'Then, suddenly,' says Mrs. Barclay, 'the inspired Word did that which It--and It alone--can do. It gripped Rodney and brought him face to face with realities--past, present and future--in his own inner life. At once, the Bishop's motto came into his mind; the three words his gentle mother used to draw that her little boy might paint them stood out clearly as the answer to all vague and restless questionings: GOD IS LOVE!' '_God is Love!_' '_Prepare to Meet thy God!_' How could he, with his old hate in his heart, stand in the presence of a God of Love? Standing there bareheaded, with one foot on the prone tombstone, Rodney grappled with the passion that he had cherished through the years, and thus took his first step along the path of preparation. 'I forgive the woman who came between us,' he said aloud. 'My God, I forgive her--as I hope to be forgiven!' 'As soon as a man comes to understand that _GOD IS LOVE_,' said Dr. Chalmers, 'he is infallibly converted.' That being so, Rodney Steele was infallibly converted that day, and that day he entered into peace. VII When Robert Louis Stevenson settled at Samoa, the islands were ablaze with tumult and strife. And, during those years of bitterness, Stevenson did his utmost to bring the painful struggle to an end. He visited the chiefs in prison, lavished his kindnesses upon the islanders, and made himself the friend of all. In the course of time the natives became devotedly attached to the frail and delicate foreigner who looked as though the first gust of wind would blow him away. His health required that he should live away on the hill-top, and they pitied him as he painfully toiled up the stony slope. To show their affection for him, they built a road right up to his house, in order to make the steep ascent more easy. And they called that road Ala Loto Alofa--_The Road to the Loving Heart_. They felt, as they toiled at their labor of gratitude, that they were not only conferring a boon on the white man, but that they were making a beaten path from their own doors to the heart that loved them all. _God is Love_; and it is the glory of the everlasting Gospel that it points the road by which the Father's wayward sons--in whichever of the far countries they may have wandered--may find a way back to the Father's house, and home to the Loving Heart. XI THOMAS HUXLEY'S TEXT I