XXIII.

The Powers of Love.

GAL. v. 22.

"The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace."

IF these be the fruit of the Spirit, they cannot be mere matters of temperament. They have a higher origin than a physical frame happily moulded, or even a will dutifully disposed. There is something in them of more heavenly fire; lighting up our human nature, but not entirely kindled there; leaving with us the blessing, but rendering back to God the praise. When philosophy gives an account of the human soul, it can find only constitutional propensities and voluntary acquisitions. When we interrogate Christianity, we are told, besides, of communicated sanctities; states of mind which inheritance cannot give, or resolution command; which need some touch of God to wake them up; which are above us, and yet ours; which do our work, and yet are better than our will; and

seem to lie on the border-land of communion between the finite and the Infinite spirit. That this language, which has approved itself to the deepest and devoutest men in Christendom, should be all a senseless mysticism, is an opinion which modest thought will be reluctant to maintain. There is something strange and unintelligible in the anxiety of a pretended rationalism to get rid of the inspiring God, to make sure that our nature will be quite let alone, to environ it with an impassable ring-fence, and plant sentry-boxes of argument all round, to exclude the possible encroachments of anything Divine. If the apostolic language expressed no other truth, it would at least describe, with simplicity and faithfulness, the complete transformation which religion effects in the original instincts and feelings; how, by conquering, it glorifies them; and turns them from animal impulses into moral and spiritual powers. To a mind uplifted in divine conversion, and, through past toil and patience, dwelling in a light above the storms of sin and sorrow, a new being seems to have arisen; a thick dream to have broken away; a drowsy pressure to have flown from the head, a sultry leaden cloud to have been swept from off the freshened heart. Its old affections, though called by the same names, appear but counterfeits of those which are ascendant now; poor masks, serving for the mimicry, but mocking the reality, of life. How indeed is it possible to disguise from ourselves the

pretences of which, till the spirit wakes to the inner truth of things, we are half-willing dupes ? how much society there is without communion, and laughter without gladness, and quiet without escape from care! The acts and habits which should flow from the affections of the soul, spring often only from its misery. The good fellowship that seems so cordial, warming the lips and brightening the eye,-how often is it a flight from self rather than a quest of others, the opiate of conscience rather than the wine of Love! The mirth that rings with so genial a sound, and seems to flash from heart to heart, is it all like the true glee of childhood? or can you not discern a false and eager heat, as though something were thrust down that the gladness may leap up? And the composure and selfpossession of men, is it not sometimes a mere negative tranquillity, the calm of them that sleep ?—and at others, a triumph of intellect smoothing the troubled fancy, and of will refusing to betray ?-in neither case, the serenity of inward affection and living content? The retreat from secret thought, the restlessness of wasted power, the suspicions of injured nature, the aching of unsatisfied capacity, are always at work with silent free-masonry among men; hurrying them about to clasp hands with one another in conspiracy against themselves; and leading them to mimic the look of things that would appear, were they a world of faithful souls. The disguise is transparent to the eye of purity;

which looks on the drama as on children acting the wedding and the funeral in the nursery; occupied with the scenery and the pageantry, heedless of the meaning and the pathos.

Even the genuine instincts and healthy sentiments of men, freed from all corruption of pretence, undergo a complete and noble change, when living in the atmosphere of a religious soul; and always fail of some portion of their grace and power, till breathed upon by this, their natural air. We are glad enough indeed, in a world like ours, to welcome a loving heart on almost any terms. When the sickness is at its height, we do not ask the physician for his diploma; when the bleeding lie so thick upon the field, we must accept any nurse that will bind their wounds; and of him that lifts the faint we demand not whether he be a Samaritan. It were ungracious to complain of such charity as can be found to soothe the grievances, and shame the selfishness, of life. Only, the gentle mind is ever open and docile too; they that love well are thankful to love better; and in precise proportion as the spirit of affection is elevated, is its work more surely achieved, and its experience more truly peaceful.

There is a humane love, which constitutes the humblest and most frequent form of unselfish feeling. It finds its objects among the miserable, and attaches itself to them in proportion to their woes. In human pity there is a strange combination of repulsion and

attraction, which it is the paradox of philosophy to state, and the mercy of God to ordain: it cannot endure the sight of wretchedness, and yet can never leave it. To no ear are the cries of anguish so piercing; yet it hovers within the circle where they wander, and flies to the centre whence they come. To no eye does manhood struck down in its strength and wasting on its bed, or the child decrepid with hunger and neglect, or the wife deserted and broken beneath the burden of life, present a sight so sad; but it is fascinated to the spot, and lives amid the haunts it dreads. To stop that ear, to shut that eye, would seem to give an easy promise of relief; nor is there anything to hinder except that they would cease to be the organs of humanity, and would be degraded into the instruments of selfishness: and so, it is no more possible to get them closed, than to persuade the sobbing child to put aside the story that draws forth its tears. It is needless to say what we owe to the soul of compassion; of how many infant ills it has rocked the cradle till they fell into the sweet sleep of recovery; of how many a cruel passion it has stayed the uplifted arm; what old and giant oppressions it has challenged to the lists, and laid low with the sling and stone of its youthful indignation. It is indeed an emotion, to be incapable of which were to be less than human. It is the great power which lifts the heavy mass of mankind above the gross interests, the un