Chapter 6: The Practice of Love

FELLOW SUFFERERS

When men of malice wrought the crown for Thee
Didst Thou complain?
Nay; in each thorn God’s finger Thou didst see,
His love thro’ pain.
His finger did but press the ripened Vine,
Thy fruit to prove,
That henceforth all the world might drink the wine
Of Thy great love.
So when the darkness rose about Thy feet
Thy lips met His,
Amid the upper light, in Death’s long sweet,
Releasing kiss.
And shall I cry aloud in anger when
Men make for me
A Cross less harsh? Nay, I’ll remember then
Thy constancy.
And if the darkness hide me from Thy sight
At God’s command,
I’ll talk with Thee all thro’ the prayerful night,
And touch Thy hand;
Greatly content, if I whose life has been
So long unwise,
May, wounded, on Thy wounded bosom lean
In Paradise.

So convinced was Jesus that love alone was the master law of life, that He based His own life wholly on His conviction, cheerfully accepting all the risks which were implied. He was perfectly aware of the consequences to Himself and His reputation when He made Himself the friend of publicans and sinners. These consequences He ignored, making Himself of no reputation, that He might uplift by His love those who needed His love the most. Under the constant contradiction of those who mistook His spirit, and even libelled His character, He manifested neither bitterness nor resentment. He suffered injuries without retaliation, and went so far as to denounce all forms of retaliation as a wasteful expenditure of spirit, wrong in themselves, and attaining no end but the worse injury of those who employed them. He might easily have used the miraculous power which He possessed for His own defense, and for the confusion of His enemies. Had He been selfishly ambitious, He might have organized a party so strong, that it would have become an irresistible force, which would have shattered the old order whose evils He denounced, and have made Him the dictator of a new order, based on the ideals in which He believed. He did none of these things, not through lassitude of spirit or failure to perceive their possible issues, but simply because these were not the things to do. In His judgment the only abiding kingdom belonged to the meek. He who suffered injustice with patience would prove the ultimate conqueror. There was an irresistible might in love and meekness against which the people raged in vain. Love was a working and practicable law of life; in the long issue of things it was the only law that justified itself.