‘He that showeth mercy with cheerfulness.’  The glow of natural human sympathy is heightened so as to become a ‘gift,’ and the way in which it is exercised is defined as being ‘with cheerfulness.’  That injunction is but partially understood if it is taken to mean no more than that sympathy is not to be rendered grudgingly, or as by necessity.  No sympathy is indeed possible on such terms; unless the heart is in it, it is nought.  And that it should thus flow forth spontaneously wherever sorrow and desolation evoke it, there must be a continual repression of self, and a heart disengaged from the entanglements of its own circumstances, and at leisure to make a brother’s burden its very own.  But the exhortation may, perhaps, rather mean that the truest sympathy carries a bright face into darkness, and comes like sunshine in a shady place.

LOVE THAT CAN HATE

’Let love be without hypocrisy.  Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good. 10.  In love of the brethren be tenderly affectioned one to another; in honour preferring one another.’—­ROMANS xii. 9-10 (R.V.).

Thus far the Apostle has been laying down very general precepts and principles of Christian morals.  Starting with the one all-comprehensive thought of self-sacrifice as the very foundation of all goodness, of transformation as its method, and of the clear knowledge of our several powers and faithful stewardship of these, as its conditions, he here proceeds to a series of more specific exhortations, which at first sight seem to be very unconnected, but through which there may be discerned a sequence of thought.

The clauses of our text seem at first sight strangely disconnected.  The first and the last belong to the same subject, but the intervening clause strikes a careless reader as out of place and heterogeneous.  I think that we shall see it is not so; but for the present we but note that here are three sets of precepts which enjoin, first, honest love; then, next, a healthy vehemence against evil and for good; and finally, a brotherly affection and mutual respect.

I. Let love be honest.

Love stands at the head, and is the fontal source of all separate individualised duties.  Here Paul is not so much prescribing love as describing the kind of love which he recognises as genuine, and the main point on which he insists is sincerity.  The ‘dissimulation’ of the Authorised Version only covers half the ground.  It means, hiding what one is; but there is simulation, or pretending to be what one is not.  There are words of love which are like the iridescent scum on the surface veiling the black depths of a pool of hatred.  A Psalmist complains of having to meet men whose words were ’smoother than butter’ and whose true feelings were as ‘drawn swords’; but, short of such consciously lying love, we must all recognise as a real danger besetting us all, and especially