for us all is HOW BETTER WE CAN LOVE.
What makes a man a good cricketer? Practice. What makes a man
a good artist, a good sculptor, a good musician? Practice. What
makes a man a good linguist, a good stenographer? Practice. What
makes a man a good man? Practice. Nothing else. There is nothing
capricious about religion. We do not get the soul in different
ways, under different laws, from those in which we get the body
and the mind. If a man does not exercise his arm he develops no
biceps muscle; and if a man does not exercise his soul, he acquires
no muscle in his soul, no strength of character, no vigor of
moral fibre, no beauty of spiritual growth. Love is not a thing
of enthusiastic emotion. It is a rich, strong, manly, vigorous
expression of the whole round Christian character--the Christlike
nature in its fullest development. And the constituents of this
great character are only to be built up by
Ceaseless practice.
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