CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
 3 1924 091 024 707 
 
In compliance with current 
 copyright law, Cornell University 
 
 Library produced this 
 replacement volume on paper 
 that meets the ANSI Standard 
 
 Z39.48-1992 to replace the 
 irreparably deteriorated original. 
 
 2001 
 
CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 

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THE GREATEST THING 
 
 IN 
 
 THE WORLD 
 
 BY 
 
 (ENRY DRUMMOND, F.R.S.E., F.G.S. 
 
 
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 JAMES POTT & COMPANY, Publishers 
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HIS address, delivered to a large body of Stu- 
 dents at Northfield, Mass., has found its way 
 into several foreign languages. It is now published 
 in English, corrected from the original stenogra- 
 pher's report, by request, and is the only Author- 
 ized Edition. 
 
 James Pott & Cgimpany. 
 
 ^^«:::3t: 
 
^P^HOUGH-I ^peak with the tongues of men 
 JS^3rn6r-oi a-ii^elsj and have not Love, I am 
 
 '/idv" .""become" as sounding brass, or a tinkling 
 '' ' I ' I ' cymbal. And though I have tliu gift of ^Sm 
 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. 
 
 Voo M 
 
 
 m 
 
4 A^-'S^vJ 
 
 tove vaunteth not ilself, is not puffed U] 
 I Doth not behave itself unseemly, 
 
 Seeketh not hex own, 
 Is not easily provoked, 
 //■^ ' , Tiiinketh no evil ; 
 
 ;.;il!, jiRejoicethnoJ^in iniquity, but rejoicetb in 
 
 i '„ ,,. ■ ^"^ '™'''' 
 
 ■V9''';'-\'^B4arfrth all things, believeth all things 
 
 ■yyjJ^iiKk b1\, things, believeth 
 'r'':Hf';''lf|:;!Ji^lWpeth pU things. 
 
 
 
 ^: 
 
( 
 
 
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 ,. ,^,,, , / 1 I T OVK iK-vur faik'lli : lull v.'Ik'IIrt ilii'i-c bL- |>ro|.|ie- 
 
 V' ^"■'■'11/ ( -I—' cic-s, Uiuy sluill fail ; u IitIIrt lliere bu loiiLjues, 
 
 -;■';■;-■'?■' ('1 J ttasy sliall ct.'a>.o ; wlii'llirr ilifrr be knuwIcilLjc, it 
 
 /l/ shall vanish away, Vi,t wu kimw in purl, ami we 
 
 (.i'' pi-ophcs\' in ^tait. liui ali^n [ha! which In perfect 
 
 ^ 1 
 
 
 ;# 
 
 is collie, then thai winch is iir pari shall he done 
 away. yVhen I v.as ■ c'l:ihl, 1 spak-as a child, [ 
 Under^od as a child, 1 Jioaijh; - a 'hild ; bul when 
 wav ■■'\l"Ush. ihiiii.;-. Kit 
 
 ;\ '< '^^jf.'Zl I/I b'Came a man, I put away ■■".rush, lliirn,;-. l-i 
 
 /' I '■■"''.>-\ 'Kiy!'' "iv<v we see througli a glass, d:.>i';ly : Tan 'Vii fat 
 ■ •■■■■A /I Hi' !■ '" f^ce : now f know in part ; but tlnn slioll I kno 
 
 ill/ 
 
 iveji as also I am known- An<l lltw ab.dtth f "th, 
 
 i.'l' thope, Love, these three; but the greatest ■■ •the'se i- 
 
 ;' Love. — I Cur. xiii. 
 
 W,- 
 
 
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 ^^ iS^'> ^^J^ jjjyERYONE has asked himself the 
 
 ,r 7*y// 
 
 pm'HM^il I ^ 
 
 great question of antiquity as 
 \' '^'" -^ ' of the modern world; What is 
 
 the sumnniin boniun — the supreme good ? You have 
 life before you. Once only you can live it. What is 
 the noblest object of desire, the supreme gift \.o covet? 
 We have been accustomed to be told that the great- 
 est thing in the relicjious world is Faith. That great 
 word has been the key-note for centuries of the popu- 
 
10 THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 
 
 lar religion; and ^vc have easily learned to look 
 upon it as the greatest thing in the world. Well, 
 we are wrong. If we have been told that, we may 
 miss the mark. I have taken you, in the chapter 
 which I have just read, to Christianity at its source ; 
 and there we have seen, " The greatest of these is 
 love." It is not an oversight. Paul was speaking 
 of faith just a moment before. He says, " If I have 
 all faith, so that I can remove mountains, and have 
 not love, I am nothing." So far from forgetting he 
 deliberately contrasts them, " Now abideth Faith, 
 Hope, Love," and without a moment's hesitation the 
 decision falls, " The greatest of these is Love." 
 
 And it is not prejudice. A man is apt to recom- 
 mend to others his own strong point. Love was not 
 Paul's strong point. The observing student can de- 
 tect a beautiful tenderness growing and ripening all 
 through his character as Paul gets old ; but the hand 
 that wrote, " The greatest of these is love," when we 
 meet it first, is stained with blood. 
 
THE GREA TEST THING IN THE WORLD. I I 
 
 Nor is this letter to the Corinthians peculiar in 
 singling out love as the sunimum bonum. ■ The mas- 
 terpieces of Christianity are agreed about it. Peter 
 says, " Above all things have fervent love among 
 yourselves." Above all things. And John goes far- 
 ther, " God is love." And you remember the pro- 
 found remark which Paul makes elsewhere, " Love is 
 the fulfilling of the law." Did you ever think what 
 he meant by that ? In those days men were working 
 their passage to Heaven by keeping the Ten Com- 
 mandments, and the hundred and ten other command- 
 ments which they had manufactured out of them. 
 Christ said, I will show you a more simple way. If 
 you do one thing, you will do these hundred and ten 
 things, without ever thinking about them. If you 
 love, you will unconsciously fulfil- the whole law. 
 And you can readily see for yourselves how that must 
 be so. Take any of the commandments. " Thou 
 shaft have no other gods before Me." If a man love 
 God, you will not require to tell him that. Love is the 
 
12 THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 
 
 fulfilling of that law. " Take not His name in vain." 
 Would he ever dream of taking His name in vain if He 
 loved Him ? " Remember the Sabbath day to keep it 
 holy." Would he not be too glad to have one day in 
 seven to dedicate more exclusively to the object of his 
 affection? Love would fulfil all these laws regarding 
 God. And so, if he loved Man, you would never think 
 of telling him to honour his father and mother. He 
 could not do anything else. It would be preposterous 
 to tell him not to kill. You could only insult him if 
 you suggested that he should not steal — how could he 
 steal from those he loved? It would be superfluous to 
 beg him not to bear false witness against his neighbor. 
 If he loved him it would be the last thing he would 
 do. And you would never dream of urging him not to 
 covet what his neighbors had. He would rather they 
 possessed it than himself. In this way " Love is the 
 fulfilling of the law." It is the rule for fulfilling all 
 rules, the new commandment for keeping all the old 
 commandments, Christ's one secret of the Christian life. 
 
THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 
 
 13 
 
 Now Paul had learned that ; and in this noble 
 eulogy he has given us the most wonderful and orig- 
 inal account extant of the siimiiinvi bomiui. We may 
 divide it into three parts. In the beginning of the 
 short chapter, we have Love contrasted ; in the heart of 
 it, -^ve have Love analysed ; to^vards the end, we have 
 Love defended as the supreme gift. 
 
 
 

 ■?3?^S5ia3 
 
 "^Sm, 
 
 *"' ■ AUL begins by contrasting 
 Love with other things that 
 men in those days thought much 
 of. I shall not attempt to go over those things in 
 detail. Their inferiority is already obvious. 
 
 He contrasts it with eloquence. And what a noble 
 gift it is, the power of playing upon the souls and ivills 
 of men, and rousing them to lofty purposes and holy 
 deeds. Paul says, " If 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 \ve all 
 
THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 15 
 
 know why. We have all felt the brazenness of words 
 without emotion, the hollowness, the unaccountable 
 unpersuasiveness of eloquence behind which lies no 
 Love. 
 
 He contrasts it with prophecy. He contrasts it with 
 mysteries. He contrasts it with faith. He contrasts 
 it with charity. Why is Love greater than faith .'' Be- 
 cause the end is greater than the means. And why is 
 it greater than charity? Because the whole is greater 
 than the part. Love is greater than faith, because the 
 end is greater than the means. What is the use of 
 having faith? It is to connect the soul with God. 
 And what is the object of connecting man with God ? 
 That he may become like God. But God is Love. 
 Hence Faith, the means, is in order to Love, the end. 
 Love, therefore, obviously is greater than faith. It is 
 greater than charity, again, because the whole is greater 
 than a part. Charity is only a little bit of Love, one 
 of the innumerable avenues of Love, and there may 
 even be, and there is, a great deal of charity without 
 
l6 THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 
 
 Love. It is a very easy thing to toss a copper to a 
 beggar on the street ; it is generally an easier thing 
 than not to do it. Yet Love is just as often in the 
 withholding. We purchase relief from the sympathetic 
 feelings roused by the spectacle of misery, at the cop- 
 per's cost. It is too cheap — too cheap for us, and 
 often too dear for the beggar. If we really loved him 
 we would either do more for him, or less. 
 
 Then Paul contrasts it with sacrifice and martyr- 
 dom. And I beg the little band of would-be mis- 
 sionaries — and I have the honour to call some of 
 you by this name for the first time — to remember 
 that though you give your bodies to be burned, and 
 have not Love, it profits nothing — nothing ! You 
 can take nothing greater to the heathen world than 
 the impress and reflection of the Love of God upon 
 your own character. That is the universal language. 
 It will take you years to speak in Chinese, or in 
 the dialects of India. From the day you land, that 
 language of Love, understood by all, will be pouring 
 
THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 1/ 
 
 forth its unconscious eloquence. It is tlie man who 
 is the missionary, it is not his words. His charac- 
 ter is his message. In the heart of Africa, among 
 the great Lal<es, I have come across black men and 
 women who remembered tlie only white man they 
 ever saw before — David Livingstone ; and as you cross 
 his footsteps in that dark continent, men's faces 
 light up as they speak of the kind Doctor who 
 passed there years ago. They could not understand 
 him ; but they felt the Love that beat in his heart. 
 Take into your new sphere of labour, where \'ou 
 also mean to lay down your life, that simple charm, 
 and your life work must succeed. You can take 
 nothing greater, you need take nothing less. It is 
 not worth while going if you take anything less. 
 You may take every accomplishment ; you may be 
 braced for every sacrifice ; but if you give your body 
 to be burned, and have not Love, it will profit you 
 and the cause of Christ nothing. 
 

 ii^* tl^ i///' '^'^ 
 
 
 ^^'B- 
 
 
 ?^ FTER contrasting Love with these 
 things, Paul, in three verses, very 
 short, gives us an amazing analy- 
 sis of what this supreme thing is. 
 I ask you to look at it. It is a compound thing, 
 he tells us. It is like light. As you have seen 
 a man of science take a beam of light and pass it 
 through a crystal prism, as you have seen it come 
 out on the other side of the prism broken up into 
 its component colors— red, and blue, and yellow, and 
 violet, aui! orange, and all the colors of the rain- 
 
THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 1 9 
 
 bow — SO Paul passes this thing, Love, through the 
 magnificent prism of his inspired intellect, and it comes 
 out on the other side broken up into its elements. 
 And in these few words we have what one might call 
 the Spectrum of Love, the analysis of Love. Will you 
 observe what its elements are? Will you notice that 
 they have common names ; that they are- virtues which 
 we hear about every day ; that they are things which 
 can be practised by every man in every place in life; 
 and how, by a multitude of small things and ordinary 
 virtues, the supreme thing, the summum bonum, is 
 made up ? 
 
 The Spectrum of Love has nine ingredients : — 
 
 Patience . . " Love suffereth long." 
 
 Kindness . . " And is kind." 
 
 Generosity . . " Love erivieth not." . 
 
 Humility ., . " Love vaunteth not , itself, is not 
 
 .puffed up." 
 Courtesy . . " Doth not behave itself unseemly." 
 
20 THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 
 
 Unselfishness . " Seeketh not her own." 
 Good Temper . " Is not easily provoked." 
 Guilelessness . " Thinketh no evil." 
 Sincerity . . " Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoic- 
 eth in the truth." 
 
 Patience; kindness; generosity; humility; courtesy; 
 unselfishness ; good temper ; guilelessness ; sincerity — 
 these make up the supreme gift, the stature of the per- 
 fect man. You will observe that all are in relation to 
 men, in relation to life, in relation to the known to-day 
 and the near to-morrow, and not to the unknown eter- 
 nity. We hear much of love to God ; Christ spoke 
 much of love to man. We make a great deal of peace 
 with heaven ; Christ made much of peace on earth. 
 Religion is not a strange or added thing, but the 
 inspiration of the secular life, the breathing of an 
 eternal spirit through this temporal world. The su- 
 preme thing, in short, is not a thing at all, but the 
 giving of a further finish to the multitudinous words 
 
. THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 21 
 
 and acts which make up the sum of every common 
 day. 
 
 There is no time to do more than make a passing 
 note upon each of these ingredients. Love is Patience. 
 This is the normal attitude of Love ; Love passive, 
 Love waiting to begin ; not in a hurry ; calm ; ready to 
 do its work when the summons comes, but meantime 
 wearing the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit. 
 Love suffers long ; beareth all things ; believeth all 
 things ; hopeth all things. For Love understands, and 
 therefore waits. 
 
 Kindness. Love active. Have you ever noticed 
 how much of Christ's life was spent in doing kind 
 things — in merely doing kind things ? Run over it 
 with that in view, and you will find that He spent a 
 great proportion of His time simply in making people 
 happy, in doing good turns 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 
 
32 THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 
 
 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 superabun- 
 dantly it pays itself back — for there is no debtor in the 
 world so honourable, so superbly honourable as Love. 
 " Love never faileth." Love is success, Love is happi- 
 ness. 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. With- 
 
■ THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 2T, 
 
 out distinction, without calculation, without procrasti- 
 nation, 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 neg- 
 lect 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 covetous- 
 ness and detraction. How little Christian work even is 
 
24 THE GREATEST THING IJV THE WORLD. 
 
 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." 
 
 The fifth ingredient is a somewhat strange one to 
 find in this summuni bonum : Courtesy. This is Love in 
 society. Love in relation to etiquette. " Love doth not 
 behave itself unseemly." Politeness has been defined 
 as love in trifles. Courtesy is said to be love in little 
 
THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 25 
 
 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 heart, they will 
 not behave themselves unseemly. They simply cannot 
 do it. Carlyle 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. And 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 un- 
 seemly." 
 
26 THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 
 
 Unselfishness. "Love seeketh not her own." Ob- 
 serve: 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 exer- 
 cise even the higher right of giving up his rights. Yet 
 Paul does not summon us to give up our rights. Love 
 strikes much deeper. It would have us not seek them 
 at all, ignore them, eliminate the personal element alto- 
 gether from our calculations. It is not hard to give 
 up our rights. They are often external. The difficult 
 thing is to give up ourselves. The more difficult thing 
 still is not to seek things for ourselves at all. After we 
 have sought them, bought them, won them, deserved 
 them, we have taken the cream off them for ourselves 
 already. Little cross then perhaps to give them up. 
 But not to 3eek them, to look every man not on his 
 own things, but on the things of others — id opus est. 
 " Seekest thou great things for thyself ? " said the 
 prophet ; " seek them not." Why ? Because there is 
 no greatness in things. Things cannot be great. The 
 
THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 2/ 
 
 only greatness is unselfish love. Even self-denial in 
 itself is nothing, is almost a mistake. Only a great 
 purpose or a mightier love can justify the waste. It is 
 more difficult, I have said, not to seek our own at all, 
 than, having sought it, to give it up. I must take that 
 back. It is only true of a partly selfish heart. Noth- 
 ing is a hardship to Love, and nothing is hard. I 
 believe that Christ's yoke is easy. Christ's " yoke " 
 is just His way of taking life. And I believe it is an 
 easier way than any other. I believe it is a happier 
 way than any other. The most obvious lesson in 
 Christ's teaching is that there is no happiness in having 
 and getting anything, but only in giving. I repeat, 
 there is no happiness in having or in getting, but only in 
 giving. And half the world is on the wrong scent in 
 the pursuit of happiness. They think it consists in 
 having and getting, and in being served by others. It 
 consists in giving, and in serving others. He that 
 would be great among you, said Christ, let him serve. 
 He that would be happy, let him remember that there 
 
28 THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 
 
 is but one way — it is more blessed, it is more happy, to 
 give than to receive. 
 
 The next ingredient is a very remarkable one : Good 
 Temper. " Love is not easily provoked." Nothing 
 could be more striking than to find this here. We are 
 inclined to look upon bad temper as a very harmless 
 weakness. We speak of it as a mere infirmity of nat- 
 ure, a family failing, a matter of temperament, not a 
 thing to take into very serious account in estimating a 
 man's character. And yet here, right in the heart of 
 this analysis of love, it finds a place ; and the Bible 
 again and again returns to condemn it as one of the 
 most destructive elements in human nature. 
 
 The peculiarity of ill temper is that it is the vice of 
 the virtuous. It is often the one blot on an otherwise 
 noble character. You know men who are all but per- 
 fect, and women who would be entirely perfect, but for 
 an easily ruffled, quick-tempered, or " touchy " disposi- 
 tion. This compatibility of ill temper with high moral 
 character is one of the strangest and saddest problems 
 
THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 29 
 
 of ethics. The truth is there are two great classes of 
 sins — sins of the Body, and sins of the Disposition. 
 The Prodigal Son may be taken as a type of the first, 
 the Elder Brother of the second. Now society has no 
 doubt whatever as to which of these is the worse. Its 
 brand falls, without a challenge, upon the Prodigal. 
 But are we right ? We have no balance to weigh one 
 another's sins, and coarser and finer are but human 
 words ; but faults in the higher nature may be less 
 venial than those in the lower, and to the eye of Him 
 who is Love, a sin against Love may seem a hundred 
 times more base. No form of vice, not worldliness, 
 not greed of gold, not drunkenness itself, does more 
 to un-Christianise society than evil temper. For em- 
 bittering life, for breaking up communities, for destroy- 
 ing the most sacred relationships, for devastating 
 homes, for withering up men and women, for taking 
 the bloom off childhood, in short, for sheer gratuitous 
 misery-producing power, this influence stands alone. 
 Look at the Elder Brother, moral, hard-working, pa- 
 
30 THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 
 
 tient, dutiful — let him get all credit for his virtues — 
 look at this man, this baby, sulking outside his own 
 father's door. " He was angry," we read, " and would 
 not go in." Look at the effect upon the father, upon 
 the servants, upon the happiness of the guests. Judge 
 of the effect upon the Prodigal — and how many prodi- 
 gals are kept out of the Kingdom of God by the 
 unlovely character of those who profess to be inside ? 
 Analyse, as a study in Temper, the thunder-cloud itself 
 as it gathers upon the Elder Brother's brow. What is 
 it made of ? Jealousy, anger, pride, uncharity, cruelty, 
 self-righteousness, touchiness, doggedness, sullenness 
 — these are the ingredients of this dark and loveless 
 soul. In varying proportions, also, these are the in- 
 gredients of all ill temper. Judge if such sins of the 
 disposition are not worse to live in, and for others to 
 live with, than sins of the body. Did Christ indeed 
 not answer the question Himself when He said, " I say 
 unto you, that the publicans and the harlots go into 
 the Kingdom of Heaven before you." There is really 
 
THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 3 1 
 
 no place in Heaven for a disposition like this. A man 
 with such a mood could only make Heaven miserable 
 for all the people in it. Except, therefore, such a man 
 be born again, he cannot, he simply cannot, enter the 
 Kingdom of Heaven. For it is perfectly certain — and 
 you will not misunderstand me — that to enter Heaven 
 a man must take it with him. 
 
 You will see then why Temper is significant. It is 
 not in what it is alone, but in what it reveals. This is 
 why I take the liberty now of speaking of it with such 
 unusual plainness. It is a test for love, a symptom, a 
 revelation of an unloving nature at bottom. It is the 
 intermittent fever which bespeaks unintermittent dis- 
 ease within ; the occasional bubble escaping to the sur- 
 face which betrays some rottenness underneath ; a sam- 
 ple of the most hidden products of the soul dropped 
 involuntarily when off one's guard ; in a word, the 
 lightning form of a hundred hideous and un-Christian 
 sins. For a want of patience, a want of kindness, a 
 want of generosity, a want of courtesy, a want of unself- 
 
32 THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 
 
 ishness, are all instantaneously symbolised in one flash 
 of Temper. 
 
 Hence it is not enough to deal with the Temper. 
 We must go to the source and change the inmost nat- 
 ure, and the angry humours will die away of them- 
 selves. Souls are made sweet not by taking the acid 
 fluids out, but by putting something in — a great Love, 
 a new Spirit, the Spirit of Christ. Christ, the Spirit of 
 Christ, interpenetrating ours, sweetens, purifies, trans- 
 forms all. This only can eradicate what is wrong, 
 work a chemical change, renovate and regenerate, and 
 rehabilitate the inner man. Will-power does not 
 change men. Time does not change men. Christ 
 does. Therefore " Let that mind be in you which was 
 also in Christ Jesus." Some of us have not much 
 time to lose. Remember, once more, that this is a 
 matter of life or death. I cannot help speaking ur- 
 gently, for myself, for yourselves. " Whoso shall offend 
 one of these little ones, which believe in me, it were 
 better for him that a millstone were hanged about his 
 
THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 33 
 
 neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the 
 
 sea." That is to say, it is the deliberate verdict of the 
 
 Lord Jesus that it is better not to live than not to love. 
 
 It is better not to live than not to love. 
 
 Guilelessness and Sincerity may be dismissed almost 
 
 with a word. Guilelessness is the grace for suspicious 
 
 people. And the possession of it is the great secret of 
 
 personal influence. You will find, if you think for a 
 
 moment, that the people who influence you are people 
 
 who believe in you. In an atmosphere of suspicion 
 
 men shrivel up ; but in that atmosphere they expand, 
 
 and find encouragement and educative fellowship. It 
 
 is a wonderful thing that here and there in this hard, 
 
 uncharitable world there should still be left a few rare 
 
 souls who think no evil. This is the great unworldli- 
 
 ness. Love " thinketh no evil," imputes no motive, 
 
 sees the bright side, puts the best construction on 
 
 every action. What a delightful state of mind to live 
 
 in ! What a stimulus and benediction even to meet 
 
 with it for a day ! To be trusted is to be saved. And 
 3 
 
34 THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 
 
 if we try to influence or elevate others, we shall soon 
 see that success is in proportion to their belief of our 
 belief in them. For the respect of another is the first 
 restoration of the self-respect a man has lost ; our ideal 
 of what he is becomes to him the hope and pattern of 
 what he may become. 
 
 " Love rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the 
 truth." I have called this Sincerity from the words 
 rendered in the Authorised Version by " rejoiceth in 
 the truth." And, certainly, were this the real transla- 
 tion, nothing could be more just. For he who loves 
 will love Truth not less than men. He will rejoice in 
 the Truth — rejoice not in what he has been taught to 
 believe ; not in this Church's doctrine or in that ; not 
 in this ism or in that ism ; but " in tkc Truth." He 
 will accept only what is real ; he will strive to get at 
 facts ; he will search for Triith with a humble and 
 unbiassed mind, and cherish whatever he finds at any 
 sacrifice. But the more literal translation of the 
 Revised Version calls for just such a sacrifice for 
 
THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 35 
 
 truth's sake here. For what Paul really meant is, as 
 we there read, " Rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but 
 rejoiceth with the truth," a quality which probably 
 no one English word — and certainly not Sincerity — ad- 
 equately defines. It includes, perhaps more strictly, 
 the self-restraint which refuses to make capital out of 
 others' faults ; the charity which delights not in expos- 
 ing the weakness of others, but " covereth all things ; " 
 the sincerity of purpose which endeavours to see things 
 as they are, and rejoices to find them better than sus- 
 picion feared or calumny denounced. 
 
 So much for the analysis of Love. Now the busi- 
 ness of our lives is to have these things fitted into our 
 characters. That is the supreme work to which we 
 need to address ourselves in this world, to learn Love. 
 Is life not full of opportunities for learning Love? 
 Every man and woman every day has a thousand of 
 them. The world is not a playground ; it is a school- 
 room. Life is not a holiday, but an education. And 
 the one eternal lesson for us all is how better we ca'i 
 
36 THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 
 
 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 vigour 
 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 Christlike nature in its fullest 
 development. And the constituents of this great char- 
 acter 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 favour with God. 
 
THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. i7 
 
 Do not quarrel therefore with your lot in life. Do not 
 complain of its never-ceasing cares, its petty environ- 
 ment, the vexations you have to stand, the small and 
 sordid souls you have to live and work with. AbovQ 
 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 dif^culties, and obstacles. You remem- 
 ber Goethe's words : Es bildet ein Talent sick in der 
 Stille, Dock ein Character in dem Strom der Welt. 
 " Talent develops itself in solitude ; character in the 
 
38 THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 
 
 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 ingre- 
 dients — 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 colours, 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 fulfil the right condition 
 
THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 39 
 
 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 will 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 oi 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. Con- 
 template 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 the great Sacrifice as He laid down Himself, 
 
40 THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 
 
 all through life, and upon the Cross of Calvary ; and 
 you must love Him. And loving Him, you must be- 
 come 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 be- 
 , comes electrified. It is changed into a temporary mag- 
 net 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 fulfils that cause must 
 "have that effect produced in him. Try to give up the 
 idea that religion comes to us by chance, or by mys- 
 tery, 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 Tie just put his hand on the sufferer's 
 
THE GREA7EST THING IN THE WORLD. 
 
 41 
 
 head, and said, " My boy, God loves you," and went 
 away. And the boy started from his bed, and called 
 out to the people in the house, " God loves me ! God 
 loves me ! " It changed that boy. The sense that 
 God loved him overpowered him, melted him down, 
 and began the creating of a new heart in him. And 
 that is how the love of God 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. 
 
tence or two to add 
 about Paul's reason for 
 &-. '^^ singling out love as 
 
 the supreme posses- 
 sion. 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 marvellous 
 lists of the great things of the day, and exposes them 
 one b}' one. He runs over the things that men 
 thought were going to last, and shows that they are 
 all fleeting, temporary, passing away. 
 
 " Whether there be prophecies, they shall fail." It 
 
THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 43 
 
 was the mother's ambition for her boy in those days 
 that he should become a prophet. For hundreds of 
 years God 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 God. Paul says, " Whether there 
 be prophecies, they shall fail." This Book 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 passed since tongues have been 
 known in this world. They have ceased. Take it in 
 any sense you like. Take it, for illustration merely, 
 as languages in general — a sense which was not in 
 Paul's mind at all, and which though it cannot give 
 
44 THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 
 
 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 lan- 
 guage 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 Dickens's works, his Pickwick Papers. 
 It is largely written in the language of London street- 
 life ; and experts assure us that in fifty years it will be 
 unintelligible to the average English reader. 
 
 Then Paul goes farther, and with even greater bold- 
 ness adds, " Whether there be knowledge, it shall 
 vanish 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 
 
THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 45 
 
 pence. 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 the other day, " The steam-engine is 
 passing 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 ; 
 now it is superseded, its day is done. And all the 
 boasted science and philosophy of this day will soon 
 be old. But yesterday, in the University of Edin- 
 burgh, the greatest figure in the faculty was Sir James 
 Simpson, the discoverer of chloroform. The other day 
 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 that were 
 
,46 THE qREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 
 
 no longer needed. And 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 con- 
 signed 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 glass darkly." 
 
 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 
 
THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 47 
 
 sins are not sins ; but they are temporary. And that 
 is a favourite argument of the New Testament. John 
 says of the world, not that it is wrong, but simply that 
 it " passeth 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. All 
 that is in the world, the lust of the eye, the lust of the 
 flesh, and the pride of life, are but for a little while. 
 Love not the world therefore. Nothing that it- con- 
 tains is worth the life and consecration of an immortal 
 soul. The immortal soul must give itself to something 
 that is immortal. And the only immortal things are 
 these : " Now abideth faith, hope, love, but the greatest 
 of these is love." 
 
 Some think the time may corne when two of these 
 three things will also pass away — faith into sight, hope 
 into fruition. Paul does not say so. We know but 
 little now about the conditions of the life that is to 
 come. But what is certain is that Love must last. 
 God, the Eternal God, is Love. Covet therefore that 
 
48 THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 
 
 everlasting gift, that one thing which it is certain is 
 going to stand, that one coinage which will be current 
 in the Universe when all the other coinages of all the 
 nations of the world shall be useless and unhonoured. 
 You will give yourselves to many things, give your- 
 selves first to Love. Hold things in their proportion. 
 Hold things in their proportion. Let at least the first 
 great object of our lives be to achieve the char- 
 acter defended in these words, the character- — and 
 it is the character of Christ — which is built round 
 Love. 
 
 I have said this thing is eternal. Did you ever 
 notice how continually John associates love and faith 
 with eternal life? I was not told when I was a boy 
 that " God so loved the world that He gave His only 
 begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should 
 have everlasting life." What I was told, I remember, 
 was, that God so loved the World that, if I trusted in 
 Him, I was to have a thing called peace, or I was to 
 have rest, or I was to have joy, or I was to have 
 
THE GREATEST THING IN IHE WORLD. 49 
 
 safety. But I had to find out ior myself that whoso- 
 ever trusteth in Him — that is, whosoever loveth Him, 
 for trust is only the avenue to Love — hath everlasting 
 life. The Gospel offers a man life. Never offer men 
 a thimbleful of Gospel. Do not offer them merely 
 joy, or merely peace, or merely rest, or merely safety ; 
 tell them how Christ came to give men a more abun- 
 dant life than they have, a life abundant in love, and 
 therefore abundant in salvation for themselves, and 
 large in enterprise for the alleviation and redemption of 
 the world. Then only can the Gospel take hold of the 
 whole of a man, body, soul, and spirit, and give to each 
 part of his nature its exercise and reward. Many of 
 the current Gospels are addressed only to a part of 
 man's nature. They offer peace, not life ; faith, not 
 Love; justification, not regeneration. And men slip 
 back again from such religion because it has never 
 really held them. Their nature vi^as not all in it. It 
 offered no deeper and gladder life-current than the life 
 that was lived before. Surely it stands to reason that 
 
50 THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 
 
 only a fuller love can compete with the love of the 
 world. 
 
 To love abundantly is to live abundantly, and to love 
 for ever is to live for ever. Hence, eternal life is inex- 
 tricably bound up with love. We want to live for 
 ever for the same reason that we want to live to- 
 morrow. Why do you want to live to-morrow ? It 
 is because there is some one who loves you, and whom 
 you want to see to-morrow, and be with, and love back. 
 There is no other reason why we should live oh than 
 that we love and are beloved. It is when a man has no 
 one to love him that he commits suicide. So long as he 
 has friends, those who love him arid whom he loves, he 
 will live - because to live is to love. Be it but the love 
 of a dog, it will keep him in life ; but let that go and he 
 has no contact with life, no reason to live. He dies by 
 his own hand. Eternal life also is to know God, and 
 God is love. This is Christ's own definition. Ponder it. 
 " This is life eternal, that they rhight know Thee the 
 only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." 
 
THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 51 
 
 Love mustbe eternal. It is what God is. On the last 
 analysis, then, love is life. Love never faileth, and life 
 never faileth, so long as there is love. That is the phi- 
 losophy of what Paul is showing us ; 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. To be lost is to live in an unregenerate con- 
 dition, loveless and unloved ; and to be saved is to love ; 
 and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth already in God. 
 For God is love. 
 
 Now I have all but finished. How many of you will 
 join me in reading this chapter once a week for the next 
 three months? A nian did that once and it changed 
 his whole life. Will you do it ? It is for the greatest 
 thing in the world. You might begin by reading it 
 
52 THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 
 
 every day, especially the verses which describe the per- 
 fect character. " Love suffereth long, and is kind ; love 
 envieth not ; love vaunteth not itself." Get these in- 
 gredients into your life. Then everything that you do 
 is eternal. It is worth doing. It is worth giving time 
 to. No man can become a saint in his sleep ; and to 
 fulfil the condition required demands a certain amount 
 of prayer and meditation and time, just as improvement 
 in any direction, bodily or mental, requires preparation 
 and care. Address yourselves to that one thing ; at any 
 cost have this transcendent character exchanged for 
 yours. You will find as you look back upon your life 
 that the moments that stand out, 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 
 round about you, things too trifling to speak about, but 
 which you feel have entered into your eternal life. I 
 
THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 53 
 
 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 never fail. 
 
 In the Book of Matthew, where the Judgment Day 
 is depicted for us in the imagery of One seated upon a 
 throne and dividing the sheep from the goats, the test 
 of a man then is not, " How have I believed ? " but 
 " How have I loved?" The test of religion, the final 
 test of religion, is not religiousness, but Love. I say 
 the final test of religion at that great Day is not relig- 
 iousness, but Love ; not what I have done, not what 
 I have believed, not what I have achieved, but how I 
 
54 THE GREATEST TH/ArG IN THE WORLD. 
 
 have discharged the common charities of life. Sins, of 
 •commission inthat awfuL indictment are not even re- 
 fei'red to. By what we Jiave not done, by sins of omis- 
 sion., -we -SLve judged. It could not be otherwise.". For 
 the withholding of love is the negation, of the spirit of 
 Christ, the- proof that we never kfiew Him, that;for us 
 He lived in vain. It means that H.e:^suggested nothing 
 in all Our' thoughts,' that He inspired aothing in all our 
 •lives, that we were not once neaf enough to Him' to be 
 seized with the spell of His .compassion for the world. 
 It means that^-' . . -■..../ ... 
 
 " I lived for myself, I thought for myself. 
 For myself, arid none beside 
 Just as if Jesus had never lived. 
 As if He had never died." 
 
 It is the Son of the Man before whom the nations of 
 the world shall be gathered. It is in the presence of 
 Hiifiidnity that we shall be charged. And the spectacle 
 itself, the mere sight of it, will silently judge each one. 
 
THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD. 55 
 
 Those will be there whom we have met and helped ; 
 or there, the unpitied multitude whom we neglected or 
 despised. No other Witness need be summoned. No 
 other charge than lovelessness shall be preferred. Be 
 not deceived. The words which all of us shall one Day 
 hear sound not of theology but of life, not of churches 
 and saints but of the hungry and the poor, not of creeds 
 and doctrines but of shelter and clothing, not of Bibles 
 and prayer-books but of cups of cold water in the name 
 of Christ. Thank God the Christianity of to-day is com- 
 ing nearer the world's need. Live to help that on. 
 Thank God men know better, by a hairsbreadth, what 
 religion is, what God is, who Christ is, where Christ is. 
 Who is Christ? He who fed the hungry, clothed the 
 naked, visited the sick. And where is Christ ? Where ? 
 — whoso shall receive a little child in My name re- 
 ceiveth Me. And who are Christ's? Every one that 
 loveth is born of God.