He visited them, helped them with simple advice, and administered to their ailments from his medicine-chest. Long before he could make himself understood in words he spoke intelligibly in his works. They understood the language of his love and sympathy and kindness. By relieving their suffering he found a way at length to relieve their sins, in the gospel that he learned to utter in his message to them from the Word of God.
There is a gospel without words, as
there is music without words; and he is
the real linguist that can talk from the
heart to the heart by a vibrant love.
(1923)
LOVE THE WORLD'S NEED
Ella Wheeler Wilcox, in the Century Magazine, writes thus of the world's need:
Oh, love is the need of the world! Down under its pride of power,
Down under its lust of greed, for the joys that last but an hour,
There lies forever its need.
For love is the law and the creed;
And love is the aim and the goal
Of life, from the man to the mole.
The need of the world is love.
(1924)
LOVE UPLIFTING
Jacob Riis, in "The Making of an American,"
brings from his Danish homeland a
most beautiful and significant phrase. There
is scant sunlight over there in the long, cold
winters, and it is not easy to make plants
grow. Yet the poor have their window-boxes
and winter blossoms, nevertheless, and
their tender winter lesson. For when they
speak of their flowers they do not say that
they have been grown; instead, with finest
insight, they say that they have been "loved
up."
Almost any man can be "loved up."
So it is with the child, the waif of
society.
(1925)
LOVE'S ACCEPTABLE OFFERING
One of the family was a little lad who was
weak-minded, and him the father and mother
specially loved. Yet there was little response
to their affection. But one day, when the
other children were gathering flowers and
bringing them to their parents, the poor little
lad gathered a bundle of dry sticks and
brought them to his father. "I valued those
sticks," said the father afterward, "far more
than the fairest flowers." We are not all
equally gifted—some can bring lovely flowers
to God's service and honor; others can only
gather dry sticks. But even the "cup of
cold water" is accepted by Him. (Text.)
(1926)
LOVE'S CAREFULNESS
If I knew that a word of mine,
A word not kind and true,
Might leave its trace
On a loved one's face,
I'd never speak harshly, would you?
If I knew the light of a smile
Might linger the whole day through
And brighten some heart
With a heavier part,
I wouldn't withhold it, would you?
—Unidentified.
(1927)
LOVE'S COMPLETENESS
That God's love is without measure or limit is illustrated in the following incident:
In the home of a friend one day, as he
reclined on the lounge opposite, and I in an
easy chair, we were having a pleasant chat
until dinner was called, when his little boy,
named Neil, about three or four years old,
came in. He went to his father's side, and
I heard him whisper, "Papa, get up and show
Mr. Shields how much you love me." I knew
at once there was a secret between them, as
it is fitting there should be between father
and child, and that it was a secret in which
the child rejoiced.
His father smiled, and said, "Oh, run away, Neil, and play; we are busy talking, and Mr. Shields knows I love you." "Yes," said the little fellow, "but I want you to show him how much."
Again and again the father tried to put him off, but the child persisted in his plea that the visitor be shown "how much" the father loved.
At length the father yielded, and as he stood, the child stood between us, and, holding up his index-finger, with a glance first at his father, and then at me, he said, "Now you watch, till you see how much my papa loves me."
His father was a tall and splendidly proportioned man. First he partially extended one arm, but the child exclaimed, "No, more
