1064
THE KING’S BUSINESS
over the one that was never lost. Thus some of the greatest sinners, on being con certed, have experienced a joy and peace and sense of Divine love with which others have never been, blessed—even as a poor child, that has been brought down to the gates of death, receives the richest food, the sweetest cordials, and the tenderest nursing; hence the prayer which God de lights to answer: “According as the days have been Wherein we grief have had, And years wherein we ill have seen, So do thou make us glad.” THIS IS GOD A nd this is G od , Christ’s Father and ours! Who, says David, shall not -fear Thee, O Lord! How may we, as we con template this picture, alter the words, say ing, “Who will not love Thee, O Lord!” All the more when we remembef that while it cost that father nothing to save and re ceive his son, we were bought with a price. With what a price! The story of redemp tion is written in blood; God having sent His only begotten and beloved Son to .the far country, to become bondsman to set us free—to suffer and die for us. Ring and robe, feast and fatted calf; the sound of music and the sight of dancers, as the scene swims before the prodigal’s eyes convey to him the happy assurance of a father’s love. Yet how far inferior that evidence to the bleeding form that hung and groaned, and died on Calvary! Love beyond parables and all images to express, “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever be- lieveth in Him might not perish, but have everlasting lifp!” In Iceland are some springs called gey sers. Hot, and rising from basin-shaped fountains, they present very remarkable appearances. Like the tides of ocean, they have their ebb and flow. The water now flies from the spectator; and shunning the light, leaves its basin to bury itself in the bowels of the earth—nor gives any intima tion of its existence but an occasional groan, a low, deep moaning. At the flow,
which alternates with the ebb, it rises in its funnel, overflows its margin, and, with noises like the salvos of artillery, sends up, amid clouds of snow-white va por, a flashing, liquid column as high as a hundred feet. So act the passions of joy and sorrow. Grief retires from observation. Hiding herself, she conceals-rather than proclaims the sorrows that she feeds on; and as the stricken deer leaves the herd, the bereaved court retirement that they may weep in secret over their bleeding wounds. It is otherwise with joy. The Greek, on mak ing a discovery, of which he had long been in pursuit, was so transported, as to rush naked into the street,'and leading the 'peo ple to believe him mad, cry, “Eureka,! Eu reka! I have found it, I have, found it!” Joy must have vent. A fountain which not only flows but overflows, it bursts up and out, seeking to communicate its own hap piness to others. JOY OVERFLOWETH Thus some have been moved to proclaim their conversion, and tell others of the peace which they enjoyed in believing. “Come i all ye that fear the Lord,” says the Psalmist, “and I will tell you what He hath done for my soul;” and it is just as natural for a heart full of happiness and God’s love to do that, as for a thrush, perched on a summer evening in the top of a cherrytree, to pour out the joy that fills its little breast' in strains of melody. It is the great President Edwards, I think, who relates how, on one occasion, he had such a sense of God’s love, that he could hardly resist telling it to the woods, the flowers beneath his feet, and the skies above his head. No wonder, therefore, that when the pure and powerful joys of salvation are poured into a heart which sin has weakened, and never satisfied, the new wine should burst the old bottle-r-fly- ing forth in what seems to those who know no better, but ostentation and parade. It is not so. “Out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaketh.” In this parable, so true in all its parts to Nature, this feature of joy stands beau-
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