It is when a man has
no one to love him that he commits suicide. So long as he has
friends, those who love him and whom he loves, he will live, because
to live is to love. Be it but the love of a dog, it will keep him
in life; but let that go, he has no contact with life, no reason
to live. He dies by his own hand.
Eternal life also is to know God, and God is love. This is Christ's
own definition. Ponder it. "This is life eternal, that they might
know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent."
Love must be eternal. It is what God is. On the last analysis,
then, love is life. Love never faileth, and life never faileth,
so long as there is love. That is the philosophy of what Paul
is showing us; the reason why in the nature of things love should
be the supreme thing--because it is going to last; because in the
nature of things it is an Eternal Life. It is a thing that we are
living now, not that we get when we die; that we shall have a poor
chance of getting when we die unless we are living now.
No worse fate
can befall a man in this world than to live and grow old alone,
unloving and unloved. To be lost is to live in an unregenerate
condition, loveless and unloved; and to be saved is to love; and
he that dwelleth in love dwelleth already in God.
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