_Broadgauge._ This word is connected, in its origin, with railroads. Its radical idea is that of distance. It is credited by Webster to Simmonds in these words, “A wide distance (usually six or seven feet) between the rails on a railway, in contradistinction from the narrow gauge of four feet eight inches and a half.” The watch-word, “charity,” is a term that has been much abused. “Charity is a grace of heavenly mien.” It is the “end of the commandment.” “The law was not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless, and the disobedient, etc.” It is love, in the New Testament sense of the term, as modified by all the essential elements of the Christian religion, so it is “the fulfilling of the law.” It is not passion, _but affection_. To my sensuous life all my passions belong. The brute has also a sensuous life. But man has, in addition to this, an intellectual life. Passion always passes away with its object, but affection remains to soften the heart years after its object is gone. My intellectual nature is the field of all legitimate gospel operations with reference to the production of a Christian life and character. As a divine affection, charity or love springs out of union with God, or being made a “partaker of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lusts.” Such being the height of its bed-rock, it is said, “Every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God.” And it is also said, “He that saith I know him and keepeth not his commandments is a liar.” This strong language correlates with the fact that charity expresses the idea of love as an attribute of divine life, known as the life of God. It is an attribute belonging to those who have made the high attainment of a spiritual or mental condition which places them beyond the need of penal laws to restrain them from crime. Its _measure_ is the _love of God_. Its full import may be expressed in these words, _loving as God loves_. After enumerating many of the Christian graces an apostle said, Above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness. So charity, or rather its possessor, is no willful truth “butcherer,” for charity believeth all things (_or all truth_); hopeth all things (_promised_); rejoiceth, not in iniquity, but in the truth. It has no “stock” in known error, for it “abounds in all knowledge and judgment,” and “approves things that are excellent.” It is noble and right to let “love,” or “charity have her perfect work,” to be, or rather try to be, as charitable as God himself; but it is absurd and preposterous to go beyond or try to be more charitable. “It is enough that the disciple be _as his master_.” Men are guilty of this presumption when they, in feigned charity, go beyond the word of the Lord, or beyond the truth in their expressions of kindness.