^ The opening paragraphs of Wesley's Earnest Appeal to Men of Beason and Religion are perhaps the finest epitome of the ruling purpose of the Great Eevival. The lifeless, formal religion of the time was a sad contrast to that religion of love which they had found. The love of God and of all mankind " we believe to be the medicine of life, the never-failing remedy for all the evils of a disordered world, for all the miseries and vices of men. Wherever this is, there are virtue and happiness going hand in hand. There is humbleness of mind, gentleness, long-suffering, the whole image of God, and at the same time a peace that passeth all under- standing, and joy unspeakable and full of glory." 2
^ C. H, Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, 1876, p. 343. ' J. Telford, The Life 0/ John Wesley, 112.
382 THE RAY AND THE REFLECTION
III.
Our Love to Man.
1. Man's life expands when God's love possesses it. It becomes as the universe. God is everywhere its occupant, and yet excludes not one particle of His infinite productions. We are not bidden to abstract all affections from the creature when bidden to love God " with all the heart, with all the soul, and with all the strength, and with all the mind." It is a principle laid down by St. John — " Every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him." And therefore the way to increase in that love which alone deserves the name as being anything better than a development of selfishness, is to increase in love to God. Piety will produce charity. The more we love God the more will we love man.
^ Those thinkers who cannot believe in any gods often assert that the love of humanity would be in itself sufficient for them ; and so, perhaps, it would, if they had it.^
2. We can show our love by loving service. Where the love of the Almighty has been excited, it will become a ruling principle, and manifest itself in every department of conduct. If we love God, it will necessarily follow that we will desire to please Him ; that we will delight in contemplating His glories ; that the sense of His favour will be our choicest treasure ; and that, consequently, obedience to His will, and earnestness in winning others from their enmity, will be evident in our actions.
^ I think that it was at this time of his life that he used to go down every night of the week to the Grassmarket and convoy a man home past the public-houses.^
^ But still, the main lesson which her lady-pupils carried away from Walsall was not how to dress wounds or how to bandage, or even how to manage a hospital on the most popular as well as the most economical method, but rather the mighty results which the motive-power of love towards God, and, for His sake, towards mankind, might enable one single woman to effect. Sister Dora said to a friend who was engaging a servant for the hospital, " Tell
^ G. K. Chesterton, Trememdous Trifles.
^ G. A. Smith, The Life of Henry DrummoTid, 114.
1 JOHN IV. 19 383
her this is not an ordinary house, or even hospital ; I want her to understand that all who serve here, in whatever capacity, ought to have one rule, love for God, and then I need not say love for their work. I wish we could use, and really mean, the word Mai&on-BietJiy ^
^ One night she was sent for by a poor man who was much attached to her, and who was dying of what she called " black- pox," a violent form of small-pox. She went at once and found him almost in the last extremity. All his relations had fled, and a neighbour alone was with him, doing what she could for him. When Sister Dora found that only one small piece of candle was left in the house, she gave the woman some money, begging her to go and buy some means of light, while she stayed with the man. She sat on by his bed, but the woman, who had probably spent the money at the public-house, never returned ; and after some little while the dying man raised himself up in bed with a last effort, saying, " Sister, kiss me before I die." She took him, all covered as he was with the loathsome disease, into her arms, and kissed him, the candle going out almost as she did so, leaving them in total darkness. He implored her not to leave him while he lived, although he might have known she would never do that. It was then past midnight, and she sat on, for how long she knew not, until he died. Even then she waited, fancying, as she could not see him, that he might be still alive, till in the early dawn she groped her way to the door, and went to find some neighbours.^
3. The more we love others and make our love manifest in our life, the more will we persuade them of the reality of love and therefore of the love of God. Our age is remarkable for triumphs of mercy, and not the least of the blessings which the merciful have rendered to us is that they have shown disinterested virtue to be possible. He who ennobles himself ennobles his race, draws away many a wavering^ recruit from the seat of the scorner, giving him an ideal and a hope in life. Ask those who have thus elevated their generation whence they drew their inspiration, and they will one and all reply : *' We love, because he first loved us." They will say : If we have taught our soldiers and sailors to keep their bodies in temperance, soberness, and chastity ; if we have cleansed and clothed the waifs and strays of our modern Babylons and sent them forth as welcome colonists