Christian love the chief grace


Love, amid the other graces in this world, is like a cathedral tower, which begins on the earth, and, at first, is surrounded by the other parts of the structure. But, at length, rising above buttressed walls, and arch, and parapet, and pinnacle, it shoots spirelike many a foot right into the air, so high that the huge cross on its summit glows like a spark in the morning light, and shines like a star in the evening sky, when the rest of the pile is enveloped in darkness. So love, here, is surrounded by the other graces, and divides the honours with them; but they will have felt the wrap of night, and of darkness, when it will shine, luminous, against the sky of eternity.

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