Consider, then, that we are told that "God is Love;" and if He loves us, there is no difficulty in believing that He feels all this interest in us. Do not judge Him by earthly Kings and Potentates. These are Giants who cannot see carraway seeds. We do not blame them, for it is impossible they should be interested for every body. But very very different is both the power and the feeling of the King of Kings!
Still we have not got over the difficulty yet, for of all the wonderful truths we are commanded to believe, no one is so wonderful and so incomprehensible as the Love of God to the sinful human race.
And yet it is a truth, and of all truths the most important and most comfortable; and therefore it is much to be desired that we should thoroughly believe it: and I think I can make you understand that it is possible, by something which you feel in your own hearts. I think God has placed even in our own hearts a witness of the possibility of this great Truth.
My idea is this. We know that God has been merciful to us—(His very creation of man was an act of mercy), and therefore we know that He loves us. He loves us because He has been merciful to us. If you cannot see why this should be, I refer you to the following story, and advise you to try for yourselves. Only be kind to any living creature, whether a human being, or an irrational animal, and see if you can keep your heart from loving it! Certainly it does not become us to try to search out the unsearchable mind of God, but I think it is permitted us to hope, that the remarkable fast of Kindness engendering Love, which we experience in our own hearts, is intended to lead us upwards as by a holy guiding thread, to some comprehension of the Love of that God, who in Christ Jesus actually gave Himself for us.
THE TALE.
Lift up the curtain!
In a baronial hall, not of the size and grandeur of that at Warwick Castle, which those who have never seen should try to see before they die: but still in a hall as antique and interesting in style, fits a young man reading.
It is evening, though the sun has not yet set, but it is evening, and the young man is sitting at a small oak table in a recess in one of the ancient windows, and before him lies open a book, and on the book, which he touches not with his hands, but on which his eyes, blinded by tears, are fixed, there lies a faded primrose.
The book is the Bible, and the faded primrose lies on that verse in the Psalm, "Oh that men would therefore praise the Lord for his goodness, and declare the wonders that he doeth for the children of men!" and some hand had placed a slight pencil mark before these words.
This scene brings before you a story of distress, and yet this young man is the possessor of a large estate;—the baronial hall and house are his own, and he is young and amiable, and till within the last few months had led a life of almost uninterrupted comfort and prosperity from his cradle upwards. Two years ago he became the betrothed lover of a young lady no less interesting than himself, and as no obstacle prevented their union, both had for these two years looked forward to it, as the one certain and sure event of their lives. The young man's parents had died when he was very young; but, in compliance with the wishes of his Guardians, he deferred his marriage till he should have come of age.