Chapter V: The Greatest Wooing

_A Night and a Day With Hardening Hearts: the Story of Tender
Passion and of a Terrible Tragedy_

"Now of that long pursuit
Comes on at hand the bruit;
That Voice is round me like a bursting sea:
'And is thy earth so marred,
Shattered in shard on shard?
_Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me_!
Strange, piteous, futile, thing!

Wherefore should any set thee love apart?
Seeing none but I makes much of naught' (He said)
'And human love needs human meriting:
How hast thou merited--
Of all man's clotted clay the dingiest clot?
Alack, thou knowest not
How little worthy of any love thou art!
Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee,
Save Me, save only Me?
All which I took from thee I did but take,
Not for thy harms,
But just that thou might'st seek it in My arms.
All which thy child's mistake
Fancied as lost, I have stored for thee at home:
Rise, clasp My hand, and Come.'"

--"_The Hound of Heaven_

"I will betroth thee unto me forever; yea, I will betroth thee unto
me in righteousness, and in justice, and in loving kindness, and in
mercies. I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness."--_Hosea
ii. 19, 20._

"Jesus, Lover of my soul,
Let me to Thy bosom fly,
While the nearer waters roll.
While the tempest still is high.
Hide me, O my Saviour, hide,
'Til the storm of life is past;
Safe into the haven guide,
O receive my soul at last."

--_Charles Wesley_.