THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD.

Every one has asked himself the great question of antiquity as of the
modern world: What is the _summum bonum_--the supreme good? You have
life before you. Once only you can live it. What is the noblest object
of desire, the supreme gift to covet?

We have been accustomed to be told that the greatest thing in the
religious world is Faith. That great word has been the key-note for
centuries of the popular religion; and we have easily learned to look
upon it as the greatest thing in the world. Well, we are wrong. If we
have been told that, we may miss the mark. In the 13th chapter of I
Corinthians, Paul takes us to

CHRISTIANITY AT ITS SOURCE;

and there we see, "The greatest of these is love."

It is not an oversight. Paul was speaking of faith just a moment
before. He says, "If I have all faith, so that I can remove mountains,
and have not love, I am nothing." So far from forgetting, he
deliberately contrasts them, "Now abideth Faith, Hope, Love," and
without a moment's hesitation the decision falls, "The greatest of
these is Love."

And it is not prejudice. A man is apt to recommend to others his own
strong point. Love was not Paul's strong point. The observing student
can detect a beautiful tenderness growing and ripening all through his
character as Paul gets old; but the hand that wrote, "The greatest of
these is love," when we meet it first, is stained with blood.

Nor is this letter to the Corinthians peculiar in singling out love as
the _summum bonum_. The masterpieces of Christianity are agreed about
it. Peter says, "Above all things have fervent love among yourselves."
_Above all things._ And John goes farther, "God is love."

You remember the profound remark which Paul makes elsewhere, "Love is
the fulfilling of the law." Did you ever think what he meant by that?
In those days men were working the passage to Heaven by keeping the
Ten Commandments, and the hundred and ten other commandments which
they had manufactured out of them. Christ came and said, "I will show
you a more simple way. If you do one thing, you will do these hundred
and ten things, without ever thinking about them. If you _love_, you
will unconsciously fulfill the whole law."

You can readily see for yourselves how that must be so. Take any of
the commandments. "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me." If a man
love God, you will not require to tell him that. Love is the
fulfilling of