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 homely to  look  upon,  but  rich  and  sweet  within. For lack of  love  Dives  becomes  the  beggar,  but  Lazarus in love  alone  finds  a  substitute  for  all  his  needs. And love is  the  Christian's  most  precious  possession — his life. " God  is  love,"  says  St. John; and  elsewhere Christ  says  of  Himself:  "  I  am  the  life." This sentiment of  the  heart  is  the  life  of  our  life,  the  soul of our  soul,  "  because,"  adds  St.  John,  "  whoever loves  not  remains  in  death." Now, it  is  not  the  dead but the  living  who  praise  the  Lord;  the  body  of Christ  is  the  food  not  of  the  dead  but  of  the  living, and hence  these  and  the  other  functions  of  religion can be  fitly  exercised  only  by  him  who  lives  by  love. Without charity  even  the  coordinate  virtues  are  as dead  as  the  members  of  the  body  without  the  soul. As medicines  are  stimulated  into  action  by  the  body's natural  heat,  so  the  spiritual  medicines  of  religion prove efficient  only  when  the  subject  has  a  warm heart. Hence St.  James's  meaning  when  he  says: " Faith  without  works  [of  love]  is  dead." Not that  it ceases  to  be  faith,  but  that  it  is  to  live  faith  what  the stagnant pool  is  to  the  running  stream. Aristotle says that  human  perfection  consists  in  the  exercise of the  highest  virtue,  and  of  all  virtues  St.  Paul  assures us  charity  or  love  is  the  highest,  the  bond  of perfection. Hence love  is  the  very  life  of  the  perfect man. In the  words  of  St.  Irenaeus:  "The perfect  man  is  made  up  of  body  and  soul  and heart."

Next to  life  man's  greatest  need  is  heat,  and  what heat is  to  the  body,  love  is  to  the  soul. God, who  is