Israel would be a secure hiding-place, but found Him in the kindness of untutored sailors, and in the penitent people of Nineveh; and who, when he turned in bitterness to the labyrinthine ways of his own mind, heard even there the voice, "Doest thou well to be angry, Jonah?"

There is no up nor down in all the Universe where we can finally escape this "tremendous Lover." Meister Eckhart has well said, "He who will escape Him, only runs to His bosom; for all corners are open to Him."

THE FEAR OF THE BEST

OW THAT he is brought to bay, the poet

NOW

tells why he had sought to flee from the Love of God. A father who tried to explain this poem to his children was suddenly confronted by the question asked by the youngest of his hearers-" But why did he want to run away from God?" Who could explain to the little child why the very thought of God does not fill our hearts with confidence and peace? "What has God done," ask Faber, "that men should not trust Him?"

The poet's explanation is that he was afraid so high a fellowship would make such demands upon him as would be intolerable. Every pure friendship has an austere side challenging our indolence and summoning us to spiritual affinity. Thompson had as he puts it:

"Heard the trumpet sound

From the hid battlements of Eternity."

And turning hastily, he had obtained a half glimpse of the Summoner:

"With glooming robes purpureal, cypress

crowned."

The trumpet called to heroic sacrifice, and it was from that dread call he had turned so persistently away.

It is this half glimpse of Christianity which chills the blood. "The love of Jesus, what it is, none but His loved ones know." There are houses in London, owned by great families, which have no outward attractions, but within hold treasures of art and exquisite forms of beauty and colour. Christianity does not disclose its secret to the

outsider, and it is for ever true that "

eye hath not

seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive the things which God hath laid up for those that love Him." But these things are revealed to us, continues the apostle, "by His Spirit." To the Court of Charles II, John Milton was an object of pity if not of contempt. He held aloof from its pleasures though he might have been a participator, so desirable was his powerful pen. But had they seen all with any understanding, the courtiers would have found no occasion for their pity in that noble mind. He had "solid joys and lasting pleasures" of which they knew nothing. Minions of that Court came one day, with bribes in their hands, to seduce him from his high allegiance, but when they found the blind poet seated at the organ pouring forth his soul in praise and worship, even they understood that they could make no appeal to him with the things they valued, and returned without making their offer. He who heard "the sevenfold hallelujahs of the angels" would not be perverted by the ribaldry of Rochester and his peers.

In obedience to Christ every

nay" has its

compensating "yea." Renunciation is life not death. Sacrifice to Christ and for His sake is to

joy and not to sorrow. There is a cross at the

heart of human blessedness. Grim and inexorable as it appears at times the Will of God holds life's richest treasures. When Francis Francis Thompson understood this, he was content to commit his life "to the Great Purifier, his will to the Sovereign Will of the Universe." Meantime he trembles because he cannot escape and asks despondently of his Captor:

"Ah! is thy love indeed

A weed, albeit an amaranthine weed,
Suffering no flowers except its own to mount?"

THE RECOMPENSE OF SURRENDER

S THE poem concludes we hear the words of Incarnate Love to the trembling soul which makes no further attempt to escape:

"Strange, piteous, futile thing!

How little worthy of any love thou art!
Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee
Save Me, save only Me?"

We have marvelled that the soul should seek to evade Infinite Love. But the deeper mystery of the chase is that Love makes such high account of man's unworthiness. We are continually baffled to explain the origin of human love. In an English Law Court we heard a wife, who bore on her scarred face the marks of her husband's cruelty, plead for his acquittal as if he had brought only happiness into her life. Some one asked as we stood there, " What can she see in the man to love?" and none could answer for no other saw what she had seen in him. But who can explain the yearning of God for sinful man, or give any account of the mystery of the Cross?

"The innocent moon that nothing does but shine, Moves all the labouring surges of the world,"

exclaims our poet in one of his arresting metaphors. But what innocence of ours moves the vast ocean of the Divine Love? It is self-moved, and rolls in majesty so unique and glorious that "God commendeth his love for us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us."