The Empire of Love   By: W. J. (William James) Dawson (1854-1928)

By

W. J. DAWSON

New York Chicago Toronto

Fleming H. Revell Company

London and Edinburgh

Copyright, 1907, by

FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY

New York: 158 Fifth Avenue Chicago: 80 Wabash Avenue Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W. London: 21 Paternoster Square Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street

To M. M. D.,

who, during the last two years of our residence in London, practiced the teachings of this book before I taught them:

proving daily in her compassionate toil for others the divine efficacy of simple love to redeem the lives, that were most estranged from virtue, and most lost to hope.

Love feels no burden, regards not labours, would willingly do more than it is able, pleads not impossibility, because it feels that it can and may do all things.

THOMAS À KEMPIS.

CONTENTS

I. THE GENIUS TO BE LOVED II. WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? III. THE JUSTICE OF JESUS IV. LOVE IS JUSTICE V. LOVE AND FORGIVENESS VI. THE PRACTICE OF LOVE VII. LOVE AND JUDGMENT VIII. THE WISDOM OF THE SIMPLE IX. THE REVELATIONS OF GRIEF X. A CONFESSION XI. A LOVER OF MEN XII. THE LAW OF COMPASSION XIII. THE EMPIRE OF LOVE XIV. THE BUILDERS OF THE EMPIRE

THE GENIUS TO BE LOVED

WHY THEY LOVED HIM

So kindly was His love to us, (We had not heard of love before), That all our life grew glorious When He had halted at our door.

So meekly did He love us men, Though blind we were with shameful sin, He touched our eyes with tears, and then Led God's tall angels flaming in.

He dwelt with us a little space, As mothers do in childhood's years, And still we can discern His face Wherever Joy or Love appears.

He made our virtues all His own, And lent them grace we could not give, And now our world seems His alone, And while we live He seems to live.

He took our sorrows and our pain, And hid their torture in His breast, Till we received them back again To find on each His grief impressed.

He clasped our children in His arms, And showed us where their beauty shone, He took from us our gray alarms, And put Death's icy armour on.

So gentle were His ways with us, That crippled souls had ceased to sigh, On them He laid His hands, and thus They gloried at His passing by.

Without reproof or word of blame, As mothers do in childhood's years, He kissed our lips in spite of shame, And stayed the passage of our tears.

So tender was His love to us, (We had not learned to love before), That we grew like to Him, and thus Men sought His grace in us once more.

CONINGSBY WILLIAM DAWSON.

I

THE GENIUS TO BE LOVED

In the history of the last two thousand years there is but one Person who has been, and is supremely loved. Many have been loved by individuals, by groups of persons, or by communities; some have received the pliant idolatries of nations, such as heroes and national deliverers; but in every instance the sense of love thus excited has been intimately associated with some triumph of intellect, or some resounding achievement in the world of action. In this there is nothing unusual, for man is a natural worshipper of heroes. But in Jesus Christ we discover something very different; He possessed the genius to be loved in so transcendent a degree that it appears His sole genius.