Love is the key to the human heart. If we want to have power with God
and man, we must cultivate love. It is love that burns truth into the
hearts of people. A man may be a good lawyer without love. There may
be a good surgeon without love. A man may be a good merchant without
love. But a man can not be a good Odd-Fellow or Christian without
love. I would rather have my heart full of love than be even a
prophet. If a man is full of love, Paul says, "he is greater than a
prophet." A wife would rather live in a cabin with the love of her
husband, than to live in a palace without it. If I love a man I will
not cheat him or slander him or envy him. I pity people who are
constantly looking out for slights. It is better to look on the bright
side rather than the dark side of life. Love will lead us to look on
the bright side. Some persons are always magnifying the faults of
others. They use a magnifying glass in this business. If you want
power with persons, speak as well as you can of them. Self-control is
a great thing. This comes and stays through love. How many dwarfs
there are in God's church now. They have not grown one inch
spiritually in twenty years. If our hearts are full of love, we are
bound to grow. Many other graces pass away, but love is eternal. The
most selfish man is the most miserable man. A man may be miserly with
his money, but no man can be miserly with love. Love creates love.
The more we love, the more we will be loved. Love must show itself.
Love demonstrates its presence by action. Our lives, after all, are
mere echoes. I speak harsh to a man, and he will speak harsh to me.
If a man has bad neighbors it his own fault. If a woman has bad
servants it is her own fault. If we make others happy we will be happy
ourselves. If you are not happy, go and buy all the poor people near
you a turkey for Christmas. "He that noticeth others shall be noticed
also himself." If you want to get your own soul above its own
troubles, go and do good to some unhappy soul. If we do this work, I
believe we will have to do it in this world. There will be no tears to
wipe away, or sorrows to assuage, or afflictions to remedy in the other
world. This work is for this world. It is a blessed work. It is the
best investment a man can make. It pays an hundred fold. Labors of
love demonstrate better than the church membership that we are in the
Master's service. This is the Master's business. Though my way
through life has often been through graveyards and through glooms, I
have loved and I have been loved, and I know that life is worth living.
Love is the fulfilling of the law; the end of the gospel commandment;
the bond of perfectness. Without it, whatever be our attainments,
professions or sacrifices, we are nothing. Love obliterates the
differences in education, wealth, station, religion, politics and
nationality. It is a promoter of peace and harmony; it cultivates the
social graces; it makes friends of strangers and brothers of
acquaintances; it softens the asperities of life; it worships at the
shrine of piety, and recognizes the omnipotence of God and the
immortality of man. It is religious not sectarian, patriotic but not
partisan. It glows by the fireside, radiant with perpetual joy. It
glorifies God in worship and in song. It blesses humanity in genial
mirth and human sympathies. It is a perennial fountain at which the
old may drink and grow strong. It is a daily benediction to its
devotees, and, like "a thing of beauty, is a joy forever." It stands
like the statue of liberty, a beacon light to the tempest-tossed and
wayfaring mariner and brother, pointing him the way to the haven of
refuge, to the right living and right doing.
Oh love, thou mightiest gift of God; thou white-winged trust in Him who
doeth all things well; thou one light over His darkest providences,
lingering to cheer when all else has passed away, thy whisper upon the
dull ear of night. But alas! this world was made to break hearts in,
while love was sent from heaven to heal them. The precious balm,
though, is so scarce that many must die for want of it. Oh, the
might-have-been! What human soul has not sung that dirge? Verily, the
winds come, howling it by like an invisible band of mourners from the
grave of all things. Alas! is anything in this life real, or are we
indeed shadows, and this world altogether a shadowy land, while the
blackened skies above give us only glimpses of a far-off better home,
better friends and better love? Alas! Heaven's loudest complaint to
mortals is ever for lack of love. Even He who sitteth upon the throne
of thrones knoweth what it is to stretch out His arms in utter
desertion of no one to love Him, no one to seek Him, and no one to fear
Him--"no, not one." Then as we may best show our love to Him by loving
one another, is it not well that we commence loving those around us at
once? Ah! yes, and like the ambitious vine, do thou reach out all thy
tendril thoughts to what is nearest, the while aspiring to the oak or
the pine of the loftier trust, even the faith of Abraham that was
accounted unto him for righteousness. Would I had some new phrase for
love, some new figure for hope! How lonely and weary must that life be
without love, how tasteless all its joys, and how vacant every scene.
If we have the spirit of love we will live for others. Auguste Comte
inscribed on the first page of his work, "Politique Positive," wherein
he depicted in systematic form, life that had been forming itself
throughout human history, these words: "Order and progress--live for
others." The force of this thought is, in accord with Odd-Fellowship,
which teaches love of our kind, love of right, zeal for the good.
Man's happiness consists in living as a social being, living for self
in order to more truly live for others. This is summed up in the word
humanity. But affection, as the true motor force of life, must have a
foundation, must stir us not only to the right things, but to the right
means; in other words, action must be guided by knowledge. Improvement
must be the aim of social life, as it is the incentive to individual
effort. It is not enough to desire the good, or to know how to achieve
it, we must labor for it. Associated effort gives the opportunity for
gaining grander results than centuries of divided activity. The
conception of humanity has grown nobler. The good of the vast human
whole is now acknowledged as the end of all social union. Humanity
embodies love; the object of our activity; the source of what we have;
the ruler of the life under whose span we work, and suffer and enjoy.
All religions, all social systems worthy of the name, have sought to
regulate human nature and perfect the organization of society by
proclaiming as their principles the cultivation of some grand social
sentiments. Philosophers, moralists, preachers have united in saying:
"Base your life upon a noble feeling, if you are to live aright; base
the state upon a generous devotion of its members to some great ideal,
if it is to prosper and be strong." All have agreed that the
difference of life could only be harmonized by placing action under the
stimulus of high unselfish passion. Odd-Fellowship has grown strong
under this governing law. The banner it bears aloft proclaims
sentiments that are attractive to all the nations of the earth. We are
strong in as far as we truly interpret, for the good of humanity, this
elevated aim, this devotion to fraternal ends.
Compte defines religion as consisting of three parts--a belief, a
worship, and a rule of life--of which all three are equal, and each as
necessary as any other. As is truly said, "Society can not be touched
without knowledge; and the knowledge of social organization of humanity
is a vast and perplexing science. The race, like every one of us, is
dependent on the laws of life, and the study of life is a mighty field
to master." Enthusiasm of humanity would be but shallow did it not
impel us to efforts to learn how to serve--demanding the best of
conduct, brain and heart. The power of Odd-Fellowship lies in its
fraternity. It goes forward with irresistible magnetism when its
fraternal principles are truly interpreted. It furnishes to men a
strong union, where general intelligence, by attrition, is increased;
it provides a high moral standard; its objective action is such as
touches the common heart of humanity; and by its grand co-operative
system it gives the finest means of securing those advantages that tend
to the securement of material comfort and mental and spiritual peace
and happiness.
Drummond says: "Love is the greatest thing in the world." Read what
Paul says about it in I Cor., xiii: "Though I speak with the tongues of
men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or
a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and
understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all
faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am
nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though
I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me
nothing. Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love
vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up: Doth not behave itself unseemly;
Seeketh not her own. Is not easily provoked. Thinketh no evil;
rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all
things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
Love never faileth; but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail;
whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge,
it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part
shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child; but when I
became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a
glass, darkly; but then face to face; now I know in part; but then
shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope,
love, these three, but the greatest of these is love."
The more I study Odd-Fellowship, the more I become convinced that I
have just crossed the threshold, and that new truths and sublime
lessons await me, of which I never dreamed. Brothers, there is hidden
treasure in our order for which we must dig. It must be brought to the
surface. We must know more of the beauties of this great organization
of ours. "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 super-abundantly it pays itself
back--for there is no debtor in the world so honorable, so superbly
honorable, as love. Love is success. Love is happiness. Love is
life." "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 things 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. We can be Odd-Fellows only while we act
like honest men."
Every Odd-Fellow ought to be a "gentleman." Do you know the meaning of
the word "gentleman"? "It means a gentleman--a man who does things
gently, with love. And that is the whole art and mystery of it. The
gentleman can not in the nature of things do an ungentle, an
ungentlemanly thing." "Love doth not behave itself unseemly." Life is
full of opportunities for learning love. Every man and woman every day
has a thousand of them. There is an eternal lesson for us all, "how
better we can love." What makes a good artist, a good sculptor, a good
musician? Practice. What makes a man a good man, a man of love?
Practice. Nothing else. 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, nor 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 Christ-like nature in its
fullest development. And the constituents of this great character are
only to be built up by ceaseless practice. To love abundantly is to
live abundantly, and to love forever is to live forever. We want to
live forever for the same reason that we want to live tomorrow. Why do
you want to live tomorrow? It is because there is some one who loves
you, and whom you want to see tomorrow, and be with, and love back.
There is no other reason why we should live on than that we love and
are beloved. It is when a man has no one to love him that he commits
suicide. The reason why, in the nature of things, love should be the
supreme thing--because it is going to last; because in the nature of
things it is an eternal life. It is a thing that we are living now,
not that we get when we die; that we shall have a poor chance of
getting when we die unless we are living now.
No worse fate can befall a man in this world than to live and grow old
alone, unloving and unloved. At any cost cultivate a loving nature.
Then you will find as you look back upon your life that the moments
when you have really lived are the moments when you have done things in
a spirit of love. As memory scans the past, above and beyond all the
transitory pleasures of life, there leap forward those supreme hours
when you have been enabled to do unnoticed kindnesses to those around
about you, things too trifling to speak about, but which you feel have
entered into your eternal life. I have seen almost all the beautiful
things God has made; I have enjoyed almost every pleasure that He has
planned for man; and yet as I look back I see standing out above all
the life that has gone, four or five short experiences when the love of
God reflected itself in some poor imitation, some small act of love of
mine, and these seem to be the things which alone of all one's life
abide. Everything else in all our lives is transitory. Every other
good is visionary. But the acts of love which no man knows about, or
can ever know about--they fail not.
Odd-Fellowship ought to grow. The kinship of the human race--how
beautiful a thought! Without mutual aid the race would perish. Think
of it. Throughout life you are dependent upon your fellow-man. Who
can live without a friend? When you have no money and no home, where,
brothers, will you find food and shelter? When low with fever, the
tongue parched, the brain wandering, who will give you water, bathe
your throbbing temples, and watch over you lest you die? See the old
man. The frosts of seventy winters have whitened his head; his eye is
dim; his limbs tremble; reason and memory fail; he is an infant again.
He goes down to the valley of the shadow of death. Who shall lead him
and comfort his weary soul? Who lay his body gently and reverently in
the grave, and sod it over with green grass? So with us all. A man
alone in the world, without a human being who cares whether he live or
die! Not a hand to touch, nor a voice to hear, nor a smile to receive!
Human affections forever sealed to him; no fireside; no home with
father, mother, brothers, sisters; no little children, no son to be
proud of; no daughters to caress; no "good night;" no "good morning."
Who could bear it? The sun could not warm such a man. The brightest
days and the greenest fields could not give him pleasure. Better chain
him on a rock in mid-ocean and leave him to the vultures, than thus rob
him of his kinship with the human race.
This world is beautiful, and it is full of priceless sympathies. All
creation is glorious with melody. The morning stars, saith the Bible,
sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy when it was
made. The universe of stars, and suns, and planets and globes, swing
harmoniously through space. Not a sparrow falleth to the ground
without our Father's notice; not a soul yearns, or sorrows, or
rejoices, but He knoweth it. He hath made of one blood all nations of
men to dwell together on the face of the earth. We are bound to each
other by indissoluble ties. It is a law of nature that we must all
work for each other. Though ten thousand miles apart; though oceans
roll between us and continents divide us, we labor not for ourselves
alone. You plow the furrow in California and sow the wheat for your
brother in Louisiana, while he plants the cane and cotton for you. The
good Siberian is this day roaming over snows and ice, hunting the otter
and gathering furs, that you may be warm. Men are diving in the
Persian gulf for pearls to grace your wives and daughters. The
silkworm of India and China may have spun the threads of your dress,
the Frenchman may have woven it; the hardy mariner braved the seas to
bring it here. Truly, we are brothers. A common Father brought us all
into this world, and to a common Father we all go. Let us, then, help
one another, in money (if need be), in education, in sympathy.
There is one feature of the order we desire to emphasize, and that is
its full sympathy with those that labor and toil. No reference would
do justice to the order that did not emphasize this fact. It is its
pride and glory. It is from this class its membership is chiefly
drawn. It was with this class it originated, the first lodge in the
United States having been organized by half a dozen humble mechanics;
Thomas Wildey, their leader, was a blacksmith. You see it had no
aristocratic origin, and its broad and catholic sympathy, its
popularity with this class is explained. They know its value, and have
seen its active charity and experienced its beneficence. A man who has
no sympathy with the humble and the lowly, a man of mean and narrow
heart, will find no congenial dwelling place in our lodges. The true
Odd-Fellow is a man of heart; his hand is open to every worthy appeal
of the needy, and he is honest and upright in his life. It enforces no
religious or political tests; in these every member is free; but it
does teach and urge its members to be grateful to their Creator and
loyal to their country. In conclusion, let me urge upon the living,
fidelity to the teachings of Odd-Fellowship. If these are respected it
will make you better citizens, better husbands, better fathers, better
men. It is a cultivation of the heart and the better feelings, and
expands our humanity. If you are poor, it will come to you, or your
family, sometimes as a benefaction. If you are rich, you can afford to
give, and with a good Odd-Fellow that is more blessed than to receive.
I want to say here what I have often said in the lodge-room. I love
Odd-Fellowship, above all, for the heart there is in it. For its
display on the street and its pageantry I care but little. I shrink
from it rather than follow it. But its benevolence, its active
charity, and its mission of good will, I admire. When death's
unwelcome presence rests within our portals, and obedient to his call a
loved one has gone hence, we should give the mortal remains of the
departed brother a decent sepulture; fondly cherish the remembrance of
his virtues, and bury his frailties "beneath the clods which rest upon
his bosom." We should then direct our thoughts and cares to the
desolate home, where the widow, clad in the robes of grief, her heart
cords broken and bleeding, is weeping over earth's only idol, now lost
to earth forever. Then, too, should we extend the helping hand to the
fatherless children, and endeavor to so direct their steps that their
paths may be paths of usefulness and honor. These are the imperative
duties. But our ministrations of charity and benevolence should by no
means be confined exclusively within the pale of the order. This
crowded world, with its eager millions, maddened with ambition's
unquenchable fires, trampling under foot and well-nigh smothering each
other in the great rush of competitive strife, is full of poor
unfortunates, daily appealing for generous sympathy and assistance.
Though not members, it may be, of our peculiar family, yet the poorest,
the humblest, the most wretched, is a human being--"the master-piece of
His handiwork"--and, as such, demands our aid and comfort as far as
practicable. Life has been compared to a river. Aye, and beneath its
murky waters lurk countless reefs and shoals. Many a beautiful bark,
sailing, seemingly, under the very star of hope, dashes upon them, and
is lost. All along its shores are scattered the wrecks of stranded
vessels, once laden with joyous hopes and brilliant prospects.
Odd-Fellowship renders the passage of this river safe by a bridge of
mystic form,
"On one side is friendship planted--
Truth upon the other shore;
Love, the arch that spans the current,
Bears each brother safely o'er."
It should be the most pleasing duty of Odd-Fellows to point our
fellow-travelers to this beautiful and stately arch; to lead
thitherward their weary steps. Such would be assistance more permanent
than can be rendered by silver or gold. The time is certain to come
when every young man is thrown back upon himself--must leave the
tranquil security of the parental home, and seek a refuge among
strangers. When beyond the reach of family influence--beyond the reach
of that tender providence which so carefully guarded him from vice, and
soothed his griefs and sympathized with all his youthful aspirations
and pleasures--when this influence ceases to surround him, what will
continue its ministry of love? What will be to him father, mother,
brother, sister--home? Will society? No! Society to its deepest core
is selfish, corrupt, unnatural and unloving? Society will not, and can
not. He is in the great world--allurements and temptations are rife
around him--he is sick and in distress, and must suffer alone, with no
one to console him with a word of comfort, sympathy, or love; he has no
attention but such as money will purchase--he dies, and the cold eyes
of strangers only look upon the grave, if, indeed, a grave he has.
This is a life picture, and it is at this point the beauty and utility
of Odd-Fellowship is seen, for the order is a vast family circle,
spread throughout the community; always powerful and efficient to
preserve those who are brought within the sphere of its influence. He
who is a member of this fraternity may go where his father's counsel
and his mother's care can not reach him, but he can not go beyond the
reach of that larger family to which he belongs! Silently and
invisibly, yet with unslumbering assiduity, Odd-Fellowship watches over
him, and by its wise counsels, its tender sympathies and rational
restraints, saves him from the ways of vice.
Mythic story tells us that the ancient gods invisibly and secretly
followed their favorites in all their wanderings, and when exposed to
danger, or threatened with destruction, would unveil themselves in
their awful beauty and power, and stand forth to preserve them from
harm or to avenge their wrongs. Odd-Fellowship realizes this myth of
the pagan gods; she surrounds all her children with her preserving
presence, and reveals herself always in the hour of peril, sickness or
distress. Nowhere in our country can a true Odd-Fellow feel himself
alone, friendless or forsaken. The invisible, but helpful arms of our
order surround him wherever he may be. And should he be overtaken by
illness or misfortune, be he in any part of the country, and never so
poor, he will, if he makes his wants known, receive as a right the
necessary assistance, and friends to watch over him with fraternal
solicitude. And should he fall a victim to disease, the brothers of
charity will be there to close his eyes, and with solemn, yet hopeful,
heaven-born rites, consign his body to the repose of the silent tomb.
Odd-Fellowship is an embodiment of family love and affection, and is
the only substitute for home influence, and the only green spot in the
dreary waste of life which binds these brothers to the tender practice
of every virtue--guides in prosperity and health, and as a ministering
angel bends over them with tenderest pity in their chamber of
suffering. True, there are sorrows which it can not reach--there are
griefs which it can not remove; notwithstanding, it still pursues its
way, imparts its healthful influence, and accomplishes its beautiful
and holy ministry of benevolence and charity. If it can not heal the
wounds of misfortune, it administers the balm of sympathy, friendship
and love. My dear reader, learn to give encouragement to those around
you.
Everybody feels the need of encouragement, from the humblest artisan to
the king on his throne. We hear of the choice spirits who have been
the world's idols, how they came up through terrible trials alone and
almost unaided, setting aside obstacles that would have crushed others,
and fighting their way to the very pinnacle of fame. Aye! but great as
they were, they needed and received encouragement. In some part of
their poor home they saw the smile that spoke the hearty appreciation
of the genius, though, perhaps, the lips said nothing. Even West left
on record, "my mother's smile made me a painter." The encouragement of
a little child will send the blood more warmly to the heart, and even
the appreciation of a poor dumb brute is worth its gaining. Give
encouragement. Everybody needs it--men, women and even children. Oh!
how many a dear little heart has been chilled into ice when the coarse
laugh has greeted its rude hieroglyphics in the first attempt to
portray its ideal. The child sees warm visions of sunlight and beauty
in those uncouth angles. Whole minds of thought lie concealed under
those strange shapes. To the young mind's eye they are wonders, and
the tiny fingers have built monuments that deserve not to be thrown
down so rudely, when a smile that costs nothing would have left them
standing to be finished into finer shape and more classical proportions
in the years that are to come. You do a positive injury to the dullest
child when you reward his little efforts with contempt. It is a wrong
that can never be repaired, for the disheartment that strikes the happy
spirit, flushed with the consciousness of having achieved something new
and great, comes up in after time with the very same vividness at every
trivial disappointment. Give encouragement. You men of business, who
know so well what a good, hearty "go ahead," coupled with a frank,
merry face, will do in your own case--give encouragement to the young
beginner, who starts nervously at the bottom of the race, and who,
though he may put a bold outside on, quakes at the center of his being
with the dread that among so many competitors he shall always be left
in the rear. Hold out your hand to him as if you thought the world was
really large enough for two, and bid him God-speed. Tell him to come
to you if he feels the need of a friend to advise with him. Don't
emulate your sign in overshadowing him. Out upon these mean, cringing
souls who would grudge God's sunlight if it shone upon a piece of
merchandise as good as their own. They are poor, barren wretches, who
plow furrows only in their own cheeks, and plant wrinkles on their
brows. Above all things, if you have any tenderness or compassion,
encourage your pastor, your physician, and your editor. Suppose, once
in a while, they do, in expressing their own honest views, say
something that conflicts a little with your own starved or plethoric
notions. Suppose they do dare to tell you the truth sometimes in a way
that makes you cringe, and you say to yourself, "he has no business to
be personal," when the poor man never thought that his homely coats
would fit; don't grow cold, and cast sheep's eyes, and nudge somebody's
elbow in a corner, and whisper all around, and say complacently, "Yes,
Brother A. is a good man--but--"
Those "buts" and "ifs" ought to be christened intellectual revolvers,
for they kill more reputations than any other two words in the English
language. We have known instances where pastors and editors and others
have felt weary of living, from having to encounter the spirit of
discouragement among their brethren; and oh! how many wives, husbands
and children, are dying deaths daily from this same prolific source of
suffering. Give encouragement, then, wherever and whenever you can,
and you will find that you have not lived in vain. If God blesses
those who offer but a cup of cold water in charity, how much more will
He regard the kind heart that has refreshed a weary spirit fainting by
the way. Death quickens recollections painfully. The grave can not
hide the white faces of those who sleep. The coffin and the green
mound are cruel magnets. They draw us farther than we would go. They
force us to remember. A man never sees so far into human life as when
he looks over a wife's or mother's grave. His eyes get wondrous clear
then, and he sees as never before what it is to love and to be loved;
what it is to injure the feelings of the loved.
Let us deal gently with those around us. Remember every day a flower
is plucked from some sunny home; a breach made in some happy circle; a
jewel stolen from some treasury of love; each day from summer fields of
life some harvester disappears--yea, every hour some sentinel falls
from his post and is thrown from the ramparts of time into the surging
waters of eternity. Even as I write, the funeral of one who died
yesterday winds like a winter shadow along some silent street. Daily,
when we rise from the bivouac to stand at our posts, we miss some
brother soldier whose cheering cry in the sieges and struggles of the
past has been as fire from heaven upon our hearts. Each day some pearl
drops from the jeweled thread of friendship--some harp to which we have
listened has been hushed forever. Love, however, annihilates death
even; blots away all record of time and creates the world it lives in;
conjures back arms to embrace, lips to kiss, and eyes to smile,
whispers its own praises and breathes its own names of endearment.
Thus, love maketh the light to our dreams and planteth hope in the
midst of our sorrow. In darkness and in danger, too, love cometh to us
ever, ever, now warning, now chiding, now blessing, and always safely
guarding. Love lightens labor, shortens distance and quickens time.
Love teaches us to forgive, helps us to forget and whitens the memory
of all things. Love paints every hope, brightens every scene and
maketh beautiful whatsoever it shines on. Love is wisdom. Love is
high. Love is holy. Love is God. Love gloweth in the hearts of the
angels, wreathes the smiles on their brows and melts the kisses on
their lips. Love is the light of the beautiful beyond.