Milford chronicle., 1883-12-21
BEECHER's BRIGHT THOUGHTS.
some of the Plymouth PASTORS Sayings in
a Sunday Discourse on Love.

took as his text, John Xx., BIO. The
passages describe the haste of Peter and
John to the sepulchre after Christ had
risen. In the course of his sermon he
gave utterance to the following:
John aud Peter raced That was a
grand and glorious race to the sepulchre.
Well, now You would bet on Peter,
every one of you. John was very
modest man, but he cannot forget to put
in what no mythical man would ever
have put in, that 'the other disciple
outran Peter.
''Peter loved; John loved. John
loved with reflective power, Peter with
motive. That makes very great diff
ference. Peters zeal was not fed from
the head; it was the impulse of blood.
John was passionate man, but refec-
ton grew with him as action tended to
grow with Peter, and he lived more and
more an inward life than Peter.
"In that race to the sepulchre love
and reflection beat love and impulse. So
it has been ever since. Not that love
and impulse are bad; not that either of
them should exist alone; but if they are
separated and divided to the end of the
world love and reflection will beat in
activity, in large scope, love and blood
impulse.
"There are multitudes of men who
feel deeply, but feeling works inwardly,
and the more powerfully they feel the
less they are disposed to speak or to act
There are men who are like the strings
of harp you connot touch them that
they do not answer back again instantly.
Feeling works outwardly with them.
There are many men who, under heat,
boil and bubble and throw off the lid
and overflow and put out the fire.
''When the potato was first carried to
England they ate the tops. They didn't
know that the real potato lay under the
ground, hidden. There are a great
many men whose graces grow on the
top. They have no bottom roots at all.
They are all development.
'The power of one common Church is
that the loneliness of love brings to-
gether all these gifts and graces that are
distributed through various personal
tiles, and makes them one in the life of
the Church.
''The men of divine, governmental
sympathy and the men of human sym
nathv. and the Church needs them
both.
SCHOOLS in theology make themselves
the arbiters of all Gods DEGREES and all
Gods thought and admiration. The
extreme schools judge everything by
their tenet, and the lax schools judge
everything by their tenet. There amt
one of you right. from the East to the
West. You are all imperfect
Gin this life we are all fragmentary,
and in no direction more than in moral
government. In no direction are there
more different lives of thought possible.
'sYou will sooner build church that
will hold all the population of the globe
than you will build one that will hold
all the varying beliefs.
''The law of unity is not the law OF
similarity. It is the law of love by
which every man receives every other,
and considers that variation from him
self as a rich contribution to the unity
and the grandeur of the whole, for the
Church of Christ must represent the
sum total of all that which God has re-
vealed in this life and the varying dis
positions of the men of the earth.
eff we must analyze, divide, separate
then of the two choose not zeal, clamor-
GUS and full of exterior activity.
Choose reflective love, not without ac-
tivity, but more slow, more continuous,
deeper, and that puts into the result OF
activity more of God.
s'Now, take this one thought home.
It is originaI-I mean it will be if you
practice it in your life and in your home.
Set yourself not up as the judge of men.
Accept those around you in everything
that is in accordance with love and re-
Election. Take them to yourself; take
yourself to them. In your neighbor-
hood. everywhere, thank God for the
differences that are this side of wicked
ness. Every variation from you Is an
accretion to you if you will so accept
it.
mo Cxvoy.a UimsaIf