A LIFE OF LOVE

We have told you that the Christian life is a life of prayer, -- a life, guided by the Bible, and a life of OBEDIENCE. In this chapter we wish to teach you that a Christian life is most emphatically A LIFE OF LOVE.

Jesus so felt the importance of this truth that, just before he died for us, he said to his disciples, "A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another" (John 13:34). John, the beloved disciple, thought over this great lesson of his Master, and it so impressed him that he wrote to the world: "Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is love. . . . Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another! If we love one another, God dwelleth in us" (I John 4:7, 8, II, 12). The dear apostle Paul thought about it until his mind was so full of the importance of love that he exclaimed, "Love worketh no ill to his neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law."

Every boy and girl can see from these passages of Scripture that one can not lead a Christian life without having a heart so full of love that it controls the whole life. Now, some child may ask:

I. What is love? We will answer: It is a state of heart created by the grace of God, that delights in God, and delights to do good to all for whom he died. The apostle Paul gave us the best description of love in the entire Word of God, "Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself; is not puffed up; doth not behave itself unseemly; seeketh not its own; is not provoked; taketh not account of evil; rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth; beareth all things; believeth all things; endureth all things. Love never faileth" (1 Cor. 13:4-8).

Let us go over these beautiful words step by step.

1. "Love suffereth long." That means patience, especially in trial and under the ill-treatment of others. It is not hasty, and does not burst out in a fit of passion and resentment when wronged. It is meek and forbearing. I know a Christian boy who was one day struck in the face by another boy, and he did not strike back, but endured it meekly for Christ's sake. That is the way Jesus did. When wicked men were mocking his dying agonies, he prayed, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" Luke 23:34). When wicked men were stoning Deacon Stephen to death, he prayed, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge" (Acts 7:6o). Only love, born of the grace of God, could have enabled him to thus "suffer long."

2. "Love is kind." In all its dealings with the worthy or the unworthy, the unfortunate or the poor, love will be kind. Love will not make fun of a black boy because he is black, nor of a Chinese because he is yellow, nor of the little girl who has a scar on her face or an impediment in her speech, or who is lame, or deformed, or poor. Such behavior is cruel; but love is kind and full of sympathy.

3. "Love envieth not." If some other girl has a better voice to sing than you have -- if you love as you ought, you will not envy her. Love is not grieved at the prosperity of others; does not envy them their success; does not grieve because some one else lives in a better home, or has better clothes, or has some other superior gifts or blessings. Envy repines and gnaws away at its own happiness, and feeds upon its own bitterness, while love rejoices in the gifts and blessings of others. This is generosity -- love in competition with others who may excel. Envy is a mean, unworthy mood, always ready to cloud the heart that is not full of love.

4. "Love vaunteth not itself." Love begets humility. It performs its beautiful deeds, but leaves others to talk about them, without self-praise or boasting. "Love hides even from itself." The stalks of wheat that contain the greatest number of beautiful grains hang their heads the lowest. The wisest of all the philosophers made this profession: "This I know, that I know nothing." Moses lived in such intimate communion with God that the Divine glory shone out through his face till men could not look upon it; but in his humility "he wist not that the skin of his face shone." Paul was the greatest man of the Christian ages; but he declared himself to be unworthy to be called an apostle. Five years later he cried out, "I am less than the least of all the saints." And just before his martyrdom, when he was ripe for glory, because he had once persecuted Christians he exclaimed, "I am the chief of sinners." It was love that made these holy souls so humble.

5. "Love doth not behave itself unseemly." This is courtesy or love in society. Love in the heart gives the only true politeness, which can not be learned from books of etiquette. The politeness of the world is simply a thing of form and outward behavior, that bows. according to rule, and wears a deceitful smile when there is inward heartlessness and perhaps hatred. True politeness is gentleness of heart toward all. Love prompts to due respect for the aged and those in authority, and a kind regard for the rights of all. Love behaves becomingly in all the relations of life. It is love in little things.

6. "Seeketh not its own." This is unselfishness in association with others, which yields its own rights and sacrifices itself for the good of others. It does not try to get the best end of every bargain. Love in the heart of a boy will not lead him to claim the most comfortable chair at the fireside or the nicest delicacy at the table. Love in the girl's heart will lead her to seek her mother's ease and comfort instead of her own. It puts the sister or the schoolmate before self in all the plans and calculations. Drummond observes: "The most obvious lesson in Christ's teaching is that there is no happiness in having and getting anything, but only in giving."

"It is more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20:35). No one is a Christian who has not that self-denying love that is willing to sacrifice for the good of others. That is the only spirit that can save the world. A poor little girl in the Fourth Ward, New York, as she was dying, said: "I am glad I am going to die, because now my brothers and sisters will have more to eat." "Love seeketh not her own."

7."Love is not provoked." This means that love preserves a good temper. O, the wrong we do and the grief we make by bad temper, by the heat of sudden passion, that sends out hot words like lightning-bolts to fall upon quivering, smitten hearts! "No form of vice, not worldliness, not greed of gold, not drunkenness itself, does more to unChristianize society than evil temper." Dear boys and girls, only the sanctifying grace of God can take the evil temper and touchy disposition out of you, and fill you with such Divine love that you will have a calm and gentle spirit. Nothing else would glorify your Savior more.

8. "Love thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth." In other words, love is unsuspicious, is very slow to believe anything bad of others, and much slower still to tell it with a zest, and SO tear down another's good name. "It refuses to make capital out of others' faults, and rejoiceth even when an enemy turns out better than he was reported to be. O, how beautiful is this love that

9. "Believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things, and never faileth." It puts the best construction upon the action of others, tries to think others are innocent until proved guilty, hopes suspicious appearances will turn out to be all right, bears all that must be borne without complaint, and never fails. This is love, the spirit and mind of Christ. "And every one that loveth is born of God" (I John 4:7). The boys and girls who have this spirit have within their own breasts a constant proof that they are the children of God and the followers of Jesus. And, also, those who do not admire this spirit, and try to cultivate it, may know certainly that they are not yet converted and have not become the followers of Christ.

II. Some thoughtful boy asks: "How may we cultivate this spirit of love so that it may be a greater power in our lives?" I will mention three ways: The poet Southey tells a tender story of a lady engaged to be married to a man who usually traveled by the coach to visit her. Going one day to meet him, she found, instead of him, an old friend, dispatched to tell her of her. lover's sudden death. She screamed out, "He is not dead!" then her reason fled, and she lost all consciousness of her affliction. But from that fatal day, for fifty years, in all seasons and in all weathers, she daily traversed the distance to the place where she expected to meet her lover from the passing coach, and every day she said, in a plaintive tone, "He is not come yet. I will return tomorrow." And every tomorrow found her there. What kept the poor creature steady against all the disappointments of fifty years? What could keep her but a mighty love? A steady love will make a steady Christian. But you ask, "I do not have such a love, and how can I get it?"

Well, then, remember first, that real love is careful about little things. Here is a close question: Are you not indulging yourself in little sins that a real love for Jesus ought to consume out of your life? Remember the least thing that God forbids hurts the heart of Christ. Yet you, perhaps, are clinging to such things. You do not abandon them and make a perfect consecration to the Lord to surrender even the doubtful things. O, do it, and put out everything evil, and ask Jesus to come in and fill you with himself! You will be surprised to find how wondrously the Lord will take up his abode in you; how strongly and steadily he will cause your love to glow; how easy, unhindered, quietly constant your life will be. Second. Make Christ your ideal and example. Drummond was converted when young, and became one of the most lovable of Christian men. He told us how he developed such a character: "My hidden ideals .of what is beautiful I have drawn from Christ. My thoughts of. what is manly and noble and pure have almost all of them arisen from the Lord Jesus Christ. Many men have educated themselves by reading Plutarch's Lives of the Ancient Worthies, and they have felt the great power of these men on themselves. Now, I do not perceive that poet, or philosopher, or reformer, or general, or. any other great man ever has dwelt in my imagination and in my thought as the simple Jesus has. For more than twenty-five years I instinctively have gone to Christ to draw a measure and a rule for everything. Whenever there has been a necessity for it I have sought -- and, at last, almost spontaneously -- to throw myself into the companionship of Christ; and early, by my imagination, I could see him standing and looking quietly and lovingly upon me. There seemed almost to drop from his face an influence that suggested what was the right thing in the controlling of passion, in the subduing of pride, in the overcoming of selfishness. It is from Christ, manifested to my inward eye, that I have consciously derived more ideals, more models, more influences, than from any human character whatever."

Dear boys and girls, study the life of Jesus in this way: fill your thought and imagination with him, and then do as you think Jesus would do in your place, and as you think he would like to have you do.

Lastly, love will grow by use. All life is a schoolroom, and a thousand times daily you have an Opportunity to practice love. You boys know that you get skill in playing ball by practice, and get strength to lift by practice in lifting, and get skill as a penman or a mechanic by practice. The girls well know that they acquire skill in housework, or sewing, or music, or drawing, by constant practice. In precisely the same way you develop your power to love by asking God to give you the spirit of love, and then by putting the love he gives you into practice.

This, then, is the way to have love. Give up all the little faults that grieve God, and ask the Holy Spirit to fill you with love. Then look upon Christ in meditation and study and prayer till he fills your imagination and mind and heart with himself. Then practice the Christ spirit of love: "We love because he first loved us" (1 John 4:19). Contemplate the love of Christ and you will love. And practice, or the exercise of love, will make you love more and more.

III. Some boy or girl may ask, "What benefit will come to us from this spirit of love? Much, every way: First, it will fit you for the society of God and heaven. God is love, and heaven is a realm of love, and only loving souls can ever enter heaven and dwell with God.

Furthermore, love will be a key to unlock the hearts of others, and make them open to your influence. The great Dr. Doddridge one day asked his little daughter: "Mary, what makes everybody love you?" "I know not," said she, "unless it be that I love everybody." That was exactly the reason. Love creates and wins love. Millions today would die for Jesus because Jesus loved the millions as no other ever did, and died for them. Moody says: "In Chicago, a few years ago, there was a little boy who went to one of the mission Sabbath-schools. His father moved to another part of the city, five miles away, but every Sabbath that boy came past thirty Sabbath-schools to the one he attended. One day a lady, who was out collecting scholars for a Sabbath-school, asked him why he went so far. She said: "There are plenty of other schools just as good." "'They may be as good," he said, "but not so good for me." "Why not?" she asked. "Because they love a fellow over there," he answered. Ah, love won him! How easy it is to reach people through love!

When everything else fails, the most lost 'and abandoned sinners are reached by love. A poor drunkard had an only daughter whom he abused shamefully; but she clung to him with undying affection. One day, awaking from a drunken debauch, he said: "Millie, what makes you stay with me?" '"Because you are my father, and I love you." "You love me," repeated the wretched man; "you love me." He looked at his bloated limbs and his ragged clothes. "Love me," he still murmured. "Millie, what makes you love me? I am a poor drunkard; everybody else despises me; why don't you?" "Dear father," said the girl, with tearful eyes, "my mother taught me to love you, and every night she comes from heaven and stands by my little bed, and says: 'Millie, don't leave your father; he will get away from that rum-fiend some of these days, and then how happy you will be!'" He did get away from the rum-fiend. Millie's love won him back to manhood again. A young English sailor committed a theft in a drunken frolic, and was sentenced to transportation to Australia. He became utterly embittered against society, and resolved to avenge himself by giving his keepers all the trouble he could. He achieved the reputation of being the worst convict ever known in the colonies, and received more lashes, in a given time, than any previous prisoner.. He was at last chained on a rock, off the harbor of Sydney, for two years. So savage had he become that his keepers dared not go within his reach, even when bringing him food, but handed it to 'him at the end of a long pole. He became one of the sights of Sydney, and people would go in boats to stare at this human monster, and would throw him cakes and fruits as to beasts in a menagerie. This man was sent to Maconochie. On his arrival at Norfolk Island, he was placed at the task of subduing some untamed cattle. The new sense of useful power awakened in him the consciousness of manhood. This task achieved, other works were found for him, and it became difficult to keep him in occupation. A signal station was established, and he was put in charge of it. He had a neat cottage for his home, with a garden attached. He sent the first of everything his garden yielded to his friend and savior. When the Governor-General of Australia visited the settlement, he noticed this bright, active fellow, and asked who he was. Maconochie inquired if he remembered the convict chained to the rock in Sydney Harbor? "Perfectly well," he answered. "That 's the man," said Maconochie. "Bless my soul," said the astonished Governor-General, "what have you done to him?" "Nothing," was the quiet reply, "except to treat him with love as a human being, a brother man." Love had conquered the monster, and made him again a man. Dear children, love, LOVE, LOVE, as Christ did, This wicked world is lost till love redeems it. Hearts are sighing and breaking and dying for love. Love others, all others, and you will be like your Savior.

 QUESTIONS

1. What was Jesus' 'new commandment?
2. What is love?
3. Is it essential to a Christian life?
4. Is love patient and kind?
5. Is love envious and proud and boastful?
6. Does love behave rudely?
7. Is love selfish?
8. Does love like to get angry and say cruel words?
9. How may we cultivate love? In what three ways?
10. Of what use is love?

Sing: "Perfect Assurance," and "O how I love Jesus."