"If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar." These are the words of John in his first Epistle, verified by his Master, Jesus Christ. The language here employed refers to a mortal, and implies both male and female under this generic term man.
The term love is the embodiment, burden, and premise of John's remarks, as found in this 20th verse. Love! Who can define it? "Mortals misname it, call it what it is not, and then wonder what it is;" hence, mortal man can only repeat an infinitesimal part, and exercise that portion. The unselfish glory of Love is distorted by "human definitions and named qualities of matter."
Mankind has caught but an infinitely small spark of divine Love, which can be made visible to the senses only in better morals, better health, kind deeds, actions, looks and words; in a loving, unselfish disposition in our own household, towards parents, children, and mankind in general, with sympathy for the afflicted, the sorrowing, and the cast-down; in taking them by the hand in a kind act, kind look or word. The sin and physical sick, hungering for the bread of Truth, find no comfort in the stereotyped expressions of logic, or parrot utterances, composed of paragraphs committed to memory.
