Love demonstrates its presence by action. Our lives, after all, are
mere echoes. I speak harsh to a man, and he will speak harsh to me.
If a man has bad neighbors it his own fault. If a woman has bad
servants it is her own fault. If we make others happy we will be happy
ourselves. If you are not happy, go and buy all the poor people near
you a turkey for Christmas. "He that noticeth others shall be noticed
also himself." If you want to get your own soul above its own
troubles, go and do good to some unhappy soul. If we do this work, I
believe we will have to do it in this world. There will be no tears to
wipe away, or sorrows to assuage, or afflictions to remedy in the other
world. This work is for this world. It is a blessed work. It is the
best investment a man can make. It pays an hundred fold. Labors of
love demonstrate better than the church membership that we are in the
Master's service. This is the Master's business. Though my way
through life has often been through graveyards and through glooms, I
have loved and I have been loved, and I know that life is worth living.
Love is the fulfilling of the law; the end of the gospel commandment;
the bond of perfectness. Without it, whatever be our attainments,
professions or sacrifices, we are nothing. Love obliterates the
differences in education, wealth, station, religion, politics and
nationality. It is a promoter of peace and harmony; it cultivates the
social graces; it makes friends of strangers and brothers of
acquaintances; it softens the asperities of life; it worships at the
shrine of piety, and recognizes the omnipotence of God and the
immortality of man. It is religious not sectarian, patriotic but not
partisan. It glows by the fireside, radiant with perpetual joy. It
glorifies God in worship and in song. It blesses humanity in genial
mirth and human sympathies. It is a perennial fountain at which the
old may drink and grow strong. It is a daily benediction to its
devotees, and, like "a thing of beauty, is a joy forever." It stands
like the statue of liberty, a beacon light to the tempest-tossed and
wayfaring mariner and brother, pointing him the way to the haven of
refuge, to the right living and right doing.

Oh love, thou mightiest gift of God; thou white-winged trust in Him who
doeth all things well; thou one light over His darkest providences,
lingering to cheer when all else has passed away, thy whisper upon the
dull ear of nig