So said a little girl to her mother one day, when feeling lonely and sorrowful after the death of a little brother. They had been loving companions, constantly together, and she, being the elder, no doubt exercised a watchful care over him, and felt a personal interest in him. It was early days with her, sire was but a child; nevertheless, she felt as many in later years have felt, that she was now without an object in this life, or one to live for. In her little way, she was alone and desolate. The heart feels at such a moment that there is nothing left here to love. A dark shade seems to be settled down on everything.
While little Fanny’s sorrow was still fresh, and her bereavement keenly felt, she said to her mother what maturer years never could have said; knowledge or art would have marred its simplicity, and we should have lost one of the most expressive sayings ever uttered by human lips. “Mamma,” she said, with weeping eyes, “can you not tell one of one to lore that will never die?” Oh, wonderful words! we are ready to exclaim; they come from the depths of the heart and simply express its real condition. A desire which the whole world could not satisfy; and, further, we hesitate not to say, that never was the need of a bereaved human heart more truthfully expressed than in these artless words of that little child. This is all the broken heart needs; one to love that will never die. There is but one, and only one, that can meet the heart’s deep necessities. The question of the child is the heart’s breathing after Him, the aspirations of grace, we doubt not, that will surely be satisfied. Oh, Jesus, Jesus risen and glorified, Thou art the One, the only One that can bind up the broken and bleeding heart, that can fill up the aching void and fully satisfy all its desires! To see thee in resurrection, to know thy love and thy endless life, to know thee as a Man in glory, when wandering alone and desolate amidst the shadows of death, is to be folded in thine arms, raised up from the depths of sorrow, and set in the light of thine own love where no shadows can ever come. This is to love One and to be loved by One that will never die; One whose love creates its own reflection.
The mother, we understand, suggested to her child the Savior’s appeal to Peter, “Lovest thou me?” Did she love Jesus? He would never die. But here we will take leave of our little friend and her mother, ever grateful for the words that have so touched our hearts; our one object in this brief paper being to draw attention to the question which expresses the real desire of every human heart— “Can you not tell me of one to love that will never die?”
Nothing can ever satisfy the human heart, or meet the need of an immortal soul, that is not perfect in its nature and eternal in its duration. It must be both perfect and permanent. Jesus risen, Jesus beyond death and the grave, Jesus as the Man who died on the cross and who lives on the throne, is the full answer to the soul’s desires. Nothing else, no one else, can ever meet its need in the smallest degree; so that unless the soul finds Jesus it must remain forever unsatisfied. Apart from Him there is not so much as a drop of cold water to cool the burning tongue; but in Him the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily, and dwells for us, that of His fullness we may all receive and grace for grace. The vast resources of king Solomon failed to fill his heart; but the Jesus that the poor sun-burnt slave found, as in Solomon’s Song, overflowed hers. Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, passim.
Love to the Savior is one of the fairest demands of the gospel, and fairly made on all mankind, and the lack of it in any is threatened with the most awful judgment. “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema maranatha.” This is most solemn, but just; His love bears a benign aspect to all. (2 Cor. 5:14, 15.) But how am I to love Him? many will say; I desire and try to love Him, but my heart is so cold. That is true of all, and none could ever love Him if they only looked at their own cold hearts. It is only by knowing His love to us that begets—that increases our love to Him. We can only follow in love, we can never go before Him. Our love to Him can never rise above our apprehension of His love to us. As the fire we sit at warms us, so will His love warm our cold hearts if we are near enough to Him; but the fire is there. As this subject is all important and a difficulty with many, we will endeavor to make it plain.
The great burden of the gospel message is to speak of One to love that will never die, and of His great love to us as manifested in His death on the cross; and that this is the true ground and real spring of our love to Him. “We love him because he first loved us.” When we see how much He loves us, and that He willingly died for us, it is not difficult to yield up the heart to Him. But we can never love Jesus until we believe in His love for us, mid in His dying in our stead. Thus we see, that it is only His love to us that can create love in our hearts to Him. But when we believe that He so loved us as to bear the judgment of our sins in His own body on the tree, that He might have us to Himself and with Himself forever, we must love Him, adore Him, trust Him, and long to be with Him. We could not help doing so. It is easy to love Him when we see His great love to us. In place of trying to love the Lord, as Christians sometimes say, let us dwell more on His love to us, for rest assured that the measure of our love to Him will always be proportionate to the measure of our knowledge of His love to us. But this comes by believing, not by trying. When we believe without a misgiving in His great love to us, and in His great work for us, we shall love Him with an adoring worshipful love, and with a confidence which gives the most unquestioning rest to the soul.
But this paper may fall into the hands of some who have never really felt the need of the heart as expressed by this little child—who have never felt the constraining power of a Savior’s love, or the grave responsibility under winch that love places the whole human family., Could anything be more plain or more awfully solemn than these words, “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema maranatha”—which mean “accursed; the Lord cometh”—accursed of the Lord at His coming? And mark the words, “any man,” no matter who it is, no excuse will be accepted, the words are absolute—any man, every man, my reader, all who love not the Lord Jesus Christ, must fall under the terrible curse of God—the fearful judgment of slighted love. And just when the bright beams of His coming glory begin to cheer and lighten this long, dark, and gloomy world, they must be banished from the face of the earth and cast into outer darkness.
But in what sense are we to love Christ some will say; for we have never seen Him, and it seems very difficult, and the consequences of not loving Him are Truly awful. To love Christ, in a divine sense, is to believe in Him, as we have already said, and as Peter says to the scattered strangers, “Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.” The scriptures make much of Miffing. The heart that doubts whether it be the testimony of God or of men is powerless to love. Believing is the root and spring of all that is right before God; without faith it is impossible to please Him. But let us suppose a case before men.
A cry is heard, “A man drowning! A man drowning!” For the third time he is about to sink, exhausted, to rise no more. A brave heart rushes to the water’s edge, sees the danger, plunges in and succeeds in saving the man. He is perfectly insensible, knows not his deliverer, but is kindly laid on a bed and recovers. After he is well, his friends tell him who it was that saved. him; but he says, “I can’t believe it.” A thousand witnesses are ready to prove the fact, but still he says, “I can’t believe it, I did not see him or feel him do it.” He becomes offended by hearing so many speak to the praise of the one who saved him, and in condemnation of his own unbelief and ingratitude. He thinks a great deal too much is said about it; for his own part he cannot believe it, though little children rebuke his unbelief by chanting the hero’s praise. But more, and worse; he meets his deliverer in the street, who is anxious to embrace him as the one whom his love and courage saved; but he resists him, rejects him, despises him; and still more, and still worse, he is angry with all his townsmen who seek to honor this kind neighbor. What would the world say of such a man—were it possible to find such a case of unbelief amongst men—would it not condemn him without a single dissentient voice? But on the other hand, supposing he were to believe the fact—believe it with all its perilous circumstances; what would be his gratitude and his esteem for his savior? Could he ever forget the day of his deliverance, or fail to remember it with some memorial of his love? The application, my reader, is easy. What side past thou taken? What thinkest thou of Christ?
Christian love, then, springs from believing—hatred, opposition, from unbelief; it is the love of confidence, of adoration, of delight, of hope, of appreciation. Surely if I meditate on the love of Christ to me—the love that plunged into the depth of all my ruin to save me, that endured so much to fit me for His presence, and to have me with Him forever—it cannot be difficult to love Him in return; it cannot be difficult to fall at His feet in the truest adoration of admiring praise. Believe then, O my reader, believe in His love; dwell, O dwell on His love, until thy heart burns, thy lips praise, and thy whole soul be on fire in thy rapturous admiration of His wondrous love to thee.
Jesus has all my powers possess’d,
My hopes, my fears my joys.
He, the clear sovereign of my breast,
Shall still command my voice,
His charms shall make my numbers flow,
And hold the falling floods,
While silence sits on every bough,
And bends the listening woods.
I’ll carve my passion on the back,
Till every wounded tree
Shall drop and bear some mystic mark
That Jesus died for me.
The swains shall wonder, as they read,
Inscribed on all the grove,
That heaven itself came down and bled
To win a mortal’s love.