the room he just put his hand on the sufferer's head, and said,
"My boy, God loves you," and went away. The boy started from his
bed, and called out to the people in the house,

"God loves me! God loves me!"

One word! It changed that boy. The sense that God loved
him overpowered him, melted him down, and began the creating of a
new heart in him. And that is how the love of God melts down the
unlovely heart in man, and begets in him the new creature, who is
patient and humble and gentle and unselfish. And there is no other
way to get it. There is no mystery about it. We love others, we
love everybody, we love our enemies, BECAUSE HE FIRST LOVED US.


III. The Defence.


Now I have a closing sentence or two to add about Paul's reason
for 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