Discard that verse, my brethren! Its theology is worse than its poetry. For a filial love, or a conjugal love, about which the wife or the child is uncertain, you would not give a farthing. Do not the anxious thought and the longing to know indicate at least some small degree of love? Not loving at all, you would care nothing about it, you would be quite indifferent to the question. Dim indeed the spark may be in your bosom; but bless ye the Lord that it is not utterly gone out, and answer his gracious inquiry with this better verse: "Lord, it is my chief complaint, That my love is still so faint; Yet I love thee, and adore; Oh for grace to love thee more!" So praying, the breath of the Holy Spirit will soon blow the spark into flame; and when the Master asks once more, "Lovest thou me?" with bounding heart you will reply: "Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee!" [1] Preached in London, Eng., 1866. XII. MANIFOLD TEMPTATIONS.[1] Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations, that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, may be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.--1 Pet. i. 6, 7. Why is not the Christian life a perpetual joy? Why do so many sincere Christians seem often melancholy and unhappy? The human heart is easily moved, and very little is necessary to set it vibrating with pleasant emotion. The voice of a happy child, the carol of a forest bird, the beauty of an opening rose, the glory of a sunset sky, the coming of a valued friend, the visitation of a vagrant dream, the recollection of a peaceful hour, the wind that chases away the misty cloud, even a word in season fitly spoken, may fill the soul with tranquil happiness or raise it to an ecstasy of delight. Why, then, should not the believer in Jesus rejoice evermore with joy unspeakable and full of glory? With the glad tidings which the gospel brings us, the love of God in Christ which it reveals, the assurance of redemption, the remission of sins, the communion of saints, the ministry of angels, the visions of paradise restored, the anticipated epiphany of our Lord in his glory, the advent of the New Jerusalem in all its golden magnificence, the restitution and renovation of this disordered _cosmos_, the awakening of the body from its long sleep in the sepulchre, and the life everlasting of the just in the many mansions of their Father's house, why do we not make the valley of Baca ring with the prelude of our eternal song? Strange, indeed, that all this should have so little power to cheer, and gladden the people of God in the house of their pilgrimage--that Christian enjoyment should seem in general so feeble and so fleeting, when it ought to flow on with the constant strength and increase of a great river to its repose in the amplitude of an unsounded sea.