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Front matter

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Chap. Copyright No..

Dedication

To the friends whose love and trust have gladdened and glorified his days; and to the many kindred hearts, who, though yet unknown, are still, through kindred experiences, being led along the converging paths that center at the throne, to blend their lives forever in the glory and joy of immortal friendship, this little book is affectionately dedicated

by the AUTHOR.

January 1, 1897.

Chapter I. Knowing God

"He that loveth not knoweth not God. for God is love."— 1 John 4 : 8.

' ' God is love. ' ' These three words of only nine letters contain a revelation of God greater than men or angels will ever be able fully to fathom. In fact, to know more of their meaning, to be constantly learning more of their meaning, will be the work and the wisdom, the pleasure and the poetry, of the redeemed throughout eternity. To comprehend the meaning of these words is to know God and Jesus Christ, and to know these is life eternal. 1 In truth, there is no knowledge outside of them ; for in them are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, and without is only ignorance and darkness. 2

This is no figure of speech, it is the simple statement of a fact. To say that any man has had a thought of truth or an item of knowledge that God did not have before him, is to say that in that respect the man is in advance of his Maker; and that would be to deny the omniscience of God. Although they cannot lead to wicked actions in him as they do in us, yet even our wicked thoughts are known to God before we think them. The psalmist says : "O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off. ' ' 3 And Job answered the Lord and said, " I know that thou canst do everything, and that no thought can be toithholden from thee."* David is yet more bold, for he says, " The Lord searcheth all hearts and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts"

No wonder that grand old Kepler, as he gazed into the heavens, computing and measuring the motions of the planets, till, one after another, the sublime laws of planetary motion burst upon his bewildered mind, — no wonder that, with brimming eyes and throbbing heart, he exclaimed, "O God, I think thy thoughts after thee ! ' ' The best that any astronomer can do is to think reverently God's thoughts after him, and perchance trace the working out of some of those thoughts through the wondrous star-gemmed pathways of the sky. All the student of zoology can do is to trace the thoughts of God through the varied forms of animal life, discovering at every step the evidences of the infinite Mind that has preceded him.

The botanist traces the same Mind through the orders and families of the vegetable kingdom, finding in every leaf and every flower

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an infinity of beauty revealed, which, even with the aid of all his microscopes, he cannot comprehend ; and yet he knows and feels that the infinite Mind has thought it all out before him, and that every thought was a thought of love. The very buds on the trees grow in accordance with a mathematical law, and he sees that God had numbered them all before they came.

Faith sees but a short step from all this to the truth that Jesus taught when he said : ' ' The very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not, therefore. ' ' What wonder that David said : ' ' Thou, Lord, hast made me glad through thy work ; I will triumph in the works of thy hands. O Lord, how great are thy works ! and thy thoughts are very deep. ' ' From the mightiest sun that swings in space to the smallest flower blooming at my feet, there is an infinity in everything ; and if we read aright, we soon discover it to be an infinity of all-comprehending and allencompassing love, for God is love. Thus we think God's thoughts after him, till our own hearts are filled with love ineffable.

The poet's soul never thrilled with a pure emotion but he caught the thought from God, revealed somewhere in his work or his word. The mighty harmony whose first full pulse almost burst the enraptured musician's heart, descended through dim distances from the angel choir ; his sensitive ear only caught and reproduced it here. So all study is the study of God, all knowledge is included in knowing him, and to know him is to know love, for "God is love."

The visitor in Washington, looking from the dome of the capitol, discovers that all streets lead toward him. The capitol is the hub from which all the streets radiate to the city and to the nation. In the great empire of Rome, it was said all roads led to Rome. So God sits in the center of his mighty universe, and every path of knowledge is a magnificent avenue leading to his throne, an avenue on which he who walks does well to pause, and wonder, and worship at every object passed, even as the ancient traveler at the wayside shrine, wondering and worshiping, seeing God in everything, only taking care to keep his face onward toward the throne and to be prepared for greater glory farther on.

The pantheist and the agnostic champion of a science falsely so called, may walk backward admiring the pebbles by the way, and persistently refuse to see anything but what they have already passed ; but faith chooses rather to leave those things which are behind, and press forward to those things which are before, beholding each new object, and the whole avenue before, in the magnificent light of the throne. "To such a one," Carlisle well says, "the universe is not a kitchen and a cattle stall merely, but an oracle and a temple as

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well. ' ' For him the mystery does not vanish with the superficial explanations of science, but through these he sees all mysteries broadening and deepening, and resolving themselves into the one great sweet mystery of God, — and God is love. It is not strange that this should be so. It is like God, a God who would lead all men to him, if only they would be led.

We see the same thing in his word as in his work. The first commandment includes the whole decalogue ; the message of the first angel of Revelation 14 includes all three messages ; the first sermon of Christ includes the whole gospel. Why ? Because God would arrange it so that the logical mind, receiving the first glimmerings of truth, might be led thereby step by step into the whole truth, and to himself the God of truth. This is because God is love. Even so in his work : if we but trace his thought, we shall find from the smallest insect, studied only under the most powerful magnifying glass, up to the largest *suns and worlds, stepping-stones upward, yea, a magnificent stairway leading to him.

This is what Paul meant when he says : ' ' The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead ; so that they [the heathen] are without excuse. ' ' And David tells the same truth: "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. ' ' 5 All knowledge is in him, so night unto night reveals him. His glory is his goodness. So the heavens declare his goodness ; and for him who has eyes to see, and ears to hear, and a heart to understand, the heavens and earth, day and night, unite in varied harmonious voices, to proclaim in every land and every tongue that God is love.

Chapter II. The Attributes Of God

" I know not where his islands lift Their fronded palms in air.

I only know I cannot drift

Beyond his love and care." — W hitfier.

"God is love." The study of these words is the study of a God in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. God has revealed himself both in his work and in his word, and these revelations agree in this truth. All that the broadest science can do is to comprehend something of the plan of creation, and this whole creation is but the materialization of the divine thought. The plan is God's — a part of the infinite Mind.

What the word of God seeks to do is to reveal in human language the divine plan of redemption, a plan disclosing such infinite depths of love that even the angels desire to look into it. Even they who constantly dwell in the full light of that love, unclouded by sin or sorrow, — even they behold here unknown expanses and unf athomed depths ; and if asked what they most thought revealed the love of God for his creatures, they would undoubtedly answer, "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

''God is love." What do the words mean' What can they mean but that love is the controlling characteristic in the mind of God the one attribute of Deity from which all other attributes spring, and back into which they can all be traced ? The Scriptures do not say that God is power; they say he is powerful almighty. We see his power manifested in creating and upholding the universe; but his power separated from his love would but reveal to him our weakness until we became contemptible in his sight. The two must not be separated.

What the soul, wearied with its own hopeless struggle against sin, needs to see, is not that he is less powerful, but that his power is his love. What is the moral power of the universe but the power of love ? Said Napoleon while languishing in exile on the barren rock of St. Helena, "Alexander, Julius Ccesar, and myself founded kingdoms by the power of our arms, and to-day who cares for us ? But Jesus Christ founded a kingdom by the power of his love, and to-day millions would die for him."

Satan has no power to force a man arbitrarily to do wrong. If he did have that power, the wrong would be solely in him, and not in

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the man thus forced. All evil, as all good, lies in the mind that directs the action. If by taking hold of one who is weaker than I am, I force him to thrust a dagger into his neighbor, it was my mind, not his, that directed the blow, and in me solely lies the sin. If he consents to my act, he becomes partner in the guilt. If I could force his mind on every subject by thus putting my mind in the place of his own, he would cease to have any separate existence from me, and hence would have no character, either good or bad. So God cannot force the mind arbitrarily to dictate good actions. To do that would be to destroy individual identity, and make all men but machines to manifest God's mind. The power of Satan is therefore solely the power to lead men who submit their minds to him, into evil. And the power of God to redeem the world is solely the power of his love to lead men who submit their minds to him, into righteousness. God's power is therefore his love. Nor can this be limited to mere moral power. What is the power that created and that upholds the universe? Agnostic science may prate learnedly of evolution and gravitation, but faith sees the same infinite Love, without whom not a sparrow f alleth to the ground, creating and upholding suns and worlds, that there may be light, and heat, and home for all his creatures. Thus the power of God is his love, and why need we fear?

Perfect love casteth out fear by revealing the fact that the infinite reservoir of almighty force is held at the dictation of that love that gathereth the lambs in his arms, and tenderly carrieth them in his bosom.

And what about the wisdom of God? We see his wonderful wisdom revealed in the harmonious revolution of the planets in their orbits, each with clocklike precision completing its revolution at just the right time, though hundreds of years in making it; all crossing and recrossing one another's paths in the heavens, yet never dashing into each other. This reveals his wisdom, and also his love for his creatures, if we look with other than blind eyes. His wisdom separated from his love would but teach him our weakness and foolishness.

Shut in behind the impenetrable future, and peering with but faulty vision into the poorly comprehended past, what the soul, thus painfully conscious of its own limitations, wants to know is that God's wisdom is his love, and that all the future, to it so dark, is held in Love's hands.

After all, what is the world's foolishness but its rebellion against the wisdom of God's law, which is love ? — a rebellion and a foolishness which have given birth to every throb of human pain and every wail of human anguish. Eternity will demonstrate that the wisdom of God was but the wisdom of a

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fatherly, solicitous love, that saw the inevitable end of each course of action from the beginning, and only forbade those things which would lead to misery.

And what is justice, the justice of God, but another name for his love ? Our partial love may make us unjust. If I love A more than B, I may be unjust to B, but this injustice is not the result of my love for A, but rather of the imperfection of my love in its lack toward B. The moment we conceive of a love that is infinite and all-embracing, that moment we see that that love includes justice. Can he who loves all his children be unjust to any of them? Thus justice is love, and he, the dread One, holding the balances in his hands, is he beyond whose love and care we cannot stray, though we may often grieve his Spirit.

And what shall I say of the wrath of God, spoken of so many times in the Scripture ? Jesus Christ came to reveal the Father. There never was a being on this earth who loved the sinner as did he, and never one who so perfectly and completely hated the sin. His love for the sinner was as infinite as his hatred for the sin. In him is revealed a God who ever and always completely separates between the sinner and the sin. He hates the sin, because it is the enemy of the sinner, whom he loves. If I have a friend, and know of an assassin who is lurking for his life, the measure of my love for that friend is the measure of my hatred for that assassin.

Sin is the only enemy of the human race. It lurks insidiously behind ten thousand beautiful forms of pleasure, and ever lurks with murderous intent. All God's hatred is his hatred for sin. All his wrath is his wrath against sin. This hatred and wrath are simply his love for the sinner, whom sin is seeking to destroy. The plan of redemption is God's effort, by revealing his infinite love, to separate the sin from the sinner, so that sin may be destroyed, misery banished, and the universe clean, and yet the sinner saved.

Only those who finally and inseparably connect themselves with sin, so that God cannot destroy the one without destroying the other, will have to drink God's wrath against sin. Love takes no pleasure in this even. "As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked ; but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways ; for why will ye die?"

Thus all the attributes of God are traced back to the one attribute, and "God is love." ' ' Love is of God ; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love. ' ' There is nothing in God but love, for love includes everything good. His love reaches

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to the outermost rim of his mighty universe, and takes in its constant care all his creatures, never leaving them for a moment, however much they may grieve him to his heart.

Chapter III. Love The Source Of Righteousness

"All thy commandments are righteousness."— David. "Love is the fulfilling of the law."— Paul.

Love is the one attribute of God, from which all other attributes spring, — the all in a]l of God; and therefore the past, with its faults and failures, and the future, with its fears, if we but trust him, rest safely in Love's hands. But, says one, why is it so important to know this ?

To say nothing of the unspeakable joy of this knowledge, all the power of the gospel of Christ to transform the soul and work in us the works of righteousness, depends upon it. All the righteousness of God is summed up in the ten commandments, wherefore David says : " The law of the Lord is perfect ;" and, "all thy commandments are righteousness." God says, ' ' Hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law." Thus it is seen that to have the righteousness of God in the heart is simply to have the law of God written there. Jesus sums up all the law, and consequently the

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whole moral duty of man, in the two principles of love to God and love to man. John reduces these principles to the one principle of love to God, by showing that if we love God, the Father, we will love man, his child, our brother. 1 So Paul sums up the whole duty of man and all the righteousness of God in one word, saying ".Love is the fulfilling of the law," and John assents to this proposition by saying, "Whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected." Thus love dwelling in the heart of man is the fulfilling of all righteousness, and hatred dwelling there is the fulfilling of all iniquity, and all the conflict of the ages is simply the conflict of these two principles in the hearts of God's creatures.

But what is to change our hearts, that are so full of hatred, into hearts that are filled only with love ? What is the source of all this love? John answers by saying, "Love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God." Ah, that is it; like begets like, — the mighty, constant, all - encompassing love of God, that upholds us, and enfolds us, and wraps us in with him, begets a like love in our hearts, leading us to reach out helpful hands in pitying, sympathetic love to all his creatures ! And this is righteousness, the righteousness of God, and nothing else is righteousness.

Suppose it were possible for a man to do right simply that he might gain heaven. That very desire cherished persistently and thoughtlessly, when so many others are going down to death, would itself be selfishness and sin. Jesus Christ gave up heaven, accounting it not a thing to be held fast when man was lost. 2 Suppose it were possible that one should do right for fear of hell ; that at best would be a species of cowardice, that dare not go where it believed so many others were going. All this would be but an external righteousness, a making clean the outside of the cup and the platter. The real principle of righteousness, which is love itself, would be lacking, and so there would be none of God's righteousness, but only self-righteousness, which is as filthy rags in his sight. There is truth and beauty in the old legend of an angel with a watering pot in one hand and a censor in the other, pouring water on the flames of hell, and causing the smoke to rise and obscure the glory of heaven, that men might do right simply for the love of right.

Let it be remembered that love of right and love of God are one and the same, for in the conception of all true men God is the embodiment of the supremely right, the supremely, good. If, then, the love of God is the very soul and substance of all righteousness, how shall we love him?

Better ask, Why, when he is the one altogether lovely, do we love him so little? Why so

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much cold philosophy, and so little warm heart religion? Why have we come to think that the very word love, when applied to God, means a different thing from the warm reaching out of the heart's sympathies and longings which we feel toward a friend ? Perchance, when applied to him, it means a mixture of awe and reverence more nearly approaching to fear and even terror than to love. Ah ! all this comes from having false and pagan ideas of God; we have not yet seen that God is love. When we have, perfect love will cast out fear, because fear hath torment.

But says one, "How shall I love God? I have tried and tried. ' ' Poor soul ! try no longer. Love does not come in that way. It is not pushed out from within by any sort of resolution; it is drawn out from without, by the sight of that which is lovely and lovable. Stop ; cease thy struggling and trying ; look at Him as revealed in his work and his word. Is he not the chiefest among ten thousand, the Rose of Sharon, the Lily of the Valley, the One altogether lovely ? Do not thine eyes, even now, behold the King in his beauty ? God knows full well that all righteousness is simply love to him, and he knows it is impossible for us to make ourselves love that which is not lovable; so creation and redemption are twin efforts of the divine One to reveal his mighty love to the soul that will but stop to look and live. It is his love that painted for thine eyes the blush of beauty on the rose's cheek. To regale thy sense he gave that rose its perfumed breath. The delicate tints and traceries of the thousand forms of beauty in thy path are so many evidences of his loving care, — a care that, comprehending all, stoops from sweeping stars and suns to note the sparrow's fall. Ah, he it is that piles yon sunset clouds into such wondrous forms of temple and palace and pyramid, pouring over all such floods of golden light, to gild the very edge of darkness, that through these fairy gateways we almost fancy there lies the city of our hopes and dreams, and all our aspirations and longings seem not far to reach and realize ! Does not his voice speak to thee in all this, telling thee that in the very closing in of the night of sorrow and darkness and death there may come to thee the bursting of a fairer day ?

Is it not his love of which the birds sing ? and from the murmuring of the wind-swept pine breaks not his sighing sympathy on thy soul? The ceaseless beating of the ocean on the rocky beach, what is it but the throbbing of his mighty heart against the barriers of selfishness and sin that hold thee from him ? Listen ! does not that heart beat in sympathy with human sorrow and human pain ? do not those mighty arms reach out to enfold and encompass every land ? ' ' Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is

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hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God ? Hast thou not known ? hast thou not heard? that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, f ainteth not, neither is weary ? there is no searching of his understanding." We must not limit his care or set bounds to his love.

He who holdeth the worlds in the hollow of his hand, he who "bringeth out their host by number" and "calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth, " he it is that saith, " Comfort ye, comfort ye my people." He it is who puts our tears in his bottle, and writes them all in his book. O that men would look and listen till the thought of God revealed in nature's myriad forms, and speaking through her varied voices, might thrill their own hearts with his divine love ! Then would the loneliness and the isolation of the hungry soul be gone, and above and below and round about us, enfolding us and wrapping us in with him, should we feel and know the sympathetic presence of that mind whose power upholds the universe, but whose love listens to the softest sigh of sorrow. Then with Carlisle might we well say, "Ah, sweeter than the mother's voice to the child that strays bewildered on the trackless world, comes this evangel to my heart ! The universe is no longer dead and demoniacal, a charnel house peopled with specters, but godlike, and my Father's."

And what can we say here of the revelation of God's love in redemption? With what words shall we speak, even afar off, of the unspeakable? This we can say with Paul, Who shall separate us from that love ? ' ' Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword ? Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." But rather that, Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith, we may be rooted and grounded in love, and be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ, that passeth knowledge, that we may be filled with all the fullness of God,

Yes, to know the love of God is to be filled with his fullness, for God is love. All goodness, all righteousness is, love, and love is born of love, the human of the divine; so the all-important thing to know is that God is love. To know this is life eternal.

Chapter IV. Satan's Effort To Hide God's Love From Hungry Human Hearts

When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.— John 8 : 44.

All true righteousness is simply the dwelling of the divine love in the human heart and its consequent manifestation in human action. It is utterly impossible for anyone to love anything simply by resolving or trying to do so. Love is born of love; it is kindled in the soul by beholding and knowing Him who is lovable.

As therefore all redeeming power — all power to make righteous — is the power to beget love in the human soul, and as this can be done only by the manifestation of greater love, it follows that all of God's power to redeem the world is simply his power to manifest his mighty love for humanity. This agrees with what John says, "We love him because he first loved us," and "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son," etc. Because of these facts, we have seen that creation and redemption are both efforts of God to manifest his love to his creatures.

Now the converse of all this is that the power of Satan to defeat the work of God in the human soul is simply his power to defeat the manifestation of God's love; and just as the original proposition is proved by all of God's dealings with humanity, so also this is proved by every effort of Satan to thwart the divine plan. Every false doctrine and every false system of worship introduced into the world by Satan, we shall see, if we look at them carefully, have had for their one sole object the making the whole story of the love of God a lie.

In the very beginning Satan said to Eve, "Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden ? " In the original this ' ' yea ' ' is simply an expression of contempt or scorn. When Eve answered, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die," Satan said again in contempt of God, ' ' Ye shall not surely die ; for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." This was a direct denial of God's love. God had placed that tree there in love, for the good of