velops itself in solitude--the talent of prayer, of
faith, of meditation, of seeing the unseen; character grows in the
stream of the world's life. That chiefly is where men are to learn
love.

How? Now how? To make it easier, I have named a few of the elements of
love. But these are only elements. Love itself can never be defined.
Light is a something more than the sum of its ingredients--a glowing,
dazzling, tremulous ether. And love is something more than all its
elements--a palpitating, quivering, sensitive, living thing. By
synthesis of all the colors, men can make whiteness, they can not make
light. By synthesis of all the virtues, men can make virtue, they can
not make love. How then are we to have this transcendent living whole
conveyed into our souls? We brace our wills to secure it. We try to
copy those who have it. We lay down rules about it. We watch. We pray.
But these things alone will not bring love into our nature. Love is
an effect. And only as we fulfil the right condition can we have the
effect produced. Shall I tell you what the cause is?

If you turn to the Revised Version of the First Epistle of John you
will find these words: "We love because he first loved us." "We love,"
not "We love him." That is the way the old version has it, and it is
quite wrong. "We love--because he first loved us." Look at that word
"because." It is the cause of which I have spoken. "Because he first
loved us," the effect follows that we love, we love Him, we love
all men. We can not help it. Because He loved us, we love, we love
everybody. Our heart is slowly changed. Contemplate the love of
Christ, and you will love. Stand before that mirror, reflect Christ's
character, and you will be changed into the same image from tenderness
to tenderness. There is no other way. You can not love to order. You
can only look at the lovely object, and fall in love with it, and
grow into likeness to it. And so look at this perfect character, this
perfect life. Look at the great sacrifice as He laid down Himself, all
through life, and upon the cross of Calvary; and you must love Him.
And loving Him, you must become like Him. Love begets love. It is
a process of induction. Put a piece of iron in the presence of
an electrified body, and that piece of iron for a time becomes
electrified. It is changed into a temporary magnet in the mere
presence of a permanent magnet, and as long as you leave the two side
by side they are both magnets alik