The Empire of Love | Page 6

problem, may nevertheless find himself hopelessly baffled
by some quite common fact of life, such as how to treat a wayward son,
or a sinful woman. I am not likely to lose a night's rest because I am
unable to define the Trinity but with what sore travail of heart do I toss
through midnight hours when I have to settle some course of action
towards the friend who has betrayed me, the brother who has brought
me shame, the child who scoffs at my restraint, and hears the call of the
far country in every swift pulsation of his passionate heart! And why
cannot I settle my course of action? Because my mind is confused by
something which I call justice, to which custom has given authority and
consecration. Justice prescribes one course of action, affection another.
The convention of the world insists that wrong-doing should be
punished, which is manifestly right; but when it insists that I should be
the punisher, I suspect something wrong. The more closely I study
conventional justice the more I am conscious of something in myself
that distrusts and revolts from it. The more I incline to the voice of
affection the more I fear it, lest I should be guilty of weakness which
would merit my own contempt. The struggle is one between convention
and instinct, and I know not which side to take. But one thing I do
know; it is that I have no certain clue to guide me, no clear determining
principle that divides the darkness with a sword of light, no voice
within myself that is authoritative.
Now the wonderful thing in Jesus is that He is always sure of Himself.
Nothing takes Him by surprise, nothing produces the least hesitation in
His judgment. Therefore He must have had an unfailing clue to which
He trusted in the maze of life. Behind all consistency of judgment there

must exist consistency of principle. The principle that governed all the
thoughts of Jesus was that love was the only real justice. He came not
to condemn, not to destroy men's lives, but to save them. There was no
problem of human relationship that could not be solved by love; there
was no other principle needed for the regulation of society; and no
other could produce that general peace and good-will which He called
the Kingdom of God.
Thus, on one occasion Jesus tells a story which is so lifelike in every
touch that we may accept it, without doubt, as less a parable than an
incident. A father has two sons, one of whom is industrious and dutiful,
the other wayward and rebellious. The wayward son finally casts off all
pretense of filial obedience, goes into a far country, and wastes his
substance in riotous living. Here we have one of the saddest of all
problems in human relationship, for presently the disgraced son comes
home a beggar. The elder brother who represents the average social
view, has no doubt whatever as to what should be done. He is offended
that the disgraced son should come home at all; he would have thought
better of him if he had hidden his shame in the country that had
witnessed it. Probably his sense of pride and respectability is offended
more than his love of virtue, though he characteristically gives his
jealous anger the illusion of morality. This, I say, is the average social
view. There are few things more cruel than affronted respectability.
The elder brother is an eminently respectable person, totally
unacquainted with wayward passions, and his only feeling for his
brother is disdain.
Jesus tells the story, however, in such a way as to discredit the average
social view. He begins by making us feel that whatever follies the
prodigal had committed, he had already been punished for them in the
miseries he had endured. It is not for man to punish with his whip of
scorn one who has already been flaggellated with a whip of scorpions
in the desert places of disgrace and shame. Jesus makes us feel also that
whatever sins might be laid to the charge of the disgraced son, there is
nevertheless in his heart a warmth of feeling of which the elder brother
gives no sign. The boy loves his father, otherwise he would not have
turned to him in his anguish of distress. The elder brother's attitude to

his father is arrogant and harsh; the younger brother's is humble and
tender. Lastly the father himself is revealed as the embodiment of love.
He asks no questions, utters no reproaches, imposes no conditions; he
simply takes his son back, in the rush of his affection cutting short the
boy's pitiful confession, and calling for shoes and new robes and festal
music, as though his son