(2) Love is the highest relation which one personal being can assume towards another. — It seems necessary to insist upon this characteristic in it, because its true nature is often obscured by its association with mere abstractions. It is not with humanity but with human beings that love is concerned; and such mere intellectual abstractions are useful only so far as they assist us in placing ourselves in that individual relation to individuals in which love finds its existence and its sphere of action. That which the Apostle has in view in his glowing description of this virtue is not a vague emotion of the heart, but the self-sacrifice, the devotion, the patience which are evoked in one soul by the presence of another.
If The degree in which this gracious virtue of love can be evoked in our nature must depend upon the personal relations in which we are placed. The relation, perhaps, may be some- times and in some measure an ideal one; but the vision of a person must be brought before the soul, if its highest faculties are to be aroused and its noblest emotions drawn forth. We all know, and it is the privilege of a generous youth to feel with peculiar vividness, what an ennobling effect is produced upon our
4i6 THESE THREE
nature by love, in the true sense of the word, thus aroused towards a kindred soul; while we also know and feel how intimately and essentially this influence is dependent on the personal character of the relation. It was the favourite theme of our greatest poets in the most splendid period of our literature, and perhaps of our national life ; and in Spenser's lofty verse the vision of love and beauty, and the vision of heavenly love and beauty, are so closely associated that they seem to merge into one another. But poets of less spiritual flight, and more concerned with the ordinary passions of human nature, have similarly depicted their heroes as rising to their noblest heights under the inspiration of this generous passion. When St. Paul discerns in the true relation of husband and wife a picture of the relation of Christ to His Church, he justifies and sanctifies these tran- scripts from nature, and welds together in essential union the most human and the most Divine aspect of love. Where, indeed, even in the light of the Gospel, shall be found more touching illustrations of some of the excellencies which the Apostle ascribes to charity, than in the personal affections of a gracious family life ? The love which suffers long and is kind, which envies not, which seeks not her own, which is not easily provoked, which thinks no evil, which bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things, — is not this the love of mothers and of wives, the devotion of true sons and husbands? What an astonishing power there is in such love and such devotion to suppress the selfishness in a man or a woman, and to arouse all the faculties of our nature in the service of the person to whom we are devoted ! l
(3) It needs a perfect Person to satisfy its desires. — For the question arises, whether all these stirrings of heart towards men like ourselves, all these quickenings of the moral and spiritual pulse can be more than the first awakenings of the human soul towards its true destiny — that of communion and union with a perfect Person. With respect to all these emotions, even the truest and most beautiful, when viewed independently of higher relations, in how lamentable a degree is illusion blended with them! Those illusions are often the mockery, the cruel and unworthy mockery, of maturer years ; and they are not less often the bitter disappointments of tender and faithful hearts. But suppose a love open to human nature which should be subject to no such illusion ; imagine a Person revealed to men and women
1 Dean Wace.
i CORINTHIANS xm. 13 417
on whom they could lavish the inexhaustible stores of their affection, their admiration, their devotion, and be sure that all, and more than all, would fall short of what was due, and be a feeble response to the infinite reality : and what might not then be expected to be the influence produced upon our nature ? We have the answer in this chapter, which was, in fact, the response elicited from the soul of St. Paul by the vision of the Lord Jesus Christ, by the love of the Saviour for him and his responsive love for the Saviour.
Tf Perfection, or at least blessedness, in some form or other, has been proved by experience to be the ineradicable desire of the soul of man. That desire may, indeed, be dulled for a time, or chilled by despair. But such an acquiescence in imperfection brings with it, like the [disappointed philosophy of the ancient world, a decay of energy, an abandonment of hope, in every sphere of life, and relaxes the spring of all noble thoughts and emotions. " Be ye perfect " is a command which is implied in all others, and is one of their main animating motives; and, in offering the means for this perfection, the Gospel possesses one of its deepest claims upon our spirits.1