Paul's Panegyric on Love.
By Alexander Mc Laren
[Alexander Mc Laren, D.D. in S. S. Times.] “I DON'T care for Paul's abstruse theological arguments, but that hymn of his to love is exquisite.” The many people who say this should remember that, in Paul's view, the love which he glorifies is the product of the faith which grasps his “theology,” and of it only. This sparkling fountain in the midst of the so-called arid waste springs up there because it is fed from the depths of what seems so dry. Christian love comes from the soul's response to Christian truth. Paul's first thought in this lofty celebration of love is that it is at once the crowning beauty and the productive root of all other excellences. It adds the last poignant savor to them all, and without it, character, whatever its attainments, is defective. He works out that thought in verses 1 to 3. First he takes up the immediately preceding thread of thought, and declares that the “tongues,” of which he has been speaking, are no better than meaningless blarings and jinglings, unless it is love that speaks through them. That applies to much besides the gift of tongues in the early church. It brings in a new criterion by which to estimate eloquence, poetry, and all the floods of speech and writing that deluge the world. The supreme question for “criticism” of these is, Do they give voice to love? If they do, they are as sweet as harpers harping on their harps; if they do not, they are worth no more than the tuneless noises of braying trumpets, loud and strident, or the trivial tinklings of shrill cymbals. Loveless words are noise. When love speaks, there is music. Let us criticize our own utterances as well as those of others from that point of view.