In my time, in the university of Edinburgh, the greatest figure in the faculty was Sir James Simpson, the discoverer of chloroform.  Recently his successor and nephew, Professor Simpson, was asked by the librarian of the University to go to the library and pick out the books on his subject (midwifery) that were no longer needed.  His reply to the librarian was this: 

“Take every text-book that is more than ten years old and put it down in the cellar.”

Sir James Simpson was a great authority only a few years ago:  men came from all parts of the earth to consult him; and almost the whole teaching of that time is consigned by the science of to-day to oblivion.  And in every branch of science it is the same.  “Now we know in part.  We see through a glass darkly.”  Knowledge does not last.

Can you tell me anything that is going to last?  Many things Paul did not condescend to name.  He did not mention money, fortune, fame; but he picked out the great things of his time, the things the best men thought had something in them, and brushed them peremptorily aside.  Paul had no charge against these things in themselves.  All he said about them was that they would not last.  They were great things, but not supreme things.  There were things beyond them.  What we are stretches past what we do, beyond what we possess.  Many things that men denounce as sins are not sins; but they are temporary.  And that is a favorite argument of the New Testament.  John says of the world, not that it is wrong, but simply that it “passeth away.”  There is a great deal in the world that is delightful and beautiful; there is a great deal in it that is great and engrossing; but

          IT WILL NOT LAST.

All that is in the world, the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life, are but for a little while.  Love not the world therefore.  Nothing that it contains is worth the life and consecration of an immortal soul.  The immortal soul must give itself to something that is immortal.  And the only immortal things are these:  “Now abideth faith, hope, love, but the greatest of these is love.”

Some think the time may come when two of these three things will also pass away—­faith into sight, hope into fruition.  Paul does not say so.  We know but little now about the conditions of the life that is to come.  But what is certain is that Love must last.  God, the Eternal God, is Love.  Covet, therefore, that everlasting gift, that one thing which it is certain is going to stand, that one coinage which will be current in the Universe when all the other coinages of all the nations of the world shall be useless and unhonored.  You will give yourselves to many things, give yourself first to Love.  Hold things in their proportion. Hold things in their proportion. Let at least the first great object of our lives be to achieve the character defended in these words, the character—­and it is the character of Christ—­which is built round Love.