Love is the essence of the Christian character. Its chief characteristics are resignation and composure of mind, neither anxious for tomorrow, nor hoping for this world - and its duties, almsgiving, self-denial, prayer and praise.

Love in one sense is all virtues at once. It is the root of all holy dispositions, and grows and blossoms into them; they are its parts; and when it is described, they of necessity are mentioned. Love is the material (so to speak) out of which all graces are made, the quality of mind which is the fruit of regeneration, and in which the Spirit dwells . . . . We love because it is our nature to love, and it is our nature because God the Holy Ghost has made it our nature. Love is the immediate fruit and the evidence of regeneration.

Love, then, is the seed of holiness, and grows into all excellences, not indeed destroying their peculiarities, but making them what they are. The soul which is quickened with the spirit of love has faith and hope, and a number of faculties and habits, some of which it might have without love, and some not; but anyhow, in that soul one and all exist in love, though distinct from it; as stalk, leaves, and flowers are as distinct and entire in one plant as in another, yet vary in their quality, according to the plant's nature.

Love, then, is the motion within us of the new spirit, the holy and renewed heart which God the Holy Ghost gives us; and, as being such, we see how it may exist in infants, who obey the inward law without knowing it, by a sort of natural service, as plants and trees fulfil the functions of their own nature; a service which is most acceptable to God, as being moral and spiritual, though not intellectual. Love, then, is the life of those who know not an external world, but who worship God as manifested within them.