^ " It is well," said John Wesley, " that you should be thoroughly sensible of this: the Heaven of Heavens is Love, there is nothing higher in religion, there is in effect nothing else. If you look for anything but more Love, you are looking wide of the mark : you are getting out of the royal way."
"Beloved, let us love one another," says St. John,
Eagle of eagles calling from above: Words of strong nourishment for life to feed upon,
"Beloved, let us love."
Voice of an eagle, yea. Voice of the Dove : If we may love, winter is past and gone; Publish we, praise we, for lo it is enough.
More sunny than sunshine that ever yet shone, Sweetener of the bitter, smoother of the rough, Highest lesson of all lessons for all to con, "Beloved, let us love."^
3. Brotherly love is to be so openly shown that the followers of Christ will be recognized thereby. " By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." Discipleship had previously been recognized by various tests. But no " master " had ever dreamed of imposing such an obliga- tion, and creating by it such a characteristic. The scholars of the Academy, the Portico, or the Lyceum were at once known by their modes of reasoning, their attachment to distinctive theories,
» C. G. Eossetti.
ST. JOHN XIII. 34 35
and their frequent appeals to Plato, Zeno, or Aristotle. The Jew was recognized by his dress and language, his reverence for Moses, his selection among meats and drinks, and his antipathy to all the races of the uncircumcision. If you entered a company of Greeks, and found them theorizing upon pleasure, its nature, en- joyment, and modes, you would at once pronounce them to be Epicureans ; or if, mixing with another crowd, you were met with such sounds as fate, liberty, necessity, wisdom, and chief good, you would feel in a moment that you were among the Stoics. Did you, in any city of Judsea, see a man clothed with a robe fringed deeper than common, and adorned with a phylactery of unusual breadth ; did you follow him, and hear him pray with a stentorian voice to attract all passers-by, or see him give alms so ostentatiously as to draw upon him the public gaze and admira- tion, you would have no doubt that you beheld a Pharisee. And if, on the streets of Jerusalem, you met one in whose dress the prominent portions of the national uniform were carefully pared down, who, as he passed with you near the temple, observed with a quiet sneer that the scent of the burning sacrifice tainted the air, or who, as he looked on the place of sepulchres, assumed a philosophic air and spoke of death as the debt of nature, as a hard and universal necessity ; smiled at the idea of a spirit-land, and hinted that the prevailing belief on that point was not consonant with reason, or based on a rational inter- pretation of Scripture — you would have no difficulty in detecting the speaker to be a Sadducee. But our Lord discards what is external; and His followers are to be known not by dress, language, or occupation, but by the mutual kindness which they cherish and exercise towards one another. They are to be known not by mind, but by heart; not by intellect, but by soul.
^ In the first age of the Church the critical importance of the mutual love of Christians was recognized. Jerome preserves an anecdote of St. John which admirably illustrates this fact. In his last days, when he had to be carried into church, and was too old to speak for any length of time, the Apostle used in addressing the congregation to repeat simply the old command- ment, which yet is, indeed, always new, " Little children, love one another." Then, as ever since. Christians were impatient of that teaching. His disciples, weary of the continual repetition,
36 THE NEW COMMANDMENT
asked why he always said this. " Because," he replied, " it is the Lord's commandment: and if it only be fulfilled, it is enough," Tertullian, in a famous passage of his "Apology," describes the impression made on the heathen by the mutual love of believers. They could not understand it. " ' See,' say they, ' how they love each other ! ' for they themselves hate each other. ' And see how ready they are to die for each other ! ' for they themselves are more ready to slay each other." ^
^ Two centuries later than Tertullian a stiU more illustrious Christian — Chrysostom — describes the scandal caused to the heathen by the lovelessness of believers. His language is on many grounds very remarkable, and singularly apposite to the conditions of the modern Church. He is commenting on Christ's "new commandment," and the testimony which, by obeying it, Christians are to deliver to the world ; and, after his practice, he draws on his intimate knowledge of the religious life of his time in order to illustrate the sacred text, and to press home on his hearers its practical lessons. "Miracles, he says, "do not so much attract the heathen as the mode of life; and nothing so much causes a right life as love . . . And with good reason. When one of them sees the greedy man, the plunderer, exhorting others to do the contrary, when he sees the man who was commanded to love even his enemies treating his very kindred like brutes, he will say that the words are folly. . . We, we are the cause of their remaining in error. Their own doctrines they have long condemned, and in like manner they admire ours, but they are hindered by our mode of life." Chrysostom goes on to say that it is vain to point out to the disgusted heathen the virtues of famous Christians of former times. About them they are sceptical so long as the Christians whom they see and know are scandalously unworthy of their profession. " Wherefore," he concludes, " I fear lest some grievous thing come to pass, and we draw down upon us heavy vengeance from God." *