-jo THE GLIVE LEAF. CHAP. 



race in the consolation that they are as nothing com- 

 pared with His universe, and cannot be missed. A 

 God of love has told us again and again, in language 

 which cannot possibly be mistaken, that He hath need 

 of us. We find innumerable statements in the Bible 

 which show how God is grieved, suffers loss and pain, 

 because of human sin and misery. He longs after 

 His creatures' affection, and is sorrowful because they 

 exclude Him from their hearts and their ways. He 

 complains of their coldness and alienation. If I am 

 a Father, where is my honour ? " Oh ! that my people 

 had hearkened unto Me." His righteousness is not an 

 abstract principle that can be satisfied equally by the 

 conversion or by the punishment of the sinner; it is 

 conjoined with the infinite tenderness of paternal love, 

 and equally with His mercy yearns for the sinner's 

 restoration. The history of man's redemption is not 

 merely the history of his good fortune, as if he had 

 escaped by accident from the hands of a Being capable 

 of very different conduct ; it is a manifestation of the 

 essential character of God, which is love. 



On an old Mexican temple was written the beautiful 

 inscription, expressing an unconscious longing of the 

 heathen world after Christ, " Blessed be Thy coming, 

 O heart of heaven." And is not this the inscription 

 that ought to be written above the portal of every 

 Christian Church, whose mission it is to testify of Jesus 

 as the revelation of the heart of heaven, ever beating 

 for us? The love of Jesus is just the love of God 

 made visible ; the sufferings of Jesus are just the suffer- 



