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 doe 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 hearty 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