- Life
-
-
- And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,
-
- Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom
of heaven.
-
- Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
-
- Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
-
- Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness:
for they shall be filled.
-
- Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
-
- Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
-
- Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called
the children of God.
-
- Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness'
sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
-
- Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute
you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
-
- Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward
in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
-
- Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost
his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing,
but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.
-
- Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on
an hill cannot be hid.
-
- Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel,
but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.
-
- Let your light so shine before men, that they may see
your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
- Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where
moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:
-
- But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where
neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through
nor steal:
-
- For where your treasure is, there will your heart be
also.
-
- The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine
eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
-
- But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full
of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great
is that darkness!
-
- No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate
the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise
the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
-
- Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life,
what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what
ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?
-
- Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither
do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them.
Are ye not much better than they?
-
- Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto
his stature?
-
- And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies
of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
-
- And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his
glory was not arrayed like one of these.
-
- Ye have heard that it was said of them of old time, Thou
shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment:
-
- But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his
brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever
shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but
whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.
-
- Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there
rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee;
-
- Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way;
first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.
-
- Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art
in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the
judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into
prison.
-
- Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come
out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.
-
- Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time,
Thou shalt not commit adultery:
-
- But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman
to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
-
- And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and
cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members
should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.
-
- And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast
it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should
perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.
-
- It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife,
let him give her a writing of divorcement:
-
- But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his
wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery:
and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.
-
- Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them
of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the
Lord thine oaths:
-
- But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven;
for it is God's throne:
-
- Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by
Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King.
-
- Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst
not make one hair white or black.
-
- But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for
whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.
-
- Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an
eye, and a tooth for a tooth:
-
- But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever
shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.
-
- And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away
thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.
-
- And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with
him twain.
-
- Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would
borrow of thee turn not thou away.
-
- Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love
thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.
-
- But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that
curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully
use you, and persecute you;
-
- That ye may be the children of your Father which is
in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and
sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
-
- For if ye love them which love you, what reward have
ye? do not even the publicans the same?
-
- And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more
than others? do not even the publicans so?
-
- Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is
in heaven is perfect.
-
- Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field,
which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much
more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
-
- Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat?
or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
-
- (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for
your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
-
- But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness;
and all these things shall be added unto you.
-
- Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow
shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is
the evil thereof.
-
-
-
- Death
-
-
- Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged him.
-
- And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and put
it on his head, and they put on him a purple robe,
-
- And said, Hail, King of the Jews! and they smote him
with their hands.
-
- Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them,
Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault
in him.
-
- Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns,
and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the man!
-
- When the chief priests therefore and officers saw him,
they cried out, saying, Crucify him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them,
Take ye him, and crucify him: for I find no fault in him.
-
- The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law
he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.
-
- When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he was the
more afraid;
-
- And went again into the judgment hall, and saith unto
Jesus, Whence art thou? But Jesus gave him no answer.
-
- Then saith Pilate unto him, Speakest thou not unto me?
knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release
thee?
-
- Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against
me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me
unto thee hath the greater sin.
-
- And from thenceforth Pilate sought to release him: but
the Jews cried out, saying, If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar's
friend: whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar.
-
- When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought
Jesus forth, and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called
the Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha.
-
- And it was the preparation of the passover, and about
the sixth hour: and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King!
-
- But they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify
him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests
answered, We have no king but Caesar.
-
- Then delivered he him therefore unto them to be crucified.
And they took Jesus, and led him away.
- And he bearing his cross went forth into a place called
the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha:
-
- Where they crucified him, and two other with him, on
either side one, and Jesus in the midst.
- 19And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross.
And the writing was JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS.
-
- This title then read many of the Jews: for the place
where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city: and it was written in Hebrew,
and Greek, and Latin.
-
- Then said the chief priests of the Jews to Pilate, Write
not, The King of the Jews; but that he said, I am King of the Jews.
-
- Pilate answered, What I have written I have written.
-
- Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took
his garments, and made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also his
coat: now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout.
-
- They said therefore among themselves, Let us not rend
it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be: that the scripture might be
fulfilled, which saith, They parted my raiment among them, and for my vesture
they did cast lots. These things therefore the soldiers did.
-
- Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and
his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene.
-
- When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple
standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy
son!
-
- Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And
from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home.
-
- After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished,
that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst.
-
- Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: and they
filled a spunge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to his
mouth.
-
- When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said,
It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.
-
- The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation,
that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, (for
that sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might
be broken, and that they might be taken away.
-
- Then came the soldiers, and brake the legs of the first,
and of the other which was crucified with him.
-
- But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead
already, they brake not his legs:
-
- But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side,
and forthwith came there out blood and water.
- And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true:
and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe.
-
- For these things were done, that the scripture should
be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken.
-
- And again another scripture saith, They shall look on
him whom they pierced.
-
- And after this Joseph of Arimathaea, being a disciple
of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, besought Pilate that he might
take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave him leave. He came therefore,
and took the body of Jesus.
-
- And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came
to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred
pound weight.
-
- Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen
clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury.
-
- Now in the place where he was crucified there was a
garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid.
-
- There laid they Jesus therefore because of the Jews'
preparation day; for the sepulchre was nigh at hand.
-
-
- Resurrection
-
-
- The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early,
when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away
from the sepulchre.
-
- Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the
other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken
away the LORD out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid
him.
-
- Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple,
and came to the sepulchre.
-
- So they ran both together: and the other disciple did
outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre.
-
- And he stooping down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes
lying; yet went he not in.
-
- Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into
the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie,
-
- And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with
the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.
-
-
-
- Then went in also that other disciple, which came first
to the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed.
-
- For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must
rise again from the dead.
-
- Then the disciples went away again unto their own home.
-
- But Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping: and
as she wept, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre,
-
- And seeth two angels in white sitting, the one at the
head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain.
-
- And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She
saith unto them, Because they have taken away my LORD, and I know not where
they have laid him.
- And when she had thus said, she turned herself back,
and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus.
- Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom
seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir,
if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will
take him away.
-
- Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith
unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master.
-
- Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet
ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend
unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.
-
- Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had
seen the LORD, and that he had spoken these things unto her.
-
- Then the same day at evening, being the first day of
the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for
fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them,
Peace be unto you.
-
- And when he had so said, he shewed unto them his hands
and his side. Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the LORD.
-
- Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as
my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.
-
- And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and
saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost:
-
- Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them;
and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.
-
- But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not
with them when Jesus came.
-
- The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have
seen the LORD. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the
print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and
thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.
-
- And after eight days again his disciples were within,
and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood
in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you.
-
- Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and
behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side:
and be not faithless, but believing.
-
- And Thomas answered and said unto him, My LORD and my
God.
-
- "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes
in Me will live even if he dies.." Jn11:25
-
- I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh
unto the Father, but by me." Jn 14:6
-
-
-
-
-
- 1776 -2010
-
-
- "Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when
a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state
of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom.
No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any
people but by a frim adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality,
and virture; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles."
- -- Patrick Henry
-
- You have have the highest of human trusts committed to
yur care.
- Providence has showered on thsi vavored land blessings
without number, and has chosen you , as the guardians of freedom, to preserve
it for the benefit of the human race. May He who holdsin His hands the
destinies of nations make you worhty of the favors He has bestowed, and
enable you, with pure hearts, and sleepless vigilance, to guard and defend
to the endo of time the great charge He has committed to your keeping."
- -- Andrew Jackson
-
- "Until you have become really, in actual fact, a
brother to everyone, brotherhood will not come to pass." -- x
-
- "Men reject their prophets and slay them, but they
love their martyrs and honour thoese whom they have slain." -- x
-
- "Man is a pliable animal, a being who gets accoustomed
to everything." -- x
-
- "Tyranny is a habit capable of being developed,
and at last becomes a disease. The man and the citizen disappear forever
in the tyrant." -- x
-
- "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility
against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
- -- Thomas Jefferson
-
- "Even those who thave renounced Christiantiy and
attack it in their innermost being still follow the Christian ideal, for
thitherto neither their subtlty nor the ardour of their hearts has been
able to create a higher ideal of man and of virtue than the ideal given
by the Sermon on the Mount of old." --x
-
- "We must say what everybody knows, but does not
venture to say. We must say that by whatever name men may call murder
-- murder always remains murder. ... They will cease to see the service
of their country, the heroism of war, military glory, and patriotism, and
will see what exists: the naked criminal business of murder!" --
- Leo Tolstoy
-
- "Reason and experience both forbid us to expect
that national morality can prevail in exculsion of relitious principle."
- -- George Washington
-
- "The only significance of life consists in helping
to establish the kingdom of God; and this can be done only by means of
the accepting its right and rule within you." --x
-
- "If men be good, government cannot be bad."
- -- William Penn
-
- "A state which dwarfs its men, in order that they
may be more docile instruments in its hands -- even for beneficial purposes
-- will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished."
- -- J. S. Mill
-
- "They will be vanquished by their vices as easily
as by force of arms." -- Tacitus
-
- "A man has need of tough ears to hear himself fairly
judged." -- Montaigne
-
- "People today live without faith. On the one hand
the minority of wealthy, educated people, having freed themselves of the
hypnotism of the Church, believe in nothing. They look upon all faiths
as absurdities or as useful means of keeping the masses in bondage -- no
more. On the other hand, the vast majority, poor, uneducated, but for
the most part truly sincere, remain under the hypnotism of the faith.
But this is not really faith, for instead of throwing light on man's position
in the world it only darkens it."
- -- Tolstoy
-
- "To obey God is perfect liberty; he that does this
shall be free, safe, and quiet."
- --Seneca
-
- "Our defense is in the spirit which prizes liberty
as the heritage of all men in all lands everywhere. Destroy this spirit
and you will have planted the seeds of despotism at our own doors. ...
- Whether it is right or wrong to trample on the rights
of others -- that is the real issue ... the eternal struggle between the
two principles of right and wrong throughout the world." --Abraham
Lincoln
-
- "All men know in their very earliest years that
beside the good of their animal personality, there is another, a better,
a good in life, which is not only independent of the gratification of the
appetites of the animal personality, but on the contrary, the greater the
renunciation of the welfare of the animal personality the greater the good
becomes. This feeling is known to all. This feeling is love." --
Tolstoy
-
- "But Christ could certainly not have established
the Church. That is, the institution we now call by that name, for nothing
resembling our present conception of the Church -- with its sacriments,
its hiearchy, and especially its claim to infallibility -- is to be found
in Christ's words or in the conception of the men of his time.
-
- "But we know that laws are the offspring of party
conflicts, false dealing, and the greed for gain; that they are not and
can never be, the depository of true justice; and therefore it is impossible
for people of the present day to believe that obedience to the civil or
state laws can ever satisfy the rational demands of human nature."
-
- "Physical violence is the basis of authority."
-
- "Government is an association of men who do violence
to the rest of us."
-
- "The man who commits sin is the slave of the sin."
-
- "Where there is a man who does not labor because
another is compelled to work for him, there slavery is. ANd where, as
in all European societies, men by force exploit the labor of thousands
of men and regard it was their prerogative, while the latter submit to
force and regard it as their duty, there we have slavery in terrible proportions."
-- Tolstoy
-
- Slavery results from laws, laws are made by governments,
and therfore people can only be freed from slavery by the abolition of
governments. And it is time for people to understand that governments
not only are not necessary, but are harmful and most highly immoral institutions,
in which a self-respecting honest man cannot and must not take part. ...
And as soon as people clearly understand this, they will . . . cease to
give the government soldiers and money. And as soon as a majority of people
cease to do this, the fraud which enslaves people wwill be abolished.
Only in this way can people be freed from slavery. -- Tolstoy
-
- "People who think freely are thsoe who are willing
to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand
things that clash with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs. This
state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking; where
it is absent, discussion is apt to become worse than useless."
- --Tolstoy
-
- "Slavery exists. ... Slavery has always had three
fundamental methods: direct personal violence, militarisim, land-taxes
upheld by military power. ... Money is a new form of slavery, and distinguished
from the old simply by the fact that it is impersonal, that there is no
human relation between master and slave." .. Yes, we will do anything
for the poor man, anything but get off his back." --Tolstoy
-
- "The Five Causes of the Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire
-
- "1. The undermining of the dignity and sanctity
of the home, which is the basis of human society;
- 2. Higher and higher taxes: the spending of public money
for free bread and circuses for the populace;
- 3. The mad craze for pleasure, with sports and plays
becoming more exciting, more brutal and more immoral;
- 4. The building of great armaments when the real enemy
was within -- the decay of individual responsibility;
- 5) The decay of religion, whose leaders lost their touch
with life, and their power to guide the people."
- -- Edward Gibbon (1788)
-
- "Religion is nothing else but love of God and man."
-- William Penn
-
- "I believe in God, whom I understand as Spirit,
as Love, as the Source of all." --Tolstoy
-
-
- Love
-
-
- Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels,
and have not Love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and
all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains,
and have not Love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed
the poor, and though I give my body to be mourned, and have not Love, it
profiteth me nothing. Love suffereth long, and is kind; Love envieth not;
Love vaunteth not itself is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly,
seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth
not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth
all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
-
- Love never faileth: but whether there be prophecies,
they shall fail; whether there be tongues they shall cease; whether there
be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy
in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in
part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood
as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish
things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face.
now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And
now abideth faith, hope, Love, these three; but the greatest of these is
Love.--1 Cor. 13.
-
-
- EVERYONE has asked himself the great question of antiquity
as of the modern world: What is the summum bonum--the supreme good? You
have life before you. Once only you can live it. What is the noblest object
of desire, the supreme gift to covet?
-
- We have been accustomed to be told that the greatest
thing in the religious world is Faith. That great word has been the key-note
for centuries of the popular religion; and we have easily learned to look
upon it as the greatest thing in the world. Well, we are wrong. If we have
been told that, we may miss the mark. I have taken you, in the chapter
which I have just read, to Christianity at its source; and there we have
seen, "The greatest of these is love. " It is not an over-sight.
Paul was speaking of faith just a moment before. He says, "If I have
all faith, so that I can remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing."
So far from forgetting, he deliberately contrasts them, "Now abideth
Faith, Hope, Love," and without a moment's hesitation, the decision
falls, "The greatest of these is Love."
-
- And it is not prejudice. A man is apt to recommend to
others his own strong point. Love was not Paul's strong point. The observing
student can detect a beautiful tenderness growing and ripening all through
his character as Paul gets old; but the hand that wrote, "The greatest
of these is love," when we meet it first, is stained with blood.
-
- Nor is this letter to the Corinthians peculiar in singling
out love as the summum bonum. The masterpieces of Christianity are agreed
about it. Peter says, "Above all things have fervent love among yourselves."
Above all things. And John goes farther, "God is love." And
you remember the profound remark which Paul makes elsewhere, "Love
is the fulfilling of the law." Did you ever think what he meant by
that? In those days men were working their passage to Heaven by keeping
the Ten Commandments, and the hundred and ten other commandments which
they had manufactured out of them. Christ said, I will show you a more
simple way. If you do one thing, you will do these hundred and ten things,
without ever thinking about them. If you love, you will unconsciously
fulfil the whole law. And you can readily see for yourselves how that must
be so. Take any of the commandments. "Thou shalt have no other gods
before Me." If a man love God, you will not require to tell him that.
Love is the fulfilling of that law. "Take not His name in vain."
Would he ever dream of taking His name in vain if he loved Him? "Remember
the Sabbath day to keep it holy." Would he not be too glad to have
one day in seven to dedicate more exclusively to the object of his affection?
Love would fulfil all these laws regarding God. And so, if he loved Man,
you would never think of telling him to honour his father and mother. He
could not do anything else. It would be preposterous to tell him not to
kill. You could only insult him if you suggested that he should not steal--how
could he steal from those he loved? It would be superfluous to beg him
not to bear false witness against his neighbour. If he loved him it would
be the last thing he would do. And you would never dream of urging him
not to covet what his neighbours had. He would rather they possessed it
than himself. In this way "Love is the fulfilling of the law."
It is the rule for fulfilling all rules, the new commandment for keeping
all the old commandments, Christ's one secret of the Christian life.
-
- Now Paul had learned that; and in this noble eulogy
he has given us the most wonderful and original account extant of the summum
bonum. We may divide it into three parts. In the beginning of the short
chapter, we have Love contrasted; in the heart of it, we have Love analysed;
towards the end we have Love defended as the supreme gift.
-
- The Contrast
-
- Paul begins by contrasting Love with other things that
men in those days thought much of. I shall not attempt to go over those
things in detail. Their inferiority is already obvious.
-
- He contrasts it with eloquence. And what a noble gift
it is, the power of playing upon the souls and wills of men, and rousing
them to lofty purposes and holy deeds. Paul says, "If I speak with
the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding
brass, or a tinkling cymbal." And we all know why. We have all felt
the brazenness of words without emotion, the hollowness, the unaccountable
unpersuasiveness, of eloquence behind which
- lies no Love.
-
- He contrasts it with prophecy. He contrasts it with
mysteries. He contrasts it with faith. He contrasts it with charity. Why
is Love greater than faith? Because the end is greater than the means.
And why is it greater than charity? Because the whole is greater than the
part. Love is greater than faith, because the end is greater than the means.
What is the use of having faith? It is to connect the soul with God. And
what is the object of connecting man with God? That he may become like
God. But God is Love. Hence Faith, the means, is in order to Love, the
end. Love, therefore, obviously is greater than faith. It is greater than
charity, again, because the whole is greater than a part. Charity is only
a little bit of Love, one of the innumerable avenues of Love, and there
may even be, and there is, a great deal of charity without Love. It is
a very easy thing to toss a copper to a beggar in the street; it is generally
an easier thing than not to do it. Yet Love is just as often in the withholding.
We purchase relief from the [6] sympathetic feelings roused by the spectacle
of misery, at the copper's cost. It is too cheap--too cheap for us, and
often too dear for the beggar. If we really loved him we would either do
more for him, or less.
-
- Then Paul contrasts it with sacrifice and martyrdom.
And I beg the little band of would-be missionaries--and I have the honour
to call some of you by this name for the first time--to remember that though
you give your bodies to be burned, and have not Love, it profits nothing--nothing!
You can take nothing greater to the heathen world than the impress and
reflection of the Love of God upon your own character. That is the universal
language. It will take you years to speak in Chinese, or in the dialects
of India. From the day you land, that language of Love, understood by all,
will be pouring forth its unconscious eloquence. It is the man who is the
missionary, it is not his words. His character is his message. In the heart
of Africa, among the great Lakes, I have come 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. Take
into your new sphere of labour, where you also mean to lay down your life,
that simple charm, and your lifework must succeed. You can take nothing
greater, you need take nothing less. It is not worth while going if you
take anything less. You may take every accomplishment; you may be braced
for every sacrifice; but if you give your body to be burned, and have not
Love, it will profit you and the cause of Christ nothing.
-
- The Analysis
-
- After contrasting Love with these things, Paul in three
verses, very short, gives us an amazing analysis of what this supreme thing
is. I ask you to look at it. It is a compound thing, he tells us. It is
like light. As you have seen a man of science take a beam of light and
pass it through a crystal prism, as you have seen it come out on the other
side of the prism broken up into its component colours--red, and blue,
and yellow, and violet, and orange, and all the colours of the rainbow--so
Paul passes this thing, Love, through the magnificent prism of his inspired
intellect, and it comes out on the other side broken up into its elements.
And in these few words we have what one might call the Spectrum of Love,
the analysis of Love. Will you observe what its elements are? Will you
notice that they have common names; that they are virtues which we hear
about every day; that they are things which can be practiced by every man
in every place in life; and how, by a multitude of small things and ordinary
virtues, the supreme thing, the summum bonum, is made up?
-
- The Spectrum of Love has nine ingredients:
-
- Patience "Love suffereth long."
- Kindness "And is kind."
- Generosity"Love envieth not."
- Humility "Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed
up."
- Courtesy "Doth not behave itself unseemly."
- Unselfishness"Seeketh not her own."
- Good Temper"Is not easily provoked."
- Guilelessness"Thinketh no evil."
- Sincerity "Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth
in the truth."
-
- Patience; kindness; generosity; humility; courtesy;
unselfishness; good temper; guilelessness; sincerity--these make up the
supreme gift, the stature of the perfect man. You will observe that all
are in relation to men, in relation to life, in relation to the known to-day
and the near to-morrow, and not to the unknown eternity. We hear much of
love to God; Christ spoke much of love to man. We make a great deal of
peace with heaven; Christ made much of peace on earth. Religion is not
a strange or added thing, but the inspiration of the secular life, the
breathing of an eternal spirit through this temporal world. The supreme
thing, in short, is not a thing at all, but the giving of a further finish
to the multitudinous words and acts which make up the sum of every common
day.
-
- There is no time to do more than make a passing note
upon each of these ingredients. Love is Patience. This is the normal attitude
of Love; Love passive, Love waiting to begin; not in a hurry; calm; ready
to do its work when the summons comes but meantime wearing the ornament
of a meek and quiet spirit. Love suffers long; beareth all things; believeth
all things; hopeth all things. For Love understands, and therefore waits.
-
- Kindness. Love active. Have you ever noticed how much
of Christ's life was spent in doing kind things--in merely doing kind things?
Run over it with that in view, and you will find that He spent a great
proportion of His time simply in making people happy, in doing good turns
to people. There is only one thing greater than happiness in the world,
and that is holiness; and it is not in our keeping; but what God has put
in our power is the happiness of those about us, and that is largely to
be secured by our being kind to them.
-
- "The greatest thing," says some one, "a
man can do for his Heavenly Father is to be kind to some of His other children."
I wonder why it is that we are not all kinder than we are. How much the
world needs it. How easily it is done. How instantaneously it acts. How
infallibly it is remembered. How superabundantly it pays itself back--for
there is no debtor in the world so honourable, so superbly honourable,
as Love. "Love never faileth." Love is success, Love is happiness,
Love is life. "Love," I say with Browning, "is energy of
Life."
-
- "For life, with all it yields of joy and woe
- And hope and fear,
- Is just our chance o' the prize of learning love--
- How love might be, hath been indeed, and is."
-
- Where Love is, God is. He that dwelleth in Love dwelleth
in God. God is love. Therefore love. Without distinction, without calculation,
without procrastination, love. Lavish it upon the poor, where it is very
easy; especially upon the rich, who often need it most; most of all upon
your equals, where it is very difficult, and for whom perhaps we each do
least of all. There is a difference between trying to please and giving
pleasure. Give pleasure. Lose no chance of giving pleasure. For that is
the ceaseless and anonymous triumph of a truly loving spirit. "I will
pass through this world but once. Any good thing therefore that I can do,
or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let
me not defer it or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again."
-
- Generosity. "Love envieth not." This is Love
in competition with others. Whenever you attempt a good work you will
find other men doing the same kind of work, and probably doing it better.
Envy them not. Envy is a feeling of ill-will to those who are in the same
line as ourselves, a spirit of covetousness and detraction. How little
Christian work even is a protection against un-Christian feeling. That
most despicable of all the unworthy moods which cloud a Christian's soul
assuredly waits for us on the threshold of every work, unless we are fortified
with this grace of magnanimity. Only one thing truly need the Christian
envy, the large, rich, generous soul which "envieth not."
-
- And then, after having learned all that, you have to
learn this further thing, Humility--to put a seal upon your lips and forget
what you have done. After you have been kind, after Love has stolen forth
into the world and done its beautiful work, go back into the shade again
and say nothing about it. Love hides even from itself. Love waives even
self-satisfaction. "Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up."
-
- The fifth ingredient is a somewhat strange one to find
in this summum bonum: Courtesy. This is Love in society, Love in relation
to etiquette. "Love doth not behave itself unseemly." Politeness
has been defined as love in trifles. Courtesy is said to be love in little
things. And the one secret of politeness is to love. Love cannot behave
itself unseemly. You can put the most untutored person into the highest
society, and if they have a reservoir of love in their heart, they will
not behave themselves unseemly. They simply cannot do it. Carlyle said
of Robert Burns that there was no truer gentleman in Europe than the ploughman-poet.
It was because he loved everything--the mouse, and the daisy, and all the
things, great and small, that God had made. So with this simple passport
he could mingle with any society, and enter courts and palaces from his
little cottage on the banks of the Ayr. You know the meaning of the word
"gentleman." It means a gentle man--a man who does things gently,
with love. And that is the whole art and mystery of it. The gentle man
cannot in the nature of things do an ungentle, an ungentlemanly thing.
The ungentle soul, the inconsiderate, unsympathetic nature cannot do anything
else. "Love doth not behave itself unseemly."
-
- Unselfishness. "Love seeketh not her own."
Observe: Seeketh not even that which is her own. In Britain the Englishman
is devoted, and rightly, to his rights. But there come times when a man
may exercise even the higher right of giving up his rights. Yet Paul does
not summon us to give up our rights. Love strikes much deeper. It would
have us not seek them at all, ignore them, eliminate the personal element
altogether from out calculations. It is not hard to give up our rights.
They are often external. The difficult thing is to give up ourselves. The
more difficult thing still is not to seek things for ourselves at all.
After we have sought them, bought them, won them, deserved them, we have
taken the cream off them for ourselves already. Little cross then, perhaps,
to give them up. But not to seek them, to look every man not on his own
things, but on the things of others--id opus est. "Seekest thou great
things for thyself?" said the prophet; "seek them not."
Why? Because there is no greatness in things. Things cannot be great. The
only greatness is unselfish love. Even self-denial in itself is nothing,
is almost a mistake. Only a great purpose or a mightier love can justify
the waste. It is more [15] difficult, I have said, not to seek our own
at all, than, having sought it, to give it up. I must take that back. It
is only true of a partly selfish heart. Nothing is a hardship to Love,
and nothing is hard. I believe that Christ's yoke is easy. Christ's "yoke"
is just His way of taking life. And I believe it is an easier way than
any other. I believe it is a happier way than any other. The most obvious
lesson in Christ's teaching is that there is no happiness in having and
getting anything, but only in giving. I repeat, there is no happiness in
having, or in getting but only in giving. And half the world is on the
wrong scent in the pursuit of happiness. They think it consists in having
and getting, and in being served by others. It consists in giving and serving
others. He that would be great among you, said Christ, let him serve.
He that would be happy, let him remember that there is but one way--it
is more blessed, it is more happy, to give than to receive.
-
- The next ingredient is a very remarkable one: Good temper.
"Love is not easily provoked." Nothing could be more striking
than to find this here. We are inclined to look upon bad temper as a very
harmless weakness. We [16] speak of it as a mere infirmity of nature, a
family failing, a matter of temperament, not a thing to take into very
serious account in estimating a man's character. And yet here, right in
the heart of this analysis of love, it finds a place; and the Bible again
and again returns to condemn it as one of the most destructive elements
in human nature.
-
- The peculiarity of ill temper is that it is the vice
of the virtuous. It is often the one blot on an otherwise noble character.
You know men who are all but perfect, and women who would be entirely perfect,
but for an easily ruffled, quick-tempered, or "touchy" disposition.
This comparability of ill temper with high moral character is one of the
strangest and saddest problems of ethics. The truth is there are two great
classes of sins--sins of the Body, and sins of the Disposition. The Prodigal
Son may be taken as a type of the first, the Elder Brother of the second.
Now society has no doubt whatever as to which of these is the worse. Its
brands falls, without a challenge, upon the Prodigal. But are we right?
We have no balance to weigh one another's sins, and coarser and finer are
but human words; but faults in the higher nature may be less venial [17]
than those in the lower, and to the eye of Him who is Love, a sin against
Love may seem a hundred times more base. No form of vice, not worldliness,
not greed of gold, not drunkenness itself, does more to un-Christianise
society than evil temper. For embittering life, for breaking up communities,
for destroying the most sacred relationships, for devastating homes, for
withering up men and women, for taking the bloom off childhood; in short,
for sheer gratuitous misery-producing power, this influence stands alone.
Look at the Elder Brother, moral, hard-working, patient, dutiful--let him
get all credit for his virtues--look at this man, this baby, sulking outside
his own father's door. "He was angry," we read, "and would
not go in." Look at the effect upon the father, upon the servants,
upon the happiness of the guests. Judge of the effect upon the Prodigal--and
how many prodigals are kept out of the Kingdom of God by the unlovely characters
of those who profess to be inside! Analyse, as a study in Temper, the thundercloud
itself as it gathers upon the Elder Brother's brow. What is it made of?
Jealousy, anger, pride, uncharity, cruelty, self-righteousness, touchiness,
doggedness, sullenness--these [18] are the ingredients of this dark and
loveless soul. In varying proportions, also, these are the ingredients
of all ill-temper. Judge if such sins of the disposition are not worse
to live in, and for others to live with, than sins of the body. Did Christ
indeed not answer the question Himself when He said, "I say unto you,
that the publicans and the harlots go into the Kingdom of Heaven before
you." There is really no place in Heaven for a disposition like this.
A man with such a mood could only make Heaven miserable for all the people
in it. Except therefore, such a man be born again, he cannot, he simply
cannot, enter the Kingdom of Heaven. For it is perfectly certain--and you
will not misunderstand me--that to enter Heaven a man must take it with
him.
-
- You will see then why Temper is significant. It is not
in what it is alone, but in what it reveals. This is why I take the liberty
now of speaking of it with such unusual plainness. It is a test for love,
a symptom, a revelation of an unloving nature at bottom. It is the intermittent
fever which bespeaks unintermittent disease within; the occasional bubble
escaping to the surface which betrays some rottenness underneath; a sample
of the most hidden products of the soul dropped involuntarily when off
one's guard; in a word, the lightning form of a hundred hideous and un-Christian
sins. For a want of patience, a want of kindness, a want of generosity,
a want of courtesy, a want of unselfishness, are all instantaneously symbolised
in one flash of Temper.
-
- Hence it is not enough to deal with the Temper. We must
go to the source, and change the inmost nature, and the angry humours will
die away of themselves. Souls are made sweet not by taking the acid fluids
out, but by putting something in--a great Love, a new Spirit, the Spirit
of Christ. Christ, the Spirit of Christ, interpenetrating ours, sweetens,
purifies, transforms all. This only can eradicate what is wrong, work a
chemical change, renovate and regenerate, and rehabilitate the inner man.
Will-power does not change men. Time does not change men. Christ does.
Therefore "Let that mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus."
Some of us have not much time to lose. Remember, once more, that this
is a matter of life or death. I cannot help speaking urgently, for myself,
for yourselves. "Whoso shall offend one of these little ones, [20]
which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged
about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea."
That is to say, it is the deliberate verdict of the Lord Jesus that it
is better not to live than not to love. It is better not to live than not
to love.
-
- Guilelessness and Sincerity may be dismissed almost
with a word. Guilelessness is the grace for suspicious people. And the
possession of it is the great secret of personal influence. You will find,
if you think for a moment, that the people who influence you are people
who believe in you. In an atmosphere of suspicion men shrivel up; but in
that atmosphere they expand and find encouragement and educative fellowship.
It is a wonderful thing that here and there in this hard, uncharitable
world there should still be left a few rare souls who think no evil. This
is the great unworldliness. Love "thinketh no evil," imputes
no motive, sees the bright side, puts the best construction on every action.
What a delightful state of mind to live in! What a stimulus and benediction
even to meet with it for a day! To be trusted is to be saved. And if we
try to influence or elevate others, we shall soon see that success is in
proportion to their belief of our belief in [21] them. For the respect
of another is the first restoration of the self-respect a man has lost;
our ideal of what he is becomes to him the hope and pattern of what he
may become.
-
- "Love rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth
in the truth." I have called this Sincerity from the words rendered
in the Authorised Version by "rejoiceth in the truth." And, certainly,
were this the real translation, nothing could be more just. For he who
loves will love Truth not less than men. He will rejoice in the Truth--rejoice
not in what he has been taught to believe; not in this Church's doctrine
or in that; not in this ism or in that ism; but "in the Truth."
He will accept only what is real; he will strive to get at facts; he will
search for Truth with a humble and unbiased mind, and cherish whatever
he finds at any sacrifice. But the more literal translation of the Revised
Version calls for just such a sacrifice for truth's sake here. For what
Paul really meant is, as we there read, " Rejoiceth not in unrighteousness,
but rejoiceth with the truth," a quality which probably no one English
word--and, certainly not Sincerity--adequately defines. It includes, perhaps
more strictly, the self-restraint which refuses to make capital out of
others' faults; the charity which delights not in exposing the weakness
of others, but "covereth all things"; the sincerity of purpose
which endeavours to see things as they are, and rejoices to find them better
than suspicion feared or calumny denounced.
-
- So much for the analysis of Love. Now the business of
our lives is to have these things fitted into our characters. That is the
supreme work to which we need to address ourselves in this world, to learn
Love. Is life not full of opportunities for learning Love? Every man and
woman every day has a thousand of them. The world is not a play-ground;
it is a schoolroom. Life is not a holiday, but an education. And the one
eternal lesson for us all is how better we can love. What makes a man a
good cricketer? Practice. What makes a man a good artist, a good sculptor,
a good musician? Practice. What makes a man a good linguist, a good stenographer?
Practice. What makes a man a good man? Practice. Nothing else. There is
nothing capricious about religion. We do not get the soul in different
ways, under different laws, from those in which we get the body and the
mind. If a man does not exercise his arm he develops no biceps muscle;
and if a man does not exercise his soul, he acquires no muscle in his soul,
no strength of character, no vigour of moral fibre, nor beauty of spiritual
growth. Love is not a thing of enthusiastic emotion. It is a rich, strong,
manly, vigorous expression of the whole round Christian character--the
Christ--like nature in its fullest development. And the constituents of
this great character are only to be built up by ceaseless practice.
-
- What was Christ doing in the carpenter's shop? Practising.
Though perfect, we read that He learned obedience. He increased in wisdom
and in favour with God and man. Do not quarrel therefore with your lot
in life. Do not complain of its never-ceasing cares, its petty environment,
the vexations you have to stand, the small and sordid souls you have to
live and work with. Above all, do not resent temptation; do not be perplexed
because it seems to thicken round you more and more, and ceases neither
for effort nor for agony nor prayer. That is the practice which God appoints
you; and it is having its work in making you patient, and humble, and generous,
and unselfish, and kind, and courteous. Do not grudge the hand that is
moulding the still too [24] shapeless image within you. It is growing more
beautiful though you see it not, and every touch of temptation may add
to its perfection. Therefore keep in the midst of life. Do not isolate
yourself. Be among men, and among things, among troubles, and difficulties,
and obstacles. You remember Goethe's words: Es bildet ein Talent sich
in der Stille, Doch ein Character in dem Strom der Welt. " Talent
develops itself in solitude; character in the stream of life."
-
- Talent develops itself in solitude the talent of prayer,
of faith, of meditation, of seeing the unseen; Character grows in the stream
of the world's life. That chiefly is where men are to learn love.
-
- How? Now, how? To make it easier, I have named a few
of the elements of love. But these are only elements. Love itself can never
be defined. Light is a something more than the sum of its ingredients--a
glowing, dazzling, tremulous ether. And love is something more than all
its elements--a palpitating, quivering, sensitive, living thing. By synthesis
of all the colours men can make whiteness, they cannot make light. By synthesis
of all the virtues, men can ma be virtue, they cannot make love. How then
are we to have this transcendent [25] living whole conveyed into our souls?
We brace our wills to secure it. We try to copy those who have it. We lay
down rules about it. We watch. We pray. But these things alone will not
bring Love into our nature. Love is an effect. And only as we fulfil the
right condition can we have the effect produced. Shall I tell you what
the cause is?
-
- If you turn to the Revised Version of the First Epistle
of John you will find these words: "We love, because He first loved
us." "We love," not "We love Him." That is the
way the old Version has it, and it is quite wrong. "We love--because
He first loved us." Look at that word "because." It is the
cause of which I have spoken. "Because He first loved us," the
effect follows that we love, we love Him, we love all men. We cannot help
it. Because He loved us, we love, we love everybody. Our heart is slowly
changed. Contemplate the love of Christ, and you will love. Stand before
that mirror, reflect Christ's character, 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, and grow into likeness to it. And so look at this Perfect Character,
this Perfect Life. Look at the great Sacrifice as He laid down Himself,
all through life, and upon the Cross of Calvary; and you must love Him.
And loving Him, you must become like Him. Love begets Love. It is a process
of induction. Put a piece of iron in the presence of a magnetised body,
and that piece of iron for a time becomes magnetised. It is charged with
an attractive force in the mere presence of the original force, and as
long as you leave the two side by side, they are both magnets alike. Remain
side by side with Him who loved us and gave Himself for us, and you too
will become a centre of power, a permanently attractive force; and like
Him you will draw all men unto you, like Him you will be drawn unto all
men. That is the inevitable effect of Love. Any man who fulfils that cause
must have that effect produced in him. Try to give up the idea that religion
comes to us by chance, or by mystery, or by caprice. It comes to us by
natural law, or by supernatural law, for all law is Divine. 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, "______, God loves you,"
and went away. And the boy started from his bed, and called out to the
people in the house, "God loves me! God loves me!" It changed
that boy. The sense that God loved him overpowered him, melted him down,
and began the creating of a new heart in him. And that is how the love
of God melts down the unlovely heart in man, and begets in him the new
creature, who is patient and humble and gentle and unselfish. And there
is no other way to get it. There is no mystery about it. We love others,
we love everybody, we love our enemies because He first loved us.
-
- The Defence
-
- Now about Paul's reason for singling out love as the
supreme possession. It is a very remarkable reason. In a single word it
is this: it lasts. "Love," urges Paul, "never faileth."
- Then he begins again one of his marvellous lists of the
great things of the day, and exposes them one by one. He runs over the
things that men thought were going to last, and shows that they are all
fleeting, temporary, passing away.
-
- "Whether there be prophecies, they shall fail."
It was the mother's ambition for her boy in those days that he should become
a prophet. For hundreds of years God had never spoken by means of any prophet,
and at that time the prophet was greater than the king. Men waited wistfully
for another messenger to come, and hung upon his lips when he appeared
as upon the very voice of God. Paul says, "Whether there be prophecies
they shall fail." This Book is full of prophecies. One by one they
have "failed"; that is, having been fulfilled their work is finished;
they have nothing more to do now in the world except to feed a devout man's
faith.
-
- Then Paul talks about tongues. That was another thing
that was greatly coveted. "Whether there be tongues, they shall cease."
As we all know, many centuries have passed since tongues have been known
in this world. They have ceased. Take it in any sense you like. Take it,
for illustration merely, as languages in general--a sense which was not
in Paul's mind at all, and which though it cannot give us the specific
lesson will point the general truth.
-
- Consider the words in which these chapters were written--Greek.
It has gone. Take the Latin--the other great tongue of those days. It
ceased long ago. Look at the Indian language. It is ceasing. The language
of Wales, of Ireland, of the Scottish Highlands is dying before our eyes.
The most popular book in the English tongue at the present time, except
the Bible, is one of Dickens's works, his Pickwick Papers. It is largely
written in the language of London street-life; and experts assure us that
in fifty years it will be unintelligible to the average English reader.
-
- Then Paul goes farther, and with even greater boldness
adds, "Whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away." The
wisdom of the ancients, where is it? It is wholly gone. A schoolboy to-day
knows more than Sir Isaac Newton knew. His knowledge has vanished away.
You put yesterday's paper in the fire. Its knowledge has vanished away.
You buy the old editions of the great encyclopedias for a few pence. Their
knowledge has vanished away. Look how the coach has been superseded by
the use of steam. Look how electricity has superseded that, and swept a
hundred almost new inventions into oblivion. One of the greatest living
authorities, Sir William Thomson, said the other day, "The steam-engine
is [30] passing away." "Whether there be knowledge, it shall
vanish away." At every workshop you will see, in the back yard, a
heap of old iron, a few wheels, a few levers, a few cranks, broken and
eaten with rust. Twenty years ago that was the pride of the city. Men
flocked in from the country to see the great invention; now it is superseded,
its day is done. And all the boasted science and philosophy of this day
will soon be old. But yesterday, in the University of Edinburgh, the greatest
figure in the faculty was Sir James Simpson, the discoverer of chloroform.
The other day his successor and nephew, Professor Simpson, was asked by
the librarian of the University to go to the library and pick out books
on his subject that were no longer needed. And his reply to the librarian
was this: "Take every text book that is more than ten years old, and
put it down in the cellar." Sir James Simpson was a great authority
only a few years ago: men came from all parts of the earth to consult him;
and almost the whole teaching of that time is consigned by the science
of to-day to oblivion. And in every branch of science it is the same. "Now
we know in part. We see through a glass darkly."
-
- Can you tell me anything that is going to last? Many
things Paul did not condescend to name. He did not mention money, fortune,
fame; but he picked out the great things of his time, the things the best
men thought had something in them, and brushed them peremptorily aside.
Paul had no charge against these things in themselves. All he said about
them was that they would not last. They were great things, but not supreme
things. They were things beyond them.
-
- What we are stretches past what we do, beyond what we
possess. Many things that men denounce as sins are not sins; but they are
temporary. And that is a favourite argument of the New Testament. John
says of the world, not that it is wrong, but simply that it "passeth
away." There is a great deal in the world that is delightful and beautiful;
there is a great deal in it that is great and engrossing; but it will not
last. All that is in the world, the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh,
and the pride of life, are but for a little while. Love not the world therefore.
Nothing that it contains is worth the life and consecration of an immortal
soul. The immortal soul must give itself to something that is immortal.
And the only immortal things are these:
-
- "Now abideth faith, hope, love, but the greatest
of these is love."
-
- Some think the time will come when two of these three
things will also pass away--faith into sight, hope into fruition. Paul
does not say so. We know but little now about the conditions of the life
that is to come. But what is certain is that Love must last. God, the Eternal
God, is Love. Covet therefore that everlasting gift, that one thing which
it is certain is going to stand, that one coinage which will be current
in the Universe when all the other coinages of all the nations of the world
shall be useless and unhonoured. You will give yourselves to many things,
give yourselves first to Love. Hold things in their proportion. Hold things
in their proportion. Let at least the first great object of our lives be
to achieve the character defended in these words, the character,--and it
is the character of Christ--which is built round Love.
-
- I have said this thing is eternal. Did you ever notice
how continually John associates love and faith with eternal life? I was
not told when I was a boy that "God so loved the world that He gave
His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should have everlasting
life." What I was told, I remember, was, that God so loved the world
that, if I trusted in Him, I was to have a thing called peace, or I was
to have rest, or I was to have joy, or I was to have safety. But I had
to find out for myself that whosoever trusteth in Him--that is, whosoever
loveth Him, for trust is only the avenue to Love--hath everlasting life.
The Gospel offers a man life. Never offer men a thimbleful of Gospel. Do
not offer them merely joy, or merely peace, or merely rest, or merely safety;
tell them how Christ came to give men a more abundant life than they have,
a life abundant in love, and therefore abundant in salvation for themselves,
and large in enterprise for the alleviation and redemption of the world.
Then only can the Gospel take hold of the whole of a man, body, soul, and
spirit, and give to each part of his nature its exercise and reward. Many
of the current Gospels are addressed only to a part of man's nature. They
offer peace, not life; faith, not Love; justification, not regeneration.
And men slip back again from such religion because it has never really
held them. Their nature was not all in it. It offered no deeper and gladder
life-current than the life that was lived before. Surely it stands to
reason that only a fuller love can compete with the love of the world.
-
- To love abundantly is to live abundantly, and to love
for ever is to live for ever. Hence, eternal life is inextricably bound
up with love. We want to live for ever for the same reason that we want
to live to-morrow. Why do you want to live to-morrow? It is because there
is some one who loves you, and whom you want to see to-morrow, and be with,
and love back. There is no other reason why we should live on than that
we love and are beloved. It is when a man has no one to love him that he
commits suicide. So long as he has friends, those who love him and whom
he loves, he will live; because to live is to love. Be it but the love
of a dog, it will keep him in life; but let that go and he has no contact
with life, no reason to live. The "energy of life" has failed.
Eternal life also is to know God, and God is love. This is Christ's own
definition. Ponder it. "This is life eternal, that they might know
Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." Love
must be eternal. It is what God is. On the last analysis, then, love is
Life. Love never faileth, and life never faileth, so long as there is
love. That is the philosophy of what Paul is showing us; the reason why
in the nature of things Love should be the supreme thing--because it is
going to last; because in the nature of things it is an Eternal Life. That
Life is a thing that we are living now, not that we get when we die; that
we shall have a poor chance of getting when we die unless we are living
now. No worse fate can befall a man in this world than to live and grow
old alone, unloving and unloved. To be lost is to live in an unregenerate
condition, loveless and unloved; and to be saved is to love; and he that
dwelleth in love dwelleth already in God.
-
- For God is love.
-
- "Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth
not; love vaunteth not itself" (I Cor.13:4). Then everything that
you do is eternal. It is worth doing. It is worth giving time to. No man
can become a saint in his sleep. Address yourselves to that one thing;
at any cost have this transcendent character exchanged for yours. Everything
else in all our lives is transitory. Every other good is visionary. But
the acts of love - they never fail.
-
- In the Book of Matthew, where the Judgment Day is depicted
for us in the imagery of One seated upon a throne and dividing the sheep
from the goats (Matt. 25:32), the test of a man then is not, "How
have I believed?" but "How have I loved?" The test of religion,
the final test of religion, is not religiousness, but Love. I say the final
test of religion at that great Day is not religiousness, but Love; not
what I have done, not what I have believed, not what I have achieved, but
how I have discharged the common charities of life. Sins of commission
in that awful indictment are not even referred to. But what we have not
done, by sins of omission, we are judged. It could not be otherwise. For
the withholding of love is the negation of the spirit of Christ, the proof
that we never knew Him, that for us He lived in vain. It means that He
suggested nothing in all our thoughts, that He inspired nothing in all
our lives, that we were not once near enough to Him to be seized with the
spell of His compassion for the world. It means that-
-
- "I lived for myself, I thought for myself,
- For myself, and none beside -
- Just as if Jesus had never lived,
- As if He had never died."
-
- It is the Son of Man before whom the nations of the world
shall be gathered. It is in the presence of Humanity that we shall be charged.
Those will be there whom we have met and helped; or there, the unpitied
multitude whom we neglected or despised. No other Witness need be summoned.
No other charge than lovelessness shall be preferred. Be not deceived.
The words which all of us shall one Day hear sound not of theology but
of life, not of churches and saints, but of the hungry and the poor, not
of creeds and doctrines, but of shelter and clothing, not of Bibles and
prayer-books, but of cups of cold water in the name of Christ.
-
- Who is Christ? He who fed the hungry, clothed the naked,
visited the sick. And where is Christ? Where? - whoso shall receive a little
child in My name receiveth Me (Matt. 18:15). And who are Christ's? Every
one that loveth is born [or begotten] of God (I John 4:7).
-
- The will of God who is love is that you will do His works
of love, and if you are in Christ with the mind of Christ, works of love
are all you will do and all you will want to do from now on.
-
- ---Henry Drummond (1851-1897).
-
-
- "To see what is right and not to do it, is want
of courage." --Confucius
-
- "The power bestowed upon the people of judging for
themselves has been productive of good effects, to a degree which has totally
latered the condition of human nature and exalted man to what may be called
a different stage of existence.
-
- "It is observed that the class which is universally
described as both the most wise and the most virtuous part of the community,
the middle class, are wholly in that part of the community which is not
the aristocratical.
-
- "There can be no doubt that the middle rank, which
gives to science, to art, and to legislation itself their most distinguished
ornaments, and is the chief source of all that has exalted and refined
human nature, ...
-
- "He who desires obedience to a high degree of exactness
cannot be satisfied with the power of giving pleasure, he must have the
power of inflicting pain.
-
- "Terror is the grand instrument. Terror can work
only through assurance that evil will follow any want of conformity between
the wil and the action willed and to whomsoever the community entrusts
this power of government, whether one or a few, they have an interest in
misusing them.
- --James Mill
-
- God demands of you only the strength he has put in you.
Only one feat is possible -- not to have run away. Live Christ and know
you believe.
-
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