* C. W. Lepper, The Bridegroom and His Bride, 240.
SONG OF SONGS viii. 6, 7 481
What God requires is that we first take His gift, His unspeakable gift, and then lay ourselves without reserve at the feet that once bled for us. If we do, all else will follow. " First they gave their own selves to the Lord." This is the primary offering, but if truly laid upon the altar it includes all the rest.
^ Love is by nature outgoing, enlarging, quickening. The sign ©f its genuine arrival is seen in one's longing to share with others an outreaching in sympathy and joy. Those who fail to move outward and forward into completer life are inevitably drawn in the opposite direction. But the one who responds, moving outward with the new wave of life, finds the possibilities of existence developing without limit. This quickening power of love, delight- ing us by its noble surprises, is the greatest wonder of the heart.^
2. If love is to be purchased, it is love and not money that must be paid for it; "the substance of a man's house" is no equivalent for the priceless treasure. Gratitude and service may be bought, but love is beyond the value of jewels and of gold. We are taken into another region than that of market value and of merchandise.
^ John Woolman's gift was love, — a charity of which it does not enter into the natural heart of man to conceive, and of which the more ordinary experiences, even of renewed nature, give but a faint shadow. Every now and then, in the world's history, we meet with such men, the kings and priests of Humanity, on whose heads this precious ointment has been so poured forth that it has run down to the skirts of their clothing, and extended over the whole of the visible creation; men who have entered, like Francis of Assisi, into the secret of that deep amity with God and with His creatures which makes man to be in league with the stones of the field, and the beasts of the field to be at peace with him. In this pure, universal charity there is nothing fitful or intermittent, nothing that comes and goes in showers and gleams and sunbursts. Its springs are deep and constant, its rising is like that of a mighty river, its very overflow calm and steady, leaving life and fertility behind it.^
^ There may be many things that pertain to a Christian man, and yet all those things are contained in this one thing, that is love ; he lappeth up all things in love. Our whole duty is con- tained in these words, " Love together." Therefore, St. Paul saith,
^ H. W. Dresser, Human Efficiency. * Dora Greenwell.
PS. CXIX.-SONG OF SOL. — 3 1
482 IN PRAISE OF LOVE
" He that loveth another fuIfiUeth the law " ; so it appeareth that all things are contained in this word "love.* This love is a precious thing : our Saviour saith, " By this all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye shall have love one to another." So that He maketh love His cognizance, His badge, His livery. Like a& every lord, most commonly, giveth a certain livery to his servants, whereby they may be known that they pertain unto him ; and so we say, " Yonder is this lord's servant," because he weareth his livery ; so our Saviour, which is Lord above all lords, would have His servants to be known by their liveries and badge, which badge is love. Whosoever now is endued with love and charity is His servant; him we may call Christ's servant, for love is the token whereby you shall know such a servant that pertaineth to Christ : so that charity may be called the very livery of Christ ; he that hath charity is Christ's servant.^
^ Bishop Hugh Latimer, Sermons.
PrinUd hy Moulison Ji Oim. LturrKO. Edintmrf'r.
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