at we
can do, John would have us do--that is, look and ever look at the
working of that love till we form some not wholly inadequate idea of it.

We can no more 'behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on
us' than we can look with undimmed eyes right into the middle of the
sun. But we can in some measure imagine the tremendous and beneficent
forces that ride forth horsed on his beams to distances which the
imagination faints in trying to grasp, and reach their journey's end
unwearied and ready for their task as when it began. Here are we, ninety
odd millions of miles from the centre of the system, yet warmed by its
heat, lighted by its beams, and touched for good by its power in a
thousand ways. All that has been going on for no one knows how many
aeons. How mighty the Power which produces these effects! In like manner,
who can gaze into the fiery depths of that infinite Godhead, into the
ardours of that immeasurable, incomparable, inconceivable love? But we
can look at and measure its activities. We can see what it does, and so
can, in some degree, understand it, and feel that after all we have a
measure for the Immeasurable, a comparison for the Incomparable, and can
_thus_ 'behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed on us.'

So we have to turn to the work of Christ, and especially to His death,
if we would estimate the love of God. According to John's constant
teaching, that is the great proof that God loves us. The most wonderful
revelation to every heart of man of the depths of that Divine heart lies
in the gift of Jesus Christ. The Apostle bids me 'behold what manner of
love.' I turn to the Cross, and I see there a love which shrinks from no
sacrifice, but gives 'Him up to death for us all.' I turn to the Cross,
and I see there a love which is evoked by no lovableness on my part,
but comes from the depth of His own Infinite Being, who loves because He
must, and who must because He is God. I turn to the Cross, and I see
there manifested a love which sighs for recognition, which desires
nothing of me but the repayment of my poor affection, and longs to see
its own likeness in me. And I see there a love that will not be put away
by sinfulness, and shortcomings, and evil, but pours its treasures on
the unworthy, like sunshine on a dunghill. So, streaming through the
darkness of eclipse, and speaking to me even in the awful silence in
which the Son of Man died there for sin, I 'behold,' and I hear,