April 22

"He that loveth his brother abideth in the light."—I John 2:10.

LOVE brings light. It is only if I love my brother that I abide in the light. And the light shines more and more, the wiser and the warmer and the fuller is the love.

Let me consider to how many chambers of light love alone holds the magic key. Let me see how often the heart leads me safely and surely, where the plodding and bewildered brain would only lose its way.

Thus I come to know my brother: he opens his nature to me, with its weaknesses, with its needs, with its possibilities, in proportion to the reality and the intensity of the love I give him. And thus I come to know myself: the call to exercise love will be a touchstone to disclose to me where I am likely to fall, an index, too, to reveal the heights to which I may rise. And thus I come to know the truth: it is not intellectual study half so much as a loving life, which opens up to me the profound and hidden meanings in Christ's doctrines, Christ's requirements, Christ's great and precious promises. And thus I come to know God: by loving everyone, all the day, in spite of rebuff and coldness and disappointment, I enter somewhat into the secrets of that great Heart of the Most High which is most wonderfully kind. Yes, if I love, I dwell in the light.

Heaven is the home of light: they have no need of the sun or the moon to shine there. Why is that? It is because heaven is the home of love—love in its transcendence, its perfection, its consummation. "The goal is Love on the Happy Hill." But let me have antepasts and prelibations of heaven, while I am pursuing my pilgrim march toward its gates.