So after all experiences of
and all blessed participation in the love of Jesus Christ which come to
each of us by our faith, we have but skimmed the surface, but touched
the edges, but received a drop of what, if it should come upon us in
fulness of flood like a Niagara of love, would overwhelm our spirits.

So we have within our reach not only the treasure of creatural
affections which bring gladness into life when they come, and darkness
over it when they depart; we have not only human love which, if I may so
say, is always lifting its finger to its lips in the act of bidding us
adieu; but we may possess a love which will abide with us for ever. Men
die, Christ lives. We can exhaust men, we cannot exhaust Christ. We can
follow other objects of pursuit, all of which have limitation to their
power of satisfying and pall upon the jaded sense sooner or later, or
sooner or later are wrenched away from the aching heart. But here is a
love into which we can penetrate very deep and fear no exhaustion; a sea
into which we can cast ourselves, nor dread that like some rash diver
flinging himself into shallow water where he thought there was depth, we
may be bruised and wounded. We may find in Christ the endless love that
an immortal heart requires. Enter by the low door of faith, and your
finite heart will have the joy of an infinite love for its possession,
and your mortal life will rise transfigured into an immortal and growing
participation in the immortal Love of the indwelling and inexhaustible
Christ.

THE PARADOX OF LOVE'S MEASURE

'The breadth, and length, and depth, and height.'--Eph. iii. 18.

Of what? There can, I think, be no doubt as to the answer. The next
clause is evidently the continuation of the idea begun in that of our
text, and it runs: 'And to know the _love of Christ_ which passeth
knowledge.' It is the immeasurable measure, then; the boundless bounds
and dimensions of the love of Christ which fire the Apostle's thoughts
here. Of course, he had no separate idea in his mind attaching to each
of these measures of magnitude, but he gathered them together simply to
express the one thought of the greatness of Christ's love. Depth and
height are the same dimension measured from opposite ends. The one
begins at the top and goes down, the other begins at the bottom and goes
up, but the distance is the same in either case. So we have the three
dimensions of a solid here--breadth, length, and depth.