Sunday at Home.

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 42, 13 January 1894, Page 5

Sunday at Home.

LOVE'S MIRACULOUS POWER. In the course of a recent sermon on this subject the Rev. Mark Guy Pearse observed: — Fling away the miserable notion that Jesus Christ’s religion means getting to heaven when avo die. I wish we could root that idea out of men’s hearts and fling it aAvay, and let it rot like a foul Aveed. That is not Avhat the Lord Jesus Christ came -fox’. It is poor, mean, contemptible, degrading to the great agony and life of Jesus Christ for a man to dAvindle .and dwarf it into that. Jesus Christ •came that He might fill this poorworld with love, that He might touch .-■and heal the soitoavs of men’s hearts. I think I see again the Master beckoning little children to Him and finding it heaA’en if he could only brighten -their lives Avith a smile. I think I see Him going through London and by His vex-y look putting hope and heart into people, and by His A'ery tone seeming to draw people aguin to the good, the true, and the pure ; I think I see His shadoAV falling here and there, and Avherever it falls evil things dying, and good things, pure things, springing up. This is Avhat the poor of London Avant, not churches, not .-services, not religion, but love — loa'C —love —loyal, simple, helpful, kindly, beautiful love ; men Avith one hand to grasp God and with the other to hold to a brother and become the golden link, as if the sorroAvs of the Avorid passed up through them to God, and as if through them the great love of <God came doAvn to heal the Avoild. Love, like God, is immortality. Love lias aLvays got hold of God, or, at any rate, is always Avithin reach of God. Love is faith ; there may be faith without loa'g. Says the Apostle : -'Though I have all faith, so that I ©uald remove mountains, and have not loA r e, I am nothing.” I am glad that in the revised version the Avord love is given. Charity is the Avord used in the old version, but charity smells of the Avorkhouse, and Avears . an official coat Avith brass buttons. I am glad of this correction. Says the Apostle : “ Without loA r e I am nothing.” After pointing out that loA r e brought union Avith God by giving an impulse and a faith Avhich Avere otherwise lacking—as in the case of the cenhurin avlio sent for our Lord to come to> his sick servant, yet thought himself not Avorthy that He should come under his roof —the rev. gentleman said: I Avould believe that this universe is blank confusion sooner than T would doubt that there is a power waiting for the fulfilment of every ■.prompting of lo\ r e in the human heart, that God’s might aLvays Avaits to fulfil the whispers of God’s love in men’s hearts. You believe God has fitted ...this earth to our body, but that there are gi-eat sorroAvs aAvay in men’s hearts that He does not take any notice of, great griefs that lie apart from His concern. Is God going to -care so much for these organs of my foody, and leave alone the keener grief and need ? Do you think God lias ■made the earth to yield me medicine Tor body, and that noAvbere can be found medicine for bruised spirits, halm for broken hearts, love to soothe The Avounded soul ? It must be so, surely, as God has sent that great -sun to shine in the heaven, and pour forth its rays until they touch every .-separate flower, so surely is there a .-great heart giving pity that comes .-away to cA’ery separate suffering, a heart of loA r e that opens for every .single grief in this Avorid. Oh men ;aud women, avlio are dying to make the world better, you have got God to help you ! Where do }’ou get these ■desires P Are they not the Avhispers -of God’s love Avithin the soul P ..Are they not just the promptings >.of His grace ? There Avere some who expressed the vlgav that the incident forming the text of the ■sermon AA’as an occurrence Avhen Oaristwas on earth to heal ; and in the period they called “ the age of miracles,” and which, they said, had

ceased. Said the preacher : The age of miracles shall never cease so long as there is love. I believe people often helieA’e that Jesus Christ Avas the high-water mark of God’s loAm, and that to-day His love has shrunk and shrivelled until it is almost out of sight. God has never let the AA-orld see anything of loA r e that is not the great 1oa t c He has to-day. He has never done anything yet for men or Avoraen that He is not able to do today. After remai-king that Pharisaism Avas xeligion kept to oneself—the only Avay to keep the grace of God Avas to giA-e it away, the reA r . gentleman pleaded for patience and gentle love for the little one and for those about Avho might be trying. Concluding, he said : Is thei-e any life that can prompt such nobleness and loa-c as Jesus Christ’s ? Is there anything else that has caused men to be Avholly deA r oted to others as Jesus Christ ? Young men and Avomen, I Avould say to you, that you may make the best use of your life, and that it may be em-iched and ennobled as nothing else can. Let Jesus Christ come into your heax-ts to-day. This blessed Brother to a poor Avorid, let Him be your SaA T iour. Accept Him, submit yourself to Him, and subdue your life. When you grasp Him Avith the hand of faith, and Avhen the hand of your brotherly hwe is stretched out to the poor world around us, and you are one of the golden links, then and then only do Ave rightly live.