guernseys have been sent out during these past years, and have been true messages of love.
"Look 'ere," said a grizzled skipper, pulling out three mufflers from his pocket, to three wild friends of his whom he was visiting, "look 'ere, will yer admit there's love in those mufflers? Yer see them ladies never see'd yer, nor never knowed yer, yet they jest sent me these mufflers for you. Well, then, how much more must Christ Jesus 'ave loved yer, when He give His life blood to save yer."
I have it from his own lips as well as one of theirs, that this was the beginning of leading those three men to God; and before he left the ship that night, they were trusting in Christ for pardon, and for strength to live as His children.
(1895)
Joseph Dana Miller shows how love socializes the solitary soul:
God pity those who know not the touch of hands—
Who dwell from all their fellows far apart,
Who, isolated in unpeopled lands,
Know not a friend's communion, heart to heart!
But pity these—oh, pity these the more,
Who of the populous town a desert make,
Pent in a solitude upon whose shore
The tides of sweet compassion never break!
These are the dread Saharas we enclose
About our lives when love we put away;
Amid life's roses, not a scent of rose;
Amid the blossoming, nothing but decay.
But if 'tis love we search for, knowledge comes,
And love that passeth knowledge—God is there!
Who seek the love of hearts find in their homes
Peace at the threshold, angels on the stair. (Text.)
—Munsey's Magazine.
(1896)
The old fable of the bar of iron as an illustration of the superior power of love will never be superseded.
The bar of iron lay across a log to be
broken. "I can make it yield," boasted the
hammer, "but at the first blow the hammer
flew from its handle helpless to the ground.
The ax followed proudly, "I can succeed."
But after two or three strokes its edge was
dulled without leaving any impression on
the iron bar. "I, with my sharp teeth, will
soon sever it," said the saw, with a confident
air; only to have all its teeth broken
in the task. At length a quiet, warm flame
said, "Let me try, it may yield to me." And
the little flame twined itself about the iron
in a gentle, loving way, imparting an influence
that finally made the strong bar
yield and fall apart.
(1897)
The power of love to draw out what is best in men is poetically exprest by L. M. Montgomery:
Upon the marsh mud, dank and foul,
A golden sunbeam softly fell,
And from the noisome depths arose
A lily miracle.
Upon a dark, bemired life
A gleam of human love was flung.
And lo, from that ungenial soil
A noble deed upsprung.
(1898)
Upon the foundation of love a great work was done in Paris, France:
When Mr. McAll began his work he could
utter but two sentences in the tongue of
those workingmen. One was "God loves
you," and the other, "I love you"; and upon
those two, as pillars, the whole arch rests.—Pierson,
"The Miracles of Missions."
(1899)
See Prodigal, The.
LOVE A FINALITY
In his poem "Virgillia" Edwin Markham has these stanzas:
If this all is a dream, then perhaps our dreaming
Can touch life's height to a finer fire;
Who knows but the heavens and all their seeming,
Were made by the heart's desire?
One thing shines clear in the heart's own reason,
One lightning over the chasm runs—
That to turn from love is the world's one treason
That treads down all the suns.
