For Love worketh great things, where it is; but if it worketh not, it is not Love. Love is the means of all good, for it is according to God, and fashioneth our deeds aright. For it hath ever the eyes towards God. It is the glue of souls, the union of faithful souls; it is not cold through sloth, nor feigned in action, not fleeting, not rash, not headlong. Love is also the end of all goods; for it is for the sake of God, and directeth our works, and bringeth them to the right end. It is the end of sins, because it destroyeth them; the end of the commandments, because it perfecteth them; it is the end of all our toils, the end of all ends to us, for our rest is in life everlasting, but God is the End in Whom we rest," and "God is Love."

Whence hath love its birth? of God, in the Essence of God.

In the Infinite Love

Faith and Hope are towards God. They are graces put into the soul by God, whereby the soul should cling to Him, hold fast to Him, long for Him. But Faith and Hope can have no likeness in God. They are virtues of the soul towards God, bringing it near to Him, supporting it in cleaving to Him, opening it for His Love. They are the virtues of the creature, when absent from its Creator, companions of its pilgrim state. In Heaven, neither Angels, nor Saints, hope or believe, but see and know and feel and love. Faith and Hope are great graces; but they, as well as works of love, will, in Eternity, cease to be. They are a ladder to reach to Heaven. When Heaven is reached, there is no more place for them. In Heaven they cannot be. Faith cannot be, where there is sight; nor Hope, when He for Whom we hope, has

fully given Himself to us; and we have Him, the End of our faith, and are immersed in the Ocean of Joy in Him we hope for; and knowledge, such as we have here, vanisheth away, and there will come in its stead, another kind of knowledge, a knowledge not coming to us in words, nor formed by our thoughts, nor reflected to us, as through a glass darkly, not faint images of things Divine, but the Beatific Vision itself, the Very Essence of God. In God, we shall, (if we attain) see God; in God, know God. Not only through the Manhood of Christ Jesus our Lord, although inseparably united with His Godhead and in God; not through any thing created, even His Adorable Manhood, shall we know and see God. God Himself shall the Eyes of the soul behold, unveiled in His Glory and Majesty and Beauty, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, as HE IS. But then, when the highest speech of God here, even prophecies, words spoken of God, through God putting them into the mind, shall cease, and instead thereof, shall be "the new song;" then, when, for this dim knowledge of God, through our imperfect thoughts and words, spoken after the manner of men, we shall "know as we are known," shall know the Very Self, the Essence of God, even as He knows our inmost selves; yea, then when His Divine Nature, as HE IS, shall be open to our gaze, Himself, with all the treasures of His Wisdom and Goodness and Love, shall be ours to behold; and when the bright torch of Faith, which guides us in this our darkness, shall be lost in the Ineffable Brightness of the Sight of God, and Hope shall be swallowed up in the unceasing, assured, satisfying Joy of Him we hope for,

beyond Whom, out of Whom, there is nothing to hope for, but a certain knowledge that our joy shall be as unchangeable as His Bliss, which shall be our joy; then, even then, "Charity never faileth." For Charity is the love wherewith, throughout Eternity, the blessed shall love God, and each other in God.

On this ground, then, is Charity greater than Faith and Hope, and any other grace, because it has its source in that which God IS. Charity is created love, coming forth from the Uncreated, "shed abroad in our hearts" by Him Who is Uncreated Love, "the Spirit Who is given us." Love is that which is most akin to that which God is. Love unites man to God. Love lifts men to Heaven, because it is of God, as it bowed God down to earth, to have pity on our miseries and sins. Love is the return and flowing back of the love of God. "We love Him because He first loved us." He loved us with an infinite love. He would have us return a whole undivided love, all for All; the whole love of man for the whole Infinite love of God. It reaches as far as the love of God. Prudence and wisdom are likenesses of the Eternal Providence; but they reach, when furthest, a very little way. Love, when well ordered, loves, in its measure, all which God Himself loves. It loves, in its height, God Himself for Himself, because He IS What He IS, even as (if we may reverently say it), God Almighty loves Himself, because He is Himself, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the One Object of All-Perfect love. It loves His holy creatures, Angels and Archangels, because they love Him, and His Love rests upon them. It loves the Church, because it is His Body, the multitude of His redeemed, whom He

"purchased with His Own Blood." It loves those who love Christ, because Christ loveth them; it loves those who love Him not, because He willeth them to be saved. It loves the weak tenderly, as Christ also compassionates them. It joys in penitents, as He saith, "Rejoice with Me, for I have found the sheep which I had lost." It exults in the triumphs of martyrs, in the love of devoted souls, in the fervour of the zealous, in the purity of innocence, in whom Christ" seeth of the travail of His soul and is satisfied." It "weeps with those who weep," as Christ wept at Lazarus' grave. It was in St. Paul, "weak with the weak," as Christ took the weakness and in

firmity of our flesh. It feels the goods and ills of others as its own, as Christ hungers in the hungry, is "thirsty" and "naked," "sick and in prison,” in His members. Who is there whom God loveth, whom they who love by His love, love not? They love all whom God loveth, because God loves them, and they love Him in them, and them in the degree in which He is in them.

Hence then it is love which gives the value to all deeds of faith, or devotion, or toil, or love, or martyrdom; because love is of God, and refers all to God. Noble self-denying deeds may be for man's praise or in self-complacency; chastity may be proud; alms-giving, vain-glorious. Active service may be its own reward; death itself may be undergone amid obstinacy. Love hath no end but God, seeketh nothing but Himself for Himself, "seeketh not her own;" for in God she hath all things and overfloweth; hath, only to overflow to others; receives but to diffuse and to give back. All virtues are but

forms of love, for she is the soul of all.

e

"Temperance,” says a father, "is love, keeping itself pure and undefiled for God. Fortitude is love, readily enduring all things for the sake of God. Justice is love which serveth God alone, and so, hath command over all things subject to man. Prudence is love, distinguishing what helpeth it towards God, from what hindereth it;" or, "Love,' kindled with entire holiness towards God, when it coveteth nothing out of God, is called temperance; when it willingly parteth with all, is called fortitude." Love contains all virtues; it animates all; but itself is beyond all. For they are concerned with human things and human duties, with the soul itself, or its fellow men, with deeds which shall cease when our earthly needs and trials and infirmities cease; love bears them all up to God, looks out of all to Him, does all to Him, and in all sees Him, soars above all, and rests not until she finds her rest in the All-loving Bosom of God.

But since the love of God is so great, so blessed, so necessary a gift, how may we know that we have it, how grow in it? Blessed be God, there are many degrees of it, else might most well fear that they had not any of it. Yet this may be said at once. If thou art pained that thou hast not more love for God, and desirest to love, thou hast love. Love only craves more love. Love only so contemplates the Object of love, as to feel that all its love is too little for His Adorable Love. Love only feels the absence, or seeming absence of Him it loves. Love only knows that God is above all things to be loved. S. Aug. de Mor. Eccl. c. 15.

f Ib. c. 22.