f 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 schoolroom. 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 character, no vigor of moral fibre, 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? Practising. 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 agony nor prayer. That is your
practice. That is the practice which God appoints you; and it is
having its work in making you patient, and humble, and generous, and
unselfish, and kind, and courteous. Do not grudge the hand that is
moulding the still too shapeless image within you. It is growing more
beautiful, though you see it not; and every touch of temptation may
add to its perfection. Therefore keep in the midst of life. Do not
isolate yourself. Be among men and among things, and among troubles,
and difficulties, and obstacles. You remember Goethe's words: "Talent