LOVE[Delivered at “Donation Party,” Harpswell, September 18, 1894]Love, my friends and neighbors, is something that defies definition and resents analysis. It is not possible to communicate the perception of it to one who has never experienced it. It must be felt in order to be known. It is likewise the most permanent of all the qualities of the mind. Anger, however violent, expires with the occasion that called it forth. Grief, however bitter and heart-rending, time will remove, and it will blunt the sting of sorrow. But love is inexhaustible and grows by what it feeds upon. Here is the father of a young family. He is returning at night from his work. As he approaches the door, a little one who can just go alone espies him. With cries of delight he runs to meet his parent, till, out of breath and strength, he falls exhausted into his father’s outstretched arms. The happy parent raisesthe little one and kisses him. When he has kissed that child a dozen times, does he not want to kiss him a dozen times more? Thus affection grows by what it feeds upon and is inexhaustible. It will do or endure more for the welfare of its object than any other faculty. You may hire a man to labor for you, you may force him to obey you, but not to love you. No power on earth can do that. On the other hand, does he love you, that love will cause him to do more for you than all other motives put together, and the more he does the more will he delight to do, because love tells nothing is lost that a good friend gets.Elijah Kellogg at Eighty.1893.There are people before me to-night whom I began to love forty years ago. Do I love them less? Is the affection worn out? No; it is worn in. Then it was in the bark, but now it has got into the heart of the tree.Here, also, are the children and grandchildren of those who are not, for God has taken them, and the affection I bore their parents clings to the children. It is not worn out, because love is stronger than death. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. Or if a man would give all thesubstance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned. It is love that makes home, love that makes friends in the world, love that makes heaven, for God is love.What has brought all these friends together to-night? They did not come to get, but to give, not with their hands shut up, but with both hearts and hands wide open. They have come to gratify their feelings of neighborly friendship and affection; for if they did not thus gratify those feelings, they would not enjoy what they had left. Ought I not to be grateful to be the recipient of so much good-will, kindness, and neighborly affection? I trust it will be an encouragement to render me more faithful to your souls’ best interests, to work for you and seek your good; to pray that God, who loves the cheerful giver, will reward and bless you.There were never two persons in this world who loved each other but wanted and loved to eat together, and there were never two enemies who did. There were never two persons who loved each other, loved God, but who loved and wanted to pray together. We have eaten together; we have enjoyedeach other’s society; recalled the feelings of other and happier days, before toil had stiffened our limbs, sorrow entered our hearts, or tears trembled on our eyelids; now let us pray together before we separate.
[Delivered at “Donation Party,” Harpswell, September 18, 1894]
Love, my friends and neighbors, is something that defies definition and resents analysis. It is not possible to communicate the perception of it to one who has never experienced it. It must be felt in order to be known. It is likewise the most permanent of all the qualities of the mind. Anger, however violent, expires with the occasion that called it forth. Grief, however bitter and heart-rending, time will remove, and it will blunt the sting of sorrow. But love is inexhaustible and grows by what it feeds upon. Here is the father of a young family. He is returning at night from his work. As he approaches the door, a little one who can just go alone espies him. With cries of delight he runs to meet his parent, till, out of breath and strength, he falls exhausted into his father’s outstretched arms. The happy parent raisesthe little one and kisses him. When he has kissed that child a dozen times, does he not want to kiss him a dozen times more? Thus affection grows by what it feeds upon and is inexhaustible. It will do or endure more for the welfare of its object than any other faculty. You may hire a man to labor for you, you may force him to obey you, but not to love you. No power on earth can do that. On the other hand, does he love you, that love will cause him to do more for you than all other motives put together, and the more he does the more will he delight to do, because love tells nothing is lost that a good friend gets.
Elijah Kellogg at Eighty.1893.
Elijah Kellogg at Eighty.1893.
There are people before me to-night whom I began to love forty years ago. Do I love them less? Is the affection worn out? No; it is worn in. Then it was in the bark, but now it has got into the heart of the tree.
Here, also, are the children and grandchildren of those who are not, for God has taken them, and the affection I bore their parents clings to the children. It is not worn out, because love is stronger than death. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. Or if a man would give all thesubstance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned. It is love that makes home, love that makes friends in the world, love that makes heaven, for God is love.
What has brought all these friends together to-night? They did not come to get, but to give, not with their hands shut up, but with both hearts and hands wide open. They have come to gratify their feelings of neighborly friendship and affection; for if they did not thus gratify those feelings, they would not enjoy what they had left. Ought I not to be grateful to be the recipient of so much good-will, kindness, and neighborly affection? I trust it will be an encouragement to render me more faithful to your souls’ best interests, to work for you and seek your good; to pray that God, who loves the cheerful giver, will reward and bless you.
There were never two persons in this world who loved each other but wanted and loved to eat together, and there were never two enemies who did. There were never two persons who loved each other, loved God, but who loved and wanted to pray together. We have eaten together; we have enjoyedeach other’s society; recalled the feelings of other and happier days, before toil had stiffened our limbs, sorrow entered our hearts, or tears trembled on our eyelids; now let us pray together before we separate.