August 31

"I will betroth thee unto me for ever." Hosea 2:19.

How well is it said of Christians, "Ye who sometime were afar off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ." They are not only pardoned, but employed in his service. They are not only reconciled, but admitted into friendship and intimacy. Yea, they are not only friends and favorites, but they are his bride: "I will betroth thee unto me." And observe the permanency of the relation: "I will betroth thee unto me for ever."

"Permanency," says the poet, "adds bliss to bliss." How is every possession and enjoyment without it impaired in value. Yea, the more important any acquisition be, and the more necessary we feel it to our happiness, the more alive are we to apprehension of danger, the more averse are we to absence, the more painful is separation, the more intolerable is the thought of loss.

Yet to whatever we are attached here, do we not set our "hearts on that which is not?" It is said the Jews, in their nuptial ceremony, always threw a glass upon the ground, to signify that the union then forming was as frail as the emblem was brittle. Without the figure, there is enough, if we are wise, to remind us of the fact; and well does the apostle reason, when he says, "Brethren, the time is short; it remains, therefore, that they who have wives be as though they had none."