On Love.

For—II . The foundation stone of the Church is love . For God is love , and the head of the Church is God , God in Christ . And grounded in love is the characteristic of the Church ' s children . He

that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God , and God in him . As I have loved you , that ye also love one another . By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples , if ye have love one to another . Such were the early Christians . See how they

love one another ! was commonly said of them . They called themselves 'the brethren- ' and the Church at large ' the brotherhood / And Scripture describes them as those whose faith not only grows exceedingly , but also the charity of

everyone towards each other abounds , —the word ordinarily used in Scripture to express charity ayavn , meaning in the largest and most emphatic sense " love . "

But even in the Church , as iu the world before , how soon was God ' s design of love contravened Toy human sinfulness again ! and under sin ' s ever- , accompanying shadow of death , again love paled . Even in the Apostolic age , it is recorded all seek

their own . We mark those who cause divisions and offences . We find envying , and strife , and divisions , aud wrong-doing and defrauding of brethren , aud wars aud fightings , among professed believers . And what has been most prominent

in every section of the Church , even as in the surrounding world , from that clay to the present , but unlovingness ?—contention , and coercion , and persecution , the dungeon , the faggot , the gibbet , the penal statute , the social ostracism , till the most

popular view of the Christianity of our own most Christian country at the present moment comes under the aspect of our unhappy divisions . Hence section after section of the Church rose and fell . The earlier Christian communities—where are they ? The eastern churches—the place thereof knoweth them no more . The western

churchestheir life how languid , and their sphere how circumscribed : Some graces of Eden they still inherit , But the trail of the Serpent is over them all . So , section after section of the Church itself rose

and fell : rose , on the strength of love—and fell , through the lack of love . And but that God again left not himself without witness both of his own love and the love he designed earth to entertain in all lands and in all ages as an earnest of the future ,,

We should have still our faith to seek , the retrospect of the Church would be as dismal as that of the world , and the looking forward would be as hopeless . But love hath never failed—love never faileth .

The death-sentenced Father of an apparently ruined world may despair—but in that very ruin the power of Godhead itself is moved to destroy him that had the power of Death . The lonely prophet of au apparently lost Church

may despair—but God has still his secret reserve of many thousands of the faithful . Even so , at this present time also , there is a remnant , as in every past age of the world and of the Church there has been a brotherhood , involving both

Church and world—touching the world with one hand and the Church with the other—a continual attestant to the indestructibility of love , and a perpetual evidence that the foundation of God standeth sure equally in the world and in the church , that

Though darkness gathereth amain Our course is onward , onward into light , and that at last , though late , love ' s ' . . . universal sunshine Shall spread o ' er earth as free ,

And fill the souls of men As the waters fill the sea . For—III . The foundation stone of our brotherhood is love . For God is love , and whether we regard the

world , he hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth , and this have we had from the beginning , that we love one another ; or whether we regard the Church , there is one God and Father of all , and this

commandment have we from Him , that he who loveth God love his brother also , the world has not altogether lost his birthright , and the Church has not altogether monopolised this privilege . There is a brotherhood linking both : —broad as the world in

its scope , for it excepts no man as alien to its sphere , and blessed as the Church in principle , for love is the fulfilling of its law—coeval in its foundation with the world , for this is the message that ye heard from the beginning that we should

love one another—and coequal in its construction with the Church , for we know that we have passed from death unto life , because we love the brethren—a brotherhood to which is assigned an effectual place in the dispensation of Providence and the history of man for the final consummation