52 Sermon Illustrations on Love in Action

In the time of a great pestilence, Cyprian, Bishop of the church in Carthage, in the third century, exhorts his flock to take care of the sick and dying, not only among their friends, but their foes. "If," says he, "we only do good to our own people we do no more than publicans and heathens. But if we are the children of God, who makes his sun to shine and his rain to descend upon the just and upon the unjust, who sheds abroad his blessings, not upon his friends alone, but upon those whose thoughts are far from him, we must show this by our actions, blessing those who curse us and doing good to those who persecute us."

Stimulated by their bishop's admonition, the members of the church addressed themselves to the work, the rich contributing their money and the poor their labor. Thus the sick were attended to, the streets soon cleared of the corpses that filled them, and the city saved from the dangers of a universal pestilence.

# NVY.