Charity: The Crowning Christian Virtue
By Jos. Clark
The gift of charity is here greatly valued, as the crowning of the Christian character, the most excellent, most beautiful, most indispensable, of all the virtues. In this world, there are many counterfeits of this grace, many attempts made to pass off the base alloy for the true metal; but all these do not answer to the description given by Paul. To have true charity for all, under all circumstances, you need to be a partaker of the nature of Christ, who knows how to succor the tempted; at the same time you need some of his discernment, lest you rank the goats as sheep and the sheep as goats, and thus you become yourself an object of pity. We cannot feign this grace; for it is most difficult to act out mechanically of all the virtues; and no one of the virtues is so poorly calculated for mere display. You must have the genuine thing itself. You smile at the naturalness of the little child as it acts out its loving heart and forgiving disposition. Charity is a still more than childish virtue, and should be at least as natural and as unostentatious as that of the child, while it is, in fact, a million times more wise and useful. You do not need a long essay on charity; but you can get it where Nicodemus received his information as to regeneration; and there is the only place it is to be had. Jos. CLARK.