Nielsen’s Nook

“These are the two messages of the entire Gospel: the message of faith and the message of love—through faith before God, through love before or toward one’s neighbor. Here, therefore, he will treat of two kinds of people who sin against love. In the first place, there are the hypocrites, who do the most harm by feigning love. Many seem to have love but do not have it. The fanatics are people of this kind. They wish, ask, and strive for the complete destruction of their opponents. Meanwhile, however, they preach love. Thus the greatest murderers are sometimes concealed under the guise of love and piety.”¹

Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!

Some kill their love when they are young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.

Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die.²

¹ Luther’s Works: The Catholic Epistles, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, Luther’s Works, vol. 30 (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1999), 274.

¹Wilde, Oscar. The Ballad of Reading Gaol. http://www.bibliomania.com/0/2/57/104/frameset.html, complete version.