“ Lo v e r e j o i c e t h no t in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth.” I have called this sincerity from the words rendered in the Authorized Version by “ rejoiceth in the truth.” And certainly were this the real translation, nothing could be more just, for he who loves will love truth not less than men. He will rejoice in the truth -—■rejoice not in what,he has been taught to believe, not in this church’s doctrine or in that, not in this ism or in that ism but “ in the truth.” He will accept only what is real, he will strive to get at facts, he will search for truth with a humble and unbiased mind and cherish what ever he finds at any sacrifice. But the more literal translation of the Revised Version calls for just such a sacrifice for truth’s sake here. For what Paul really meant is, as we there read, “ Rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth,” a quality which probably no one English word — and certainly not “ sincerity” — adequately defines. It includes, perhaps more strictly, the self-restraint which refuses to make capital out of others’ faults; the charity which delights not in exposing the weak ness of others but “ covereth all things” ; the sincerity of purpose which endeavors to see things as they are and rejoices to find them better than suspicion feared or calumny denounced. So much for the analysis of love. Now the business of our lives is to have these things fitted into our characters. That is the supreme work to which we need to address ourselves in this world, to learn love. Is life not full of opportunities for learning love? Every man and woman every day has a thousand of them. The world is not a playground, it is a school room. Life is not a holiday but an education. And the one eternal lesson for us all is how better we can love. What makes a man a good cricketer? Practice. What makes a man a good artist, a good sculptor, a good musician? Practice. What makes a man a good linguist, a good stenographer? Practice. What makes a man a good man? Practice. Nothing else. There is nothing capricious about religion. We do not get the soul in different ways, under different laws, from those in which we get the body and the mind. If a man does not exercise his arm he develops no biceps muscle and if a man does not exercise his soul he acquires no muscle in his soul, no strength of char acter, no vigor of moral fiber, no beauty of spiritual growth. Love is not a thing of enthusiastic emotion. It is a rich, strong, manly, vigorous expression of the whole round Christian character — the Christlike nature in its fullest development. And the constituents of this great character are only to be built up by ceaseless practice. What was Christ doing in the carpenter’s shop? Practicing. Though perfect, we read that He learned obedience and grew in wisdom and in favor with God. Do not quarrel therefore with your lot in life. Do not complain of its never-ceasing cares, its petty environment, the vexations you have to stand, the small and sordid souls you have to live and work with. Above all, do not resent temptation, do not be perplexed because it seems to thicken round you more and more and ceases neither for effort nor for
with such a mood could only make heaven miserable for all the people in it. Except therefore such a man be bom again he cannot, simply cannot, enter the kingdom of heaven. You will see then why temper is significant. It is not in what it is alone but in what it reveals. This is why I speak of it with such unusual plainness. It is a test for love, a symptom, a revelation of an unloving nature at bottom. It is the intermittent fever which bespeaks unintermittent disease within, the occasional bubble escaping to the surface which betrays some rottenness underneath, a sample of the most hidden products of the soul dropped involuntarily when off one’s guard, in a word, the lightning form of a hundred hideous and unchristian sins. A want of patience, a want of kindness, a want of generosity, a want of courtesy, a want of unselfishness, are all instantaneously symbolized in one flash of temper. Hence it is not enough to deal with the temper. We must go to the source and change the inmost nature and the angry humors will die away of themselves. Souls are made sweet not by taking the acid fluids out but by putting something in — a great love, a new spirit, the Spirit of Christ. Christ, the Spirit of Christ, interpenetrating ours, sweetens, purifies, trans forms all. This only can eradicate what is wrong, work a chemical change, renovate and regenerate and rehabilitate the inner man. Will power does not change men. Time does not change men. Christ does. Therefore, “Let that mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” Some of us have not much time to lose. Remember once more that this is a matter of life or death. I cannot help speaking urgently for myself, for your selves. “Whoso shall offend one of these little ones, which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.” That is to say, it is the deliberate verdict of the Lord Jesus that it is better not to live than not to love. It is better not to live than not to love. Guilelessness and sincerity may be dismissed almost without a word. Guilelessness is the grace for suspi cious people. The possession of it is the great secret of personal influence. You will find if you think for a moment that the people who influence you are people who believe in you. In an atmosphere of suspicion men shrivel up; but in that atmosphere they expand and find encour agement and educative fellowship. It is a wonderful thing that here and there in this hard, uncharitable world there should still be left a few rare souls who think no evil. This is the great unworldliness. Love “ thinketh no evil,” imputes no motive, sees the bright side, puts the best con struction on every action. What a delightful state of mind to live in! What a stimulus and benediction even to meet with it for a day! To be trusted is to be saved. And if we try to influence or elevate others, we shall soon see that success is in proportion to their belief of our belief in them. The respect of another is the first restoration of the self-respect a man has lost; our ideal of what he is becomes to him the hope and pattern of what he may become.
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