The One Thing Needful

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal.—1 Corinthians 13:1.

1. This chapter, although a digression, is yet a step in the treatment of the subject of spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 12:1, 1 Corinthians 14:40), and forms in itself a complete and beautiful whole. After the promise that he will point out a still more surpassing way, there is, as it were, a moment of suspense; and then jam ardet Paulus et fertur in amorem (Bengel). Stanley imagines “how the Apostle’s amanuensis must have paused to look up in his master’s face at the sudden change in the style of his dictation, and seen his countenance lit up as it had been the face of an angel, as this vision of Divine perfection passed before him.” Writer after writer has expatiated upon its literary and rhythmical beauty, which places it among the finest passages in the sacred, or, indeed, in any writings. We may compare ch. 15, Romans 8:31-39, and—on a much lower plane—the torrent of invective in 2 Corinthians 11:19-29. This chapter is a Divine “prophecy,” which might have for its title that which distinguishes Psalms 45.—“A Song of Love” or “of Loves.” And it is noteworthy that these praises of love come, not from the Apostle of love, but from the Apostle of faith. It is not a fact that the Apostles are one-sided and prejudiced, each seeing only the gift which he specially esteems. Just as it is St. John who says, “This is the victory which over-cometh the world, even our faith,” so it is St. Paul who declares that greater than all gifts is love.1 [Note: Robertson and Plummer, 1st Corinthians, 285.]

“The greatest, strongest, deepest thing Paul ever wrote.”2 [Note: Harnack.]

I never read 1 Corinthians 13 without thinking of the description of the virtues in the Nicomachean Ethics. St. Paul’s ethical teaching has quite an Hellenic ring. It is philosophical, as resting on a definite principle, namely, our new life in Christ; and it is logical, as classifying virtues and duties according to some intelligible principle.1 [Note: E. L. Hicks, Studia, Biblica, iv. 9.]

For moral elevation, there is nothing in literature equal to this chapter. No Plato or Seneca ever uttered a sentiment of such transcendent beauty. Even in the Word of God I know of no parallel to the passage,—even in the Epistles of St. John, who wrote so much upon the subject, and learned his lesson on the Saviour’s heart. It is the highest encomium of the Queen of Graces that genius ever indited; and what more could man, however inspired of God, say in her praise? Yet here is no exaggeration, no distortion of the virtue commended, no depreciation of any other Christian quality or duty. All is just, exact, proportionate, because all is Divine. Love, in whatever aspect regarded—whether in its abstract principle, or in its relative importance, or in its enumerated attributes, or in its immeasurable duration, or in its asserted superiority to faith and hope—is manifestly worthy of its apostolic designation—“the more excellent way.”2 [Note: J. Cross, Pauline Charity, 6.]

2. Let us examine the important word by which he designates this more excellent way. There is hardly a more difficult one to render exactly, in the whole compass of the New Testament. Our language has not a term which will exactly convey to an English reader the full idea. It is the word, indeed, by which at the same time God’s love to man, and that feeble return of ours which is called love to Him, are both expressed. Still, our word “love” would not by any means do its full work in this chapter. We have that word in so many restricted senses—the love of friendship, the love of wedded life, even the love of lower and less worthy objects—that there would perhaps be danger of our escaping from the largeness of regard here insisted on into some of those smaller channels and abiding places, and satisfying ourselves that we had attained that which is required of us. For instance, when it is said, “Love suffereth long, and is kind,” instead of forming in our minds the idea of some unusual indwelling grace which always and to all men suffereth long and is kind, we should be saying in our hearts, “O yes—we know that there is nothing one will not endure from an object deeply loved”; and so of similar expressions, thereby missing the whole force and blessedness of the description.

The A.V. has unfortunately departed here from the earlier rendering “love” of Tindale and Cranmer (which the Revised Version has restored) and has followed the Vulgate caritas. Thus the force of this eloquent panegyric on love is impaired, and the agreement between the various writers of the New Testament much obscured. The aim, no doubt, of the Vulgate translators was to avoid the sensuous associations which the Latin word amor suggested. But the English word charity has never risen to the height of the Apostle’s argument. At best it signifies only a kindly interest in and forbearance towards others. It is far from suggesting the ardent, active, energetic principle which the Apostle had in view. And though the English word “love” includes the affection which springs up between persons of different sexes, it is generally understood to denote only the higher and nobler forms of that affection, the lower being stigmatized under the name of “passion.” Thus it is a suitable equivalent for the Greek word here used.

The word “charity” is open to grave objections. For, in the mind of the common English reader, it absolutely identifies the quality here spoken of with that very practice of almsgiving with which it is in one verse of the chapter so forcibly contrasted. And it is partly owing to the fact of the word “charity” having been used here by our translators that the chapter itself falls so dead on the ear of the English public. The word, as already said, was adopted from the writers of the Latin Vulgate. Of our own English versions, it is found in Wyclif, and in the Rheims Roman Catholic translation, both of which were made from the Latin. All the versions of the Reformation—Tindale, Cranmer, and the Geneva Bible—had “love” throughout; but King James’s translators, to whom we owe our Authorized Version, unhappily returned to “charity,” so much more easily mistaken, and so characteristically doing the work of Rome, in being capable of representing a mere external act, instead of the largeness of Christian spirit here described. “This,” says Dean Alford, “is one out of not a few instances in which we owe our translators no thanks for having taken from us the life and spirit of our genuine Reformation Bibles, and having gone back to the ambiguous and less expressive language of the version by which Rome supports so many of her errors.”

The difference between the two terms is well exhibited in 1 John 4:8, where the Vulgate reads: “God is charity.” Even the A.V. would not accept this. In Luke 11:42, the Latin has: “Ye pass over judgement and the charity of God,” but in John 5:42 : “Ye have not the love of God in yourselves.” These passages suggest that it was the intention of the Latin editors to distinguish between love as a principle and its manifestation. Yet in Romans 5:5, we have “the charity of God is diffused in our hearts.” Again, Romans 8:35, “What shall separate us from the charity of Christ?” It has also to be observed that the Latin caritas had not precisely the same meaning as has attached itself to our “charity.” With us it means beneficence, practical kindness, but in Latin it represents more the inward feeling. Hence Cicero speaks of “the charity which exists between children and parents.” The whole case shows how wisely the Revisers have applied their principle—not always observed—which required the same English word to represent one in the original.

Watts about the same time completed the group of the graces by adding his picture of “Charity.” This picture is in the manner of the old Italian masters, and might well have been painted by Correggio or Andrea del Sarto. Charity is a calm, modern Madonna, the homely, motherly love which is a constant revelation of His heart who comforts us as one whom his mother comforteth, robed in richly coloured vesture, and tenderly encircling three bright, chubby-faced children with her arms—an attempt to picture the “motherliness of God.” It is evident that the painter has a different and higher idea of charity than merely that of one who ministers to the poor, for in that case he would have represented the mother with a look of profound pity on her face, and the children with attenuated frames and gaunt, hungry countenances. The conception which he has of this virtue is that of St. Paul. Charity is more than the love that exists between man and woman. It has none of its excitement and passion. There is no selfishness or exclusiveness such as tinges even the most disinterested love between the sexes. It is more than benevolence, for it makes the rich as well as the poor the objects of its regard. It is not pity and a desire to help that it feels, but a longing for their true happiness, for their attainment of that which is highest and best and most lasting, for those who are well-off as well as for those who are unfortunate, irrespective of condition. It is this realized identity of interests resting on the invisible union of souls. You see on the countenance which the artist places before you the patience of love, never in a hurry, but always waiting to begin. A meek and quiet spirit of love looks out of those thoughtful, kindly eyes, suffering long, bearing all things, believing all things, hoping all things. She who seems so serene has learnt much of her wisdom by self-sacrifice, and much of her happy thoughts for the future from the trials and disappointments of the past. Humility reigns upon the brow, sealing her lips, so that she speaks not of, and tries to forget, the good she has done, and goes back from the world from her lovely act to the shade again, hiding even her love from itself.1 [Note: H. Macmillan, G. F. Watts, 207.]

“I do not know when I first heard the thirteenth chapter of 1st Corinthians; but it was no abstract idea of charity, it was the living image of my mother that informed every verse of it. Even the clause ‘charity never faileth’ (though I knew what the Apostle meant by it) suggested to me rather that, in the worst extremity, she would never fail to afford comfort and help.”2 [Note: Rainy’s daughter in The Life of Principal Rainy, i. 24.]

3. “What is love? St. Paul answers, by giving a great number of properties of it, all distinct and special. It is patient, it is kind, it has no envy, no self-importance, no ostentation, no indecorum, no selfishness, no irritability, no malevolence. Which of all these is it? For if it is all at once, surely it is a name for all virtues at once. And what makes this conclusion still more plausible is that St. Paul elsewhere actually calls love “the fulfilling of the law”: and our Saviour, in like manner, makes our whole duty consist in loving God and loving our neighbour. And St. James calls it “the royal law “: and St. John says, “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.” Thus the chapter from which the text is taken seems but an exemplification in detail of what is declared in general terms by the inspired writers.

In one sense it is all virtues at once, and therefore St. Paul cannot describe it more definitely, more restrictedly than he does. In other words, it is the root of all holy dispositions, and grows and blossoms into them: they are its parts; and when it is described, they of necessity are mentioned. Love is the material (so to speak) out of which all graces are made, the quality of mind which is the fruit of regeneration, and in which the Spirit dwells; according to St. John’s words, “Every one that loveth is born of God; … he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.”

The chief point to remember is that here love is not regarded as a “gift” to be compared with other gifts, it is rather a spirit, or temper, in which all gifts are to be used or exercised. St. Paul constantly speaks of the Christian as a man or woman “in Christ,” or as one in whom Christ dwells. If love is a synonym for the spirit and motive of Christ, when we say that all these gifts have to be exercised and used with, or in, love, we mean that they have to be exercised “in Christ.” Just as to be “in Christ” infinitely moralizes the whole life, so to exercise a gift “in love” infinitely moralizes its use and exercise.1 [Note: W. E. Chadwick, The Pastoral Teaching of St. Paul, 247.]

4. No distinction is drawn between love to God and love to man. Throughout the chapter it is the root-principle that is meant; love in its most perfect and complete sense. But it is specially in reference to its manifestations to men that it is praised, and most of the features selected as characteristic of it are just those in which the Corinthians had proved defective. And this deficiency is fatal. Christian love is that something without which everything else is nothing, and which would be all-sufficient, even were it alone. It is not merely an attribute of God, it is His very nature, and no other moral term is thus used of Him.

What is meant by love is not a preference for a certain number of special people, but a generic disposition. If you are going to test yourself by the words of Christ and His Apostles, you must ask yourself, not whether you love some person or persons who love you in return, but whether you so live amongst your fellowmen that those around you can see in you something of the comprehensive and inclusive love of God. “No man can love God except he evidence it in love to man.”2 [Note: Quintin Hogg, 303.]

One of the last, slowly murmured sayings of Whittier, the poet, as he lay dying, was this: “Give—my love—to—the world.” And this is the world’s supreme need to-day; more than our eloquence, or our knowledge, or our wealth, or all else besides, it needs our love. True, even love may sometimes err; but the cure for love’s mistakes is just more love. We never blunder because we love; we often blunder because we do not love enough. God help us all, that like Whittier, we may live and die, giving our love to the world!1 [Note: G. Jackson, Memoranda Paulina, 51.]

5. St. Paul’s first application of his great principle refers to the use of “tongues”—a gift of ecstatic, and probably highly emotional utterance, and evidently very highly prized by the Corinthians. St. Paul at once refuses to consider the gift apart from the personality through which it is exercised. If that personality is not motived by love the speaker has become a mere instrument of sound without moral (or spiritual) character.

Two applications at once suggest themselves: first, to what is termed popular preaching, however eloquent and clever, which does not proceed from a Christianized heart, which is not inspired by the love of souls, and whose object is not the salvation or edification of men; secondly, to the emotional singing of hymns whose words, if studied carefully apart from the music, are seen to be either heresy or nonsense, if they do not come perilously near to blasphemy.2 [Note: W. E. Chadwick, The Pastoral Teaching of St. Paul, 248.]

I

Intellect or Character?

1. St. Paul has been alluding in the preceding chapter to sundry and various endowments, abilities, and qualifications by which certain individuals in the early Christian community were gifted and distinguished by Divine providence, for the purpose of the more speedy propagation of the Gospel, and of attracting, retaining, and edifying new candidates for that community. And one purpose of the Apostle in referring to these extraordinary gifts and faculties is to put the favoured possessors of them upon their guard, lest they should become puffed up and self-complacent in the consciousness of their distinctions, and employ them for their own exaltation, instead of for the furtherance of God’s honour in the welfare and progress of humanity.

Of the precise nature of these mysterious gifts, we know little more than that, having answered their temporary purpose, they exist no longer. But whatever they were, it is obvious that the best way of applying for our own edification the Apostle’s admonitions with respect to them will be to translate, as it were, those extraordinary gifts into their modern equivalents, which are variously distributed amongst us under the common name of “talents.” We have no miraculous gift of Tongues; but we have scholars whose laborious industry has mastered languages to such a degree as almost to repair the inconvenience of Babel and to reduce its confusion to order. We have no miraculous gift of Prophecy: but we have men of far-sighted sagacity to discern the signs of the times, of profound wisdom to prepare for the reception and interpretation of those phenomena, and possessed of an eloquence little short of miraculous in propounding their projects and recommending them for acceptance by a free people. And whatever might be the precise nature of what St. Paul terms “gifts of healing, gifts of help, gifts of government,” we can have no doubt that they each have their corresponding though ordinary and unmiraculous endowments in the present day, exhibited in the various evolutions of art, science, philosophy, political and religious administration; each of them, like the Pentecostal gifts, and like “every good and perfect gift,” proceeding from the Father of Lights; each of them liable to misuse by the vanity of man; each of them therefore necessitating a word of caution in the spirit of the Apostle. Such gifts there are corresponding to those of tongues, of knowledge, of prophecy, of discovery, of contrivance or administration; gifts working through all the range of commerce, politics, the camp, the court, the Church, or in the fields of literature and science. These are the gifts which, under the names of talent, force, and genius, men (and no wonder) are ready to bow down before and worship; these are the gifts before which we are least reluctant and ashamed to offer homage, sometimes approaching to extravagance—gifts that are dazzling to the beholder, and cannot therefore but be more or less dangerous to the possessor; gifts that must be used with watchfulness lest they should bear that possessor up into the region of superciliousness; lest they should set him above the plain tasks, the common duties, the homely sympathies, the social kindnesses, the meekness, the modesty, the concession, the considerateness, and the fair construction which we owe to one another.

In earlier days his standard had been almost purely intellectual, but in later life simplicity and charm and genuine goodness seemed to appeal to him most. He said, “The power of simple goodness is the greatest in the world.”1 [Note: Life and Letters of Mandell Creighton, ii. 484.]

The idea was early and unmistakably impressed on our minds, that to be good was the main thing in life; that there was nothing else that could come into any comparison or competition with this; that in fact nothing else mattered greatly. We knew that this was what our parents desired for us above all else, though I do not think there was much direct speaking about it, beyond a little explanation of our Sunday lessons, or an occasional word when we were saying our prayers.2 [Note: Early Letters of Marcus Dods, 18.]

Occasionally I preached a sermon at home over the red sofa cushions;—this performance being always called for by my mother’s dearest friends, as the great accomplishment of my childhood. The sermon was, I believe, some eleven words long;—very exemplary, it seems to me, in that respect—and I still think must have been the purest gospel, for I know it began with, “People, be good.”3 [Note: Ruskin, Prœterita, i. 25.]

2. Since it is plainly because of its fruits that St. Paul magnifies the grace of love, we shall hardly be doing injustice to his argument by saying that, after all, the distinction he draws is between intellect and character, as things to be sought after for ourselves and reverenced in others. The text condenses it into an epigram, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as the blare of the trumpet or the clang of the cymbal.”

St. Paul knew nothing of the modern orchestra. He meant by his simile, presumably, only showy noise and display, loud enough to attract any attention however little cultivated. We may read into it yet other lessons, not less important; for the trumpet and the cymbal have their right and due place in the orchestra, and contribute their necessary share to the “concord of sweet sounds,” and to the intention of the great Master whose meaning they help to interpret. But by themselves what are they but “sound and fury, signifying nothing”? They are useless, and without beauty, unless they take a subordinate place, and unless they co-operate for something greater than themselves.4 [Note: A. Ainger, The Gospel and Human Life, 33.]

3. It was within a comparatively small ring-fence of a struggling church, separated by hard and fast lines from the heathen and corrupt populace outside, that the problem had risen for solution, which St. Paul sets himself to solve. It was on purely religious questions—the diffusion of the knowledge of Christ by the ability and fervour of those already possessing it—that this question of Intellect versus Character had arisen. But as it is a question going down to the deeps of human personality, it never disappears, but is ever present, and ever pressing for our decision. It is a perennial danger, because a perennial temptation—that steady, never-changing temptation to value ability, talent, learning, accomplishment, even “cleverness,” the cheapest and most worthless of them all—to value these above goodness, and to ignore the certain truth that, where these things are not given by nature (as must be the case with the majority), they are not to be acquired by aping those who have them, by the mere mimicry of “gifts,” which everywhere abounds, the tinsel which obtains acceptance as the glorious gem of the mountain or the sea, the surface cleverness which we daily meet, the borrowed tricks of style and manner and talk, the assimilative skill, wherein is no reality, no root, because no heart.

An over-’cute woman’s no better nor a long-tailed sheep—she’ll fetch none the bigger price for that.1 [Note: Mr. Tulliver, in The Mill on the Floss.]

One to whom he often spoke of the deepest things of life and of death will never forget his saying one day just after the attack of illness in December: “I have come to see that cleverness, success, attainment, count for little; that goodness, or, as F. (naming a dear friend) would say, ‘character,’ is the important factor in life.”2 [Note: Life and Letters of George John Romanes, 323.]

4. St. Paul did not malign or disparage gifts. Himself a man of rarest genius, is it likely he would stultify his own mission and function by disparaging the great gifts which, inspired and guided by love, were helping to mould the whole future of the world? “Covet earnestly the best gifts,” he said; every talent and faculty that God has bestowed on your mysterious individuality welcome and turn to the Master’s use.

True it is, and within the range both of illustrious historical precedent and of frequent personal observation and experience, that the best and most brilliant and distinguished gifts may be directed, harmonized, moderated, and controlled by the most frank and unaffected humility, and by the most tender and generous sentiments of humanity. But it will hardly be denied that while the highly gifted in literature and science are very frequently, and perhaps even in exact proportion to their eminence, men of modest stillness and humility, there is a very great temptation to the contrary. There is an instinct of self-glorification through these gifts which requires close looking after. There is a temptation to forget that the only legitimate dedication of such faculties, and the implied condition on which they are bestowed, must be such as shall promote the ulterior advantage of the whole community (as St. Paul shows in the preceding chapter representing us as all members of one body).

I remember one thing he said which made a great impression. Something led us to talk about genius and character. I was praising genius, and taking no notice of character as its great buttress. He turned and said quietly, and with some sadness, “I have seen more young men fail in early life from the absence of character than from the absence of genius.”1 [Note: Life and Letters of Brooke Foss Weslcott, ii. 33.]

In 1876 Leslie Stephen and his sister-in-law, Lady Ritchie (Miss Thackeray), were staying at a neighbouring farmhouse, and Ruskin saw a good deal of them. He liked Stephen, in spite of differences of opinion and temperament, and mentions talk with him as one of the agreeable things at Brantwood; but Stephen on his side “could not be at ease with Ruskin.” Between Lady Ritchie and Ruskin there was fuller sympathy, as is seen in her description of their meeting:—

“Mrs. Severn sat in her place behind a silver urn, while the master of the house, with his back to the window, was dispensing such cheer, spiritual and temporal, as those who have been his guests will best realize,—fine wheaten bread and Scotch cakes in many a crisp circlet and crescent, and trout from the lake, and strawberries such as grow only on the Brantwood slopes. Were these cups of tea only, or cups of fancy, feeling, inspiration? And as we crunched and quaffed we listened to a certain strain not easily to be described, changing from its graver first notes to the sweetest and most charming of vibrations.… The text was that strawberries should be ripe and sweet, and we munched and marked it then and there; that there should be a standard of fitness applied to every detail of life, and this standard, with a certain gracious malice, wit, hospitality, and remorselessness, he began to apply to one thing and another, to one person and another, to dress, to food, to books.… Listening back to the echoes of a lifetime we can most of us still hear some strains very clear, very real and distinct, out of all the confusion of past noise and chatter; and the writer (nor is she alone in this) must ever count the music of Brantwood oratory among such strains. Music, oratory—I know not what to call that wondrous gift which subjugates all who come within its reach.”

God uses us to help each other so,

Lending our minds out.1 [Note: E. T. Cook, The Life of Ruskin, ii. 291.]

5. That there may be gifts without love to use them aright—this is St. Paul’s warning, and this warning must be declared afresh in every age. If love is the one source of all that is best in human character, we need not wonder any more why St. Paul should be careful to compare or contrast it with faith and hope, and declare that it is the greatest. For indeed love is the atmosphere in which alone the light of faith and hope can burn. Love creates character, and character, in return, makes lovely and makes lovable. There is a witchery and a glamour which attend intellectual gifts in life, winning admiration and popularity, and even the semblance of affection. But when Death has come in to place the object of these at a distance from earth and time, it is to something far other than “cleverness” that Memory turns instinctively to brood over and cherish. Not the gifts, but the graces, then; not the cleverness, not the accomplishments or learning, not the wit and humour, but the touches of human sympathy and tenderness: the self-denial, the patience and forbearance, the nobility of aim, the steadfastness of purpose, the fact that the atmosphere of life and society was higher, nobler, purer, where such an one moved and spoke—just all those things which St. Paul found to have their source and spring in love.

My opinion of Lord Althorp is extremely high. In fact, his character is the only stay of the Ministry. I doubt whether any person has ever lived in England who, with no eloquence, no brilliant talents, no profound information, with nothing in short but plain good sense and an excellent heart, possessed so much influence both in and out of Parliament. His temper is an absolute miracle. He has been worse used than any Minister ever was in debate; and he has never said one thing inconsistent, I do not say with gentlemanlike courtesy, but with real benevolence. Lord North, perhaps, was his equal in suavity and good-nature; but Lord North was not a man of strict principles. His administration was not only an administration hostile to liberty, but it was supported by vile and corrupt means,—by direct bribery, I fear, in many cases. Lord Althorp has the temper of Lord North with the principles of Romilly. If he had the oratorical powers of either of those men, he might do anything. But his understanding, though just, is slow, and his elocution painfully defective. It is, however, only justice to him to say that he has done more service to the Reform Bill even as a debater than all the other Ministers together, Stanley excepted.1 [Note: Macaulay, Life and Letters, 175.]

II

The Discovery of Love

1. What is the origin of love? Turn to the Revised Version of the Epistles of John and you will find there these words: “We love because he first loved us.” “We love”—not, “We love him.” This is the way the old version has it, and it is wrong. “We love because he first loved us.” Look at that word “because.” There is the cause. “Because he first loved us.” The effect follows that we love Him—we love all men. Our heart is slowly changed. Because He loved us, we love. Contemplate the love of Christ, and you will love Him. Stand before that, and you will be changed into the same image, from tenderness to tenderness. There is no other way. You cannot love to order. You can only look at the lovely object, and fall in love with it; you cannot command yourself to do it. And so look at the great sacrifice of Christ, as He laid down His life all through life, and at His death upon the Cross of Calvary; and you must love Him. Love begets love. It is a process of induction. You put a piece of iron in the mere presence of an electrified body, and that piece of iron for a time becomes electrified. It becomes a temporary magnet in the presence of a permanent magnet, and as long as you leave the two side by side, they are both magnets. Remain side by side with Him who loved us, and gave Himself for us, and you too will become a permanent magnet, a permanent attractive force; and like Him you will draw all men—be they white men or black men—unto you. That is the inevitable effect of love.

With all thy heart, with all thy soul and mind,

Thou must Him love and His behests embrace;

All other loves, with which the world doth blind

Weak fancies, and stir up affections base,

Thou must renounce and utterly displace,

And give thyself unto Him full and free,

That full and freely gave Himself to thee.

Then shalt thou feel thy spirit so possest,

And ravish t with devouring great desire

Of His dear Self, that shall thy feeble breast

Inflame with love, and set thee all on fire

With burning zeal, through every part entire,

That in no earthly thing thou shalt delight,

But in His sweet and amiable sight.

Thenceforth all world’s desire will in thee die,

And all earth’s glory, on which men do gaze,

Seem dirt and dross in thy pure-sighted eye,

Compar’d to that Celestial Beauty’s blaze,

Whose glorious beams all fleshly sense doth daze

With admiration of their passing light,

Blinding the eyes, and lumining the spright.

Then shall thy ravisht soul inspired be

With heavenly thoughts far above human skill,

And thy bright radiant eyes shall plainly see

Th’ Idea of His pure glory present still

Before thy face, that all thy spirits shall fill

With sweet enragement of celestial love,

Kindled through sight of those fair things above.1 [Note: Spenser.]

With Professor Blackie the course of true love did not at first run smooth. But the Professor refused to believe that Mr. Wyld (her father) would persist in his displeasure. “You shall soon (he wrote to her) see your father, dearest, sitting as comfortably at my fireside as he does at his own. I believe that the only invincible power in the world is love; I shall ply your father with that and that only, and if I do not conquer—Christianity never conquered.”1 [Note: John Stuart Blackie, i. 207.]

Edward Irving went to see a dying boy once, and when he entered the room, he just put his hand on the sufferer’s head, and said, “My boy, God loves you,” and went away. And the boy started from his bed, and he called out to the people in the house, “God loves me! God loves me!” One word; one word! It changed that boy. The sense that God loved him had overpowered him, melted him down, and had begun the making of a new heart.

“Please, ‘ma,’ ” began Atim, “please no whip Mees Kittee. She say true word. Me black. Me no white, me no prettee, but Jesus He no think about black face, and He lofe me all the same. He lofe me, me too glad. Mees Kittee speak true word, but me not sorree any more.”

The girl’s black eyes glistened with feeling, but she looked very happy, and she showed her ivory teeth.

“Atim, my dear Atim!” said Mrs. Temple. “I’m glad along with you! What do other things matter after all if one is sure of that?”

“Jesus, He make me white as snow me never see in me country. Me lofe Him! Me lofe Him!” She laughed aloud in her perfect pleasure. Truly she could afford to forgive and forget.

Kitty, stony-faced, had been a study during Atim’s plea for her. She had refused utterly to beg pardon, and stood as perverse a little mortal as one could see anywhere. Gradually, as Atim spoke, her expression became softer. Her warm heart was touched. The moment Atim stopped, she flung herself into the black girl’s arms.

“I love you, Atim!” she cried. “I love your black face. I’m the wickedest sinner alive! If I loved Jesus the least little bit, I wouldn’t behave so.” She kissed the girl many times, and fondled her. Then Kitty turned to her mother. “Mother, mother, punish me! Make me do something I don’t like at all. I’ll do it just to show how sorry I am. I don’t want to be naughty, but it’s my nature! I feel awful bad, awful!”2 [Note: J. F. Hogg, The Angel Opportunity, 131.]

2. As if on purpose to obviate all mysticism, St. Paul is careful to describe love by its practical results. A tree is known by its fruit; and as you might describe an oak tree to a child as the tree that is covered with acorns; or a vine as the tree from which the purple clusters are hanging, so St. Paul delineates love by the fruit it bears. By love, he seems to say, I mean that quality which “suffereth long and is kind,” puts up with a great deal, and, trying to find excuses for the misdemeanour of an adversary, is kind and gentle and forbearing. Love envieth not the good fortune, the reputation, the precedence of another, vaunteth not herself, is not puffed up; gives herself no airs of consequence, nor plumes herself upon even real superiorities, inasmuch as it is contrary to the very essence of love to be making those comparisons which alone could supply materials for self-conceit; doth not behave herself unseemly, nor in any manner incongruous with the correlative circumstances in which she is placed; or inconsistent with the rights, the feelings, or even, if it can be helped, the honest prejudices of those with whom she is placed. And she is the less likely to fall into this unseemliness because she seeketh not her own; is not incessantly on the watch to assert her own presence and to claim attention to her own prerogative; is not easily (or perhaps it may here mean “vehemently”) provoked; imputeth no evil where it can be avoided; rejoiceth not in iniquity—as so many do, who cannot hear a piece of discreditable news but they sit on thorns until they can find an opportunity to repeat it—but rejoiceth in everything that is consistent with truth, justice, and integrity. Beareth all things, or more probably here, concealeth all things concerning another person which, without injury to the claims of social laws, it would be kind and considerate to conceal; believeth all things favourable to such a person which there is any colourable reason to believe; even hopeth those which she finds it difficult to believe; and endureth all things which it may be an advantage to others that she should endure.

Henry Drummond has told us how in the heart of Africa, among the great lakes, he came across black men and women who remembered the only white man they ever saw before—David Livingstone; “and as you cross his footsteps in that dark continent, men’s faces light up as they speak of the kind doctor who passed there years ago. They could not understand him; but they felt the love that beat in his heart.”

In London, in 1872, one Sunday morning a minister said to me, “I want you to notice that family there in one of the front seats; and when we go home I want to tell you their story.” When we arrived home I asked him for the story, and he said, “All that family were won by a smile.” “Why,” said I, “how was that?” “Well,” said he, “as I was walking down a street one day I saw a child at a window; it smiled, and I smiled, and we nodded. So it was the second time; I nodded, she nodded. It was not long before there was another child, and I had got into a habit of looking and nodding; and pretty soon the group grew, and at last, as I went by, a lady was with them. I did not know what to do. I did not want to nod to her, but I knew the children expected it, and so I nodded to them all. And the mother saw I was a minister, because I carried a Bible every Sunday morning. So the children followed me the next Sunday and found I was a minister. And they thought I was the greatest preacher they knew, and their parents must hear me.”1 [Note: D. L. Moody, The Faithful Saying, 44.]

How is it that the poets have said so many fine things about our first love, so few about our later love? Are their first poems their best? or are not those the best which come from their fuller thought, their larger experience, their deeper-rooted affections? The boy’s flute-like voice has its own spring charm; but the man should yield a richer, deeper music.2 [Note: George Eliot, Adam Bede.]

O Youth immortal—O undying love!

With these by winter fireside we’ll sit down,

Wearing our snows of honour like a crown;

And sing as in a grove,

Where the full nests ring out with happy cheer,

“Summer is here.”

Roll round, strange years; swift seasons, come and go;

Ye leave upon us only an outward sign;

Ye cannot touch the inward and divine,

While God alone does know;

There seal’d till summers, winters, all shall cease

In His deep peace.

Therefore uprouse ye winds and howl your will;

Beat, beat, ye sobbing rains on pane and door;

Enter, slow-footed age, and thou, obscure

Grand Angel—not of ill:

Healer of every wound, whene’er thou come,

Glad, we’ll go home.3 [Note: Dinah M. Mulock.]

The One Thing Needful

Literature

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Ainger (A.), in Anglican Pulpit of To-day, 344.

Alford (H.), Quebec Chapel Sermons, vii. 104, 120, 133.

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Bradby (E. H.), Sermons at Haileybury, 324.

Brooke (S. A.), The Fight of Faith, 51.

Brookfield (W. H.), Sermons, 96.

Cross (J.), Pauline Charity, 22, 36, 50.

Daplyn (E.), One with the Eternal, 9.

Duncan (J.), In the Pulpit and at the Communion Table, 183.

Grant (C.), A School’s Life, 80.

Jackson (G.), Memoranda Paulina, 47.

Jones (H.), in A Lent in London, 134.

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Matheson (G.), Times of Retirement, 222.

Moberly (R. C.), Christ our Life, 45.

Moody (D. L.), Faithful Sayings, 41.

Newman (J. H.), Parochial and Plain Sermons, iv. 307, v. 327.

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