The Cause of Slow Progress

I have loved Thee with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn Thee.” — Jer. xxxi. 3.

I UNDERSTAND the word “drawn *’ to be used here as the opposite of “driven.” I take the meaning to be: “It is because I love you that I do not force you; I desire to win by love.” We often express surprise that human life does not reveal more traces of God’s omnipotence. We see the visible universe subject to inexorable law and yielding submissively to that law. But man does not yield submissively; he resists the will of the Eternal. Why should he be allowed to resist? Is he not but an atom in the infinite spaces — these spaces that obey the heavenly mandate? Why not put down his insane rebellion and crush his proud will into conformity with the universal chorus? The Bible gives its answer. It is because love is incompatible with the exercise of omnipotence. Inexorable law can rule the stars; but the stars are not an object of love. Man is an object of love, and therefore he can only be ruled

by love — as the prophet puts it, “drawn.” Nothing is a conquest for love but the power of drawing. Omnipotence can subdue by driving — but that is not a conquest for love; it is rather a sign that love is baffled. Therefore it is that our Father does not compel us to come in. He would have us “drawn” by the beauty of holiness; therefore He veils all that would force the will. He hides the glories of Heaven. He conceals the gates of pearl and the streets of gold. He reveals not the river of His pleasures. He curtains from the ear the music of the upper choir. He obscures in the sky the sign of the Son of Man. He forbids the striking of the hours on the clock of Eternity. He treads on a path of velvet lest the sound of His coming footsteps should conquer by fear the heart that ought to be won by love.

O Thou whose name is Love, it is by that name alone I can explain why things move so slow. But in the light of that name I understand; the pauses become musical, the halts are stages of the march. I have heard a man express the wish to be in Thy place for one day; he thought he would reform Thy universe. He would have spoiled it. He would have conquered the refractory child by killing its will. Not thus would Thy Divine Fatherhood be victorious. Thou wouldst rather draw by the cross than drive by the crown. Often it seems to me that this world of Thine appeals more to the heart than to any other part of my nature. It is not all beautiful, it is not all poetical, it is not all intelligible, it is not all practical; but it is every inch pathetic. There is pathos in the starry night; there is pathos in the moaning sea; there is pathos in the monotonous stream; there is pathos in the song of birds; there is pathos in the human tear; there is pathos even in the rolling wheels of daily labour. Thou art leading me by weary paths — paths where I feel my brother’s pain, paths where I touch my brother’s thorn. Had I been a butterfly Thou wouldst have tempted me by roses and hurried me through the field; but because I am a man Thou hast drawn me by the slow cord — the winning of my heart.