loving, but Love (1 John 4:8)! That means that all His actions and emotions spring from a single-minded desire for the companionship and happiness of others. Justice only goes one mile, Love gladly trudges two or ten! There is a limit to the demands of Justice: an eye for an eye, duty squarely faced. There is no limit to the demands of Love upon its owner: duty is left standing, and grace goes bounding on! There is no power in the world for dictating a man's actions like the power of Love. Love does not stop when Justice has been satisfied. The first thought of duty kills Love, which only begins to live its life when duty is left behind, and loving-kindness takes its place. It is the difference between a housekeeper and a wife! Marriage has failed when husband and wife only "do their duty".

And so it was with the Almighty. Creation sprang, not out of duty, nor out of power, nor even out of wisdom, but out of Love. God created, not because of anything that He could get out of it, not as an interesting experiment, but solely from a desire to put into it all that He had, even His Life, if thereby He could see an eternal Kingdom of happy beings where before there were only the empty spaces of infinity! The Authorised Version mistranslation of Revelation 4:11 "for Thy pleasure they are and were created", corrected in the Revised Version to "because of Thy will they exist and were created", sprang out of the old hateful misconception of a King as a Being whose subjects had no rights and owed Him everything, while He had no duties to them but put Himself first.

Our Lord corrected this devilish idea in Luke 22:24, "and there was strife among them, which of them should be accounted the greatest. And He said unto them 'The Kings of the Nations exercise Lordship over them; and they that exercise authority over them are called benefactors. But ye