Believer, here is a sorrowful truth! You are the beloved of the Lord, redeemed by blood, called by grace, preserved in Christ Jesus, accepted in the Beloved, on your way to heaven. And yet—you have dealt treacherously with God, your best friend! Treacherously with Jesus, whose you are! Treacherously with the Holy Spirit, who quickened you to eternal life!

How treacherous you have been in the matter of vows and promises. Do you remember the love of your espousals—that happy time, the springtime of your spiritual life? Oh, how closely you clung to your Master then! You declared, "He shall never charge me with indifference! My feet shall never grow slow in his service! I will not suffer my heart to wander after other loves! In him is every store of sweetness ineffable. I give all up for my Lord Jesus' sake!"

Has it been so? Alas! If conscience speaks, it will say, "He who promised so well has performed most ill." Prayer has oftentimes been slurred—it has been short, but not sweet; brief, but not fervent. Communion with Christ has been forgotten. Instead of a heavenly mind, there have been carnal cares, worldly vanities, and thoughts of evil. Instead of service, disobedience. Instead of fervency, lukewarmness. Instead of patience, petulance. Instead of faith, confidence in an arm of flesh. And as a soldier of the cross? Cowardice, disobedience, and desertion—to a very shameful degree.

"You have dealt treacherously." Treachery to Jesus! What words shall be used in denouncing it? Words little avail—let our penitent thoughts execrate the sin which is so surely in us.

Treacherous to thy wounds, O Jesus! Forgive us, and let us not sin again! How shameful to be treacherous to him who never forgets us, but who this day stands with our names engraven on his breastplate before the eternal throne.