streets for Him to heal.1 And as He loved far more intensely than any of us, how must the spiritual misery also of these multitudes have gone to His heart? We read upon one occasion that "He came out and saw much people, and was moved with compassion towards them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd;"2 and upon another, that He cried out, "O faithless generation, how long shall I bear with you? how long shall I suffer you?"3 Seldom, as I think, does it happen to one of us to shed tears on account of the sins of the world; and yet Jesus the Son of God wept, and wept for His people's sins. Nay, even over the common thorns of misery which beset the life of man on earth He shed tears, as He did at the grave of Lazarus; for on that occasion, when He saw the rest weeping, He too was troubled and wept.5 It was thus that Jesus preached by works, and it is to such preaching by charitable deeds that we are everywhere exhorted in the holy Scriptures. True it is that Christian charity is most deeply affected by the spiritual misery of our fellow-men, because that is the source from which all other kinds of misery flow, or at least by which they are aggravated. When not permitted, however, to stop the spring, it seeks at least to drain off and dry up the stream; and great is the worth attributed to the manifestations of it towards the victims of bodily affliction. In one place the Scriptures exhort us "to do good and to communicate forget not; for with such sacrifices God is well pleased." In another: "So is the will of God, that with well-doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men." 7 And again: "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." 8 Works of history inform us that in the early days of Christianity nothing surprised the heathen so much as the charity shown by the Christians to each other. A father of the Church relates that it was a common exclamation, "See 1 Mark, vi. 56. 5 John, xi. 33. 2 Mark, vi. 34. 3 Mark, ix. 19. 4 Luke, xix. 41. 8 James, i. 27. how they love one another!" On the occasion of a great public calamity which happened during the third century, a certain bishop, Dionysius, writes as follows: "After a breathing-time of short duration, which both they and we enjoyed, we were smitten with the plague, of all dreadful things the most dreadful to the heathen, but which to us was a special trial and exercise of faith. A vast number of our brethren, out of affection for their friends and neighbours, did not spare themselves in their attentions to the sick, but, unmindful of the danger, visited them, perseveringly waited upon and ministered to them in Christ, and at last were happy to die along with them. Many lost their lives in the room of those who, by their care, had been restored to health. In this way the worthiest of the brethren, some of them presbyters and deacons, others approved men among the laity, made their exit from the world by a death which, as it proceeded from ardent piety and strong faith, seems in no degree inferior to martyrdom. Some also, who after closing the mouth and eyes of their dying brethren, had carried them away upon their shoulders, washed their bodies, and wrapped them in their shrouds, themselves experienced ere long the same fate. Totally different was the conduct of the heathen. They drove out the sick on the appearance of the first symptom of infection, abandoned their dearest friends, cast them, when half dead, upon the street, from apprehension of the spread of the fatal distemper, and yet, by all their endeavours, could not escape its attacks." Jesus, my Lord and Master, the unspeakable mercy which God has vouchsafed to me through Thee I will accept with the hand of faith, and still accept afresh, that it may bring forth the fruit of charity. Grace has healed the wound of my sin, and will in time wipe away from my eyes all the tears of temporal affliction and misery. I will therefore walk in love, and wherever I can in the world, will heal sin's wounds and dry affliction's tears. Thy holy pattern will I receive into my heart, and it shall be my pleasure, as it was Thine, to visit the abodes of penury and suffering. Only make me wholly Thine n, and then will charity flow out from me, as the stream es from the fountain. Vouchsafe to me the tranquil blessedZuss which flows from a sense of the mercy Thou hast won for pine; for this opens the heart, and imparts to it sympathy with 1 human woe. A heart which grace has softened can never main unaffected at the sight of a brother's tears. 9 30 Oh that 39,tu. were but a branch of that vine of which Thou art the stock ! Wor then, weak although I be, I likewise would bring forth the same fruits as Thou didst bear. Oh that I could dismiss all other masters, and look continually to Thee with an eye ever less and less turned away! Thou, and Thou alone, art my master. Oh grant me to avert my view still more and more from what other men do or leave undone, and take what was done or left undone by Thee for my sole and perpetual pattern! Let me, while through life I wander, If within me reigns the Lord? Do I follow at His word? Near to Jesus am I living; Am I in no duty failing? Is the Saviour all things to me? From the calm felicity Found in Him alone; and ever Do I earnestly endeavour, His, and only His, to be? 50. Charity is the best of the Graces. Love is a river, and God's heart the source, I COR. xiii. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, 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 charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity." WHO has a mind so tofis? If I call it dew, I describe HO has a mind so lofty, or faculties so noble, as to be what love able to say only its refreshing power; if a star, only its amenity. If I call it a storm, all that I intimate is its impatience of control; or if a sunbeam, the secrecy of its action. If I say that it is the breath of the soul, elaborated in its inmost workshop, when the spirit from on high combines with the heart's blood of the regenerate man, I do not even then hit the mark, for I have only said what it is in itself apart, not what it is to others. If I call it the solar light, giving life and colour to the things on which it shines, I still come short of the truth, for I only affirm what it is to others, not what it is in itself. If I say that it is the ray of seven colours in the pure water-drop when permeated by the sun, not even then do I define the true nature of love, because it is not so much a thing which can be seen as a secret perfume and taste in the innermost chamber of the human heart. Oh, who has a mind so lofty, and thoughts so deep, as to be able to say what love is? Scripture speaks of it as a flame of the Lord;1 and so it is -a flame tranquil and bright and pure, which first thoroughly cleanses, illumines, and warms the heart into which it enters, and then overflows into all other hearts, burning with all the greater strength and brightness the more of such hearts it kindles and warms and illumines. It is indeed a mystery; for what can be more mysterious than that a man cannot be truly happy who tries to be so only in himself, and can be truly happy in himself only when he recovers himself in others— that he can be, and continue being, as much at home in another as if that other were not another, and only fully enjoys himself when he has another self to do it with? Take love away, and oh, how every creature stands so solitary and iso1 Song of Solomon, viii. 6-Luther's vers. U |