Experience

by Catherine Cotton

'"I'm not cut out for that other kind of fishing."

'"Not if I breathed on your hooks?"

'We fell silent. Then I thought of the loathing I have always had for slums and dirt and squalor, and especially for natives, and He must have known what I was thinking, for He said,—

'"Isn't it a good thing I didn't have an antipathy for black people—that time I died for you?"

'And I said, "Yes, Sir," because all in a moment I realised how black sin was to the Son of God who in the perfection of His whiteness had been "made sin" that I might become the righteousness of God in Him.

'And then He said, "Anthony, you've been horribly lonely lately, haven't you?"

'"Yes, Sir."

'"And you think I can't comprehend that kind of loneliness, but it's you who don't understand. I have never had My marriage supper—My bride delays to make herself ready.'

'I looked at Him again then, and saw His ache and hunger for His Church.

'"Anthony, land and water only divide you from your children, so many of Mine are separated from Me by sin," and I looked at Him again, and saw that He would always be lonely till the last of His children kneel to Him.