But notice once more, and more than all in my text, that God is so kind and loving, that when it is necessary for Him to cut, He has to go to others for the sharp-edged weapon.  “In the same day shall the Lord shave with a razor that is hired.”  God is love.  God is pity.  God is help.  God is shelter.  God is rescue.  There are no sharp edges about Him, no thrusting points, no instruments of laceration.  If you want balm for wounds, He has that.  If you want salve for divine eyesight, He has that.  But if there is sharp and cutting work to do which requires a razor, that He hires.  God has nothing about Him that hurts, save when dire necessity demands, and then He has to go clear off to some one else to get the instrument.

This divine geniality will be no novelty to those who have pondered the Calvarean massacre, where God submerged Himself in human tears, and crimsoned Himself from punctured arteries, and let the terrestrial and infernal worlds maul Him until the chandeliers of the sky had to be turned out, because the universe could not endure the indecency.  Illustrious for love He must have been to take all that as our substitute, paying out of His own heart the price of our admission at the gates of heaven.

King Henry ii., of England, crowned his son as king, and on the day of coronation put on a servant’s garb and waited, he, the king, at the son’s table, to the astonishment of all the princes.  But we know of a more wondrous scene, the King of heaven and earth offering to put on you, His child, the crown of life, and in the form of a servant waiting on you with blessing.  Extol that love, all painting, all sculpture, all music, all architecture, all worship!  In Dresdenian gallery let Raphael hold Him up as a child, and in Antwerp Cathedral let Rubens hand Him down from the cross as a martyr, and Handel make all his oratorio vibrate around that one chord—­“He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquity.”  But not until all the redeemed get home, and from the countenances of all the piled-up galleries of the ransomed shall be revealed the wonders of redemption, shall either man or seraph or archangel know the height, and depth, and length, and breadth of the love of God.

At our national capital, a monument in honor of him who did more than any one to achieve our American Independence, was for scores of years in building, and most of us were discouraged and said it never would be completed.  And how glad we all were when in the presence of the highest officials of the nation, the work was done!  But will the monument to Him who died for the eternal liberation of the human race ever be completed?  For ages the work has been going up; evangelists and apostles and martyrs have been adding to the heavenly pile, and every one of the millions of the redeemed going up from earth, has made to it contribution of gladness, and weight of glory is swung to the top of other weight of glory,