That before living he'd learn how to live —
No end to learning; Earn the means first — God surely will contrive
Use for our earning.
But is not life passing? Is it not very brief? No, "Man has Forever." And so he laboured lovingly on, his mind dragging the body after it, and in that dragging the body suffered. He was fierce as a dragon for knowledge, and believed great undertakings have slow profits. Life is too brief to see them. As the poet says : —
That low man seeks a little thing to do, Sees it and does it;
This high man, with a great thing to pursue, Dies ere he knows it.
And this man struggled on, was struggling at the last. When the rattle was in his throat, —
So, with the throttling hands of death at strife.
Ground he at grammar ; Still, thro' the rattle, parts of speech were rife:
While he could stammer.
He was struggling with the unsolved problems of grammar, even though, as Browning vividly tells us, he was
Dead from the waist down.
What a zeal for knowledge had that man ! What an unquench- able thirst ! What an imperious hunger for knowledge ! Where ought such a man to be buried ? Why, on the top of the mountain ;
i86 THE LOVE OF CHRIST
the top peak ! And so Browning sings, " Here " — on the mountain top —
Here's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form,
Lightnings are loosened, Stars come and go ! Let joy break with the storm,
Peace let the dew send! Lofty designs must close in like effects:
Loftily lying, Leave him — still loftier than the world suspects.
Living and dying.^
2, Paul was a man who wanted to know — to know the highest things. His soul was athirst for the highest, purest knowledge, even the knowledge of Christ and His love. And, like the true scholar, he wanted others to know and to know from others. He made it his business in life, next to knowing for himself, to make others know, to be their teacher.
^ Some years ago — it is a good many years now — there was a lady, with a little girl of some three summers, travelling by coach in England from one town to another, and a young man got into the coach who was exceedingly clever ; in fact, he thought himself so clever that he might dispense with all belief in the Bible and in God ; and young as he was, he was the head of an infidel club in a certain city, whither he was then going to preside over their annual dinner that night. As the coach rolled on, the little girl became talkative, and soon she climbed up on the young man's knee, when to amuse her he showed her his penknife, and she liked that, and became quite at home. A few minutes before the coach stopped, she looked up in his face, and in a loud, clear voice she said to him, so that every one in the coach heard it, " Does 'oo love God ? Does 'oo ? " She was only three years old, remember. " Does 'oo love God? "2
3. What is this love of Christ ?
(1) It is a forgiving love. — St. Paul in all his Epistles evinces extreme sensitiveness with regard to sin, and his own personal sin. He had felt its galling bondage, its crushing burden, its withering curse. He had been " a blasphemer, a persecutor, and injurious." He had felt himself to be " carnal, sold under sin." He calls him- self the " chief " of sinners. But now for a long time Christ had
* J. A. Davies, Seven Words of Love, 134.
' G. C. Grubb, Tlie Light of His Countenance, 32.
EPHESIANS III. 17-19 187
been revealed to him as his personal Saviour. His faith rested upon the " obedience unto death " of the Son of God in his stead. His conscience reposed on the righteousness of Christ, and his heart was drawn by the magnet of Christ's love. St. Paul's attachment to Christ was enthusiasm for a personal Eedeemer. It was a sense of redemption that made the Apostle what he now was. He never forgot that he was a poor sinner saved by Divine grace, and the thought bound his heart to his Saviour. He felt that it was a wonderful love that had redeemed him, and all the currents of his soul kept flowing with tremendous energy towards his Redeemer.
^ I am reminded of the incident of a boy who had been tried by court-martial and ordered to be shot. The hearts of the father and mother were broken when they heard the news. In that home was a little girl. She had read the life of Abraham Lincoln, and she said : " Now, if Abraham Lincoln knew how my father and mother loved their boy, he would not let my brother be shot." She wanted her father to go to Washington to plead for his boy. But the father said : " No ; there is no use ; the law must take its course. They have refused to pardon one or two who have been sentenced by that court-martial, and an order has gone forth that the President is not going to interfere again ; if a man has been sentenced by court-martial he must suffer the consequences." That father and mother had not faith to believe that their boy might be pardoned.