If you asked twenty good men today what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you asked almost any of the great Christians of old he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance. The negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others. but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this the Christian virtue of Love. The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not self-denial as an end in itself.
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