awful head. Beloved, who shall tell me, where thou art. In what delicious Eden to be found ? That I may seek thee, the wide world round.
Now, that was the test that Christ never needed. Why? Because He never lost innocence. He went down among the sins i' and temptations of life, but He came out of them pure and unsoiled. We call tried innocence holiness. Christ was sinless. I That is the marvel of this Lamb of God. The animal was innocent, but it was an untried and unmoral innocence. This Lamb is not only innocent, but also perfectly holy.
^ Make no mistake as to what we call by the name of virtue. It is the generous force of life. Virtue is not an innocent. We adore Divine innocence, but it is not of all ages and all con- ditions; it is not ready for all encounters. It protects itself
ST. JOHN I. 29 85
against the snares of nature and of man. Innocence fears every- thing, virtue fears nothing. Virtue can, if it be necessary, plunge with a sublime impurity into the depths of misery to console it, into every vice to recover it. It knows what the great human task is, and that it is sometimes necessary to soil one's hands.^
(2) The second point about the Iamb was its gentleness. It^^ is the perfect type of meek, uncomplaining suffering. Christ's gentleness was wonderful. It was wonderful because it was not the outcome either of necessity or of weakness. A person is sometimes tolerant because he is morally indifferent. He mani- fests no anger or passion because he does not feel or see wrong. But with Christ it was not so. His gentleness was not the out- come of insensibility, of a mere ignorant good-nature. His holiness made it impossible for Him to be ignorant of sin, made it inevitable that He should see sin with clearer eyes than the sinner himself. Neither was it born from necessity. People are some- times gentle because they must. They endure and suffer in silence because they say, " Well, we cannot help it ; it is best to be quiet and resigned." That was not Christ's case either. The assumption of the New Testament is that Christ could help it ; that He had only to speak, and legions of angels would leap to His command.
T[ This beautiful figure reveals the kind of impression which Jesus made by His simple presence. The lamb is an emblem of innocence and gentleness, as Spenser says :
And by her in a line a milke-white lamb she led So pure and innocent, as that same lambe, She was in life and every vertuous lore.
Innocence in a moral agent is not the mere absence of guilt, but reaches the positive rank of purity, or, higher still, of holiness. ^ This holiness in Himself and gentleness towards others marked Jesus out as God's own Lamb, a man Divine in purity and love, and therefore the " beloved Son " of God. So much might well be apparent to the searching glance of sympathy and a prophet's power of reading the heart. But the succeeding words disclose a deeper insight, and give utterance to a grand truth. Holiness and gentleness are the redeeming powers of the world, and these two great powers have wrought in Christendom from that day to ^ Anatole France, On Life and Letters, 291.
S6 THE LAMB OF GOD
this. The men and women who have lifted the burden of the world's sin have always been the saints who have washed their robes white in the blood of the Lamb, or, in less figurative language, have imbibed His spirit of holiness and gentleness, and with their own peace have lulled the storms of passion, and with their own purity have sweetened the fountains of life. The holiness of Christ awakens the sense of sin, while we see that that is the true life of man, and our own hearts look black against that bright illumination. And then His gentleness saves us from despair. Were there nothing but condemnation and scorn, no sympathy, no tender pity, we could not bear that holiness, and could only abandon ourselves as lost. But when it comes with such soothing and loving accents, we are drawn within its folds, and purified in its purity. " Thy gentleness has made me great." The maxim of the world, and too often of the Church, has been that violence and revenge take away the sin of the world. But it is not so. These only harden and degrade, whereas love melts the heart, and gives a new and conquering motive in an answering love. In this soul-subduing love we recognize that which is heavenly and eternal. The Lamb of God manifests the holiness and the gentleness of God. And so our fear is cast out; and, lowly and contrite, we draw near, and are folded in the bosom of our Father, and receive the grace of sonship.^
A lamb is innocent and mild
And merry on the soft green sod; , And Jesus Christ, the Undefiled,
Is the Lamb of God: 1 Only spotless He
Upon His Mother's knee ; White and ruddy, soon to be Sacrificed for you and me.