I JOHN IV. 19 375
No other founder of religions, patriot, martyr, king, or saint, has ever claimed it or received it. In all history it is unique. Critics tell us that the sayings of the Sermon on the Mount were not original, and the suffering of Calvary no greater than what other men have borne, and even that the Gospel narratives are in many points inaccurate. But all these things, if granted, only force into stronger relief the wonder of the fact that Jesus Christ, crucified, dead, and buried, more than eighteen centuries ago, has inspired in every age, and among wholly diverse nations, in thousands after thousands of sinful and saintly hearts alike, not merely reverence for His memory, or sympathy for His sufferings, or enthusiasm for His cause, but a personal, passionate, living adoration, passing the love of woman; and characterized by a finality, a restfulness, a peace, which finite objects of affection never can afford. That this is so is a fact beyond the reach of contro- versy, and a fact which defies explanation on any other view than that Jesus Christ is God — the Infinite and therefore adequate Object of human love, the desire of all nations, who alone could say, " I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me."
^ Like the skilfully painted portrait which seems to look at each individual in a crowded room, the Saviour on the Cross appears to gaze on me. I listen in the silence, and He, as it were, addresses me, " I have loved thee with an everlasting love," and as I look I reply in wonder, " He loved me, and gave himself for me ! " And this love becomes a double bond, uniting with his Lord and Master the Christian's heart and life.
Love has a hem to its garment
That touches the very dust. It can reach the stains of the streets and lanes,
And because it can, it must.
(3) But if the highest manifestation of the love of God is seen in the cross of Christ, then God loves us not because of our deserving but of His grace. In our natural desire to ascertain the cause of things, we can generally give a good reason why we love this person or that. A relationship — husband and wife, parent and child, friend and friend — is quite enough to account for it ; or it may be in his nature or conduct that we see what causes our love to go out to another. These reasons may be often inadequate, sometimes even unworthy, but they satisfy our desire
ne THE RAY AND THE REFLECTION
to trace the emotion to its originating cause. And when we are asked to believe that God loves us, even us, we are led at once to ask, Why ? Why should God love me ? And if we know even a little of Him or of ourselves — His greatness and our littleness, His glory and our poor estate, His holiness and our sinfulness — we have ample ground for doubting the fact. We fail entirely to account for it, and so we disbelieve it. If we were good, we say, the good God would love us. If we were holy, the Holy One would love us. Perhaps this is the earliest theology most children learn : " If you are not good God will not love you \ " " If you do that God will not love you!" As if sin, the child's or the man's, placed the sinner outside the sphere of the love of God. This heresy lies at the root of all false religions, and of all hypocrisies, that we must by our goodness win the love and favour of God ; till we are " good " God will have nothing to say to us !
^ We are amongst savages of the very lowest type, caring for nothing but what satisfies the cravings of their fleshly lusts. Nevertheless, I love them, not because of any virtue in them, but for the sake of Him who died for them, as well as for us. And although it is not my lot to preach, and a thing I cannot do, yet I hope, while working with and among them, that my life and example will help to mould them to the likeness of our Lord and Master.^
^ " I love poverty," says Pascal, " because He loved it. I love goods, because they enable me to succour the needy. I keep faith with all the world, I do not return evil for evil; and I would that those who wish me harm had reached a state like mine beyond the power of men to make or mar. I try to be true and just to all, and I feel peculiar tenderness for those to whom God has more closely bound me. In all my actions, public and private, I keep in view Him who will one day judge them, and to whom they are all offered up beforehand. Such are my feelings. Every day of my life I bless my Eedeemer, who has implanted them within me. Out of a mass of weakness and misery, pride, ambition, and ill-will He has made a man freed from aU these evils by the power of grace." ^