_THE JOY OF THE LOVER_

ROMANS xii. 9-18.

Love finds her joy in seeing others crowned. Envy darkens when she sees the garland given to another. Jealousy has no festival except when she is "Queen of the May." But love thrills to another's exaltation. She feels the glow of another's triumph. When another basks in favour her own "time of singing of birds is come!"

And all this is because love has wonderful chords which vibrate to the secret things in the souls of others. Indeed, the gift of love is just the gift of delicate correspondence, the power of exquisite fellow-feeling, the ability to "rejoice with them that do rejoice, and to weep with them that weep." When, therefore, the soul of another is exultant, and the wedding-bells are ringing, love's kindred bells ring a merry peal. When the soul of another is depressed, and a funeral dirge is wailing, love's kindred chords wail in sad communion. So love can enter another's state as though it were her own.

Our Master spake condemningly of those who have lost this exquisite gift.

They have lost their power of response. "We have piped with you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned with you, and ye have not lamented." They lived in selfish and loveless isolation. They have lost all power of tender communion.

APRIL The Twenty-first

_LOVE AS THE GREAT MAGICIAN_

1 JOHN ii. 1-11.

A new commandment! And yet it is an old one with a new meaning. It is the old water-pot, but its water has been changed into wine. It is the old letter with a new spirit. It is the old body with a new soul. Love makes all things new! It changes duty into delight, and statutes into songs.

What a magic difference love makes to a face. It at once becomes a face illumined. Love makes the plainest face winsome and attractive. It adds the light of heaven, and the earthly is transfigured. No cosmetics are needed when love is in possession. She will do her own beautifying work, and everybody will know her sign.

What a magic difference love makes in service! The hireling goes about his work with heavy and reluctant feet: the lover sings and dances at his toil. The hireling scamps his work: the lover is always adding another touch, and is never satisfied. Just one more touch! And just another! And so on until the good G.o.d shall say that loving "patience has had her perfect work."

Love lights up everything, for she is the light of life. Let her dwell in the soul, and every room in the life shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.

APRIL The Twenty-second

_SPEECH AS A SYMPTOM OF HEALTH_

"_The tongue of the wise is health._"

--PROVERBS xii. 13-22.

Our doctors often test our physical condition by the state of our tongue.

With another and deeper significance the tongue is also the register of our condition. Our words are a perfect index of our moral and spiritual health. If our words are unclean and untrue, our souls are a.s.suredly sickly and diseased. A perverse tongue is never allied with a sanctified heart. And, therefore, everyone may apply a clinical test to his own life: "What is the character of my speech? What do my words indicate? What do they suggest as to the depths and background of the soul?" "By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned."

G.o.d delighteth in truthful lips. Right words are fruit from the tree of life. The Lord turns away from falsehood as we turn away from material corruption, only with an infinitely intenser loathing and disgust.

It is only the lips that have been purified with flame from the holy altar of G.o.d that can offer words that are pleasing unto Him.

"Take my lips and let them be Filled with messages from Thee."

APRIL The Twenty-third

_MASCULINE FORGIVENESS_

COLOSSIANS iii. 12-17.

True forgiveness is a very strong and clean and masculine virtue. There is a counterfeit forgiveness which is unworthy of the name. It is full of "buts," and "ifs," and "maybes," and "peradventures." It moves with reluctance, it offers with averted face, it takes back with one hand what it gives with the other. It forgives, but it "cannot forget." It forgives, but it "can never trust again." It forgives, but "things can never be the same as they were." What kind of forgiveness is this? It is the mercy of the police-court. It is the remission of penalty, not the glorious "abandon" of grace! It is a cold "Don't do it again," not the weeping and compa.s.sionate goodwill of the Lord.

"_Even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye._" That is to be our motive, and that is to be our measure. We are to forgive _because_ Christ forgave us. The glorious memory of His grace is to make us gracious. His tender, healing words to us are to redeem our speech from all harshness. In the contemplation of His cross we are to become "partakers of His sufferings,"

and by the shedding of our own blood help to close and heal the alienation of the world.

And we are to forgive _as_ Christ forgave us. Resentment is to be changed into frank goodwill, and filled with the grace of the Lord.

APRIL The Twenty-fourth

LIMITED FORGIVENESS

LUKE xvii. 3-10.

We are always inclined to set a limit to our moral obligations. We wish, as we say, "to draw a line somewhere." We want to appoint a definite place where obligation ceases, and where the moral strain may be released. The Apostle Peter wished his Master to draw such a line in the matter of forgiveness. "Lord, how oft shall I forgive? Till seven times?" He wanted a tiny moral rule which he could apply to his brother's conduct.

Not so the Lord. Our Master tells His disciple that in those spiritual realms relations are not governed by arithmetic. We cannot, by counting, measure off our obligations. Our repeated acts of forgiveness never bring us nearer to the freedom of revenge. No amount of sweetness will ever permit us to be bitter. We cannot, by being good, obtain a license to be evil. The fact of the matter is, if our goodness is of genuine quality, every act will more strongly dispose us to further goodness. It is the counterfeit element in our goodness that inclines us to the opposite camp.

It is when our forgiveness is tainted that we antic.i.p.ate the "sweetness"

of revenge.

APRIL The Twenty-fifth

_THE HIDDEN FOES_

MATTHEW v. 21-26.

Our Lord always leads us to the secret, innermost roots of things. He does not concern Himself with symptoms, but with causes. He does not begin with the molten lava flowing down the fair mountain slope and destroying the vineyards. He begins with the central fires in which the lava is born. He does not begin with uncleanness. He begins with the thoughts which produce it. He does not begin with murder, but with the anger which causes it. He pierces to the secret fires!

Now, all anger is not of sin. The Apostle Paul enjoins his readers to "be angry, and sin not." To be altogether incapable of anger would be to offer no antagonism to the wrongs and oppressions of the world. "Who is made to stumble, and I burn not?" cries the Apostle Paul. If wrong stalked abroad with heedless feet he burned with holy pa.s.sion. There is anger which is like clean flame, clear and pure, as "the sea of gla.s.s mingled with fire."

And there is anger which is like a smoky bonfire, and it pollutes while it destroys.

It is the unclean anger which is of sin. It seeks revenge, not righteousness. It seeks "to get its own back," not to get the wrong-doer back to G.o.d. It follows wrong with further wrong. It spreads the devil's fire.