Page:The Social War.djvu/312

 from being perfect Naturalists, and are neither surrounded by such, we have not the capacity of appreciating God's last and noblest piece of mechanism, without being stimulated by the undulations in life's great battle. "Therefore, precious Lucinda, we sinful creatures are benefited by great contrasts; but if we really were the purified 'temples of God' we would love Him with all our strength, and one another as ourselves, which was the hal lowed rule that the blessed, loving and beloved Naturalist Jesus Christ laid down for us! Love, immaculate love, unalloyed by self, should be the only law that real Naturalists or Christians should learn to understand, possess and obey; but as the means are not used to gain this end, we as a nation can never fully appreciate God's goodness toward the highest type of His mechanism."

"But, dear Victor, do you not love me more than a perfect Naturalist would 'love his neighbor,' as Jesus says?" asked she.

"Do you suppose, my most precious darling, that I could love you more than, or even as much, as Christ loved the world? Not that He loved the evil ways of sinners, but He loved sinners, because they were part and parcel of the Creator; and although He denounced the selfish, self-righteous, self-willed and haughty viper, who had only a whit of God's vitality in him, Christ did not turn away from those who were born and bred under morbid circumstances, visiting thereby upon the human species, weaknesses over which they had no control.

"By looking over all the teachings, acts and life of Christ, you will behold what powerful love He possessed for the passive sinner, for the sinner who was penitent, who was willing to learn and live out God's fixed laws, and by love (as we claim to heed the many admonitions that God alone is just), we can appreciate His highest law the more, namely, 'Love.' Do you not think so?"

"Indeed, indeed I do, and I love you so much more when I see that your noble mind is fairly wrapt up in the great