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(2.) Misconstruction is another thing that love endures. Love goes about doing good, notwithstanding the ignorant or the malignant perversion of its motives and actions on the part of its enemies.

(3.) Envy is another of the evils which love endures without being turned aside by it. To be good, and to do good, are alike the objects of envy with some persons.

(4.) Ingratitude is often the hard usage which love has to sustain, and which it patiently endures. Many persons do not know their benefactors, many more will not acknowledge them, and others will not reward them even with the cheap offering of thanks. These things are enough to make us sick of the world; yes, but ought not to make us weary of trying to mend it; for the more ungrateful it is, the more it needs our benevolence.

(5.) Derision is often employed to oppose the efforts of love by all the artillery of scorn, especially when love is directed to the advancement of religion and morality.

(6.) Want of success, that most discouraging consideration to activity, is not sufficient to drive it from the field; but, in the expectation of the future harvest, it continues to plough and to sow in hope.

436. As instances in which the self-denial of love has been beautifully exhibited, we may contemplate the labors and sufferings of Clarkson in the endeavor to abolish the slave-trade; those of the apostle Paul in propagating the gospel, as recorded in 2 Cor. xi.; but above all, the labors and sufferings of the living personification of love, the Son of God, in accomplishing the work of man's redemption. These are the models that we should ever endeavor to copy.

[This chapter has been drawn from John A. James's work on Christian Charity, to which reference may be made for a more full discussion of the topics embraced in it.]

434. What is implied in the self-denial of love?

435. What are the difficulties, discouragements, and provocations, that love must encounter?

436. What instances may be mentioned, in which the self-denial of love has been conspicuously and beautifully exhibited?

I

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LOVE TO MEN AS SENSITIVE BEINGS.

CHAPTER III.

LOVE TO MAN VIEWED UNDER CERTAIN GENERAL RELATIONS.

437. MAN may be considered in two points of view: as possessed of a body, which is susceptible of agreeable or disagreeable sensations; and, as endued with a mind, which is capable of endless improvement in knowledge and virtue, and which is destined to an endless existence. In both these respects, love will exert its powers in meliorating the condition, and promoting the enjoyments of mankind.

I. Love to our Fellow-men, considered as Sensitive Beings. 438. Man, in regard to his corporeal system, is subject to various sufferings and wants.

(1.) He stands in need of food, raiment, comfortable lodging and accommodations, light to cheer, and enable him to prosecute his employments, pure atmospheric air to invigorate his animal system, and water to cleanse and refresh him.

(2.) He is exposed to corporeal weakness, and to mental imbecility; to pain and disease; to the loss of one or more of the senses; to the decrepitude of old age.

(3.) He is also exposed to the afflictions occasioned by the loss of friends and relatives; to dejection of mind, to remorse of conscience, to doubt, despondency, and despair; to anxieties, vexations, and troubles of various kinds. 439. Love will endeavor to supply these wants, and to assuage and relieve these sorrows.

In this respect, every one, however low his situation in life, however limited the range of his knowledge, and however contracted the sphere of his influence may be, has it in his power, in a greater or less degree, to communicate blessings to his brethren of mankind.

440. He can visit the sick bed of an afflicted neighbor; he can supply a cup of cold water to his parched tongue; he can wipe the sweat from his forehead; he can smooth his pillow; he can turn him round on his bed of languish

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ing, that he may enjoy a more comfortable repose; and he can cheer him by those expressions of tenderness and affection, which have a tendency above all other acts of kindness to revive the downcast spirit.

441. He can assist his neighbor by his strength or by his skill, by his counsel and advice, and by taking a lively interest in his concerns. He can promote his joy by rejoicing in his prosperity and success; by assisting him in his employment; by rescuing him from danger; by forgiving the injuries he may have inflicted, and by listening with patience and complacence to his sentiments, complaints, or grievances.

The Widow's Light-house.

The island of Rona is a small and very rocky spot of land, lying between the isle Syke and the main land of Applecross, and it is well known to mariners by the rugged and dangerous nature of its coast. There is a famous place of refuge in its southwestern extremity, called the "Muckle Harbor," of very difficult access, however, which, strange to say, is easier entered by night than during the day. At the extremity of this hyperborean solitude is the residence of a poor widow, whose lonely cottage is called the light-house, from the fact that she uniformly keeps her lamp burning in her little window at night. By keeping this light, and the entrance of the harbor open, a strange vessel may enter with the greatest safety.

During the silent watches of the night, the widow may be seen, like Norma of the Fitful Head, trimming her little lamp with oil, fearful that some frail bark may perish through her neglect; and for this she receives no manner of remuneration; it is pure and unmingled philanthropy. The poor woman's kindness does not even rest here, for she is unhappy until the benumbed and shivering mariner comes ashore to share her little board, and recruit himself at her glowing and cheerful fire, and she can seldom be prevailed upon to accept any reward. She has saved more lives than Davy's lamp, and thousands of pounds to the underwriters. The poor creature, in her younger days, witnessed her husband struggling with, and swallowed up by the billows,

"In sight of home and friends that thronged to save."

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LOVE TO MEN AS RATIONAL BEINGS.

This circumstance seems to have prompted her present devoted and solitary life, in which her only enjoyment is doing good.

442. He may promote the happiness of his neighbor in a negative way, by not injuring him in his character or reputation; by not standing in the way of his prosperity or advancement; by not interrupting him in his innocent amusements; and by refraining from everything that would tend to injure him in his trade or profession.

443. Such offices every one has it in his power to bestow, and upon such apparently trivial actions, the happiness of mankind in general more immediately depends, than on many of those legislative arrangements which arrest the attention of a whole empire. For, were they universally performed, the greater part of the miseries which afflict humanity would disappear from the world.

444. Love, under the advantages of a high degree of intellectual talent, wealth, and influence, will endeavor to counteract public evils, and to promote rational schemes of general philanthropy. Some portions of society labor under many physical evils and inconveniences, which tend to injure their health and their comfort, and to obstruct their moral and intellectual improvement. Were the comfort of such portions of society made as particular an object of attention as the acquisition of wealth, every obstacle to its accomplishment would soon be removed.

II.-Love to our Fellow-men, considered as Rational and

Immortal Beings.

Man is a rational and immortal, as well as a sensitive being, and therefore the operations of love will have for their ultimate object the promotion of his best interests as a moral and intellectual agent, and as an heir of immortality.

445. In all ages, mental darkness has enveloped the greater portion of our race: the grossest ignorance of the most important truths, accompanied with the most degrading affections and superstitions, still prevails among the greater part of men, our own proud land not excepted. Multitudes of the young, both in city and country, are suffered to shoot up from infancy to manhood as if they were mere animal existences, ignorant of the character and operations of God, of the duties they

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owe to their Creator and to one another, and of the eternal state of existence to which they are destined.

446. Love to man, as an intellectual being, will lead to the erection of seminaries of instruction where they are needed, and it will employ every suitable method of diffusing knowledge, and of imparting a useful education.

It will not confine its attention to the instruction of the young, but will endeavor, by writing, by conversation, by actions, by lending and circulating books, by establishing public libraries, and similar methods, to diffuse the rays of intellectual light among men of all ages, ranks, and professions, till ignorance, with its degrading accompaniments, shall be banished from society.

In a word, it will endeavor to make every branch of knowledge subservient to the illustration of the character and the revelation of God, and to the preparing of mankind for the employments of that nobler state of existence to which they may aspire.

447. In view of his immortal nature, involved, as it is, in moral degradation, it becomes one of the highest offices of love to promote its eternal well-being, which is jeoparded by ignorance and by depravity of heart and life.

The man of enlightened benevolence will not rest satisfied with prayers and wishes for the salvation of men; so far as the circle of his influence extends he will endeavor to instruct the ignorant, to arouse the reckless, to reclaim the dissipated, to convince the skeptic, to train up the young in the knowledge of God and in the paths of virtue, and to encourage and animate every one who is inquiring the way of life.

448. He will give due encouragement, by his advice and by his wealth, to Christian churches, and to faithful, pious, and intelligent ministers of religion. He will patronize every rational scheme for the propagation of the Christian religion among the nations. He will encourage the translation of the Scriptures into the languages of all kindreds and tribes: he will give countenance to societies formed for circulating the Bible in foreign lands and in his own: and he will assist in sending forth intelligent and philanthropic missionaries to unenlightened tribes, for the purpose of diffusing the blessings of knowledge, civilization, and religion.

He will also set himself in opposition to every species