read books about acoustics, but they will not give him a notion of what
it is to hear Beethoven, so we must have love to Christ before we know
what love to Christ is, and we must consciously experience the love of
Christ ere we know what the love of Christ is. We must have love to
Christ in order to have a deep and living possession of love of Christ,
though reciprocally it is also true that we must have the love of Christ
known and felt by our answering hearts, if we are ever to love Him back
again.

So in all the play and counterplay of love between Christ and us, and in
all the reaction of knowledge and love this remains true, that we must
be rooted and grounded in love ere we can know love, and must have
Christ dwelling in our hearts, in order to that deep and living
possession which, when it is conscious of itself, is knowledge, and is
for ever alien to the loveless heart.

'He must be loved, ere that to you
He will seem worthy of your love.'

If you want to know the blessedness of the love of Christ, love Him, and
open your hearts for the entrance of His love to you. Love is the parent
of deep, true knowledge.

Of course, before we can love an unseen person and believe in his love,
we must know about him by the ordinary means by which we learn about all
persons outside the circle of our sight. So before the love which is
thus the parent of deep, true knowledge, there must be the knowledge by
study and credence of the record concerning Christ, which supplies the
facts on which alone love can be nourished. The understanding has its
part to play in leading the heart to love, and then the heart becomes
the true teacher. He that loveth, knoweth God, for God is love. He that
is rooted and grounded in love because Christ dwells in his heart, will
be strengthened to know the love in which he is rooted. The Christ
within us will know the love of Christ. We must first 'taste,' and then
we shall 'see' that the Lord is good, as the Psalmist puts it with deep
truth. First, the appropriation and feeding upon God, then the clear
perception by the mind of the sweetness in the taste. First the
enjoyment; then the reflection on the enjoyment. First the love; and
then the consciousness of the love of Christ possessed and the love to
Christ experienced. The heart must be grounded in love that the man may
know the love which passeth knowledge.

Then notice that there is also here another condition for this deep and
ble