1 J. Clifford, The Secret 0/ Jesus, 101.
2 W. Robertson Nicoll, 2'he Lamp of Sacrifice, 251,
ST. JOHN — 14
2IO THE AMAZING GIFT OF LOVE
^ I preach to-day the sacrifice of God.
Ride on, ride on, in majesty,
In lowly pomp ride on to die,
Bow Thy meek head in mortal pain,
Then take, 0 God, Thy power and reign.
That is the old theology, that is the faith which has converted the world, that is the faith of the martyrs, that is the faith of the writers of the New Testament, that is the faith of the missionaries who brought Christianity to what was then barbarous 'Britain, and I for one say, " Thank God, that is my faith to-day." ^
^ If God had done nothing, and I was asked to go and see a sister dying of cancer before my eyes, or to spend the night in the Cancer Hospital — I was once up all night there with a man dying with cancer, until five o'clock in the morning — do you suppose I could easily love God? I could not, because I could not feel that He had done anything or suffered anything. When some man says to me, " Come, let us fight this difficult battle together ; I will bear the worst with you ; I will go and suffer with you, fight with you, bear the unpopularity with you, and all that is brought against you; I will fight side by side with you" — I honour that man, and I would go and follow him, stand by him, and I should feel that he had done something to show his sympathy. And when God, as I believe, comes down among all the cancer and the consumption and the misery, and says, "I will come and bear it with you ; I cannot explain to you now why it has to be borne, but I will bear the worst with you ; I suffered more than I ask you to sufi'er," I can understand that ; and when I am dying, or when I am with some one dying, it is everything to know that God knows of the suffering and death, and has borne it Himself. And, therefore, I say without the Incarnation I could not answer one of these questions that are put to me about the pain and misery and sickness we have in the world.2
(3) By looking thus upon the sacrifice of our blessed Lord, and the great law of vicarious suffering of which that was the highest manifestation, we gain a new sense of the love of God thus suffering for us ; and it is thus that, if we would rise with Christ and share His Kingdom, we must also suffer and die with Him. At some time or other we all pray that we may sit down
1 Bishop Winnington Ingram, Tlie Call of the Father^ 199. " Bishop Winnington Ingram, The Love of the Tinrdty, 113.
ST. JOHN III. i6 211
with Him when He comes into the inheritance of His glory, but to all of us He returns the same answer : " Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of ? and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with ? " And no doubt we can, if we are filled with His love and have learned to lean upon His Cross ; but suffering will have no beaiity in it unless it be sanctified by love, as indeed it has no virtue in it unless we bear it for a good end and from the constraining force of love. And thus we arrive at the true idea of our own life, which is that we should aim, not at freedom from suffering, but at elevation of character and a spirit of unselfish devotion;
^ Norman Macleod in his Riglilancl Parish tells a wonderful story of love's redemptive sacrifice. Years ago a Highland widow, unable to pay her rent, was threatened with eviction. She set out, with her only child, to walk ten miles over the mountains to the home of a relative. When she started the weather v/as v>arm and bright, for the month was May, but before she reached the home of her friend a terrible snowstorm fell upon the hills. She did not reach her destination, and next day a dozen strong men started to search for her. At the summit of the pass where the storm had been the fiercest they found her in the snow, stripped almost to nakedness, dead. In a sheltering nook they found the child, safe and well, wrapped in the garments the mother had taken from her own body. Years afterwards the son of the minister who had conducted the mother's funeral went to Glasgow to preach a preparatory sermon. The night was stormy and the audience small. The snow and the storm recalled to his mind the story he had often heard his father tell, and, abandoning his prepared sermon, he told the story of a mother's love. Some days after he was hastily summoned to the bed of a dying man. The man was a stranger to him, but seizing the minister's hand he said, " You do not know me, but I know you, and knew your father before you. Altliough I have lived in Glasgow many years> I have never attended a church. The other day I happened to pass your door as the snow came down. I heard the singing and slipped into a back seat. There I heard the story of the widow and her son." The man's voice choked and he cried, " I am that son. Never did I forget my mother's love, but I never saw the love of God in giving Himself for me until now. It was God made you tell that story. My mother did not die in vain. Her prayer is answered." ^