Part 2 (2/2)
as He laid down Himself, all through life, and upon the Cross of Calvary; and you must love Him. And loving Him, you must become like Him. Love begets love. It is a process of induction. Put a piece of Iron in the presence of an electrified body, and that piece of iron for a time becomes electrified. It is changed into a temporary magnet in the mere presence of a permanent magnet, and as long as you leave the two side by side, they are both magnets alike. Remain side by side with Him who loved us, and
Gave himself for us,
and you, too, will become a permanent magnet, a permanently attractive force; and like Him you will draw all men unto you, like Him you will be drawn unto all men. that is the inevitable effect of Love.
Any man who fulfills that cause must have that effect produced in him.
Try to give up the idea that religion comes to us by chance, or by mystery, or by caprice. It comes to us by natural law, or by supernatural law, for all law is Divine.
Edward Irving went to see a dying boy once, and when he entered the room he just put his hand on the sufferer's head, and said, ”My boy, G.o.d loves you,” and went away. The boy started from his bed, and called out to the people in the house,
”G.o.d loves me! G.o.d loves me!”
One word! It changed that boy. The sense that G.o.d loved him overpowered him, melted him down, and began the creating of a new heart in him. And that is how the love of G.o.d melts down the unlovely heart in man, and begets in him the new creature, who is patient and humble and gentle and unselfish. And there is no other way to get it. There is no mystery about it. We love others, we love everybody, we love our enemies, BECAUSE HE FIRST LOVED US.
III. The Defence.
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, pa.s.sing 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d. 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 pa.s.sed since tongues have been known in this world. They have ceased. Take it in any sense you like. Take it, for ill.u.s.tration 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 d.i.c.kens' works, his ”Pickwick Papers.” It is largely written in the language of London street-life; and experts a.s.sure 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 by 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 encyclopaedias 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 pa.s.sing 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; not 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 choloform.
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 gla.s.s 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 ”pa.s.seth 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
It will not last.
<script>