An old woman sat in her cottage stitching. The room was scrupulously clean, and there was an appearance of comfort about the surroundings, but her face wore a troubled anxious look.
A neighbor who happened to look in as she was passing by, noticed her anxiety, and inquired the cause of it.
“When I was quite a little girl,’ she said, “I learned that hymn―
‘Tis a point I long to know,
Oft it causes anxious thought,
Do I love the Lord or no,
Am I His, or am, I not?
and that is the very thing that troubles me now. Do I really love Him? I often ask myself the question, and I would give anything to be quite sure I did.”
“Maybe you argue backwards,” said her neighbor; “wouldn’t it be far better to leave off thinking about your love, and just thank the dear Saviour for His love to you?”
“I never doubt that,” said the old woman warmly: “of course I know He loves me, look how I’ve been cared for all my life. Hasn’t He fed and clothed me all these years, and kept me in good health till my old age? But that doesn’t seem to bring me comfort no how.”
Her neighbor looked at her thoughtfully, she was only a plain country woman herself, but she saw wherein lay the old lady’s mistake.
“Granny,” she said after a bit, “the Book tells us that God clothes the lilies and the grass, that God feeds the ravens and cares for the sparrows, but that is never given as a proof that He loves them. You have been looking in the wrong place for His love. You must never measure God’s heart by His mercies. The proof of His love was that He gave His Son to die for you. ‘Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him’ (1 John 4:9-109In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. 10Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:9‑10)).”
One of the Lord’s servants has truly said “Lord, when we want to know what true love is, we can only turn to Thee and to Thy cross.” Our love to Him is but a natural consequence of this. “We love Him because He first loved us. It is —
By the one chief Treasure
Thy bosom freely gave,
Thine own pure love we measure
Thy willing mind to save.
E. R. M.