Water Poured into a Pump

“Love must be paid in kind. As water is cast into a pump, wheji the springs lie low, to bring tip more water, so God sheddeth abroad his love 17ito our hearts, that our love may rise up to hi7?i again by way of gratitude and reco??ipense” How idle is it, then, to hope to chide ourselves into loving God! The price of love is love; the origin of it is not found in law or in a sense of duty, but in love, or a return of gratitude. When the sun of eternal love melts the glaciers of the soul, then the rivers of affection flow; but if the rocks of ice could all be broken to shivers with hammers, not a drop of affection would stream forth. Only a sense of divine love will ever create love to God in the heart.

How vain also is the attempt to recompense the mercy of God by mechanical acts of religion or works of legal service! “Love must be paid in kind.” No other coin is current in love’s empire but that which bears her own image and superscription.

Do what we will, even to martyrdom, if we have not love, it profiteth us nothing. In this case it is specially true, “If a man should give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.”

Come, my heart, does thy love run dry? Then pray the Holy Ghost to shed abroad the love of God within thee. Pour this living water into thy dry pump, and thou wilt soon pour forth a plentiful stream.