p. 203 | WHY I LOVE JESUS

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 9, 1873

WHY I LOVE JESUS.

“Why do you love this Jesus?” said a scoffing one to me; “And what is the feeling you have for him more than for one like me? Do you truly love, as we say we love, when our hearts are full to the brim? Do you love,” and the voice grew softer, “as though you could die for him?”

“Why do I love, and how do I love?” I said as I took her hand; “Oh! if I only might tell you, so that you’d understand! I love him because he came below, and suffered and died for me, Leaving a home of joy and love, for pain and the bloody tree.

“Yet not alone for what he has done do I love the risen Christ— Not only that for my worthless sake he was scoffed at and despised— But for what he is in his real self, and for what his beauties are, Because he is utterly perfect, and because he is perfectly fair.

“We love our friends, if we really love, for what they are, and can; And one who is great, and able, and good, we count a lovely man. Now, come and gaze on the face of Christ as he appears to me, And how he stands above all such, only look and you will see.

“If one builds houses grand and rare, with spire and arch and dome, We count him great, and his name is bright in history’s blazoned tome; Yet no one has made, as our Christ has made, a plan of sun and star Like that which flashes out on our sight from the depths of space afar.

“I have read the works of the masters, and my soul has thrilled to hear Their sounding words, through the ages, come out, ringing grand and clear; Yet never a poem of earth has filled my soul with such a joy As the lofty ecstasy Jesus gives, which time cannot destroy.

“I have looked on faces so strangely fair that my vision could not stay From gazing upon their beauty, though I tried to turn away; Yet never a face of all I ween, can, in one thing, compare With the features of the Master—like the Rose of Sharon fair!”