(3) Purity. — The love of God believed in must mean a life of growing purity. If we may have the Son of God within us ; if He loved us, and gave Himself for us like that ; if He has come like a good shepherd over the hills to find us, and has found us,
1 J. "Warschauer. 2 Coillard of the Zambesi, 162.
224 THE AMAZING GIFT OF LOVE
then we must live a life, in His strength, of something like correspondence to His ; we must confess the sins that we have done ; we must be perfectly plain about what our life has been, and how careless and unworthy it has been, if we feel it has been so. Then we must not be content with that. Having got straight with God, we must ask Him to come to our heart.
Come to my heart. Lord Jesus; There is room in my heart for Thee.
^ " Look straight into the light, and you will always have the shadows behind." Yes, but more than that, you will see more clearly how to walk. Look straight into the light, and every year you will see more things that you must do, and more clearly the things you must avoid. " Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure." ^
(4) Service. — Lastly, there is the response of service. If He came down from heaven, and so loved the world, we must find a way in which to love our fellow-men as He loved us. Christ's doctrines find their best meaning only in service! Who shall know so well what the Atonement means as they who are striving every day to bring its light into dark places ? Who shall under- stand the mercy of God as those who are toiling helpfully amongst poor, weak-willed men, who, crushed by the hard laws of life, can be raised only by compassion ? Who shall catch so full a glimpse of the wisdom of God's purpose as they who, ministering to the needy, the ignorant, the hungry, find how strong are the moral forces which are born, not of constraint, but of love and of free will ?
^ God loves the world. Therefore he loves tlie men of every nation, of every language, of every creed. He loves the man that jostles me in the street. He loves the man that overreaches me, and deprives me of my rights, or who insults or slanders me. And if I call myself a Christian, I must love them with a deep and lioly love, and must be willing even to suffer in order to give light to their darkened eyes, and soften their hard hearts with brotherly affections. Otherwise I have no real fellowship with the Father and the Son. " He thai; hateth his brother is a murderer, and no murderer has eternal life abiding in him." ^
^ Are we ready for the Master's use ? Do we really believe in the possibility of the world's redemption ? How spacious is
^ Bishop Winnington Ingram, llie Gospel in Action, 323. " James Di-ummond, Johawnine Thoughts, 40.
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our belief ? How large is the possibility which we entertain ? When we survey the clamant needs of the race, do we discover any " hopeless cases " ? Where have we obtained the right to use the word " hopeless " ? W^hat evidence or experience will justify us in saying of any man, "He is too far gone" ? In what atmosphere of thought and expectancy are we living? Are we dwelling in the Book of Ecclesiastes, or making our home in the Gospel of St. John ? Let us ransack the city. Let us rake out, if we can find him, the worst of our race. Let us produce the sin-steeped and the lust-sodden soul, and then let us hear the word of the Master: "Believe ye that I am able to do this?" The first condition of being capable ministers of Christ is to believe in the possibility of the world's salvation.^
^ I shall never forget how Professor Elmslie, in the brief delirium before death, when his mind was wandering, came back over and over again to " God is Love, God is Love ; I will go out and tell this to all the world. They do not know it." 2
Teach me to love the world as thou dost love, Eeady to give my dearest and my best. Than self more dear, to save it from its sins, And turn all hearts to thee. Oh ! grant the faith In thy beloved Son, thy holy Lamb, Which wakes, within, the sleeping life of love. And makes us one with him who died that men Might share his life eternal, and might dwell In thee, from whose exhaustless fulness all Who look to thee in fervent prayer receive Thy Spirit's bounteous gift. But from that love Which clings in fondness to the world's bad ways, And sinks the soul in its corrupting guile. Save me, 0 God; for earth must pass away, Ambition's pride, and all the idle glare Of social rank, and wealth's delusive charm. That which we see is temporal, and soon Must yield to time's corrosive touch, and sink To dark oblivion. But the things unseen. Love, holiness, and truth, eternal stand Before thy glorious throne, and speak thy word Within the heart of man. To that blest word Be all my powers subdued, that I may still Show forth thy love which quickens and redeems.^