CHAPTER IV.

LOVE.


Love is the light and sunshine of life. We are so constituted that we
cannot fully enjoy ourselves, or anything else, unless some one we love
enjoys it with us. Even if we are alone, we store up our enjoyment in hope
of sharing it hereafter with those we love.

Love lasts through life, and adapts itself to every age and circumstance;
in childhood for father and mother, in manhood for wife, in age for
children, and throughout for brothers and sisters, relations and friends.
The strength of friendship is indeed proverbial, and in some cases, as in
that of David and Jonathan, is described as surpassing the love of women.
But I need not now refer to it, having spoken already of what we owe to
friends.

The goodness of Providence to man has been often compared to that of
fathers and mothers for their children.

"Just as a mother, with sweet, pious face,
Yearns toward her little children from her seat,
Gives one a kiss, another an embrace,
Takes this upon her knees, that on her feet;
And while from actions, looks, complaints, pretences,