* J. MacConnachie, An Artisan Missionary on the Zambesi, 77. 2 Viscount St. Gyres, Pascal, 229.
I JOHN iv/ 19 2^^^
II.
OuK Love to God,
The Eevised Version omits "him" in the first clause, and simply says " we love," without specifying the object. That is to say, for the moment John's thought is fixed rather on the inward transformation effected, from self-regard to love, than on con- sidering the object on which the love is expended. When the heart is melted, the streams flow wherever there is a channel. The river, as he goes on to show us, parts into two heads, and love to God and love to man are, in their essence and root-principle, one thing.
1. Our love is the heart's response to God's love. — We love, because He first loved us. Our love is secondary, His is primary ; ours is reflection, His the original beam ; ours is echo, His the mother-tone. Heaven must bend to earth before earth can rise to heaven. The skies must open and drop down love, before love can spring in the fruitful flelds. And it is only when we look with true trust to that great unveiling of the heart of God which is in Jesus Christ, only when we can say, " Herein is love — that he sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins," that our hearts are melted, and all their snows are dissolved into sweet waters, which, freed from their icy chains, can flow with music in their ripple, and fruitfulness along their course, through our otherwise silent and barren lives.
As the sun holds our planet in the strong grasp of its attraction, while the earth by its own very weak gravitation is also held in its place, so does the consciousness of God's great love grasp and sustain my soul and my life ; and then my own weak and feeble love to Him (itself the " first-fruits of the Spirit ") serves to " bind my wandering heart " to Him. I apprehend, though with poor and trembling hand, Him by whom I am apprehended with a hold which no other power can destroy. It is to this love that our Lord appeals as the motive of all obedience. Hence the tender, anxious, repeated inquiry, " Lovest thou me ? " This love will account sufficiently for single actions and for whole lives. The perfumes which the woman poured upon the Saviour's
^yS THE RAY AND THE REFLECTION
feet, and the " spikenard very precious " which the sister of Bethany lavished on her Divine Master, were prompted by a like love. The grandest human life of service and of suffering ever lived on earth is explained and accounted for in the words, " the love of Christ constraineth us." "We love, because he first loved us."
^ How all reasoning and arguing fails where one word of love softens, and influences, and does the work ! and it is, as ever, by dwelling on the good rather than driving out the evil that the right thing is brought about.^
^ The Holy Spirit cries in us with a loud voice and without words, "Love the love which loves you everlastingly." His crying is an inward contact with our spirit. This voice is more terrifying than the storm. The flashes which it darts forth open the sky to us and show us the light of eternal truth. The heat of its contact and of its love is so great that it well-nigh consumes us altogether. In its contact with our spirit it cries without interruption, " Pay your debt ; love the love which has loved you from all eternity." Hence there arises a great inward impatience and also an unlimited resignation. For the more we love, the more we desire to love ; and the more we pay of that which love demands, the greater becomes our debt to love. Love is not silent, but cries continually, " Love thou love." This conflict is unknown to alien senses. To love and to enjoy, that is to labour and to suffer. God lives in us by His grace. He teaches us, He counsels us, He commands us to love. We live in Him above all grace and above our own works, by suffering and enjoying. In us dwell love, knowledge, contemplation, and possession, and, above them, enjoyment. Our work is to love God ; our enjoyment is to receive the embrace of love.^
0 eyes that strip the souls of men! There came to me the Magdalen, Her blue robe with a cord was bound, Her hair with Lenten lilies crowned.
" Arise," she said, " God calls for thee, Turned to new paths thy feet must be. Leave the fever and the feast, Leave the friend thou lovest Isest : For thou must walk in barefoot ways, To give my dear Lord Jesus praise."
^ A. P. Stanley, Memoirs of Edward and Catherine Stanley, 308, ^ M. Maeterlinck, Euyshrocck and the Mystics, 95.
' l
I JOHN IV. 19 379
Then answered I — "Sweet Magdalen,
God's servant, once beloved of men,
Why didst thou change old ways for new,
That trailing red for corded blue,
Koses for lilies on thy brow,
Eich splendour for a barren vow ? "
Gentle of speech she answered me : —