is the great secret of personal influence. You will find, if you
think for a moment, that the people who influence you are people who
believe in you. In an atmosphere of suspicion men shrivel up; but
in that other atmosphere they expand, and find encouragement and
educative fellowship. It is a wonderful thing that here and there in
this hard, uncharitable world there should still be left a few rare
souls who think no evil. This is the great unworldliness. Love
"thinketh no evil," imputes no bad motive, sees the bright side, puts
the best construction on every action. What a delightful state of mind
to live in! What stimulus and benediction even to meet with it for
a day! To be trusted is to be saved. And if we try to influence or
elevate others, we shall soon see that success is in proportion to
their belief of our belief in them. For the respect of another is the
first restoration of the self-respect a man has lost; our ideal of
what he is becomes to him the hope and pattern of what he may become.

"Love rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth." I have
called this sincerity from the words rendered in the Authorized
Version by "rejoiceth in the truth." And, certainly, were this the
real translation, nothing could be more just. For he who loves will
love truth not less than men. He will rejoice in the truth--rejoice
not in what he has been taught to believe; not in this Church's
doctrine or in that; not in this ism or in that ism; but "in the
truth." He will accept only what is real; he will strive to get at
facts; he will search for truth with an humble and unbiased mind,
and cherish whatever he finds at any sacrifice. But the more literal
translation of the Revised Version calls for just such a sacrifice for
truth's sake here. For what Paul really meant is, as we there read,
"Rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth,"
a quality which probably no one English word--and certainly not
sincerity--adequately defines. It includes, perhaps more strictly, the
self-restraint which refuses to make capital out of others' faults;
the charity which delights not in exposing the weakness of others, but
"covereth all things"; the sincerity of purpose which endeavors to see
things as they are, and rejoices to find them better than suspicion
feared or calumny denounced.

So much for the analysis of love. Now the business of our lives is to
have these things in our characters. That is the supreme work