"O Love that will not let me go" is one of our most beautiful present-day hymns. The words have stirred the hearts and uplifted and encouraged the souls of Christian men and women in sorrow and in trial throughout the world. It was written by George Matheson, the blind preacher of Scotland, who was mightily used of God in the salvation of souls.
After his graduation from the University his sight began to fail, and in a very short time he became totally blind.
When his physician had decided that blindness was inevitable, he placed his hands on 'Matheson's shoulders and said: "If there is any face that you would like to see again, go and look at it quickly. Your sight is nearly gone and you will never get it again.”
There was one whose face he wanted to see more than any face in the world. He wrote her, telling of the affliction that was coming upon him and asking her to come and see him. She would not come. Her love for him was not sufficient to induce her to be his wife with this handicap of his.
In the bitterness of his sorrow and disappointment, his thoughts turned to another Love, and to Him who had said, "I have loved thee with an everlasting love." Jer. 31:33The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee. (Jeremiah 31:3). As his mind contemplated this Love from which nothing could separate him (Rom. 8:38, 3938For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38‑39)), he wrote:
"O Love that will not let me go,
I rest my weary soul on Thee;
I give Thee back the life I owe,
That in Thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.”
His sight continued to fail; but with his faith unfailing he thought of Him who had said: "I am the light of the world: he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." John 8:1212Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. (John 8:12). So he wrote:
"O Light that followest all my way,
I yield my flickering torch to Thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in Thy sunshine's glow its day
May brighter, fairer be.”
As a sense of haunting loneliness crept over him, and an emotion of heart pain which no human voice nor touch could heal, he sang on:
"O Joy that seeketh me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to Thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And know Thy promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be.”
Feeling the weight of the cross which the Lord had laid on him, and desiring neither to evade nor avoid it, he finished "in the strength of the Lord" that song which has brought courage to many a fainting heart:
"O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee.
I lay in dust life's glory dead;
And from the ground there blossoms red,
Life that shall endless be.”
O this wonderful love of Christ! Reader, do you know anything of this matchless love, the love for poor lost man, which brought Him from the glory which He had with the Father before the world was? (John 17:55And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. (John 17:5).) It is in the death of His dear Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, that "God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." It was for you, dear soul! Believe it, receive it; and be everlastingly saved.