^ We are certain that the minds of the great theologians, from Paul to Maurice, loved their truths. We are sure that Shakespeare's intellect had an affection for its wonderful creations. The highest glory of the great students of natural science to-day is in the glowing love of which their minds are full for Nature and her truths. It is the necessity of any really creative genius. It is the soul of any true artistic work. Without it the most massive structures of human thought are as dead and heavy as the pyramids. With it the slightest product of man's mind springs into life, and, however slight it be, compels and fascinates attention.^
^ The demand is for " all the mind," as well as for " all the heart and all the soul " ; our intelligence must have full scope if our love of God is to be full. Consider the ever enlarging range of human intelligence ; how the mystery of one age becomes the knowledge of another, and the mind strengthens by all the truth which it apprehends. Consider the quenchless instinct of inquiry, and the pure satisfaction which comes from the acquisition of knowledge and the exercise of reason. Consider, too, the wide field which allures the mind to search into it, and the nobler thoughts of God which are the result of honest intellectual endeavour. Are all these things temptations to be resisted ? only intended to bafHe and delude us ? It would wrong the excellence of God thus to imagine ; our personal affection for Him should suffer if it were so. If our reason is to be offered up a sacrifice to our piety, it must be a living sacrifice, not a dead one. Not in dooming it to lie by, quiescent and disused, wbxle we surrender ourselves the victims of fancy and tradition; but in earnest, honest exercise of it, putting it under the control of that Spirit who is the brooding force of creation and the mspiration of revealed wisdom, do we present it to God in "reasonable service." *
4. With all thy Strength.
The love must be instinct with a living, practical energy. Not only are the sincerity, the fervour, and the intelligence of our love to be characterised by firmness, and steadfastness, and strength, but the intrinsic energy of the love itself is to pass into the energies of devotion in the outer life. While man's . whole inner nature — will, feelings, and intellect — is called to consecrate itself to God, the practical activity of life must co-
* Phillip a Brooks. ' A. MackennaL
ST. MARK 319
operate in the consecration, thus making the love living, manifest, and real.^
^ That word strength needs a frequent re-telling of its mean- ing. It means not simply power to do, though that is thought of more than anything else in speaking of strength. But there is a greater test, and a greater revealing, of strength than that. There is the greater strength that can patiently endure, and do it serenely. The strength of not-doing and not-speaking, when that is the thing most needed, though all the tendency and temptation are to a spilling out at lip and hand, is infinitely more than the strength of action.^
Spirit of God ! descend upon my heart ;
Wean it from earth ; through all its pulses move ; Stoop to my weakness, mighty as Thou art,
And make me love Thee as I ought to love.
I ask no dream, no prophet ecstasies.
No sudden rending of the veil of clay ; No angel visitant, no opening skies; —
But take the dimness of my soul away.
Hast Thou not bid us love Thee, God and King?
All, all Thine own — soul, heart, and strength, and mind ; I see Thy cross — there teach my heart to chng;
O ! let me seek Thee, — and 0 ! let me find !
Teach me to feel that Thou art always nigh;
Teach me the struggles of the soul to bear; To check the rising doubt, the rebel sigh;
Teach me the patience of unanswer'd prayer.
I know Thee glorious ! might and mercy all.
All that commands Thy creatures' boundless praise;
Yet shall my soul from that high vision fall. Too cold to worship, and too weak to gaze ?
Teach me to love Thee as Thine angels love,
One holy passion filling all my frame ; The baptism of the heaven-descended dove.
My heart an altar, and Thy love the flame.*
* T. F. Lockyer. ' S. D. Gordon, Quiet Talks on Rome Ideals, 102.
' George Croly.
320 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
IL
The Second Commandment.
"The second is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these."
Our Lord had been asked, " Which is the first of all the commandments ? " and in His answer He seems deliberately and with some emphasis to go beyond that which had been asked ; He tells not only the first but the second. He speaks as though that first great demand of Almighty God upon the heart of man, that first great law for the saints, that first begin- ning, foundation, of the saintly character, as though that were essentially twofold ; as though it were impossible to enunciate the first of all the commandments without linking with it immediately the second. Musicians, I believe, tell us that when one note is struck other kindred notes immediately wake up from it, aroused by it ; so that those who have a keen and true and sensitive ear can immediately hear the kindred notes follow- ing from that which has been first struck. And so it seems to be with this note that is struck by the voice of God in the hearts of His saints. The first great commandment of the love of God wakes, as it were, a second and a kindred note ; and our Lord goes on immediately to speak of the second, " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." Those who truly, purely, clearly hear that first note of the Divine bidding cannot fail to hear immediately, waking, as it were, out of the heart of the first sound, the second, " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."