Boy.  I am afraid I do not love you; that is what troubles me.

Father.  Would you not be very sorry to have me deny that you are my son, and turn you out of the house?

Boy.  Oh, yes!  But perhaps that is because you take good care of me, not because I love you.

Father.  Suppose, then, I should provide some one else to take care of you, and should then leave you.

Boy.  That would be dreadful.

Father.  Why?  You would be taken good care of, and have every want supplied.

Boy.  But I should have no father.  I should lose the best thing I have.  I should be lonely.

Father.  You see you love me a little, at all events.  Now, do you think I love you?

Boy.  I don’t see how you can.  I am such a bad boy and try your patience so.  And I am not half as thankful to you for your goodness as I ought to be.  Sometimes, for a minute, I think to myself, He is my father and he really loves me; then I do something wrong, and I think nobody would want such a boy, nobody can love such a boy.

Father.  My son, I tell you that I do love you, but you can not believe it because you do not know me.  And you do not know me because you have not seen me, because you are blind.  I must have you cured of this blindness.

So the blind boy had the scales removed from his eyes and began to see.  He became so interested in using his eyesight that, for a time, he partially lost his old habit of despondency.  But one day, when it began to creep back, he saw his father’s face light up with love as one after another of his children came to him for a blessing, and said to himself:  They are his own children, and it is not strange that he loves them, and does so much to make them happy.  But I am nothing but a beggar-boy; he can’t love me.  I would give anything if he could.  Then the father asked why his face was sad, and the boy told him.

Father.  Come into this picture gallery and tell me what you see.

Boy.  I see a portrait of a poor, ragged, dirty boy.  And here is another.  And another.  Why, the gallery is full of them!

Father.  Do you see anything amiable and lovable in any of them?

Boy.  Oh, no.

Father.  Do you think I love your brothers?

Boy.  I know you do!

Father.  Well, here they are, just as I took the poor fellows out of the streets.

Boy.  Out of the streets as you did me?  They are all your adopted sons?

Father.  Every one of them.

Boy.  I don’t understand it.  What made you do it?

Father.  I loved them so that I could not help it.

Boy.  I never heard of such a thing!  You loved those miserable beggar-boys?  Then you must be made of Love!