This delineates, as I judge, the experience of the poor woman with the issue of blood. Mark v. She knew the Lord’s ability to relieve her sorrow, and her hearty welcome to avail herself of it. She, therefore, comes and takes the virtue out of Him without reserve. But she comes _behind Him_. This expresses her state of mind. She knows her welcome to His service, but nothing more. But the Lord trains her heart for more. He lets her know that she is interested in _Himself_, as well as in _His power to oblige her_. He calls her "daughter." He owns kindred or relationship with her. This was the communication which alone was equal to remove her fears and trembling. Her rich and mighty patron is her kinsman. This is what her heart needed to know. Without this, in the spirit of her mind, she would have been still "behind" Him. But this gives her ease. "Go in peace" may then be said, as well as "Be whole of thy plague." She need not be reserved. Christ does not deal with her as a patron or benefactor. Luke xxii. 25. She has an interest in _Himself_ as well as in His _power to bless her_. And so as to the Canticles. It is the love which warrants _personal intimacy_ (after this manner of the nearest and dearest relationships) that breathes in this lovely book. The age of the union has not yet arrived. But it is the time of betrothment, and we are His delight. Nay, it was so ere worlds were. Prov. viii. Do we believe this? Does it make us happy? We are, naturally, suspicious of any offer to make us happy in God. Because our moral sense, our natural conscience, tells us of our having lost all right even to His ordinary blessings. The mere moral sense will therefore be quick to stand to it, and question all overtures of peace from heaven, and be ready to challenge their reality. But here comes the vigour of the spiritual mind, or the energy of faith. Faith gainsays these conclusions of nature. It refuses at times to think according to the moral sense of nature, as it refuses at times to act according to the relative claims of nature. In their place, the dictates of the moral sense and the claims of nature are sacred-—as we read, "Doth not even _nature_ itself teach you, that if a man have long hair it is a shame unto him?" But still they are not supreme. If God put in His claim, or make His revelation, the _relations_ of nature and the _moral sense_ of nature are to withdraw their authority. "He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me." And in the revelation of God, faith reads our abundant title to be near to Him and happy with Him, though natural conscience and our sense of the fitness of things would have it otherwise. Faith feeds where the moral sensibilities of the natural mind would count it presuming even to tread.