^ There is a story of a lad who was devoted to his father, and
^ J. M. Jones, The Cup of Cold Water, 162.
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who stole some money from his employer's till. He was detected in the act, sent to prison, and brought a stain upon the family name. Before serving his sentence, he was allowed to see his sister, who came to visit him in gaol.
" What does mother say ? " asked the lad.
" Mother washes her hands of you," was the reply.
" What do the others say ? "
" They never mention your name."
And then came the question, " What does father say ? "
And the answer was, " Father sends his love and a kiss."
This reached home as nothing else did. Is it not a parable of the All-Father's love ? Man fell and went wrong ; was — he always is — detected ; brought a stain on the family name ; and to man, just as he was (" while we were yet sinners "), came the message, " Father sends you His Love, and a Kiss." Jesus was the Love of the Father, and an old and beautiful name for the Holy Ghost was " the Kiss of God," the reconciling Power which brings pardon and peace to poor prodigal humanity.^
Love, love that once for all did agonize. Shall conquer all things to itself ! if late Or soon this fall, I ask not nor surmise, — And when my God is waiting I can wait ! ^
3. GocCs love is a wise love, a watchful love, a faithful love : there is nothing it will not do for us, except wrong; there is nothing it will not endure for us, except sin ; and there is nothing it will not be very careful to spare us, in order to turn us from the evil of our way. " As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live." If we are chastened, therefore, it is not for His pleasure, but for our profit, " for what son is there whom his father chasteneth not?" As the sun calls forth the very clouds that hide his face for a season till the tender rain falls that brightens the earth anew, so also His love, at times, may darken the face of heaven to us till the bitter-sweet tears of repentance restore the light to us again. But through all and in all His love abides unchanged, and is at the root of our sorrows as well as our joys, often hidden, but never absent, the same yesterday and to-day and forever.
^ We see Jesus Christ, without losing His belief in God's love,
> E. E. Holmes, The Days of the Week, 45. 2 Dora Greenwell.
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stripped of everything except being what He was and doing what He believed it His work to do. His character and His service, these were left to Him, and in His calling to these He recognized that God loved Him. Whatever came to Him, however painful it was, still did not contradict God's love, if it enabled Him to finish His work. Even His death was the cup which His Father gave Him to drink, and though it was bitter, it was yet a love-token. God's love to Jesus was more seen in giving Him that cup to drink, that so He might be the Saviour of men, than it would have been in snatching Him from the brink of death into heaven. His work all unfinished. We are taught by the life of Jesus Christ to see God's love not in the gifts of fortune, or in health and outward happiness, but in the supreme gift of making us sons of God, and giving us the work of sons to do.^
^ I was standing not long ago by a child's sick-cot ; and if there is any sight which it is hard to look upon, it is that of the little one, to whom it is all such a mystery, racked and tortured with pain. But the brave little heroine whispered, " Father, give me your hand"; and holding her father's hand, though riddled with pain, she never moaned. And so I. I do not know what others may not be able to do ; I criticize no one, think hard thoughts of no one; I only say that in my bewilderments, sorrows, heartaches, struggles, I cannot rest upon ideas, visions, aspirations, strivings. I say, " Father, give me Thine hand." I can be patient and brave then. Father ! Thy name is Love.^
4. God's love is the key to the mystery of pain and sorrow. — This epigrammatic sentence fits all graves, it fits all cemeteries ; it is the word that is written on the portals of the churchyard, " God is love." I have seen a strong man reel over his son's grave as if he would plunge himself into it, for there was nothing worth living for after that one boy had gone. He was not in a mood to hear any preaching, he was not in a condition to hear even the gentlest tone; he must be watched, we must wait for him; he must feel it like a man before he answers it like a man. It will be no use speaking to him to-day ; he sups sorrow ; no, he does not sup it, he gulps it, he drains the cup of grief at one great gulp. We must call upon this man to-morrow ; we must be remote, we must learn in God's grace how to touch a wound without hurting it. Next week perhaps we may meet him, and even then we