Read "Father Payne" by A.C. Benson online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Father Payne suddenly said to me once in a loud voice, after a long silence -- we were walking together -- "Writers, preachers, moralists, sentimentalists, are much to blame for not explaining more what they mean by loving God -- perhaps they do not know! Love is so large a word, and covers so great a range of feelings. What sort of love are we to give God -- the love of the lover, or the son, or the daughter, or the friend, or the patriot, or the dog? Is it to be passion, or admiration, or reverence, or fidelity, or pity? All of these enter into love."
"What do you think yourself?" I said.