|
|
|
The greatest thing in the world.
Author name withheld.
Everyone has asked himself the great question of antiquity as of the modern world: What is the "summum bonum" - the supreme good? You have life before you. Once only you can live it. What is the noblest object of desire, the supreme gift to covet? We have been accustomed to be told that the greatest thing in the religious world if Faith. That great word has been the key-note for centuries of the popular religion; and we have easily learned to look upon it as the greatest thing in the world. Well we are wrong, if we have been told this we may miss the mark. I have taken you, in the chapter which we have just read, to Christianity at its source; and there we have seen, "The greatest of these is LOVE." It is not an oversight. Paul was speaking of faith just a moment before. He says, "If I have all faith, so that I can remove mountains, and have not Love, I am nothing." So far from forgetting he deliberately contrasts them, "Now abideth Faith, Hope, Love," and without a moments hesitation the decision falls, "The greatest of these is Love." And it is not prejudice. A man is apt to recommend to others his own strong point. Love was not Paul's strong point. The observing student can detect a beautiful tenderness growing and ripening all through his character as Paul gets old; but the hand that wrote "The greatest of these is Love," when we meet it first, is stained with blood. Nor is this letter to the Corinthians peculiar in singing out Love as the summum bonum. The masterpieces of Christianity are agreed about it. Peter says "Above all things have fervent Love among yourselves." Above all things. And John goes farther, "God is Love." And you remember the profound remark which Paul makes elsewhere, "Love is fulfilling of the law." Did you ever think what he meant by that? In those days men were working their passage to Heaven by keeping the Ten Commandments, and the hundred and ten other commandments which they had manufactured out of them. Christ said, I will show you a more simple way. If you do one thing, you will do these hundred and ten things, without ever thinking about them. If you love, you will unconsciously fulfil the law. And you can readily see for yourself how that must be so. Take any of the commandments. "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me." If a man loved God, would you need to tell him that? Love is the fulfilling of that law. "Take not His name in vain." Would he ever dream of taking His name in vain if he loved Him? "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." Would he not be too glad to have one day in seven to dedicate more exclusively to the one of his affection? Love would fulfil all these laws regarding God. And so, if he loved Man, you would never think of telling him to honour his father and mother. He could not do anything else. It would be preposterous to tell him not to kill. You could only insult him if you suggested that he should not steal - how could he steal from those he loved? It would be superfluous to beg him not to bear false witness against his neighbours. If he loved them, it would be the last thing he would do. You would never dream of urging him not to covet what his neighbours had. He would rather they possessed it than himself. In this way "Love is fulfilling of the law." It is the rule for fulfilling all rules, the new commandment for keeping all the old commandments, Christ's one secret of the Christian life. Now Paul had learned that, and in this chapter he has given us the most wonderful and original account extant of the summum bonum. We may divide it into three parts. In the beginning of the short chapter, we have "Love contrasted;" in the heart of it, we have "Love analysed;" towards the end, we have "Love defended" as the supreme gift. THE CONTRASTPaul begins by contrasting Love with other things that men in those days thought much of. I shall not attempt to go over those things in detail. There inferiority is already obvious. He contrasts it with eloquence. And what a noble gift it is, the power of playing upon the souls and wills of men, and rousing them to lofty purposes and holy deeds. Paul says, "If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not Love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal." And we all know why. We have all felt the brazenness of words without emotion, the hollowness, the unaccountable unpersuasiveness, of eloquence behind which lies no Love. He contrasts it with prophecy, He contrasts it with faith. He contrasts it with charity. Why is Love greater than faith? Because the end is greater than the means. And why is Love greater than charity? Because the whole is greater than a part. If Love is greater than faith because the end is greater than the means, what is the use of having faith? It is to connect the soul with God. And what is the object of connecting man with God? That he may become like God. But God is Love. Hence faith, the means, is in order to Love, the end. Love, therefore, obviously is greater than faith. It is greater than charity, again, because the whole is greater than a part. Charity is only a little bit of Love, one of the innumerable avenues of Love, and they may even be, and there is, a great deal of charity without Love. It is a very easy thing to toss ten pence to a beggar on the street; it is generally an easier thing than not to do it. Yet Love is just as often in the withholding. We purchase relief from the sympathetic feelings roused by the spectacle of misery, at the ten pence cost. It is too cheap - too cheap for us, and often too dear for the beggar. If we really loved him, we would either do more for him, or less. Then Paul contrasts it with sacrifice and martyrdom. And I beg the little band of would be missionaries - and I have the honour to call some of you by this name for the first time, to remember that though you give your bodies to be burned, and have not Love, it profits nothing - nothing! You can take nothing greater to this lost world than the impress and reflection of the Love of God upon your own character. That is the universal language. It will take you years to speak in Chinese, or in the dialects of India. From the day you land, that language of Love, understood by all, will be pouring forth its unconscious eloquence. It is the man who is the missionary, it is not his words. His character is his message. Henry Drummond said, of one of his visits to Africa; "In the heart of Africa, among the great lakes, I have come across black men and women who remember the only white man they ever saw before - David Livingstone; and as you cross his footsteps in the dark continent, men's faces light as they speak of the kind doctor who passed there years ago. They could not understand him; but they felt the love that beat in his heart". Take into your new sphere of labour, where you also mean to lay down your life, that simple charm, and your life work must succeed. You can take nothing greater, you need nothing less. It is not worth while going if you take anything less. You may take every accomplishment; you may be braced for sacrifice; but if you give your body to be burned, and have not Love, it will profit you and the cause of Christ Nothing. THE ANALYSISAfter contrasting Love with various things, Paul gives us an amazing analysis of what this supreme thing is. I ask you to look at it. It is a compound thing, he tells us; it is like light. You have seen a scientist take a beam of light and pass it through a crystal prism. It emerges as component colours - red, blue, yellow, violet, orange, and all the other colours of a rainbow - so Paul passes Love through the magnificent prism of his inspired intellect, and it comes out on the other side broken up into its elements. In these few words we have what one might call the spectrum of Love or the analysis of Love. Will you observe what its elements are? Will you notice that they have common names; that they are virtues which we hear about every day, that they are things which can be practised by every man in every place. Will you notice how, by a multitude of small things and ordinary virtues, the supreme thing, the summum bonum, is made up? The Spectrum of Love has nine ingredients: Patience, kindness, generosity, humility, courtesy, unselfishness, good temper, guilelessness and sincerity. These make up the supreme gift, the stature of the perfect man. You will observe that all are in relation to man, in relation to life, in relation to the known today and the near tomorrow, not to the unknown eternity. We hear much of the Love to God; Christ spoke much of peace on earth. Christianity is not a strange or added thing, but the inspiration of the secular life, the breathing of an eternal spirit through this temporal world. The supreme thing, in short, is not a thing at all, but the giving of a further finish to the multitudinous words and acts which make up the sum of every common day. In this issue we will talk about the first six ingredients to Love. We will look at the last three in the next issue of Christian Friendship. PATIENCELove suffereth long. Love is Patience. This is the normal attitude of Love - passive, Love waiting to begin, not in a hurry, calm, ready to do its work when the summons comes, but meantime wearing the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit. Love suffers long, bears all things, believes all things, hopes for all things. For Love understands, and therefore awaits. KINDNESSAnd is kind. Love active. Have you ever noticed how much of Christ's life was spent in merely doing kind things? Run over it with that view, and you will find that he spent a great proportion of His time simply making people happy, in doing good turns for people. There is only one thing greater than happiness in this world, and that is holiness. It is not in our keeping, but what God has put in our power is the happiness of those about us and that is largely to be secured by our being kind to them. "The greatest thing," says someone, "a man can do for his Heavenly Father, is to be kind to some of His other children." I wonder why it is that we are not all kinder than we are? How much the world needs it and how easy it is done. It acts instant`aneous`ly but is remembered with infalli`bil`ity. How superabundantly it pays itself back, for there is no debtor in the world so honourable, so superbly honourable, as Love. "Love never faileth." Love is success, Love is happiness, Love is life. Where Love is, God is. He that dwells in Love dwells in God. God is Love. Therefore lavish it upon the poor, where it is very easy, also upon the rich, who often need it most; but most of all upon all our equals, where it is very difficult, and for whom perhaps we each do least of all. There is a difference between trying to please and giving pleasure. Lose no chance of giving pleasure. For that is the ceaseless and anonymous triumph of a truly loving spirit. "I shall pass through this world but once. Any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again." GENEROSITYLove envieth not. This is Love in competition with others. Whenever you attempt a good work, you will find other men doing the same kind of work, and probably doing it better. Envy them not. Envy is a feeling of ill-will to those who are in the same line as ourselves, a Spirit of covetousness and detraction. How little Christian work is a protection against unchristian feeling. That most despicable of all the unworthy moods which unless we are fortified with this grace of generosity. Only one thing truly needs the Christian envy, the large, rich, generous soul which "envieth not." HUMILITYLove vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up. After having learned all of the above, you have to learn humility - the ability to put a seal on your lips and forget what you have done. After you have been kind, after Love has stolen forth into the world and done its beautiful work, go back to the shade again and say nothing about it. Love hides even from itself. Love waives even self satisfaction. "Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up." COURTESYDoth not behave itself unseemly. This fifth ingredient is a somewhat strange one to find in this summum bonum. This is Love in society. Love in relation to behaviour. Politeness has been defined as Love in trifles. Courtesy is said to be Love in little things. And the one secret of politeness is to Love. Love cannot behave itself unseemly. You can put the most untutored person into the highest society, and if they have a reservoir of Love in their heart, they will not behave themselves unseemly. They simply cannot do it. Carlyle said of Robert Burns, "There is no truer gentleman in Europe than the ploughman/poet." It was because he loved everything - the mouse, and the daisy, and all the things, great and small, that God has made. Do you know the meaning of the word "gentleman"? It means a gentle man - a man who does things gently, with Love. That is the whole art and mystery of it. The gentle man cannot in the nature of things do an ungentle, an ungentlemanly thing, and vice versa. UNSELFISHNESSSeeketh not her own. Observe: Does not seek even that which is her own. In Britain the Englishman is devoted to his rights. But there comes a time when a man may exercise the even higher right of giving them up, yet Paul does not summon us to do this. Love strikes much deeper, it would have us not seeking them at all, ignoring them, eliminating the personal element from our calculations altogether. It is not hard to give up our rights, For they are often external. The difficult thing is to give up ourselves, but even more difficult is not seeking things for ourselves. After we have sought them, bought them, won them, deserved them, we have taken the cream off them for ourselves already. Little cost then perhaps to give them up. "Seekest thou great things for thyself?" said the prophet, "seek them not." Why? Because things cannot be great. The only great thing is unselfish Love. Even self denial in itself is nothing, it is almost a mistake. Only a great purpose or a mightier Love can justify the waste. I said that it is more difficult to give up something we have sought than to seek it. I must take that back. It is only true of a partly selfish heart. Nothing is a hardship to Love, and nothing is too hard. I believe that Christ's yoke is easy. Christ's "yoke" is just His way of taking life. I believe it is an easier way than any other. I believe that it is a happier way than any other. The most obvious lesson in Christ's teaching is that there is no happiness in having or getting anything, but only in giving. Half the world is on the wrong scent in the pursuit of happiness. They think it consists of having and getting, and in being served by others. It consists of giving, and serving others. "He that would be great among you," said Jesus, "let him serve." He that would be happy, let him remember that there is but one way - it is more blessed, it is more happy, to give than to receive. GOOD TEMPERThis ingredient is a very remarkable one. "Love is not easily provoked." Nothing could be more striking than to find this here. We are inclined to look upon bad temper as a very harmless weakness. We speak of it as a mere infirmity of nature or a family failing, not a thing to take into very serious account when esteeming a man's character. Yet here, right in the heart of this analysis of Love, it finds a place. The Bible again and again returns to condemn it as one of the most destructive elements of human nature. The peculiar thing about ill temper is that it is the vice of the virtuous. It is often the thing maring an otherwise noble character. You must know men who are all but perfect, and women who would be entirely perfect, but for an easily ruffled, quick temper, or "touchy" disposition. This compatibility of ill temper with high moral character is one of the strangest and saddest problems of ethics. The truth is that there are two great classes of sins - sins of the body, and sins of the disposition. The Prodigal Son may be taken as an example of the first type, whilst his elder brother is of the second. Now society has no doubt whatever as to which of these is the worst. Its brand falls, without challenge, upon the Prodigal. But are we right? No form of vice, worldliness, greed or drunkenness does more to society than evil temper. For misery producing power, this influence stands alone. Look at the elder brother, moral, hard working, patient, dutiful - let him get all the credit for his virtues. Look at this man, this baby, sulking outside his own father's door. "He was angry," we read, "and would not go in." Look at the effect upon the father, the servants, the happiness of the guests. Judge the effect upon the prodigal. How many prodigals are kept out of the kingdom of God by the unlovely characters of those who profess to be inside? Analyse as a study in temper, the thunder-cloud itself as it gathers upon the elder brother's brow. What is it made of? Jealousy, anger, pride, lack of charity, cruelty, selfrighteousness, touchiness, doggedness, sullenness; these are all the ingredients of ill temper. Judge if such sins of the disposition are not worse to live in, and for others to live with, than sins of the body. Did Christ indeed not answer the question Himself when He said, "I say unto you, that the publicans and the harlots go into the Kingdom of Heaven before you." There is really no place in Heaven for a disposition like this. A man with such a mood could only make Heaven a miserable place for all the people in it. Unless such a man be born again, he cannot, he simply cannot, enter the Kingdom of Heaven. For it is perfectly certain, and you may not understand this, that to enter Heaven a man must take it with him. You will see then why temper is significant. It is not what it is, but what it reveals. This is why I take the liberty now of speaking of it with such plainness. It is a test for Love. It betrays some of the rottenness underneath, symbolised in one flash of temper. Therefore it is not enough to deal with the temper. We must go to the source, and change the inmost nature, and the angry humours will die away of themselves. Souls are made sweet not by taking the acid fluids out, but by putting something in - a great Love, a new Spirit, the Spirit of Christ. Only this can eradicate what is wrong, work a chemical change, renovate, regenerate and rehabilitate the inner man. Will power does not change men. Time does not change men. Christ does. Therefore, "Let that mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." Some of us have not much time to lose. Remember, once more that this is a matter of life and death. I cannot help speaking urgently, for myself, for yourselves. "Whoso shall offend one of these little ones, which believe in me, it were better for him that a milestone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea." That is to say, it is the deliberate verdict of the Lord Jesus that it is better not to live than not to love. GUILELESSNESSBoth Guilelessness and Sincerity may be dismissed almost with a word. Guilelessness is the grace for suspicious people. The possession of it is the great secret of personal influence. You will find, if you think for a moment, that the people who influence you are people who believe in you. In an atmosphere of suspicion men shrivel up. It is wonderful that here and there in this hard and uncharitable world there is a few rare souls who think no evil. This is the great unworldliness. Love "thinketh no evil", imputes no motive, sees the bright side, puts the best construction on every action. What a delightful state of mind to live in! What a stimulus and benediction even to meet with it for a day! To be trusted is to be saved. And if we try to influence or elevate others, we shall soon see that success is in proportion to their belief of our belief in them. For the respect of another is the first restoration of the self respect a man has lost; our ideal of what he is becomes to him the hope and pattern of what he may become. SINCERITY"Love rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth." This seems to imply that he who Loves will love truth more than men. He will rejoice in the truth - rejoice not in what he has been taught to believe, not in this or that, but "in the truth". He will accept only what is real. He will strive to get at the facts. He will search for truth with a humble and unbiased mind, and cherish whatever he finds at any sacrifice. It concludes, perhaps, more strictly, the self-restraint which refuses to make capital out of others, but "covereth all things". The sincerity of purpose which endeavours to see things as they are, and rejoices to find them better than suspicion feared or calumny denounced. INTO PRACTICESo much for the analysis of Love. Now the business of our lives is to have these things fitted into our characters. That is the supreme work to which we need to address ourselves in this world, to learn Love. Is life not full of opportunities for learning Love? Every man and woman has a thousand of them. The world is not a playground; it is a schoolroom. Life is not a holiday, but an education. And the one eternal lesson for us all is how better we can love. What makes a man a good cricketer? Practice, (someone please tell the English test team!) What makes a man a good artist, a good sculptor, a good musician? Practice. What makes a man a good man? Practice. Nothing else. There is nothing inconsistent about religion. We do not get the soul in different ways, under different laws, from those in which we get the body and mind. if a man does not exercise his arm he develops no bicep muscle. If a man does not exercise his soul, he acquires no muscle in his soul, no strength of character, no vigour of moral fibre, nor beauty of spiritual growth. Love is not a thing of enthusiastic emotion. It is a rich, strong and vigorous expression of the whole round Christian character the Christlike nature in its fullest development. And the constituents of this great character are only to be built up by ceaseless practice. What was Christ doing in the carpenters shop? Practising. Though perfect, we read that He learned obedience, He increased in wisdom and in favour with God and with man. Do not quarrel about your life. Do not complain of its unceasing cares, its petty environment, the vexations you have to stand, the small and sordid souls you have to live and work with. Above all, do not resent temptation. Do not be perplexed because it seems to thicken round you more and more, and ceases neither for effort, agony or prayer. That is the practice which God appoints you and it is having its work in making you patient, humble, generous, unselfish, kind and courteous. Do not grudge the hand that is moulding the still too shapeless image within you. It is growing more beautiful, though we often cannot see it, and every touch of temptation may add to its perfection. Therefore keep in the midst of life. Do not isolate yourself. Be among men, and among things, and among troubles, and difficulties, and obstacles. You should always try to remember: "Talent develops itself in solitude, character in the stream of life." Talent develops itself in solitude, the talent of prayer, faith, meditation and seeing the unseen. Character grows into the stream of the world's life. That chiefly is where men are to learn Love. How? To make it easier, I have named a few elements of Love. But these are only elements. Love itself can never be defined. Light is a something more than its ingredients, a glowing, dazzling, tremulous ether. And Love is something more than all these elements, a palpitating, quivering, sensitive, living thing. By synthesis of all the colours, men can make whiteness, they cannot make light. By synthesis of all the virtues, man can make virtue, they cannot make Love. How then are we to have this transcendent living whole conveyed into our souls? We brace our wills to secure it. We try to copy those who have it. We lay down rules about it. We watch. We pray. But these things alone will not bring Love into our nature. Love is an effect. And only as we fulfil the right condition can we have the effect produced. Shall I tell you what the cause is? If you turn to the Revised version of the first epistle of John you will find these words: "We love because He first loved us." Look at the word "because". The effect follows that we love; we love Him; we love all men. We cannot help it. Because He first loved us, we love; we love everybody. Our heart is slowly changed. Contemplate the Love of Christ, and you will be changed into the same image from tenderness to tenderness. There is no other way. You cannot love to order. You only look at the lovely object, and fall in love with it, and grow into likeness to it. And so look at the Perfect Character, this Perfect Life. Look at the great Sacrifice as Jesus laid down Himself, all through life, and on the cross of Calvary. You must love Him and in loving Him you must become like Him. Love begets Love. It is a process of induction. Put a piece of iron in the presence of an electrified body, and that piece of iron for a time becomes electrified. It is changed into a temporary magnet in the presence of a permanent magnet, and as long as you leave the two side by side, they are both magnets alike. Remain side by side with Him who loves us, and gave Himself for us, and you too will become a permanent magnet, a permanently attractive force; and like Him you will draw all men to you, like Him you will be drawn unto all men. That is the inevitable effect of Love. Any man who fulfils that cause must have that effect produced in him. Try to give up the idea that religion comes to us by chance, or by mystery. It comes to us by natural law, for all law is Devine. Edward Irving went to see a dying boy once, and when he entered the house he just put his hands on the suffering boy's head, and said, "My boy, God loves you.", and went away. The boy rose on his bed, and called out to the people in the house, "God loves me! God loves me!" It changed that boy. The sense that God loved him overpowered him, melted him down, and began the creating of a new heart in him. And that is how the Love of God melts down the unlovely heart in men, and begets in him the new creature, who is patient and gentle and unselfish. There is no other way to get it. There is no real mystery about it. We love others, we love everybody, we love our enemies, because, HE FIRST LOVED US. THE DEFENCEThe author of this series has looked at Pauls first letter to the Corinthians chapter 13. This forth and final part of the series completes the argument that Love is the greatest thing in the world. If you wish to have a complete copy of this series (50p to cover printing and postage), then please write to the editor, address on the front page. Now I have a few words to add about Pauls reason for singling out Love as the supreme possession. It is a very remarkable reason. In a couple of words it is this: IT LASTS. "Love," urges Paul, "never faileth." Then he begins again one of his marvellous lists of the great things of the day, and exposes them one by one. He runs over the things that men thought were going to last and shows that they are all fleeting, temporary, passing away. "Whether there be prophercies, they shall fail." It was the mothers ambition for her boy in those days that he should become a prophet. For hundreds of years God had not spoken by means of any prophet, and at that time the prophet was greater than the king. Men waited eagerly for another messanger to come, and hung on his lips when he appeared as upon the very voice of God. Paul says: "Whether there be prophercies, they shall fail." This book is full of prophercies. One by one they have "failed"; that is having been fulfilled their work is finished; they have nothing more to do now in the world except to feed a devout mans faith. Then Paul talks about tongues, that was another thing that was greatly coveted. "Whether there be tongues, they shall cease." As we all know, many centuries have since tongues have been known in this world. They have ceased. Take it in any sense you like. Take it, for instance, as languages in general. Consider the words in which these chapters were written, Greek. It has gone. Take the latin, the other great tongue of those days, it has gone too. The Pickwick papers, one of Dickens most famous works, is largely written in the language of London street life. English experts assure us that by the turn of the century in the original text it will be largely unintelligible to the avarage English reader. Then Paul goes farther, and with even greater boldness adds, "Whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away." The wisdom of the ancients, where is it? It is wholly gone. A schoolboy today knows more than Isaac Newton knew. His knowledge has vanished away. You put yesturdays newspaper in the bin, its knowledge has vanished away. You can buy the old editions of the great encyclopaedias for a few pounds, they are out dated, there knowledge has vanished away. Look how the combustion engine is being updated by the fuel injection. As the latest car is rolling off the line, the proto-type is already being made of the latest more improved model. Look how electricity has superceded gas lighting. "Whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away." As you go around the old mills in yorkshire you will see old cast iron machinery, thirty years ago that was the pride of the city. Men still worked on such great inventions, now it is superseded, its day is done. And all the boasted science and philosophy of this day will soon be old. Can you tell me anything that is going to last? |
All articles are (c) their respective authors, and
appeared in, or were submitted for the Christian Friendship magazine published
in Immingham, England, 1989-1990. |