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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
If " 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
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 de-
1 H. Macmillan, G. F. Watts, 207.
2 Raiiiy's daughter in The Life of Principal Rainy, i. 24.
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scribed, 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."
If 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
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.
U 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
If 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