Where Love is, God is. He that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in
God. God is Love. Therefore LOVE. Without distinction, without
calculation, without procrastination, love. Lavish it upon the
poor, where it is very easy; especially upon the rich, who often need
it most; most of all upon our equals, where it is very difficult,
and for whom perhaps we each do least of all. There is a difference
between TRYING TO PLEASE and GIVING PLEASURE. Give pleasure.
Lose no chance of giving pleasure; for that is the ceaseless and
anonymous triumph of a truly loving spirit. "I shall pass through
this world but once. Any good thing, therefore, that I can do, or
any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now.
Let me not defer it or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way
again."
GENEROSITY. "Love envieth not." This is love in competition with
others. Whenever you attempt a good work you will find other men
doing the same kind of work, and probably doing it better. Envy
them not. Envy is a feeling of ill-will to those who are in the
same line as ourselves, a spirit of covetousness and detraction.
How little Christian work even is a protection against un-Christian
feeling! That most despicable of all the unworthy moods which
cloud a Christian's soul assuredly waits for us on the threshold of
every work, unless we are fortified with this grace of magnanimity.
Only one thing truly need the Christian envy--the large, rich,
generous soul which "envieth not."
And then, after having learned all that, you have to learn this
further thing, HUMILITY--to put a seal upon your lips and forget
what you have done. After you have been kind, after Love has stolen
forth into the world and done its beautiful work, go back into the
shade again and say nothing about it. Love hides even from itself.
Love waives even self-satisfaction. "Love vaunteth not itself, is
not puffed up." Humility--love hiding.
The fifth ingredient is a somewhat strange one to find in this "summum
bonum:" COURTESY. This is Love in society, Love in relation to
etiquette. "Love doe not behave itself unseemly."
Politeness has been defined as love in trifles. Courtesy is said
to be love in little things. And the one secret of politeness is
to love.
Love CANNOT behave itself unseemly. You can put the most untutored
persons into the highest society, and if they have a reservoir
of Love in their hearty they will not behave themselves unseemly.
They simply cannot do it. Carlisle said of Robert Burns that there
was no truer gentleman in Europe than the ploughman-poet. It was
because he loved everything--the mouse, and the daisy, and all the
things, great and small, that God had made. So with this simple
passport he could mingle with any society, and enter courts and
palaces from his little cottage on the banks of the Ayr.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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