The Greatest Thing In the World | Page 7

of them. The world is not a playground; it is a
schoolroom. Life is not a holiday, but an education. And
THE ONE ETERNAL LESSON
for us all is how better we can love.
What makes a man a good cricketer? Practice. What makes a man a
good artist, a good sculptor, a good musician? Practice. What makes a
man a good linguist, a good stenographer? Practice. What makes a man
a good man? Practice. Nothing else. There is nothing capricious about
religion. We do not get the soul in different ways, under different laws,
from those in which we get the body and the mind. If a man does not
exercise his arm he develops no biceps muscle; and if a man does not
exercise his soul, he acquires no muscle in his soul, no strength of
character, no vigor of moral fibre, no beauty of spiritual growth. Love
is not a thing of enthusiastic emotion. It is a rich, strong, manly,
vigorous expression of the whole round Christian character--the
Christlike nature in its fullest development. And the constituents of this
great character are only to be built up by
CEASELESS PRACTICE.
What was Christ doing in the carpenter's shop? Practising. Though
perfect, we read that He learned obedience, and grew in wisdom and in

favor with God. Do not quarrel, therefore, with your lot in life. Do not
complain of its never-ceasing cares, its petty environment, the
vexations you have to stand, the small and sordid souls you have to live
and work with. Above all, do not resent temptation; do not be
perplexed because it seems to thicken round you more and more, and
ceases neither for effort nor for agony nor prayer. That is your practice.
That is the practice which God appoints you; and it is having its work
in making you patient, and humble, and generous, and unselfish, and
kind, and courteous. Do not grudge the hand that is moulding the still
too shapeless image within you. It is growing more beautiful, though
you see it not; and every touch of temptation may add to its perfection.
Therefore keep in the midst of life. Do not isolate yourself. Be among
men and among things, and among troubles, and difficulties, and
obstacles. You remember Goethe's words: "Talent develops itself in
solitude; character in the stream of life." Talent develops 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 cannot make
light. By synthesis of all the virtues, men can make virtue, they cannot
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 fulfill 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 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 cannot
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 cannot 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 most become
like Him. Love begets love. It is a process of induction. Put a piece of
iron