What was Christ doing in the carpenter's shop? Practising. Though
perfect, we read that He _learned_ obedience, and grew in wisdom and
in favor with God. Do not quarrel, therefore, with your lot in life.
Do not complain of its never-ceasing 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 nor for agony nor prayer. That is your
practice. That is the practice which God appoints you; and it is
having its work in making you patient, and humble, and generous, and
unselfish, and kind, and courteous. Do not grudge the hand that is
moulding the still too shapeless image within you. It is growing more
beautiful, though you see it not; 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 remember Goethe's words: "Talent
develops itself in solitude; character in the stream of life." Talent
develops itself in solitude--the talent of prayer, of faith, of
meditation, of seeing the unseen; character grows in the stream of the
world's life. That chiefly is where men are to learn love.
How? Now, how? To make it easier, I have named a few of the elements
of love. But these are only elements. Love itself can never be
defined. Light is a something more than the sum of its ingredients--a
glowing, dazzling, tremulous ether. And love is something more than
all its elements--a palpitating, quivering, sensitive, living thing.
By synthesis of all the colors, men can make whiteness, they cannot
make light. By synthesis of all the virtues, men 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 fulfill 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
find these words: "We love because He first loved us." "We love," not
"We love _Him_." That is the way the old version has it, and it is
quite wrong. "_We love_--because He first loved us." Look at that word
"because." It is the _cause_ of which I have spoken. "_Because_ He
first loved us," the effect follows that we love, we love Him, we love
all men. We cannot help it. Because He loved us, we love, we love
everybody. Our heart is slowly changed. Contemplate the love of
Christ, and you will love. Stand before that mirror, reflect Christ's
character, and you will be changed into the same image from tenderness
to tenderness. There is no other way. You cannot love to order. You
can only look at the lovely object, and fall in love with it, and grow
into likeness to it. And so look at this Perfect Character, this
Perfect Life. Look at