"IDEALS OF LOVE."

"Greater love hath no man than that he shall give his life for
another," whether the scene be set upon the mimic stage, or on the
broad theatre of the world. Heroic rescues, desperate efforts to save
endangered lives, care of the battle-wounded or fatally diseased meet,
from great and small, brutal and cultivated, deserved recognition, even
to the extent of making the individual actors--so favored by the
gods--famous, throughout the world.

The patient service of men and women to their families, of children to
their parents, or of friends who rejoice in serving, that goes on all
around us conforms so entirely with our established ideals of what is
right and becoming, that it is unnoticed and wins no applause, but
oftener only calls out from the recipient demands for further sacrifice.

In all such related service the real blessing comes to those who give
far more than to those who receive. The operation of this law hallows
all the relationships of this life, and must finally yield to the
unselfish giver undreamed of compensations. Not here, perhaps, but in
that sphere of being where love is indeed the fulfilling of the law,
shall the patient givers, those who have served at love's altars, find
themselves closely allied to the immortal ones, "who do his pleasure."

Love, garlanded, and adorned with all that wealth can bestow, enthroned
in seats of honor, and social recognition is accepted as our ideal of
what love should claim, and win from life; but I have looked into the
faces of humble, patient toilers, and there I have seen that the
sustaining influence with them was love, and have marvelled greatly
over the compelling power of their ideals of love.