The art of living together is not easily learned. Indeed, it is the one lesson of life, and it takes all life to learn it. We cannot evade the lesson, for we cannot live apart. We are not made for solitariness. We need continual contact with others in order that we may have the benefit of the impact and discipline of life on life. We are made to love together, and the ideal is very high. Christ gave the secret to his disciples. They were to love one another, and the measure of their love should be, “As I have loved you.”
When we have learned to live in this way we shall have no trouble in living together. It is worth our while to study the Master’s rule of love, that we may know how to make it our own. How did he love his disciples? We have it in his life of every day with his disciples.
In the broadest sense his love was unselfish. Self never thrust itself into any thought of his. It is selfishness that so often mars men’s treatment of each other. “How will this affect me?” is the question that rises first in deciding what to do. It never rose at all in Christ’s dealing with others. He thought only and always of what he could do to give pleasure or do good.
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