Love, the Law of Life

We do not have so strong a love as Paul had, hence we may not have the power to analyze love. The more we consider Paul’s love, the more surpassingly great it appears. After he expounded, in I Corinthians 12, the social process of love, employing the parable of the body, he taught in the following chapter that learning, faith, and even charitable works, all are meaningless without love:

I may speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but if I have no love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal; I may prophesy, fathom all mysteries and secret lore, I may have such absolute faith that I can move hills from their place, but if I have no love, I count for nothing; I may distribute all I possess in charity, I may give up my body to be burnt, but if I have no love, I make nothing of it. oe

What boldness of utterance! Paul refers to speaking in different languages because in the primitive church it was believed that under the leading of the Holy Spirit men could speak foreign languages without making any study of them, that in a state of heightened emotion even language was bestowed as one of the evidences of religion. In one of the Christian sects in America there is the “Tongues Movement,’’! in which, as described recently in the daily press, the believers when filled by the Holy Spirit experience a special activity of the tongue, uttering words which are unpremeditated. In this phenomenon, then, there are elements which resemble the belief and practice in the early Christian church.

Paul declares that even though one possessed this gift of languages, such powers would be useless if one was lacking in love. In other words, though one is possessor of marvelous powers born of mystic principles, if one fails to have the social motive power of love, these powers are useless.

In the next place, Paul declares that without love the power of prophecy, knowledge of mysteries, wisdom, faith—all are futile.

Prophecy criticizes the trend of the times from the standpoint of religion. Prophecies in ancient times were made by the operation of some mysterious power; but today, without recourse to any mysterious influence, we are able to make such criticism by the aid of the philosophy of history. Marx, Hegel, Richelt, Schlegel, and other writers made prophecies from the philosophical standpoint regarding such matters as St. Augus-

1The Tongues Movement is strong in California. Members of these churches who come to Japan, though quite ignorant of the Japanese language, believe superstitiously that they can speak our language freely.

tine saw and called ‘‘the direction in which God’s will operates.”’ But prophecy by the aid of the philosophy of history is limited to intimations that certain affairs will probably be thus and so. It has no power to show to people concretely what course they should take.

By mysteries are meant such lore as the special secrets of Shingon Mantra (a Buddhist sect), the mysteries of Shugendo (asceticism of a Buddhist sect mixed _ with Taoism), the conjuring of the Chaldeans, the Egyptians, and the Greeks, and the secret rites of the Gnostic sect (which began to flourish in the second century before Christ). Though one be versed in these mysteries, what actual power will result for the life of society? Paul teaches that prophetic insight and knowledge of mysteries are useless unless men possess - love; and he indicates that the essence of love is adherence to reality, and progress through suffering.

This being the case with respect to prophetic power and secret lore, much more is it true with regard to superficial wisdom. And furthermore, Paul declares that faith which can move mountains is useless without love.:

The strongest religion in the world is casemate anism. It is said to move mountains by its faith. It started out with this mighty faith, but it lost its power; | for wherever Mohammedanism spread there were con- | flicts, bloodshed, dead bodies piled mountain high, but there was no love. It was a gospel of force, not of love; a gospel not of resurrection, but of death. Mountainmoving faith there may be, but religion without love i is as nothing. f

Brahmanism appears to be similar: multitudes of devotees looking forward to their next existence drown themselves in the Ganges River, the number in a single year reaching, it is said, as high as several tens of thousands. They exhibit a faith greater than that which moves mountains, yet lacking love, it too is devoid of significance.

Paul proceeds to speak of works of charity. In the Roman period charitable work was highly developed. Dill in his description of that period tells of the flourishing eleemosynary work of the time. Certain men, understanding that the people in the city of Rome were without proper drinking water, constructed aqueducts of stone in order to bring a supply of water from a distance of scores of miles. Others, not to be outdone, built elaborate public baths, in order to release the people from uncleanliness. Others still, observing how the people had to walk in muddy roads, constructed broad streets as smooth as mirrors. We note that some of the names of places in Palestine are those of emperors, reminders also of the Roman period. For example, Tiberias was formerly a lonely cemetery, but Antipas cleared it off and built a city. Czsarea Philippi was a town reconstructed for the emperor into a beautiful city and named in his honor. The age was one in which undertakings in city planning were highly advanced.

In the Roman period also charity was actively practiced. The Cesars daily gave thousands of bushels of grain to the poor. It is said that more than 320,000 people received largess of the emperor. Therefore the poor people in the provinces gave up their farming and came from great distances to Rome in order to receive the dole. The slums of Rome were crowded. In the second stories of the slum houses dwelt those who were comparatively well-to-do, while in the upper stories the poor people swarmed. In Schmoller’s Fundamentals of Economics the conditions in the slums of the period are described. While the slums flourished in consequence of the magnitude of the charitable work, this very work, performed solely for empty notoriety, had the injurious effect of creating hordes of lazy people. Philanthropic work was popular, but the hearts of the men who made these benefactions were by no means filled with love. In the reign of the Caesars men who contributed their tens of thousands received the rewards of high titles and of free citizenship. Hence, the newly rich vied with each other in these benevolent undertakings. Moreover, the money thus lavishly expended in public benefactions was money made in the majority of cases from the forced labor of slaves. These are stories of the period from 90 to 80 B.c., but today, in this twentieth century A.D., we again witness ~ examples of the same kind of philanthropic work. It is reported that the Mitsui Company donated to protective work for released prisoners the ¥750,000 (nearly $375,000) profit which it made in the Siemens scandal. Benefactions made with tainted money are done with self-defrauding and self-deception, not from the motive of love. We may pour out all our treasures thus, but however splendid the benefaction may be, of what worth is it? Work done with money is easy, but work done by the heart is difficult.

“T may give up my body to be burnt,” says Paul— one may be crucified, but if the martyrdom be without love, it is vain. Some may say that where there is no love there will be no martyrdom, but that is a mistake. The majority of religions issue not from love but from fear. Human sacrifices, for example, are martyrdoms, but the motive is not necessarily love; it is often fear. When Jutaro Iwami drove away the baboons, he saved a young girl who was being offered as a sacrifice because the people were so distraught by fear. The girl was offered, not because of the promptings of love, but because the baboons were so dreadful.

The religions of India, with the exception of the Brahma Samaj of Ram Mohan Roy and Tagore, are in great part religions of fear and cruelty. In them there is conflict, but no love. The Hindus worship Kali. — This goddess is represented by an idol with black hair, and mouth reaching from ear to ear. She wears a necklace of skulls, and human heads dangle from her hands. The idol stands upon the body of the demon Siva. ‘The Hindu people worship Kali not from love but from fear, especially from dread of smallpox and cholera. After the British government assumed the rule of India, the people were for many years not permitted to build any factories; for each year the deaths from famine and plague averaged over 30 per thousand of the population, and it is said that during the past fifty years nearly 2,500,000 have died of starvation. The deaths from infectious diseases were still more numerous, cholera alone having caused the deaths of tens of thousands. There was not alone this seeming mercilessness of Nature, but the different states of India, 180 in number, were forever fighting among themselves. That the people of India should thus look upon their gods as merciless beings was all too natural; and that they should bow down before this goddess of fear and beseech her to relax her cruel scourge justa ~ little, is also quite natural.

The most cruel human sacrifices are those of suttee: _ the living widow was sacrificed by being bound to a pole and left to burn on the pyre. This human sacrifice was made from excessive fear, with pleas for pardon. In the ancient worship of Moloch, uncivilized folk moved by fear sacrificed infants by burning them. Since they thought it too cruel to burn them in the plain, they sacrificed them on a mountain, beating drums to drown the wails of the infants. It is said that in excavations in Ashkelon there have been found the skulls of infants who were offered as living sacrifices in order that the people might be forgiven. This practice was not unknown even among the ancient Hebrews. Abraham’s attempted sacrifice of Isaac is an instance. Though it was prompted by strong faith, it goes without saying that the motive for it was not

We may offer our bodies in sacrifice for the sake of our religious faith, but if love is not the starting point, nothing good results. We may do all kinds of religious work, engage in benevolent enterprises, or even suffer martyrdom, but if the motive of love be lacking, nothing avails.

~ Love is the heart of life. In the pulsation of that heart must be heard the rhythm of God’s motive energy.

Henry Drummond, the naturalist, who declared that in the evolution of mother love is to be seen the upward progress of the human species, in his address entitled The Greatest Thing in the World, attempted an analysis of the thirteenth chapter of Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians.

If we follow Drummond’s division of the chapter we have:

(1) The Introduction of Love, verses 1 to 3 (the portion which I have already endeavored to explain);

(2) The Analysis of Love, verses 4 to 8;

(3) The Conclusion of Love, verses 9 to 18.

I do not necessarily follow Drummond’s division, but I wish to treat the portion from verse 3 to verse 7, following his explanation in part, in an attempt to analyze love. I prefer to consider this portion rather as The Nucleus of Love and The Structure of Love. The portion reads as follows:

Love is very patient, very kind. Love knows no jealousy; love makes no parade, gives itself no airs, is never rude, never selfish, never irritated, never resentful; love is never glad when

others go wrong; love is gladdened by goodness, always slow to expose, always eager to believe the best, always hopeful, always patient.

In reference to these words let us consider—

Love embraces all things and perpetually sustains all. This must be the starting point of love. At first glance, love and tolerance seem unrelated, but love always accompanies tolerance. What the world knows as magnanimity is after all nothing else than the product of love’s great embracing power. Tolerance is not the peculiar possession of the people of the romantic period: we of the new age too must have tolerance.

In ancient times men regarded those who spoke strange languages as enemies, or else glared at them jealously. The French quarreled with the English, and - the German-speaking people wrangled with those who spoke French. This was for no other reason than that each man respected the language of his own country, and stood sturdily for independence. But in the present day differences of language do not cause jealousy and glaring looks, for we know that we must break away from distinctions and barriers of language, and love one another. Love is always tolerant.