the
new commandment of the Son of God. Not to love merely, but to love _as
He loved_. Go forth in this Spirit to your life duties, go forth,
children of the Cross, to carry everything before you, and win
victories for God by the conquering power of a love like
his."--_Frederick W. Robertson_.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE LOVE THAT PERFECTS LIFE.

The purpose of Christ's mission to earth was the development of ideal
manhood. The instruments he fashioned and the agents he ordained all
wrought unceasingly toward a manhood that was ample in faculty, fertile
in resource and ripe in those qualities that make for maturity of
character. He sought to teach men how to carry their faculties through
all the strife, collisions and rivalries of life, without damaging men
or being damaged by them.

Always to the children of good fortune right living has seemed easy,
for these live midst sheltered conditions and exhibit goodness as
naturally as the sheltered southern nooks have grass and flowers when
all the northern hillsides are brown with death or white with snow.
But Christ came teaching the children of weakness and misfortune how to
bear up midst adversity, how to sing songs at midnight and how, through
defeat, to march to final victory. So beautiful was the manhood he
unveiled before men that, beholding it, men low and men high, the
publican and prodigal, the centurion and ruler also, quivered with
hope, as the harp quivers under the touch of the harper.

For his ideal includes every quality that kindles admiration and
delight; all gentleness, all goodness, all simplicity, the refinement
of the scholar, the insight of the seer, the courage that makes the
youth a hero. In luminous hours men behold visions of ideal perfection
hanging like stars in a midnight sky. Unfortunately for many, these
visions burst like bubbles and soon pass away. Artists and sculptors
look forward to an hour when, by a touch here and a touch there, the
statue shall be perfected and the portrait completed; so Christ pointed
forward to an hour when, having been wrought upon by darkness and by
light, by defeat and by victory, by sorrow and by joy, at last wisdom
shall be made perfect, judgment know no error, love have full
disclosure and the soul enter into unhindered perfection.

Great are the achievements of the chisel upon the block of marble,
marvelous the skill with which a master turns a dead canvas into
lustrous life and beauty. Matchles