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 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 superabundantly it pays itself back--for there
is no debtor in the world so honorable, so superbly honorable, as
Love. "Love never faileth." Love is success, Love is happiness, 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_. Without distinction, without calculation,
without procrastination, 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 neglect it,
for I shall not pass this way again."
_Generosity_. "Love envieth not." This is love in competition with
oth
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