You remember the profound remark which Paul makes elsewhere, “Love is the fulfilling of the law.”  Did you ever think what he meant by that?  In those days men were working the passage to Heaven by keeping the Ten Commandments, and the hundred and ten other commandments which they had manufactured out of them.  Christ came and said, “I will show you a more simple way.  If you do one thing, you will do these hundred and ten things, without ever thinking about them.  If you love, you will unconsciously fulfill the whole law.”

You can readily see for yourselves how that must be so.  Take any of the commandments.  “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.”  If a man love God, you will not require to tell him that.  Love is the fulfilling of that law.  “Take not His name in vain.”  Would he ever dream of taking His name in vain if he loved him?  “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.”  Would he not be too glad to have one day in seven to dedicate more exclusively to the object of his affection?  Love would fulfill all these laws regarding God.

And so, if he loved man, you would never think of telling him to honor his father and mother.  He could not do anything else.  It would be preposterous to tell him not to kill.  You could only insult him if you suggested that he should not steal—­how could he steal from those he loved?  It would be superfluous to beg him not to bear false witness against his neighbor.  If he loved him it would be the last thing he would do.  And you would never dream of urging him not to covet what his neighbors had.  He would rather they possessed it than himself.  In this way “Love is the fulfilling of the law.”  It is the rule for fulfilling all rules, the new commandment for keeping all the old commandments, Christ’s one

          Secretof the Christian life.

Now Paul has learned that; and in this noble eulogy he has given us the most wonderful and original account extant of the summum bonum.  We may divide it into three parts.  In the beginning of the short chapter we have Love contrasted; in the heart of it, we have Love analyzed; toward the end, we have Love defended as the supreme gift.

I. THE CONTRAST.

Paul begins by contrasting Love with other things that men in those days thought much of.  I shall not attempt to go over these things in detail.  Their inferiority is already obvious.

He contrasts it with eloquence.  And what a noble gift it is, the power of playing upon the souls and wills of men, and rousing them to lofty purposes and holy deeds!  Paul says, “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.”  We all know why.  We have all felt the brazenness of words without emotion, the hollowness, the unaccountable unpersuasiveness, of eloquence behind which lies no Love.