SUNDAY READING.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1200, 1 March 1895, Page 29

SUNDAY READING.

LOVE CONQUERS ALL

By Rev. "William Birch., D.D

For if you only love them that love you, in what are you better than the ungodly?— Matt, v., 46. (Correct Revision.)

Love-force is the inspiration and mainspring of life. While righteous love to oneself and helpfulness to others produce nobility and bring purest bliss, inordinate self-love breeds the baser kind of animalism and generates over-reaching or cruelty towards others. Burns describes both: Man, whose heaven-erected face The smiles of love adorn, Man's inhumanity to man Makes countless thousands mourn.

The which constrains us to protect and provide or die for our mate, offspring or friend is as divine as the force which formed and flames the sun. Even the passion which, to grp.tify self, wrongs a woman or cheats a man is equally divine as electricity or steam ; it becomes sin because used in wrong ways. True love is best seen' in the daily toil of parents for their children, the giaciousness of brother to brother, the tenderness of mate to mate, the self-denial of the benevolent to the helpless, and in Christ who submitted to the cross to draw.the world to God. 1. True Loving is the Most Joyous Living. Shakespeare charmingly pictures what is described as true lovo. Seeing the sweet maiden to whom his being is drawn as by ah almighty magnet, Eomeo is transformed; He stands amazed —he sees embodied heaven! He sighs—yet 'tis ecstasy divine! Hear him:

See, how she leans her oheek upon her hand ! O, that I were a glove upon that hand, That I might touch that cheek ! To save her irom pain he would endure agonising torment or lay down his life, and while the inspiration lasts he has unutterable joy—it is a picture of the eternal joy in heaven, where everyone has that kind of unselfish love for every other one. What a pity that "the lover in the husband may be lost"! True love, however, never fades, and is always unselfish, like a mother, "girded for service> seeking not her. own/' ', i

Whether selfish or unselfish, love is an irresistible force. It is

Mightier far . Than strength of nerve, and sinew, or the : away. Of magic potent over suns and stars.

The electric current which carries our message under the ocean or through the air, and the steam which moves yonder powerful engine, are blessings only if rightly used. Of course, in one sense, an accident is a blessing to those who are not hurt, because it teaches us to rightly use the force, and provide safety-valves. When not expended in the cylinder at work, we let the steam fizz forth its' mightypower into the air; but love-force has no patent safety-valve, and if not used in right ways and benefiting others, it will rush via into trade-specu-lation, ambition, gambling, immorality or drink. It must bay vent. In dealing, therefore, with men and women of low morals, before shutting up liquor bars and vice haunts, we should open less hurtful and more attractive places. By Act of Parliament we cannot make people moral inspirit.. The force which drives men to vice cannot be prohibited or quenched, for it is Godrgiveh instinct wrongly used. Our effort should be directed to draw men into sweeter ways and show them how to apply the lever of self-control. You may prohibit but cannot annihilate the " Social EVil "until you teach people the divine sanctity of self and of every other self, and alter the conditions of society so as to give every ina!?. his helpful mate and a living wage.-' : 'Vf»M Mutual love is the only permanent Christianizer Of the world. Our churches have poached "Duty, duty, duty!" until the present breed; though l«ss brutal, is perhaps more selfish than any previous age. %e have been taught that to be loved by our God and feel happy, we must first be good and do our duty; but the lesson that " virtue is its own reward" is like the lunatic who hammered his finger to feel b>w nice it iwas when it had done aching,' It is right to tell us to do our duty, but cannot you teach us to love it for sake of the benefit to others ? Offer a man the bribe of "feeling good" if he keep away from the badness which degrades him, and you fail to turn him your way; but, at fitting times, if you appeal to him to do: it for the sake of others, you " begin" the transformation, and, like planting a heavenly seed, sooner or later it will grow. If you close the races, the den, the bar, you treat him like a child tied with apron strings to keep him from the riveiv The river is within; teach him to swim.''■■•■As there may be more deadly things the liquor bar, let us take heed in plucking men out of the fryingpan that do not slip them into the fire. Too much moral law-making dwarfs men. Those Tfffeo are sane, while law-keepeis, should have freedom ; and do not be in an intemperate hurry to soberize Them. Give them and yourself time. Are you not like a graft? Give your precept and example time to transform them. If you seek their salvation only as a duty, you are like a sour lemon, but if you wait until you truly love them as God lOves you, your precept and example shall be the joyous medium of drawing them into the eternal life. Better not worry over your fellowmen until you have learned to love them; but when inspired by love, your effort to bless them shall be like the sun on a winter's day. 11. True Love is a Possible Condition It is the nature of God re-inspired in eveiy one who is willing to be useful to others. Seek lovingly to feel with them, to be sorry for them, to wish to help them, as bone of your bone ; and the love which God has to them will spring up in you and make you

His human heart and hands to minister to them. Is Christ the only one who is to perfectly ]ove mankind ? No ; .you also are to be a joint heir of God. To yearn with earnest desire to love our fellowcreatures as Christ loved the people around Him, and while we gently minister to the helpless, and, by our example, uplift the world, to feel the imparted divine love glorifying our being as morning sunshine glorifies the earth, justifies God in creating and redeeming us; but this unselfish ?ove only comes when, in the spirit of humble prayer, we try gently and reverently to be a medium through whom our Father loves mankind. Then Christ is repeated in us; we are illuminated temples of the living God.

Ministers, office-bearers, Christian members, are you inspired with true love to your family, your friends, your church ? Stretch wider your arms to take in enemies and the world. When in every man you behold one whom God loves* a similar love shall have mighty birth in you; and as God was in Christ, so shall He dwell in you and move you to echo the groan of broken-hearted ones; to vibrate in sympathy with unspoken pain; and, as jibe choice instrument in which Heaven sounds the chords divine, your constancy and patience shall draw men and women and little children to the life you lead and the God you love.