Or shall we say that love—­the love of God and man—­is the highest and divinest motive of labour—­a motive possible not only to the sons and daughters of genius, but accessible to the plainest, humblest man or woman who suffers and toils on the lowest round of the ladder of life.

“I argue in favour of this doctrine on the ground of its profitableness to the worker.  My readers will probably have asked long before this, How far do these propositions harmonise with the interests of the servant?  Ought he not to take his own well-being into account?  Certainly.  He must have just as true a regard for his own welfare and the welfare of those dependent upon him, as he has for that of others.  The command, ’Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,’ can only be rightly interpreted by another, like unto it, which reads:  ’Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you do ye even so to them.’  Therefore, he must ask, that others should do unto him as he would do unto them, supposing they occupied changed positions.  This must mean that, while righteously concerned for the interests of others, he must be reasonably concerned for his own.

“But here a little difficulty comes into our argument, arising out of the play of the higher motives of affection.  What does love care for gain in its calculations of service?  The husband who loves his wife as Christ loved the Church, does not stop to consider the claims of duty, or the advantages following its discharge in toiling for her welfare.  He will be willing to die for her, as Christ died for the Church.

“He does not say, ’I will toil for my delicate wife, and deny myself pleasant things, in order to obtain for her the necessaries and comforts she requires, because she would do the same for me, if I were in her place and she in mine.’  Nothing of the kind!  The wife I spoke of, who told me the other day that she had not had her clothes off for seventeen days and nights in nursing her husband did not make it appear that she thought she was doing anything extraordinary, or that she rendered this service to her companion in life because she felt sure that had he been the wife and she the husband, he would have gladly done the same for her.

“Had the newspapers thought that the American millionaire was going to the Leper Island, with his gold, to make something out of it for himself and family, or to make a name in the world, instead of his being greeted with a chorus of admiration, there would have been a universal chorus of execration at his selfishness.  It was because they believed that he was going to make the sacrifice of his own gain, if not of his own self, for the benefit of the poor sufferers, that they praised him.

“Supposing, however, that we come down to the low level of self-interest, we insist then, that those who work from the motive of love, rather than the motive of gain, will