Christian Love

My brethren, our chief difficulty on this subject is at the very entry of it. Here is the difficulty, -- to ascend to the Source and Spring of this divine affection. Are you acquainted with God? Can you climb up into the secret of His presence, into the holiest of all? Then you will be enabled to understand the origin, the nature, the symptoms, and the properties of Christian love.

Let me borrow a similitude from a subject which has lately excited some public attention. We have heard a great deal about the source of the river Nile. I will compare Christian love to this glorious river. It was known long ago, that the source of that river lay far remote, in a country seldom visited -- a country not to be explored without difficulty and danger. There, secreted from ordinary eyes, in a high-seated plain, burst forth the springs of the Nile. Gradually fed from the earth and skies, it pursues a long, winding, intricate, and sometimes dreadful course, through mountains, rocks, and valleys. At length, though guarded by many ridges of mountains, it finds a little gradually-extending plain, over which, as far as nature will permit it, at proper seasons, it diffuses its fertilizing overflow of waters. Then, as if conscious of its beneficence, it rides on in calm triumph, till, by a number of magnificent mouths, it reaches its parent ocean. Like to this river is that holy stream of Christian affection, of which we now speak. Its source is high and secret, in those regions of celestial truth which are seldom really visited, and which the eye of the mere philosophical vulture never saw. Springing from the high source, the stream of Christian love holds on its course, through many intricacies of temptation; sometimes through dreadful cataracts, till it reaches the valley of deep humiliation. Then the ridges of worldly lusts, which confined its course, gradually retire; and the Christian's benevolence, swelled by floods of heavenly influence, overflows, and enriches a neighbourhood, more or less extensive according to the disposal of the sovereign God. At last, having finished its beneficent course, with calm triumph, and with many acclamations of praise, it rests in the bosom of that God who is the ocean of love.