It is a very easy thing to toss a copper to a
beggar on the street; it is generally an easier thing than not to do
it. Yet Love is just as often in the withholding. We purchase relief
from the sympathetic feelings roused by the spectacle of misery, at
the copper's cost. It is too cheap--too cheap for us, and often too
dear for the beggar. If we really loved him we would either do more
for him, or less. Hence, "If I bestow all my goods to feed the poor,
but have not love it profiteth me nothing."
Then Paul contrasts it with _sacrifice_ and martyrdom: "If I give my
body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing."
Missionaries can take nothing greater to the heathen world than the
impress and reflection of the Love of God upon their own character.
That is the universal language. It will take them years to speak in
Chinese, or in the dialects of India. From the day they land, that
language of Love, understood by all, will be pouring forth its
unconscious eloquence.
It is the man who is the missionary, it is not his words.
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