Our reason, I say, should teach us that the spirit of wisdom is none other than the spirit of love.  For consider—­how does the text describe this Spirit?

As the spirit of wisdom and understanding; that is, as the knowledge of human nature, the understanding of men and their ways.  If we do not understand our fellow-creatures, we shall never love them.

But it is equally true that if we do not love them, we shall never understand them.  Want of charity, want of sympathy, want of good-feeling and fellow-feeling—­what does it, what can it breed, but endless mistakes and ignorances, both of men’s characters and men’s circumstances?

Be sure that no one knows so little of his fellow-men, as the cynical, misanthropic man, who walks in darkness, because he hates his brother.  Be sure that the truly wise and understanding man is he who by sympathy puts himself in his neighbours’ place; feels with them and for them; sees with their eyes, hears with their ears; and therefore understands them, makes allowances for them, and is merciful to them, even as his Father in heaven is merciful.

And next; this royal Spirit is described as “the spirit of counsel and might,” that is, the spirit of prudence and practical power; the spirit which sees how to deal with human beings, and has the practical power of making them obey.

Now that power, again, can only be got by loving human beings.  There is nothing so blind as hardness, nothing so weak as violence.  I, of course, can only speak from my own experience; and my experience is this:  that whensoever in my past life I have been angry and scornful, I have said or done an unwise thing; I have more or less injured my own cause; weakened my own influence on my fellow-men; repelled them instead of attracting them; made them rebel against me, rather than obey me.  By patience, courtesy, and gentleness, we not only make ourselves stronger; we not only attract our fellow-men, and make them help us and follow us willingly and joyfully:  but we make ourselves wiser; we give ourselves time and light to see what we ought to do, and how to do it.

And next; this Spirit is also “the spirit of knowledge, and of the fear of the Lord.”  Ay, they, indeed, both begin in love, and end in love.  If you wish for knowledge, you must begin by loving knowledge for its own sake.  And the more knowledge you gain, the more you will long to know, and more, and yet more for ever.  You cannot succeed in a study, unless you love that study.  Men of science must begin with an interest in, a love for, an enthusiasm, in the very deepest sense of the word, for the phaenomena which they study.  But the more they learn of them, the more their love increases; as they see more and more of their wonder, of their beauty, of the unspeakable wisdom and power of God, shewn forth in every blade of grass which grows in the sunshine and the rain.