ose.

It's the tug of man's sore need at the down-end, the man-end, of the
strings. And it's the sore tug of grief over the way things are going on
down here with men, at the other end, the up-end, the heart-end, of the
strings. It's the tense pull-up of a love that grows stronger with the
growth of man's misunderstanding.

But the heart-strings never snap. The heart itself breaks under the
tension of love and grief, grieved and grieving love. But the strings
only strengthen and tighten under the strain of use.

Those heart-strings are a bit of the heart they're tied to, an inner
bit, aye the innermost bit, the inner heart of the heart. They are the
bit pulled, and pulled more, and pulled harder, till the strings grew.
Man was born in the warm heart of God. Was there ever such a womb! Was
there ever such another borning, homing place!

It was man's going away that stretched the heart out till the strings
grew. The tragedy of sin revealed the toughness and tenderness of love.
For that heart never let go of the man whom it borned. Man tried to pull
away, poor thing. In his foolish misunderstanding and heady wilfulness
he tried to cut loose. If he had known God better he would never have
tried that. He'd never have _started_ away; and he'd never have tried to
_get_ away.

For love never faileth. A heart--the real thing of a heart, that is,
God's heart--never lets go. It breaks; but let go? not once: never yet.
The breaking only loosens the red that glues fast with a tighter hold
than ever. The fibre of the heart--God's heart--is made of too strong
stuff to loosen or wear out or snap. Love never faileth. It can't;
because it's love.

Now all this explains Jesus. It was man's pull on these heart-strings
that brought Him down. The pull was so strong and steady. It grew tenser
and more insistent. And straight down He came by the shortest way, the
way of those same heart-strings. For the heart-strings of God are the
shortest distance between two given points, the point of God's giving,
going love, and the point of man's sore need, given a sharper-pointed
end by its very soreness.

It is a sort of blind pull, this pull of man on the heart of God; a
confused, unconscious, half-conscious, dust-blinded, slippery-road sort
of pulling, but one whose tight grip never slacks. Man needs God, but
does not know it. He knows he needs _some_thing. He feels that keenly.
But he does not know that it's God whom he needs, with a very fe