Love...

"Love is life, & loveless-ness is death. As the Grace of God changes a man's heart; and cleanses and sanctifies him, this is the great evidence of the change. 

This is the great difference which it makes; that he begins to grow in love, to lay aside self-seeking, and to live for others- and so he may know that he has passed from death unto life.  

He may know it even here and now- why yes! that great discovery of love... that learning to live for others and finding the grace and gentleness that God is keeping up all over the world; even now it is the way from death to life.  

Even now it changes homes, it lightens every burden, it brings peace and gladness into the hardest days; it alters even the tone of a man's voice and the very look of his face.  

But all this, blessed and surpassing as it is, far above all else in the world, still is but the beginining.  for that life into which we pass, as God's dear grace of love comes in us and about us, is the very life of heaven." 

-Francis Paget (born 1851)