The Newtown bee., 1909-03-12
The NewtoWn Bee.
 Newtown, Friday, March i2, 1909,
THE HOME CIRCLE
THE MORE EXCELLENT WAY.
By Rev A. Locke, the Baptist Parson'
 age, East1n,

Yet shew l you q more excellent way" 1 Cor l9:l-l3.
 Paul had been describing spiritual gifts in the foregoing verses and all are to be desired. Not all for any one individual but for the church in her organized capacity and diversi- fled ministries. pastoral, eWhngelical missionary and militant kn0wl- edge, faith, healing, miracles, proph- ecy, discerning Of spirits, divers kind of tongues or languages, are all desirable in the many and varied operations of the Body of Christ. Gifts which have never been with drawn by the Triune God from the days of the Apostles to the present hour and moment Precluded or shut out, they may have by some Of the so-called authorities of the church, but never by the true au- thorities. God the Father, God the son and God the Holy Ghost. And until the Church has fulfilled on Earth these gifts will be possible to her and will be exercised by many within her fold with greater fleet iveness and productiveness as the Day approaches.
 Yet, says the Apostle Paul, there is something higher. Above all the superiority of these matcnless gifts is the supremacy of love, divine love. refining the heart, purifying the dis- position, controlling the life and il- luninating the character until it shall radiate and sparkle in all the beautiful characteristics of the Son of God unto whose likeness we ara called and into whose image we arc to be fashioned One hesitates to enter into consideration of this lofty thtma. especially wlLn we remember with what masterly skill, marked ability, spiritual setting ard treat ment it has been placed before the public of all lands by the hands o1 such men as Pref Drummond. Yet we s1buld not dc well to refrain iron further consideration of so lofty theme, neither should we be doing that which $ well pleasing in God: sight, who giveth more light ant who hle:ses the humber meditation' as he dcas the higher and loftiar.
 The first step m the ladder of tn More Excellent Way is that o long suffering love. Love suFeretl long," Are we long suffering? D we suffer long? Or is patient en durance cut short with impatien dispatch? Is this not the plac where many fail? Is not the spiri rt impatience and non-forbearanc one of the disturbing factors in man, lives? Because we see not the ney machine in all it's parts we are i'm "atlent of it's possibilities and sa there is no wisdom here; but wait patiently wait, wait long, with lon suffering or with passive endpranc and thou shalt see wisdom in all tha seems most unwise. Let us passivcl wait when we do not see the con meeting links along the association of life's highway. For love passive ly endures the mistakes, the impetr osities, the discourtesies and dis favors of others, Love bears wit 6ismeanors and shortcomings. Lov deals Dc iently with the tenderplan
 with the delicate lamb, the erin child, the truant will, the offendin
 one in patient expectation that
 change may come for the better an
 all that seems most wrong will
 made right. There is a story toI
 that in the little Scotch village
 Torthorwald 50 years ago lived wretched, sinful woman, an outca - from home and society but pray, " 'or by an elder of the Eirk every ds
 of his life. She knew that he pray, h for her and long afterward when
 the grace of God she had become
 new creature, she declared that q
 only thil g that kept her from de
 pair and suicide was when in t
 dark winter nights she crept Up u
 der that good mans window al
 heald him pl-ading in family worsll | at God would convert the sim |. from the error of her wicked wa = and polish her as a jewel for the
 deemer's crown q felt was a bl
 den on that mans heart and I kp,
 God would not disappoint him. Tn
 thought kept me out of He'll and
 me at last to ny only Sayio r" He
 is the long suffering, patience, hol
 fitness and perseverance of love
 others. Love nff.re. Il long,"
 The second step on the ladder
 vS