The king sung of in the psalm was a type of Christ. Every true marriage is in the same fashion a type of the union of the soul with Jesus, the lover of all, the bridegroom of humanity. So it is not arbitrary spiritualising, but recognition of the nobleness of the lower love and of its essential similarity with the highest, when the counsel to this bride is regarded as shadowing the duties of the soul wedded to Christ. If a heart is really influenced by love to Him, that love will make self-surrender blessed. A child gladly drops toys when it stretches out its little hand for better gifts. If we are joined to Jesus, we shall not be unwilling to "count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge" of Him. Have the terms of wedded life changed since this psalm was written? Have the terms of Christian living altered since it was said, "Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be My disciple"? The law still remains, "Daughter, forget thine own people and Thy father's house." The exhortation is followed by a promise: "So shall the king desire thy beauty." The application of these words to the relations of Christ and His people carries with it a striking thought that He is affected by the completeness of our self-surrender and dependence. He pours love on the unworthy, but that is a different thing from the love with which He responds to such abandonment of self and other loves. Holy, noble living will bring a smile into His face and draw Him nearer to us. But whilst there is all this sweet commerce of love and giving, the bride is reminded that the king is her lord, and is to be reverenced as well as loved. There is here, no doubt, the influence of an archaic mode of regarding marriage and the wife's position. But it still is true that no woman finds all that her heart needs in her husband, unless she can bring her reverence where she has brought her love; and that love will not long remain if reverence departs. Nor is the warning less needed in the higher region of the wedlock of the soul with the Saviour. Some types of emotional religion have more to say about love than about obedience. They are full of half-wholesome apostrophes to a "dear Lord," and are apt to forget the last word in the emphasis which they put on the first. The beggar-maid married to a king was full of reverence as well as love; and the souls whom Jesus stoops to love and wash and wed are never to forget to blend adoration with approach and obedience with love.