Anything is better than the dead calm of indifference. Our souls may wisely desire the north wind of trouble if that alone can draw forth the perfume of our graces. So long as it cannot be said, "The Lord was not in the wind," we will not shrink from the most wintry blast that ever blew upon plants of grace.

Did not the bride in this verse humbly submit to the reproofs of her Beloved? She only asked him to send his grace in some form, making no demands about how it should come. Did she not, like ourselves, become so utterly weary of deadness and unholy calm that she sighed for any visitation that would brace her to action?

Yet she desires the warm south wind of comfort too—the smiles of divine love, the joy of the Redeemer's presence. These are often mightily effective to arouse our sluggish life. She desires either one or the other, or both, so that she may delight her Beloved with the spices of her garden.

She cannot endure to be unprofitable, nor can we.

How cheering a thought that Jesus can find comfort in our poor feeble graces! Can it be? It seems far too good to be true. Well may we court trial or even death itself if we shall thereby make glad Immanuel's heart. O that our heart were crushed to atoms if only by such bruising our sweet Lord Jesus could be glorified!

Graces unexercised are like sweet perfumes slumbering in the cups of flowers. The wisdom of the great Husbandman uses diverse and opposite causes to produce the one desired result, making both affliction and consolation draw forth the grateful fragrances of faith, love, patience, hope, resignation, joy, and all the other fair flowers of the garden.

May we know by sweet experience what this means.