guage of Wales, of Ireland, of the Scottish Highlands is dying before our eyes. The most popular book in the English tongue at the present time, except the Bible, is one of Dickens’ works, his Pickwick Papers. It is largely written in the language of London street-life; and experts assure us that in 50 years it will be unintelligible to the average English reader. [The author was writing before the advent of the 20th century.] Then Paul goes farther and with even greater boldness adds, “Whether there be knowledge, it shall be done away.” The wisdom of the ancients, where is it? It is wholly gone. A schoolboy today knows more than Sir Isaac Newton knew: his knowledge has
In my time in the university of Edinburgh the greatest figure in the faculty was Sir James Simpson, the discoverer of chloroform. Recently his successor and nephew, Professor Simpson, was asked by the librarian of the university to go to the library and pick out the books on his subject (midwifery) that were no longer needed. His reply to the librarian was this: “ Take every textbook that is more than 10 years old and put it down in the cellar.” Sir James Simpson was a great authority only a few years ago: men came from all parts of the earth to consult him; and almost the whole teaching of that time is consigned by the science of today to oblivion. And in every branch of science it is the same. “Now we know in part. We see through a glass darkly.” Knowledge does not last. Can you tell me anything that is going to last? Many things Paul did not condescend to name. He did not mention money, fortune, fame; but he picked out the great things of his time, the things the best men thought had something in them and brushed them peremptorily aside. Paul had no charge against these things in themselves. All he said about them was that they would not last. They were great things, but not supreme things. There were things beyond them. What we are stretches past what we do, beyond what we possess. Many things that men denounce as sins are not sins, but they are temporary. And that is a favorite argument of the New Testament. John says of the world, not that it is wrong, but simply that it “ passeth away.” There is a great deal in the world that is delightful and beautiful, there is a great deal in it that is great and engrossing, but it will not last. All that is in the world, the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life, are but for a little while. Love not the world therefore. Nothing that it contains is worth the life and consecration of an immortal soul. The immortal soul must give itself to something that is immortal. And the only immortal things are these: “Now abideth faith, hope, love, but the greatest of these is love.” Some think the time may come when two of these three things will also pass away — faith into sight, hope into fruition. Paul does not say so. We know but little now about the conditions of the life that is to come. But what is certain is that love must last. God, the eternal God, is love. Covet therefore that ever lasting gift, that one thing which it is certain is going to stand, that one coinage which will be current in the universe when all the other coinages of all the nations of the world shall be useless and unhonored. You will give yourselves to many things, give yourself first to love. Hold things in their proportion. Hold things in their proportion. Let at least the first great object of our lives be to a c h i e v e the character defended in these words, the character — and it is the character of Christ — which is built around love. I have said this thing is eternal. Did you ever notice how continually John associates love and faith with eternal life? I was .not told when I was a boy that “ God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should have everlasting life.” What I was told, I remember, was that God so loved the world that if I trusted in Him
Tittle Things
W e can do little things for God. I turn the cake that is frying on the pan for love of Him, and that done, if there is nothing else to call me, I fall in worship before Him, who has given me grace to work; afterwards I rise happier than a king. It is enough for me to pick up a straw from the ground for the love of God.
— B rother L awrence
vanished away. You put yesterday’s newspaper in the fire: its knowledge has v an i s h e d away. You buy the old editions of the great encyclopedias f o r a few cent s : their knowledge has vanished away. Look how the coach has been superseded by the use of steam. Look how e l e c t r i c i t y has superseded that and swept a hundred almost new inventions into oblivion. “Whether there be knowl edge, it shall vanish away.” At every workshop you will see in the back yard a heap of old iron, a few wheels, a few levers, a few cranks, broken and eaten with rust. Twenty years ago that was the pride of the city. Men flocked in from the country to see the great invention; now it is superseded, its day is done. And all the boasted science and philosophy of this day will soon be old.
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