\^ V 2. Love is the bedrock of the moral universe. — Science has told us of a struggle for existence in which the race is to the swift and the battle to the strong, and God gives the verdict to the stronger. History has told us that God is on the side that has the heaviest battalions. Political Economy has told us that the law of supply and demand is final in trade, and that an enlightened self-interest is the highest motive which commerce can know. Students of Nature, not a few, have called our attention to the truth that God sends not only the grateful warmth of the sun, but also the parching heat ; not only the cooling shower, but also the tempest. But deeper students of Nature will not let us rest till we discern that storm and sunshine, calm and cloud are all manifestations of solar energy ; that if one is good, the other cannot be fully bad. There is not, even if we deify natural forces, one God of sun, and another of wind, since sun and wind manifest the same power. To say that we live in a universe is to unify our conception of the underlying thought of creation, and more careful students of history and of science have a better word to say than that the world is a strife and a tangle. It cannot be wholly bad, and it cannot be mixed; it is then good, though sometimes our faith must stand on tiptoe to reach the truth — the world is good, and life is good, and " God is love."
^ Is there not such a thing as the struggle for the existence of others ? Did you ever start a quail from her nest, and follow her as she flew low and with only one wing, almost within your reach? Did you follow her till you were well away from the pest, and then see the helpless wing come into play, and the
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mother bird fly cheerfully back to the nest ? Some mother quails have lost their lives in that way, no doubt, but they have saved the nest. What has made the quail a persistent type ? Strength ? Yes. Ability to fly ? Yes. Colour like the turf and dead grass ? Yes. But these are not all. Your list of forces will not be complete till you include love, love that can imperil its life for love's sake. Did you ever see a little mother hen spread her feathers and give defensive battle to a hawk ? Some- times by the courage that love gives she actually drove the hawk away ; sometimes she laid down her life for her brood ; in either case it was love that saved the little ones. The love of the mother was stronger than the hunger of the hawk. So Nature gives eloquent witness to the power of the law of love.^
^ When Mungo Park was in Africa, he felt at one time very weary and alone, and he thought he should perish. He lay down on the ground, and he saw a little bit of moss. Did you ever examine a little bit of moss ? It is so beautiful. And Mungo Park saw this beautiful little bit of moss ; and it said to him, " God is love " ; and he was not afraid, for he saw, even in the little bit of moss, " God is love." ^
O plenteous grace that nerved my soul to raise So fixt a look on the Eternal Light, That I achieved the object of my gaze !
Within its depth I saw that by the chains Of love, in one sole volume was confined Whate'er the universal world contains ; —
Substance, and accident — their properties. Together in such wondrous manner joined. One glimpse is all my utmost skill supplies.
Methinks I saw the universal mould
Of all this globe ; — such thrilling ecstasy Expands my heart, as I the sight unfold.^
III.
Love in Christ.
1. It was in Christ that love reached its full manifestation. — Christ was not the originator of love. He simply disclosed it to the world. You do not say that dawn makes the sun ? Nor that the
' W. E. Barton. -James Vaii^'liau,
* Dante, Paradiso, xxxiii. 58 (trans, by Wriglit),
33^ GOD
incoming ships cause the flow of the tide ? Nor that the flowers create the summer ? No ! The dawn is the sign that the sun is coming ; it is caused by the sun. The ships are carried in by the tide, and only reveal its current. The summer makes the flowers, and they declare its glory. Why, then, do you say that Christ Tnade, or bought, or in any way procured the love of God, when it was God's love that sent Him forth on His mission ? The love of God has no shallows. It is equally deep everywhere — Calvary deep wherever you try it. As far as God's love is concerned, the Cross might be placed in Genesis as well as in John, in Leviticus as well as in Luke.
^ Especially in Christ is there fathomless beauty and glory. St. Paul's heart was overwhelmed with loving enthusiasm as he thought of his privilege of preaching " The Unsearchable Eiches of Christ." The more we ponder these riches, the richer will our own love be. And so it happened in the case of the poor native dying in the Mengo Medical Mission in Uganda. The Missionary asked him if he knew who Jesus Christ was, and he received the beautiful reply, " He is a strong bridge over which I pass through the gate."^