Sunday at Home

Southern Cross, Volume 2, Issue 2, 14 April 1894, Page 10

Sunday at Home

GOD IS LOVE. [Contributed by a Layman.] The questions of importance to us iu relation to this statement are, first, -who is the Being here spoken of F and second, what is it to us that He is love ? A child may have a very loving spirit without affecting us. But when a child loves us it touches us j if the child is our own it goes deeper. If a man or woman loves us we cannot be indifferent. But when that man or woman is onr husband or wife, our hearts rejoice in that love and gqodwill. But we are often beyond the help of all this goodwill. The child is not conscious of our trouble, the husband or wife may know it too well, and not be able to help us. We want a love joined with power. "Wisdom, too, is necessary, for love often helps its object to ruin. Has God, then, this, power and wisdom ? "We are ever surrounded by proof that, as far as we can realise, His power and wisdom are unbounded. Who lifted up the mountains we see around ? Whose wisdom and power ground the rocks into powder and carried them down to form the large and small plains we may have seen, and a great many more we may never see p Whose wisdom and power planned and made the various forms of vegetable life that live in these prepared soils, in order to provide food and employment for his greatest work—man ? Then think of man’s wondrous power to i > l arjl an d to do, and of the wisdom that placed in earth and air means for the development of this wondious power. And if the earth is not enough (though to our power of realisation it is an infinitude of power and wisdom) our philosophers will tell us our earth is but a speck among millions of specks a million times larger than itself. But this is beyond our power to realise, and we turn with relief to the second question—What is it to us that God is love P With parents this question may be well answered by asking—■ What is it to your children that you are loving ? But if we only think of God as our Maker we can understand that He is interested in getting the best possible result from his works. And without doubt love in the heart is the greatest good open to man. Health, friends, wisdom, knowledge and wealth He can givo us at once, but love must grow. A child’s first look will be questioning, but seeing nothing but goodwill it will learn to bring goodwill to meet and mix with its parent’s. It may be objected here -—parents give their children more than goodwill. They feed, clothe, and supply many things to comfort and please their children, while many of God’s children go hungry, cold and comfortless. It is hard to meet this objection. But we may answer that it is not supplying its wants that creates lcit»a in a child’s heart. It is the kindly looks, the warm embrace, and sweet endearing words that border round the dearest name that children’s ears e’er heard. If supplied wants nourished love, how loving the children of wealthy parents would be. But are they? Wants “Are nourished by what they feed on, and as parents do love their children while leaving many of their wants unsupplied, so God does love us though we may be surrounded by unsupplied wants. Mother, poorly fed and barely clad, surrounded by children in the same condition, God loves you. Bather, with not even work to be got, God loves you. Mother or father, in difficulties or laid up with sickness, loves you. Oh ! turn to him in your trouble, whatever it may be. You need not go to any house or temple, for the hut which holds a lowly heart that looks with trust to Him may he grander than the temple rich, with arch and windows dim. Oh ! trust Him, and whatever else He may refuse, He will give you His love to you and your love to Him.