Produced by Al Haines

The Empire of Love

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 thanit is able, pleads not impossibility, because it feels that it can andmay 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 H