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 honorable, so superbly honorable, 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 or woe
And hope and fear,
Is just our chance o' the prize of learning love,--
How love might be, hath been indeed, and is."
Where Love is, God is. He that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God. God
is Love. Therefore _love_. Without distinction, without calculation,
without procrastination, love. Lavish it upon the poor, where it is
very easy; especially upon the rich, who often need it most; most of
all upon 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_. Give 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 it or neglect it,
for I shall not pass this way again."
_Generosity_. "Love 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 even is a protection against un-Christian feeling! That
most despicable of all the unworthy moods which cloud a Christian's
soul assuredly waits for us on the threshold of every work, unless we
are fortified with this grace of magnanimity. Only one thing truly
need the Christian envy--the large, rich, generous soul which "envieth
not."
And then, after having learned all that, you have to learn this
further thing, _Humility_--to put a seal upon 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 into 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." Humility--love hiding.
The fifth ingredient is a somewhat strange one to find in this _summum
bonum_: _Courtesy_. This is Love in society, Love in relation to
etiquette. "Love does not behave itself unseemly."
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
persons 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. Carlisle said of Robert Burns that there was 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 had made. So with this simple passport he could mingle
with any society, and enter courts and palaces from his little cottage
on the banks of the Ayr.
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. The ungentle soul, the
inconsiderate, unsympathetic nature, cannot do anything else. "Love
doth not behave itself unseemly."
_Unselfishness._ "Love seeketh not her own." Observe: Seeketh not even
that which is her own. In Britain the Englishman is devoted, and
rightly, to his rights. But there come times when a man may exercise
even