Love is not blind, declares Tolstoy; it sees what ought to be done and
does it. So with Paul. His eyes were open to the truth and he saw it;
he was sensitive to the needs of the Church and his epistles are filled
with wise counsel. He encouraged the worthy, admonished the erring and
strengthened the weak. Paul knew well the secret of liberality, as shown
in 2 Corinthians 8: 5. The members of the Macedonian church "first gave
their own selves"; giving was easy after that. Paul's religion could not
be shaken; read his vow as recorded in the eighth chapter of Romans:

For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor
principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to
separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

His sufferings developed patience and deepened devotion. They prepared
him to appreciate love and to define it as no other mortal has done.

His tribute to love, contained in the thirteenth chapter of 1
Corinthians, is not approached by any other utterance on this subject.
(I use the old version with the word charity changed to love.)

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not
love, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And though
I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all
knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove
mountains, and have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all
my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned,
and have not love, it profiteth me nothing. Love suffereth long, and
is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed
up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not