It hushes one's heart with a gentle awe to go out early in the morning after a clear night when air and flower and leaf are fragrant with an indescribable freshness, and listen to God's voice saying, "_I will be as the dew unto Israel._" That sentence is the climax of the book where it occurs.[25] God is trying through Hosea to woo His people away from their evil leaders up to Himself again. To a people who knew well the vitalizing power of the deep dews of an Oriental night, and their own dependence upon them, He says with pleading voice, "_I_ will be to you _as the dew_." The setting of that sentence is made very winsome. The _beauty_ of the lily, and of the olive-tree; the _strength_ of the roots of Lebanon's giant cedars, and the _fragrance_ of their boughs; the _fruitfulness_ of the vine, and the _richness_ of the grain harvest are used to bring graphically to their minds the meaning of His words: "as the dew." Tenderly as He speaks to that nation in which His love-plan for a world centered, more tenderly yet does He ever speak to the individual heart. That wondrous One who is "alongside to help" will be by the atmosphere of His presence to you and to me as the dew is to the earth--a daily refreshing of new life, with its new strength, and rare beauty and fine fragrance. Have you noticed how Jesus Himself puts His ideal for the day-by-day life? At that last Feast of Tabernacles He said, "He that believeth on me out of his inner being shall flow rivers of water of life."[26] Jesus was fairly saturated with the Old Testament figures and language. Here He seems to be thinking, of that remarkable river-vision of Ezekiel's.[27] You remember how much space is given there to describing a wonderful river running through a place where living waters had never flowed. The stream begins with a few strings of water trickling out from under the door-step of the temple, and rises gradually but steadily ankle-deep, knee-deep, loin-deep, over-head, until flood-tide is reached, and an ever rising and deepening flood-tide. And everywhere the waters go is life with beauty, and fruitfulness. There is no drought, no ebbing, but a continual flowing in, and filling up, and flooding out. In these two intensely vivid figures is given our Master's carefully, lovingly thought out plan for the day-by-day life. In actual experience the reverse of this is, shall I say too much if I say, _most commonly_ the case? It seems to be so. Who of us has not at times been conscious of some failure that cut keenly into the very tissue of the heart! And even when no such break may have come there is ever a heart-yearning for more than has yet been experienced. The men who seem to know most of God's power have had great, unspeakable longings at times for a fresh consciousness of that power.