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; but in that atmosphere they expand, and find
encouragement and educative fellowship.
It is a wonderful thing that here and there in this hard, uncharitable
world there should still be left 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.
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.
"Love rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth."
I have called this _Sincerity_ from the words rendered in the
Authorized Version by "rejoiceth in the truth." And, certainly, were
this the real translation, nothing could be more just; for he who
loves will love Truth not less than men. He will rejoice in the
Truth--rejoice not in what he has been taught to believe; not in this
church's doctrine or in that; not in this ism or in that ism; but "in
_the Truth_." He will accept only what is real; he will strive to get
at facts; he will search for _Truth_ with a humble and unbiased mind,
and cherish whatever he finds at any sacrifice. But the more literal
translation of the Revised Version calls for just such a sacrifice for
truth's sake here. For what Paul really meant is, as we there read,
"Rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth," a
quality which probably no one English word--and certainly not
_Sincerity_--adequately defines. It includes, perhaps more strictly,
the self-restraint which refuses to make capital out of others'
faults; the charity which delights not in exposing the weakness of
others, but "covereth all things"; the sincerity of purpose which
endeavors to see things as they are, and rejoices to find them better
than suspicion feared or calumny denounced.
So 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
every day has a thousand of them. The world is not a playground; it is
a schoolroom. Life is not a holiday, but an education. And