products. They are his, each and all. He gave them to the bride. She offers them back to hN Lord. He invites bis friends to share his joy. He said once to his friends in his holy parable, "Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost;" so now he says, " Eat, 0 friends ; drink, yea, drink abundl\ntly of love." 11 Blessed are they "'.hich are called unto the marriage supper of tho Lamb" (Rov. xix. 9). So the Lord listens to the call of the Christian soul that thirsts for him. Re answers tho cry, "Even so, come, Lord Jesus." He will come with the Father, and make his abode with them that love him (John xiv. 23). He graciously accepts the offerings of love. He welcomes the beauty and sweetness of the fruits of the Spirit in the believing soul. They are his, for it was he who gave the Spirit, who watered the growing fruits with the dew of his grace; his, again, because the heart that gives itself to God gives with the gift of self all its belongings, gladly owning that whatever it has of good comes from his only gift. He acknowledges their imperfect efforts: "I know thy works, thy labour, and thy patience." He saith unto his friends, "Rejoice with me;" and " there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over each sinner that repenteth." Then if our love gives joy to the dear Lord who gave up the glory of heaven for us, and for us endured the long torture of the cross, how very earnestly we Christians ought to try to ..na.ke our heart indeed a "garden enclosed," wholly dedicated unto hiIQ., and separated from all profane uses I If our poor growth in holiness pleases him, how earnestly we ought to pray and strive to grow in grace and in the knowlecl,ge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; how earnestly we ought to try never to grieve his Holy Spirit, but to give him our whole heart, with all its affections and desires, that we may be wholly his-his for ever I Vers. 2-8.-The secO'Tl,iJ, dream of the bride. I. THE BRIDEGROOM AT THE DOOR. 1. The voice of the beloved. The bridegroom is absent; the bride is alone. '!'here is a temporary separation, something approaching to an estrangement; yet the old love ie not lost. The bride is sleeping when she should be awake and watching for the bridegroom's approach. Yet her heart waketh. She has a dreamy consciousness of what is going on around her ; she seems to hear in her dream the voice of her beloved. So the Church sometimes sleeps-leaves her first love-lapses into something like spiritual apathy; yet her heart waketh. The Lord never leaves himself without a witness. At the worst times of indifference there has always been some dim conscious- ness of his presence, some faint love for him who loved the Church and gave himself for her. So the soul sometimes sleeps when it is high time to awake, when the night is far spent and the day is at hand. The heavenly Bridegroom will not let us slumber on without a warning. He knocks at the door of our heart. "Behold," he saith, "I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me" (Rev. iii. 20). The Church of Laod.icea was lying wrapped in a deep sleep: the Lord sought to arouse her. So he knocks.at the door of our hearts now by his Word, by his ministers, by his chastisements, by the warnings of his Spirit. If we can in truth call him "my Beloved; " if we have really set our love upon him, and given him our heart in answer to his seeking love, we shall hea.r him. We shall know his voice, recognizing it in judgments and in mercies, in warnings and in consolations. When duty calls us, even if it be, as it will some- times be, hard and displeasing to flesh and blood, we shall say, "It is the voice of my Beloved." lt is the Master's call; he speaks. The heart waketh to listen. Does he come with stem reproof for indifference and coldness of heart? No; his words are full of tenderness. "Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled." It is the Lord's great love for the souls of men that produces those utterances of yearning affection. He still calls the bride "my sister," as he had done before the cloud had come upon her love. He still says "my love, my dove," as he said before; and he ho.s e. fresh term of endearment, "my undefiled, my perfect one." We know, alas I that we are not undefiled, we are not perfect. (" Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect," says even the great apostle, St. Paul.) But what the Lord would have us to be, what he will make us at the last if we abide in him, that he is graciously pleased to call us now. How those holy words of deep tenderness should excite in us repentance for the past, and earnest effort to become by his grace less unworthy of those most gracious and loving titles I He asks us to open, that he CJ!, V, 1-16.] THE SONG OF SOLOMON.
may cntcl' in. He hA.S been wandering in the darkness, and as when he came unto his own thero was no room for him in the inn, and as during the days of his earthly ministry ho had not where to lay his head, so now he knocks at one heart after another, am\ heart after heart is closely barred against him. They will not open, that he may enter in and make hie abode with them. He comes now to the sister bride of old times, asking hor as if for his own sake (such is the unutterable depth of his infinite, self• abasing love), '' Open unto me, my sist.er, my love, my dove, my undefiled." Ah, how can any of those souls of men whom he loved even unto death shut up their hearts against that call of unspeakable affection I He pleads as for himself, as if needing shelter: "My head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night." Alas! the bride, still half asleep, scarcely heeds the bridegroom's call, does not realize its meaning-
" For none of the ransom'd ever knew How deep were the waters cross'd; Or how dark was the night that the Lord paas'd thron"h 0 Ere he found his sheep that was lost."