To be near unto God - pagina 205

very great, because there is personal response. This is not the case with nature, nor with science or jurisprudence; but it is with a dog that will risk his life for you. All this, however, is but the prelude of higher love, and only with man it begins to speak in

and to reveal

its higher nature. The ascent with differences. and child, of father and son, of Until brother and sister, of friend and friend. This may at at last we come to holy wedlock. times be degraded by sin, but in its ideal interpretation it is highest love on earth, and therefore it is stamped by God himself as the symbol of the love that binds him to his elect. But even in marriage love does not reach its According to its nature it is confull fruition. scious of an impulse which rises higher still. And when finally love begins to reach out after the Highest Being, and j^ou feel that the spark of love for God has been kindled in your heart by God himself, j^ou perceive that love in you is now where it ought to be, that it can rise no higher, but also that it has no such desire, and that therefore it is thrice blessed. The conflict which then ensues is caused b\^ our inequality with God. He is everything, we nothing. He the High and Exalted One, we the vain creatures of his hand. We owing him everj--thing. He needing nothing. And therefore he can take nothing at our hand. Among ourselves love is mutual as between equals. No great personal love can develop between a strong man and a small child. The little child can not rise to the level of the fully developed man. Nor can he

richer language, And here, too, love of mother

is

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