The Empire of Love

The Empire of Love, by W. J.
Dawson

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Title: The Empire of Love
Author: W. J. Dawson
Release Date: August 28, 2006 [EBook #19134]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
EMPIRE OF LOVE ***

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
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.
Jesus is loved not for anything that He taught, nor yet wholly for
anything that He did, although His actions culminate in the divine
fascination of the Cross, but rather for what He was in Himself. His
very name provokes in countless millions a reverent tenderness of
emotion usually associated only with the most sacred and intimate of
human relationships. He is loved with a certain purity and intensity of
passion that transcends even the most intimate expressions of human
emotion. The curious thing is that He Himself anticipated this kind of
love as His eternal heritage with men. He expected that men