Professor W. G. Elmslie, D.D.: Memoir and Sermons

by William Gray Elmslie

You have listened to a beautiful oratorio, where scores of instruments and hundreds of voices were all blended together in one tide of magnificent harmony. How is it possible for a small intellect to keep them thus in unison? It requires a master-mind in music to do this—one that is fully conscious of the value of each string and voice, and who can therefore combine them all in glorious harmony. And God is almighty; it is nothing to Him that He is far away from you; you, a speck of dust upon this world. It is precisely because I believe in God's omnipotence that I can believe that He cares for each separate creature He has made.

But then there is another question. Even if God can love each one of us, apart from all the rest, with an individual, personal, watchful kindness, what right have we to think that He should care to do it? Once again, that difficulty need but be faced, and you discover that it is a delusive spectre and empty of reality.

Is it likely that God should miss the love of me, His creature?

Turn to the early chapters of Genesis, and read the story they have to tell you. They tell you how through measureless periods of time, in the fields of infinite space, the great God built up our world; first the stone foundations, layer upon layer; above that, the strata of mineral wealth, to be used hereafter, clothing the surface of it with a verdant soil. Out of the mineral world he evolved the nutritive, vegetable world, out of vegetable life the higher creation of animal life, and out of that emerges man, standing on the summit of God's great toil and building, with eyes that see, ears that hear, and mind that can understand, answering to the call of God, interpreting all the wisdom, patience, beauty, and love in that mighty labour of creation, and saying, "Father, I adore Thee." Do you think that man, then, His last crowning work of creation, is nothing to God? What should you say of one who spent years and years, and sank uncounted capital, upon a great mass of wonderfully contrived machinery, to produce some beautiful fabric of beneficence to mankind, and when it was produced turned away and left it all? You would call such a one a fool, and mad.

God made this world, and spent toil and industry in making the heart of man, and keeping it conscious of Him, capable of loving Him. And do you mean to tell me that God does not care for human love? It is impossible. There is no God at all, or the Gospel is true. He does miss it when your heart does not bend to Him. The supreme gladness we can give our Maker is the simple, sincere adoration of our poor human hearts.

There is a picture that paints the idea of my text. It says, to those who look at it, what I could not say in many paragraphs. A cottage neglected, falling into ruin, is shown in the picture. In front of the window tall thistles spring up, and long grass waves on the pathway, leading to the door overgrown with moss. In front of that fast-closed door a tall and stately figure stands, with a face that tells of toil and long, weary waiting, and with a hand uplifted to knock. It is Christ, the Son of God, seeking to get into our sinful hearts. Is it true that there can be a man or woman who refuses to admit so fair a guest, so great and good a friend? It must be true. "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me."

But you think you can justify yourself. You say to me, "I feel it were a mad, foolish thing to refuse to admit to my own, if it be true, the loving heart of God, and a thing altogether unjustifiable. You say He comes and knocks at our hearts—that He calls and asks us to let Him in. No; many have called at the door of my heart, but I never knew Christ to call or knock. If ever He had, I think I should have let Him in." I believe you speak the truth, but I am certain that Christ has been to your heart.

Let me speak plainly to you. There may be various reasons why you have failed to detect His presence. Perchance your life has not been so good as even common morality would have made it, and now your heart is a very dreary place, filled with painful memories. Perhaps you are always outside, gadding about, and do not like to dwell alone in your heart and think; and so when Christ knocks and calls He finds empty rooms; or if even you are there you are not there alone, but you have filled its chambers with a noisy, revelling company and din. The call has reached you as a dim, half-heard, strange sound, which moved you half pleasantly and half with pain. You turned in your heart and listened for an instant, but there was something in the sound too painful, and you plunged back again into revelry and mirth. You did not know that it was God, the very heart of God, that had knocked and called.

Again, your life may have been very respectable, but very light and frivolous, engrossed in earthly affairs; and Christ has come, and you did not know it. For He comes in such simple, human guise. You remember when He came on earth the poor Jews did not know Him for more than the carpenter's son. He comes like that to you and me. He takes a human hand, and with its fingers knocks, but all you see and recognise is the human touch. You do not see the heart Divine that touches you through it with an appealing thrill.

Thank God, there are so many good mothers in this world. Thank God for the little children, and the lads and maidens here, whom a mother's memory follows like a very angel, often after she herself has gone. You remember that Sabbath evening custom when you and the little ones knelt at your mother's knee, and she told you the stories of the Bible; and the last one was always about the gentle Jesus, meek and mild, who came to the world with such a great heart of love, who knew no sin at all, who was so good to women and children and the very worst of broken-hearted sinners, and whom men with hard hearts and cruel hands took and crucified; oh, such a death of pain for you! till you could almost see His face on the cross. And your mother's voice had got so low and reverent that it felt as if some one else was in the room, and your young child's heart grew so soft and loving to that Christ that died for you. Yes, He was there. Did you take Him quite inside? Or if you took Him in for a little while did you let Him go again, when your heart grew colder? Oh, young men and maidens who had a mother like that, remember her, and take that Christ into your hearts!