June 2

"Now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love."—1 Corinthians 13:13 (R.V.).

FAITH is good. It is the eye by which I see the wealth and loveliness of Jesus Christ, Saviour, Master, Friend. It is the hand by which I grasp and hold and possess all His treasures. It brings me into contact, it keeps me in communion, with the glorious Lord, who is a place of broad rivers and streams. And so my sorrow is turned into singing, and my night into noonday. Faith apprehends and appropriates the unspeakable Gift of God; and without it how poor were I!

And hope is good. It travels away and away, beyond the present, with its troubles and vexations, into the happy future. It rises, with St. John, from the sea-girt rock of Patmos into the New Jerusalem; and, with Bunyan, from the prison on Bedford Bridge into the Celestial City; and, with Richard Baxter, from the turmoil of Kidderminster in the Civil Wars into the Saints' Everlasting Rest. Hope has wings, to bear me far from gloom and solitude and unfriendliness to the country where it is summer the whole year round.

But love is best. For love is so unselfish. It does not seek its own—not even its own spiritual prosperity and joy. It forgets itself, denies itself, sacrifices itself, runs the road the King of glory ran, and makes itself of no reputation. It thinks of God above, to be adored; of the world around, to be brightened; of poor and needy hearts everywhere, to be cheered and refreshed. Love prays and schemes and lives and labours, not for itself at all.

So most I covet love—an unselfish love which takes its sunny tint and bloom from God's boundless love of me.