^ What Christ wants from me is a practical expression of my theoretical love, an expression in act, as well as on the lip ; and though it may be a hard, it will always be a blessed, answer, if I can give it, " Lord, thou seest all things, Thou seest that I love Thee." And others ought to see it too. My love to Christ ought to be a visible love. Let me ask myself, therefore, what proofs of my love to Christ I am giving in my daily life. Prom my demeanour and conversation in my home would any one gather that I love my Lord and Saviour with an ardent love ? If I never talk about Him as worthy of love, how can others believe that I regard Him so ? If I never boldly take His part, when His laws are despised, or His authority is contemned ; if I see, and do not rebuke, the sins that dishonour and grieve Him, how can I make good my profession of loyal love to Himself ? If I never think of Him or speak of Him as a dear friend, who is gone away for a time, but is soon to come again ; if my heart never thrills with joy in the hope of His " glorious appearing," so that I am setting everything in order to meet His eye, how can I prove my posses- sion of that love to which separation is a sorrow ? Do I make
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434 LOVE AND SERVICE
my love to Him as plain and incontrovertible as He makes His love to me ? I have never to ask Him, " Lovest Thou me ? " If I did, He would answer in a moment, by pointing to the proof He gave of that, and say, " Behold my hands and my feet." He bears in His glorified body the " print of the nails," proofs of His wonderful love to me. But what a contrast between that love and mine ! His so strong, and mine so weak ; His so changeless, and mine so fickle ; His so active, and mine so indolent ; His so open, and mine so secret ; His so ardent, and mine so cold ! ^
3. While service is for all, it is also for each. — Let us recall the variety of words used — " lambs," " sheep." Under Divine Provi- dence we have each a work to do for God, each a station and duties in the Divine society ; some, sheep to feed, some, lambs to tend. The sheep must be fed individually — milk for the lambs and strong food for the sheep. One of the great intellectual pleasures of the ministry is preaching the same Gospel in many different ways ; the boys' brigade wants it put in one way, the men's lecture in another, and the mothers' meeting in another.
(1) The Lambs. — No other book recognizes the place of chil- dren so fully or so kindly as the Bible. The great books of the world are somewhat deficient in this. Their writers have had no time, found no occasion to dwell on children, and, perhaps, sometimes have been afraid to do so. The Bible does deal with children because of the infinite love of God, and His knowledge of human destiny. Our Lord Jesus Christ set the child in the midst of the stormy disputers, and made him the type of entrance into the Kingdom of heaven. How can any deeper interest gather around their life and their claim than that which is poured upon them by the words of the Kisen Christ, " Feed my lambs " ?
^ The Eev. Harry Venn has recorded this experience, — " The great danger is from surfeiting children with religious doctrines or over much talk. Doctrines they are too young to understand ; and too frequent talking wearies them. Many parents err in expecting that the religion of a child should be the same as their own. I did not give mine formal instruction till they were eight years old, and then chiefly set before them the striking facts in the Old Testament, or the miracles in the New. I also laboured much to set before them the goodness of our God in things which they could understand, such as the comforts which we enjoyed
* G. H. Knight, TTic Master's Questions to His Disciples, 357.
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together. Watching providential occurrences, I made use of them to give a body and substance to spiritual truth. One method used to affect them much — carrying them to see an afflicted child of God rejoicing in tribulation, and speaking of His love. To this day they tell of one and another whom they saw happy, though poor and in pain." ^
^ It is a beautiful tradition of the Jewish Eabbis that when Moses was a sheplierd under Jethro in the land of Midian, a little lamb went frisking from the flock and strayed into the wilderness. Moses, full of the spirit which loveth all things — both man, and bird, and beast — and faithful in little deeds as well as in great, pursued the lamb over rocks and through briars, and after long hours of weary search recovered it ; and when he had recovered it he laid it in his bosom, saying, " Little lamb, thou knowest not what is good for thee ; trust me, thy shepherd, who will guide thee aright." And when God saw his tenderness, and the straying lamb, He said, " Thou shalt be a shepherd to My people Israel." ^