singling out love as the supreme possession.

It is a very remarkable reason. In a single word it is this: _it
lasts._ "Love," urges Paul, "never faileth." Then he begins again one
of his marvelous lists of the great things of the day, and exposes
them one by one. He runs over the things that men thought were going
to last, and shows that they are all fleeting, temporary, passing
away.

"Whether there be _prophecies_, they shall be done away." It was the
mother's ambition for her boy in those days that he should become a
prophet. For hundreds of years God had never spoken by means of any
prophet, and at that time the prophet was greater than the king. Men
waited wistfully for another messenger to come, and hung upon his lips
when he appeared, as upon the very voice of God. Paul says, "Whether
there be prophecies, they shall fail." The Bible is full of
prophecies. One by one they have "failed"; that is, having been
fulfilled, their work is finished; they have nothing more to do now in
the world except to feed a devout man's faith.

Then Paul talks about _tongues_. That was another thing that was
greatly coveted. "Whether there be tongues, they shall cease." As we
all know, many many centuries have passed since tongues have been
known in this world. They have ceased. Take it in any sense you like.
Take it, for illustration merely, as languages in general--a sense
which was not in Paul's mind at all, and which though it cannot give
us the specific lesson, will point the general truth. Consider the
words in which these chapters were written--Greek. It has gone. Take
the Latin--the other great tongue of those days. It ceased long ago.
Look at the Indian language. It is ceasing. The language of Wales, of