The Lesson of Love

10 learn hozv to love is to learn how to live. The lesson is a long one, but it is the great business of life to master it. The Master jiot only taught the lesson iii words, hut also set it down for us in a life, his ozmi life. To follow Christ is to practise this great lesson, learning more of it day by day, until school is out and

we go Jwme,

J. R. M.
Philadelphia, U. S. A.

Hristian love has to be learned. There is natural affection which does not need to be learned — the love of parents for children, of children for parents, of friend for friend. But it is not natural to love our enemies, to love unlovable people, to be unselfish, to return kindness for unkindness. We have to learn this love, and it is the great business of life to do it. The lesson is written out for us in many parts of the Scriptures. We have it, for example, in Saint Paul’s wonderful chapter on love. It includes patience. “Love suffereth long.” It is not easy to live with all sorts of people and to keep sweet always. In a letter from a friend the problem is stated thus: “How to live victoriously when one does not feel well, has many tasks and duties, and must

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work with a cranky person.” That is about the problem for many good people, and it is not easy. There is only one way of solving it — by love. And natural love will not suffice. Some mothers solve it with their children. Some gentle wives solve it with exacting, thoughtless, ungentle husbands. Now and then a friend solves it with a friend to whom it is not easy to be a friend. But the Christian is to learn to solve it with every kind of person — however disagreeable, unlovable, and uncongenial — he is never to come to the end of his loving. It takes almost infinite patience to love thus, more, at least, than many of us can command.

Love is kind. Kindness has been called the small coin of love. It is not shown in large deeds so much as in countless little gentle things. Jesus wrought a few great miracles, but in between the miracles, all the days, hours, and minutes were filled with kindnesses, little words and acts and looks which no one counted. Love should always abound in kindnesses. Our love should not be kept for great things, Cle tmon of lobe

but should flow out continually, like fragrance from a flower, as part of our own life. Love is not something to be added to a busy life, as some men have their avocations to which they turn to rest them from their great vocations.

“Most men know love hut as a part of life; They hide it in some corner of the breast Even from themselves; and only when they restj In the brief pauses of that earthly strife Wherewith our world might else he not so rife, They draw it forth... A7id hold it up to mother, child, or wife. Ah me! Why may not life and love he one i”

Love is generous. It “envieth not.” We have learned the lesson well only when we can rejoice in the joy of others. This is quite as much a part of true love’s sympathy as it is to share the griefs of others. “Rejoice with them that rejoice; weep with them that weep.” We can do the latter more easily than the former. When we find one in misfortune or in trouble, it is not hard to sympathize with him. But when others are honored more than [5]

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we are, or prospered more, or when they win success while we fail, or are very happy while we are less so, is it as easy for us to be genuinely glad as it would be to be really sorry if they were in some kind of grief? Love is unselfish. It “seeketh not its own.” Unselfishness is at the very heart of all true love. It is the obtruding of self into our thoughts, feelings, and acts that spoils much of our living. We love people until it would cost us something to continue to love them and then we stop short. We accept serious responsibility when we say to anyone: “I will be your friend.” That is what Jesus said to his friends, and then he loved to the uttermost. That is what “seeketh not its own” means. It may cost us years of self-denial and exhausting service.

Love keeps sweet amid all irritation. It “is not provoked.” It probably is too much to hope for in this world of infirmity and sinfulness, that one shall ever attain a condition in life in which there shall be nothing that would naturally excite bitter or unkindly feeling. [6] ae tt&mx of tou

Indeed, we could not learn to be sweet-tempered with nothing to test and exercise our temper. The problem then is not to find a paradise of sweetness in which to live — we shall have to wait for Heaven for that — but in common human conditions, with infirmities and failings even in our best friends, with a thousand things in the experiences of each day to try our temper, still and always to keep sweet. Good temper is an admirable quality of love. For some people it is easier, too, than for others. But it is part of the lesson of love which we should all set ourselves to learn, whether it is easy or hard. It can be learned, too — it should be learned, for it is a Christian duty, one of the fruits of the Spirit, an essential element in Christian culture. We should never apologize for ill-temper as only an amiable weakness or a pardonable infirmity — we should be ashamed to yield to it. Touchy people should determine to conquer their wretched weakness and sin, by which God is dishonored, and the love of tender hearts hurt. George Macdonald speaks of the hurt of love: [7]

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Thou k7iowest, 0 Samoiir, its hurt and its sorrows. Didst rescue its joy by the might of thy pain:

Lord of all yesterdays, days and to-morrows. Help us to love on m the hope of thy gain.

Love is meek. That is what Saint Paul’s words, “taketh no account of evil” seem to mean. It does not keep a list of slights, offences and injustices. “How often shall I forgive .P” Peter asked. He thought he was going a long way in the path of Christian love when he suggested that seven times would be enough. But Jesus said: *’0h, not seven times only, but seventy times seven” — that is, indefinitely. Let your love be simply inexhaustible. Nothing is harder than to have to endure wrong and ingratitude, to love and to have love unrequited. It is not easy to keep on loving when this is one’s experience. Yet that is what our lesson teaches us. A writer tells a story of a man who had given up his whole life to love. Then there came a time when he knew that all he cared for was slipping away from him. At length after ten years of loving and serving, a letter came which told him [8]

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