The truth is that love is the greatest thing in the world, and the pre-eminently Christian virtue, but that love to be the real Christian agapè must spring from the strongest possible roots. S. Paul who first proclaimed charity as greater than all the wonderful talents of the Spirit, greater even than faith or hope, and saw quite clearly that without it he would be nothing was certain also as to the fundamental importance of wisdom, knowledge, and might; and he gave us the true view of the whole matter when he told the Galatian Church that love, joy, peace, long-suffering, graciousness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-restraint, are not the roots but the fruits of the Spirit. There is a sense, of course, in which love is at once the first cause and the crowning effect of our spiritual life, because God is love; but this does not affect our point of view, since all is from Love, and in Love, and to Love.
We have only to think of these Nine Fruits of the Spirit to realize that they are of quite a different quality when exhibited by a strong or passionate nature. They can all exist in a kindly weak person, but they are then as different as a crab-apple is from a pippin.
If we compare the Fruits of the Spirit with the Gifts of the Spirit, the Talents, and the Gifts of Office and Service, we find no correspondence except the purely verbal πίστις, used here with
