Paul begins by contrasting Love with other things that men in those
days thought much of. I shall not attempt to go over these 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 purpose and holy deeds! Paul says, If I speak with
the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become
sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal." 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. "If I have all faith, so as to remove
mountains, but have not love, I am nothing."
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. Hence,
"If I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, but have not love it
profiteth me nothing."
Then Paul contrasts it with SACRIFICE and martyrdom: "If I give
my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing."
Missionaries can take nothing greater to the heathen world than the
impress and reflection of the Love of God upon their own character.
That is the universal language. It will take them years to speak
in Chinese, or in the dialects of India. From the day they 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,