Love Will Find a Way

But it was only the ending of one chapter and the beginning of another, and this, the last that may be written now, centres round a certain glorious Sunday evening when, with the western sky aflame, we streamed forth to the side of the Red Lake under the mountains, the lake shown in Lotus Buds, in the picture called “God’s Fire.”

There, as we stood in a long, curved line on the long, curved bank, scores of little children scattered among grown-up people and boys and girls, Mimosa, while her husband stood looking on in bemused quiescence, walked solemnly into the water to receive her baptism.

To some who had lately joined us it was just that ever-joyful thing, a Christian baptism, but to us who saw her standing, as it were, at the end of a long avenue of years, to the invisible angels and to their Lord and hers, how much more — oh, how much more it was than pen can write or tongue tell!

And now she is back in her bigoted Hindu world, and she writes that some wonder, some scoff, and some are listening a little. Her husband, whom she has set her heart on winning,

160 feels her a disgrace, but the amazing thing is that he owns as his wife one who has so shamed his caste, which is not one of the more tolerant which allow a woman to remain within the fold even after baptism. Her life cannot be easy. But then, she has not asked for ease; she has asked for the shield of patience that she may overcome.

So we do not fear at all to leave Mimosa’s story here, with the first happy ending, that promises another happier, most happy for ever. And this first chapter of a book that is still being written goes forth with a great joy and with two earnest intentions — to comfort, if it may be, some who, depressed by the perplexities of these days, are almost tempted to think our Lord is not in His world now as He was in olden time, and to win help for those who need it.

Will the first be in any wise fulfilled? Can one consider this solitary Indian woman protected, comforted, sustained, fed with bread the world knew not of, given to drink of fountains in the desert, without feeling that the love of God has many ways of working, and may be working now unseen through all the clamour and the sadness of a foolish generation? Is not such a story a witness to the Invisible?

Are there those for whom we have prayed for long, who seem beyond our reach now? Love

will find a way, Are we discouraged because we do not see our signs, and the solid rocks seem to be sinking under shifting sands? It is not so. Love is mighty and must prevail. Terrible in judgments, marvellous in loving-kindness, Love will find a way.

Out in these corners of the earth those who are face to face with the old elemental forces of sin know what it is to shiver at times with a sense of the almost omnipotence of the god of this world. Is there not comfort for us in this story? In and out of the deep, dark places of heathendom — yes, and as truly among the garish lights of a Christendom that has lost its first warm love — wherever there is the least, the faintest response to Love, there love will follow and find, for nothing in heaven or earth or under the earth is impossible to Love.

And will not my second intention find fulfilment somewhere? Will not prayer that can be as a shield in battle, as dew in heat, as a cool wind on a breathless day, as the light of moon and stars at night, be round about any anywhere who, enchanted by a glimpse of the loveliness of Christ, are following Him to-day — dear, unknown fellow-lovers? For God has other Mimosas.