Ever to be remembered! That best and brightest of hours when first we saw the Lord. The burden rolled away. The promise sealed in our hands. Full salvation flooded our hearts, and we walked on our way in perfect peace.

It was springtime in the soul! The winter had passed. The mutterings of Sinai's thunder were hushed. The flashings of its lightning ceased. God was beheld as reconciled. The law threatened no vengeance. Justice demanded no punishment.

Then the flowers appeared in our hearts! Hope, love, peace, and patience sprang from the soil. The hyacinth of repentance. The snowdrop of pure holiness. The crocus of golden faith. The daffodil of early love. All decked the garden of the soul. The time of singing had come, and we rejoiced with thanksgiving! We magnified the holy name of our forgiving God, and our resolve rang out: "Lord, I am yours—wholly yours! All I am and all I have I devote to you. You have bought me with your blood—let me spend myself and be spent in your service. In life and in death let me be consecrated to you!"

But how have we kept this resolve?

Our bridal love burned with a holy flame of devotion to Jesus—is it the same now? Might not Jesus say to us, "I have this against you: you have left your first love"?

Alas! It is but little we have done for our Master's glory. Our winter has lasted all too long. We are as cold as ice when we should feel summer's glow and bloom with sacred flowers. We give to God pence when he deserves pounds—no, deserves our heart's blood to be coined in the service of his church and his truth.

But shall we continue thus? O Lord, after you have so richly blessed us, shall we be ungrateful and become indifferent to your good cause and work?

O quicken us that we may return to our first love and do our first works! Send us a genial spring, O Sun of Righteousness!