“I see that. Thank you for pointing it out to me.”
“But, Frank, old fellow, that’s not the chief thing I want you to see.
What will give you more satisfaction than anything else is the knowledge
that what has been done for you has been done in love. Your father has
shown his love for you; you show your love for him. Accept this gift
graciously. Enjoy it and make the best of it. Your life with him isn’t
over.”
My expression must have been one of inquiry, because he went on:
“One of the sublimest and truest things that ever fell from a pen is
this, ‘Love is of God; and every one that love is born of God, and
knoweth God.’ It’s almost a startling thing to realize that by the sheer
act of love we’re sons of God and know Him.”
“Ah, but what kind of love?” I asked, with some incredulity.
“Are there more kinds than one? The kingdom of love is like that of
minerals or that of vegetation—one in essence, though multiform in
manifestation. Just as one will give us coal and diamonds with much
the same ingredients, and another the strawberry, the rose, and the
apple-tree, all closely akin, so love shows itself in a million ways, and
yet remains always love.”
“And would you say that the love of parents and children, the love of
husbands and wives, the love of sweethearts, and the love of God—”
“—are all fundamentally related? Yes, I would. I can’t understand love
in any other sense, if it’s to be real love. Do you remember how often
we’ve talked of the spirit there is in the world that throws dust into
our eyes by creating distinctions and confusions where neither confusion
nor distinction exists? Well, the same evil imp is forever at work to
stultify love by trying to take the meaning from the word. And when it
has stultified love it has stultified God, since the one is identical
with the other.”