GAVE HIMSELF FOR US,

and you, too, will become a permanent magnet, a permanently attractive
force; and like Him you will draw all men unto you, like Him you will
be drawn unto all men. That is the inevitable effect of Love. Any man
who fulfills that cause must have that effect produced in him.

Try to give up the idea that religion comes to us by chance, or by
mystery, or by caprice. It comes to us by natural law, or by
supernatural law, for all law is Divine.

Edward Irving went to see a dying boy once, and when he entered the
room he just put his hand on the sufferer's head, and said, "My boy,
God loves you," and went away. The boy started from his bed, and
called out to the people in the house,

"God loves me! God loves me!"

One word! It changed that boy. The sense that God loved him
overpowered him, melted him down, and began the creating of a new
heart in him. And that is how the love of God melts down the unlovely
heart in man, and begets in him the new creature, who is patient and
humble and gentle and unselfish. And there is no other way to get it.
There is no mystery about it. We love others, we love everybody, we
love our enemies, _because He first loved us_.


III. THE DEFENCE.

Now I have a closing sentence or two to add about Paul's reason for