C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

1 Corinthians xiii.

By John Wycliffe (c. 1324–1384)

IF I speak with tongues of men and of angels, and I have not charity, I am made as brass sounding, or a cymbal tinkling. And if I have prophecy, and know all mysteries and all cunning, and if I have all faith, so that I move hills from their place, and I have not charity, I am naught. And if I depart all my goods in to the meats of poor men, and if I betake my body, so that I burn, and if I have not charity, it profiteth to me no thing. Charity is patient, it is benign; charity envieth not, it doeth not wickedly, it is not upblown, it is not covetous, it seeketh not the things that be its own, it is not stirred to wrath, it thinketh not evil, it joyeth not on wickedness, but it joyeth together to truth; it suffereth all things, it believeth all things, it hopeth all things, it sustaineth all things. Charity falleth never down, whether prophecies shall be void, or languages shall cease, or science shall be destroyed. For a part we know, and a part we prophesy; but when that shall come that is perfect, that thing that is of part shall be avoided. When I was a little child, I spake as a little child, I understood as a little child; but when I was made a man, I avoided the things that were of a little child. And we see now by a mirror in darkness, but then face to face; now I know of part, but then I shall know, as I am known. And now dwell faith, hope, and charity, these three; but the most of these is charity.

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