In Praise of Virtue

"Though I speak with the tongues of men and o angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal" (1 Corinthians 13:1)

We naturally shy away from superlatives and from comparisons which praise one virtue at the expense of another, yet I wonder whether there is on earth anything as exquisitely lovely as a brilliant mind aglow with the love of God?

Such a mind sheds a mild and healing ray which can actually be felt by those who come near it. Virtue goes forth from it and blesses those who merely touch the hem of its garment. One has, for instance, but to read "The Celestial Country" by Bernard of Cluny to understand what I mean. There is a sensitive and shining intellect warm with the fire of the inliving Spirit writes with a vast and tender sympathy of those longings for immortality.

This same feeling of near-inspiration is experienced also in the letters of Samuel Rutherford, in the "Te Deum", in many of the hymns of Watts and Wesley and occasionally in a work of some lesser-known saint whose limited gifts may have been for one joyous moment made incandescent by the fire of the indwelling Spirit.

Those who love the divine character necessarily desire to promote the divine glory.  [Absolutely]

~A. W. Tozer~