Love found upon the battle's edge
A coward fleeing from the strife; And sent him forth his heart in pledge, Valiant thro' life. 1 G. C. Lorimer, I COR. — 29
450 THESE THREE
Love touched dumb lips that could not pray,
And lo, they uttered prayer and song; Love hath so subtle sweet a way, Love is so strong.
It is because love is the first fact of all facts in the Gospel of Christ that the Gospel is fitted to be a universal Gospel. All men have hearts, and love is the same thing to every heart. An idea is not the same thing to every mind, but love is the same thing to every heart. A loving smile on the face of a Christian woman in China does not require to be translated into Chinese in order to be understood by a Chinaman. A child can perfectly interpret the sweetness in its mother's face long before it can translate into thoughts of its own the words she utters. If thought is the soul's prose, love is its music, and we know that music will steal easily into many a spot to which words stiffly articulated would be coldly refused admittance.
(1) It secures obedience. — " If ye love me, keep my command- ments." In this exhortation, love to Christ is the mighty energy that produces holy obedience. The loving eye is quick to discern the will, the wish of the beloved. The heart which truly loves cannot break one of the least of these commandments. Even if the commandment seem arbitrary, it is enough that He who is supremely loved has said, "This do in remembrance of me." That is enough. Such motive is sufficient. It is simple, clear, and explicit. The obedience which is the witness, the pledge, the consequence of love, and is neither formal nor perfunctory, but the outcome of a self-sacrificing affection, is alone well-pleasing.
(2) It is the source of knowledge. — "He that loveth not, knoweth not God." This is true of other objects of both love and knowledge, as certainly as it is true of the love and knowledge of the Lord God. We do not know any thing, any person, any science, until we love it. The " dry light " needed for scientific pursuit is the eye unbleared by prejudice, unfilled with tears of foolish and inappropriate emotion, not an eye which does not flash with love. It is sometimes said that " love is blind." Cupid has been imaged with shaded eyes. No greater mistake can be made. Love has microscopic eyes to see both the faults and excellences of the beloved objects. What a world this would be if mothers could see in all children the Divine attractions and
i CORINTHIANS xm. 13 451
worth which they do see in their first-born ; and if lovers could see in all persons the wonderful lovableness they easily discern in one another ! It is only the lover of truths, of persons, of countries, of great causes and principles, who really and veritably knows them.
If " Love seeks not to limit its devotion but to find opportunities of expressing it. Would you know God ? I say to you, discover what true love means. Get your heart so full of it that it will send you forth in God's Spirit seeking to save the lost, yearning to redeem the erring and sinful, binding up the broken-hearted, drying streaming eyes, and comforting them that mourn; get such a love as that into your soul, and you need look no further for an image of God. Moreover, not only is it true that every one that loveth knoweth God, but it is equally true that you will know God just to the extent that you really love and no more." 1
4. Love is the greatest oecav.se it embraces and harmonizes the rest. — It is love that gives faith and hope their very life. How can we truly trust where we love not ? In that case faith is but a selfish grasping after one's own good. But, inspired by love, it is the grateful acceptance of the love of God, as in itself the best gift, and the pledge of all good gifts besides. Hope likewise, without love, is but the selfish anticipation of one's own joy. But, as inspired by love, it is the glad expectancy that God will work all things according to His good pleasure.
But Love an everlasting crown receiveth;
For She is Hope, and Fortitude, and Faith, Who all things hopeth, beareth, and believeth.2
1 Quintin Hogg, 304. ■ Ruskin. '
I
The Resurrection from the Dead.
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Butler (W. J.), Sermons for Working Men, 211.
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