to me;

full realising of her covenant relationship with him. "My beloved is mine," for he has given himself "and I am his," for he has bought me with his own blood! "Ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a price." Living or dying, we are "the Lord's" (Rom. xiv. 7, 8; 1 Cor. vi. 20).

To this the bride adds, "He feedeth among the lilies." She has been comparing herself to a vineyard or garden, and now she expresses her belief that her beloved is "in the midst of her," feeding among the plants of his own right-hand planting.

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Ver. 17. "Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved, and be thou like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of Bether." The " assurance of faith" leads on to the " assurance of hope." For as in verse 16 there was the full assurance of faith," bringing a sense of present peace and enjoyment into the soul, so here there is "the full assurance of hope," looking forward to yet fuller and brighter manifestations of her beloved in his presence, uninterruptedly and for ever. For there day and night, sunshine and shadow, light and darkness, shall have merged into one eternal day-emphatically called "the Day." "Until the day break!"

"Here often from our eyes

Clouds hide the light divine;

There we shall have unclouded skies

Our sun will always shine."

Even the first rising beams of the Sun of Righteousness, at the breaking of that day, shall dispel every shadow-" the shadows flee away."

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Many are the shadows which now hide from our eyes the sight of that glorious day. "For now we see through a glass darkly" (or "in a riddle") (1 Cor. xiii. 12)—it is but partial light. Ordinances, too, are but the shadow of heavenly things-" a shadow of things to come" (Heb. x. 1; Col. ii. 16, 17). And our bodies, likewise, screen the light of day from us, for "whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord." They hinder our sight" of Jesus, and while in them we can only "walk by faith" (2 Cor. v. 6, 7). But all these shall "flee away." "For when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away" (1 Cor. xiii. 10). Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light" (Isaiah lx. 20). "And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light" (Rev. xxii. 5). “He shall be as the light of the morning when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds" (2 Sam. xxiii. 4).

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Such is the believer's prospect for the future; and the earnest "looking for that blessed hope" begets a spirit of prayer in the soul, that "until the day break" we may be "kept by the power of God

en

through faith unto salvation." "Until the day break, turn my beloved;" or, more literally, compass"- -“be on every side" in a garrison. (1 Peter i. 5). 21, the word here rendered "comfort me on every side."

of me. Keep me as Thus, in Psalm lxxi. "turn," is translated

“And be thou like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of Bether" (marg. "division"). There are yet manifold hindrances and mountains of separation between us and glory, but Jesus has broken down every wall of partition. "And this is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel-Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain" (Zech. iv. 6, 7). Often when we imagine that mountains of division lie between us and Jesus, we find him present with the swiftness of a roe or a young hart.

Contrast these "mountains of division" with the "mountains of spices" in Cant. viii. 14.

CHAPTER III.

Ver. 1.

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THE BRIDE.

By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth; I sought him, but I found him not."

WE are almost ready to exclaim,-Can such be the language of one who but so lately had said, “A bundle of myrrh is my well beloved unto me; he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts" (chap. i. 13)?

It is to be feared, however, that every believing child of God will too well understand the sad change by painful experience, to doubt its truth for one moment. And it is experience that frequently follows upon seasons of hallowed communion. There is a liability to rest in enjoyment-to cast off the weapons of our warfare, and vainly to indulge the delusive persuasion that all the night season, until the day dawn, may be passed in perfect security and ease. Like David, we are prone in our prosperity to say, "I shall never be moved: Lord, by thy favour thou hast made my mountain to stand strong"

(Psalm xxx. 6, 7).

And thus we fall into spiritual darkness, and into a state of carnal ease and slothful indolence, most aptly described as the night season, passed upon a bed of sloth. "By night upon my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth; I sought him, but I found him not."

“Thou didst hide thy face, and I was troubled" (Psalm xxx. 7).

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"If thou withdraw 't is night."

Woe to them that are at ease in Zion-that lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches" (Amos vi. 1, 4). It is an unspeakable mercy when the Lord gives the soul no rest in such a state. The promise is, "they shall find me when they search for me with all their heart” (Jer. xxix. 13). No wonder, therefore, that the Bride sought in vain, when she sought him only on her bed! "They have not cried unto me with their heart, when they howled upon their beds" (Hos. vii. 14). “There is none that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee" (Isaiah lxiv. 7). We must not be slothful, but fervent in spirit, if we would walk in communion with Christ (Heb. vi. 12; Rom. xii. 11).

Still, although there was indolence, there was yet sincerity in the search of the Bride for her beloved; "I sought him whom my soul loveth" (John xx. 17). And, consequently, there could be no rest or enjoyment in his absence. " With my