Says the great apostle, “Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth.” 1 Cor. 8:1. To put it in simple Anglo-Saxon, “Knowledge puffeth up, but love buildeth up.” Many possess knowledge who know not love. Knowledge is a mere accumulation of cold, dead, empty facts, mere shells or forms, having no other power of themselves but to inflate the mind that contains them. The difference between knowledge and love is the difference between a soap-bubble and a pearl. The one may shine for a few seconds with all the beautiful, blending, changing coruscating colors of the rainbow, but the next moment it is gone; but the beautiful pearl, built up by a yielded life, little by little, shines as beautifully, and abides. Who would not prefer the pearl to the bubble? The same difference is well illustrated in a gorgeous silk, inflated balloon and a substantial house. The one is puffed up, the other is builded up from the foundation rock. The former may permit a man or two to soar in peril for a little while, the other, tho not as outwardly beautiful perhaps, forms a safe, comfortable, and abiding habitation. The one is a plaything of storm and tempest, invariably driven to destruction if cast loose; the other is a shelter in the time of storm, a refuge from cold and heat. Which do you prefer, the balloon or the house? It is not so difficult to obtain knowledge of the empty facts of the Christian religion. Many of the scholars of India are more than a match for the puffed-up missionaries whom they meet. One often meets with an infidel who has gathered many facts of Holy Writ, and it may safely be said, that the devil is an extraordinary living (or dying) encyclopedia of facts concerning the work of God in the salvation of men. But mere facts will not save. To depend upon them for food is to feed upon ashes, out of which the life has been burned. To depend upon them for shelter in storm and tempest, is to trust in a hot-air balloon. To cherish them as marvels of value and beauty is soap-bubble fancy. It is love only that abides; love only that stands the storm and stress and trial of life. Love has cast off self, yielded all to Christ, and in sweetest devotion accepted His way as best. It is born of the love of God, which spared not the eternal Son, but gave Him a ransom for all. It responds to that love by yielding all. The psalmist expresses it thus: “O how love I Thy law! it is my meditation all the day.” The Spirit of Christ in David declares, “I delight to do Thy will, O My God; yea, Thy law is within My heart.” The same Spirit of life in John declared, “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not grievous.” Love has knowledge. It does not merely know about God, but it knows God. It is like a knowing of the father not of the man. There are boys that know of the educated, refined man across the way with his large estate, immense wealth, great fertile fields, fruitful orchards, and large benevolence, of which they have been in varying degrees partakers; but there are other boys who know the man as a father, who have access to the inner circle of his affections, who have partaken of the great warmth of his love, who know the tenderness of his severity, the sweetness of his reproof, the wisdom of his counsel, the strength of his love. The first boys mentioned may know the statistics of the man's estate, the amount of his wealth, the figures of his public benevolences; the latter class may not know any of these facts, they may have never inquired, but they know what is infinitely better, the great wealth of heart-love and nobility and sweetness of his manhood and fatherhood even to the extent of his ability and life. Love, the love born of God, is builded on the foundation Rock, Christ Jesus. It is the principle, the expression, the fulness of His life. Love “beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Love never faileth.” It is of God, eternal, immortal, and to it the knowledge of eternity will be imparted. Reader, is it knowledge or love?