Now I have a closing sentence or two to add about Paul's reason for
singling out love as the supreme possession.
It is a very remarkable reason. In a single word it is this: _it
lasts._ "Love," urges Paul, "never faileth." Then he begins again one
of his marvelous 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 _prophecies_, they shall be done away." It was the
mother's ambition for her boy in those days that he should become a
prophet. For hundreds of years God had never spoken by means of any
prophet, and at that time the prophet was greater than the king. Men
waited wistfully for another messenger to come, and hung upon his lips
when he appeared, as upon the very voice of God. Paul says, "Whether
there be prophecies, they shall fail." The Bible is full of
prophecies. 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 man's 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 many centuries have passed since tongues have been
known in this world. They have ceased. Take it in any sense you like.
Take it, for illustration merely, as languages in general--a sense
which was not in Paul's mind at all, and which though it cannot give
us the specific lesson, will point the general truth. Consider the
words in which these chapters were written--Greek. It has gone. Take
the Latin--the other great tongue of those days. It ceased long ago.
Look at the Indian language. It is ceasing. The language of Wales, of
Ireland, of the Scottish Highlands is dying before our eyes. The most
popular book in the English tongue at the present time, except the
Bible, is one of Dickens' works, his _Pickwick Papers_. It is largely
written in the language of London street-life; and experts assure us
that in fifty years it will be unintelligible to the average English
reader.
Then Paul goes farther, and with even greater boldness adds, "Whether
there be _knowledge_, it shall be done away." The wisdom of the
ancients, where is it? It is wholly gone. A schoolboy to-day knows
more than Sir Isaac Newton knew; his knowledge has vanished away. You
put yesterday's newspaper in the fire: its knowledge has vanished
away. You buy the old editions of the great encyclopædias for a few
cents: their knowledge has vanished away. Look how the coach has been
superseded by the use of steam. Look how electricity has superseded
that, and swept a hundred almost new inventions into oblivion. One of
the greatest living authorities, Sir William Thompson, said in
Scotland, at a meeting at which I was present, "The steam-engine is
passing away." "Whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away." At
every workshop you will see, in the back yard, a heap of old iron, a
few wheels, a few levers, a few cranks, broken and eaten with rust.
Twenty years ago that was the pride of the city. Men flocked in from
the country to see the great invention; now it is superseded, its day
is done. And all the boasted science and philosophy of this day will
soon be old.
In my time, in the university of Edinburgh, the greatest figure in the
faculty was Sir James Simpson, the discoverer of chloroform. Recently
his successor and nephew, Professor Simpson, was asked by the
librarian of the University to go to the library and pick out the
books on his subject (midwifery) that were no longer needed. His reply
to the librarian was this:
"Take every text-book that is more than ten years old and put it down
in the cellar."
Sir James Simpson was a great authority only a few years ago: men came
from all parts of the earth to consult him; and almost the whole
teaching of that time is consigned by the science of to-day to
oblivion. And in every branch of science it is the same. "Now we know
in part. We see through a glass darkly." Knowledge does not last.
Can you tell me anything that is going to last? Many things Paul did
not condescend to name. He did not mention money, fortune, fame; but
he picked out the great things of his time, the things the best men
thought had something in them, and brushed them peremptorily aside.
Paul had no charge against these things in themselves. All he said
about them was that they would not last. They were great things, but
not supreme things. There were things beyond them. What we are
stretches past what we do, beyond what we possess. Many things that
men denounce as sins are not sins; but they are temporary. And that is
a favorite argument of the New Testament. John says of the world, not
that it is wrong, but simply that it "passeth away." There is a great
deal in the world that is delightful and beautiful; there is a great
deal in it that is great and engrossing; but