^ Occasionally I preached a sermon at home over the red sofa cushions ; — this performance being always called for by my mother's dearest friends, as the great accomplishment of my childhood. The sermon was, I believe, some eleven words long ; — very exemplary, it seems to me, in that respect — and I still think must have been the purest gospel, for I know it began with, " People, be good." 8
2. Since it is plainly because of its fruits that St. Paul magnifies the grace of love, we shall hardly be doing injustice to his argument by saying that, after all, the distinction he draws is between intellect and character, as things to be sought after for ourselves and reverenced in others. The text condenses it into an epigram, " Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as the blare of the trumpet or the clang of the cymbal."
Tf St. Paul knew nothing of the modern orchestra. He meant by his simile, presumably, only showy noise and display, loud enough to attract any attention however little cultivated. We may read into it yet other lessons, not less important; for the trumpet and the cymbal have their right and due place in the orchestra, and contribute their necessary share to the "concord of sweet sounds," and to the intention of the great Master whose meaning they help to interpret. But by themselves what are they but " sound and fury, signifying nothing " ? They are useless, and without beauty, unless they take a subordinate place, and unless they co-operate for something greater than themselves.4
1 Life and Letters of Mandell Creighton, ii. 484.
3 Early Letters of Marcus Bods, 18. 8 Ruskin, Prceterita, i. 25.
4 A. Ainger, The Gospel and Human Life, 33.
356 THE ONE THING NEEDFUL
3. It was within a comparatively small ring-fence of a struggling church, separated by hard and fast lines from the heathen and corrupt populace outside, that the problem had risen for solution, which St. Paul sets himself to solve. It was on purely religious questions — the diffusion of the knowledge of Christ by the ability and fervour of those already possessing it — that this question of Intellect versus Character had arisen. But as it is a question going down to the deeps of human personality, it never disappears, but is ever present, and ever pressing for our decision. It is a perennial danger, because a perennial temptation — that steady, never-changing temptation to value ability, talent, learning, accomplishment, even "clever- ness," the cheapest and most worthless of them all — to value these above goodness, and to ignore the certain truth that, where these things are not given by nature (as must be the case with the majority), they are not to be acquired by aping those who have them, by the mere mimicry of "gifts," which everywhere abounds, the tinsel which obtains acceptance as the glorious gem of the mountain or the sea, the surface cleverness which we daily meet, the borrowed tricks of style and manner and talk, the assimilative skill, wherein is no reality, no root, because no heart.
K An over-'cute woman's no better nor a long-tailed sheep — she'll fetch none the bigger price for that.1
TI One to whom he often spoke of the deepest things of life and of death will never forget his saying one day just after the attack of illness in December : " I have come to see that cleverness, success, attainment, count for little; that goodness, or, as F. (naming a dear friend) would say, 'character,' is the important factor in life."2
4. St. Paul did not malign or disparage gifts. Himself a man of rarest genius, is it likely he would stultify his own mission and function by disparaging the great gifts which, inspired and guided by love, were helping to mould the whole future of the world ? " Covet earnestly the best gifts," he said ; every taleut and faculty that God has bestowed on your mysterious individ- uality welcome and turn to the Master's use.
True it is, and within the range both of illustrious historical
1 Mr. Tulliver, in The Mill on the Floss.
* Life and Letters of George John .Eomane$i 323.
i CORINTHIANS xm. i 357
precedent and of frequent personal observation and experience, that the best and most brilliant and distinguished gifts may be directed, harmonized, moderated, and controlled by the most frank and unaffected humility, and by the most tender and generous sentiments of humanity. But it will hardly be denied that while the highly gifted in literature and science are very frequently, and perhaps even in exact proportion to their eminence, men of modest stillness and humility, there is a very great temptation to the contrary. There is an instinct of self- glorification through these gifts which requires close looking after. There is a temptation to forget that the only legitimate dedication of such faculties, and the implied condition on which they are bestowed, must be such as shall promote the ulterior advantage of the whole community (as St. Paul shows in the preceding chapter representing us as all members of one body).
U I remember one thing he said which made a great im- pression. Something led us to talk about genius and character. I was praising genius, and taking no notice of character as its great buttress. He turned and said quietly, and with some sadness, " I have seen more young men fail in early life from the absence of character than from the absence of genius." 1