Is it a mere negative precept then? Is the life of love to be only an abstinence from doing harm, which may shun thefts, but may also shun personal sacrifices? Is it a cold and inoperative "harmlessness," which leaves all things as they are? We see the answer in part in those words, "_as thyself_." Man "loves _himself_," (in the sense of nature, not of sin,) with a love which instinctively avoids indeed what is repulsive and noxious, but does so because it positively likes and desires the opposite. The man who "loves his neighbour _as himself_" will be as considerate of his neighbour's feelings as of his own, in respect of abstinence from injury and annoyance. But he will be more; he will be actively desirous of his neighbour's good. "_Working him no evil_," he will reckon it as much "_evil_" to be indifferent to his positive true interests as he would reckon it unnatural to be apathetic about his own. "_Working him no evil_," as one who "_loves him as himself_," he will care, and seek, to work him good. "Love," says Leibnitz, in reference to the great controversy on Pure Love agitated by Fénelon and Bossuet, "is that which finds its felicity in another's good."[226] Such an agent can never terminate its action in a mere cautious abstinence from wrong. The true divine commentary on this brief paragraph is the nearly contemporary passage written by the same author, 1 Cor. xiii. There, as we saw above, the description of the sacred thing, love, like that of the heavenly state in the Revelation, is given largely in negatives. Yet who fails to feel the wonderful _positive_ of the effect? That is no merely negative innocence which is greater than mysteries, and knowledge, and the use of an angel tongue; greater than self-inflicted poverty, and the endurance of the martyr's flame; "chief grace below, and all in all above." Its blessed negatives are but a form of unselfish _action_. It forgets itself, and remembers others, and refrains from the least needless wounding of them, not because it wants merely "to live and let live," but because it loves them, finding its felicity in their good. It has been said that "love is holiness, spelt short." Thoughtfully interpreted and applied, the saying is true. The holy man in human life is the man who, with the Scriptures open before him as his informant and his guide, while the Lord Christ dwells in his heart by faith as his Reason and his Power, forgets himself in a work for others which is kept at once gentle, wise, and persistent to the end, by the love which, whatever else it does, knows how to sympathize and to serve. [223] Read ὑπὸ not ἀπό. [224] "To believe, to suffer, and to love, was the primitive taste" (Milner). [225] This clause is perhaps to be omitted here. [226] See Card. Bausset, _Vie de Fénelon_, ii. 375. Leibnitz, in a letter to T. Burnet, quotes the words from a work of his own; _Amare est felicitate alterius delectari_. CHAPTER XXVIII