Let Us Love One Another

Eople are beginning to understand that there is only one lesson in life to learn — to love. This was St. John’s lesson. Tradition says that when they carried him for the last time into the church, he lifted up his feeble hands and said to the listening congregation, “Little children, love one another.” The words are echoing yet throughout the world. This is the lesson we all need to learn.

The place to begin practicing this lesson is at home. Some one tells about a bird that had two voices. When it was out among other birds its voice was sweet. It sang only cheerful, happy songs then, without ever a harsh note. The birds all thought it was one of the sweetest singers they had ever heard. But when that same bird went back to its own for tie I5e0t CltngiS

nest, its voice instantly lost its sweetness and became rough, rasping, croaking, and fretful. Perhaps being out all day, singing sweet songs everywhere, made the poor bird so tired in the evening when it got home that it could not be sweet any longer. But really if a little bird cannot be sweet both in its own nest, among its dear ones, and out among neighbors and strangers, would it not better be sweet at home anyway?

It is said that there are some people who, like this strange bird, have two voices. When they are away from home they are models of amiability. They are so polite and courteous that everybody admires them and loves them. They are most gentle and kind to every one. They are always doing favors. They will go all lengths to show a kindness. They are always happy, cheerful, patient and are ever encouragers of others. They are always saying appreciative things. They see the best in their friends and neighbors and praise it, not seeing faults, certainly never exposing them or reproving them. But it is said that when [238] let aijs JLoije €>ne anotier

these people get back home and are alone with their own families, this sweet, gracious voice at once changes, becomes dull, harsh, severe, sometimes petulant, impatient, even angry.

Is it not too bad?

It has been remarked by a careful observer that almost any one can be courteous, patient, and forbearing in a neighbor’s house. “If anything goes wrong, or is out of tune, or disagreeable there, it is made the best of, not the worst. Efforts are made even to excuse it, and to show that it is not any one’s fault; or if it is manifestly somebody’s fault, it is attributed to accident, not design. All this is not only easy but natural in the house of a friend.”

Will any one say that what is easy and natural in the house of another is impossible in one’s own home? It certainly is possible to have just as sweet courtesy, just as unvarying kindness, just as earnest efforts to please, just as tender care not to hurt or give pain, in the inner life of our own homes as it is in [239] outside social relations. That is a part of what St. John means when he says, “Beloved, let us love one another.” “One another” certainly includes our home loved ones. It is not intended that we should treat our neighbors in a kindly Christian way, and then treat our own rudely, discourteously, and in an irritating, unkindly fashion. An English paper recently had an article on Home Manners. A young girl boarded with an elderly woman, who took a maternal interest in her. One evening, the young girl had been out rather late and a fine young man brought her home. The boarding-house woman asked the girl who the young man was. “He is my brother,” replied the young woman. “Your brother!” exclaimed the somewhat cynical old lady, in a rather doubting tone. “Why, I saw him raise his hat to you as he went away.” The courtesy seemed to be to the older woman impossible in a girl’s own brother. Is it so? Do brothers not usually practice good manners toward their sisters? Every young man with even the smallest pre- [240] let aisj toije €>ne Qimttt

tensions to gentlemanliness will take off his hat to any other young man’s sister. Does he not also to his own?

Another incident in the same article is of a young man entering a reception room with his wife. He carelessly stepped on her gown and stumbled. “Mary,” he said impatiently, “I wish you would either hold your dresses up, or have them made short.” The wife said nothing for a moment, and then she asked very pleasantly, “Charles, if it had been some other woman whose dress you had stepped on, what would you have said?” The young man was honest with himself. He bowed and said frankly, “I should have apologized for my awkwardness, and I do now most humbly apologize to you,my dear. I am truly ashamed of myself.”

The lesson of loving one another means that children should be affectionate to each other in their own home. Because you are older than your brother and sister you will not feel that it is your privilege to rule them, command them, dictate to them, to make them [241] give up everything to you and serve you, to please you and mind you always. That is not the way love does. Jesus tells us that love gives up, that it does not demand to be served, to have things done for it by others, but rather delights to serve, to do things for others. One of the most beautiful sights one sees among children is that of an older child playing the maternal part with one who is younger, patiently humoring her, trying to comfort her, doing things to soothe her, carrying her when the little thing is tired, keeping sweet and loving when the child is fretful and irritable.

But it is not only among children that there is need for the cultivation of love in home relations. There are older people who would do well to heed the lesson. Some people seem to think of their home as a place where they can relax love’s restraint, and work off the bad humors and tempers which they have been compelled in other places to hold in check. But on the other hand home ought to be a man’s training place, a place in which [242] net 2J0 lobe €)ne anotlet:

he may learn all the sweet and beautiful ways of love. A great Hindu says, “The fittest and most practicable place for the conquest of anger, selfishness, rudeness and impatience is in a man’s own home. Be a saint there and it does not matter so much what you are elsewhere.”

According to St. Paul’s teaching, love “suff ereth long.” It never gets tired doing things, making sacrifices, even enduring rudeness and injustice. Love is also “kind” — is always doing little, obliging things. Love “vaunteth not itself” — does not pose or strut as if wiser and superior, is not self-conceited, masterful, tyrannical. Love “seeketh not its own.” That is the secret of it all. Too many people do seek their own and never think of the other. It is self-love that makes so many of us hard to get along with, exacting, touchy, sensitive to slights, disposed to think we are not fairly treated, and which sends us off to sulk and pout when we cannot have our own way. What difference whether we are fairly treated or not? Love does not give a [243] thought to such questions. It does not think at all of itself.

“Love thyself last. Look near, behold thy duty To those who walk beside thee down life’s road; Make glad their days by little acts of beauty, And help them bear the burden of life’s load,”

There is a story of two brothers who were crossing a lake one day, on the ice. They went on together until they came to a crack. The bigger boy leaped over easily, but the little fellow was afraid to try it. His brother sought to encourage him, but he could not put nerve enough into the boy to get him to make the attempt. Then he laid himself down across the crack in the ice, making a bridge of his own body, and the little fellow climbed over on him. That is what older boys should always be ready to do for their younger brothers — make bridges of their superior wisdom, strength, courage, experience, on which the little fellows may be helped over and on.

Older girls too have fine opportunities for [244] let (Sd JLoije €>ne anotiet

helping younger brothers and sisters. They should be sure to show their love in all self-forgetful ways. A gentleman tells of seeing a half-grown girl carrying a large overgrown baby, almost as big as herself. She seemed to be entirely unequal to her task, and yet she was as happy as a lark. “Well, little girl, is not your load too heavy for you.^” he asked. “Oh, no, sir,” she cheerfully replied, “it is my brother.” That made the burden light. Love made the task easy. God bless the little girl-mothers. They can be sweet influences in the home. They can do a thousand little things for their younger sisters and brothers. They can be patient and gentle with them. They can teach them many lessons. They can show them how to be sweet and brave. They can carry little burdens for them and help them along the hard bits of path. Let the older girls be guardian angels for the younger ones in the home. One beautiful thing about loving is that it brings its own reward. We say it costs to love and so it does. We must forget self. We [245] must give up our own pleasure, our own way, and think only of others. But it is in this very cost of loving that the blessing comes to us. We do not exhaust our store of loving in giving and sacrificing. The more we give the more we have. Instead of leaving us poor it makes us rich. It is like the widow’s meal and oil. If she had refused to share her little with the prophet’s need she would have had only enough to last her own household one day. But she gave to the prophet and the little supply lasted for herself, her son and the man of God through years.

How can we learn the lesson .^^ It takes patience and long practice to learn any lesson. The lesson of love is very long and takes a great deal of patience and very much practice. It begins in the heart. Let Christ live in you and he will sweeten your life. One day at an auction a man bought a vase of cheap earthenware for a few cents. He put into the vase a rich perfume, the attar of roses. For a long time the vase held this perfume and when it was empty it had been so [246] let ajj2i lobe €>ne ^notier

soaked through with the sweet perfume that the fragrance lingered. One day the vase fell and was broken to pieces, but every fragment still smelled of the attar of roses. We are all common clay, plain earthenware, but if the love of Christ is kept in our hearts it will sweeten all our life, and we shall become loving as he is. That is the way the beloved disciple learned the lesson and grew into such lovingness. He leaned on Christ’s breast and Christ’s gentleness filled all his life.

pvain% aftiout Ceajsfng

When thou dost talk with God — by jyrayer I mean-Lift up pure hands; lay down all lusts’ desires;

Fix thoughts on heaven; present a conscience clean; Since holy blame to mercy’s throne aspires,

Confess fault’s guilt, crave pardon for thy sin,

Tread holy paths, call grace to guide therein.

Even as Elias, mounting to the sky, Did cast his mantle to the earth behind,

So, when the heart presents the prayer on high, Exclude the world from traffic with the mind;

Lips near to God, and raging heart vnthin,

Is but vain babbling and converts to sin.

—Robert Southwell.

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