XIV.

A DIVINE FRIEND.

The woman ... came and fell down before Him, and told Him all the truth.--_Mark_ v. 33.

_The whole truth._ Only to one Friend can we tell that. Only one friendship could bear the strain of that revelation. The very exigencies of other friendships call for restraint. Can we own to want of confidence, to utter coldness and callousness, to a want of sympathy in joys and sorrows that move to its depths the heart of our friend? Could the most self-forgetting of human friendships bear up against avowals such as these?

No; we must draw the line here unless we want the free flowing waters gradually to freeze into a glacier. Owning to mistrust will hardly be accepted as a mark of trust, nor will the acknowledgment of coldness beget love. Poor affection of these human hearts of ours!--jealous and suspicious at the least show of reticence, yet unable to bear the disclosures of unreserve. We cannot be hard upon a weakness common to us all, but we long for a heart human like our own, yet strong enough to support the weight of all we would put upon it. Nor are we disappointed. Here in the tabernacle is what we seek. Here is a Heart waiting for all, ready for all. Here we may unbosom ourselves completely. Here we may tell _the whole truth_. Narrowness and fickleness, heartlessness, mistrust, selfishness--ingratitude even, we may tell. We may trust all to this Beloved without fear. For He knows what is in man. No revelation will surprise Him, no misery disgust Him. He will welcome each painful avowal with the tenderest sympathy, and take all we tell Him as tokens of trust for which He is infinitely obliged to us.