As means towards the attainment of the best ends there is no comparison between these. The latter may convince the understanding and leave the heart unchanged, but the former will win the heart, and with that gained, the understanding will usually soon succumb. The difference between them is similar to that between a mallet and the sun in reducing ice to water. The mallet may break the ice into small particles, but each particle will remain ice still, while the sun’s heat falling upon the ice will melt it into a fluid, and so impregnate the fluid with its warmth that while that warmth is continued the water cannot assume again its icy condition. So in changing opinions and reforming habits. Arguments will be of little avail without a loving disposition behind them. The opinions, after all cold pure arguments, will remain generally unchanged, or probably assume another false complexion, and the habits, if broken up for a little, will soon resume their wonted round. But if love prevails, the eyes looking it, the face beaming it, the words expressing it, the whole demeanour demonstrating it, the citadel of opinion will melt before the loving assault, and the heart will become ablaze with the sacred glow. Love and logic should at least go hand in hand in seeking the regeneration of the world.
Love as a motive
Ask yourselves what is the leading motive which actuates you while you are at work. I do not ask what your leading motive is for working, that is a different thing; you may have families to support, parents to help, brides to win; you may have all these, or other such sacred and pre-eminent motives to press the morning’s labour and prompt the twilight thought. But when you are fairly at the work, what is the motive which tells upon every touch of it? If it is the love of that which your work represents--if, being a landscape painter, it is love of hills and trees that move you--if, being a figure painter, it is love of human beauty and human soul that moves you--if, being a flower or an animal painter, it is love, and wonder, and delight in petal and in limb that move you, then the spirit is upon you, and the earth is yours, and the fulness thereof. But if, on the other hand, it is petty self-complacency in your own skill, trust in precepts and laws, hope for academical or popular approbation, or avarice of wealth, it is quite possible that by sturdy industry, or even by fortunate chance, you may win the applause, the position, the fortune that you desire, but one touch of true art you will never lay on canvas or on stone as long as you live. (J. Ruskin.)
A universal rule
I. The spirit of it is love.
II. The applications of it is universal.
III. The motive of it.
1. To promote peace and love.
2. Prevent strife and contention.
3. Subdue enmity and opposition. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
The universal rule
I.To what applied. To all our--
1. Thoughts.
2. Feelings.
3. Actions.
4. Devotions.
5. Church activities.
II. For whom contemplated, All our--
1. Family.
2. Relations.
3. Friends.
4. Neighbours.
5. Countrymen.
6. Race.
III. With what result. The promotion of all.
1. Righteousness.
2. Culture.
3. Holiness.
4. Happiness. (J. W. Burn.)
The key which sets the world to music
Man’s life consists of many “things done.” Activity is at once the law and the necessity of his nature. He only really lives as he acts, inactivity is death. But whilst the acts of men are numerous and varied, the animating and controlling spirit should be one, viz., love. It is thus in heaven, through all hierarchies. It should be thus on earth, and must be if earth is to have a millennium. This one spirit will--
I. Make us happy in all our activities. The labour of love is the music of life. All labour, however menial, if wrought under the inspiration of love, must yield happiness.
II. Make us useful in all our activities. Every work performed by loveis beneficent, it has a brightness in it to enlighten, a balm in it to soothe, a music in it to charm, an aroma in it to please.
III. Give unity to all our activities. As the circulating sap binds the root, the trunk, and the branches, the leafage, blossoms, and fruit, into one organic unity, so love will give a harmony and completeness to all the numerous and varied acts of life. Why are men everywhere so unhappy in their labours, and their labours so socially pernicious, so disharmonious and divided? Because they are not animated and governed by this one spirit--love. The human labours of the world that spring from greed, ambition, vanity, blind impulse, envy, and resentment, keep individuals, communities, and nations in constant conflict and confusion. (D. Thomas, D.D.)
