THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD
THOUGH I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not
love, I am become as a sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And
though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and
all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove
mountains, and have not LOVE I am nothing. And though I bestow all my
goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and
have not Love, it profiteth me nothing.
Love suffereth long, and is kind;
Love envieth not;
Love vaunteth not itself is not puffed up,
Doth not behave itself unseemly,
Seeketh not her own,
Is not easily provoked,
Thinketh no evil;
Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth
all things.
Love never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail;
whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be
knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy
in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in
part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I
understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man,
I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly;
but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even
as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, Love, these three;
but the greatest of these is Love.--I Cor. xiii.
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THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD
EVERY one 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 is 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 that, we may miss the mark. I have taken you, in the
chapter which I 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 moment's
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 singling 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 the
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 whole law. And you can readily see for
yourselves how that must be so. Take any of the commandments. "Thou
shalt have no other gods before Me." If a man love God, you will not
require 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 object 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 neighbour. If he loved him it would be
the last thing he would do. And 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 the 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 noble eulogy 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.
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THE CONTRAST
PAUL 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. Their 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 mysteries. 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 it greater than charity? Because the whole is greater than the
part. 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 there may even be, and there is, a great deal of
charity without Love. It is a very easy thing to toss a copper 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 copper's 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 the heathen 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. In the heart of Africa, among
the great Lakes, I have come across black men and women who remembered
the only white man they ever saw before--David Livingstone; and as you
cross his footsteps in that dark continent, men's faces light up 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 lifework must succeed. You can
take nothing greater, you need take nothing less. It is-not worth
while going if you take anything less. You may take every
accomplishment; you may be braced for every sacrifice; but if you give
your body to be burned, and have not Love, it will profit you and the
cause of Christ nothing.
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THE ANALYSIS
AFTER contrasting Love with these things, Paul, in three verses, very
short, 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. As you have seen a man of science take a beam of light and pass
it through a crystal prism, as you have seen it come out on the other
side of the prism broken up into its component colours--red, and blue,
and yellow, and violet, and orange, and all the colours of the
rainbow--so Paul passes this thing, Love, through the magnificent
prism of his inspired intellect, and it comes out on the other side
broken up into its elements. And in these few words we have what one
might call the Spectrum of Love, 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 in life;
and 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 . . . . . . "Love suffereth long."
Kindness . . . . . . "And is kind."
Generosity . . . . "Love envieth not."
Humility . . . . . . "Love vaunteth not itself, is not
puffed up."
Courtesy . . . . . . "Doth not behave itself unseemly."
Unselfishness . . "Seeketh not her own."
Good Temper . . "Is not easily provoked."
Guilelessness . . "Thinketh no evil."
Sincerity . . . . . . "Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but
rejoiceth in the truth."
Patience; kindness; generosity; humility; courtesy; unselfishness;
good temper; guilelessness; sincerity--these make up the supreme gift,
the stature of the perfect man. You will observe that all are in
relation to men, in relation to life, in relation to the known to-day
and the near to-morrow, and not to the unknown eternity. We hear much
of love to God; Christ spoke much of love to man. We make a great deal
of peace with heaven; Christ made much of peace on earth. Religion 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.
There is no time to do more than make a passing note upon each of
these ingredients. Love is Patience. This is the normal attitude of
Love; 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; beareth all
things; believeth all things; hopeth all things. For Love understands,
and therefore waits.
Kindness. Love active. Have you ever noticed how much of Christ's life
was spent in doing kind things--in merely doing kind things? Run over
it with that in view and you will find that He spent a great
proportion of His time simply in making people happy, in doing good
turns to people. There is only one thing greater than happiness in the
world, and that is holiness; and 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 some one, "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. How easily it is done. How instantaneously it acts. How infallibly
it is remembered. 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. "Love, I say, "with Browning, "is energy of Life."
"For life, with all it yields of joy and woe