The Greatest Thing In the World | Page 8

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 alike. Remain side by side with
Him who loved us, and
GAVE HIMSELF FOR US,
and you, too, will become a permanent magnet, a permanently
attractive force; and like Him you will draw all men unto you, like Him
you will be drawn unto all men. That is the inevitable effect of Love.
Any man who fulfills that cause must have that effect produced in him.
Try to give up the idea that religion comes to us by chance, or by
mystery, or by caprice. It comes to us by natural law, or by supernatural
law, for all law is Divine.
Edward Irving went to see a dying boy once, and when he entered the
room he just put his hand on the sufferer's head, and said, "My boy,
God loves you," and went away. The boy started from his bed, and
called out to the people in the house,
"God loves me! God loves me!"

One word! It changed that boy. The sense that God loved him
overpowered him, melted him down, and began the creating of a new
heart in him. And that is how the love of God melts down the unlovely
heart in man, and begets in him the new creature, who is patient and
humble and gentle and unselfish. And there is no other way to get it.
There is no mystery about it. We love others, we love everybody, we
love our enemies, because He first loved us.
III. THE DEFENCE.
Now I have a closing sentence or two to add about Paul's reason for
singling out love as the supreme possession.
It is a very remarkable reason. In a single word it is this: _it lasts._
"Love," urges Paul, "never faileth." Then he begins again one of his
marvelous lists of the great things of the day, and exposes them one by
one. He runs over the things that men thought were going to last, and
shows that they are all fleeting, temporary, passing away.
"Whether there be prophecies, they shall be done away." It was the
mother's ambition for her boy in those days that he should become a
prophet. For hundreds of years God had never spoken by means of any
prophet, and at that time the prophet was greater than the king. Men
waited wistfully for another messenger to come, and hung upon his lips
when he appeared, as upon the very voice of God. Paul says, "Whether
there be prophecies, they shall fail." The Bible is full of prophecies.
One by one they have "failed"; that is, having been fulfilled, their work
is finished; they have nothing more to do now in the world except to
feed a devout man's faith.
Then Paul talks about tongues. That was another thing that was greatly
coveted. "Whether there be tongues, they shall cease." As we all know,
many many centuries have passed since tongues have been known in
this world. They have ceased. Take it in any sense you like. Take it, for
illustration merely, as languages in general--a sense which was not in
Paul's mind at all, and which though it cannot give us the specific
lesson, will point the general truth. Consider the words in which these
chapters were written--Greek. It has gone. Take the Latin--the other

great tongue of those days. It ceased long ago. Look at the Indian
language. It is ceasing. The language of Wales, of Ireland, of the
Scottish Highlands is dying before our eyes. The most popular book in
the English tongue at the present time, except the Bible, is one of
Dickens' works, his Pickwick Papers. It is largely written in the
language of London street-life; and experts assure us that in fifty years
it will be unintelligible to the average English reader.
Then Paul goes farther, and with even greater boldness adds, "Whether
there be knowledge, it shall be done away." The wisdom of the ancients,
where is it? It is wholly gone. A schoolboy to-day knows more than Sir
Isaac Newton knew; his knowledge has vanished away. You put
yesterday's newspaper in the fire: its knowledge has vanished away.
You buy the old editions of the great encyclopædias for a few cents:
their knowledge has vanished away. Look how the coach has been
superseded by the use of steam. Look how electricity has superseded
that, and swept a hundred almost new inventions into oblivion. One of
the greatest living authorities, Sir William Thompson, said in Scotland,
at a meeting at which I was present, "The steam-engine